The Wondrous tale of Ward fil Akmam & Anas al-Wujud—First there was a fascinating love story where the two heroes had marvellous names: Ward fil-Akmām, Flowers-in-sleeves, and Anas al-Wujūd, Companion-of-existence. The names compelled El Ansary to add the tale to her repertoire in 1996.

Research is congruent with the art of storytelling, and the performer's research into the story naturally led to American anthropologist Susan Slyomovics and academic librarian Mark Muehlhaeusler. In the 1980s, in the Aswan Governorate, Slyomovics filmed 'Awadallah 'Abd al-Jalil 'Ali, a southern Egyptian epic singer performing Qisat Ward fil Akmam & Anas al-Wujud. Time passed and Muehlhaeusler edited and published nineteenth-century verse recensions of the same story in Egyptian colloquial Arabic.

Then, many years later, appeared a 19th century Khayamiyah known as the Rhode Island Panel. The Khayamiyah is a tent widely used in Egypt for rituals and celebrations. The panels are sewn by hand, it is a needle-turned cotton appliqué craft.

Historian Seif al-Rashīdi and his collaborator, Sam Bowker, found and restored the above-mentioned Rhode Island panel. The four sides are calligraphed with verses from a poem straight out of The Story of Ward fil-Akmām & Anas al-Wujūd.

Happiness has come and swept sorrow and sadness away,

Then we came together and disappointed those who envied us.

The perfumed breeze blew in, awakening the heart, the insides and the body,

 And the joy of company has prevailed, and on the horizons, bells rang our good news.

An attempt at putting the puzzle together might make one imagine a lineage of Upper Egyptian epic poets roaming Egypt, setting up their tents and performing the sad yet happy-ended love story on joyful occasions. This scenario would indeed elucidate the verses. In any case, it is certainly thrilling to think of a correlation between the Khayamiyah discovered and restored by al-Rashīdi and Bowker, and ancestral wandering tellers of that unique tale.