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Contents
Articles
Overview 1
One Thousand and One Nights 1
New Arabian Nights 21
Arabian Nights and Days 23
Famous translators 88
Antoine Galland 88
Richard Francis Burton 90
Edward William Lane 104
Joseph Charles Mardrus 107
John Payne 108
Gustav Weil 109
References
Article Sources and Contributors 111
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 114
Article Licenses
License 115
1
Overview
The work as we have it was collected over many centuries by various authors,
translators and scholars across the Middle East and North Africa. The tales
themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian,
Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore and literature. In particular, many
tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era, while others, especially
Queen Scheherazade tells her stories
the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hezār
to King Shahryār.
Afsān (Persian: ناسفا رازه, lit. A Thousand Tales) which in turn relied partly on
Indian elements.[2] Though the oldest Arabic manuscript dates from the 14th
century, scholarship generally dates the collection's genesis to around the 9th century.
What is common throughout all the editions of the Nights is the initial frame story of the ruler Shahryar (from
Persian: رايرهش, meaning "king" or "sovereign") and his wife Scheherazade (from Persian: هدازرهش, possibly meaning
"of noble lineage"[3] ) and the framing device incorporated throughout the tales themselves. The stories proceed from
this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions
contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1,001 or more.
Some of the best-known stories of The Nights, particularly "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves" and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor", while almost certainly genuine Middle-Eastern folk tales,
were not part of The Nights in Arabic versions, but were interpolated into the collection by Antoine Galland and
other European translators.[4]
One Thousand and One Nights 2
Synopsis
The main frame story concerns a Persian king and his
new bride. He is shocked to discover that his brother's
wife is unfaithful; discovering his own wife's infidelity
has been even more flagrant, he has her executed: but
in his bitterness and grief decides that all women are
the same. The king, Shahryar, begins to marry a
succession of virgins only to execute each one the next
morning, before she has a chance to dishonour him.
Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them,
cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's
daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father
reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, A manuscript of the One Thousand and One Nights
Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not
end it. The king is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as
she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion, postpones
her execution once again. So it goes on for 1,001 nights.
The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques and various
forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict djinn, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with
real people and geography, not always rationally; common protagonists include the historical caliph Harun
al-Rashid, his vizier, Ja'far al-Barmaki, and his alleged court poet Abu Nuwas, despite the fact that these figures
lived some 200 years after the fall of the Sassanid Empire in which the frame tale of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes
a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have
another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.
The different versions have different individually detailed endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some
the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife, in some other things happen that make the king
distracted) but they all end with the king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life.
The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature. While in many
cases a story is cut off with the hero in danger of losing his life or another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the
full text Scheherazade stops her narration in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or
complex points of Islamic philosophy, and in one case during a detailed description of human anatomy according to
Galen—and in all these cases turns out to be justified in her belief that the king's curiosity about the sequel would
buy her another day of life.
One Thousand and One Nights 3
Early influences
The tales in the collection can be traced to Arabic, Egyptian, Persian
and Indian storytelling traditions of ancient and medieval times.[5]
Many stories from Indian and Persian folklore parallel the tales[6] as
well as Jewish sources.[7] These tales were probably in circulation
before they were collected and codified into a single collection. This
work was further shaped by scribes, storytellers, and scholars and
evolved into a collection of three distinct layers of storytelling by the
15th century:[5]
Panchatantra and Baital Pachisi are particularly notable.[8] The Jataka trying to lead his lion-king into war.
Tales are a collection of 547 Buddhist stories, which are for the most
part moral stories with an ethical purpose. The Tale of the Bull and the Ass and the linked Tale of the Merchant and
his Wife are found in the frame stories of both the Jataka and the Nights.[9]
The influence of the folklore of Baghdad is represented by the tales of the Abbasid caliphs; the Cairene influence is
made evident by Maruf the cobbler. Tales such as Iram of the columns are based upon the pre-Islamic legends of the
Arabian Peninsula; motifs are employed from the ancient Mesopotamian tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh. There is also a
Shia Muslim influence. Possible Greek influences have also been noted.[10]
One Thousand and One Nights 4
Versions
Early references to the collection are found in the writings of Masudi (d.956), who mentions it as a translated book
full of untrue stories, and of bookseller Ibn al-Nadim (987–88), who also describes it disparagingly as a "coarse
book" and retells the frame story about Shahryar and Scheherazade. In the earliest mentions, the book was referred to
variously with the Persian title Hazār Afsān "A Thousand Tales" and with the popular Arabic name Alf Layla "A
Thousand Nights"; the name "One Thousand and One Nights" is first attested in a 12th century loan record for a
Jewish bookseller in Cairo. However, while this and other evidence suggests that the book was popular during that
time and later, the earliest substantial manuscripts that are still preserved today date only from the 14th and 15th
centuries. Two main Arabic manuscript traditions of the Nights are known – the Syrian and the Egyptian.
The Syrian tradition includes the oldest manuscripts; these versions are also much shorter and include fewer tales. It
is represented in print by the so-called Calcutta I (1814–1818) and most notably by the Leiden edition (1984), which
is based above all on the Galland manuscript. It is believed to be the purest expression of the style of the mediaeval
Arabian Nights.[11] [12]
Texts of the Egyptian tradition emerge later and contain many more tales of much more varied content; a much
larger number of originally independent tales have been incorporated into the collection over the centuries, most of
them after the Galland manuscript was written[13] , and were being included as late as in the 18th and 19th centuries,
perhaps in order to attain the eponymous number of 1001 nights. The final product of this tradition, the so-called
Zotenberg Egyptian Recension, does contain 1001 nights and is reflected in print, with slight variations, by the
editions known as the Bulaq (1835) and the Macnaghten or Calcutta II (1839–1842).
All extant substantial versions of both recensions share a small common core of tales, namely:
• The Merchant and the Demon.
• The Fisherman and the Jinni.
• The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies.
• The Hunchback cycle.
• The Story of the Three Apples, enframing the Story of Nur al-Din and Shams al-Din
• The Story of Nur al-Din Ali and Anis al-Jalis
• The Story of Ali Ibn Baqqar and Shams al-Nahar, and
• The Story of Qamar al-Zaman.
The texts of the Syrian recension don't contain much beside that core. It is debated which of the Arabic recensions is
more "authentic" and closer to the original: the Egyptian ones have been modified more extensively and more
recently, and scholars such as Muhsin Mahdi have suspected that this may have been caused in part by European
demand for a "complete version"; but it appears that this type of modification has been common throughout the
history of the collection, and independent tales have always been added to it.[13] [14]
The first European version (1704–1717) was translated into French by Antoine Galland from an Arabic text of the
Syrian recension and other sources.[6] This 12-volume book, Les Mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en
français ("Thousand and one nights, Arab stories translated into French"), included stories that were not in the
original Arabic manuscript. "Aladdin's Lamp" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" appeared first in Galland's
translation and cannot be found in any of the original manuscripts. He wrote that he heard them from a Syrian
Christian storyteller from Aleppo, a Maronite scholar whom he called "Hanna Diab." Galland's version of the Nights
was immensely popular throughout Europe, and later versions were issued by Galland's publisher using Galland's
name without his consent.
One Thousand and One Nights 5
Later versions of the Nights include that of the French doctor J. C. Mardrus, issued from 1898 to 1904. It was
translated into English by Powys Mathers, and issued in 1923. Like Payne's and Burton's texts, it is based on the
Egyptian recension and retains the erotic material, indeed expanding on it, but it has been criticized for
inaccuracy.[15]
A notable recent version, which reverts to the Syrian recension, is a critical edition based on the 14th or 15th century
Syrian manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, originally used by Galland. This version, known as the Leiden text,
was compiled in Arabic by Muhsin Mahdi (1984) and rendered into English by Husain Haddawy (1990). Mahdi
argued that this version is the earliest extant one (a view that is largely accepted today) and that it reflects most
closely a "definitive" coherent text ancestral to all others that he believed to have existed during the Mamluk period
(a view that remains contentious).[13] [17] [18] Still, even scholars who deny this version the exclusive status of "the
only real Arabian Nights" recognize it as being the best source on the original style and linguistic form of the
mediaeval work[11] [12] and praise the Haddawy translation as "very readable" and "strongly recommended for
anyone who wishes to taste the authentic flavour of those tales".[18] An additional second volume of Arabian nights
translated by Haddawy, composed of popular tales not present in the Leiden edition, was published in 1995.
In 2008 a new English translation was published by Penguin Classics in three volumes. It is translated by Malcolm
C. Lyons and Ursula Lyons with introduction and annotations by Robert Irwin. This is the first "complete"
translation of the Macnaghten or Calcutta II edition (Egyptian recension) since Sir Richard Burton. It contains, in
addition to the standard text of 1001 Nights, the so-called "orphan stories" of Aladdin and Ali Baba as well as an
alternative ending to The seventh journey of Sindbad from Antoine Galland's original French. Unfortunately, the
Lyons translation is not truly complete. As the translator himself notes in his preface to the three volumes, it is a
"streamlined" version, "more for the eye than the ear." Thus much material has been omitted, and this could be
considered regrettable.
One Thousand and One Nights 6
In 2005, Brazilian scholar Mamede Mustafa Jarouche started publishing a thorough Portuguese translation of the
work, based on the comparative analysis of a series of different Arabic manuscripts. The first three volumes of a
planned five- or six-volume set have already been released, comprising the complete Syrian branch of the book
(volumes 1 and 2) and part of the later Egyptian branch (volume 3 and onwards).[19]
Timeline
Scholars have assembled a timeline concerning the publication history
of The Nights:[20] [21] [22]
• Oldest Arabic manuscript fragment (a few handwritten pages) from
Syria dating to the early 9th century discovered by scholar Nabia
Abbott in 1948.
• 10th century — Mention of The Nights in Ibn Al-Nadim's "Fihrist"
(Catalogue of books) in Baghdad. He mentions the book's history
and its Persian origins.
Arabic Manuscript of The Thousand and One
• 10th century — Second oldest reference to The Nights in Muruj Nights dating back to the 1300s
Al-Dhahab (The Meadows of Gold) by Al-Masudi.
• 11th century — Mention of The Nights by Qatran Tabrizi in the following couplet in Persian:
ژد نييور و ناوخ تفه تفص هر رازه
ناسفا رازه زا نم مدناوخ و مدينش ورف
• 1838–1840 — Edward William Lane publishes an English translation. Notable for its exclusion of content Lane
found "immoral" and for its anthropological notes on Arab customs by Lane.
• 1882–1884 — John Payne publishes an English version translated entirely from Calcutta II, adding some tales
from Calcutta I and Breslau.
• 1885–1888 — Sir Richard Francis Burton publishes an English translation from several sources (largely the same
as Payne[15] ). His version accentuated the sexuality of the stories vis-à-vis Lane's bowdlerized translation.
• 1889–1904 — J. C. Mardrus publishes a French version using Bulaq and Calcutta II editions.
• 1984 — Muhsin Mahdi publishes an Arabic edition which he claims is faithful to the oldest Arabic versions
surviving (primarily based on the Syrian manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in combination with other
early manuscripts of the Syrian branch).
• 1990s — Husain Haddawy publishes an English translation of Mahdi.
Frame story
An early example of the frame story, or framing device, is employed in
the One Thousand and One Nights, in which the character
Scheherazade narrates a set of tales (most often fairy tales) to the
Sultan Shahriyar over many nights. Many of Scheherazade's tales are
also frame stories, such as the Tale of Sindbad the Seaman and
Sindbad the Landsman being a collection of adventures related by
Sindbad the Seaman to Sindbad the Landsman. The concept of the
frame story dates back to ancient Sanskrit literature, and was
introduced into Persian and Arabic literature through the Panchatantra.
An early example of the "story within a story within a story" device is also found in the One Thousand and One
Nights, where the general story is narrated by an unknown narrator, and in this narration the stories are told by
Scheherazade. In most of Scheherazade's narrations there are also stories narrated, and even in some of these, there
are some other stories.[25] This is particularly the case for the "Sinbad the Sailor" story narrated by Scheherazade in
the One Thousand and One Nights. Within the "Sinbad the Sailor" story itself, the protagonist Sinbad the Sailor
narrates the stories of his seven voyages to Sinbad the Porter. The device is also used to great effect in stories such as
One Thousand and One Nights 8
"The Three Apples" and "The Seven Viziers". In yet another tale Scheherazade narrates, "The Fisherman and the
Jinni", the "Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban" is narrated within it, and within that there are three more tales
narrated.
Dramatic visualization
Dramatic visualization is "the representing of an object or character
with an abundance of descriptive detail, or the mimetic rendering of
gestures and dialogue in such a way as to make a given scene 'visual' or
imaginatively present to an audience". This technique dates back to the
One Thousand and One Nights.[23] An example of this is the tale of
"The Three Apples" (see Crime fiction elements below).
“
every tale in The Thousand and One Nights begins with an 'appearance of destiny' which manifests itself through an anomaly, and one
anomaly always generates another. So a chain of anomalies is set up. And the more logical, tightly knit, essential this chain is, the more
beautiful the tale. By 'beautiful' I mean vital, absorbing and exhilarating. The chain of anomalies always tends to lead back to normality. The
end of every tale in The One Thousand and One Nights consists of a 'disappearance' of destiny, which sinks back to the somnolence of daily
life ... The protagonist of the stories is in fact destiny itself. ”
Though invisible, fate may be considered a leading character in the One Thousand and One Nights.[27] The plot
devices often used to present this theme are coincidence,[28] reverse causation and the self-fulfilling prophecy (see
Foreshadowing below).
Foreshadowing
Early examples of the foreshadowing technique of repetitive designation, now known as "Chekhov's gun", occur in
the One Thousand and One Nights, which contains "repeated references to some character or object which appears
insignificant when first mentioned but which reappears later to intrude suddenly in the narrative".[29] A notable
example is in the tale of "The Three Apples" (see Crime fiction elements below).
Another early foreshadowing technique is formal patterning, "the organization of the events, actions and gestures
which constitute a narrative and give shape to a story; when done well, formal patterning allows the audience the
pleasure of discerning and anticipating the structure of the plot as it unfolds". This technique also dates back to the
One Thousand and One Nights.[23]
Another form of foreshadowing is the self-fulfilling prophecy, which dates back to the story of Krishna in ancient
Sanskrit literature. A variation of this device is the self-fulfilling dream, which dates back to medieval Arabic
literature. Several tales in the One Thousand and One Nights use this device to foreshadow what is going to happen,
as a special form of literary prolepsis. A notable example is "The Ruined Man who Became Rich Again through a
Dream", in which a man is told in his dream to leave his native city of Baghdad and travel to Cairo, where he will
discover the whereabouts of some hidden treasure. The man travels there and experiences misfortune, ending up in
One Thousand and One Nights 9
jail, where he tells his dream to a police officer. The officer mocks the idea of foreboding dreams and tells the
protagonist that he himself had a dream about a house with a courtyard and fountain in Baghdad where treasure is
buried under the fountain. The man recognizes the place as his own house and, after he is released from jail, he
returns home and digs up the treasure. In other words, the foreboding dream not only predicted the future, but the
dream was the cause of its prediction coming true. A variant of this story later appears in English folklore as the
"Pedlar of Swaffham" and Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"; Jorge Luis Borges' collection of short stories A
Universal History of Infamy featured his translation of this particular story into Spanish, as "The Story Of The Two
Dreamers." [30]
Another variation of the self-fulfilling prophecy can be seen in "The Tale of Attaf", where Harun al-Rashid consults
his library (the House of Wisdom), reads a random book, "falls to laughing and weeping and dismisses the faithful
vizier" Ja'far ibn Yahya from sight. Ja'afar, "disturbed and upset flees Baghdad and plunges into a series of
adventures in Damascus, involving Attaf and the woman whom Attaf eventually marries." After returning to
Baghdad, Ja'afar reads the same book that caused Harun to laugh and weep, and discovers that it describes his own
adventures with Attaf. In other words, it was Harun's reading of the book that provoked the adventures described in
the book to take place. This is an early example of reverse causation.[31] Near the end of the tale, Attaf is given a
death sentence for a crime he didn't commit but Harun, knowing the truth from what he has read in the book,
prevents this and has Attaf released from prison. In the 12th century, this tale was translated into Latin by Petrus
Alphonsi and included in his Disciplina Clericalis,[32] alongside the "Sinbad the Sailor" story cycle.[33] In the 14th
century, a version of "The Tale of Attaf" also appears in the Gesta Romanorum and Giovanni Boccaccio's The
Decameron.[32]
Repetition
Leitwortstil is 'the purposeful repetition of words' in a given literary piece that "usually expresses a motif or theme
important to the given story". This device occurs in the One Thousand and One Nights, which connects several tales
together in a story cycle. The storytellers of the tales relied on this technique "to shape the constituent members of
their story cycles into a coherent whole."[23]
Thematic patterning is "the distribution of recurrent thematic concepts and moralistic motifs among the various
incidents and frames of a story. In a skillfully crafted tale, thematic patterning may be arranged so as to emphasize
the unifying argument or salient idea which disparate events and disparate frames have in common". This technique
also dates back to the One Thousand and One Nights (and earlier).[23]
Several different variants of the "Cinderella" story, which has its origins in the Egyptian story of Rhodopis, appear in
the One Thousand and One Nights, including "The Second Shaykh's Story", "The Eldest Lady's Tale" and "Abdallah
ibn Fadil and His Brothers", all dealing with the theme of a younger sibling harassed by two jealous elders. In some
of these, the siblings are female, while in others they are male. One of the tales, "Judar and His Brethren", departs
from the happy endings of previous variants and reworks the plot to give it a tragic ending instead, with the younger
brother being poisoned by his elder brothers.[34]
degree of editorial control by a single writer than the history of the collection as a whole would seem to indicate.
Unreliable narrator
The literary device of the unreliable narrator was used in several fictional medieval Arabic tales of the One
Thousand and One Nights. In one tale, "The Seven Viziers" (also known as "Craft and Malice of Women or The Tale
of the King, His Son, His Concubine and the Seven Wazirs"), a courtesan accuses a king's son of having assaulted
her, when in reality she had failed to seduce him (inspired by the Qur'anic/Biblical story of Yusuf/Joseph). Seven
viziers attempt to save his life by narrating seven stories to prove the unreliability of women, and the courtesan
responds back by narrating a story to prove the unreliability of viziers.[37] The unreliable narrator device is also used
to generate suspense in "The Three Apples" and humor in "The Hunchback's Tale" (see Crime fiction elements
below).
slave, Rayhan. Ja'far thus realizes that his own slave was the culprit all along. He then finds Rayhan and solves the
case as a result.[43] [50] Ja'far, however, pleads to Harun to forgive his slave and, in exchange, narrates to him the
"Tale of Núr al-Dín Alí and His Son Badr al-Dín Hasan".[51]
"The Three Apples" served as an inspiration for Hugo von Hofmannsthal's The Golden Apple (Der Goldene Apfel)
(1897).[32] It has also been noted that the flashback narrated by the young man in "The Three Apples" resembles the
later story of Shakespeare's Othello (1603), which was itself based on "Un Capitano Moro", a tale from Giovanni
Battista Giraldi's Gli Hecatommithi (1565).[52]
Another Nights tale with crime fiction elements was "The Hunchback's Tale" story cycle which, unlike "The Three
Apples", was more of a suspenseful comedy and courtroom drama rather than a murder mystery or detective fiction.
The story is set in a fictional China and begins with a hunchback, the emperor's favourite comedian, being invited to
dinner by a tailor couple. The hunchback accidentally chokes on his food from laughing too hard and the couple,
fearful that the emperor will be furious, take his body to a Jewish doctor's clinic and leave him there. This leads to
the next tale in the cycle, the "Tale of the Jewish Doctor", where the doctor accidentally trips over the hunchback's
body, falls down the stairs with him, and finds him dead, leading him to believe that the fall had killed him. The
doctor then dumps his body down a chimney, and this leads to yet another tale in the cycle, which continues with
twelve tales in total, leading to all the people involved in this incident finding themselves in a courtroom, all making
different claims over how the hunchback had died.[53] Crime fiction elements are also present near the end of "The
Tale of Attaf" (see Foreshadowing above).
which overwhelmed them.[61] "The City of Brass" features a group of travellers on an archaeological expedition[62]
across the Sahara to find an ancient lost city and attempt to recover a brass vessel that Solomon once used to trap a
jinn,[63] and, along the way, encounter a mummified queen, petrified inhabitants,[64] life-like humanoid robots and
automata, seductive marionettes dancing without strings,[65] and a brass horseman robot who directs the party
towards the ancient city,[66] which has now become a ghost town.[56] "The Ebony Horse" features a flying
mechanical horse controlled using keys that could fly into outer space and towards the Sun.[67] Some modern
interpretations see this horse as a robot.[66] The titular ebony horse can fly the distance of one year in a single day,
and is used as a vehicle by the Prince of Persia, Qamar al-Aqmar, in his adventures across Persia, Arabia and
Byzantium. This story appears to have influenced later European tales such as Adenes Le Roi's Cleomades and "The
Squire's Prologue and Tale" told in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.[68] "The City of Brass" and "The
Ebony Horse" can be considered early examples of proto-science fiction.[69] The "Third Qalandar's Tale" also
features a robot in the form of an uncanny boatman.[66]
Literature
The influence of the versions of The Nights on world literature is immense. Writers as diverse as Henry Fielding to
Naguib Mahfouz have alluded to the work by name in their own literature. Other writers who have been influenced
by the Nights include John Barth, Jorge Luis Borges, Tom Holland, Salman Rushdie, Goethe, Walter Scott,
Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Nodier, Flaubert, Stendhal, Dumas, Gérard de Nerval, Gobineau,
Pushkin, Tolstoy, Hofmannsthal, Conan Doyle, W. B. Yeats, H. G. Wells, Cavafy, Calvino, Georges Perec, H. P.
Lovecraft, Marcel Proust, A. S. Byatt and Angela Carter.[70]
This work has been influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland.[71]
Many imitations were written, especially in France.[72] Various characters from this epic have themselves become
cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. Part of its popularity may have sprung from
the increasing historical and geographical knowledge, so that places of which little was known and so marvels were
plausible had to be set further "long ago" or farther "far away"; this is a process that continues, and finally culminate
in the fantasy world having little connection, if any, to actual times and places. Several elements from Arabian
mythology and Persian mythology are now common in modern fantasy, such as genies, bahamuts, magic carpets,
magic lamps, etc.[72] When L. Frank Baum proposed writing a modern fairy tale that banished stereotypical
elements, he included the genie as well as the dwarf and the fairy as stereotypes to go.[73]
Examples of this influence include:
• Edgar Allan Poe wrote a "Thousand and Second Night" as a separate tale, called "The Thousand and Second Tale
of Scheherazade". It depicts the 8th and final voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, along with the various mysteries
Sinbad and his crew encounter; the anomalies are then described as footnotes to the story. While the king is
uncertain—except in the case of the elephants carrying the world on the back of the turtle—that these mysteries
are real, they are actual modern events that occurred in various places during, or before, Poe's lifetime. The story
ends with the king in such disgust at the tale Scheherazade has just woven, that he has her executed the very next
day. Caitlín R. Kiernan has written a story inspired by Poe's, titled "The Thousand and Third Tale of
Scheherazade."
• Ramadan, an issue of Neil Gaiman's acclaimed comic book series The Sandman, draws on several of the stories of
the Thousand and One Nights. In this tale, the Caliph Harun al-Rashid (who is a protagonist in many of the
Nights) sells the "golden age of Baghdad" to the Prince of Stories, in order that it would never be forgotten. It is
implied that the Thousand and One Nights is part of the result of that bargain.
• Bill Willingham, creator of the comic book series Fables, used the story of The Nights as the basis of his Fables
prequel, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall. In the book, Snow White tells the tales of the Fables, magical literary
One Thousand and One Nights 13
• David Foster's 2009 novel Sons of the Rumour is a pastiche of the Nights.[84]
In the 1952 Universal Pictures movie The Golden Blade, Harun Al-Rashid (Rock Hudson) uses a magical sword that
makes him invincible to free Baghdad from the evil vizier Jafar and his son Hadi and win the love of the beautiful
princess Khairuzan (Piper Laurie).
Perhaps the most famous Sinbad film was the 1958 movie The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, produced by the
stop-motion animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen also provided the stop-motion effects for The Golden
Voyage of Sinbad (1974) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977).
In 1959 UPA released an animated feature starring Mr. Magoo, entitled 1001 Arabian Nights.
Osamu Tezuka worked on two (very loose) feature film adaptations, the children's film Sinbad no Bōken in 1962 and
then Senya Ichiya Monogatari in 1969, an adult-oriented animated feature film.
The most commercially successful movie based on The Nights was Aladdin, the 1992 animated movie by the Walt
Disney Company, which starred the voices of Scott Weinger and Robin Williams. The film led to several sequels
and a television series of the same name.
"The Voyages of Sinbad" has been adapted for television and film several times, most recently in the 2003 animated
feature Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, featuring the voices of Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
A recent well-received television adaptation was the Emmy Award-winning miniseries Arabian Nights, directed by
Steve Barron and starring Mili Avital as Scheherazade and Dougray Scott as Shahryar. It was originally shown over
two nights on April 30, and May 1, 2000 on ABC in the United States and BBC One in the United Kingdom.
In 2001, the Radio Tales series produced a trilogy of dramas adapted from the Arabian Nights, including the stories
of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sindbad.
One Thousand and One Nights 15
Other notable versions of The Nights include the famous 1974 Italian movie Il fiore delle mille e una notte by Pier
Paolo Pasolini and the 1990 |French movie Les 1001 nuits, in which Catherine Zeta-Jones made her debut playing
Scheherazade. There are also numerous Bollywood movies inspired by the book, including Aladdin and Sinbad. In
this version the two heroes meet and share in each other's adventures; the djinn of the lamp is female, and Aladdin
marries her rather than the princess.
In 2009, the BBC Radio 7 science fiction series Planet B featured an episode set in a virtual world which had merged
The Nights with a wargame.
Alif Laila (Thousand Nights) is a TV series based on the stories from The Arabian Nights. It was produced by Sagar
Films (Pvt. Ltd.) and has been presented on air so far on DD National, India, SAB TV, India and ARY Digital,
Pakistan.
Music
• In 1888, Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov completed his Op. 35 Scheherazade, in four movements,
based upon four of the tales from The Nights: "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship", "The Kalendar Prince", "The Young
Prince and The Young Princess", and "Festival at Baghdad."
• There have been several Arabian Nights musicals and operettas, either based on particular tales or drawing on the
general atmosphere of the book. Most notable are Chu Chin Chow (1916) and Kismet (1953), not to mention
several musicals and innumerable pantomimes on the story of "Aladdin."
• 1990 saw the premiere of La Noche de las Noches, a work for string quartet and electronics by Ezequiel Viñao
(based on a reading from Burton's "Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night")[85]
• In 1975, the band Renaissance released an album called Scheherazade and Other Stories. The second half of this
album consists entirely of the "Song of Scheherazade", an orchestral-rock composition based on The Nights.
• In the song "Sheherazade", on his 1988 album One More Story, Peter Cetera refers to the One Thousand and One
Nights tale.
• In 1999, power metal band Kamelot included a song on their album The Fourth Legacy called "Nights of Arabia".
• The song "One Thousand and One Nights" by J-Pop band See-Saw, used as the opening theme song for the
second part of the four-part OVA .hack//Liminality ("In the Case of Yuki Aihara"), references The Nights in both
the title and the lyrics.
• In 2003, Nordic experimental indie pop group When released an album called Pearl Harvest with lyrics from The
Nights.
• In 2004, psychedelic trance group 1200 Micrograms released song called 1001 Arabian Nights on The Time
Machine album.
• In 2007, Japanese pop duo BENNIE K released a single titled "1001 Nights", also releasing a music video
strongly based on The Nights.
• In 2007, the Finnish Symphonic metal band Nightwish wrote a song "Sahara" on their album Dark Passion Play
which relates to the 1001 Nights stories.[86]
• 2008 saw the birth of Australian metalcore band, Ebony Horse, named after the tale "The Ebony Horse."
• The Dutch music group "CH!PZ" has also released a song called 1001 Arabian Nights and also has a film clip to
go along with it which illustrates one of the stories.
• Mexican female music group Flans released a song called "Las Mil y una Noches" (One Thousand and One
Nights)
• There is a tourist attraction by the name of Arabian Nights in Orlando, Florida, which is based on the One
Thousand and One Nights storyline and features a Princess Scheherazade as the central character in a musical
dinner show.
One Thousand and One Nights 16
Games
• The first expansion set for Magic: The Gathering was "Arabian Nights", containing cards based on and inspired
by One Thousand and One Nights. This included a card called "Shahrazad" which required the two players to play
a separate game within the current game."Players play a MAGIC subgame, using their libraries as their decks.
Each player who doesn't win the subgame loses half his or her life, rounded up."-http://gatherer.wizards.com/
Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=980
• Jordan Mechner stated that The Nights was an inspiration for his popular Prince of Persia series.
• Tales of the Arabian Nights is a paragraph-based story-telling board game first produced by West End Games in
1985. A second edition was published by Edition Erlkönig in 1999, and a third edition by Z-Man Games is due
out in July 2009.
• The Magic of Scheherazade, a 1989 game produced by the Japanese company Culture Brain for the Nintendo
Entertainment System, takes its title from the female protagonist of the Arabian Nights and includes many of the
typical trappings of Arabian Nights tales, but has little, if any, direct connection to the tales.
• The setting of the 1990 EGA PC adventure game Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire is based on The Nights.
• In 1994 Krisalis developed an Amiga platform game called Arabian Nights with the main character being Sinbad
aiming to rescue the princess.
• The Nights is the basis for the story of the video game Sonic and the Secret Rings. In the story, Sonic the
Hedgehog is pulled in to the story by Shahra The Ring Genie in order to save the Arabian Nights which is being
erased by the main villain Erazor Djinn. Other recurring Sonic characters turn up as characters from the Nights,
such as Tails as Ali Baba, Knuckles as Sinbad, and Doctor Eggman as King Shahryār.
• One Thousand and One Nights, a storytelling game by Meguey Baker, puts the players in the roles of courtiers in
the Sultan's palace who are forbidden to leave for various reasons. To pass the time, they take turns telling stories
and casting each other as various characters in the tales as they attempt to earn enough favor in the court to win
their freedom.
• One Thousand and One Nights is the name of a Tomahawk weapon available for the character Lexaeus in the
video game Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
• The book One Thousand and One Nights was an inspiration to the setting of Nadirim the game.
See also
• List of stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (according to the Richard Francis Burton
translation).
• List of characters from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights
• Scheherazade in popular culture
• Chimera, the 1972 National Book Award-winning novel by John Barth, which includes a novella re-imagining
the story of Scheherazade and her sister, Dunyazade.
• Arabic literature
• Persian literature
One Thousand and One Nights 17
Notes
[1] See illustration of title page of Grub St Edition in Yamanaka and Nishio (p. 225)
[2] Marzolph (2007). "Arabian Nights". Encyclopaedia of Islam. I. Leiden: Brill.
[3] There is scholarly confusion over the exact form and original meaning of Scheherazade's name, see the note in Scheherazade's own Wiki
article on this point
[4] John Payne, Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp and Other Stories, (London 1901) gives details of Galland's encounter with 'Hanna' in 1709
and of the discovery in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing Aladdin and two more of the 'interpolated'
tales. Text of "Alaeddin and the enchanted lamp" (http:/ / www. wollamshram. ca/ 1001/ index. htm)
[5] Zipes, Jack David; Burton, Richard Francis (1991). The Arabian Nights: The Marvels and Wonders of the Thousand and One Nights pg 585.
Signet Classic
[6] Jacob W. Grimm (1982). Selected Tales pg 19. Penguin Classics
[7] Jewish sources (http:/ / www. jewishencyclopedia. com/ view. jsp?artid=1684& letter=A)
[8] Burton, Richard F. (2002). Vikram and the Vampire Or Tales of Hindu Devilry pg xi. Adamant Media Corporation
[9] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Paperbacks, p. 65, ISBN 1860649831
[10] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, p. 5, ISBN 9004095306
[11] Beaumont, Daniel. Literary Style and Narrative Technique in the Arabian Nights. P.1. In The Arabian nights encyclopedia, Volume 1
[12] Irwin, Robert. 2004. The Arabian nights: a companion. P.55
[13] Sallis, Eva. 1999. Sheherazade through the looking glass: the metamorphosis of the Thousand and One Nights. P.18-43
[14] Pinault, David. Story-telling techniques in the Arabian nights. P.1-12. Also in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, v.1
[15] Sallis, Eva. 1999. Sheherazade through the looking glass: the metamorphosis of the Thousand and One Nights. P.4 and passim
[16] Marzolph, Ulrich and Richard van Leeuwen. 2004. The Arabian nights encyclopedia, Volume 1. P.506-508
[17] Madeleine Dobie, 2009. Translation in the contact zone: Antoine Galland's Mille et une nuits: contes arabes. P.37. In Makdisi, Saree and
Felicity Nussbaum: "The Arabian Nights in Historical Context: Between East and West"
[18] Irwin, Robert. 2004. The Arabian nights: a companion. P.1-9
[19] (Portuguese) Cristiane Capuchinho, Lançada a primeira tradução do árabe d'As Mil e Uma Noites (http:/ / noticias. usp. br/ acontece/
obterNoticia?codntc=8873), USP Online, Universidade de São Paulo, 6 May 2005. Accessed online 12 November 2006.
[20] Dwight Reynolds. "The Thousand and One Nights: A History of the Text and its Reception." The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature:
Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period. Cambridge UP, 2006.
[21] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, ISBN 1860649831
[22] "The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century", by Martha Pike Conant, Ph.D. Columbia University Press (1908)
[23] Heath, Peter (May 1994), "Reviewed work(s): Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights by David Pinault", International Journal of
Middle East Studies (Cambridge University Press) 26 (2): 358–360 [359–60]
One Thousand and One Nights 18
[24] Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004), The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, pp. 3–4,
ISBN 1576072045
[25] Burton, Richard (September 2003), The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 (http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ dirs/ etext02/
11001108. txt), Project Gutenberg,
[26] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 200, ISBN 1860649831
[27] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, pp. 198, ISBN 1860649831
[28] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, pp. 199–200, ISBN 1860649831
[29] Heath, Peter (May 1994), "Reviewed work(s): Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights by David Pinault", International Journal of
Middle East Studies (Cambridge University Press) 26 (2): 358–360 [359]
[30] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, pp. 193–4, ISBN 1860649831
[31] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 199, ISBN 1860649831
[32] Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004), The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, p. 109, ISBN 1576072045
[33] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 93, ISBN 1860649831
[34] Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004), The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, p. 4, ISBN 1576072045
[35] Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004), The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, pp. 97–8,
ISBN 1576072045
[36] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 81,
ISBN 1850437688
[37] Pinault, David (1992), Story-telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, p. 59, ISBN 9004095306
[38] Marzolph, Ulrich (2006), The Arabian Nights Reader, Wayne State University Press, pp. 240–2, ISBN 0814332595
[39] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 93, 95, 97, ISBN 9004095306
[40] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 91 & 93, ISBN 9004095306
[41] Marzolph, Ulrich (2006), The Arabian Nights Reader, Wayne State University Press, p. 240, ISBN 0814332595
[42] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 86–91, ISBN 9004095306
[43] Marzolph, Ulrich (2006), The Arabian Nights Reader, Wayne State University Press, pp. 241–2, ISBN 0814332595
[44] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 92–3, ISBN 9004095306
[45] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 93–4, ISBN 9004095306
[46] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, p. 94, ISBN 9004095306
[47] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 94–5, ISBN 9004095306
[48] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, p. 95, ISBN 9004095306
[49] Marzolph, Ulrich (2006), The Arabian Nights Reader, Wayne State University Press, p. 241, ISBN 0814332595
[50] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 95–6, ISBN 9004095306
[51] Marzolph, Ulrich (2006), The Arabian Nights Reader, Wayne State University Press, p. 243, ISBN 0814332595
[52] Young, John G., M.D., "Essay: What Is Creativity?" (http:/ / www. adventuresincreativity. net/ 2mag1. html), Adventures in Creativity:
Multimedia Magazine 1 (2), , retrieved 2008-10-17
[53] Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004), The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, pp. 2–4,
ISBN 1576072045
[54] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 83,
ISBN 1850437688
[55] Al-Hakawati. "The Story of Gherib and his Brother Agib" (http:/ / www. al-hakawati. net/ english/ Stories_Tales/ laila170. asp). Thousand
Nights and One Night. . Retrieved October 2, 2008.
[56] Hamori, Andras (1971), "An Allegory from the Arabian Nights: The City of Brass", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
(Cambridge University Press) 34 (1): 9–19 [10], doi:10.1017/S0041977X00141540
[57] Daniel Harms, John Wisdom Gonce, John Wisdom Gonce, III (2003), The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind Lovecraft's Legend,
Weiser, pp. 87–90, ISBN 1578632692, 9781578632695
[58] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 209, ISBN 1860649831
[59] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 204, ISBN 1860649831
[60] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 190, ISBN 1860649831
[61] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, pp. 211–2, ISBN 1860649831
[62] Hamori, Andras (1971), "An Allegory from the Arabian Nights: The City of Brass", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
(Cambridge University Press) 34 (1): 9–19 [9], doi:10.1017/S0041977X00141540
[63] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 148–9 & 217–9, ISBN 9004095306
[64] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 213, ISBN 1860649831
[65] Hamori, Andras (1971), "An Allegory from the Arabian Nights: The City of Brass", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
(Cambridge University Press) 34 (1): 9–19 [12–3], doi:10.1017/S0041977X00141540
[66] Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 10–1, ISBN 9004095306
[67] Geraldine McCaughrean, Rosamund Fowler (1999), One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Oxford University Press, pp. 247–51,
ISBN 0192750135
One Thousand and One Nights 19
[68] Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004), The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, pp. 172–4,
ISBN 1576072045
[69] Academic Literature (http:/ / www. islamscifi. com/ ?Academic_Literature), Islam and Science Fiction
[70] Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 290, ISBN 1860649831
[71] L. Sprague de Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy, p 10 ISBN 0-87054-076-9.
[72] John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "Arabian fantasy", p 52 ISBN 0-312-19869-8.
[73] James Thurber, "The Wizard of Chitenango", p 64 Fantasists on Fantasy edited by Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski, ISBN
0-380-86553-X.
[74] Horner, Avril (2002), European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange, 1760–1960, Manchester University Press, pp. 13 & 183–203,
ISBN 0719060648
[75] (http:/ / www. amazon. com/ dp/ 094328306X)
[76] (http:/ / www. amazon. com/ dp/ 0943283078)
[77] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 116–7,
ISBN 1850437688
[78] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 119–25,
ISBN 1850437688
[79] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 125–6,
ISBN 1850437688
[80] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 126–9,
ISBN 1850437688
[81] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 135,
ISBN 1850437688
[82] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 132,
ISBN 1850437688
[83] Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 131,
ISBN 1850437688
[84] Ley, James (November 2009), "A town called Merv" (http:/ / www. australianbookreview. com. au/ files/ Features/ November_2009/
ABR_Nov_09_Ley_review. pdf), Australian Book Review: 15–16,
[85] Ezequiel Vinao La Noche de las Noches (http:/ / www. tloneditions. com/ Ezequiel_Vinao_La_Noche_de_las_Noches. html)
[86] Lyrics of "Sahara" (http:/ / www. nightwish. com/ en/ band/ lyrics?id=79)
Further reading
• In Arabian Nights: A search of Morocco through its stories and storytellers by Tahir Shah, Doubleday, 2008.
This is a book that explores the ancient living tradition of storytelling that bridges East and West, yet somehow
seems to survive at much more pervasively vibrant levels in contemporary Moroccan culture. (http://www.
amazon.co.uk/dp/0385612079/)
• Nurse, Paul McMichael. Eastern Dreams: How the Arabian Nights Came to the World Viking Canada: 2010.
General popular history of the 1001 Nights from its earliest days to the present. (http://www.amazon.ca/
Eastern-Dreams-Paul-Nurse/dp/0670063606/)
External links
• Takhir Sabirov (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0754779/)
• Interview with Claudia Ott: A New Chapter in the History of Arab Literature (http://en.qantara.de/webcom/
show_article.php/_c-310/_nr-761/i.html)
• 1001 Nights (http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Stories_Tales/lailaindex.asp)
• Journal of the 1001 Nights (http://journalofthenights.blogspot.com/) – An online blog resource for new and
developing news, scholarship and info on the 1001 (aka The Arabian) Nights and their many manifestations.
• Craft and Malice of Women, or The Tale of the King, His Son, His Concubine and the Seven Wazirs (http://
ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/burton/richard/b97b/part62.html)
One Thousand and One Nights 20
References
• Yamanaka, Yuriko and Nishio, Tetsuo (ed.) The Arabian Nights and Orientalism – perspectives from East and
West London, London: I.B.Tauris, 2006. ISBN 1-85043-768-8
• Encyclopedia Iranica, "ALF LAYLA WA LAYLA (One thousand nights and one night) Ch. Pellat (http://www.
iranica.com/newsite/articles/v1f8/v1f8a035.html)
• Encyclopedia Iranica, "HAZARAFSANA"(A Thousand Stories) (http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/
v12f1/v12f1079.html)
• The Thousand Nights and a Night in several classic translations (http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.
htm), including unexpurgated version by Sir Richard Francis Burton, and John Payne translation, with additional
material.
• Stories From One Thousand and One Nights, (Lane and Poole translation): Project Bartleby edition (http://www.
bartleby.com/16/)
• The Arabian Nights (http://www.arabiannights.org/index2.html) (includes illustrated Lang and (expurgated)
Burton translations), presented by the Electronic Literature Foundation (http://www.thegreatbooks.org)
• Jonathan Scott translation of Arabian Nights (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04/
arnsc10.txt)
• Notes on the influences and context of the Thousand and One Nights (http://www.crock11.freeserve.co.uk/
arabian.htm)
• (expurgated) Sir Richard Burton's 1885 translation, annotated for English study. (http://xahlee.org/p/
arabian_nights/index.html)
• The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/128) at Project Gutenberg
• "The Thousand-And-Second Tale of Scheherazade" by Edgar Allan Poe (Wikisource)
• Arabian Nights (http://karenswhimsy.com/arabian-nights.htm) Six full-color plates of illustrations from the
1001 Nights which are in the public domain
• The Thousand and Fourth Night (http://www.scribd.com/doc/39526248/
THE-ONE-THOUSAND-AND-FOURTH-NIGHT-Erotic-poetry)
Book links
• Librivox audiobook of Lang's The Arabian Night's Entertainments (http://librivox.org/
the-arabian-nights-entertainments-by-andrew-lang/)
• (http://books.google.fr/books?id=wHEBAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=les+mille+et+une+nuits)
French edition (tr. Galland, 1822)
• Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang (http://www.feedbooks.com/book/208) – ereader formatted book from
feedbooks
• Translation on Bosnian language by Prof. Dr. Esad Duraković, 1001 noć 1-4—, komplet (4 books), Groups:
Pripovijetke, ISBN 9958-22-054-7, Publisher: Ljiljan, 1999 (overview (http://www.openbook.ba/izraz/no07/
07_marina_katnic.htm)) (http://www.cobiss.ba/scripts/cobiss?command=SEARCH&base=COBIB&
select=BN=9958220547&lani=en)
• Saj from The One Thousand and One Nights (http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/books/poetry/
1001_NIGHTS.pdf)
One Thousand and One Nights 21
Country Scotland
Language English
ISBN NA
New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1882, is a collection of short stories previously
published in magazines between 1877 and 1880. The collection contains Stevenson's first published fiction, and a
few of the stories are considered by some critics to be his best work, as well as pioneering works in the English short
story tradition.
Structure
New Arabian Nights is divided into two volumes.
Volume 1
The first volume contains seven stories originally called Later-day Arabian Nights and published by London
Magazine in serial format from June to October 1878. It is composed of two story groups, or cycles:
• "The Suicide Club"
• "The Rajah's Diamond"
Volume 2
The second volume is a collection of four unconnected (standalone) stories that were previously published in
magazines:
• "The Pavilion on the Links" (1880), told in 9 mini-chapters
• "A Lodging for the Night" (1877)
• "The Sire De Malétroits Door" (1877)
• "Providence and the Guitar" (1878)
New Arabian Nights 22
External links
• New Arabian Nights [1] at Project Gutenberg
• The New Arabian Nights [2], scanned copy from Archive.org.
References
[1] http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ etext/ 839
[2] http:/ / www. archive. org/ details/ newarabiannights00stevuoft
Arabian Nights and Days 23
Country Egypt
Language Arabic
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Doubleday
Published in 1995
English
Arabian Nights and Days is a novel by Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The novel serves as a sequel and companion piece for One Thousand and One Nights and includes many of the same
characters that appeared in the original work such as Shahryar, Scheherazade, and Aladdin.[1]
References
[1] Anders Hallengren. Nobel laureates in search of identity and integrity: voices of different cultures (http:/ / books. google. com/
books?vid=ISBN9812560386& id=E5AVMFWyVWAC& pg=RA1-PA79& lpg=RA1-PA79& ots=gcn-5pBrW8& dq="Arabian+ Nights+
and+ Days"& ie=ISO-8859-1& output=html& sig=6Jz692oksuRlVCMqMVYA2T3ukuE). ISBN 9812560386. .
24
Stories
This article provides a list of stories within Richard Francis Burton's translation of One Thousand and One Nights.
Burton's first ten volumes were published in 1885. The Supplemental Nights were published between 1886 and 1888
as six volumes. Later pirate copies split the very large third volume into two volumes. The nights are in the style of
stories within stories, and the frame story is The Story Of King Shahryar of Persia and His Brother or The Story Of
King Shahryar and Queen Shahrazad, in which Shahrazad tells tales to her husband Shahryar.
NOTE: The numbers in parentheses indicate that the night in question began (and the previous night ended)
during the tale indicated.
Volume 1
• Story Of King Shahryar and His Brother
• Tale of the Bull and the Ass (Told by the Wazir)
• Tale of the Trader and the Jinni (1)
• The First Shaykh's Story (2)
• The Second Shaykh's Story
• The Third Shaykh's Story (3)
• The Fisherman and the Jinni (4)
• Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban (5)
• Story of King Sindibad and His Falcon
• Tale of the Husband and the Parrot
• Tale of the Prince and the Ogress (6)(7)
• Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince (8)(9)
• The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad (10)(11)
• The First Kalandar's Tale (12)
• The Second Kalandar's Tale (13)
• Tale of the Envier and the Envied (14)
• The Third Kalandar's Tale (15)(16)(17)
• The Eldest Lady's Tale (18)
• Tale of the Portress (19)
• Conclusion of the Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies
• The Tale of the Three Apples (20)
• Tale of Núr al-Dín Alí and his Son (21)(22)(23)(24)
• The Hunchback's Tale (25)
• The Nazarene Broker's Story (26)(27)
• The Reeve's Tale (28)
• Tale of the Jewish Doctor (29)
• Tale of the Tailor (30)(31)
• The Barber's Tale of Himself
• The Barber's Tale of his First Brother
Stories 25
Volume 2
• Nur al-Din Ali and the Damsel Anis Al-Jalis (35)(36)(37)(38)
• Tale of Ghanim bin Ayyub, The Distraught, The Thrall o' Love (39)
• Tale of the First Eunuch, Bukhayt
• Tale of the Second Eunuch, Kafur (40)
• [Tale of Ghanim bin Ayyub, resumed] (41)(42)(43)(44)(45)
• The Tale of King Omar bin al-Nu'uman and His Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, and What Befel Them of
Things Seld-Seen and Peregrine (46)to (107)
• Tale of Tàj al-Mulúk and the Princess Dunyà: The Lover and the Loved (108)(109)(110)(111)(112)
• Tale of Azíz and Azízah (113) to (124)
Volume 3
• The Tale of King Omar Bin al-Nu'uman and His Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan (cont'd)
• Tale of Tàj al-Mulúk and the Princess Dunyà: The Lover and the Loved (cont'd)
• Continuation of the Tale of Aziz and Azizah (125)(126)(127)(128)(129)
• [Tale of Táj al-Mulák and the Princess Dunyá] (resumed) (129)(130)(131)(132)(133)(134)(135)(136)(137)
• [The Tale of King Omar Bin al-Nu'uman and His Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan] (resumed)
(138)(139)(140)(141)(142)
• Tale of the Hashish Eater (143)
• [The Tale of King Omar Bin al-Nu'uman and His Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan] (resumed) (143)(144)
• Tale of Hammad the Badawi (144)
• [The Tale of King Omar Bin al-Nu'uman and His Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan] (resumed to end) (145)
• The Birds and Beasts and the Carpenter (146)
• The Hermits (148)
• The Water-Fowl and the Tortoise
• The Wolf and the Fox (149)
• Tale of the Falcon and the Partridge (150)
• The Mouse and the Ichneumon
• The Cat and the Crow
• The Fox and the Crow
• The Flea and the Mouse (151)
• The Saker and the Birds (152)
• The Sparrow and the Eagle
• The Hedgehog and the Wood Pigeons
• The Merchant and the Two Sharpers
• The Thief and His Monkey
• The Foolish Weaver
Stories 26
Volume 4
• The Enchanted Horse (Andrew Lang version only)
• Tale of Kamar al-Zaman (cont'd)
• Ni'amah bin al-Rabi'a and Naomi His Slave-Girl (238)(239)(240)(241)(242)(243)(244)(245)(246)
• [Conclusion of the Tale of Kamar al-Zaman] (247)(248)(249)
• Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat
(250)(251)(252)(253)(254)(255)(256)(257)(258)(259)(260)(261)(262)(263)(264)(265)(266)(267)(268)(269)
• Hatim of the Tribe of Tayy (270)
• Tale of Ma'an the Son of Zaidah (271)
• Ma'an the Son of Zaidah and the Badawi
• The City of Labtayt (272)
• The Caliph Hisham and the Arab Youth
• Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi and the Barber-Surgeon (273)(274)(275)
• The City of Many-Columned Iram and Abdullah Son of Abi Kilabah (276)(277)(278)(279)
• Isaac of Mosul (280)(281)(282)
• The Sweep and the Noble Lady (283)(284)(285)
• The Mock Caliph (286)(287)(288)(289)(290)(291)(292)(293)(294)
• Ali the Persian (295)(296)
• Harun al-Rashid and the Slave-Girl and the Iman Abu Yusuf (297)
• Tale of the Lover Who Feigned Himself a Thief (298)(299)
• Ja'afar the Barmecide and the Bean-Seller
• Abu Mohammed hight Lazybones (300)(301)(302)(303)(304)(305)
• Generous Dealing of Yahya bin Khalid The Barmecide with Mansur (306)
• Generous Dealing of Yahya Son of Khalid with a Man Who Forged a Letter in his Name (307)
• Caliph Al-Maamum and the Strange Scholar (308)
• Ali Shar and Zumurrud
(309)(310)(311)(312)(313)(314)(315)(316)(317)(318)(319)(320)(321)(322)(323)(324)(325)(326)(327)
• The Loves of Jubayr bin Umayr and the Lady Budur (328)(329)(330)(331)(332)(333)(334)
• The Man of Al-Yaman and His Six Slave-Girls (335)(336)(337)(338)
• Harun al-Rashid and the Damsel and Abu Nowas (339)(340)
• The Man Who Stole the Dish of Gold Wherein The Dog Ate (341)
• The Sharper of Alexandria and the Chief of Police (342)
• Al-Malik al-Nasir and the Three Chiefs of Police (343)
• The Story of the Chief of Police of Cairo
• The Story of the Chief of the Bulak Police (344)
• The Story of the Chief of the Old Cairo Police
• The Thief and the Shroff (345)
• The Chief of the Kus Police and the Sharper (346)
• Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi and the Merchant's Sister (347)
• The Woman whose Hands were Cut Off for Giving Alms to the Poor (348)
• The Devout Israelite (349)
Stories 27
Volume 5
• The Ebony Horse (358)(359)(360|)(361)(362)(363)(364)(365)(366)(367)(368)(369)(370)(371)
• Uns al-Wujud and the Wazir's Daughter al-Ward Fi'l-Akmam or Rose-In-Hood
(372)(373)(374)(375)(376)(377)(378)(379)(380)(381)
• Abu Nowas With the Three Boys and the Caliph Harun al-Rashid (382)(383)
• Abdallah bin Ma'amar With the Man of Bassorah and His Slave Girl
• The Lovers of the Banu Ozrah (384)
• The Wazir of al-Yaman and His Younger Brother
• The Loves of the Boy and Girl at School (385)
• Al-Mutalammis and His Wife Umaymah
• The Caliph Marun al-Rashid and Queen Zubaydah in the Bath (386)
• Harun al-Rashid and the Three Poets
• Mus'ab bin al-Zubayr and Ayishah Daughter of Talhah (387)
• Abu al-Aswad and His Slave-Girl
• Harun al-Rashid and the Two Slave-Girls
• The Caliph Harun al-Rashid and the Three Slave-Girls
• The Miller and His Wife (388)
• The Simpleton and the Sharper
• The Kazi Abu Yusuf With Harun al-Rashid and Queen Zubaydah (389)
• The Caliph al-Hakim and the Merchant
• King Kisra Anushirwan and the Village Damsel (390)
• The Water-Carrier and the Goldsmith's Wife (391)
• Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman
• Yahya bin Khalid the Barmecide and the Poor Man (392)
• Mohammed al-Amin and the Slave-Girl
• The Sons of Yahya bin Khalid and Sa'id bin Salim al-Bahili (393)
• The Woman's Trick Against Her Husband (394)
• The Devout Woman and the Two Wicked Elders
• Ja'afar the Barmecide and the Old Badawi (395)
• The Caliph Omar bin al-Khattab and the Young Badawi (396)(397)
• The Caliph al-Maamun and the Pyramids of Egypt (398)
• The Thief and the Merchant (399)
• Masrur the Eunuch and Ibn al-Karibi (400)(401)
• The Devotee Prince (402)
• The Unwise Schoolmaster Who Fell in Love by Report (403)
• The Foolish Dominie
• The Illiterate Who Set Up For a Schoolmaster (404)
• The King and the Virtuous Wife
• Abd al-Rahman the Maghribi's Story of the Rukh (405)
• Adi bin Zayd and the Princess Hind (406)(407)
Stories 28
Volume 6
• Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman (537)(538)
• The First Voyage of Sindbad hight the Seaman (539)(540)(541)(542)
• The Second Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman (543)(544)(545)(546)
• The Third Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman (547)(548)(549)(550)
• The Fourth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman (551)(552)(553)(554)(555)(556)
• The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman (557)(558)(559)
• The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman (560)(561)(562)(563)
• The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman (564)(565)(566)
• [Burton adds an alternative seventh voyage before concluding the Sindbad head story]
• The City of Brass (567)(568)(569)(570)(571)(572)(573)(574)(575)(576)(577)(578)
• The Craft and Malice of Woman, or the Tale of the King, His Son, His Concubine and the Seven Wazirs
• The King and His Wazir's Wife (579)
• The Confectioner, His Wife and the Parrot
• The Fuller and His Son (580)
• The Rake's Trick Against the Chaste Wife
• The Miser and the Loaves of Bread (581)
• The Lady and Her Two Lovers
• The King's Son and the Ogress (582)
• The Drop of Honey
• The Woman Who Made Her Husband Sift Dust
• The Enchanted Spring (583)(584)
• The Wazir's Son and the Hammam-Keeper's Wife
• The Wife's Device to Cheat her Husband (585)(586)
• The Goldsmith and the Cashmere Singing-Girl (587)
• The Man who Never Laughed During the Rest of His Days (588)(589)(590)(591)
• The King's Son and the Merchant's Wife (592)
• The Page Who Feigned to Know the Speech of Birds (593)
• The Lady and Her Five Suitors (594)(595)(596)
• The Three Wishes, or the Man Who Longed to see the Night of Power
• The Stolen Necklace (597)
• The Two Pigeons
• Prince Behram and the Princess Al-Datma (598)
• The House With the Belvedere (599)(600)(601)(602)
• The King's Son and the Ifrit's Mistress (603)
• The Sandal-Wood Merchant and the Sharpers (604)(605)(
• The Debauchee and the Three-Year-Old Child
• The Stolen Purse (606)
• The Fox and the Folk
• Judar and His Brethren
(607)(608)(609)(610)(611)(612)(613)(614)(615)(616)(617)(618)(619)(620)(621)(622)(623)(624)
• The History of Gharib and His Brother Ajib (625)(626)(627)(628)(629)(630)(631)(632)(633)(634)(635)(636)
Stories 30
Volume 7
• The History of Gharib and His Brother Ajib (continued) (637) to (680)
• Otbah and Rayya (681)
• Hind Daughter of Al-Nu'man, and Al-Hajjaj (682)(683)
• Khuzaymah Bin Bishr and Ikrimah Al-Fayyaz (684)
• Yunus the Scribe and the Caliph Walid Bin Sahl (685)
• Harun al-Rashid and the Arab Girl (686)
• Al-Asma'i and the Three Girls of Bassorah (687)
• Ibrahim of Mosul and the Devil (688)
• The Lovers of the Banu Uzrah (689)(690)(691)
• The Badawi and His Wife (692)(693)
• The Lovers of Bassorah (694)(695)
• Ishak of Mosul and His Mistress and the Devil (696)
• The Lovers of Al-Medinah (697)
• Al-Malik Al-Nasir and His Wazir (698)
• The Rogueries of Dalilah the Crafty and Her Daughter Zaynab the Coney-Catcher
(699)(700)(701)(702)(703)(704)(705)(706)(707)(708)
• The Adventures of Mercury Ali of Cairo (709)(710)(711)(712)(713)(714)(715)(716)(717)(718)(719)
• Ardashir and Hayat al-Nufus (720) to (738)
• Julnar the Sea-Born and Her Son King Badr Basim of Persia (739) to (756)
• King Mohammed Bin Sabaik and the Merchant Hasan (757)(758)
• Story of Prince Sayf al-Muluk and the Princess Badi'a al-Jamal (759) to (776)
Volume 8
• King Mohammed Bin Sabaik and the Merchant Hasan (cont'd)
• Story of Prince Sayf al-Muluk and the Princess Badi'a al-Jamal (cont'd) (777)(778)
• Hassan of Bassorah (779) to (831)
• Khalifah The Fisherman Of Baghdad (832) to (845)
• [Alternate version of the same story from the Breslau edition]
• Masrur and Zayn al-Mawasif (846) to (863)
• Ali Nur al-Din and Miriam the Girdle-Girl (864) to (888)
Volume 9
• Ali Nur al-Din and Miriam the Girdle-Girl (continued) (889)(890)(891)(892)(893)(894)
• The Man of Upper Egypt and His Frankish Wife (895)(896)
• The Ruined Man of Baghdad and his Slave-Girl (897)(898)(899)
• King Jali'ad of Hind and His Wazir Shimas (900)
• The History of King Wird Khan, son of King Jali'ad with His Women and Wazirs
• The Mouse and the Cat (901)(902)
• The Fakir and His Jar of Butter (903)
• The Fishes and the Crab
• The Crow and the Serpent (904)
• The Wild Ass and the Jackal (905)
• The Unjust King and the Pilgrim Prince (906)
• The Crows and the Hawk (907)
Stories 31
Volume 10
• Ma'aruf the Cobbler and His Wife Fatimah (990)(991)(992)(993)(994)(995)(996)(997)(998)(999)(1000)(1001)
• Conclusion of Shahrazad and Shahryar
Also included in this volume
• Terminal Essay
• Preliminary
• I. The Origin of The Nights
• A. The Birthplace
• B. The Date
• C. [Authors]
• II. The Nights in Europe
• III. The Matter and the Manner of The Nights
• A. The Matter
• B. The Manner of The Nights
• IV. Social Condition
• A. Al-Islam
• B. Woman
• C. Pornography
• D. Pederasty
• V. On the Prose-Rhyme and the Poetry of The Nights
• A. The Saj'a
• B. The Verse
• L'Envoi
Stories 32
• Index (for both the remaining tales in this volume and the terminal essay)
• Appendices
• Memorandum
• Appendix I
• Index I: Index to the Tales and Proper Names
• Index II: Alphabetical Table of the Notes (Anthropological, &c.)
• Index IIIA: Alphabetical Table of First Lines (Metrical Portion) in English
• Index IIIB: Alphabetical Table of First Lines (Metrical Portion) in Arabic
• Index IVA: Table of Contents of the Unfinished Calcutta Edition
• Index IVB: Table of Contents of the Breslau (Tunis) Edition
• Index IVC: Table of Contents of the MacNaghten or Turner-Macan Text and Bulak Edition
• Index IVD: Comparison of the Tables of Contents of the Lane and Burton versions
• Appendix II: Contributions to the Bibliography (by W. F. Kirby)
• Galland's MS and Translation
• Cazotte's Continuation, and the Composite Editions
• The Commencement of the Story of Saif Zul Yezn According to Habicht
• Scott's MSS and Translations
• Weil's Translation
• Von Hammer's MS and the Translations Derived from it
• Collections of Selected Tales
• Separate Editions of Single or Composite Tales
• Translations of Cognate Oriental Romances
• Dr. Clarke's MS.
• Imitations and Miscellaneous Works
• Conclusion
• Comparative Table of the Tales in the Principal Editions
• Tale of the Man Who Was Lavish of His House and His Provision to One Whom He Knew Not
• Tale of the Melancholist and the Sharper
• Tale of Khalbas and his Wife and the Learned Man
• Tale of the Devotee Accused of Lewdness
• Tale of the Hireling and the Girl
• Tale of the Weaver Who Became a Leach by Order of His Wife
• Tale of the Two Sharpers Who Each Cozened His Compeer
• Tale of the Sharpers With the Shroff and the Ass
• Tale of the Chear and the Merchants
• Story of the Falcon and the Locust
• Tale of the King and His Chamberlain's Wife
• Story of the Crone and the Draper's Wife
• Tale of the Ugly Man and His Beautiful Wife
• Tale of the King Who Lost Kingdom and Wife and Wealth and Allah Restored Them to Him
• Tale of Salim the Youth of Khorasan and Salma, His Sister
• Tale of the King of Hind and His Wazir
• Shahrazad and Shahryar, [an extract from the Breslau edition].
• Italian version
• Breton version
• German version
• Icelandic version
• Bengalí version
• Buddhist version
• Additional notes
• The Tale of Zayn al-Asnam
• Aladdin; or, The Wonderful Lamp
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
• The Tale of Prince Ahmad
References
List from Wollamshram World [1]
See also
List of characters within One Thousand and One Nights
References
[1] http:/ / www. wollamshram. ca/ 1001/
Characters 40
Characters
This is a list of characters within the medieval collection of Middle Eastern folk tales One Thousand and One
Nights.
Dunyazad
Dunyazad (also called Dunyazade, Dinazade, or Dinarzad) (Persian: )دازایندis the younger sister of Queen
Scheherazade. In the story cycle, it is she who (at Scheherazade's instruction) initiates the tactic of cliffhanger
storytelling to prevent her sister's execution by Shahryar. At the successful conclusion, she marries Shah Zaman,
Shahryar's younger brother.
She is recast as a major character as the narrator of the Dunyazadiad segment of John Barth's novel Chimera.
Scheherazade
Scheherazade (Persian: دازرهشŠahrzād also called Shahrazad) is the legendary Persian queen and the storyteller
and narrator of The Nights. She is the daughter of the kingdom's vizier and sister of Dunyazad (Persian: )دازایند.
She marries King Shahryar, who has vowed that he will execute a new bride everyday. For 1001 nights,
Scheherazade tells her husband a story every night, stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, forcing the King to keep her
alive for another day.
Scheherazade's Father
Scheherazade's Father, sometimes called Jafar, is the vizier of King Shahryar. Every day, on the king's order, he
beheads the brides of Shahryar. He does this for many years until all the unmarried women in the kingdom have
either been killed or run away, at which point Scheherazade offers to marry the king.
The vizier tells Scheherazade the Tale of the Bull and the Ass, in an attempt to discourage his daughter from
marrying the king. It does not work and she marries Shahryar anyway.
At the end of the 1001 nights, Scheherazade's father goes to Samarkand where he replaces Shah Zaman as sultan.
Shehryār
Shahryār or Shahriār or Shahriyār or Schahryār or Sheharyar or Shahrayar or Shaharyar (Persian: رايرهش,
meaning The Great King) is the fictional Persian Sassanid King of kings who is told stories by his wife,
Scheherazade.
He ruled over a Persian Empire extended to India, over all the adjacent islands and a great way beyond the Ganges as
far as China, while Shahryār’s younger brother, Shāhzamān ( )نامزهاشruled over Samarkand. There is an anomaly in
the story, for the King Shahryār is a Sassanid, and thus a Zoroastrian and not a Muslim as most of the stories'
characters are.
In the frame-story, Shahryār is betrayed by his wife, which makes him go mad and believe that all women will, in
the end, betray him. So every night for three years, the mad king takes a wife and has her executed the next morning,
until he marries Scheherazade, his vizier’s beautiful and clever daughter. For 1001 nights in a row, Scheherazade
tells Shahryār a story, each time stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, thus forcing him to keep her alive for another
day so that she can complete the tale the next night.
Characters 41
Shah Zaman
Shah Zaman or Schazzenan is the Sultan of Samarkand, sometimes called Samarcande and brother of Shahryār.
Shah Zaman catches his first wife in bed with a cook and cuts them both in two. Then, whilst staying with his
brother, he discovers that Shahryār's wife is unfaithful. At this point, Shah Zaman comes to believe that all women
are untrustworthy and he returns to Samarkand where, as his brother does, he marries a new bride every day and has
her executed before morning.
At the end of the story, Shahryār calls for his brother and tells him of Scheherazade's incredible tales. Shah Zaman
decides to stay with his brother and marries Dunyazad, whom he has fallen in love with.
Ahmed
Prince Ahmed is the youngest of three sons of a Sultan of the Indies. He is noted for having a magic tent which
would expand so as to shelter an army, and contract so that it could go into one's pocket. Ahmed travels to
Samarkand city and buys an apple that can cure any disease if the sick person smells it. Ahmed rescues the Princess
Peri Banu (or Paribanou), a genie.
Aladdin
Aladdin is perhaps one of the most famous characters from the Nights and appears in Aladdin and The Wonderful
Lamp.
Ali Baba
Ali Baba (Arabic: اباب يلع) is a character described in the adventure tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Ali Shar
Ali Shar is a character from Ali Shar and Zumurrud who inherits a large fortune on the death of his father but very
quickly squanders it all. He goes hungry for many months until he sees Zumurrud on sale in a slave market.
Zumurrud gives Ali the money to buy her and the two live together and fall in love. A year later Zumurrud is
kidnapped by a Christian and Ali spend the rest of the story in search for her.
Mercury Ali
Mercury Ali of Cairo or Ali the Egyptian appears in The Adventures of Mercury Ali of Cairo. Mercury Ali is a
sharper, who repeatedly evaded police (hence the name ”Mercury” or quicksilver). He traveled to Baghdad, where he
tried to outsmart the prominent local tricksters Dalilah the Crafty, Zurayk the Fishmonger and Azariah the Jew to
win the hand of Dalilah's daughter Zaynab.
Prince Ali
Prince Ali is a son of Sultan of the Indies. He travels to Shiraz, the capital Persia, and buys a magic perspective glass
that can see for hundreds of miles.
Characters 42
Cassim
Cassim is the rich brother of Ali Baba who is killed by the Forty Thieves when he is caught stealing treasure from
their magic cave.
Duban
Duban appears in The tale of the vizier and the Sage Duban and is a sage described as being a man of extraordinary
talent. The ability to read Greek, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Byzantine, Syriac and Hebrew, as well as a deep
understanding of botany, philosophy and natural history are only a few.
He cures King Yunan from leprosy. Duban works his medicine in an unusual way: he creates a mallet and ball to
match, filling the handle of the mallet with his medicine. When the king plays with the ball and mallet, he perspires,
thus absorbing the medicine through the sweat from his hand into his bloodstream. After a short bath and a sleep, the
King is cured, and rewards Duban with wealth and royal honor.
Yunan's vizier, however, becomes jealous of Duban, and persuades Yunan into believing that Duban will later
produce a medicine to kill him. The king eventually decides to punish Duban for his alleged treachery, and summons
him to be beheaded. After unsuccessfully pleading for his life, Duban offers one of his prized books to Yunan to
impart the rest of his wisdom. Yunan agrees, and the next day, Duban is beheaded, and Yunan begins to open the
book, finding that no printing exists on the paper. After paging through for a time, separating the stuck leaves each
time by first wetting his finger in his mouth, he begins to feel ill. Yunan realises that the leaves of the book were
poisoned, and as he dies, the king understands that this was his punishment for betraying the one that once saved his
life.
Characters 43
Hussain
Prince Hussain, the eldest son of Sultan of the Indies, travels to Bisnagar (Vijayanagara) in India and buys a magic
teleporting tapestry, also known as a magic carpet.
Morgiana
Morgiana or "Morgana" is a clever slave girl from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. She is initially in Cassim's
household but on his death she joins his brother Ali Baba and through her quick wittedness she saves Ali's life many
times and eventually kills his worst enemy, the leader of the Forty Thieves. As reward, Ali frees her and Morgiana
marries Ali's son.
Parizade
Princess Parizade is the daughter of the sultan Khosrouschah in the story The Two Sisters Who Envied Their
Cadette. She searches for and finds the Talking Bird, the Singing Tree and the Golden Water, and soon after
discovers her royal heritage, which she had until then been unaware of.
Yunan
King Yunan is a fictional king of one of the ancient Persian cities, in the province of Zuman, now modern Armenia
who appears in The tale of the vizier and the Sage Duban. At the start of the story, Yunan is suffering from leprosy
but he is cured by Duban the physician whom he rewards greatly. This makes Yunan's vizier becomes jealous and he
persuades the King that Duban wants to overthrow him. At first Yunan doesn’t believe this and tells his vizier the
Tale of the Husband and the Parrot to which the vizier responds by telling the Tale of the Prince and the Ogress.
This convinces Yunan that Duban is guilty and he has him executed. Yunan later dies after reading a book of
Duban's, the pages of which had been poisoned.
Characters 44
Zayn Al-Asnam
Prince Zayn Al-Asnam appears in The Tale of Zayn Al-Asnam. He erects eight statues of gold (or diamond) and in
quest for a statue for the ninth unoccupied pedestal, finding what he wanted in the person of a beautiful woman for a
wife.
Al-Asnam is given a mirror by a Genie. Called the touch-stone of virtue, the mirror would inform Al-Asnam, upon
looking into it, whether his damsel was faithful or not. If the mirror remained unsullied so was the maiden; if it
clouded, the maiden had been unfaithful.
Zumurrud
Zumurrud-the Smaragdine (Persian یدنقرمس درمزZumurrud e Samarkandi which means "emerald from
Samarkand". At the time of the story Samarkand have been famous for its emeralds) is a slave girl who appears in
Ali Shar and Zumurrud. She is bought by, and falls in love with, Ali Shar with whom she lives until she is kidnapped
by a Christian. Zumurrud escapes from the Christian only to be found and taken by Javan (Juvenile) the Kurd.
Again, Zumurrud manages to get away from her captor, this time by dressing up as a man. On her way back to Ali
Shar, Zumurrud is mistaken for a noble Turk and made Queen of an entire kingdom. Eventually, Zumurrud is
reunited with Ali Shar.
Real people
Abu Nuwas
Abu-Nuwas al-Hasan ben Hani al-Hakami was a renowned poet at the court of the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid. The
hedonistic poet appears in several of the tales.
Al-Mustansir
Mustensir Billah (or Al-Mustansir) was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 1226 to 1242. The Barber of
Baghdad tells Mustensir stories of his six brothers.
Al-Mustazi
Az-Zahir (or Al-Mustazi as he’s called in the Nights) was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 1225 to 1226 and
appears in The Hunchback’s Tale.
Harun al-Rashid
Harun al-Rashid, fifth Abbasid Caliph who ruled from 786 until 809. Hārūn the wise Caliph serves as an important
character in many of the stories set in Baghdad, frequently in connection with his with his vizier, Ja'fa, with whom he
roams in disguise through the streets of the city to observe the lives of the ordinary people.
Ja'far
Ja'far ibn Yahya (Ja'far in the stories) was Harun al-Rashid's Persian Vizier and appears in many stories, normally
accompanying Harun. In at least one of these stories, "The Three Apples", Ja'far is the protagonist of the story,
depicted in a role similar to a detective. In another story, "The Tale of Attaf", he is also a protagonist, depicted as an
adventurer alongside the protagonist Attaf.
Characters 45
Khosrau
Khosrau II was a King of Persia from 590 to 628. He appear with his wife, Shirin, in a story on the three hundred
and ninety-first night called Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman.
Shirin
Shirin the Armenian was the Christian wife of the Sassanid King Khosrau II. She appears with her husband,
Khosrau, in a story on the three hundred and ninety-first night called Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman.
This literature-related list is incomplete; you can help by of One Thousand and One Nights characters
expanding it [1].
See also
• List of stories within One Thousand and One Nights
External links
References
• The Thousand Nights and a Night in several classic translations [2], including unexpurgated version by Sir
Richard Francis Burton, and John Payne translation, with additional material.
• Stories From One Thousand and One Nights, (Lane and Poole translation): Project Bartleby edition [3]
• The Arabian Nights (includes Lang and (expurgated) Burton translations): Electronic Literature Foundation
editions [4]
• Jonathan Scott translation of Arabian Nights [5]
• Notes on the influences and context of the Thousand and One Nights [6]
• The Book of the Thousand and One Nights [6] by John Crocker
• (expurgated) Sir Burton's ~1885 translation, annotated for English study. [7]
• The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang [8] at Project Gutenberg
• 1001 Nights, Representative of eastern literature [9] (in Persian)
• "The Thousand-And-Second Tale of Scheherazade" by Edgar Allan Poe (Wikisource)
• Arabian Nights [10] Six full-color plates of illustrations from the 1001 Nights which are in the public domain
• (Arabic) The Tales in Arabic on Wikisource
References
[1] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ :List
[2] http:/ / www. wollamshram. ca/ 1001/ index. htm
[3] http:/ / www. bartleby. com/ 16/
[4] http:/ / www. arabiannights. org/ index2. html
[5] http:/ / www. ibiblio. org/ pub/ docs/ books/ gutenberg/ etext04/ arnsc10. txt
[6] http:/ / www. crock11. freeserve. co. uk/ arabian. htm
[7] http:/ / xahlee. org/ p/ arabian_nights/ index. html
[8] http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ etext/ 128
[9] http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ persian/ arts/ story/ 2006/ 01/ 060103_pm-cy-1001-nights2. shtml
[10] http:/ / karenswhimsy. com/ arabian-nights. htm
Scheherazade 46
Scheherazade
One Thousand and One Nights character
Gender Female
Spouse(s) Shahryar
Children 3 sons
Nationality Persian
In the narration
The frame tale goes that every day Shahryar (Persian: رايرهشor "king") would marry a new virgin, and every day he
would send yesterday's wife to be beheaded. This was done in anger, having found out that his first wife was
betraying him. He had killed one thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's
daughter.
In Sir Richard F. Burton's translation of The Nights, Shahrazad was described in this way:
"[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and
instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories
relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart;
she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise
and witty, well read and well bred."
Against her father's protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King. Once in the King's
chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, Dinazade, who had secretly
been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The King lay awake and listened with awe as
Scheherazade told her first story. The night passed by, and Scheherazade stopped in the middle of the story. The
King asked her to finish, but Scheherazade said there was not time, as dawn was breaking. So, the King spared her
life for one day to finish the story the next night. So the next night, Scheherazade finished the story, and then began a
second, even more exciting tale which she again stopped halfway through, at dawn. So the King again spared her life
for one day to finish the second story.
Scheherazade 47
And so the King kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the finishing of last night's story. At
the end of one thousand and one nights, and one thousand stories, Scheherazade told the King that she had no more
tales to tell him. During these one thousand and one nights, the King had fallen in love with Scheherazade, and had
three sons with her. So, having been made a wiser and kinder man by Scheherazade and her tales, he spared her life,
and made her his Queen.
Name
The earliest forms of Scheherazade's name include Šīrāzād ( )دزاریشin Masudi and Šahrāzād ( )دازارهشin Ibn
al-Nadim, the latter meaning "she whose realm or dominion ( رهشšahr) is noble ( دازاāzād)". In explaining his spelling
choice for the name Burton says, "Shahrázád (Persian) = City-freer; in the older version Scheherazade (probably
both from Shirzád = lion-born). 'Dunyázá' = world-freer. The Bres[lau] Edit[ion] corrupts the former to Shárzád or
Sháhrazád; and the Mac[naghten] and Calc[utta] to Shahrzád or Shehrzád. I have ventured to restore the name as it
should be." [1] . Having introduced the name Burton does not continue to use the diacritics on the name.
Historical prototypes
The nucleus of these stories is formed by an old Persian book called Hezar-afsana or the "Thousand Myths"
(Persian: )هناسفارازه.
Scheherazade was identified, confused with, or partly derived from the legendary queen Homāy, daughter of
Bahman, who has the epithet Čehrzād or Čehrāzād (" )دازارهچshe whose appearance is noble". Harun al-Rashid's
mother, Al-Khayzuran, is also said to have influenced the character of Scheherazade.
See also
• Scheherazade in popular culture
References
[1] Burton, Richard F. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Burton Club, p.14, footnote.
External links
• The Arabian Nights Entertainments (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19860/19860-h/19860-h.
htm#THE_ARABIAN_NIGHTS) Project Gutenberg
Abu Nuwas 48
Abu Nuwas
Abu-Nuwas al-Hasan ben Hani Al-Hakami (756–814),a known as
Abū-Nuwās[1] (Arabic: ساونوبا; Persian: ساونوبا, Abu Novas), was
one of the greatest of classical Arabic poets, who also composed in
Persian on occasion. Born in the city of Ahvaz in Persia, of an Arab
father and a Persian mother,[1] he became a master of all the
contemporary genres of Arabic poetry, although his fame rests
principally on his poems in praise of pederasty. Abu Nuwas has
entered the folkloric tradition, and he appears several times in The
Book of One Thousand and One Nights.
When Abu Nuwas was still a boy, his mother sold him to a grocer from Basra, Sa’ad al-Yashira. Abu Nuwas
migrated to Baghdad, possibly in the company of Walibah ibn al-Hubab, and soon became renowned for his witty
and humorous poetry, which dealt not with the traditional desert themes, but with urban life and the joys of wine and
drinking (khamriyyat), and ribald humor (mujuniyyat). His commissioned work includes poems on hunting, the love
of women and boys, and panegyrics to his patrons. He was infamous for his mockery and satire, two of his favorite
themes being the sexual passivity of men and the sexual intemperance of women. Despite his celebration of boy
love, he was less than sympathetic towards lesbianism, and often mocked what he perceived as its inanity. He liked
to shock society by openly writing about things which Islam forbade. He may have been the first Arab poet to write
about masturbation.
Ismail bin Nubakht said of Abu Nuwas: "I never saw a man of more extensive learning than Abu Nuwas, nor one
who, with a memory so richly furnished, possessed so few books. After his decease we searched his house, and could
only find one book-cover containing a quire of paper, in which was a collection of rare expressions and grammatical
observations."
Legacy
Abu Nuwas is considered one of the greats of classical Arabic literature. He influenced many later writers, to
mention only Omar Khayyám, and Hafiz — both of them Persian poets. A hedonistic caricature of Abu Nuwas
appears in several of the Thousand and One Nights tales. Among his best known poems are the ones ridiculing the
"Olde Arabia" nostalgia for the life of the Bedouin, and enthusiastically praising the up-to-date life in Baghdad as a
vivid contrast.
His freedom of expression especially on matters forbidden by Islamic norms continue to excite the animus of
censors. While his works were freely in circulation until the early years of the twentieth century, in 1932 the first
modern censored edition of his works appeared in Cairo. In 1976, a crater on the planet Mercury was named in honor
of Abu Nuwas.[2]
Baghdad
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, the author of the History of Baghdad, wrote that Abu Nuwas buried in Shunizi cemetery in
Baghdad.[3]
The city has several places named for the poet. Abū Nuwās Street runs along the east bank of the Tigris that was
once the city’s showpiece.[4] Abu Nuwas Park is also located there on the 2.5-kilometer stretch between the
Jumhouriya Bridge and a park that extends out to the river in Karada near the 14th of July Bridge.[5]
Swahili culture
In East Africa's Swahili culture the Name of Abu Nuwas is quite popular as Abunuwasi. Here it is connected to a
number of stories which otherwise go by names like Nasreddin, Guba or "the Mullah" in folktale and literature of
Islamic societies.
Translations
• O Tribe That Loves Boys. Hakim Bey (Entimos Press / Abu Nuwas Society, 1993). With a scholarly biographical
essay on Abu Nuwas, largely taken from Ewald Wagner's biographical entry in The Encyclopedia of Islam.
• Carousing with Gazelles, Homoerotic Songs of Old Baghdad. Seventeen poems by Abu Nuwas translated by
Jaafar Abu Tarab. (iUniverse, Inc., 2005).
• Jim Colville. Poems of Wine and Revelry: The Khamriyyat of Abu Nuwas. (Kegan Paul, 2005).
Abu Nuwas 50
Further reading
• Kennedy, Philip F. (1997). The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition.
Open University Press. ISBN 0198263929.
• Kennedy, Philip F. (2005). Abu Nuwas: A Genius of Poetry. OneWorld Press. ISBN 1851683607.
• Lacy, Norris J. (1989). "The Care and Feeding of Gazelles – Medieval Arabic and Hebrew love poetry". In
Moshe Lazar. Poetics of Love in the Middle Ages. George Mason University Press. pp. 95–118.
ISBN 0913969257.
• Frye, Richard Nelson. The Golden Age of Persia. p. 123. ISBN 0-06-492288-X.
• Abu Nuwas [6]. Encyclopædia Britannica.
Notes
• Note a: Sources vary: Garzanti gives a date of birth of 756 or 758 and a date of death as circa 814,[7] while Dona
S. Straley gives circa 756 to circa 810.[8]
References
[1] Garzanti
[2] Abu Nuwas (crater)
[3] Ibn Khallikan's biographical dictionary - Google Books (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=5DlbAAAAQAAJ& lpg=PA394&
ots=4twy8GhFuH& dq=Abu Nuwas buried cemetery& pg=PA394#v=onepage& q=Abu Nuwas buried cemetery& f=false).
Books.google.com. . Retrieved 2010-09-12.
[4] Related Articles. "Abu Nuwas Street (street, Baghdad, Iraq) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia" (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ EBchecked/
topic/ 2290/ Abu-Nuwas-Street). Britannica.com. . Retrieved 2010-09-12.
[5] "DVIDS - News - A Walk in the Park" (http:/ / www. dvidshub. net/ news/ 221/ walk-park). Dvidshub.net. . Retrieved 2010-09-12.
[6] http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9003430
[7] Garzanti, Aldo (1974) [1972] (in Italian). Enciclopedia Garzanti della letteratura. Milan: Garzanti. p. 2.
[8] Straley, Dona S.. The undergraduate's companion to Arab writers and their web sites. Libraries Unlimited. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-59158-118-5.
ISBN 1591581184.
External links
• The Knitting Circle – Abu Nuwas (http://www.sbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/abunuwas.html)
• Al-Funu.Org: Abu Nuwas (http://www.al-funun.org/al-funun/images/abu_nuwas.html)
• Abu Nawas, the Persian Arab (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&
Article_id=5267) By Tamim al-Barghouti, Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Aladdin 51
Aladdin
Aladdin (an Anglicisation of the Arabic name ʻAlāʼ ad-Dīn, Arabic: نيدلا ءالعliterally "nobility of the faith") is one
of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), and one of the most famous, although it
was actually added to the collection by Antoine Galland (see sources and setting).[1]
Synopsis
The original story of Aladdin is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It concerns an impoverished young ne'er-do-well named
Aladdin, in a Chinese city, who is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb, who passes himself off as the brother of
Aladdin's late father, convincing Aladdin and his mother of his goodwill by apparently making arrangements to set
up the lad as a wealthy merchant.
His real motive is to persuade young Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave.
After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin finds himself trapped in the cave. Fortunately, Aladdin
retains a magic ring lent to him by the sorcerer. When he rubs his hands in despair, he inadvertently rubs the ring,
and a djinni appears, who takes him home to his mother. Aladdin is still carrying the lamp, and when his mother tries
to clean it, a second, far more powerful djinni appears, who is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the
lamp. With the aid of the djinni of the lamp, Aladdin becomes rich and powerful and marries princess
Badroulbadour, the Emperor's daughter. The djinni builds Aladdin a wonderful palace - far more magnificent than
that of the Emperor himself.
The sorcerer returns and is able to get his hands on the lamp by
tricking Aladdin's wife, who is unaware of the lamp's importance, by
offering to exchange "new lamps for old". He orders the djinni of the
lamp to take the palace to his home in the Maghreb. Fortunately,
Aladdin retains the magic ring and is able to summon the lesser djinni.
Although the djinni of the ring cannot directly undo any of the magic
of the djinni of the lamp, he is able to transport Aladdin to Maghreb,
and help him recover his wife and the lamp and defeat the sorcerer.
John Payne, Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp and Other Stories,
(London 1901) gives details of Galland's encounter with the man he
referred to as "Hanna" and the discovery in the Bibliothèque Nationale
in Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing Aladdin (with two more
of the "interpolated" tales). One is a jumbled late 18th century Syrian
version. The more interesting one, in a manuscript that belonged to the New Crowns for Old, a 19th Century British
scholar M. Caussin de Perceval, is a copy of a manuscript made in cartoon based on the Aladdin story (Disraeli as
Baghdad in 1703. It was purchased by the Bibliothèque Nationale at Abanazer from the pantomime version of Aladdin
offering Queen Victoria an Imperial crown (of
the end of the nineteenth century.
India) in exchange for a Royal one).
Although Aladdin is a Middle-Eastern tale, the story is set in China,
and Aladdin is explicitly Chinese.[3] However, the "China" of the story is an Islamic country, where most people are
Muslims; there is a Jewish merchant who buys Aladdin's wares (and incidentally cheats him), but there is no mention
of Buddhists or Confucians. Everybody in this country bears an Arabic name and its monarch seems much more like
a Muslim ruler than a Chinese emperor. Some commentators believe that this suggests that the story might be set in
Aladdin 53
Turkestan (encompassing Central Asia and the modern Chinese province of Xinjiang).[4] It has to be said that this
speculation depends on a knowledge of China that the teller of a folk tale (as opposed to a geographic expert) might
well not possess,[5] and that a deliberately exotic setting is in any case a common story tellers' device.
For a narrator unaware of the existence of America, Aladdin's "China" would represent "the Utter East" while the
sorcerer's homeland in the Maghreb (Northern Africa) represented "the Utter West". In the beginning of the tale, the
sorcerer's taking the effort to make such a long journey, the longest conceivable in the narrator's (and his listeners')
perception of the world, underlines the sorcerer's determination to gain the lamp and hence the lamp's great value. In
the later episodes, the instantaneous transitions from the east to the west and back, performed effortlessly by the
Djinn, make their power all the more marvellous.
Adaptations
In the United Kingdom, the story of Aladdin was first published in England between 1704–14; and was dramatised
in 1788 by John O'Keefe for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.[6] It has been a popular subject for pantomime for
over 200 years.[7] The traditional Aladdin pantomime is the source of the well-known pantomime character Widow
Twankey (Aladdin's mother). In pantomime versions of the story, changes in the setting and plot are often made to fit
it better into "China" (albeit a China situated in the East End of London rather than Medieval Baghdad). One version
of the "pantomime Aladdin" is Sandy Wilson's musical Aladdin, from 1979. Since the early 1990s Aladdin pantos
tend to be influenced by the Disney animation - for instance the 2007/2008 Birmingham version, which starred John
Barrowman, and featured a variety of songs from the Disney movies Aladdin and Mulan.
Adam Oehlenschläger wrote his verse drama Aladdin in 1805. Carl Nielsen wrote incidental music for this play in
1918–19. Ferruccio Busoni set some verses from the last scene of Oehlenschläger's Aladdin in the last movement of
his Piano Concerto, Op. 39.
The 1926 animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed (the earliest surviving animated feature film) combined
the story of Aladdin with that of the prince. In this version the princess Aladdin pursues is Achmed's sister and the
sorcerer is his rival for her hand. The sorcerer steals the castle and the princess through his own magic in this version
and then sets a monster to attack Aladdin, from which Achmed rescues him. Achmed than informs Aladdin he
requires the lamp to rescue his own intended wife; Princess Pari Banou, from the demons of the Island of Wak Wak.
They convince the Witch of the Fiery Mountain to defeat the sorcerer, and than all three heroes join forces to battle
the demons.
The tale has been since adapted to animated film a number of times, including Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp, the
1939 Popeye the Sailor cartoon.
In 1962 the Italian branch of the Walt Disney Company published the story Paperino e la grotta di Aladino (Donald
and Aladdin's Cave), written by Osvaldo Pavese and drawn by Pier Lorenzo De Vita. In it, Uncle Scrooge leads
Donald Duck and their nephews on an expedition to find the treasure of Aladdin and they encounter the Middle
Eastern counterparts of the Beagle Boys. Scrooge describes Aladdin as a brigand who used the legend of the lamp to
cover the origins of his ill-gotten gains. They find the cave holding the treasure which is blocked by a huge rock and
it requires a variation of "Open Sesame" to open it, thus providing a link to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.[8]
In the 1960s Bollywood produced Aladdin and Sinbad, very loosely based on the original, in which the two named
heroes get to meet and share in each other's adventures. In this version, the lamp's djinni (genie) is female and
Aladdin marries her rather than the princess (she becomes a mortal woman for his sake).
A Soviet film Volshebnaia Lampa Aladdina ("Aladdin's Magic Lamp") was released in 1966.
The anitamted feature "Aladdin et la lampe merveilleuse" [9] was released in 1970 by Film Jean Image in France.
The story has a lot of the original elements of the story comparing it with the Disney version and was translated in
several languages.
Aladdin 54
In 1979 kollywood produced "Allaudinaum Arputha Vilakkum" starring big Tamil actors such as Kamal Haasan as
Aladdin, Rajinikanth,and many big stars
In 1982 Media Home Entertainment released Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.
Gary Wong and Rob Robson produced Aladdin the Rock Panto in 1985. The GSODA Junior Players recently staged
the production at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre in June 2009.
In 1986, the program Faerie Tale Theatre based an episode based on the story called "Aladdin and His Wonderful
Lamp".
In 1986, an Italian-American co-production (under supervision of Golan-Globus) of a modern-day Aladdin was
filmed in Miami under the title Superfantagenio, starring actor Bud Spencer as the genie and his daughter Diamante
as the daughter of a police sergeant.
Currently the form in which the medieval tale is best known, especially to the very young, is Aladdin, the 1992
animated feature by Walt Disney Feature Animation. In this version several characters are renamed and/or
amalgamated (for instance the Sorcerer and the Sultan's vizier become the same person, while the Princess becomes
"Jasmine"), have new motivations for their actions (the Lamp Genie now desires freedom from his role) or are
simply replaced (the Ring Genie disappears, but a magic carpet fills his place in the plot). The setting is moved from
China to the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah, and the structure of the plot is simplified.
Broadway Junior has released Aladdin Junior, a children's musical based on the music and screenplay of the Disney
animation.
One of the many retellings of the tale appears in A Book of Wizards and A Choice of Magic, by Ruth
Manning-Sanders.
There was also a hotel and casino in Las Vegas named Aladdin from 1963 to 2007.
The game Sonic and the Secret Rings is heavily based on the story of Aladdin, and both genies appear in the story.
The genie of the lamp is the main villain, known in the game as the Erazor Djinn, and the genie of the ring, known in
the game as Shahra, appears as Sonic's sidekick and guide through the game. Furthermore, the ring genie is notably
lesser than the lamp genie in the story.
While only featured for a short segment of the film, the story of Aladdin was used as a metaphor for the Law of
Attraction in the 2006 self-development film The Secret.
See also
• The Bronze Ring
• Jack and His Golden Snuff-Box
• The Tinder Box
• One Thousand and One Nights
• Arabian mythology
Aladdin 55
References
[1] John Payne, Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp and Other Stories, (London 1901) gives details of Galland's encounter with 'Hanna' in 1709
and of the discovery in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing Aladdin and two more of the 'interpolated'
tales. Text of "Alaeddin and the enchanted lamp" (http:/ / www. wollamshram. ca/ 1001/ index. htm)
[2] http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ etext/ 14221
[3] Plotz, Judith Ann (2001). Romanticism and the vocation of childhood. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 148–149. ISBN 0312227353.
[4] Moon, Krystyn (2005). Yellowface. Rutgers University Press. pp. 23. ISBN 0813535077.
[5] Hugh Honour, Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay (1961). Section I "The Imaginary Continent".
[6] Pantomime Guided Tour: Aladdin (http:/ / www. peopleplayuk. org. uk/ guided_tours/ pantomime_tour/ the_origins_of_pantomime_stories/
aladdin. php) (PeoplePlay – Theatre Museum) accessed 10 July 2008
[7] "Aladdin" (http:/ / www. its-behind-you. com/ aladdin. html). . Retrieved 2008-01-22.
[8] http:/ / coa. inducks. org/ story. php?c=I+ TL+ + 344-AP
[9] http:/ / www. imdb. com/ title/ tt0187687/
External links
• "Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp" (http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Payne/aladdin/p13_index.htm), in
John Payne, Oriental Tales vol. 13
• Alaeddin (http://xahlee.org/p/arabian_nights/aladdin/aladdin.html), by Sir Richard Francis Burton. (in
HTML and annotated)
• The Thousand Nights and a Night in several classic translations (http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.
htm), with additional material, including Payne's introduction (http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Payne/
aladdin/p13_index.htm) and quotes from Galland's diary.
• The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/128) at Project Gutenberg
• Aladdin Junior (http://www.broadwayjr.com/store/showkitproduct.asp?oid=14), the Broadway Junior
Musical
Ali Baba 56
Ali Baba
Ali Baba (Arabic: اباب يلعʿAli Bāba) is a fictional
character from medieval Arabic literature. He is
described in the adventure tale of Ali Baba and the
Forty Thieves. Some critics believe that this story
was added to One Thousand and One Nights by one
of its European translators, Antoine Galland, an
18th-century French orientalist who may have heard
it in oral form from a Middle Eastern story-teller
from Aleppo. However, Richard F. Burton claimed it
to be part of the original One Thousand and One
Nights.
Story
Ali Baba and his elder brother Cassim are the sons of a merchant. After the death of their father, the greedy Cassim
marries a wealthy woman and becomes well-to-do, building on their father's business - but Ali Baba marries a poor
woman and settles into the trade of a woodcutter.
One day Ali Baba is at work collecting and cutting firewood in the forest, and he happens to overhear a group of
forty thieves visiting their treasure store. The treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by magic. It opens
on the words "Open, Simsim" (commonly written as "Open Sesame" in English), and seals itself on the words
"Close, Simsim" ("Close Sesame"). When the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters the cave himself, and takes some of
the treasure home.
Ali Baba borrows his sister-in-law's scales to weigh this new wealth of gold coins. Unbeknownst to Ali, she puts a
blob of wax in the scales to find out what Ali is using them for, as she is curious to know what kind of grain her
impoverished brother-in-law needs to measure. To her shock, she finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her
husband, Ali Baba's rich and greedy brother, Cassim. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal
the secret of the cave. Cassim goes to the cave and enters with the magic words, but in his greed and excitement over
the treasures forgets the magic words to get back out again. The thieves find him there, and kill him. When his
brother does not come back, Ali Baba goes to the cave to look for him, and finds the body, quartered and with each
piece displayed just inside the entrance of the cave to discourage any similar attempts in the future.
Ali Baba brings the body home, where he entrusts Morgiana, a clever slave-girl in Cassim's household, with the task
of making others believe that Cassim has died a natural death. First, Morgiana purchases medicines from an
Ali Baba 57
apothecary, telling him that Cassim is gravely ill. Then, she finds an old tailor known as Baba Mustafa whom she
pays, blindfolds, and leads to Cassim's house. There, overnight, the tailor stitches the pieces of Cassims' body back
together, so that no one will be suspicious. Ali and his family are able to give Cassim a proper burial without anyone
asking awkward questions.
The thieves, finding the body gone, realize that yet another person must know their secret, and set out to track him
down. One of the thieves goes down to the town and comes across Baba Mustafa, who mentions that he has just
sewn a dead man's body back together. Realizing that the dead man must have been the thieves' victim, the thief asks
Baba Mustafa to lead the way to the house where the deed was performed. The tailor is blindfolded again, and in this
state he is able to retrace his steps and find the house. The thief marks the door with a symbol. The plan is for the
other thieves to come back that night and kill everyone in the house. However, the thief has been seen by Morgiana
and she, loyal to her master, foils his plan by marking all the houses in the neighborhood with a similar marking.
When the 40 thieves return that night, they cannot identify the correct house and the head thief kills the lesser thief.
The next day, another thief revisits Baba Mustafa and tries again, only this time, a chunk is chipped out of the stone
step at Ali Baba's front door. Again Morgiana foils the plan by making similar chips in all the other doorsteps. The
second thief is killed for his stupidity as well. At last, the head thief goes and looks for himself. This time, he
memorizes every detail he can of the exterior of Ali Baba's house.
The chief of the thieves pretends to be an oil merchant in need of Ali Baba's hospitality, bringing with him mules
loaded with thirty-eight oil jars, one filled with oil, the other thirty-seven hiding the other remaining thieves. Once
Ali Baba is asleep, the thieves plan to kill him. Again, Morgiana discovers and foils the plan, killing the thirty-seven
thieves in their oil jars by pouring boiling oil on them. When their leader comes to rouse his men, he discovers that
they are dead, and escapes.
To exact revenge, after some time the thief establishes himself as a merchant, befriends Ali Baba's son (who is now
in charge of the late Cassim's business), and is invited to dinner at Ali Baba's house. The thief is recognized by
Morgiana, who performs a dance with a dagger for the diners and plunges it into the heart of the thief when he is off
his guard. Ali Baba is at first angry with Morgiana, but when he finds out the thief tried to kill him, he gives
Morgiana her freedom and marries her to his son. Ali Baba is then left as the only one knowing the secret of the
treasure in the cave and how to access it. Thus, the story ends happily for everyone except the forty thieves and
Cassim.
Adaptations
• The story was made into an Egyptian movie in 1942 as "Ali Baba We El Arbeen Haramy" (Alibaba and the Forty
Thieves), with Ali AlKassar playing the lead as Ali Baba, and the famous comedian actor Ismail Yasin as his
assistant.
• A French film Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs starring Fernandel and Samia Gamal (1954).
• A French telefilm starring Gérard Jugnot and Michèle Bernier (2007).
• In 1970s Alibaba story was adapted in a Bengali film called 'Morgiana Abdulla'.
• Bollywood film Ali Baba aur 40 Chor, starring Dharmendra, Hema Malini and Zeenat Aman, was largely based
on this adventure tale.
• A Malaysian comedy film, Ali Baba Bujang Lapok (1960) which quite faithfully adhered to the tale's plot details,
but introduced a number of anachronisms for humour, for example the usage of a truck by Kassim Baba to steal
the robbers' loot.
• The story was made into a Tamil movie in 1955 as "Alibabhavum Narpathu Thirudargalum" (Ali Baba and the
Forty Thieves) with M.G.Ramachandran playing the lead as Ali Baba and Bhanumathi Ramakrishna as Morgiana.
• The story was adapted in the 1971 anime Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (アリババと40匹の盗賊 Aribaba to
Yonjuppiki no Tozoku), storyboarded by Hayao Miyazaki.
• A Soviet-Indian joint film of 1979 ru:Приключения Алибабы и 40 разбойников (фильм)
Ali Baba 58
• The concept of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was used for the last installment of Disney's Aladdin series,
Aladdin and the King of Thieves, released in 1996, introducing Cassim the King of Thieves as Aladdin's father.
• In the television mini-series Arabian Nights, the story is told faithfully with two major changes. The first is that
when Morgiana discovers the thieves in the oil jars, she alerts Ali Baba and together with a friend, they release the
jars on a street with a steep incline and allow them roll down to break open. Furthermore, the city guard is alerted
and arrest the disoriented thieves as they emerge from their containers. Later when Morgiana defeats the thief
leader, Ali Baba, who is young and has no children, marries the heroine himself.
• A film adaption Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was made in 1944. The film was remade in 1965 as The Sword of
Ali Baba. Frank Puglia portrayed the character named Kassim in both versions.
• At the United States Air Force Academy, Cadet Squadron 40 was originally nicknamed "Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves" before eventually changing its name to the "P-40 Warhawks"
• A mythopoeic novel by Tom Holt, 'Open Sesame', is based on characters from the story of "Ali Baba and the
Forty Thieves"
• A Tamil Film with the name "Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum" was made in 1956 with M. G. Ramachandran and
Bhanumathi Ramakrishna in the lead.
In other media
• A 1981 computer video game by Quality Software.[2]
• A Tamil movie featuring Krishna Kulasekaran
• In the video game Sonic and the Secret Rings, Miles "Tails" Prower is Ali Baba. Despite the fact that the forty
thieves appear in the game as spirits and reanimated skeletons, he has no involvement with them at all.
• In the MASH episode, "The Novocaine Mutiny," Frank Burns accuses Benjamin Pierce of mutiny. When Pierce
displays his typical nonchalance, Burns states: "Ali Baba 'til the very end, aren't you?"
• A Merrie Melodies Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon, Ali Baba Bunny, has a similar premise to the concept of the
treasure-filled magical cave, in which Daffy Duck is consumed by the same greed as Cassim.
• A Looney Tunes cartoon with Porky Pig called Ali-Baba Bound, but this one portrays Ali Baba as a villain who
attempts to attack the desert fort.
• In a song "Ali Baba's Camel" by Noel Gay Ali Baba is specifically identified ("Forty thieves had he"). This song
is now best known in the cover version by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Joint credit to Hulton (who?) is
sometimes given; e.g. with the blessing of Neil Innes at [3].
• In the Beastie Boys song "Rhymin & Stealin" they make reference to Ali Baba and the forty thieves.
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a computer game for the Apple II published in 1982.
• In the video game Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly the level Thieves' Den is a parody of the tale.
• Dark Lotus of Psychopathic records has a song named Ali Baba.
• A Popeye Cartoon, Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves, features Popeye meeting, and defeating the
titular group.
• In the video game Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, it is said that one of Sly Cooper's ancestors, Salim al Kupar of
Arabia, had the stealth of forty-thieves. It is not said if this ancestor was part of the forty-thieves however.
• A Los Garcias' song, Ali Baba
• A Dara Puspita song, Ali Baba
• In the video game Diablo II, "The Blade of Ali Baba" is the name of a unique sword that can be found, it
increases the amount of gold and magical items dropped by monsters when it is used to slay them.
• In the Sean Biggs (ft. Akon) song, "Never Gonna Get It" there is a reference to "chains hangin' like Ali Baba".
Ali Baba 59
• In the Disney film Aladdin there are several references to the story. During the Genie's song "Friend like Me" he
lists the benefits other heroes have had in their adventures, including "Ali Baba had them forty thieves". Another
possible reference is Aladdin's alias "Prince Ali Ababwa", which is very similar to Ali Baba. Also, in Aladdin and
the King of Thieves the forty thieves play an integral part in the story. However the story is very different than the
original Ali Baba story, particularly Cassim's new role as the King of Thieves.
• A large illuminated tableau created for Blackpool Illuminations in 2005.[4]
• In the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Granado Espada and all its counterparts in
other countries, a "cash shop" costume is named Ali Baba. This costume belongs to Alejandro, One of the Unique
Player Characters in the game.
• In the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Tales Runner an indirect reference is made to
Ali Baba, a map is named Ali Baba Map.
• In the 3CE song 'Take You To The Edge' the lyrics say 'Ali Baba had 40 thieves'
• In Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour, Mission 4 of the GLA campaign is named Jarmen Kell and the
Forty Thieves making a reference to Ali Baba and the 40 thieves although Jarmen Kell was only sent together
with a few Hijackers and Rebels that number less than 40.
Iraq War
• The name Ali Baba was often used as derogatory slang by American and Iraqi soldiers and their allies in the War
in Iraq to describe individuals suspected of a variety of offenses related to theft and looting.[5] In the subsequent
occupation it is used as a general term for the insurgents, similar to Charlie for the Viet Cong in the Vietnam
War.[6]
• Due to interaction of the two peoples, the term Ali Baba was adopted by the Iraqis to describe foreign troops
suspected of looting,[7] and the English-speaking mainstream press mistakenly reported the slang to be native to
the locals.[8]
• Iraqi citizens often use the term Ali Baba to describe looting bandits, whether they be coalition troops or
insurgents of any nationality. For protection against "Ali Baba," Iraqis are allowed one AK-47, and one 30 round
magazine of ammunition per household.
References
[1] If a receiver of stolen goods can be described as "honest"!
[2] Barton, Matt (2007-02-23). "Part 2: The Golden Age (1985-1993)" (http:/ / www. gamasutra. com/ features/ 20070223b/ barton_06. shtml).
The History of Computer Role-Playing Games. Gamasutra. . Retrieved 2009-03-26.
[3] http:/ / neilinnes. org/ textonly/ A. htm
[4] "Sarah Myerscough (Artist) - Ali Baba 2005 - Blackpool Illuminations Gallery" (http:/ / www. sarahmyerscough. co. uk/ Galleries_of_Work/
Blackpool_Illuminations_Gallery/ Ali_Baba_2005. asp). www.sarahmyerscough.co.uk. . Retrieved 2009-08-12.
[5] Vasagar, Jeevan. Court martial hears of drowned Iraqi's final moments. (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ military/ story/ 0,,1766921,00. html)
Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
[6] Fumento, Michael. Back to Falluja: The Iraqi Army versus the Keystone Kops insurgency. (http:/ / www. weeklystandard. com/ Content/
Public/ Articles/ 000/ 000/ 012/ 150igvhf. asp) Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
[7] Levin, Jerry. Will The Real Ali Baba Please Stand Up (http:/ / www. cpt. org/ archives/ 2003/ may03/ 0041. html) Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
[8] Human Rights Watch. The Security situation immediately after the fall of Basra. (http:/ / www. hrw. org/ reports/ 2003/ iraq0603/
BasrSecurityFInal-03. htm) Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
Ali Baba 60
External links
• "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" (http://www.bartleby.com/16/905.html) (e-text, in English)
• Waller Hastings, "Ali Baba and the forty Thieves" (http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/alibaba.htm): essay
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036591) and Arabian Nights (http://www.
imdb.com/title/tt0181199/) and The Sword of Ali Baba (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059772/) at the
Internet Movie Database
Al-Mustazi
Al-Dahir (1176–1226; Arabic: هللا رمأب رهاظلا) was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 1225 to 1226. He was the
son of an-Nasir, and was named as his successor in 1189. In his short reign, he lowered the taxes, and built a strong
army to resist to invasions. He died on 10 July 1226, nine months after his accession, and was succeeded by his son
al-Mustansir.
References
• This text is adapted from William Muir's public domain, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall.
Badoura
Badoura, a Chinese princess; is the heroine of the story of Camaralzaman and Badoura in the Arabian Nights,
described as reputedly 'the most beautiful woman ever seen upon earth'.
Harun al-Rashid 61
Harun al-Rashid
Harun al-Rashid of the Abbasid
Dynasty
Caliph of Baghdad
Hārūn al-Rashīd (Arabic: ديشرلا نوراه; properly spelled Harun ar-Rashid; English: Aaron the Upright, Aaron the
Just, or Aaron the Rightly Guided) (17 March 763 – 24 March 809) was the fifth and most famous Abbasid Caliph in
Iraq. He was born in Rayy in Iran, close to modern Tehran.
He ruled from 786 to 809, and his time was marked by scientific, cultural and religious prosperity. Art and music
also flourished significantly during his reign. He established the library Bayt al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom").
Since Harun was intellectually, politically and militarily resourceful, his life and the court over which he held sway
have been the subject of many tales: some are factual but most are believed to be fictitious. An example of what is
known to be factual is the story of the clock that was among various presents that Harun had delightfully sent to
Charlemagne. The presents were carried by the returning Frankish mission that came to offer Harun friendship in
799. Charlemagne and his retinue deemed the clock to be a conjuration for the sounds it emanated and the tricks it
displayed every time an hour ticked. Among what is known to be fictional is the famous The Book of One Thousand
and One Nights containing many stories that are fantasized by Harun's magnificent court, and even Harun al-Rashid
himself. The family of Barmakids which played a deciding role in establishing the Abbasid Caliphate declined
gradually during his rule.
Harun al-Rashid 62
Life
Hārūn was born in the Rayy. He was the son
of al-Mahdi, the third Abbasid caliph (ruled
775–785), and al-Khayzuran, a former slave
girl from Yemen and a woman of strong
personality who greatly influenced affairs of
state in the reigns of her husband and sons.
The latter allegation is specified in the following tale; Hārūn loved to have his own sister Abbasa and Jafar with him
at times of recreation. Since Muslim etiquette forbade their common presence, Hārūn had Jafar marry Abbassa on
the understanding that the marriage was purely nominal. Nonetheless, the two consummated the marriage. Some
versions have it that she entered Jafar's bedroom in the darkness, masquerading as one of his slave girls. A child
given secret birth was sent by her to Mecca but a maid, quarrelling with her mistress, made known the scandal.
Hārūn, while on a pilgrimage in Mecca, heard the story and ascertained that the tale was probably true. On his return
shortly after, he had Jafar executed, whose body was despatched to Baghdad, and there, divided in two, impaled on
either side of the bridge. It stayed there for three years, when Harun, happening to pass through Baghdad from the
East, gave command for the remains to be taken down and burned. On the death of Jafar, his father and brother were
both cast into prison.
This romantic story is highly doubted by Ibn Khaldun and most modern scholars.[1] The fall of the Barmakids is far
more likely due to the fact that Barmakids were behaving in a manner that Harun found disrespectful (such as
entering his court unannounced) and were making decisions in matters of state without consulting him first.
Hārūn became caliph when he was in his early twenties. On the day of accession, his son al-Ma'mun was born, and
al-Amin some little time later: the latter was the son of Zubaida, a granddaughter of al-Mansur (founder of the city of
Baghdad); so he took precedence over the former, whose mother was a Persian slave-girl. He began his reign by
appointing very able ministers, who carried on the work of the government so well that they greatly improved the
condition of the people.
Harun al-Rashid 63
It was under Hārūn ar-Rashīd that Baghdad flourished into the most splendid city of its period. Tribute was paid by
many rulers to the caliph, and these funds were used on architecture, the arts and a luxurious life at court.
In 796 the Caliph Hārūn decided to reign his court and the government to his father like he did before Ar Raqqah at
the middle Euphrates. Here he spent 12 years, most of his reign. Only once he returned to Baghdad for a short visit.
Several reasons might have influenced the decision to move to ar-Raqqa. It was close to the Byzantine border. The
communication lines via the Euphrates to Baghdad and via the Balikh river to the north and via Palmyra to
Damascus were excellent. The agriculture was flourishing to support the new Imperial center. And from Raqqa any
rebellion in Syria and the middle Euphrates area could be controlled. Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani pictures in his
anthology of poems the splendid life in his court. In ar-Raqqah the Barmekids managed the fate of the empire, and
there both heirs, al-Amin and al-Ma'mun grew up.
Due to the "Thousand -and-One Nights" tales Harun al-Rashid turned into a legendary figure obscuring his true
historic personality. In fact, his reign initiated the political disintegration of the Abbasid caliphate. Syria was
inhabited by tribes with Umayyad sympathies and remained the bitter enemy of the Abbasids and Egypt witnessed
uprisings against Abbasids due to mal-administration and arbitrary taxation. The Umayyads had been established in
Spain in 755 A.D., the Idrisids in the Maghrib(Morocco) in 788 A.D., and the Aghlabids in Ifriqiya(Tunis) in 800
A.D. Besides, unrest flared up in Yemen, and the Kharijites rose in rebellion in Daylam, Kirman, Fars and Sistan.
Revolts also broke out in Khurasan. He waged many campaigns against the Byzantines.
For the administration of the whole empire he fell back on his mentor and long time associate Yahya bin Khalid bin
Barmak. Rashid appointed him as his vazier with full executive powers, and, for seventeen years, this man Yahya
and his sons, served Rashid faithfully in whatever assignment he entrusted to them. But Harun al-Rashid in 187 A.H.
brutally eliminated all the members of Barmakid family.
Al-Rashid appointed Ali bin Isa bin Mahan as the governor of Khurasan. He tried to bring to heel the princes and
chieftains of the region, and to reimpose the full authority of the central government on them. This new policy met
with fierce resistance and provoked numerous uprisings in the region. A major revolt led by Rafeh bin Layth was
started in Samarqand which forced Harun al-Rashid to move to Khurasan. He first removed and arrested Ali bin Isa
bin Mahan but the revolt continued unchecked. Harun al-Rashid died very soon when he reached Sanabad village in
Toos and was buried in the summer palace of Humaid bin Qahtabah, the former Abbasid governor in Khurasan,
situated near the Sanabad village in the Toos region.
He imposed heavy taxes on farmers, traders and artisans. He maintained 4000 slave-girls and concubines to entertain
him.
Al-Rashid virtually dismembered the empire by apportioning it between his two sons al-Amin and al-Ma'mun. Very
soon it became clear that by dividing the empire, Rashid had actually helped to set the opposing parties against one
another, and had provided them with sufficient resources to become independent of each other. After the death of
Harun al-Rashid civil war broke out in the empire between his two sons al-Amin and al-Ma'mun.
Both Einhard and Notker the Stammerer refer to envoys travelling between Harun's and Charlemagne's courts,
amicable discussions concerning Christian access to the Holy Land and the exchange of gifts. Notker mentions
Charlemagne sent Harun Spanish horses, colourful Frisian cloaks and impressive hunting dogs. In 802 Harun sent
Charlemagne a present consisting of silks, brass candelabra, perfume, balsam, ivory chessmen, a colossal tent with
many-colored curtains, an elephant named Abul-Abbas, and a water clock that marked the hours by dropping bronze
balls into a bowl, as mechanical knights — one for each hour — emerged from little doors which shut behind them.
The presents were unprecedented in Western Europe and may have influenced Carolingian art.
When the Byzantine empress Irene was deposed, Nikephoros I became emperor and refused to pay tribute to Harun,
saying that Irene should have been receiving the tribute the whole time. News of this angered Harun, who wrote a
message on the back of the Roman emperor's letter and said "In the name of God the most merciful, From Amir
al-Mu'minin Harun al-Rashid, commander of the faithful, to Nikephoros, the Roman dog. I have read thy letter, Thou
shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply". After campaigns in Asia Minor, Nikephoros was forced to conclude a
Harun al-Rashid 64
Al-Masudi's Anecdotes
Al-Masudi relates a number of interesting anecdotes in The Meadows of Gold illuminating the character of this
famous caliph. For example, he recounts (p. 94) Harun's delight when his horse came in first, closely followed by
al-Ma'mun's, at a race Harun held at Raqqa. Al-Masudi tells the story of Harun setting his poets a challenging task.
When others failed to please him, Miskin of Medina succeeded superbly well. The poet then launched into a moving
account of how much it had cost him to learn that song. Harun laughed saying he knew not which was more
entertaining, the song or the story. He rewarded the poet.[3]
There is also the tale of Harun asking Ishaq ibn Ibrahim to keep singing. The musician did until the caliph fell asleep.
Then, strangely, a handsome young man appeared, snatched the musician's lute, sang a very moving piece
(al-Masudi quotes it), and left. On awakening and being informed of this, Harun said Ishaq ibn Ibrahim had received
a supernatural visitation.
Harun, like a number of caliphs, is given an anecdote connecting a poem with his death. Shortly before he died he is
said to have been reading some lines by Abu al-Atahiya about the transitory nature of the power and pleasures of this
world.
Timeline
• 763: Hārūn is born on 17 March, the son of Caliph al-Mahdi and the Yemeni girl al-Khayzuran.
• 780: Hārūn is the leader of military expeditions against the Byzantine Empire.
• 782: Hārūn is leader of a military campaign against the Byzantine Empire under Irene of Athens. The defection of
the Armenian general Tatzates allows him to reach as far as the Bosporus. A peace treaty is signed on favourable
terms. Harun receives the honorific title ar-Rashīd, named second in succession to the caliphal throne and also
appointed governor of Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
• 786: 14 September: Hārūn's brother al-Hadi dies under mysterious circumstances — it was rumoured that his
supportive mother al-Khayzuran was responsible. Hārūn becomes the new caliph and makes Yahya the Barmakid
his Grand Vizier - but al-Khayzuran exercised much influence over the politics.
• 789: al-Khayzuran dies , leaving more of the effective power in the hands of Hārūn.
• 791: Hārūn wages war against the Byzantine Empire.
• 795: To prevent Shiite rebellions, Hārūn imprisons Musa al-Kazim, the Shiite imam.
• 796: Hārūn moves the Imperial residence and the government from Baghdad to ar-Raqqah.
• 799: Hārūn orders Sindi ibn Shahiq to poison the 7th Shiite Imam Musa al-Kazim, causing the death of the Shiite
leader in prison, four years after having been imprisoned by Hārūn.
• 800: Hārūn appoints Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab governor over Tunisia, making him a semi-autonomous ruler in return
for substantial yearly payments.
• 802: Hārūn gives two albino elephants to Charlemagne as a diplomatic gift.
• 803: Yahya dies, and even more of effective power comes in the hands of Hārūn.
• 805: Harun defeats Emperor Nikephoros I Logothetes at the Battle of Krasos
• 807: Hārūn's forces occupy Cyprus.
Harun al-Rashid 65
• 809: Lead 5 expeditions against Abdurrahman Ad-Dakhil in Cyprus, wins the first battle in the north of Cyprus.
Attacked by Ali An-Zabuhn while praying on Al-Masjid al-Nabawi, received injuries to his eyes. He died on 30
November after being injured for 1 day.
Hārūn is widely considered the greatest of the Abbasid caliphs, presiding over the Arab Empire at its political and
cultural peak. Consequently, Islamic literature (the work of ibn Kathir, for example) has raised him to the level of an
ideal figure, a great military and intellectual leader, even a paragon for future rulers to emulate. His best-known
portrayal in the West, in the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, has little basis in historical fact, but does show
the mythic stature he has attained over time.
Literature
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem which started
One day Haroun Al-Raschid read
A book wherein the poet said
Where are the kings and where the rest
Of those who once the world possessed?
• O. Henry uses this character in his theme "Turning the tables on Haroun al Raschid"
• Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem in his youth entitled Recollections Of The Arabian Nights. Every stanza (except
the last one) ends with "of good Haroun Alraschid".
• Harun al-Rashid was a main figure and character throughout several of the stories of some of the oldest versions
of the 1001 Nights
• Hārūn ar-Rashīd figures throuhout James Joyce's Ulysses, in a dream of Stephen Dedalus, one of the protagonists.
Stephen's efforts to recall this dream continue throughout the novel, culminating in the novel's fifteenth episode,
wherein some characters also take on the guise of Hārūn.
• Harun al-Rashid is also celebrated in the 1923 poem by W.B. Yeats "The Gift of Harun al-Rashid".
• Harun al-Rashid is noted in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita by the character Korovyov.
• A story of one of Harun's wanderings provides the climax to the narrative game of titles at the end of Italo
Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler (1979). In Calvino's story, Harun wanders at night, only to be drawn
into a conspiracy in which he is selected to assassinate the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid.
• The two protagonists of Salman Rushdie's 1990 novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories are Haroun and his father
Rashid Khalifa.
• Harun al-Rashid, as portrayed in 1001 nights is used as a role-model for the character Jinny Hamilton, the young
heiress to the solar system-wide Conrad empire, in Spider Robinson's novel Variable Star.
• In the Science Fiction "Sten" novels, by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch, the character of the Eternal Emperor uses
the name "H.E.Raschid" when incognito; this is confirmed, in the final book of the series, as a reference to the
character from Burton's translation of One Thousand Nights and a Night.
• One of the characters in Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder novel "Even the Wicked" is a controversial tenured
African-American professor of economics at Queens College whose name-change, from Wilbur Julian to Julian
Rashid, "represented of his admiration for the legendary Haroun-al-Rashid."
• In Roald Dahl's story of The BFG, it is mentioned by the Sultan of Baghdad that he had an uncle called Caliph
Harun al-Rashid who has taken away with his wife and ten children three nights from when the Sultan mentioned
it.
Harun al-Rashid 66
Films
• The movie The Golden Blade (1952), starring Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie depicts the adventures of Harun
who uses a magic sword to free a fairy-tale Bagdad from Jafar, the evil usurper of the throne. After he finally
wins the hand of princess Khairuzan she awards him the title Al-Rashid.
Comics
• The comic book The Sandman features a story (issue 50, "Ramadan") set in the world of the Arabian Nights, with
Hārūn ar-Rashīd as the protagonist. It highlights his historical and mythical role as well as his discussion of the
transitory nature of power. The story is included in the collection The Sandman: Fables and Reflections.
• Haroun El Poussah in the French comic strip Iznogoud is a satirical version of Hārūn ar-Rashīd.
• The graphic novel Dschinn Dschinn by Ralf König has as its backstory the delegation from Harun bringing gifts
to Charlemagne.
• He appears in Doraemon long story, Dorabian Night when Doraemon and his friends first came to Baghdad
• He appears in the Chilean comic Mampato in "Bromisnar of Bagdad" [4]
[5]
Games
• In Quest for Glory II, the sultan who adopts the Hero as his son is named Hārūn ar-Rashīd. He is often seen
prophesying on the streets of Shapeir as The Poet Omar.
• In Civilization 5, Harun ar-Rashid is the leader of the Arabian Empire.
Other
Future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, when he was a New York Police Department Commissioner, was called
in the local newspapers "Haroun-al-Roosevelt" for his habit of lonely all-night rambles on the streets of Manhattan,
surreptitiously catching police officers off their posts. (Harun al-Rashid is said in the 1001 Nights to have wandered
Baghdad at night dressed as a merchant in order to observe the lives of his subjects).
See also
• Waqifite Shia
References
[1] See the translator's note on page 215 of at Tabari v. 30.
[2] Tarikh ath-Thabari 4/668-669
[3] Al-Masudi, The Meadows of Gold, p. 94.
[4] http:/ / es. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Bromisnar_de_Bagdad
[5] http:/ / www. mampato. aviacion. cl/ LibrosMampato. htm
Harun al-Rashid 67
Further reading
• al-Masudi, The Meadows of Gold, The Abbasids, transl. Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone, Kegan paul, London and
New York, 1989
• al-Tabari "The History of al-Tabari" volume XXX "The 'Abbasid Caliphate in Equilibrium" transl. C.E.
Bosworth, SUNY, Albany, 1989.
• Clot, André (1990). Harun Al-Rashid and the Age of a Thousand and One Nights. New Amsterdam Books.
ISBN 0941533654.
• Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, "Two Lives of Charlemagne," transl. Lewis Thorpe, Penguin,
Harmondsworth, 1977 (1969)
• John H. Haaren, Famous Men of the Middle Ages (http://www.authorama.com/
famous-men-of-the-middle-ages-13.html)
• William Muir, K.C.S.I., The Caliphate, its rise, decline, and fall (http://www.archive.org/details/
caliphateitsris00muirgoog)
• Theophanes, "The Chronicle of Theophanes," transl. Harry Turtledove, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia, 1982
• Norwich, John J. (1991). Byzantium: The Apogee. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.. ISBN 0-394-53779-3.
• Zabeth, Hyder Reza (1999). Landmarks of Mashhad. Alhoda UK. ISBN 9644442210.
External links
• Page at Islam on Line (http://www.islamonline.net/arabic/history/1422/06/article06.shtml) (Arabic)
Ja'far
Ja'far bin Yahya Barmaki (Persian: یکمرب ییحی نب رفعج, Arabic: ىيحي نب رفعج, ja`far bin yaḥyā) (767–803)
was the son of a Persian Vizier (Yahya ibn Khalid) of the Arab Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, from whom he
inherited that position. He was a member of the influential Barmakids family. He was beheaded in 803 for allegedly
having an affair with Harun al-Rashid's sister Abbasa.
He had a reputation as a patron of the sciences, and did much to introduce Greek science into Baghdad, attracting
scholars from the nearby Academy of Gundishapur to help translate Persian works into Arabic (the so-called
"Translation Movement". He was also credited with convincing the caliph to open a paper mill in Baghdad, the
secret of papermaking had been obtained from Chinese prisoners at the Battle of Talas, in present day Kyrgyzstan in
751.
In fiction
Ja'far also appears (under the name of Giafar in most translations) along with Harun al-Rashid in several Arabian
Nights tales, often acting as a protagonist. In "The Three Apples" for example, Ja'far is like a detective who must
solve a murder mystery and find the culprit behind the murder, and in "The Tale of Attaf", Ja'far is more of an
adventurer.
However, more recent media inspired by the Arabian Nights has portrayed Ja'far as both a villain and a sorcerer:
• In the movie The Golden Blade (1952) Harun Al-Rashid (Rock Hudson) battles Jafar (George Macready), vizier
to the caliph of Bagdad who tries to usurp the throne.
• In 1989 the video game Prince of Persia featured a scheming magician named Jaffar who seized power from the
Sultan and tried to force the Princess to marry him (Jaffar later returned in the 1993 sequel).
Ja'far 68
• In 1992 the Disney adaptation of Aladdin featured an evil vizier and sorcerer called Jafar, who is a combination of
an (unnamed) vizier and an evil magician from the original Aladdin tale.
• In the later Prince of Persia games, an unnamed 'Vizier' is the main villain and is based on the Jaffar character
from the original game.
• In a French cartoon series by René Goscinny and Jean Tabary "Iznogoud the grand vizier" he is portrayed as an
incompetent usurper who never gets to usurp the throne of good Caliph Haroun al Poussah.
External links
• How Greek Science passed to the Arabs [1], with some references to Jafar
References
[1] http:/ / www. aina. org/ books/ hgsptta. htm
Khosrau 69
Khosrau
Khosrau II
King of Persia
Born unknown
Birthplace Ctesiphon
Predecessor Hormizd IV
Kavadh II
Successor Kavadh II as King of Persia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius as King of Kings
Father Hormizd IV
Turn of tides
Ultimately, in 622, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (who had succeeded Phocas in 610 and ruled until 641) was
able to take the field with a powerful force. In 624, he advanced into northern Media, where he destroyed the great
fire-temple of Ganzhak (Gazaca). Several years later, in 626, he captured Lazistan (Colchis). Later that same year,
Persian general Shahrbaraz advanced to Chalcedon and attempted to capture Constantinople with the help of Persia's
Avar allies. His maneuver failed as his forces were defeated, and he withdrew his army from Anatolia later in 628.
Following the Khazar invasion of Transcaucasia in 627, Heraclius defeated the Persian army at the Battle of Nineveh
and advanced towards Ctesiphon. Khosrau II fled from his favourite residence, Dastgerd (near Baghdad), without
offering resistance. Meanwhile, some of the Persian grandees freed his eldest son Kavadh II (he ruled briefly in 628),
whom Khosrau II had imprisoned, and proclaimed him King on the night of 23–4 February, 628.[8] Four days
afterwards, Khosrau II was murdered in his palace. Meanwhile, Heraclius returned in triumph to Constantinople and
in 629 the True Cross was returned to him and Egypt evacuated, while the Persian empire, from the apparent
greatness which it had reached ten years ago, sank into hopeless anarchy. It was overtaken by the armies of the first
Islamic Caliphs beginning in 634.
Khosrau 72
سرفلا ميظع ىرسك ىلا هللا لوسر دمحم نم. عبتا نم ىلع مالس
نا و هل كيرشال هدحو هللا الا هلاال نا دهش و هلوسر و هللاب نمآ و ىدهلا
هلوسر و هدبع دمحم. هللا ءاعدب كوعدا، ةفاك سانلا ىلا هللا لوسر ىناف
نيرفاكلا ىلع لوقلا قحي و ايح ناك نم رذنال. ملست ملساف. ناف
The assassination of Chosroes, in a Mughal
كيلع سوجملا مثا ناف تيبا.
manuscript of ca 1535, Persian poems are from
Ferdowsi's Shahnameh English translation:
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Ever Merciful
From Muhammad, Messenger of God, to Chosroes, Ruler of Persia. Peace be on him who follows the
guidance, believes in God and His Messenger and bears witness that there is no one worthy of worship save
God, the One, without associate, and that Muhammad is His Servant and Messenger. I invite you to the Call of
God, as I am the Messenger of God to the whole of mankind, so that I may warn every living person and so
that the truth may become clear and the judgement of God may overtake the disbelievers. I call upon you to
accept Islam and thus make yourself secure. If you turn away, you will bear the sins of your Zoroastrian
subjects.
The Persian historian Tabari continues that in refusal and outrage, Khosrau tore up Muhammed's letter and
commanded Badhan, his vassal ruler of Yemen, to dispatch two valiant men to identify, seize and bring this man
from Hijaz (Muhammad) to him. Meanwhile, back in Madinah, Abdullah told Muhammad how Khosrau had torn his
letter to pieces and Muhammad's only reply was, "May his kingdom tear apart", and predicted that Khosrau's own
son shall kill him. The narration carries on with accounts of their encounter and dialogue with Muhammad and
conversion of Badhan (Bāzān) and the whole Yemenite Persians to Islam subsequent to receipt of shocking tidings of
Khosrau’s murder by his own son, Kavadh II.[9]
In other chapters Tabari gives two more detailed accounts. One tells of how Islam had been presented in three
subsequent years to the Persian monarch (Khosrau II) by an angel of Allah while he had refused the whole time; and
the other on how Khosrau II orders Persians thrice to construct a dam and iwan on the Tigris river with untold toil
and outlay with exact intervals of 8 months, only to see each one break once Khosrau himself embarked it to
celebrate its construction.[1]
Khosrau 73
Even second-class marzbans and spahbods were not exempted from such cumbersome formalities, not to
mention an envoy arriving from a relatively obscure source to the Sassanid court; and even then during the
royal audience, one had to observe certain strict customs such as kissing the floor, covering one’s mouth by
panam (Persian: )مانپ, conversing with particular etiquette, and carefully avoiding approaching Shahanshah’s
throne.[10]
Caetani deduces that bearing in mind the impertinence and assertive tone of the message, Sassanid
administrators must, in all probability, have denied such audience.
• As regards to Khosrau’s challenging dam project on the Tigris, Caetani elaborates that the years 6 and 7 AH
(627-628 AD) had been the most tumultuous periods of the Sassanid era: Heraclius was closing in on gates of
Ctesiphon following his decisive victory at Nineveh; the treasury was nearly exhausted and the empire itself was
weakening.
It would then be negligence towards historical facts to imagine an unstable monarch triply commencing the
ambitious task of “untold toil and outlay” with a bankrupted treasury and lack of safety on the Tigris
riverside.[11]
• Caetani also hints at the fact that none of the Persian historical chronicles recording the ending years of the
Sassanid era — specifically khodaynamehs (Persian: همانيادخmeaning “book of lords”) that later became sources
of information for Ferdowsi and other scientists and historians such as Birouni, Tha'alibi, Masudi, Isfahani –
mention such an embassy, and whatever narrated in this context is exclusively limited to Arabic sources, while
Iranians have never been aware of this matter.
Furthermore, there is no reference to these letters in Latin, Greek, Armenian, Georgian, or Syriac sources, signifying
that these letters — including the ones dispatched to Heraclius, Ashama ibn Abjar and Patriarch of Alexandria- for
all non-Arabic sources, are entirely unheard-of.[12]
Khosrau 74
In art
The battles between Heraclius and Khosrau are depicted in a famous early Renaissance fresco by Piero della
Francesca, part of the History of the True Cross cycle in the church of San Francesco, Arezzo. Khosrau has been
painted in the Ajanta Frescoes.
See also
• Shirin Beloved wife of Khosrau
• Khosrow and Shirin A Persian love story depicting a ménage à trois between Khosrau and Shirin as king and
queen, and Farhad as Shirin's lover
• Barbad Khosrau's favorite court musician
• Shabdiz Khosrau's highly admired horse
• Non-Muslim interactants with Muslims during Muhammad's era
• Muqawqis, Ruler of Alexandria
• Behistun inscription
• Behistun palace
• Babai the Great
References
• Edward Walford, translator, The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius: A History of the Church from AD 431 to AD
594, 1846. Reprinted 2008. Evolution Publishing, ISBN 978-1-889758-88-6. [13] — a primary source containing
detailed information about the early reign of Khosrau II and his relationship with the Romans.
• Continuité des élites à Byzance durante les siècles obscurs. Les princes caucasiens et l'Empire du VIe au IXe
siècle, 2006
Footnotes
[1] Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, History of the Prophets and Kings, vol. 2
[2] Dinavari, Akhbâr al-tiwâl, pp. 91-92;
[3] Ferdowsi in Shahnameh affirms the same conditions put forth by Maurice.
[4] Gumilev L.N. Bahram Chubin, p. 229 - 230.
[5] Usanova M. Ismoil Somonii waqfnomasi, p. 29.
[6] Armenian Folk Literature, John Mamikonean's History of Taron (http:/ / rbedrosian. com/ jm1. htm)
[7] Richard Nelson Frye, The History of Ancient Iran, p 330.
[8] According James Howard-Johnston in his notes to The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos (trans. R.W. Thomson; Liverpool: University
Press, 1999), p. 221
[9] Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, History of the Prophets and Kings, vol. 3
[10] For a comprehensive research about Sassanid court ceremonies and bureaucratic procedures, you may refer to Arthur Christensen’s
“Sassanid Persia”
[11] Leone Caetani, Annali dell' Islam, vol. 2, chapter 1, paragraph 45-46
[12] Leone Caetani, Annali dell' Islam, vol. 4, p. 74
[13] http:/ / www. evolpub. com/ CRE/ CREseries. html#CRE5
Mustensir Billah 75
Mustensir Billah
Al-Mustansir (died 1242) (Arabic: هللاب رصنتسملا) was the penultimate Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 1226 to
1242. He was the son of az-Zahir and the grandson of an-Nasir. His lasting contribution was the founding of the
Mustansiriya Madrasah on the banks of the Tigris in 1233.
References
• This text is adapted from William Muir's public domain, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall.
References in Poetry
The Old Man of the Sea is alluded to in Edwin Arlington Robinson's book-length narrative poem King Jasper[3] . In
part 3 of the poem, King Jasper dreams of his deceased friend Hebron (whom Jasper betrayed) riding on his back.
"You cannot fall yet, and I'm riding nicely," Hebron tells Jasper. "If only we might have the sight of water, / We'd
say that I'm the Old Man of the Sea, / And you Sinbad the Sailor." Hebron then turns to gold (a symbol of Jasper's
motivation for betraying him) and coaxes Jasper to leap across a ravine with the heavy, golden Hebron on his back.
Old Man of the Sea 76
References
[1] Iliad, Book I, line 588 (Stanley Lombardo's notation)
[2] ISBN 0-399-14650-4
[3] New York. The Macmillan Company. 1935.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
Marriage
The earliest source mentioning Shirin is the Ecclesiastical history of Evagrius Scholasticus, where she is mentioned
as "Sira". It preserves letter sent by Khosrau II to the shrine of Saint Sergius in Resafa. One dated to 592/593
includes the following passage[1] : "At the time when I [Khosrau II] was at Beramais, I begged of thee, O holy one,
that thou wouldest come to my aid, and that Sira might conceive: and inasmuch as Sira was a Christian and I a
heathen, and our law forbids us to have a Christian wife, nevertheless, on account of my favourable feelings towards
thee, I disregarded the law as respects her, and among my wives I have constantly esteemed, and do still esteem her
as peculiarly mine." [2]
"Thus I resolved to request of thy goodness, O Saint, that she might conceive: and I made the request with a vow,
that, if Sira should conceive, I would send the cross she wears to thy venerable sanctuary. On this account both I and
Sira purposed to retain this cross in memory of thy name, O Saint, and in place of it to send five thousand staters, as
its value, which does not really exceed four thousand four hundred staters. From the time that I conceived this
request and these intentions, until I reached Rhosochosron, not more than ten days elapsed, when thou, O Saint, not
on account of my worthiness but thy kindness, appearedst to me in a vision of the night and didst thrice tell me that
Sira should conceive, while, in the same vision, thrice I replied, It is well."[2]
"From that day forward Sira has not experienced the custom of women, because thou art the granter of requests;
though I, had I not believed thy words, and that thou art holy and the granter of requests, should have doubted that
she would not thenceforward experience the custom of women. From this circumstance I was convinced of the
power of the vision and the truth of thy words, and accordingly forthwith sent the same cross and its value to thy
venerable sanctuary, with directions that out of that sum should be made a disc, and a cup for the purposes of the
divine mysteries, as also a cross to be fixed upon the holy table, and a censer, all of gold: also a Hunnish veil
adorned with gold. Let the surplus of the sum belong to thy sanctuary, in order that by virtue of thy fortune, O saint,
thou mayest come to the aid of me and Sira in all matters, and especially with respect to this petition; and that what
has been already procured for us by thy intercession, may be consummated according to the compassion of thy
goodness, and the desire of me and Sira; so that both of us, and all persons in the world, may trust in thy power and
continue to believe in thee."[2]
Shirin the Armenian 77
Theophylact Simocatta gives a similar account with additional information. "In the following year the Persian king
[Khosrau II] proclaimed as queen Seirem [Shirin] who was of Roman birth and Christian religion, and of an age
blossoming for marriage, slept with her. ... "In the third year he entreated Sergius, the most efficacious in Persia, that
a child by Seirem be granted to him. Shortly afterwards this came to pass for him.[3] The Roman (Byzantine)
ancestry of Shirin is contradicted by Sebeos: "[Xosrov], in accordance with their Magian religion, had numerous
wives. He also took Christian wives, and had an extremely beautiful Christian wife from the land of Xuzhastan
named Shirin, the Bambish, queen of queens [tiknats' tikin]. She constructed a monastery and a church close to the
royal abode, and settled priests and deacons there alloting from the court stipends and money for clothing. She
lavished gold and silver [on the monastery]. Bravely, with her head held high she preached the gospel of the
Kingdom, at court, and none of the grandee mages dared open his mouth to say anything—large or small—about
Christians. When, however, days passed and her end approached, many of the mages who had converted to
Christianity, were martyred in various places." [4]
The Khuzistan Chronicle, written by an Aramean Christian from Khuzistan [Iran] probably in 680 is described as the
Syriac counterpart of the Armenian work of Sebeos. We read about the relationship between the bishop Isho Yahb
and the persian king Khosrau II. Parvez (590-628) : "Isho Yahb was treated respectfully throughout his life, by the
king himself and his two christian wives Shirin the Aramean and Mary the Roman". (Theodor. Nöldeke: Die von
Guidi herausgegebene syrische Chronik, Wien 1893, p. 10)
The Chronicle of Séert (Siirt) is an anonymously authored historiographical text written by the Nestorian Church in
Persia and the Middle East, possibly as early as the 9th century AD. The text deals with ecclesiastical, social, and
political issues of the Christian church giving a history of its leaders and notable members. LVIII. - History of
Khosrau Parvez, son of Hormizd "Khosrau, by gratitude for Maurice, ordered to rebuild churches and to honor the
Christians. He built himself two churches for Marie (Maryam) and a big church and a castle in the country of Beth
Laspar for his wife Shirin, the Aramean." (Patrologia Orientalis, Tome VII. - Fascicule 2, Histoire Nestorienne
(Chronique de Séert), Seconde Partie (1), publiée et traduite par Mgr Addai Scher, Paris 1911, Published Paris :
Firmin-Didot 1950 p. 467)
See also
• Khosrau Parviz
• Sassanid Empire
• Chosroes and Shirin
• Nezami
• Sarkash
• Behistun palace
References
[1] Baum (2004), p. 30-32
[2] Evagrius Scholasticus, "Ecclesiastical History". Book 6, Chapter XXI (21). 1846 translation by E. Walford. (http:/ / www. tertullian. org/
fathers/ evagrius_6_book6. htm)
[3] Excerpts from Theophylact's History. Chapters 13.7 and 14. 1 Translation by Michael Whitby (http:/ / www. humanities. uci. edu/ sasanika/
pdf/ Theophylact. pdf)
[4] "Sebeos' History ", Chapters 4. Translation by Robert Bedrosian (1985) (http:/ / rbedrosian. com/ seb5. htm)
Sources
• Baum, Wilhelm (2004). Christian, queen, myth of love, a woman of late antiquity, historical reality and literary
effect. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1593332823.
• Gianroberto Scarcia: Scirin. La Regina dei Magi, Ed. Jaca Book, Milano, 2004.
Sinbad the Sailor 78
The tales
Sinbad hatches a plan to blind the cyclops (again, obvious parallels with the story of Polyphemus in Homer's
Odyssey), with the red-hot iron spits with which the monster has been kebabing and roasting the ship's company. He
and the remaining men escape. After further adventures (including a gigantic python from which Sinbad escapes
thanks to his quick wits), he returns to Baghdad, wealthier than ever.
Such episodes continue; soon he has a sizable store of bread and water, as well as the gold and gems from the
corpses, but is still unable to escape, until one day a wild animal shows him a passage to the outside, high above the
sea. From here a passing ship rescues him and carries him back to Baghdad, where he gives alms to the poor and
resumes his life of pleasure. (Burton's footnote comments: "This tale is evidently taken from the escape of
Aristomenes the Messenian from the pit into which he had been thrown, a fox being his guide. The Arabs in an early
day were eager students of Greek literature.") Similarly, the first half of the voyage resembles the Circe episode in
The Odyssey, with certain differences: while a plant robbed Sinbad's men of their reason in the Arab tales, it was
only Circe's magic which "fattened" Odysseus' men in The Odyssey. It is in an earlier episode, featuring the 'Lotus
Eaters', that Odysseus' men are fed a similar magical fruit which robs them of their senses.
Sinbad the Sailor 81
However, the infuriated parent rocs soon catch up with the vessel and destroy it by dropping giant boulders they
have carried in their talons. Shipwrecked yet again, Sinbad is enslaved by the Old Man of the Sea, who rides on his
shoulders with his legs twisted round Sinbad's neck and will not let go, riding him both day and night until Sinbad
would welcome death. (Burton's footnote discusses possible origins for the old man—the orang-utan, the Greek
triton—and favours the African custom of riding on slaves in this way. This is also reminiscent of an old Indian
folktale, Vikram aur Betaal).
Eventually, Sinbad makes wine and tricks the Old Man into drinking some, then Sinbad kills him after he has fallen
off and escapes. A ship carries him to the City of the Apes, a place whose inhabitants spend each night in boats
off-shore, while their town is abandoned to man-eating apes. Yet through the apes Sinbad recoups his fortune, and so
eventually finds a ship which takes him home once more to Baghdad.
In pop culture
• Sinbad appears in the comic book series Fables written by Bill Willingham, and as the teenaged Alsind in the
comic book series Arak, Son of Thunder—which takes place in the 9th century AD—written by Roy Thomas.
• "The Last Voyage of Sindbad" by Richard Corben and Jan Strnad originally appeared as "New Tales of the
Arabian Nights" serialized in Heavy Metal (magazine) #15-28 (1978–79) and was later collected and reprinted as
a trade paperback book.
• In the Arabian Nights-themed video game Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sinbad looks almost exactly like Knuckles
the Echidna.
• In Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier Sinbad appears as the Immortal
Orlando's lover of thirty years, until he leaves for his 8th Voyage and never returns.
• Sinbad provides the theme for Sindbad's Storybook Voyage at Tokyo DisneySea, for a roller coaster at the
Efteling theme park at Kaatsheuvel, Netherlands, and for an elaborate live-action stunt show, The Eighth Voyage
of Sindbad, at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida.
• "Nagisa no Sinbad" (渚のシンドバッド) was the 4th single released by Pink Lady, a popular Japanese duo in the
late 1970s and early 1980s . The song has been covered by former idol group W and by the Japanese super group
Morning Musume.
• In 1978, Gottlieb manufacturing released a pinball machine named "Sinbad", featuring characters in the artwork
from the movie Eye of the Tiger. Also released, in a shorter run, was an Eye of the Tiger pinball.
• Successful comedian David Adkins, uses the stage name Sinbad.
• Sinbad plays an important role in the 2000 novel "The Amazing Voyage of Azzam" as the often mentioned but
never seen rival of the glory seeking main character.
• Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Milhauser has a story entitled "The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad" in his 1990
collection "The Barnam Museum
In science
• Copeland CS, Mann VH, Morales ME, Kalinna BH, Brindley PJ. "The Sinbad retrotransposon from the genome
of the human blood fluke, Schistosoma mansoni, and the distribution of related Pao-like elements." BMC Evol
Biol. 2005 Feb 23;5(1):20. PMID: 15725362
• Marcelli A, Burattini E, Mencuccini C, Calvani P, Nucara A, Lupi S, Sanchez Del Rio M. "SINBAD, a brilliant
IR source from the DAPhiNE storage ring." J Synchrotron Radiat. 1998 May 1;5(Pt 3):575-7. Epub 1998 May 1.
PMID: 15263583
• Favorov OV, Ryder D. "SINBAD: a neocortical mechanism for discovering environmental variables and
regularities hidden in sensory input." Biol Cybern. 2004 Mar;90(3):191-202. Epub 2004 Mar 12. PMID:
15052482
Notes
[1] W. Eilers (1983), "Iran and Mesopotamia" in E. Yarshater, The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
pg 497
[2] Scott Meisami, Julie; Starkey, Paul; Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Taylor & Francis, 1998, ISBN 978-0-415-18572-1; p. 24.
[3] http:/ / classiclit. about. com/ library/ bl-etexts/ arabian/ bl-arabian-3sindbad. htm
[4] Burton's translation on-line (http:/ / www. wollamshram. ca/ 1001/ Vol_6/ vol6. htm)
[5] Marzolph, Ulrich and Richard van Leeuwen. 2004. The Arabian nights encyclopedia, Volume 1. P.506-508
[6] Irwin, Robert. 2004. The Arabian nights: a companion.
[7] Haddawy, Husain, The Arabian Nights V.1, London, W.W.Norton:1995 ISBN 978-0-393-31367-3
Sinbad the Sailor 85
External links
• Story of Sindbad The Sailor (http://www.stefanmart.de/02_sindbad/020e_sindbadinhalt.htm)
• 21 Illustrations by the German cartoon pioneer Stefan Mart, from Tales of the Nations (1933) (http://www.
stefanmart.de/thumbs/02e_sindbad.htm)
• Sindbad's Middle-European reincarnation (http://www.zoltandemmeworks.net/eng/
Sindbad-Arabian-Nights-behavior-Middle-Europe.html#maincolumn_full)
• ' Listen it in Hindi' (http://www.lyricsmasti.com/song/6295/get_lyrics_of_Sinbad-the-Sailor.html)
• circa 1960 Finnish matchboxlabel with advertisement for the 1955 Howard Hughes produced film, from the
Richard Greene Collection of Popular Culture (http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/
0K9mRqHa7G2qBdSgW9aAWGvbuVeAo6fyaf1fHsi_siitMbkqalNGcuJvfegirnJPYun7cOxnGlTtBdbv29VcEw/
fin_movielabels3.jpg)
Widow Twankey
Widow Twankey is a female character in the pantomime Aladdin. The
character is a pantomime dame, portrayed by a man; and is a comic foil
to the principal boy, Aladdin – played by a female actor.
History
The story of Aladdin is drawn from One Thousand and One Nights, a
collection of Middle-Eastern fables. It was first published in England
between 1704 and 1714; and this story was dramatised in 1788 by John
O'Keefe for Covent Garden. In 1813, a comic character of the "dumb
slave" was introduced to Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, as a vehicle
for the clown, Joseph Grimaldi, and at the same time, a
washer-woman, Ching Mustapha was introduced to the play.[1]
The character has had a number of different names over the years: Ching Mustapha was followed by Wee Ping,
Chow Chow, and Tan King. In 1861, the character became the Widow Twankay — named for a cheap blend of
China tea.[1] Twankay (Chinese), or 'twankey tea' is an inferior grade of green tea, with an old, ragged, open leaf —
the implication is that the widow is 'past her best'. The -kay, or -key ending derives from the Chinese (Mandarin) for
tea – chá – a soft pronunciation gives the English slang char.[2] Occasionally the spelling of her name in the
programme (but not the pronunciation on the stage) is varied to make it look more like a "Chinese" personal name —
e.g., "Tuang Kee Chung" in a 1979 musical version.
The story is located in a mythical China, but with many Arabic ideas, names and places which betray its
Middle-Eastern origins. In some productions, the Chinese laundry is located in Limehouse, in the East End of
London. There was a considerable chinatown located here, since the early 19th century, to serve the needs of
Widow Twankey 86
Chinese seamen. The area became infamous through exaggerated reports of opium dens and slum housing. Since the
destruction of World War II, it has relocated to Soho.
Portrayals
Joseph Grimaldi took many of the early female roles in pantomimes at Drury Lane. He was notable for introducing
the pantomime dame, and the tradition of audience participation and community singing. He was a specialist in
physical comedy; particularly tumbling and falling.[3] The first "Widow Twankey" was played by James Rogers at
the Strand Theatre on 1 April 1861, in an 'extravanganza' by H. J. Byron, Aladdin or The Wonderful Scamp — this
play also featured a character named Pekoe.[1]
The comedian Dan Leno portrayed Widow Twankey from 1896 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with Marie Lloyd
in the role of principal boy – Aladdin. Leno introduced dancing and long monologues with the audience to the role –
bringing the then popular music hall into pantomime.
Aladdin continues as a part of the repertoire of the Christmas season. Today, the dame is often played by popular
television stars, but in 2004 and 2005, Sir Ian McKellen played the part of Widow Twankey at the Old Vic. This
reintroduced a tradition of senior classical actors playing pantomime, which was originally played in the theatrical
off-season between December and April. This script was heavy with adult innuendo such as "I've got something
cheesy bubbling in my oven" and "your front porch could do with a good lick".[4] A musical version of Aladdin was
commissioned from Sandy Wilson, for the 1979–80 reopening season of the Lyric Hammersmith.
Widow Twankey was also portrayed by Michael Hurst (credited as "Edith Sidebottom") in three Hercules: The
Legendary Journeys episodes. First in the season four episode "...and Fancy Free," followed by the episode "Men in
Pink" He later reprised the role for the final time in a season five episode entitled "Greece is Burning." The character
of Widow Twankey is a diva, married at least 12 times, and a teacher of dance.
Mark Linn-Baker played the character on stage in November 2006 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He will return
in December 2009.
Euan McIver is an exponent of traditional Scottish pantomime and famous for his Dame portrayals.
References
[1] Pantomime Guided Tour: Aladdin (http:/ / www. peopleplayuk. org. uk/ guided_tours/ pantomime_tour/ the_origins_of_pantomime_stories/
aladdin. php) (PeoplePlay – Theatre Museum) accessed 10 July 2008
[2] The word tea, probably derives from the Chinese (Amoy) word te, although a similar word occurs in both Malay and Dutch (East Indies).
Webster's Third International Dictionary of the English Language (Merriam, 1969) places the origin of the word with the town of Tunki, in
Anhwei province
[3] Joseph Grimaldi (http:/ / www. peopleplayuk. org. uk/ guided_tours/ pantomime_tour/ early_pantomime/ grimaldi. php) (PeoplePlay)
accessed 10 July 2008
[4] Aladdin (http:/ / arts. guardian. co. uk/ reviews/ story/ 0,,1377238,00. html) Michael Billington The Guardian December 20, 2004 accessed 10
July 2008
The Fisherman and the Jinni 87
Synopsis
There was an old, poor fisherman who cast his net four times a day and only four times. One day he went to the
shore and cast his net. When he tried to pull it up, he found it to be heavy. When he dove in and pulled up the net, he
found a dead donkey in it. Then he cast his net again and netted a pitcher full of dirt. Then he cast his net for a third
time and netted shards of pottery and glass. On his fourth and final try, he called upon the name of God and cast his
net. When he pulled it up he found a copper jar with a cap that had the seal of Solomon on it. The fisherman was
overjoyed, since he could sell the jar for money. He was curious of what was inside the jar, and removed the cap
with his knife. A plume of smoke came out of the jar and condensed into an Ifrit (powerful genie). The fisherman
was frightened, although initially the Jinni did not notice him. The Jinni thought that Solomon had come to kill him.
When the fisherman told him that Solomon had been dead for many centuries, the Jinni was overjoyed and granted
the fisherman a choice of the manner of his death.
The Jinni explained that for the first hundred years of his imprisonment, he swore to enrich the person who freed him
forever. For the second century of his imprisonment, he swore to grant his liberator great wealth, but nobody freed
him. After another century, he swore to grant three wishes to the person who freed him, yet nobody did so. After four
hundred years of imprisonment, the Jinni became enraged and swore to grant the person who freed him a choice of
deaths.
The fisherman pleaded for his life, but the Jinni would not concede. The fisherman decided to trick the Jinni. He
asked the Jinni how he managed to fit into the bottle. The Jinni, eager to show off, shrank and placed himself back
into the bottle to demonstrate his abilities. The fisherman quickly put the cap back on and threatened to throw it back
to the sea. The Jinni pleaded with the fisherman, who began to tell the story of "The Wazir and the Sage Duban" as
an example of why the Jinni should have spared him.
After the story, the Jinni pleaded for mercy, and swore to help him in return for being released. The fisherman
accepted the bargain, and released the Jinni. The Jinni then led the fisherman to a pond with many exotic fish, and
the fisherman caught four. Before disappearing, the Jinni told the fisherman to give the fish to the Sultan. The
fisherman did so and was rewarded with money for presenting the fishes. Every time a fish was fried, a person would
appear and question them, and the fish answered. When the fish would be flipped in the pan, it would be charred.
Awed by the sight, the Sultan asked the fisherman where he got the fish and went to the pond to uncover their
mystery. When he reached his destination, the Sultan found a young man who was half man and half stone. The
young man recounted his story, as the story of "The Ensorcelled Prince". The Sultan then assisted the Prince in his
liberation and revenge. They became close friends, and the fisherman who first found the fish was rewarded with his
son being appointed the Sultan's treasurer, and the Sultan and the prince married the fisherman's two daughters.
References
• (1955) The Arabian Nights Entertainments, New York: Heritage Press
88
Famous translators
Antoine Galland
Antoine Galland (April 4, 1646 – February 17, 1715)
was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most
famous as the first European translator of The
Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian
Nights in English). His version of the tales appeared in
twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717 and exerted a
huge influence on subsequent European literature and
attitudes to the Islamic world.
Life
Galland was born at Rollot in Picardy (now in the
department of Somme). After completing school at
Noyon he studied Greek and Latin in Paris, where he
also acquired some Arabic. In 1670, he was attached to
the French embassy at Istanbul because of his excellent
knowledge of Greek, and in 1673 he travelled in Syria
and the Levant, where he copied a great number of
inscriptions, and sketched and -in some cases- removed
historical monuments. Antoine Galland
After the deaths of Thévenot and d'Herbelot, Galland lived for some time at Caen under the roof of Nicolas Foucault,
the intendant of Caen, himself no mean archaeologist; and there he began in 1704 the publication of Les mille et Une
Nuits, which excited immense interest during the time of its appearance, and is still the standard French translation.
In 1709 he was appointed to the chair of Arabic in the Collège de France. He continued to discharge the duties of this
post until his death in 1715.
Besides a number of archaeological works, especially in the department of numismatics, he published in 1694 a
compilation from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish, entitled Paroles remarquables, bons mots et maximes des
orientaux, and in 1699 a translation from an Arabic manuscript, De l'origine et du progrès du café. The former of
Antoine Galland 89
these works appeared in an English translation in 1795. His Contes et fables indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokrnan was
published posthumously in 1724. Among his numerous manuscripts are a translation of the Qur'an and a Histoire
générale des empereurs Turcs. His Journal was published by Charles Schefer in 1881.[1]
References
[1] Details of life from chronology in Garnier Flammarion.
[2] Burton, A Thousand Nights and a Night, v1, Translator's Foreword pp. x
[3] This section: Irwin, Chapter 1; some details from Garnier-Flammarion introduction
[4] Borges, pp. 92-93
Sources
• Les mille et une nuits as translated by Galland (Garnier Flammarrion edition, 1965)
• Jorge Luis Borges, "The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights" in The Total Library: Non-Fiction
1922-1986, ed. Eliot Weinberger (Penguin, 1999)
• Sir Richard Burton - The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 by Richard Francis Burton, printed
by the Burton Club for private subscribers only, printed in the USA
• Robert Irwin The Arabian Nights: A Companion (Penguin, 1995)
Antoine Galland 90
External links
• Antoine Galland (http://rollot.baillet.org/rolsars/rolo07.htm) by Maxime de Sars (in French)
Nationality British
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer,
translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his
travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.
According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages.[1]
Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, an unexpurgated translation of One
Thousand and One Nights (also commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after Andrew Lang's abridgement),
bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English, and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans
led by Africa's greatest explorer guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, utilizing route information by Indian and Omani
merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Burton
extensively criticized colonial policies (to the detriment of his career) in his works and letters. He was a prolific and
erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behaviour, travel,
fencing, sexual practices, and ethnography. A unique feature of his books is the copious footnotes and appendices
containing remarkable observations and unexpurgated information.
He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War).
Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an
expedition guided by the locals which discovered Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in
Richard Francis Burton 91
Fernando Po, Santos, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was
awarded a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886.
He was appointed to the Sindh survey, where he learned to use the measuring equipment that would later be useful in
his career as an explorer. At this time he began to travel in disguise. He adopted the alias of Mirza Abdullah and
often fooled local people and fellow officers into failing to recognise him. It was at this point that he began to work
as an agent for Napier and, although details of exactly what this work entailed are not known, it is known that he
participated in an undercover investigation of a brothel in Karachi said to be frequented by English soldiers where
the prostitutes were young boys. His life-long interest in sexual practices led him to produce a detailed report which
was later to cause trouble for Burton when subsequent readers of the report (which Burton had been assured would
be kept secret) came to believe that Burton had, himself, participated in some of the practices described in his
writing.
In March 1849 he returned to Europe on sick leave. In 1850 he wrote his first book Goa and the Blue Mountains, a
guide to the Goa region. He travelled to Boulogne to visit the fencing school there and it was there where he first
encountered his future wife Isabel Arundell, a young Catholic woman from a good family.
Although Burton was not the first non-Muslim European to make the Hajj his
pilgrimage is the most famous and the best documented of the time. He
adopted various disguises including that of a Pashtun to account for any Burton in Arabic dress
oddities in speech, but he still had to demonstrate an understanding of
intricate Islamic ritual, and a familiarity with the minutiae of Eastern manners and etiquette. Burton's trek to Mecca
was quite dangerous and his caravan was attacked by bandits (a common experience at the time). As he put it,
although "... neither Koran or Sultan enjoin the death of Jew or Christian intruding within the columns that note the
sanctuary limits, nothing could save a European detected by the populace, or one who after pilgrimage declared
himself an unbeliever."[12] The pilgrimage entitled him to the title of Hajji and to wear green head wrap. Burton's
own account of his journey is given in A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah (1855).
Some members of his entourage suspected there was more to Burton than met the eye. He came close to being
discovered one night when he lifted his robe to urinate, rather than squatting as an Arab would. He thought he was
unseen, but the youngest member of his group happened to see him. The lad accused him of being an impostor, but
let Burton convince him to keep his doubts to himself.[13]
When Burton returned to the British Army he sat for examination as an Arab linguist, which he failed.[14]
Richard Francis Burton 93
character, with Speke being more in tune with the prevailing morality of Victorian England and imperialistic attitude
to other cultures. There was obviously a great element of professional rivalry. Some biographers have suggested that
homosexual friends of Speke (particularly Laurence Oliphant) stirred up trouble between the two. It also seems that
Speke resented Burton's position as expedition leader and claimed that this leadership was nominal only and that
Burton was an invalid for most of the second expedition. There were problems with debts run up by the expedition
that were left unpaid when they left Africa. Speke, in collusion with the new Consul Rigby (a sworn enemy of
Burton who had bested Rigby in every linguist test in India), claimed that Burton had sole responsibility for these
debts and Rigby used every official method to falsely undermine Burton. Finally, there was the issue of the source of
the Nile, perhaps the greatest prize of its day to European explorers though well known to the Arab, Indian, and
Omani merchants and traders. It is now known that Lake Victoria is a source, but at the time the issue was
controversial. Speke's expedition with Burton's permission was led by Sidi Mubarak Bombay. It was undertaken
without Burton who was incapacitated by several illnesses at the time. Speke's survey of the area was, by necessity,
rudimentary and completely erroneous, leaving the issue unresolved. Burton (and indeed many eminent explorers
such as Livingstone) were very sceptical that the lake was the primary source.
After the expedition, the two men travelled home to England separately
with Speke arriving in London first. Despite an agreement between
them that they would give their first public speech together, Speke
gave a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in which he made the
claim that his discovery, Lake Victoria, was the source of the Nile.
When Burton arrived in London he found Speke being lionised, and
felt his own role was being considered as that of sickly companion.
Furthermore, Speke was organising other expeditions to the region and
clearly had no plans to include Burton. Burton had many enemies
because of his "going native" and anti-imperialist sentiments.
In the subsequent months, Speke and his clique did much to attempt to
harm Burton's reputation, even going so far as to claim that Burton had
tried to poison him during the expedition. Meanwhile Burton spoke out
against Speke's claim to have discovered the source of the Nile, saying
that the evidence was inconclusive and the measurements made by
Speke were inaccurate. It is notable that in Speke's expedition with An undated photograph of Burton.
Grant he made Grant sign a statement saying, amongst other things, "I
renounce all my rights to publishing ... my own account [of the expedition] until approved of by Captain Speke or
the R. G. S. (Royal Geographical Society)".[16]
Speke undertook a second expedition, along with Captain James Grant and Sidi Mubarak Bombay, to prove that
Lake Victoria was the true source of the Nile. After a harrowing journey through the kingdom of Buganda, Speke
found a large river issuing from the north of the lake. He followed the river, off and on, until he met Samuel Baker,
who had ascended the Nile from Khartoum. Because Speke did not follow the river's course where it bends into Lake
Albert (which Baker subsequently discovered), Speke left room for doubt that the river flowing out of Lake Victoria
was the same river flowing into Lake Albert, which Baker proved to be at least a secondary source of the Nile.
Several geographers, including Burton and Livingstone were still unconvinced that Lake Victoria was the true source
of the Nile, although most members of the Royal Geographical Society, which awarded Speke its Gold Medal,
believed the matter to be settled. On 16 September 1864 Burton and Speke were due to debate the issue of the source
of the Nile in front of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at that body's annual meeting in Bath.
Burton was regarded as the superior public speaker and scholar and was likely to get the better of such a debate. On
the day prior to the debate, Burton and Speke sat near each other in the lecture hall. According to Burton's wife, who
was present, Speke stood up, said "I can't stand this any longer," and abruptly left the hall. That afternoon, while
Richard Francis Burton 96
hunting on the nearby estate of a relative, Speke was discovered lying near a stone wall, felled by a fatal gunshot
wound from his hunting riffle. Burton learned of Speke's death the following day while at the lecture hall waiting for
the debate to begin. It has been speculated that Speke's death was a suicide. However, based on the evidence of the
two persons present at the scene, the jury at the coroner's inquest ruled it an accident. The London Times obituary
surmised that Speke, while climbing over the wall, had carelessly pulled the gun after himself with the muzzle
pointing at his chest and accidentally discharged it by knocking it against the wall. Speke's only biographer,
Alexander Maitland, concurs. However, because of the eerie coincidence of the timing of his death, speculation of
suicide has never abated. One motive often given is that Speke killed himself to avoid losing a meaningless debate
with Burton. Another is that Speke was ashamed of the way he had treated Burton. There is no documentary
evidence to support either claim.
However, the area was in some turmoil at the time with considerable tensions between the Christian, Jewish and
Muslim populations. Burton did his best to keep the peace and resolve the situation but this sometimes led him into
trouble. On one occasion, he claims to have escaped an attack by hundreds of armed horsemen and camel riders sent
by Mohammed Rashid Pasha, the Governor of Syria. He wrote "I have never been so flattered in my life than to
think it would take three hundred men to kill me."[18]
In addition to these incidents, there were a number of people who disliked Burton and wished him removed from
such a sensitive position. Eventually, to resolve the situation, Burton was transferred to Trieste (then part of
Austria-Hungary) during 1871. Burton was never particularly content with this post but it required little work and
allowed him the freedom to write and travel.
In 1863 Burton co-founded the Anthropological Society of London with Dr. James Hunt. In Burton's own words, the
main aim of the society (through the publication of the periodical Anthropologia) was "to supply travellers with an
Richard Francis Burton 97
organ that would rescue their observations from the outer darkness of manuscript and print their curious information
on social and sexual matters". On 5 February 1886 he was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) by Queen Victoria.
He wrote a number of travel books in this period that were not particularly well received. His best-known
contributions to literature were those considered risqué or even pornographic at the time and which were published
under the auspices of the Kama Shastra society. These books include The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (1883)
(popularly known as the Kama Sutra), The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885) (popularly known as
The Arabian Nights), The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi (1886) and The Supplemental Nights to the
Thousand Nights and a Night (sixteen volumes 1886–1898).
Published in this period, but composed on his return journey from Mecca, The Kasidah[7] has been cited as evidence
of Burton's status as a Sufi. The poem (and Burton's notes and commentary on it) contain layers of Sufic meaning,
and seem to have been designed to project Sufi teaching in the West.[19] "Do what thy manhood bids thee do/ from
none but self expect applause;/ He noblest lives and noblest dies/ who makes and keeps his self-made laws" is The
Kasidah's most oft-quoted passage.
Other works of note include a collection of Hindu tales, Vikram and the Vampire (1870); and his uncompleted
history of swordsmanship, The Book of the Sword (1884). He also translated The Lusiads, the Portuguese national
epic by Luís de Camões, in 1880 and wrote a sympathetic biography of the poet and adventurer the next year. The
book The Jew, the Gipsy and el Islam was published posthumously in 1898 and was controversial for its criticism of
Jews and asserted the existence of Jewish human sacrifices. (Burton's investigations into this had provoked hostility
from the Jewish population in Damascus (see the Damascus affair). The manuscript of the book included an
appendix discussing the topic in more detail, but by the decision of his widow it was not included in the book when
published).
Burton died in Trieste early on the morning of 20 October 1890 of a heart attack. His wife Isabel persuaded a priest
to perform the last rites, although Burton was not a Catholic and this action later caused a rift between Isabel and
some of Burton's friends. It has been suggested that the death occurred very late on 19 October and that Burton was
already dead by the time the last rites were administered.
Isabel never recovered from the loss. After his death she burned many of her husband's papers, including journals
and a planned new translation of The Perfumed Garden to be called The Scented Garden, for which she had been
offered six thousand guineas and which she regarded as his "magnum opus." She believed she was acting to protect
her husband's reputation, and that she had been instructed to burn the manuscript of The Scented Garden by his
spirit, but her actions have been widely condemned.[20]
Isabel wrote a biography in praise of her husband.[21] The couple are buried in a remarkable tomb in the shape of a
Bedouin tent at Mortlake in southwest London.[22]
"Pederasty" (Volume 10, section IV, D). Burton postulated that male homosexuality was prevalent in an area of the
southern latitudes named by him the "Sotadic zone".[24] Rumors about Burton's own sexuality were already
circulating and were further incited by this work.
Perhaps Burton's best-known book is his translation of The Kama Sutra. In fact, it is untrue that he was the translator
since the original manuscript was in ancient Sanskrit which he could not read. However, he collaborated with Forster
Fitzgerald Arbuthnot on the work and provided translations from other manuscripts of later translations. The Kama
Shastra Society first printed the book in 1883 and numerous editions of the Burton translation are in print to this
day.[23]
His English translation from a French edition of the Arabic erotic guide The Perfumed Garden was printed as The
Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui: A Manual of Arabian Erotology (1886). After Burton's death, Isabel burnt
many of his papers, including a manuscript of a subsequent translation, The Scented Garden, containing the final
chapter of the work, on pederasty. Burton all along intended for this translation to be published after his death, to
provide an income for his widow,[25] and also, as a final gesture of defiance against Victorian society.
Scandals
Burton's writings are unusually open and frank about his interest in sex
and sexuality. His travel writing is often full of details about the sexual
lives of the inhabitants of areas he travelled through. Burton's interest
in sexuality led him to make measurements of the lengths of the sexual
organs of male inhabitants of various regions which he includes in his
travel books. He also describes sexual techniques common in the
regions he visited, often hinting that he had participated, hence
breaking both sexual and racial taboos of his day. Many people at the
time considered the Kama Shastra Society and the books it published
scandalous.
Burton was believed to have murdered the boy who caught him urinating in European fashion on the trip to Mecca.
Burton denied this, pointing out that killing the boy would almost certainly have led to his being discovered as an
impostor. Burton became so tired of denying this accusation that he took to baiting his accusers. A doctor once asked
him, "How do you feel when you have killed a man?" Burton retorted, "Quite jolly, what about you?" When asked
by a priest about the same incident Burton is said to have replied "Sir, I'm proud to say I have committed every sin in
the Decalogue."[28]
These allegations coupled with Burton's often-irascible nature were said to have harmed his career and may explain
why he was not promoted further, either in army life or in the diplomatic service. As an obituary described: "... he
was ill fitted to run in official harness, and he had a Byronic love of shocking people, of telling tales against himself
that had no foundation in fact."[29] Ouida reported that "Men at the FO [Foreign Office] ... used to hint dark horrors
Richard Francis Burton 99
about Burton, and certainly justly or unjustly he was disliked, feared and suspected ... not for what he had done, but
for what he was believed capable of doing".[30] Whatever the truth of the many allegations made against him,
Burton's interests and outspoken nature ensured that he was always a controversial character in his lifetime.
Chronology
In popular culture
Fiction
• Harrison, William (1984). Burton and Speke. New York: St.
Martin's Press., a novel of the two friends/rivals
• Ilija Trojanow, Der Weltensammler, a German language novel
features Richard Burton (Hanser 2006) English language
The 5 Somaliland shilling depicting Sir Richard Burton
translation "The Collector of Worlds" (Faber and Faber 2008).
• Win Blevins, The Rock Child, 1998. Burton and his newly acquired friend, Sam Clemens, help a Tibetan nun and
a half-blood Indian escape a deadly pursuer.
• Philip José Farmer, a science fiction author, featured Burton as one of several protagonists in his Riverworld Saga
(1966 – 1993).
• In the short story The Aleph by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, a manuscript by Burton is discovered in a
library. The manuscript contains a description of a mirror in which the whole universe is reflected.
• There is a brief reference to Burton in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World, which mentions Burton
by name in the text but gives no information about him; when Doyle's novel was first published, Burton's exploits
were comparatively recent.
• George MacDonald Fraser also mentions Burton repeatedly in his Flashman series (1969 – 2005) of historical
novels (with the narrator, Flashman, usually referring to him as "that rogue Dick Burton").
• John Dunning includes Burton in his detective fiction The Bookman's Promise (Scribner 2004).
• Robert Doherty's Area 51 novels (1997 – 2004) feature Burton as the discoverer of a secret alien race. The books
include sections from Burton's writings.
• Wilkie Collins's detective novel The Moonstone (1859) features a character, Mr. Murthwaite, apparently based on
Burton. He is "the celebrated Indian traveller, Mr. Murthwaite, who, at risk of his life, had penetrated in disguise
where no European had ever set foot before" (chapter X).
• Richard Burton appears in the steampunk novel Larklight by Philip Reeve, in which he is portrayed as having
"gone native" and taken a Martian wife.
• In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen novel, Burton is implied to have been a member of a past League.
• In The Manuscript, a novel by Michael Stephen Fuchs, Burton is posited to have discovered a Central American
tribe with knowledge of The Meaning Of Life. His documentation of this acts as a MacGuffin for the protagonists
in the novel.
• American author Will Thomas has said that Cyrus Barker, the protagonist of Thomas' Victorian-era
mystery/adventure novels, is based upon both Richard Burton and Edward William Barton-Wright.
Film
• Mountains of the Moon (1990) (starring Irish actor Patrick Bergin as Burton) related the story of the
Burton-Speke exploration and the subsequent controversy over the source of the Nile. This was based on the 1984
novel Burton and Speke by William Harrison.
• Zero Patience (1993) re-imagines Burton in a contemporary setting as a closeted gay man obsessed with
researching the Patient Zero hypothesis of AIDS transmission.
Television
Richard Francis Burton 100
• In The Sentinel (1996–1999) (starring Richard Burgi and Garett Maggart) a fictional monograph attributed to
Richard Burton ("the explorer, not the actor") forms the background of the show's mythology.
• In Riverworld (2010) a Syfy Channel movie based on Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld Saga novels.
Works
• Goa and the Blue Mountains (1851) [31]
• Scinde or the Unhappy Valley (1851) [32]
• Sindh and the Races That Inhabit the Valley of the Indus (1851) [33]
• Falconry in the Valley of the Indus (1852) [34]
• A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise (1853) [35]
• Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah 3 Vols. (1855-6) [36]. See also PDF facsimile [37]
• First Footsteps in East Africa (1856) [38]. See also PDF Facsimile [39].
• The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa (1859) [40]
• The Lake Regions of Central Africa (1860) [41]
• The City of the Saints, Among the Mormons and Across the Rocky Mountains to California (1861) [42]
• Wanderings in West Africa (1863) [43]
• Abeokuta and the Cameroon Mountains (1863) [44]
• A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomé (1864) [45]
• The Nile Basin (1864) [46] With James McQueen.
• Wit and Wisdom From West Africa (1865) [47]
• Stone Talk (1865) [48]
• The Guide-book. A Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (1865) [49].
• Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil (1869) [50]
• Letters From the Battlefields of Paraguay (1870) [51]
• Vikram and the Vampire or Tales of Hindu Devilry (1870) [52]. See also PDF Facsimile [53].
• Unexplored Syria (1872) [54]
• Zanzibar (1872) [55]
• Ultima Thule (1872) [56]
• The Lands of Cazembe. Lacerda's Journey to Cazembe in 1798 (1873) [57]. Edited and translated by Burton.
• The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse, in A.D. 1547-1555, Among the Wild Tribes of Eastern Brazil. [58]
Translated by Albert Tootal and annotated by Richard F. Burton.
• A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry (1876) [59]
• Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo (1876) [60] See also PDF Facsimile [61].
• Etruscan Bologna (1876) [62]
• Sind Revisited (1877) [63]
• The Gold Mines of Midian (1878) [64]
• The Land of Midian (revisited) (1879) [65]
• Os Lusiadas (The Lusiads) (two volumes 1880) [66]
• The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi (1880). See also PDF Facsimile [67].
• A Glance at the Passion-Play (1881) [68].
• To the Gold Coast for Gold 2 Vols. (1883) [69]. See also PDF Facsimile [70].
• The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (1883) [71] (with F. F. Arbuthnot).
• Camoens: His Life and His Lusiads (1883) [72]
• Camoens. The Lyricks 2 Vols (1884) [73]
• The Book of the Sword (1884) [74]
• The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (ten volumes 1885) [75]
• The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi (1886) [76]
Richard Francis Burton 101
• The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night (six volumes 1886 – 1888) [77]
• The Jew, the Gypsy and El Islam (1898) [78]
• The Sentiment of the Sword: A Country-House Dialogue (1911) [79]
Burton also wrote a great number of journal and magazine pieces [80], many of which have never been catalogued.
Over 200 of these have been collected in PDF facsimile format at burtoniana.org [81].
Brief selections from a variety of Burton's writings are available in Frank McLynn's Of No Country: An Anthology of
Richard Burton (1990; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).
Film documentaries
• Search for the Nile [85], 1971 BBC mini-series featured Kenneth Haigh as Burton
• In The Victorian Sex Explorer [86], Rupert Everett documents Burton's travels. Part of the Channel Four (UK)
'Victorian Passions' season. First Broadcast on 9 June 2008.[87]
References
[1] Lovell (1998), p. xvii.
[2] Lovell (1998), p. 1.
[3] Wright (1905), vol. 1, p. 37 (http:/ / etext. library. adelaide. edu. au/ b/ burton/ richard/ b97zw/ chapter1. html#section1).
[4] Page, William (1908). A History of the County of Hertford (http:/ / www. british-history. ac. uk/ report. asp?compid=43292&
strquery=elstree). Constable. vol. 2, pp. 349–351. .
[5] Wright (1905), vol. 1, p. 38 (http:/ / etext. library. adelaide. edu. au/ b/ burton/ richard/ b97zw/ chapter1. html#section2).
[6] Wright (1905), vol. 1, p. 52 (http:/ / etext. library. adelaide. edu. au/ b/ burton/ richard/ b97zw/ chapter1. html#section4).
[7] The Kasîdah Of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî by Richard F. Burton (1870).
[8] Falconry In The Valley of the Indus, Richard F. Burton (John Van Voorst 1852) page 93.
[9] The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton KCMG, FRGS, Isabel Burton (Chapman and Hall 1893), Vol. 1, page 123.
[10] A Rage to Live page 58.
[11] Wright (1905), vol. 1, pp. 119–120 (http:/ / etext. library. adelaide. edu. au/ b/ burton/ richard/ b97zw/ chapter6. html#section26).
[12] Selected Papers on Anthropology, Travel, and Exploration by Richard Burton, edited by Norman M. Penzer (London, A. M. Philpot 1924)
p. 30.
[13] A Rage to Live by Mary S. Lovell, (Abacus 1998) page 142
[14] Lovell. page 154.
[15] The Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (http:/ / www. wollamshram. ca/ 1001/ Speke/ nile. htm) by John Hanning Speke at
www.wollamshram.ca (URL accessed 10 April 2006)
[16] A Rage to Live page 341.
[17] Wright (1905), vol. 1, p. 200 (http:/ / etext. library. adelaide. edu. au/ b/ burton/ richard/ b97zw/ chapter13. html#section54).
[18] The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton KCMG, FRGS Vol. 1 page 517.
[19] The Sufis by Idries Shah (1964)
[20] Wright (1906), vol. 2, pp. 252–254 (http:/ / ebooks. adelaide. edu. au/ b/ burton/ richard/ b97zw/ chapter38. html).
[21] The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton KCMG, FRGS
[22] Burton Tomb Restoration Fund (http:/ / www. burtonfund. org/ ), www.burtonfund.org (URL accessed 10 April 2006)
[23] Ben Grant, "Translating/'The' “Kama Sutra”" (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 3993841), Third World Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3, Connecting
Cultures (2005), 509-516
[24] Sir Richard Francis Burton: Explorer of the Sotadic Zone (http:/ / paganpressbooks. com/ jpl/ BURTON. HTM)
[25] The Romance of Lady Isabel Burton (chapter 38) (http:/ / etext. library. adelaide. edu. au/ b/ burton/ isabel/ romance/ chapter38. html) by
Isabel Burton (1897) (URL accessed 12 June 2006)
[26] Burton, Sir Richard Kama Sutra, p. 14, Park Street Press, 1991 ISBN 0-89281-441-1
[27] Godsall, Jon R The Tangled Web - A Life of Sir Richard Burton, p. 47 - 48, Matador Books, 2008 ISBN 978-1-906510-42-8
[28] The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton by Fawn M. Brodie (W.W. Norton & Company Inc.: New York 1967) p 3.
[29] Obituary in Athenaeum (http:/ / www. wollamshram. ca/ 1001/ Athenaeum/ at3287. htm) No. 3287, 25 October 1890 page 547.
[30] Richard Burton by Ouida, article appearing in the Fortnightly Review June (1906) quoted in A Rage to Live
[31] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1851-Goa%20and%20the%20Blue%20Mountains/ index. htm
[32] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1851-Scinde%20or%20the%20Unhappy%20Valley/ index. htm
[33] http:/ / burtoniana. org/ books/ 1851-Sindh%20and%20the%20races/ index. html
[34] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1852-Falconry/ index. htm
[35] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1853-A%20Complete%20System%20of%20Bayonet%20Exercise/ index. htm
[36] http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ etext/ 4657
[37] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1855-Narrative%20of%20a%20Pilgrimage%20to%20Mecca%20and%20Medinah/ index. htm
[38] http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ etext/ 6886
[39] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1856-First%20Footsteps%20in%20East%20Africa/ index. htm
[40] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ minor/ by-year/ 1850-1859/ burton-1859-lake-regions. pdf
[41] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1860-The%20Lake%20Regions%20of%20Central%20Africa/ index. htm
[42] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1861-The%20City%20of%20Saints/ index. htm
[43] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1863-Wanderings%20in%20West%20Africa/ index. htm
[44] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1863-Abeokuta%20and%20the%20Cameroon%20Mountains/ index. htm
[45] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1864-A%20Mission%20to%20Gelele%20King%20of%20Dahome/ index. htm
[46] http:/ / www. burtoniana. org/ books/ 1864-The%20Nile%20Basin/ index. htm
Richard Francis Burton 103
External links
• Complete Works of Richard Burton at burtoniana.org (http://burtoniana.org). Includes over 200 of Burton's
journal and magazine pieces.
• Detailed biography and comprehensive bibliography for Richard Francis Burton, concentrating on his travels and
discoveries (http://www.howgego.co.uk/explorers/richard_francis_burton.htm)
• The Sir Richard Francis Burton Project (http://www.sirrichardfrancisburton.org). An extensive informational
site.
• Kamasutra by Burton on Indohistory.com (http://www.indohistory.com/kamasutra.html). English Translation
of Kamasutra by Burton.
• Online Books by Richard F. Burton (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/
search?author=Burton+Richard+Francis&amode=words&title=&tmode=words)
• Sir Richard F. Burton on the Web (http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/burton/)
• Online editions of Burton's works (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/burton/richard/)
Richard Francis Burton 104
Egypt
Lane, in Turkish costume
He arrived in Alexandria in September 1825, and soon left for Cairo.
He remained in Egypt for two and a half years, mingling with the locals, dressed as a Turk (the ethnicity of the
then-dominant Ottoman Empire) and taking notes of everything he saw and heard. In Old Cairo, he lived near Bab
al-Hadid, and studied Arabic, among others, with Sheikh Muhammad 'Ayyad al-Tantawi (1810–1861), who was
later invited to teach at Saint Petersburg, Russia. He returned to England with his voluminous notes in the autumn of
1828.[4]
Lane's interest in ancient Egypt may have been first aroused by seeing a presentation by Giovanni Battista Belzoni.[5]
His original ambition was to publish an account of what had remained of Ancient Egypt. The London publisher John
Murray showed early interest in publishing the mighty project (known as Description of Egypt), but then retracted.
At the suggestion of Murray, Lane expanded a chapter of the original project into a whole book. The result was his
Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge. The work was partly modeled on Alexander Russell's The Natural History of Aleppo (1756).[6] Lane
Edward William Lane 105
visited Egypt again, in order to collect materials to expand and revise the work, after the society accepted the
publication.[7] The book became a bestseller (still in print), and won Lane a reputation.
Lane was conscious that his research was handicapped by the fact that gender segregation prevented him from
getting a close-up view of Egyptian women - as aspect of Egyptian life that was of particular interest to his readers.
He was forced to rely on information passed on by Egyptian men, as he explains:
Many husbands of the middle classes, and some of the higher orders, freely talk of the affairs of the
ḥareem with one who professes to agree with them in their general moral sentiments, if they have not to
converse through the medium of an interpreter.[8]
However, in order to gain further information, years later he would send for his sister, Sophia Lane Poole, so that she
could gain access to women-only areas such as hareems and bathhouses and report on what she found.[9] The result
was The Englishwoman in Egypt: Letters from Cairo, written during a residence there in 1842, 3 & 4, with E.W.
Lane Esq., Author of "The Modern Egyptians" By His Sister. (Poole’s own name does not appear.) The
Englishwoman in Egypt contains large sections of Lane's own unpublished work, altered so that it appears from
Poole's perspective (for example "my brother" being substituted for "I").[10] However, it also relates Poole's own
experiences in visiting the hareems that were closed to male visitors such as her brother.
1001 Nights
Lane's next major project was a translation of the One Thousand and One Nights. His version first saw light in
monthly parts in the years 1838 to 1840, and was published in three volumes in 1840. A revised edition came out in
1859. The encyclopedic annotations were published, after his death, separately in 1883 by his great-nephew Stanley
Lane-Poole, as Arabian Society in the Middle Ages.[11] Lane's version is bowdlerized, and illustrated by William
Harvey.
Opinions vary on the quality of Lane's translation. One comments, "... Lane's version is markedly superior to any
other that has appeared in English, if superiority is allowed to be measured by accuracy and an honest and
unambitious desire to reproduce the authentic spirit as well as the letter of the original."[12] Yet another, "... [Lane's]
style tends towards the grandiose and mock-biblical... Word order is frequently and pointlessly inverted. Where the
style is not pompously high-flown, it is often painfully and uninspiringly literal... It is also peppered with
Latinisms."[13]
Lane himself saw the Nights as an edifying work, as he had expressed earlier in a note in his preface to the Manners
and Customs,
There is one work, however, which represents most admirable pictures of the manners and customs of
the Arabs, and particularly of those of the Egyptians; it is 'The Thousand and One Nights; or, Arabian
Nights' Entertainments:' if the English reader had possessed a close translation of it with sufficient
illustrative notes, I might almost have spared myself the labour of the present undertaking.[14]
Edward William Lane 106
Marriage
In 1840, Lane married Nafeesah, a Greek-Egyptian woman who had originally been either presented to him or
purchased by him as a slave when she was around eight years old, and whom he had undertaken to educate.[9] From
1842 onwards, he devoted himself to the monumental Arabic-English Lexicon, although he found time to contribute
several articles to the journal of Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft.[15]
Other works
Lane's Selections from the Kur'an appeared in 1843. It was neither a critical nor a commercial success. Moreover, it
was misprint-ridden, as Lane was for the third time in Egypt, along with his wife, sister and two nephews, to collect
materials for the planned dictionary, when it was passing through the press.[16]
Lane was unable to complete the dictionary. He had arrived at the letter Qāf, the 21st letter of the Arabic alphabet,
when he died in 1876.[17]
In 1854, an anonymous work entitled The Genesis of the Earth and of Man was published, edited by Lane's nephew
Reginald Stuart Poole. The work is attributed by some to Lane.[15]
The part concerning Cairo's early history and topography in Description of Egypt, based on Al-Maqrizi's work and
Lane's own observations, was revised by Reginald Stuart Poole in 1847 and published in 1896 as Cairo Fifty Years
Ago.[18] The whole Description of Egypt was published by the American University in Cairo Press in 2000.[9]
He died on 10 August 1876 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
Notes
[1] Arberry, 87
[2] Arberry, 87-8
[3] Arberry, 88
[4] Arberry, 89-92; Irwin (2006), 164
[5] Roper, 244; Irwin (2006), 163
[6] Roper, 244; Irwin (2006), 122 & 164
[7] Arberry, 92
[8] Lane, 175
[9] Thompson, Jason. "An Account of the Journeys and Writings of the Indefagitable Mr. Lane" (http:/ / www. saudiaramcoworld. com/ issue/
200802/ the. indefatigable. mr. lane. htm). Saudi Aramco World. . Retrieved 2008-06-22.
[10] Thompson, 574
[11] Arberry, 104
[12] Arberry, 105
[13] Irwin (1994), 24
[14] Lane, xxiv
[15] Roper, 249
[16] Arberry, 106-7
[17] Arberry, 115
[18] Roper, 245
Edward William Lane 107
References
• Arberry, A.J. (1960). Oriental Essays. London: George Allen & Unwin.
• Irwin, Robert (1994). The Arabian Nights: A Companion. London: Allen Lane.
• Irwin, Robert (2006). For Lust of Knowing. London: Allen Lane.
• Lane, Edward William (1973 [1860]). An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. With a
new introduction by John Manchip White. New York: Dover Publications.
• Roper, Geoffrey (1998). "Texts from Nineteenth-Century Egypt: The Role of E. W. Lane", in Paul and Janet
Starky (eds) Travellers in Egypt, London; New York: I.B. Tauris, pp. 244–254.
• Thompson, Jason (1996). "Edward William Lane's 'Description of Egypt'". International Journal Of Middle East
Studies, 28 (4): 565-583.
Further reading
• Ahmed, Leila (1978). Edward W Lane. London: Longman.
• Lane-Poole, Stanley (1877). Life of Edward William Lane. London: Williams and Norgate.
• Lane's Lexicon in PDF http://www.studyquran.co.uk/LLhome.htm
Works
• Les Mille et Une Nuits (The 1001 Nights, edited by Robert Laffont; in the Bouquins collection)
• L’Apocalypse qui est la révélation
• Le Livre des Morts de l’Ancienne Égypte
• Le Cantique des Cantiques
• Le Livre des Rois
• Sucre d’amour (1926), illustrated by François-Louis Schmied
• La Reine de Saba (1918)
• La Reine de Saba et divers autres contes (1921)
• Le Koran, commissioned by the French government in 1925
• Le Paradis musulman (1930), illustrated by François-Louis Schmied
• Toute-Puissance de l'Adepte (Le Livre de la Vérité de Parole) 1932
John Payne 108
John Payne
John Payne (1842–1917) was an English poet and translator, from Devon. Initially he pursued a legal career, and
associated with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later he became involved with limited edition publishing, and the Villon
Society.
He is best known for his translation of the Diwan Hafez and praises Hafez as the greatest poet of the world.[1] He has
also known for his translation of Boccaccio's Decameron and The Arabian Nights.
Works
• The Masque of Shadows and other poems (1870)
• Intaglios; sonnets (1871)
• Songs of Life and Death. (1872)
• Lautrec: A Poem (1878)
• The Poems of Francois Villon.(1878)
• New Poems (1880)
• The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (1882) translation in nine volumes
• Tales from the Arabic (1884)
• The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio (1886) translation in three volumes
• Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp; Zein Ul Asnam and The King of the Jinn: (1889) editor and translator
• The Persian Letters of Montesquieu (1897) translator
• The Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam of Nisahpour (1898)
• Poems of Master Francois Villon of Paris (1900)
• The Poems of Hafiz (1901)
• Oriental Tales: The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night [and other tales]. (1901) verse and prose
translation in 15 volumes, edited by Leonard C. Montesquieu Smithers
• The Descent of the Dove and other poems (1902)
• Poetical Works (1902) two volumes
• Stories of Boccaccio (1903)
• Vigil and Vision: New Sonnets (1903)
• Hamid the Luckless and other tales in verse (1904)
• Songs of Consolation: New Poems (1904)
• Sir Winfrith and other poems (1905)
• Selections from the Poetry of John Payne (1906) selected by Tracy and Lucy Robinson
• Flowers of France: Romantic Period (1906)
• Flowers of France, The Renaissance Period 1907
• Flowers of France: the Latter Days (1913)
• Flowers of France: The Classic Period (1914)
• The Way of the Winepress (1920)
• The Autobiography of John Payne of Villon Society Fame, Poet and Scholar (1926)
John Payne 109
Notes
[1] Poetry Portal: Hafez. Self Sponsored. 13 May 2008 <http://www.poetry-portal.com/poets4.html>.
External links
• Works by John Payne (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/John+Payne) at Project Gutenberg
Gustav Weil
Gustav Weil (April 25, 1808, Sulzburg, Baden - August 29, 1889, Freiburg-im-Breisgau) was a German orientalist.
Academic work
At Stuttgart in 1837 Weil published "Die Poetische Literatur der Araber", and later issued a translation of the
"Thousand and One Nights", the first complete translation from the original text into German (4 vols., 1837–41; 2d
ed. 1866; 4th ed. 1871-72), which was, however, spoiled in the process of publication. Weil purposed to give a
philologically exact version, which would have been highly desirable in many respects; but the Stuttgart publisher
authorized August Lewald to change many objectionable passages, and thus made of it a popular and salable work.
This perversion caused Weil much vexation. Weil's second great work was "Mohammed, der Prophet" (Stuttgart,
1843), a life of Mohammed.in the compilation of which he was the first to go back to the oldest accessible sources in
Europe. It was not in his nature, however, to attempt a psychological reconstruction of the prophet's character, as was
done later by Aloys Sprenger and Muir. Washington Irving in his "Life of Mohammed" used Weil's work as a source
of information, and acknowledged his indebtedness to that author.
While pursuing these studies Weil published his "Historisch-Kritische Einleitung in den Koran" (Bielefeld and
Leipsic, 1844 and 1878) as a supplement to Ullman's translation of the Koran, and the translation of one of the
original sources of the biography of Mohammed, "Leben Mohammed's nach Muhammed ibn Isḥaḳ, Bearbeitet von
Gustav Weil 110
Abd el-Malik ibn Hischâm" (Stuttgart, 2 vols., 1864). Three additional essays remain to be mentioned: one on
Mohammed's epilepsy ("Journal Asiatique", July, 1842); the second an investigation of a "Supposed Lie of
Mohammed" (ib. May, 1849); and the third a discussion of the question whether Mohammed could read and write
("Proceedings of the Congress of Orientalists at Florence", i. 357). To these must be added "Biblische Legenden der
Mohammedaner" (Frankfort, 1845), in which Weil proves the influence of the rabbinic legends upon the religion of
Islam.
The most comprehensive work of Weil is his "Geschichte der Chalifen" (5 vols., Heidelberg and Stuttgart, 1846–51),
which is virtually an elaboration of the original works of Mohammedan historians, whom he in large part studied
from manuscripts; it treats also of the Egyptian and Spanish califates. This was followed by the "Geschichte der
Islamischen Völker von Mohammed bis zur Zeit des Sultans Selim". (Stuttgart, 1866), an introduction to the medieval
history of the Orient. After 1866 Weil confined his literary activity to the publication of reviews in the "Heidelberger
Jahrbücher" and in the "Jenaische Litteratur-Zeitung". In later years he received honors from various states,
including Baden and Prussia. Owing to continued illness he was pensioned in 1888.
Weil's collection of Arabic manuscripts was presented to the University of Heidelberg by his children.
Weil is...
References
• This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia article "Gustav Weil" [1] by Isidore
Singer & E. O. Adelbert Marx, a publication now in the public domain.
References
[1] http:/ / www. jewishencyclopedia. com/ view. jsp?artid=83& letter=W
Article Sources and Contributors 111
New Arabian Nights Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=394896060 Contributors: Brain40, Count de Ville, Deor, Henry Merrivale, Kevinalewis, Koveras, Lord Spring Onion,
MetaManFromTomorrow, Mutt, Paul A, Rich Farmbrough, Stbalbach, Ziggurat, 5 anonymous edits
Arabian Nights and Days Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=360404034 Contributors: Alangdon86, Filmmanvick16, Headbomb, Henry Merrivale, Jask99, Kevinalewis,
Mlaffs, Ntsimp, PhilKnight, Richard ruffian, 2 anonymous edits
Stories Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=378021020 Contributors: A Nobody, Ank329, Dpapic, Eclecticology, FilippoGioachin, Headbomb, J.delanoy, Jagged 85, Moke,
Ninepound, Philip Stevens, Rgclegg, Richard asr, Samian, Sk'py Skwrrrl, Slackerlawstudent, Teddybearcan, Wollamshram, 17 anonymous edits
Characters Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=395789203 Contributors: Antaeus Feldspar, Arad, Bejnar, Callidior, Ctesiphon7, Eclecticology, Gaanders, Gurko, Habeeb Adam,
Haiduc, Hallmark, Headbomb, J.delanoy, Jagged 85, John162, JovanCormac, Jwy, King of Hearts, Marktreut, Masoudnaseri, Maxis ftw, N. Harmonik, Nareek, Night1231, OlEnglish, Pegship,
Philip Stevens, PiCo, Richard ruffian, Rjgodoy, Soundofmusicals, SteinbDJ, Taborgate, Tahmasp, Taranah, TexasAndroid, The Man in Question, Thelittlegreyman, Tiddly Tom, Tiria,
TubularWorld, Unknown Dragon, Unknownlight, 82 anonymous edits
Scheherazade Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=391512649 Contributors: (aeropagitica), 03iskand, APPER, Algorithme, Altenmann, AnakngAraw, Andreabrugiony, Angela,
Anthony Appleyard, Anthony Fok, Anthonydraco, Assassin Droid, Atitarev, Avoided, Azer Red, BiT, Blotwell, Bogdangiusca, CJ, Cardsharp21, Carrie2002, Ccacsmss, Cevmarauder, Chariset,
Chochopk, ChongDae, Croctotheface, DStoykov, Darguz Parsilvan, DavidRF, DocWatson42, Doczilla, Dreamzperpetual, Dutytaxcuts, EP12345, Eclecticology, EllieTea, Epbr123, Erik1980,
Etoilebleu06, Everyking, FaerytaleMalice, Ferrierd, Fhiz, Francis Schonken, Franklsf95, GRAHAMUK, GdlR, Geat, GeeJo, Goustien, Grazia11, Gurch, Hera1187, Herbee, Hu12, Iridescent, Jack
Merridew, Jacob Finn, Jariola, Jengod, Johnr89, JulianRichards, Jwy, Kingammar, Kintetsubuffalo, KismetGreen, Koavf, Krytes, Kuralyov, Kwamikagami, Kzhr, Lenthe, Lowellian, Malcolm A
King, Mani1, Marc Venot, Marcsin, MarnetteD, Masoudnaseri, Mica fr, Miller17CU94, Mintrick, Mounthelenaman, Mr Stephen, Neelix, Neilvaughan, NijhtOwl, Nil Einne, Numbo3, Nuno
Tavares, Occasio, Pauldf, Philip Stevens, PuzzletChung, Pz-Poland, RandomCritic, Rdsmith4, Restre419, Rjwilmsi, Romanm, Sangak, Satori Son, Sfmammamia, Shanghainese.ua, Shinmawa,
Slayer3628, Spiritualmedia, SteinbDJ, Stemonitis, Stephenchou0722, Stoa, Subitosera, Tabletop, Tajik, Temporaluser, The Singing Badger, Trevor H., Ummit, Urutapu, Valac, Vino, Wetman,
Willi Gers07, Wmahan, Wshun, X!, 182 anonymous edits
Abu Nuwas Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=391092767 Contributors: 84user, A Musing, Abtinb, Ahuskay, Alborz Fallah, Alex '05, Alexnovo, Almafeta, Amire80, Amys,
Andreas Kaganov, Andres, Andrewpmk, Ashrf1979, Barek, Bassim al-tayib, Bearcat, Behemoth, Beland, Belovedfreak, Bogdangiusca, Bootstoots, Cantiorix, Chem1, Chicheley, Deb, Dimadick,
Dou Gweler, Drmaik, Duhilib, Falcorian, FeanorStar7, Fennessy, Fontboy, Freethinker1of1, FunkMonk, Gaius Cornelius, Gilliam, GoingBatty, Hadal, Haiduc, Hinio, HistoryBA, Hmwith,
Hyacinth, IAlex, Igno2, Iridescent, Izady, JLaTondre, Jackson, Jacobolus, Jahangard, Jengod, Joetaras, Katzenfrucht, Kbdank71, Khoikhoi, Kipala, Ksweith, Lanov, Leondumontfollower,
Malafaya, Markwiki, MarsRover, Martarius, Mayooranathan, Mazighe, Mergy, Neptunes2007, Nerval, Nk, Paulburnett, PetraSchelm, Philip Stevens, Philip Trueman, PiCo, Qoqnous,
QuartierLatin1968, Rich Farmbrough, Rjwilmsi, RodC, Roland2, S19991002, Sam Hocevar, Samaraaa, SatyrTN, Shaolin128, SouthernComfort, SqueakBox, Studerby, Sturm br, Supertouch,
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