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

Muhsin MahdiReview by: Andras HamoriJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 107, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1987), pp. 182-184Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable 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 Intro-

duction

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 (fac-

similes). 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

MS

from 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

"Tausendundeiner

Nacht",

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

circumstantialevidence, 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

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.202 on Mon, 23 Jun 2014 18:26:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions






Reviews

of Books

183

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

Wortley-

Montague 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

Hunch-

back," "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

slips-

dittographies, 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

2699-

misprinted, 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 manu-

script.

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 diver-

gences 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

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 printedtexts

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

prepara-

tion

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.

Builaq

has

what strikes me

as

a

deliberately

perverse deploy-

ment of love

interests.

Bustan falls in love

with al-As'ad but

is







184 Journal of the American Oriental

Society

107.1

(1987)

married

to his

brother; Queen MarjAna

marries 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,

Cali-

fornia:

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

gram-

matical

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

regularnouns 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 lan-

guages,

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





review by andras hamori -- the thousand and one nights (alf layla wa-layla) from the earliest known...

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