Reading "the exotic" and organising the production of knowledge: al-Tanūkhī on Indians and their elephants

Al-Muḥassin ibn ʿAlī al-Tanūkhī (327–384/939–994) included a number of items about Indian elephants and Indians in his compilations of stories and anecdotes Nishwār al-muḥāḍara (“The table-talk of a Mesopotamian judge”) and al-Faraj baʿda al-shidda (“Deliverance follows adversity”), both of which approach the organisation of knowledge in novel ways and on a new scale. This paper lists the items, summarises their contents, and explains al-Tanūkhī’s interest in elephants in the light of an autobiographical narrative. It then surveys the ethnology of his Indian stories, which are often told by sailors or merchants, and compares them in content and style with the sailors’ tales in Akhbār al-Ṣīn wa-l-Hind (“Accounts of China and India”), with al-Bīrūnī’s observations in Mā li-l-Hind (“India”), and with an alleged shift from factuality to fabulation said to be taking place at around this time, which is exemplified by ʿAjāʾib al-Hind (“The Wonders of India”). Close reading shows how al-Tanūkhī’s portrayal of elephants as rational agents of divine providence is managed, and how exotic humans are proved to play their part in God’s plan like any others. Al-Tanūkhī’s response to “the exotic” leads us to question it as a category of enquiry in the light not only of cultural studies but also of its content and of the multiple Arabic literary fields to which apparent exotica may belong. The significance of the organisation of Faraj and Nishwār is reassessed. We conclude that al-Tanūkhī’s purpose in composing the works was not to impart facts as such, exotic or otherwise, or cultural judgements, but to teach people how to read stories properly so as to understand the kind of truth they convey, an endeavour which may be compared to his contemporary al-Āmidī’s systematic approach to training his readers to become critical readers of poetry