This volume presents a series of detailed studies dealing with forms and functions of narration in different literary contexts. The ambiguous nature of narration under the premises of conventionally undeclared fictionality is a common concern of these contributions. For the discussion of the basic concepts and perceptions of fiction and imagination a variety of methodological approaches are applied. Different fields of literature have been examined: historiography, a wide range of adab-literature, exegesis and Quran, the Arab philologists´ story-telling and popular Arabic narratives. Among the contributors who write mainly in English, partly in German and French may be named: Abdallah Cheikh-Mousa, Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Andras Hamori, Wolfhart Heinrichs, Renate Jacobi, Angelika Neuwirth, Ewald Wagner.

Elements of Fictional Literature
Susanne Enderwitz: Fiction in Arabic autobiography
Renate Jacobi: Das Fiktive und das Imaginäre in der klassischen arabischen Dichtung
Stefan Leder: Conventions of fictional narration in learned literature

Story-telling in adab Literature and Theory
Andras Hamori: Tinkering with the text: Two variously related stories in the Faraj Bacd al-Shidda
Julia Ashtiany Bray: Figures in a landscape: The inhabitants of the Silver Village
Hilary Kilpatrick: The "genuine" Ashcab. The relativity of fact and fiction in early adab texts
Ulrich Marzolph: "Focusees" of jocular fiction in classical Arabic literature
Joseph Sadan: Death of a princess: Episodes of the Barmakid legend in its late evolution
Mohsen Zakeri: Arabic reports on the fall of Hatra to the Sasanids. History or legend?
Ibrahim Geries: L'adab et le genre narratif fictif
Abdallah Cheikh-Moussa : Réalité et fiction dans Le livre des avares d'al-Gahiz
Lakhdar Souami : Fictionnel et non-fictionnel dans l'oeuvre de Gahiz
Thomas Herzog: La Sirat Baybars: Non-fictionalité prétendue d'un texte fictionnel

Philologists' Narrative Art
Ewald Wagner: Die Ahbar Abi Nuwas in den Diwanen
Wolfhart Heinrichs: Al-Sharqi b. al-Qutami and his etiologies of proverbs
Kathrin Müller: Die Sprache des indischen Teufels. Anekdoten zwischen sprachlicher Realität und Fiktion

Narration in the Quran, Tafsir and Hadith
Jane Dammen McAuliffe: Assessing the Israiliyyat: An exegetical conundrum
Raif Georges Khoury: Geschichte oder Fiktion. Zur erzählerischen Gattung der ältesten Bücher über Arabien
Angelika Neuwirth: Quranic literary structure revisited: Sãrat al-Rahman between mythic account and decodation of myth
Wim Raven: The biography of the Prophet and its scriptural basis
Sebastian Günther: Fictional narration and imagination within an authoritative framework. Towards a new understanding of
Hadith

Facts and Fiction
Albrecht Noth: Fiktion als historische Quelle
Lawrence I. Conrad: Umar at Sargh: the evolution of an Umayad tradition on flight from the plague