Folklore Features: Links Between Arab and Turkic Peoples

Sharustam Shomusarov and Nargiza Shaumurova

Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature named after Alisher Navoi, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Keywords:

Arabic Folklore, Folklore, Mutual Influence and Connection, “Folklorization”

Abstract: This article suggests three methodologies for examining the reciprocal influence and connections between the

traditions of oral art from cultures around the world. It elucidates the characteristics of Arabic folklore's impact

on the oral creativity of Central Asia's Turkic communities, as well as the influence of Turkic peoples' folklore

on the oral creativity of Arabs. The term "Arab folklore" is used in reference to the oral art of Arabs who

migrated to the region between the 8th and 13th centuries and resided in various parts of Central Asia.

1 INTRODUCTION

Comparative folklore studies provide an effective and

comprehensive approach to researching the oral folk

art of various cultures worldwide. We suggest

utilising the following three methods to examine the

mutual influence and connections between the oral art

traditions of different peoples:

a) Comparative folklore studies of a historical-genetic

orientation: Here, common aspects in the folklore of

various cultures are considered as phenomena linked

to their ethnic commonality. That is, the historical

roots of certain epic works share common artistic

foundations. However, the evolutionary development

of the historical-folklore process results in the

emergence of national versions of the initial plot.

b) Comparative folklore studies of a historical-

typological orientation: Such research reveals

common features in the folklore of peoples who share

no ethnic lineage.

c) Folklore studies of a historical-comparative

orientation: In this approach, similar topics in the

folklore of various cultures are considered products

of mutual cultural-ethnic relations, literary influence

and connections, and shared criteria for the

development of artistic thought. In the comparative

research of Central Asian Turkic and Arabian

folklore, we suggest employing the historical-

typological method.

Corresponding author

When discussing the interrelationship between the

oral creativity of Central Asian Turkic peoples and

Arabian folklore, it is crucial to highlight the presence

of bilateral literary influences.

The impact of Arabian folklore on the oral art of

Central Asian Turkic peoples is noted for its

following peculiarities:

1) Arabian mythology, particularly Islamic sayings

and ancient mythological Arab tribal views of the

world and humanity, have enriched the topical system

of the Turkic peoples' epic folklore genres - myths,

sayings, and legends.

2) The popularisation of Arabian folk legends has

broadened the artistic boundaries of Turkic folklore's

epic genres.

3) Numerous historical legends and sayings have

emerged based on Arabian folk stories about the

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), his companions, and

scientists renowned in the Muslim world.

4) Prophets mentioned in the Qur'an, as well as

traditional characters of historical personalities

popular in Arabian folklore and linked with the

spread of Islam, have served as a basis for the

emergence of the cult of saints, locality names, and

sayings about "pirs" (patrons).

434

Shomusarov, S. and Shaumurova, N.

Folklore Features: Links Between Arab and Turkic Peoples.

DOI: 10.5220/0012490000003792

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR 2023), pages 434-438

ISBN: 978-989-758-687-3

5) Recitation of Arabian tales, which were part of the

"1001 Nights", at Central Asian cultural centres, led

to the dissemination of Arabian tale topics and the

emergence of a series of tales, the historical-genetic

roots of which trace back to Arabian folklore.

6) The widespread performance of examples of

medieval Arabic folk creativity - "siyra" by narrators

(raviys) "among town and village workers, craftsmen,

merchants, and ordinary men"( N.Ibragimov.

(1994).), paved the way for the creation of an original

genre in the literature of Turkic peoples - the genre of

"qyssa".

7) Creative links between the folklore of certain

peoples do not always serve as a basis for the

emergence of new literary phenomena or artistic

enhancement of available genres. According to T.

Mirzaev and B. Sarymsakov, starting in the late 8th -

early 9th centuries, the "dissemination, mainly, of

written poetry, as well as written poems and stories,

which on their topical origins trace back to the folk

epic, at Central Asian cultural centres resulted in the

gradual evanescence of one of the important genres

of Turkic peoples' pre-Islamic folklore - the Scythian

epic." Thus, there's no basis for discussing the

creation or peculiarities of folk poems from the 8th

and subsequent centuries (9th - 10th). However,

beginning in the 9th - 10th centuries, the epic of

Central Asian peoples, including those of the Turkic

cultures belonging to the West Turkic dominion, saw

strengthening of Islam. This was particularly evident

in the interpretation of motifs (the supernatural birth

of heroes, aid from divine powers, prophetic dreams,

and so on).

Therefore, in such an epic, Islamic beliefs and views

supplanted local pre-Islamic views and ideas. The

second direction in the system of folklore ties

between the Central Asian Turkic peoples and the

Arabs represents the influence of the oral art of the

Turkic peoples on Arabian folklore.

In this context, we use the term "Arabian folklore" to

denote the oral artistic works of those Arabs who

remain in Central Asia to this day.

Following the conquest of Central Asia, a portion of

the Arab tribes that migrated to these lands settled and

remained. Over centuries, a portion of the Central

Asian Arabs forgot their own language, adopting the

languages, customs, and folklore of their

neighbouring Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens, and

Kazakhs. Yet in some villages, particularly in areas

of dense Arab settlement, the Arabic language has

been preserved. According to I.N. Vinnikov(I.N.

Vinnikov. (1969)), a specialist in the language and

folklore of Central Asian Arabs, in the 1930s there

were 1,750 Arabs living in the territory of Uzbekistan

who spoke their own language.

These individuals primarily resided in Bukhara (in the

villages of Jughary and Chandyr in the Ghizhduvan

District) and the Kashkadarya province (in the

villages of Kamashi and Jeynau in the Beshkent

District).

I.N. Vinnikov, who organised special expeditions in

1936, 1938, and 1943 to study the folklore of the

Bukharian Arabs, recorded many tales, sayings, and

oral stories. He also collected proverbs and adages, as

well as information about Arab customs. Vinnikov

published many works dedicated to the research of

the dialect and oral art of the Bukharian Arabs.

Furthermore, to some extent, N.N. Burykina, M.M.

Izmailova, and G.V. Tsereteli(G.V.Tsereteli. (1956))

studied the folklore of Central Asian peoples. In these

works, which are dedicated to the customs, rites, and

folklore of Central Asian Arabs, the authors focused

particularly on the study of the texts of recorded

works and their linguistic analysis. The oral folk art

of the Arab population, residing far from the main

areas of Arab habitation and among ethnically foreign

peoples, has yet to be fully examined through the lens

of folklore studies. This issue should be addressed in

the future as a distinct research direction.

There are two main aspects in the study of the folklore

of Central Asian peoples. Firstly, a comparative study

of the historical roots of Central Asian Arab folklore,

based on comparisons with materials recorded in the

main Arab residential areas. This would allow the

identification of the ancient roots of each myth, tale,

song, or proverb, and the stages of artistic

development. Secondly, the revelation of the

influence of Turkic and non-Turkic peoples' oral art

on the development of the folklore of Central Asian

Arabs. As mentioned earlier, this task involves

studying the impact on Arabian folklore within the

system of folklore ties between Arab and Turkic

peoples. These types of research are necessary to

define the primary criteria of the main tendencies of

artistic relations between the folklore of Arab and

Turkic peoples.

In the foreword to his work, "Yazyk i folklor

buharskih arabov" (“Language and folklore of

Folklore Features: Links Between Arab and Turkic Peoples

435

Bukharian Arabs”), discussing the peculiarities of

Bukharian Arab folklore and its connection with the

oral art of Turkic peoples, I.N. Vinnikov wrote:

“Sixty-seven texts, which are included in this

collection, sixty-two are records of folk tales. It

should be noted that the Arab element in these tales,

as they are defined, is not significant.

Many of these tales reflect the folkloric plots of the

East, common among Persian and Turkic speaking

peoples. Some of them emerged under literary

influence, and here we can observe an interesting

process of the second transformation of old folk

motifs, which have gained literary form, back into

folklore. It is not difficult to find close parallels for

some of them in folklore records made in Egypt,

Syria, Iraq, and other Arab countries. Those tales, the

emergence of which relates to popular examples of

Central Asian epics, form a special group of tales.

They are primarily interesting because they allow us

to judge the initial forms of these epic works of art

and the genuine folk element in them. We are

speaking about tales like "Ahmad and Yusuf”, “Gur-

oghly", and others.

While acknowledging Vinnikov's substantial

contributions to the study of language and folklore of

Central Asian Arabs and the publication of oral folk-

art texts, we wish to propose our own views on certain

issues:

1) As has already been mentioned, out of the 67 texts

in Vinnikov's collection, the author classified 62 as

tales, rightly emphasising the genre diversity of the

published samples of Arabian folklore. However,

following the scientific criteria recommended by

distinguished scholar V.Ya. Propp (G.V.Tsereteli.

(1956).) to define the genre characteristics of works

related to the epic type, we have arrived at different

conclusions regarding the genre affiliation of the texts

published by I.N. Vinnikov. Fifty-one (rather than 62)

out of the published 67 texts belong to the genre of

the tale. The remainder of the texts pertain to other

genres of Arabic oral folk art: seven are legends

("Forty girls", "Mustafa", "Ali", "Zain al-arab",

"Zufunun", "Iskander", and "Yusuf"); four are

sayings ("Khatib and farmer", "Arabic tax", and

"How a woman was thrice thrown off the minaret");

two are anecdotes ("There was a man" and "There

were four shirins"); and three are oral narratives

("Emir Alimkhan", "The cemetery of Arabs", and

"Alim ibn Kurban").

2) I.N. Vinnikov has categorised the recorded tales

based on the historical-genetic basis of their subject

matter into four types:

a) Pure Arabic tales;

b) Tales adopted from the folklore of Turkic and

Persian-speaking peoples;

c) Tale versions of folk novels;

d) Tales created based on the themes of the epics of

the Turkic peoples of Central Asia.

The classification of texts in the aforementioned

collection, undertaken by I.N. Vinnikov, although not

entirely accurate (as it did not consider the origins of

topics, legends, sayings, oral stories and anecdotes, as

much as their sources), nevertheless has important

scientific significance, as it covers all subjects of

tales.

The works included in the collection attest to the fact

that the folklore of Arabs residing in Bukhara

Province has, from ancient times, developed under

the influence of the oral folk art of Turkic peoples,

who possess rich epic traditions. In particular, local

folklore, with its dastans (epics), tales, and songs, has

naturally had a profound impact on the oral folk art of

other people’s residing in this territory. Arabs, who

have been living alongside Uzbeks for centuries and

have been in close cultural relations with them, were

unable to preserve the main features of their own

folklore, as they did not have direct contacts with the

primary area of Arab residence. They became

distanced from their culture and oral art traditions. As

a result, the system of plots pertaining to the epic

genres of Uzbek folklore has penetrated into Arab

folklore, leading to the emergence of new versions.

Over the span of centuries, under the influence of

adjacent epic performer traditions, the stratum of

traditional Arabian folklore began to lose its original

form. The following factors have contributed to these

changes which have occurred in the artistic

development of the folklore of Central Asian Arabs:

a) Territorial factor - the co-residence of Arabs from

Bukhara and Kashkadarya with Uzbeks over many

centuries;

b) Ethnic-social factor - the exposure of Central Asian

Arabs to the artistic influence of Turkic peoples with

rich traditions;

c) Religious commonality factor - both Arab and

Turkic peoples profess the same religion;

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436

d) Language factor - in territories where peoples of

different ethnic origins and language families co-

reside, the performance of folklore acquires unique

linguistic expressions. For instance, Uzbeks,

Karakalpaks, and Turkmens live alongside each other

in Khorezm, Karakalpakstan, and some districts of

Tashavuz province. The bakhshi-narrators

(traditional epic singers) may perform the same

dastan (epic) in the Uzbek, Turkmen, and Karakalpak

languages, depending on the ethnic composition of

the audience. Therefore, a bilingual or multilingual

environment is an important feature of the performing

skill of narrators in this territory and is considered an

original epic tradition. Folklore researchers have

documented cases where the same narrator is said to

have performed the same dastan (epic) in several

languages (for example, both Uzbek and Karakalpak

versions of the dastan "Shirin and Shakar" were

recorded from the Karakalpak narrator-singer

Kurbanbay Tajibaev(N.Madrakhimova. (1995))).

Consequently, if bilingual practice is one of the

peculiarities of the art of folklore performance, then,

naturally, it must also play a role in the development

of the epic art of Central Asian Arabs.

I.N.Vinnikov has emphasised that Central Asian

Arabs, who have had close cultural ties with Uzbeks

and Tajiks, were fully or partly assimilated with them

by the first half of the 20th century. The scientist

wrote about this as follows: "Arabs have lost their

own language and cultural traditions, pertaining to

them, and have adopted the language and culture of

Uzbeks and Tajiks” (I.N. Vinnikov. (1961).). Thus,

the Central Asian Arabs have gradually lost their own

language and adopted Uzbek and Tajik. Perhaps, at

some point, Arab tribes might have been bilingual,

speaking both their native language and a second non-

native one. If this was the case, it is entirely plausible

that at certain stages of the historical-folklore process,

the epic plots adopted from local folklore were

performed by Arabs in two languages. The folklore

materials recorded in the 1930s from Arabs who were

said to reside in Bukhara Province and still preserved

their own language, show that the majority of tales

told among Arabs were created based on plots

adopted from the folklore of Turkic and Persian-

speaking peoples during the epic inter-influence. The

comparative study of plots of Arab and Central Asian

tales gains profound significance in the research of

the influence of Turkic peoples' folklore on the oral

folk art of Central Asian Arabs, as well as in the

revelation of the peculiarities of mutual penetration

and assimilation of oral art traditions of peoples who

are different in their language and alien in their ethnic

origins. As an example, let's compare the Arabic tale

of "How a Young Man Wanted to Marry His Sister"

with an Uzbek tale of "Golden Cradle", recorded by

Fattah Abdullaev from the resident of Urganch,

Kutlimurod Masharipov. In accordance with the

classification of Aarne-Thompson, the author of a

directory of folk tale topics, the theme of the tale

"Sister and Brother" is denoted with the number 450.

According to T. Rakhmanov, who has demonstrated

using the tale "Yoriltosh" ("Open up, the Stone"), this

plot found in Uzbek folklore differs from the versions

described by Thompson. In Thompson's directory, the

plot of the tale "Sister and Brother" begins with the

banishment of the heroes - a brother and sister.

However, in versions like "Yoriltosh", the beginning

of the tale is different: the stepbrother wants to marry

his stepsister. Upon learning this, the girl runs away

from home. In a vast field, she seeks shelter and asks

a massive rock to hide her (in some versions, it's

rushes). The rock (or rushes) opens and conceals her.

Her father, mother, brother, and elder sisters, who

follow her, ask the rock to open, but it disregards their

requests and only opens upon the request of the little

sister (or little brother). Then the siblings set out on

their journey. From here, the plot of the tale unfolds

in line with the theme of the tale "Brother and Sister"

described by Thompson.

The comparative study of themes in such Uzbek folk

tales and the common themes in tales of other

people’s allows us to reveal shared, identical aspects

of the historical-cultural development of these

peoples. On one hand, this helps to uncover the

mutual influence and interconnections of the tale epos

of various peoples. Both tales were created based on

one of the plots - widespread in the folklore of Turkic

peoples of Central Asia - and revolve around a

traditional theme: they tell stories about the

adventures of sisters who flee their homes after

learning that their elder brother wants to marry one of

them. Variations of such tales are found in the

folklore of other Central Asian peoples, particularly

in Turkmen folklore.

In the Turkmen tale "Two Sisters", the elder son

wants to marry, purchases a ring, and announces that

he will marry the girl whose finger fits the ring. The

mother of the young man selects girls, but the ring

doesn't fit any of them. When his sister tries the ring

on - it fits her. Thus, the young man wants to marry

his sister. But the girl escapes from home and hides

in the rushes.

Folklore Features: Links Between Arab and Turkic Peoples

437

In the analysed Uzbek and Arabian tales, we see

somewhat different interpretations of the

denouement. These tales introduce another element of

the theme, which triggers the events. They tell stories

about how the parents wanted to marry off their son

and consulted with him. He declared his beautiful

sister as his bride. Offended, his sister flees the home,

and in the Uzbek tale, she hides in the rock, but in the

Arabic tale, she hides in the rushes. These tales were

composed based on ancient myths related to

marriages between relatives (incest). Ethnographer J.

Frazer suggests that this was one of the customs

related to ancient marriages during the transition from

matriarchy to patriarchal order and made its way into

the tales through myths.

Kh. Egamov has specifically researched the

representation of marriage and family relations of the

Turkic peoples in fairy-fiction tales, conducting a

comparative analysis of Uzbek, Turkmen, and Azeri

tales on this topic. "In such tales, we see the

dismantling of matrimonial forms that are present

within the kin," he wrote, "It's no secret that

endogamy has limited marriages within a certain

group and family. The girl's escape upon learning of

her brother's intentions demonstrates the influence of

endogamy, and the tale has preserved traces of the

elimination of exogamy."

The aforementioned opinion on the theoretical

foundations and originality of folklore connections

between the Arab and Turkic peoples can be

summarised as follows:

1) The roots of the artistic connections in the folklore

of the Arab and Turkic peoples trace back to very

ancient times. The relationship of the folklore of these

peoples, despite not sharing a common ethnic origin,

is seen as a process of mutual literary influence.

2) Comparative folklore studies recommend

analysing literary sources from historical-genetic,

historical-comparative, and historical-typological

perspectives when comparing the oral creativity of

different peoples.

3) The literary relationships and mutual influence in

the folklore of Arab and Turkic peoples are based on

territorial and religious commonality, as well as

general historical and social processes.

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