Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī’s (d. 971) Kitāb al-Aghānī chapter on Majnūn Laylā (“Akhbār Majnūn Banī ʿĀmir wa nasabuh”) confronts its audience with unresolving divergent knowledge about Majnūn. We are left not only wondering about his name, his origin, and his mental state, but also his being—does he even exist? This paper examines the potential impact of Iṣbahānī’s selection and presentation of akhbār in this Aghānī chapter, making a case for a literary approach to Iṣbahānī’s text fitting with the medieval concept of adab. It asserts that the line of questions we are compelled to ask about Majnūn implicates us in his madness and the madness of the text, which disrupts and complicates that which appears most essential to his story.

Abūal-Farajal-Iṣbahānī（卒于971年）关于MajnūnLaylā（“AkhbārMajnūnBanīʿĀ mir wa nasabuh”）的Kitābal-Aghānī一章与听众面对着关于Majnūn的分歧。我们不但想知道他的名字，出身和精神状态，还想知道他的存在-他甚至存在吗？本文探讨了在本《Aghānī》一章中伊巴哈尼（Iṣbahānī）选择和介绍akhbār的潜在影响，为以中世纪的adab概念对伊巴哈尼（Iconceptbahānī）文本采取文学方法提供了依据。它断言，我们被迫就马真努提出的一系列问题使我们联想到他的疯狂和文本的疯狂，这使他的故事中最重要的东西打乱了并使之复杂化。