Muhsin Al-Musawi - The Popular Memory of the Societies of the Thousand and One Nights

A new book was published on the historical context of the 1001 Nights in Abbasid Baghdad. It is in Arabic (الذاكرة الشعبية لمجتمعات ألف ليلة وليلة) and has been given the English title of The Popular Memory of the Societies of the Thousand and One Nights.

More information below:

From http://www.columbia.edu/cu/mesaas/faculty/:

"Columbia University Professor Muhsin al-Musawi's latest book, The Popular Memory of the Societies of the Thousand and One Nights, is published by Al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi press.

The book expounds on and develops al-Musawi's early research on and criticism of the social and cultural aspect of medieval and Abbasid life, and discusses the nature of narrative techniques that evolved then in relation to poetry, historiography, geography, topography, and the akhbar genre. Please have a look at the front and back covers for more information."

From al-Musawi:

"The Popular Memory  of the Societies  of the Thousand and  One Nights (Beirut: Al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi, 2016), 600pp. ISBN  978-9953-68-808-4.

The book expands on and develops my early research on  and criticism  of the social and cultural aspect of medieval and Abbasid life,  and discusses the nature of narrative techniques that  evolved then in relation to poetry, historiography, geography, topography, and  the akhbar genre."

Here is the cover and back page:

Muhsin Al-Musawi The Popular Memory of the Societies of the Thousand and One Nights

Arabic manuscripts of the Thousand and One Nights

Arabic manuscripts of the Thousand and One Nights is a new book recently published by Harback, Directed by Aboubakr Chraïbi.

I've uploaded the book's information on Scribd below along with its table of contents.

The field of Nights studies concerned with Arabic manuscripts of the work has long been missing a comprehensive, updated bibliography and overview of these manuscripts. As such it will be a vital resource for Nights scholarship, particularly as that scholarship continues to take a more global and comparative view of the story collection.

Arabic manuscripts of the Thousand and One Nights by mjlundell

Albiblio - Egyptian Nights Database

 picture of restaurant in Sharm el-Sheikh from www.sharmsmile.com/

Rasoul Aliakbari has compiled an excellent resource for 1001 Nights folks. It's Albiblio, a website devoted to everything about Egyptian manifestations of the Nights and is a treasure of online resources.

Here is the link - http://albiblio.net/

From the website: "Given the scarcity and dispersal of materials on the Egyptian book history of One Thousand and One Nights, Albiblio website mainly aims to present copies of the Nights that have appeared in print in Egypt. In addition, Albiblio will contain contemporary responses as well as scholarly research about this corpus. Aiming to be comprehensive, this project is evolving and testifies to the vibrant presence of the Nights in modern Egyptian literature and culture. The information is derived from OCLC Worldcat, Index Islamicus, Index Arabicus, and correspondence with major Middle Eastern libraries among other sources. The compiler welcomes criticism and feedback as well as suggestions to be added to the bibliographies."

Learn Arabic with Sinbad

Learn Arabic with "Sindibad" - this person on youtube has uploaded the 40 minute video with both Arabic and English subtitles.  It is basic Arabic but a helpful refresher.  You can learn how to say useful things like "mother," "father" and "are you a policeman?"!!

Sindibad is/was a hugely popular animated series (outside of the US and particularly in the Arabic speaking world) originating in the 80s or maybe even the 70s.

A new company called "Arabian Sinbad" has produced a number of these videos featuring an updated riff on the old Sindibad. Their website is here - http://arabiansinbad.com/store/index.php

1001 Nights in the World Literary Imagination - Boston University

 

A Tale of 1001 Nights by Gustave Boulanger

Professor Margaret Litvin (http://www.bu.edu/mlcl/profile/margaret-litvin/) is teaching her Nights course again (she taught a similar course last Fall) at Boston University.

You should follow their blog, it has student and group work and presentations, and is an excellent, updated resource on the Nights and on teaching the Nights -

http://1001nightsatbu.wordpress.com/

Hanan Al-Shaykh - One Thousand and One Nights: A Retelling

I mentioned Al-Shaykh's UK version of this book in 2011, but apparently her collection of Nights stories has also been recently released in the USA, spurring the following reflection.

I've excerpted bits from an Atlantic review of her book below.  Read the whole thing at - http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/06/the-humanist-message-hidden-amid-the-violence-of-i-one-thousand-and-one-nights-i/277210/

The review/article/musing on Al-Shaykh's work by author Joe Fassler alleges a humanist message discovered in the Nights beneath its violence.  Though what that humanism is remains unclear after reading the article.  Hanan Al-Shaykh's books are great though, and you should go read all of them.

Al-Shaykh has published, here in her Nights, 19 stories culled from three Arabic manuscripts that she found interesting, after reading all three manuscripts in their entirety, in Arabic.

Don't know if I agree with the following, actually I don't, but then again, anything goes with the Nights:

"Though the Arabian Nights features countless characters and voices, we must read each one as partially channeled by Shahrazad, her plea for reason and mercy. Through all these stories, she is working on him. Educating him. Maybe she is brainwashing him. These stories, in fact, slowly teach him to give up his lust for blood and his blanket condemnation of women.

Look closely: She chooses stories that mirror her predicament. All the characters are pleading for life, in a way. She does this intelligently, of course, camouflaging with little stories here and there on different topics. But the main line is you cease to be a human being if you steep yourself in brutality and killing. That adultery--like many human failings--happens for reasons we can sympathize with. And so one cannot be a tyrant. One must listen carefully to others, and be just. Every story is her asking for her life, asking for the killer to stop."

----------------

"We don't know much about their relationship--if she was attracted to him, if she was happy with him in bed, if she was merely a victim of his violence. But you can feel in the stories a gradual change. At the beginning they are very brutal and dark, but they show us that adultery usually happens for a reason and that jealousy and violence typically bring misery to all concerned. With time, though, they become more about social values, adventures, they were less dark than when she started, and concern higher questions. Who are we human beings? What do we do in life? What is our aim of living? How do we become better citizens? And the answer, so often, comes through telling important stories and listening closely to what others have learned."



 

Map Pictures - Arabian Nights

Here is a trailer for an Arabic series (or film?) based on the Nights.

Nancy Ajram - Alf Leyla We Layla

Here is pop superstar Nancy Ajram's version of Umm Kulthum's song Alf Layla wa Layla:

Al-Masudi - The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems

Al-Masudi (aka Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi) was/is a well known geographer and historian who lived in Baghdad and Cairo in the late 800s to mid 900s AD.

His book, Muruj Al-Dhahab, known in English as The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, is a historical account of the beginning of the world up through the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.  You can read more about the book and its translations at this wikipedia page I created: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meadows_of_Gold

What is interesting about the book to me and Nights scholars is that it is one of the first books to mention the Nights at all, and dates the Nights to the 10th century, if not suggestively before then.  There are only four known mentions of the Nights apart from any versions of the collection pre-1400s-ish, Masudi's is one of them.

The mention, which is very brief, contains information that the Nights is an Arabic translation from a Persian story collection known as Hazar Afsaneh, that it is known in Arabic as The Thousand Nights and a Night, and that it is the story of a King, his Vizier, the daughter of the Vizier who is named "Shirazad", and her handmaiden/slave, a girl named "Dinazad".

All of which are important details for Nights scholars in many different ways.

Here is the rendering in Arabic from the French and Arabic version of Muruj (important to note because it is not an original manuscript, but was (and is in many ways) the primary source for the Masudi book in Europe and other non-Arabic speaking countries) called Prairies d'or, Arabic edition and French translation of Muruj al-dhahab by Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille, Paris 1861-77.  The following is from volume 4, pages 89-90 (available online through archive.org linked at the wikipedia page above) - 

وان سبيلها سبيل الكتب المنقولة الينا والمترجمة لنا من الفارسية والهندية والرومية سبيل تأليفها ما ذكرنا مثل كتاب هزار افسانه وتفسير ذلك من الفارسية الى العربية ألف خرافة والخرافة بالفارسية يقال لها افسانه والناس يسمون هذا الكتاب ألف ليلة وليلة وهو خبر الملك والوزير وابنته وجاريتها وهما شيرازاد ودينازاد ومثل كتاب فرزه وسيماس

Waciny Laredj - Arab Spring - 1001 Nights

Algerian writer Waciny Laredj (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waciny_Laredj) has a new novel based in part on a critique of dictatorships and on the 1001 Nights.  Thanks to Irfan for passing this along.  Not sure why his name is spelled Laredj in most English transliteration I've seen, the article below has his name as "al-A'raj," which is closer to the Arabic.

Entire article on the conference mentioned below:  http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4466/the-international-symposium-on-the-arab-spring-thr


"Wasini al-A’raj, the prominent Algerian novelist and university professor, began his lecture by reminding the audience that political discourse is something ephemeral and goes with the wind, but the literary discourse, when genuine, will become a part of the individual memory, and eventually, the collective memory. According to him, the Tunisian Revolution paved the way for other Arab Revolutions and gave literature the opportunity “to express itself.” He raised the following question: “Is literature a reaction or an echo of the revolution, or is the writer just a bearer of a situation and a bearer of a conception?” Al-A’raj suggested that writing is the “soft element” that gives value to humanity. By “soft element,” he meant the writing about the Arab Revolutions without divinisation or glorification or the introduction of a superman. He called on writers to depict an ordinary protagonist, one who gives value to humanity and nobleness. He encouraged writers to express that which others do not, and to be rebels in an exceptional situation. “Now everyone speaks about the revolution,” said al-A’raj, “but nobleness is to say something that the others do not say. Besides, the space of democracy is of paramount importance in boosting the literary work, but the writer must not wait until he/she will be provided with such a space.”

In remembering recent Algerian history, al-A’raj questioned the reason behind the victimisation of about two hundred thousand persons in the nineties. He stated that writers at that time fell under two categories: Those that went hand in hand with the authority, and those that assumed its responsibility. He added, “I wrote the novel Sayyidat al-maqam: Marthiyyat al-yawm al-hazin (Mistress of the Shrine: Elegies for a Sad Day, 1995) to express myself within literature and not inside politics. In my novel Jumlukiyat Arabia (Reponarchy of Arabia), I conversed with authoritarianism and made Dinazade say things that Shahryar did not want to listen to.” Jumlukiyat is a coined term that combines jumhouria, meaning republic, and muloukiat, meaning kingdom.

What is striking about Jumlukiyat Arabia is that it is a parody of One Thousand and One Nights. Wasini al-A’raj’s work dives deeply into the realms of the oriental despotism through the depiction of the Arab dictator in all his facets, through a highly sophisticated artistic and fictional style that draws upon One Thousand and one Nights. The novel essentially gives a powerful voice to women and the marginalized, while denouncing the one-sided vision of the dictator, portraying him as a person who is inept and weak."

Mish Alf Layla wa Layla - مش ألف ليله وليله

Last year saw the premiere of the show "Mish Alf Layla wa Layla" ("Not The 1001 Nights"), a serial Egyptian television program.

Many thanks to the anonymous visitor who posted about the show, although, curiously, said visitor shortly after deleted it.


Here are some youtube videos from the show, the first is a sort of serious commercial about it, the second a commercial highlighting the show's humor and the third a commercial featuring the theme song, sung by Abou El Leef.


Glad to see the show's title, finally, something is admitting to "not" being the Nights!

Aziz and Aziza in Arabic

Here is a contemporary rendering of the story "Aziz and Aziza" I found on youtube.  It's in Arabic but it's very simple Arabic, so if you study the language at all it should be easy to follow.

Ali Baba - Arabic Cartoon - علي بابا والاربعون حرامي

Here is an Arabic version of Ali Baba & the 40 Thieves.

From: Heykayat 3almyih حكايات عالمية ~ علي بابا والاربعون حرامي

Gulf Life - Sept 2009

Gulf Life is Gulf Air's in-flight magazine and it's a very stylish and well put together affair.  Most of the articles are written in both Arabic and English which makes it a great way to practice your Arabic reading alongside the English translation.

Their September 2009 edition has several Nights related articles including some info on Tahir Shah's book, some background of the Nights, an article on the giant hakawati statue they are planning on building in Dubai (a giant human shape which tells stories (ala the Nights) through microphones in the park), an article on Tim Supple - a dramatist who is currently travelling through the Middle East in order to collect and, at the end of his journey, present on stage in the UK, a Nights spectacle, and a great article on my favorite storyteller Abu Shady, who sits atop his storytelling chair in the An-Nowfara cafe in the old city of Damascus each night and tells stories, several from and related to the Nights.

In any event, Gulf Life has its magazine free and online, so check out the Nights edition (and their other magazines if you like):

http://www.ink-live.com/emagazines/gulf-life/2009/sep/

The Galland Manuscript

The Galland Manuscript

This image is allegedly of the Galland manuscript from the wikipedia page for the Nights.  There is no attribution though so who knows.  It's the most often used image online of the manuscript though.

The often-called “Galland manuscript” is an Arabic language manuscript of the Nights in the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris France.  Its call numbers at the library are MSS arabes 3609, 3610 and 3611.  It is the oldest manuscript of the Nights in any language that contains any stories and people have dated it to somewhere around the 15th century AD.  This date is disputed however and some think it is written earlier in the 14th century.

It’s not clear who the author or scribe is (yet! maybe you can find out) or exactly where or when or how this manuscript came into being (besides allegedly being sent from Syria to Galland in 1701).

There are three volumes.

There are 282 “nights” and around 35 stories. 

I've never read about a certain title on this manuscript nor are the stories individually titled (can someone verify or refute this?) yet they are segmented into numbered “nights.” On the picture above however each section clearly says "Alf Layla wa Layla" in Arabic.

These volumes were in Antoine Galland’s personal library and he appeared to use them as the primary (but far from only) source for the beginning volumes of his French translation of the Nights which were titled Mille et une Nuits (1704-1717). (Thanks to JC for the dates of publication).

Galland received the Arabic manuscript volumes in 1701 while in France.  A friend seems to have brought from Syria, but was in France with them when Galland acquired them.

Galland had requested that his colleagues look for the complete or original Nights after he translated a stand-alone version of “Sindbad” (aka “Sinbad the Sailor and Sinbad the Porter” or several other related sounding/spelled titles) from Arabic into French that someone told him was a part of a larger body of work (the Nights).

The last story is known generally (though has several different spelling and other title variants) as “The Tale of Qamar al-Zaman and Budur” and does not have an ending.

In 1984 Muhsin Mahdi, a professor at Harvard, published an edited and collated version of this Arabic manuscript (along with a completed version of “Qamar al-Zaman”) in which he attempts to portray the oldest and most authentic Nights as anyone knew them.  His out of print three volume set from Brill consists of the manuscript, several essays in English, several indexes in Arabic including an intensive comparative index and a descriptive chapter of old manuscripts of the Nights and an introduction in Arabic of his theories regarding the various origins of the Nights.  This set is expensive when found but many major university libraries have a copy or have access to one.

In 1990 WW Norton published an English translation by Husain Haddawy of Mahdi’s recension titled The Arabian Nights consisting only of these oldest stories. 

In 2004 Claudia Ott translated this manuscript (using Mahdi’s edition) into German.  It was published in Europe under the title Tausendundeine Nacht.

Muhsin Mahdi writes about the acquisition of the G-Manuscript:

"He must have come across the information about the Nights some time between 25 February and 13 October 1701.  On the first date, he wrote a letter to Pierre-Daniel Huet referring to 'Sindbad':  'I also have another little translation from Arabic, stories just as good as the fairy tales published these last years in such profusion.'  On the second date, he wrote another letter to Huet where he mentions the Nights:  'Three of four days ago,' he says, 'a friend from Aleppo residing in Paris informed me by letter that he has received from his country a book in Arabic I had asked him to get for me.  It is in three volumes, entitled . . . The Thousand Nights.'  Even before seeing the manuscript, he describes the acquisition as 'a collection of stories people recite in the evening in that country [Syria]. . . . I asked this friend to keep it for me until I come to Paris, the cost of purchase and shipping being ten écus.  It will be something with which to amuse myself during the long [winter] nights.'

He traveled from Caen to Paris in December 1701 and took possession of the three-volume Syrian manuscript of the Nights (A) that would be named after him.  He seems to have started almost immediately to translate the work; for, in August 1702, he wrote to Gisbert Cuper:  'I have finished a clean copy of a six-hundred page work. . . . I had started it this year [1702] upon my return to Paris [in December 1701], working on it only after dinner. . . . This other work . . . is entitled The Thousand and One Nights, Arab Tales, Translated into French. . . . A thousand and one Nights!, and I have only finished seventy; this can give you an idea of the length of the entire work.'  By the end of the summer of 1702, therefore, he had finished a clean copy of the first two volumes of his Nuits, covering the first sixty-nine Nights or slightly more than the first volume of his Arabic manuscript.  These were published early in 1704, followed by the next four volumes in 1705.  The first volume contained the dedication to the Marquise d'O and an Avertissement exposing his appreciation of the Nights."

(19-20, Mahdi, The Thousand and One Nights, Leiden:  EJ Brill, 1995).

Feel free to add related bibliographic info (a short bibliography is listed below) and or other info or corrections in the comments section (or just email me too).  I’ve put only English and one Arabic resource below but I’m certain there are many more I’ve missed in all languages.

Table of Contents

Here is the table of contents as rendered in English by Husain Haddawy:

Prologue:  The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier's Daughter

     The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey

     The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife

The Story of the Merchant and the Demon

     The First Old Man's Tale

     The Second Old Man's Tale

The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon

     The Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban

     The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot

     The Tale of the King's Son and the She-Ghoul

     The Tale of the Enchanted King

The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies

     The First Dervish's Tale

     The Second Dervish's Tale

          The Tale of the Envious and the Envied

     The Third Dervish's Tale

     The Tale of the First Lady, the Flogged One

The Story of the Three Apples

     The Story of the Two Viziers, Nur al-Din Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri

The Story of the Hunchback

     The Christian Broker's Tale:  The Young Man with the Severed Hand and the Girl

     The Steward's Tale:  The Young Man from Baghdad and Lady Zubaida's Maid

     The Jewish Physician's Tale:  The Young Man from Mosul and the Murdered Girl

     The Tailor's Tale:  The Lame Young Man from Baghdad and the Barber

          The Barber's Tale

               The Tale of the First Brother, the Hunchbacked Tailor

               The Tale of the Second Brother, Baqbaqa the Paraplegic

               The Tale of the Third Brother, Faqfaq the Blind

               The Tale of the Fourth Brother, the One-Eyed Butcher

               The Tale of the Fifth Brother, the Cropped of Ears

               The Tale of the Sixth Brother, the Cropped of Lips

The Story of Nur al-Din Ali ibn Bakkar and the Slave-Girl Shams al-Nahar

The Story of the Slave-Girl Anis al-Jalis and Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Khaqan

The Story of Jullanar of the Sea

The Story of Qamar al-Zaman (missing an ending in the G-manuscript)

Bibliography Specific to the Galland Manuscript:
 

English

Wollamshram's Blog Post on the breakdown of the volumes and contents of Galland's (French) Nights:

http://wollamshram.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/galland%E2%80%99s-mille-et-une-nuit/


See also the relevant sections from the following books:

The Arabian Nights Handbook by Robert Irwin

Eastern Dreams by Paul McMichael Nurse

And the entries “Manuscripts,” “Galland, Antoine,” and “Sindbad the Seaman” in The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia (volumes one and two) edited by Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen.

Reynolds, Dwight F. "A Thousand and One Nights: a history of the text and its reception." Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period. Eds. Roger Allen and D. S. Richards. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Grotzfeld, Heinz.  “The Age of the Galland Manuscript of the Nights:  Numismatic Evidence for Dating a Manuscript.”  Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies I:  50-64.  1996-7.

And the following oldies but goodies from Duncan MacDonald:

“The Story of the Fisherman and the Jinni:  Transcribed from Galland’s MS of ‘The Thousand and One Nights.’”  Orientalische Studien:  Th.  Noldeke zum 70.  Geburtstag gewidmet, ed. by Carl Bezold.  Giessen:  Toepelmann, 357-383.  1906.

“Lost Manuscripts of the ‘Arabian Nights’ and a Projected Edition of that of Galland.”  Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society:  219-221.

“A Preliminary Classification of Some Mss. of the Arabian Nights.”  A Volume of Oriental Studies:  Presented to Edward G. Browne on his 60th Birthday.  Eds. Thomas W. Arnold and Reynold A. Nicholson.  Cambridge:  Cambridge UP, 304-321.  1922.

“The Earlier History of the Arabian Nights.”  Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 353-397.

“A Bibliographical and Literary Study of the First Appearance of the Arabian Nights in Europe.”  Library Quarterly 2:  387-420.  1932.

In Arabic Muhsin Mahdi has a collection of manuscript descriptions including the Galland manuscript in volume II of The Thousand and One Nights from the Earliest Known Sources.  Leiden:  Brill.  1984.

1001 Nights Radio Show (in Arabic)

The blogger Zeinobia at her great blog Egyptian Chronicles has been posting radio clips of the 1001 Nights in Arabic.  During Ramadan in the Middle East it is common for family and friends to gather to watch special TV serials and radio shows and the 1001 Nights both on TV and the Radio has been a staple of the holy month for years, particularly in Egypt.

Here is the Barber of Bagdad, for more postings on her blog click the link '1001' below this post.

http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2010/08/ramadans-arabian-nights-barber-of_26.html

New Manuscript Discovery for 101 Nights

I'm not too familiar with the story collection known as "One Hundred and One Nights" which, according to The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia originated from North Africa and contains some elements of the familiar stories from some of the oldest versions of the 1001 Nights.  If someone can point toward a copy for sale somewhere online or elsewhere I'd appreciate it (it's only in Arabic and French I believe).

From the encyclopedia:  "The work is structured as a frame story resembling the frame story of the Arabian Nights, with the motifs of adultery, the cycle of marriage and execution, and the figures of Shahrazad and Dinarzad (Dunyazad).  The collection contains eighteen stories.  These stories are similar to well-known stories in the Arabian Nights such as Uns al-Wujud and al-Ward fi'l-Akman, Ni'ma and Nu'm, The Three Apples, and Hasan of Basra.  The Mi'at Layla wa-layla also contains versions of the Book of Sindbad, The Ebony Horse, and The City of Brass" (vol 2 594-5).

The encyclopedia also says these stories were written in the 19th century, well after the main known Arabic versions of the 1001 Nights.

A recent news article featuring German scholar and translator Claudia Ott suggests that she has found a manuscript of the 101 Nights which predates even Galland's Syrian manuscript which is, if true, one of the most significant manuscript findings in the Nights' history.  The article suggests that this 101 Nights' manuscript dates from the 13th century which, apart from the Nabia Abbott fragment, would be the oldest manuscript for any stories relating to the 1001 Nights.

Whether or not this manuscript is indeed as old as they are claiming and what stories it contains remains to be seen but it is a very very interesting development nonetheless.

Here is the link to the article/interview with Ott:  http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-310/_nr-761/i.html

from the article:

"However, there are divergent opinions on the relationship between the two books. There is already a critical edition of the "101 Nights" based on much more recent manuscripts from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, whose publisher, Mahmud Tarshuna, claims that "101 Nights" is the substantially older and more original text. His argument uses motifs from the framing narrative to claim that the "101 Nights" is closer to the Sanskrit and Pali texts of their old Indian literary sources than "1001 Nights" is.

But we also have some very old sources for "1001 Nights". In Chicago in 1949, a double sheet of paper was discovered in a pile of papyrus that had been brought back from Egypt. It bore the title "Thousand Nights" ("alf layla" in Arabic) and the beginning of a description of one night. The double sheet is a palimpsest dated 879. Its origins are evidently not Egyptian, where papyrus was still preferred to paper at that time, but Syrian."

-----------------------------------

"This also fits with what the Arabic sources tell us. Contemporary booksellers reports make it clear that a complete version, with 1000 Nights, must already have existed in the 9th century. Over the centuries several fragments of the work have been found, each of which have probably looked rather different from one another. The 1001st night was probably added in the early 12th century. In a notebook, discovered by chance in the Geniza in a synagogue in Cairo, there is the first known mention of the complete title on a lending note from around 1150: "Alf layla wa-layla" – "The Thousand and One Nights".

So I am convinced that "101Nights" and "1001 Nights" are part of a parallel tradition. "The Hundred and One Nights" and "The Thousand and One Nights" were contemporaneous with one another, the one probably better known in the west, the other in the east of the Arabian world. But all of this is something that requires further investigation. A magnificent chapter in Arab literary history has just been reopened."

Kamel Kilani - Abu Sir and Abu Qir

Here is an uploaded version of the story (in Arabic) "Abu Qir the Dyer and Abu Sir the Barber" by Egyptian children's author Kamel Kilani. The story is originally found in Calcutta II.

كامل كيلاني..ابو صير و ابو قير

Kamel Kilani

Here's a great post from blogger Baheyya on the Egyptian author Kamel Kilani, an author who popularized children's versions of the Nights in Egypt in the early 20th century.  Her post is primarily biographical and it's the best thing I've read on Kilani online in English and a great intro to the development of children's literature in Egypt.

Here's the post:  http://baheyya.blogspot.com/2010/07/wonderful-world-of-kamel-kilani.html

And from the post:  "Kamel Kilani Ibrahim Kilani didn’t set out to be the modern Egyptian pioneer of children’s literature. He just adored stories and had fond memories of a Greek nanny who raised him on a steady diet of fantastic myths and legends. He also recalled being captivated by tales of Abu Zayd al-Hilali and al-Zanati Khalifa recounted by an itinerant Azharite poet and storyteller in Midan al-Qala’a. Kilani was born on 20 October 1897 in the citadel neighborhood in Cairo, to a father who was a prominent engineer. He studied English literature in high school and enrolled at the Egyptian University (now Cairo University) from 1917 to 1930, reading French and English, and also attending Arabic grammar, logic, and morphology classes at al-Azhar. He spent a few brief years as a high school English teacher and was then appointed as an editor and reviser at the Awqaf Ministry in 1922 (where Naguib Mahfouz also worked), where he spent the rest of his career until retirement in 1954."

More on Kilani:

Brief history of Children's Literature in the Arabic speaking world:  http://www.alsalwabooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=89

Free Online Versions of the Nights

I'm going to add to this over time (and put a link to this page on the main blog menu on the right) as I come across them but this page is a list of links to freely accessible well known versions of the 1001 Nights.

English Versions:

- Wollamshram.ca - This website has complete versions of the following: 1. Richard Burton's complete 16 volume set (including hyperlinked footnotes), 2. Jonathan Scott's 1890 version, 3. JW Scott's Jack Hardin's Arabian Nights (1903), 4. John Payne's 9 volume Nights, his Tales from the Arabic and his Alaeddin, 5. WF Kirby's The New Arabian Nights (1883), 6. Andrew Lang's Arabian Nights (1898), 7. Edward Lane's Arabian Nights (1909 - edited by Stanley Lane-Poole), 8. E. Dixon's Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights (1893) and More Tales (1895) and several other derivative versions and single stories. The best source for English versions online and collected in one place.

link: http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.htm



- Little Hunchback. From the Arabian Nights Entertainments. In Three Cantos (1817). This is a three canto poem derived from the Hunchback story of the Nights, published first in London, England.

link: http://www.archive.org/stream/littlehunchbackf00londiala#page/n0/mode/2up



Spanish:

Las mil y una noches - Translated by Vicente Blasco Ibanez. According to the Arabian Nights Encyclopedia the author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is said to have been inspired by this particular version (p. 561 vol. 2).

Link: http://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Las_mil_y_una_noches




Arabic Versions:

Calcutta II online

Thanks to Moti (>http://moti-kagan.blogspot.com) for passing on the online version of Calcutta II of the Arabian Nights (1001 Nights) linked below, free and complete and in Arabic with a nice looking script too.

Unfortunately the book is scanned backwards! And it starts with the last page!

I'll try to contact Google books about it.

Here is the link to the Calcutta II online version:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=COgNAAAAYAAJ




Bulaq - 


Here is the 1863 Bulak Edition of Alf Laila wa Laila complete and online for free (in Arabic):

Volume one:

http://www.archive.org/details/alflailwalail01bulauoft

Volume two:

>http://www.archive.org/details/alflailwalail02bulauoft

Volume three:

>http://www.archive.org/details/alflailwalail03bulauoft

Voume four:

>http://www.archive.org/details/alflailwalail04bulauoft