The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1
Page 127
276–9 ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Qilaba and Iram, City of the Columns 898
279–82 Ishaq ibn al-Mausili 903
282–5 The slaughterhouse cleaner and the lady 908
285–94 Harun al-Rashid and ‘the second caliph’ 912
294– ‘Ali the Persian 928
The story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves killed by a slave girl 929
* In reality, Shaddad ibn ‘Ad; the inscription is wrong.
* Quran 17.36.
* The speaker here is the wine.
* Used for soap.
* cf. Night 17.
* cf. Night 11.
* cf. Night 8.
* Kauthar is the water of Paradise.
* An Arabic pun on malik (‘king’) and malak (‘angel’).
* cf. Night 12.
* The year 653 hijri corresponds to ad 1255–6. (The date that follows, 7320, is imaginary.)
* Quran 128.1.
* cf. Night 11.
* ‘Mistress of Disasters’.
* Quran 22.5.
* A reference to Eve being created from Adam’s rib.
* Quran 4.3, 28, 29.
* The text gives: ‘fearing for his life, he killed her’.
* Nuzhat al-Zaman means ‘Time’s Delight’ and Ghussat al-Zaman ‘Time’s Torment’.
* The Tadhkira is the Tadhkirat al-Kahallin (‘Treatise on Ophthalmologists’) by the eleventh-century Christian Arab ‘Ali ibn ‘Isa; Ibn al-Baitar was a botanist and pharmacologist (d. ad 1248); the Mufradat is al-Jami‘ li-mufradat al-adwiyah wa-’l-aghdiya (‘The Comprehensive Book on Simple Drugs and Foods’); the Meccan Canon is Avicenna’s al-Qanun fi’l-tibb or The Canon of Medicine.
† A stick used for applying kohl.
* The Battle of Ohod, fought outside Medina in the year 3 hijri (ad 625), represented a reverse for the Prophet Muhammad.
* ‘It was decreed and it happened’.
* ‘Time’s Delight’ is what Nuzhat al-Zaman means in Arabic.
* A lock of hair is often compared to a snake.
† A play on the name Dau’ al-Makan, literally ‘light of the place’.
* In Arabic the word for ‘friend’ is sadiq and the word for ‘truth’ is sidq.
* Quran 3.285.
* Quran 74.
* Quran 66.6.
* Quran 28.27.
* Quran 77.35.
* Quran 33.
* ‘What was, was’.
* A stick used in a children’s game.
* Meaning ‘fighter’, especially in the jihad or ‘Holy War’.
* A pun on bilal in its meaning of ‘doing good’.
* ‘Sincerity’, cf. p. 772.
* A pun on al-siwaka (‘tooth-pick’) and siwaka (‘other than you’).
† A pun on al-araka (‘ ‘arak tree’) and araka (‘I see you’).
* Quran 51.9.
* The lines ‘The rest would all belong to you, / With every living soul serving as your ransom’ are not in the Calcutta II text.
* Quran 4.38.
* Sa‘d is Arabic for ‘good fortune’.
* Quran 25.70.
* An Islamic procedure whereby if a man says ‘I divorce you’ three times, the divorce is legal and final.
* Play on raha (rest) and ruh (life).
* ‘Hexarch’ means literally ‘leader of sixty’.
* There is no Night 261 in the Calcutta II text.
* A reference to the story of Abraham, Genesis 22.
* As a rafidi, a kind of Shi‘ite heretic, the man whose corpse is discovered on the gallows would have had the names of the first two caliphs Abu Bakr and ‘Umar tattooed on his heels so that he could dishonour them by treading on their names. No Sunni would have done such a thing.
* This story was originally told about the Visigothic capital of Toledo in Spain and the circumstances of its capture by the Arab and Berber army in 711.
† Caliph ad 705–15.
* Quran 16.112.
* Quran 12.9.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Editorial Note
Introduction
A Note on the Translation
A Note on the Text
Translating Galland
Tales of 1,001 Nights
Nights 1 to 20
Nights 21 to 40
Nights 41 to 60
Nights 61 to 80
Nights 81 to 100
Nights 101 to 120
Nights 121 to 140
Nights 141 to 160
Nights 161 to 180
Nights 181 to 200
Nights 201 to 220
Nights 221 to 240
Nights 241 to 260
Nights 262 to 280
Nights 281 to 294
The story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves killed by a slave girlThe story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves killed by a slave girl
Glossary
Chronology
Further Reading
Maps
The ‘Abbasid Caliphate in the Ninth Century
Baghdad in the Ninth Century
Cairo in the Fourteenth Century
Index of Nights and Stories
Footnotes
Introduction
Page xv
Nights 1 to 20
Page 35
Page 85
Page 96
Nights 21 to 40
Page 137
Page 140
Page 161
Page 163
Page 172
Page 184
Page 208
Page 210
Page 258
Nights 41 to 60
Page 313
Page 314
Page 315
Page 318
Page 344
Page 361
Page 364
Nights 61 to 80
Page 375
Page 384
Page 387
Page 389
Page 403
Page 405
Page 406
Nights 81 to 100
Page 409
Page 411
Page 412
Page 426
Nights 101 to 120
Page 473
Page 501
Nights 121 to 140
Page 561
Nights 141 to 160
Page 607
Nights 161 to 180
Page 701
Nights 201 to 220
Page 746
Page 770
Nights 221 to 240
Page 794
Page 795
Page 809
Page 811
Nights 241 to 260
Page 847
Page 854
Page 858
Nights 262 to 280
Page 860
Page 869
Page 871
Page 888
Page 890
Page 897