Critiquing and Analyzing the Interpretive Model of Harut and Marut in Sheikh San’aan Story Based on Gérard Genette’s Hypertextuality Theory

The story of Sheikh San’aan is one of the stories for which various sources have been cited and suggested by different scholars. However, the interpretive narrative of Harut and Marut is a source which has not received due attention in these studies. This narrative contains elements that could not be found in any other probable and known sources of Sheikh San’aan, and because of its great structural, thematic as well as historical resemblances, it supersedes other sources of Sheikh San’aan. Relying on diverse solid evidence and indications in these two stories, the present study claims that this narrative can be considered one of the main hypotexts inspiring Attar’s story of Sheikh San’aan; which indicates a relationship of hypertextuality between the two texts. Attar's style in the introduction of the story and the similarities between the events and the main characters of these two stories, such as Harut and Marut, Sheikh San’aan, Zohra and Christian girl, as well as the themes such descent,vanity, love as a means of divine test, sin and its effects, repentance, and mentioning specific cases that have not been mentioned in any one of the sources of Sheikh San’aan, leave no doubt that Attar had taken this narrative into consideration when writing up that of his own.