The Kisra legend and the distortion of historical tradition

Abstract

The presence of the ‘Kisra legend’ in certain western Sudanic societies has long puzzled historians and anthropologists. Attempts by many to explain the phenomenon have been seen as unsatisfactory. In Section I of this study we noted the fact that the Arabic Kasra or Kesra, having been derived from the title of one or the other of two Persian kings of the sixth and seventh centuries, denotes, in von Grunebaum's phrase, ‘a truly royal style of life’. The profound influences of Perso-Arabic elements on many cultures of the southern and western Sudan, even before the spread of Islam in these areas, strongly suggests the possibility that, rather than by any specific migration, the idea of ‘Kisra’ was borne across the Sahara, to the areas where it took root in the form of the Kisra legends. When the geographical situation of those societies having fully-developed Kisra legends is considered, noting that the most detailed and strongly held legends obtain among societies who were constantly threatened by others who were recognized as technologically, and possibly felt as culturally, superior, and among whom the Kisra idea also existed, the origins and distribution of such legends becomes more plausibly explainable. It has been suggested that, through a selective altering of historical tradition, over time, societies who felt so threatened were able to (1) assert their equality to, if not superiority over, the threatening power; (2) justify their successful maintenance of independence in spite of this threat; and/or (3) thus re-establish a basis for societal unity.