Hamzanama: The Adventures of Amir Hamza

by Ghalib Lakhnavi, Abdullah Bilgrami, Musharraf Ali Farooqi (Translator)

In the tradition of such beloved classics as "The Thousand and One Nights" and the Persian" Shahnameh," here is the first unabridged English translation of a major Indo-Persian epic, "The Adventures of Amir Hamza" (Dastan-e Amir Hamza)—a panoramic tale of magic and passion, and a classic hero's odyssey that has captivated much of the world.

This Islamic saga dates back hundreds of years, perhaps to as early as the seventh century, when oral narratives of the deeds of the prophet Muhammad's uncle Amir Hamza spread through Arabia, Persia, and the Indian subcontinent, expanding into a marvelous chronicle of warriors, kings, tricksters, fairies, courtesans, and magical creatures. The definitive one-volume Urdu text by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami appeared toward the end of the nineteenth century, but English translations of this text have always been censored and abridged-until now.

In Musharraf Ali Farooqi's faithful rendition, "The Adventures of Amir Hamza" is captured with all its colorful action, ribaldry, and fantastic elements intact. Here is the spellbinding story of Amir Hamza, the adventurer who loves Mehr-Nigar, the daughter of the Persian emperor, Naushervan. Traveling to exotic lands in the service of his emperor, Amir Hamza defeats many enemies, loves many women, and converts hundreds of infidels to the True Faith of Islam before finding his way back to his first love. Guided by a Merlin-like clairvoyant called Buzurjmehr, protected by legendary prophets, and accompanied by his loyal friend, the ingenious trickster Amar Ayyar, Amir Hamza rides his devoted winged demon-steed, Ashqar, into combat against a marvelous array of opponents, from the deadly demon, Sufaid Dev, to his own rebellious sons.

Appreciated as the seminal Islamic epic or enjoyed as a sweeping tale as rich and inventive as Homer's epic sagas, "The Adventures of Amir Hamza" is an extraordinary creation and a true literary treasure.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Middle East, Islam, Epic, India

992 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1855

Reviews

[Whitaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

With due apologies to any Muslim readers:

Amar Ayyar: Dude! You’re back! Where’ve you frigging been man?
Amir Hamza: I’ve been trapped in Qaf for 18 years. This hot babe wanted me so bad she wouldn’t let me go. But don’t let my woman know that. Now where’s my woman? You been looking after my woman for me, like I told you too?
Amar Ayyar: I got bad news, man. Her old man took her back.
Amir Hamza: That m-f-ker! I’m gonna f-king kill that fuckard! Hey, Naushveran, you frigging fuckard, I’m gonna whup-yo-ass!
Naushveran: Hey, Harmuz, go kick that boy’s ass for me, will ya?
Harmuz: No way, man! The last time I went up against him, his main man fucked me up the ass.
Naushveran: You fag! Bakhtak, you man enough for this job?
Bakhtak: Yee ha!

Bakhtak and Amir Hamza face off. They fight with swords and hammers, but neither wins.

Amir Hamza: (yells) Lord, give me your strength!!

He seizes Bakhtak and wrestles him to the ground.

Amir Hamza: Who’s your daddy now boy? I own your ass!

Naushveran flees. His daughter, Mehr-Nigar, appears.

Amir Hamza: Mission accomplished!
Mehr-Nigar: You’re hawwt!
Amir Hamza: Awww, babe, you missed me?

They party, drinking wine into the night.

Such, I imagine, would be The Adventures of Amir Hamza if it had been written for tv in the 21th century. Luckily for us, the Dastan-e Amir Hamza was written in 1855, capturing in written form a long oral tradition substantially more ornate and literary. That overwritten verbose floridness is part of its charm. Chapters start with flourishes like this:

"The divers of the oceans of historiography and the excavators of the sea of ancient tales bring up the pearls of legends, and thus display them by stringing them into prose, that after the storm…"

And nobody ever just falls in love when they can do this instead:

"Then Amir heaved such a soul-searing sigh that his garden of pleasure was set ablaze, the flames of love conflagrated his heart, and tears of longing began to issue forth from his eyes."

The level of male locker-room testosterone in my more 21st century version is about just right though. This is a manly man’s tale: Amir Hamza, uncle of the Prophet Mohammed, is the "Terminator" of his age. With one blow, he’ll single-handedly kill lions, elephants and jinns. Entire armies fall to his sword while he barely gets a scratch. Women swoon before him, and he passes his nights drinking wine and taking his pleasure with them (once they’ve married, of course), before going off into nonchalant battle the next day.

Reading this, I could pretty much imagine a skinny, aged storyteller keeping the royal court spellbound with nightly visions of battles and antics. I imagine, similarly, some 1,000 years from now, someone will be watching 24 and writing a review of that on whatever passes for Goodreads in the 31st century. I'm not certain that 24 would come off the better though.

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The Washington Post: This sensitive new translation by Musharraf Ali Farooqi is filled with lyrical resonance, reflecting the fluidity of the spoken word, and delivers the 900-plus pages of the ancient story in all its flamboyant glory. ... Here is a true literature of excess--the literary antecedents to Hollywood's special effects--showering the reader with earthly marvels. There are passages describing the exploits of war, the pleasures of the palace and the hardships of poverty. And there's a capacious quality, a generosity of imagination that seems to invoke the layers and centuries of storytelling that went into the creation of these books. Here is just a sliver from a chapter entirely devoted to describing a feast for the Persian emperor: "There was jewel-encrusted lettering on the crevices of the marble enclosure. Trees with branches and leaves of emerald, and flowers of pearls and rubies, were embedded in the walls, and in their branches were perched nightingales, parrots, mynahs, turtledoves, ringdoves, laals, quails, sina-baz, doves, green pigeons, and black cuckoos, all made of turquoise, emerald, sapphire, and rubies." ... Interestingly, right and wrong aren't always what they appear to be. These stories offer a glimpse into the complexities of an older world, in which blood feuds, auguries, dreams and their intricate interpretations determine motive and actions. It's a literal yet magical world, meant to instruct through diversion and history, serving up Islamic esoterica and funny old bits of wisdom. On the topic of indigestion, the book observes, "Some consume the eggplant and some are by the eggplant consumed."

Blogcritics: One of the first things you'll notice in setting out on this epic journey, we're talking nine hundred plus pages, is the ornate style employed by Farooqi. Unlike another recent new edition of an ancient classic, Ashok Banker's Ramayana, this is not an adaptation but a translation, which means that he has adhered to the style of the original. ... The Adventures Of Amir Hamza is not only interesting to read because of its subject matter, its a lot of fun. It contains all the adventure and excitement of some of the best of sword and sorcery stories while supplying an introduction to the legends and mythical heroes of a culture few of us in the West know little or anything about. While reading this book might not answer all the questions you have about the history of the Islam or the Muslim world, it will give you a far different perspective on it than any you'll have had before now.

See also this online exhibition of some of the works in the Hamzanama, a series of 1,400 paintings commissioned by Emperor Akbar to illustrate Hamza's adventures.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Farooqi’s translation of Amir Hamza—the Urdu Star Wars—is a wonder. His prose is clear and efficient, but with a wide-ranging diction and syntactic richness that carries some flavor of the elevated, Persian-inflected “courtly” style which passed for poetic when Lakhnavi and Bilgrami first fixed the Amir into print. Just one example:

“The singers of the pleasure garden of ecstacy and the melodists of the assembly of discourse thus create a rollicking rumpus by playing the dulcimer of delightful verbiage and the lute of enchanting story, and thus warm the nuptial assembly most exquisitely.”

Farooqi’s obvious pleasure in shaking out the English bag to find equivalents for Urdu’s highly wrought curlicues brings lightness and humor to what could easily be a dry exercise in faithfulness. Beyond any accuracy of content or tone, Farooqi’s rendering gives some feeling for the different expectations and pleasures on offer in a literary culture like Urdu’s, where the tale needs to work as compelling fireside narration but also as a show piece of advanced poetic eloquence. English has never really operated—in the English-speaking world, at least—as a “literary” language like Latin or Persian or Arabic historically has, where commanding the grammar shows off your cosmopolitan distance from the earthy local patois. This translation gives a peek into what a linguistic situation like that might feel like when folk tale and high-flown poetry, oral story and literary anthology, fable and novel, squat down together amicably in print.

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 3 out of 5]

No-one is quite certain about the genesis of the Daastaan-e-Amir Hamza (or the Hamzanama, as it’s also known): various sources put its provenance in Arabia, or in Persia. It arrived in India probably during the 10th or 11th century, and became a hugely popular epic in the Indian subcontinent: so popular, in fact, that it became a favoured story for professional storytellers, or daastaangos, to perform. Over the centuries, embellished by daastaangos in the Indian subcontinent, the Daastaan-e-Amir Hamza acquired an interesting flavour all its own, distinct from the original epic it had been.

The collation of various versions, their compilation and publication, was done by Ghalib Lakhnavi in the mid-19th century. In 1871, another writer, Abdullah Bilgrami, added to Lakhnavi’s work and brought out yet another version of the Daastaan-e-Amir Hamza. This book is what Musharraf Ali Farooqi has translated into English in The Adventures of Amir Hamza, bringing to English readers the first complete translation of the life and times of Amir Hamza.

The Adventures of Amir Hamza consists of four books, beginning with a background to Amir Hamza: his ancestors, his mentors, his family. Amir Hamza appears 50 pages into the book, and from then on—even as a child, with his best friend Amar Ayyar by his side—it’s a mad romp, starting with childhood pranks and heroic adventures (punctuated by boons granted by saints as a reward for good and brave deeds). What follows is 500-odd pages of high adventure, as Amir, Amar Ayyar, and their many friends and allies (in some cases foes-turned-friends) battle everything from giants and devs to jinns, magicians, lions, dragons and ambitious rulers; romance women and peris; enter tilisms (places of enchantment); are imprisoned and escape, and generally lead lives packed with adventure.

As far as the original story goes, I liked it till about midway. After that, the initial fascination began to wear off and it started to get repetitive, what with every other chapter being about Amir Hamza lifting yet another enemy above his head, spinning him around, and then throwing him down to vanquish him (after which he would convert the enemy to the True Faith). Or about the many days of feasting and revels that would follow victories. Or the many women who, after one glimpse of Amir Hamza, would fall head over heels in love with him and whom he would end up marrying and ‘seeking pleasure’ with. By this time, the characters—piling up like so many dominos—had also got me confused, and by about three-fourths into the book, I couldn’t have cared less who won which battle or which woman Amir Hamza planted his seed in.

The good bit about this book, though, is Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s translation of it. I’ve not read the original Daastaan-e-Amir Hamza, but I’ve heard excerpts of it by modern daastaangos, and Farooqi manages to convey the poetry, the humour, the sense of adventure, very well: the language he chooses, while it cannot (obviously) replicate the lyricism of the Urdu original, is very true to the essence of it. Furthermore, Farooqi provides important annexures: notes on the Daastaan-e-Amir Hamza and its provenance; a list of major characters; and notes explaining certain concepts or words used in the book.

There are some errors of proofing (Bahram, for instance, is frequently misspelled as Bahrain), and there are a few omissions. For example, only someone who knows Urdu would smile at the fact that a gentleman going out on a mission which was likely to fail was named Khvaja Buzurg Umeed—Khvaja ‘High Hopes’—but this isn’t listed in the notes. Phrases like the ‘pole of uqabain’ or ‘deserving of smile beheading’ (which might be a typo, but I can’t guess of what) are also left unexplained.

But, despite all that, a worthy translation, which reflects the hard work which must have gone into its production.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this, and it had many entertaining moments, especially toward the beginning. However, some of it was less amusing, and many of the episodes started to get quite repetitive toward the end. It's easy to see how this might happen -- The Adventures of Amir Hamza began its life centuries ago as an epic oral tale that traveled all over Asia and split up and recombined and was embroidered and translated as it went, until a handful of traditions were gathered up and written down in this particular version. But it's long, and knowing the history didn't always help the repititions hold my attention! Even so, the fun bits will stick with me: indomitable heroes, jinni both helpful and vengeful, a surprising number of women warriors, and the clever pranks and machinations of Hamza's trickster best friend, Amar. There is so much here to inspire future stories!

[yasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magical and insightful translation to the mystical world of Amir Hamza. Absolutely breathtaking and deserves as much love as 1001 Nights gets (possibly even more)

[Arun Divakar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The florid news writers, the sweet lipped historians, reviewers of old tales and renewers of past legends thus create a rollicking rumpus by playing the dulcimer of delightful verbiage and the lute of enchanting story, thus bringing to life the legend of Amir Hamza.

Duh ! ...So who is Amir Hamza ?

Ha ! You miserable wretch ! Do you not know the Sahibqiran, The conqueror of the world, The quake of Qaf, The latter-day Suleiman, Amir Hamza the magnificient ?

Well...I...you know...

Silence ! Here's my sword, go to that corner and commit harakiri !

Before I read of the exploits of Amir Hamza, there were only two human beings capable of performing the logically impossible according to me : Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth. Now that I have read of Hamza's exploits, these two guys would have been like kindergarten kids in front of a post graduate. Hamza would have patted them on their backs and said There there my little ones, move aside and let uncle Amir handle these baddies ! . Any one who has read these tales would know that the baddies would later be found on some other galaxy after Amir was done with them !

Jokes apart these stories confused me as to whether or not they were truly likeable. Forced conversions to a religious faith, rape and brutal slaughter are pretty much usual fare in these stories. There was a rape and subsequent murder which was shrugged off as collateral damage by the characters but in reality is a most appalling occurence.

The translation is simply marvellous and it brings to life a most entertaining epic of a time long ago. It is a most interesting book to say the least.

[Jee Koh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Adventures of Amir Hamza, an Indo-Persian epic translated by Musharraf Ali Farooqi, opens as a rollicking tale of war and romance, but turns into a repetitious cycle of fruitless attempts by Hamza to return from fairyland to his one true love. I find his faithful retainer, Amar the prankster, much more interesting a character. Hamza, the idealized hero and lover, is consistently faithful and loyal throughout. Amar, however, is more liable to upset established order. From the wise counselor Buzurjmehr, he receives a special codpiece called an aafat-band. A brocade pouch that protects Amar's testicles when he races, jumps and gambols, it has "flowers and leaves embroidered on it in seven colored silken threads, and a priceless ruby hanging from its sash for a button."

The Adventures have long existed in the South Asian oral narrative tradition of dastan-goi (dastan narrative). They also existed in different versions in multiple handwritten manuscripts. In 1855 they were published in a compilation by Navab Mirza Aman Ali Khan Bahadur Ghalib Lakhnavi, who identified himself as the son-in-law of Prince Fatah Haider, the oldest son of Sultan Tipu of Mysore. Sixteen years later, Abdullah Bilgrami, an instructor of the Arabic language in Kanpur, brought out an amended version of Lakhnavi's text. Bilgrami added ornate passages and poetry. Farooqi's translation is based on this amended version, as he explains in his Note to the Text.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's astonishing to discover another Arabian Nights, completely delightful and every bit as all-engulfing as Ali Baba and friends. The Adventures of Amir Hamza has it all: heroes and villains, all-knowing viziers and doltish sultans, tales of selfishness and sacrifice. No tour of world literature is complete without reading this book. One note of caution: it's currently out in paperback, and the spine is not up to the challenge of holding all the pages. Suggest you find it in a (used) hardcover edition.

[Tim Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like 1001 Nights but at a slower pace. There is a reason why all previous translations were "abridged"!

[Timons Esaias · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading a number of classic heroic epics -- Ramayana, Mahabharata, the Classic Chinese Novels -- and the Amir Hamza legends were a logical entry in that list. When I got this book in hand, though, I discovered that while the origins are ancient, this narration of them is recent: an 1871 update of an 1855 Urdu version. So this is an ancient Persian story cycle about a general in Mohammed's Arab army (and also his uncle), most notably written down in 1562 for the Mughal Emperor Akbar.

It's a story that got around.

There is very little realistic military description in these stories. Battles that are treated as battles are mostly the duel-between-leaders kind of thing that one knows from Mahabharata and Water Margin, and for that matter in Iliad and Morte d'Arthur. Whole armies seem to break from the loss of a single champion, in many cases. Much of the rest of the action involves various ayyars (irregular mercenaries) sneaking into the enemy camp and killing, capturing or humiliating the enemies. Jinns come into the picture regularly, with Amir Hamza spending 18 years basically trapped in their parallel universe, with its pocket universes (tilisms), fighting against various evil jinns and demons, but in service of dishonest, faithless jinns who keep breaking their promises to let him go home. (Anyone who has worked in adjunct hell, of in a non-union shop, will find this all tediously familiar.)

When it isn't about war, it's about court intrigue, with various parties plotting against each other, trying to get their enemies killed or exiled. Sometimes they just go for the killing, outright.

The world is magical, basically a religious fantasy. The heroes have weapons that belonged to Solomon or other Biblical figures (Solomon seems to have been more heavily armed than the Old Testament would lead you to believe.), and there are numerous tracking devices that were probably based on cell phone technology.

Amir is born in Mecca, and his adventures take him through Persia, India, Sri Lanka, China, Greece and Asia Minor, Egypt, and Jinnistan. Unfortunately these lands all feel pretty much the same in description (though the Chinese folks ride rhinos into battle), so the audience has to do most of the work with their own imaginations. Land is either arid or jungle. The sea is treacherous. If you must travel by air, a flying throne seems best.

As with many of these epics, the stories become utterly repetitious after a while (I can only imagine what the 4,800-page version is like), but they would have been experienced one chapter at a time over quite a stretch, the soap operas of their time, so the modern reading experience isn't at all reflective of the original intent. I found this a bit more entertaining than Water Margin or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and less weighty than Mahabharata (but without the tedious end-sermons). Basically the theme seems to be that nobody ever learns their lessons, but some folks can be convinced to swap loyalties at the point of a sword. (That's unfair, of course. The running storyline is that characters are forced to convert to Islam at the point of a sword, though, so it's not entirely unfair.) One reads it to understand the history of storytelling.

[Kathy Chung · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed at : Mama Kucing Books :The Adventures of Amir Hamza by Ghalib Lakhnavi & Abdullah Bilgrami

WARNING : TO BE READ WITH AN OPEN MIND.

The story in this book is something like The Arabian Nights Tales.

It's a really beautiful tale. The wordings were flowery and meaningful.

However, I think I would love it more if it's translated into the Malay language like what I've read in Hikayat Seribu Satu Malam.

In my opinion, the book should have been name The Adventures of Amar Ayyar because Amar seems to outshine Amir Hamza. I couldn't help laughing at the tricks he played on people and marvel at all his brilliant ideas.

To enjoy this book, it have to be read with and open mind. Please do not let the differences in religion to hinder the joy of reading it.

[Leslie (updates on SG) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I prefer this book to Shahnameh because it focuses on a smaller cast of characters and has some lovely sentences at the beginning of each chapter. Just look at how Book 2 starts:

The imperious pen departs to conquer the dominions of rhetoric, girding itself to trek the blank stretches of paper, and delivers the account of Amir's journey, painting a host of new episodes and choice encounters before the mind's eye.

I was impressed less by the conquests of Amir than by the trickery of his ayyar, Amar. I was also surprised by how Amir finally succumbs to his mortality. Regardless, this book would make a great cartoon series.

[Ian Brunton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sprawling adventure epic. The last section gets a bit tedious because it's all slight variations on the theme of Hamza fighting the monstrous champion of an opposing army. I much preferred the first 3/4 of the book, which have more variations on the tales, more magic/fairy-tale elements, more fun, and more real adventure.

[Anandh Sundar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is very well written-I read the translated version by Musharaf Ali Farooqi so might have missed out the beauty of the original version. The stories are interesting as also the rich vocabulary-though I liked the Persian nights and Sinbad better. For those wanting a well written(as opposed to dumbed down) version of fables and epics,this is a good choice

[Jay Mehta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully entertaining, ancient stories that used to be passed down via oral tradition. They were finally written down during the Mughal dynasty. Now here they are for your convenience in a hardcover. Enjoy.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Arabian Nights--ish. If you like silly adventure and supernatural powers-- fun. The Middle East version of the Iliad.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure magic.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you wanna know what Inspired stories like lord of the rings and Harry potter and other adventurous magical tales... and get on perhapps the greatest fairytale adventure rollercoaster ride.

[Lucy Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, ancient classic classic. Unfortunately I haven't had time to finish it. So exquisitely detailed that I can't skim it.

[Zach VandeZande · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably would've liked this book a lot more if I weren't on a tight deadline to get it read. Dastans are meant to be sort of neverending stories, and Amir Hamza certainly lives up to that.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

7.5/10

Fine.

Happy I read it. Monotonous yet quaint Indo-Persian Saga.
Clearly modelled on Amir Hamza, the Uncle of Mohammed in this very fictionalised fantastical non historical account. There are 4 books/parts.
Book 1 was ok. Book 2 was decent. Book 3 was good. Book 4 was ok.
IMO Similar to Amir Khosrow's Four Dervishes and The Rostam stories of the Shahnameh etc. Lots of Indian Sufi references are everywhere as well.
Not "Harry Potter".
More like Arab-He man.

The essence of the story goes as follows.

Very Long prelude in Persia> Hamza the Arab is born> Hamza begins his exploits> Hamza defeats the Jinn, Indians, Greeks and Persians etc> Hamza falls in love with a Princess > Hamza gets trapped in the world of the Jinn for almost 20 years in which time he marries a number of Jinn women > Hamza returns to the world of men and reunites with his friends/family/son> More battles and adventures etc > Hamza dies in the great arab tribals wars before Muhammed gains victory.

A few memorable episodes for Hamza, his pals Amar + Landhoor, wise old viziers and wild Jinns. Sometimes funny situations. Larger emphasis on "magical" Islamic mystic practices and powers in this text than I thought there would be.

The story lacked the Bizzare, Moral and the Sexual chemistry etc that made similiar books like the Alexander Romances, The Ten Princes and The 1001 Arabian Nights so memorable and helped justify their long page count. Interesting the tone of the book was not as negative toward Zanj and women as the typical medieval "Eastern" texts are. Aside that it was pretty crude at times, do not listen to outloud in public. One wonders what was left out when this was compiled in the 1800s. Expect sterotypical portrayals of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus etc who either die, submit or typically convert to Islam almost instantly. That said when any group converts to Islam, they receive respect regardless of nationality.

What was admirable about this Epic was that it has a sense of international comradery and scale, Amir Hamza meets friends and enemies in Arabia, Persia, India Africa, Greece, Ceylon and even a Jinn world for many chapters.
The text mentioned a lot of locations on the fly and even historical characters from world literature like several famous Jinn, Khidr, Nimrod, Cyrus, Solomon, Khosrow etc. But it doesn't know how to use them properly and often they just appear in random references. One wonders how much actual history the OG author was familiar with.

As far as old Indian, Arab and Persian literature goes.
A better recommendation honestly would be Iskandernama aka a fun bogus version of the Alexander Romance which was well known in Arabia, Persia, India, Mongolia etc. The 10 Princes, an older Indian story was again much better. The 1001 Arabian Nights a high standard suggestion ofc. Also The Suleiman Charitra and Vikramditya Throne Tales were much better fare etc.

There is another Indian Amir Hamza "Islamic sword and sorcery book" called The Enchantment of the Senses aka Tilism-E-Hoshruba. I have it. Unsure when I will have time to read it. It is just as long and appears even more silly lol.

[Saif Ahmad · Rating 5 out of 5]

While growing up Hamza and his adventures were the best bed time stories, at one point I wanted to read it in urdu but could not gather enough courage, then after decades arrived the impeccable translation by Musharraf Ali Farooqi.

To a modern reader this book of almost 1000 pages would seem quite repetitive , but if you go back few hundred years this book was part of some 50-60 book series , where “Dastaangoa” or story tellers would take months to complete the verbal narration of Hamzanamah.

We are fortunate to live at times when all these world literature masterpieces are available to us in various languages, where just centuries earlier one would be lucky to have only read 2-3 books in one’s lifetime.

Like all mythical figures it’s hard to imagine Hamza falling , the lion of god , the one who shook the earth and heaven , conquered both men and jinns. Undefeated, blessed by prophets , a match to Ruston and Sohrab, chivalrous and generous, taker of souls and merciful at times and one day the mighty Hamza did fall.

To Hamza and to many warriors who were my companion for last 2 weeks. 🙏

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of those epic stories. although I have no clear memory of any of these stories they seem so familiar perhaps because this style of story telling and characters were so present in my childhood - or perhaps i heard them as a child and they are vague memories beyond my conciousness. Despite the negative viewpoints on women I was surprised by the number of strong women in the stories. Graphic descriptions of violence and extreme pranks. Like all epics the length and the number of characters feel overwhelming at points.

[Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you, like me, grew up reading the Urdu version of Daastan Amir Hamza, prepare to have your childhood come crashing down. The stories are repetitive and uninspiring, the proganist gets married to every walking female with a pulse, there’s a lot of darker themes and don’t even get me started on Ashqar Devzaad the horse. M Jehangir did it best, this book is a snooze fest.

[John Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this around Christmas 2012

[Alice Paterra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because I thought it would help me understand the Muslim culture. It's important to understand where people are coming from. But using a book of fairy tales is a mistake; I would hate to think Christians were represented by tales recorded by the brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, or Hans Christian Andersen. Still, the book has interest as a book itself; I enjoyed the stories and the presentation, and I would recommend it. I couldn't get my library patrons to read it, though.

[Meri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairy tales are always much more interesting before the church in power takes hold of them. You can see this with Grimm's: it has its stories about evil cannibalistic queens and those about Christian men teaching those godless Jews a lesson. Well, Amir Hamza had some great stories about court intrigues and master thieves, but then he starts just converting everyone to Islam. Ho hum.

[readerswords · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read only a few pages of the book and while it is a fascinating read, it is too descriptive and long for me to read now. Maybe a couple of decades ago I had more patience for this sort of writing. Still, it was wonderful to discover the existence of this book and it came as a pleasant surprise that such a work even existed in Urdu and was widely read till a half a century or so back.

[Aqsa]

A wacky read, one learns that exaggeration is an art and thoroughly enjoys the continuous buoyant mood of this book. A trip down the memory lane, for the characters are all too familiar. Humor, clever humor peppered with the elements of a legend, make this an interesting read and a worthy reading suggestion.

[Claire S]

Wow! Looks like it would be way overwhelming, but would like a crack at it anyway!