Fables (Qiṣaṣ) and Muslim Cultural Discourse in Nigeria Musa Ibrahim Centre for Cultural and African Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana abbadanauta@gmail.com Abstract Qiṣaṣ, historical and moral stories told in the Quran and hadiths, are among the factors that make and reshape Muslim cultural discourse. While Quranic sources are short and often not elaborated enough to provide a context from which different scenarios could be created, Muslims rely on fables from contested sources to adapt the qiṣaṣ to various cultural environments, languages, and media. In this context, qiṣaṣ become influential not only because of the power of storytelling, but how their religious contents could be appropriated or even manipulated to suit local narratives and be used as powerful discursive tools within Muslim culture. Using aṣḥāb al kahf (the People of the Cave), a story told in the Quran, as a case study, this article looks beyond mere changes that emerged in the process of adaptations and circulations via various media (especially film) to analyzing how the changes are embedded within local Muslim discourse involving different actors and reform movements in Nigeria. Keywords Qiṣaṣ – media – cultural discourse – Nigeria Whereas cultural discourse remains a key instrument of redefining and reshaping different cultures and identities in society, increased or equal access to the historically and culturally available stock of knowledge as well as media affordability are helping to cast such discourse in more specific local contexts. Through cultural discourse, people continue to feel dominated by “others” and Published with license by Koninklijke Brill nv | doi: 10.1163/21540993-20230012 © Musa Ibrahim, 2023 | ISSN: 0803-0685 (print) 2154-0993 (online) Islamic Africa 14 (2023) 98–117 Downloaded from Brill.com 10/13/2023 12:58:35PM by abbadanauta@gmail.com via communal account