The Thousand and One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla) from the Earliest Known Sources by

Muhsin Mahdi
Review by: Andras Hamori
Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 107, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1987), pp. 182-184
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602995 .
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182

Journal of the American Oriental Society 107.1 (1987)

verses in nos. 110-20. It is not easy; but a rapid search

established that, for instance, no. 113, verse 1 is attributed by
Ibn 'Abd al-Barr to al-Hasan al-Basfr,'3 no. 114 by the same
author to Mahmtid al-Warraq'4 and no. 117 by Abti 'l-Faraj
al-Isbahani to Musawir al-Warraq.'5All these critical remarks
should not, however, discourage the author. We all hope that
she will return to editing Ibn Abi 'l-Dunya's writings from
manuscripts, as she had done in her dissertation, and will thus
deepen our knowledge of one of the earliest authors of
edifying adab-literature.
REINHARD WEIPERT
UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH

1 Bahjat al-majalis wa-uns al-mujalis, ed. M. M. al-KhtilT,

vol. II, Cairo 1973, 70.
'4 Op. cit. vol. I, Cairo 1962, 389f.
" Kitdb
al-Aghdn! (Biflaq) XVI 168f. / (Dar al- kutub)
XVIII 151.

The Thousand and One Nights (Aif Layla wa-Layla) From

the Earliest Known Sources. Arabic text edited with Introduction and Notes by MUHSINMAHDI.Scholarly edition
includes Part 1: xii pages of English text + 708 pages of
Arabic text, and Part 2 (Critical Apparatus): viii pages of
English text + 308 pages of Arabic text + 111 plates (facsimiles). Popular edition: Arabic text only (Part 1), pp. 708.
Leiden: E. J. BRILL. 1984. Parts 1 & 2, per set, cloth,
Gld. 440 (approx. $140). Popular edition, Gld. 60.
With the publication of these splendid books we now have
for the first time a critical edition, done with consummate and
loving scholarship, of a medieval manuscript-the oldest
extant-of the 1001 Nights. The first volume contains the
text, and an Arabic introduction with a critique of the printed
versions, a brief survey of the manuscript families, and a
discussion of the language of the book. The second volume
has the critical apparatus, and, also in Arabic, the description
of manuscripts, generously illustrated with black and white
plates. A third volume (with the indices and the English
introduction) is in preparation.
As is explained in the introduction to Vol. II, the edition
works at four levels. First, it is an edition of the text used by
Galland for his delightful, if rather free, French translation
(1704-1717). Professor Mahdi joins Zotenberg and Noldeke
in dating the MSfrom the 8th/ 14th century. If the ashrafjT
mentioned in the "Tale of the Hunchback" (I, 319 = G 2
fol. 43b) is the coin introduced in 829/1425 (cf. H. and
S. Grotzfeld, Die Erzahlungen aus "TausendundeinerNacht",
Darmstadt 1984, p. 26) the date needs to be adjusted. This

would not affect Professor Mahdi's thesis that there was in the
13th or 14th century a clearly defined 1001 Nights and that the
manuscript (no longer extant) that was "the origin and
common source of all the early MSS of the 1001 Nights that
have survived was composed in the late 13th or early 14th
century (I, viii and II, 240)." (Except that they must have had
the frame story in some form, nothing is known with certainty
about earlier versions.) This original source, and the archetype
(not extant) from which the branches of the stemma rise were
known as 1001 Nights, but, like the Galland MS, they contained
many fewer stories than the versions printed in the 19th
century, and the stories were divided into many fewer than
1001 nights. Although the Egyptian versions preserve from
the archetype some material not found in G or its Syrian
relatives (II, 239-40), "there is no evidence that any [of the
stories not in G] formed part of, or were deemed worthy of
being included in, the original (thirteenth-fourteenth century)
composition of the 1001 Nights." (I, ix.) Collation of texts
(references given in vol. II) has led Professor Mahdi to the
conclusion that in the Syrian Branch no "full" version of the
1001 Nights was ever developed. The Shawish/Chavis MS.
which picks up where G leaves off is shown to be a patchwork
produced (in part by translation from the French) by Chavis.
The Sabbagh MS (BN 4678-9) too is shown to be a composite,
made by Sabbagh from a variety of sources available to him
in Paris. The Baghdad Vorlage Sabbagh claimed to have
copied, readers' notes and all, is a fiction. Sabbagh, as
Professor Mahdi, not without relish, reconstructs the story,
set out to practice an imposture on the Orientalists, and had a
brilliant success. Since G and its next of kin (the genuine MSS
of the Syrian Branch) all break off at much the same place (or
broke off, in the case of the Russell MS, the second volume of
which has been lost since its description), it would still be
possible that the entire Syrian family descended from a
fragment of a much longer recension. If there is no evidence
that stories not in G formed part of the original composition,
is there evidence (other than literary appraisal), that G is in
fact a fairly complete reflex of that original composition? A
certain amount of circumstantial evidence is suggested for this
by the degree to which the substance and order of the material
in G is found in the Egyptian manuscripts, and the degree to
which there is variation in the substance and order of the rest
of the material in these "fuller"recensions. For evaluating this
circumstantial evidence, Professor Mahdi's work offers several
important contributions. The Paris MS BN 3612, written in the
17th century, starts with the stories (although not all their
substories) as they follow in G, except that "Nir al-Din Ibn
Bakkar"and "Qamaral-Zaman"are deferred. This manuscript
is subdivided into sections, ajzad, and each of the deferred
stories occupies one or more entire sections. The subdivisions,
Professor Mahdi suggests (II, 292), made for easy shifting.
Since Professor Mahdi also concludes (I, 32) that the Egyptian
branch is wholly uninfluenced by the Syrian, the likelihood is

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Reviews of Books
increased that the entirety of an archetypal ordering of stories
is reflected in G. As it appears from Professor Mahdi's
description, the order of the first two volumes of the WortleyMontague manuscript too is less chaotic than it seemed to
Macdonald. The circumstantial evidence is also strengthened
by arguments for the gradual incorporation of the gesta of
'Umar al-Nu'man in the Egyptian Branch (11,294-302). If this
is what happened, the Rylands Library manuscript Ar. 646
and the Tubingen manuscript (Ma VI 32)-both no later than
the 16th century-are not likely to represent a recension "die
mindestens so alt ist wie die, von welcher die Handschrift G
ein Bruchstuck ist" (H. and S. Grotzfeld 41). (Professor
Mahdi also argues [II, 301] that the Tubingen 'Umar is
independent from the Rylands one.)
The stories in G are: the frame story, "The Merchant and
the Jinni," "The Fisherman and the Jinni," "The Porter and
the Three Ladies," "The Three Apples," "The Two Viziers
Nur al-Din and Badr al-Din," "The King of China's Hunchback," "Nur al-Din and the Lady Shams al-Nahar," "The
Lady Anis al-Jalls and Ntir al-Din," "Jullanar of the Sea,"
and "King Qamar al-Zaman." Since the MS ends abruptly in
the middle of this last story, it is completed on the basis of the
Wortley Montague manuscript.
Text and apparatus provide the reader with a full and
faithful representation of the manuscript. Evident slipsdittographies, omissions, hypercorrections in pointing, etc.
-are corrected in the text, but all linguistic features of the
manuscript are reproduced.
Second, this edition collates the primary MSS belonging to
what Professor Mahdi calls the Syrian Branch (the Galland
MS, the Vatican MS, the Russell manuscript in the John
Rylands Library, and India Office Library, MS Arabic 2699misprinted, incidentally, on the plates as 6299). Where
Macdonald thought the Russell manuscript was a direct
descendant of G and V was at least partially a direct copy of
G, Professor Mahdi reconstructs a more complex stemma. In
this, from a lost manuscript a fork leads to G and to the lost
ancestor of V and, by a separate line, of the Russell manuscript. Thus these manuscripts can throw light on G.
Third, the material is enriched by comparison of the two
branches (Egyptian and Syrian) of MSS. The Egyptian MSS are
used especially when the Syrian Branch clearly miscopied the
archetype. Interesting linguistic peculiarities, and major divergences from the Syrian Branch, are also noted in the apparatus.
Fourth, the edition notes and makes use of narrative
sources where identifiable (such as Tanukhi's two books, or
the Hikayat 'AJi-ba).
Before Professor Mahdi's work, all printed 1001 Nights
were descended from four nineteenth century printed versions:
1st Calcutta, Breslau, 1st Builaq, and 2nd Calcutta. All of
these but Builaq are composites; Habicht's Breslau edition
notoriously so. Builaqhowever is in a class by itself. The MS
used is lost but "comparison of the printed text," Professor

183

Mahdi writes (I, 18) "with known MSS leaves no doubt that in
the preparation of this edition a single MS was used; and that
the editor did not consult other MSS or previously printed texts
to complete lacunae in the text." On the other hand, the MS
used at Btilaq belonged (as did the MS used for 2nd Calcutta)
to the Late Egyptian family of MSS (= ZER) whose origin is
no earlier than the 18th century. This, Professor Mahdi
stresses, was not simply the old 1001 Nights with additions,
but an altogether different riwaya (I, 19). Several striking
examples are offered (I, 40-45) of the substantial differences
in language and style between G and the text of the first Bilaq
edition. The linguistic differences are not a mere matter of
translation from a kind of middle Arabic-"story-telling
Arabic"(1, 45)-into book Arabic. Professor Mahdi concludes
that G employs a variety of linguistic levels according to
speaker or situation (I, 43). Such differentiation could not
survive the transposition intofus/u.
It is evident that for the history of literature, of ideas, and
of language, the availability of the text edited here, and the
accessibility through the apparatus of the Syrian Branch of
the stemma, is of enormous importance. As Professor Mahdi
suggests, a critical edition of the recension contained in the
Late Egyptian family of MSS would be desirable. Its preparation would be greatly facilitated by the present work.
Comparative reading of Professor Mahdi's text and the
Late Egyptian recension (as reflected in Bilaq) will fascinate
students of narrative. Here are a few examples of small
details. In Bilaq, Shahriyar "ruled justly and his subjects
loved him," (B I, 2). In Professor Mahdi's text (I, 56) he is a
grimmer character who "does not desist from vengeance." In
B he discovers his wife's infidelity because "he remembered
something he forgot in his palace," in M I, 57 he "went back
to his palace to say goodbye to his wife." Shahzamrnn's
anticipation (M I, 61) "I don't suppose anything like what
happened to you has ever happened to anyone else. In your
place I would be content with nothing less than killing a
hundred-or a thousand-women. .." is absent in B. The
girl who eventually collects the two kings' signet rings is kept
by the jinni in a box-in-a-box in B, but a glass box in M I, 63.
Both are common folkloric motifs, but their feel is not at all
the same. Only B has the little farce where the girl gives her
order to the two kings and, with cautious winks, each
encourages the other to go first. Identity of detail too can be
of interest. In the "Two Viziers," for example, both recensions
have (in slightly different form) the sentence with comically
dawdling syntax before Sitt al-Husn pulls Badr al-Din into
bed (B I, 62; M I, 249, lines 45-48). There are also enduring
formulas, e.g., al-bahr al- 'ajjIj al-mutaldtim bil-amwdj (M I,
64; B I, 4 middle).
Comparison of Btilaq and the early Egyptian recension
used here to complete "Qamar al-Zamdn" is also instructive.
Builaqhas what strikes me as a deliberately perverse deployment of love interests. Bustan falls in love with al-As'ad but is

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184

Journal of the American Oriental Society 107.1 (1987)

married to his brother; Queen MarjAnamarries al-As'ad but

at once goes home to her own country. None of these oddities
happen in the Wortley-Montague version. It also avoids
ambiguities in other places. Where Biflaq (I, 396) first makes
us believe that the city the brothers have reached is inhabited
exclusively by fire-worshippers, this text (I, 133) soberly
writes "most inhabitants are Magians." The pointed Koranic
quote "men are in charge of women" by which, in B I, 397, the
bad lady in the Magians' city invites al-Amjad to take her to
his house, also seems an innovation of the Late Egyptian
recension, although the phrase in M I, 134 line 17 is just as
arresting. Were these features of the late Egyptian recension
produced by a sophisticated imagination, to play up the
motif of failed love in this wonderful, dark tale; or were they
tacked on (even if, for this reader, felicitiously) by clumsy,
mechanical habit? The availability of a critical edition of the
earliest sources makes such questions more worth asking than
ever before.
The light this admirable work sheds is manifold. It is hard
to imagine a more lasting, more valued contribution to the
study of Arabic literature.
ANDRAS HAMORI
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

A Dictionary of Nigerian Arabic. By ALAN S. KAYE. Pp.

xvi + 92. (Bibliotheca Afroasiatica, Vol. 1) Malibu, California: UNDENA PUBLICATIONS. 1982. Cloth, $23.50; paper,
$17.50.
This English-Arabic dictionary is based on a large number
of recordings of texts and interviews and copious notes
collected by the author during his stay in Nigeria a decade
ago. It deals with the speech of Nigerians who speak Arabic as
their native tongue, a dialect spoken in Northern Nigeria,
mainly the Northeastern region bordering Chad. The field
work that went into the preparation of this material was
extensive and was conducted in wide areas and with many
informants (all male for reasons that are not hard to imagine),
many of whom were multilinguals, speaking in addition to
Arabic such non-Semitic languages as Hausa and Kanuri, a
feat that can be accomplished only by someone who is deeply
in love with his work.
The book has an introduction by a colleague who had lived
in Nigeria, a preface, a list of abbreviations, and general
observations on format, transcription, phonological and grammatical notes, and details of the information provided in the
entries. The dictionary proper consists of 92 pages containing
some 3000 items. These contain not only words, but also
illustrative sentences, phrases, expressions and in some cases,
cultural comments, such as the indication that the particular

form of greeting is used by women to other women (p. 34).

The basic information that a user might need for a language
like Arabic, such as parts of speech, plural forms for nouns
and adjectives, the imperfect of verbs, etc., are provided.
There is a tendency, however, to be redundant in over
supplying information that one does not expect in an Arabic
dictionary. Thus, for verbs, the imperfect form (in the 3 m.s.)
is always given, in spite of a great deal of predictability that
exists especially for the derived verbs; in some cases even the
full paradigm of the imperative is supplied (e.g., the entry
under "go" on p. 32); for the regular nouns and adjectives and
for the participles, the regular suffixes of the f.s., f.p., and m.p.
are indicated every time; and finally, the negative of the
adjective or participle not only for the m.s. but for the other
inflected forms are sometimes provided as well ("not good"
p. 33)! Surprisingly, an important verb derivation, the masdar
or verbal noun, is not provided with each verb; one is left
wondering as to whether it is used in this dialect at all.
On the whole, the data seem to be accurate and consistently
presented. Some cases, however, are questionable, e.g., the
imperfect of the doubled verb / gamma/ "grow"(an interesting
feature of this dialect is that it preserves the ancient /-a/ of the
3 m.s. perfect for the doubled verb) is given as / bigim/ (p. 34),
which typically has the shape of the imperfect of a hollow
verb, and these same forms are also given under the entry
"get" but this time the imperfect is / bugfim/ (p. 31) (so, is this
a typo or a genuine exception to doubled verbs?); also this
/-a/ is unexpectedly found in the case of one quadriliteral
verb, "gargle"(p. 31), which does not seem to appear on other
such verbs (again, a typo? which way?).
One of the features of the dictionary for which the author is
to be highly commended is his faithfulness in recording, where
they exist, free variations, which linguists in their zeal for
neatness and symmetry tend to sweep under the carpet. As is
well known, these variations are of great importance in
studying language change. To cite an example, the behavior
of initial pharyngeals, which post-vocalically are sometimes
maintained and sometimes dropped with compensatory vowel
lengthening, should be of interest to Indo-Europeanists of the
Pharyngeal Theory persuasion.
Nigerian Arabic is interesting in many respects: it is on the
periphery of the Arabic speaking area, far from the Arab
heartland, with all that such distance implies linguistically,
and it is a dialect in contact-within the speaker because of
multilingualism, and regionally-with other non-Semitic languages, and thus presents a neat study case for the phenomena
of borrowing, language and dialect mixing, etc. The author is
to be commended for his labor of love in providing a useful
tool for linguists, Arabists and non-Arabists alike, and others.
PETER ABBOUD
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

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