Ziyad ibn ‘Amir al-Kinani (Granada, ca. 1250) and the 101 Nights
(Granada, 1234) are two examples of Andalusi popular fiction that provide important
information for our understanding of works of early Castilian fiction such as the Libro del
Caballero Zifar. The two Andalusi works provide evidence of a bilingual culture of
storytelling that nourished both Arabic and Castilian literary texts. In particular, the
inclusion of Arthurian material in Ziyad that predates the earliest translations of Arthurian
texts into Castilian forces us to rethink both the sources of Zifar as well as the Iberian
adaptation of Arthurian material in general.