Abstract
The present article offers an analysis of forms of prosaic speech, seeing them as an important means for producing the literary/historical narrative of “The Life of the Prophet” (Al-sīra al-Nabawiyya) by Ibn Ishāq (d.150 AH/767 AD) — Ibn Hishām (d. 218 AH/833 AD, or 213 AH/828 AD). The plot-organized narrative is created there through various forms of prosaic speech, both direct and indirect, which prove operative in Al-sīra in shaping formal accounts of events as much as in forming plot-centered storytelling. Apart from the simple instances of direct utterances authored by this or that character, the article considers several examples of complicated modes of prosaic forms appearing in the Ibn Ishāq – Ibn Hishām writing, when a certain direct utterance of the first speaker is reworked, through various combinations of direct and reported speech, resulting in a chain of coherent utterances of another speaker or narrator.
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