ABSTRACT
The great fourteenth-century historiographer and sociologist Ibn Khaldun whose family were refugees to Tunis from Andalusia, recorded oral legends among Bedouin tribes of the Bani Hilal tribes that had thundered into North Africa almost half a millennium before but had been defeated for over two centuries. These stories, which can still be found in Tunisia and around the Arab world, are indicative of the role that storytelling has played and still plays in Tunisian culture today. People such as Ibn Khaldun who have been settled and urban-minded for a very long time tell stories that conflict with, problematize, and reinforce their own lifestyles.
