Ayyam al-Arab

(literally, days of the Arabs), one of the early Arabian epic genres, describing the wars among and within the tribes and the adventures of the heroes. The Ayyam al-Arab were composed by the bedouin of Arabia during the fifth through seventh centuries. Individual chronicles are tales in prose, interspersed with verses attributed to the heroes. These individual chronicles began to be assembled into cycles at an early date. The War of Basus, The War of Abs and Dhubyan, and other cycles are known to us from the records of Arab philologists of the eighth through tenth centuries. Abu Ubayda Mamar ibn Muntanna is known to have made a compilation of 1,200 works. About 300 of the Ayyam al-Arab are known (sometimes only by their titles), scattered in various other works and in commentaries to the poetic controversy of Jarir and al-Ferazdak, in al-Mufaddal’s commentaries to a collection of Arab poets (eighth century), and elsewhere. The genre of the Ayyam al-Arab influenced the development of Arab historical literature.