Luqman

Luqman was a legendary sage in Arab tradition before Islam, known as "the Wise." The Qur'an's 31st surah bears his name and frames him as a monotheist father dispensing moral counsel to his son. That scriptural stamp made him a vessel: over the medieval centuries, proverbs piled up under his name, then entire fables, then — in a curious case of cultural transfer — biographical details that Europe had long attached to Aesop migrated east and fused with Luqman's legend. Persian, Arabic, and Turkish literatures all spun stories around him, until the historical man, if he ever existed, vanished be…