Symbolism in Ibn Al-Muqaffa’s Prose: Kalila and Dimna as a Model

The topic of this research is “Symbolism in Ibn al-Muqaffa’s prose, the book Kalila and Dimna as a model.” The importance of this topic is due to its connection to the ancient Arabic heritage book, which was written by Ibn al-Muqaffa in the second century AH. It is the precious book of Arabic artistic prose that we have in our hands? The research attempts to answer the question of why Ibn al-Muqaffa resorted to using symbolism, and did Ibn al-Muqaffa succeeded in achieving the goal of writing in Kalila and Dimna. The research aims to study the symbolic style of Ibn al-Muqaffa through his book “Kalila and Dimna” in an attempt to reveal the reason for using the symbolism in the book and to show how Ibn al-Muqaffa employed the symbolic technique. This technique, which he realized its value, presented in new formulas and artistic molds that served his goals and purposes. The problem of this research is represented in what some critics may claim that the ancient Arab literature lacked symbolism and that symbolism did not appear in Arabic literature except in the modern era. Therefore, the researcher felt the necessary to write this essay to reveal the artistic value and talent of Ibn Muqaffa for storytelling. The researcher followed the descriptive and analytical approaches and concluded that the narrative produced by Ibn al-Muqaffa was unique in artistic characteristics and foundational in its traditions. Ibn al-Muqaffa succeeded to a great extent in giving a symbolic character to the tales of Kalila and Dimna, and perhaps this will prompt researchers to pay attention to the ancient narrative which is still far from the interest of narrative theorists in the modern era.