Portrait of an Eighth-Century Gentleman: Khalid ibn S afwan in History and Literature

Portrait of an Eighth-Century Gentleman. Khalid ibn S afwan in History and Literature by Jaakko Hameen-Anttila is an in-depth study of the eighth-century Umayyad and early Abbasid orator and courtier Khalid ibn S afwan and the development of his character in adab literature. The book collects and translates all his sayings and stories about him culled from a wide range of Arabic and Persian texts.

In the book, Hameen-Anttila studies the mechanisms of change in early narratives, showing how Arabic anecdotes developed and were modified by a series of authors during both their oral and literary transmission, changing a historical person into a literary character. Detailed chapters discuss Khalid in his various roles and analyse the literary techniques of the stories.