Juḥā is a pseudo-historical character whom oral and literary tradition have, over the centuries, turned into the most popular protagonist of jocular tales, jokes, and pranks in the Arab world. First documented in third/ninth-century Arabic literature, the character became especially popular in Arabic and North African Berber tradition, but also in Sephardic, Sicilian, Maltese, and mediaeval Persian traditions. Mediaeval Arabic historians and biographers tend to see Juḥā as a historical person who lived in the second/eighth century; some even regard him as a serious transmitter of