رواية مسك الكفاية للأسير الفَلسطيني "باسم خندقجي" : دراسة في التخيل التاريخي

Abstract EN

This study examines the expression “historical imagination” by comparing it with other literary genres, such as historical fction.

As a critical tool, “historical imagination” is a sort of critical instrument that helps the reader to interpret historical fction.

More specifcally, this study applies “historical imagination” to the Palestinian writer Basim Khandaqji’s Misk al-kifāyah, a novel that mingles history and fction through imagination.

Historical fction not only registers historical events using fction, but also allows the reader to delve deeply into the text and analyze it differently.

Though classifed as a historical fction, Khandaqji’s novel not simply records historical happenings, but also employs fctional techniques )e.g., fgures of speech( to make historical fction artistic and literary and to deliver a political message about freedom and injustice.

Khandaqji’s novel portrays an Arab woman who was abducted and taken as a prisoner during the Abbasid Caliphate.

While she was transported by the army, a group of outlaws )Sa’aleek( attacked the army and kidnapped the Arab woman.

But the latter paradoxically enjoyed freedom with those outlaws who lived in the desert.

This study shows how Khandaqji’s novel narrates this historical event as a fction to highlight humans’ will to freedom and their rejection of injustice