Paper long abstract:

The legend of the Seven Sleepers, often known in Muslim contexts as the Companions of the Cave (Ar. Asḥāb al-Kahf), has enjoyed enduring popularity across a variety of literary genres, from scriptural interpretation to the more popular and vernacular tales of the Prophets. Falling in with the legend's cast of human characters, youths who flee religious persecution by entering a miraculous 309-year sleep, is a charismatic dog, Qitmir, who through divine intervention is able to profess his own faith in God and earn himself a place in paradise.

In this paper, I situate two medieval Anatolian retellings of this legend briefly within its folkloristic context, beginning with the Quran, in order to highlight the special level of emphasis with which these texts place upon human-canine companionship. They expound a sense of moral obligation on the part of humans which is at odds with contemporary Muslim writings on dogs which view this animal as the ultimate embodiment of the abject, the unclean, and the marginal. I connect these attitudes to the question of dog ownership in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Anatolia, particularly with the elite use of dogs as hunting partners.

The legend's emphasis on companionship and mutual obligation among equals (both human and canine) is at odds with the contemporary use of animals such as dogs to produce and police hierarchies of status. Thus, I will also seek to complicate previous attempts at employing literary evidence read "against the grain" to write the place of dogs in medieval Anatolian society.