Http://habibiaislamicus.com/index.php/hirj/article/view/215

Abstract

This research is an attempt to trace and corelate the evolution of short story in the Arabic and Urdu languages besides highlighting contributions made by the most prominent pioneers and the trends prevailing in different eras of both the languages. The short story is one of the most famous and widely read genres of fiction that seems to answer almost everything near to the nature of human being and whenever it is narrated it feels as if, something exceptional has been created which contains substance of our inferred experience and transitory sense of our common, tempestuous journey of life. Irrespective of the prevailing belief that short story also belongs to the West, its roots in the Arabic language go back to the pre-Islamic times and especially the Golden Age of Islamic civilization which spans from the 8th to the 14th centuries. Anecdotes of the Bedouins and the rhymed Ma’qama were the early foundations of short story in the Arabic language. Then this art reached its epitome in the modern era by the big names like al-Manfaluti, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Naguib Mahfouz, Yahya Haqqi, Ihsan Abdul Quddus, Yusuf Idris and Hasib Kayali. Likewise, the Urdu language that is a product of centuries long interaction between the native Indians and the invading Muslim culture, has borrowed the genre of short story form diverse sources. Then it was matured in the early 20th century by the pioneers like Rashid al-Khairi, Sajjad Haider Yaldram, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Mansha Yaad and Intizar Hussain.