1. al-fann al-qaṣaṣī (or perh. better: qiṣaṣī): Given that (oral) story-telling has a long tradition in the Middle East and I don’t think that the author completely ignored this, the expression is rendered by ‘story-writing’ here (and further down by ‘narrative prose’). 2. Taʕrīb ‘Arabizing’: means ‘translation into Arabic’, which often rather implies an ‘adaptation’ of the plot to the domestic context than a translation in the contemporary sense where – an ideally congenial – faithfulness vis-à-vis the original is the desired norm. 3. The author still uses the adj. marsaḥī rather than the more modern masraḥī, with metathesis. 4. Lit., accounts, reports – riwāyāt. For the author’s variable use of the term riwāyaẗ, cf. also below, passim.