Supernatural Motifs in Chronicled Descriptions of the Foundation of Early Arabic-Islamic Towns

The foundation of earliest Arabic-Islamic towns is known almost exclusively through chronicles written in the 3rd century of the Hijri calendar / 9th century CE. These accounts were, therefore, written nearly two centuries after the events they describe. The aim of this article is to study the extent to which supernatural motifs were present in literary narratives of the foundation of early Arab-Muslim towns – Basra, Kufa, Fustat and Kairouan. The scarcity of mythical elements might suggest the mandatory comparison of those texts to their European counterparts – in which supernatural motifs play a part in almost every foundation myth – this article argues that this is approach is unnecessary. The analysis of the descriptions conveying the foundation of early Arabic-Islamic towns leads on to conclusions regarding the role of the chronicles in the creation of the earliest history of Islamic statehood.