ABSTRACT
The fact that there was no regular Arab theater until the nineteenth century may be explained by two main reasons: a. The peoples with whom the Arabs came into close contact had no well-developed theater; b. Women, particularly if un veiled, were strictly forbidden to appear on the stage. Only the combination of these two reasons4 may account for the fact that while a large part of the Greek cultural heritage, in the various fields o f literature, science and thought, was translated into
4 For other, not very convincing, reasons, see Zaki Tulaim at, al-Riwaya al~ tamihiliyya wa-limadha lam yitalijha'l-Arab, in K. (the Egyptian monthly alKitab), vol. I, fasc. i, Nov., 1945, pp. 101-108. Also Ahmed Abdul W ahhab, A thesis on the drama in Arabic literature (1922), in which the author sets out to prove the dramatic (but not the theatrical) element in classical Arabic literature.
