Fantasy Epics and the Muslim World

The Atlantic Monthly issue of 4 May 2010 contains an article on the comic The 99, a superheroes story inspired by Islamic history.  Click on the image below to read:

The 99 appears to be part of a broader phenomenon also issuing from elsewhere in the Muslim World. In fact, Urdu culture lays claim to having launched the very genre of  magical fantasy epics with the publication of Hoshruba, which allegedly can be traced back to two prose writers from late 19th-century Lucknow, one of northern India's main centres of traditional Islamic learning and literature.

This massive narrative is loosely based on The Adventures of Amir Hamza, a story cycle inspired by the biography of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle and very popular at the Court of Moghul Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605). An English translation, the first volume of which is published as Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism, is the brainchild of Musharraf Ali Farooqi, and forms part of the Urdu Project, an initiative that seeks to introduce translations from Urdu to the North American market. Click here to read an excerpt from the translation.