Arabian Nights
- Introduction
"Arabian
Nights", a short form of "The Books of a Thousand Nights and a
Night" is a collection of 1,001 Arabian stories that have been heard for
many generations before they were recorded on paper. These stories have
been compiled for over a 1,000 years by various authors, translators and
scholars, though an original script has never been found. Its several
versions date between 800-900 AD.
The
only common text among them its beginning - the Persian Sultaan
Shahariyaar and the queen Shaharzaad. This tale was first found in "Hazaar
Afasaaney" (1,000 stories). But surprisingly there is no physical
evidence of existence of this book. Some record only a few hundred tales
some all 1,000 tales, and some more tales.
Well
known stories from this book are "Allaadeen", "Alee Baabaa
and Forty Thieves" and "Sindbaad the Sailor".
These
stories have sometime been told and heard as folk stories during the reign
of Khaleefaa Haaroon al-Rasheed who lived in Bagadaad between 786-808 AD.
His Vazeer was killed by the Khaleefaa in a very cruel way, nobody ever
knew why.
Its
first existing Arabic printed version, published by the East India Company
in 1814, is available in Calcuttaa. A second volume was released in 1818.
Both volumes have 100 stories each. There are two more versions of its
translations by Edward William Lane (1838-1840) and Sir Richard Burton
(1885-1888). Lane's version excludes the vulgarity, while the Burton's
version includes it.
These stories, presented here, have
been adapted from various sources.
Since there are many stories and many sources, it is difficult to chase
whether they are genuine or not, but a special care has been taken to select their
sources and they are listed with the stories. All the sources do not give these tales in one single order;
moreover some stories are overlapped while others are different.
Most of the stories are written in
old type language and difficult language, thus they are difficult to read them.
That is why those stories are
presented here in simple English language to be read more widely. Since the main theme of
all the stories is the same, the overlapped stories are not duplicated here.
They are just referred here to wherever they are written first, but if they
are differently given, they are given at both the places with a cross
reference.
Its
tales include all kinds of stories - love stories, tragedies, comedies,
poems, Muslim religious legends, fairy tales, parables etc. Many stories include
Jinn, magicians
and legendary places. Its most stories are interwoven with other stories.
Why? To know the reason read its Prolog.
Sources
1. "More
Stories from the Arabian Nights"/ As translated from the Arabic by
Sir Richard Burton. Associated Booksellers. 1957.
2.
"The Arabian Nights" translated by Edward Lane (1841) and Andrew Lang (1898)
are in the
Public Domain.
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