Abstract
Literary works of narrative type have an important place in transferring the values of societies to the next generations. Although poetry has a long history in Arabic literature, the story in its modern sense began to emerge in the late 19th century after the European invasion of the Arab countries. In the 1940s, the students who were sent to Europe, returned to their countries and participated in literary activities contributing greatly to the development of storytelling. Among the writers who contributed to the development of Syrian storytelling is Zakaria Tamer. Tamer was unable to continue his education due to financial impossibilities. Despite the difficult conditions he experienced, he did not stop reading and raising himself. Tamer, who began to write in the following periods, processed topics such as illness, hunger, immorality, lust and the despair of the oppressed people in his writings. He criticized the degenerate customs of society, the oppression of political authority, the persecution of the people. The story book called al-Ḥiṣrim is one of his important works. In our study, the stories in the book al-Ḥiṣrim were examined thematically, and the social criticisms processed in the stories were classified and evaluated. In this way, it is aimed to determine the social problems addressed by the author in particular, and the Syrian and Arab storytelling in general. In addition to determining the literary value of the story book al-Ḥiṣrim, efforts to determine the level reached by storytelling in the Arabic literature increases the importance of our study.