The Social Function of the Occupation of Story Narrating in the Early Periods of Islam: an Attempt to Linguistic Analysis of an Assumption

In the biographical and Rijal books of the early and mid-Islamic centuries, besides references to the job titles like jurists, Hadith narrators and theologians, there are allusions to a group called “Qusas” (Story narrators). They had great influence on the public and affected the branches of knowledge like Hadith and Tafsir; they also had important part in public morality and the preaching trends. Strong opposition against the activity of such a group caused this group and their job to be soon forgotten, in a way that later authors and transcribes made mistakes in writing or explaining this term. Thus, the first step to know this group is to analyze the reason they were called this title. In this paper using the method of historical etymology (Genealogy) and typology, the social function of this group is investigated and a new idea about the etymology of the term "Qussas" has been offered. Furthermore, by reviewing the historical reports about “Qussas”, the semantic development of the term in various eras has been discussed.