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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
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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
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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
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