Ashab, the king of the parasites

The Arabs used to see the highest art in brevity; that is, focus, while the West sees the richest art in elaboration, that is, analysis... If we could reconcile the two theories, and combine the two arts... the result would be more complete and the benefit broader. And this is what my soul adopted when I wrote this book in 1938 within that framework that shows us a picture of Arab society in that era, almost touching its close kinship with what we see today in some neighborhoods of our cities and the customs of our society. The owner and the tenant and their relationship... and the bathhouse and its clients, and the barber and his temperaments... all those images of social life, as they appeared from old Arabic literature, pleased me from the natures and characters I saw, and I thought to highlight them alongside the character of "Ashab"... so I followed his traces, inhaled his news, and began collecting his anecdotes from the books of the ancients... mixing them, blending them, and cooking them. I summoned the meat, greens, spices, and herbs from the shops of four famous figures: "Al-Jahiz," "Ibn Abd Rabi," "Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi," and "Badi' Az-Zaman." Truly, I was dazzled and my mouth watered by the pleasures and anecdotes I found with them... so I filled my hands with the finest of what I chose from them and took it to my "kitchen" of art; where I mixed, blended, and made it into one "dough," from which I created this connected story. Taha Hussein