SOURCE: Molan, Peter D. “The Arabian Nights: The Oral Connection.” Edebiyat: The Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures 2, no. 1-2 (1988): 191-204.

[In the following essay, Molan argues that the stories of The Arabian Nights are grounded in folk tradition and attempts to trace changes in the various manuscript adaptations and translations, concentrating especially on a number of anomalous words and phrases that appear in a European translation but are not found in early Arabic versions.]

In attempting to establish an “operational definition” of folk literature,

Francis Lee Utley has noted that:

In the Middle East we have vast repositories (of tales), like the Arabian Nights and the Midrash Rabbah, which certainly have some connection with folklore, but which bear always the marks of artistic handling.¹

Utley's statement raises certain obvious questions which have not been quite precisely posed in the scholarly literature on the Arabian Nights. What is the connection of the Nights to folklore? Are they popular literature which Richard Dorson has characterized as “… sophisticated compositions written for and responsive to a popular audience, but nevertheless literary products …”?² Are they popular literature containing folkloric elements? Or are they, fundamentally, folk tales drawn from an oral tradition and polished up by their redactors upon being written down?

I would suggest that a good deal of early scholarly work indicates clearly, though not intentionally, that the latter is the case. We may cite, for example, Charles Huet's 1918 article, “Les origines du conte de Aladdin et la lampe merveilleuse.”³ Huet fails to demonstrate the origins of the story but does provide an extensive catalogue of analogues to the Aladdin story which includes the Arabian Nights tale of “Ma‘rūf the Cobbler” (we must remind ourselves that the Aladdin tale itself is not, generally considered, an Arabian Nights tale) and a number of demonstrably oral folk tales from both the Arab world and beyond.

Similarly, James G. Frazer, in his translation of Apollodorus' writings, gives an extensive appendix of analogues to the Homeric story of Ulysses and Polyphemus.⁴ It properly includes the Arabian Nights tale of “The Third Voyage of Sinbad” as well as, again, a large number of demonstrably oral folk tales in a geographic dispersion stretching from Mongolia to the British Isles. We might add here mention of the Cyclops tale among the Palestinian Arabic folk tales collected by Paul Kahle.⁵ Finally, we may also note Joseph Campbell's use of the Arabian Nights story of “Qamar al-Zamān” in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which juxtaposes that story with mythic lore from around the world.⁶

It may thus be seen that one of the major criteria for identifying folklore in a written document, i.e., the discovery of variant forms of the tale in question known to be of oral provenance, has been fulfilled, at least for the Arabian Nights stories of “The Third Voyage of Sinbad,” “Ma‘rūf the Cobbler,” and “Qamar al-Zamān.”⁷

The foundation for further work of this sort has also been laid by Elisseeff's important work, Thémes et motifs des 1001 nuits⁸ and by Mia Gerhardt's The Art of Story-Telling.⁹ A comparison of the themes, motives, and story outlines given by Elisseeff and Gerhardt with the standard catalogues of folk tale types, such as that of Nowak's,¹⁰ finally allows us to determine the extent to which the Arabian Nights tales are analogues of authentic oral tales.

Gerhardt's work also represents the beginning of an interest in the application of broadly formalist techniques to the analysis of individual Arabian Nights tales, and even to the whole body of stories.¹¹ As with the work of Huet, such studies do not have as their aim an identification of the folkloric connections of the Arabian Nights, but much that is found in them seems relevant to the question.

Gerhardt, for instance, observes that the arrangement of the Sinbad tales is structurally significant¹² and not, as Richard Burton had asserted, “bad ordering.”¹³ But neither Gerhardt nor I, in our assessments of the symmetrically rising and falling number of adventures in Sinbad's seven voyages, connected the “lozenge” shaped order of the tales with the techniques of oral composition. Let me defend Ms. Gerhardt and myself by saying that it was not our immediate purpose to make that connection, but I will try to do so here.

Axel Olrik, the distinguished Danish folklorist, at the beginning of this century attempted to determine “laws” governing the composition of folk narrative.¹⁴ His analysis must still, today, be considered basic. Among Olrik's “laws” of folk narrative are “the laws of opening and closing.” Let me quote Olrik at some length:

The Sage [Olrik's inclusive term for all types of folk narrative] begins by moving from calm to excitement, and after the concluding event … the Sage ends by moving from excitement to calm. For example, the epos cannot end with the last breath of Roland. Before ending, it needs to relax the clenched fist of the sword-hand; it needs the burial of the hero, the revenge, the death through grief of the beloved, and the execution of the traitor. A longer narrative needs only one. Hundreds of folk songs end, not with the death of the lovers, but with the interweaving of the branches of the two roses which grow out of their graves … The constant reappearance of this element of terminal calm shows that it is based, not just on a manifestation of the inclination of an individual narrator, but on the formal constraint of an epic law.¹⁵

When Sinbad has one additional adventure, each being more perilous than the last, in each of his first three voyages; when he has yet another adventure culminating in being sealed in a tomb and then murdering innocent men and women after finding an escape from the tomb in the fourth voyage, and when his adventures decrease in number and perilousness in the fifth, sixth and seventh voyages, we see neither Burton's “bad ordering” nor merely Gerhardt's and Molan's “beautiful structuring,” but rather the exact operation of Olrik's “epic laws of opening and closing” in oral narrative.

Olrik goes on to note that “… if there are not other possibilities for continuation, then the storyteller always adds a long jesting closing formula in order to quiet the mood.”¹⁶ Here again we recognize the closing formula of the Arabian Nights tales which, if not quite jesting, is certainly ubiquitous. By way of example, we need cite only their version which occurs in the story of Ma‘rūf. The climax of the story comes when Ma‘rūf's son kills Ma‘rūf's evil first wife. But the story goes on further and then closes with the familiar Arabian Nights formula:

After this, King Ma‘rūf sent for the farmer whose guest he had been when he was a fugitive, and made him his Prime Minister and Chief Counselor. Then learning that he had a daughter of unsurpassed beauty and loveliness, of qualities enobled at birth by nature, of exalted worth, he took her to wife. In due time he married his son. So, they abode a while in all solace of life and its delight and their days were serene and their joys untroubled until there came to them that destroyer of delights, that sunderer of societies, that depopulator of populous places, the orphaner of sons and daughters. So, glory be to the Living One who does not die and whose hands are the keys of the seen and the unseen.¹⁷

Many more stories from the Arabian Nights must be analyzed in terms of the catalogues of folk tale types and in the light of folklore studies such as Olrik's or Lord Raglan's¹⁸ before concluding finally that the whole body of Arabian Nights tales are drawn from an oral tradition and not popular literary compositions. When we recall Archer Taylor's observations on the “… curious unawareness of the commonplaces of folklore style”¹⁹ among most literate authors attempting to imitate folklore, however, we may conclude that it seems likely that the rest of the stories of the Arabian Nights will prove to be as fully grounded on a folk tradition as the stories of Sinbad and Ma‘rūf have proven to be.

To the extent that this is true, we must turn to the problem of trying to identify the nature and extent of “artistic handling” to which Arab folktales have been subjected in being brought into the written versions of the Arabian Nights that we know today. It is to one aspect of this question that I would like to devote the remainder of this paper.

In rereading portions of the Arabian Nights, my attention has been drawn back to a number of apparently anomalous words and phrases which occur in the MacNaghten edition of the work but which do not appear in the Būlāq edition. For example, when King Shahriyār's brother informs him that his wife is being unfaithful, Shahriyār demands to see this with his own eyes. They secret themselves to watch, and it is true. The wife, her handmaids and the household slaves hold a day-long orgy lasting, as the two texts say, respectively,

MacNaghten: … ilā adhāni al-‘asri qāla fa-lammā ra'ā al-malik

Bulaq: … ilā al-‘asri fa-lammā ra'ā al-malik²⁰

… till (the call to prayer of) the afternoon. (He said,) when the king saw …

The use of the otherwise totally anomalous qāla, ‘he said,’ in the MacNaghten text suggests to me the phrase wa-qāla al-rāwī, ‘and the reciter said,’ of so many Arabic texts which we know to derive from oral sources. The phrase wa-qāla al-rāwī does actually occur in one instance known to me in the MacNaghten edition.²¹ I would argue, therefore, that its use here implies that the MacNaghten text has been taken down from an oral reciter with the scribe inserting the common phrase and reminding us of the tale's oral provenance.

The suppression of the anomalous verb qāla in the Būlāq text, on the other hand, seems to suggest exactly that artistic handling to which Francis Utley referred. The same is probably also true of the suppression in the Būlāq text of the term adhān, ‘call to prayer.’ For the Muslim teller of tales, the phrase ilā adhān al-‘asr, ‘until the afternoon call to prayer,’ is probably no more than the extremely common and perfectly usual cliche to express ‘late afternoon.’ For the literate and history-bound philologist who, I assume, edited the Būlāq text, it is a clear anachronism as the story is about pre-Islamic, Persian kings.

There are, in the first seventy-five pages of the MacNaghten text, thirteen similar examples of this verb qāla. They are grammatically anomalous unless recognized as interpolations signaling the oral origins of the text. All but one, which seems to have escaped him, are omitted by the editor of the Būlāq text. It might be argued, of course, that the phrase wa-qāla al-rāwī is inserted by a literate author or editor to give the tale a folkloric air. The use of the verb qāla alone, however (which is, at first reading, merely confusing), and the particular relationship of occurrence and nonoccurrence in the two editions seems clearly to militate against such an assertion.

Included in the texts immediately surrounding the verbs in question are several other examples of emendations of the type noted above in the use of the word adhān. For example, Shahriyār, having disposed of his unfaithful wife, still finds no solace. His shame is so great that only finding someone who is more powerful than he who has suffered yet greater pain will console him. If he fails to do so, the two texts continue respectively,

MacNaghten: … mawtu-nā khayrun min hayāti-nā.

Būlāq: … fa-yakūnu mawtu-nā khayrun min hayāti-nā.

… (then) our dying (will) be better than our living.

MacNaghten: qāla thumma inna-humā kharajā.

Būlāq: fa-ajāba li-dhālika thumma inna-humā kharajā.²²

(So he agreed to that.) (He said,) then the two went out.

Besides the use of the qāla, we also notice the insertion of the phrase ‘so he [that is, the king's brother] agreed to that.’ Logically, the insertion is useful, for the king's brother, it may be remembered, had been suffering the same sense of shame, having also been deceived by his wife. His grief, however, had been abated precisely because he learned that such a thing could happen even to his own, more powerful brother. Technically, he has no further need to relieve his already allayed misery. Such an addition does not, of course, demonstrate a literate emendation on a point glossed over in a necessarily oral work. Taken as one or more element in an assemblage of stylistic details, however, it may be instructive.

Considerably more interesting is another item to be found in the “Story of the Three Apples.” Hārūn al-Rashīd has discovered the murder of a beautiful young woman. Outraged that such an occurrence could happen in his realm, he orders his Prime Minister, Ja‘far the Barmakī, to find the killer or die in his place. Ja‘far fails, and the Caliph's men erect the gibbet to hang him (or “crucify” him in Būlāq). A crowd gathers and, the two texts continue respectively,

MacNaghten: sārū yantazirūna al-idhna min al-khalīfa.

Būlāq: sārū yantazirūna al-idhna min al-khalīfa.

They began awaiting permission from the Caliph.

MacNaghten: wa-kanāt al-ishāra hākadhā. wa-sāra al-khalqu

Būlāq: wa-sāra al-khalqu

(And the signal was thus.) And the crowd began

MacNaghten: yatabakawna‘alā Ja‘far.

Būlāq: yatabakawna‘alā Ja‘far.²³

crying over Ja‘far.

As may readily be seen, the MacNaghten text includes, and the Būlāq text suppresses, the phrase “and the signal was thus.” It seems inescapable that the statement must have been accompanied by the gesture of an oral performer. This is hardly surprising. As D. B. MacDonald points out in his Encyclopedia of Islam discussion of the term hikāya, “the oriental storyteller always acts out his story.”²⁴ MacDonald goes on to relate the term hikāya directly to mime.

Yet another item seems to bear on a number of points relating to oral performance. In the story of the “Merchant and the Jinni,” each of three shaykhs comes by the merchant who is waiting to keep his appointment with the jinnī. Each is astounded to find the merchant sitting and waiting in such an inauspicious place as a ma'wā, ‘a place where the jinn howl.’ Each demands an explanation and after the third shaykh is told the story “from its beginning to its end,” the MacNaghten and Būlāq texts read respectively,

MacNaghten: laysa fī al-i‘ādati ifādatun yā sādah.

Būlāq: laysa fī al-i‘ādati ifādatun.²⁵

There is no benefit in repetition (O sirs).

The phrase ‘O sirs,’ which occurs in the MacNaghten text but not in the Būlāq, again seems to imply the presence of an audience, but what of the phrase ‘there is no benefit in repetition?’

One of the recurring themes of the oral literature conference of which this article was a part is that repetition is a particularly characteristic trait of oral literature. This is hardly a new discovery to folklorists nor was it unobserved in earlier eras. Muhammad ibn Daniyāl, the 13th-century Egyptian author, notes of the folkloric shadow plays to which he attempts to give a literary polish:

You state that oral reports have spit out [news of] the shadow theater, but that natural good taste has shunned it because of its repetitiveness.²⁶

One might suppose that a denial of the utility of repetition ought not to occur in a type of literature which is characterized by repetition. Interestingly enough, this is not the case. As B. Connelly points out in her work on the three Egyptian Rabāb poets whom she recorded, the singer whose performance depends most particularly on repetition states on several occasions:

wa-lli a‘āūl-uh ma a‘īd-uh

‘That which I say I will not repeat’²⁷

Connelly's work also bears on another aspect of difference between the MacNaghten and Būlāq editions of the Arabian Nights. As may be seen, from an examination of the texts cited above and in the appendix, the MacNaghten and Būlāq editions, despite the differences which do occur, seem at first glance to be really quite close to each other. Nonetheless, substantial differences do occur, and one of the most common, I suspect, is the replacement or paraphrase of poetic texts of the MacNaghten edition by prose texts in the Būlāq edition. One of the texts which exhibits the anomalous use of the verb qāla also exhibits this phenomenon.

When the porter in the story of the “Three Ladies of Baghdad” first sees the bawwāba, the lady doorkeeper of the mansion, he goes, in the MacNaghten text, into poetic raptures over her beauty. The poem which describes the lady's charms, however, has been replaced, in the Būlāq edition, with a prose description. The texts then come together again after the appearance (in MacNaghten) and suppression (in Būlāq) of the verb qāla.

MacNaghten: (poem) qāla fa-lammā nazara al-hammāl ilāy-ha

Būlāq: (prose) fa-lammā nazara al-hammāl ilāy-ha²⁸

(He said,) then when the porter looked at her

Many other examples of poetry in MacNaghten being replaced by prose in Būlāq may be readily observed. This phenomenon is strikingly similar to a parallel feature found by Connelly in the development of the Sirat Bani Hilāl where, she observes, each subsequent printing of the text further reduces the oral bard's poetry and music into prose narrative.²⁹

On the basis of the evidence presented here, then, we may hypothesize that the MacNaghten edition of the Arabian Nights (and the Egyptian manuscript upon which it is based) stand in fairly close relationship to an authentically oral tradition. Conversely, the Būlāq edition (and the manuscript tradition upon which it is based), by suppressing elements which are only relevant in the setting of oral performance, by polishing up certain logical and chronological details, and in general by reducing the poetic passages in favor of prose, exhibits the kind of literate handling of folklore to which Francis Utley refers.

On the basis of this hypothesis, we may proceed to a heretofore unattempted stylistic analysis of the various Arabian Nights texts. In conjunction with a continuing effort in structural or formal analyses, we may achieve a much fuller appreciation of this collection of Arabian tales to which we have been instinctively drawn for so long.

APPENDIX

I. ANOMALOUS USES OF THE VERB QāLA IN MACNAGHTEN, SUPPRESSED IN BūLāQ (M=MACNAGHTEN; B=BūLāQ)

1. M (p. 4): ilā adhāni al-‘asri qāla fa-lammā ra'ā al-malik

B (p. 3): ilā al-‘asri fa-lammā ra'ā al-malik

till (the call to prayer of) the afternoon. (He said) Then, when the king saw. …

2. M (p. 4): mawtu-nā khayrun min hayāti-na fa-ajāba li-dhālika qāla thumma inna-humā kharajā

B (p. 3): mawtu-nā khayrun min hayāti-na fa-ajāba li-dhālika thumma inna-humā kharajā

Our death (will) be better than our life. (So, he agreed to that.) (He said) Then, the two of them went out.

3. M (p. 6): khā’ifun ‘alā nafsi-hi min al-maliki qāla wa-kāna al-wazīru

B (p. 4): khā’ifun ‘alā nafsi-hi min al-maliki wa-kāna al-wazīru

… fearing for himself because of the king. (He said) and the minister had …

4. M (p. 7): tastarīhu min al-ta‘bi wa-al-jahdi qāla wa-kāna al-tājiru

B (p. 5): tastarīhu min al-ta‘bi wa-al-jahdi wa-kāna al-tājiru

… you will rest from fatigue and effort. (He said) And the merchant …

5. M (p. 8): al-yawma kulla-hu qāla fa-lammā raja‘a

B (p. 5): al-yawma kulla-hu fa-lammā raja‘a

… all day. (He said) Then, when he returned …

6. M (p. 8): nasahtu-ka wa-al-salām qāla fa-lammā sami‘a al-thawru

B (p. 5): nasahtu-ka wa-al-salām fa-lammā sami‘a al-thawru

I have advised you and so peace. (He said) Then, when the bull heard …

7. M (p. 9): ilā al-mamāti qāla fa-lammā sami‘at ibnat-al-wazīri

B (p. 6): ilā al-mamāti fa-lammā sami‘at ibnat-al-wazīri

… until death. (He said) then, when the minister's daughter heard …

8. M (p. 23): fī hādhā al-qimqimi qāla fa-lammā sami‘a al-māridu

B (p. 11): fī hādhā al-qimqimi fa-lammā sami‘a al-māridu

… in this bottle. (He said) Then, when the jinnī heard …

9. M (p. 37): [poem] qāla fa-lammā farigha ra's al-hakīmu kalāma-hu

B (p. 18): [poem] fa-lammā farigha rūyān al-hakīmu kalāma-hu

(He said) Then, when ra's/rūyān) al-hakim finished his say …

10. M (p. 40): lil-jāriyati al-tabbākhati qāla wa-kānat hādhihi al-jāriyatu

B (p. 19): lil-jāriyati al-tabbākhati wa-kānat hādhihi al-jāriyatu

… to the slave girl cook. (He said) And when this slave girl …

11. M (p. 58): [poem] qāla fa-nahadat al-sabiyyatu al-thālithatu

B (p. 25): [poem] fa-nahadat al-sabiyyatu al-thālithatu

(He said) Then, the third maiden arose …

12. M (p. 58): [poem] qāla fa-lammā nazara al-hammālu ilay-hā

B (p. 25): [prose] fa-lammā nazara al-hammālu ilay-hā

(He said) Then, when the porter looked at her …

13. M (p. 74): li-man i‘tabara qāla wa-sa'alat al-thāniya wa-al-thālitha

B (p.): li-man i‘tabara wa-sa'alat al-thāniya wa-al-thālitha

… for he who has taken a lesson. (He said) she asked the second and third …

II. ANOMALOUS USE OF THE VERB QāLA IN MACNAGHTEN, RETAINED IN BūLāQ

1. M (p. 9): lā ta‘ūd tas'alu-hu ‘an shay'in qāla fa-lammā sami‘a

B (p. 6): lā ta‘ūd tas'alu-hu ‘an shay'in qāla fa-lammā sami‘a

Ask him no more about anything. He said Then, when he heard …

III. OTHER DEICTIC ELEMENTS

1. M (p. 143): al-idhnu min al-khalīfati wa-kānat al-ishāratu hākadhā wa-sāra al-khalqu

B (p. 52): al-idhnu min al-khalīfati wa-sāra al-khalqu

… permission from the caliph. (And the signal was thus) And the people began …

2. M (p. 12): laysa fī al-i’dati ifādatun ya sādah fa-jalasa ‘inda-hum wa-idhā bi-ghabaratin qad aqbalat. …

B (p. 7): laysa fī al-i’dah ifādah wa-idhā bi-ghabarah qad hājat

There is no benefit in repetition (O sirs. Then he sat with them) and all of a sudden a dust cloud came along …

Notes

1. Francis Lee Utley, “Folk Literature: An Operational Definition,” Journal of American Folklore 74 (1961): 193-206 [pp. 7-24 in The Study of Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965)].

2. Richard M. Dorson, “The Identification of Folklore in American Literature,” in “Folklore in Literature: A Symposium,” Journal of American Folklore, 70 (1957): 1-24.

3. C. Huet, “Les origines du conte de Aladdin et la lampe merveilleuse,” Revue de l'histoire des religions 77 (1918): 1-50.

4. Apollodorus, The Library, 2 vols., trans. J. G. Frazer, Loeb Classical Library (New York, 1921), 2: 751ff.

5. Paul Kahle, Bauernerzählungen aus Palestina [Volkserzählungen aus Palästina*], ed. H. Schmidt and P. Kahle (Göttingen, 1918).

6. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton, 1968).

7. Dorson, op. cit., esp. p. 4.

8. N. Elisseeff, Thèmes et motifs des 1001 nuits: essai de classification (Beirut, 1949).

9. Mia I. Gerhardt, The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights (Leiden, 1963).

10. Ursula Nowak, Beiträge zur Typologie des arabischen Volksmärchens (Freiburg, 1969).

11. See Gerhardt, op. cit.; Andras Hamori, On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature (Princeton, 1974), pp. 145-180; Peter D. Molan, “Sinbad the Sailor: A Commentary on the Ethics of Violence,” JAOS [Journal of the American Oriental Society] 98/3 (1978): 237-247; idem., “Ma‘rūf the Cobbler: The Mythic Structure of an Arabian Nights Tale,” Edebiyat, III/2 (1978): 121-136; and Ferial Ghazoul, “Nocturnal Dialectics: A Structural Study of the 1001 Nights” (Ph.D. thesis, Columbia U., 1978).

12. Gerhardt, op. cit., pp. 236-263.

13. Richard F. Burton, A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments (New York, n.d.) vol. 6, p. 77, n. 2.

14. The following discussion of Olrik is based on Axel Olrik, “Epic Laws of Folk Narrative” in The Study of Folklore, pp. 129-141.

15. Ibid., p. 132.

16. Ibid.

17. Burton, op. cit., p. 53.

18. Lord Raglan, “The Hero of Tradition,” Folklore 45 (1934): 212-231 [The Study of Folklore, pp. 142-157].

19. Archer Taylor, “Folklore and the Student of Literature,” Pacific Spectator 2 (1948): 216-223 [The Study of Folklore, pp. 32-42, esp. p. 42].

20. W. H. MacNaghten ed., Alf Lailā wa-Lailā (Calcutta, 1839), vol. I, p. 4; Alf Lailā wa-Lailā (Būlāq, 1252 A.H.), vol. I, p. 3.

21. MacNaghten, op. cit., p. 29.

22. MacNaghten, op. cit., p. 4; Būlāq, p. 3

23. MacNaghten, op. cit., p. 143; Būlāq, p. 52.

24. D. B. MacDonald, “Hikaya,” EI¹.

25. MacNaghten, op. cit., p. 12; Būlāq, p. 7.

26. Escorial Ms. 469, folio I verso.

27. Private communication.

28. MacNaghten, op. cit., p. 58; Būlāq, p. 25.

29. Private communication.