The Islamic Context of The Thousand and One Nights 9780231519465

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
[1] The Islamic Factor in Global Times
The Islamic and the Foreign
Perspectives
The Early Vogue as a Global Index
The Frame Tale as Navigational Trope
Framing a Collection or Framing Cultures?
Warnings Grounded in Islamic Law
Multiple Approaches to the Frame Tale
The Moral Implication in the Frame Story
Resignation or Submission to Fate?
Narrating Cultural Consciousness
The Frame Story in Historical Contexts
The Frame Story as Urban Growth
[2] The Unifying Islamic Factor
Narrative Challenge and Attraction
Upholding Human Propensity to Security
The Ordering of Good and the Forbidding of Evil
From Transmission to Narration
The Natural and the Supernatural Companionship
The Supernatural as Moral Authority
The Islamic Narrative Function
Loose Thematic Patterns
The Particular and the Universal in Religion
In Celebration of God
Binding Commitments and Pledges
Islamic or Not? The Nature of the Discriminatory Instance
The Islamic Law and the State
Law and Terms of Beauty
The Paradisiacal Referent
The Sanctified Sphere
Apostasy and the End of Narrative
Love or Sex?
Vicissitudes of Fortune and Human Frailties
[3] The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text
Representational or Parodic
Education and the Paradigm of Rise and Fall
Knowledge and the Growth of Empire
Education and Vicissitudes of Fate
Grounding in Magic
Education: Artists and Cultivated Taste
Refinement, Profession, and Class
Marketability and Freedom as Topography
Urbanity and Love
Tropes for Imperial Growth: Race and Acquisition of Slaves
Islamic Law and the Needs of the Empire
Expediency, and the Center That Does Not Hold
Narrative as Historiography
Vagaries of Politics
Wealth and Luxury as Signs of Deterioration
[4] The Changing Order
The Imperial and the Islamic
Sites of Popular Faith: Book Markets
Competing Centers or Competing Dynasties?
Metropolitan Temptations
Travels to the Metropolis
Professions and Crafts
Narrating the Journey of Consciousness
From Regression to Progression
The Liberating In-Betweenness
Wine and Islamic Prohibitions
Social Interdependency
Idolatry and Monotheism
The Urban and the Imperial
Cairene Narratives and the Displacement of the Sacred
Ethics and Morals
Narrating Desire as Sexual Intrigues
Institutionalized Religion and Issues of Sects
Christians and Jews in an Islamic Environment
Heathen and Islamic Narrative
[5] Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tradition
The Unwritten Tale
As Medieval Narrative
Dichotomous Patterning in the Classical Tradition
Signs and Sites of Transgression
Appropriation for the Urban Classes
Urban Narrative Sites
[6] The Public Role in Islamic Narrative Theorizations
[7] Scheherazade’s Nonverbal Narratives in Religious Contexts
What Is Nonverbal Narrative?
Scriptoria and the Blank Page
Iconic Inscription or Calligraphy
Talismans, Magical Practices, and Amulets
The Nonverbal in Human Action
Women’s Counterhegemonic Discourse
Mental Images and Pictorial Resolutions
Food Semiotics
The Zero Meal
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Islamic Context of The Thousand and One Nights

The islamic context of The thousand and one nights Mushin J. al-Musawi

Columbia University Press New York

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York‚  Chichester, West Sussex Copyright © 2009 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Musawi, Muhsin Jasim. The Islamic context of the Thousand and one nights / Muhsin al-Musawi. p.  cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-231-14634-0 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-51946-5 (e-book) 1.  Arabian nights.  2.  Islam in literature.  3.  Arabic literature— Islamic influences.  I.  Title. PJ7737.M75  2009 398.220953—dc22   2008039653 8 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

contents

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction: Is There an Islamic Context for The Thousand and One Nights?  1

1. The Islamic Factor in Global Times  21 The Islamic and the Foreign  25 Perspectives  26 The Early Vogue as a Global Index  29 The Frame Tale as Navigational Trope  30 Framing a Collection or Framing Cultures?  31 Warnings Grounded in Islamic Law  33 Multiple Approaches to the Frame Tale  35 The Moral Implication in the Frame Story  35 Resignation or Submission to Fate?  38 Narrating Cultural Consciousness  40 The Frame Story in Historical Contexts  42 The Frame Story as Urban Growth  48

2. The Unifying Islamic Factor  52

Narrative Challenge and Attraction  55 Upholding Human Propensity to Security  56 The Ordering of Good and the Forbidding of Evil  59 From Transmission to Narration  61 The Natural and the Supernatural Companionship  62

v i  contents

The Supernatural as Moral Authority  63 The Islamic Narrative Function  67 Loose Thematic Patterns  72 The Particular and the Universal in Religion  73 In Celebration of God  76 Binding Commitments and Pledges  78 Islamic or Not? The Nature of the Discriminatory Instance  82 The Islamic Law and the State  84 Law and Terms of Beauty  85 The Paradisiacal Referent  86 The Sanctified Sphere  88 Apostasy and the End of Narrative  90 Love or Sex?  92 Vicissitudes of Fortune and Human Frailties  100

3. The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text  106

Representational or Parodic  107 Education and the Paradigm of Rise and Fall  111 Knowledge and the Growth of Empire  117 Education and Vicissitudes of Fate  119 Grounding in Magic  121 Education: Artists and Cultivated Taste  124 Refinement, Profession, and Class  127 Marketability and Freedom as Topography  128 Urbanity and Love  130 Tropes for Imperial Growth: Race and Acquisition of Slaves  132 Islamic Law and the Needs of the Empire  134 Expediency, and the Center That Does Not Hold  136 Narrative as Historiography  137 Vagaries of Politics  138 Wealth and Luxury as Signs of Deterioration  140

4. The Changing Order: The Role of the Public in The Thousand and One Nights  145 The Imperial and the Islamic  146 Sites of Popular Faith: Book Markets  150 Competing Centers or Competing Dynasties?  152 Metropolitan Temptations  155 Travels to the Metropolis  157 Professions and Crafts  159

contents  v i i

Narrating the Journey of Consciousness  160 From Regression to Progression  162 The Liberating In-betweenness  164 Wine and Islamic Prohibitions  168 Social Interdependency  172 Idolatry and Monotheism  176 The Urban and the Imperial  178 Cairene Narratives and the Displacement of the Sacred  179 Ethics and Morals  180 Narrating Desire as Sexual Intrigues  183 Institutionalized Religion and Issues of Sects  184 Christians and Jews in an Islamic Environment  185 Heathen and Islamic Narrative  189

5. Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tradition  197

The Unwritten Tale  209 As Medieval Narrative  213 Dichotomous Patterning in the Classical Tradition  214 Signs and Sites of Transgression  216 Appropriation for the Urban Classes  222 Urban Narrative Sites  226

6. The Public Role in Islamic Narrative Theorizations  228 7. Scheherazade’s Nonverbal Narratives in Religious Contexts  250 What Is Nonverbal Narrative?  251 Scriptoria and the Blank Page  252 Iconic Inscription or Calligraphy  257 Talismans, Magical Practices, and Amulets  258 The Nonverbal in Human Action  261 Women’s Counterhegemonic Discourse  267 Mental Images and Pictorial Resolutions  268 Food Semiotics  273 The Zero Meal  276

Conclusions  279 Notes  281 Bibliography  307 Index  319

Acknowledgments

T

his book has been living with me for some time. I began working on it in 1991, when I was in Yemen at úan‘ā’ University. I continued working on it in Tunisia, at the University of Manouba, from 1993 to 2000. Throughout those years, I collected most of the material needed for my research. I began writing when I came to Columbia, where I found that its scope went well beyond my early concerns and plans. The book as it appears now engages issues and queries that long must have been in the minds of scholars and readers, especially regarding issues of morality, ethics, and religion. I am grateful to the librarians at Manouba University for their help in procuring much needed material. Apart from many seminars I attended or read papers at, I benefited from the intelligent discussions at the Columbia University Arabic Studies seminar, and I am most grateful to the Columbia University Seminars administration and Professor Robert Bel­ knap, for a generous grant that helped cover proofreading and indexing expenses. In this respect, I should acknowledge the diligence of Robert Riggs of the University of Pennsylvania, Jason Frydman of Columbia University, and my assistant Ryan Damron, for careful proofreading and editorial suggestions. I benefited from my students at Columbia University who, in the graduate seminar on the Thousand and One Nights, were thoroughly engaged in debates about issues pertaining to this book. I thank Kelly Boyce, Namrata Kanchan, Elias Abrar, Akash Kumar, Chermaine Lee, Suad Muhammad, Elizabeth Nolte, and Stephanie Saporito. I give special thanks to the Columbia University outside readers who read the

90  Acknowledgments

manuscript and made very pertinent remarks and suggestions. Thanks are due to Roger Allen and William Granara for helpful insights. Richard Bulliet and Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University encouraged the publication of this book; to them goes my sincere gratitude. Portions of the last three chapters appeared in an early form in the Journal of Arabic Literature: “Abbasid Popular Narrative: The Formation of Readership and Cultural Production,” JAL 38 (2007): 261–292; “Scheherazade; Nonverbal Narratives,” JAL 36, no. 3 (2005): 338–362; and “The ‘Mansion’ and the ‘Rubbish Mounds’: The Thousand and One Nights as Popular Literature,” JAL 35, no. 2 (2004): 329–367. I am grateful to Brill Academic Publishers for copyright permis­sions. I also thank Wendy Lochner, Anne McCoy, Christine Mortlock, Rob Fellman, and Michael Haskell from Columbia University Press for their support and care.

The Islamic Context of The Thousand and One Nights

Introduction Is There an Islamic Context for The Thousand and One Nights

S

everal things prompted this study of Islam in the Thousand and One Nights. There is, first, among academics and laypeople, an increasing interest in everything Islamic. The Thousand and One Nights, or the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, as it was called in English by its first Grub Street translator, has always been considered one of the world’s most entertaining books, but its title and concerns are Arab-Islamic, and thus it has drawn and should draw more attention as a repository of popular memory, collective consciousness, and cultural dynamics. We know that eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century Europeans, in the wake of the colonial incursions in the Arab east and India, were also drawn, in part, to the collection and its many abridgments and translations for this reason. The tales are part of a collective memory: they are the imaginative recreations or depictions of bygone things and images. They contain nostalgia and reality, dream and fact. But these elements are blended in a melting pot that can still overflow in spontaneous storytelling. Once written down, however, they were tampered with, scrutinized, and had their contents censored in various ways. The Būlāq edition (1835), for example, contains a tale in which the term Rāfibī appears, although this pejorative use in reference to Shī(īs was not employed by earlier storytellers, as we see in Antoine Galland’s fourteenth-century version, for example.1 This, however, does not negate the latent polarities that are kept under control. As with any cultural production, the tales unfold or appear in a climate that has been, and will be, divided between an Islamic ideology, with an interest in a sustained power politics that justifies a powerful order even if

90 Introduction

unjust, and an Islamic utopia that looks for an honest and just ideal savior who defends the oppressed in the face of tyranny and oppression. In the absence or enforced lack of well-established constitutional systems, such polarization will continue to exist within groups and societies.2 However, the power of the tales resides somewhere else. It does not subscribe to this polarization but navigates smoothly between the two. Whenever a center is needed, the city of Baghdad is used, with its caliph, Hārūn al-Rashīd, who was usually celebrated in Europe after the publication of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Recollections of the Arabian Nights” in England in 1830. In the caliph, storytellers invest their dreams of justice, wealth, beauty, humor, love, and luxury. In order to give an evocative impression of that historical person and his era, storytellers were willing to relate the most anachronistic or faulty historical details to their audiences. No sainthood is needed to dissipate gloom and depression. Wisdom emanates from the center, and the center is humanized and made into a pleasant abode of peace and comfort. Everything else, including jealousy, greed, anger, morbidity, cruelty, and despotism, passes through accommodating lenses to be pacified, calmed, corrected, and remedied. Even the basic informing dichotomy of male/female suspicion is resolved in tales and counter­ tales. The underlying frame of reference is the pairing of opposites or of the “same subject, pro and con,” Abdād, which was a popular device in the eighth and ninth centuries, as Nabia Abbott noticed in reference to the cultural context of an early ninth-century fragment of the tales.3 The art of storytelling emerges as triumphant, pacifying Shahrayar, the king of China, and every other person, including the caliph himself, who listens to adventures with rapture and offers in the end his own gifts of reconciliation and rapprochement. The terms of storytelling production operate here as well, as the storyteller pampers the expectations of his audience and caters to feelings that otherwise might be hurt by direct or antagonizing religious or political overtones. The enveloping Islamic context is one of mercy, generosity, playfulness, and humor. Hence the perennial charm of the tales, a charm that surpasses historical record and hagiography. Yet the tales have something deeper that eludes the superficial and prag­ matic search for the depiction of probable customs, ways of life, and habits of thought. Even such cycles as the frame tale of Scheherazade and Shahrayar or the mendicants’ itinerary of fortune, misfortune, and repose may hold other meanings, ones the French and English romantics felt but were not keen on exploring. Scheherazade’s counternarrative, employed to defuse the morose king’s vengeful and vindictive plan, works within the parameters of Islamic faith, which objects to wholesale denunciations. The

Introduction  90

young abducted bride in the frame tale whom the ifrit assumes to be a virgin proves to have experienced many extramarital relations, affirming the two kings’ belief in the impossibility of faithfulness among women. This point should be disapproved of by queen Scheherazade, whose mastery of storytelling enables her to recollect stories of sincere love and sacrifice. Here she relies on a large corpus of Arab love lore of sacrifice and devotion. In other words, the Thousand and One Nights shows both sides of human sexuality and behavior, but it is bent on dissipating absolutism. Scheherazade’s premise is in keeping with Islamic tenets this book will study in the following chapters. On the other hand, the mendicants’ tales are Sufi tales, but the urban storyteller must accommodate them to his urban listeners, whom we can imagine as gathering in a certain corner of the marketplace, away from the watchful eyes of the market inspector4 or the scrutiny of the caliph’s advisors.5 Their itinerary from distress to adventure, from a seeming paradisiacal bliss to eventual self-reproach and ultimate resignation to the will of God, is only an urbanized appropriation of the Sufi path from the ego-self, the sanctuary of desires, to heedlessness and confusion, then from self-reproach to love and inspiration in moments of ecstasy, and ultimately to total contentment upon the immersion in divine beatitude. The journey was given allegorical forms by many Sufis, and especially by the martyr Shihāb al-Dīn Yanyā al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/ 1191) in Haykal al-nūr (The Shape of Light).6 In other words, the Islamic sub­ text is strong enough to require attention, and it calls for meticulous read­ ing. Islam in this respect is not confined to its message or to its rituals and obligations, though these have a strong presence in the tales. As it appears in the Thousand and One Nights, Islam is a way of life, a culture, and a context for aspirations, adventures, love, enterprises, and vicissitudes. According to Louis Massignon’s reading of the mainstream Sunni application, Islam is primarily “adab, ‘sociability,’ ‘civility’ in the broadest sense, hence a ‘rule of life.’ ” 7 Furthermore, even when we read some portions of the Qur)ān in their contextual terms as applying to the early reception of the Islamic Message, the tone is strongly suspicious of Bedouins. “The Bedouins are the worst in disbelief and hypocrisy and more likely to be in ignorance of the limits which Allah has revealed to His Messenger” (AlTawbah, Repentance, 9:97). Moreover: “And of the Bedouins there are some who look upon what they expend for a fine and await the turns of fortune to go against you” (98). But there are some “who believe in God and the Last Day, and look upon what they spend in Allah’s cause as means of nearness to God” (99). The tales take it for granted that the moment a character is out in the wilderness, there are robbers and Bedouins who

90 Introduction

endanger one’s life. The book is urbanized and appropriated to meet the needs of city dwellers—thus the appeal of the Thousand and One Nights to readers beyond the narrative’s geographical borders. There are other reasons, however, that relate to the occasion of the first translations of the collection into European languages. In celebration of the first appearance of Antoine Galland’s translation of the Thousand and One Nights (Contes Arabes) three hundred years ago (1704–1711), a number of studies have recently appeared that are mostly concerned with analyzing the tales of the Thousand and One Nights in view of new research interests. These include compilations of early and modern contributions, such as Ulrich Marzolph’s The Arabian Nights Reader.8 These interests are in keeping with the growth of cultural studies and the increasing preoccupation with such issues as class, gender, race, and nation. Such new focuses should receive a positive response from Arab scholars who understand the breadth of literature in Arabic culture. However, two things are glaringly missing in most studies, old and new: (1) the Islamic factor, including institutionalized religion, state institutions, and faith or mass religion as a religious sentiment that can constitute and operate strongly on structures of feeling; and (2) the underlying narrative unity in the tales as brought to us, not only in Antoine Galland’s manuscript but also in an earlier nuclei, notably presumed to be part of the circulated editions of the collection in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, as Nabia Abbott contends.9 These include the extant frame tale, the hunchback cycle, the story of Qamar al-Zamān and Princess Budūr, the stories dealing with the ruses of men and women, along with “The Wonders of the Sea, The Tale of Sindbad, and The Cat and the Mouse.” 10 The latter were obviously popular enough to threaten the formal education of young princes. They should have also included appropriate tales from Hazār Afsāna. Although the repetition of motifs and patterns have been discussed by scholars, there are other narrative patterns that are in keeping with the Islamic factor and not strictly with the morphological, symbolic, or psychological cycles.11 Edward William Lane’s copious annotations, compiled later in book form by his nephew Stanley Lane Poole,12 does not count, for it is an effort to meet the demands of the Victorian middle classes and the colonial apparatus for a manual to complement his other studies of Egyptian society. Other compilations of the tales are no less important, but they are less central to this study than Galland’s version, which is probably in keeping with the cursory mention of the tales in classical Arabic bibliographic and encyclopedic collections. On the other hand, the Būlāq version is an appropriation of many manuscripts, but it makes use of Galland’s version,

Introduction  90

the oral tradition, and also the European demand for a “thousand and one tales.” It serves a different purpose, however, for it demonstrates the intervention of compilers, editors, and redactors in matters relating to the Islamic context of the tales. Especially in religious matters and poetic extracts, this edition can authenticate or debate the nature of poetic misreading or distortion and its historical relevance to the primacy of specific Islamic laws in certain periods. The present book argues that a work of such a composite nature, regardless of its authorship and primary audiences, cannot have and have had such enormous vogue and influence without a strong Islamic literary and cultural climate. Even its rejection by Arab classicists should be seen in context, for had it not been popular, nobody would have bothered to acknowledge its existence. Abbott is not far from this position when she contends in her 1949 article that “copious literary evidence indicates that the lighter literature, the khurāfāt [fables] and asmār [night tales] to which class the Nights belong, shared all along the way in this rapid and extensive movement [an enormous literary harvest], though generally on a somewhat lower level of respectability.” 13 The discerning British essayist and critic Bernard Cracroft wrote on the Thousand and One Nights in 1868: “No book ever took possession of the world without . . . an antecedent national pedigree of overwhelming literary power and force.” 14 The premise should not be taken lightly, for the Islamic factor in its Arab milieu furnishes storytellers with a cultural force and a capacity to digest, appropriate, and reflect on the realities of the new metropolis that was Baghdad and its emergence, rise, and fall. While many Arab and non-Arab readers have spoken of or written on non-Islamic matters in the tales, only a few discerning critics among European intellectuals have argued for the amount of specifically Islamic piety in them.15 This Islamic factor should be given greater attention in order to fathom both the literary and cultural power of the tales and their undiminished attraction and appeal to different audiences in other cultures and nations. This premise applies also to the underlying unity that has been lost to scholars whose attention was diverted by the seeming fragmentation and incoherence of many tales. This book argues that insofar as the primary texts are concerned—that is, Galland’s and the extant ones mentioned in Abbott’s conjectures—there is an underlying unity both in matters of repetition and recurrent motifs, as already noted by scholars,16 and in the burgeoning and traveling of a frame tale into a metropolitan culture of great urban power. The royalty of the frame tale, as well as the allegorical dimension of its sequels, their natural and rural milieu, gives way to the complexity of urban life, where

90 Introduction

the court is no longer sovereign and detached and where humor brings royalty down to earth. In an urban context, even Shaykh Ibrāhīm, the caliph’s gardenkeeper in the story of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs, surrenders to the intoxicating atmosphere of music and wine when he is in the company of the young couple who unknowingly decide to spend the night in a spacious garden that happens to be attached to the caliph’s palace. The story plays on the religious borders of obligation and the irresistible temptation of physical beauty, wine, and music. Its focus on human desire and the search for delights is balanced, however, by a counternarrative filled with reminders of misfortune, deceit, jealousy, and the transience of pleasure. Imam al-Shāf (ī’s poetry is quoted quite often in this tale.17 The tension and polarization between faith, obligation, and temptation is so strong that it triggers action, travesty, and humor, all of which enable the urban mind to go beyond the strictures of authority and religious laws and reach for an appropriation of these in a new order, which is urban Islam. The elements that hold the first 271 nights (that is, Muhsin Mahdi’s edition of Galland) together have many things in common with many interpolated, added, or actual parts of the collection, but there runs in these tales specific aspects of urban production. In the story of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs, every motivation, from love or sexual scenes to the threats of hanging and the appearance of another fisherman and fried fish, alerts us to the surging sardonic humor that tinges the new metropolitan life and prepares us for the vagaries of politics. Two more arguments hold the present book together. One relates to the philological and textual questions that have been in the minds of many scholars since the early appearance of the book in Europe. The dating of the book as a compilation was once the most central question for scholars and researchers. Many concluded with the current premise that, as a compilation over time, the book defies specific dating. Indeed, such is the case. But is this important to know? Or should we conclude that no matter when the book took shape there runs throughout the tales a cultural prism, which we will call the Islamic factor, that serves to identify attitudes and perspectives? The nostalgic recollection of Baghdad alerts us to the role of memory in culture. This memory evolves collectively and operates on every walk of life, cutting across borders in time and place. The mendicants’ tales might have been written in Cairo by a scribe who had heard of Baghdad and read about its old days, but collective memory endowed him or her with the power of collating and merging the past with the present, the historical evidence with a new yearning for old Baghdad, producing something unique and of so much appeal as to resist oblivion.

Introduction  90

Apart from this nostalgic mood, there are poetic interpolations and theological discussions that demonstrate the supremacy of two schools of law: the Shāf (ī (named after the jurist and imam Abū (Abdallah Munammad ibn Idrīs, d. 204/820) and the manafī (named after the imam Abū manīfah al-Nu(mān, d. 150/767). Both of them were widely honored and accepted in Egypt and Iraq. Both had a great reverence for the Prophet’s family, and Abū manīfah al-Nu(mān relied on the teachings of the sixth Shī(ī imam Ja(far al-úādiq (d. 145/765). The cultural underpinnings of the tales, especially in relation to the growth of some schools of law, should lead us to the cultural formation of storytelling and its contextual fabric and religious sentiments. The sardonic humor and playfulness that distinguish the style of these tales should, on many occasions, indicate that these schools were less restrictive than later tendencies, discussed in subsequent chapters, that were aggressively applied in Syria in the thirteenth century before migrating and spreading among desert tribes. As the study of contexts in many redactions of the tales assumes such significance, we should no longer waste more time on assigning specific dates to the collection as a whole. The second argument relates to the Galland edition’s reception in France. We should always remember that Galland undertook the project with caution and tact and that he addressed the salon life in particular, with its highly refined salonniers and attendants. The refined ladies who ran those salons were in full control of an educated society. They were able to impose an elegant atmosphere on discussions and conversations that might have lapsed into debates and adamant contentions. The art of conversation that developed in these salons was the fruit of this leadership.18 It is no surprise that Galland addressed his translation to a female patron, and his daring and intelligent Scheherazade was most likely very appealing in these circles. To be sure, there are other reasons and explanations, which have received attention somewhere else.19 In chapter 1, with its focus on the Thousand and One Nights in a global age, I argue that it is not a random case to have a frame tale transplanted from Indo-Persian cultures to a dynamically powerful Arab-Islamic one, where it flourished. It built around itself a good number of stories. These mostly speak of or convey urban life in medieval Islam—that is, the late Umayyad (661–750) and the (Abbāsid dynasties until the fall of Baghdad (750–1258) and also the Mamluk rule (1250–1517)—from roughly the eighth century until the end of the fourteenth century. A literary development such as this could not have taken place without the existence of elements and factors contributing to such a growth, which, in the present

90 Introduction

case of the Thousand and One Nights, quickly caused it to become the most celebrated work in other cultures. The present book proposes to determine how and why this occurred. It will look into aspects and systems of thought and behavior that define the art of storytelling and will simultaneously demonstrate the universal appeal of the Thousand and One Nights, while searching for the underlying Islamic pattern that holds the composition together, especially in its most acceptable and scholarly celebrated versions. A basic premise that runs throughout this proposed explanation of the logic behind the rootedness of the frame tale in a new culture is that it originally catered to the burgeoning urban life and its compromising attitudes and appropriations of the forbidden and the desired in Arab-Islamic societies, especially the Baghdadi society of Abbott’s fragment. The growing of a transplanted tale into a collection, its blooming into a panoramic scene of many sites and colors, is a metaphor for the cherished city that became its spatial frame of reference. Baghdad itself passed through similar stages to become the “center of the universe.” In that city, sociability assumed its known civilized shades despite the vagaries of its politics. Remember that Scheherazade is able to domesticate the imperious king through a socialization process that makes good use of storytelling. His haughtiness and anger are replaced by sensibility, understanding, and humor. The morose king evolves into a family man who is aware of life’s complexity and richness. The systematic narrative vacillation between the wiles of women and their affection, loyalty, and love, along with the contrasting debates with or against them, must have the right effect on the mind of the haughty sultan. This subtle balance that distinguishes many tales of diverse intentions and diversions is not foreign to the Baghdadi cultural milieu of al-Jāniµ (d. 869), al-Bayhaqī (d. ninth–early tenth century c.e.), Badī( al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī (d. 398/1008), and others who, along with the rhetoricians and their muwāzanāt (contrasting/assessing debates), reveal a great deal about the urban mind that distinguished Baghdad at that time (the eighth to twelfth centuries c.e.) and Mamluk Cairo later. The second chapter argues that the transition into an urban society of great complexity finds itself well expressed—but not reflected—in this collection. One may suggest that other tales and collections that supposedly migrated from Indo-Persian sources, such as ibn al-Muqaffa’s (d. 759) Kalilah wa-Dimnah, are no less significant in this respect and deserve the same analytic application. The latter is an allegorical work with impressive insights into statecraft, human nature, and, by implication, right belief.

Introduction  90

However, it does not confine its address to the suburban audiences of the new Islamic city, the disenfranchised communities, the lower middle classes, or the mixed societies of the new Islamic nation. Nor does the premise apply to the assemblies, either Badī( al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī’s or Abū al-Qāsim al-marīrī’s (d. (446–516/1054–1122) Maqāmāt. In both there is an urban core that operates strongly within markets, houses, and community assemblies. They convey an interesting picture of this urban life as they reflect on trickery; disparity between urban and rural life; drunkenness as a practice among the elite; corruption in the judiciary system; defilement of sanctuaries, sacred places, and mosques; and the interest in debates. Indeed, Badī( al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī’s “úaimariyyah Maqāmah” contains all the properties and components of urban life. Its focus on the vicissitudes of fortune, tricks, drunkards, city gossip, and physical outlook makes it distinguishable as an urban piece of narrative. Yet these works emanated from a different frame of mind: the mind of the intellectual as an alien and the growing separation from the court in keeping with the increased involvement in urban life. They first target the educated and the learned, who are expected to appreciate their eloquence, rich style, and humor. They also cater to the rising classes in general. No wonder that al-marīrī’s Maqāmat took as a model Badī( al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī’s assemblies, to become one of the most recommended texts for the improvement of students’ Arabic.20 According to the basic premise of this study, mixed, multiple, and anonymous authorship and the evolution into a collection cannot take place outside a powerful metropolis, a center widely recognized as the haven of safety and resourcefulness. The miserable losers of the paradisiacal bliss, the palace of forty doors in the third mendicant’s tale in the cycle of the porter and the three ladies of Baghdad, warn the third mendicant not to stay with them: “we will never harbor you or let you stay with us. Get out of here, go to Baghdad, and find someone to help you there.” 21 The three mendicants are limited by their human nature, its curiosity and restlessness, and cannot therefore settle for a life of ease, joy, and abundance. Kicked out of this bliss, they find no other place to restore their humanity than metropolitan Baghdad in its heyday during the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd. As the center of gravity, Baghdad, just as Mamluk Cairo later, drew all to its markets, streets, mosques, palaces, and culture. While the Commander of the Faithful (amīr al-mu(minīn) is at the heart of the center, the mosque is no less so, even in the most adventurous stories of love and marriage. The mosque is made subordinate to the vicar of God, the Commander of the Faithful. In an important moment in the history

9100 Introduction

of the (Abbāsids, the caliph al-Rashīd was to secure the oath of allegiance to his sons. The formal document that was sent to all quarters of the empire spoke of this as God’s will and decree: “The command of God cannot be altered, His decree cannot be rejected and His judgment cannot be delayed.” 22 The tales spoke of his orders in the same manner. Gravitation toward the center has this dynamic, which has at times a tinge of pragmatism both because of Baghdad and its lucrative business and orderly life during the reign of the Commander of the Faithful and because his offers can bring such opulence and affluence. On the other hand, the nonpragmatic connotations refer to a dimension seemingly beyond the reach of others, for absolute authority, if undefiled and well sustained, partakes of supreme power, which is usually reserved to God. Only under the auspices of Islamic faith, as supervised by the Commander of the Faithful, can smitten individuals or desperate losers retain their humanity and wholeness as responsible human beings. Before the gradual deterioration of the caliphate order set in from the tenth century onward, the first (Abbāsid establishment built its divine claim and legitimacy on its descent from the Prophet. Thus, Dāwūd, the brother of the first (Abbāsid caliph, Abū al(Abbās al-Saffān (749–754), described for the Kūfah Muslim community in the great mosque there his vision of the retrieval of historical usurpation of power by the Umayyads and its return to the Hashemite (Abbāsid family: “God has let you behold what you were awaiting and looking forward to. He has made manifest among you a caliph of the clan of Hāshim, brightening thereby your faces and making you to prevail over the army of Syria, and transferring the sovereignty and glory of Islam to you.” In order to connect the historical lineage in more concrete terms, he added: “Has any successor to God’s messenger ascended this your minbar save the Commander of the Faithful (Alī ibn Abī §ālib and the Commander of the Faithful (Abd Allah ibn Munammad?”—meaning his brother Abū al(Abbās.23 Loaded with Qur)ānic references to the Prophet and careful to avoid rifts with the Quraysh tribes, he concentrated on the immediate need of building up legitimacy through lineage. Every thing or power should be subdued hereafter in the presence of the Commander of the Faithful or the mention of God. The (Abbāsid caliph Abū Ja(far al-Manùūr (r. 754–775) established Baghdad as the new capital (762 c.e.) with the blessings of God. He “laid the first brick with his own hand,” wrote the historian al-§abarī (839–923 c.e.), “saying, ‘In the name of God, and praise to Him. The earth is God’s; He causes to inherit of it whom He wills among His servants, and the result thereof is to them that fear Him. . . . Then he said, ‘Build, and God bless you!’ ” 24 With this loaded blessing, the city

Introduction  9110

derives its sanctity from this discourse, which is also the discourse of the caliphate in its struggle against its rivals from other dynasties and clans. The mixed discourse of authority, legitimacy, and need set the terms for a new empire that was soon to spread and rule over large areas in Asia and Africa. This mixed discourse takes another turn in the tales, and it becomes more heterogeneous to accommodate different cultures, classes, races, and nations. For instance, in the tales the market remains an important center for the growing empire—and thus for narratives—but the mercantile class gravitates toward the court and its images of captivating women-in-waiting or well-placed maids and slaves. Black slaves share power through their knowledge of intimate secrets, and they also play the role of attendants and guards on many occasions. The same thing applies to maids, women singers, and stewards. Even ifrits and jinn participate in earthly life, bringing people together or punishing them for transgressions. Yet the universe as described in the tales is under the auspices of the caliph as the Commander of the Faithful. On the other hand, and despite the premise of divine right, the Commander of the Faithful is also challenged by humor and passionate love to assume a rather human size. More important to this argument is the focused emphasis on the paradigm of rise and fall and the moral associations that are in keeping with both Islamic law and the sacrosanctity and inviolability of the court, a subject that is the primary concern of the third chapter. The frame tale establishes the nucleus of disruption, totality, and democratization. It gains support from its other embedded stories, which narratively reverse the cycle of fragmentation and disorder both through the deposition of supernaturally and magically empowered women and through the use of human reason and the increasing momentum of the liberating women who align themselves with new aspirations and thus help in setting up the terms of equality and mutual recognition. These women cut across race, color, and class, and they function in the narrative as a force that balances and undermines the association only of betrayal and deceit with women or blacks. The “black girl,” who is “sitting at . . . the feet” of the eldest lady of Baghdad is there to repay her for her kindness.25 This occurs in the tale of the eldest lady in the cycle of the porter and the three ladies, which depicts a mixture of business life, adventure, travel and challenge, and family tricks and jealousy. The lady is repaid, however, for taking care of a snake whose sister turns out to be a supernatural being who saves the Baghdadi lady from drowning. In the same cluster of tales, the stories that follow give name to the new effort, its cultural and national identity, and its Islamic

9120 Introduction

character. Such are the tales that are part of “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” the embedded mendicants’ tales, and the steward’s tale, which also shows the other side of paradigmatic designs. The countermovement outside the center toward Damascus, Cairo, and China provides us with the other side of the rise-and-fall paradigm. The ensuing disintegration touches social and family relations and prompts other journeys and adventures, as in the tale of the two viziers and the story of the hunchback and its cycle. The paradigm of rise and fall, which ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406 c.e.) applied later to a societal framework, took an apocalyptic turn in the practices of ascetics, whose warnings emphasize the discrepancy between Islamic piety and the affluence of the state and its lavish expenditures, as in the pieces of anecdotal literature related by Abū māmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111 c.e.) in his nisbah treatise.26 There are many similar pieces in popular narrative, but in the collection of the Thousand and One Nights one comes across only “The City of Brass” and,27 perhaps, its prototype in the first lady’s tale in “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.” Many readers were shocked then and now by the waywardness of the tales, their transgressions of Islamic law, and their conspicuous application of urban needs and desires. In line with the urban premise, and integral to it, is the issue of adultery and love, family and social institutions, and gender and class relations. These are important and central dynamics in the making of this ArabIslamic narrative. They are so both because storytellers gratify the interests of suburban classes and primarily because they largely depict the cultural consciousness of the urban classes in the age of empire. We should keep in mind that the frame tale is back in motion only after the two royal brothers conceive adultery as common and that they should deal with it in their own way to keep the kingdom inviolable and intact. Adultery rarely passes without punishment in the tales; the case of the abducted bride and the ifrit in the frame tale is an exception, as it combines abduction, fornication, and revenge in a wilderness where laws do not hold. As the family becomes as institutionalized as the state in its keeping with middle-class ethics, its strength and unity is behind the dynamic storytelling, its cycles of loss and gain, disappointment and joy. Transgressions, including familial matters such as greed, jealousy, and deceit, have a place in this narrative. The empowering element is Islamic law, which the storyteller manages according to his understanding of how things should be, an understanding that usually deviates from some schools of law in certain matters. It certainly differs from the regressive tendencies of desert Wahhābism. Nevertheless, there is a unifying Islamic

Introduction  9130

factor in this narrative that accommodates schools of law and popular attitudes in a cohesive frame of mind that has, nevertheless, its anachronisms and drawbacks, as the third and fourth chapters will argue. Power is no longer concentrated in the palace and the court. As the frame tale loses its centrality and gives way to the tale of the three ladies of Baghdad and the tales of the mendicants, which unfold in the same place, so do the court and its commanding sovereign. The public sphere takes over, enforcing its own logic and turning the private sphere, like the house of the three ladies, into a public one enjoyed by mendicants and porters. Evolving into a public place, with mendicants, porters, disguised merchants, jinn, and dogs, it becomes henceforth the right space to test the authority and sovereignty of the disguised caliph. The storyteller’s navigation among the official Islamic madhhabs (schools of law) gives precedence to the Iraqi manafite school, followed by the Shāf (ī madhhab, both for its relatively accommodating approach to matters of urban nature, such as music, drunkenness, adultery, and other familial and societal issues, and for its emergence in the burgeoning and subsequent heyday of the (Abbāsid Empire (actual reign, 750–945 c.e.).28 Subtle narrative techniques and designs impose coherence and unity on these themes, which otherwise may well escape the undiscerning eye. The fourth chapter focuses more on thematic narratives and public concerns, where a tension or rapprochement exists between laws as prescribed in nisbah (moral and legal market inspector’s duties) manuals and the narrative drive that caters more to the demands of the urban and suburban tale. Topics that seem irrelevant to Islamic law and other wider laws function also in an Islamic orbit. Subjects such as humor, street gatherings, marketplace meetings, the roles of women, administrators, city maps, mosques, oaths, transactions, the fusion of the natural and the supernatural, apocalyptic visions, and the presence of diviners and letter writers are rich with Islamic implications. These implications exist both in the juridical sense and in a broad cultural context where the empire has its gifts, obligations, and demands. Professions appearing in a colorful and diversified application and function receive due attention, as these function also within broad thematic concerns including love, family, class, and the vicissitudes of fortune and vagaries of politics. Professions and their public sphere become the dynamic space for action and, thus, for narrative. The fifth chapter follows these narrative topics with an analysis of the tales as popular literature, a literature no less threatening to the elite and its centers of power than the sprawling suburbs that historically became a nuisance, if not a menacing presence, to the caliphate’s center and its

9140 Introduction

privileged domains. In this context, the tales move away from the basic frame tale toward another habitat, where the disguised slaves of the garden scene in the frame tale are more powerful in their own mounds and outskirts, though they remain within the reach of the intimidating rod and sword of authority. Suburban representations are the other face of social exclusion, and what can be excluded from respectable narrative can enforce its presence and power through the imaginative flights of the storyteller who leads the enchantress queen, in “The Tale of the Enchanted King,” to the mounds outside the palace, to surrender to a wretched vagabond with whom she is in love. On the other hand, education itself is no longer the privileged possession of royalty and the wealthy classes; it can also be a weapon in the hands of slaves, barbers, and professionals. This is why there must be a comparative approach to the implications of inclusion and exclusion in narrative. In the sixth chapter, there is a discussion of the birth of a narratological corpus, driven by facts on the ground in a bourgeois milieu. The primary narratives that are passed on to us as readers are usually acceptable to the privileged classes. However, they are not the ones we meet in the so-called adab al-(āmmah, or the literature of the common public, the plebeian. This cultural product, which we come across in the historical accounts of civil wars, reaches us in fragments such as the Chartist literature in England, for example. It rarely appears in standard histories, for its exclusion is part of upper-class defensiveness and its effort to sustain the presence of its own image as the only representative of the society. On the margins and fringes of the enormous effort in Qur)ānic exegesis and studies in rhetoric and poetry, as well as in the writing down of history, there emerged the mercurial accommodating effort between classical and common thought and aspiration. The master Abū al-Faraj al-Iùfahānī’s (897–967 c.e.) effort was recognized by his late contemporaries as erudite, thorough, and basically new in recording the court, its intellectual and social orbits, and the literary and social mobility that classical tradition rarely allows us to penetrate. Al-Tanūkhī (384/994) admits as much and celebrates the enterprise that he emulates in his concern with urban life, its talk and gossip, and the intrigues and narratives of the professional classes. “I never found a person knowing by heart such a quantity as he did of poems, songs, historical accounts, anecdotes of ancient times, authentic narratives and genealogies; besides which he possessed information on other sciences, such as philosophy, grammar, story-telling, biography and the history of Muslim conquests,” al-Tanūkhī writes of Abū al-Faraj al-)Iùfahānī. He adds: “He was acquainted with the

Introduction  9150

branches of knowledge requisite for a boon-companion, such as falconry, farriery, the preparation of beverages, a smattering of medicine and astrology.” 29 No less significant and with more reliance on a chain of transmitters is al-Tanūkhī himself, whose three books offer an equally substantial depiction of life under the (Abbāsids. These works, along with such early eleventh-century subgeneric anecdotal narratives as Anmad Abū alMu•ahhar al-Azdī’s mikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī (The Tale of Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī) testify to a life that explains the birth and growth of narrative complexity as an urban phenomenon in a relatively bourgeois milieu. The vagrant antiheroic protagonist is there to participate and satirize the double standards of this milieu, reeling off jokes at scenes such as the one he depicts of the gathered revelers who are awakened from their drunken stupor by the call to prayer. Furthermore, there is the issue of poetry in the tales. Many pieces are quotations from known poets and imams. Others are appropriations of such sources. The rest have undefined and unknown authors. Their value emanates, however, both from their relevance to the text and the needs of storytellers to support narratives and also from their authorship. Author­ ship or anonymity signify cultural contexts and can operate as markers toward the identification of cultural and social emergence and growth. They bridge the gap between classical and popular traditions and defy the terms of strict and clearly cut categorizations as set by elite scribes. For instance, as mentioned earlier, the imam al-Shāf (ī is quoted a number of times. Especially when there is a mention of the vicissitudes of fortune, his poetry is available to soothe the minds and the souls of the losers and the forlorn.30 This narrative endeavor is not an ordinary one. Indeed, it goes hand in hand with the birth of the scribe, who, since (Abd al- mamīd al-Kātib’s (d. August 750 c.e.) celebrated epistle to his fellow epistolographers and secretaries, will soon retain a distinctive, though not necessarily privileged, place in the urban social order. Education is a priori, but it is not limited to traditional education only, for the scribe should be aware of poetry and its renowned odes as well as the sciences of the ancients; the new achievements in the Islamic science, including astrology; and the demands of the new professions. The tales are aware of this significant turn in professional life both in their emphasis on the composite nature of education and its diversified concerns and on the need for it as professional grounding that is necessary if one is to have a role in a busy and competitive life. The tales focus on the vagaries of politics and the use of education as a requirement to secure a living. The court had a different role at this stage of the growth of the metropolitan center than it did in

9160 Introduction

the early decades of the ninth century. It had its own boon-companions and litte´rateurs, and screening was so difficult as to deprive many of any possible patronage. Its role was to ask its scribes to record these anecdotes and surprising narratives as long as there was some edification and lesson in them. Writing is the handmaid of history, and scribes and epistolographers had to cope with these demands in order to document a period of radical change and transformation, vicissitudes, and achievements. Only through thinking of the present moment and posterity simultaneously can the fading imperial authority justify its existence and hope in a prolonged life. Insofar as patronage, the dynastic role in history, and the increasing significance of epistolography are concerned, this change in roles should not be understood as a simultaneous deterioration in the application of law. The professional class of jurists has, in narratives as in history, a powerful authority that systematizes and disciplines the enormous growth of markets, commerce, and business. The professions find a full description of their rights and obligations in nisbah books, and the tales dwell on these shades of law and order, too. Everybody and everything, from the diviners, letter writers, and magicians to articles such as cloth, food, and merchandise of every sort is under the purview of the muntasib—and possibly the judge, if there is a complaint. Furthermore, nonverbal patterns of life, talismans, practices, gestures, and food are there in narrative representations to be contained and organized, as chapter 7 argues. Public deviation is punishable whenever the muntasib notices such a thing. These patterns function in the tales as nonverbal devices, effectively present and dynamically challenging. Nonverbal techniques are the other face of silence, its hidden power to undermine and subvert. Food and the feast work here both as manifestations of joy, festivity, and luxury and as a terrain for interference and trapping. In the court, unrefined practices in table manners and food may endanger the outsider’s life, as in the steward’s tale, but even beyond the court and its immediate domain, in the marketplace in Damascus, for instance, it may lead to problems and complications. In the story of the two viziers, before reaching the scene where the mother and lost son recognize each other in the changing metropolis and its dubious itineraries, there are troubles to encounter and humiliations to undergo. The Islamic celebration of food is confined to a paradisiacal bliss; otherwise, humans should be satisfied with a modest meal, good enough to ensure a pleasant life but not serving as a show of privilege and prosperity, like the feasts and celebrations at the (Abbāsid court. In his Murūj al-dhahab

Introduction  9170

(Meadows of Gold ), which he wrote in 336/947, Abū al-masan al-Mas(ūdī associates a hospitable man, a refined connoisseur, with good food, good manners, and the art of preparing a feast. After enumerating the requirements for this preparation, he adds, “this is a sketch of culinary art indispensable to any man who habitually shares his table, indeed any well brought-up man should be aware of it; new methods of preparing dishes are given and the art of combining herbs and spices to season food.”31 He explains further: “This book also suggests different topics of conversation, the way the guest should wash his hands in the presence of the host and the way he should take his leave; how the cup should be passed around.” 32 The opposite of this luxury and stupendous affluence, which we find in other accounts, is the imaginary meal of the Barmicide (Barmakid) in the tales that significantly speak of the calamity that had befallen the wealthiest and most luxurious family.33 It carries within it the rise-and-fall paradigm and gives it an imaginary touch to enforce the Qur)ānic lesson whenever there is mention of excessive squandering and waste. The Barmicide’s imaginary feast is the trope for the fall of an empire, its disintegration, the loss of its statecraft, and the proliferation of suspicion and betrayal usually mentioned in historical accounts with or against the (Abbāsids themselves. Whether the popular vizier Ja(far secretly married the caliph’s sister (Abbāsa or was blamed for so much wealth that it surpassed the caliph’s court, the outcome signifies seeds of corruption within the very intimately connected and seemingly united and powerful center. But does this necessarily indicate an organized frame that holds the collection together, at least in the so-called fourteenthcentury Galland manuscript? Indeed, there are at least three major narrative designs that have been overlooked so far by all students and scholars of the collection. Nights 201 until 230, which cover “The Story of the Slave-Girl Anis al-Jalis and Nur al-Din Ali ibn Khaqan,” have these three designs, all of which are central to the basic frame tale and its circle. These work on an ironic level to anticipate, follow up, or establish the urbanity of the collection as it subsequently grows beyond the limits of the frame story. First, there are the ironic anticipations of the hanging of the vizier Ja(far, anticipations that are in line with many reproaches and ironic warnings by the caliph to his minister.34 What is at stake for Shahrayar’s vizier is his daughter’s own safety and survival. What is at stake for al-Rashīd’s vizier is his own life, too. What begins in jest turns into a historical reality, for he was hanged as warned in the tales.35 Humor and jest in the tales have the paradoxical combination of promise and menace, just as the vagaries of

9180 Introduction

politics and vicissitudes of fortune do. Second, there is the other face of the fisherman’s tale of the frame-story sequels of adultery and deceit. The fisherman who is able to reach the king and get the reward does so through his witty plan to outsmart the demon and put him back in a sealed jar until he secures an oath from the demon to serve the fisherman, thus enabling him to have a rewarding catch. In the tale under consideration that almost concludes Galland’s manuscript, the caliph al-Rashīd decides to disguise himself as the fisherman Karīm, to learn the reasons behind what is impossible to understand otherwise: the use of his palace by his gardenkeeper Shaykh Ibrāhim for festivity and wine drinking.36 Naming is no less significant, for to be a specific fisherman with an identity and a name testifies to the urbanity of the tale and its departure from allegorical narratives of unspecified identities and locations, like the fisherman and demon of the early sequels. There is also some duplication of the kitchen scene during the frying of the colored fish in the tale of the enchanted king. The caliph, disguised as Karīm the fisherman, has also been frying fish to serve the group.37 In line with the burgeoning of the collection as an urban growth, there are no implications of magic here, as there are in the prototypical tale of the enchanted king. Rather, the meal sets the tone for the recognition scene and the letter written to the prince of Basrah demanding the execution of his Basrah-based vizier. Outwitting the shaykh and uncovering the implications of this festivity in the Palace of Statues, the caliph duplicates other roles that fit the fisherman, not the sovereign. Third, as if duplicating the kings of the frame tale and also the role of the slave Mas(ūd in the garden scene’s orgy, both the caliph and the vizier climb the tree that overlooks the hall where the shaykh joins the two lovers in a merry festival of wine and music.38 Both duplicate the brother kings who climb the tree in fear of the monster. Both suffer betrayal, but betrayal in the tale under discussion comes from the gardenkeeper, the shaykh. The presumed solid ground of the empire, its cemented ideology and institution, is not so solid after all: hypocrisy and double standards have already infiltrated its apparatus. The outcome as narrated is joyful, but its historical implications and the consequences of the caliph’s wrath are not so. A minister in Basrah must meet his end. The frame tale’s nucleus comes full circle; however, men, not women alone, stand for the sacrificial rites of passage. In other words, Islam and the Islamic state, its religious laws and obligations, work throughout the tales and bring together a narrative universe that may seem at the outset to be as fragmented and scattered as the beads of a rosary in the hands of

Introduction  9190

a nonbeliever. The Barmicide’s feast is not alone in setting an underlying ironic design to this narrative universe through its critique of luxury and power. There are, in the tale of the barber’s brother al-Nashshār, dreams of prosperity that lead to the utter destruction of what little kitchenware he has. Everything, including dreams and visions, has a function, and there is little hope for the recovery and retention of normalcy if there is no faith to hold things together. Such is the Islamic hold on narrative dynamics in the tales.

9  1  0 The Islamic Factor in Global Times “Whether an Arab or a foreigner, he is a brother dervish.”

D

ervishes are not alone in speaking of global fraternity beyond ethnic or social distinctions.1 The mendicants’ journeys to Baghdad, after a series of adventures and misfortunes, testify to Sufi unease at settlement of any sort and to deep recognition of the vagaries of time. On the other hand, the frame tale is transactional on more than one level, for it buys life with narrative, and it collapses physical virginity with narrative virginity, where whatever is new and unfamiliar suffers use, both the new story and the virgin maid. It may not be superfluous to mention John Barth’s recurrent reference to this element or trope as a testimony to the power of the unexhausted and the new. In The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, a parody of Sindbad’s voyages in the New World Order as ordained by the first Bush administration and its advisors before 1991, Scheherazade says that her last story will be “a virgin story in both respects, for it’s about virginity, too.”2 The new order will also invade and defile, like the giant ifrit who abducts the young bride on her wedding night. But, as if to beat power on its own terms, the virgin maid proves to be too sophisticated for both her husband and the ifrit, as she has already gathered a good number of wedding rings from people who have formerly made love to her and entrusted her with their secrets and stories. The virginity trope both in Barth’s novel and in Scheherazade’s tales resists and defies Islamic prohibitions of extramarital sexual relationships, but it also subscribes to the postcapitalist unrelenting desire for others. The tales are a testimony to this movement and navigation among religions, regions, ethnicities, and nations. They contain moral constraints

9220 The Isla mic Factor in Global Times

and taboos as well as laxity and expressions of human ingenuity. This plethora of voices, desires, interests, and claims underscores its globality and perennial appeal to different nations and cultures. Even the emergence of the mufābalah subgenre (prioritization on the basis of virtue or merit), its transposition from literature onto cities and nations, is another sign of a newly tolerant and accommodating outlook that is no longer restricted or constrained by prejudice or a group solidarity. On the other hand, the appearance of commerce as the force behind the exchange of ideas, styles of life, and cultivation of minds and souls establishes the tales as global symptoms. The journey may change its purpose and incentives every now and then, as many tales, including Sindbād’s voyages, demonstrate, but the outcome is the same and the achievement testifies to an urban mind geared toward global faring. No matter the reasons behind the journey, there is also some moral support for the migrational endeavor, and imams and jurists provide encouragement and solace to people in this search. Homelands are where you find love and affection, says one poem quoted from the imam al-Shaf (ī.3 This outlook does not gloss over the troubles and vagaries of politics and misfortune, but the tales have the underlying premise of cordiality and rapprochement, which is bemoaned at times by contemporary critics as wishful thinking. The subtext of the tales beckons to a world without borders, but it also raises questions regarding power politics and the role of self-interest, selfishness, and greed in augmenting the urgent desire for a pleasant settlement. However, now more so than at any other time or age, the Thousand and One Nights may stand as a unique representative of a global age. The case is so not only because of its wide dissemination as a cultural commodity in cultural industry and production but also because it has already beckoned to an age beyond borders and limits. With its magic rings, lamps, and talismans, and with its mixed races and cultural diversity, the collection has already anticipated an age of transregional communication and mobility. The imagination behind the collection was congruent with the metropolitan life and imperial center that was the Baghdad of the (Abbāsid times and the Cairo of the Mam­ luks. Its success in the West should not be seen only in terms of narrative appeal since, apart from this significant fact, the collection pointed to an age of discovery and provided incentives for human reason to travel beyond limits into unmapped horizons of search and achievement. The imagination behind the collection has already seen through the human mind’s whims, anticipations, expectations, inhibitions, and desire to control the universe. It has already drawn the map for research and discovery. Every finding has a root in an imaginative flight. Apart from its feminist over-

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tones and narrative power as a celebration of art and its supremacy against heavy odds, the frame story should be read in terms of the new age. Its achievements have bypassed communication barriers despite hegemonic cultural industry. We have to look upon the components of this imaginative galaxy through cultural lenses that detect comparisons between the past and the present. The demon who transforms a mendicant—who was once a son of a king—into an ape is as supreme and dominating as global capital’s machinery and force, which can change many communities and individuals into mimics and hybrids. Every agency corresponds to something or to some power that we take for granted today as central to the extant world order. The disillusioned kings who decide to roam the lands like dervishes encounter first the kidnapped bride and her kidnapper, the monster, who has a free hand in both sea and land, much like global capital and its war industry. Alternatively, and within the frame-clustered tales, the fisherman’s colorful fish sums up the enforced erosion of identities. Religious communities change into fish under the merciless power of magic and enchantment, and their islands are transformed into hills surrounding the lakes under the same magical power. This tale can serve as an ironic trope for the devastation of cultures and identities that accompanies the achievements of the global village. The “inhabitants of my city, who belonged to four sects,” says the ensorcelled king, were “Muslims, Magians, Christians, and Jews,” but his wife, the enchantress, turned them into fish.4 In all the redactions of the Thousand and One Nights, however, there is an Islamic tinge that grows at times into a definite shade and trace whereby everything assumes a clear and simple Islamic character. It may not sound as definitive as decrees and classifications we come across in nisbah (market inspector’s duties) manuals, which speak early on of such matters as the division of the lands of the Muslims (Dār al-Islām) and the lands of war (Dār al-marb, that is, non-Muslim territory). Nevertheless, there is a narrative prioritization of Muslims in comparison to non-Muslims, as the tales of the barber and his brothers demonstrate. The system exemplified in these tales pertains to what is expected from the community itself, its Muslims and dhimmīs, which is not similar to what is expected from the latter when belonging to a Dār al-marb territory. In Yanyā Ben Ādam’s Kitāb al-Kharāj (d. 818 c.e.),5 for instance, there is a definitive statement from the second caliph: “I wrote [said the speaker in the quote] to X mar b. al-Kha••āb [the second caliph] about people from (Ahl al-marb entering our territory, the land of Islam, and settling there. X mar wrote to me: if they stay six months, collect the Yshr [tithe] from them, but if they

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stay a year collect half-Yshr.”6 Along such geographical and cultural lines of demarcation, faith is upheld as the criterion. In the aforementioned case, there is both the Islamic equalizer that considers all Muslims as one nation or ummah, regardless of race and color, and the separation from nonMuslim territories according to a number of laws and regulations. A good number of tales treat the mixed community in an Islamic quarter (dhimmīs or non-Muslims from communities with scriptures) as having the same rights and responsibilities, but they also describe distinctions that set them apart from Muslims. In other words, despite the diversity and globality we come across in the tales, the collection remains a cultural product of specific characteristics and features that can be described as Arab-Islamic. Edward William Lane, the second major translator into English of the Thousand and One Nights, associates the transactional nature of the frame tale, art for life, with the Arab propensity for eloquence and appreciation of romantic tales: “Eloquence, with them, is lawful magic: it exercises over their minds an irresistible influence.” 7 Although confusing storytelling with eloquence, the remark is apt as a testament to the art of storytelling but not to any rhetorical power as recognized by classical Arabic poetics. This general Islamic quality is not the one that traditionalists and conservative jurists seek; it is rather a cultural bent that comprises the mood and predilections of an urban society that finds justifications and excuses for little diversions, daily entertainments, and minor transgressions. Although these urban societies were under the purview of the muntasib ’s office, the continually updated nisbah manuals indicate that these urban societies were in need of more authoritative inculcation and edification in Islamic law, as a body of decrees and regulations that apply the basics in the Qur)ān and the Prophet’s tradition to emerging situations and societies. The process of inculcation is worth understanding, for, as al-Ghazālī (d. 1111 c.e.) argues in Inyā) X lūm al-Dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), where there is a treatise on nisbah, “even in the town most people are ignorant of the rulings of Islamic law concerning the conditions for prayer, so how must it be for the villages and the nomads among whom are Arabs, Kurds, Turks and other ethnic groups?”8 The storyteller should have been aware of that, and, as shown in the story of the slave girl Tawaddud, there was a good grasp of Islamic law on the part of storytellers as probable preachers. On the other hand, the tale, which was probably available when the caliphate was still in Sāmarrā) (836–892 c.e.), offers a critique of an authority based on artificial application of the Muslim law and lacking the capacity to deal with multifaceted and variegated issues. It snatches authority from this chancery and admin-

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istrative structure, represented by jurists and the court entourage, and claims it as the right of a citizen, the slave girl as a reasonable human being. In other words, at the time of the Zanj rebellion (869–883 c.e.) in Basrah, where the slaves were openly offering their interpretation of Islam in opposition to the (Abbāsids, the tales offer their own reading of Islamic law in concordance with reason and conscience. Public opinion, as expressed in rebellions or in other expressions and schools of rationalism that were still powerful then, signifies something other than subordination and obedience. There was no mere allegiance but rather what Habermas calls “the implicit law of the parity of all cultivated persons,” which he discerns in eighteenth-century Enlightenment discourse in Europe.9

The Islamic and the Foreign Yet the collection offers a variety of readings and perspectives that demonstrate a medley, too, albeit with a general Islamic color. With a mixed agenda and concern, the collection offers an Islamic context that we may meet in entertaining collections compiled in the tenth and eleventh centuries and onward. The Thousand and One Nights remains uniquely different from these collections because of its collective authorship and its obscure development and growth, a fact that also explains its defiance of systematic patterning or classification. This accumulation of different manuscripts and redactions deserves a close look. Each period or site of redaction or compilation has unique ideological predilections and interests. A manuscript in Baghdad of the late ninth century containing the tale of the slave girl Tawaddud is not identical with another one circulated in the twelfth century in Syria or Cairo. Indeed, the increasingly rigid tendencies among some later traditionalists are a far cry from early pronouncements. They have the professional enforcement of law as applied by an increasingly powerful class in times of foreign invasions.10 The celebration of women’s arts was no longer sustained, and by the fourteenth century, we have ibn al-)Ukhuwwah speaking of the need not to teach writing to women, for (and he uses unsupported tradition) a woman taught to write is “like a serpent given poison to drink.” 11 The same difference in narrative perspective and detail, especially in matters of jurisprudence, may well be traced to fourteenth-century copies. In other words, Islam is a common denominator in the collection as long as it is a cultural application and exercise of rituals and basic articles of faith. The case is not so whenever there is a mention of or silence on the nonofficial schools of law or other faiths. There is fluctuation in opinion and narrative method in

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such cases that should alert us to historical contexts. Yet the tales have a generalized Islamic context that can easily elude search for particular cases. This context is as diverse and colorful as is life in the cities during times of affluence and change. As a cultural commodity in a global age, the collection in its many redactions can offer itself easily to multifarious productions in the cinema, the Internet, and in cyberspace at large. Of particular interest, however, is the manipulation and use or misuse of some tales, motifs, key words, images, and tropes that remind us of nineteenth-century European pantomime. Each age has its predilections and preoccupations, and the collection offers abundant material to accommodate parody, irony, travesty, and realistic representations. The universalized character of the collection should bode well in this age, but the particular Islamic context is bound to provoke and invoke diversified responses. In both cases, the Islamic context assumes great significance and importance. Focusing on this side of the tales, their resemblance and difference from European culture, James Mew writes to Cornhill Magazine in December 1875: “a sentence is like a cheveril glove to a good wit, and one may preach Protestant sermons from the texts of the Imam.” 12

Perspectives A cursory reading of responses old and new can tell us more about the collection, just as it is bound to inform us about the nature and orientation of a particular response, its cultural positionality, personal dispositions, and the relation to burgeoning genres and manifestations of taste. As I explained elsewhere, an early nineteenth-century critic in England or Germany might speak of Muslim piety and charity, while another per­ spective might focus on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, seeing the tales through the lenses of competition and colonial aspiration. Among readers and admirers of the tales such as Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley, there are many differences despite the fact they belong to the same period, culture, and romantic movement. The question that always begs an answer is whether the problem of these multiple responses emanates from the recipient or the book. When we look at the same matter from the contemporary perspective or from an Islamic and Arab viewpoint, is there an answer that can satisfy everyone? Is the collection representative of Islamic life and culture? Does it operate as an accurate image of life in Turkey, as eighteenth-century British travelers and diplomats argued?13 While each response has an individual touch, flavor, and color, it may also

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partake of the nature of the moment and its power to influence attitudes and tastes. For instance, the censorship practiced in Egypt against the collection took place both because of the resurgence of Muslim ultraconservatism starting in the early 1980s and because of the tendency of the religious institution to exercise some say in cultural matters to show that it is actively present. In 1985, the Moral Court in Cairo accused the text of corrupting youth. If you ask the institution (al-Azhar) for the reasons behind the call to ban the edition edited by a shaykh in the nineteenth century, they have no better answer than the moral one.14 The institution acts as the protector of Islamic morality. If you ask further how the collection harms morality, there is no particular answer other than references to the “Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” and similar frivolous tales. These have no more ribaldry and low humor than the amount al-Jāniµ once described as “normal,” but the tales have been deliberately manipulated by hypocrites. Al-Jāniµ writes: “some people who affect asceticism and selfdenial are uneasy and embarrassed when cunt, cock and fucking are mentioned but most men you find like that are without knowledge, honor, morality or dignity.” 15 The tales speak of such things only in a few places— far less than, say, what appears on popular satellite TV channels. Compared to the awakening period (the turn of the twentieth century), this response speaks of an ultraconservative taste advocated and supported by specific institutions and hard-line religionists. During that period, the objection to the increasing interest in the tales focused on the need for the production of scientific knowledge.16 But the collection still elicits such responses and can serve therefore as an index of tastes, positions, political ambitions, competitions, and, significantly, special interests. Thus its Islamic context deserves detailed analysis, not only in relation to globalization, the discontents of the nation state, and the resurgence of Islamic movements, but also in relation to the emanation, burgeoning, and demise or survival of literary genres and traditions. Widely recognized as the most famous book in the world, the Thousand and One Nights has elicited a large corpus of critical insights, comments, appraisals, appreciations, views, and reviews.17 It has lent itself so easily to adaptors, redactors, cinema and theater producers, publishers, and media presenters and commentators that it has created a phenomenal register of codes and phrases that make up a common property. In its many editions, abridgements, and redactions, the collection has provided a shared register that has been in use since the eighteenth century. Words and phrases such as “caliphs,” “Commander of the Faithful,” “jinn (genie),” “talisman,” “open sesame,” “Aladdin’s lamp,” “Alnashshār’s visions,” and the “Barmi-

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cide’s feasts” have become idiomatic all over the globe. The vogue of phrases connoting abrupt change and dreams was enormous in nineteenth-century Europe, in keeping with radical urbanization, industrialization, social transformation, and economic upheavals in an age of imperial conquests. Not many realize that this circulation of images and phrases totally alien to European languages was triggered and originated by the appearance of the Thousand and One Nights. The question that will continue to require an answer may rest on the need to understand the difference in reception between the Muslims (and the Arabs in particular) and their European counterparts. The sweeping success of that early appearance in France in 1704 and simultaneously in England and its continuous growth not only in book form but also in the cinema industry and the media in general provides the tales with a sustained ascendancy in the culture industry. Although a large portion of the cinematic adaptations of the Thousand and One Nights demonstrates what Robert Irwin calls “a playful and disrespectful approach toward the actual text of the Arabian Nights and indeed toward Middle Eastern culture in general,” 18 there have also been serious films by Pier Paolo Pasolini and others. The sustained ascendancy of the tales should belie any attempt to rationalize reasons or to account for a sustained logic of cause and effect to explain how vogue and popularity operate. Granting that translations respond to the taste of a receiving milieu and that the tales in their different translations and redactions are indices of tastes, there must be some basic facts about the collection itself that make the appeal so general and sweeping in so many cultures, especially the English-speaking ones. If the collection had a specific character, it might have failed to attract such wide audiences. If it had only a universal appeal, it might have become like any entertaining narrative, popular but limited in its influences and effects. The tales were highly regarded as a collection in France, and they made a welcome contribution to French culture at a time of bourgeois growth and the increasing role of sociability as a practice and process with a definite departure from the declining court culture. But the French reception and appropriation of the tales is incomparable next to that of the British, for in England the tales had enormous influence despite the fact that the reading public in England was not that large in the eighteenth century.19 One answer may be found in the realistic strain in British culture, which saw itself reflected in the tales of fishermen, cobblers, stewards, mendicants, and other professionals and artisans. More important, however, is the assimilative tendency in a powerful imperial culture, which subsumes all other cultures as part of its scheme of colonial appropriation.

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Along with the universalizing tendencies of the bourgeoisie, that is, its structures of feeling and interests that find themselves well met in tales of curiosity, ambition, aspiration, conflict, and refinement, the imperial order finds in the tales and their enormous appeal a thriving project as well as handy source of casual reading and easy understanding of life and manners in the East, as many reviewers were happy to explain. The image making fits well into some racial dichotomies that justify the colonial enterprise. Translation is not a random endeavor, and its cultural underpinnings are not necessarily in the mind of its conductors and under­ takers, but its outcome fits well in cultural production, consumption, and manipulation. That many have found their own interests in some tales that invite diligent rewriting and appropriation should alert us, on the other hand, to the perennial charm of collective authorship, which entails the exercise of many talents to improve on a pure and simple narrative. If this is the case, why did the Arab classicists not show appreciation and respect for the tales? While this may be answered in due course through comparison and contrast between cultures, periods, and interests, let us first consider how the tales’ first appearance in Europe occurred.

The Early Vogue as a Global Index No matter how we assess responses to the collection since its appearance in French and English, there are a number of facts that need to be kept in mind. First, the tales were extremely popular for at least two centuries. Second, every weekly or monthly had something to say on the collection whenever there was a new translation, abridgement, communication, adaptation, or rejoinder. Third, no writer of significance ignored the collection. If taken as indicators of taste, these points reveal a universal appeal and demonstrate a global attraction that was relatively as wide and engaging as the most popular media images of contemporary life. The title Arabian Nights’ Entertainments was first given to the Thousand and One Nights by the anonymous Grub Street English translator, who translated it from the French edition of the renowned scholar Antoine Galland (1646–1715). The French Orientalist translated it from the original Arabic from 1704 through 1712. Volumes 11–12 appeared posthumously in 1717. Galland titled the collection Les Mille et Une Nuits, Contes Arabes, which was phenomenally successful in England, enthralling the English reading public and catching up all of the dignitaries, notables, critics, philosophers, and journalists in one of the most controversial debates on the concept

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and purpose of literature. An English edition appeared in 1706; by 1713, there were four editions. Their serialization in early eighteenth-century England attests to this vogue despite the undeveloped publishing industry and the limited scope and reach of education. The thrice-weekly London News serialized the tales starting on January 6, 1723, and it took three years to cover the 445 installments.

The Frame Tale as Navigational Trope While the popularity of the tales is not confined to the frame tale, the tale itself has its specific allure, as further analysis will show. The frame tale also works as a navigational trope among cultures and lands, not only because of its Indo-Persian origin but also because of its cluster of tales that speak of religions, communities, languages, and cultures that undergo expansion, contraction, or extinction. The frame story for the collection attracts readers for more than one reason. It can be taken as evidence of wit, challenge, intelligence, and resourcefulness on the part of the female storyteller Scheherazade. She is able to dissuade a melancholy and ruthless sultan from pursuing his cruel design to marry each wife for one night and kill her the next morning to avert adultery and betrayal, which, after being deceived by his wife, he associates with womankind in general. The vizier’s courageous daughter Scheherazade surprises her father by requesting to marry Sultan Shahrayar, as this decision entails risking her life. The resourceful Scheherazade draws upon her knowledge and repository of anecdotal literature to entangle him in a web of tales that entertain and awaken the soul to the wide prospects and vicissitudes of life. As each story leads to another, since the whole narrative technique is based on a story within a story, the sultan must wait until the following night to listen to the end of one story and the commencement of the next. The process of storytelling divests him of his cruelty and arrogance and enables him to see the complexity, variety, and color of life. The significance of this deal lies in its transactional nature: art for one’s life. Almost every writer recognizes Scheherazade’s narrative art as a metaphor for this power of storytelling. Edward William Lane put it aptly in the first volume of his translation: here is “the triumph of the fascination of the tongue over a cruel and unjust determination which nothing [else] could annul.” 20 Many followed suit in elaborating on this transaction, but one may well quote G. K. Chesterton, who wrote in The Spice of Life: “Never in any other book has such a splendid tribute been given to the pride and omnipotence of art.” 21

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Framing a Collection or Framing Cultures? Significantly, all manuscripts and detractions have, with seemingly slight variations, the same introductory or frame tale, that of King Shahrayar, Scheherazade, and her sister Dunyazad. It is, and for good reason, the most popular of the tales among readers of every age and culture. Littmann presented the classic classification of the frame tale, although the classification would undergo revisions later in the century. The frame story consists of three different parts, originally independent stories, as shown earlier by Emmanuel Cosquin.22 According to the latter, these parts are: (1) A story of a king grieved by a disloyal wife who is allayed and appeased when he learns that his elder brother has suffered the same misfortune. (2) The story of the giant demon whose captive bride deliberately betrays him with one hundred males. This is the same tale told by the seventh vizier in the Story of Sindbad the Wise. (3) The frame ransom story of a clever girl whose skillful storytelling averts the king’s design to take revenge by keeping a bride for a night and have her murdered the next day to prevent any betrayal. Of these three parts, only the third one seems to have belonged to the original frame story.23 Nobody tried to see the reasons behind the natural Islamization of this frame. According to historical sources, this story migrated at an early date from India to Persia, underwent nationalization and appropriation, and combined with the other two parts of the frame story, a point that will receive further analysis later. Scholars devoted some attention to the frame story as a complex of stories developed deliberately to emphasize a multiple spectrum where many views and concerns speak for themselves beyond limitations and constraints. I add to these views of the buildup of the frame tale a number of notes. First, in the frame tale and in the following tales such as “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” embedding should be seen in view of the current understanding of reporting. Embedding is an imposition of a frame, a motif, an image, or even a story that can color and appropriate the enframed. This imposition acts on the material and operates on its stratagems. Moreover, within the Islamic empire, embedding becomes only a trope for this process of appropriation and containment. It is the equivalent of the New World Order as a trope for the imperial containment and hybridization of other cultures. There is a basic difference between old dynasties and empires and the neoimperial order. The Arab-Islamic

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culture was at that point in history digesting the desirable from other cultures, assimilating it into its own repository as the most prolific and active civilization, a process the British colonial order closely followed in expanding its cultural and economic frontiers centuries later. The New World Order as led by American and multinational capital imposes its will by force and exports the worst and most violent aspects of its identity to others under the banner of organized chaos. The history of the tales in Europe and America resembles the history of the old colonial system. By the same token or analogy, the tale, as well as the whole collection, has been passing through a process of appropriation and digestion in Europe and America since the early decades of the eighteenth century, signifying, for that matter, the colonization or appropriation of Scheherazade’s lands and cultures. Scheherazade’s narratives resort to a number of strategies in which transmission precedes other techniques in terms of narration and documentation. On the other hand, this repository is distinguished by an exercise of freedom in the choice of material and paper transactions that are in keeping with an increasingly organized society, as delineated in its nisbah manuals. It is worth noting that the tales convey the application or rejection of nisbah decrees. As a system of rights and responsibilities, restraints and checks, the nisbah is applicable not only to taxation and market control but also to moral issues including adultery, fornication, drinking, dubious meetings, theft, deceit, and so on. The equivalents of these in the narrative are many, including warnings, ransoms, oaths, vows, and repayments in good tales to buy one’s life. Good narrative equals good money, and it can buy one’s life easily even in the courts and royal palaces. Although these tales are narrated by men and women, there are at times more limits imposed by women to prevent further intrusion or curiosity and to balance men’s possible misuse of power. These occur in embedded stories such as the “The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” where a stratagem of limits applies. This stratagem has great narrative potential. The tale describes an inscription on the inside door requesting that one not ask and enquire. Had the inscription been on the outside door, it could have attracted nosiness and interference with household secrets. On the other hand, the inscription seemingly works against the curiosity of intruders and visitors, but in fact it stirs up curiosity and provokes it to the utmost. This warning cannot be debunked unless there is a counterauthority: thus the girl’s surprise at the audacity of the transgressor, who insists on asking for an explanation: “Haven’t you read the inscription on the door, which is quite clearly written, ‘Speak not of what concerns you

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not, lest you hear what pleases you not.’ ” 24 The implications of power work within a dynamic of competitive politics, for the empowered ladies are so only within their domain, but a caliph subsumes this into his larger authority as the Commander of the Faithful. “Tell me who you are,” says the girl, “for you have only one hour to live. Were you not men of rank or eminent among your people or powerful rulers, you would not have dared to offend us.” 25 While the phrasing partakes of power politics, it also negotiates a place in refinement and µarf (pleasant and gentle manners) etiquette. On the other hand, the incognito Commander of the Faithful, who is beyond the authority of the rest, has space enough to maneuver and command. Apart from narrative embedding, there are other embedded discourses here, not only from µarf manuals and the literature of the fantastic, where the wonderful and the natural fuse smoothly into each other, but also from the dominating discourse and its regulatory codes. As events take place in a specific domain of privacy, where women, dogs, and slaves seemingly have the upper hand, the evolving and flowing narrative is mostly women’s narrative, which accommodates all in its smooth blending of the general fabric and matrix of the tales. This tale subsumes all the ingredients and motivations of the frame tale (deceit, disillusionment, revenge, ransom, storytelling) and adds more, including city life, royalty, the vicissitudes of fortune, supernatural intrusions, humor, the discourse of urban life, and private household secrets. It has embedding as a narrative stratagem that subsumes cultures and lands while working within a network of feminine poetics and subscribing to a substantial corpus of female anecdotal literature. Its contribution to the global and the particular is not limited to its use of Baghdad and its locale, life, politics, and centrality in Islamic and world culture; it also manipulates every means of border and time crossing and the politics of class, gender, race, and nation. Such is the impression one gets from the porter in the markets of Baghdad, from the young women in their opulent and secret life, from the dervishes, and from the ultimate appearance of the Commander of the Faithful and his control of fates and supernatural powers.

Warnings Grounded in Islamic Law Second, the inscribed warning is strongly embedded in Islamic law for, according to nisbah regulations, there is no right for the state to interfere with household undertakings unless there is too much din or complaint. Although the caliph and his minister heard some noise, it was not so

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disturbing as to call for action. Rather, it aroused curiosity and interest in participating in a late-night entertainment. In Abū māmid al-Ghazālī’s (d. 1111 c.e.) view, “Know that when a man closes the door of his house and is concealed within its walls, no one may enter to discover any sin without his permission.” 26 He qualifies this, however, as follows: “That is, except when someone outside the house can perceive what is going on inside, such as when the sounds of musical instruments are so loud that they pass through the walls of the house.” 27 Third, women in the tales are actively involved in the shaping of events and are ready to pay for their transgression. The two queens of the frame tale set the prototype for the rest, as shown in the deliberate conduct of the bride abducted by the demon, the women in the mendicants’ stories, the narratives of the barber and his brothers, and the Egyptian cycle.28 While these tales may be taken by some male chauvinists as another testament to the ruses of women, the amount of suffering undergone and the price paid for transgression speaks not only of a rebellious spirit against some rules but also of moral obligation toward others. Both the frame story and the story of the porter and three ladies of Baghdad tell us of these moral obligations. One may come across other instances of no less serious obligations, such as the story of the woman from the Juhaina tribe who asked the Prophet to impose the right punishment on her for committing adultery. Seeing she was pregnant, the Prophet ordered that she should be treated kindly until delivery. After the imposed punishment, the Prophet said the funeral prayer for her. When he was asked how it was possible to say funeral prayers for a fornicator, he observed: “She has made such repentance as, if distributed among the people of Medina, would suffice them. Have you seen more excellent a deed than that she sacrificed her life?” 29 Sacrifice on the part of women is not confined to free women, for even slaves in the tales show as much. Many people in the collection die out of sorrow for being forced by design or circumstance to be separated from their young masters and future lovers. Tawaddud survives this fate by posing a challenge to hierarchical authority and its jurists and rhetoricians. The slavery issue will be discussed in subsequent chapters, but the question of its appropriation in the tales is worth noting. How is it possible that a slave girl shows so much readiness to sacrifice for the sake of rejoining her master? According to a Khurāsānī nobleman writing to his father about the slave market in Baghdad in the last decade of the eighth century, “the observer imagines on his first trip to this market that, while he is circulating among girls, they are being sold in injustice and slavery.” 30 He adds: “But he does

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not retain this sudden fancy after he sees how they embrace the people of ease. I had heard that some of the beautiful girls luxuriously adorned were rescued secretly from places they disliked.” 31

Multiple Approaches to the Frame Tale Fourth, the frame tale can be read on literal, metaphorical, and historical levels, and it can be applied to attitudes, concepts, and images of the East. Among old Orientalized views, it is quintessentially the story of a despotic East, voluptuous, polygamous, and unscrupulous. Among early European defenders of women’s rights, it serves to predicate internal European grievances on an alien East, in an act of transposition of guilt.32 Among contemporary feminists, it is an apt trope for women’s ingenuity, wit, and resourcefulness to outwit and overrule patriarchal practices.33 For postmodernist fiction writers such as John Barth, Scheherazade stands for the artist at large: each artist is as good as his or her next story.34 For the aesthetes, Scheherazade is the artist par excellence: art propels life, and as long as she has a good story to tell she secures survival against otherwise heavy odds.

The Moral Implication in the Frame Story The frame story raises some serious questions regarding its focus on adultery. Could this be an Islamic concoction, since Islam makes it clear in its message of initiation and mission that adultery is prohibited and is punishable upon the appearance of clear-cut evidence? The punishment in the frame story is as harsh as the ones prescribed by religious doctrine. A suspected married woman who either confessed to adultery or was reported on by lawful witnesses was to receive the punishment as described in the Qur)ān. In his Kitāb al-Kharāj, which was commissioned by and addressed to the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, the Grand Qabī Abū Yūsuf (113– ­182/731–798) says: “When evidence of adultery is given against a married man or woman and the witnesses explain the act of lewdness in clear terms, the Imam will pass verdict for stoning them to death.” 35 But for a sane and mature bachelor who admits adultery four times, it is 100 stripes.36 Adultery for unmarried men is punishable: “hundred strokes in view of the people.” 37 Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, aiyā) al-Dīn Munammad ibn Munammad al-Qurashī al-Shāf (ī (1329) explains this whole issue in his Ma(ālim alQurba fī Ankām al-misba: “A woman shall be beaten seated in her cloak, because she is concealed out of prudency, and if she were to stand she

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might be uncovered. Her garments therefore should be tied on her so that she may be hidden by them. The tying of the clothes must be done by a woman.” 38 A baseless accusation is also punishable. “The punishment for an unsupported accusation of adultery is eighty stripes.” 39 Furthermore, the “person bringing an unsupported accusation shall be declared a delinquent and his evidence is not to be accepted.”40 Apart from this qualified prohibition of adultery in Islam, there is, however, a body of literature that enjoins the segregation of sexes in the marketplace, since mingling, according to jurists, may tempt people toward adultery, which the Qur)ān admonishes as reprehensible fānishah (abomination or monstrosity; 17: pt. 15:32).41 But this should be established “either by confession or proof,” on the condition that the man is “of full age and understanding and a free agent, whether he is a Muslim, a dhimmī or a renegade.”42 On the other hand, proof “consists in this, that four men, competent witnesses shall declare that they witnessed the act of sexual congress, specifically.” 43 “Congress” as a term is significant, because in such a meeting or similar dubious situations there also emerge cases of seduction that the muntasib should forestall. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah describes as reprehensible all the cases involving some dubious behavior: “In an unfrequented street and in cases of doubt he [the market inspector or the master of the sūq] must forbid them to continue yet must not be in haste to punish, for the woman may be closely related to the man.”44 The punishment in the frame tale is death. Adultery is also treated severely in other religions and is equated at times with serious strife or political upheaval. The Arthurian legends make this the pivotal point in the fall of Camelot: Guinevere’s guilt was behind the fall of the ideal city. In narrative, it assumes an equivalent dynamic force that accelerates action and involves it in rapid succession and a series of losses. The Indo-Persian origin blends smoothly with the Islamized version in its new milieu, and the punishment is carried out as soon as the younger king sees the scene. The sovereign requires no evidence other than his own. The narration of adversity in the frame tale accelerates subsequent action and storytelling, for the Sassanid royal house suffers an unexpected misfortune due to the adultery of the two queens, a misfortune that entails not only revenge but also a need for a thorough understanding of human behavior. Monarchy cannot operate as sovereign as long as it has this rupture within. While shedding blood will quell anger, it cannot offer solutions to a human situation that should be addressed on other bases. As betrayal is not merely personal but also involves royalty and universal applications of authority, both kings embark on a quest of purgation and knowledge. Ironically, they come back in an increasingly vengeful mood,

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one that has lost faith in women, shifted the blame on them, and devised a strategy to forestall further betrayals. An overview of the frame tale may help us more toward an understanding of its function as both the threshold and the catalyst for the collection. It acts as a mirror for the reader’s agenda and priorities, but it also operates on their intimate and perennial desires. Moreover, it has interspersed throughout the collection such catalytic narrative ingredients as introductory geographical and historical settings of the Sassanids; the emphasis on human and supernatural agents in collaboration or confrontation; leitmotifs that prepare for action and accelerate controversy, such as gardens, windows, sealed boxes and caskets; human desires such as sex, hunger, and curiosity, which act as overridingly uncontrollable agents, leading to disequilibria; and faith in human reason as in line with God’s vision of the universe. Thus begins the anonymous narrator: “It is related— but God knows and sees best what lies hidden in the old accounts of bygone peoples and times—that long ago, during the time of the Sas­ sanid dynasty [the Persian dynasty from 226 to 641 c.e.] in the peninsulas of India and Indochina, there lived two kings who were brothers.”45 The story preempts criticism on grounds of authenticity and reliability and leaves things in the hands of omniscient God. On the other hand, the storyteller or the redactor treats the tale as history, with all the implications of historical narrative and its presumed value for the present listener or reader. We are informed that the older brother, King Shahrayar, is “a towering knight and a daring champion, invincible, energetic, and implacable.”46 The emphasis on power and magnanimity is deliberate, as it sets the stage for the tragic flaw in his character, as both disappointment and resignation to fate become his frailty and weakness: he also uses his power to revenge himself on women. While he was ruling India and Indochina, “to his brother [Shahzaman] he gave the land of Samarkand to rule as king.”47 Overwhelmed with a longing for his brother, the older king sends an invitation to his younger brother Shahzaman to visit, which the latter happily accepts. Camping outside the city with his brother’s vizier, he returns one night to his palace to bid his wife goodbye, only to find her “lying in the arms of one of the kitchen boys.” Though he kills both, the young king becomes troubled and morose, a demeanor that bothers the older king, Shahrayar. The young brother no longer joins his brother on his hunting and camping errands. One day, while he remains in the palace, the young king sees through his window his brother’s wife with twenty slave girls, ten white and ten black, in the garden. The ten black slaves are men dressed as women.

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Then the ten black slaves mounted the ten girls, while the lady called ‘Mas(ūd, Mas(ūd!’ And a black slave jumped from the tree to the ground, rushed to her, and raising her legs, went between her thighs and made love to her. Mas(ūd topped the lady, while the ten slaves topped the ten girls, and they carried on till noon. When they were done with their business, they got up and washed themselves.48

The scene sets the stage for the unfolding dramatic events, as the young king looks upon his misfortune in relative terms, for “my misfortune is lighter than that of my brother,” he says to himself.49 His depression lifts, and he “continued to enjoy his food and drink,” to the surprise of his brother, who demands an explanation. As every calamity is so only in relative terms, the brothers decide to desert the world and its privileges until they can find one who might be more unlucky. “Let us leave our royal state and roam the world for the love of the Supreme Lord. If we should find some one whose misfortune is greater than ours, we shall return. Otherwise, we shall continue to journey through the land, without need for the trappings of royalty.”50

Resignation or Submission to Fate? Insofar as the frame story’s narrative goes, this seeming resignation works within a stoic temper that can be traced to Greek philosophy and thought, but it is obviously tinged here with the detractors’ Islamic submission to things already decreed, a point that does not necessarily absolve human responsibility or free will. There is the qabā) munkam, as decreed by God in the “preserved tablet,” but there is also freedom to exercise will, to choose to exert one’s reason and power to improve in life and to prepare for the Day of Judgment. Life is a trial.51 On the other hand, the kings’ resignation is narratively couched in relativism so as to perpetuate dramatization. When they come to a meadow by the seashore, they decide “to sleep on their sorrows.”52 They wake up to resume journeying in the morning, but they “heard a shout and great cry coming from the middle of the sea.”53 The preparation for the event is of great technical value. Set against their sorrows and saddened mood, the cry unsettles placidity and quietude and accelerates action. In terms of popular faith verging on superstition, the waterspout indicates the presence of evil jinn, as Lane explains in his notes.54 When the “sea parted . . . there emerged a black pillar that, as it swayed forward, got taller and taller, until it touched the cloud.”55 As if duplicating Mas(ūd, they climb “a very tall tree, sat hiding in its foliage,”

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watching the black demon carrying a large glass chest with “four steel locks.”56 Climbing trees like apes becomes another leitmotif in this frame story, as well as in the “Tale of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs,” where the caliph and the vizier climb the tree to watch the festivities in the hall of the Palace of Statues. This apelike climbing occurs whenever women and men are in dubious situations: the queen and her women in the garden scene with the slaves, the monster and the caged bride in this scene, and the caliph and his minister in “The Tale of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs,” where the shaykh forsakes his role as the keeper of the garden and the palace to host and join the lovers. The male as ape is delineated as bound by desire, whereas the woman is the one with reason and will. Further dramatization takes place as the demon “pulled out a full-grown woman” whom he addresses as the most charming bride “carried away on . . . [her] wedding night,” telling her he “would like to sleep a little.”57 It was then that she looks up at the tree and sees the brothers, indicating for them to come down and make love to her, or else she will awaken the demon. Collecting their wedding rings, she adds these to the ninety-eight she has collected from others “under the very horns of this filthy, monstrous cuckold,” who tried to keep her “pure and chaste, not realizing that nothing can prevent or alter what is predestined and that when a woman desires something, no one can stop her.”58 This saying deploys two motifs: (1) the accelerated coincidence that justifies any occurrence under the auspices of fate and (2) the wiles of women, which Scheherazade’s tales have to counteract within the underlying relativism. The immediate response of both kings is to believe in both fate and the treachery of women, hence their decision to go back to their kingdoms and “never to marry a woman” again.59 The implications of the two betrayals, the queens’ betrayal of the kings and the bride’s betrayal of the monster, have a double motivation, however. There is the revenge on male power and authority and there is also a celebration of the body in nature. The old dichotomous binary between culture and nature is retained in the frame tale. The queen celebrates sex in the garden, the bride has sex in the woods, and the lovers Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs win over the shaykh through their festivities, regardless of his commitment to the caliph and the state. Nature is triumphant in both tales, and the perennial power of nature wins the day. In ancient civilizations, in general, there is also some belief in women’s excessive sexuality. While there is no such implication in Islam as faith, some nisbah manuals made such claims. Speaking of nammāms and the need for strict supervision, ibn al-)Ukhuwwah argues: “The women in this place are more extreme in their sensuality than the men. They practice newly

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invented forms of lawlessness introduced by the excess of luxury, and there has been indulgence towards them when they should have been denounced so that the contagion has spread to the center and all about.”60 The frame tale has plans to forestall the contagion, too. The king thinks of betrayal as an infection that requires a remedy, at least insofar as he is concerned. He instructs his vizier to get him a woman from among the daughters of the princes, officers, merchants, and even the common people. As death awaits all of Shahrayar’s brides in the morning, “all the girls perished,” and Scheherazade forces her wish on the vizier, her father, at a later stage, to marry the king, fulfilling her design to put an end to a reign of vengeance and terror. But her willful decision is counterbalanced by the father’s warning, accompanied with maxims and wise sayings that are usually borrowed from a strong male tradition. Here he sets the tone for storytelling within a male tradition that assigns knowledge to men, including the knowledge of the esoteric, the language of animals, and the masculine code that runs among humans, birds, and animals. He relates the story of the “Bull and the Ox,” embedded within another tale about the merchant and his wife and the dog and the rooster. These tales are designed to deter Scheherazade from a seemingly rushed decision, advising her not to “misbehave,” to give up curiosity, and not “imperil” herself.61 The rooster advised beating to control the inquisitive and curious soul. Beating and containment exist on the other side of the narrative fulcrum from curiosity, which is a dynamic narrative impulse; they stand also for an authoritarian patriarchal code that is unitary rather than multiple and diverse. Nevertheless, Scheherazade reads through these maxims and says, “These tales don’t deter me from my request.”62 She even makes an early claim to a counternarrative, telling her father, “If you wish, I can tell you many such tales.”63 The latter insinuation is of some importance, both in view of the counternarrative to male discourse and its repository of anecdotal literature and in keeping with an enormous corpus of women’s narrative that is orally preserved and, if written, embedded in a male tradition. From this corpus the tales unfold.

Narrating Cultural Consciousness The frame tale is multiembedded. The first part, dealing with betrayal and disenchantment, involves the story of the demon and the glass-box bride; the second, involving the argument between the vizier and his daughter, contains the story of the bull and the ox, the merchant and his wife, and the rooster and the dog. The third part includes the rest, while involving

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the narrative in a complexity that shatters dichotomies, platitudes, and generalizations. On the other hand, the underlying pattern that questions these is civilizational, not impulsive, cultural, not natural, for it emanates from a cultural consciousness that works by design and intent in opposition to an authority that works by power, maxims, and selective experiential application. We are told that Scheherazade “had read the books of literature, philosophy, and medicine. She knew poetry by heart, had studied historical reports, and was acquainted with sayings of men and the maxims of sages and kings. She was intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, and refined.”64 The emphasis on the “sayings of men” is worth noting, as it is referentially inclusive of both patriarchal discourse and her nonpatriarchal plan to expose presumptions on women’s wiles. It also sums up her plan to reform, albeit through multiple critiques, rather than to overthrow or sap a system. Her stories to the king, as perpetuated by her sister’s desire to hear them, keeps the king awake, curious to hear more and more for unlimited time, as the phrase “one thousand and one nights” indicates. Eventually, Shahrayar’s character undergoes a change, and his mistrust of women is replaced by a different recognition of diversity. Such is the effect of literature on a person’s temper and nature. Based on challenge and acceptance of risk, narration as an act is not devoid of a woman’s presence. Both work together, and the king derives satisfaction from these meetings, where he can fully enjoy a sense of supremacy to compensate for his loss and put away his fear of any further loss of male potency. The early disturbing and disheartening scene in the garden implies to him his failure to satisfy his wife, and his bloodthirsty pledge is a self-styled mechanism to publicize his virility. While Scheherazade accepts the risk, her beauty, education, and resourcefulness work together both to engage his attention and to diversify this attention in the main occupations of human nature: human records, supernatural and uncanny events, and contemporary or relevant situations from all paths of life. In this sense, narration is an act of containment and resistance not only to the emerging king’s misogyny but also to any acquiescence to hegemony. Beauty and narration are cunningly interwoven, whereas poetic insertions are liberated from male voicing to fit into multiple storytellings that break down absolutist borders. The frame becomes a trope for liberty, since both narrative multiplicity and Scheherazade’s pragmatic achievement and successes (as a liberator of womankind) belie frames and borderlines. The frame tale uses pairing to debunk inequality and separation. Black men and white women mix and make love, royalty and slaves do the same in the garden scene and in the royal bedroom. Without its adultery motifs

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and evidence of treachery, the story could have been in line with an Islamic context where the emphasis on equality regardless of color and race is stressed in the Prophetic tradition. The storyteller plays on the perennial, too, as the slave Mas(ūd acts like an ape, an action that the two kings are to perform during a crisis. Nature overrules culture, and all retain a primal nature when in stress or sexual need. The frame tale works through dichotomies, too: the palace and the glass box indicate confinement; meadows and gardens signify freedom and laxity. Moreover, the night signifies privacy, including private sexual intrigues, but day is the time for orgy and public sex. The mere mention of a journey prepares the reader for unexpected happenings and shocking scenes that lead to more narrative and human transformation.

The Frame Story in Historical Contexts Although there are some extant comments on the frame tale since the ninth century, there is no serious effort to analyze the reasons behind its migration or transformation, the belletristic resistance to its arrival, and its converse popularity among storytellers. In this respect, the history of the frame tale may be of some significance to both the Islamic factor and the global dimension of storytelling. Even though storytelling usually tends to collapse detail and come up with anachronisms that fit into its anecdotal repository, this story, around which other tales coalesce and cluster, relates part of the history of the Sassanid royal house, a pre-Islamic Persian dynasty that ruled a large part of western Asia from 224 until 651 c.e. The names of the sovereigns might fit any rulers among the large number of people who governed these parts during different periods. The founder of the dynasty was Rasher, whose cult of divine kingship was a continuation of the Parthian (Arsacid) faith in divine succession. Ardashir killed the Arsacid Artabanus V in about 224, occupying thereafter the rest of the Parthian empire and invading both coastal Arabia and Roman Mesopotamia. The name Scheherazade or Shahrazad means in Persian “a descendant of noble race.” On the other hand, the name of the young sister who accompanies Scheherazade is Dunyazad or Dinarzad, which means “of noble religion.” Since the names of sovereigns and queens, or at least Scheherazade and her sister, indicate the Indo-Persian origin of the frame story, the relatively peaceful times under that dynasty were probably a prosperous period for the growth of cultural life. The tales are greatly concerned with household and family life and thus were appropriate for the period and milieu to which they migrated. On the other hand, possible

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discomfort among the elite regarding the style and the preoccupation of the frame tale and its cycle might have more than one origin, including the implication of rift and betrayal in the royal house and family, a precedent that nobody would have expected or condoned. Arab bibliographers and historians of the (Abbāsid period (749–945/945– 1258), the heyday of the Islamic empire, mentioned this frame story and the collection as the Thousand and One tales or fables. Their mention of the frame tale is an attestation to its vogue; otherwise, neglect would have been the right choice. The frame story leads us to tales of life in Baghdad, and these are the tales that held a special appeal for nineteenth-century audiences in Europe. The (Abbāsids established Baghdad in about 762 c.e., for one single purpose: to claim total sovereignty and legitimacy. They did not choose Kūfa, the regional capital for the previous dynasty in central Iraq below Najaf and the capital of the Prophet’s cousin and the fourth caliph (Alī ibn Abī §ālib (killed 661 c.e.). Neither did they choose Damascus in Greater Syria or Sham, which was the capital of the previous dynasty, the Umayyads (661–750 c.e.). The second (Abbāsid caliph, al-Manùūr (r. 754–­ 775 c.e.), built Baghdad on the western side of the Tigris, where it soon grew into a populous city. Geographers record that its great western market was phenomenal, with many blocks and specialized components exhibiting an abundance of goods from all over the world.65 Documents on Baghdad’s cosmopolitanism attest to an influx of enormous literature covering every kind of knowledge. A survey of some aspects of narrative compilation and composition during that time might serve our purpose here. So far, there has been little to add to what the English Athenaeum reviewer of 1838–1839 said in response to interventions by his predecessors and contemporaries. He partially sided with von Hammer, concluding that the Indo-Persian Hezar Afsaneh, which the Arab historian Abū al-masan al-Mas(ūdī (896–956 c.e.) had mentioned in Murūj al-dhahab (The Meadows of Gold ), was “either in whole or in part translated into Arabic, and served as a ground work to the various collections of tales circulated in the East.”66 These views are based on scanty evidence proposed in a number of books. As it is central to this argument, this external evidence is worth citing again here. Abū al-masan al-Mas(ūdī mentioned in his Meadows of Gold, which he wrote in 336/947 and reedited in 346/957, that the prototype tales for the Thousand and One Nights have been passed on to us translated from the Persian, Hindu and Greek languages. We have discussed how these were composed, for example the Hazar Afsaneh. The Arabic translation is Alf khurāfa (“A Thousand

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Entertaining Tales”). . . . This book is generally referred to as Alf Layla (“A Thousand Nights”). It is the story of a king, a vizier, the daughter of the vizier and the slave of the latter. These last two are called Shirazad and Dinazad. There are also similar works such as The Book of Ferzeh and Simas, which contains anecdotes about the kings of India and their wives. There is also The Book of Sindibad and other collections of the same type.67

Of no less significance is al-Nadīm’s reference (d. 998 c.e.) in Kitāb alFihrist. He wrote: The first book to be written with this content was the book Hazar Afsan, which means “A thousand Stories.” The basis for this was that one of their kings used to marry a woman, spend a night with her and kill her the next day. Then he married a concubine of royal blood who had intelligence and wit. She was called Shahrazad and when she came to him she should begin a story, but leave off at the end of the night, which induced the king to ask for it the night following. This happened to her for a thousand nights.68

Beyond these insights into the early history of the Thousand and One Nights,69 the Athenaeum critic, most probably P. de Gayangos, came across another piece of external evidence to corroborate the existence in the twelfth century of a work called the Thousand and One Nights. He referred to Shihāb al-Dīn Anmad b. Munammad al-Tilimsānī al-Maqqarī’s (1041/1631) Naf n al-•īb min ghuùn al-Andalus al-ra•īb (The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain).70 This book was among the pieces of evidence used by von Hammer, Torrens, Ritter, and Nabia Abbott.71 Taken together, this significant documentation, as well as the reviewer’s effort to reconstruct the historical growth of the Nights, must be considered basic to the foundations of subsequent scholarship on its origins. Goitein’s discovery of the twelfth-century loan record corroborates al-Maqqarī’s reference.72 Aside from minor disagreements regarding the history and volume of some cycles, twentieth-century scholars such as Littmann, MacDonald, and Nabia Abbott have reached conclusions that are not different from those already reached by the Athenaeum reviewer, who translated alMaqqarī’s work at a later stage. They conclude that from the Islamized Hezār Afsāneh was borrowed the framing tale, around which clustered a few Arabicized and numerous genuine Arabian tales, which continued to accumulate until the early sixteenth century. The reviewer’s method is no less rewarding than the substance of his argument. Rather than confusing the general with the particular and treating the collection as homogeneous,

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he demonstrated some awareness of the component parts and genres that compose the whole. By pointing to the need for separating possible interpolations from core tales, he touched on a topic that has engaged the attention of a number of scholars ranging from August Müller and Öestrup to Horovitz and Elisseeff. While specific textual reference culminates in Nabia Abbott’s finding of an early ninth-century fragment bearing the title Kitāb madīth Alf Laylah and containing a number of lines that make up the justification for storytelling,73 there are other scattered references to the Thousand and One Nights: a Cairene Jewish bookseller has this reference in his loan record in the twelfth century.74 Additionally, the Egyptian historian al-Maqrīzī (d. 1442 c.e.) indicates that the collection was in circulation late in the eleventh century.75 The mention of “nights” as durational or nocturnal recitation has some grounding in Islamic tradition, too. The writer and vizier’s scribe Munammad Ibn (Abdūs al-Jahshiyārī (d. 942 c.e.), writes al-Nadīm, began a compilation of a “Thousand tales from the stories of the Arabs, Persians, Greeks and others. Each section was separate, not connected with any other.” However, because he was not merely keen on available stock, or as al-Nadīm put it, because “he was of a superior type, there were collected for him four hundred and eighty nights, each night being a complete story, comprising more or less than fifty pages. Death overtook him before he fulfilled his plan for completing a thousand stories.” 76 While “thousand” indicates an unlimited number, the reference to “nights” is of great significance for contextualizing the early history of the collection. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī (d. 1024 c.e.) specifies the word in reference to his nocturnal narratives, “successive nights,” with Abū (Abdallah al-Ārb ibn Sa(dān, the vizier.77 While decidedly leaving Hazar Afsaneh behind and demonstrating to the vizier his broad knowledge of storytelling and its domains, he specifies “flowery nights” as the correct time for the performance of the art. He leaves behind the coarse and the insipid, which he associates with “women and their like,” but he raids Hazar Afsaneh in the sense that he hijacks, reenacts, and appropriates the framing tale. The term “nights” and the accompanying emphasis on elitism whenever the act of collecting popular tales is mentioned should draw attention to an endeavor filled with contradiction. While meeting the urban need of the new consumers, including ministers and top officials, this effort disdains to be immediately or directly involved in this street lore. The effort to write it down, however, must alert us to the other side of the story, the tendency to build on foreign lore and impose a certain regularity and formality on storytelling. The use of a frame story speaks for this writerly

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effort, which is not only a farewell to orality but also an endeavor to set it within the boundaries of a written tradition that should have its own regulatory patterns and codes as befitting growing scriptoria. Al-Nadīm’s “superior type” was, after all, one of the prominent officials and scribes, and his effort fell within this endeavor to organize and control an oral tradition. On the other hand, the effort to write a tale that was performed or told in a gathering, an assembly, or a private session builds on the recognition of a performed version that subsequent written explanatory notes try hard to recapture. We should remember, too, that apart from the little anecdotal repertoire that was left to us in terms of “nights,” efforts that can be claimed as such came later. Ibn (Arabī’s (d. 1240 c.e.) Kitāb munā­ barāt al-abrār wa-musāmarāt al–akhyār (The Book of Repartee with the Virtuous and Late-night Talk with the Elect), for instance, was one in a series of other tales and anecdotes by al-manbalī (d. 1503 c.e.) and others. This is certainly not the same as the asmār or musāmarāt, late-night talks, where a group of friends gather to reminiscence and recollect. These terms are still widely in use and occur in recollections, speeches, and songs. They are usually associated with moonlit nights even if we suspect that the case might not be so. The effort to write down tales for edification and entertainment has some precedence, however, in the so-called Kitāb Kalīlah w-Dimnah, deservedly attributed in its known form to ibn al-Muqaffa( (d. 756 c.e.).78 In both the frame and the sequentiality of narratives, the book can be considered an exemplar of the writing down of composite narratives. The author-adaptor and translator ibn al-Muqaffa( created the form of sequentiality as a narrative technique to hold together the old and the new tales and narrative units. The case is a little different with the Thousand and One Nights, which originally came as a frame story that was receptive to many other transmissions, creations, and additions. Kitāb Kalīlah waDimnah was not meant for the common people. As an elegant prose work, it was addressed to literary connoisseurs and people of fashion. It was also a manual for the instruction of courtiers and princes. It became so popular in the new imperial center Baghdad that its critics a few centuries later chastised their predecessors for treating it as the “Qur)ān of the community” to the extent that “they were so attracted to it and learning it by heart that it became like the Holy book.” 79 Certainly, the phrase Qur)ān al-qawm (the Qur)ān of the community, or the community Qur)ān) means also “the guiding and exemplary collected book.” Its freedom from any holy connotations makes it only a book, like any other composed and collected one. It soon became, however, very popular, a fact that explains the many

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transmissions and versifications that it went through. Between the eighth and tenth centuries, many versions and extracts were produced, and tracing their corruption or distortion through transmission or adaptation helps to give us an example of the history of the publication of popular works of the period. Kitāb Kalīlah w-Dimnah has something to tell us about the future of the Thousand and One tales in their new milieu. Apart from the framestory technique and its revision or adaptation to include and enframe new tales, the translator as author Islamized the whole book and appropriated it to the morals and demands of the new society. Unlike the original or Ur-text, the new product sustains the Islamic belief in one God. It also follows the codes of poetic justice; thus the traitor of the piece is punished. While focusing on manners and morals relevant to the changing society, it also provided much advice for aspiring politicians and the polity. No wonder the jurist Abū Munammad ibn Qutaybah (d. 889 c.e.) adapted and used some extracts from the book; others versified it. On the other hand, Kitāb Kalīlah wa-Dimnah is an early instance of an oral tradition changed into scriptoria, a book intended to hold together narratives, impose an order on them, and limit their free transmission. The effort to turn it into a book should not be taken lightly, however. It means also the imposition of an ethic, a moral code, and, thereby, legitimacy. As recognition comes to works that are appropriated and adapted to institutionalized religion or to the emerging urban order, we should keep in mind that these works will no longer be the same. As prisons, asylums, schools, and other institutions speak for law and order as ordained by the state, so does the book. Every further adaptation, recension, or redaction conveys a message and reveals a taste. It also offers an early instance of beast fables with an edifying purpose, a pattern that was followed by the early collectors of the Thousand and One Nights, especially in the first part, which surveys the dia­ logue and contestation in narrative between Scheherazade and her father, the vizier. At a later period, perhaps, the frame tale invited other tales and stories to gather around its intriguing storytelling. As an invitation to practice the art, the frame tale served in time as the nucleus for the collection that be­ came such a European phenomenon that the Englishman Robert Chambers described it in his 1883 article “What English Literature Gives Us” as “amongst the similar things of our own which constitute the national literary inheritance.”80 Yet the elite of tenth-century Baghdad had other readings to cherish as well. Al-Nadīm’s phrasing was not random, for the educated classes and the learned of Baghdad and other urban centers

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looked down upon popular literature, exactly as eighteenth-century European elites would do after reading Galland’s translation. It is understandable why European neoclassicists could not swallow tales that did not cor­ respond to their standards of good composition. Nevertheless, this attitude could not deter the popularity of the tales and their appeal to perennial sentiments and human needs. Writers and poets in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe and America received the tales with joy and admiration. Such were the enthusiastic responses of Emerson, Poe, and Melville in America, and Samuel Johnson, Horace Walpole, William Beckford, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Keats, Dickens, George Eliot, Tennyson, and Meredith in England. The new art, according to the critic William E. A. Axon, came at a time when the reading public was sick “of sham classical romances of interminable and portentous unreality.”81 The tales, he concludes, “may perhaps have had some share in encouraging the novelists when they did come to deal with homely scenes and common life.” This literary recognition may not correspond to the popular one, for the tales that gather around the frame story have a great variety of characters, topics, and concerns that may not interact well with certain interests and expectations.

The Frame Story as Urban Growth In their originating habitat, these tales were meant as entertainments for coffeehouse audiences and urban communities at a time when storytelling was almost the only available mode of entertainment. It is only through this comparative reading, recognizing the two separate publics of eighteenth-century Europe and tenth-century Baghdad, that we can understand the problems involved in studying the orientation, migration, appropriation, and popularity of storytelling. Both as texts already written in one form or another or as oral narratives, the tales have made their way through urban audiences in both East and West. While the frame story and a few other tales have their non-Arab or non-Islamic origin, the rest are Islamic or Islamicized, especially the ones that take Baghdad, Cairo, and Damascus as their habitat and locale. The nature of this multifarious growth and its historical or urban contexts indicates that the frame story was used by storytellers as a pretext to accumulate a large number of tales that could correspond to the number mentioned in the title, 1,001, though the term connotes an unlimited number of stories.82 Navigating between the natural and the supernatural or wondrous, the storyteller unites these in many tales and provides one of the most salient

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and appealing features of storytelling. Les Mille et Une Nuits, Contes Arabes, in its first translation in French and then English was second only to the Bible among readers in England, France, and other countries. Thus, writing for the Atlantic Monthly in 1889, C. T. Toy emphasized their Oriental garb, charm of sentiment, mystery of the “strange life,” and their delicacy of humor. Galland’s version of the tales “opened the doors of unlimited and delicious romance. All Paris was full of the wonderful stories; it was a triumph resembling that achieved by the Waverley Novels” of Walter Scott. 83 Robert Louis Stevenson wrote on the collection as “more generally loved than Shakespeare,” for it “captivates in childhood, and still delights in age.”84 Indeed, Galland’s version was for the English poet and critic William Ernest Henley a provider of “hachisch-made words for life.”85 Writing to Cornhill Magazine in 1875, James Mew speaks of this vogue in terms of the unprecedented abundance in editions: “Every rolling year seems to request a larger number of editions.” He adds: “No deciduous laurel is this book, from the leaves of which greedy time steals gradually away the beauty and the verdure. As it once drew us, it still draws out children from the playground, and in the chimney corner its glittering conceits still carry consolation to old age.”86 One should mention that the first translation was the one that had mass appeal. Galland’s version of the Thousand and One Nights is faithful to the original narrative thread. The French translator was aware of the Eastern storytellers’ knack for a good narrative that would entertain audiences in medieval urban centers. He himself stressed the picturesque and the exotic, minimized needless detail, and Frenchified dialogues and scenes to reach his French audiences. With his acute awareness of the literary market and popular taste, Sir Walter Scott wrote in the introduction to his Ivanhoe that Galland’s translation was “eminently better fitted for the European market, and obtained an unrivalled degree of public favor which they certainly would never have gained had not the manners and style been in some degree familiarized to the feelings and habits of the Western reader.” Indeed, the French translator whose Contes Arabes took France by surprise was so responsive to the predilections of his audiences that he dispensed with the original formula in which Scheherazade’s sister Dunyazad asks for a tale every night. According to the French writer Michaud: “The Parisians, returning from their nocturnal revels, would often stop before his [Galland’s] door, and awake him from his soundest sleep, by calling loudly for him. Galland would open the window, to see what was the matter, and they would cry out: ‘O vous, qui savez de si jolis contes, et qui les racontez si bien [,] racontez nous en un!’ ”87

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As an Orientalist, diplomat, and acute observer of taste, Galland tailored the translation to fit the receiving milieu. Keen on meeting both popular and literary tastes without losing sight of the need for a faithful rendition of his originals, Antoine Galland was able to sustain his reputation as the most appreciated translator of the collection. “It was he that first opened to Europe this precious source of delight; he it was whose taste and enthusiasm led the way to the taste and enthusiasm of others,” wrote the romantic critic and essayist Leigh Hunt.88 Accepting the argument that the Victorian Orientalist Edward William Lane was able to provide a scholarly version of the tales (1839–1841), he further argued that without Galland “perhaps Lane himself would not have been ultimately led to favor us with his more accurate version. ”89 Yet it was not only this pioneering role as a translator that enabled Galland to have such a captivating effect on European audiences. His simplicity of style and skillful thread of narrative made his version accessible to readers of every predilection and taste. Summing up these characteristics and explaining the perennial charm of the tales in Galland’s rendition, Leigh Hunt wrote: To us the Arabian Nights are one of the most beautiful books in the world: not because there is nothing but pleasure in it, but because the pain has infinite chances of vicissitude, and because the pleasure is within the reach of all who have body and soul, and imagination. The poor man there sleeps in a doorway with his love, and is richer than a king. The Sultan is dethroned tomorrow, and has a finer throne the next day. The pauper touches a ring, and spirits wait upon him. You ride in the air; you are rich in solitude; you long for somebody to return your love, and an Eden encloses you in its arms. You have this world, and you have another. Fairies are in your moonlight. Hope and imagination have their fair play, as well as the rest of us. There is action heroical, and passion too: people can suffer, as well as enjoy, for love; you have bravery, luxury, fortitude, self-devotion, comedy as good as Moliere’s, tragedy, Eastern manners, the wonderful that is in a commonplace, and the verisimilitude that is in the wonderful mendicants, cadis, robbers, enchanted palaces, paintings full of color and drapery, warmth for the senses, desert in arms and exercises to keep it manly, cautions to the rich, humanity for the more happy, and hope for the miserable.90

So-called European romanticism is not concerned with an Islamic life or social and religious ways and customs. To this romantic mind, it is enough to lose oneself in a tale pure and simple. In Galland’s version, and indeed due to its skeletal faithfulness, there is this possibility of what Bakhtin calls

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the interior infinite,91 with its professed desire for the “boundless, the free, and also the dangerous, challenging, and tyrannical, where the repressed soul finds its opportunity to fly high as a spirit unquell’d.”92 This version proved to be the most appealing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. Later editions targeted different audiences, mostly scholars and researchers, and sometimes the rebels against strict middle-class morality as well. On the other hand, Leigh Hunt’s review succinctly synthesizes the major attributes of the tales: their romantic properties, social life, themes of love and pain, and the combination of the natural and the supernatural in their most appealing cycles. It touches also on the narrative techniques responsible for their popularity in the first place. Although mostly corresponding to a critique that emphasizes the wondrous element in the commonplace and the commonness in the supernatural, a romantic stance articulated most forcefully in William Wordsworth’s preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1798), the review also alerts us to other properties that received further attention throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, properties that have already won the tales their global appeal while ostensibly signifying their unifying Islamic factor, a point that is the focus of the next chapter.

9  2  0 The Unifying Islamic Factor

T

he properties Leigh Hunt significantly encapsulated in his highly condensed review are not alien to the Islamic context, 1 both because of their subtle understanding of an enveloping climate of faith and because of their association between faith and technical properties, which were studied carefully in contemporary scholarship but in isolation from the Islamic context.2 The most conspicuous pattern is God’s beneficial order, which the narrator specifies when commenting on the simultaneous and coincidental marriages of the two brothers Shams al-Dīn and Nūr al-Dīn. Despite their separation, they each have their offspring on the same day, and the cousins are also destined to marry, which goes well despite many obstacles. “It so chanced, as God had willed and ordained, that on the very same night on which Nur al-Din consummated his marriage in Basra, his brother Shams al-Din Muhammad consummated his own marriage to a girl in Egypt.” 3 The repetitive reference to God’s order covers narrative patterns such as coincidence, but it also confirms the outcome and prepares for subsequent events. Ibn Khaldūn refers to these, including the rise and fall of empires, as part of a divine order: “This is how God proceeds with His servants.”4 This order informs magic as well, as no magician can assume power without invoking God’s support. There are also limits to magicians’ power, for God’s own creation remains so even when temporarily metamorphosed.5 The invocation of God’s mercy or curse can frighten magicians and cause things to change, too.6 In other words, Hunt’s discussion of the properties may well pertain to an outlook that we usually associate with popular

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Islam, such as common beliefs, rituals, mosque and marketplace gatherings and narratives, and the emergence of the preacher as qaùùāù, though never as diviner. The diviner appears occasionally in the third dervish’s tale,7 the barber’s tale, and especially in stories of different origins that were later added to the collection, such as Aladdin ((A lā) al-Dīn); he is invariably shunned by the muntasib ’s office. In the barber’s tale, however, the diviner’s job is educational, and Islamic training in the sciences includes many branches that stop short of questioning or intervening with the sovereignty of God. The barber says: “You have asked for a barber, and God has sent you a barber who is also an astrologer and a physician, versed in the arts of alchemy, astrology, grammar, lexicography, logic, scholastic disputation, rhetoric, arithmetic, algebra, and history, as well as the traditions of the Prophet, according to Muslim and al-Bukhāri. ”8 The barber as the loquacious narrator would like to win over the confidence of the young man from Baghdad, just as he has already won over his father. By mentioning the Prophet’s speeches and statements in their most popular editions by the two shaykhs (Muslim and al-Bukhāri), the barber tries to assure the young man that he is a pious Muslim and that his other concerns and scientific occupations are in line with an Islamic emphasis on good and solid education. He certainly tries to give the impression that he is no mere diviner but rather a trustworthy and knowledgeable man. If he is aware of the Prophet’s words, he surely knows then what jurists say in this respect. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah (d. 1329) belatedly writes: “The Prophet said: ‘He who goes to a diviner and believes his word disbelieves that which had been revealed through Muhammad.’ ”9 These as well as other varieties of astrologers and letter writers were not treated as unbelievers, however. There is a restriction that limits their presence, for they should “not to sit in lanes, byways or shops. They must take their place on the middle of the highway.” 10 The reason behind this restriction is as follows: “for the majority of those who sit with them are women and today there are young men who associate with these letter-writers and astrologers, having no purpose other than to be present when a woman has her horoscope revealed or writes a letter.” 11 The statement is important, not only because it relates to some narratives of intrigue or astrology or directs our attention to the education of which the Baghdadi barber, as adept in astrology, is proud, but also because these gatherings around diviners and letter writers seem common enough to receive much attention in market manuals. This detail should alert us, therefore, to the nature of people involved in such situations and intrigues. Women, diviners, and young

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men are all involved in this transaction, and the muntasib is the person to impose order. Such situations create narratives. They should draw our attention to a two-sided activity: storytelling as a practice including the story’s subject matter and the audience. In the review by the English romantic Leigh Hunt, there is no less awareness of such situations, which, along with others, make up the whole atmosphere of the tales and which can be classified under the following categories: (1) narrative techniques, (2) the Islamic narrative function, (3) thematic patterns, and (4) Eastern manners and customs. These headings are worth surveying for a number of purposes. Even the stupendous popularity of the tales in Europe should be seen in context. There was both a rising bourgeoisie and the expansionist policy of the colonial mission. Both operate on levels of advancement, ambition, greed, and the exoticizing or debasing of the Other. If the Ottoman challenge and achievement until the second half of the eighteenth century deterred European military expansion, subsequent failures and regression encouraged the European expansionist policy to embark on its mission. The glamour of the tales, their hazy and thinly veiled representations, and their narrative power established both a Manichean paradigm, whose other is the Orient, and a universalized vision of inviting lands and promising riches that were not as biblical as the scriptures had portrayed to the forefathers of the rising bourgeoisie. In other words, global capital, military efficacy, and ambition worked together to reach for these lands, and the tales were among many empowering readings, communications, geographical investigations, and travelogues and intelligence reports that paved the way for future theft. Every trope of squandered wealth, raided treasure, and confiscated property, all of which abound in the collection, would have excited the adventurous colonial spirit and operated on memory, greed, and ambition, as the many dramatic appropriations from the tales in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England demonstrate.12 Between the Islamic context and the global challenge then, as now, there are many tracks that invite discovery and mapping. Thus the significance—and convenience—of reading the properties of the tales under the headings alluded to by Leigh Hunt. Each of these headings has already received emphasis in correspondence to the interest of the specific society and period. The tales passed through so many reproductions, abridgements, adaptations, melodramatic and theatrical appropriations, serializations, renditions, and so-called new translations that the late American Orientalist Duncan Black Macdonald termed the whole phenomenon as one that “should make up a weighty chapter in the history of the great publishing humbug.” 13

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Narrative Challenge and Attraction Narrative for Arab audiences would have been like present satellite TV stations. There were no preexisting restrictions against it as long as the storyteller was of an unblemished character. Although a more careful discrimination between preachers and storytellers took place at some point in the tenth century, nevertheless the “learned called preachers ‘story-tellers,’ ” says ibn al-)Ukhuwwah in the context of ultraconservative shock at the vogue of storytelling.14 The Qur)ānic support for an excellent narrative, ansan al-qaùaù in Sūrat Yūsuf (12:3), in terms of edification (12:111) would also have been present in the minds of Arab and Muslim audiences. Although there is no religious objection to storytelling comparable to the misinterpreted Qur)ānic reference to poetry, it is worth mentioning that the Shāfi(īs who dealt with this issue conclude that “anything of which the utterance is not forbidden may be heard without its being forbidden.” 15 Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah quotes al-Shāf (ī’s saying: “Poetry is speech, of which the good is good and the bad bad. What is to be avoided is that which contains falsehood or insult or baseless accusation.” 16 No wonder al-Shāf (ī’s poetry is quoted quite often in the tales. The European audience was more enthusiastic toward the newcomer and its power of storytelling, new techniques, and variety of characters and events. However, there are many sides to the enormous popularity of the Thousand and One Nights in Europe. Its early readers among the critics and scholars were certainly aware of these various sides. In his introduction to Tales of the East, Henry Weber noted Galland’s attention to episodic plots and narrative elements of suspense,17 a point which E. M. Forster repeated a century later in his Aspects of the Novel (1927). The episodic element lends itself easily to the melodramatic, and the theater made so much use of this repository for its pantomimes and melodramas that the Times of April 5, 1825, described the Thousand and One Nights as “a work to which our melodramatists are deeply indebted.” 18 The tales were originally designed to trap the sultan in an enchanted web of suspense; European audiences too fell under their spell. The knowledgeable and witty woman has to spark interest in the morose king not only with entertaining narratives but also with ones that disarm him and change his negative disposition toward life and women. In the introductory note to the frame story, we are told that she “had read the books of literature, philosophy, and medicine. . . . She was intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, and refined.

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She had read and learned.” 19 The emphasis on education holds substantial significance in the tales. In keeping with the Indo-Persian origin of the frame story, but also in correspondence to Islamic educational practice, almost every tale has something to say regarding education. However, does Scheherazade have her own women ancestors as writers and narrators? In speaking of the new milieu, the Arab-Islamic tradition, there is an impressive list of women poets, singers, and educators. In Andalusia, Muslim Spain, ibn mazm tells us of women who were behind his early education. The Book of Songs by Abū al-Faraj al-Iùfahānī contains a very substantial section on women artists and poets. More important is that in the early days of Islam there were women muntasibs, or market inspectors, who, although not called so, had jurisdiction over the market. The Prophet employed the woman Samrā) bint Nuhayk al-Asadiyya in Medina; the second caliph (Umar (r. 644–655 c.e.) employed al-Shifā bint (Abd Allah as supervisor of the Medina market.20 Women played a role in Islamic political life before the increasing institutionalization of statecraft as a male monopoly. There is also a purpose behind Scheherazade’s expressed wish to get betrothed to the king: she would like to stop his barbarous nightly matricide. The purpose and design fit well with the Islamic emphasis on marriage as a safeguarding institution, as indicated in the Qur)ān and in jurisprudence.21 In other words, knowledge as power becomes so only when it is practiced.

Upholding Human Propensity to Security Knowledge should address itself to our propensity for security and safety, but it should also make use of another human tendency: curiosity. Scheherazade’s father warns her that she must listen to his warnings and not risk her life, or “what happened to the donkey and the ox with the merchant will happen to you.” 22 She asks, “Father, what happened to the donkey, the ox, and the merchant?” 23 Knowledge accumulates and functions only through interaction and effective space. Indeed, Scheherazade understands that curiosity is an effective dynamic. Thus she every now and then heightens the suspense, for example telling the sultan, “but, this story is not as strange or as amazing as the story of the fisherman,” 24 a story he has not yet heard. Warnings increase curiosity and may prevent reasonable thinking, for the propensity to know is more powerful than the tendency toward security and safe settlement. In tales including “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” and especially its sequel of the third dervish, warnings func-

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tion as both narrative dynamics and strong inciters of curiosity. In the third dervish’s tale, the young damsels cry and express deep feelings of sorrow upon leaving the young man in their very luxurious palace. They tell him not to open a specific room and explain to him that they cry because they know he cannot control his curiosity: “but if you open the one with the door of red gold that will cause our separation.” 25 The propensity works both ways: toward knowledge and toward greed and subsequent failure. Although shared by other monolithic religions, the Islamic element in this second possibility is very strong and should be read in relation to the loss of paradise. Paradise is beautiful and contains an abundance of riches, wealth, and glamour. On another level, the tale, like other mendicants’ tales in the collection, operates as a quest, but it is a quest within an Islamic context. Each should strive for knowledge or wealth. “Seek its [the universe’s] regions and eat from His gifts,” says the Qur)ān. In order not to confuse human gifts with God’s, there should be a pivotal point, a human paradisiacal bliss, to test the human will and to demonstrate man’s propensity to curiosity. The failure has a double meaning: it is a loss of bliss and a mark of sin. The qalandars of the Thousand and One Nights live hereafter in a state of self-blame and unpardonable regret (nights 37–62) that expresses itself in constant weeping. As if anticipating the popular preacher and storyteller (Abd Allāh b. Sa(d Allāh, or Shaykh Shu(ayb almurayfīsh (d. 801/1398–1399), they weep like Adam and David, who were his models of penitence and expiation of sin.26 The mendicant or the qalandar has no desire for settlement, and self-reproach robs him of the distinctions of royalty just as much as the vagaries of politics lead to his dethroning. Recognition of one’s limits should follow, and along with it an effort to rehabilitate the self in a domain ruled and pacified by the vicar of God, the caliph. The whole tale of the third dervish is structured, however, on the dialectical opposition between warnings: heedlessness and curiosity. A warning comes from the one-eyed dervishes, another from a voice in the dream, another from the company of beautiful damsels, and a fourth from the horoscope given to the jeweler’s son, who is told: “Young man, sit down on the floor and do not inquire about our situation or the loss of our eyes.” 27 He cannot control his curiosity, no matter the risk. This propensity is associated with two elements in the tale of the third dervish that have strong anti-Islamic underpinnings: the unique and indeed only warning in the Thousand and One Nights to refrain from the invocation of God’s name28 and the strong faith in horoscopes.29 Both elements do not pertain to Islam, but both lead to Islamic commitment. In the first case and in the preced-

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ing part of his adventure, the qalandar thankfully “invoked the name of the Almighty God” while climbing the side of the mountain. There he “went directly to the dome,” where he “performed . . . [his] ablutions, and prayed, kneeling down several times in thanksgiving to the Almighty God for . . . [his] safety.” 30 What follows is the precise opposite. He has a dream at this point that enjoins him to abstain from invoking God’s name: Then I fell asleep under the dome overlooking the sea and heard in a dream a voice saying, ‘O (Ajib, when you wake up from your sleep, dig under your feet, and you will find a brass bow and three lead arrows inscribed with talismans. Take the bow and the arrows and shoot at the horseman to throw him off the horse and rid mankind of this great calamity. . . . When you shoot him, he will fall into the sea, and the horse will drop at your feet. Take the horse and bury it in the place of the bow. When you do this, the sea will swell and rise until it reaches the level of the dome, and there will come to you a skiff carrying a man of brass (a man other than the man you will have thrown), holding in his hands a pair of paddles. Ride with him, but do not invoke the name of God.31

The protagonist soon forgets this warning: “But in my excess of joy, I praised and glorified God, crying, ‘There is no God but God.’ No sooner had I done that than the skiff turned upside down and sank, throwing me into the sea.” 32 Is this detail an interpolation? Is it deliberately meant to be equivocal in order to test one’s faith, to accept the warning or to reject it according to one’s faith? Does it suggest a mixed source, a heathen one, which works on other levels of narration where signs and invocations take different directions? Does the tale signify more than one origin, which would explain the mixed motivations and leitmotifs? Should he reject the warning as no more than another trap to lead him into a pact with the devil? All of these are serious questions if we attempt to see the tale in the context of Islamic culture. The dome carries more significations, too, than being only a place for a casual and passing sojourn. Its place at the summit implies both worship and hermitlike solitude. It may also be a place for a saint who has taken up residence far from danger or persecution, as many places all over the Islamic world functioned. These queries will be discussed in due time. One thing is certain in the tale: curiosity leads to loss, but it is a loss brought about by one’s lack of prudence. Abū Yūsuf says in his address to the caliph: “The shepherd is held responsible for the ruin of what was in his hand, and which he could save from annihilation with the permission of Allah, and lead that to abodes of life and salvation.” 33

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The horoscope is less complicated, but still significant, in the Islamic context. As mentioned earlier, horoscopic divination is included in the prohibitions usually enforced by the muntasib, for anything that assumes divine knowledge of fate and future events contradicts Muslim faith in the omniscience of God alone. This is different from divine retribution, in which case there is an acceptance of and resignation to the divine will with an understanding of retribution as ordained. In the story of the first mendicant, the incestuous scene between the brother and sister ends in their incineration into charcoal, to the satisfaction of the father, who sees in this outcome divine wrath. This retribution is accommodated within another tenet of faith: transgression of basic religious and human limits will result in sweeping and devastating punishment, regardless of counterpredictions. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah quotes the Prophet’s saying on this point: “He who goes to a diviner and believes his word misbelieves that which has been revealed through Munammad.” 34 The wealthy jeweler’s son explains to the third mendicant (Ajīb why his father has him secluded in this subterranean place: “Then the astrologers and wise men, noting my birth date, read my horoscope and said: ‘Your son will live fifteen years, after which there will be a conjunction of the stars, and if he can escape it, he will live.’ ” 35 The youth adds other details that speak of what (Ajīb has passed through and done. Indeed, the killer is mentioned by name as none other than (Ajīb. Everything takes place as predicted, and the Islamic caution, as reported by jurists, does not hold in the tale. Instead, everything happens according to astrologers’ predictions. While the Islamic warning against diviners is rooted in trust in God’s will, the jurists’ caution is more focused on the moral issue, since women and young men gather around them in the marketplace.36 Nevertheless, warnings, prohibitions, predictions, visions, and dreams function very effectively as narrative strategies that have strong Islamic implications, especially since these have already found their legitimacy and justification in the Qur)ān.

The Ordering of Good and the Forbidding of Evil The Islamic subtext of the tales works within the parameters of the ordering of good and the forbidding of evil as it is practiced and also stressed in nisbah manuals.37 Moreover, this interrelated contextual concomitance between the tales as popular literature and nisbah manuals should not be treated as a passing matter. The nisbah manuals regulate state affairs, and the tales convey the beliefs and actions of common folk insofar as the

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storyteller imagines them in relation to authority, its discourse, dispositions, and application of law and order over a period of time. We usually associate this time frame with the history of the tales as “public property” that “might be altered, rearranged, or interpolated at will,” 38 as Hattersley suggests in the Dublin Review of February 1840.39 The conjecture insofar as dates are concerned is important, both to convey to us the temper of times and because the practice of nisbah as pertaining to Muslim life is not the same in the late eighth century and, say, the Syria of the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. There is a great difference between the piety and openness of the grand judge Abū Yūsuf (731–798) and the sternness and strictness of ibn Taymiyyah (d. in Damascus in 728/1328).40 The former admonishes and adorns with tolerance and sympathy; the latter admonishes and concludes with some selected evidence from the Sunnah. The times, especially during the Mongol invasion and the deterioration in Islamic lands, impelled the latter to be more conclusive and commanding, as was the case with his compatriot al-Shayzarī before him. Islamic expansion and wealth had a different effect on Abū Yūsuf. In his address to the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, Abū Yūsuf says: “And be always on guard from fear of Allah and hold all people equal in the matter of Allah whether they are near relatives or distant ones.”41 He adds: “Do not fear, in the way of Allah, the reproach of any reproacher and fear Allah for fear is through the heart and not through the tongue and fear Allah for God-consciousness springs from safeguarding oneself and whoever fears Allah, He will guard him.”42 This fear of and submission to the will of God is presumed as the dynamic that holds people responsible and accountable. The application of a system of rights and responsibilities is only an enforcement of law. Along with this accountability and fear of God, there are a number of obligations and practices that are taken, or should be taken, as binding. Transgression means a reversal of order, a rupture in an otherwise peaceful universe. Oaths and promises in this respect are effective social practices, and they are so as narrative devices, too. Any breach of these will disturb certain balances, moral or social, and lead to great disequilibria that operate as narrative. The concomitance of the judicial and the narrative is significant here, as in many other cases, since jurisprudence is predicated on factual grounds that demand an answer in keeping with Islamic teaching from the prime period of its social and economic expansion and growth. Reference to Abū manīfa, as the master for Abū Yūsuf,43 is of significance here, since he asserts the reliability of the owner’s word and, by implication, the sworn oath. Both operate strongly in the tales.44 Such are the terms of transaction between the demon and

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the merchant and between the fisherman and the demon. They are also thus between the Baghdadi ladies and their guests. To revoke these or any promise will bring about destruction and death. The physician Douban, who cures King Yunan, is promised wealth for him and his posterity, but instead he dies later.45 The king subsequently suffers death for this breach of promise and oath.46 A punishment befalls the ungrateful genie rescued by the fisherman, too.47

From Transmission to Narration The overall narrative technique, though it perpetuates and dynamicizes other auxiliary techniques, is the one that celebrates the art of storytelling. To tell a good story entails great merits and repayments. Does this function in lieu of or in opposition to the Islamic subtext? In a tradition that celebrates transmission and holds speech in high esteem, narrative is a way of life and action. It is already as effective as any act of survival and great merit. People communicate, transmit, write to each other, practice poetry and writing as the most precious gifts and, on many occasions, win or lose according to a word they say. In other words, narrative is already there as life or as a way of living in an Islamic space. It is no wonder, then, that the frame tale became so popular as to raise the objections of renowned bibliophiles in the tenth century. In terms of the binding sociocultural system of offer and gift,48 the act of narration is no less inviting of rewards and revenue than a good poem or a commissioned book of as high a caliber as Abū Yūsuf’s. As ordered, Abū Yūsuf’s book should be as knowledgeable, straightforward, and demanding in terms of responsibility as befitting a grand Islamic jurist. It holds the caliph responsible while providing him with all the information and Islamic laws needed then to run an expanding state. Thus the caliph holds the jurist responsible for the Islamic side of running the state, and the jurist holds the caliph accountable in view of the laws as set in the manual and in view of the binding fear of God. Both are equal in accountability. No less so is the transmitter of the Prophet’s sayings, the reciter of verse, or the storyteller. Thus the emphasis since the early caliphate is laid on the reliability of storytellers as preachers or preachers as storytellers. In these there is always a ransom motive, which can function as gifts and is binding in exchange transactions. If the word is still effectively applied in early Islam, in later periods more regulatory laws are needed. In narrative, the ransom motive assumes also different levels of efficacy and meaning. The ransom motive, especially in the ransom frame, is central to Scheherazade’s initiative.49 Relying on her art, she

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expects the sultan both to let her survive as queen and live happily ever after and to save other women and set a code for a new and proper social order of merits and punishments. Women writers noticed this mechanism and made use of it, as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) demonstrates. Like Shahrayar, Rochester is divested of his imperiousness, and in chapter 24 he subsequently admits his resignation: “I have never met your likeness, Jane, you please me and you master me.” The narrative device has a narrative context of wide social and moral implications, as will be shown in due course. This primary narrative device derives its power from other narratives, such as when the king of China orders the barber and his other colleagues to tell a good story in exchange for their life. A good story means survival; a bad one, death. On the other hand, a good narrative becomes a highly demanded commodity. The genie, in the “Story of the Merchant and the Genie,” is ready to forgive transgressions if he hears some good tales that satisfy his curiosity and compensate for his loss. “I grant you one-third of this man’s life,” the demon says whenever he hears a good story from the three old men.50

The Natural and the Supernatural Companionship The Islamic context that holds the subtext and the whole narrative design together is more pronounced, however, in the combination of the natural and supernatural that makes up this universe. “And we sent towards you a group of jinn, listening to the Qur)ān in silence. When they stood in the presence thereof, they said: ‘Listen in silence.’ And when it was finished they returned to their people as warners” (Qur)ān 6: 29). The presence of the wonderful and the fantastic is no less intriguing in an art that caters to curiosity and suspense. It lives side by side with the natural. The fusion of the two enforces a “willing suspension of disbelief,” as Coleridge said in defense of the fantastic. Indeed, the tale of the merchant and the genie was the example he used in his literary theorizations of romanticism. He had this story in mind when he justified the absence of a moral in his celebrated “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” for it “ought to have had no more moral than the Arabian Nights’ tale of the merchant’s sitting down to eat dates by the side of a well, and throwing the shells aside, and lo! A genie starts up, and says he must kill the aforesaid merchant, because one of the date shells had, it seems, put out the eye of the genie’s son.”51 A mad world, where causation is broken, as Joseph Jacobs argues in his introduction to the 1896 edition of the Thousand and One Nights,52 the

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collection still has internal coherence as a world with codes and systems that operate smoothly throughout its domains, from Baghdad to China. The Qur)ān, after all, empathizes with this aspect of the universe. In the sūrah of úād, Solomon appealed to God for a kingdom “such as shall not belong to any other ever after” (38:35), so “we subjected to him the wind; it blew gently by his order” (38:36), whereas “devils from the jinn, every kind of builder and diver” were subjected to him, too (38:37). The combination and fusion of these elements was in the minds of writers, Muslims and non-Muslims, Arabs and Europeans alike. Charles Dickens, for one, “has put the spirit of the Arabian Nights into his pictures of life by the river Thames,” wrote George Gissing.53 On the other hand, this consummate fusion of the wondrous and the real has become a frame of reference for writers who have been arguing for the need to reinvigorate literature and culture with readings that “elevate our anger above trifles, incline us to assist intellectual advancement of all sorts, and keep a region of solitude and sweetness for us in which the mind may retreat and create itself, so as to return with hope and gracefulness to its labors,” writes Leigh Hunt in his article on the Thousand and One Nights for his London Journal.54 This consummate blend is not confined to the two worlds of the human and the supernatural, for even in the tales least suspected of wonderful or uncanny elements, such as the “Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” each story of realistic detail and urban description abruptly evolves into another world of fantasy. Dogs turn out to be females and horses act under enchantment. Nobody is sure of limits anymore, for there are no clear-cut borderlines except divine knowledge: “God, the All-Knower of the Unseen, which He reveals to none, except to a messenger whom He has chosen” (Qur)ān, 72:26–27).

The Supernatural as Moral Authority The supernatural operates as either good or evil. While this agency acts according to this division of labor, it has its laws and codes of conduct, which happen to govern the urban society as well. Human and supernatural agents often agree on an arrangement, which is usually articulated and spelled out in the nisbah manuals. Thus in the tale of the merchant and the genie, the merchant asks the genie to allow him to go back home to take care of some transactions before surrendering to the genie’s punishment for the blinding of the genie’s son. The genie shows no surprise at the request, because it works within a system of moral responsibility that sustains the mercantile class and maintains its networking ability with

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other segments of society.55 The procedural nature of this transaction takes place in the natural world, but the supernatural agency is aware of this and takes it into account in its dealing with humans. In narrative, wills and testimonies work against coincidence and give narrative some vraisemblance. On the moral level, wills and testimonies are urban dealings, as they replace vows and words. Promises or word of honor are replaced by a written document, witnessed and attested to by others and by the power of the attorney and recognized laws. The Jewish merchant and moneychanger in the tale of the two viziers buys the forthcoming cargo from Badr al-Dīn masan but asks for the transaction to be written down.56 Writing down a specific transaction ensures one’s rights, and it also sustains trust and thus order. Jurists attend to these transactions, and it is the responsibility of the supervisor, the muntasib, to implement them. In realistic narratives such as night 20, the minister Nūr al-Dīn of Basra feels his death is imminent and has to inform his son of his lineage, relatives, and family. Then he has to ensure that his will is written down: The purpose is to get yourself a scroll and write down what I report, so the son took a notebook and began to write down what his father said, covering everything, including the history of his marriage and the date of his arrival in Basra, and his meeting with its minister, and he wrote down a certified will, and said to his son: keep this will, for in its paper is your lineage, family roots, and filiations. If a thing befalls you head towards Egypt, and find your uncle.57

The son, we are told, has to seal the scroll and tie it to the inside of his headdress. The supernatural intervention adds color to the narrative, as it brings the son masan to the palace and allows him to sleep with his cousin, who has no clue of this relation or connection. The son forgets his headdress, the will, and other things in the room. This enables his uncle to see that coincidence has brought his daughter and masan together. Supernatural intervention dynamicizes action and makes the girl’s father suspicious that his daughter is deceiving him and has simply spent the night with somebody. Supernatural agency, however, sees to it that through dramatization of action there will be such expectation, suspicion, and grotesquery. In narrative terms, the supernatural agency is another name for the storyteller, who is keen on involving the hunchback and others in a tale that could otherwise function perfectly well as a plain urban tale traversing Islamic lands from Basra to Cairo. While belletristic prose—apart from Sufi anecdotes—has no such trans-

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actions between the natural and the supernatural, popular literature builds on the Qur)ānic tradition and its emphasis on the existence of both in a universal order to allow enough space for people to justify happenings or to abide by conscience and moral obligations. Moral responsibility holds a social order beyond the mechanisms of the court, its rules, expectations, and, at times, whims. Moreover, this moral responsibility is part of an Islamic ideology that is not necessarily a duplicate of later jurists’ pronouncements, especially in the eleventh century in the Shām (greater Syria) region. These offers can be summed up as the “promised redemption of what existed,” which Habermas applies to bourgeois humanity.58 There is a basic difference, however. In these offers there is transcendence. By transcending the limits of the real, including its economic and social burdens, the human is free, and as such there is a base for a “humanity condition” complemented and made possible by a structure of feeling that recalls this supernatural world as complementary to the real.59 The underlying moral order operates on a number of levels, however. In the third mendicant’s tale, for instance, we know that the ifrit who has abducted the young and charming bride on her wedding night has established a warning system in his subterranean abode that can summon him in less than a minute, a system that anticipates postcapitalist achievements in espionage and the security industry. Upon noticing the traces of a human presence and suspecting betrayal, he punishes both the bride and the wretched prince. Even territorial and spatial contraction as narrated in the tales anticipates contemporary developments including the media and war industries. While the land is the effective space for rewards and retributions, it can be changed into a sea, and humans may become sea creatures, as nights 6 through 8 tell us.60 Despite this metamorphosis, there is no possibility of transgression in the newly enchanted world of the sea. The fish sold to the king’s palace cannot be eaten, as it is human and still retains this aspect until the magic is dispelled and the human form regained. This can be read as identity resistance to enforced erosion and violent acts of aggression against societies and states. This resistance has a profound presence in the tales. Recall the bewildering scene in which the fish raises its head from the frying pan and attests to a moral order that has a cultural ethic of obligations and commitments. It cannot be eaten, and thus it turns into charcoal. The transformation attests both to the religious order that abhors and denies cannibalism and to the urban life that perpetuates growth through respect for human life and observation of law and order. There is a celebration of human reason throughout, not at the expense

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of imagination and fantasy but in a concomitance that makes this exquisite blend we call the Thousand and One Nights. In night 3, the fisherman says to himself: “He is jinn and I am human, and God has endowed me with full and complete mind, and hence I am managing a way to get rid of him by my ruse and intelligence, and he plans with his evil and malice.”61 Again, the storyteller has to situate this use in context of Islamic thought, for whenever there is impatience, anger, or frustration, there is a possibility of misbehavior requiring correction. Such is the tale of the fisherman and the genie, for the latter swears he will kill whoever releases him from imprisonment in his tiny brass bottle. On the other hand, this moodiness or temper is no less harmful and damaging than intoxication due to inordinate drinking, as the story of the old man of the sea in Sindbad’s voyages suggests, for example. Sindbad cannot get rid of this old man, who misuses him “as one wears his slippers.” In night 557,62 Sindbad resorts to intoxicating the old man with the grape juice, making him loosen his legs, which have been holding the voyager’s neck. The story recurs also in al-Qazwīnī’s (Ajā)ib al-Makhlūqāt.63 This interstitial area of human reason is employed as a challenge to magic and the use of the wonderful or the fantastic in general. In the tale of the second mendicant, the mendicant is so intoxicated that he does not heed the young bride’s warning not to touch the threshold and its magical inscription, an act that activates the warning system the ifrit has established, leading to the punishment of the mendicant for his impudence and transgression.64 Two things deserve notice whenever we study the Islamic justification of magic, use of talismans, seals, and the like. In the Qur)ānic tradition, Moses outdid the contrivance of magicians. His stick changed into a snake that swallowed the things the magicians conjured, which were described as no more than a magician’s trick. In other words, there is first the Qur)ānic justification. There is no mention of these magical acts as forbidden, notwithstanding the rejection of these means as no more than human devices or applications of supernatural beings that are allowed in the Qur)ānic tradition in order to test human reasonableness and faith. The faithful are admonished, however, to avoid the use of satanic mediums. On the other hand, all of these are part of a system in which the universe is peopled by creatures and their inventions and interventions. The human race is endowed with reason to counteract these, however. Whenever there is faith, human beings are in control of their life, desires, and passions. On the other hand, the mention of the prophet Solomon as the one endowed with a supernatural power to preempt and diffuse the power of counterforces adds extra justification to the belief and faith in such superhuman

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empowerment. Talismans, in particular, are associated with his name, and their use to check evil forces becomes part of a preventive strategy, as many tales show. In the story of Abū Munammad the Lazy,65 the feigning monkey is a monster who has taken this form to persuade Abū Munammad to destroy a certain talisman, which is necessary for the monkey-monster to reach the palace of the Sherif’s daughter and abduct her. The monkeymonster says to Abū Munammad: In the entrance to the hall where the Sherif’s daughter is, there is a closet, and on its door is a brass knob, and there are keys beneath this knob. Take the keys and open the door where you find an iron box with four talismanic flags on its four corners. Amid these is a bowl of money with eleven snakes on its side. In the bowl is a white rooster tied to the bowl, and there is a knife beside the box. Take it and slit the rooster’s throat, and cut the flags, and turn the box upside down. Then go to the bride and take her virginity.66

The language and semiotic systems used here signify another language with an operative mechanism. It is less effective than divine speech or its derivatives that entail acts of subordination, retreat, supplication, and change of position. There is no claim that these systems, their significations and codes, are purely Islamic, for there is a sustained Qur)ānic reference to the god of Mūsā (Moses) and Hārūn (Aaron). In the second mendicant’s tale, the king’s daughter, who is an adept in magic, “took in her hand a knife with Hebraic names inscribed on it, and drew with it a circle in the middle of the palace courtyard. She wrote there names and talismans, and invoked speech and read another that could not be understood. An hour later, the palace darkened from all sides as if the universe collapsed on us, and suddenly the Ifrit appeared to us in the most hideous form.”67

The Islamic Narrative Function The fantastic of the Thousand and One Nights, which became Todorov’s primary object of reference in The Fantastic, is also exemplary in leading us to the appropriation of the tales of earlier cultures.68 This use and manipulation should not be exaggerated, however, as the Islamic narrative function, its tropes, motifs, and dynamics, are so fused into an Islamic matrix and an emerging popular tradition as to make separation of cultural markers impossible. This mixed nature partly explains the popularity of the Thousand and One Nights. Yet, while the tales have a composite nature that may engage the attention of any reading public, the European roman-

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tics found in them enough solace to satisfy their yearning for the unlimited, the boundless, and the exotic. It would be a great misunderstanding if we see this as inconsequential insofar as our reading of the Islamic context is concerned. The case is so not only because of the interest in the lands of Islam or in the faith itself, as shown in a number of works that have variegated perspectives with or against Islam, Turkey, or the lands designated as the Orient, but also because the tales work as a trope for lands that are envisioned as women who are languid and desiring, full of passion or intrigue. The tales offer a number of images to the fascinated eye of the beholder. For Byron, history works within paradigms of Islamic cruelty, represented by Turkish politics and the Greek search for freedom. Though this is not what Shelley evokes in the “Revolt of Islam,” nor is it the depoliticized fear of loss of love in John Keats’s love poems and letters. The tales also depict another image of Islam, a land of courage, manliness, hospitality, poetry, and dreams. Even Thomas Carlyle found in the Prophet’s character a hero worth including in his theoretical reading of history as made by heroes, in his book on hero worship and the heroic in history. His diary for October 1839 reads: “Arabian Tales by Lane; very pious. No people so religious, except the English and Scotch Puritans for a season. Good man Mahomet, on the whole; very sincere; a fighter, not indeed with perfect triumph, yet with honest battle . . . wish I knew Arabic.” 69 The French were no less involved in this multifaceted adventure of interpretation. Nor did the Germans conclude their interest with Goethe’s East-West Diwan or his theorizations of the poetic impulse. Of more relevance to us are the methods of comparison that were developed during that period, for it helps us to see through the tales and their captivating and flowing storytelling and discern what should be seen with respect to deeper layers of meaning. There are readers who approach the tales for other reasons, and there are neoclassicist writers who were not ready to surrender to romantic imaginativeness or to Carlyle’s appreciation of religiosity and heroism. Between the romantics and the neoclassicists one comes across writers whose life and career span both periods and tendencies. The renowned English writer Walter Bagehot admitted that Galland’s translation,70 which “sacrificed nothing of the liveliness and spirit of the original,” has the purpose “to be read and to be found good reading.” Its primary target was not “to throw light on history, morals, nor manners.” While there were readers who thought of the tales as representations of life in the East, as they used to call the Middle and Near East region, the romantics found their primary appeal in this world of dreams and desires. Conversely, we

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come across a view by the American Orientalist Crawford Howell Toy that tries to account for this multifarious growth. He wrote in the Atlantic Monthly of June 1889: “The book is both the history of Moslem culture and the record of Moslem esprit in the balmy days of the Arabs in Asia; it gives a truer as well as a more vivid picture of their life than all the ordinary histories combined.” While this is debatable, the other side of his comment may apply with greater force to the narrative in its general social implications. We find in the tales the “self-respecting courtesy of the Arab gentleman, the devotion of friendship,” and also “the wiles and tricks, passion and treachery, soberness and silliness, nobility and meanness, the Arab intellectual independence standing beside the utterest political despotism, the high intellectual and social position assigned to women—all elements of life.” 71 Not many are as interested as Toy in these elements. The Spectator of November 25, 1882, touched on this side:72 “In the Arabian Nights and in them alone of published books, can grown men enjoy the pleasure which children enjoy in story-telling, the pleasure of hearing exciting narratives without being called on for thought, or reflection, or criticism.” By “minister­ ing endlessly to their insatiable luxury in wonder,” the tales offer the right model for “the power of Romance in its elementary form,” adds the writer. The American Orientalist Duncan Black MacDonald, who had one of the best collections of the Thousand and One Nights, speaks of the book in September 1900 as one that depicts “a land of enchantment, whose like never existed, never can exist.” 73 He adds: “To the non-Arabist their world is out of space, out of time.” The careers of a large number of prominent romantics attest to this captivating power. Coleridge, for one, associates his propensity for dreaming with this power, for his mind “had been habituated to the vast, and I never regarded my senses in any way as the criteria of my belief,” he explained in a letter of October 16, 1797.74 He adds: “I regulated all my creeds by my conceptions, not by my sight—even at that age.” Thus, whenever approaching the tales, he used to feel a mixture of dread and desire, an “anxious and fearful eagerness,” which he describes to the same person in a letter of October 9, 1797.75 But Jorge Luis Borges looks at the matter with the eye and vision of a contemporary, for he thinks of the book as a power in romantic initiation: “it might be said that the Romantic Movement begins at the moment when someone, in Normandy or in Paris, reads The Thousand and One Nights. He leaves the world leg­ islated by Boileau and enters the world of Romantic freedom.” 76 This exchange and fusion between the commonplace and the wonderful that distinguishes the tales signifies one side of this romantic appeal. An-

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other is what the late romantic critic and brilliant litterateur Arthur Henry Hallam calls “the position of feeling” when the tales place us in “one of those luxurious garden scenes, the account of which, in plain prose, used to make our mouths water for sherbet, since luckily we were too young to think about Zobeide,” he writes in August 1831, 77 in reference to Hārūn al-Rashīd’s wife. This position became for years the mainstay of recollection for, as the late nineteenth-century poet William Henley explains in his Views and Reviews, “that animating and delectable feeling I cherish ever for such enchanted commodities as gold-dust and sandal-wood and sesame and cloth of gold and black slaves with scimitars—to whom do I owe it but this rare and delightful artist?” 78 This power once held poets and artists captive in realms that they used to identify with scenes and people. Henley and, earlier, Keats and Coleridge, admitted these identification processes in their poetry and letters, especially with respect to the mendicants’ stories, their awakening from the exquisitely charming to the mundane and the real.79 Thus writes Henley in his poem “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, ”80 in reference to the aftermath of the third mendicant’s irresistible curiosity to open the forbidden door:81 I was—how many a time!— That Second Mendicant, Son of a King, On whom’t was vehemently enjoined, Pausing at one mysterious door, To pry no closer, but content his soul With his kind Forty.82

As aesthetes, the late nineteenth-century poets and writers were more attracted to Galland’s version, both because of its simplicity and ease or association with childhood impressions and in reaction against the wellreceived but heavily annotated version of Edward William Lane, which John Payne tried to balance in his very refined and extensive nine-volume translation. Galland’s translation offered Henley, for one, “a vast extravaganza of passion in action and picarooning farce and material splendor run mad,” he writes.83 This proneness to identification among poets and the common public should be seen, too, in relation to a growing Orientalizing propensity that fed the colonial desire for lands and riches. More than any book, the tales became for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century readers the unparalleled repository for images of the Orient (that is, the present Middle East) as sensuous, luxurious, rich, and dormant. Lord Byron advised Thomas Moore to “stick to the East” in order to gain popularity, and so did Dickens

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when suggesting to Miss Marguerite Power that she call her book Arabian Days and Nights.84 More than any travel account or Orientalist piece of scholarship, Scheherazade’s tales inflamed in the age of empire the desire for an East that could be contained, appropriated, and possessed. The tales worked strongly on that romantic “interior infinite,” which, according to Mikhail Bakhtin,85 rules sovereign, “unquell’d and high,” like Byron’s Giaour, the protagonist in his poetic tale of the same title. On the other hand, this romanticized view of the East gave way to another that framed it in an East of the past, an East whose life presently was a repetition within dormancy, inviting a Napoleon or, in the case of the British, a Cromer to revitalize the land and bring the domains of Scheherazade back to civilization! Indeed, Scheherazade’s attraction became synonymous with her habitats—rich, tantalizing, and waiting for the imperial savior. As I argued in Scheherazade in England, Galland’s version proved popular for taking into account those variegated habits and predilections. While preserving the exotic and the outlandish, Galland made the East a property available to be possessed, accommodated, and plundered. Until the 1980s, Galland was still the focus of both romantic interest and erudite readings. His presumed manuscript was edited by Muhsin Mahdi, to authenticate, by default, the claim that alone among translators and redactors he had an actual manuscript. However, it is to the credit of Galland that his translation elicited and still elicits contradictory responses with respect to its exactitude or faithfulness. Robert Irwin collapses and sums up previous views, suggesting that Galland’s translation was done in the vein and temper of other French humanists who “argued that good taste took precedence over strict accuracy in translation,” for Galland’s “aim in translating the Nights was not so much to transcribe accurately the real texture of medieval Arab prose, as to rescue from it items which he judged would please the salons of eighteenth-century France. ”86 On the other hand, before him and much in tune with Burton’s “Terminal Essay,” Jorge Luis Borges wrote in 1934–1936: “Word for word, Galland’s version is the most poorly written of them all, the least faithful, and the weakest, but it was the most widely read. ”87 He adds: “Galland’s discretions are urbane, inspired by decorum, not morality. ”88 Although there remains a great deal of the mysterious and the veiled, Galland’s East was made available to be analyzed, investigated, enjoyed, loved, and, simultaneously, repelled. While foreshadowing the Enlightenment’s taste for classification and comparison, it evidently met the romantic aspiration for freedom and change. In both cases, Galland’s Nights was not foreign to the Manichean tendency to study the other and to reach for its exoticism, to view it in

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relation to a so-called European tradition and to appropriate its habitat for the sake of self-fulfillment against imaginary failures. Both impulses were not at variance with that growing colonialist discourse that had never been absent since early missionary efforts to convert Muslims or to combat Islam. More importantly, both were bound to provoke philological, anthropological, and cultural studies, which took the Thousand and One Nights, along with literary and travel accounts in translation, as their starting point to prepare for the expanding imperial enterprise. The effort was so enormous that romantics of a sensitive temper, such as Leigh Hunt, were seriously bothered by this disenchanting endeavor. They insisted, but to no avail, that the Nights be kept away from dissection and exacting scholarship, for it is no more than a collection of tales that manifests an “Orient of Poets,” as he termed this imaginary world in an editorial to his London Journal in October 1834.

Loose Thematic Patterns It is impossible to speak of thematic patterns without also speaking of their Islamic underpinnings. Although these are the subject of the next chapter, it is worthwhile to mention the cycles in the Thousand and One Nights, however, that drew and have drawn attention. While romantic properties and narrative techniques account for a great deal of the tales’ popularity, these work in tandem with a number of loose thematic patterns and cycles. Concomitant with each other, they distinguish this work’s uniqueness and special attraction. Writers and critics tried, as they are still trying now, to schematize and classify these aspects and themes and provide a rationale for their durability. First, there is a basic human pattern that resists borders and limits, for, as the Victorian John Eagles wrote in October 1848,89 there is a “charm that renders the Arabian Nights acceptable to all countries,” which emanates from their many themes that “speak of our common nature.” There is also “a sprinkling of simpletonianism in a foreign shape.” Second, however, there is its supernatural element, its mixture of the wonderful, uncanny, and fantastic. Muslim travelers and geographers used to speak of these elements as the gharīb and (ajīb, or the strange and the wonderful, a point that receives further study in contemporary criticism, as Todorov’s reading in The Fantastic shows. The borderline between the two is delicate enough to allow for progression or transposition from one stage to another. Although of disputed origin, (Alī Bābā’s “open sesame” is not that different from the workings of certain contemporary electronic devices, and it can lead as well to further complications of intrigue, espio-

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nage, or business transactions. The underlying rationale behind this ease has something to do with religion, for the jinn, or genies, are recognized in the Qur)ān. “I created jinn and humans solely to worship Me” (51:56). Third, there are human concerns relating to love, beauty, women, jealousy, travel, geography, business, social mobility, and culture. As mentioned in the introduction, they act as patterns only through repetition, as their reappearances give them the form of a cycle, with its motivations, expectations, and conclusions. One way of dealing with these cycles under thematic propositions is to divide them under broad headings: (1) Religion, for instance, covers Islam, other monolithic religions, and heathen practices. It also covers patterns of behavior, honesty or deceit, austerity, punishment for theft or drinking in public, spending and squandering wealth, application of religious rituals and practices, strict observance of Islamic law, and knowledge of jurisprudence. It also includes the supernatural in its more intricate workings through magic, jinn, talismans, and so on. (2) Love covers yearning and pure longing, sexual interest, lewdness, jealousy, hatred, sacrifice, or selfishness. (3) Society and societal patterns include urban life, business transactions, city markets and households, professions, artisans, and the application or misapplication of rules of conduct. It also includes wealth, poverty, greed, hospitality, theft, food, and feasts. In the tales, all of these themes display significant patterning, which becomes visible and accumulates through recurrence and repetition. Due to the Islamic concern with the organization of the new society, especially in matters of business, commerce, marriage, household issues, and relations with foreigners, there was a stupendous growth of a judiciary system and its manuals and functionaries. On the other hand, manuals and their particulars reveal much about the practice of law or its failure to apply in a changing society. As the next chapter is concerned with these patterns, I will limit the present overview to only two issues, religion and love, in their general application to the global and the universal, not only because of their significance for the whole thematic context but mainly because they have implications for the specific and particular. In other words, they address both the Islamic and the universal.

The Particular and the Universal in Religion It is of some significance to consider Western writings on religion in the collection, not only in response to “The City of Brass,” but also to others

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that are taken to be secular or “foul,” as the discerning critic of the Spectator of November 25, 1882, notices.90 The reviewer divides his discussion of religiosity into a number of items. First there is mysticism. Especially in “The City of Brass,” “there is the mysticism of the Desert, the mysticism which teaches that all is evanescent, goodness included, save God, the Ordainer, alone.”91 The reference to the recurrent mention of God, the Ordainer, applies to most Arabic anecdotal and historical narratives; however, its presence in the tales whenever there is success, retribution, or death and calamity distinguishes the tales as belonging basically to a tradition of mixed formation, involving both written and oral communication. The reference to God as the preserver and destroyer operates as a leitmotif that keeps everything at bay, as if to apologize for the excess in joy, humor, or concern with human wishes and expectations. There is, second, the philosophical and religious refrain and the warning against the vanity of human wishes, which acts in the tales in a dynamic way to restrain its preoccupation with human issues. The reviewer adds that though “all the stories, turning up in the strangest places, amid scenes which in the original he purposely made foul runs a stream of philosophic, or, rather, religious thought, always in essence the same, the burden of which is older than Mahommedanism [sic], older than Christianity, older than Hellenism, the refrain of the Wise King,—Vanity of Vanities, all is vanity!”92 There is, third, the powerful narrative rhythm that transforms petty pathos or simple moralizing into something more sublime, whereby the narrative strain “breaks forth overpoweringly, till the wild legend becomes a high moral apologue.”93 These points sum up the position of a good number of writers who respond to Lane’s annotated edition with both reservation and admiration, during a time where serious scientific achievements were made and when religion was to undergo more scrutiny and exegetic analysis. No matter what we say about the Islamic context of the tales, it is good to keep in mind that the perennial appeal of the Thousand and One Nights defies any specific or strict patterning. For instance, even the ardent translator and erudite annotator of the collection, the Victorian Orientalist Edward William Lane, decided not to translate tales that are, like the story of the slave girl Tawaddud, too seriously engaged with jurisprudence and Islamic law in general. In his translation, he mentions the reasons behind this omission, which Burton quotes with relish, as follows: “it would not only require a volume of commentary, but be extremely tiresome to most readers.”94 In other words, “most readers” are the ones in the mind of the translator, whose main target is the pater familias and the middle classes

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and whose purpose is to provide a good story with some edification and utility. The story of Tawaddud is significant for our purpose here, as it is especially concerned, as Burton notes, with Islamic law, the al-Shāf(ī school in particular. However, the story has some other significances, which eluded Burton and perhaps many others who have written on the Thousand and One Nights.95 The story of Tawaddud has as its main focus a discussion of Islamic law, the articles of faith, and Islamic sciences, along with the ancient sciences (Greek in particular), Arabic lexicography, rhetoric, and the rest of Qur)ānic studies. It covers these through debates with the most distinguished scholars of the age. As usual in such debates, following the recognition of the winner, a robe of honor and some award are given. This emphasis on dress and rank is not random, then, and it should be seen in terms of statecraft, too. When writing about the propriety of the appointee in the position of judge, ibn al-)Ukhuwwah explains that there should be a strict application of this propriety in dress and conduct. He argues, “a legist who wears a qabā) or bonnet in towns where that is not the custom, forsakes the path of right conduct.”96 Earlier, Abū Yūsuf argues, “A warning should be issued that no one should be permitted to resemble Muslims in their dress and their riding animals.”97 On the other hand, high-ranking professionals such as judges were expected to pay attention to their attire, walk, and manner of speech. The aforementioned tale contains a paradigm shift that subsumes all the markers of the authoritarian discourse and places them subtly in terms of basic Islamic tenets that are unconcerned with the requirements of the empire-state and its systems. The asked-for letter of recognition comes before the last encounter with experts, and it amounts to no less than a diploma certifying her triumph over those acclaimed by the state as its representatives.98 By liberating religion and knowledge (the last competition before the test in music and singing is with the backgammon player) from the institution, it becomes common property, and religion changes into faith, applied and practiced by all Muslims, who are to rejoice in its tenets of equality and enjoy its unlimited mercy. The storyteller has his due in full, as the prototype Scheherazade has done in her effort to turn the king’s strategy upside down. Religion as culture works delicately in the tales, as it informs every other behavior and imposes at times social conformity that can be mistaken by an outsider as binding decrees. Religion has some definite meaning in Islam that is hard to understand not only by nonMuslims but, at times, by Muslims themselves, who are little acquainted with tradition and who fall under the influence of limited perspectives or one-sided interpretations. The Commander of the Faithful (Alī ibn Abī

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§ālib, the fourth caliph and cousin of the Prophet, was to appoint the jurist masan al-Baùrī, and he began to test him. “He was asked ‘What is the first principle of the faith?’ He replied: ‘Reverence.’ He was asked ‘What is its bane?’ he replied, ‘Desire.’ (Alī then said, “Speak, now [as preacher], if you wish.”99 In other words, the role of the storyteller, which was often collapsed with that of the preacher in classical texts, is to work within these broad vistas to attain change or a desirable state of being.

In Celebration of God Reverence cannot exist without the remembrance of God. No wonder caliphs and rulers were reminded by the God-fearing jurists to remember God. Even when commissioned by caliphs to prepare a treatise for them, jurists explain this first requirement: to carry out the responsibility to please God through justice and equity. “The pleasure of Allah and His reward, and the fear of his punishment, have always been in my view,” says Abū Yūsuf.100 Interestingly, rarely does an urban tale overlook this remembrance or other rituals. Although seemingly a ritualistic de´cor with no actual function in narrative motivations, Qur)ānic recitations foreshadow change or renewal, especially in cities and places that have suffered some calamity. The presence of one person with this recitation functions as a reminder of the reasons behind loss and disaster. It also attests to one single presence that has been singled out as belonging to the reverent faithful. Following Qur)ānic narratives in which there is such a singling out whenever there is a believer, the story of the King of the Ebony Islands, the enchanted king, and the young man in the story of “The First Lady” in “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” all con­ tain these recitations, which draw the attention of newcomers, increase their faith, and possibly consolidate their stamina against worldly temptations. The one against the rest is no less central to many Qur)ānic narratives, such the story of the single believer among the pharaohs who hides his faith, or like most of the prophets who are exempted from destruction along with a few members of their family or community. On the other hand, these recitations indicate a way out, for sooner or later there will be a relief from catastrophe. Within the setting itself, these recitations serve an atmospheric purpose whereby the Mu)min (believer) undergoes a test. He or she is in a secluded place, cut off from the rest of the community, and has to invoke the divine power to intervene in one way or another, end this state of seclusion, and ultimately spread faith to the rest of the community. The person or people who come upon this

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isolated or ensorcelled individual will either be won over to Islam or religion at large, overcome states of doubt and hesitation, or join as believers the one they are there to rescue. In other words, these stories of urban atmospheres are variations upon many Qur)ānic ones, but with a new urban or fantastic taste. In night 21,101 the storyteller does not tell us why there are nets that cover the palace’s open spaces and courtyards (to prevent birds from flying out), but the story of the youth reciting the Qur)ān or moaning and lamenting in plaintive verses offers a parallel image of enforced confinement. Seclusion, forced or preordained, becomes an allegorical paradigm for the meaning of freedom, whether it is physical freedom or the freedom of the spirit. No one is free before there is an actual sense of freedom as a condition of repose and serenity. The captive birds are symbolic of this human restlessness in search of comfort through human means and mediums. In narrative terms, these images of birds and nets, or the youth in the city of brass amid frozen sites of luxury and wealth, present potential disequilibrium in a seeming equilibrium. Religion here assumes a different meaning from the jurists’ version of ordinances and decrees and manifests a deep consciousness of other levels of freedom, unhindered or deterred by worldly concerns that exclude every other sense of reverence and piety. A word of caution is needed here. In piety, as in social behavior, there are cultural norms and practices that take the form of a habitual and communal way of life, such as expressions of greeting, for example. These function as cultural phenomena with a base in the meaning of the word “Islam,” its linguistic connotations of both peace and submission to the will of God. These terms and words cannot be analyzed as indications of behavior, unless the salutation precedes a cordial meeting or its absence connotes rupture or possible trouble. The same thing applies to the sharing of meals. To eat with one or to accept his or her invitation to a meal means rapprochement. A rejection indicates rift. For the nonspecialist, these can be easily confused with terms of conformity. The Victorian essayist and intellectual Walter Bagehot, for one, thought of recurrent behavioral norms as constrictions that allow no space for individual action and self-trial. Writing at a time when there was in England an ongoing discussion of the tyranny of the majority and public opinion, Bagehot finds in recurrent patterns of behavior a sign of encroachment on private will. He looks on these in Islam as an “opiate” that stifles as it “preys upon the vital forces.” 102 Certainly there is submission to the will of God, usually pronounced in times of misfortune, as is the case in the story of the King of the Ebony Islands. After being converted into half marble and

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half human by his wife, who is adept in magic, the young king resigns himself to his fate, but his resignation contains the ingredients of trust in God. “How can he escape his cruel fate?” The answer comes in a song that he sings as Mawwaliya:103 “If you did sleep, the eyes of God have not; / who can say time is fair and life in constant state?” 104 In the story of the merchant and the genie, the merchant advises his family to bear his fate with resignation to God’s will: “This is God’s will and decree, for man was created to die.” 105 This submission does not exclude self-trial, however, for resignation does not mean undue negligence of one’s duties. It means, rather, that there are things that are at times beyond human capacity to redress. Thus, in “The History of the Fisherman,” the genie, not the human, makes a different promise, to kill the one who saves his life after failing to come across somebody who can set him free. The fisherman’s supplications to God to reward his labor are of no avail. In a tone of resignation he says, “O Lord, you know that I cast my net four times only. I have already cast it three times, and there is only one more try left. Lord, let the sea serve me, even as you let it serve Moses.” 106 The implications of the supplication are many, however, for the reference to the Qur)ānic version of Moses’s story alludes to both the difficulties and the achievements Moses encountered; thus the fisherman has to expect as much of a challenge as Moses did. Instead of fish, his catch is a “copper vase” stopped with Solomon’s seal. It is a “large long-necked brass jar, with a lead stopper bearing the mark of a seal ring.” 107 After opening the vase and breaking the seal, he is faced with an enormous genie whose first pronouncement is to ask the fisherman for the kind of death he prefers. Instead of resignation to the situation, the fisherman ingeniously devises a way out. In other words, there are ways and tactics to escape what may look like predestined fate.

Binding Commitments and Pledges Religion also works as a social contract, an extension of the laws and decrees that sustain business and commercial transactions. It is enough to tell the genie that the merchant will come back after seeing to his family and business transactions and affairs: “I swear to keep my pledge to come back, as the God of Heaven and earth is my witness.” 108 Then there is a more binding oath: “do you swear to God that if I let you go, you will come back on New Year’s Day?” 109 Oath as such becomes a practice,110 different, but no less binding, than other obligations such as prayers and ablution.

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The latter obligations are given priority in some nisbah manuals. There are many examples to indicate this obligation, and the nisbah books rarely neglect it. No meeting or business transaction should replace the Friday congressional prayer, for instance, as in the story of the young man and the barber. Although raising different interpretations, the issue of the Friday prayer is included within the muntasib ’s obligation to enforce the rite, which includes, says ibn al-)Ukhuwwah: “enforcement of what is due to God, of what is due to man, and of what is due to both jointly.” He adds: “Public worship in the mosque on Friday and the adhān [call to prayer] belong to the established ritual of Islam.” 111 Religion is not necessarily concomitant with dreams and visions, but these may have the power of divine intervention or predictions, as is the case with Yūsuf’s (Joseph’s) visions in the Qur)ān and the visions of the Sufis. They should not be confused with predictions that may also have some truth. While perpetuating narrative, predictions may stand for another type of coincidence that hints at some divine intervention or irreversible fate. Such is the case of the horoscope in the third mendicant’s story. The father tries to thwart his son’s horoscope so he does not die at the age of fifteen, as foretold.112 Yet death occurs regardless of all precautions. On the other hand, dreams and visions lead action into further complications and solutions that are not necessarily relevant to any religious practice. In the same story, the protagonist tells us that he has heard a voice in his dream who says: “Oh (Ajib, when you wake up from your sleep, dig under your feet, and you will find a brass bow with three lead arrows inscribed with talismans.’ ” 113 While it is true that there is an Islamic context for the tales, this should not be seen as excluding other religions. In reference to the Sassanid or Islamic periods, there is due recognition of religious practices, especially the monotheistic. On many occasions, the (Abbāsids appointed their high officials from among Christians and Sabians. In “The Tale of the Enchanted King,” the wife is led into thinking that her lover asked her for a favor to lift the spell, so she “uttered some words over the lake, and the fish began to dance, and at that instant the spell was lifted, and the townspeople resumed their usual activities and returned to their buying and selling.” 114 If the reader wonders why there is specific mention of these four groups of townspeople, Muslims as white fish, Christians as blue, Jews as yellow, and Magians as red,115 we have to refer to two different traditions that had enforced specific costumes for each. Around 358 c.e., the Sassanid king Shapur II introduced a number of measures to emphasize a new legitimizing ideology built on human, not divine, presence. New table manners and

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court protocols were either stressed or introduced. Of more significance was the emergence of religious conflict and identity politics. Poll and land taxes were imposed on Christians in return for peace, and the Jews received the same protections in return for loyalty, taxes, and participation in defense. The practice continued under Islam, although there was more tolerance of religious practices. The Umayyad caliph (Umar ibn (Abd al-(Azīz introduced distinctive articles of dress to prevent administrative confusion and to apply some rules according to people’s faiths. However, these were thought of as humiliating signs, which Islam would never have endorsed. Nevertheless, depending on which jurist or chief justice was in power, there were times when such discriminatory dress codes or prohibition of fine cloth and the use of noble steeds were implemented. The imposition of dress codes occurred in Baghdad during the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd, also. In this respect, it is worth mentioning that the basic treatise on matters of relevance to the dhimmīs is the so-called Pact of (Umar, which is based on the Qur)ānic saying: “Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were given as believe neither in God nor the Last Day, and who do not forbid what God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true faith, until they pay tribute out of hand and are subdued” (9:27).116 Al-Shayzarī repeats what was perhaps already in practice when he concludes: “The dhimmīs were made to observe the conditions laid down for them . . . and must be made to wear the ghiyār ” as distinctive of their dress and thereby identity as non-Muslims. He adds: “If he is a Jew, he should put a red or a yellow cord on his shoulder; if a Christian, he should tie a zunnār [girdle] around his waist and hang a cross around the neck; if a woman, she should wear two slippers, one of which is white and the other black.” 117 Although these regulatory matters were usually enforced according to the inspector’s discretion, the change in times and the collapse of a central caliphate made them almost nonexistent. In addition, the losses suffered by Muslim communities changed the status of the dhimmīs to such extent that by the fourteenth century, an opposite tendency appeared in Egypt. The same phenomenon can be traced in the Thousand and One Nights, especially in the tales of the barber’s brothers. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah (d. 1329) writes in frustration: “If (Umar b. al-Kha•āb were now to see Jews and Christians! Their buildings raise themselves above the houses and mosques of Muslims, they have appellations which once belonged to the Caliphs and they give themselves their titles. . . . They go beyond the limits proper to their position and make great display with their speeches and actions.” 118 He adds: “They ride horses reserved for Muslims, dress in the fine clothes

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that should belong to Muslims, and even employ them [Muslims] as servants.” 119 The case does not pertain to men only, for women “leave their houses and walk in the streets they are hardly to be recognized. Also in the baths a Christian woman frequently will sit in the chief place while the Muslim women sit below her.” Furthermore, “They go to the sūqs [markets] also and sit in the shops of the merchants who pay them respect on account of their fine clothes; unaware they belong to the dhimmīs.” 120 Since the story of the “The Enchanted King” is one of the many tales that were Arabized and Islamicized, there is found in it a Sassanid and Islamic mix. The king’s reading of the Qur)ān is obviously meant to indicate that the king is a Muslim who is resigned to his fate. The wife’s practices fit in other traditions. The ponds and their colors then have some historical tinge. The application of dress codes was limited to the metropolis, however, where the caliph or chief jurist would like to divert attention from pressing matters or to appease other jurists, who were often discontented with the sovereign. Functionaries, like judges, effectively practiced the application of specific dress codes so that people would take notice of their job, function, and rank. The (Abbāsid chief justice Abū Yūsuf was the first to implement the procedure, according to the encyclopedic biographer Ibn Khallikān (d. 1282).121 Abū Yūsuf is important in this context for other reasons, however. He wrote his Kitāb al-Kharāj in compliance with the caliph’s order, during a time of growth, expansion, and enormous revenues. Baghdad was the center of the universe, and to be there meant great advantage and merit. The organization of the state involved not only the organization of the revenue systems but also the development of demographics that mapped the population as Muslims and non-Muslims, Arabs and non-Arabs, as the raging controversies among intellectuals at that time demonstrate. Abū Yūsuf’s set of classifications was part of this systematic mapping. “The dhimmīs should be bound to wear a girdle [zunnār] around their waists. And they should put on double laces in their sandals and should not use shoes similar to those of Muslims.” He adds: “their women should not be permitted to ride the saddles.” 122 This is not to limit their participation in communal and commercial life, argues the text, but mainly to apply what the second caliph (Umar did when he ordered his governors that “they should ask the dhimmīs to adopt this dress so that their dress is distinct from the Muslims.” He explains: “They should be permitted to live in the towns of the Muslims and in their streets and to buy and sell. But they should neither sell vine and swine, nor make a display of their crosses in the towns.” 123

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Islamic or Not? The Nature of the Discriminatory Instance As the needs of the state and the demands of statecraft involve other arrangements than the ones stressed by the Faith, we should not be surprised that the nisbah manuals tried to strike a balance between these demands and the Faith, to the disadvantage of the latter in many cases. Cases in which there is some clumsy categorization of the underprivileged are not few, and the manuals speak of these groups and issues of rank and status in a cautious manner, to escape the accusations of divergence from the path. However, storytellers have ways to fill in the gaps and people their narratives with these marginalized groups. Religion itself begins to assume a meaning other than faith—the amount of written material under the rubric of jurisprudence is so enormous as to intimidate any individual. This lies behind both the appearance of many Sufis seeking direct covenant with God and anecdotes related to pious men in the streets of Baghdad who quietly carried out the tenets of doing good and forbidding evil to the chagrin of the caliphs and their administrators.124 These developments should be related, however, to two things worth emphasizing in any reading of the tales and their presumed pious subtext, on which Western writers have already dwelled. There is, first, the relationship between class and religion, and, second, the narrative appropriation of sumptuousness and wealth as tropes for desire, usually counterbalanced with punishment and death. In the first instance, the Englishman John Payne, who produced a different and very literary rendition of the Arabian Nights in 1882–1884 (nine volumes), suggests that religious practice or its absence is class bound, for among the upper classes “drunkenness and debauchery of the most uncompromising kind prevailed.” 125 Among these circles, there is an unfaltering secularism that runs counter to the attitude of the lower and middle classes, who “were still profoundly and fanatically attached to the ‘Faith of the Unity of God.’ ” 126 Although this analysis is informed by British class consciousnesses, there is some narrative basis for it, especially in the tales that the critic and translator cites, such as “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.” On the other hand, the repeated association between wealth and sumptuousness with destruction and death, especially in “The City of Brass,” is not a passing matter. Again, the appropriation of the tale in European literature is not random, especially in writings that appeared by the end of the nineteenth century depicting an

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apocalyptic vision. The locale and the time of such tales in the Thousand and One Nights, eighth- and ninth-century Damascus and Baghdad, give this “end-times” sense, an apocalyptic vision that has its subtext in the Qur)ān. The young Khurāsānī nobleman who wrote to his father from the Baghdad of the late eighth century dwelled at length on signs of stupendous affluence and wealth, for “it is as if Baghdad had dropped its quarters onto the bed of life’s riches, and, from the abundance of wealth, the causes of ease and eminence had been found for the people.” 127 He adds with satisfaction and subtle resignation that this affluence “occurs among nations at the end of their rule and at the time when commanding becomes difficult.” 128 Within an urban setting and in tune with an urban disposition, the storyteller tried many ways of remedying the situation. The usual strategy is humor and parody. Whenever there is a mention of a porter, a barber, or another professional, there is always something in store to make the character appealing and as capable of reaching the best of private or public spheres, to balance what was lost to them in actual life or in nisbah manuals. We know that the manuals are not quite sanguine regarding these professions. Thus we read in ibn al-)Ukhuwwah’s manual that such professions as cuppers, weavers, watchmen, bath attendants, scavengers, fishermen, and their like should have no weight in legal proceedings. “Their choice of trade, although base, is proof of the meanness of their intelligence,” he argues.129 Nevertheless, he also suggests accepting their evidence in court as one option, “since necessity leads them to their choice.” 130 Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah takes it for granted that religion considers these professions as base,131 without citing for this interpretation any text from the Qur)ān or the Prophet’s sayings. Dress as position or rank, as well as the sign of each profession, becomes a basic characteristic of a social order. While also indicating the growth and organization of professions, these applications of dress codes or other terms of conduct are not absent from the Thousand and One Nights. The cycle of the barber and his brothers is one of the most entertaining and informative insofar as social manners and practices are concerned. In life, rank is sustained socially. Each profession indicates a manner of speech and conduct. There is no judge who attempts to go below his station, nor is there a wealthy person to concede to a poor one despite the existence of charity, benevolence, and communication among all. However, in the tales, the storyteller can trespass these strictures, letting the porter into the company of the three ladies, placing a barber in the court of the king of China, or even allowing a cobbler or his son to be kings. There are only certain ways in which these transgressions of the social order can be

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achieved, however. A supernatural agency, for instance, or the character’s intelligence and wit can raise people high or bring them low. Tales such as the cycle of the barber and his brothers take us away from the supernatural or courtly life and involve us in the domain of professionals and functionaries. Even merchants, despite their ubiquitous presence in the tales and the appreciation of their vocation in Islam, were not easily accepted in upper-class or courtly society. They would pass through a number of trials, including mutilation at times, to prove their merit, refinement, and readiness to suffer for love. Between the marketplace and the sovereign’s domain of courtiers and entourage there is usually a physical distance, along with other means of separation. Limits are physical, moral, and psychological. When a maid or lady decides to come to the market upon hearing of a charming young merchant who could make a good companion or husband, a rite of passage is never possible without some sacrifice on the male’s part.

The Islamic Law and the State One may question the tales on other grounds: do they reflect an Islamic spirit or an Islamic state? Or rather, do their representations undergo refraction for the purpose of laying bare the unsaid? There are positive and negative answers to these questions, because storytellers are not statesmen or jurists. They have their own understanding of how society is and how it must be. There are many corresponding instances between the tales and urban manifestations of pleasure, vicissitudes, and aspiration, but there are others that depict part of the truth in order to critique the other part with ease and tact. It is these that make the tale appealing to some audiences but “loathsome” to others, as the Baghdadi bibliophile al-Nadīm claims. The latter’s view of the book should be looked at as exemplifying late tenth-century elitist taste, which has another element related to conditions placed on education, that is, that it should not include the teaching of any material with frivolous or obscene content, such as the poetry of ibn al-majjāj. This point was mentioned by al-Shayzarī, ibn al-)Ukhuwwah,132 and in other manuals that used Islamic law and its further elaborations and additions to deal with new cases. New circumstances can be regressive or progressive, however, and early jurists were more open minded and receptive to change than their successors. Abū Yūsuf used to admit his inability to solve problems and questions, and many times he resorted to his mentor Abū manīfa for further elucidation.133 Instances of disparity and discrimination that we come across in state-

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craft and nisbah manuals are remedied in the tales, but with a vengeance. How can the storyteller speak for the barber, the porter, and the cobbler, who are his audience? How can he speak for slaves or women, whom jurists single out as potentially part of his audience? Let us read ibn al-)Ukhuwwah on the difference in punishment leveled on people who are wealthy or better educated than the rest. He is certainly right about the nature and amount of admonition required in cases where people differ in necessity and need, but he is not so in making it a general application. He argues: Ta(zīr [decided by the judge as punishment with due admonition] equals the statutory penalty in being correction designed to bring about reformation and provide warning. It differs in that the correction of persons of standing who have been of good conduct is less severe than that carried out upon persons of vile speech and frivolous conduct, and is graded according to the rank of the persons concerned, although they are treated as equal in respect to the statutory penalties.134

The last sentence sets the difference between Islamic law and the demands of the state. As the subsequent explanation says, the punishment of the “lower classes” can be flagellation.135 The manual is tactful enough to avoid such cases of rank, but there are other cases that speak plainly of the invalidity of evidence given by slaves.136 In opposition to this, the tales present cases in which slaves outsmart officials and dignitaries. The market evolves as the place where there are possibilities of transgression, hence the prevention of storytellers and diviners from using it for their purposes. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah devotes many pages to the consideration of terms of adjustment to such a public sphere. Apart from the prohibition on setting out benches or seats “beyond the line of pillars supporting the roof of the sūq so as to obstruct passers-by,” or the tethering of animals, or allowing refuse, melon skins, and water in the passageway,137 there are many other prohibitions to prevent “dubious situations,” as he calls the possible gathering of men and women. Astrologers and letter writers are not “to sit in lanes, byways or shops.” 138

Law and Terms of Beauty There are different transgressions, however, that can upset the whole order. Storytellers practice their sense of revenge upon the upper-class society by means of detailed descriptions of sumptuousness, but their actual revenge takes place whenever they choose a black slave as the companion to

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a queen or to a wealthy lady. In the frame story, this is exactly what changes Shahrayār’s worldview, his attitude to womankind, and his melancholy and morbidity. In the story of “The Enchanted King,” the queen prefers a crippled black slave who lives among rubbish mounds to the king and his palace. Yet, while seemingly revenging themselves on racism or social inequality, the tales are not unified. Being composite in nature and of different origins and formations, they also have other preferences. In many narratives, there is an underlying preference for whiteness, a preference that runs counter to Islamic teaching. In Islam, the Prophet’s last speech specifies that there is no merit for any race or color in Islam, only for piety. The narrator speaks of Tawaddud’s fair skin and complexion with great preference for whiteness, just as he does when describing other young men and women. When allowing the female protagonist to fall in love with a black man, this is usually a type of revenge carried out against the society or royalty. On other occasions, as in the story of “The Enchanted King,” the woman protagonist is a magician who is deprived, thereby, from the comfort and serenity of the faith. While the use of color and the preference for whiteness is quite dominant in the tales, we should remember, too, that Islam prohibits any such discrimination. The Prophet’s companions and early supporters were not only the Arabs of Quraish but also slaves, Ethiopians, and the poor. Due to this historical complexity, it is difficult to speak of one color or attitude in a composite product. The many redactors of the tales may be behind many of the conflicting views and dispositions that resist clear-cut compartmentalization in terms of race, religion, and gender.

The Paradisiacal Referent Another way of dealing with religious conceptualizations that have some global or universal underpinnings is to look for general frames of reference, such as paradise. Paradise is found throughout the Thousand and One Nights, both as a wished-for blessing and an ultimate desirable settlement for the faithful and as the subtext for the creation of worldly bliss in narrative. Such is the ninety-nine room palace in the tale of the third dervish, who leaves his kingdom behind, like many dilettantes in the interwar periods in the modern age, to stumble into adventure before reaching the last promising refuge of Baghdad. The ultimate comparison in the tales is paradise as described in the Qur)ān. Taken literally with no allegorical implications, paradise is the utmost beauty and grandeur. To be deprived of it means utter loss, for there is nothing that can comparably compensate

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for the loss. In the third mendicant’s or dervish’s tale (nights 53 through 62), the mendicant is desperate to repeat the journey of others to this paradise on earth. There he finds gardens, joy, and everything of which the human can ever dream. There are also forty extremely charming and entertaining girls. They tell him to enjoy himself and to see and taste everything, but not to open the red door. They leave him with this warning, which he is too curious to respect: We are about to leave for forty days. We commit to you now all the keys to this palace, which contains one hundred chambers. Eat and drink and enjoy looking around in every chamber, for each one you open will occupy you a full day, but there is one chamber you must never open or even approach, for it is its opening that will cause our separation. You have ninetynine chambers to open and to enjoy looking at what is in them as you please, but if you open the one with the door of red gold, that will cause our separation.139

The implications of the warning may repeat the Adam-and-Eve syndrome, as it poses the problems involved in human desire. Insofar as the religious context is concerned, however, we should remember that there are some omissions on the part of the protagonist, the third dervish now and King (Ajīb before, which disable him from assimilation into the Muslim faith. Despite his God-fearing pronouncements, he listens to a dream that has some insinuations against the invocation of God. Even if this condition applies to one specific trip, he nevertheless shows a readiness to follow the instructions of the dream. In the Muslim tradition, Iblis or Satan takes many forms to test the faithful and to lure the weak. The third dervish follows most of the instructions mentioned in the dream. In his stay at the palace, there is no mention whatsoever of Islam, no recitations nor indications of piety, and no thankfulness to God for this bliss. Deprived of any Islamic piety, this earthly paradise becomes another world that requires no Satanic lure. Thus, curiosity drives him to open the door, where he is hit by a horse and taken back to his point of departure, regretting ever after his loss and disappointment. The narrative takes paradise as the ultimate settlement of the blessed soul, the end of the journey and thus of narrative, for with normal amounts of joy and satisfaction there is only monotony and repetitive recurrence, which is the opposite of flowing narrative. On the other hand, the forbidden red door is also the one of attraction that resists closure. Its very existence amid availability, accessibility, and abundance makes it a tantalizing challenge that plays on human cu-

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riosity. On the narrative level, it becomes the secret that dynamicizes narrative, as it provokes action and works on one’s impatience. It is equal on the moral level to virginity, which also propels the narrative in the Thousand and One Nights. Isn’t it this virginity that Shahrayār and the whole male tradition cherish? Isn’t its protection behind wars of honor? Isn’t its loss equal to death? In loss or preservation there is a rupture that cannot be healed unless there are other interventions, which we usually associate with law, morality, or a supernatural agency.

The Sanctified Sphere Religion may well be invoked to support this preservation, as the nisbah narratives indicate. These manuals leave no public sphere unmapped, even mosques, where women should appear veiled and separate from men, according to ibn al-)Ukhuwwah. He argues: “Women must be forbidden to attend mosques for worship or preaching—meetings if they fear that attention may be distracted by them. . . . But a woman should not be forbidden to pass through a mosque veiled.” 140 As the safest place in Muslim tradition and the least likely to draw suspicions, the mosque can be the most secure place for hiding and the right location to perform otherwise impossible meetings and arrangements that involve secrecy and demand the utmost care. In the story of (Alī ibn Bakkār and the slave girl Shams, her maid and the jeweler find safety in the mosque to escape inquisitive eyes, an action that the market inspector would not condone.141 The case is different, however, when both (Alī ibn Bakkār and the jeweler are robbed by highwaymen on their way to Anbar province. They act as strangers, where there is no safety for them except in a mosque.142 As the sanctuary and the sacred space, it also endows acts and performances with blessings and bulwarks belief with great certainty and assurance. It is different from the marketplace, despite their proximity in Muslim cities. In the young man’s story, “The Steward’s Tale,” 143 the marketplace is dubious, uncertain, and pregnant with choices, opportunities, and mixed results. The young man is charmed by Lady Zubaida’s waitingwoman (“as she sat in my shop and unveiled her face . . . when I saw it, I sighed”),144 but he suspects her of cheating him and squandering his money. The meeting reflects both the inspectors’ suspicions of such meetings and unveilings and the possibility of mischief. The suspicions are not randomly maintained, for two reasons. First, he is a cloth merchant, and cloth merchants are watched carefully by the muntasibs. Al-Shayzarī argues, “During the present time I have seen most of the cloth merchants in the markets

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acting unlawfully in their transactions.” 145 While the government is the one who suspects merchants, there is the possibility that the cloth merchant may fall in love because of his clients are female, who either send their maids or visit the merchant as if they were maids. Many get caught in the traps of women, too, whereas others come across women who are sincerely in love with them and who sacrifice their lives for such love affairs. The second issue at stake in these market transactions relates to immoderation in spending, which is warned against in the Qur)ān. AlGhazālī warns against this, since squandering is “like burning or ripping clothes, destroying a building for no purpose, or throwing money into the sea.” 146 The Qur)ān says, “Do not squander your wealth like a spendthrift. Spendthrifts are brothers of the devils” (17:26–27). In the narrative of Lady Zubaida’s maid, things take a different and more sincere, though complicated, turn. At the height of his suspicions, the cloth merchant is informed of her love and is given back all his dues in a transaction that makes him the happiest of merchants. The mosque works differently. In the same tale, the eunuch tells the merchant of the arrangement to sneak him into the palace via a river that leads from the mosque to the assigned place. The journey is secure and safe and only upon leaving the river, when they are beyond the sanctity of the mosque, do the unintended and undesirable results begin. The eunuch says to the young merchant when arranging the journey to the palace: “As soon as it is night, go to the mosque built by the Lady Zubaida on the Tigris River.” The merchant tells us that he “went to the mosque, where . . . [he] performed . . . [his] evening prayer and passed the night” in preparation for the secret entry into the palace to meet Lady Zubaida, gain her trust and approval, and get married to her waiting-woman.” 147 The arrangements that follow are worth mentioning. Just before daybreak, “there came up some servants in a boat, with some empty chests, which they deposited in the mosque and departed.” 148 The chests are supposed to be filled with cloth, and one of them is reserved for the young man, in order to sneak him into the most secure part of the palace, where the lady and her women are located. To make the story more challenging and to draw attention to the complexity of the transaction between the market and the palace, the Commander of the Faithful appears and asks to have the chests opened. The maid’s resourcefulness prevents the hapless merchant’s discovery, but it does not erase class differences between the market and the palace. The mosque appeals to Islamic ethics of equality and justice, and there are, therefore, none of the aforementioned class distinctions or attending

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complications. In the palace, the merchant remains a different species from the nobility. Thus, when he smells of cumin, the waiting-woman asks her maids to help her cut off his two thumbs as punishment. Regardless of the Freudian interpretations, what counts for this reading of context is the application of a class punishment to an act that disturbs the refined table manners of the nobility—but not Islam. Although he is appalled at this “cursed temper,” he nevertheless accepts it as a part of the transaction, for he tells her: “I pledge to you that I will never again eat ragout spiced with cumin without washing my hands one hundred and twenty times.” 149 His other invocations indicate resignation rather than revolt: “There is no power and no strength save in God, the Almighty, and the Magnificent.” 150 The mutilation is enforced as a dominating class whim no less devastating than Shahrayār’s. It is an enforcement of manner and etiquette not through education and cultivation but through a physical punishment unrelated to any religious practice or decree. He is neither a thief nor an adulterer. Even whipping is limited to specific cases, including certain kinds of adultery or the presentation of false witnesses. In other cases, it is a common practice, not a law. On the other hand, it is applicable to either sex. We come across many tales in which women use the whip. The ensorcelled king of the Ebony Islands is whipped by his wife; the Baghdadi youth is whipped and maimed by Lady Zubaida’s maid for eating the zirbajah (ragout) without properly washing. The dogs in “The Porter and Three Ladies of Baghdad” are whipped by order of the good jinn, who has come to the rescue of the eldest lady.151

Apostasy and the End of Narrative These narratives operate in a socioreligious context as an urban milieu, without delving into the complications of faith. We may come across examples of serious religious controversy on apostasy and zandaqah (heresy or unbelief) in general, but these are rare, and storytellers and historians are usually in line with the mainstream. These end as narratives as soon as the accused are captured and punished. Thus the need in narrative for something else to enliven the closed narrative and involve it in urbanity. Urban tales tend to be anecdotal in order to convince their audiences of their reliability because, unless there is a historical similitude, the audience may suspect too much fabrication. On the other hand, the anecdote offers itself easily to the storyteller to be transmitted, transformed, modified, and improved on to meet the expectations of the changing public in different milieus and locations. Basic to

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these anecdotal narratives is the emphasis on paradoxical ironies depicting some discrepancy between one’s expectations and the final outcome, due to shortsightedness, greed, parasitism, or curiosity. These may come with a maxim of one sort or another, but that may come in poetic recapitulations rather than in a conclusion, as is the case with fables with a definite moral. These tales may build on the ruse as a mercurial medium that allows different shades of behavior, while eluding the specifications and ordinances of a religious discourse. They may have deliberate anachronisms, such as showing the caliph al-Ma)mūn, for example, in pursuit of zanādiqah (including renegades, apostates, and atheists). Night 152152 repeats what is available in historical accounts such as Murūj al-Dhahab (Meadows of Gold ) or Al-‘Iqd al-Farīd: a parasitic barber slipped in among a group of people in a boat, thinking they are on their way to a feast. In the Thousand and One Nights, he soon notices that these are captives held by the police and are being taken to the caliph al-Mustanùir Billāh (r. 1226–1242) for punishment.153 Had it not been for the number of people already detected by the police and the discovery that the barber was unaccounted for, he would have been mistaken for a criminal and beheaded. Instead, he is asked to offer an explanation for why he is among the group. In historical accounts, he explains his surprise to be involved in religious matters and debates of belief and faith, for he is a parasite, •ufaylī, who puts himself in awkward situations due to his uncontrollable curiosity and nosiness. The story, as it is reported by al-Mas(ūdī in Murūj al-Dhahab, emphasizes the dangers of parasitism and unlimited curiosity and, as usual, concludes with the test of showing the apostates the image of Mānī, asking them to spit on it. If they perform this act, they are freed; otherwise, they are beheaded. The story in the Thousand and One Nights adds to this test a variety of dramatic effects, for the parasite shows more of his character, his joy at thinking that he is in the company of a group of revelers, and his despair at being in danger. Still, both the historical account and the tale have some things in common. Aside from the plot and as befitting the narrative, the caliph is present as arbiter, judge, authority, and power. However, not only is he the source of justice, but he is also a pleasant person who enjoys a good joke.154 The tale becomes a narrative bridge between fact and fiction, historical and religious controversy and marginalized life. It separates religious diversity and difference from its harsh realities and places it in a social milieu of joy and fear, expectation and disappointment. These anecdotes elevate grim reality to another level, and religion is returned to the people as faith rather than as a set of decrees. It fits, therefore, in another cycle in the

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collection that has this blend of the joyful and the representational, the historical and the parodic. There is much anecdotal literature, especially in narrative form, which deals with issues of faith, flirtation, and verbal transgressions, and this literature requires detailed and systematic classification. Flirtatious humor is in abundance, and it obviously made up a significant portion of the life and training of slave girls and the practice of dilettantes and boon-companions. Thus, to describe the Commander of the Faithful, the caliph al-Mutawakkil himself, as “a noble pimp,” that epithet must pass into the narrative as a song inserted by the devil Abū Murra into the mind of the singer Isnāq al-Mawùilī, forcing him to recite and sing the blasphemous and the prohibitive. According to the author of Murūj al-Dhahab, the following two lines were recited by Abū Murra when training Isnāq in excellence in singing: A sweet voice may well deprive a man from manliness You are a noble pimp, commander of the faithful.155

The tale is an account of how the caliph’s slave girl Fabl, a poet in her own right, answered Banan the singer, whom she loved, in a manner that undermines the power relations that made it possible for her to lead a privileged life and enjoy a distinguished status. Banan’s songs were more in line with the pre-Islamic erotic prelude, its nostalgic recollection of days past, and its mourning of loss. Poetry here traverses the ground between different historical periods and terrains, while the intervention of satanic verses only intensifies the subversion of authority under the guise of intoxication and ultimate joy.156 The anecdote may stand for many other tales that play on such diversions and make the collection a medley of history and fiction, or, in urban terms, an alley or sidewalk unsupervised closely by market inspectors. This nature of the tales brings religion as faith closer to the mass audience and retains for them its perennial, universal values. Faith, in this way, can easily accommodate other sentiments and provide life with more beauty, affection, and love.

Love or Sex? It is rare to come across a treatise on love and sex in classical and postclassical Arabic culture without finding it adorned with mentions of God’s munificence and compassion. Thus, before embarking on his project to write a treatise on love, the Andalusian jurist, statesman, and litterateur ibn mazm (994–1064 c.e.) begins as follows: “No better beginning can

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there be for my book than that I should praise Almighty God as He is worthy, and pray for His blessings upon Mohammed His servant and messenger in particular, and upon all His prophets in general.” 157 Not only this, but there is also an interest in justifying love on moral or religious grounds. Ibn mazm writes as follows: “Love is neither disapproved by Religion, nor prohibited by the Law; for every heart is in God’s hands.” 158 X mar ibn Munammad al-Nafzāwī (eighth/fourteenth century), the author of the notorious Al-Rawb al-(Ā•ir fi Nuzhat al-Khā •ir (The Perfumed Garden), goes even further, recounting narratives of sexual affairs and postures, framing the whole with religious supplications and invocations of God’s mercy and compassion.159 While this is a normal procedure in Islamic writing generally, these recurrent invocations on almost every page in books on love and sex should alert us to the unease that the authors felt when dealing with the subtle nature of love or sex. Love is, nevertheless, everywhere in Arabic literature. Pre-Islamic poetry is so rich with love references that it includes an erotic prelude and opening. This is a major theme in the tales, too, both in quantitative terms (that is, the large number of tales that have love as their topic) and as a narrative motif that can traverse lands and times. It is global, rather than particular, but there are also some aspects that indicate its Islamic character. Mia Gerhardt counts “twenty-odd fulllength and short stories” and “nearly as many brief pieces.” 160 Love stories have characteristics, however, which may lead us to their origin. There are ones with realistic and urban details, though at times they are sprinkled with some magical touches that give them an exquisite blend of the realistic and the fantastic. These are of Baghdadi origin, while the ones that focus on unknown partners who are conquered by love are possibly Persian. In the latter, there is always a motif of an aversion to men, which Gerhardt and others associate with this Persian origin. I think, however, that the aver­sion motif is an ancient one and is a means to dynamicize the theme and accelerate action. Fainting is more attuned to the Indo-Persian origin, and storytellers name characters as “so and so the Persian” to emphasize this side of anguish. These tales of agonized souls and languishing bodies can be confused easily with Bedouin stories, too, although the latter are distin­guished by estrangement. There are various reasons behind this, but at times love itself requires separation. Passion can be consumed soon after meeting; separation keeps it inflamed. In these tales, there is also an association between love and beauty, since beauty can overwhelm the lover with yearning, while music and singing are means of communication between the two. Beauty may have specific features and characteristics in the tales, but its appeal varies according to

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the people involved. Beauty defies space and persuades supernatural agents to bring together lovers who live far away from each other, indeed from as far as China. When the young prince Qamar al-Zamān (the moon of the ages) resists his father’s wish to get married, he is imprisoned in an attic, a procedure that repeats what happens to Badura, the young princess in China, who is not interested in marriage. Both are confined, but two genies, one male and one female, come across these young people and become keen on getting them together, to test who will be attracted to the other regardless of their early resistance to marriage. As the story of the young man from Baghdad and the barber tells us, the storyteller is not sanguine toward motifs of resistance to love and company. Everyone with this revulsion is brought under control, to love, become enraptured, and admit the power of love regardless of the consequences. Such is the story of Dunya, Badura, and Qamar al-Zaman and the story of the Baghdadi young man and the judge’s daughter. Bernard Shaw was not far from the truth when commenting on love in the tales. He argues: “love is treated in them [the tales] as naturally as any other passion.” 161 This naturalness is balanced by something else, however, which makes it more titillating by being so passionate. According to Poole in his Edinburgh Review article, there is in the tales, “absolute abandon” because “lovers love, and that is enough; no power on earth can keep them apart—or if it can, they die.” 162 Badura and Qamar al-Zaman become lovesick when waking up, each wearing a new ring, without the presence of the partner. Both are sure there is a partner, a lover, and a husband. The story sets the world at large, from Baghdad to China, as the arena of this love affair. The language of communication is taken for granted as being Arabic, as this story is set during the heyday of the Muslim empire. The world of the real, with its barriers of time and space, belies their claims that they are married to each other and that they have engaged in an exquisite love experience, until the agency of the supernatural intercedes to ensure their reunion. But love can lead to death, for separation from the partner drives the lover to languish in agony. In the context of Arabic traditions, there is sympathy for lovers. Ibn mazm quotes ibn (Abbās, adding, “a single sentence by him amply dispenses with any need for further quotation; he pronounced the weighty judgment: ‘this man was slain by love: there is therefore no case for blood wit or retaliation.’ ” 163 Love in the Thousand and One Nights has many dimensions, especially in urban situations, which compose the largest portion of the tales. In the story of Nūr al-Dīn ‘Alī ibn Bakkār and Shams al-Nahār, which was the source for Lord Tennyson’s “Recollections of the Arabian Nights,” there is some difference between

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the events that take place in the city and those that take place outside of it. On the Tigris, after a river journey, there is a pastoral setting and an atmosphere that invites music and singing and softens the hearts of all, especially the Commander of the Faithful. In the city, the jeweler who provides help and support to the lovers suffers difficulties, is attacked by robbers, and runs away in shame. Thus Shams al-Nahār’s maid tries to let him know her side of the story: “As for myself, when I saw the men, fearing that they were the caliph’s officers who came to seize me and my mistress forthwith and take us to our ruin, I and the two maids fled over the rooftops from place to place until we took refuge with some people.” 164 On the other hand, the jeweler tells us his side of the story, where he is ready to hide in the mosque: “whenever I wanted to stop and speak with her [the maid], I was seized with fear until I reached a mosque in an unfrequented spot and went in. She went in after me. . . . ” 165 The mosque becomes the refuge for participants in a complicated love affair. Obviously, storytellers did not think at that time that a mosque should be reserved for prayers and be used as shelter in dire circumstances only, as has been the case since the fifteenth century. Forms of love as well as instances of fascination, attachment, and infatuation may seem far removed from any religious context. However, we need to have a look at what jurists and theologians said on these matters to understand the connection between the seemingly worldly and the religious. Since early Islamic times, there have been traditions that suggest how the Prophet used to answer questions pertaining to lifestyle, marriage, divorce, and infatuation or love. His emphasis on the need to care for and understand women has had a lasting influence on Sufis, for ibn (Arabī (d. 1240) says: “Whoever knows the worth of women and the mystery reposing in them will not refrain from loving them; indeed, love for them is part of the perfection of a man who knows God, for it is a legacy of the Prophet and a Divine love.” 166 Other traditions report how the Prophet’s cousin, the fourth caliph (Alī ibn Abī §ālib, addressed such concerns and elaborated on issues that we usually think of as outside the specific domain of Islamic authority. Love entails utter devotion to the beloved, and people in love are known for “their leanness of body, length of suffering, paleness, lack of sleep, languor in looks, preoccupied mind, susceptibility to weeping, bewilderment and sense of awe, plenty of sighs, yearning, crying, and frequent groans.” 167 Thus in the story of (Azīz and (Azīzah,168 the careless youth (Azīz has no idea what expectations the young girl has while she has been testing him. Unable to fathom the secrets of the practices and codes that strive to test his seriousness in love, he cannot curb his susceptibility

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to sensuousness and his insatiable desire for food. The more the lover is infatuated, the less inclined to sensual desires he should be. Had it not been for the advice of his cousin and the requests she has made to Dalilah’s daughter not to hurt him, (Azīz might not have survived the tests. He is the opposite of ibn Bakkār (nights 152–153), whose separation from the beloved entails despair and death. This is in accordance with strong and well-established traditions, which support this attitude and indeed cherish it as one of sincerity, faith, and blessedness. Al-Washshā) (d. 325/936) lists a number of conditions to demonstrate the actual ingredients and signs of love. There is constancy in love, for “in the past when a man loved a woman, then he did not desert her until death, his heart concerned itself with no other, and he did not endeavor to find consolation elsewhere.” He adds: “Inconstancy is not a quality of educated people, and constant change is not the affair of the well-bred.” 169 This is the tradition that every theorist of love, especially ibn Dāwūd and ibn mazm, supports and applauds. Jurists and theologians treated love as an act of religiosity and compiled evidence that it drew the approval and support of the Prophet. The English poet laureate Tennyson identifies with these lovers, and he captures the languid Shams (“the sun of the day”) in “The Story of Noureddin and the Beautiful Persian.” She is torn between her love and gratitude to the caliph who takes her as his favorite female singer. In Tennyson’s “Recollections of the Arabian Nights,” the beautiful Persian prays not for the love of the caliph but for his hatred, so that she can release herself from her overwhelming sense of guilt, since she is indisposed to repay the caliph’s kindness and care with love. The poem evolves as a celebration of a land of bliss or, as J. H. Buckley argues, a “realm of pleasance,” for the caliph “Haroun’s Baghdad to the young Tennyson is essentially the city of eternal artifice, in a realm of self-subsistent reality beyond all movement and desire.” 170 The topic draws the attention of many, including George Meredith, as it brings something new to the concept of love: the resistance to reciprocity. In general beauty, as the pivotal point of love in classical Arabic literature, takes a variety of forms and some writers, such as al-Jāniµ (d. 868/9) elaborate on multiple perspectives in his Epistles (Rasā)il ). Each woman has something to say about her type of beauty and, indeed, each mentions it in such a way as to convince any listener, a point that the writer himself endorses in further explanations that take the form of apology and defense. Beauty is exalted in terms that appear often in other classical Arabic treatises. However, despite the tendency among Arab classicists to argue the beauty of all colors and races, the Thousand and One Nights is more at­

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tuned to such descriptions as the one in the “History of Qamar al-Zaman . . . and of Badoura, Princess of China” or the one in the story of the slave girl Tawaddud. In the former, the male genie Danhash appreciates beauty thus: Her hair is of a fine brown, and of such length that it reaches below her feet. It grows in such abundance that when she wears it in curls on her head it resembles a fine bunch of grapes, with berries of extraordinary size. Under her hair appears her well-formed forehead, as smooth as the most polished mirror; her eyes are of brilliant black, and full of fire; her nose is neither too large nor too short; her mouth small and tinted with vermilion, her teeth like two rows of pearls, but surpasses the finest of those gems in whiteness, and when she opens her mouth to speak, she utters a sweet and agreeable voice, and expresses herself in words which prove the liveliness of her wit. The most beautiful alabaster is not whiter than her neck.

In “The Story of the Two Viziers,” Sit al-musn is described as one “like the shining moon, with jet black hair, soft cheeks, smiling mouth, swelling bosom, firm wrists, and opulent limbs.” 171 The slave girl Tawaddud was noted for her swimming gait, flexible and delicate, albeit she was full five feet in height and by all the boons of fortune deckt and dight, with strait arched brows twain, as they were the crescent moon of Sha(aban, and eyes like gazelles’ eyne; and nose like the edge of scimitar fine and cheeks like anemones of blood-red shine; and mouth like Solomon’s seal and sign and teeth like necklaces of pearls in line; and navel holding an ounce of oil of benzoin and whom concealment hath made sick with pine and hind parts heavier than two hills of sand; briefly she was a volume of charms . . . 172

The celebration of these qualities in the tales also resonates among European circles, centuries after their introduction in their original context. The reasons behind the very positive response are worth noting, too, as the tales of love meet the predilections of the receiving milieu. Walter Bagehot, the editor of the National Review—which later gave birth to the Economist—and author of The British Constitution, wrote: “The Arabian idea of female loveliness is a high one.” He adds: “the narrator places his lovers among scenes which shall be in keeping with themselves,—in noble gardens or adorned palaces, amid the play of fountains and the song of birds; wine must have music to attend it, and wit and eloquence give a charm in convivial intercourse.” 173 Beauty is inclusive of many merits that

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go beyond its physical components. Refinement, wit, education, and tact are always emphasized, despite the implications of the first sight in many tales. In the “Story of the Tailor and the Young Merchant,” the old lady looks at the young man and realizes he is “lovesick” despite the fact that he has only seen a young woman whose complexion is radiant and whose smile is pleasantly disposed. Ibn mazm of Muslim Spain doubts love at first sight and suggests instead long acquaintance and familiarity, arguing, “when a man falls in love at first sight, and forms a sudden attachment as a result of a fleeting glance, that proves him to be little steadfast, and proclaims that he will as suddenly forget his romantic adventure; it testifies to his fickleness and inconstancy.” 174 Counter to this is the long acquaintance: “slow produced is slow consumed.” 175 First sight may bring about strong passion, however, whenever the person has no previous contact with the other sex. The young man from Baghdad argues his case as follows: “It happened that God had made me a hater of women, and one day, as I was walking along one of the streets of Baghdad, a group of women blocked my way and I fled from them into a blind alley.” 176 There he sat on a bench, “when a window opened and there appeared, tending some flowers in the window, a young lady, as radiant as the moon and so beautiful that I have never seen one more beautiful.” 177 He adds: “when she saw me, she smiled; setting my heart on fire, and my hatred for women was changed to love.” 178 This alteration of attitude does not contradict the author of The Ring of the Dove, ibn mazm. It is a passion inflamed by three factors: beauty, lack of experience, and the situation itself (that is, being alone in a lonely street). The woman herself has the upper hand insofar as location and position are concerned. She looks from the window in her second-floor apartment, she smiles at him, and she enjoys her beauty and the Baghdadi life of prosperity and elegance of the eighth through tenth centuries. The young man is so struck by this first sight that he “continued sitting there, lost to the world till close to sundown,” when the judge, her father, enters the house.179 This is not the end of the story; it is the beginning, for the young man tells us, “I went home in sorrow and fell on my bed, consumed with passion.” 180 The old woman, the go-between, tells him how the young woman lives in seclusion on the second floor while her father and mother occupy the first floor. We understand that the young woman threatens the old woman not to mention this young man to her. The young woman is portrayed as if she enjoys inflaming the passions of those who pass by.181 We should also note her father’s position as the judge of the city; his family should avoid social and moral transgressions. On the other hand, education has some-

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thing to say regarding the position of both sexes, since in some stories women of high rank resist men for no reason other than their impression that males, among all creatures, neglect their partners. Men may also build their dispositions based on some ancestral authority, for Qamar al-Zamān tells us, “I am well aware of the embarrassment and trouble occasioned by women; moreover, I have frequently read in our authors of their arts, their cunning, and their perfidy.” Although he qualifies this with “I may not always retain this opinion,” it speaks of a body of literature that focuses on ruse and craft. The idea is as old as biblical stories, but it conversely demonstrates the dynamic and intelligent presence of women, a point I elaborated on for a full chapter in my book Mujtama‘alf laylah wa-laylah (The society of the Arabian Nights).182 The frame tale sets the prototype for this combination of ruse to outwit arrogance and smartness to win in situations demanding acumen, tact, and knowledge. There is, nevertheless, a contradictory and controversial attitude in the tales that applies specifically to a number of old women, who, in urban centers, either mediate between young men and women or practice deceit. In the first instance, old women can approach households easily, since they know most of the families around them. Thus, in the barber’s story, an old woman tells the young man from Baghdad: “I could mention to you an infinite number of young people of your acquaintance who have endured the same pain that you now feel, and for whom I have obtained consolation.” 183 In the second instance, in the story of the barber’s second brother, an old woman accosts him, we are told, in a “retired street,” inviting him to a house, where he is robbed, beaten, and almost murdered. The negative image of old women is inconsistent in the tales, but when it connotes mischief we come across such descriptions as the one in the “Tale of the Second Lady, the Flogged One,” in the cycle of the “Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.” She describes the one who ensnares and traps her as follows: “One day, as I was sitting at home, an old woman came to me, and what an old woman she was, with a pallid, scabby skin, a bent body; matted gray hair; a gray, freckled face; broken teeth; plucked-out eye-brows; hollow, bleary eyes, and a runny nose.” In a word, she depicts her as the most vilelooking creature for causing her so much calamity and disaster.184 The old woman as go-between has a double role to play: to help in bringing people together and to trick others into dubious situations, not only in the tales but also in travel accounts. The Muslim sailor Bozorg ibn Schahriar (d. 953 c.e.) tells us in his travelogue The Wonders of India how a merchant uses an old woman to persuade a vizier’s wife in Baghdad to have a passing adulterous relationship with a desperate young traveler.185 Both

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adultery and polygamy are present in the Thousand and One Nights, and both perpetuate narrative. The frame story derives its powerful cycle of trial, retribution, and reward from the garden episode where the king’s wife and her women companions have their orgy with slaves disguised as women. The frame story is supposed to be of Sassanid origin, but there are travel and anecdotal accounts that relate similar tales that end in trouble and punishment. Polygamy is practiced against the strict Qur)ānic rules designed to maintain justice among wives. In the tales it leads to jealousy, competition, and mischief. It is good to remember, however, that the tales, as oral narratives before passing through scriptorial restraints, speak for storytellers who are part of marginalized groups. Their curiosity and desire to penetrate privacy drove them to imagine this world and verbally construct its images. In these literary productions, in order to entertain, they mix history, travel accounts, and fiction. They try to meet the desires and expectations of their audiences, especially in matters relating to human aspirations and requirements. They still find in religious allegories enough patterns to satisfy these needs and demands of the mass public.

Vicissitudes of Fortune and Human Frailties What makes the tales appealing to non-Muslim audiences cannot be limited solely to the art of storytelling and the colorful context. There are also the underlying human concerns, inhibitions, expectations, and commonalities shared by all readers and listeners regardless of race, color, and nation. Victorian critics tried to explain this enormous appeal, and they found in the many instances of universal properties a source of attraction. The Spectator for November 25, 1882, writes: “There is a wind of wisdom— wisdom not of Islam, but of all creeds—which intermittently blows through all the jungle of growths, fair and foul, grand trees and poisonous creepers.” 186 This search for an explanation is not completely positive, and it certainly voices disapproval of many tales. Universal topicality covers human aspirations or weaknesses, but we can cite only some for the purpose of this chapter, to demonstrate the subtle blend of the universal and the particular in social life and politics. Storytellers build their narrative on basic human frailties. They may well succumb to the circulating images of women to argue for the case of envy, for instance. Indeed, even such a renowned polymath as al-Jāniµ of Basra, who was well known for his balanced view of things, could not restrain himself from comparing envy to women when he quotes: “Someone has said, ‘Envy is female because it is

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contemptible, enmity male because it is noble.’ ” 187 Luckily, the tales do not subscribe to this view, for envy recurs as human frailty regardless of gender. Most of the stories of domestic life or public politics make use of the motive of envy. In the story of the Jewish physician, the man from Mosul tells us how one of the Damascene sisters is so jealous of her young sister’s love for the young man that she poisons her. This envious disposition is associated with the girl’s sojourn for some time in Egypt and her presumed sexual intrigues there. Men are no exception. In the story of “The Old Man and the Two Dogs,” the two dogs are none other than his brothers, on whom he has spent large sums to ensure their success as merchants. Their jealousy of his great achievement and gain drives them to plan his ruin, a motive and a disposition we meet again in the story of the eldest lady from Baghdad whose sisters plan her ruin. Envy becomes at times a motive for internal politics. Such is the Greek king, in the story of “The Greek King and Douban the Physician,” who listens to his envious minister’s insinuations against the physician who has cured him. The king reneges on his promise, and instead of reward there is retribution. Such a transgression entails failure and death in the tales. In the story of “Noureddin and the Fair Persian,” the minister harbors jealousy and hatred for the young man whose father has been the righthand man of the governor of Basra in southern Iraq. Many of the guards remain loyal to the family, however, and inform Noureddin of the minister’s intrigues and evil designs. In another story, “The History of the First Dervish, the Son of a King,” the grand vizier takes over, and the son, who is now the dervish, loses his status and is imprisoned, escaping only because of the executioner’s sympathy. The political atmosphere is precari­ ous, for the vicissitudes of fate can often alter these situations. The second dervish tells us that most of the members of the royal family take the precaution of making themselves acquainted with some art or trade, so that they may be prepared in case of a reversal of fortune. Yet, envy as the basic motivation is not absent from the literature of the period, as we have already noticed in the epistle of al-Jāniµ, “The Difference Between Enmity and Envy,” in which he finds envy worse than enmity. He states: “Envy never dies except when either the envious person or the one of whom he is envious dies. Enmity is an ember fuelled by wrath but extinguished by the passing of wrath; it thus affords some hope for a reversal and recantation.” 188 Jealousy in the tales works as such and has the power to complicate action unless the envious is stopped by a greater power. The tales work, however, within the paradigms of sharing and magnanimity in the face of pettiness and envy. In many tales, there are women or men who share their

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wealth with their brothers or sisters but who suffer later from envy. Al-Jāniµ quotes many authorities on the subject, but he concludes as follows: “if those who envy prosperity are given a share of it [wealth] which they can enjoy, they only grow more vexed at it and set against it.” 189 Resistance to reciprocity or inability to reciprocate may poison the soul of losers.190 Envy relates to political strife as well, since there is an association between envy, selfishness, love of power, and the resistance to share it with others on a fair basis. Al-Jāniµ also writes about this and argues that “nations that have perished in the past have perished by reason of too much love of command, and so it will be to the end of time.” He adds: “the saying goes, ‘Man’s downfall, from the time men first were until the Last Day, is due to love of authority, and love of being obeyed.’ ” 191 On the narrative level, it provides the disequilibrium necessary for the growth and perpetuation of storytelling. To counterbalance this and lead the narrative to some stability and relief, there is the recurrent mention of the good (Abbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (Haroun Alraschid, 786–809 c.e.), whose reputation in Europe rests on the Thousand and One Nights. The great attraction of Hārūn al-Rashīd should not be seen as limited to the aesthetic celebration of Baghdad as the city of joy and art, which Tennyson and other poets wrote about with great romantic yearning in nineteenth-century England. The caliph’s times were also the times of an empire that was expanding in land, prosperity, and wealth. In his topographical study of Baghdad, al-Kha•īb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) says that the city “reached its highest point in buildings and population during the reign of al-Rashīd, since there reigned quiet and the utmost prosperity in the world.” 192 When set in comparison to this magnificent growth, petty concerns sound trivial and rivalries were suppressed under the towering mention of the (Abbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd. The analogy between Baghdad and the London of the Crystal Palace must have been in the minds of the writers of early European capitalism. The tales celebrate the shiny side of the (Abbāsid empire, its growth, affluence, luxury, and power. Converse to the theme of envy, disillusionment, and loss, the mention of Baghdad in the tales resonates with a promise of good tidings, which are always associated with Hārūn al-Rashīd. Such tales as “Noureddin and the Beautiful Persian” and the stories of the first and second mendicants speak of his age as one of prosperity, justice, and cultural achievement. The Shī(ī Arab historian Abū al-Faraj al-)Iùfahānī (897–967 c.e.) also celebrates this age in his voluminous Book of Songs. During that age, most of the taxes were paid in terms of products, making Baghdad one of the most prosperous cities, one where every kind

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of fruit was in abundance. Indeed, the case was so much so that “people of sophisticated taste in Baghdad were very fastidious in their choice of fruit at ceremonial meals.” 193 Abū al-Faraj al-)Iùfahānī was not alone in specifying this life of affluence and prosperity. We read in the documents of the period that the people of Baghdad “indulge in luscious food to the point of buying game and fruit out of season, paying for them with their weight in silver. They enjoy the taste added in some of their foods from perfume that they chew, and Indian betel leaves which they mix with wet lime to improve the taste and the food, and produce delight and cheerfulness in the soul.” 194 What remained in the recollections of (Abbāsid writers were the convivial and hospitable gatherings and parties attended by artists, poets, dancers, and high officials. In this regard, it is well to cite more from what a Khurāsānī nobleman wrote to his father in the last years of the eighth century c.e., as he was given an audience by the caliph Harūn al-Rashīd. He writes: “I admired the arrival of buildings in Baghdad because of the over-crowdedness of the people I had seen in its sections. Their billowing is like the sea in its expanses; their number is said to exceed 1,500,000, and no other city in the world has such a sum or even half its amount.” He adds, “the social life of the people points to this great sum, although there are no cities to the right or the left of the place in which people band together like sand.” Apart from the population’s density, there was comfort: “I saw many of them aiming toward arts whose need is not confined to the necessities of civilization. Moreover, the usefulness of their crafts and what they produce expands to the demands of affluence which occurs among nations at the end of their rule and at the time when commanding becomes difficult.” 195 While modern historians and political analysts are uncertain about the political side of Hārūn al-Rashīd’s reign, the tales, as well as medieval historians, depicted him as a patron of culture. The Khurāsānī nobleman mentions him with great admiration as no “Caliph [was] ever known to be so generous than he in the handing out of wealth.” 196 In Europe, Tennyson, Meredith, and Yeats are among many whose poetic celebrations of the caliph endeared him to the European public. People flocked to Baghdad, we are told, during the reign of that caliph. The first dervish or mendicant describes his travels to Baghdad as follows: “I journey to this country, with the intention of reaching Baghdad, hoping that I might be fortunate to find someone who would assist me to the presence of the Commander of the Faithful, the Vice Regent of the Supreme Lord, so that I might tell him my tale and lay my case before him.” 197 The second mendicant similarly explains why he turns toward Baghdad after years of misfortune: “I journeyed through many regions and

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visited many countries, with the intention of reaching Baghdad and the hope of finding someone who could help me to the presence of the Commander of the Faithful, so that I might tell him my tale and acquaint him with my misfortune.” 198 The life story of individuals evolves as a history of nations, too. The three dervishes are sons of kings who have lost their kingdoms and ended up in misery and confusion. In the presence of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, things will assume a different meaning, and assurance and certainty will surely replace the old stigma of failure and loss. The center of the world, Baghdad, is strongly held to by writers and historians, not as a city of later defeats but as the powerful and magnificent center of imperial growth. Even when many tales take Cairo as their location, critics continue to speak of Baghdad as the center of the world, the city of delights, arts, wealth, and excitement. The global appeal of the tales rests largely on this Islamic culture of Baghdad and its tolerance and accommodation of so many traditions and races to the extent of influencing its jurists, such as Abū manīfa (d. 767 c.e.) and his disciple Abū Yūsuf (d. 798 c.e.); its assimilation of multiple perspectives and positions; and its ability to keep up with newly emerging problems that demand adequate and smooth handling. To recapitulate, there are tales that erase distance in such a way as to make present theories of migrancy and hybridity naїve and innocent in comparison to the sweeping mapping of cultures and lands and their crystallization into the Baghdadi culture documented by the young late eighth-century Khurāsānī nobleman. Origins blend and emerge anew in this culture, which we call Islamic, as evident in architecture, city planning, education, and the influx of people, habits of thought, and goods of every kind. The very establishment and construction of Baghdad in 762 c.e. signifies this melting pot, as its unique architectural design as a round city relies in its other aspects on older architectural archetypes.199 The tales themselves may exemplify something of this subtle blending. Each of these tales is a rich cultural intertext despite its relegation to marginal audiences and suburban or subaltern communities. Moreover, the tension of the emerging need for a system of thought and law and order to command the vast reaches of this empire and its cultural currents versus the actual life of the society is best represented in the rift between the decrees of jurists and the dealings of storytellers.200 Each position has its own justifications, but the storyteller keeps his or her legitimating process in narrative. Jurists put them in manuals. The emerging Islamic context eludes strict prescription, but it accommodates feelings, obligations, and many elements of the faith in a way that belies any counterassumptions.

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Its power lies in its openness to wider contexts and appropriation of their means and matter. In narrative as well as material power, this dynamic blend of the wonderful and the real, the Islamic and the non-Islamic, the Arab and the non-Arab, with human concerns of every sort and shade, along with people’s dreams and aspirations and their perennial defense of their talent, art, and life, make the collection today as globally accessible to media usage as it was once cherished and celebrated in the heydays of the European empires.

9  3  0 The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text

I

t is ironic that the collection of tales under the title of the Thousand and One Nights remains the most widely celebrated representation of medi­ eval Arab-Islamic society between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. Whether with approval or disparagement, the Arabian Nights, as it is commonly called in English, is still cited and talked about as a medieval classic more representative of so-called Eastern manners than any other book available to nonnative speakers or adepts in Arab culture. Even erudite scholars in Indo-Persian literatures such as J. F. Hewitt treat the tales as a “national portraiture” and a “speaking picture of the Mohammedans of the East, their manners, customs, modes of thought and expression, and social organization.” 1 No matter how opposed other erudite scholars are to this appellation, the understanding remains popular enough to invite further proclamations— albeit with a word of caution—by Western writers in the last decades of the twentieth century. In his Companion (1994), Robert Irwin treats the Thou­ sand and One Nights “as a source on the history of society and of mentalite´s.” 2 Especially in the West, many speak and act in Arabian Nightist terms whenever referring to the so-called Orient or the present Middle East. The tourist industry in the Arab world and in much of the East shows this subordina­ tion to the Thousand and One Nights, too. One only has to look at the images of Scheherazade in bars, restaurants, and malls or at the circulation of other images of affluence and sharp colors to see how Arabian Nightism influ­ ences a tourist, and, indeed, a large cultural industry. The imagination behind the book is often larger than life, and only the new age of discovery and global transactions is seemingly able to cope with its imaginary excursions.

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The resemblance between the tales and some historical narratives or topographical descriptions encourages, and even consolidates, the representationist premise. Yet this resemblance poses more questions than answers. Is it really representative of a culture? If so, how do we explain the silence of Arab litterateurs? Why the scarcity of earlier manuscripts? There is no simple answer to these questions. We first have to understand the composite nature of popular literature, its mixed authorship over a period of time, and its blend of the wonderful, the historical, and the real­ istic. On the other hand, a verbal construction of reality as provided by the tales is so uniquely cultural that it has frequently been built on shades of meanings, silhouettes, beliefs, readings, resemblances, and realities. While it certainly has a basis in reality or in tradition, there is also a good deal of imposition, fabrication, recreation, and reproduction. In other words, there is both similitude and distance. It has more power to evoke than literal transmission because of its literary nature, its burgeoning in traditions and sociocultural contexts, and its capacity to reach certain audiences beyond the orbit of classical literature. It is no longer a transmitted document meant to be authentically tied to the Islamic faith or to the acclaimed identity of the social order, as recognized by historians and their circles. Yet in Western cultures there persists a tendency to imagine the cultures of the Arab East in Arabian Night ist form, a tendency that may be older than Orientalism as a process of imagining—and one with an ideology and narrative techniques of its own.

Representational or Parodic The representational tendency considers the collection as the most authentic representation of life in the East, specifically the Arab East.3 With little knowledge of the culture and history of the area, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European writers and Orientalists bequeathed a legacy of generalizations that held this East as dormant and unchanging since biblical times. J. H. Hewitt argued the case in 1895 in terms of one east of some ancestral legacy: “It is this persistent adherence to the old ancestral usages which is the special characteristic of the unchanging East, and which has always survived the repeated temporary dislocations of society consequent to the earlier immigrations and conquests of northern invaders and the later changes in religious belief.”4 Mostly based on travelogue and narrative anecdotes, the legacy also built on an earlier one with a mixed agenda and orientations that had existed since the European Middle Ages. The Thousand and One Nights came in time to buttress a Manichean al-

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legory of Otherness, whereby this East is the site of difference, to be paradoxically desired and loathed. The book that took Europe by surprise in the early eighteenth century was more popular than any beforehand. Its storytelling techniques and material seemed so unfamiliar, yet so enticing, as to capture the attention of all, young and old, men and women, leaving hard-line traditionalists in disarray when trying to cope with the new phenomena. Aware of the subversive nature of the book both in its Antoine Galland rendition and in its anonymous Grub Street English translation, the neoclassicists showed no hesitation in drawing on the most vituperative terms to indict a book they also took to be representative of Muslim society. They were not aware that they were siding with their Muslim and Arab counterparts of some eight centuries earlier, who also described the book as insipid and unworthy of attention and perusal. Neoclassicists, regardless of their nationality and cultural orientations, held a similar attitude toward this kind of writing, viewing it as lowly and vulgar in matter and manner, thus unreliable. Without engaging the problematic of the reliability or unreliability of such literature, we should remember that until very recently many official historians within the hegemonic discourse in Arab-Islamic writing looked on Anmad ibn Abī Ya(qūb al-Ya(qūbī’s (897? c.e.) History as unreliable, and up until today, the Book of Songs of Abū al-Faraj al-Iùfahānī (897–967 c.e.) is categorically relegated to a nonhistorical work (that is, one unreliable for documentary purposes). The tales offer yet another refracted perspective, one also rich with notions and images that are still part of a collective memory and therefore significantly connected to the life of a specific community. However, these are silhouettes and implications that confuse the untrained mind and the inexperienced traveler. Their hazy resemblances lead the same minds to compare, and subsequently to conclude, that whatever they see in their travels and encounters authenticates the Thousand and One Nights and justifies their impression of its reliability.5 This is not what the nineteenthcentury British philosopher and prose writer Thomas Carlyle thinks, for he speaks of the Nights as imaginative recreations of the real, not its duplication or reflection. Writing to Mrs. Emerson on February 21, 1841, he advised her as follows: “You are an enthusiast; make Arabian Nights out of dull foggy London Days; with your beautiful female imagination, shape burnished copper Castles out of London Fog! It is very beautiful of you; nay, it is not foolish either, it is wise.”6 There is no assumption on his part that these are realistic representations; rather, they may well be the imaginative impositions of something else, albeit on something as real as London fog.7 For the unseasoned traveler and the dilettante, the Thousand and One

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Nights remains, in earnest or in jest, a picture of an Orient. Only the jinn and demons are replaced nowadays by what the media and its interested owners substitute from the repository of stereotypes that has been accumulating against Arabs and Muslims. The Nights’ narrative techniques and thematic preoccupations endear it to other cultures and audiences, too, and readers all over the world are still poised between the real and the imaginary. The constructed verbal reality offers us enough material to speak of a number of things, such as communities, religions, mercantile interests, topography, travel, and politics. In this constructed reality and its imaginary constructions we are provided with an impressive but not necessarily documentary or authentic image of Islamic life in its urban milieu, especially its professional side. This is an image that allows us to analyze the collection as a text with a multifarious life of various scenes and sites worth juxtaposing against other accounts, manuals, and narratives making up the corpus of Arabic literature in the heyday of the Islamic empire, especially its (Abbāsid times. Earlier Western scholars were also concerned with understanding the distance that separates the representational from the imaginary, for J. H. Hewitt argues, for example, that there must be another tradition from which the tales borrow. More focused on the Indic tradition, he suggests that the tales dealing with Islamic life are Islamic only as an updated and revisionist reading of earlier Eastern traditions. Storytellers, he argues, “do not construct each tale they tell from their imagination and experience, but use as the groundwork of each tale, in the way as novelists and dramatic authors repeat their predecessors’ plots, the old stories originally framed by the ancient national teachers of the earliest village communities, who conveyed their lessons in the form of fables. ”8 He even suggests that religion is no more than what is retained “by the revisers of the faith in forms altered so as to fit in with the new doctrines.”9 In other words, Hewitt grants the existence of imagination, experience, and tradition, all of which fuse into one another in a new, culturally representational production. The idea is worth considering, to be sure, but Hewitt cannot follow it further because his intimate knowledge of Indian cultures leads him to see everything else as a superficial alteration of appropriated material. One can argue, however, in terms of literary and cultural production, that appropriation is a cultural phenomenon that feeds dispositions and attitudes. The similarities, discrepancies, and impossibilities coalesce in an imaginary with a base in the real. The subtle oscillation between the probable and the impossible produces a diaphanous universe that cannot be accommodated in terms of fictional literature or the empiricism of the visible reality.

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At times, matter looks more real for being so sharply carved and smoothly offered, which can unsettle the mind or preempt defensiveness and doubt. Indeed, on many occasions it enforces, rather than begs, the willing suspension of disbelief that, for its ardent reader Samuel Taylor Coleridge, constitutes poetic faith. This verbally constructed life also has, very pointedly, the application and practice of Islamic obligations and the disposition to universal values and ethics. It is the kind of life that cannot be imaginatively reproduced in its own time unless there is an extant imperial order where cities, communities, cultures, activities, and literary production multiply and enforce itself on the making and reshaping of the real. The storyteller is not a statesman, but he or she has the same power to design and function orally or on paper, in keeping with the image of the artist as actant operating, with greater imaginative scope, in a large landscape of communities, cities, affairs, and transactions that come under the purview of a caliphal order. This order is not purely religious, nor is it secular. It navigates between need and prescriptive law, adjusting to new challenges, demands, and requirements. Indeed, ibn Khaldūn goes as far as comparing this order in its dynastic and governmental form to a world’s marketplace. “Whenever the established dynasty avoids injustice, prejudice, weakness, and double-dealing, with determination to keeping to the right path and never swerving from it, the wares on its market are pure silver and fine gold.” 10 The navigation between the probable and the impossible goes even further in the text. The earthly and the heavenly blend together, as in the meeting of the natural and the supernatural in narrative—and as in scriptural language, where God commands humans to supplicate and call for His mercy and compassion in order to receive it. Indeed, Shams, the favorite singer and slave girl of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, is made to blend and coalesce the command of God with that of the caliph. Thus she answers his messenger as follows: “I hear and obey the command of God and the Commander of the Faithful.” 11 When Baghdad collapsed in 1258 under the Mongol invasion, the Egyptian jurist ibn Duqmāq cried: “The universe remained without a caliph.” 12 No wonder the Mamluks tried to retain this caliphal order, but under their tutelage it never succeeded. The disheartened cry of the Egyptian jurist should alert us to the concept of the caliphal order in the universe as accepted by Islamic law. He is the vicar of God, the representative and the authority in matters that relate to the whole social and cultural order. He should be the example and the leader in commanding the good and forbidding evil. Authority as such shows forth in storytelling, as it does in architecture, for instance. In storytelling, more refraction exists, to be sure, for the narrator is not con-

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cerned with close parallels or authenticity. In architectural design, we need to investigate the design of two cities that were planned as caliphal or imperial centers: Fatimid Cairo and its predecessor Baghdad. The “Round City,” as Baghdad was called in 762, placed the palace and the mosque at its center. Both signified this joint authority. At the top of the hall was the green dome, which could be seen from a distance, to indicate the hierarchy and authority represented by the palace. Significantly, the judge al-Tanūkhī (d. 994 c.e.) mentioned the dome and its other technical devices, which are described in the third mendicant’s tale and in other tales, too. He reports: “I heard a group of scholars mention that the green dome was surmounted by the figure of a horseman holding a lance in his hand. If the Sultan saw that figure with its lance pointing to a given direction, he knew that some rebels would make their appearance there; and before long word would reach him that a rebel had appeared in that direction or something to that effect.” 13 There is a great deal of refraction in this report, too, as it is based on hearsay, with no transmitted chain or specific mention of the reporter. However, it is good to keep it in mind in order to trace the use of some images in the tales, as they borrow from contemporary and past traditions. The Thousand and One Nights has this basic underlying presupposition: the Commander of the Faithful has a presiding presence analogous to the green dome’s, which commands and supervises the rest with compassion and care. Even in situations where this authority is infringed and caliphal domains suffer intrusion there should be an amount of understanding and compassion, not ruthlessness and cruelty. The image of Hārūn al-Rashīd in the tales is in tune with this understanding. Especially in situations of jest or passionate love, the caliph is there to offer compassion. Didn’t the companion to the Prophet, ibn (Abbās, speak of love in terms of mercy and compassion?14 However, was the caliph’s character as real as it is portrayed in the tales? What about the cruel treatment of his minister and friend Ja(far the Barmicide (al-Barmakī)? Didn’t he execute him and allow his mutilated body to be exposed publicly for some time? Regardless of these historical accounts and the contradictory analysis they provoke, the tales operate on another level of reproduction, one that approaches some issues, such as education, slaves, and love, with extraordinary attention.

Education and the Paradigm of Rise and Fall Education as an issue should be seen in relation to the governing paradigm of rise and fall both because of its strong relevance to urban growth and

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because of its centrality to Islam and its emphasis on the need to search for knowledge regardless of hardship and distance. This search became a search for famous scholars, too, who happened to be gathering in Baghdad before its destruction in 1258 and the subsequent migration of the learned to Damascus and Cairo. On the narrative level, education is highly significant. It signifies the emerging power of knowledge, its capacity to topple hierarchy, undermine habits of thought, and unsettle systems. Scheherazade achieves her success through education and beauty. Insofar as her preparation is concerned, we are told she is in command of the many ingredients of good education, as commonly specified in epistolographic manuals. The emphasis is laid on her good repository of anecdotes and her ability to outwit not only her father the vizier but also the king himself. Education is so empowering as to leave the king spellbound. The charm of the tale subsumes every other charm, including magic, which evolves as the empowering prescription in many of the embedded tales. Education functions extensively, however, even outside the basic framework that allows Scheherazade to overrule the king and his bloody designs. There is, first, education as power in an urban sphere, dethroning the new professional classes that are part of the hierarchy: jurists, scientists, and poets. The tale of the slave girl Tawaddud is the most significant example in this respect. There is, second, the sociocultural role of education as a destabilizing force that unsettles beliefs and wealth. Slave singers who prove their fidelity and faithfulness, along with an extraordinary reliance on their talent to save their masters and lovers, provide excellent examples of this newly emerging class. Third, there is the role of education as a tool for settling disputes and achieving justice, as in the story of the Greek physician. Fourth, there is its power to elude class structures and enforce a new understanding of social life, an understanding that befits life in the metropolis, as in the stories of barbers and porters. Fifth, there is education as a bulwark against the vicissitudes of fortune, as in the tale of the second mendicant, who is turned into a monkey by a magical potion. Sixth, there is its Islamic impetus to counter or suspend magic, as in the frame-tale sequels. It is worthwhile to study these in relation to the Islamic nation and the growth of the empire. The story of the slave girl Tawaddud may be the right starting point for such a discussion of education. Each debate in this tale usually ends with a distinguished scholar’s admission of failure to beat the slave girl and the consequent offering of his robe of distinction or honor to her as a token of recognition of her triumph. In other words, the slave girl emerges as the winner in a field that is not her presumed

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arena of combat. The distinguished and the learned compose the most brilliant segment of the (Abbāsid society. Many were, historically speaking, the result of the (Abbāsid expansion into other regions where Islam was the common denominator. To be undermined and beaten by a slave girl means something else: While historical evidence, as documented in the Book of Songs, testifies to the existence of brilliant slave girls, along with many others who were usually termed “free” or nurrah,15 there is also al-Jāniµ’s treatise, which enumerates their ruse and coquetry, which has left many a wealthy person bankrupt and forlorn.16 There is no claim by al-Jāniµ as to the existence of a slave girl who had beaten the learned. There were unsurpassed singers and musicians, but little has been recorded about other professions. The storyteller obviously revenges himself and his profession on this most privileged coterie. He does this through another Scheherazade motif that undermines authority, empowers the underprivileged slave, and establishes knowledge, rather than race, position, or wealth, as the new term of recognition and distinction. Religion, which is the main focus in Tawaddud’s debates, is turned into common property. It is no longer in the hands of jurists, who acquired great authority in the (Abbāsid period and wielded so much power as to become an institution of their own. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah complains some centuries later of the existence of so many jurists that the town, Cairo, “is full of legists occupied with granting fatwās and giving replies to legal queries on points which arise.” 17 He despairingly asks: “Can there be any reason for the faith’s permitting a state of things in which large numbers occupy themselves with one particular duty while another [medicine] is neglected, except that by medicine there is no access to judgeships and gov­ ernorships whereby it is possible to claim superiority over rivals and to acquire authority over enemies?” 18 This could have been in the minds of storytellers who produced slave girls such as Tawaddud to beat many of these jurists on their own grounds: “Alas, knowledge of the faith is blotted out.” 19 Institutionalized religion is taken from the hands of the learned and the court to the street. The girl is the storyteller’s model for the newly emerging intelligent woman whose knowledge, charm, tact, and good manners enable her to fare well in a society that has been setting limits and checks to prevent Islam from taking root as a message for the common people, a message of equality, justice, and humility. She turns almost every question into her terms of understanding, after establishing the primary points that meet the demands of the learned. To understand this role of the story in bringing about this narrative coup d’e´tat, we need to understand the story,

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the reasons behind Tawaddud’s going to the caliph’s court, and the outcome of her encounter with the learned. The story begins as follows: “There was once in Baghdad a man of consequence and rich in monies and immoveables, who was one of the chiefs of the merchants; and Allah had largely endowed him with worldly goods.” 20 The tale adds, “but [God] had not vouchsafed him with what he longed for of offspring.” 21 This long waiting, however, materializes in an offspring whom he names Abū al-musn, “the father of beauty,” and whom he brings up with care until he becomes a man, who “learnt the Sublime Koran and the ordinances of al-Islam and the canons of True Faith; and calligraphy and poetry and mathematics and archery.” 22 Upon his father’s death, the young man is persuaded by his friends to enjoy life: “he took his pleasure and gave gifts of gear and coin and was profuse with gold.” He drinks wine and enjoys the singing of slave girls, selling everything to cover his expenses until nothing is left except Tawaddud, whom his father “had bequeathed to him with the rest of his estate.” 23 The tale describes her beauty and her accomplishments, which enable her to request being taken to no less than the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd himself. She hopes to demonstrate her accomplishments to the court and be sold to the highest bidder, to save her master from ruin. The accomplishments of such females are known in the history of the (Abbāsid caliphate, and the Book of Songs mentions many examples. To test her, the caliph summons well-known theologians such as Abū Isnāq Ibrāhim al-Sayyār of Basra.24 The caliph tells her master: “I will summon those who shall discuss with her all she claimeth to know; if she answer correctly, I will give thee the price thou asketh for her and more; and if not, thou art fitter to have her than I.” 25 We are told that she is able to beat the Frankish chess expert, asking him for no less than to “write . . . [her] an acknowledgement of . . . [Her] victory.” 26 He admits that “there is not her like in all regions of the world!” He leaves the place “chattering in Frankish jargon.” 27 This is not a mere piece of extravagance on the part of the storyteller. Since these slave girls could have been from non-Arab lands (probably from central Asia or Europe) and received their training and education in special schools and households so as to increase their sale value, the storyteller here is enforcing his viewpoint of the basic Islamic message. He also tries to impose a comparative framework that broadens the area of comparison beyond the limitations against racial and cultural divisions imposed by ardent Arabs like al-Jāniµ. The tale responds to al-Jāniµ’s treatise, after all, and provides a profile of someone who is an ardent Muslim, well-versed in the articles of faith, and who can beat all comers, Muslim or Frank.

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Her answers on other matters of faith rechannel the debate in terms that ultimately debunk institutionalized religion. How do we know God, asks one doctor. Her answer: through understanding, which is natural and acquired, and whose seat is in the heart and whose beams “ascend to the brain.” She knows the obligations of faith, the immutable ordinances, the observances, and the conditions that “precede standing in prayer.” 28 She explains to another scholar of the Holy Tradition the meaning of prayer, as a “communion between the slave and his Lord,” 29 and enumerates the essential precursors of holy war (the invasion of infidels, the presence of the Imam, a state of preparation, firmness in purpose), along with traditional ordinances.30 The narrative summons Qur)ānic scholars, physicians, astronomers, and rhetoricians, who all come up with series of questions for Tawaddud, making the tale a compendium of (Abbāsid knowledge. While there is much to support E. W. Lane’s reluctance, on the narrative level, to include a tale burdened with so much erudition, these details demonstrate a deliberate purpose on the part of the storyteller to endow the slave girl with a masterly grasp of religion and a wide range of knowledge, putting her on equal footing with the whole coterie of the learned. As distinctions of religion and rank, clothes and attire held a meaning in the (Abbāsid period: thus each debate ends with Tawaddud receiving the learned man’s robe. Insofar as the relevance of education to the growing empire is concerned, there must be mention, too, of its role in unsettling hierarchy, uncovering the corrupt state of administration in the provinces, and ultimately gaining authority for the common people. In the story of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs, we are told that Anīs al-Jalīs is well educated, charming, and talented. Her faithfulness drives her to fight against being sold in the slave market again. Through her forbearance and talent as a singer, she sways the pious gardenkeeper Shaykh Ibrāhīm to their side, involves him in wine drinking, and leads the caliph to the support of the lover; the execution of their foe, the cruel minister ibn Sāwī; and the appointment of her lover as a boon-companion. There could have been many like her in the (Abbāsid period. Al-Kha•īb al-Baghdādī mentions, for instance, in his Tarīkh Baghdad (History of Baghdad ), the story of the caliph al-Rashīd’s slave girl Haylānah, who was originally the slave of Yanyā b. Khālid. Once she “encountered . . . [the caliph] in a hallway. She grabbed the sleeves of his garment and asked, ‘Why don’t you spend a day with me sometime?’ ” 31 After explaining to him the best way to get her from “this aged man,” she “stayed with the Caliph three years and then died.” 32 Upon her death, the caliph is reported to have recited the following verses:

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Shame upon the world, its pleasures And material things. Since someone has scattered dust Upon Haylānah in the grave.33

The report might be no more than an invention among many others that ibn Khaldūn debates.34 But education remains central to any personal growth, though it also has other functions that demonstrate its centrality to the growth of the Islamic empire. There was a great emphasis on science in the (Abbāsid period: medical treatises abounded, and there were enough physicians to warrant the composition of a later dictionary of their lives and careers. Books on nukamā(, or physicians, were numerous. The Firdaws al-nikma (Paradise of Wisdom) by (Alī b. Rabban al-§abarī was written in 850 c.e. Al-Nadīm’s tenth-century Fihrist lists many books that are updated and expanded in narrative accounts and contexts such as Ta)rīkh al-nukamā) (History of Physicians), by the vizier ibn al-Qif•ī (d. 1248 c.e.), and X yūn al-anbā) fi • abaqāt al-a•ibā)(Important Information Concerning the Generations of Physicians), by ibn Abī Uùaybi(ah (d. 1270 c.e.).35 The tale of King Yunan and the sage Duban only confirms the new power of medicine and its capacity to enforce a new order based on retribution and justice. Balancing moral criteria and debunking political scheming by the jealous vizier, the physician gets his point across to the king by having him read a book whose pages are poisoned. The king is punished both for revoking his oath to reward the physician and for succumbing to the vizier’s scheme to punish the physician. By broadening the tales to include Greek medicine, the storyteller makes use of historical evidence corroborating the enormous repository of Greek knowledge and its appropriation into the melting pot of the empire. Jurists used the Greek focus on this science whenever they spoke of the need for training. Al-Shayzarī reports how the Greeks cared for the medical profession: “It is related the kings of Greece used to appoint to every city a physician famous for his wisdom. Then they would assemble all the other physicians before him so he could test them.” 36 Yet this recognition did not negate the dissatisfaction expressed at the lack of Muslim physicians and the abundance of jurists. As late as the fourteenth century, displeasure at the large number of non-Muslim physicians was widespread enough to provoke ibn al-)Ukhuwwah to write on this matter as a sign of the dete­ rioration of faith. Certainly, the case was not looked at in these terms during the (Abbāsid period, when Baghdad was a cultural center that drew every scientist and person of some knowledge. “Many a town has no phy-

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sician who is not a dhimmi belonging to a people whose evidence about physicians is not accepted [in the court],” writes ibn al-)Ukhuwwah.37 On the other hand, the storyteller is not worried about this issue, but he is aware enough of the large presence of non-Muslims in the profession to devote a number of tales to them. He or she accommodates this narrative within the context of the function of education as knowledge and power that replaces hierarchal and patriarchal practices. Greek thought is not always narratively meant to reflect the melting pot. It may be singled out as one of the divides between elites and the functionaries in the culture industry, including hack writers, storytellers, scribes, and others.

Knowledge and the Growth of Empire Both Islamic and the European elites relied on Greek sources to elevate their discourse. In other cases, they manipulated Greek knowledge to develop a more professional handling of the sciences. Thus the reliance on Greek thought was not always the pursuit of a pedant, for many philosophers, prose writers, and poets found in Greek sources enough wisdom to buttress their speech. Elitism needs power to sustain its presence, especially in the face of change on the economic and social levels. Knowledge as such competes with other maxims of religion, such as its claim to totality and truthfulness along with its call for mercy, understanding, love, and charity. But instead of heading toward a confrontation with these maxims, the elite have to target the heart of the matter, religion itself, not through opposition but through containment. Before al-Ghazālī’s attack on philosophy, religion in the hands of the elite was for a long time the property of jurists and philosophers, and they alone were to protect and reproduce it. Education became a battleground, and storytellers had to use their own techniques to reach their public and accommodate its interests and sentiments in their tales. The storyteller’s attitude cannot take place outside the context of a metropolitan culture in a growing empire, where new forces are bound to operate and impose their own presence on social, political, and cultural dynamics. The case is even more conspicuous in tales that present porters and barbers. Each barber forces his presence not only through the need of the new society for his or her services to meet the requirements of the new life but also through the urge to make his or her voice heard. Loqua­ city, which becomes another term for narrative, is the barber’s strategy to enforce his or her equal status as an educated person in many sciences and fields of knowledge. The barber and the porter achieve recognition by

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respectable pleading, wit, and knowledge. In the story of the porter and the three ladies of Baghdad, the porter plays the role of the µarīf (a person of refinement and elegant manners), using his knowledge and refinement to downplay any counterassumptions. By rising as high as the status of the three Baghdadi ladies, he is crediting his profession with social equality, though through refinement and education. The porter shows a strong knowledge of these arts and sciences. He says to the ladies: “Trust me; I am a sensible and wise man. I have studied the sciences and attained knowledge; I have read and learned, and presented my knowledge and cited many authorities.” 38 Even the barber’s nosiness is balanced by his readiness to speak on any subject with an accuracy and depth that surprises his clients, who are, nevertheless, desperate to catch up with their appointments. The barber speaks of himself as follows: “God sent you a barber who is also an astrologer and a physician, versed in the arts of alchemy, astrology, grammar, lexicography, logic, scholastic disputation, rhetoric, algebra, and history, as well as the traditions of the Prophet, according to Muslim and al-Bukhari [compilers of the sayings of the Prophet].” 39 Of no less relevance is the value of education against the vagaries of politics in an age of rapid change. The second mendicant finds no job in a certain city. A tailor asks him if he has a skill to earn his living. He answers: “I am a jurist, a man of letters, a poet, a grammarian, and a calligrapher.” The man replies, “Such skills are not much in demand in our city.”40 This is not the metropolitan city, which is the mendicants’ final destination. Cities with little care for education and knowledge are cities of manual work, practical undertakings, and marketable commodities. They are forsaken by God, and thus demons and monsters may well intrude there, but not in the metropolitan center where the Commander of the Faithful resides and imposes the combined authority of religion and the state. Human passions are low in these cities, and the human may not exercise reason and insight as he might in the metropolitan center. The topography of these cities and their suburbs also demonstrates a difference from the metropolitan center. They have limited markets, and their outskirts are steeped in secrecy and intrigue. The second merchant arrives in a subterra­ nean passage where he finds the captured bride whom the demon has abducted, so as to have her for itself. Curiosity and human frailty involves the second mendicant in an affair that infuriates the demon, who is in love with the woman. The demon changes him into an ape. The role of the demon is not an ordinary one, since it takes over the role of God, who has the power to turn all into animals or stone. The demon’s power is also the same power as Satan’s, which cannot overcome people

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who are endowed with enough faith to resist human frailties. Education should have been a bulwark against these frailties, but despair and loneliness hold their own power and weaken the mendicant’s will. Education can also offer escape in dire circumstances. Calligraphy enables the ape to hold a good position in another kingdom, before he is revealed by the king’s daughter as being human originally. She, at her own peril, uses her education in magic to restore his old human form. When she [Sitt al-musn, the daughter] entered and saw me, she veiled her face and said, “O father, have you lost your sense of honor to such a degree that you expose me to men?” Astonished, the king asked, “Daughter, there is no one here, save this little Mamluk, this your mentor who brought you up, and your father. From whom do you veil your face?” She replied, “From this young man who has been under a spell by a demon who is the son of Satan’s daughter. He turned him into an ape after he killed his own wife, the daughter of Aftimarus, the king of the Ebony Island. This whom you think an ape is a wise, learned, and well-mannered man, a man of culture and refinement.”41

Education and Vicissitudes of Fate Although the tales relate the vicissitudes of fate to many issues, including personal failures such as the ones in the previous story, they compose a large portion of the literature of the period. We need to read the judge alTanūkhī’s (d. 384/994) Al-Faraj Ba(da al-Shiddah (Relief After Distress) in order to understand the vagaries of politics, fate, and change. Along with social and political change, there was enormous economic and urban transformation. There were many ways to forestall adversity, some related to magic, but many others advised by caution. Readers of the Thousand and One Nights who were economists or jurists, such as Walter Bagehot, exerted great effort to explain the reasons behind the high level of covetousness, hospitality, and wastefulness exhibited in the tales. He came to the conclusion that people knew that one day they might be in need themselves: “he who knows his turn to be stripped may at any moment arrive is willing to taste the pleasures and gain the benefits of a lavish expenditure,” he says in his “The People of the Arabian Nights.”42 This only partially explains this matter, which has drawn the attention of storytellers in so many tales. While precarious politics is a reason, there is also the personal inclination of storytellers toward hospitable people, people who offer support and patronage to others. Usually, hospitality cannot be called so if it

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is done publicly. In Islam, jurists advise people to practice charity in secret. On the other hand, jurists admonish all to be generous toward the needy. The great (Abbāsid jurist and litterateur ibn Qutaybah (d. 889 c.e.) writes: “every good which is freely made available to others is protected from destruction and proof against the vicissitudes of time.”43 Preparation for any reversals of fortune predisposes parents to ensure good and solid education for their sons. In narrative, this may not be a strong component unless it serves the plot. Thus it is set against vicissitudes of fate. Apart from Scheherazade’s own training and mastery of the arts that enable her to counterbalance the sultan’s distrust of women at large, the second mendicant, the son of a king, has received some rigorous training, which includes all the elements of good education as usually spelled out in epistolographic literature. In the elite literature of the (Abbāsids, parents, especially caliphs and emirs, call on people “most famous in science” with “knowledge of fine arts” to teach their sons and daughters. The second mendicant mentions six stages that correspond to this education. There is first the stage of reading and writing as preparation to know the Holy Book by heart. He says he “was able to read the Magnificent Quran in all seven readings.”44 Second, there should be good grounding in works on subjects such as Qur)ānic exegesis and jurisprudence. “I studied jurisprudence in a book by al-Shatibi and commented on it in the presence of other scholars.”45 The passing reference to the Andalusian Isnāq Ibrāhīm Mūsā al-Lakhmī al-Shā•ibī (d. 790/1388) presents a number of problems. Either it is an anachronism, or the manuscript that Galland brought with him was actually written then. The other issue relates to the role of the second mendicant. He has already impersonated the role of al- Shā•ibī himself, who also did some exegetical and lexical studies, studied jurisprudence, and was trained and educated by no less than ibn al-mājib’s transmitters of Mukhtaùar al-Muntahā, which is based on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Manùūl. This work introduced him to jurisprudence and theology. Another mentor and teacher was Abū (Abdullah al-Sharīf al-Tilimsānī (d. 771/1369). Describing himself as a scholar, commentator, and specialist in the Islamic sciences, the second mendicant follows al-Shā•ibī’s biography closely. Al-Shā•ibī wrote a textbook on grammar and another treatise on taxation in view of al-Bukhārī’s úanīn.46 Third, as if to ensure that this close correspondence is not missed, the mendicant adds: “Then I turned to the study of classical Arabic and its grammar until I reached the height of eloquence.”47 This version of the tale, with specific names of jurists and theologians, testifies to a Cairene redaction that conveys the knowledge of the redactor. Such interpolations fall within the residual detail that

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substantiates a point without detracting from the story itself. Fourth, since this knowledge normally comes with other branches of knowledge like history and geography, we assume that the second mendicant has a full command of these branches as well. In Lane’s version, there is a detailed account of all the sciences, ancient and modern, along with horsemanship, chivalry, and knighthood. Fifth, as part of the knowledge recommended for princes and functionaries as well, he devoted his attention to calligraphy until he “perfected the art of calligraphy and . . . surpassed all my contemporaries and all the leading calligraphers of the day, so that the fame of my eloquence and calligraphic art spread to every province and town and reached all kings of the age.”48 Certainly, the (ulūm, the sciences, and rusūm, the arts and auxiliary studies, are standard in medieval Arab manuals of education, but for the Thousand and One Nights, this preparation is good enough to place him at the king’s chancery and to prepare for his subsequent reversals of fortune—that is, his transformation into an ape. To draw a comparison between this educational grounding and the nature of professional education as set in relatively late chancery and secretarial manuals, we need to be familiar with some ideas by aiyā) al-Dīn ibn alAthīr (d. 630/1233) and others. He mentions eight prerequisites for writers and poets, including grammar, syntax, morphology; lexicography, proverbs, history of the Arabs; writings of the ancients; public administration; memorization of the Qur)ān and the transmitted traditions of the Prophet; and sciences of poetic metrics and rhyming.49 The renowned scholar, professor of law, and physician (Abd al-La•īf al-Baghdādī (d. 629/1231) advises neophytes to memorize books and devote oneself to one subject at a time. After recollecting the material already read and memorized until it has become second nature, “one should read histories, study biographies and experiences of the nations. By doing this, it will be as though, in his short span, he lived contemporaneously with peoples of the past, was on intimate terms with them, and knew the good and the bad among them.”50 The second mendicant is not far away from these specifics, which have been taken for granted in the tales. The emphasis on the history of nations is of great significance for the rise-and-fall paradigm. Generations of writers reiterate the tales’ maxims emphasizing the need to study history to prepare for the vicissitudes of fortune and the vagaries of politics.

Grounding in Magic Magic is another term for these vagaries, and to be an adept in magic is to control otherwise unmanageable circumstances. Education in magic for

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a good purpose is condoned in an Islamic context. 51 Many other tales speak of this use and the involvement of good jinn in human affairs as positive forces. They are available to redress wrongs and to positively participate in a universe run by the Commander of the Faithful and the Islamic order of things. The supernatural is not of one kind only, and in its many manifestations it does not contradict some Qur)ānic verses that speak of magic, jinn, metamorphosis, and divine endowments of power. In storytelling, these elements are domesticated and Islamicized, too. Other customs and obligations remain, however. In the story of the second mendicant, for example, we are told of the king’s daughter, who has refused to stay in her father’s presence as long as there is an ape, whom the king does not suspect of being an ensorcelled human being. In other words, this tale partakes of the morals of a specific society, perhaps of the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, where social rules were effective regarding domestics, strangers, and those of the royal class. On the other hand, any presence of somebody under the influence of the supernatural entails action and a possibility of conflict or revelation of secrets that are central to the dynamics of storytelling. On many occasions, the conflict between the human who attempts to reverse the supernatural misuse of another human being and the latter power may extend beyond what we read in the Qur)ān regarding Moses and the Pharaoh’s magicians. In the second mendicant’s tale (night 14 in the Būlāq manuscript), the battle between the king’s daughter and the ifrit takes many dimensions and forms, as if the battleground were larger than the palace courtyard and more menacing than a war. Indeed, the king tells the human being who is released from the spell only at the cost of the king’s daughter’s life: “Young man, we have been passing our time nicely, secure from its mishaps until your arrival which brings us nothing but misfortune. I wish we had not seen you or set an eye on your ugly face.”52 These magical processes and divinations are not alien in principle to the Qur)ānic reference to both Sulaymān (Solomon) and Mūsā (Moses). If the king’s daughter in the same tale summons the teachings of her nurse, who is an adept in magic, she has a precedent in Moses, who is divinely enabled to have his prop or stick capable of devouring the magicians’ snakes. In night 18, the female ifrit (ifrita) can return the two dogs in “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” to their natural human form after they have been dogs for years.53 The underlying concept of punishment and forgiveness takes many directions and has many stylistic manifestations in the tales, as is the case in Islamic literature and in the Qur)ān. We are told in the Qur)ān that there are tribes and communities that were enchanted, transformed, fossilized, metamorphosed, and de-

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stroyed. While there are no such rituals in the Qur)ān like the recurrent one in the tales of “getting a bowl of water, and apply[ing] to it vows and magical words,” the Qur)ānic text attains its power through rhetoric itself, the eloquence and the binding oath that informs the admonition, the warning, or the godly command. Although there is no possibility of ta(zīm, or magical invocation, without the mention of God, there is, nevertheless, a possibility of coming across infidels such as the queen in the story of the enchanted king, who has the power to utter words (usually incomprehensible to the listener) that change humans into other forms, unlock gates, and wreak havoc. In general, and in tales with some explicit Islamic orientation, the gate to metamorphosis, especially with respect to deserved punishments or the release from one, should be “with the permission of the Lord of the Universe.”54 Thus says the shepherd’s daughter to the transformed calf after splashing him with the water of vows and invocations: “Calf, if this is the form you are born into as ordained by the Almighty do not change, but if you are enchanted and oppressed get out of this form and retain your human image by the will of the Creator of the Universe, then she splashed him with water.”55 Invocation as such is not a mere stylistic pattern that is identical to leitmotifs. While its recurrence draws attention to its textual power and the capacity to summon the reader’s or the listener’s expectations and participation in the making of the story, its rhetorical power relies mainly on its alignment with divine rhetoric and a magical corpus. This power is more so whenever it finds expression in Arabic, for the reader or the listener will remember the Qur)ānic verse that quotes the Queen of Sheba saying, after being surprised at the transfer of her royal domain, “Aslamtu ma(a Sulaymān Lillāhi Rabbi al-(ālamīn” (I submit with Solomon to God the Lord of all). The listener or reader is expected to submit in such circumstances, just as the Pharaoh’s magicians do to “Ilāh Mūsā” (the God of Moses). While magic may be the most empowering to evil human beings, like the queen of the Ebony Islands who has ensorcelled her husband, its disenchantment should either take the form of a battle or work through a compatible magical process. On many occasions, there should be a deliberate use of human tact, intelligence, and reason to outwit the magician or the jinn, as the tale of the fisherman and the genie suggests or as the disguised king does in the same story of the magician queen and the ensorcelled husband. In other words, while there is an enormous reliance on patterns of address and formulas that accompany the rituals of enchantment or disenchantment, there is no less faith in human agency, especially the use of reason and wit in a universe that accepts and, indeed, appreciates

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eloquence, reasonableness, and intelligence. All these elements become the outcome of and base for education.

Education: Artists and Cultivated Taste The other role of education is more unsettling, however, to this order. It is, nevertheless, within an Islamic compassionate frame of mind toward human affection and love. The tales in this category argue against caliphal favoritism if it runs against a human bond of love between two others. The caliph may have no idea about such a bond, and his favoritism toward a maid carries no implications other than appreciation and esteem both for the woman’s beauty and for her art and taste. Such is the story of Shams al-Nahār and the Persian (Alī b. Bakkār. The caliph shows great compassion to Shams, and it is this compassion and generosity toward artists, lovers, and strangers that endear him to the readers of the tales. Love is not a passing or irrelevant matter in terms of context, however. It is appreciated and cherished in Islam. Isn’t this what we understand in the many treatises on love? Even the jurist ibn mazm will speak of love as religion, for Islam and the ideal love believe in One Lover: True Faith is too a single thing; He who a second serves as well Condemns himself an infidel.56

Love is not a personal issue, confined to the feelings and interests of two people. It operates in the tales as an intertextual space where individuals, communities, and the state have something at stake. Each love story has a number of narrative orbits, for it rarely appears independent from politics, class distinctions, cultural divisions, and the topography of urban settings. The language of love can be common to all, and there is no implication in it other than the depth of attachment. Thus we read in the story of Shams and ibn Bakkār, “For a long time she gazed on him and he gazed on her” and “their faces flushed with rapture and their movements expressed their hidden, overwhelming passion; and even though they were speechless, they spoke with the language of love and disclosed their secret to each other.”57 As passion is fraught with obstacles and challenges, ibn Bakkār soon begins to waste away with this passion. Lovers see it as ordained, for (Alī ibn Bakkār tells the jeweler: “you will be my comforter in my affliction until God’s will is done, for His is the grace and the blessing and His are the thanks and the praise.”58 These intimations of resignation should not

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be surprising, for the speaker knows the terms of love. “It concludes with death or joy,” he says to the jeweler.59 This resignation does not mean a readiness to transgress God’s will, for there should be no suicide to terminate one’s suffering. He explains how miserable the situation is, between his expectation of reunion and the potential discovery at the court of this love affair and its implications for Shams: “were it not for fear of God, I would have hastened my death.”60 Love receives support and challenge in the tales. This two-sidedness is stressed in the story of “The Steward’s Tale: The Young Man from Baghdad and Lady Zubaida’s Maid,” for the young man suffers for another transgression, not for his trespassing into the sanctified territory of the palace. The sneaking into the palace is arranged with the first lady Zubaida’s approval. This does not forestall his punishment for unwittingly transgressing the social obligations of table manners. Not so is the case of Shams al-Nahār, the favorite slave singer of the caliph, and her lover, the Persian prince Nūr al-Dīn (Alī b. Bakkār. Her violation of the caliph’s rules of conduct and the inviolability of the court does not stop the caliph from disregarding accounts against Shams and her love affair. Also, the caliph sympathizes openly with the other lovers, Nūr al-Dīn and his faithful slave girl and beloved Anīs al-Jalīs, despite their transgression and their spending the night in his Palace of Statues without permission. Each love story has a wide space in which to move. Both the stories of Shams and of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs provide us with a large topographical image of Baghdad, its ordinary streets, houses, markets, mosques, the Tigris, and the palaces on the river. The river becomes the chief means of transportation, especially on festive occasions such as the marriage of the caliph al-Ma’mūn.61 The tale shows how the jeweler tries to take roads that are not crowded, since the city and its markets were very densely populated. Al-Kha•īb quotes other authorities who recollect their youth there: “When I used to pass through . . . with my father, I could not force myself of the surging crowd in the markets,” says one.62 The river itself, which is used by lovers, was also very crowded, with no fewer than thirty thousand vessels.63 Speaking of the side of the river where the tale takes place, the jurist and theologian ibn (Aqīl (d. 1119 c.e.) wrote of private vessels and their names: “I used to hear from the old men that there were five hundred . . . vessels, beautifully adorned, sailed only by the most elegant of merchants, military officers and feudal lords— the man, his servant, the sailors all in beautiful costumes.”64 There were numerous palaces, including the Khuld Palace, which was given its name because of its presumed resemblance to the “Garden of Eternity.”65 The

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movement between the markets, the river, the mosque, and the palace involves a good number of characters, including the police, the night patrol, the robbers, the gardeners, the jewelers, and the caliph himself. Each space or character has something to say or to do in relation to the lovers. The robbers listen to the story of Shams and release their captives in a respectable and compassionate manner and give back to the jeweler his belongings.66 A love story implicates the listener more than listening to other narratives. Listening becomes an initiation into love lore. It adds to experience and understanding, revives memories of traditional lore, and retains compassion for the human soul in an urban center otherwise filled with great friction and competition. The caliph is no exception. Listening to Anīs al-Jalīs’s songs of pining and suffering, the caliph, says the narrator, dispatches his minister to Basra to fetch Nūr al-Dīn, the provincial king of Basra (that is, the governor), and his minister and to punish the wicked minister. The case raises the problems of fact and fiction, reliability and fictitiousness. It provides, nevertheless, the correct answer to questions of reliability in the historical accounts of the court and its transactions. The caliph’s interest in such cases remains problematic to people who doubt his compassion, but they square well with an enormous historical record that speaks of his probity.67 Both the caliph’s favorite, Shams, and Nūr al-Dīn’s slave and wife did have their counterparts in the historical (Abbāsid court. The Book of Songs lists a large number of well-educated slave girls who were poets, singers, and musicians and who were characterized as witty, charming, and loved by their patrons. The Book of Songs is not the only such document, for, apart from a large number of historical accounts and treatises, there is also the Khurāsānī nobleman’s early account of the late eighth century. He writes to his father: “The affluence of the Barmakids reached in the end the highest level of enjoyment with an ampleness of comfort. Their sessions of entertainment in their houses were more splendid than those in the houses of al-Rashīd and more complete with devices of entertainment.”68 This he attributes to the possession of slave girls, who were the finest singers: “This was because they possessed female singers who were unrivalled in the country, especially the famous Fauz, Farida, and Manna, who were the finest female singers and the best at plucking the lute.” 69 These slave girls would become the mothers of caliphs and princes in due time. Some might come across a charming and intelligent man whom they might meet personally, or through their maids, in the marketplace, especially in perfumers’ shops or with druggists, jewelers, and cloth merchants. All three types of shopkeepers are mentioned in the tales as the most fre-

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quently attended and visited by high-ranking ladies or their maids. Trained in µarf (refined manners and etiquette), they might be µarīfs themselves, with more refinement and elegance of speech than perhaps that of the dilettantes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. Their manner and style partakes more of an urban refinement than of juridical tradition. In Jamel Eddine Bencheikh’s wording, there is “a social and moral code of existence, different from the code of the dominant Muslim ideology.” 70

Refinement, Profession, and Class While refinement and elegance in taste and education may entitle a person to mix with the coteries of the court (that is, the wealthy strata and the highly distinguished elite of musicians, writers, and jurists), there are nevertheless obstacles and difficulties that prevent many from moving in these circles. Even distinguished musicians faced such difficulties, and historical anecdotes used the rope and the basket as the trope for invited transgressions and intrusions into the privacy of courtly narams. On occasions we are told that a certain musician was walking in the palace areas when he saw a basket tied to a rope, which was usually interpreted as an invitation to be pulled up to the roof. There a maid would be waiting to take him to her mistress, who would, anonymously, try to see how witty or pleasant the person might be. Other characters in the tale can be as realistic, too; for instance, the perfume dealer or druggist Abū al-masan can enter these restricted areas upon invitation to show women something precious or unique. He describes himself as “very well known in Baghdad for my judgment in case of problems between men and women.” 71 Indeed, the perfumers assumed and enjoyed a privileged position in comparison with other merchants. The jurist and theologian ibn (Aqīl reports in his description of the west-side markets: “the perfumers did not mix with the merchants of greasy and other offensive odors.” 72 The case of the jeweler who is implicated in the Shams love affair is different. He has no such status or recognition, and thus he is afraid for himself, since he should not interfere in matters that relate to the court. Professionals, artisans, and functionaries are not expected to have any communication with the court, its entourage, or its slaves, unless they are called for a reason. Although the storyteller brings the caliph into the middle of mixed societies such as the gathering in the Baghdad ladies’ house, topographical divisions imposed restrictions that were to be observed. As late as the eleventh century, it is reported how markets and areas were carefully demarcated. In areas like the ones described by the jurist ibn (Aqīl as “riverside palaces,” there

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were “doors leading to their thoroughfares, and in front of each door there were saddled mounts kept in readiness for travel on land, just as in front of their balconies, a . . . vessel was to be found for travel on water.” 73 In those places and indeed everywhere in the city, “inhabitants appeared to be in a state of continual jubilation.” 74 The storyteller may bring the supernatural agency to erase topographical or social borderlines and let all of the characters interact, but the realistic base is present to alert us to the existence of a specific order. In this created universe, there flourishes a literary production of an admixture of realistic and imaginary qualities, a production that keeps us poised between belief and doubt. The storyteller plays on the existing lines of demarcation, while alluding to the Islamic emphasis on equality. Class distinctions and hierarchy relate to urbanity and the growth of the empire. Thus the jeweler addresses Shams’s maid: “You should know that I am not a man of high rank like Abu Hasan, who used his wares for an excuse to enter the caliph’s palace . . . if your lady wishes to speak with me, it must be in a place other than the Commander of the Faithful’s palace, for I do not have the heart for such an undertaking.” 75

Marketability and Freedom as Topography The jeweler’s remark is not uttered haphazardly. It has its justification in an underlying order that kept the markets separate from the palace and the caliphal court. Al-Kha•īb cites Munammad b. Khalaf, who reports how the delegation of the Byzantine emperor advised al-Manùūr, the caliph who established Baghdad, to have the markets somewhere else for reasons of security: “Unknown to you, your enemies can penetrate the city anytime they wish. Furthermore, you are unable to conceal vital information about yourself from being spread to the various regions.” 76 A particular mosque was established specifically for the shopkeepers and attendants of those markets.77 Topography may work on two levels: a realistic one, where the city shows its visibility to the discerning eye of the storyteller as a calligrapher or urban planner, and, on another level, these features may evoke an imaginary structure that operates in hidden or superimposed layers of representation or meaning. The interest in the subterranean exists outside of metropolitan cities, in the surrounding areas of small cities, or in cities with no commanding religious authority. Merchants and wealthy people are the most alert to the subterranean. They try to keep up with an understanding of the city and the metropolis at large as a place of reversals of fortune, troubles, and perditions. In the third mendicant’s tale, to escape a horoscope’s prediction of the death of a son, a merchant may travel far

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away to an isolated area, where he has already built a subterranean passage leading to a place where he can keep his son away from trouble. On other occasions, we find demons keeping abducted brides in similar places, as in the second mendicant’s tale. Even the paradisiacal palace of forty doors is in an isolated place that requires a rukh to reach, which is equivalent to an airplane in our modern transportation. The metropolis may have subterranean passages and hiding places, such as in the cycle of the barber and his brothers, but these are used to abduct and kill people. On the other hand, any form of deviation from Islamic law cannot take place within the domain of the Commander of the Faithful, since the Islamic universe should strictly uphold some basic ethics and morals. The incest theme in the first mendicant’s story takes place outside the city. In all cases, education in this context, as a prerequisite for refinement and social integration, has little or no role. If there is enough education and refinement, as the Islamic type of grounding entails, the outcome should be different. Under the influence of education, people function in a better and more independent manner. As urban products, this is a basic understanding in the tales. However, its implications are many. Although the slave market is morally and economically the most controversial place, its dynamism and capacity to disseminate information make it more volatile. Its girls are not so naїve as to be misused. As Scheherazade’s daughters or sisters, they already have their plans to achieve the right status or the desired place. They have made prearrangements to disguise themselves and be sold again if the first bid proves too low, as the Khurāsānī nobleman tells us in his firsthand account: “I had heard that some of the beautiful girls luxuriously adorned were rescued secretly from places they disliked.” 78 This movement away from servility toward an improved status or freedom operates as an underlying system whenever there are issues related to injustice. The storyteller is not a moralist, but he or she is definitely well equipped with enough strategies to reorder things. While the marketplace is the central space of commodity transactions, under the influence of education and cultivated taste it can destabilize the social order, undermine its inhuman procedures, and bring about a new change where love and affection become the most dynamic forces. This is neither mere poetic justice nor a superimposed solution to a problem. The topographical motion between the market, the palace, the alleys, and the outskirts of the city signifies a complex search for a better grasp of the social milieu, in order to assimilate it or reject its mercantile ethics. The river journey along the Tigris, between the palace, the city, and the two sides of the capital, is just as complicated

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and fraught with dangers and risks. Every character in these stories of love has something to say and relate. The storyteller is clever enough to allow the jeweler and the druggist a substantial narrative space in the tale of Shams in order to give the tale more similitude, while letting their roles as voyeurs and participants function fully as conduits for their emotional involvement and sympathy. Sympathizing with lovers elevates the human soul, and professionals, merchants, robbers, and guards have this sympathy, which elevates them above a mundane reality.

Urbanity and Love These sympathies and transactions take place mostly in the metropolitan urban center, Baghdad. Even if we assume that the collector or the redactor was situated in Cairo, the caliphal hold is very conspicuous in the tales. The topography of Baghdad as related in the tales assumes this significance as a pivotal conglomerate of the factual and the fantastic. Even transactions as concrete and realistic as the ones at the jeweler’s house and shop need this fusion to evolve into a literary production of some potential salability. The same applies to other transactions in the street and the mosque, which take place in Ruùāfa, the eastern side of Baghdad, not the western side, al-Karkh, where the caliphal palace and court were, along with the residences of notables, military barracks, and palaces of leisure and entertainment. Ruùāfa is not patrolled at night; al-Karkh, where the palaces are, is carefully watched. When Shams and ibn Bakkār are rowed by the robbers back to Shams’s premises on the western side, they encounter horsemen who happen to be on night patrol. They are, however, as urban as Shams. When she reveals her identity and speaks of her drinking too much and losing her way after a visit to friends, along with a promise to reward them amply, they accept the explanation, help her toward her premises, and send her companions to theirs, on the other side of the river.79 In other words, the tale is faithful to many Baghdadi settings and historical facts, and can be acclaimed as a highly respected reproduction of a love affair that could have its authentic source in the caliphal annals. Jamel Eddine Bencheikh raises a number of questions about the amount of transgression in the tale. How is it possible for the affair to take place and end with the caliph’s compassionate attitude, when its nucleus of betrayal means that he and his rule were “publicly held up to ridicule? ”80 There is no need for this question. Love of such a passionate nature is condoned by tradition, and the caliph was nurtured in that tradition. He was politically shrewd enough to understand that public sympathy would lie with a favorite who was not

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meant to be one of his concubines or future wives. Bencheikh is on better ground when focusing on the thin border between the political and social implications of the affair and the affair as art addressing a specific public, one interested in anecdotal literature of sacrifice and passionate desire. This anecdotal literature turns seemingly frequent affairs, such as the many ones mentioned in Maùāri ( al-X shshāq, into tragedies in which the caliph is tactful and compassionate enough to recognize and appreciate. Bencheikh concludes: “He converts a banal betrayal into a tragedy, an empty destiny into a fatal one. ”81 Everything undergoes transformations in the Thousand and One Nights. Whether under the touch of sympathy for passionate and sacrificial love or by the intrusion of the fantastic, things assume a new color that bypasses issues of authenticity and documentation and locates everything in another Islamic and universal sympathy with love, a point the European roman­ tic sensibility took to heart. As these love affairs assume a tragic sense in urban space, we should keep in mind that in Baghdad, and sometimes in Basra, we have such tales. Unlike the ones developing in Cairo or even Damascus, the Baghdadi tales have a cosmopolitan touch, a rich urban quality. On the other hand, lovers partake also of the traditional pining and wasting away. Thus, when Shams asks ibn Bakkār to place his “trust in God alone” and to “submit to His will and decree, ”82 this does not comfort him, for he rejoins: “My lady, being with you and looking at you neither consoles me, nor extinguishes the fire of my heart, and I declare that I will never stop loving you until the day I die. ”83 The non-Arab prince ibn Bakkār is more prone to trespassing, both because of his newness to the whole situation and because of his surrender to passion according to a tradition that sees joy and often death as the natural termination of passionate love. Ravished by love, he knows he is to perish in this love affair. Persian or otherwise, he is obviously so nourished in this tradition that he lets himself be swept away by this passion regardless of the consequences. His major sympathizers, the perfume dealer, the jeweler, the maid, the robbers, and the Baghdadi public are not astonished at this indulgence, which Shams reciprocates with greater intensity. The adventures that take place in a large number of locations, on Baghdad’s two sides and outside of it in the suburban garden where the caliph’s pavilion is, should draw our attention to the spatial parameters of desire. Inside Baghdad there is risk and possible failure; outside there is a possibility of togetherness and consummation that may turn out to be too presumptuous to be true. Locations are tied to state control and the power of the juridical system. Even so, the search for union between a non-Arab

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prince and a court singer has both historical validity, since the (Abbāsid court was open both to talents of every kind and race and to a traditional motif of passionate love that enlists the cooperation of many. The urban, the cosmopolitan, and the traditional coalesce in this single narrative as if to demonstrate how complicated the cultural context might be.

Tropes for Imperial Growth: Race and Acquisition of Slaves The Shams narrative, as well as other love stories like “Tāj al-Mulūk and the Princess Dunyā ”84 and “The Story of the Slave-Girl Anīs al-Jalīs and Nūr al-Dīn Ali( ibn Khāqān,” are also important in their depiction and mapping of a Muslim territory, lands and cultures so vast as to entail lengthy travels and enlist the help of a supernatural agency. They are also important in directing attention to Baghdad as the center of this world, a position taken over by Cairo in other tales with different interests. Transactions in metropolitan Baghdad were numerous, and the Baghdadi architects and city planners determined that separate markets for each profession should be well demarcated according to the nature of the trade, its professionals, and their background and education. There were, therefore, numerous markets and no fewer than five thousand baths.85 Moreover, the caliphal court and palaces employed many people in service. The caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932 c.e.), himself the son of a Greek slave concubine named Shaghib, had eleven thousand eunuchs on the payroll in his residence, mostly Slavs, Byzantines, and blacks. Along with these, “there was the mujarite guard numbering many thousands, and the male attendants. ”86 As for the caliph al-Mutawakkil (d. 861 c.e.), each shift of servants at his court “numbered 4,000. ”87 Under the Mamluks, Cairo was no less a center for these slave trans­ actions, which led also to the empowerment of the Mamluks as non-Arab stock that took over administration and leadership. In Baghdad during the time of prosperity and affluence in the late eighth and early ninth centuries,88 as recorded by historians and the Khurāsānī nobleman, there was an active slave market, a brisk and dynamic economic life, and a bustling social life. “The city brings together a great many notable persons, even to the extent that if a traveler meets a group of them on the road, he does not understand where the multitude is from, although the least of them has wealth and rank. ”89 Every one of the notables used to have a good number of slaves. This firsthand account of how slaves were brought and how they were chosen does not differ much from the account given in the tales. The

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Khurāsānī nobleman’s emphasis on diversity in outlook, training, talent, and looks is important, as it adds to other documentary records something no less authentic and reliable. He used to live “in a place known as the market of the slave traders. They are the men who have the girls brought to Baghdad from the ends of the earth.”90 Likewise, in night 209, we are told that Nūr al-Dīn goes to the market where it will soon be full “with all kinds of girls . . . Nubians, Europeans, Greeks, Circassians, Turks, Tartars, and others.”91 The city brought people together, accumulated merchandise from all over the globe, and made countless achievements in science, archi­ tecture, and culture. However, along with this enormous growth, the assimilated communities also had to struggle for recognition. Even in the efflo­ rescent cosmopolitan atmosphere, there remained hierarchical and racial gradations and prejudices. To become slave singers or maids, the girls had to be beautiful and educated enough to compete. The ideal beauty as set by the broker with respect to Anīs al-Jalīs is as follows: she “was about five feet tall, with a slender waist, heavy hips, swelling breasts, smooth cheeks, and black eyes. She was sweet youth itself, with a figure more elegant than the bending, blossoming bough, dewy lips sweeter than syrup, and a voice softer than the morning breeze.”92 The description is smart enough to avoid skin color and to include all the girls in the slave market. The master is no less important than his girls, for it is his role that makes them fit in the new community, and it is his tact that enables him to remedy their weaknesses. Education is associated with the master, and the broker is ready to mention the name of this master in order to get more money. Standard education includes all the Arab sciences, Islamic law, rhetoric, and grammar, along with music.93 Nevertheless, who should receive preference in the court? Should the Islamic parameter apply (that is, that there is no difference among races, only differences in degrees of piety), or should the Arab one be used (that the Arab stock should be the most preferable)? What standard should receive precedence if there were factions and frictions among the Arabs? Al-Jāniµ (d. 868–869 c.e.), for example, wrote against the educated elites that belittled the Arabs and denounced the shu(ūbiyyah (a movement emphasizing the equality of non-Arabs with Arabs, especially the merits of non-Arabs in the formation of the Islamic state) in a famous article, but he also composed epistles allowing each culture and race to defend its case, its distinctions, qualifications, and traits, as corroborated by history. The great belletrist and prose writer ibn al-Muqaffa( (executed in 760 c.e.) stressed a preference for the Arabs over the Turks, Greeks, Indians, and Persians, despite his own Persian origin, a preference that surprised his companions. After

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justifying his explanations by describing historical and geographical circumstances that molded the Arabs into the most perceptive people, he concludes: “I said they are the most intelligent nation, because of the soundness of natural endowment, correctness of thought, and acuteness of understanding.”94 This preference may bode well with the writer’s intellectual prudence, but it also invokes the underlying explanation for the expansion of the Arab-Islamic empire. The slave market is one marker of this expansion, where the love syndrome between slaves and masters occurs on a number of levels that all have their ups and downs, just like the empire itself.

Islamic Law and the Needs of the Empire Entertaining stories may often take recourse to ruse and lies, as both can activate narrative and make it sardonic, sarcastic, but also appealing. However, behind this appeal there always hides another agenda that at times debates serious issues in jurisprudence, including the meaning of right and wrong. Law itself cannot be monopolized by the wealthy and the privileged as long as others, including the underprivileged, understand its intricacies. Education can be accessed by all, argues the storyteller, and we have enough evidence to corroborate this premise in tales by barbers and porters who take pride in being more knowledgeable than the people to whom they offer their services. Slaves are no exception. In fact, many know their rights well enough to forestall misuse. Despite the historical facts behind the slave (zanj ) revolt in Basra (868–883 c.e.), for instance, individual cases show how slaves may go to the judge and the jurist to secure their rights. In night 38, for instance, the slave Kāfūr is allowed one lie each year, which the merchant who has bought him thinks of as a passing matter of minor significance with no serious or damaging effect. One day, when the man joins his fellow merchants on a picnic, Kāfūr comes to him, sad and crying, telling him that his house has collapsed and his family perished. However, the slave has already told the wife that his master has also died. The merchant is so angry that he threatens the slave: “I will flay your skin.” Kāfūr answers: “You cannot, for you have bought me knowing that I have this one defect.” There is no other choice except to set him free, but he also tells the merchant: “If you set me free, I will not do so . . . for I have no other profession or craft to live from . . . this is a legal matter, mentioned by jurists under the article of ‘setting free.’ ”95 The anecdote has many equivalents in historical accounts,96 but its thrust relates to a binding system that organizes the working relationship between the master

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and the slave. Islamic jurists were behind the system. On the other hand, the same tale shows how knowledgeable the slave community is in matters of religion and jurisprudence. Other implications relate to particulars of implementation or invalidation. In a tale that is also reported in al-Tawnīdī’s Al-Baùā)ir wa-al-dhakhā)ir,97 the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd was interested in a slave girl that belonged to somebody else, so he had to ask the qābī Abū Yūsuf for a legitimate solution, which Abū Yūsuf made possible through his appropriation of jurisprudence to fit the new interests of the court and the mobility in marriage and divorce laws. The tale builds on the difference between istibrā) and (itq, or absolving from a relationship versus emancipation and manumission. The first has a time requirement according to prior arrangements, while the second can be immediate. According to Abū Yūsuf, “if the (itq applies to the slave girl, then the istbrā) is no longer tenable.” The tale makes use of the time needed for the istibrā) or the period that has to pass before the decree becomes legitimate. In the story, the qābī decides to marry the girl to another slave and to divorce them before any sexual contact. The slave refuses to divorce her, however. The other solution would be to offer the male the slave girl, as this ownership will enable the qābī to decree separation and cancellation of the marriage. The tale makes use of the sophistry that has been an aspect of Islamic domestic laws ever since. Its use of this discourse should alert us to a sophisticated process that coincided with the complexity of life and the erudition that goes hand in hand with urbanity and its demands and needs.98 Another example comes from the eighteenth century. Edward William Lane was interested in the following story, as related by the Egyptian annalist and historian al-Jabartī, who reported how his father’s second wife was so attached to a certain slave that she refused to give her up to another person who had already commissioned her husband to buy him a slave. This attachment worked against the presumed transaction, for the wife bought the girl, emancipated her, and then gave her to her husband “by a marriage-contract.”99 In the premodern period, with the existence of slavery, the complications increased whenever there was a transition from one status to another. If a man became a master of a slave, his early marriage to her was dissolved, but if he emancipated her, he could take her again as his wife if she agreed.100 What makes Bleak House and other novels by Charles Dickens important documentary evidence of nineteenth-century England, for example, is this attention to the complexity of a new legalistic discourse, which was soon to evolve as part and parcel of the capitalist society. We should not take this attention to sophistry as a mere reflection

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of an urban complexity, however, for the vocation of the jurist had already become so well established as to incite criticism. In Munammad ibn Anmad Abū al-Mu•ahhar al-Azdī’s mikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī,101 the rogue, as the protagonist, makes fun of the jurists who formed an “assembly of miserly villains, who were devoid of humor and refinement, spending their time debating schools of law and religions.” 102

Expediency, and the Center That Does Not Hold Expediency as necessitating appropriations, especially in Baghdad, means also a gradual loosening of law and order. This expediency is manifested in narratives of dislocation, travel, love, and slave transactions. These may prove more relevant to the rise-and-fall paradigm than one may cursorily assume. Each story speaks of one side of the matter, the fall of small kingdoms and the rise of the center, as the tales of the three mendicants imply. However, in the Baghdadi love story of Shams and ibn Bakkār, as well as the Basra tale of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs that concludes in Baghdad, there runs an ironic tone that speaks of impending fragmentation and fall. Robbers in the first story of Shams and ibn Bakkār casually roam Baghdad as if it were their own domain. They have a network of informants that leads them to specific targets. On the other hand, the Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs tale leads us to the caliph’s humor, which ironically anticipates the weakening of the empire. Looking from the river to his Palace of Statues, which is ablaze with lights, he asks his minister: “You dog of a vizier, has Baghdad been taken from me?” 103 In another instance, when commenting on the two lovers who “dared trespass on my palace,” 104 he threatens in jest his minister and confidant Ja’far: “By the tomb of my fathers and forefathers, if she [Anīs al-Jalīs] sings well, I will pardon them and hang you, but if she sings badly, I will hang you all.” 105 This sardonic humor is so loaded that it must have been either written in anticipation of the catastrophe that befell the minister and his family or was added later to cope with the actual situation. In both cases, there is a sense of ending, for the empire deteriorated when it passed through a period of suspicion toward its statesmen and professional architects. These tales conclude the early cycle of the royal brothers and their suspicious frame of mind. They also stress the unavoidable presence of women in political life. This issue is revealed more positively in love stories due to the urban nature of the tales, but disastrous conclusions are possible, too, and lovers pass through troubles and calamitous situations. Sex, death, and love function together

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and involve these narratives in more dynamic situations than the ones we have met in the frame tale, where the narrator is more concerned with advancing the plot.

Narrative as Historiography These love tales also anticipate the increasing loss of Arab stock in the fight for control over the ruling hierarchy. Slave girls of non-Arab extraction are educated in Arab culture. They are the ones who will win over the court by their art or faithfulness, and they are the ones who also win over public support. Like them, a lover of Persian stock, like ibn Bakkār, provides so much sincerity, faithfulness, and great fidelity to the concept of pure love that the Baghdadi public attends his funeral in large numbers. Parallel to these love and slave transactions are the recruitment and possession of young slaves, who were to become a force to be reckoned with during the (Abbāsid and Mamluk periods. The caliph al-Mu(taùim, who had his residence in Sāmarrā) instead of Baghdad in 836 c.e., established a Turkish entourage of guards, attendants, and servants. Sāmarrā) remained the capital until the caliph al-Mu(tabid returned to Baghdad in 892 c.e. Although driven by fear of Arab opposition, this preference for non-Arab forces did not bode well in the long run, as the new force would soon exercise power to secure its interests, just as the Mamluks would do in Egypt centuries later. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī (d. 1023 c.e.), who quoted ibn alMuqaffa’s reflections on race gradations in the company of a Buwayhid vizier (a non-Arab dynasty ruling Baghdad, 932–1062 c.e.), was tactful enough to avoid preferences and to discuss race in terms of national qualifications and historical determinism as decreed by God. “Every nation has a period of domination over its opponents. . . . And this change from nation to nation illustrates the abundance of the generosity of God to all His creation and creatures in proportion to their fulfillment of His demand and their readiness to exert themselves at length in attaining it.” 106 Rise and fall are set in context, as if to imply a lesson to all in case they were short of fulfilling their commitment to the mission. Baghdad was not in its heyday in the late tenth century, and the (Abbāsid decline had already set in. The cycle of achievement and loss becomes one major pattern in the tales. It is a cycle that also depicts an enormous melting pot of cultures and peoples, a melting pot that finds its reflection in encyclopedic works, compilations, biographical dictionaries, linguistic studies, epistolographic manuals, and statecraft compositions, along with diwāns and studies in literary criticism.

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Vagaries of Politics The interrelatedness between this historical cycle, its deterministic framework, and the evolution of compendiums and narrative collections like the Thousand and One Nights is more complex than what the premise seemingly indicates. The cycle of narrative is not confined to the vagaries of politics, despite its enormous presence in the collection. There are similar vicissitudes that drive the first dervish in “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” to describe his tale as “an amazing event and a strange mischance.” He adds: “Mine is a tale that, if it were engraved with needles at the corner of the eye, would be a warning to those who wish to consider.” 107 The combination of such appellations as “mischance” and “amazing event” with the warning and the lesson it has to communicate sets the tale within the pattern we usually associate with Arab-Islamic historiography until some time in the twelfth century, when other elements began to force themselves on the analysis of history. So far, these appellations level the blame on outside powers, penetration of foreign elements in the administration, and on the event itself as mischance or impertinent curiosity. The mendicants’ tales inform us of how they undergo adversity and loss. In “The City of Brass,” a number of kings and queens mention this before their impending calamity and death. There is a lesson here, and narrative as historiography works with no less power than action itself. In each story of vicissitude, misfortune, adversity, and loss, there is a lesson to be communicated in a manner that the Qur)ān has already established. The king in “The City of Brass” tells those who approach his kingdom and see waste and death amid pearls and jewels that he has summoned a scribe to record what has happened to them, as a lesson to all, for there is no safety and security except in God’s mercy. The Islamic message is conspicuous; it resonates with Qur)ānic suggestiveness and allusion. Each story has to be written down to fit into a historiography of warning and admonition. In “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” the people “marveled at the caliph’s wisdom, tolerance, and generosity and, when all the facts were revealed, recorded these stories.” 108 At the conclusion of “The Third Dervish’s Tale,” the caliph orders his vizier to “take these men home with you for the night and bring them before me early tomorrow morning so that we may chronicle for each his adventure that we have heard tonight.” 109 Stories of a marvelous nature are also recorded, for the king of China, who enjoyed the story of the young man from Baghdad and the meddlesome

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barber more than the story of the hunchback, also “commanded that the story of the barber and the hunchback be recorded.” 110 The narrative cycle of rise and fall becomes integral to Islamic historiography. There is an underlying assumption that individuals, communities, and kingdoms bring upon themselves some disaster, which has been growing through selfishness, misbehavior, inadequacy, corruption, vanity, and misuse of power. All of these amount to no less than lack of religious faith. Narrative grows, however, in this milieu, for piety and faith entail quietude and serenity, both of which terminate narrative. This pious understanding of the cycle of rise and fall has strong Qur)ānic underpinnings, for cities and kingdoms that brought about the wrath of God are many, as narrated in the Qur)ān. The unfolding divine will operates whenever there is a reason, since no nation suffers destruction unless there is misuse, injustice, and, definitely, lack of faith. In the tale of the first lady, the city that looks from afar like a “fat pigeon” turns out to be literally petrified.111 She relates: “We were happy, and in less than an hour our ship entered the harbor and I disembarked to visit the city.” 112 In the city, she “saw all the people in their shops had been turned into stone.” In the upper end of the city, she comes across a “door plated with red gold, draped with a silk curtain, and hung with a lamp.” 113 There she finds the petrified queen, still with her crown and pearls. The palace is magnificent and displays the grandeur of affluence and great wealth, and lit lights and candles alert the lady to the existence of someone amid this scene of opulence and death. The sweet voice of somebody reading the Qur)ān leads her to a young man, who later becomes her husband but who, due to the intrigues of her sisters, is drowned in the sea, and as such we never get the whole story of the petrified city. The prototype is either taken from “The City of Brass” or is meant to appear here to give reasons for the lady’s narrative of adventure, supernatural intervention, and return to Baghdad. In either case, the interpolation is significantly placed in this narrative to counterbalance opulence, power, and human greed. In cities, every particle or human can turn into an eidolon, a sign of the divine power. This joining together of the visible and the imaginary into a conglomerate of faith and urban life is what makes the collection an intriguing synthesis of the natural and the supernatural. The Baghdadi lady cannot be viewed as a mere reporter, for she is involved emotionally in the scene whereby her own faith, deepened by her personal troubles and sufferings, becomes a central narrative position. The storyteller endorses that position of faith while also leaving space for her enjoyment of life, as the bath scene in her house demonstrates. This trajectory operates, too, as narrative

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synesthesia, a deliberate slippage among words and sites to evoke a mixed sensation and perception. The synesthesia is otherwise impossible without this trajectory between the city as a visible object to be seen and analyzed and the strong emotional power that lies behind the narrative, enlisting the lady’s participation in a decent but joyful life of wine and music whenever the occasion warrants. Her Baghdad is contrasted against the petrified city, but the lesson is there to be communicated to the caliph, who is sharp enough to call on historians to record such narratives.

Wealth and Luxury as Signs of Deterioration Let us focus on this issue in more detail. The premise that the Thousand and One Nights bourgeoned under an imperial order is based on com­ pendia of evolution and growth (despite the significance of these compilations as defensive strategies employed to resist the fragmentation and forgetfulness that usually accompany the impending fall of empires), and it is also corroborated by the storyteller’s critique that one can discern throughout the tales, especially when they associate the fall of kingdoms and empires with the superfluity of wealth and luxury. Certainly, the storyteller has to gauge this against a frame of reference that is solidly entrenched in Islamic faith. Every life or stage of prosperity is doomed to end, as long as mortality is a fact of human life. The underlying advice is not far from the obligations of Islamic law to do good and forbid evil. Death is irrevocable, and its description as the terminator and destroyer of delights and separator of communities runs like a leitmotif throughout the tales. In love narratives such as the story of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs alJalīs, the happy ending concludes with how they “lived the happiest and most delightful of lives until they were overtaken by the breaker of ties and destroyer of delights.” 114 The Islamic frame operates more strongly, however, when we speak of empires. This is the right place for the storyteller to describe the futile accumulation of riches and power and the uselessness of too much preoccupation with selfish pursuits. The premise falls short of ibn Khaldūn’s historical and social perspective, for the association with the Islamic warning against the accumulation of riches and the neglect of piety and faith implies resignation and an acceptance of consequences. God’s decrees demand recognition of and resignation to one’s fate, but usually calamities and disasters come after a warning. The Qur)ānic narrative usually refers to such happenings in order to warn existing societies of too much arrogance, vanity, idolatry, and apostasy.

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“The City of Brass” is not alone in its message of faith versus greed and self-control set against heedlessness. It is unique, however, in providing us with the “fall-of-empire syndrome.” A number of anecdotes and embedded stories speak to this sense of ending. It is good to read “The City of Brass” against its presumed historical background, which was also mentioned in historical accounts, especially in al-§abarī’s History and in Murūj al-Dhahab (Meadows of Gold ) by Abū al-masan al-Mas(ūdī.115 It deals with the Umayyad period and provides a critique of governance as ownership, a far cry from the Islamic faith and its message of piety, austerity, the welfare of all Muslims, reverence, and gratitude to God. On the other hand, the expansion of the empire under the Umayyads or the (Abbāsids demanded a delicate balance between the religious message and statecraft. The empire operated in terms of law and order, expenditure and revenues. Taxation became the source of growth, expansion, and subsequent laxity and descent into corruption and failure. The fall-of-empire syndrome is usually present in any recounting of ancient or former traditions. In “The City of Brass,” we are told the Umayyad caliph asks about “the traditions of former nations.” 116 This is not enough by itself, and there is a need to have people who can undertake the role of the informant. The caliph is advised to call on a certain shaykh with knowledge of “the deserts and wastes and seas, and their inhabitants and their wonders, and the countries and their districts.” 117 In their commissioned journey to the City of Brass, they come upon a deserted palace where they read an inscription that says: “Death hath destroyed them [Lords and Kings] and disunited them, and in the dust they have lost what they amassed.” 118 Another inscription sounds very Islamic, but it also bewails calamity that comes despite all wealth and luxury, for all this worldly material achievement “will pass before the morning to another, and they will have brought thee a camel-driver and a grave-digger.” 119 Apart from this poetic inscription, there is another that speaks of the overpowering plague or pestilence that has overtaken everything: “I was not aware when there alighted among us the terminator of delights and the separator of companions, the desolator of abodes and the ravager of inhabited mansions, the destroyer of the great and the small and the infants and the children and the mothers.” He adds, “We had resided in this palace in security until the event decreed by the Lord of all creatures, the Lord of the heavens and the Lord of the earths, befell us, and the Thunder of the Manifest Truth assailed us, and there died of us every day two, till a great company of us perished.” Dying with a belated conversion to a monotheistic faith, he explains the lesson he would like to impart: “I summoned a

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writer, and ordered him to write these verses and admonitions and lessons, and caused them to be engraved upon these doors and tablets and tombs.” 120 The dead king enumerates what his ownership consists of, concluding with the advice to heed the Message of God and to resign to His will.121 The accumulation of wealth without faith and the surrender to greed and lavish expenditure ends in waste and blight. This lesson cuts across the tales whenever there is mention of disproportionate affluence and lavish expenditure. The Khurāsānī nobleman in the Baghdad of the last decade of the eighth century attributed this association to the growth of many crafts, dense populations, stupendous wealth, and excessive comfort. These signify “affluence which occurs among nations at the end of their rule and at the time when commanding becomes difficult.” 122 Jurists might have warned against this end, but their warnings could not prolong the age of empire or devise ways to unify its vast reaches. Widely involved in statecraft to the extent of emerging as a professional class, they had their own interests to protect and defend. Only a few of them suffered for their open opposition to the state. Little on record shows that they had advised ways to preempt uprisings and rebellions, which were soon to erupt among the disenfranchised groups. Such were the revolts of the underprivileged zanj (slaves), whose revolt (255–270/868– 883) was led by the Arab (Alī b. Munammad b. (Abd al-Ranīm, and the Qarmatians, whose rebellion (890–931 c.e.) forcibly set in motion the process of decline and fall. Economy and agriculture began to decline sharply, and the common people began to suffer more acutely than ever. Robbers and criminals are mentioned in the tales as a potential threat to the wealthy classes. That was not the scene decades earlier, especially in eighth-century Baghdad.123 According to the Khurāsānī nobleman, the jurist and qābī of Baghdad, Abū Yūsuf, was not dismayed by the lavish expenditure of the (Abbāsid court. He intimated to the same Khurāsānī nobleman that “when the Caliph consummated his marriage to Zubaida, the daughter of Ja(far the Barmakid [sic], he gave a banquet unprecedented in Islam. He gave away unlimited presents at this banquet, even giving containers of gold filled with silver, containers of silver filled with gold, bags of musk and pieces of ambergris.” He estimates the total cost as follows: “The total expenditure of this banquet reached 55,500,000 dirhams. The Caliph commanded that Zubaida be presented in a gown of pearls whose price no one was able to appraise. He adorned her with pieces of jewelry, so much so that she was not able to walk because of the great number of jewels which were on her.” The conclusion shows surprise and dismay: “This example of extravagance had no precedent among the kings

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of Persia, the emperors of Byzantium, or the princes of the Umayyads, despite the great amounts of money which they had at their disposal.” 124 The tendency to spend so lavishly was commonplace in this period. AlMuqtadir’s palaces were known for their luxury. The number of curtains in his palaces totaled thirty-eight thousand, and al-Kha•īb al-Baghdadi writes that they were “gold brocade curtains embroidered with gold, and magnificently adorned with representations of goblets, elephants, horses and camels, lions, and birds.” 125 Each one of these scenes and sites goes beyond the description of wealth in the collection. The Thousand and One Nights includes something that is lacking in many Islamic historical accounts: a warning. Each scene of lavishness is set against another of restraint and modesty. It is worthwhile to look at the storyteller’s strategy of dealing with these situations. To combine warning with depictions of extravagance, he or she elaborates on a specific scene in “The City of Brass,” whereby a lady is lavishly attired with gold and jewelry that draw the greed of one of the emir’s companions. Despite the emir’s warning, this person cannot resist his greed. The story goes as follows: Emir Musa and his companions and troops reach the city where they come across a “saloon constructed of polished marble adorned with jewels. The beholder imagined that upon its floor was running water, and if any one walked upon it he would slip.” 126 There, close to the fountain, is a couch adorned with pearls and jewels and jacinth, whereon did a damsel resemble the shining sun. Eyes had not beheld one more beautiful. Upon her was a garment of brilliant pearls, on her head was a crown of red gold, with a fillet of jewels, on her neck was a necklace of jewels in the middle of which were refulgent gems, and upon her forehead were two jewels the light of which was like that of the sun; and she seemed as though she were looking at the people, and observing them to the right and left.127

Even the emir is so confounded by her beauty and seeming liveliness that he greets her with “peace is on thee,” as is the customary greeting among Muslims. Her couch, we are told, “had steps, and upon the steps were two slaves, one of them white and the other black; and in the hand of one of them was a weapon of steel, and in the hand of the other a jeweled sword that blinded the eyes; and before the two slaves was a tablet of gold, whereon was read an inscription” that describes the catastrophe that has befallen this kingdom, despite its enormous wealth and riches. One of the emir’s companions reaches for the damsel’s jewels, despite the emir’s warning, and the slaves smite him dead. The emir says, “May God not regard with

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mercy thy resting-place! There was, in these riches, a sufficiency; and covetousness doth doubtlessly dishonor the person in whom it existeth!” 128 Unlimited greed indicates impending failure in the tales, and it is usually set in contrast to sites of need or piety. It is only through love, sacrifice, and self-denial that things take a different direction, as exemplified in Scheherazade’s endeavor with the king. The far-reaching consequences of wealth and extravagance that operate also within an Islamic frame of obligations and warnings turn states and empires into weak and fragmented entities, especially when taxation becomes a burden. The books on taxation were as numerous as the manuals on epistolography by the time of the second (Abbāsid period, the Fatimids, the Ayyubids, and the Mamluks. Epistolography manuals and taxation treatises signify the need to command and control, but taxation manuals may surprise us with the information they provide regarding the enormous wealth collected to provide for the royal court. As listed in the tenth-century bibliographic compendium Kitāb al-Fihrist, there were, at that time, no fewer than twenty-one books dealing mostly with land taxes and with poll and other forms of taxation. The first manual was written before 170/786, the death date of the first author mentioned by ibn al-Nadīm.129 While in keeping with the expansion of the Islamic state, the use of taxation by some rulers for purposes of personal luxury runs counter to the Islamic message and to the practice stressed by the Messenger of God. Al-Ghazālī’s anecdote in his treatise on nisbah with respect to the caliph and the old shaykh in the streets of Baghdad, who is busily searching the street for food regardless of the caliph’s procession, is tellingly included as an example of resistance to lavish expenditure. The ascetics and the pious shaykhs were ready to demonstrate their rejection of the worldliness that marked a good deal of court practices.130 This rejection signifies one portion of the disintegrating empire and the tension between faith and statecraft. This tension is exemplified in many tales that focus on such themes as petrified cities and lost kingdoms, the bygone paradisiacal bliss, and the excursions of the incognito caliph with his ironic double role and identity, his sovereign and public implications. The center no longer holds, and the literature of the period demonstrates this polarization between private and public spheres, the courtly panegyric and polished epistle versus the assemblies and their further peripheral narratives, street songs, and short poems catering to a large public audience.

9  4  0 The Changing Order The Role of the Public in The Thousand and One Nights

T

o some Islamic thinkers, the popular mind only displays the Islamic message itself: its appeal to principles of freedom, equality, justice, affection, and compassion. That was one of the reasons behind both the enormous appeal of its message and the hierarchal resistance to its basic beliefs of equality and justice, a resistance that penetrated the development of nations, dynasties, and the Islamic empire. They rarely debate the concept of (āmmah, however, as being anything more than the material for faith and guidance. Kamāl al-Dīn al-Damayrī (d. 808 h.) says in his mayāt al-mayawān al-Kubrā: “The common individual is weak, excited by the jadal [argumentation and debate] of the advocates of the new.” 1 Islamic nations as well as the empire could not keep up with the prophetic decrees of brotherhood and reverence and were gradually entrenched in their needs and requirements, which happened to elude many articles of the faith. Does this tension in the Islamic state or empire since the Umayyads appear in the tales as a collective memory? Apart from the relaxed navigation among lands and times, the tales demonstrate this tension and direct it to anxieties, adventures, ambitions, conflicts, reconciliations, and long journeys of discovery and business. The fantastic element resists comparisons, but it keeps the mind attracted to and ingrained in the real as the instigator of the fantastic excursion. Both the message of Islam and the expansion of the Islamic state, geographically and culturally, should be kept in mind when perusing the Thousand and One Nights. The collection and its evolution between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, its emergence, accumulation, and fragmentation,

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resembles in many ways the increasingly layered structure of the empire. As argued earlier, the analogy may further explain the appropriation of a narrative nucleus, the frame tale of Scheherazade and Shahrayar, and its ostensible title, the thousand and one fables, as the basis for a growing collection that under the artistry of storytellers and compilers digested other material of different locations, identities, and cultures. As an ensemble of so many cultural nuclei and an efficient melting pot, the collection has proved to be of enduring fame, with a global appeal that has never waned. Its slave girls, singers, mendicants, professionals, and abundant pearls and merchandise function as tropes and significations for an empire’s long history of achievements and failures.

The Imperial and the Islamic The frame tale is not a mere ensemble, a basin or container, which holds a number of stories together. Its very appropriation from other collections of Indo-Persian origin should alert us first to the nature of culture at that time, from the ninth century onward. The appropriation was obviously not condoned by the elitists, who were the guardians of taste and the upholders of the literary canon, despite the political upheavals that had begun to undermine the unity of the empire. But this appropriation reveals something else. It is an oblique way of questioning the centrality of the sovereign, the caliphal order itself, not only due to the almost concomitant emergence of the Fatimid caliphate (969–1171 c.e.) and its claim to legitimacy against the (Abbāsid rule, or the similar Andalusian claim following the inauguration of (Abd al-Ranmān the Third as caliph (912–61 c.e.), but also because the frame tale debates the legitimacy of the sovereign. Both King Shahrayar and King Shahzaman recognize their limitations as human beings who are unable to claim any divine order. They were overruled by their wives, who preferred cooks and slaves to them. Instead of actual satisfaction with the delicacies and privileges of the court, their wives were more interested in ordinary life and society. They are so much involved in this society that they are ready to suffer the consequences. In other words, the narrative constructs a social order or disorder that harbors adultery, transgression, deceit, desire, and other human frailties and limitations. Through narrative, it questions and undermines claims to legitimacy and tests the will of monarchs to change in due course, but as a historical process, a journey of great challenge. The monarch must listen, meditate, request, recapitulate, and learn. He has to abandon a chauvinistic male legacy and become instead a mere

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human like any other in order to accept advice, counsel, and the existence of people not as slaves or sheep but as a community with moral responsibility, duties, and rights. In other words, the journey initiated in the frame tale and onward, through the progression and repetition of some tales or their motivations, is a journey from limited fraternity or solidarity to a greater collective consciousness, from a tribal or quasi- religious order to a national one, from an indefinite geographical naming to cities with names, topographies, communities, and order. Even intruders from the other world, outer space so to speak, must abide by rules. Habits of a later period, probably the Mamluk, are emphasized in the second mendicant’s tale, both to demonstrate the social and religious obligations of women to be veiled in the presence of strangers and to have this veiling as a structural motivation, without which the battle between the human power represented by the king’s daughter and the supernatural order represented by the jinn cannot take place. It is only because of her interest in the restoration of the monkey, the transformed monarch, to his original form, that the battle takes place. Yet the battle is also one of human affirmation, which must be fought with great craft, courage, cunning, and eventual sacrifice. Its culminating rituals are burns, bruises, and death. Her father, the king, has to be burned and bruised, to bear the scars of human life, in order to evolve into a human representative of the community with an ordinary discourse that speaks of its own pains and troubles with modesty and humility. There is no grand discourse but rather a communal one that emanates from the very limitations of the real situation. His religious references are casual and ordinary considering the calamity that has touched him deeply, indeed as deeply as the adulterous behavior of Shahrayar’s wife, which put an end to his sense of supremacy and sovereignty. Thus he says to the young man, the ape restored to his previous form: We have enjoyed the happiest of lives, safe from the misfortunes of the world, until you came with your black face and brought disaster with you. My daughter died for your sake, my servant perished, and I myself barely escaped destruction. You were the cause of all this, for ever since we laid eyes on you, we have been unfortunate. Would that we never saw you, for we have paid your deliverance with our destruction. Now I want you to leave our city and depart in peace, but if I ever see you again, I will kill you.2

The city-state is not an order of the past, for along with it, there are nation-states and empires. In the same tale, we are told of the borders and

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laws of each nation, when the second mendicant says to the highwaymen: “We are messengers to the great king of India; you cannot harm us.” The highwaymen are more adept in geography and law, for they reply: “We are neither within his dominions nor under his rule.” 3 What holds the collection together, and what upholds the concept of nationhood, Islamic or Arab, is the Islamic context. The Islamic stamp of the collection is one in keeping with the original doctrinal message, that is, its focus on an Islamic brotherhood of love, intimacy, compassion, and good work. Although at times the collection seems divided between good and evil, contrasts and dichotomies are not meant as contradictory structures. The two viziers in the tale of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs, for example, exemplify this dichotomy, for ibn Khāqān is known for doing good and forbidding evil,4 an attitude that wins him the love and support of the common public. The other vizier is the opposite. He is greedy, cruel, and a liar. These are human qualities, but the specific reference to ibn Khāqān’s Islamic morality, doing good and forbidding evil, puts him within an Islamic order as enforced in Islamic nisbah manuals. In other words, Islamic identity has a universality that can be accommodated and easily accepted by readers, whoever and wherever they are. This combination has received a variety of responses from scholars and critics. The European neoclassicists were often attuned to the universal outlook whenever they had a well-disposed predilection to enjoy Eastern narratives. Especially for the apologists among them, there is in the tales some­ thing that addresses human concerns and needs. The universal is the gateway to their appreciation of a culture with which they were not familiar. While both shared some common criteria that confuse refinement of taste with elevated style and morality with restrained composition, they belong to different worldviews, with deep contradictions whenever the issues of universalism, the court, and religion are the subject of discussion. On the other hand, both subscribe to an established belief that confuses elitism with polity, for they take themselves to be the true representatives of the society, its welfare, and its culture. They are the protectors and the guardians of the whole society and the bulwark against sordidness, which is usually associated in elite discourse with both the popular and the poor. The belletristic tradition in European and Islamic contexts built its canon on highly refined prose writing inaccessible to the layman and, indeed, very belittling of classes that were deemed beyond the reach of this prose and its aspirations. This categorization cannot be consistently applied, however. Especially among jurists, there are some who side with the popular mind against the

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extravagance of the court. They may even speak up against governors who misuse power. Among the many anecdotes on record is the one by Sa(īd ibn Muslim, the governor of Armenia, who had Abū Hiffān waiting at his door for three days. When admitted, Abū Hiffān told him: “This power that has devolved on you and that you now possess was earlier in the hands of others. By God, they have become a mere story; if they did good, then it is a good story; if they did evil, then it is a bad one. Ingratiate yourself then with God’s servants by being pleasant, gentle, and easily accessible through your chamberlain.”5 Subordination to authority entails a ten­ dency to become inaccessible to the underprivileged. The same classification applies to the tales, their audiences, and their opponents, East and West. Regardless of under which name or denomination faith appears, religion cannot remain the same, for it grows into an institution, an overwhelming presence, pragmatic and utilitarian, which the popular mind appropriates in multifarious ways. The processes of rulers and jurists that Hourani has studied6 were not basically different, for both tried to abide by the laws as specified in the Qur)ān and the Prophetic traditions. Both were bound and guided by the state. Both appropriated the laws to meet new demands. There was, however, another popular tradition that could not be controlled. Popular literature gradually moves from the margins to claim a religiosity of another sort, ritualistic and popular, which amalgamates benedic­ tions, recitations, visitation prayers, vows, anecdotes, formulas, and some scattered lines from holy texts. This is the aspect of the Thousand and One Nights that deserves attention in order to show its Islamic context. Having said this, we should not overlook the cultural aspect of the tales, whenever they argue or narrate issues and matters of urban life, marketplace ethics, and women. All of these aspects, as well as rituals and popular practices, manifest a culture that we usually call Islamic, in the same manner as we call European certain Christian ways of conduct and behavior. Partaking of the oral tradition, however, the tales in their early ensemble and configuration are not innocent hearsay or idle chit-chat, for morality retains a purpose and a role, depending on its sources, sites of enunciation, and target. To speak of the elite society, the court, the merchants, and private life behind closed doors is as purposeful as bugging, wiretapping, surveillance, and espionage. The only difference is that there is more fantasy and desire in the storyteller’s repository and invention. While the tales have this imaginative assemblage, they also collate a large corpus of narratives that became part of the cultural material of urban life, which was circulated, added to, sifted, and transformed according to storytellers and their whims, concerns, and audiences. In other

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words, the outcome is a cultural repertoire, an inventory of many directions, that may be defined metaphorically as Islamic to account for life as it was desired or made available in talks, anecdotes, and, in some cases, lived. Yet regardless of our point of view, the tales were the most influential product in defining the Arab East for European and, now, American audiences, especially through media manipulation of stock images and stereotyping to fit into a reductive strategy of mass production and consumerism. Indeed, a solid neoclassicist like Walter Bagehot wrote in his lengthy 1859 essay “The People of the Arabian Nights” that he, like many, knew that they were repeating hearsay and nonsensical depictions of the so-called East, but custom and tradition made the practice a way of cultural classification that had no basis in reality.7 As an inventory of popular traces, imaginary or real, the so-called Arabian Nights’ Entertainments has a context, then, which is broadly Islamic, insofar as Islam is a culture wider than institutionalized religion and more complex than the practices and obligations of the faithful. Rather than alienating European readers, this broad context appealed to perennial desires and addressed needs and aspirations of universal appeal. On the other hand, freedom from pragmatism and bigotry usually associated with conservative jurists in the East or West made the tales readily acceptable, for their Islamic context presents a humane milieu where the providential presence of God secures poetic justice and retains order and harmony after chaos.

Sites of Popular Faith: Book Markets Especially in matters that relate to Islamic narrative norms and practices, the tales demonstrate both their efficacy as popular traditions in the East and West and as a commodity in a cultural field that continued, for over five centuries, to accumulate in order to meet the literal demands of the title. Even when storytellers and compilers understood that the “thousand and one” was only a term to signify endlessness and continuity, they had to cope with a market that could have taken the title literally. To meet the demand, many tales were taken from the corpus of anecdotal literature, historical records, and popular traditions. A number of implications are involved here, which invite further explanation. There was a demand for this supply, and compilers were ready to take care of the matter during a time of lucrative business for bibliophiles, copyists, and their like, especially when other means of livelihood (that is, the court) were not as easily accessible as before. There was also the appearance, since the ninth century,

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of the warrāqīn markets. These were the markets of the copyists, hack editors, and booksellers, who had a quarter of their own in Baghdad and later in Cairo, at which readers and book collectors shopped. On the eastern side of the Tigris, ibn (Aqīl tells us, was the booksellers’ market, “a large one which is also the meeting place of learned men and poets. ”8 This was located at the bridgehead in the days of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd and had been previously the Palace of muzayma, which “stood at the corner where the road of Shammasīyah branched off to the northern gate”; it was probably in the same location as the present Sūq al-Sarāy. Copyists and calligraphers were so much in demand, says George Makdisi in his classic book on Islamic humanism, that there were instances of fierce competition for books of the grammarian and calligrapher al-(Attābī (d. 556/1161), due to his renowned textual accuracy and the beauty of his handwriting.9 Copyists were employed by scientists, historians, and grammarians. In the ninth century, for instance, the lexicographer al-Anwal (275/888) was employed by munain ibn Isnāq for his translations from Greek sciences. Others lingered in the market, waiting to be commissioned by writers and translators.10 Such an industry was unique in its enormous production and the size of the labor force employed before the appearance of print.11 Even if there were no actual demand for the Thousand and One Nights compi­ lation, it was in their interest to encourage it in order to sell more books and consequently to secure their livelihood. Whether we are speaking of ninth- and tenth-century Baghdad or Mam­ luk Cairo, literary production of every kind, including the inscription of oral tradition and popular lore, grew significantly, as the enormous corpus of books demonstrate. The popular demand, as well as the interest of copyists and compilers, along with the commitment of many to pre­ serve a legacy, operated very strongly in creating a lucrative business in a busy market space. This is not a passing matter; rather, it means the birth of new public spaces for meetings and discussions as well as the deliberate condescension to public taste, the popular one in particular. As the official language was more limited in use, especially since belletristic chancery writing was often reserved for the elite, the nonofficial language of the middle and lower classes became widely disseminated. This led to a larger application of popular Islamic terms that gradually evolved as formulas. The specific mention of markets, baths, and other meeting places by inspectors or writers on the duties of market inspectors should alert us to this proliferation of cultural production, whose preachers, diviners, and narrators or qaùùāùīn were the butt of juridical criticism.12 This same dissemination of popular taste became a way of life, a practice

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that can be detected almost everywhere in writings since the tenth century. The tendency was so powerful that the tenth-century judge al-Tanūkhī complained of the distortion of actual stories and historical accounts. The other implication relates to a large number of tales that resort, as narrative method, to autobiographical introductions. This autobiographical element is of some significance, not only as concomitant with the tendency to transmit, authenticate, and confirm a social and national connection, but most often to establish identity as a Muslim. Although ibn al-)Ukhuwwah tells us that the prioritization of Islamic citizenry dwindled by the fourteenth century and perhaps much earlier, the tales still speak of this prioritization.13 There are tales of Jews and Christians in this context, but these also operate in an Islamic context, as the tales of the barber’s brothers signify. Moreover, the establishment of nasab (lineage or genetic succession) corroborates an Islamic identity in the lands of Islam during a crucial period of migrancy and dislocation. Most of these tales narrate, in the words and language of a speaker, a story of displacement and a search for settlement as well as a yearning for a life and a place that compensate for the ones lost. The story is undoubtedly an oblique narrative of rise and fall on an individual or communal level. Whether we speak of the mendicants or the barbers’ brothers, there is a search for a habitation. The only difference between this level and the imperial one is the tendency to accommodate oneself in a new Islamic land. Despite the nostalgia for the lost city, there is no terrible sense of foreignness. In fact, the conversations on and discussions of Muslim cities center on worldly preferences: which is preferable, Cairo, Damascus, or Baghdad?

Competing Centers or Competing Dynasties? The tendency to compare cities is not unique to the Thousand and One Nights; since the tenth century, books on the merits and virtues of cities, their fabā)il, were many. These books have been classed as the fabā)il genre. Baghdad received greater attention in the ninth and tenth centuries, but other cities also gained visibility. There appeared books on Andalusia (Muslim Spain) and on Damascus, Jerusalem, and Cairo. As many people and intellectuals were driven by economic and political reasons to migrate to other places, a great body of literature became available that also met the needs of its own period. The Cairo of the tales is mostly the Fatimid or Ayyubid Cairo, when festivities were in abundance, although the crowdedness was even greater during the Mamluk period. In the Jewish physician’s tale, the young merchant from Mosul tells us how his father, uncles,

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and others were in the Mosul mosque after prayers, sitting in a circle and talking “about the wonders of foreign lands and the marvels of various cities until they mentioned Cairo, and one of my uncles said, ‘Travelers say there is nothing on the face of the earth fairer than Cairo.’ Another disagreed, saying, ‘It is Baghdad that is the Paradise and the capital of the world.’ ” Ibn Mihmandār’s third-century hijrah treatise entitled Fabā)il Baghdad enumerates many of the merits and virtues of a metropolis that even that early on had already elicited the celebration and admiration of visitors, scholars, and tourists. Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200) continues this tradition in his Manāqib Baghdad. Al-Kha•īb al-Baghdādī quotes one of the poets, (Umārah b. (Aqīl b. Bilāl al-Kha•āfī, as saying upon the shifting of the capital to Sāmarrā) (836 c.e.): “Have you seen in all the length and breadth of the earth / A city such as Baghdad? Indeed it is paradise on earth? Life in Baghdad is pure; its wood becomes verdant, / While life outside of it is without purity and freshness? There the lifespan is long; its food / Is healthful; for some parts of the earth are more healthful than others.” 14 The mention of Baghdad as the capital refers to the period before 1258 c.e.. Thereafter, “the universe was without a caliph until 659 a.h., in the days of al-Malik al-¥āhir Baybars al-Banqdārī,” Ibn Duqmāq said in a lament about the fall of the caliphal center.15 The story of the barber and the lame man from Baghdad in the tailor’s narrative also bears evidence of those glorious days celebrated by historians, travelers, and visitors, like the Khurāsānī young man who described in a letter to his father the Baghdad of 803 c.e. as a city of cultural expansion, education, and joy. In this city, all artisans, professionals, functionaries, and skilled workers found enough education to raise them up to the expectations of the more privileged classes. In night 144, the Baghdadi barber speaks of himself as follows: “God sent you a barber who is also an astrologer and a physician, versed in the arts of alchemy, astrology, grammar, lexicography, logic, scholastic disputation, rhetoric, algebra, and history, as well as the traditions of the Prophet, according to Muslim and al-Bukhari [compilers of the sayings of the Prophet].” 16 In the Jewish physician’s tale, the young merchant from Mosul acquaints us with a different image of cities that were lost and others that were replacing them. He shows a stronger affinity to his father’s view that Cairo is the best of cities, at a time when it was acquiring the status of the center of the Islamic world. He adds, “But my father, who was the eldest, said, ‘He who has not seen Cairo has not seen the world. Its dust is gold, its women dolls, and its Nile a wonder, whose water is sweet and refreshing and whose clay is soft and cool.’ ” One may come across these appellations in many historical accounts, too. The father goes

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on to describe the Ethiopian Pond, the observatory, the Nile Flooding Feast, and al-Rauda Park.17 On the way to Cairo and in the company of his father and uncles, the young merchant from Mosul reaches Aleppo and then Damascus, “which I found,” said the narrator, “to be a pleasant, peaceful, and prosperous city, abounding in trees and rivers and birds, like a garden in Paradise.” This invocation of the celestial and the heavenly is deliberate, since the narrator quotes from the Qur)ān in describing Paradise as abounding in “ ‘ fruits of all kinds,’ like one of the gardens in Rudwan [i.e., gardens of the blessed].” 18 The paradisiacal image is significant both because it offers us some evidence for a period in the history of Damascus when it was relatively peaceful, before or after the Crusades and the Mongol invasions, and because it operates in the context of a frame of reference in which a similar invocation was made in certain battles to defend Cordoba and other Andalusian cities described by the military leader as paradise.19 The predication of the paradisiacal and the heavenly on the earthly and the politically real also suggests the actual materialistic subtext that allows for the larger appeal of the Thousand and One Nights. In other words, this subtext is not in keeping with Islamic codes and ethics; nor is it in keeping with shari )ah law. The movement between the needs of urban life and the demands of law is broad enough to let the governor of Damascus decide in the same story that the chief merchant should pay the young merchant indemnity, since the chief merchant is behind the application of the law that has led to the severing of the young man’s hand. Islamic law is strict in these matters, and it should specify the terms of equivalent compensation. The beauty of Damascus is marred by these incidents, the growing separation between the mercantile class and the Islamic law, and the possibility of greater corruption, failure, and disruption. In other words, in comparison to this mixed Damascene tale, the Baghdad of bygone days is portrayed as peaceful and under careful police control, as in the cycle of the porter and the three ladies of Baghdad, and if it witnesses some unevenness in behavior, this either takes place outside the domains of the Commander of the Faithful or for specific reasons, like the raid on the jeweler’s house in Shams al-Nahār’s tale. The story of the Cairene Christian broker is worth noting in this respect, both for its attention to the Christian segment of the population and because of the urban identifications that make it a Cairene tale, with Cairo as a real city that has its beauties and troubles. The Cairene Christian broker “swore by the New Testament” that the young trader, the native of Baghdad, must be his guest.20 Both the oath and the invitation lead us to

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the story of the young Baghdadi trader who hides his right hand. We understand that he was in love in Cairo and that he spent all his money on this love affair. While there are similar stories in the Nights, where people end up bankrupt after wasting their money on company and pleasure, there are only a few tales that cite love as the reason behind this bankruptcy. Love usually functions as a temptation that leads to further consequences. Although he is the son of a prominent Baghdadi businessman, the young trader finds himself in Cairo in desperate need of money. One day, “I left my lodging at the caravansary and walked along Bain-al-Qasrayn Street until I came to the Zuwayla Gate, where it was so crowded that the gate was blocked up with people.” 21 Both crowdedness and need encourage the latent desire to acquire money. We know from al-Maqrīzī’s (d. 1442 c.e.) Khu• a• that Cairo was a bustling and very crowded city in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Around the area mentioned in the tale, between Bāb al-Futūn and Bāb Zuwayla, there were forty-eight markets out of the eighty-seven total and there were forty-four caravanserais out of fifty-eight total in the city. The area was extremely crowded and busy with mercantile activity. The tale, however, depicts another difference between the Cairene tales and the Baghdadi ones. In the Baghdadi cycle, there is pleasant humor and knowledge to compensate for need and to lead to one’s financial improvement. In the Cairene tales, need may prompt theft and murder. Thus the young trader says: I found myself pressed against a soldier, so that my hand came upon his breast pocket and I felt a purse inside. I looked and, seeing a green tassel hanging from the pocket, realized that it was attached to the purse. The crush grew greater every moment, and just then, a camel, bearing a load of wood, jostled the soldier on the other side, and he turned to ward it off from him, lest it should tear his clothes. And Satan tempted me, and I pulled the tassel and drew out a little blue silk purse, with something clinking inside. Hardly had I held the purse in my hand, when the soldier felt something and, touching his pocket with his hand, found it empty.22

Metropolitan Temptations Urban circumstances only increased the trader’s temptation to steal, a behavior that questions his early education, status, and prestige. Reli­ gion perhaps has not taken root in his person; more likely he is overruled by love and need. This fact sets the metropolis and the state apart from early periods, when religion, with its obligations and blessedness, including the

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obligation to resist temptation, was still fresh. Although the blame is partly put on Satan, the actual circumstance and the dire need to meet the demands of the ongoing love affair make this theft a deliberate act. The city itself becomes a site of temptation, not the celestial city or city of God. This interpretation does not apply to another story in the same king of China cluster of tales. The steward tells us the story of “the young man from Baghdad and Lady Zubaida’s Maid.” Like the trader in the Cairene tale, this young man’s thumb is cut off, not for theft, but for audacity or carelessness of behavior, which overlooks the manners of the court and its entourage. His hand smells of ragout spiced with cumin on the night of his wedding to the maid. The narrator, the steward, is obviously a learned person who is in the habit of attending religious gatherings. “I was invited to hear a recitation of the Qur)ān, where the doctors of the law, as well as a great many citizens of your city [China], were assembled.”23 As is the case in these autobiographical tales, the narrator-actor should inform the assembly of his lineage, circumstance, and station, both to justify his condition and to establish himself anew in a different community. He has already passed the rite of passage, and should now claim himself as one of the group after passing through the ordeal. The young man, whose thumb is cut off, tells us about his father, who “was one of the most prominent merchants of Baghdad, in the days of the caliph Harun al-Raschid, but who was fond of wine and the lute, so that when he died, he left me nothing.” 24 Both stories associate bankruptcy with either love and its demands or wine and music. In other words, both speak of worldly temptation, especially pleasure, as the most destructive element to one’s prosperity and life. If applied to the community and the state, these temptations may fit ibn Khaldūn’s explanation of the rise and fall of empires, the disintegration of solidarity, and the fragmentation of power. What applied to the father in the steward’s tale may well apply to the young trader from Baghdad, who tells his story to the Egyptian Coptic broker. Both young men come from Baghdad, though one’s love affair takes place in Cairo and the misfortune of the other takes place in Baghdad. In other words, the metropolis is the place where temptation occurs and where fortune and misfortune come in consequence to one’s deeds. Here is the new place which ibn Khaldūn associates, on the one hand, with royalty and its systematic departure from any form of solidarity and consequential reliance on the state apparatus and, on the other hand, on new interdependent arrangements of immediate interest and expediency. If there is a mention of religious rituals, it is only rituals of habit, not faith. Notwithstanding the mention of the recitation of the Qur)ānic gathering

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in the steward’s tale, and the “mourning ceremony” where “recitations of the Quran” are performed upon the death of the young man’s father in the same tale,25 these are only rituals with no actual hold on each person’s mind or behavior, as we see from their careers and acts. The difference between the tales with similar outcomes—the cutting off of thumbs and so on—relates more to an urban center in a specific period. The Baghdad of al-Rashīd has, in the minds of storytellers, not only an atmosphere of refinement and affluence, which cannot condone theft for need, but also an organized police system. The barber in the tailor’s tale addresses the young Baghdadi youth as follows: “in Baghdad one cannot do anything of the kind [being alone with a woman], especially on a day like this in a city whose chief of the police is very powerful, severe, and sharp-tempered.” 26 We know that some other tales may disagree with this, but there remains this underlying assumption that holds the Baghdadi tales together.

Travels to the Metropolis Travel in the tales, whether by necessity or inclination, becomes another term for a good story. It is also a means toward knowledge and commerce. Yet in its interest in travelogue as narrative, the Thousand and One Nights makes use of a rich repository of Arabic geographical literature.27 Indeed, although of a separate tradition, the “Voyages of Sindbad (Sindabād) the Sailor” repeat, in a focused narrative, the travel accounts of (Abbāsid travelers and geographers who roamed the world out of curiosity and in search of profit. Like any expanding empire, the Arab-Islamic Empire during the (Abbāsid period had geographers and travelers who also happened to be well-known literary figures. The accounts they give do not necessarily correspond with the impression we get from the tales and, on occasion, there are striking differences between the two. On the other hand, the Baghdad of the ninth century was not the same as Baghdad of the tenth century. In comparison with other Iraqi cities, there is a lot of information to substantiate what historians say about Baghdad in the ninth century. In the story of “Noureddin and the Beautiful Persian,” the captain of the boat that takes them along the Tigris from Basra says, upon approaching Baghdad: “Rejoice, my friends, there is the great and wonderful city, to which people from every part of the world are constantly flocking.” The writers of that period tell us the “last quarter of the eighth century and the first quarter of the ninth centuries a.d. were a period of happiness and prosperity for the people. Prices were generally low and wages fair.” 28 The glorious city of the (Abbāsids, which gained so much fame for its

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prosperity and security in the ninth century, was not so glorious in the days preceding its fall. The sailor Bozorg ibn Schahriar (d. 953 c.e.) described it in his book (Ajā)ib al-Hind [The marvels of India] as the “abode of troubles” during the period 900–953 c.e.29 He mentions in one account how the vizier Abū al-masan ibn al-Furāt conspired during the (Abbāsid caliph al-Muqtadir’s (908–932 c.e.) reign to molest merchants, Muslims, Jews and Christians, and how the Omani merchants were so afraid that they desisted from going to the shores of Iraq.30 The increasing anger toward the minister led to his trial and execution in July 924 c.e. This able financier and shrewd politician was a well-educated man and an experienced administrator in the organization of financial services. He was also a victim of circumstances during a time when fraud was rampant. His reign, as well as the reign of some Mamluk Sultans later in Egypt, has many echoes in the Thousand and One Nights. Stories that narrate vicissitudes of fate and occasions of misfortune occur mostly in Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo. At times, other kingdoms are mentioned, which may be allusions to ancient historical happenings. Depending on the location and identity of the scribes and storytellers, there is a different touch in each redaction or version of the Thousand and One Nights. Perhaps written down in the thirteen or fourteen century during the Mamluk period (1250–1512 c.e.), the story of the young man from Mosul in the “History of the Jewish Physician” celebrates Damascus as follows: Damascus “was in the midst of paradise.” He adds: “I found the city large and well-fortified, populous and inhabited by civilized people.” In the same story, however, Cairo is preferred to all other cities, including Baghdad, which began to suffer destruction and neglect in the eleventh century. The young man from Mosul says: “All that my other uncles could say in favor of Baghdad and the Tigris, when they vaunted Baghdad as the true abode of the Mussulman religion and the metropolis of all cities in the world, did not make half so much an impression on me.” His father says: “the man who has not seen Egypt has not seen the greatest wonder in the world.” The son concurs, asking, “Is not Cairo the largest, the richest, and the most populous city in the universe?” He quotes poets who celebrate the city and the Nile, concluding, “if the account of a great number of travelers might be believed there was not in the world a more beautiful country than Egypt on the banks of the Nile, which all agreed in praising.” The celebration of the Cairo of the Mamluk period, 1250–1512 c.e., is not accidental. Many tales were written during this period, and many writers and jurists migrated to Cairo, “the garden of the Universe, the orchard of the World,” as the Tunisian social historian and judge ibn

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Khaldūn (d. 1406 c.e.) says.31 The Egyptian jurist and chancery clerk alQalqashandī (d. 1418 c.e.) emphasizes this aspect of Cairo as the hospitable metropolis in his compendium úubn al-a(shā (Dawn of the Benighted Regarding Chancery Craft).32

Professions and Crafts There are other professions that benefit from the marketplace, its attendants, functionaries, clients, and urban people. Some hiùbah manuals tell us how many professions and crafts are in these markets. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah mentions flour merchants, bread bakers, sellers of roast meat, sausage makers, sellers of liver and appetizers, butchers, vendors of cooked heads, cooked-meat sellers, pickled-meat sellers, sellers of soup, fish fryers, makers of zulabiya, dessert makers, makers of syrups, druggists, sellers of savories, milk sellers, drapers, bazaar criers, weavers, tailors, repairers and fullers, silk weavers, dyers, cotton spinners, linen makers, moneychangers, goldsmiths, shoemakers, farriers, brokers of slaves, brokers of houses, brokers of animals, nammāms (public baths), sellers of sidr (lotus leaves), cuppers, phlebotomists, physicians, oculists, surgeons, preceptors, mosque attendants, muezzins, preachers, astrologers, public letter writers, sellers of earthenware and water pots, sellers of clay and molders, makers of sewing needles and pack needles, makers of spindles, comb makers, henna makers, pressers of olive and sesame oil, sieve makers, tanners and leather-bottle makers, makers of padded quilts, makers of fur coats, makers of reed matting, sellers of straw, timber merchants, carpenters, sawyers, builders, painters, whitewashers, lock makers, plasterers, and lime burners.33 These professions and crafts come under the purview of the muntasib and they serve as indicators of urban productivity. In narrative terms, they serve action and characterization, for each has a story to tell in an interactive space, which is no longer limited to the court and its interests. In the Nights, the barber tells us how much he knows about this professional society: “None of my friends is worthy of it [your generosity],” the barber says to the young Baghdadi youth, “yet, they are all decent men, such as Zentut the bath keeper and Sali) the corn dealer and Sallut the bean seller and Akrasha the grocer and Sa(id the camel driver and Suwaid the porter and Hamid the garbage man and AbuMakarish the bath-attendant and Qusaim the watchman and Karim the groom.” 34 The most recurrent setting for these tales is the marketplace, since action unfolds there in transactions, dealings, or intrigues. In the story of the “Christian Merchant,” the man from Baghdad is now in Cairo,

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because in his early youth he “heard travelers and other people tell of the land of Egypt, and it stayed in . . . [his mind].” There he attends the Jerjes Market and is “met by brokers, who had already heard of my arrival.” 35 Transactions are carried out neatly, and the young merchant from Baghdad tells us as much, for he sells his goods on credit for a fixed period “on a contract drawn by a scribe and duly witnessed.” Then, every Monday and Thursday, the scribe and the moneychanger go around “to collect the money till past the afternoon prayer, when they would bring it” and he would count it and give them “a receipt for it and return to the caravansary.” 36 These transactions entail exactitude and neat handling according to Islamic rules, which were usually regulated in manuals and watched over by the muntasib (the moral and judicial inspector of commerce and markets) and his officials. Certainly there must have been a strong judicial system, and the judiciary was obviously able to enforce law and order. It was only when there were corrupt ministers that the system weakened. The presence of this strong judicial system, testified to by many treatises on the subject during that period and mentioned many times in the Thou­ sand and One Nights, exemplifies the nature of the urban center and its complexity and troubles. Although the young merchant from Mosul does not tell us what the judge, the young woman’s father, looks like, he does tell us what is reiterated by the barber, that the judge comes back home with an entourage. There are guards and subordinates who accompany him to his house. The chief justice, as well as the high judges, dressed in a specific fashion, hinted at in the tales, which continued in other Islamic centers. During the Ayyubid and Mamluk times, the judge would wear a black robe with a black linen hood and a black turban. This reflects the earlier recorded (Abbāsid fashion. He also carried a sword.37

Narrating the Journey of Consciousness The enormous attention paid to professions and crafts in The Thousand and One Nights should alert us to the fundamental change in social and economic relations. The shift from a rural or Bedouin society to an urban life of such complexity and diversity signifies and entails a radical shift in consciousness, which we trace in the tales. The religious or tribal solidarity that held the old societies together disappeared. It was replaced by a new, multifaceted urbanity, which is evident in the tales and nisbah manuals. These complain of many transgressions usually associated with urban life. This shift, which we trace in tales of (Abbāsid and Mamluk times, explains some of the popularity of the tales in eighteenth-century

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Europe. The tales appealed to middle-class audiences in the first place. The popularity of the Arabian Nights Entertainments (that is, The Thousand and One Nights) in Europe is closely related to a changing taste, a sense of nationalness that is usually tied to the rising middle classes, with their strong attachments to new terms of possession and ownership, a sense that is bound to grow into a nationalist disposition, with more emphasis on a state and citizenry.38 As studied by Benedict Anderson, but with relevant modifications and qualifications, the pivotal structural patterns of the middle ages began to give way to a secular consciousness whose ethics and religions are more pragmatic and whose frame of reference is largely communal and national. The scriptural underlining, the monarchic or church sovereignty, as well as power relations that held an order under terms of obligation and servitude, were no longer tenable. The Thousand and One Nights encapsulates a historical journey that allows these processes to appear plausible enough through human or nonhuman means. The three dervishes or mendicants who have undergone so many troubles and witnessed so many bewildering events settle one night in a house in Baghdad where they have heard music and merriment. The narrative journey of each is no less surprising than the tales of the three ladies in whose house they are guests. In the metropolis, where everybody expects law and order, these journeys, as narrated in one assembly at night, sound as if they were condensed in time and space to capture the past and relate it to the present. Out of a randomly governed universe appears order and law. Everyone has come from ruined kingdoms, deserted places, islands, or distant lands to a city that is well demarcated, whose police uphold law and order, and whose sovereign makes his nocturnal visits incognito to ensure safety and security. The sense of belonging that binds the community together is urban. Baghdad is repeatedly referred to as the Abode of Peace, an epithet bestowed upon it during its planning and construction. People who belong to the past but who are now in a present of greater complexity and national identifications, give us a sense of this journey in time and space. In the second mendicant’s tale, the young man introduces himself as the son of a sovereign: My father was a king, and he taught me how to write and read until I was able to read the Magnificent Quran in all seven readings. Then I studied jurisprudence in a book by al-Shatibi and commented on it in the presence of other scholars. Then I turned to the study of classical Arabic and its grammar until I reached the height of eloquence, and I perfected the art of calligraphy until I surpassed all my contemporaries and all the leading

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calligraphers of the day, so that the fame of my eloquence and calligraphic art spread to every province and town and reached all kings of the age.39

The listing of his qualities is deliberate, for these make up the basic training and education for all those prepared to hold office in the future, especially people who are trained for the chancery or leadership.40 The second mendicant’s tale, like many others, does not build the past out of the protagonist’s ruins only; he also juxtaposes it against a present. This present is still tied to the meaning of the sovereign as the commander of all, the arbiter in a centripetal and hierarchal order. The second mendicant adds: “Then I journeyed through many regions and visited many countries, with the intention of reaching Baghdad and the hope of finding someone there who would help me to the presence of the Commander of the Faithful, so that I might tell him my tale and acquaint him with my misfortune.”41 The past should be given meaning through a rehearsal that involves the protagonist’s own interpretation but also invites the intervention of the sovereign, who can make sense of this past, giving it coherence and meaning. History is construed through this meeting and assembly. The act of narrative evolves as a rewriting of history, an initiation into a new order. As a stranger, the second mendicant’s coming to the metropolis suggests a faith in its power, dominion, and supremacy. The protagonist’s journey is another pilgrimage, an initiation into a sensible world after a bewildering chaos. The sovereign still holds the power and supremacy, but he is close to the community, available to strangers, and ready to offer help and guidance. This is the mark of good Islamic rule that ensures success, argues ibn Khaldūn.42 Baghdad itself holds such a meaning in its role as the metropolitan center, the abode of security and peace, longed for by all strangers and travelers. As for the title that the caliph holds, the Commander of the Faithful, its sovereignty is larger than the metropolis. The title has religious connotations and power in a community of believers, or Muslims, although there are other smaller communities within which they enjoy their rights and show their obligations, too.

From Regression to Progression Like the tales of the other mendicants or dervishes, the second mendicant’s tale is one of regression until he reaches the metropolis. The opposite poles of the journey, regression in the first roaming activity and progression in the kingdom of Islam, work in relational terms whereby personal and cultural circumstances apply. Whatever happens in the past indicates the

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limitations of the human in a world that is a testing ground more than anything else. Time and place are subordinate to an overall design that challenges human curiosity. It is only after the fall from grace, a descent into the abyss, that a culminating resignation takes place. The fall should be represented in reality, so the three “shaved off . . . [their] beard and eyebrows,” and put on “a black woolen robe.”43 This resignation means also a new readiness to forsake a past and accept a present. It is liminal, for it functions as the reason behind the curiosity of the ladies who ask about their shaved beard, blind eye, and woolen robe. Thus the question triggers the narrative, the journeying into the past that will invoke a guided rehabilitation, presently supervised by the Commander of the Faithful. It is only in the metropolis that a new line of progression takes place, giving sense to historical time as a time of one’s own making, but with the support of authority as the deliverer of law. This initiation is not linear, for they have to pass through private indoctrination in the arts of the city. Such indoctrination takes place in the house of the three ladies of Baghdad, where the mendicants tell their stories and where they witness scenes and hear tales no less bewildering than theirs, but which do not prevent the ladies from carrying on their normal life as urban citizens. Narrative is released from its mystique, shorn of its fantastic dimensions, and relocated in a present of stark reality, where the porter and the three ladies use every kind of language and where the porter uses the vernacular to approach mundane reality. Nudity in the bath scene symbolizes the act of stripping language of its polite mannerisms in the discourse of the porter and the interventions of the ladies. These prepare all for life in the metropolis. On the other hand, the bath scene is no less purifying than the purgatory of the journey. Storytelling at this stage makes no claim to omniscience. The narrator Scheherazade is reluctant to compromise her situation, so she only repeats what she hears. Thus she says: I heard that the doorkeeper went into the pool, threw water on herself, and, after immersing herself completely, began to sport, taking water in her mouth and squirting it all over her sisters and the porter. Then she washed herself under her breasts, between her thighs, and inside her navel. Then she rushed out of the pool, sat naked in the porter’s lap and, pointing to her slit, asked, “My lord and my love, what is this?” “Your womb,” said he, and she replied, “Pooh, pooh, you have no shame,” and slapped him on the neck. “Your vulva,” said he, and the other sister pinched him, shouting, “Bah, this is an ugly word.” “Your cunt,” said he, and the third sister boxed him on the chest and knocked him over, saying, “Fie, have some shame.” “Your clitoris,”

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said he, and again the naked girl slapped him, saying, “No.” “Your pudenda, your pussy, your sex tool,” said he, and she kept replying, “No, no.”

The storyteller, in the name of Scheherazade, finds this enjoyable enough to elaborate on the tendency in Arabic linguistics at that time to compile dictionaries on words, roots, and varieties, which were to become, in a later period, a significant part of Arab scholarship. He [the porter] kept giving various other names, but every time he uttered a name, one of the girls hit him and asked, “What do you call this?” And they went on, this one boxing him, that one slapping him, another hitting him. At last, he turned to them and asked, “All right, what is its name?” The naked girl replied, “The basil of the bridges.” The porter cried, “The basil of the bridges! You should have told me this from the beginning, oh, oh!” Then they passed the cup around and went on drinking for a while.44

The Liberating In-betweenness The scene is one of frivolity, to be sure, and storytellers showed no squeamishness in reporting it. Its humor gives it the liberatory sense of speaking in plain terms of things that are tabooed in so-called polite society, whether Arab-Islamic or Western. The scene suffered meticulous editing, expurgation, and bowdlerization in England, for example. No less so did nineteenth-century Arabic versions. The liberty taken with the description of the sexual organs should be considered in terms of ninth-century license, as the earlier reference to Abū Munammad ibn Qutaybah’s (d. 889 c.e.) comments indicates. Humor and the widespread tendency toward µ arf, or educated refinement and delicacy, function as a liberating strategy, to be sure, since they operate in the same manner as wine in replacing restraint with jest and fastidiousness with a pleasurable mood. The atmosphere shifts from the seriousness and gravity of challenge and misfortune to a relaxed one of joviality. It has, however, its own foreboding, for no pleasurable moment reaches its climatic point without the implication of something grave occurring soon after. Such is the leitmotif in Arab-Islamic collective memory and culture, which is usually waved aside by asking for God’s forgiveness. Apart from the language in the bath scene, however, there is the liberality taken in the depiction of accompanying practices, including the

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porter’s rubbing of their bodies and his recitation of verses lauding their nudity and beauty. The scene may be read in terms of psychological and sociological interests, in the recesses of the soul, with its tropes of unreachable and secret realms, the encircled houses, and gardens. It can be an instance of imaginary intrusion into the privacy of the upper classes through the person of the porter, the common man who has his own private thoughts and whims whenever he is asked to carry his basket and hurry behind women shoppers. The social barrier stands as an impasse that needs to be imaginatively surpassed. The only way to do it is through an appeal to the only qualification that receives due recognition in medieval Arab society during its glorious cultural expansion—eloquence and poetic talent. After rubbing the lady’s body, he recites poetry in appreciation of her figure, a gesture that makes her more inclined toward him. In the first section, the rubbing takes place with no further suggestions of erotic interest on her part: They drank for a while, and then the eldest and fairest of the three stood up and began to undress. The porter touched his neck and began to rub it with his hand, saying, “For God’s sake, spare my neck and shoulders,” while the girl stripped naked, threw herself into the pool, and immersed herself. The porter looked at her naked body, which looked like a slice of the moon, and at her face, which shone like the full moon or the rising sun, and admired her figure, her breasts, and her swaying heavy hips, for she was naked as God had created her.

But as soon as he begins reciting poetry, there is a transformation, a change that replaces class barriers with physical intimacy and affection. Although the scene is handled playfully, we should remember that storytellers cater to their public audience and its interest in fun and good times: When the girl heard his verses, she came quickly out of the pool, sat in his lap and, pointing to her slit, asked “O light of my eyes, O sweetheart, what is the name of this?” “The basil of the bridges,” said he, but she replied, “Bah!” “The husked sesame,” said he, and she replied, “Pooh!” “Your womb,” said he, and she replied, “Fie, you have no shame,” and slapped him on the neck. To make a long story short, O King, the porter kept declaring, “Its name is so,” and she kept saying “No, no, no, no.” When he had had his fill of blows, pinches, and bites until his neck swelled and he choked and felt miserable, he cried out, “All right, what is its name?” She replied, “Why

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don’t you say the Inn of Abu Masrur?” “Ha, ha, the Inn of Abu Masrur,” said the porter. Then she got up, and after she put on her clothes, they resumed their drinking and passed the cup around for a while.

It is only after the undermining of social restrictions and barriers that the porter can acquire a voice of his own to practice the same frivolity and ask the ladies to participate in his game, which is no more than a male duplication of theirs: Then the porter stood up, took off his clothes, and, revealing something dangling between his legs, he leapt and plunged into the middle of the pool . . . he bathed and washed himself under the beard and under the arms; then he rushed out of the pool, planted himself in the lap of the fairest girl, put his arms on the lap of the doorkeeper, rested his legs in the lap of the shopper and, pointing to his penis, asked, “Ladies, what is this?” They were pleased with his antics and laughed, for his disposition agreed with theirs, and they found him entertaining.

The narrator brings the two moods together, in tune with the underlying assumption in the tales that µ arf and knowledge are the best equalizers. The ladies find the porter no less prone to humor and jest than they are, and he is no less equipped in deriving fun from the most causal situations. One of them said, “Your cock,” and he replied, “You have no shame; this is an ugly word.” The other said, “Your penis,” and he replied, “You should be ashamed; may God put you to shame.” The third said, “Your dick,” and he replied, “No.” Another said, “Your stick,” and he replied, “No.” Another said, “Your thing, your testicles, your prick,” and he kept saying, “No, no, no.” They asked, “What is the name of this?” He hugged this and kissed that, pinched the one, bit the other, and nibbled on the third, as he took satisfaction, while they laughed until they fell on their backs.

The porter proves to be no less witty than the Baghdadi girls, for he is no longer in the underprivileged position of being ridiculed in jest: At last they asked, “Friend, what is its name?” The porter replied, “Don’t you know its name? It is the smashing mule.” They asked, “What is the meaning of the name the smashing mule?” He replied, “It is the one who grazes in the basil of the bridges, eats the husked sesame, and gallops in the Inn of Abu Masrur.” Again they laughed until they fell on their backs

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and almost fainted with laughter. Then they resumed their carousing and drinking and carried on until nightfall.

Since night is the time for storytelling, not physical contact and sexual intercourse, the bath scene must come to an end. The ladies’ moods change from frivolity to seriousness. “When it was dark, they said to the porter, ‘Sir, it is time that you get up, put on your slippers, and show us your back.’ The porter replied, ‘Where do I go from here? The departure of my soul from my body is easier for me than my departure from your company. Let us join the night with the day and let each of us go his way early tomorrow morning.’ ” This interruption should not be taken lightly. It is a threat to abide by one’s status and social station, as the interior inscription has already forewarned. Furthermore, it builds on the understanding that there is private and public life and social order. Just as the ladies govern their own life and have their slaves and their practices, the outside world also has its own rules. The porter belongs to this outside world, with its mercantile class, its professionals, craftsmen, administrators, police, and common people. This should be a busy and, perhaps, troublesome life, which lacks the pleasure of the company that he presently enjoys. There, among the common public he can be identified, but inside the Baghdadi house and in the company of the ladies, there is unequalled mirth and joy. Whenever affluence, prosperity, and privilege overwhelm the whole society, solidarities, empires, or clan-ruled communities disintegrate, as the historian and sociologue ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406 c.e.) writes in his Muqaddimah. Private space leads us to the public, however, and both swap roles and remain interdependent. Narratively, the eroticism of the bath scene is balanced by the beating of the transformed dogs in acquiescence to supernatural commands. However, between the presence and absence of divine authority, there remains a substantial space for human agency to exercise its will and identity. We should remember that the shopper among the ladies is the one who leads us as readers in the marketplace, where she buys wine, fruits, and other niceties. Thus says the narrator, when describing the scene: When she lifted her veil, she revealed a pair of beautiful dark eyes graced with long lashes and a tender expression, like those celebrated by the poets. Then with a soft voice and a sweet tone, she said to him, “Porter, take your basket and follow me.” Hardly believing his ears, the porter took his basket and hurried behind her, saying, “O lucky day, O happy day.” She walked

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before him until she stopped at the door of a house, and when she knocked, an old Christian came down, received a dinar from her and handed her an olive green jug of wine. She placed the jug in the basket and said, “Porter, take your basket and follow me.” Saying, “Very well, O auspicious day, O lucky day, O happy day,” the porter lifted the basket and followed her until she stopped at the fruit vendor’s, where she bought yellow and red apples, Hebron peaches and Turkish quinces, and seacoast lemons and royal oranges, as well as baby cucumbers.

The seemingly cursory enumeration attests to a fact about the Baghdadi markets in the (Abbāsid period, which were rich with everything and which the storyteller can only recollect with nostalgia: “She also bought Aleppo jasmine and Damascus lilies, myrtle berries and mignonettes, daisies and gillyflowers, lilies of the valley and irises, narcissus and daffodils, violets and anemones, as well as pomegranate blossoms. She placed everything in the porter’s basket and asked him to follow her.” The enumeration is significant both for any discussion of urban affluence and metropolitan prosperity and for any study of the narrative. It narrates this imperial diversity in terms of merchandise and goods, not people. Fruits and flowers are the signs of this expansive order. As indicative of lucrative business and commerce, this enumeration also sheds light on a pleasant life that takes such variety for granted as part of its daily needs. Every particle of material that enters the house is there to attest to this integrated order, of which Baghdad is the center. Each narrative then takes this center as its nucleus, around which orbit planets that are not necessarily as safe, if they do not belong to this orderly universe. The mendicants’ journeys before reaching Baghdad indicate as much. They assume meaning and order only when placed within the organized and integrated universe supervised by the Commander of the Faithful, who is now joining the ladies in their Baghdadi house incognito, like the omniscient God, to offer them a present and a future that distances the past as an unwelcome memory, a nightmare to be put aside and forgotten.

Wine and Islamic Prohibitions But the present is not always as clean and peaceful as one might wish. It is demanding in terms of education, manners, and orderly behavior. The past may intrude as an unpleasant memory if the individual has no control over what to choose or discard from its store of recollections. The shopping scene, which is usually repeated in every edition of the Thousand and One

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Nights, is important both because it includes acts of transgression, like the buying of wine by a lady in a public place, and for its stories of the mendicants and the ladies, which testify to an educated society where everybody knows not only how to read and write but also knows the sciences and the arts. There is a shared or common register that makes dialogue possible. The porter is as well educated as the barber, but he is acceptable as a person because of his joviality and courtesy. The loquacious barber is nosy and his curiosity knows no limits, as it takes him far from the Abode of Peace, to areas and cities that the Baghdadis resort to in their desperate search for a land that can compensate for their loss. The porter’s place is Baghdad, and his livelihood depends on its lucrative business. His presence at the ladies’ house proves how true he is to his word. He is as refined and educated as he claims. On the other hand, his knowledge partakes of the general educational system of the society, its prerequisites of good conduct and fine manners. Thus he shows no surprise at what he sees, nor does he question their drinking of wine. In his survey of (Abbāsid life, Ahsan thinks that there were “some special drinks taken after the meal, but no alcoholic drink was included. These drinks were known simply as nabīdh.”45 The difference between nabīdh (wine) and khamr (liquor) is one of degrees between distillation and fermentation. The tales themselves elaborate on drinking wine in general terms that may confuse the reader. The common mind was not meticulously concerned with these classifications. The hunch­ back in night 102 was drunk, “reeking of wine,” and singing in the streets of how to “honor a friend with a cup of wine from Greece.”46 In the story of the young merchant from Mosul, he also relates his story in Damascus, where he meets the young girl, buys wine for the occasion, and both “drank until they were drunk.”47 The young Baghdadi merchant describes how he settles in Cairo: “I lived there, breakfasting every morning on a cup of wine, mutton, pigeons, and sweets.”48 Wine as mentioned in the tales is of two kinds, the one mentioned in the young merchant’s story in Cairo, and the other, which is always associated with merriment and intoxication. Both Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs alJalīs know that wine is not permissible and that God’s curse is on selling, carrying, and drinking khamr. Thus Nūr al-Dīn tells the shaykh, take these two dinars and these two dirhams, ride that ass, and go to the wine shop. Stand at a distance, and when a customer comes, call him, and say to him, “Take these two dirhams for yourself and buy me two good flagons of wine with these two dinars.” When he buys the wine and comes out of the wine shop, say to him, “Place the wine in the saddlebag and set it

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on the ass,” and when he does it, drive the ass back and we will unload the wine. This way you will neither touch it nor be dirtied or defiled by it.49

In the story of Anīs al-Jalīs, then, “wine” is liquor. This narrative should not pass without some further comment. It deliberately appropriates prohibitions, as was the case with some schools of fiqh in Baghdad that were more accommodating of urban desires. Numerous tales were mentioned and written down about jurists, judges, grammarians, and poets who participated in gatherings of wine and festivity. Some assemblies turned out to be hilarious orgies. Shaykh Ibrāhīm is supposed not to join them or taste the wine, but upon being entreated by Anīs al-Jalīs, and thinking that Nūr al-Dīn is actually asleep, “the old man began to weaken,” 50 and taking a cup of wine, “drank it off, and she filled a second cup and he drank it off, too.” She tells him that if drinking is reprehensible, “it is all the same whether it is one or one hundred.”51 This tendency to circumvent the scriptural or the accepted jurisdiction in the matter is not confined to the speaker. He exemplifies a state of mind, and also the tendency of the rulers, to adopt an appropriating process that allows luxury to become a way of life, a way that differs from the life story of the Prophet and his companions. The details demonstrate awareness on the storyteller’s part of the prohibitions against wine as probably leading to intoxication. In the Qur)ān, it is an evil dear to Satan and should be avoided. Especially in public places it is forbidden and comes under the jurisdiction of the muntasib. In the following anecdote, wine drinking is reprimanded, censured, and certainly punishable by law. Al-Ghazālī relates the following anecdote: Abū musyan al-Nūrī the muntasib in the reign of the caliph al-Mu(tabid “went down to a drinking place near the river, known as the drinking place of the coal merchants. . . . There he saw a boat loaded with thirty containers on which were written in tar ‘benevolence.’ He read and disapproved of it . . . breaking all except one,” which he left as the caliph’s own share, which would be the muntasib ’s message to him.52 Abū musyan al-Nūrī, whom al-Ghazālī quotes, told the caliph why he dared to break the jugs even though he knew they belonged to the caliph: “the corruption of citizens is due to the corruption of rulers, the corruption of rulers is due to the corruption of the scholars, and the corruption of the scholars is due to love of wealth and fame.”53 Wine drinking itself finds support among some jurists, who limited the Qur)ānic prohibition to intoxicating drinks. According to ibn al-)Ukhuwwah’s reading of early jurisdiction, “Fermented liquor is that which dulls

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the mind.” He adds that “the drinking of intoxicating liquor by a Muslim of full age, sane and not under compulsion is punishable by forty stripes.” 54 Abū Yūsuf also limits this to intoxication: “The intoxication of all drinks is naram and warrants punishment.”55 Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah quotes the Imam Abū manīfah on drunkenness as follows: “It is the condition in which a man’s reason fails so that he cannot distinguish between the earth and the heavens, or between his mother and his wife.”56 Wine operates as a carnivalesque stimulus, though it derives its new power from society itself, its aggregation and togetherness. In these gatherings, wine, or more exactly nabidh, is usually served, especially after meals. Those who were not disposed to wine would take other drinks, such as sherbet and fruit juice, usually mixed with rose water or musk and always cooled with ice. In the story of the porter and the ladies of Baghdad, drinking wine is so smoothly practiced that no one in the company shows surprise. Yet the issue of wine drinking is not so smooth among jurists and Muslim traditionalists. Indeed, conservative jurists think of it as forbidden by the religious law, or sharī (ah. Not so the more liberal ones. In an anecdote reported by al-Janiµ,57 the jurist Bishr al-Marīsī thinks drinking date liquor is “absolutely licit.” This idea was stressed in the presence of the (Abbāsid caliph al-Ma)mūn (d. 833 c.e.), against the opinion of the jurist Munammad b. (Abbās al-§ūsī. The discussion concentrated on a drink made from boiling dates or dried raisins in water. This is nabīdh, or wine. According to the Iraqi school of law, Abū manīfah’s school, these ingredients have no bacilli, as in fresh grapes, that may cause strong fermentation. As such, it is only mildly alcoholic. Abū manīfah’s advice is to drink in moderation to avoid intoxication. It is no wonder, then, that all of the tales of an Iraqi origin treat wine in a very free manner. In opposition to religious and moral treatises on the subject, there is an enormous body of literature that describes and celebrates al-anbidhah wa al-khumūr (wines and liqueurs) in the heyday of the Islamic empire.58 This literature testifies to wine drinking, but the appearance in the Nights of a lady in a public space who is obviously in the habit of buying wine from the old Christian seller is worth attention. Even the muntasib or market inspector is not concerned with the exercise of any prohibition in this context, for the Christian seller is there to sell his wines, while the buyers have the right to collect their own goods as long as there is no infringement of public sanctity. The delicacy and high standards shown in the classifications of wine also testify to a sophisticated urban life. Wine has other functions, however, both inside or outside of the public sphere. It reverses the journey in consciousness from a past of confused

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sentiments, aspirations, and desire, usually signified by sea or air travel, radical changes in sensibility, and geographical dislocations, to a present of restrained selfhood in a relatively ordered community. Wine here takes people out of their ordered self into another of merriment, joviality, and transgression. Wine serves as both the real road to release from restrictions and controls and as the trope for a superhuman sensibility that can accept the unworldly and cope with its manifestations. Only through this can the ladies justify to themselves their present situation with their own sisters, who are turned into dogs. In another tale, only through wine can the young merchant interact with brokers, and only by wine can the young lovers Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs temporarily forget that they are transgressing the sanctity of the caliph’s Palace of Statues.

Social Interdependency On the urban level, wine drinking is narrated as part of the rituals of a happy society in a stable and prosperous civilization. In such a civilization, all the sections of society know one another and maintain a relational attitude that endows the social fabric with solidarity, although it is one of interdependency rather than blood relations. In the tailor’s story, the barber relays to the lame young man from Baghdad the names of his acquaintances, such as “Zentut the bath keeper, Sali) the corn dealer and Sallut the bean seller and Akrasha the grocer and Sa(id the camel driver and Suwaid the porter and Hamid the garbageman and Abu-Makarish the bath attendant and Qusaim the watchman and Karim the groom.”59 There are also anonymous people who are actively involved in daily and domestic transactions. Thus another section in the story of the porter and the ladies of Baghdad says: “Then she stopped at the butcher’s and said, ‘Cut me off ten pounds of fresh mutton.’ She paid him, and he cut off the pieces she desired, wrapped them, and handed them to her. She placed them in the basket, together with some charcoal, and said, ‘Porter, take your basket and follow me.’ ” The marketplace becomes a transactional site where people have no names. Goods impose a meaning on their presence, and their identities are derived from these goods and their origins. The porter’s is surprised at the variety and quantity, for no ordinary house buys so much. There must be a reason behind this activity, which arouses his curiosity: “The porter, wondering at all these purchases, placed his basket on his head and followed her until she came to the grocer’s, where she bought whatever

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she needed of condiments, such as olives of all kinds, pitted, salted, and pickled, tarragon, cream cheese, Syrian cheese, and sweet as well as sour pickles. She placed the container in the basket and said, ‘Porter, take your basket and follow me.’ ” Every movement and stop at a certain place in the market connotes a specific entertainment. If fruits, meat, and wine denote dinners and meals, then dried fruits and nuts refer to merriment and entertainment: “The porter carried his basket and followed her until she came to the dry grocer’s, where she bought all sorts of dry fruits and nuts: Aleppo raisins, Iraqi sugar canes, pressed Ba(albak figs, roasted chick-peas, as well as shelled pistachios, almonds, and hazelnuts. She placed everything in the porter’s basket, turned to him, and said, “Porter take your basket and follow me.’ ”60 The refrain of “take your basket and follow me” is present both to establish the social hierarchy and the division of labor in an urban society and to provide us with some perspective on the kind of luxurious and peaceful life commonly reported by Baghdadi historians. The market also reflects a microcosmic nexus in an empire of great wealth and power. Moreover, the marketplace is the recipient of a lucrative trade to supply the needs of this society. Its goods came from the far reaches of the empire as a sign to the metropolitan population that Baghdad was the center of the world: The porter carried the basket and followed her until she came to the confectioner’s, where she bought a whole tray full of every kind of pastry and sweet in the shop, such as sour barley rolls, sweet rolls, date rolls, Cairo rolls, Turkish rolls, and open-worked Balkan rolls, as well as cookies, stuffed and musk-scented kataifs, amber combs, ladyfingers, widows’ bread, Kadi’s tidbits, eat-and-thanks, and almond pudding. 61

The regions from which these sweets and delicacies come should be noted. All of them are Muslim regions that demonstrate liveliness and vitality, as indicated in the food. Nothing here shows lavish luxury and orna­ mentation. The underlying implication seems to suggest that as long as the city and its surrounding provinces are Muslim, there is no fear of calamity, such as the one that befalls the petrified city, which the eldest lady, the shopper, has seen and reported. Although not necessarily sustained throughout the tales, this association between Islam and stability and prosperity becomes the broad context of demarcation. The responsibility for any mishap that takes place in cities falls on the shoulders of humans, both because of their curiosity and proneness to exercise unlimited freedom and because they are idolaters. Idolatry, or the

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worship of something other than God, means also a breakup of social and communal ties. It is only in Islam and, partially, in other monotheistic religions that social and communal life assumes meaningfulness, as the Sindbad voyages imply. As idolaters are not forgiven in the Qur)ān, so also is the situation in the tales. Thus, in the petrified city (nights 34 and 35 in “The Tale of the First Lady”) we are told that the first lady hears the voice of somebody reciting the Qur)ān. The young man, with “a face as beautiful as the full moon,” on whom “God has bestowed the robe of beauty, which was embroidered with the grace of perfect cheeks,”62 tells her how the city has become petrified. As usual with the tales, male beauty receives more attention than female beauty and should be read in the context of the Baghdadi period and also in a Qur)ānic frame of reference where the wuldānun mukhalladūn (the boys of eternal youth) are mentioned as part of paradise. The lady feels the pangs of love that the youth reciprocates after a period of isolation and loneliness, which only Qur)ānic blessings redress. These pangs involve no contradiction with the scene of piety in the Nights, however. Both work together and in harmony as long as these feelings are pure and are bound to lead to marriage. The youth’s story is part of the paraphernalia that places the tales in an Islamic context. He relates: O woman of God, this city is the capital of my father the king whom you must have seen turned into black stone inside this cursed palace, together with my mother the queen whom you found inside the net. They and all the people of the city were Magians, who, instead of the Omnipotent Lord, worshiped the fire, to which they prayed and by which they swore. . . . My father, who had been blessed with me late in life, reared me in affluence, and I grew and throve. It happened that there lived with us a very old woman who used to teach me the Quran, saying, “You should worship none but the Almighty God,” and I learned the Quran without telling my father or the rest of my family.

Repeating the Qur)ānic warnings to worshippers of idols, the youth explains: One day we heard a mighty voice proclaiming, “O people of this city, leave your fire worship and worship the Merciful God.” But they refused to obey. A year later the voice cried out again and did the same the following year. Suddenly one morning the city turned into stone, and none was saved except myself. Here I sit now, as you see, to worship God, but I have grown weary of loneliness, for there is none to keep me company.63

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To recapitulate, the tale of the three ladies, especially the aforementioned tale of the first lady, the porter, and the bath scene, holds some significance both for its narrative of social responsibility and for its encapsulation of the terrain of nationhood and empire. The mendicants tell us how their fall from grace corresponds to the fall of their kingdoms, the loss of their power, and the end of their hopes and expectations. Thus their move toward the gravitating center of the empire, which can fit them anew into a social order whose faith is Islam and whose identity is Arab-Islamic. To undergo the correct rehabilitation into a new social order, they must pass through a baptism of some sort, one that leads to marriage with the ladies, which is arranged by the caliph himself, as the one in charge of the social order. This system is not divested from the divine even when its daily practices veer away from Islamic decrees and ordinances, as stressed by its nongovernmental jurists. In this center, people retain their wholeness and the mendicants lead a normal family life. The ladies themselves retain some lost humanity. Their sisters, the ones previously transformed into dogs, are restored to their human forms and brought back to lead a life that fits them into a new familial culture free from treachery and jealousy. In the absence of educators who are adept in magic, matters need the Commander of the Faithful to recall all to his presence, where order is established as in the city itself. The ruler and the perfect order are in harmony: a status Shahrayar has to reach through the narrative journey of the thousand and one tales. Yet there are many social and moral issues that accompany political and imperial growth, and they betray a departure from the presumed solidarity of the specific dynasty of the Commander of the Faithful, Hārūn al-Rashīd. Every expansion means a loosening of ties, which can be temporarily reassembled in times of impending danger or war. Every departure from this tightly supervised order implies some weakness and breakup. The move from empire to city-states finds no better narrative construction than in the tales of the hunchback and the barber and his brothers. While a city-state or even a nation-state is not as clearly defined as in nineteenth-century Europe, there are a number of characteristics that may well demonstrate potential narrative constructions worth mentioning. There is, first, a social fabric of professionals, physicians, porters, jesters, stewards, police, swindlers, thieves, and jurists. There is no longer one religious order, but rather a number of people from different religious affiliations, although Islam is the dominating faith. On the other hand, the presence of the Qur)ān as the text of reference in religious and legal matters does not preclude other transactions, dealings, and transgres-

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sions. In any case, Arabic is the common language presumed and accepted in the tales, for in every story, from China to Africa and the lands of the Franks or Europe, Arabic is the language of communication and transaction.64 The use of Arabic, as presumed in the tales, mostly refers to the earlier periods of the empire. China was still mentioned as if it were part of the Islamic domains. In the tailor’s cluster of tales, all participants are residents of the Muslim empire, including the Jewish physician and the Christian broker. We know that at a later period, in ibn Ba••ū•a’s (b. Tangiers, February 1304 c.e., d. Morocco 1368–1369 or 1377) travels between 1342 and 1347 c.e., only parts of China had Muslim communities. In the rest of China, protection was provided to Muslim travelers and merchants, of whom their governments took special care. The care must have been reciprocal, since ibn Ba••ū•a mentioned how they let him know how important it was for them to leave a good impression among Muslim travelers. Although the empire had disintegrated long ago, the premise of a unified kingdom of faith was still effective. Some respect was shown toward its citizens when they traveled outside the Islamic dominion, a respect that enabled ibn Ba••ū•a to speak of Islam as the most blessed and respectable faith in comparison to the one dominating among the population in China, whom he describes as kuffār, infidels.

Idolatry and Monotheism The application of religious decrees in empires or nation-states depends strongly on power relations, since each caliph may well impose a view or a perspective on the rest. Nevertheless, the rest, or some of them at least, may develop a counterdiscourse over time that can lead to the desegregation of the upheld order. Whatever the case may be, the issue of religion or its absence informs narrative and colors its outcome. In this context, the clear-cut demarcation between idolatry and mono­ theism is worth noting not only on the level of narrative construction, whereby roles and outcome are defined accordingly, but also on judicial and social levels, as the tale of the hunchback and its clusters suggest. Idolatry is excluded from the domain of communication or appreciation and is silenced narratively by being associated with petrified cities, burntout forms, or smitten couples, whereas the case of monotheism is treated differently. Whenever there is a possibility of extra liberty in religious or moral matters, this is displaced into the foreign reaches of the universe, like China. The storyteller needs freedom and more humorous encoun-

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ters, which the imperial center falls short of providing. In the story of the hunchback, for instance, the story begins this way: “It is related, O King, that there lived once in China a tailor who had a pretty, compatible, and loyal wife.”65 Apparently the tailor and his wife are Muslims and are afraid that the hunchback, who has been eating fish with them, has died. Their exclamations of fear are Islamic, but they can be used by all monotheists, too. “There is no power and no strength, save in God, the Almighty, the Magnificent.”66 They find it easier to leave the hunchback on the stairs of the Jewish physician, whose exclamations also reveal his identity: “O Esdras, O Moses, O Aaron, O Joshua son of Nun!”67 The physician and his wife decide to throw the body into the house of their neighbor, “the Muslim bachelor,” who in turn leaves the body at the entrance to the market. There, a “prominent Christian tradesman” who is drunk falls on the body. The watchman comes and “when the watchman . . . saw a Christian kneeling on a Muslim and beating him,” he exclaims: “By God, this is a fine thing, a Christian killing a Muslim!”68 While the Muslim tailor, the Jewish physician, and the Muslim steward each try to escape punishment at first by disavowing responsibility and throwing it on the shoulders of another, each also hurries to the execution square to proclaim his guilt and ease his conscience. The Jewish physician, as the steward before him and the tailor soon after, comes forward, saying: “Is it not enough for me to have involuntarily and unwillingly killed one Muslim, without burdening my conscience with the death of another Muslim?”69 The tailor asks also to have the Jew released, and all gather in the presence of the king of China to explain the situation, which amounts to no more than a choking case that looks like death. The significance of the tale lies, however, in its religious diversity. On the other hand, the communal tie proves stronger than any other tie, since moral responsibility, more than the fear for one’s own life or sectarian affiliation, weighs on each person’s conscience. It takes form through moral obligations that sustain a social order. In other words, the state as a community of citizens takes form in the tale, whereas neat religious affiliations become second in importance in a larger context of Islamic communal culture that allows all faiths to coexist, albeit with some distinctions that linger in the official discourse. While this interpretation does not fit well with ibn Khaldūn’s terms of solidarity as necessary for the growth of imperial states and dynasties, it neatly explains the reception of the tales in Europe early in the eighteenth century. In those times, the expanding middle class entertained national and imperial ambitions and identities. The tales aligned with

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their ambitions and ethics, especially those of social contract, nationalness, and interdependency.

The Urban and the Imperial However, Islamic ritual operates strongly in specific periods of affluence and peace. Even when the narrative is more concerned with agency, space, and disposition, the religious element has some function. It operates as both a form of ritual and as the application of an imperial imperative that empowers human agency and makes sense of the endeavor outside the immediate center of the Islamic nation. The alternative space that works outside the center of authority may be the only one that frees the human from any ties while enabling that individual to consider himself or herself as capable of dealing with emerging and challenging situations. The outer space, like ruins, for instance, is the one that enables both (Alā) al-Dīn (Aladdin) and Ma(rūf the Shoemaker to meet other powerful agents who inhabit these unclaimed habitations, which are free from authority, including the authority of Islam, whether as the binding culture or as the religion of the state. Ruins offer Ma(rūf the chance to meet the ifrit, the supernatural beings, whose settlement there is disturbed by the presence of a human who calls for divine support. The invocation of the supernatural signals a pact with a world that would replace the human world, which has already deserted him, leaving him in deprivation and misery. Both the physical nature of the ruins and the destitution of the forlorn and desperate complement each other. The mind in despair may end up in any situation, including living in an empty space, ruins, or wilderness, which allegorizes a release from sub­ ordination and a practice of one’s own inventiveness. Technically, invocations of divine intervention may occur as part of the whole Islamic subtext, but their recurrence is so patterned in terms of human need that they fit into a universal interest that broadens the Islamic context while also appealing to other nations and cultures, especially among the underprivileged and the downtrodden. Although travel accounts since the ninth century speak of lands as far away as China, traversing such distant lands becomes narratively manageable through other means, which partake of the fantastic. This was analyzed by Todorov and applied to the mendicants’ tales, an analysis that is not alien to early Islamic geographers such as Zakariyyā b. Munammad al-Qazwīnī (d. 656/1258), who set no less specific terms for the strange, the uncanny, and the wonderful.70

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Cairene Narratives and the Displacement of the Sacred If the Baghdadi narratives tend to be conciliatory and less disposed to ruse than the Cairene or Damascene ones, this is the case because of the storytellers’ attachment to the golden age of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd and the (Abbāsid caliphate. The compelling fame of the age was perhaps so fresh in the storytellers’ minds that it dislodged any negative image or impression. This attitude is also applicable to the European romantics who continued, as late as the first half of the twentieth century during the time of William Butler Yeats and Walter De La Mare, to celebrate that golden age. The Cairene tale has no such limitations, and hence urbanity has full play. The implications of urbanity are many and may well lead us to urban dealings, underground life, and also upper-class communities. Especially when these tales refer to pretensions to piety, there must be, thereafter, a ruse of some sort that uncovers hypocrisy while critiquing the use and misuse of power. The case is more so if the characters concerned are old women. Historical accounts tell us that they were used during the (Abbāsid period to penetrate the households of high-class families, learn their secrets, and relate their information to the state. The Fatimids also made use of old women for the same purpose. Pretensions to piety were the best means to reach these societies, as nobody would suspect a pious woman of probing private life for another purpose.71 While we might expect that the role of old women would not be that large, given the sophisticated intelligence system available during both periods, the Thousand and One Nights finds in old women the right stock character for multiple roles. Whenever a pious old woman is mentioned, some disequilibrium soon follows. In night 599, for example, an old woman inserts the mask below the pillow in the house of Abū al-Fatn, who soon begins to suspect his daughter of some misbehavior.72 She may even incite people to believe that she is in command of both faith and magic. In order to bring people together, she resorts to ruse, for, to convince the young woman in night 584 that there is some danger in resisting marriage, she begins to frequent the young woman in the company of a dog, to whom she feeds some spicy food that makes the dog’s eyes water, as if it were crying. When the young woman asks for an explanation, the old woman’s says that the dog is an enchanted female who had been in the habit of rejecting suitors. One of them had some friends who are magicians, whom he requested to enchant

91800 The Changing Order

the young stubborn woman. The girl decides to change her position, accept the suitor, and settle for the arrangement in which the old woman is interested.73 The role can be more dangerous, such as in the story of (Azīz and (Azīzah and similar tales of entertainment and crime. The old woman is the one who lures (Azīz inside the house by asking him to read her a letter she pretends she has received. As readers of these tales, we may come away with the impression that hypocrisy as such is a way of life in a society that thrives on communication, meeting, and exchange among the younger generations, which composes the majority of the urban center. The old woman makes her living through double dealing whenever there is little space for her to practice her normal livelihood. With her piety and image as a wise person, she has a role to play—or at least it is the role that the storyteller assigns to her as an active agent, a participant in the social order and its productivity and mirth. Piety is suspect in the tales, an attitude that persists in narrative until the first half of the twentieth century. Whenever there is this association with double dealing, storytellers are actively engaged in undermining an order, which they intentionally depict as corrupt. Theological rhetoric is manipulated for other purposes, too. The male’s relation to the female in many stories is “the doorman to her gate” or the “imam to her mihrab.” The transference of religious discourse to the sexual domain deprives it of its sanctity, as, in the story of (Alī Shār and Zumurrud, “the female is with him in a state of bowing and prostrating, standing upright and sitting, but in a playful pace with the glorifications of God.” 74 The movements and recitations involved in prayer are predicated into sexual intercourse. As popular narrative, the tales draw on every available register, not only out of playfulness but also because these registers happened to be popular enough to incite storytellers to mock them. Operating like the carnival, the emerging narrative is one of mockery that can pass, nevertheless, as street humor, unintentional and innocent. In the story of (Alī Shār, the queen Budūr puts on the mask of a king, telling Qamar al-Zamān that he should take off his underwear and sleep on his belly. Thinking that the king wants to make love to him, he argues: “But this is something which I have never done, and if you force me into it, I will ask God’s support against you in the day of Judgment.” 75

Ethics and Morals This mixed discourse of the pious and the humorous is in keeping with a large body of literature in the belletristic tradition since the ninth century.

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It rarely contests, however, practices and habits of thought taken seriously by the society at large, like using the right hand in greeting, shaking hands, eating, or receiving a cup of coffee. In more than one instance, good manners operate as both Islamic and Arab. Especially in Baghdadi tales, there is consistent mention of physical infirmity or disability that deprives a person of normal practices but that may be unwittingly taken at the outset as lack of refinement. In the “Jewish Physician’s Tale,” the young man from Mosul surprises the physician by putting forth his left hand. The physician says to himself, “By God, it is strange that such a handsome young man of such a high family should lack good manners.” The physician soon notices that “his right hand had been recently cut off.” 76 The surprise leads to a tale, however: whenever there is some discrepancy between expectation and reality, there is a good chance that an interesting urban narrative will begin. Discrepancy does not necessarily build on disappointment or failure, for there is often a prevailing urban interest in the good and joyful life, which demands some excitement to keep up its pace of anxiety and challenge. Urban appropriation of Islamic cultural ethics should be looked at in comparative terms, too. The European middle classes appropriated Christian ethics to fit into their patterns of behavior and social or political needs and demands. Tales and historical accounts report how so and so spent a good time of innocent joy and singing before resuming, in the morning, his or her rituals of ablution and prayer. In Al-(Iqd al-farīd (The Unique Necklace), we are told how Isnāq al-Mawùilī enjoyed nights in the pleasant company of Būrān, the daughter of al-Ma)mūn’s minister al-masan ibn Sahl, and how the caliph himself joined the company later, in order to become acquainted with Būrān and be impressed by her refinement, knowledge, wit, and charm. Her old woman nurse reported: She has been doing this [leaving a basket in the road with a rope to pull it up whenever a person uses it to be transported up], and she has the company of many refined people, litte´rateurs, and pleasant individuals, more than can be numbered. No bad feelings, or sex, or ugly communication ever occurs. Her interest is literature and communication, the company of pleasant people, those of noble deeds, and elevated thoughts and respectable demure, with nothing that arouses doubt or sounds sullied or faulty.77

In nights 279 through 282, there is more emphasis on the dramatic element and the implications of beauty, wealth, and grandeur. The common ground shared by historical accounts and the Nights as narrative defines the exis-

91820 The Changing Order

tence of two societies, one of the court and power and the other related to mercantile classes. Outside of both is the common public. The society of the court and its entourage does not expect the mercantile class to know a great deal in matters of refinement, especially in µ arf or ta µ arruf (the practice and knowledge of delicate arts and fine, elegant manners). Būrān asks Isnāq al-Mawùilī, the renowned musician who is in disguise, if he is aware of the basics of conversation and communication and if he is aware of the art of µ arf, including its prerequisites of arts, literature, and rhetoric. After a series of tests in music, poetry, and argumentation, Isnāq al-Mawùilī is revealed to be a distinguished µ arīf, much more so than the ordinary dilettante to whom the term in Arabic may neatly apply.78 More relevant to the issue of religion and urban manners is Būrān’s expectation that he would keep the secret of this meeting. He is entrusted with their company after he is tested as a good and trustworthy µarīf, a pleasant companion who is not from among the rabble or even the unworthy of trust from among the elite. He is, rather, a member of the chosen class, or al-khā ùùah. The question that may come to the reader’s mind is: is it permissible for women to communicate, using the hanging basket, with people whom they do not know? First, we should remember that in the tale, as in the historical account, the dangling basket is a communication or transportation means for refined men to reach the otherwise unreachable. Those who are unworthy are sent back to the street. Ordinary people do not take the risk; those who accept it know that they have the potential to cross into the refined society of aristocratic women. Their salons, as private spaces, do not transgress religious or social codes and ethics, as we understand from the historical account that relates the old nurse’s description of these meetings. On the other hand, these meetings attest to a cultural milieu that is highly refined and beyond the restrictions of conservative societies. There are no barriers that prohibit meetings or discriminate against women. What is applicably present, however, is the emphasis on knowledge and good manners. This is certainly different from meetings that occur between slave girls who are associated with the court and the palace but who have love relationships outside of this space. The renowned slave girl (Arīb, who received her training and education in Basra until she became an expert and a poet in her own right, was in love with the poet Munammad ibn māmid. One stormy winter night, she used the basket and the rope to leave the palace unnoticed. When she returned, she was met by mamdūn the singer, who asked where she had been. She answered:

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You idiot, (Arīb coming back from Munammad ibn māmid at this time, exiting the Caliph’s premises and returning, and you ask her about her mission there? What did you expect, did you expect me to have been conducting my morning prayers, or reciting parts of the Qur)ān for him, or studying with him and discussing some jurisprudence? Idiot, we blamed each other, conversed, then we forgave each other, drank, sang, and made love . . . and left . . .79

It is quite possible that the tale in night 279 applies to (Arīb, who was the caliph al-Ma)mūn’s slave girl, but was wrongly applied to Būrān. Isnāq alMawùilī’s tale says that (Arīb used to love ibn māmid, and when she noticed that the caliph was enthralled by other slave girls, she left a marble statue in her bed and descended from the palace in a basket to meet ibn māmid. When ibn māmid “had his satisfaction she sat in the basket again and was returned to her place. But the Caliph had already inquired about her and knew where she was. ”80

Narrating Desire as Sexual Intrigues The tales make use of (Abbāsid historical accounts and anecdotes, especially to construe effective love stories. These love stories take some liberty for the sake of passion. As argued earlier, while the theorists of love in that period tried to establish a religious foundation for good and passionate love through antecedent authority or some alleged sayings by the Prophet, others who wrote in later periods did not shy away from gay and lesbian relations. Indeed, many, including al-Suyū•ī (d. 911/1505) and al-Nafzāwī (eighth/fourteenth century), go as far as establishing sexual practice as a normal human behavior sanctioned by divine and human authority.81 In historical accounts, there is always a humorous or ironic twist in these narratives. The writer has to enjoy the occasion, too, but he also must weigh things in relative terms. A girl desperately in love and filled with a strong sexual urge, as in one of the tales, cannot be persuaded to offer the narrator, who is standing at the door, some water for the sake of securing a heavenly reward. Thus in the tale recorded by al-Jāniµ (d. 255/868/9), the historical figure describes how he once saw a beautiful woman with languid and sad looks standing at the door. “I said to her: My lady, I am a strange old man, and I am thirsty, can you ask somebody to get me a sip of water? God will reward you. She replied: Old man, I am too busy for this job and for securing a reward. ”82 The same story occurs with few modifications in the Thousand and One Nights.83

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The catalyst that activates the narrative and leads to its dramatic action is the lesbian scene in which the male lover finds his girlfriend and a female partner passionately involved. The tale and the historical account both take this scene as the point of departure. The male lover is infuriated, which causes his lover to despair, and she asks the old man to be the mediator and messenger to remedy the situation. Such developments in the form of petitions, requests, poetry, and songs stand for the deliberate narrative of female enticement and attraction, not only used to retain love but also to reverse male assumptions that there is one single source of love for women. Like many love narratives, space in this tale accommodates both land and river, and lovers are more joyful and less restricted in their feelings whenever they are in boats that pass by each other, and rapturous exchanges take place among their passengers or owners. The wound that unleashes action, the sense of being hurt or damaged, similar to the one that stands behind the whole narrative as framed in Shahrayār’s sense of betrayal, is appropriated in quasi-religiosity that legitimizes love. Even jurists can do little in a milieu that allows love to be expressed in many clear ways. Religion becomes a handmaid to urbanity since, as Anmad ibn Isnāq alYa(qūbī argues in his Mushākalat al-nās li-zamānihim (Peoples’ Similarity to Their Times), people tend to resemble their age. The (Abbāsids tended to appropriate jurisprudence and make it workable for the new social order, its needs, aspirations, and claims. So did their constituency.

Institutionalized Religion and Issues of Sects However, there is something missing in the collection, and we should be alert to the meaning of this conspicuous absence: namely, other sects and schools of law such as the Shī(īs and the Khārijīs.84 One can argue that the collection reflects the climate of its times and that it is indifferent to religious attitudes outside the mainstream and hierarchical discourse. But this is not an accurate enough analysis to explain the historicity of the tales and their burgeoning since the last half of the ninth century. Com­ pilers and storytellers might have been so accommodating of what was generally and officially acceptable that they put aside anything that might incite some audiences. On the other hand, the material as transmitted and accumulated obviously took a final form sometime in the twelfth century, when Fatimid sentiments lingered only among the general populace but rarely in elitist scholarship, which subscribed to the official discourse. The manuals on nisbah or market inspectorships may tell us as much. The Book

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of the Islamic Market Inspector by (Abd al-Ranman b. Naùr al-Shayzarī (d. 1193 c.e.?) is worth looking at in this context. It partakes of the spirit of the age, with its stark conservatism in jurisprudence and intolerance toward other schools of law. This movement was part of the reaction against the Fatimids (906–1160 c.e.) launched by the Ayyubids (1171–1250 c.e.). The regulations within the purview of the Muntasib (market inspector) prohibit educators from reciting Shī(ī poetry: “The educator must . . . not acquaint them [the boys] with any poetry composed by the §ālibī Rawāfib [i.e., the followers of the fourth caliph and cousin of the Prophet, Imam (Alī, and Shī(īs in general]. ”85 Rather, “he should teach them the poetry which eulogizes the Companions so that he fixes this in their hearts. ”86 The matter is so urgently present in his mind and in absolute conformity to the official discourse that he reiterates, in another place, that the market inspector should forbid the blind and beggars from “reciting the poetry which the Rawāfib have composed about the §ālibīs, and from speaking about the death and such like, because all this incites the general public and it is therefore wrong to do it. ”87 The implications are far reaching, as they mean first that storytellers should refrain from tales that bring about narratives even verging on recollecting the life and martyrdom of Imām musayn (murdered 680 c.e.) and his family and relatives, and that no mention of or allusion to this event should be made. Transgressions of this ruling are punishable by law. Censorship could be the reason behind the relative absence of any narrative that partakes of sectarian difference. Of some significance is the readiness of al-Shayzarī to equate this poetry, elegies on Imam musayn, with the poetry of both Ibn al-majjāj and úarī( al-Dilā), whose frivolous or erotic verses at times made their way into some of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. In other words, throughout the period of official antiFatimid sentiment, coercive marginalization took place against a literature that was deemed politically or, in the second case, morally undermining. It is no surprise, therefore, that later works such as the Ma(ālim al-Qurbah fī Ankām al-misbah by ibn al-)Ukhuwwah aiyā al-Dīn Munammad ibn Munammad al-Qurashī al-Shaf (ī (d. 1329 c.e.) are less concerned with these matters and make no reference to such prohibitions.88

Christians and Jews in an Islamic Environment If suppression is the method of the popular storyteller for dealing with sensitive issues, we might expect something similar in tales involving

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religious minorities. This is not the case, however, when it comes to nonMuslim minorities, who have a relatively full presence in the tales. A word of caution is needed, nevertheless, to understand the oblique displacement that storytellers follow whenever there is such an issue. Instead of Baghdad, the center of the caliphate and the Islamic world, they felt more at home using other centers as the location for narrative to unfold, like Cairo for Christians, Damascus for Jews, and sometimes China. However, the king of China in the tales of the tailor and the jolly hunchback is Islamized and therefore not surprised at meeting a group of people who are Muslims, Jews, and Christians. His Islamic outlook allows such diversity within an Islamic faith that all of the characters recognize. His demand for a tale better than the rest is the dynamic behind the narrators’ focus on an exciting slice from their life, one that involves action, mystery, and shock, on the condition that there is no deliberate implication of violence. Although compilers duplicate the court of the (Abbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd when­ ever there is another displaced court, there are some differences that sustain the majesty of the former in the minds of storytellers. The king of China receives people at his court, while Hārūn al-Rashīd usually goes out incognito, looking for adventure. On the other hand, dislocation as the terrain for these narratives imposes a contrived sense of identity that has more color and intensity than we usually find whenever Baghdad is the site of narrative. While dislocation and personal misfortunes were as real as the many troubles and wars between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, their recurrence in the tales enforces an Islamic identity that may not be in close correspondence to historical accounts. Just as the ultimate dislocation negates place and tribal identity, people from Mosul, Basra, or Baghdad refer to these places now as forsaken locations they might no longer reach. Instead of a solidarity based on tribal or national ties, there is now a cultural or professional identity that is not confined to territory or nation. The best trope for this collective and extraterritorial identity is the assembly or the group, for whenever one of these characters attends a meeting he is bound to see a number of people, including merchants, professionals, and artisans, who are unsurprised at his foreignness. All people in this assembly take dislocation for granted in times of turmoil, and all are bound by a new brotherhood that is Islamic first and foremost. Even transactions and business arrangements that help newcomers to adjust are done according to binding Islamic contracts like the ones exercised by the Baghdadi cloth merchant and the Christian broker in Cairo. In other words, the lost empire has been replaced by a group fraternity, which is held together by a common faith. Even in Sindbad’s travels, and

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despite the ultimate homecoming in each one of the seven voyages, the divisions that he sets for identity rely on culture, its markers of custom, lifestyles, and faith. He defines his identity by difference even when there is the possibility of rapprochement or a marriage arrangement with a woman from the new community. Admittedly for Sindbad a religious endeavor, business or commerce becomes even more meaningful whenever allied to faith. Even the conclusion to these adventures, returning home with presents, could symbolize funding the Muslim Treasury or the treasury of the Commander of the Faithful. Storytellers and copyists speak of these and other matters, like the vow of a young lady to sustain and preserve her virginity for the Commander of the Faithful, with tongue in cheek. The condescension to popular discourse entails the use of its jocular and sarcastic polyphony. This mode of storytelling is suited to tales regarding non-Muslim communities, since it escapes the implications of fastidiousness usually associated with conservative discourse. “The Story of the Hunchback” is based on illusions that obscure the meaning of reality under the cover of night. Darkness as well as drunkenness delude the players in the tales into thinking they have killed the hunchback. The Jewish physician, the steward, the Christian broker, and the tailor suspect themselves of being the murderers of the king’s buffoon. The treatment of the non-Muslims is worth considering, as it demonstrates both the stereotyping stigma and the informing Islamic factor in existence since Arab Jews and Christians formed an integral part of the whole society. The scene is displaced onto China, and the king’s buffoon can act as he wishes: “he was drunk, reeking of wine. ”89 The Jewish physician would have been as renowned in the profession as any other dhimmī physician. We know from nisbah manuals that they occupied a privileged place in this profession because Muslims were more focused on jurisprudence and other administrative arts, careers more attractive to the ambitious. “Many a town has no physician who is not a dhimmi belonging to a people whose evidence about physicians is not accepted [in the court],” writes ibn al-)Ukhuwwah.90 Stereotyping operates in storytelling, however, in associating the taste for money with the Jews: “When the Jew saw the quarter-dinar as a fee for merely going downstairs, he was pleased and in his joy rose hastily in the dark.”91 Like other actors in the tale, the physician and his wife let the body down through the airshaft into the house of the steward, an act the steward will also repeat in order to acquit himself of murder charges. The Christian broker is also implicated in the same alleged murder, but when the time of punishment comes and the execution of the culprit is to take place shortly, each one

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admits the assumed guilt. The Jewish physician justifies his confession as follows: “Is it not enough for me to have involuntarily and unwillingly killed one Muslim, without burdening my conscience with the death of another Muslim?”92 The Jewish physician is so involved in the life and welfare of the society that, as he repeats to the king of China, he has once received the full appreciation of the governor of Damascus: “the governor bestowed on me the robe of honor and appointed me superintendent of the hospital.”93 He has received his education in Damascus and he is so familiar with social customs and habits of thought that he expresses surprise at seeing the young merchant putting forth his left hand instead of the right: “By God, it is strange that such a handsome young man of such a high family should lack good manners. How very strange!”94 Moreover, there is so much rapprochement and solidarity between the physician and the young man that they have enjoyed some social activity and “then sat to eat,”95 a procedure that means, among socially knit communities, good will and good intentions. In other words, apart from the considerations already specified in market-inspectors’ manuals, the non-Muslim communities are so integrally engaged in community life, culture, customs, and business that there is very little reason to assume that there is a separate category for them, which would have alerted the storyteller to repress or gloss over their presence, as he or she does regarding Muslim sects. The same thing may well apply to the Christian community in relation to wine. Stereotyping has a function in the narrative, for there is the underlying assumption that all Christians are more prone to wine drinking than the rest of the community. While selling wines is confined to dhimmīs, the practice of excessive drinking is practiced by very few, regardless of their religious affiliation. The young Baghdadi merchant has a sip of wine every morning, and the Christian broker drinks wine excessively at night. In the story of the hunchback, “there came a prominent Christian tradesman, who had a workshop and was the king’s broker. He was drunk, and in his drunkenness he had left home, heading for the bath, thinking that morning prayers were near [sic]. He was staggering along until he drew near the hunchback and squatted in front of him to urinate.”96 The storyteller confuses Muslim and Christian rituals and times for prayer, but he also treats the broker in a manner that is reminiscent of his treatment of the king’s buffoon, whom he has described as “reeking of wine.”97 Wine becomes the trope for absolute abundance, carelessness, and frivolity. It is associated with darkness, when every desire except Scheherazade’s is unleashed and when restraint is put aside. The case is different during the day. Sobriety reigns and good manners are upheld.

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The Cairene Coptic broker entertains the same surprise at seeing the young merchant eating with his left hand: “Only God is perfect. Here is a young man who is handsome and respectable yet so conceited that he does not bother to use his right hand in eating with me.”98 The sense of shock at such a seeming departure from acceptable manners is not confined to the refined segment of the society, for professionals and merchants have the same manners and norms of behavior. The young Baghdadi merchant is aware of this problem, and addresses the broker as follows: “Don’t wonder and say to yourself that I’m conceited and have eaten with my left hand out of conceit. There is a strange story behind the cutting off of my hand.”99 Although the watchman expresses shock at the night scene in the marketplace, where the drunken Christian broker seems to be beating the hunchback, there is little to suggest discrimination aside from the expression of surprise: “By God, this is a fine thing, a Christian killing a Muslim!” 100 The rest of the community is not ready to discriminate. Indeed, the steward of the king’s kitchen comes to the scene of execution to proclaim his own alleged guilt: “Is it not enough for me to have killed a Muslim, without burdening my conscience with the death of a Christian too? On my confession, hang no one but me.” 101

Heathen and Islamic Narrative While we meet many patterns of Islamic thought and practice, there is also an urban outlook and disposition that speak of the urban milieu first, whereby Islamic faith is enforced through the muntasib, or market inspector, or through acceptable moral and cultural norms. On the other hand, there are tales that are appropriated to fit into the Islamic milieu. This is especially so in the frame story and its cluster, as well as in other tales of suspected Greek or Indo-Persian origin, a point which J. F. Hewitt ex­ pressed over a century ago.102 Later scholarship partly accepted this idea. Muhsin Mahdi came up with an ingenious idea that takes the frame tale and its immediate unframed ones as a deliberate cultural appropriation of heathen values and fortunes to an Islamic context, a kind of predication onto another context to justify transformation and change. He says, “one may say that the overall subject matter of the Nights is the history of the relation between heathen royalty and the revealed religions, a history that begins in ancient times with circumstances that appear to be leading this royalty to a catastrophic end, but that ends with a festival in which this royalty and its city celebrate their triumph and well-being.” 103 The tales demonstrate the disharmony that triggers storytelling early in the

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evening and that calms down over the course of the night, in preparation for further fluctuation. The opening garden scene that brings ease to the mind of the king’s brother is no less than a rebellion staged openly in the garden. Here slaves take over, exercise their power, make love to the queen and her female entourage, and join in a pact that takes revenge on authority as represented by the king. One can agree with Mahdi that it is a “common rebellion against the conventions that had established their inferior position.” 104 Instead of the queen and the slave Mas(ūd of the garden scene, or instead of Mas(ūd the lucky, “the Luck of Religion,” as he calls himself during his apelike jump from the top of the tree, we have a new woman addressing the morose king, a Shahrazad “of noble race,” joined by her sister, who perpetuates storytelling. The sister’s name, Dinarzad, means “noble religion,” which may metaphorically stand for storytelling, since she is the one who insists on more stories that, in matter and manner, become an embodiment of the storyteller, the one “of noble race.” 105 One may stretch this further to suggest the replacement of material power by art, an art that questions the premises and functions of authority and undermines its mechanisms. Just as there is another world, other powers, and other functions, and just as there are other beings and agents who transform humans, the art that relates these narratives is no less powerful as a medium, and probably a means, to affect such transformations. Women who mutter something while looking into a bowl of water can change humans, and Shahrazad may well be one of them. In other words, the king undergoes change, not only under the influence of the lessons or the passing of time but also because of the fear that overwhelms him. In Mahdi’s words, he “feels threatened by the human powers of magic and the superhuman powers of demons.” 106 Yet the division between royalty and rebellious spirits or demons is not strictly upheld throughout the tales and lines of demarcation. In the first three framed tales exist heretical demons, disobedient jinns, and disloyal queens; however, there are also God-fearing ones who abide by the laws that govern the human world. There are also communities that uphold their religions even under dire circumstances. There are magician-queens who complement the garden scene with their alliances with slaves and against royalty. There is also plentiful use of the manuals on statecraft and kingship. In a universe of mixed powers and challenges, politics entails the control of one’s passions and the use of ruse and craft to deal with emerging situations. Such is the realization of ordinary human beings like the fisherman. The case becomes more problematic later, in the stories that have a definite Islamic context.

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Magic and supernatural powers are actively present to redress wrongs or to remedy situations. Whenever there is an evil power, there exists a counterpower to forestall harm or establish order. Kings and rulers are more often than not God’s vicars on earth; they are there to act like Hārūn alRashīd, as agents of the divine presence to endow the universe with goodness and justice. With a nostalgic recollection, indeed a mourning of a blessed past, the tales dwell on many of these days, when cities were prosperous, justice upheld, and security certain. As hierarchy works strongly during times of solid and tight control, there is the underlying assumption in the tales that there is no other arbiter than the Commander of the Faithful. Whenever there is a problem that demands an authority higher than the chief justice, people invoke the intervention of the Commander of the Faithful; otherwise, their only recourse is supplication for God’s intervention. Thus, in the tailor’s tale, the story of the lame young man from Baghdad, the loquacious barber suspects that the judge is beating the young man whom he has seen entering the judge’s house to meet his daughter. “By God, none shall judge between us and you but the caliph, unless you bring out our master to his relatives, before I go and bring him out myself and put you to shame.” 107 The barber’s words are the storyteller’s, for the loquacious barber is another mouthpiece for the storyteller whenever there is unrestrained narrative and excessive nosiness. His words express the storyteller’s dissatisfaction with the judicial system, since it was historically opposed to storytellers and their use of the marketplace and street corners for their practice. The system is strongly targeted on its own grounds in the tale of the slave girl Tawwadud. Her testing of the celebrated dignitaries in Islamic law is a deliberate challenge to their knowledge and claims to authority. Here, Tawwadud seemingly subscribes to the official discourse, but she internalizes it and turns it against its upholders and ostensible missionaries. In many tales that have a social or political context, there is a tendency to indirectly draw attention to the processes of appropriation, which tend to manipulate religion and place it in the service of the state. Like Protestant or Catholic states in their appropriations of religion to newly emerging needs and requirements, Islamic governments in the heyday of the Umayyad reign and the (Abbāsid empire needed this appropriation. It grew into a practice that was carried out by a great number of jurists, who gave it form and context through reinterpretation. While not touching the basics of religious faith, these appropriations tended to meet the demands and needs of a growing society with new urban desires and requirements, especially in matters of property and ownership, including the ownership

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of slave women. The Bedouin society has its codes of honor and ownership, but urban society relies more on Islamic statehood. This statehood implies an application of social divisions that are not necessarily in keeping with the Qur)ānic emphasis on equality. Class structures and social hierarchies are closely observed despite the vicissitudes of fortune and vagaries of politics that bring royalty and dignitaries down. Gradually, Islam is dislodged as a way of thinking to be replaced by an overarching urban one of broad secular concerns. Even when God is invoked or mentioned, it is only in terms of a secular discourse. In the tale of the fourth brother, the brother, who is a fugitive in another city, is so paranoid that he suspects “the tramping of horses behind him” as a search for him. “The judgment of God is upon me,” he cries, and he pushes open a closed door, but not to find salvation. The invocation of God does not help, nor does his use of human resources to escape trouble. He finds himself this time among guards who have been vigilantly waiting to capture an intruder who had been annoying the owner for some time: “Praise be to God, who has delivered you into our hands, O enemy of God.” 108 Imaginary flights mix easily with brutal realities, and verbal communication becomes a means to attain the unattainable, which in many other tales finds its representations in nonverbal narrative units, as the last chapter in this book will argue. The fifth brother speaks of an imaginary change that raises him to a noble status, which is concomitant with dreams of ownership and ultimate domestic bliss. There, he will let the bride wait for him “so that she may say that I am a proud man,” and until her mother joins in supplication: “ ‘My lord, look at your servant and comfort her, for she craves your favor.’ ” 109 In the sixth brother’s tale, there is the imaginary feast of the Barmakī, who derives his joy from inviting people to nonexistent luxurious banquets. But the brother “raised his arm” and “suddenly hit the host on the back of the neck,” telling the Barmakī: “My lord, you have admitted your slave into your house, fed him, and given him wine to drink until he became drunk and unmannerly. You should be the first to tolerate his foolishness and pardon his offense.”110 Secularized as such, and with no mention of God or the usual Islamic ceremonial blessings, the imaginary feast is no less a flight of fancy than many other tales. The storyteller can be exchanged for the Barmakī, and the Barmakī for the storyteller. Both create stories out of nothing. However, the presence of the desperate and the forlorn operates as an opening that escapes the limitations or constrictions imposed by laws. The down-to-earth conduct of the sixth brother is the source of power in the Thousand and One Nights. It forces a realistic dimension that transforms

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fantasy into a realistic narrative that accommodates religion to needs and facts as they are on the ground. The storyteller, with the barber as his mouthpiece, relates the historical background of the Barmakī debacle. While not engaged in the politics of the whole affair, he or she joins the common public in sympathizing with the family as a generous one. He tells us how the Barmakī chose his brother to manage his estate, but twenty years later, “the king seized all his property, including that of my brother, leaving him a helpless pauper.” 111 The storyteller has his or her ways of circumventing social and political structures in order to uncover their underpinnings and critique their artificiality. Dreams, transformations, and magic participate in this strategy as the storyteller’s stock in trade. Indeed, the barber’s fifth brother, whose daydreaming and subsequent devastation of his little merchandise was the subject of many Victorian allusions during precarious times, sums up the new social and economic transformations that caused the ruin of families and the rise to wealth and power of others. His daydreams rest on a dupli­ cation of current class structures that enable the privileged to hold ser­ vants and have a pleasant and pleasurable life. The tales of the fifth and the sixth brothers set daydreams against reality, wishful thinking against the hard facts on the ground. In this, the fifth brother is not far off the mark, just as one of the ladies of Baghdad, in the tale of the porter and the three ladies, looks upon decorum as the specific sign of social distinction and authority. When the mendicants and others show no careful observance of the rules inscribed on the inner side of the door, the lady says: “O guests, you have wronged us. Have we not told you of our condition, that ‘he, who speaks of what concerns him, not will hear what pleases him not?’ We took you in our home and fed you with our food, but after all this you meddled and did us wrong.” 112 The misbehavior comes only from people who dare to transgress, not from the common people who know their social limits. “Tell me who you are. . . . Were you not men of rank or eminent among your people or powerful rulers, you would not have dared to offend us.” 113 Yet decorum and observance of rules of conduct are not necessarily class bound, for we are told in other tales that in certain professions there are no less binding rules. These are applicable to jurists, stewards, maids, and barbers, among others. But barbers are the most notorious for their loquacity, especially when it becomes their way of enforcing their laws and interfering with other people’s commitments. The barber in the cycle of tales under his name boasts of his erudition in all fields of knowledge, including astrology and medicine. The young man from Baghdad who is infatuated

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by the sight of the judge’s daughter is anxious to abide by the date and timing fixed for the couple by the old lady as the go-between. The barber, however, delays him by his stories and boasts of himself as follows: “You have asked for a barber, and God has sent you a barber who is also an astrologer and a physician, versed in the arts of alchemy, astrology, grammar, lexicography, logic, scholastic disputation, rhetoric, arithmetic, algebra, and history, as well as the traditions of the Prophet, according to Muslim and al-Bukhari.” 114 We should not think this nonsensical, however, for it was part of the barbers’ job to entertain celebrities and to mix with the highest ranks of the society. This combination of education and habitual loquacity is the stock in trade for a talented storyteller, too. Their significant presence in the tales has a narrative role, however, for loquacity is another term for storytelling, but without that extra touch that turns talk into art. The barber’s intervention in this story, for instance, complicates it, causing more trouble for the protagonist and making him desperate to run away from the very land that harbors the barber and his like. Whenever the person has wit and good education, like the porter in the story of the ladies of Baghdad, the tale takes a different direction. Wit and refinement lead it to a higher level of sociability, for “as a table needs four legs to stand on, you being three, likewise need a fourth, for the pleasure of men is not complete without women, and the pleasure of women is not complete without men,” he says.115 It is no wonder the swimming-pool scene in which he is a participant is so hilarious and funny that the squeamish Edward William Lane cut it out from his translation to meet the requirements of Victorian taste. In a moment of rapture and intoxication, the porter feels that the wine has acquired an exquisite flavor, and the more he drinks the more he loses “his inhibitions.” 116 The scene, which is no less effective than a carnival, turns things upside down so that joviality triumphs over class distinction. Transgression and distinction contradict the Islamic warning against intoxication and social barriers, but the wine that causes social transgression remains punishable by law only as long as its drinking brings about intrusion into the public sphere, in person or through noise. Thus in the story of the porter and the three ladies of Baghdad, the caliph’s minister comes to the ladies with a fabricated story of being in a merchant’s house enjoying themselves until they were “intoxicated” but running away when the prefect of the police “raided the place.” 117 In other words, storytellers would have known the social and religious implications of transgressions, the limits imposed on wine and music whenever exceeding specific regulations, and the punishment attending any misconduct. The fabricated incident could not have happened in al-

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Rashīd’s times, however, both because this does not correlate well with the entertainment at the ladies’ house and because there was no assumption among jurists at that time to intrude into people’s private spheres unless a danger to public safety was suspected. Like wine, excessive music that intrudes upon the public sphere is forbidden. According to ibn al-)Ukhuwwah: “If the sound of music issues from a house, whose occupants are playing instruments in full view, the muntasib may forbid their continuing, but he may not enter the house and attack them or inquire into anything besides the offence.” 118 The city, as supervised and watched by the police and the inspectors, feeds individual and communal freedom while imposing limits and checks to keep rights within limits and in due respect to institutionalizing religious decrees. Feigning to be merchants, the minister and the caliph are the ones who transfer and convey the complexity of urban life to the seeming pleasant private bliss in the ladies’ house. Like the royal brothers of the frame tale who are betrayed and consequently come up with a strategy to ensure sovereign control, the caliph and his minister come up with a plan to mix with the community, understand its rules of conduct, and test their own administration in the ladies’ house as a sphere of both private and public dimensions. The pleasant surface hides another level of menace that involves other powers. However, both state and supernatural power can come to rapprochement under the banner of faith. The jinn succumb to the order of the Commander of the Faithful by restoring the ladies’ sisters to human form, but this happens at a later stage, after he has passed through a crucial moment of challenge. Enjoying their power within their private dominion, the ladies threaten intruders who enter into their privacy. The intruders face the consequences of such impudence: “Tell me who you are, for you have only one hour to live,” says the eldest lady.119 The disguised caliph says to his minister Ja(far: “Damn it, tell her who we are, lest we be slain by mistake.” 120 The private sphere here assumes the power of the state, and the incognito scene plays well into the hands of the ladies who, for a moment, have all the sovereign power in their hands. This seeming loss of power on the part of the caliph and his minister foreshadows the impending fragmentation of the empire. This inversion of hierarchy, be it female and male or laity and the caliphal order, should not be seen as an ordinary matter. Narrative as performed in the Baghdadi scene runs counter to the poetics of allegiance that was, along with wars and surveillance, the staple of the (Abbāsid discourse as represented in its known court ceremonials of legitimacy. The (Abbāsids were sensitive to issues of power politics, especially when it came to their cousins, the (Alīds, and their questioning of

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the (Abbāsid claims of legitimacy. Though almost every poet of renown and a good number of prose writers, such as al-Jāniµ, tried to show allegiance through some support of this claim, it may be worthwhile to mention (Alī ibn al-Jahm’s (d. 863 c.e.) famous Ruùāfiyyah ode addressed to the caliph al-Mutawwakil and compare it to this carnival-like scene’s narrative of inversion at the ladies’ house in Baghdad. It may be worth comparing, also, to the mendicants’ praise for the (Abbāsid caliph al-Rashīd and his Abode of Peace, as Baghdad was called. Their praise rests on recognition of his justice, generosity, and rule in a Baghdad that was the center of the universe. In other words, his gifts are earthly, not divinely inspired. Legitimacy derives its power from facts on the ground, not from a sacral or heroic premise. On the other hand, poets in the vein of ibn al-Jahm usually resort to the earthly or worldly to claim or justify the divine. The poet says: “Islam with him is safe from every heretic; and the stray folk will suffer divine punishment.” He adds: “It suffices that God entrusts his affairs to you / and ordained ‘to obey those in authority.’ ” In the Thousand and One Nights, things work differently. It depicts the seemingly real and allows legitimacy to be parodied or questioned. Unless there is some human revelation, an exposure of some sort, things may take a different direction. Even jest may turn into reality and words assume the power of the actual, for, according to Shams al-Nahār, “no task is accomplished without speech.” 121 It is only upon revealing himself as the caliph that things change and authority regains its status. Jest, humor, double roles, and scenes of transformation or discrepancy are the storyteller’s repertoire, helping him or her meet the demands of the public, which, as we understand from manuals on market inspectorships, used to meet on the corners and in marketplace locations. The popular storyteller was not concerned with the cultivation of taste or the documentation of knowledge. It was enough for him to offer a good story that would be appealing enough to secure a livelihood. The Thousand and One Nights as such have the basic properties of popular art that might have seemed coarse and insipid to the “judicious” eyes of al-Nadīm.122 The disparity between the two perspectives emanates from status, class, and role in an Islamic society. The storyteller does not expect to be taken seriously by courtiers, state functionaries, distinguished litterateurs, or by jurists and religious scholars—a point that will be the focus of the next chapter.

9  5  0 Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tradition

O

ne of the most effective narrative tropes in the story of “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” and the tale of the ensorcelled king is that of the mansion and the rubbish mounds. While it emphasizes the dichotomous patterning between the court and street, the elite and the common public, and belletristic prose and popular tradition that cuts across the collection, it also underlines rapprochement and harmony. Transgressions that usually make every binary structure or dichotomy rife with anxiety and tension culminate in some solution or understanding, including the retention of just authority or the appreciation of the trials of love. The tales navigate this presence in an Islamic context where two traditions coexist regardless of opposition or rift. Rulers need common people and the latter find comfort in a center of authority where there is some fair application of Islamic justice. This chapter discusses a few tales within the medieval Arabic context of narrative accumulation, and it argues for their participation in Islamic popular culture. It also makes specific reference to the barber and his brothers as a cycle that uses markers of popular culture and shows how this culture can operate as a deliberate or invited intrusion into the private world of privilege. It takes as a starting point and conclusion the analogy of the mansion and the “rubbish mounds outside the city” that occurs in both “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” 1 and the tale of the ensorcelled king.2 In this scene, the qarandals, or mendicants, are dis­ heartened and distressed at the surprising scene of physical punishment inflicted by the three ladies after a seemingly joyful orgy. The mendicants’

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sense of disillusionment and distress stands for a larger sense of discomfort with increasing materialism. This contrast is central to popular culture and evolves as a focus for almost every other manifestation of dissent, opposition, laughter, and other carnivalesque expressions. The second tale analyzed is the story of the ensorcelled king, nights 15 to 22, which also builds on this confrontation and exhibits popular properties through the delineation of the setting and the lavish use of plaintive verses, including street songs popular in medieval Baghdad. Certainly there are other tales, such as the barber and his brothers, which can also serve this purpose, especially in connection with the socially marginal. Although addressed here as manifestations of a collective memory that selects and omits according to its needs and expectations, they receive some further attention and cross referencing in other places in the present text. The barber and his brothers take us to the heart of a godless universe where there is always a trick or treachery lying in wait and where banishment from the urban center functions as an equivalent to the fall from grace and the heavenly bliss. Yet the irony lies in this very assumption of equivalence, for the city from which they are exiled is no state of heavenly bliss; it is an urban center whose heavily policed quarters indicate its insecurity and liability to disturbance of one sort or another. Some of the brothers are mounted on a camel or a mule and paraded throughout the city, a punishment that was usual in Cairo during al-Maqrīzī’s (1364– 1442 c.e.) time. The brothers who bear the scars of punishment are no angels, and their careers and lives show their frailties and weaknesses. Each tale resonates with the markers of popular culture: its casualness, deceptions, contradictions, crimes, street sayings, highly colorful appearances, noise, and absurdity. The tales occupy the nights from 153 to 169 in Galland’s manuscript (Muhsin Mahdi’s edition). Avowedly, these happenings took place during the reign of the (Abbāsid caliph al-Mustanùir Billah (623–640/1226–1242), as the barber claims.3 The recurrent punishment in the six tales is exile and banishment. The prefect of the police thinks of the barber and his brothers as reprobates and criminals whose presence endangers the safety and security of the Baghdadi population. It is perhaps ironic that this large common public once demonstrated a high sense of honor and commitment when the caliph al-Amīn (r. 809–813 c.e.) was besieged and his life endangered in the war between him and his brother al-Ma)mūn (r. 813–833 c.e.). There is no such suggestion in the tales, however, and the professionals and shopkeepers are set in contrast to the wealthy and privileged classes. The driving motivation is curiosity and desire, which lead the barber’s brothers into situations that they cannot

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control. Throughout the tales, the brothers desire a beautiful woman who makes fun of them and calls on others to participate in hilarious scenes that verge on the grotesque rather than the carnivalesque. The ladies in these tales demonstrate resourcefulness and sheer enjoyment of fun, going so far as to implicate the unfortunate brothers in cruel and mundane events. Yet the storyteller does not blame the ladies, for, as the barber relates, his brothers suffer from wrong ways of thinking that only highlight his own unique position within the family as the most educated and experienced. Thus, he says to the king: “I have attained of science and philosophy, wisdom and refinement, eloquent speech and repartee what no one has ever attained.”4 He adds: “The gravity of my apprehension, the keenness of my comprehension, the precision of my method, the greatness of my humanity and commitment, and the extent of my taciturnity are boundless and hard to attain.” 5 This dichotomous patterning signifies the binary nature of popular culture, and it also places the barber and the privileged society of men and women on equal footing, both in matters that draw on his loquacity and Scheherazade’s narrative resourcefulness and in his escape from female traps, a trope that betrays the fear of female energy as conveyed in popular culture. The woman in the first brother’s tale is not satisfied with turning the first brother or the tailor into a mule or having him sew blouses and shirts for her and her husband. She also arranges to deliver him to the chief of police, who gives him a hundred lashes and “mounting him on a camel, paraded him throughout the city with a crier proclaiming: ‘This is the punishment of those who trespass upon other people’s wives.’ ”6 In these tales as well as in the mendicants’ adventures, females can confound this polarity and demand new terms of accommodation in popular culture. Indeed, the Islamic dynamic itself often intervenes to blur lines of class or hierarchy. In the second mendicant’s tale, for example, the king’s daughter who upon entering “veiled her face and said to her father, ‘Oh father, have you lost your sense of honor to such a degree that you expose me to men?’ ” applies the usual Islamic tenets regarding veiling to the Prophet’s family before it became a practice in later periods.7 On the other hand, female traps and snares become the major narrative dynamic in the tales of the second and the fifth brothers, too. In the second brother’s tale, there is more of a focus on discrepancy and paradox. The religious terms used only intensify this gap, for the paradisiacal bliss as described by the old woman lures the poor individual into the trap. The religious terms used to entice him are irresistibly reminiscent of the Qur)ānic description of paradise and its lovely females: “What do you say to a handsome

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house and a garden with running waters and fruits and clear wine and a face as lovely as the moon for your embrace?”8 Such paradisiacal terms only intensify and increase his desire and curiosity. He asks: “Is all of this in this world?”9 The storyteller is interested in telling us later that the barber’s brother has been lured to the vizier’s house, where a trick is played on him until he is thrown out naked into the leather market beneath the house.10 The whole scene, with its dancing, singing, and hilarity, is at the expense of the brother, who is continuously slapped and hit in accordance with the terms of agreement between him and the lady of the house. As usual with popular culture, there is no consistent pattern in the delineation of female protagonists, for the prevailing urban need takes over and the Islamic factor lapses into the background. The beautiful lady who passes by when the daydreaming fifth brother is crying for his loss after breaking all his glassware pities him and offers him a gift of five hundred dinars. On the other hand, the old woman who knocks at his door and pretends to be in search of a place to perform her prayers plans to rob him of this money. Again, like his other brothers, he is easily lured by promises of enjoying some time with a beautiful lady. “I have for you in this city a woman who has wealth, beauty, and charm.” 11 The trap could have led to his death. The tale emphasizes the ironic substructure, which cuts across many of the tales, that speaks at the outset of good times of security and peace but actually demonstrates the latent treachery and violence of the urban center. Through their involvement in unfortunate circumstances, the protagonists evolve as messengers of a popular tradition, its daydreams, farce, travesty, physical ordeals, and ultimate banishment outside of the mainstream. Only the sixth brother plays by the rules of compatibility rather than concession. When the host of the fake feast summons for him airy dishes and illusory cups of wine, the sixth brother decides to play the trick on the trickster, pretending that he is drunk after a number of imaginary glasses of wine. In such a state he cannot be held responsible for his actions, which culminate in slapping the host. Responding to the angry host, he explains: “My lord, you have admitted your slave into your house, fed him, and given him wine to drink until he became drunk and unmannerly. You should be the first to tolerate his foolishness and pardon his offense.” 12 In their endeavors to go beyond their social capacities and limits, the brothers find themselves overwhelmed by a different society, which has its own tricks and dangers. Islam as faith functions sparingly, for a godless universe has different terms and conditions. Even religious rituals and practices are distorted and misused to enhance treachery. The old woman

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in the tale of the fifth brother “finished her prayers and invoked blessings on him,” and he “thanked her and, pulling two dinars, gave them to her.” 13 But she rejects the money in anger, in order to pursue her plan to rob him of all the money he has received from the wealthy lady in the marketplace. “I do have for you in this city a woman who has wealth, beauty, and charm,” 14 she adds. She leads him to a mansion where the trap has been set for many like him before.15 In these tales, the ones who are liable to be suspected by the police are the underprivileged, like the brothers. The police are not inclined to believe their version of the story, and the tale usually ends with punishment and banishment outside the city gates. Like their narratives, their lives are series of misfortunes and petty efforts to cope with difficult circumstances. Like the tales, these persons lead fugitive lives outside the mainstream. Whether they are tailors, vendors, beggars, or tramps, there is a tendency among them to “beg by night and live by day on what . . . [they] got,” as the fifth brother does.16 This reversal of the terms by which most of the society lives associates the group with the underworld and puts them in sheer divergence from the life of the palace as enshrined in the frame tale. As the existence of these two worlds creates a tension in popular culture, with its focus on beauty and money but also violence and fear, there tends to be an offsetting Islamic factor that enforces some humility and submission to the will of God. The act of telling their stories to the king or the caliph has the single purpose of obtaining pardon or equity. Popular narratives are often associated with the fringes of the social order, its underground life and languages. A question that may keep bothering readers who are unfamiliar with social life in Muslim societies relates to the core concepts and premises of Islam, its emphasis on equality in faith, justice, humility, and righteousness, and the seeming discrimination that keeps emerging whenever we speak of the common public as different from the khāùùah or privileged communities. Islam was never again represented by the fervent piety of its early days following the departure of the first four Rightly Guided caliphs, who enjoyed an intimacy with the Prophet and had an ardent sense of the message of Islam.17 It turned thereafter not only into an official institution that maintained appearances and enforced a power hierarchy but also, despite the annoyance and opposition of jurists and pious Muslims, open to the transgressions of such caliphs as al-Walīd b. Yazīd. The latter openly transgressed: “May God and His devoted angels and pious worshippers be my witness / That I crave music, drinking, biting pretty cheeks, generous drinking boon-companions, and pretty cup-bearers.” 18 Other transgressions take different directions, as in any empire or

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state. In other words, the change from the path of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (632–661 c.e.) to caliphal authority as a royal institution was not in strict conformity with the right path. The matter began to rest more on each caliph’s piety or conformity with the faith. Many historical records testify, too, to the asceticism and piety of a good number of caliphs. Such fluctuations in taste display a changing consciousness; the 1950s, for example, witnessed the modernist movement in Arabic poetry, fiction, and the arts. The modernist consciousness led to new readings of history and societal formation. It is perhaps this consciousness that causes us take a fresh look at the Thousand and One Nights and try to reassess its place and function as popular culture. How do its characters upset the social system, destabilize it, and question norms of conduct? Who are its fugitives? How urban is it? How much does it show male fears of female mobility? Can we read it in modern terms of popular culture? On the other hand, why is the Thousand and One Nights, even in the most adulterated versions and redactions, so saturated with popular songs, vernacular variations on poetic norms, and festive poetry? What is the connection between this interest in poetry and song and mikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdadī (Abulkasim) by Abū al-Mu•ahhar al-Azdī, which has just as many poetic and song variations? Both have many kān wa-kān, dūbayt, mufrad, and mawāliyā poetic variations in celebratory assemblies, where they are sung in a spirit of nostalgia and yearning.19 The presence of popular songs and postclassical poetic verse forms in the collection is significantly conspicuous in all later redactions, despite the common belief among Orientalists and Arabists that poetry has no function in the collection. Many poetic pieces are corrupt or distorted versions of classical poems. In other words, storytellers invade and raid tradition, appropriating it to make it available for their new enterprise. Yet, as argued in Mujtama( Alf Laylah wa-laylah,20 both poetry and food are not mere residual details but have a functional role in the construction of the narratives. While granting that some detail is superfluous, both poetry and food, especially certain special dishes, create and perpetuate action. Their appeal to popular culture, its significations and codes, give them enormous narrative power that sets the circumstances for greater disequilibria. In these tales (nights 21–27, 28–70), poetry has a festive role, but this role is a mixed one, as it recalls and intensifies a feeling, a sense, a recollection, and a past that is not the same for all listeners. Hence, the responses of the singer and sister are passionate and volatile. The shopper among the three ladies has sung a kān wa-kān, for instance, but as soon as she finishes, “her sister let out a loud cry and moaned, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ Then she grabbed

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her dress by the collar and tore it down to the hem, baring her entire body, and fell down in a swoon.” 21 The song acts on this listener, the doorkeeper, because its connotations recalled a past experience, as is usual for this verse form. Longing and self-reproach constitute the inherent power of this subgenre. In this case specifically, they relate immediately to the female body. The girl’s body, “from her head to her toe, bore the marks of the whip, which left it black and blue,” says the narrator.22 Certainly, the scarred body invites the curiosity of the caliph, who reveals himself and asks for an explanation. Insofar as popular culture or narrative goes, the song and the body are one, both carry the scars and beauties of the past, and both find in this festive moment an occasion to speak up, recall, and hence release the soul from such pressure. Popular culture knows no limits, and barriers fall down in the heightened emotional moment. When authority intrudes, the volume of agony and joy diminish, and an explanatory narrative takes over. Official and institutionalized Islam as represented by the caliph is theocratic in this instance. The private space has no longer an internal autonomy or sanctity of its own, and sovereignty as such is confiscated. Authority in the person of the caliph is endowed with a religious function the storyteller does not dispute. On the contrary, everything is given shape and meaning, and the tale moves toward a settlement that, in narrative terms, stands for equilibrium. On the other hand, poetry in its popular domain assumes another function through its cognizance of popular communication codes and signs. Unlike classical verse and its metaphorical retentions, which address a refined class or literati, popular verse is, paradoxically, more attuned to both festive openness and codification. It may carry a coded message that builds on a shared register, as in the case of the tale of (Azīz and (Azīzah.23 Every thing may operate as a sign, but not all signs are deliberate. Food has a number of roles in the collection, but insofar as popular culture goes, its presence in life is not limited to class distinctions. In Damascus, masan Badr al-Dīn alternately suffers and succeeds because of the pomegranate recipe he has learned from his mother.24 Working now in a small restaurant of his own, the marketplace is the site for his adventures and encounters. It is also a space where manners are distinctly different from elite society. Thus the tales make it clear that people from this space can hardly fit into the aristocracy, even when love and affection lead to marriages between businessmen and aristocrats. The story of the Baghdadi cloth merchant focuses on a designated zīrbājah,25 a dish associated with common people and that can be a reason for the punishment, or even

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mutilation, of the young man.26 Eating it without enough cleaning brings about the wife’s anger, as she considers it a transgression and disregard for the social station into which she has brought him. While these designated dishes draw attention to class barriers, they also demonstrate a liveliness typical of the marketplace, where food becomes a celebration of life. The Islamic ritual of celebrating food or praising God for munificence and bounty before eating are habits, but the public associates this praise with God’s promise to answer requests and to take this praise into consideration as a sign of a faithful Muslim (Qur)ān, Al-Nanl:114; Saba):15). This does not contradict the celebration of food or its biological and sensual association with the body. The body becomes the focus of a robust involvement in life, whereas class barriers limit its scope and vitality. The mutilation scene in the wife’s abode stands for a system of checks that runs counter to the liveliness and abandon of the marketplace. In a word, poetry and food assume meanings and roles according to the site of narrative and its characters and locales. Poetry and food operate festively within a popular mode. The juxtaposition of bawdiness and prudery, refinement and coarseness, repression and expression, elitism and commonness, luxury and destitution, enactment of scenes and performance, culture and power, humanity and magic, and the natural and marvelous or fantastic make the tales a rare assemblage of cultures, and their convergence and conflict enable us to see through the components of popular culture. Islamic popular narrative operates in a different domain (not the court, to be sure), and its negotiations with other cultures cannot be pinned down to specific essentialist premises. Space has different functions; there are a palace and a mosque in the center of the city. A palace without an adjacent mosque is prone to disturbance. On the other hand, whenever people are beyond this stable center, there is a chance of some trouble or nuisance. In the wilderness and beyond the center of power, things take on a different cast. The storyteller gives full vent to his or her imagination whenever released from the restrictions usually associated with authority. This should not be taken to mean that the palace and the court are free from social and cultural contamination. The mansion as the house of joy and affluence is also the place of suffer­ ing and agony. It is the place that accommodates wealthy ladies, fugitives, mendicants, humans, animals, misogynists, and rulers in disguise. It gathers marketplace markers and also the significations of refinement. As mentioned earlier, the mansion also houses popular songs, typical Baghdadi melodies, ribaldry, and bawdiness, along with claims to refinement and restraint. It manifests female sexuality and playfulness and male fears

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of this exuberance and freedom. In other words, the mansion is the interior and the exterior of an urban society, which is also the site of popular culture. The mansion and the mounds, in both “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” and the tale of the ensorcelled king can stand for multiple sites that cut across dichotomies and lead us into the tendency of the age to appropriate narrative as an oral practice into an entertaining record for the privileged. Yet this appropriation is not one-sided, for oral tradition operates strongly on authority and privilege, in the same manner as does Scheherazade’s containment of the morose king. Of no less significance to this reading of the tales is the presence of characters from every social and professional stratum. There are fishermen, shopkeepers, cobblers, barbers, physicians, jurists, and policemen, women of every age, caliphs, and queens. While it has an enormous variety of characters that are not foreign to the suburbs of modern cities, the collection also has a marked number of qalandars, who could remind us of the contemporary vogue for shaven heads and faces. Brought down to the status of the common people, the qalandar is bound to live and survive in poverty and loneliness. A typical alien, but with good education and experience, the qalandar is the product of disintegrated societies, states, and cultures. His Sufi Islam as such is a result of human failure, but the proneness to human frailty comes in the absence of solid faith, according to Islamic understanding. He is no longer the brigand or rogue whom we have first come across in the maqāmāt. The journey, in its spatial and symbolic terms, is one of search, bliss, and downfall. It is also a journey from royalty and privilege to austerity. Sufi Islam, at least as practiced by ascetics and dervishes, conveys an indirect message to the society: immersion in luxury leads to disintegration, a message akin to ibn Khaldūn’s premise. No wonder ibn Khaldūn assesses Sufism in positive terms.27 The qalandar ’s journey is a thwarted quest that reverses the epical quality of the first part and prepares the individual for acceptance of the real as it should be lived. Paradise ends somewhere, and the city becomes the refuge in more than one sense. It is there that the individual has to pass through some minor trials to accept life as it should be experienced, with its pain and suffering. The supernatural intervention cannot hold for long, and an awakening should take place that enables the mendicants to satisfy their impudent curiosity, though at the risk of their life, as had happened in their blissful experience and in the house of the three ladies. Divested of privilege, they have to suffer like others. With shaven heads and faces, they roam the globe as wandering libertine mystics, like those whom alGhazālī’s brother Anmad al-Ghazālī (d. 1126 c.e.) described as people

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belonging to his wing of Sufis, the ecstatic or “drunken.” The emphasis placed on the figure of the qalandar and the transfer into the Thousand and One Nights of this characterization and naming could be used to date this set of Baghdadi tales to between the eleventh and the twelfth centuries.28 Anmad al-Ghazālī’s brand of Sufism, with its combination of spirit and love, the internalization of “blame” in surrender and devotion to the Beloved, has its echoes in the three qalandar tales, since, like his Sufis, they end up: A qalandar-like man is needed with torn robe So that he can pass over like a brigand and without fear.29

In the tales under consideration, “the three one-eyed dervishes are standing at the door [of the three ladies of Baghdad] each with a shaven head, shaven beard, and shaven eyebrows, and each blind in the right eye . . . each one of them is a sight, with a face that would make a mourner laugh,” says one of the ladies.30 While they have no particular mission other than regret and lamentation for failure and loss, this disposition makes them negatively assess their present condition. Upon seeing what is taking place in the Baghdadi house, where tales of torture and suffering unfold as “chest marks like welts from a whip,” the dervishes, we are told, mutter: “We wish that we had never entered this house, but had rather spent the night on the rubbish mounds outside the city, for our visit has been spoiled by such heartrending sights.” 31 Like the proletariat incorporating pop culture into daily life and surrendering to its sweeping freedom, the qalandar has no yearning for settlement. Passing through a purgatory, the mendicant is prepared to give up all, especially his curiosity and impudence. This qalandar does not want to differentiate himself from his contemporaries. Their custom, as the Afghani Sana)i (d. 1131 c.e.) says, “must be made [like] the provisions for the spirit which takes the road.” This spirit is free and wandering. In his influential Sufi guide (Awārif al-ma(ārif (The Bounties of Divine Knowledge), Shihāb al-Dīn Abū mafs (Umar al-Suhrawardī (1145–1234 c.e.), writes: The term qalandariyya is applied to people so possessed by the intoxication of “tranquility of the heart” that they respect no custom or usage and reject the regular observations of society and mutual relationship. Traversing the arenas of “tranquility of heart” they concern themselves little with ritual prayer and fasting except such as are obligatory . . . the qalandari seeks to destroy accepted custom.32

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Their presence in the Thousand and One Nights is no less important for the study of social and religious life than the presence of the marginal intellectual in the maqāmāt. Between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, social and political unrest gave way to reversals of fortune, vagabondage, and migration. As J. Spencer Trimingham rightly noted, the “eleventh century marks a turning-point in the history of Islam.” 33 The suppression of Shī(ism occurred within a countermovement that put more emphasis on organizational aspects of life and more attention on institutions of the religious sciences, to the exclusion of every other science that flourished during the Fā•imīds in Egypt (1171 c.e.) or the Buwayhīds in Baghdad (1055 c.e.). Repression led, however, to a countercultivation of spiritual life and the revival of tendencies that created their own free public space beyond the restrictions of orthodoxy. Sufism became even more ingrained in Shī(ī undercurrents, among those engaged in a thorough and more sincere search for genuine piety, not merely its appearance. Migration was one way of coming to terms with these changes, both to escape institutionalization and have enough space for the soul and as a result of reversals of fortune. In these tales, people are on the move from one city to another and from one street and house to the next. Facts on the ground make narrative a part of life, for everybody has a story to tell, and one needs to choose one door, the forbidden one, to let the narrative flow, bringing these qalandars, for instance, into the open space of loss and adventure. Women offer advice, but they also incite curiosity in these qalandars’ tales. They tell these sons of kings that they have access to every other door except the forbidden one. The warning is the incentive for action (and, thereby, narrative), and it will reappear again in the “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.” The doorkeeper in the tale draws the attention of every newcomer to the inscription on the door and the entrance: “Whoever speaks of what concerns him not hears what pleases him not.” 34 As storytellers par excellence, and in the tradition of their foremother Scheherazade, the three ladies will also implicate their listeners in longing, yearning, and more curiosity. In other words, they involve listeners, especially the qalandars, in action and narrative (nights 28–69), like the women who are behind their early entertainment in the paradisiacal location, before their fall from grace. Thus says the third qalandar upon recollecting the first stage in this fall: During that time, I had opened all the ninety-nine chambers, and there remained only the hundredth, the one the girls had cautioned me not to open. . . . I began to feel obsessed and tempted with it, as Satan urged me

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to open it and cause my undoing. . . . I was no longer able to restrain myself and, succumbing to the devil, at last opened the door plated with gold. And as soon as I entered, I was met by a perfume that, as I smelled it, sent me reeling to the floor and made me swoon for a long time.35

The charming females cannot be blamed for this fall, which culminates in a state of destitution, but they surely understand how a human flaw can lead to failure. Knowledge as such becomes a female property secured by a number of narrators and actors in the Thousand and One Nights. Two sets of female representations in the tales are worth looking at in terms of popular culture, however: the resourceful and the lustful. The lustful is more disturbing and challenging to social and moral structures. Perhaps the most astounding representation of royal and aristocratic fear of challenge and independence occurs in the story of the enchanted or ensorcelled king of the black islands (nights 22–27). The queen and enchantress finds her satisfaction in another “decrepit black man sitting on reed shavings and dressed in tatters,” who swears “in the name of black chivalry” never to touch or “lie down” with her again if she is ever late.36 The hut she reaches leads to “a domed structure built with sundried bricks,” 37 where she performs toward the “decrepit” the same ceremonials she receives in her palace. “She kissed the ground before him” 38 in a reversal of roles that partakes of the carnival. In street festivities, social and moral structures undergo this restructuring not only to elicit laughter but also to provide an oppositional view of class, race, and gender. While the main narrative frame appeals to the dominating moral codes of fidelity and faithfulness, as voiced by the two maids in the same story in a comment on the queen’s adultery, the narrative leaves the door open for contesting interpretations. The queen as enchantress uses her magic only to serve her love for the “decrepit.” If she resorts to this later to wreak vengeance on her husband, the young king, it is only in line with her great love for the black man. The story does not elaborate on the reasons behind this love; it simply states that she always undresses and slips under his tatters.39 The sorrow and misery she feels after he has been wounded and her subsequent display of sorrow may speak of a deep psychological dimension, but the story fits with popular culture for a number of reasons. It undermines class and race divisions. It also cuts across gender representations. Male and female characters act out a number of roles that cannot be stereotyped. There are also properties of popular culture: magic, slums, and mixed languages and discourses. The hut and the mansion become sites for this heterogeneity. Central to the

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scene is the woman, who catalyzes the narrative as the actor and the source of tension. Yet this woman, along with her two maids, is representative: women assume a number of roles and can easily lead us to other characters in the collection. In the Thousand and One Nights, women belong to popular culture. They roam the city, have their own encounters, achieve success, or suffer punishments. With their seductive and mysterious nature that entangles the male population in risky pursuits, they anticipate the “dark ladies” of 1940s film noir. Baghdad and Cairo, later, were sites of female sexuality beyond the confines of the middle-class family. These cities are the origins and the icons of subsequent images and representations of class and gender crossings. They are the materialization par excellence of popular culture at the expense of aristocratic formality and middle-class institutionalization. Oral recitation and popular storytelling anticipate the film producer and director, for both, in this instance, “indirectly express male fears of the disturbing female sexuality by the domestic upheaval of war, economic change and new patterns of consumption and the subsequent questioning of pre-existing roles.”40

The Unwritten Tale In Majtama (alf laylah (The Society of the Thousand and One Nights), there is a comparison between historical/anecdotal accounts and the handeddown redactions of the Thousand and One Nights. The tales of the Thou­ sand and One Nights are not consistently more attentive to narrative or residual detail than their anecdotal or historical counterparts.41 Yet the attention to social life and to grievances in particular is more evident. The unwritten or fugitive tale is obviously more receptive to this critique, as it is more in line with the storyteller’s temperament as an outcast or marginalized intellectual. Unless we keep in mind ibn Khaldūn’s reading and analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, with special attention to the Islamic state, we may well miss the connection between this emphasis on the social fringes and their sense of injustice as supported by Islamic faith against the descent of the ruler into the corruptions of royalty. With the ruler assuming royal sovereignty, there will be injustice and misuse of people and power, for only through strict observance of religious law can rulers evade the lure of power. “A dynasty based upon religion,” says ibn Khaldūn, “is remote from royal aspirations.”42 The tale of the coffeehouse, the square, and the street corner operates as the prototype for modern manifestations of popular culture, as it

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“emerge[d] from subordinate cultures, from the inventive edges of the consensus, from the previously ignored and suppressed,” which Iain Chambers associates with contemporary pop culture.43 Not meant for writing in the first place, and driven to the fringes of the “polite” society or deemed as insidious or passing entertainments at best, they run counter to the sacred tablets of the classical tradition, for they are ephemeral, flirtatious, and passing in comparison to a robust presence of writing, inscription, and transmission. Their circulation is akin to the repressed discourse of the underprivileged in historical, political, and theological accounts. The affinity between the tales, especially the ones that lend themselves easily to pop culture and the American thrillers of the 1940s, is worth reading as a bridge between the preindustrial period and modern times. The film The Thief of Baghdad, for instance, has remained a noteworthy cinematic thriller since the 1940s. What remains in the minds of American soldiers in Baghdad in April 2003 is not entirely different, for they recollected Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, another popular production, which made them stereotype youngsters looting banks, palaces, and stores as the gangs in the tale of (Alī Bābā. The soldiers wrote “Ali Baba” across the kids’ chests. The confusion between (Alī Bābā and the thieves is not an issue, however, for the name (Alī Bābā sticks in memory, while the anonymous thieves fade away and disappear. The inscription is more important, nonetheless, for it imparts permanence and identification against mobility, change, and transition. Inscription works as writing at large in comparison to orality. The soldier in Baghdad, like a third-rate copyist or redactor, impersonates the scribe, although without enough grounding or tools to impose a system of retribution and reward that borrows cursorily from fugitive tales. He or she is the postmodern appropriator of earlier hacks, who enjoys with gusto his or her exercise of power. Variations on tales from the main narrative nucleus and its accumulated layers like “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba” take their place in Western popular culture on the radio, TV programs, in cinema, and in the music industry. These tales added in the West to the core of the collection are also the ones that fused easily into pop culture. They lent their thrilling properties to Western consumer culture, which was not basically a mode of life in the Arab world before the 1980s. In other words, the main clusters of the Thousand and One Nights did not fuse easily with a commercial cultural industry, nor did they establish their presence in the reservoirs of official culture, such as art galleries, university curricula, and cinematic productions. As popular culture in the West tends to mobilize “the tactile, the incidental, the transitory, the expendable, the visceral,”44 it picked only

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fugitive tales of roguery, theft, and other tantalizing images from the Thousand and One Nights. These tales manifest a present of great mobility. Their spatial element fades in the background, allowing the Western producer to import a “recognizable syntax”45 from Orientalist travelogue and painting. Still, the urban centers of the Thousand and One Nights were not uniform, for Baghdad in the collection had its baths, houses, marketplaces, riverbanks, and quarters, which were not as uncontrollable and unseemly as those of al-Maqrīzī’s Cairo. The latter had some immeasurable assemblage that gave way to a variegated popular culture of thrillers, shadow plays, and the like. Against this, the Baghdadi scene did not go far into suburbia, for the caliph, in “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” for instance, was drawn by sound and noise, thus inviting scrutiny. Still, this private life upon which he intrudes is a scene of popular culture par excellence, for here the body assumes the utmost significance. It competes in value and resonance only with its unfolding language as narrative. The woman who “wore a Mosul cloak, a silk veil, a fine kerchief embroidered with gold, and a pair of leggings tied with fluttering laces”46 in the marketplace is one of a trio who accept the porter in their company, who “went on drinking cup after cup until the porter began to feel tipsy,”47 and who, one after another, “took off” their clothes, “stood stark naked,” and went into the pool. Coming out of the pool, each sat “naked in the porter’s lap and pointing to her slit,” asking the porter for its name.48 Not initiated into their metaphorical language, he tries every term he knows and fails. Nevertheless, in practice, he remains resourceful. He asks them about the thing “dangling between his legs.”49 Confronted by the question, they take recourse to the common nomenclature available in popular culture. Yet he produces a no less intricate naming of metaphorical layers that makes them enjoy “his antics.”50 Language and gesture, body and narrative, are no longer separate entities, for nakedness becomes synonymous with joy, while its opposite is a termination of pleasure. No wonder the porter says, when asked to leave, “the departure of my soul from my body is easier for me than my departure from your company.”51 Moreover, the porter exemplifies a standard use of language that accommodates the popular and the formal, the verbosity of the belletristic tradition and the slang of the street. While claiming to have a thorough education, he is unlike the barber of many tales, for he is witty and has a good sense of humor that makes him more akin to street culture. Yet he is unlike other characters like masan Badr al-Dīn, for example, because the latter has already been trained by jurists to fit into ministerial or other

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positions. On the other hand, the barber is a najjām who should have some general knowledge in medicine and hygiene, but his involvement in the lives of all segments of the society forces him to be a dabbler in every field. He is a typical character in popular narrative, a professional who understands religious matters and the importance of cleanliness and circumcision but who is also shunned by the elite for being talkative. The porter is accepted in private societies, unlike the barber, whose presence is unwelcome. The tale of the porter and the three ladies straddles the official and the popular. It makes its point in an ongoing collation of authority and subservience, wealth and poverty, splendor and destitution, humans and animals, reality and magic, rudeness and restraint, and sorrow and laughter. The house interior invites the caliph’s voyeurism, for he is the sovereign whose power summons its properties from the subordination of others. The noise and singing draws him to the house because it is at the center of the city, near the marketplace, where authority exercises a conspicuous presence. The ironic twist in “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” a basic nucleus for the Thousand and One Nights, emanates from the role qalandars play. As transgressors, they settle in a place that requires their conformity to its regulations according to the warning inscribed on the interior of the door. Furthermore, they find themselves implicated in the scene inside, just as the disguised caliph and his minister do. In their presence everything changes into a carnival, for their life story becomes another variation on comic street enactments, a radical and absurd transformation from wealth and prestige into roguery and brigandage. The porter is no less dynamic in accelerating the carnival that is central to popular culture. From the margins he intrudes into “respectability,” violates its rules, and relies on his wit to remain among the three ladies, with their mysterious lives and ways of joy and entertainment. A prototype for stories of ruse and roguery, he is as real as the figures of popular culture in its modern sense. There is no idealization in his presentation, only naturalism and abundant vigor. His presence is a celebration of body and wit, the two poles of pop culture; he is the buffoon and the provider of comic relief. He is also the witty urban product who combines physical effort, as a porter, with intelligence and good knowledge of popular lore. As the byproduct of large urban centers, he has to rise to the challenge of every new situation, as the swimming-pool scene indicates. Appropriating and outwitting the ladies’ playfulness, he proves to be an adept in popular culture. In line with popular festivals, the scene with the three ladies and

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the playful reading of sexuality and licentiousness becomes a venue to undermine prudery. The mixed discourses of the interior scene speak of mixed societies, positions, professions, desires, and claims. As time is crystallized in the moment of each story or narrative, interior space becomes a stage for enactments, as the show of the beaten dogs displays. The qalandars have to tell their stories to escape punishment for transgression, whereas the ladies have to explain their mysterious action to the caliph, who is challenged to reveal his character or be punished for being so audacious. Each narrative expands both space and time beyond the house, the city, and the region. Supernatural machinery itself is naturalized into human stories of desire and retribution. The outcome aligns the narrative with bourgeois aspirations for wealth, beauty, joy, entertainment, and adventure. These are among the recurrent markers in popular culture.

As Medieval Narrative The trope of the mansion and the mounds should lead us to a few theoretical issues, especially that of the discursive Islamic binary relevant to a textual reading of these two tales. Nobody debates, for example, the Thousand and One Nights as popular literature or disputes its prominence in Western culture, but the effort to read this in relation to the Islamic context is comparably feeble when set against the huge scholarly corpus of Arabian Night ism,52 especially its philological interests, motif indices, concordances of tales and cycles, and readings of relevance to sociological and amateurish anthropological research. Even a cursory reading of studies and introductions to many redactions, translations, abridgements, and appropriations of the Thousand and One Nights will show that there is almost nothing of significance to answer this question: how can we speak of the Thousand and One Nights as popular culture, especially in relation to the Islamic factor, or as the divide between the Islam of the street and the traditionalists’ version of an institutionalized religion as first established in such works as Mālik b. Anas) (95–179/715–795) Muwa• • a) (The Smoothed Path) and Munammad b. (Abdullah al-Shāf (ī’s (d. 240/820) Risālah (The Epistle), or even as popular literature with some significant use of popular faith and Islamic ritual? It is worthwhile to remember that scholarship has primarily focused on written texts, translations, and redactions. In other words, scholarship, unless specifically working with the oral tradition, rarely accounts for storytelling as an oral practice of such an enormous and conspicuous a presence in Islamic life that it alerted jurists

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to the so-called danger of young and undisciplined quùùāù throughout the period from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries.53 Although scholars should be aware of this corpus of qaùù, scholarship still limits itself to eighteenth-century British travelers to the East and their notes on gatherings of Bedouin tribes listening to tales or coffee houses where people used to listen to storytellers.54 Both time and space work against efforts to collect and compare tales and anecdotes, especially in relation to tales of a historical or pseudohistorical nature, like the ones that speak of the Thousand and One Nights narrative of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs or Shams al-Nahār and (Alī b. Bekkār and their like.55 No less problematic are the tales of common backgrounds and common plots like the ones that relate the adventures of the caliph and Ibrāhīm al-Mawùilī using a basket suspended by ropes from the top of the walls of a palace. 56 Nevertheless, there is much to be desired in matters of a comparative nature, pertaining not only to history as narrative or to theology and myth but also to lifestyles in urban centers between the ninth and the twelfth centuries, with their oral traditions and tales and their depiction of Islamic manners and customs.

Dichotomous Patterning in the Classical Tradition In the classical tradition, the dichotomous patterning of culture emanated from a complex Arab consciousness of classical taste as concomitant with linguistic purity and grammatical performance. Its deliberate enforcement in the court or in manuals, epistles, and their like was stimulated by the need to recite the Qur)ān and memorize it in the right manner. Moreover, the preoccupation with this issue should be seen in the context of Arabism itself, the desire of its guardians to protect it through lisānun (Arabiyyun mubīn (clear Arabic tongue), as the Qur)ān (14:103) says. Aside from the informing Qur)ānic presence, the attention paid to grammatical discourse was the major criterion for career advancement. Its application meant also propriety, restraint, and balance—the same neoclassical criteria of eighteenth-century Europe that drove many, for instance, to object to the tales.57 Yet the tales could attract attention among the literati as a result of their appeal to those of different tastes. As popular literature, the tales were not to be treated as sacred tablets, and the deliberate tenth-century effort to write them down should be seen in terms of a consumerism that was also the sign of change under Islamic banners.58 Unless we keep in mind the fact that writing down oral trans-

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missions was first done on a large scale to ensure the correctness and sanctity of the sacred text, the Qur)ān and the Prophet’s tradition, we may miss the increasing production of texts in every field of knowledge. While this was the reason behind the focus on scriptoria and the appearance of specialized markets for copyists, translators, and authors, the factors behind textual production relates to expansion, the needs of the imperial state and its functionaries, and the emergence of new classes that demanded books to read, as well as their circulation and dissemination.59 It was not only the fear of distortion or loss that, as Abū (Alī al-Munāssin al-Tanūkhī (d. 939–994 c.e.) would like us to believe, was behind the effort. Rather, the increasing urban demand drove the literati to come up with more factual entertainments, since the latter fits into the inclination toward authenticity enhanced by the tradition of chain transmission. Upon returning to Baghdad in 360/971, al-Tanūkhī said, “I found it, except for vestiges, devoid of that generation which made its gatherings and assemblies so lofty and worthwhile with their disputations.” As “for the tales, whatever I had stored in memory began to dwindle and fade, and the meaning and theme of material orally narrated by people suffered distortion, to the extent that those who reported what we had already heard began to put into it things that defiled and distorted it.”60 These and similar references speak of a large reservoir of tales in circulation and that incited and invoked the attention of the literati throughout the tenth century and afterward. To meet the demands of the newly emerging reading publics, the literati had to develop other means and terms of literary production. On the other hand, this so-called adulteration should lead us into the study of the tales as a popular literature that underwent trimming, adaptation, expurgation, and distortion. This means both acquiescence to the taste of the new classes and a sense of responsibility to offer guidance. Many writers, especially from among jurists, took their responsibility to the community seriously. Tales that remained almost intact in writing were the ones with a historical or factual skeleton.61 Similar to poetry and singing, inscription of stories means the imposition of a limit on performance and its inevitable variations.62 Yet this process criticized by Abū (Alī al-Munāssin al-Tanūkhī is what accounts, in popular tradition, for the social saturation of a language. Likewise, the individual performance of each storyteller involves the tale in greater heteroglossia.63 On the other hand, inscription as an ongoing enterprise in Baghdad and Mamluk Cairo was bound to limit the process, contain variety, and impose more formulas on storytelling. The recurrence of formulas is often a sign of some imposed discipline.

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Signs and Sites of Transgression This accommodating effort may be seen in terms larger than the effort to authenticate the nadīth. Due to the nature of urban life in Baghdad and Basra as displayed, for example, in (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ’s (d. 869 c.e.) Kitāb al-Bukhalā) (Book of Misers), 64 there was both an understanding of the need for factual detail and characterization as necessary for “piquancy and originality” and a recognition of the new mass audiences that made up the majority of the urban centers. Since the first decades of the ninth century, the period during which tales from the Thousand and One Nights were written down, there began to develop a tendency to differentiate between qaùaù (singular qiùùah, broadly: story), the nikāyah (tale), the nādirah (witty anecdote), the samar (nightly entertainment), and the muhātarah (frivolous and insulting narrative response). Other genres began to grow at the expense of poetry, and popular literature began to transform into scriptoria. The street, the corner, and the assembly were gradually emptied of their material and audiences. Poetry suffered. Though it was once the register of the Arabs, new imperial concerns starting in the Umayyad period (661–750 c.e.) promoted other genres, along with a transgeneric writing that accommodated poetry and prose along with their subthemes and divisions. Such new growths also should be taken as signs of new generic hierarchical gradations. Anecdotal literature includes many pieces that argue for assimilated and comprehensive writing. Argumentation incorporated many styles and methods, while in the battle for generic prioritization, writers in this trans­ generic mode gathered views from every walk of life. In mikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdadī by Abū al-Mu•ahhar al-Azdī (beginning of the fifth/eleventh c.), Abū úālin al-Hāshimī came to the defense of poets only in terms of apology: “for the poet acts humorously and seriously, approximates and distances, hits or misses the mark, and cannot be blamed like a pious and knowledgeable person with expressive clarity.”65 Such a defensive approach was absent in earlier periods, when poetry was assessed as a unique Arab legacy whose antecedents, the odes of the pre-Islamic poets, offered the yardsticks for critical evaluation and consideration. In other words, poetry and poets had been on the defensive in comparison with other professions and modes of writing since the mid-ninth century. Within the rise of the new marginal intellectual and the corresponding increase of uniquely equipped beggars, poetry or its like was looked down

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upon by these groups as the practice of unproductive and lazy individuals. (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ quoted an epistle by one of his misers, ibn alTaw)am, as he angrily argued against those who castigated the tendency to accumulate rather than to squander and spend money and who used, for exemplary models, poets and orators. Ibn al-Taw)am despised poets and orators “who learnt logic for the art of material acquisition”66 without a serious effort, as he thought, to work for a living as he did. Each miser justifies a predilection and a career in a counterlogic that establishes an urban narrative that undermines court politics of allegiance as enshrined in panegyric poetry. It was not coincidental that (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ, who was wholeheartedly involved in argumentation, the study of rhetoric, and the practice of classical clarity and balance, was also behind the growth of a realistic urban strain in narrative. He was also no less annoyed with another segment among the literati: chancery writers and epistolographers. He admired their finesse but deprecated their lack of sincerity and commitment. In other words, the growing narrative phenomenon was gradually dislodging other competing genres while establishing for itself a theoretical grounding on the basis of urgency and need.67 The political and administrative center could no longer hold, and the court could not be as influential in setting the terms of allegiance and reciprocity as it used to be. The emerging vacuum was gradually taken over by an Islamic popular art that was basically urban. To speak of urbanity, one needs to account for the emergence of new genres such as the assemblies, for in these short theatrical sites of intrigue and fraud there is eloquence and art that compete for ascendancy and recognition within the newly established market ethics. Abū al-Fatn alIskandarī, the protagonist in al-Hamadhānī’s assemblies, justifies fraud and trickery in terms of transformation, change, and the need to be smart enough to outwit others. Opting to displace the cherished morals of Islamic society, their emphasis on uprightness, decency, and respectability, the protagonist looks upon time as the greatest arbiter and on need as the decisive factor in one’s behavior. Oratory, eloquence, and literary knowledge are prerequisites to deceive a community that still reveres these gifts. Had it been possible to achieve his ends without these prerequisites, or at least with less eloquent means, the protagonist might have had recourse to a different method that could have brought him closer to other marginal characters in the popular tradition. As practice, this narrative performance or its equal in storytelling was a subject of discussion among the literati and the jurists. As storytellers were looked down upon as worthless, nobody thought of attending their gatherings or assemblies. Indeed, ibn al-

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Athīr (636/1239) mentions how people were surprised that such a shaykh and grammarian as ibn al-Khashshāb (567/1172) was blamed for attending their meetings while he was supposed to be in charge of his own sessions in grammar and religion. It was said to him: you are the imam in science to be emulated by others, how can you attend such worthless gatherings? He said: if you know what I know you will not blame me. How many times did I benefit from these ignorant people and derive strange and nice meanings that ran casually through their nonsense. Had I or others like me tried to get the same words or meanings we would have failed though the same storyteller might have had access to the same sites.68

The anecdote shows how effective storytellers had been: jurists and professionals felt the need to be acquainted with their resources of spontaneity and fresh meanings. Obviously, what counts in this anecdote is not the issue of morality or religiosity. If there is a scale of evaluative standards, inventiveness seems to receive the highest acclaim. Even more significant in matters of time are the maqāmāt (assemblies) of Badī( al-Zamān alHamadhānī. Although some of these assemblies take as their settings some of the less known towns of the Islamic world, the narrator takes it for granted that his listeners or readers are familiar with such social and cultural facts as the gatherings of people in corners or squares, where there is possibly a speaker, a storyteller, or jester whom the narrator attends to “seize upon an evasive pronouncement or an eloquent word.” In the “Mak­ fūfiyyah maqāmah,” or the “Assembly of the Blind,” the narrator is drawn to a gathering around a seemingly blind man who accompanies his speech and rhythmic recitations with a tune. In other words, such gatherings stand for a popular tradition that posed a challenge to the institutions and functionaries of the established order. Apart from the art of character sketching in narrative as perfected by al-Jāniµ, the humanization of narrative as an urban practice is exemplified in the Maqāmāt of Badī( alZamān not only because of his magnificent appropriation of the figure of the underprivileged, the stranger, and the alien within the dominating taste for eloquence but also because of his acute awareness of the consumerism that forces the literati to acquire and practice a marketplace politics. Literary production has to meet the requirements of supply and demand and use every means to ensure salability. His antihero, the trickster Abū al-Fatn, knows that he needs the street corner, the market, the mosque, the inn, the mental clinic, and indeed every available locale to demonstrate

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his eloquence and earn from it what it is worth in cash, food, or other gifts. These are the environments usually monitored by market inspectors. The many faces and masks of the disoriented intellectual are only the many faces of street storytellers who cater to the popular taste for narrative, even at the expense of eloquence and polished style. In subject matter, the maqāmah is very close to the nikāyah in a number of ways, especially in the selection of characters and situations. Let us take as examples some of these masks, locations, and motivations and compare them to the Thousand and One Nights, to see the relevance of the art to the growing popular tradition, the Islam of the street, and its deviation from official discourse and standard poetics and practices. “The Maqāmah of the Mabirah,” for instance, takes as motivation the reluctance of the protagonist to participate in a feast at a merchant’s house where mabirah (fresh meat cooked with sour milk) is served. No matter how interested the group is in this meal, the protagonist “arose cursing it and its owner, manifesting repugnance to it and its eater and reviling it and its cook.”69 The protagonist’s action and gestures as described in the assembly recall the steward’s tale in the Thousand and One Nights. They certainly give the anecdote the quality of dramatic performance, for only in such a reaction can we understand his reluctance to participate in a gathering that should otherwise be one of intimacy and festive pleasure, a symposion of an urban nature that brings together businessmen or well-knit groups. Asked for the reason behind this attitude, he explains: “My story regarding it is more extensive than my misfortune in it and, if I were to relate it to you, I should not be secure from hate and from wasting time.” 70 We understand later how an invitation had once become an occasion for a certain merchant’s prolonged discourse on the merits of his wife, his house, his dealings, and the Baghdadi artisans who helped in preparing many parts and designs of the house. Tired of waiting so long for a meal and running out of the house in anger, he was followed by children at whom, lashing out, he threw a stone. It instead struck an elderly man, causing the protagonist to be imprisoned for two years. The merchant’s concerns are materialistic, and his effort to converse is only a rehashing of his godless mercantile achievements. No mention of God or Islamic prohibitions of fraud or usury is mentioned. The motivation is the same as in the steward’s tale of the Baghdadi young man in the Thousand and One Nights who refuses to eat zirbajah for a reason even more compelling than the previ­ ous protagonist’s two-year imprisonment. The location is as Baghdadi as the tale of the porter and the three ladies of Baghdad or the love story of (Alī b. Bakkār. The discourse of merchants is identical in its focus on the

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material side of things, which, in the case of the Thousand and One Nights, signifies a wide gap between nobility, the populace, and the mercantile class and its concerns. In this mercantile society, the universe is a godless one run by worldly inhibitions and ambitions. The Jawharī of the Thousand and One Nights is not different from the merchant of the maqāmah, albeit he shows more attention and support to the loving couple. In the maqāmah of mulwān by Badī( al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī, the narrator asks for a barber who is “deft of hand, with a sharp razor and clean dress, and little given to gossip.” 71 This applies to the barbers of the Thousand and One Nights as well. In the maqāmah of Shiraz, exile and separation is as central as it is in the tales of the mendicants in Scheherazade’s tales. In other words, these and numerous other similarities provide us with some information regarding the climate of ideas and the sociopolitical and economic formation of literary production. Narrative emerged then, especially between the ninth and the eleventh centuries, as a product that assumed its significance and salability in terms of supply and demand. The same terms enforce patterns of appropriation, trimming, and adaptation. Islam evolved as a cultural climate with checks and balances that were not as rigorous as some later jurists were to demand. The trickster who supplies an excellent sermon in a mosque is also the same one who embezzles people and cheats them. This is also the pattern in a number of tales where the mention of God does not deter people from involvement in tricks, envy, lewdness, and murder. Regardless of the nature of narrative or the tricks of the protagonist in the maqāmāt and the tales, the storyteller or the doer in the maqāmāt needs an audience that is ready to listen and pay for the entertainment in one way or another. The storyteller aspires to get paid; the trickster has his ways to embezzle people. Urban life compels people to commit such transgressions, especially if they are prone to the evils the Qur)ān forbids. Accumulation of such a repository of narratives should be seen then as a byproduct of urbanity, but its many facets signify the effort to meet the tastes of different publics. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī never thought of attending such storytellers’ gatherings, for he argues in his books that association with the common people brings about nothing but indecency and debasement: “Those who listen to the qāùù [i.e., storyteller] are either stupid, who have no wits, or wise men who turn into reprobates due to this association with ignorance, or a case in between, divided between the elite and the common.” 72 Such divisions betray great unease whenever social demarcations do not necessarily correspond to elitist assumptions regarding the quality of discourse. On the other hand, no matter how pejorative these surmises sound, they

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convey the existence of a large body of literature called the “literature of the common” and dubbed as “ignorance” the same way the pre-Islamic times are described as the ages of ignorance. If those times were described as such in reference to their idolatry, the rise of the common public and its culture was no less so for being at variance with the dominating taste of the privileged classes. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī’s denunciation of a practice is not alien to a common attitude among the literati whenever popular culture and its social and cultural manifestations becomes a subject of conversation. Abū Manùūr al-Tha(ālibī (429/1038) was no less implicated in a similar situation where scholarship and need required an acquaintance with an underground literature that was not quite suitable to his taste or the taste of his implied readers. Especially when scholars, writers, and compilers felt the need to include poets or prose writers from the fringes of the literary market, the ones who were associated then with indecency or outspokenness, such as Abū Dulaf al-Khazrajī, al-Annaf al-(Ukburī, ibn al-majjāj, and ibn Sukkarah, al-Tha(ālibī is driven to justify and apologize for this inclusion. Speaking of ibn al-majjāj, he writes: “Had it not been the case that literature has its own rigor and gravity, as well as its comics and fun, I would have protected this book of mine of a great deal of indecency that raids the sacrosanct and opens up the store of nonsense.” 73 Such pronounce­ ments with respect to a poetic trend at variance with the ethics upheld in the poetic tradition applies with more force to storytelling in its common aspects. As quùùāù are of two kinds, the officially approved ones and the ones accepted by the common public, there are different theorizations for both. Morality and style are the yardsticks to evaluate these. On the other hand, the in-between status of some storytellers, their mixed discourse as well as their wit or creativity, has always been a challenge to authority, its institutions, and its values. The fact that conservative jurists wrote about the phenomena and argued for specific positions and attitudes toward or against some types of storytelling is indicative of the increasing popularity of this art. Jurists as well as market inspectors were on the alert lest some quùùāù lure women or propagate indecency. The traditionalist jurist ibn al-Jawzī (597/1200) wrote a book in which he describes types of storytellers and preachers, warning against the art of those whom he dubbed as charlatans or reprobates.74 On the other hand, the effort of the jurist to study the art and its practitioners highlights the significance of the practice and its influence and vogue. As ibn al-Jawzī attempts to define the practice in view of its early Islamic grounding, as an art practiced by preachers for edification, his warnings against its so-called degeneration

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into charlatanism indicate that storytelling assumed such connotations whenever it was associated with the common public. Street gatherings were the butt of virulent sarcasm and criticism, especially as these gatherings witnessed storytellers whose anecdotes, characters, and settings were more to the taste of the common public not only in terms of correspondence with real situations but also in terms of criticism of the established order or in response to the fantasies of the public and its need for some respite from its increasingly bitter circumstances. The Thousand and One Nights offers this mixture and has its own broad canvas, which depicts everything that suits the needs of every public. Its characters vary between caliphs, shrewd or decent ministers and politicians, jesters and comedians and professionals. It has the beautiful and ugly, the fantastic and sordid, and the serene and flamboyant. Especially in the cycles of the tailor, the barber, and the three ladies of Baghdad, this variety offered both intriguing enchantment and repulsive nonsense to conservative tastes such as those of the traditionalists of the twelfth century onward. In these tales, as well as in the opposing treatises and tracts of jurists and market inspectors, there is a meager sense of piety in comparison to the applications of Islamic law, but there is also more attention paid to the demands and needs of urban life. The conspicuous secular element in the art of storytelling provokes traditionalists from among jurists to raise their voices against intriguing storytellers. The latter group focuses on urban complexity, broadens the understanding of the universe beyond the conservative tenets of morality, and replaces them with some open-ended attitudes that raise more questions than the jurists’ closed system of prohibitions and rights.

Appropriation for the Urban Classes The quùùāù as described above might be confused with mendicants or qalandars, buffoons, or other comedians. The term as such could well overlap with the nākiya, or imitators, as mentioned in Al-Bayān wa-altabyīn by al-Jānīµ.75 These mimics and jesters were also the product of an expanding empire, where the metropolis, Baghdad, accommodated many populations and groups. While these mimics could imitate professionals, people with disabilities, and specific social groups, they also mimicked ordinary people and animals alike. During the reign of al-Mu(tabid, reports al-Mas(ūdī (d. 956 c.e.) in Murūj al-dhahab (Meadows of Gold ), ibn alMaghāzalī was known for a practice that conjoined both humorous anecdotes and mimicry. The art was obviously as popular as the theater was in

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Europe at a later period. Performances were restricted to imitation first, then to mimicry and narrative, and, perhaps, more to narrative at later periods. Al-Mas(ūdī reports that ibn al-Maghāzalī used to take squares and streets as the suitable space for his narrative and performance. “He was the most skilful, and nobody who watches and listens to him can resist laughter,” says al-Mas(ūdī. Ibn al-Maghāzalī spoke of his art as nikāyātī and nawādirī.76 These, along with samar narratives and fables, according to al-Nadīm (d. 384/995), were in demand during the (Abbāsid period of cultural growth and material prosperity. He wrote: “Asmārs and fables were in great demand and desired in the reign of (Abbāsid Caliphs, especially in the days of al-Muqtadir [295–320/908–932], and as such, compilers and copyists classified some and lied about others. Among those who fabricated material were somebody called ibn Dallān . . . and another known as ibn al-A••ār.” 77 Al-Nadīm also reports that there were books on “al-riwāyah wa-al-nawādir ” by Abū (Alī ibn Hammām and many collections of nikāyah and nawādir. Among the compilations of asmār, or nightly entertainments, he mentions al-Jahshiyārī’s collection of 480 nights.78 Reports of courtiers and mimics who offered entertainment to sovereigns were many, as reported in al-Jānīµ’s Al-Manāsin wa-al-abdād, Kitāb al-tāj and in al-Mas(ūdī’s Murūj al-dhahab. On many occasions, these entertainments are Scheherazade-like or, later, like al-Tawnīdī’s Al-Imtā( wa-al-mu)ānasah. Al-Jānīµ quotes from ibn Sulaymān al-Sijistānī (d. 316/929) regarding how the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd called on al-Aùma(ī and almusayn al-aahhāk, saying to them: “Comfort me with your nadīths,” that is, authentic tales, a point that will receive more attention in the next chapter.79 In other words, terms like nadīth, samar, riwāyah, nikāyah, and nādirah were interchangeably used to indicate narratives that are first and foremost entertaining. While authenticity and probability were mostly upheld in narratives addressed to sovereigns, there was always the nikāyah line that might well evade this classification through its generic hybridism and collapsing of norms in performance, storytelling, and the spontaneous narrative of unique phenomena. In these, the emphasis is laid on entertainment first; edification lapses into the background. The Islamic factor is present only in terms of entertaining the Islamic public and releasing the mind from daily concerns and hardships. These tales and performances also redirect attention away from the rigorous commandments of religion as understood by official preachers. The significance of these for the present discussion lies in two things: first, the growth of other practices and genres that attract both the court and populace, and second, the metropolitan expansion that brought along

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with it a hybrid culture. We should keep in mind that al-Jānīµ in his Bayān never tired of criticizing these other groups and cultures, both because of his subscription to the official discourse and because of his strong sense of prioritization whenever there was a comparison with non-Arab, especially non-(Abbāsid, cultures and ethnicities. Standing as the best representative of the classical use and practice of prose, al-Jānīµ was also the model for urban taste. Speaking of him as the versatile writer who appropriated prose to the needs of imperial and urban growth entails also recognition of his contribution to narrative proper. His practice, especially in the Kitāb al-Bukhalā), sets the norm for fictional writing that makes good use of argumentation to build up both settings and characters, as will be shown in due order. The khabar in his hands turned into an elaborate narrative with motivations, explanations, assemblies, conflicts, and characters. In almost every detail in al-Bukhalā), for instance, characters are keen on applying their own predilections and personalities against a society prone to take advantage of the credulous or the naїve. Each nar­ rative and character sketch emanates from a khabar, be it a bit of gossip, a rumor, or a direct accusation. The Book of Misers was one in a tradition of writing that relied heavily on urban life. This tradition can partly explain the emergence and evolution of the urban segments in the Thousand and One Nights. The animal or beast fables may provide us with the other side of this compilation, but the fantastic has its sources in popular tradition, mythology, and religion. This last and significant element crept into geographical treatises and colored many accounts with a fantastic touch that would not sound strange to the readers of the Thousand and One Nights. The divide between the Islamic factor and these segments is not so clearly cut, however, and we need to look deeply into the formation of each circle and segment to understand the effective presence of the powerful religious faith that both influenced and was influenced by urbanity. Need and endeavor in the tales explain in part, for instance, why the Book of Misers was so well received as to become one of the landmarks of prose writing. People used to work hard, save money, and hide their wealth or treasures to escape the vicissitudes of fortune, especially during times of political corruption and confiscation of property. Its humorous and sarcastic tone leveled against misers met the general taste for generosity and the common appreciation of munificence. The tales are more in keeping with the call for a balanced attitude between the two attitudes: be neither a tight miser nor a lavish squanderer of money. This is a Qur)ānic tenet. As for the fantastic, it often partakes of the religious, since the universe is inhabited by jinn and people, and an omniscient God, as the Supervisor

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of every detail, keeps a record of every act and thought. Thus the tales operate within a system of faith and belief. The storyteller has to stretch the imagination every now and then to bring together the natural and the supernatural in urban locations or, in a few rare occasions, in deserted areas. Abū al-Faraj al-Iùfahānī never tired of mentioning the intimacy between the two worlds as if it were a matter of fact that he expected his readers to accept and believe. He mentions, for example, how the poet, musician, and singer Isnāq al-Mawùilī slept once in the sirdāb, a cool shady underground place. There in his sleep he was taught an exquisite song by two cats, one white and one black, who warned him not to pass the song on to anyone, for the person it would be passed on to would turn into a jinn, which is precisely what happens to the girl to whom he teaches the song.80 The case is more problematic in beast fables. Animals become functional emissaries of edification and instruction. The more complicated the political system and ruling apparatus, the more difficult it was to offer honest advice to a ruler. Bureaucracy built its own defenses, and one way of getting the message through was to have an oblique narrative. Beast narratives are also very efficient in reaching common people. Discourse in politics and social or religious issues often evades outspokenness. When gathered in book form, they certainly target the educated urban audience, a fact that explains ibn al-Muqaffa(’s endeavor, his use of an Indian source, and his manipulation of the origin to fit the new milieu. The Indian source, the Panchatantra, has five parts and concludes with the victory of the wicked vizier. Ibn al-Muqaffa(’s text, Kalilah wa-Dimna, concludes with the victory of the just vizier. The Arabic text as produced by ibn al-Muqaffa( has a narrative sequence of fourteen parts, with five to seven introduc­ tions. The original Indian source is more poetic in its language, while the narrative in the Arabic text is more functional, as every part centers on an incident or a detail whose purpose is to suggest and imply. The Arabic version tends to have typical characters whose epithets function as names. There is also a substantial presence of the One God, which is not the case in the Indian source, with its many gods. In other words, the appeal of the Arabic text derives its effectiveness from its appropriation of the Indian original for an urban milieu and its focus on Islam and its cultural dynamics. The vogue of the book among men of letters and its versification, abridgement, and adaptation means that it was popular enough to enlist much attention. The borderline between popular and belletristic literature was no longer as distinctive as was the case with other writings that were written for the court and its officials and dignitaries. A word of caution might be needed here, for urban taste as exhibited in this specific writing

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still belonged to the belletristic tradition and its recognizable tenets of composition and epistolography. There is a distance between the material allowable in the court and its privileged circles and the street and the com­ mon public. This line of demarcation between the popular and the courtly, and between the Bedouin and the urban, is also behind the different applications and explanations of Islam, its texts, and its rituals.

Urban Narrative Sites One way of approaching the emergence and growth of narrative as an offshoot of the khabar tradition and to set it apart from the unwritten is to read it first in view of urban life and taste. Urbanity stands foremost among the factors that lie behind the emergence or appropriation of the genre. It was reported that when the caliph al-Ma)mūn (r. 813–833 c.e.) was about to give audience to the Bedouin poet (Umayr al-Shaybānī, he noticed Thumāmah ibn Ashras’s discomfort. Asking for the reason, the latter told him that the moment demanded urban sophistication, pleasant humor, and a slave singer of great charm, not the bard of harsh desert life. The caliph rejoined, “The difference is clear, and the divergence is wide; so boy, do not show him in, and present a slave girl.”81 Urban life enforces a transformation in taste that runs counter to rigid interpretations of religion. Books like the Kitāb al-aghānī (The Book of Songs) represent one venue for the appreciation of popular culture, for by recording the anecdotal literature of singers, musicians, poets, and dilettantes, the book leads readers away from the court and authoritarian jurisdiction. On the other hand, it is a mediating effort between classical tenets of composition and the more popular tendency of storytellers and the like. Caliphs and courtiers assume their full authority in this compendium, but singers are no less privileged. There is, however, a submission to authority that runs throughout the book and is very much in line with the shift of authority in the tale of the porter and the three ladies. Authority, as upheld by the caliph, soon takes over the power already exercised by the ladies as owners of and dwellers in the house. Authority pacifies the whole scene and returns it to conformity and obedience. The caliph uses his authority to put an end to disequilibria, to arrange marriages, and to distribute favors. No matter how pleasant the caliph is in the tales, his authority entails the subordination of all. His presence institutionalizes everything and invests faith with the power of the state. Even the supernatural loses its independence and power and pronounces its subordination to the vicar of God on earth. In other words, authority runs

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against festive playfulness and transgression. Its best representations in narrative are available in such eleventh-century tales as Al-Asad wa-alghawwā ù (The Lion and the Diver), where jurists and imams are advised to accept subordination to authority to preserve order and the unity of the Islamic nation or community (millah). A different line of thought runs throughout the Thousand and One Nights, where juxtaposition between proclaimed equality and the actual nature of things becomes the basic framework for the Islamic factor. Raising the hopes of his listeners, entertaining their desires, and augmenting expectations, the storyteller works within the framework of popular culture, the effects of which are ephemeral next to the institutionalizing power of the metropolitan center. The Islamic context fits here as elsewhere, for everything other than God’s presence is ephemeral: kullu mā(alayhā fānn (everything in this universe is transient), says the Qur)ān. Beneath this narrative of convenience, that is, the transfer of authority to the caliph, is the fear of women, their energy and “female mystique.” Anecdotal literature since the Umayyads tells us as much. This fear is at the heart of many manifestations of popular culture nowadays.82 The effort to quell this energy through institutionalization and organization deprives culture of life and vigor. This issue will receive more attention in the next chapter, when it will be studied against the background of official narrative, its many facets since early Islam, and the effort of institutions to subordinate the art of storytelling to that of preaching and sermonizing or to par­ tisan positions. Yet narrative loses the moment it succumbs to authority. No wonder that Shahrayar has to be silent in order to let narrative unfold. He must also remember that in popular culture there is no great distance between the mansion and the rubbish mounds, and that the creative mind is resourceful enough to take recourse to mobility and transience against the established order, where layers of control and secrecy often appear in theorizations of Islamic narrative. While setting forth the dynamics of disequilibrium, the frame story evolves as the encapsulating catalyst that invites tales and imposes a unity on a seeming disparity.

9  6  0 The Public Role in Islamic Narrative Theorizations

W

riters on the Thousand and One Nights unfortunately tend to forget that the frame story, which drew official belletristic disparagement, gives its soul and meaning to the whole as much as the whole accumulates and grows in response to the frame. Each partakes of the other and lends itself to the other. Even the historical or pseudohistorical stories within the collection tend to do so, as long as storytellers create and appropriate whatever appeals to large common audiences. This effort should be seen as basic to the growth of narrative theorizations, negative and positive alike. Vituperative criticism, as well as the restrictions of market inspectors and traditionalists, convey both the fear of the tendency to compile and popularize such a repertoire and the sense of a dying court order giving way to new powers that the state apparatus copes with through systems of discipline and punishment. This vituperative criticism mounted its critique against a literary tendency whose dynamics of growth corresponded to the rise and fall of the Muslim empire of the ninth through twelfth centuries. Litterateurs would have been aware both of this criticism as reproduced and made available through (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ’s (d. 869 c.e.) writings and books and of the mounting suspicion of the conservative jurists who found in litterateurs competitors and upholders of some nonreligious leanings and views. Abū al-masan Munammad ibn Yūsuf al-(Āmirī (d. 992) writes: “Some of the pious ascetics may find fault with the arts, ādāb, and charge litterateurs to be either seeking praise for eloquence and clarity, or people who are after knowledge as veneer, a means to attain success

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and rank through the appeal to the mighty and the noble.” 1 Abū al-masan al-(Āmirī’s work falls within a growing corpus of cultural production that deals with information ()I (lām) with a purpose to acquaint and inform the public. The tendency is important, as it conveys recognition of responsibility and accountability to this reading public. On the other hand, (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ must stay with us as a source for anecdotes or tales because he has them in contexts of difference, competition, and polarity, the very aspects of urban life that are not in keeping with the spirit of cordiality, cooperation, and solidarity as enshrined in the faith. No matter how we look on al-Jāniµ’s tales, they contain the combination of character sketches and narrative that makes up an art. Each miser justifies a predilection and a career in a counterlogic that builds on the real and establishes an urban narrative. It was not quite coincidental that al-Jāniµ, who was wholeheartedly involved in argumentation, the study of rhetoric, and the practice of classical clarity and balance, was also behind the growth of a realistic urban strain in narrative. In other words, the growing narrative phenomenon was gradually dislodging other competing genres while establishing for itself a theoretical ground on the basis of urgency and need.2 Of no less significance is Abū Munammad ibn Qutaybah’s (d. 889 c.e.) analogy for the new. In X yūn al-akhbār (Springs of information; figuratively, “the best anecdotes”), he uses the feast analogy to describe his book, an analogy that later compilers and raconteurs would use:3 “This book is like a feast with different dishes according to the tastes and likings of its attendants.”4 As such, “it is not meant to be solely for the seeker of this world, nor the seeker for the next, nor for the privileged class to the exclusion of the common, nor for royalty as opposed to the rabble.” The cultural attention to multiplicity evident here is not ordinary, for in it is an emphasis on the parity of readers from the common stratum as well the privileged classes. The appeal here is not to the old patrons, the court or the viziers and their circles; the emerging public is the arbiter. The implications of this ninth-century compendium are worth pursuing, for its resistance to class gradation and partisan or religious affiliation brings literature to the newly emerging classes in an era of expansion and growth throughout the (Abbāsid era (750–945 c.e.) and, later, Buwayhid (945–1055 c.e.) and Seljūq (1055–1100 c.e.) periods. These classes demand something recreational and entertaining; for that matter, even a conservative critic has to accept their presence and debate generic hierarchy. In a vein that considerably varies from conservative criticism at large, especially in eighteenth-century Europe until some time in the nineteenth century, this critique decidedly approaches its audiences as “readers.” As evident in the Fihrist of al-Nadīm,

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readership is much larger than we may assume, and the amount of cultural production testifies to a growing public no longer limited to the privileged group we usually associate with the court and its style of patronage. In other words, the writer has readers in mind, and his work is meant as a text to be read, enjoyed, and discussed widely. The compilers of the Thousand and One Nights were aware of these audiences, and the Islamicization of a number of tales took shape within their understanding of the needs of this public. Theorizations of the written text are of no minor significance, despite the popularity of primary forms of storytelling and performance. At a later time, Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī (d. 1023 c.e.), in his Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa (Book of enjoyment and good company), addresses his patron, Abū alWafā), in the thirty-eighth night to underscore writing as permanence, not only to aggrandize the art—and for that matter the artist—but also to demonstrate the scholarly or artistic elaboration and meticulousness that comes with writing.5 The emergence of the book form and its subsequent popularity was demonstrated both in the recurrence of the word kitāb in almost every title after the collection of the Qur)ān and the Prophet’s traditions and in relevant celebratory literature. The caliph al-Ma)mūn was reported to be so impressed by the intellectual power of a Persian book that he asserted in consequence: “By God, this is the worthwhile discourse, not what our tongues fill our mouths with.”6 Writing and the written text were no less valued for displacing hearsay and rumors, especially as directed against the marginalized. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī reported to the vizier Abū (Abdallah al-(Ārib ibn Sa(dān how the Sufis whom he studied had collected their knowledge in ten thousand pages of some significance. This fact is important on a number of levels. It tells of the growing Sufi output, to be sure, but it also signifies a break with the dominant prose form, especially its epistolary component. At the same time, there are audiences and reading publics. Some terms, such as samar and nikāya, may indicate performance and storytelling as well as reading, as Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī’s Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa in­ dicates. These anecdotes, witticisms, reports, and intellectual encounters were brought together as samars or nightly entertainments for Abū (Abdallah al-(Ārib ibn Sa(dān the vizier, but they were written down for the patron Abū al-Wafā) Munammad b. Yanyā al-Būzjānī (d. c.e. 387). The effort to address a reading public is central to the art, however, for it manifests both the damage done to the oral tradition, the form of which we can only conjecture at in the absence of recorded versions, and the desire among some of the literati to dig into the marginalized culture or to refine it

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through acceptable embeddings and translated framing narratives. AlJahshiyārī (d. 942 c.e.) might have been collecting and refining some of these as the Thousand and One Nights,7 a project he could not finish. Writers and compilers of narrative were on the alert lest popular anecdotes be damaged by meticulous grammar and pronunciation.8 This effort also presents us with tips about the burgeoning narrative theory. The anecdotal quality targets reading publics and assemblies and should be seen and studied in this light. Unlike poetry, it is to be circulated among readers in an urban milieu. Between the written text and the reading public, there is a new urban bond that should be taken into account as the most celebrated and recognized. Urbanity liberates the text by offering it a presence, but it also violates its freedom with newly imposed limits and constraints. The intersection is not an easy one, and it accommodates both bondage and release. In justifying his anecdotal method of moral assessment and balance on the basis of merits and disadvantages in Al-Manāsin wa al-masāwi ), Ibrāhīm b. Munammad al-Bayhaqī (during the reign of al-Muqtadir, 295–302/908– 932) argues for the written text as a free enterprise that escapes authority, for “it is a treasure, one that makes no demands for obligatory alms and gives the Sultan no rights.” Yet it is “a treasure for the inheritor,” as it is “an admonition to the ancestor.” This is an ingenious association between book production and the growth of the new public, which is different from the court despite the binding autocratic allegiance to the caliph as the Commander of the Faithful. On the other hand, the art of writing or inscription, the pen, stands for both the reachable and the unavailable, “the eyewitness and the absent side, as read by every tongue anytime.”9 There is no tribalism to be addressed, nor is there a class distinction to be indulged. It is there for every reader. This is social equalization through book production. Authority slips from the hands of its former owners to be gradually placed in the hands of readers, who evidently compose a good portion of society. Even the dichotomy between the secular and the religious is urbanized, and the emerging defendants of prudish discourse are belittled and ridiculed. The Islam of that period was not what later jurists tried to depict as a close system of obligations and prohibitions; it was rather an open culture with a moral base quite accommodating to the growing literary taste. Taking the new public into consideration as the readers of such works, Munammad ibn Qutaybah justifies book production, especially entertaining writing, as satisfying the needs of new classes, their right to rest and enjoy themselves after a hard working day. He says: “Hereby I can invigorate the reader after tiresome hard work and arduous probity. The ear soon

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rejects, and the soul sours. Whenever humor is attached to the right and decent or almost so, in resemblance to its timings and needs, it is not to be disapproved or reckoned reprehensible, nor is it a grave or the lesser sin if God wills.” 10 The address is evidently directed to the people who may object to this kind of cultural product, the upholders of religious or moral authority, and as such the tone is tinged with apology and justification. It does not hide its authority, however, as coming from somebody who knows what is right and what is wrong. On the other hand, the whole address is pragmatic and speaks for an urban class, mercantile and professional in the main, as the emphasis on hard work and arduous labor indicates. But does this address indicate some radical change in literary and cultural standards? It does, but only if we understand it in context, for literary standards were not deeply involved in religious tenets and applications. Even the Qur)ānic verse against specific poetry and poets did not receive unusual attention. In view of the mounting opposition among some circles to free and rational schools of thought, there is in this discourse an effort to pacify hardliners and justify a new writing. Compared to the emphasis on style and quality of writing as shown at a later stage in al-Nadīm’s description of the Thousand and One Nights as “insipid” and “loathsome,” this critique emanates from the writer’s grounding in moral and religious discourse. While upholding decency and authenticity, ibn Qutaybah argues also for resemblance as a realistic tenet. This appeal to the real draws the discourse to the emerging urban classes. It is reinforced by further castigation of pseudojurists, who were on the increase at that time, as representatives of prudishness.11 Not many scholars, even from among the conservatives, were happy with this increase. He argues therefore for openness against restraint and outspokenness versus prudery. With specific reference to the mention of bodily and physical practices, he calls for openness in reference to body parts, for “there is nothing reprehensible in naming the body, for what is sinful is to slander morals, to lie and to defame people.” This discourse should be looked at in view of the figurative meaning of the title of Abū Munammad ibn Qutaybah’s book X yūn al-akhbār (that is, “the best anecdotes”). The author makes recourse to an authoritative chain of transmission, but he often puts this aside, relying on undefined authority, a practice he follows in his other books, too. This mixed position regarding antecedent authority is in keeping with contemporary attitudes that were not keen on sustaining successive transmission. Even in the instance of his often-cited reference to the qaùīda structure, he quotes “some literary folk.” 12 His akhbār or anecdotes may not be the most skillful ones, but they may well lead us to view the whole khabar practice as

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the most embryonic in Arabic literary tradition. Vague, undefined, or hedging reference helps in undermining and liquidating authoritative transmission, with its imposed limitations on fiction. (Amr ibn Banr alJāniµ specifies the meaning of the khabar practice by this saying: “Some thoughtful [wise] person said to his son: son, a human is a nadīth, discourse [a subject of narrative], if you can be a good one, be it.” He further adds: “Every secret on earth is an anecdote about a human, or hidden from a person.” 13 The association between akhbār, secrecy, suppression, expression, human life, and narrative is of great significance to any study of Arabic narrative, both because of the emphasis on the dynamics of disequilibria as central to the art and because narrative is centered on human life, especially in times of social change and political turmoil. Even translations from other literatures, as well as philosophical narratives such as ibn §ufayl’s (d. 1185 c.e.) mayy ibn Yaqµ ān, cater to the needs of this changing society. Allegorical narratives and fables became an integral part of a culture that was undergoing theological, political, and social conflict. Central to this association between human endeavor and narrative are curiosity, secrecy, and desire, all of which lie behind motivational narrativity. Yet there are a number of issues to consider in this context. Among these is the use of the past by traditionalists and polemicists such as al-Aùma(ī (d. 213/828) to recapture its entertaining and edifying aspect. On the other hand, there is a commitment to record the anecdotal mixed with popular lore, as the qābī Abū (Alī )l-Tanūkhī (d. 384/995) would do later. No matter how traditionalist was the former, he might well be prevented from using a phrase considered inappropriate in the caliph’s court. On the other hand, the need for anecdotal pleasantries was so great that he found these no less rewarding than solid knowledge: “Through knowledge, I have received gifts, and through pleasantries, I have acquired riches.” 14 Al-Aùma(ī appealed to the court and enjoyed privileges at the risk of being shut up by its chamberlains or viziers. That was not the case with later storytellers and narrators who were ready to take to the street and marketplace to sell their pleasantries to the public. The scene would become large enough to accommodate narrative at large as an oral performance and written commitment. Diversity of tastes, as well as the demands of the caliphal court and the residences of notables and courtiers, entailed both diversity in production and a narrative corpus, accompanied by concomitant theory. Although less sophisticated than theorizations for epistolary writing, narratology grows as sets of applications and justifications that take Islam as a cultural climate and take probability and verisimilitude as yardsticks whenever applicable to nonallegorical or natural writings.

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The terms that emerged before the twelfth century deserve some attention as long as they relate to this foundational theorization. Terms such as qaùù were already in use to indicate, along with the act of telling, both the clipping and trimming of the hair and the tracking and interpreting the marks on the ground, a dual usage that appeared quite late in Abū Isnāq Ibrāhīm b. (Alī B. Tamīm al-muùrī al-Qayrawānī’s (d. 413/1022) Jam( aljawāhir. The term assumed these meanings along with the ensuing meaning of narrative, to tell, or narrate. “Nannu naquùùu (alaika ansana )l-qaùaùi” (we narrate to you the best of stories), says the Qur)ān in the Joseph chapter, and “Yā bunayya lā-taqùuù ru)yāka (alā )ikhwatik” (Son: do not narrate your dream to your brothers). This application, not the function of the qāùù, would have been in use for some time in the pre-Islamic era, and the variations on the root or further semantic nuances are in keeping with the emphasis on excellence and improvisation. Even later use of the term quùùāù, as doers or actors, the people who relate and narrate, fluctuates in relation to this Qur)ānic use. The term holds positive meaning as long as there is edification and equation between the artist and the art, its beauty and edification, for “ansana al-qaùaùi” involves both excellence and worthiness. In many instances, the term applies to the preacher, and the use of narrative for edification was viewed as a viable teaching means to reach people: “How useful they are to the common people even if what they relate is untrue,” says ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200). The statement must be taken seriously as indicative of a large common public that forced the jurists to think of targeting it through storytelling. Instead of the emphasis on the erudite scholar, the humanist of the Islamic civilization, there was around ibn al-Jawzī’s time a different focus on preachers and storytellers, whose influence with the public was well recognized. Ibn al-Jawzī’s justification is clear, for they are “closer to the discourse of the common people, and the common are prone to benefit from them much more than from the most knowledgeable.” 15 Indeed, even a conservative such as ibn al-Jawzī was so impressed by the practice and morals of Manùūr b. (Ammār that he wrote: “There was in his qaùaù and speech something wonderful, as never related to people before.” 16 Whenever the preacher works within these terms, there is a positive recognition, otherwise the term lapses into the pejorative. Ibn al-Jawzī quotes the Prophet’s cousin, the caliph (Alī, to document the two functions of the quùùāù, the positive and the reprehensible. In other words, the profession of the quùùāù already existed in early Islam, but the fear of their possible negative influence on audiences was also behind the tendency to question and interrogate them before allowing them to preach in the

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mosque.17 In relating an anecdote as narrated by some “dilettantes,” alJāniµ reports how “an Iraqi governor once bought a slave singer with an enormous amount of money. Once, he asked her to sing, but the first song she sang was as follows: ‘I go to the quùùāù, every evening, anticipating God’s reward in every step.’ He said to his slave: ‘Boy, take this fornicator [whore] to Abū mirzah the qāùù .’ ” 18 When he asked the latter on another occasion how he found her, he was coyly told that he found in her two of the attributes of Paradise: coolness and width. Yet, when the word quùùāù applies to preachers, there is no guaranteed approval, as many quùùāù were categorically identified by ibn al-Jawzī as both reprobates and liars or pious and God-fearing.19 Even reporters of their narratives were castigated. Thus, al-mārith al-Munāsibī (d. 857 c.e.), Abū al-§ālib Makkī (d. 990 c.e.), and Abu māmid al-§ūsī (d. 1111 c.e.) were not exempted from reproof and objection, as they “unwittingly included in their books groundless affairs and anecdotes, unknowing that they are untrue.” 20 Like many jurists, ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200) was not inclined to treat this subliterature candidly. Yet his serious objections to the profession should be seen as quite revealing insofar as its growth is concerned. Ibn al-Jawzī’s writings on sermonizers constitute only a portion of an output that includes anecdotes on simpletons and other marginalized groups. Yet, in Talbīs Iblīs and in his Kitāb al- quùùāù wa-al-mudhakkirīn, he provides reasons behind his hostility to the quùùāù. These fall under the following categories, and they reveal much about the complexity of theological perspectives that vacillate between utility and religious tradition: First, the practice is against tradition, normative custom, and doctrinal authority, for there is no such thing to be followed and emulated. One should rather adhere to the Sunna, as whatever has been set and established by ancient authority and, particularly, by the Prophet. Second, “the narrative, qaùaù, of precursors’ records is rarely authentic” and can be so misleadingly appealing as to lead to emulation. Third, indulgence “will keep people away from the more important occupation of reading the Qur)ān, reporting the Prophet’s tradition, and becoming more versed in religion,” and there are people who think that tradition “provides what should suffice and replace whatever else that is difficult to authenticate.” Fourth, there is the foreign (that is, the alien) that comes in the form of narrative, and these quùùāù “insert in their qaùaù what deform the common people’s hearts.” In the jurist’s discourse, the strange and the alien mean anything that sounds unfitting to his taste or to his understanding of propriety and ethics. Fifth, the quùùāù “never care for accuracy and rarely guard against error because of their slight knowledge and little piety.” 21 The moral ground takes prece-

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dence in this critique of storytelling material and performance, and although said relatively late, the second half of the twelfth century, it coincides well with the growing conservative discourse and the emergence of hard-line Islamism in reaction to the crusades and the disintegration of the Islamic nation (umma). Ibn al-Jawzī was not alone, as we noticed from al-Shayzarī’s nisbah manual. The mounting fear of the popular tradition only testifies to its gaining momentum. As noted earlier, his yardstick only indicates how powerful the role of the quùùāù was at that time. Whenever these made recourse to performance and acting, ibn al-Jawzī thinks of them as dangerous, as they can easily deceive the impressionable and the uneducated masses. Some pretentiously shiver and cry, others tear their clothes and throw themselves on the minbar, and still others beat themselves on the head and the face as if from utter loss and infatuation.22 Many tales in the Thousand and One Nights take these gestures for granted as manifestations of despair and loss. Obviously, storytellers, as actors, are prone not only to practice these gestures but also to impose them on their created characters. In such an instance, ibn al-Jawzī approvingly quotes Abū māmid al-§ūsī, who says: “whenever the sermonizer is a young man, nicely dressed, refined in bearing, with unruffled demeanor fit for women assemblies, with a repertoire of poetry, gestures and motions, be wary of him.” 23 Jurists and male scriptors share a belief in the impressionability and vulnerability of certain audiences, especially women. Paradoxically, some also believe in the wiles of women as categorically more enticing and ensnaring. Yet it takes Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī some time in Al-Imtā( wa)l-mu)ānasa (Book of enjoyment and good company) to negotiate his opinions of readership and the need to approach women audiences as no less qualified than the rest, a viewpoint his patron vizier did not uphold.24 Yet the issue is more complicated than one merely involving class or political demarcations, for there was a love/hate relationship that drove storytellers to both laud and mock the life of the court and the wealthy classes. On the other hand, there was also a fear/curiosity drive that impelled the court, for instance, to search for popular narratives. Both attitudes had great bearing on the art, not only in matters of poetics and style but also in the politics of narrative. In the first instance, we may refer to both al-Jāniµ and Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī, who showed an interest in popular lore to the extent of asserting the need to duplicate witty anecdotes or other pleasantries as they are originally reported. The former argues, whenever “you hear of a witty anecdote (nādira) from among the common people . . . never resort to i (rāb (proper vocalization), as this will

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damage its enjoyment, and distort its meaning.” 25 Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī says almost the same thing, for right grammar “damages the witty anecdote,” and grammatical mistakes and their like “should not be objectionable when coming from the frivolous and the simpleton.” He further quotes from another, “the pleasantry of a witty anecdote lies in its ungrammaticality, its warmth in its proportion, its sweetness in its short size, and whenever these come from a narrator who has fluency, a charming face, and a pleasant timely gesture, in the right place and meeting the exact need, then the goal is reached and the achievement is made.” 26 No less so was the attitude of al-Huùrī al-Qayrawanī, who, in Jam( al-jawāhir, argues for the same position, for “there is a tool for every art, and a condition for every merchandise.” 27 The justification of an art as drawn in these extracts is widely at variance with what we have already noticed in objections to it on the basis of morality or refinement. To acquiesce to circumstances of storytelling as determinant of the nature of speech means the application of new rules that may need time to be widely accepted. Nevertheless, they are available to build a theory of narrative whose legitimacy derives power from reality and similitude rather than from antecedent authority or classical taste. Along with this keen interest in popular anecdotal literature, there was a corresponding fear of the role of the populace that compilers and professional writers tried to dismiss and dispel. The mere tendency to do so is meaningful, for narrative itself cannot grow and flourish under social restriction, nor can it be solely the domain of the court and its associates. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī offers further examples in this regard. His patron, the vizier ibn Sa(dān, was angry at “the common people, the rabble” as they “gossip about us, dealing with our affairs, tracking our secrets, and delving into our private life. I am at loss what to do with them. On several occasions I have had the intention of severing tongues, hands, and legs and implementing harsh punishment, in the hope that such actions will put an end to this practice and enforce respect.” Here the vizier is impersonating Shahrayar’s role in the Thousand and One Nights, while Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī fills the role of Scheherazade. He summons her art, but instead of offering a tale, he comes up with Abū Sulaymān al-Man•iqī’s (d. 375/985) response to similar situations. Al-Tawnīdī refers to him both for his wisdom and for his “love for the state,” and he worries about pitfalls and failures. Thus when he says “The King cannot be without his subjects, as much as these cannot be without a king,” his words are accepted. Abū Sulaymān refers to a similar situation, when in the reign of the caliph alMu(tabid, the caliph asked his vizier how to handle a certain Shaykh al-

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Tabbān, whose assembly was attended by many people who interfered in the affairs of the state and kept gossiping about many unwelcome issues. The vizier suggested punishments ranging from death by fire to drowning. The caliph looked at him in surprise and asked him to show mercy and care for the people by offering them good advice and compassion, since they were ignorant and helpless.28 The significance of the anecdote and then the session with the patron lies in its urban concerns, including state affairs. The scene reveals a state well aware of the social problems that unfold in urban life. Statecraft has to develop a mechanism to meet and solve these problems. On the other hand, the anecdote conveys a scene in which the public has begun to make itself felt in various assemblies and gatherings that may seem reminiscent of bourgeois salons, clubs, and other meeting places, along with press conferences and their like, where the public acts as a counterweight to absolute authority. In this extract, the ruler or the caliph is the moderate; it is the vizier who tries to wield power against the threatening public. We should remember that high administrators and court officials were quite often responsible for the separation between the ruler and the public, as a means to legitimize their use of power. Narrative makes use of these issues; the very assemblies that bother the viziers are narratives in performance. Whereas each vizier suggests repressive measures, intellectuals and writers defuse anger through art. Indeed, intellectuals were able to separate themselves from the court and align themselves, albeit cautiously, with the public. The Scheherazade trope should be seen as appropriately fitting. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī was aware of this public, and his reasoning through narrative is only representative of an age that had already witnessed the diminishing power of the administration as the source of legitimacy. In cultural terms, and taking into account the basic difference between European societies of the eighteenth century and late medieval Arab societies, a difference based on the Islamicized understanding of the society as egalitarian at least in theory, we can borrow from Habermas his critique of a similar case.29 When the modern state apparatus separated itself from the monarch’s sphere, it gradually became its “counterweight.” In the case of Arab societies, intellectuals who still searched for patronage among viziers and the remnants of courts felt the urge to stand up for the growing public sphere. While objecting to the vizier’s anger at the public, Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī was ready at a certain point in his life to write vituperatively of other viziers. Thus the Scheherazade motif should not be decontextualized, for no matter what the nature of the production and accumulation, writers and artists obviously shared a moral and intellectual responsibility. Narrative, rather than poetry,

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became a means toward pacification, edification, and containment. The need for the art was obviously as real as the motivations behind its collection and compilation in book form. Al-Qābī Abū (Alī )l-Tanūkhī (d. 384/994) leads his readers toward more urban motivations. He wrote a number of books and compilations; among them is the famous Kitāb nishwār al munābara wa-akhbār al-mudhākara bi-alfā µ al-mukhālafa (Book of shared conversation and memorable information by means of contrasted expressions; English translation: Table-talk of a Mesopotamian Judge). A number of factors were involved in his effort to compile and collect these narratives in the tenth century. He had already noticed neglect in the recording of information, anecdotes, and narratives at large. The reasons were twofold: the court was immersed in physical pleasures, whereas the common people were focused on survival. Rulers and their associates pursued their corporeal desires, but everyone else was busy with daily concerns.30 The implications are not limited to this societal complexity, for the effect on culture was serious enough to turn Baghdad into a city of desolation and loss. Returning to it in the last decades of the tenth century, “I found its assemblies no longer thriving with discussions and argumentations.” 31 Furthermore, the anecdotal repertoire was in danger, for “whatever I had stored in memory began to dwindle and fade, and the meaning and theme of material orally narrated by people suffered distortion, to the extent that those who reported what we had already heard began to put into it things that defiled and distorted it.” 32 To conquer time through documentation and collect narrative art as a personal enterprise went hand in hand, for the written and recorded would survive time and pass safely to the next generation, as would the name of the collector and the compiler. Storytellers and narrators felt empowered by this demand on their art to compete with poets. If epistolographers were now in demand as a consequence of rising statecraft and the needs of the chancery, narrative compilers and storytellers catered to the needs of the rising classes, including the educated and learned. At this point, the qābī Abū (Alī )l-Tanūkhī would go so far as to argue his case as a would-be historian. This book was to address “whoever desired to read what could lead him to the morals of past times, their canons, means, customs and ways of life, to compare our condition with that of the past, and to learn how the world died and how tempers changed.” 33 These were not the only factors behind the effort. Al-Tanūkhī took it upon himself to be both novelist and storyteller. He was careful, however, to indicate its significance: “it is useful to whoever has done with most of the sciences.” On the other hand, the material imposes on him the obliga-

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tion to write it down; these anecdotes and narratives “would suffer misuse for not being written down.” 34 While seemingly encumbered by a taste for the real, with its chain of transmitters, the author-compiler describes his work as based on “antecedent traditions.” On the other hand, he admits to meddling and tampering with this material, creating it anew as artifact: “I intended mixing it with other arts, of distinctive biographies and stories, telepathist and clairvoyant coincidences and dreams, strange spells and vicissitudes, the anecdotes of professionals, rulers and notables, and others of every station and sort, illuminating it with light verse, and recent prose and entertainment.” 35 The actors and reporters, he notes, come from every station in life, including businessmen, beggars, knights, spies, wise people, peasants, notables, buffoons, and brigands.36 Among writers and geographers it became almost a recognizable practice not only to make use of every reporter, regardless of class and identity, but also to mix with every class and impersonate every character, as was the case with the geographer Shams al-Dīn Abū (Abdullah al-Muqaddasī, whose book Ansan al-taqāsīm fī ma(rifat al-aqālīm (available between 985–986 c.e.) is recognized as the best of its kind.37 In other words, the tenet of reliable transmitters was no longer valid, nor was the restriction on reporting and fiction. This emphasis on diversity had become part of an attitude quite customary among geographers, travelers, and compilers of narrative. To be sure, the effort had a utilitarian motivation in that one had to accept and relate narrative on the basis of appeal. It also reveals a process of change that no longer accepted elitism as a yardstick or touchstone. On the other hand, it betrays dissatisfaction with the long-respected tradition of successive and authentic transmission. As in al-muùrī’s Jam( al-jawāhir and Dhayl zahr al-ādāb, there is no longer an emphasis on authenticity and reliability. At the request of Abū )l-Fabl al-(Abbās b. Sulaymān, secretary to the chancellery in Qayrawān, al-muùrī sifts the material that the latter has brought with him and applauds his own selections in a book that is neatly organized and carefully embellished with nawādir (rarities and witty anecdotes), strange anecdotes and happenings, news, and almost every kind of narrative of an appealing nature. He claims to quote both the ancient and the modern, the wise and the insane, the noble and the reprobate, the generous and the misers, the learned (ulamā and the uneducated, the knowledgeable and the simpletons, the elite and the rabble, parasites and snobs, the gay and the castrated, boys and women.38 He is aware throughout of his readers, since he established principles for his selections in order to impose on the whole a flexible form and order. The artist, the night entertainer (musāmir), and the narrator of witty anecdotes

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and rarities (munādir) should be, broadly speaking, “delicately suggestive, deftly expressive, gracefully refined, eloquent, elegant, not boring or violent, adapting himself to every situation, and utilizing his abilities aptly.” 39 While these are principles for the artist as narrator or entertainer to follow, the source material eludes classical strictures and relies on almost every attractive source, regardless of race, class, or gender. Narratologists as such oppose any literary canons that may obstruct the growth of this art. They are careful, however, lest the reader react with repugnance. From every source there is a choice, and the reader “should not look at the matter with resentment, putting the matter aside, whenever coming upon an insult or stupidity.”40 Now it is the reader rather than the court that is the arbiter. He or she is the patron. Indeed, King Shahrayar of the Thousand and One Nights is partly a trope for this type of readership, which searches for the pleasant and the entertaining. Al-muùrī al-Qayrawānī (d. 412/1022) followed al-Tanūkhī (d. 384/994) in more than one respect. Both resorted to an unrestricted use of sources, and both contributed to the dominating narrative method involving a free use of material. Class and race inhibitions almost disappeared, and the appeal to entertainment and possible benefit became a priori at a time when even the court was keen on knowing more about other cultures that included marginal groups and newly expanding classes. For the narrative art, this unrestricted use of material implied due recognition of every profession and craft. Both writers were influenced by al-Jāhiµ, who set the stage for the development of narrative art. Their reliance on both the acceptable and questionable, the canonized and deviant, should also indicate to us the tendency toward characterization and character sketching as an egalitarian art. The equation developed neatly by al-Jāhiµ between narrative art, especially in the portrayal of Khālid ibn Yazīd (otherwise Khālawayh the mukaddī, also written as mukdī, “tramp”), and theft, or between the qaùù as the latter practiced it and the acquisition of money, is no fleeting matter. Although al-Jāhiµ provides us with other examples of miserly behavior, he gives voice to Khālid ibn Yazīd, who leaves a testimonial letter to his son to remind him of his many professions and qualifications and his readiness to relapse into either theft or qaùù as a means of counteracting the threat of poverty. This empowering narrative is another way of satirizing class distinctions. All professions lead to wealth and social distinction. With this understanding, no source is better than any other, and what applies to money is also applicable to narrative. “If my wealth goes, I will be a qāùù or a vagabond, as I was a tramp. My beard is abundant and white; my throat is voluble and robust; my demeanor is good, and people find me appealing.”41

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Coming from Khālid ibn Yazīd, the man who thinks that poets and orators use their skill in order to embezzle others, this kind of discourse unsettles and undermines the tenets of classical writing, including such matters as truthfulness, reliability, and authenticity. Indeed, al-Jāhiµ quotes another who insists that “people abuse lying and wrong it when they ignore its attributes and recall only its ills,” as they do “when applauding truthfulness by recognizing its attributes while overlooking its harms.”42 In the context of such utilitarianism and expediency, the moral base loses. In relation to the burgeoning theory of narrative, this ambivalence is in keeping with the free use of source material and the unrestricted view of professions and social status. Narrative as such evolves both as a classless mode of writing and as one with no moral obligations of the kind demanded by jurists. What Khālid ibn Yazīd said and left behind, whether real or fictitious, found its way to such compendiums as al-Jāhiµ’s Book of Misers. Narrative is no less implicating for being so free. One way of avoiding reports of an insulting nature is to make passing reference to an anecdote, specifying its source, and then abruptly adding that there is a lot in this vein that may be resented. In other words, the compiler turns into a narrator while simultaneously inviting the reader to search for yet more demeaning and insulting material. As if not satisfied with this strategy, the compiler-narrator, for example Abū Isnāq Ibrāhīm b. (Alī b. Tamīm alHuùrī al-Qayrawānī, will go so far as to implicate both narrator and reader in a bond that anticipates reader-response theorists. He adds: “It is said: the narrator is one of the slanderers, and the reader one of the speakers.”43 Establishing this bond between the two, the writer consolidates a narrative theory that eludes social and political strictures but forcefully strives to associate narrative with book production. To prepare space for this mode of writing, theorists tried to situate the genre within a historical understanding of evolution and change. In Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa (Book of enjoyment and good company), Abū mayyān alTawnīdī argues for evolution as a historical given, “for in every hundred years people acquire a new normative custom.”44 Although he was advancing this idea in order to justify a deviation from his master, al-Jāniµ, and his method, the whole context of the discussion can be seen as a revisionist reading of tradition. Rather than accepting antecedent authority as a given, as the source of legitimacy and literary or cultural standards, the argument considers time as the determining element of change. There are no timeless standards or applications. Imitation is ruled out, and innovation and fashion are the new criteria for evaluating works and literary products. Need, requirement, and time: these are the new considerations. With these

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new provisions the Islamic context works well, since it undergoes change like any other milieu; for that matter, conservative jurisprudence was expected to cope with these requirements and not abide by the Sunna as a posture of dormancy and fixity. Preceding Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī, alTanūkhī had already debated such a position and the claims of subordination to other standards and genres, for the art that al-Tanūkhī was advancing in a number of compilations is “unprecedented and unique, and it is an original genre of its own” (lā naµ īra lahū wa-lā shakl, wa-huwa wandahu jinsun aùlun).45 The emphasis on both uniqueness and originality is a roman­ tic claim, to be sure, but its legitimacy acquires its power from faith in newness, not imitation. Tradition is laid aside, and the writer is left on his or her own, to devise the right method for the material at hand. However, the art described by al-Tanūkhī is more of a narrative amalgam, a practice that we can trace in other compilations and works but that is also different from a number of other narrative practices. To have a better view of these narrative practices and accompanying theoretical explications, they can be categorized as follows: First, narrative compilation as proposed by al-Tanūkhī and Abū Isnāq Ibrāhīm b. (Alī b. Tamīm al-Huùrī al-Qayrawānī, not only as collections of anecdotes and reports, embellished with proverbs, exemplary sayings, and poetic gleanings from ancient and contemporary sources, but also as a method of creating material anew through careful trimming, designing, appropriating, improvising, and shaping. Second, narrative as originated by al-Jāhiµ, where characters, uniquely presented as misers, for instance, justify their understanding of wealth and money as an accumulation that should resist attempts at deceit, extravagance, embezzlement, and misuse. While framing these narratives with the serene yet cynical voice of the author, each miser is given enough space to argue and justify an attitude that may sound inappropriate and even less miserly for fellow misers (as is the case in the portrayal of Abū Sa(īd al-Madā)inī). The whole narrative of al-Madā)inī is a masterpiece, both as a social tract in a vastly expanding urban milieu with enough identifications and significations to allow shared codes and as a narrative that resorts to argumentation through dialogic principles of great variety.46 Third, narrative as nights. While we have been deprived of al-Jahshiyārī’s 480 nights as recorded by the bibliophile Abū al-Faraj Munammad ibn Abī Ya(qūb Isnāq al-Warrāq al-Baghdādī al-Nadīm (d. 385/995), the practice of offering asmār, or nightly entertainments, in a Scheherazade-like fashion was popular enough to be used by Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī in Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa (Book of enjoyment and good company), whereby thirty-seven nights are addressed to the vizier. The practice here, however, follows al-Jāhiµ in negotiating a method that carves a path carefully and cautiously through prohibi-

92440 The Public Role in Isla mic Narr ative Theorizations tions, censorship, interests, and preferences. Almost every address needs to justify its presence between seriousness and flippancy, solemnity and laughter, silliness and magnificence, argumentation and narrativity. Yet the writer is unlike the master in many things that he justifies in terms of evolution, change, and perspective, in what can be seen as an anxiety of influence. Of some significance in this respect is Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī’s recourse to questions and answers instead of argumentation or nijāj, the master’s renowned method. Fourth, narrative as a one-day biographical story of a personal record, a slice of life, which represents the focus of some maqāmāt without being restricted to one topic or specific size, like al-Azdī’s mikāyat Abū )l-Qāsim al-Baghdādī. Although using nikāya in reference to the vagrant hero, Abū al-Qāsim alBaghdādī, the author does not intend to emulate his predecessors and contemporaries by either conjoining imitation and discourse or delivering a mere tale as narrative. The author’s third-person narrative is fused into the hero’s first-person perspective as he speaks of assemblies, recalls occasions, reels off jokes, pokes fun at society, exposes double standards and hypocrisy, inserts solemn extracts from current literature, acquaints us with problems of life both inside and outside Baghdad, cites joyful and pleasurable gatherings, and refers to singers and responses to renowned slave singers and gay boon-companions. While this book-length narrative is unique, §āhā al-mājirī compares it to another one, in four volumes, by Abū (Alī al-matimī (d. 388/998).47 Surprisingly, two nights in Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī’s Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa (28–29) appear verbatim in al-Azdī’s mikāyat Abū )l-Qāsim, as I have noted elsewhere.48 Fifth, popular tales, whether in translation, appropriation, adaptation, or subsequent framing in collections, as in the case of the Thousand and One Nights, that were to grow as such between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. Sixth, philosophical narrative, visionary revelations, and allegorical and animal stories. Ibn al-Muqaffa( and Sahl ibn Hārūn are merely two among many in this regard as recorded in al-Nadīm’s Fihrist. Among long narratives, ibn §ufayl’s mayy ibn Yaqµān stands foremost. Similar is the allegorical narrative Al-Asad wa)l-ghawwāù (The Lion and the Fox), written around a.h. 530.

More significant to the present discussion is the effort to theorize for each category of narrative. In mikāyat Abū )l-Qāsim al-Baghdādī, al-Azdī offers us an interesting reading of the flourishing narrative tradition. He argues for the narrative art as being close to life, a slice of life. The author prefers to call it nādira, a rare witty anecdote, yet the story actually follows the career of a vagrant who is described as a colorful figure from the fringes of society, someone who has been in the company of every thug, ruffian, and parasite but who has managed to acquire the ways of refined literati. In other words, he is the very crystallization of every aspect of society and every character, the epitome of sprawling Baghdad’s positive and negative shades and colors. This record of one-day happenings (in which he is the

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actor, speaker, and narrator) emerges as a series of responses to questions and requests from the audience.49 As such, the language is not unified. The significance of this one-day tale of real happenings, albeit of very dubious nature, lies in a dialogic space that accommodates a number of languages from every social and professional group. Perhaps closer to the genre of the maqāma than any other narrative practice, especially in terms of the main hero as vagrant and the engagement in real situations among every social and professional class, mikāyat Abū )l-Qāsim al-Baghdādī sets the stage for the picaresque novel. However, the vagrant’s attendance at assemblies, as well as his openness to questions and requests, is not as smoothly handled as may first appear. The audience may request: “Abū )l-Qāsim, if you would only be kind enough to tell us more of these tales to complement the uns (pleasurable company) brought us by your madīths,” but his response is, “No sir, search for some one else to make fun of.”50 In other words, he does not follow a Scheherazade-like formula by either appeasing or delaying a request. Nevertheless, he is often inclined to jump to another anecdote and engage the company with both the pleasurable and shocking. The art is therefore more realistic than normal anecdotal narratives, in that it introduces into these assemblies material and detail that may be shocking to prudish or even refined tastes. On the other hand, the use of request and response as a device to perpetuate narrative and provoke the narrator is the other side of the author’s textual displays of allegiance to patrons. In the steps of al-Jāniµ, both alQayrawānī and Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī wrote and compiled these narratives and justifications for the art in response to their patrons’ requests. These efforts parallel comparable ones both in poetic dīwāns and epistolary compendiums. Yet al-Qayrawānī’s service to the art lies not only in following the earlier practice of al-Tanūkhī or improving on this unique and unprecedented art, as the latter deemed it, but also in his deliberately interchangeable use of such terms as al-munādir wa)l-muhātir wa)l-musāmir (the narrator of witticisms, rare anecdotes, vituperative response, and night entertainments).51 His inclusion of the muhātir fits well with many of Abū )l-Qāsim al-Baghdādī’s interventions. The term had not been much in use in combination with the other terms as applied to the practice. To include scathing, slanderous, and vituperative materials as narrative was both a daring and intentional enterprise, in keeping with the poetic tradition. Yet he has an explanation for this inclusion, in relation to the immediate response of the audience52 and, more often, in view of language registers and metaphors. He argues that metonymy is often used as a figurative replacement for the

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indecent, gruesome, and obscene; there is no reason, he says, not to deal with whatever is present in life.53 In other words, a great deal of language works in this domain the moment it is freed from the metonymic. Although not strictly written as a sequential narrative, as is the case in many of al-Tanūkhī’s narratives, Abū Isnāq al-Qayrawānī’s Jam( vindicates its presence as narrative in terms of the Arabic view of ādāb. The feast analogy is significant in this respect, for proper variety is the standard. He provides us with a prologue and epilogue that summarize this method. He justifies the combinational variety as being a gradual layering and neat gradation aimed at satisfying the soul’s craving for change, for “the soul is naturally prone to alteration” and is innately restless.54 This restlessness he satisfies with different selections, and difference rather than sameness becomes his way of avoiding monotony and gaining both attraction and appeal. “A thing that matches its object loses its radiance,” he argues. Yet he also asserts the need to “include the tale with other tales, and the verse with other verses, for gathering is better than dispersion.”55 In the book’s conclusion, he is so sure that he has been following the method he set out earlier that he describes himself as the “clever musāmir and skilful munādir,” someone who is capable of producing a neat book of proportionate marvels nicely and carefully assembled.56 Throughout his work, he approaches the idea of compilation as jam(, a configurational site where every narrative insertion is prefaced with a theoretical explication. The uniqueness, if there is any, lies not only in the processes of selecting and joining but also in the anecdotal effort to justify theory with more gleanings from history, life, and the rich cultural repertoire of the Arab-Islamic empire. In introducing the second portion of the book, the stepping stone, the access, or the origination, he sets down the following procedures: First: an appeal to the addressee or the audience, by moving from eloquent discourse to artful response; Second: a shift from open witticism or rare curiosity to smooth affront; Third: a move from unfamiliar convergence to wonderful confrontation; Fourth: a switch from actual resemblance to enlightening example; Fifth: the inclusion of whatever that enlivens the heart and dispels morbidity.57

In the first part of the book, the procedure functions as follows: Abū Isnāq al-Qayrawānī specifies, for instance, that, when the narrator “is narrating

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a refined curiosity and charming insight, he should not deliver it grammatically and make it boring.” He also addresses length, eloquence, and appropriate delivery, following such sections with appropriate anecdotes that illustrate the principles without distracting attention.58 On the other hand, when he addresses length, he stipulates that the artist “should not elaborate and bore to death, nor should he skip and damage; there is a purpose and goal for every speech, but there is also a limit to the audience’s attention-span.” This is followed by an anecdote that accords with the systematic planning of the first part of the book, which serves as a theoretical introduction.59 Aside from the need to explain the mechanism of the art, the author also caters to utilitarian preoccupations, stressing that literature in this vein stimulates diversity, enlightens the mind, frees people from worries, and turns them into pleasant companions. In other words, even this introductory section unfolds pleasantly in order to justify and elucidate theory and practice. Abū Isnāq al-Qayrawānī is more faithful to a narrative tradition that opts at the outset for an authorial frame whereby the author or the compiler evolves as the narrator of narrators, the person in charge of a large repertoire, often of an anecdotal quality. Scheherazade had already been established as the model for such an anonymous author. Thus al-Qayrawānī’s claim to be the narrator of narrators is not a casual one. The author as compiler or vice versa no longer submits to an authority other than the self and its sources. Sacred and cherished ancestry almost disappears, and religion becomes a part of human knowledge, where the whole legacy of the manqūl (transmitted knowledge) and ma(qūl (implying the sciences of the Greeks, Indians, Persians, and Arabs) are brought together as a repertoire to be used and reproduced for a new market. The demands of this market require production. Hence the feast analogy, adopted from ibn Qutaybah in a similar application to the new compilation. The compiler is also an author, since to intervene in the material, as he and al-Tanūkhī admitted to doing, involves a deliberately revisionist strategy that caters to the tastes and interests of the addressee and reading public. The narrator may thus emerge as the actor whose use of others is an act of appropriation and digestion, since references or quotations are no longer the same when they are involved in a new textual terrain. The author as narrator, like al-Tawnīdī, is the most conscious of sources. He therefore resorts to contemporaries, precursors, and unidentified material only in order to supplement a perspective or evade censorship or confrontation with the patron or audience. On the other hand, the author may pose as chronicler or archivist while imposing a unified vision on a scene or a character, as al-Jāniµ does, for example,

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in his book on misers. The book derives its significance both from its meticulous care for a social category and from its argumentative principle that enables the reader to delve into the mind of each character and to read its own perspectives, views, and stratagems. The encapsulating vision is that of the author as narrator, one who holds every detail in hand, cynically pursuing threads of behavior and address, and yet careful in case too much exposure and revelation backfires. The novelist-narrator sets the tone for a realistic narrative that expands profusely in keeping with urban life but that also adopts religion to new needs and interests without serious transgressions of basic rituals and obligations. Looked upon in context, Arab writers of fiction and realistic narratives have worked out a preliminary theoretical framework of a cultural nature that has been cursorily noticed, not because of its dearth or insignificance but mainly because of the complexity of this transgeneric writing, its amalgamated nature, and its consequent challenge to available theories and yardsticks. The case is even more so because the literature of the Arabs has been steadily viewed as primarily poetic. Metonymic scriptoria and narrative at large suffers in comparison, and if it draws attention it is only to document a tradition or to substantiate a position. On the other hand, Munammad ibn Qutaybah’s (d. 889 c.e.) feast analogy to describe his book X yūn al-akhbār only sums up this kind of narratology, for in variety, resemblance, and liveliness of detail and characters, it substantiates and deepens urban narrative as developed and promoted earlier by al-Jāniµ. The feast analogy is important for another reason, however, for it too signifies the nonverbal, and hence its recurrence as analogy should alert us to theoretical appropriations of whatever participates in setting the right equation between narrative and life. There is also a third reason for the significance of this analogy, especially in relation to the next and concluding chapter on nonverbal artifice and narrative. The word ādāb has other connotations, and litterateurs of the classical period were not oblivious to the intricacies of the word, its root, and use, in relation to acquired knowledge and the systematic attention to good manners. They were aware of the close connection between the word and the feast, where a number of people gather around a banquet. The book’s collection of narratives is no less inviting than a meaty repast. There is discussion, intimacy, and solidarity involved in the feast; there is also generosity and hospitality. Reading may be a solitary endeavor, but not the feast as a meaty repast, or ma)dubah. Yet both operate on the human agent. The person will never be the same thereafter. On the other hand, this feast analogy occurs in a number of contexts that belie the premise that silence is equilibrium. Si-

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lence operates in many tales as an instigator of other nonverbal actors who take over the stage and reverse the divine order. In an amazing instance in the second qalandar ’s tale, the qalandar is told in a dream that he will have a series of adventures, which he will navigate in safety on the condition that he does not mention God. The condition seems to defy Muslim culture and faith, as the mention of God is quite recurrent and a distinctive marker in any sociable discourse: greeting, feasting, even exercising. To set such a condition may have been meant as an exercise in restraint. AlJāniµ tells us of one slave girl who was reportedly so eloquent and dexterous that she could recite ten thousand lines where there is “not one mention of God, or of reward and punishment in the Hereafter.”60 Repression of the most recurrent element in an Islamic discourse functions as narrative with expected recognition and reward. Against Bakhtin’s premise, we may say that repression is in parity with loquacity. The fear of God resides in the background, and people try to demonstrate their tact and acumen through human means. The manifestations of this repression are many, however, and along with some other means of nonverbal participation or action, they function as dynamic narrative tools and components in the world of the Thousand and One Nights.

9  7  0 Scheherazade’s Nonverbal Narratives in Religious Contexts

T

he nonverbal narrative properties in the Thousand and One Nights have more Islamic character than we might assume. They permeate medieval narratology, history, and hagiography. Especially in the latter, they constitute the most exhilarating narrative force, displacing logic and leading us into other unmapped domains beyond time and space. They include icons, images, codes, paintings, magic, and food. Due to their semantic uncertainty, they have received no erudite scholarly attention despite their significant presence in the translated texts of Scheherazade’s anecdotal and narrative repository and its multiple redactions, abridgements, and adaptations. There is also in the Islamic tradition a rich inventory of signs and mediums of intercession that deserve to be taken seriously as no less functional than loquacity. Even barbers, typical narrators in urban tales, cannot operate without an astrolabe, an amulet, or a horoscope. The material tool collaborates with symbols in devising an Islamic narrative of a mass religious nature. The recent attention to iconology, codes, and sign systems as potential languages is still undeveloped,1 however, and it lacks what Jonathan Culler calls “models to account for divergence of perceptions and responses.” 2 Furthermore, there is no study of such communication or narrative systems as functionally central to narrative techniques, nor of narratology as a theoretical and formal explication of the art. The dearth of substantial studies on the Thousand and One Nights dealing with nonverbal sign systems reflects a comparable shortage in theorizations of Islamic narrative in general. Whether the Thousand and One

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Nights in its European garbs is seen as the materialization of a European bourgeois need or as concomitant with folk and fairy tales, magic realism, and the “fairy godmother” of the English novel,3 narrative is an understudied art outside its verbal properties.4 There is a great focus on the typical features of the Thousand and One Nights, such as sequentiality, actors, narrative voice, and frame of reference, along with a structuralist emphasis on the obsolescence of characters. There is also outstanding scholarship on its generic properties, structural poetics, and motifs and themes.5 Yet these are often seen as verbal properties of a representational art or as a combination of the representational and the fantastic. It is my purpose in this chapter to focus on the nonverbal element as it is pertinently intertwined with the Islamic dynamic, either in collaboration with the verbal or as an offsetting practice to dislodge loquacity, replace it, or at least to complement it. Its Islamic pertinence emanates from a number of beliefs and sayings that advise silence or suggest other means of transaction and conduct to elude constraints, escape notice, or bypass obstacles and barriers. “I desire not to desire” is the Sufi code of ethics that may cover all Sufi rules delineated in al-Qushayrī’s treatise.6 He reports ibn Mas(ūd’s saying: “There is nothing that deserves bondage more than the tongue.” 7 The Qur)ān and the Prophet’s sayings lay at the background for these practices and should be seen as an underlying cultural subtext. Despite the disappointment voiced by many characters in the Thousand and One Nights at barbers and their loquacity, this propensity, which is usually coupled with unlimited curiosity, works as one of the most dynamic oral practices that challenges audiences to listen. Its verbal communication cannot achieve its overall efficacy, however, without some use of other nonverbal means, such as icons, tools, and books. Hence, it is my premise that “imagistic” narrative has a power and functionality of its own.8 Likewise, in the following selected tales from the Thousand and One Nights, this imagistic narrative has a large function and use in Islamic narrative, and it often operates as counterhegemonic to male discourse as traditionally passed down from one generation to another. As the purpose of this chapter is to argue a case and not to provide a comprehensive reading of the issue, only a few tales will be used.

What Is Nonverbal Narrative? In a succinct summation of nonverbal elements as explained by other scholars, Stephen R. Portch includes physical appearance (including regulators, illustrators, emblems, and adaptors), vocal tones, touch, space, time,

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and artifacts. All these operate as communication indices.9 Each one has its lexicon, and the total effect of this ensemble resides both in its supralingal power (beyond speech limits) and in its counterverbal narrativity. The nonverbal, argues Portch, “frequently contradicts the verbal.” 10 Although we have no clue as to how this takes place, this premise is worth keeping in mind when we study some prominent tales of nonverbal structures and functions. As narrative language is the medium for these nonverbals, there is a mutual invigoration that takes place. This presence also problematizes issues of reading and writing and narrating and listening. Indeed, inscription, or its lack, as well as speech receive narrative perpetua­ tion or acceleration whenever in collaboration with images, codes, paintings, food, talismans, amulets, and magical practices. On the other hand, the nonverbal seems to be no more than an act that promotes or hinders the flow of narrative. The reliance on icons, images, and items of marvelous or supernatural power also indicates the limits of human agency, the lack that calls for providential intervention or intervention through dreams and visions. In the Thousand and One Nights, however, the nonverbal element is so conspicuously present that it subsumes many other motivations and narrative properties.

Scriptoria and the Blank Page Each joint presence of the verbal and the nonverbal opens up narrative space to further possibilities. Qur)ānic tradition legitimizes this use. Divine signs include all, and there is always a reference to this world as the battleground between humans and humans or humans and magicians, and between humans and jinn, ifrits, or other creatures. Every sign, including the transposition of thrones or the appearance of certain tablets and the use of mountains to demonstrate divine manifestations, has something to say, invoking interpretations and exegeses. Tablets are more recurrent when­ ever there is admonition, advice, and the implication of learning and receiving divine knowledge. As the frequency of appearance of a particular sign establishes narrative patterning in a number of tales, it is important to re­ member that the emphasis on inscription should be our starting point in this discussion, as much as it should alert us to narrative openings. Although pertaining to language, inscription in this context is the deliberate use of specific writing for a purpose. In many cases, there is no shared code between the coder and the decoder, and if there is, it exists only to solve a mystery or terminate an impasse. Each inscribed sign in the tales prepares the audience for disequilibrium and, hence, for more stories. Inscription

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can be human, however, and its efficacy is another term for authority and power. Human intelligence, human cunning, and human disciplinary practices remain limited until there is another intervention from the boundless world of fantasy or divinity. Thus, in “The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” the porter is allowed to stay with the ladies, enjoy their company, and participate in their jesting and humor on the condition that he abide by the inscription on the inside of the door that asks newcomers and visitors not to interfere with what concerns them not. The ladies make it clear to him that this is their requirement. The porter internalizes pledges and orders so well that he warns the mendicants as newcomers: “Haven’t you read the inscription on the door, which is quite clearly written, ‘Speak not of what concerns you not, lest you hear what pleases you not?’ ” 11 When written on the inside of a door or on its threshold, an inscription is meant to operate spatially in the area between the threshold and the corridor or open space. Inside the house, stories unfold and secrets mount before the intervention of authority signifies closure. Each inscription precedes a narrative, for the second lady tells us how she is led to a house designated as the “house of mirth.” 12 There she is made to pledge not to look at any other person, a pledge that may be unwittingly broken, leading to her terrible punishment: “he [her husband] rose, fetching a quince rod, fell with blows on my sides.” 13 This terrible punishment belies expectations, for instead of joy and mirth, there is trial, deceit, and retribution. Although the young woman in the story, one of the five women in the “Porter and Three Ladies of Baghdad,” is intrigued and tricked into the bizarre marketplace situation where the young merchant forces a kiss on her cheek, we know later that the mark he leaves on her cheek is part of the trick played on her by her husband to show that she cannot abide by her early pledge and promise. Being the caliph’s son, he only repeats Shahrayar’s mistrust of women within a structure of trial and punishment. The turn of events belies and ridicules the promise implied in the inscription on the door, for power enforces its own expectations. The ironic presence of the inscription should only alert us to its lack of innocence, for if there is any mirth, it is achieved at the expense of the unfortunate. The underprivileged female has no say in this one-sided transaction, but her story may well contribute to a cycle that justifies and corroborates Scheherazade’s purpose to rescue women from such terrible fates. On the other hand, there are aspects in the story that subscribe to Islamic morals, and there are others that are in sharp contrast with the Prophet’s emphasis on care and affection for women. Obviously, the trick that has led the unfortunate wife to the marketplace plays on an assumption that there is some perennial nature,

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some female frailty that cannot be cured. Yet this is not what the Qur)ān says. Even the specific reference to the cunning of the companions of the sovereign’s wife in Joseph’s story is downplayed by the Sufi interpretation of the scene. The wife of the sovereign recognizes Joseph’s irresistible beauty and charm, but she alone remains unchanged: not a hair on her body changes. This fixity reminds the Sufis of the Prophet’s heavenly ascent, or mi (rāj, where “His gaze did not turn aside nor did it overreach / He had seen the signs of his lord, great signs.” (Sūrat al-Najm 53:17–18). Another form of inscription partakes of the marvelous. The story of the second mendicant (dervish), the son of a king whose father has lost the throne, finds himself in a subterranean passage leading to a place where a young lady is held captive by a demon. The young bride in the tale of the second mendicant tells him that the demon has kidnapped her on her wedding night, and warns him, “I have only to touch the two lines engraved on the doorstep, and he will be with me before I lift my fingers.” 14 Inscription as such is empowered with a supernatural potency that surpasses and exceeds any possible human action, including human narrative. The demon can be there any moment, faster than any human action, “before I lift my fingers.” We should remember that in the Qur)ānic story of the prophet Solomon, one of his agents assures him he can fetch the queen’s throne in the blink of an eye. These inscribed terms of warning, anticipation, or recall build on some understanding of human expectancy and curiosity, and they also alert newcomers to a number of issues: First, in the example of the bride in the second mendicant’s tale, there is a good possibility of mirth and joy that can, nevertheless, be destroyed by human curiosity. The admonition against this is abundant in religious treatises, but it is even more so in Sufi literature. To prove this point, we need something more powerful than human agency: a means that exceeds human capacity, for example, the mysterious inscription. Each letter in this inscription assumes a power of its own. It is a communication system that recalls its initiator faster than any other method of communication. Second, there is the human inscription, such as the one on the inside of the ladies’ door in the story of the porter and the ladies of Baghdad. Its limits are obvious. It does not work by itself, for the human needs another human agency to perpetuate action. The ladies clap their hands to call on the slaves who are waiting for orders. The tale plays on both the urban need for service and protection and the intervention of the supernatural to rescue the faithful, as the tale of the eldest sister suggests. Third, there are other human means of communication, such as testimonies, messages, and their like. They operate as continuations of narra-

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tive, since, for example, a letter can solve a mystery, undo action, or resolve a situation. This inscription does not operate in a manner similar to sealed scrolls, which have the single purpose of uncovering mystery, but they may nevertheless solve a thorny issue, like the one in the story of the two viziers, Nūr al-Dīn (Alī al-Miùrī and Badr al-Dīn masan al-Baùrī (nights 72–101). While the two viziers bridge the domains of the Muslim lands between Basrah and Cairo, the letter transcends space and obliterates distance.15 Yet there must be human motion too, for distance remains a fact of life and human agency can do little about this fact. Travel as narrative, comprising time and space, should take its due course, and thus its narrative has a relatively slow pace in comparison with the story of the bride and the demon in the second mendicant’s tale. Badr al-Dīn masan will understand his true history and his lineage because of the letter left with him by his grandfather Shams al-Dīn, for instance.16 In terms of Islamic history, the use of correspondence on a large scale began with the Umayyads.17 There is a strong religious sanction for wills and testimonies, however, as being more reliable than witnesses. Yet letters as a communication system provide us with more information about a character, and they accelerate tension too, as in the story of Princess Dunyā of the Camphor Islands and Tāj al-Mulūk. The old woman, the princess’s nurse, is bent on bringing the two together, but she knows also that the princess will not bear the sight or speech of men. When the old woman gives her Tāj al-Mulūk’s letter, the princess “took the letter and read it; and when she understood it, she exclaimed, ‘Whence cometh and whither goeth this merchant man that he durst address such a letter to me?’ ” She is so enraged as to threaten to slay him.18 Then she adds a second time, “If I order him to be put to death, it were unjust; and if I leave him alive his boldness will increase.” The old woman suggests another letter. “Come write him a letter; it may be he will desist in dread.” 19 Letters as such function also as residues that add to our understanding of the characters as much as they add to the characters’ understanding of one another. They also exhaust the ordinary means toward union or rapprochement. More problematic is the blank page. In “The Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban,” (nights 11–17), the king breaks his pledge to reward the physician for his great service. Instead, and because of the sinister insinuations of his grand vizier, he determines to kill him. Apart from the implica­ tions of revoking a vow or a pledge (as moral and religious means of law and order), a human transgression occurs, one that cannot be met or set right without a more formidable agency. On the other hand, there is the Islamic emphasis on knowledge and learning, not only as concomitant with the

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Prophet’s sayings but also in relation to the Qur)ānic precepts. As narrative works within human action as the proper material for narrative, there should be a counteruse of human reason against cunning and treachery. The sage Duban warns King Yunan a number of times not to kill him: “For God’s sake, spare me, and God will spare you; destroy me, and God will destroy you.” This passionate invocation of the divine is concomitant with the Qur)ānic precept: “Call on me and I respond to your plea.” The king insists, and thus the sage must pursue his counterdesign, to avenge himself on the unjust and perfidious king. The sage gives a book to the king, and suggests he peruse it while listening to what the sage’s severed head will say. The king is now even more curious to get the sage killed so that he can listen to his severed head. Finding the pages of the book the sage has given him, The Secret of Secrets, stuck, the king is alarmed, but the head tells him to persevere. “So, he put his finger in his mouth, wetted it with his saliva, and opened the first page, and he kept opening the pages with difficulty until he turned seven leaves.” 20 As the book’s pages are blank, the king impatiently asks the severed head for an explanation. The head tells the king to continue leafing through the book. The king, of course, does not realize that the pages are poisoned, and each time he moistens his fingers to turn the pages, he is ingesting more poison. Science and knowledge are obviously posited against misuse of authority or power. Like Scheherazade or the fisherman, the sage has to rely on his knowledge to teach the treacherous king a lesson in the meaning of life and death. Power cannot always enforce its rules in this domain, and people may well rely on their knowledge and cunning to beat its schemes. More importantly, the tale sets the tone early in the book for the terms of life and survival. Without narrative, spoken or written, there is no life, and the blank pages provide a foretaste of death. As he denies reciprocity, the king betrays the transactional norm for this exchange, and the nonverbal icon, the book of blank pages—or the book of silence—can be safe only when not in use. Its usage entails the courting of death, which signals in narrative the end of the story.21 The blank page has other implications. Incited by suspicion and materialistic concerns to decipher the veiled or the covert, the king betrays ignorance and thus his inability to rule. On another level, the blank page is akin to first thoughts, fresh, spontaneous, and undefiled by use. Its status as it stands is an invitation to write down the ongoing thoughts that may change into something else upon writing. “Whenever anyone tries to entrust it [intimacy with the divine] to words or to the written page its essence is distorted and it slips into that other, purely theoretical branch of discourse,” argues ibn §ufayl (d. 1185 c.e.).22 He adds: “For, clothed in

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letters and sounds and brought into the perceptible world, it cannot remain, in any way, what it was.” 23 In Kashf al-manjūb, al-Hujwīri (d. 464?/1071?) argues: “Expression only produces an unreal notion and leads the student mortally astray by causing him to imagine that the expression is the real meaning.” 24 The challenge of the blank page to the onlooker could also be as powerful and volatile as is the challenge of the red door to the second mendicant: the invitation of the veiled, the hidden, or the closed is a test of curiosity. On the postmodernist level so dear to John Barth, the virginity of the page is like the virginity of the new story. This is equivalent to the virginity of the body that allures and entices the empowered male. Avenging his sense of betrayal on virgins, the practice of rape or summary marriage becomes the king’s metaphorical inscription through which he hopes to reverse a historical record of familial failure.25

Iconic Inscription or Calligraphy In the second mendicant’s tale (nights 40–52), calligraphy expands the functional properties of iconography, not only because the king must search for a skilled calligrapher and scribe to take over his late vizier’s responsibilities, but also because it functions as the reason behind the intervention of the fantastic. Calligraphy as an art and profession assumes great significance with the increasing role of the chancery and the growth of a large class of professionals, scribes, and copyists, starting in the Umay­ yad period. The tale obviously makes use of this prerequisite for chancery and royal learning.26 Turned into an ape, the mendicant surprises the king’s messenger and the merchants on the ship by his skill as a callig­ rapher and a learned scribe. The ape produces a number of texts and poems, awing the king. Only the king’s daughter, who is adept in magic, knows he is a human. His skill is the skill of a king’s son, well educated and trained in the arts. To return him to his human form, she must revoke the contract with the demonic world, an action that involves a battle and much cunning and speed. The whole fight takes place between the demon and the king’s daughter in various transformed forms: animals, pomegranate seeds, fish, and other manifestations. It is a battle among images, icons, and other representations. In the battle between the two, every form they take has the power to defeat or escape the attention of the other. The outcome of each encounter depends on how alert each one is to the design of the other, and ultimately, success depends on the capacity to outwit the other. Finally, both the demon and the princess turn into ashes, and the

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ape reverts to his human form, at the expense of the host and his daughter. The ashes become another emblem of waste and destruction in a world that harbors conflicting desires and impulses and whose safety depends on the sincere and pious observance of Islamic rituals and obligations. Supernatural agents are part of this swarming universe, and their interference in its affairs summons similar rewards and retributions. The daughter is not supposed to participate in unlawful magic, thus her unfortunate death. There are in the tales other agents, such as the ifrit in the second mendicant’s tale, whose ultimate fate we do not learn, but this is because the tales are too busy with the human world to trace the lives and careers of other entities.

Talismans, Magical Practices, and Amulets Although Todorov speaks eloquently of the fantastic, with specific reference to the uncanny, the marvelous, and the wonderful,27 these are not studied in relation to their nonverbal properties. The demon in the second mendicant’s tale takes “a little dust, mumbled some incantation and sprinkled me with the dust, saying ‘leave your present form and take the form of an ape.’ ” 28 Speech, incantation, and dust work together as a blend of the verbal and the nonverbal to transcend and transgress the real. Obviously, without the dust, words and incantations are as ineffective as ordinary speech in trying circumstances. Dust assumes a potency of its own in proportion to the power with which it is endowed by the incantations. Just as nothing is the same by itself, so is the blend of the verbal and the nonverbal. Like them are the many lamps, rings, and horses that transform action and push the seemingly stable situation into turmoil. While these assume such a power within a narrative structure of belief in the supernatural, they also rely on an Islamic subtext. To Solomon alone, says the Qur)ān, there “were some [jinn] who dived for him, and did other work besides that, and it was We Who guarded them” (21:83). This is not the general pattern in the tales, however. At times, words have the magical power that can open doors, most famously the “Open Sesame” in the tale of (Alī Bābā and in the “Tale of the Enchanted King.” In the latter, the young king speaks of his treacherous wife, who is also adept in magic. Whenever she plans to visit her lover, she perfumes herself, takes his sword, and girds herself with it. Once, he “followed her, as she left the palace and traversed my city until she stood at the city gate. There she uttered words I could not understand, and the locks fell off and the gate opened by itself.” 29 Words assume this power for a reason that has

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something to do with the training of the human agent. The person as such is no longer an ordinary human being, and acts and speech are bound to cause a different sequence of action that cannot be explained in a logical human pattern. That the king “could not understand” her words tells us as readers that there is no shared code between the king and his wife. On the other hand, the “uttered words” operate only through a specific context, that is, skill and expertise in the magical and the diabolic. Another pattern is no less involved in both the verbal and the iconic gesture. The shopper in the story of “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” for example, refers the caliph to “a tuft of hair” to recall the demon serpent.30 Without the tuft of hair, narrative will not flow and faces an impasse that even the caliph’s authority, his role as a providential agent on earth, cannot transcend. Thus he must make recourse to the supernatural, to make use of its means to settle things and put an end to disequilibrium, which means the end of narrative as an enterprise that thrives on instability. The caliph burns the “entire tuft,” and the serpent appears in compliance with his wishes. The spirit gets a bowl of water and, “muttering a spell over it in words no one could understand, sprinkled the two sisters with the water and turned them back into their original form.” 31 Again the blend of water, words, and the act of sprinkling water on somebody or something work together to bridge the gap between the fantastic and the real, rationalize the sequence of events and occurrences, and endow the whole narrative with common sense, requiring on the readers’ part simply some suspension of disbelief. Although the same practice occurs in almost every tale with a metamorphosis, it may restrict itself to speech. In the story of the king of the Black Islands, or the ensorcelled king, his angry wife “stood up, uttered words I could not understand, and cried, ‘With my magic and cunning, be half man, half stone.’ ” 32 The king cannot undo this magic until a visiting king comes up with a plan. The visiting king’s arrival is prompted by a fisherman’s account of a colored fish and its fantastic associations. We are told that the visiting king kills the queen’s lover, sleeps in his bed, feigns he is her lover, and mutters words to undo the enchantment. Certainly, the human role is highlighted here, as in the story of the fisherman and the genie. He must make the utmost use of reason and restraint to defeat the enormous power of the queen. In general, however, the marvelous works within space and assumes its power through a mastery of space and time. In the tale of the fisherman, the colored fish he brings to the king’s kitchen resists being eaten.33 In one of the most complicated scenes exemplifying the category of Todorov’s

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“marvelous,” we are told that the cook is preparing the fish in a frying pan. When turning them over, “the kitchen wall split open and there emerged a maiden with a beautiful figure, smooth cheeks, perfect features, and dark eyes.” 34 Then, she “thrust the [bamboo] wand into the frying pan and said in clear Arabic, ‘O fish, O fish, have you kept the pledge?’ ” Then the answer comes, also in clear Arabic: “Yes, yes. If you return, we shall return; if you keep your vow, we shall keep ours; and if you forsake us, we shall be even.” 35 This apparently is the unsatisfying end of the story: the maiden overturns the pan and departs in the same manner. As there is no immediate explanation, the reader is left in the dark until the ensorcelled king explains that his wife has turned the inhabitants of the city into fish and the four islands of his kingdom into four hills.36 Although the implications involved in the fish’s reply to the maiden prove quite confusing, one may accept Muhsin Mahdi’s interpretation that the fish represents “the four religious communities whose representatives remain faithful to their covenants even when they are in the frying pan and the new anti-social and anti-political religion whose priestess is the magician-queen.” 37 But what if the maiden is actually the queen herself, who is ensuring the subordination of the communities to her magical power? Even the fisherman’s genie would not be able to undo that spell. Only the visiting king can defeat the magicianqueen, by use of reason, tact, and cunning. When the kingdom is released from the spell, the islands and the community return to their previous life and status as Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Magians.38 In these tales, the concept of images and icons is problematized. In the words of W. J. T. Mitchell, “images are not just a particular kind of sign, but something like an actor on the historical stage, a presence or character endowed with legendary status.” 39 The combined presence of the verbal and the iconic gesture or practice brings narrative closer to a cinematic technique, and it also returns the marvelous element to the real through a human agency. This human agency is usually empowered enough to normalize the situation and effect some transposition of elements and functions, which bring tales to an end or to a closure, similar to the endings we encounter in nineteenth-century European fiction. In most of these tales, arranged marriages bring order to disorder and equilibrium to the narrative. The presence of authority signals the demise of disequilibrium, and thus of narrative, whereas the presence of professionals, artisans, and barbers endow it with life. The caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd brings all together, sets things right, and arranges good marriages that make the bride and groom happy ever after. At times, the storyteller rapturously endows narrative with wishful thinking: the king in the story of the fisher-

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man and the genie is so happy with how the series of marvelous events triggered by the fisherman’s colored fish turns out that he marries “one of the [fisherman’s] girls, while he married the other to the enchanted young man. Moreover, the king took the fisherman’s son into his service and made him one of his attendants.”40 Such is the desire of storytellers and redactors to promote their art. A marvelous story can also work marvels; it can change people, habits, and attitudes. Even when the king of China is annoyed at what he deems bad stories, he is ready to listen to the tailor, hoping there will be a “more wonderful, more amazing, more diverting, and more entertaining” tale than the one preceding it.41 In the “Tailor’s Tale,” we also come across people so disenchanted with the loquacity of barbers that they are willing to pay them and leave unshaved.42 Islam supports this dislike for loquacity, which can incite trouble and cause discomfort. Nevertheless, barbers think of their role and function as purely Islamic, especially in an age that was appreciative of learning and sociability. The barber as a specific person may turn into an icon himself, a symbol of misfortune to another specific person, as in the story of the young man from Baghdad and his surprising refusal to participate in a gathering and feast where the barber is among the company. The people there express surprise, as his behavior goes against accepted tenets of hospitability. Only his tale can explain and decode his behavior.

The Nonverbal in Human Action Nonverbal narrative derives its power from codes that are not accessible to the actors and readers. While we grant that the “medium of a given code is normally a mosaic of shapes, relative sizes, colors, textures, and materials,” as Wendy Steiner argues,43 this medium is not necessarily accessible to more than two, the encoder and the decoder. Especially in the tale of (Azīz and (Azīzah, in E. W. Lane’s translation and in the Būlāq edition, encoding could be very dangerous to the inexperienced and the untutored, such as (Azīz. The tale can be seen as an ordinary story of love: there is the family-arranged marriage between the simpleton (Azīz and his cousin, the intelligent and good (Azīzah, and the appearance of a new female who distracts (Azīz at a crucial moment—one that should lead to the consummation of his wedding festivities. Everything boded well with Arab-Islamic traditional marriage arrangements until the new intruder unsettled these arrangements. The intruding female proves to be very shrewd both in securing his love and in ensnaring him through a system of signs that

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prolongs the relationship. This system poses a series of challenges and trials to the inexperienced lad and keeps him waiting for more signs that he cannot decipher on his own. At the first stage, the encoding process replaces speech with gestures, during the encounter between the palace girl and (Azīz; later, there is another level of encoding based on material signs.44 The youth who is to be married to his cousin that evening leaves the public bath and rests on a bench in a side street, when a very charming girl throws him a handkerchief as she looks out from a wicket in a lattice of brass. He says: “When she caught sight of me looking at her, she put her forefinger into her mouth, then joined her middle finger and her witnessfinger and had them on her bosom, between her breasts; after which she drew in her head and closed the wicket-shutter and went her ways.”45 He tells us that he is more in love because “I heard no word by her spoken, nor understood the meaning of her token.”46 Although he waits until sunset, there is no sign of her again, but he finds folded in the perfumed handkerchief a “delicate little scroll” expressing in poetry passion and love. The scene between the wicket in the lattice of brass and the street bench has a number of nonverbal icons and codes: there is no speech, but there are physical gestures, a kerchief, and a scroll containing love poetry. On the borders of the kerchief are embroidered lines of poetry that express longing. Speaking of himself, he confesses, “I was incapable of conducting love affairs and inexperienced in interpreting hints and tokens.”47 Thus he needs a decoder. Let us listen to his cousin’s decoding of “What said she, and what signs made she to thee?”48 Although in love with him herself, his cousin is ready to sacrifice her love for his sake, or, as she puts it, she is ready to tear her eye “from its eyelids” to give to him. She interprets the mysterious woman signs for (Azīz: “As for the putting of her finger in her mouth, it showed that thou art to her as her soul to her body and that she would bite into union with thee with her wisdom teeth. As for the kerchief, it betokeneth that her breath of life is bound up in thee. As for the placing her two fingers on her bosom between her breasts, its explanation is that she saith: ‘the sight of thee may dispel my grief.’ ”49 The encoded gestures cannot stop, both because they operate as a sequential narrative and because they imply trial and testing before the commencement of union. The spatial positionality of the young woman should alert us to social issues, for the woman is empowered not only as a voyeur but also as one qualified to send encoded messages to the untutored man. A son of a merchant may have good social connections but not enough training or education to decode messages and to deal with such situations. Following the first sequence of signs, there is another, for the

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young man’s motivation undergoes further acceleration due to the absence of language, as verbal communication leads to consummation sooner than other mediums. The young woman will make further advances before resorting to testing and trial. He narrates: Now when she caught my glance, she bared her forearms and opened her five fingers and smote her breast with palm and digits; and after this she raised her hand and, holding the mirror outside the wicket, she took the red kerchief and retired into the room with it, but presently returned and putting out her hand with the kerchief, let it down towards the lane three times, dipping it and raising it as often. Then she wrung it out and folded it in her hands, bending down her head the while; after which she drew it in from the lattice and, shutting the wicket-shutter, went away without a single word; nay, she left me confounded and knowing not what signified her signs.50

The language of signs, as Richard Burton argues, is open only to sharp wits.51 The young man is not one of them, unlike his cousin who easily deciphers the message and decodes its signs: “O my cousin, as for her sign to thee with her palm and five fingers its interpretation is, return after five days; and the putting forth of her head out of the window, and her gestures with the mirror and the letting down and raising up and wringing out of the red kerchief, signify, sit in the dyer’s shop till my messenger come to thee.”52 Although angered by his interminable waiting at the dyer’s shop until late at night, with no message from the young woman, his cousin tells him that delay is a good sign, for it indicates acceptance rather than rejection: “she wisheth to try thee and know if thou be patient or not, sincere in thy love for her or otherwise.”53 She advises her infatuated cousin to repair to her at the old place and wait for her new signs. While verbal communication can compress narrative, the language of signs extends it. It also increases the pace of expectation. On the other hand, space rather than time operates as a context for the encoding process, since to return to the old place becomes another sign of love for the abode and its traditional connotations of love and desire. The dyer’s shop signifies an urban center, too, with craftsmen in busy streets. The street and the two-story house is a site for a system of signs that is as complicated as the city itself. One may ask how Islam as religion fares in this context. The significant aspect of these sites is their urbanity. The whole affair is confined so far to signs that no religious authority can condemn. These signs may be interpreted as seductive by some hard-liners, but to others they are playful. As the focus for this encounter, desire or love should prove its sincerity, which even the untutored (Azīz

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understands. Thus, he says: “Every lover is a madman; he inclineth not to food neither enjoyeth his sleep.”54 By the same token, we expect the young woman to act maddeningly with respect to the same issue of love and sincerity. On the other hand, this return to the old abode should be the last act in the first stage of the initiating process. He narrates: I went out to seek her and hastening to her by-street sat down on that bench, when lo! The wicket opened and she put out her head laughing. Then she disappeared within and returned with a mirror, a bag, and a pot full of green plants and she held in hand a lamp. The first thing she did was to take the mirror and, putting it into the bag, tie it and throw it back into the room; then she let down her hair over her face and set the lamp on the pot of flowers during the twinkling of an eye; then she took up all the things and went away shutting the window without a word. My heart was riven by this state of the case, and by her secret signals, her mysterious secrets and her utter silence; and thereby my longing waxed more violent and my passion and distraction redoubled on me.55

While some of the signs can be easily traced in view of earlier signals, the inexperienced lover is unable to decode them on his own. We should remember, however, that he is the narrator of this story, and as such narrative in its verbal properties can make sense of the previous scene only after being decoded. The decoder’s role is more significant for the narrative than the narrator’s role. Without the decoder, there is no perpetuated love, and thus no story. Says the decoder: As for her signal to thee with the mirror which she put in the bag, it said to thee, When the sun is set; and the letting down of her hair over her face signified, When night is near and letteth fall the blackness of the dark and hath starkened the daylight, come hither. As for her gesture with the pot of green plants it meant, When thou comest, enter the flower-garden which is behind the street; and as for her sign with the lamp it denoted, When thou enterest the flower-garden walk down it and make for the place where thou seest the lamp shining; and seat thyself beneath it and await me; for the love of thee is killing me.56

This kind of decoding sets the narrative stage for further development in the nature of signals, for the youth is now inside, not outside, the abode of desire. The flower garden and its pavilion are the setting for an idyllic love scene, but they will also challenge the inexperienced novice. On the other

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hand, the encoder knows so much that she will probably outwit the narrator. His cousin can offer some support, to be sure, despite her love and possible jealousy. She puts a “crumb of pure musk” in his mouth, both to sweeten his breath and to forestall the bitterness concomitant with failure. She also tells him to recite a couplet when he is about to leave the palace girl. The couplet obliquely requests that tenderness be shown to such an inexperienced youth as he. The trial and the test take place in a situation where desire is at its utmost and where love competes strongly with other appetites. Sufi discourse shuns such appetites as the reason behind human misery, bigotry, selfishness, and loss. The setting is no more than a fake paradise.57 Food, drink, and other preparations are there on purpose, for one needs a paradisiacal place to test human limits. A Sufi saying goes as follows: “When God Most High created the world, He placed sin and ignorance within satisfaction of the appetite and knowledge and wisdom within hunger.”58 The desirable location has all the properties of seduction, as the narrator says: The floor was spread with silken carpets embroidered in gold and silver, and under the lamp stood a great candle, burning in candelabrum of gold. In mid-pavilion was a fountain adorned with all manners of figures; and by its side stood a table covered with a silken napkin, and on its edge a great porcelain bottle full of wine, with a cup of crystal inlaid with gold. Near all these was a large tray of silver covered over, and when I uncovered it I found therein fruits of every kind, figs and pomegranates, grapes and oranges, citrons and shaddocks disposed amongst an infinite variety of sweet-scented flowers, such as rose, jasmine, myrtle, eglantine, narcissus and all sorts of sweet-smelling herbs.59

The enumeration of flowers and fruits along with the place itself has a deliberate paradise-like temptation, but it also has a pictorial and graphic quality, for its purpose is to elevate the narrative to the density of the code and its ramifications in the tale. While the first encoding stage leans more on gestures, this second stage relies on concrete detail, albeit with greater appeal to appetite. The heightening of desire takes place in a situation of challenge and response, for food and drink are available in tantalizing abundance. The narrator justifies his uncontrollable appetite for food by referring to his present hunger after a loss of appetite in the last weeks due to his overwhelming love and by the “odor of viands on the table.”60 In his relaxed mood he is so receptive to food and drink that he “waxed too drowsy to keep awake.”61 This is the first failure in the prolonged test.

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The protagonist is not alien to a tradition that celebrates banquets and food festivities. Munammad b. al-masan b. Munammad b. al-Karīm, the scribe of Baghdad (d. 637/1239), says as follows in Kitāb al-Tabīkh (A Baghdad Cookery Book): “the pleasures of this world are divided into six classes. They are food, drink, clothing, sex, scent and sound. The most eminent and perfect of these is food; for food is the foundation of the body and the material of life.” The situation (Azīz finds himself in invites comparison with other sayings on the issue and matter of food.62 To read this hunger in Sufi terms, for example, the protagonist is a renouncer: “Hunger is an ascetic exercise for the murīds, a trial for the repentant, an ordeal for the renouncer, and a sign of nobility for the gnostics.”63 As the tempting banquet will be central to the test throughout this second stage, it is worth examining as a narrative component of great potential in nonverbal narrative. Food operates on a number of narrative levels, but at this stage it is a temptation meant to trap the inexperienced. In Arabic love lore, to satiate physical needs means a lack of love, for the more the body is full, the less it is receptive to love. Indeed, leanness indicates consuming love and passion. In (Azīz’s case, his senses are overcome by temptation: So making sure of attaining my desire, and being famished for food I went up to the table and raised the cover and found in the middle a china dish containing four chickens reddened with roasting and seasoned with spices, round the which were four saucers, one containing sweetmeats, another conserve of pomegranate-seeds, a third almond-pastry, and a fourth honey fritters; and the contents of the saucers were part sweet and part sour. So I ate of the fritters and a piece of meat, then went on to the almond cakes and ate what I could; after which I fell upon the sweetmeats, whereof I swallowed a spoonful or two or three or four, ending with part of a chicken and a mouthful of something beside. Upon this my stomach became full and my joints loose . . . so I laid my head on a cushion, after having washed my hands, and sleep overcame me.64

Food operates on the level of corporeal need only when the individual is free from other preoccupations and inhibitions. In the narrator’s case, he is sure “of attaining . . . desire,” unaware of the challenge and the deliberate absence of the hostess. As a trap, food draws his appetite, and it also transposes his love for the young woman to the food. This transposition is manifested in his attention to food, lust for eating and drinking, and impatience. No wonder he needs a better sign system to awaken his soul and alert him to the demands of love: “I awoke not till the sun’s heat

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scorched me, for that I had never once tasted sleep for days past. When I awoke I found on my stomach a piece of salt and a bit of charcoal; so I stood up and shook my clothes and turned to look right and left, but could see no one; and discovered that I had been sleeping on the marble pavement without bedding beneath me.”65 The decoder tells him that the salt compares him to insipid food rejected by the stomach. As for the charcoal, it means that may God blacken his face, as he is not a lover but a simpleton, with no object in life other than drinking, eating, and sleeping. Again his cousin tells him to wait in the same place, not to eat, and to repeat the couplet that so far he has had no opportunity to recite. Nevertheless, his “spirit lusted for food,”66 and he sleeps again, finding on his stomach “a cube of bone, a single tip-cat stick, the stone of green date and a carob pod.”67

Women’s Counterhegemonic Discourse Signs now take the form of emblematic items in such a way as to demonstrate an imagistic system, which is women’s property. These emblematic items operate as codes and symbols that gradually connote a forthcoming action on the young woman’s part. As nonverbal narratives, they are loaded with meaning and warning. They also broaden narrative beyond the procedural norms of action, which we usually associate with narrative functions. The nonverbal or emblematic operation has a contextual meaning closely related to traditional premises of love. In the Arab love tradition, the violation of the codes of love is serious enough to warrant separation or punishment. Thus the decoder explains: By the single tip-cat stick and the cube of bone which she placed upon thy stomach she saith to thee, “Thy body is present but thy heart is absent”; and she meaneth “Love is not thus: so do not reckon thyself among lovers.” As for the date-stone, it is as if she said to thee, “And thou wert in love thy heart would be burning with passion and thou wouldst not taste the delight of sleep; for the sweet of love is like a green date which kindleth a coal of fire in the vitals.” As for the carob-pod it signifieth to thee, “The lover’s heart is wearied”; and thereby she saith, “Be patient under our separation with the patience of Job.”68

With this message the nonverbal reaches a climax, for the next sign after the warning entails a threat of death as punishment. This stage in nonverbal communication advises separation, but if the male lover accepts the

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challenge and persists, the signs will take another more dramatic and non­ communicative direction. Thus upon repairing to the garden for the third time, (Azīz again falls asleep and finds himself outside the garden with a butcher’s knife and a dram-weight of iron on his stomach. The decoder tells him that the young woman swears by her right eye that if he ever shows up again, she will cut his throat with this knife. The decoder trains him and feeds him, then sends him back to the same place, where this time he succeeds. However, the woman understands that there is a decoder and that the decoder is both in love with the narrator and is dying. She warns him not to mix with women as he is too naїve to understand their ways. In her words, he is “young in life and a raw laddie” with a heart “devoid of guile.” 69 Thus she says, “And now I charge thee speak not with any woman, neither accost one of our sex, be she young or be she old; and again I say Beware! For thou art simple and raw and knowest not the wiles of women and their malice, and she who interpreted the signs to thee is dead.” 70 Although the storytelling relies on commonplace rhetoric with respect to women, we should not bypass the strong feminist drive in this warning. The narrator accepts the verdict that he is naїve and raw, and the mere internalization of the warning and the speech and its repetition sets him apart from the male hegemonic discourse against which women create their own sign system or specific codes and mental images. As “she who interpreted the signs to thee is dead,” the simpleton is unprotected, but not so the male society against whom women have their countermechanism. This specific sign system, shared by his cousin (Azīzah and the young woman, is not foreign to another young woman, who abducts him from the street and keeps him for days to satisfy her sexual desires,71 giving him in the end the same advice. The same sign system, but with other nonverbal directions, is the monopoly of women in two more stories.

Mental Images and Pictorial Resolutions Although sign systems have a perennial function before any verbal communication, it is worth noting that in an Islamic context grand and ordinary signs, miracles or tokens and wonders, āyāt, are repeatedly associated with the manifestations of the divine. Every sign has its significance and role, and the protagonist of the previous tale must understand signs in context, too. Their immediate referentiality is the Arab love tradition. Verbal and nonverbal narratives reflect on each other in these stories, and each gains more power in association with the other. In J. Lotman’s words,

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“The verbal arts strive for freedom from the verbal principle of narration, and the iconic arts strive against automatically taking the type of narration dictated by the qualities of their material. As a consequence, verbal narrative is a revolutionizing element in immanently iconic narration, and vice versa.” 72 The same is the case when the iconic text becomes the monopoly of women, not only because of traditional associations between women and specific crafts such as embroidery but also because women’s iconic texts work as a liberating force against a patriarchal symbol system. For feminists, language systems are suspect because of their long history of association with a hegemonic discourse laden with symbols and prototypes.73 In the Thousand and One Nights, women’s texts especially possess this joint narrativity of the verbal and the nonverbal. They have also the tendency to work out their ways through analogy or dialectics. Both methods are important narrative means to debunk established conceptualizations and encourage further understanding. Thus, the embroidered linen or cloth given by the palace girl to the narrator (Azīz, for example, operates as a catalyst and motivational force in a number of tales, and its embroidered gazelles become symbolic of charming women in search of release. Embroidered and transfigured, the gazelles recall traditional love lore and draw associations of love and poetry. The rich symbolic content of “this piece of linen, with the figures of gazelles worked thereon,” 74 which (Azīz receives from the palace girl, is left with his cousin, who upon her death returns it to him with some verses of love and a scroll that says: Know, O son of my uncle, that I acquit you of my blood and I beseech Allah to make accord between thee and her whom thou lovest; but if aught befall thee through the daughter of Dalilah the Wily, return thou not to her neither resort to any other woman and patiently bear thine affliction, for were not thy fated life-tide a long life, thou hadst perished long ago, but praised be Allah who hath appointed my death-day before thine! My peace be upon thee; preserve this cloth with the gazelles herein figured and let it not leave thee, for it was my companion when thou was absent from me.75

The significance of this piece of embroidery is not limited to its worth as a reminder of his cousin, her sacrifice and role in saving his life and enabling him to continue an affair with the palace girl. It also offers the last decoded message, for this embroidery is used by the so-called daughter of Dalīlah the Wily to ensnare men, though in truth it was embroidered by Princess Dunyā, who “worketh every year a gazelle-cloth and dispatcheth it to far countries, that her report and the beauty of her broidery, which

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none in the world can match, may be bruited abroad.” 76 This embroidery then becomes a deliberate work of art designed not only to defy competitors but also to establish a woman’s supremacy and control against other means of communication and discourse. Embroidered gazelles parody a hegemonic tradition, but their appearance in a distinguishable woman’s art resurrects them from a symbolic system of prototypes. The art as such is retained as female property and not as a male monopoly sustained and promoted through male stock images in poetry. In the same message, the cousin tells the narrator: “Preserve this cloth with the gazelles and let it not leave thee, for it was my companion when thou wast absent from me and, Allah upon thee! If thou chance to fall in with her who worked these gazelles, hold aloof from her and do not let her approach thee nor marry her; and if thou happen not on her and find no way to her, look thou consort not with any of her sex.” 77 The name of the artist is Dunyā, and she is the daughter of the king of the Camphor Islands. The warnings have a double meaning, for they apply to the naїve addressee and to Dunyā. Obviously, her story is known worldwide: she dislikes men and never thinks of marriage.78 Even when another king’s son asks for her hand, it is futile, as she has already made up her mind not to be involved with men. Regardless of the reasons behind this decision, the attitude works as a neutralizing narrative strategy, as it decenters dichotomies and binary thought and sets the stage for further negotiation regarding sex and gender. On the other hand, her art and reluctance to marry arouse curiosity and invoke interest. The reason behind her attitude unfolds as a mental image, for according to W. J. T. Mitchell’s classification of verbal and nonverbal languages, images are graphic, optical, perceptual, and mental, like dreams, memories, ideas, and fantasmata.79 The old woman, Dunyā’s nurse, explains to Tāj al-Mulūk, disguised now as a merchant, that there is a dream behind Dunyā’s rejection of men. In C. G. Jung’s psychology, dreams are imagistic representations with modes of apprehension that culminate in some ordering principles to cope with a dreamer’s feeling of fear or meaninglessness.80 The dream runs as follows:81 One night, as she lay asleep, she saw a fowler spread his net upon the ground and scatter wheat-grain round it. Then he sat down hard by and not a bird in the neighborhood but flocked to his toils. Amongst the rest she beheld a pair of pigeons, male and female; and whilst she was watching the net, beheld the male bird’s foot caught in the meshes and he began to struggle; whereupon all the other birds took fright and flew away. But, presently his

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mate came back and hovered over him, then alighted on the toils unobserved by the fowler, and fell to pecking with her beak and pulling at the mesh in which the male bird’s foot was tangled, till she released the toes and they flew away together. Then the fowler came up, mended his net and seated himself afar off. After an hour or so the birds flew back and the female pigeon was caught in the net; whereupon all the other birds took fright and scurried away; and the male pigeon flew with the rest and did not return to his mate, but the fowler came up and took the female pigeon and cut her throat.82

While the dream internalizes Dunyā’s fears and anxieties regarding marriage, it does so in relation to patriarchal structures that work against her desire to assume a larger role in politics and society. The dream contradicts Shahrayar’s premise that women are adulterous. It produces a counternotion as rigid and absolute as his assumption. As an artist, we assume that she is unhappy with patriarchal structures despite her status as a princess. The dream therefore operates on her inhibitions and discontents. “The Princess awoke, troubled by her dream, and said, ‘All males are like this pigeon, worthless creatures: and men in general lack grace and goodness to women.’   ”83 The premise is as presumptuous as Shahra­ yar’s distrust of the female sex. The old woman cannot obviate this interpretation of the dream, nor can she offer another interpretation like the divinely guided humans in the Qur)ān. The scene becomes symptomatic of some universal truths. She applies her dream to the male society as treacherous. Implanted as such, these suspicions cannot be easily dislodged, and verbal narrative, including letters, proves useless in processing rapprochement. Correspondence may increase understanding, but it is bound to fail in dislocating the dream and its connotations from Dunyā’s mind. The vizier suggests having Dunyā’s gardener place paintings in the tall, grand, but disused pavilion in the middle of the garden in order to defuse this dream. According to both Jerome Bruner and Susan Aylwin, visual imagery has the capacity to represent reality relationally, not differentially. Instead of working by opposition and differentiation, visual imagery “constructs possible worlds by embedding elements of an entity within an environment; it does not oppose them. ”84 Unlike verbal representations that “taxonomize on the basis of those differences and oppositions, ”85 the visual image resists essentialist and reductionist views of reality, for the visual image operates, in Aylwin’s words, as a “brace against reductionism, not an invitation to it. ”86 The vizier’s project to have paintings on the pavilion functions as an

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interpretation with similar tools and power. It is not meant to read her dream as a vision, like Joseph’s vision in the Qur)ān, for example. He sees her dream as a satanic interlude that can be skipped or opposed. His strategy is of great narrative significance, not only because of his role as a wise sage but also because he comes up with this scheme as the most viable in opposition to Tāj al-Mulūk’s father’s decision to invade Dunyā’s kingdom and take the princess by force. Narrative juxtaposition of the verbal threat and the vizier’s design problematizes the two ways of representation, for one leads to havoc and the loss of Dunyā’s love; the other offers alternative interpretations to her dream. One builds on binary solutions; another opens up other possibilities of communication. The vizier sends for a painter, a plasterer, and a goldsmith to execute the designs based on the dream. In other words, he has a pictorial design that will complete an unfinished dream or reinterpret its immediate representation. Now he instructs the painter as follows: “Figure me on the wall, at the upper end of this hall, a man-fowler with his nets spread and birds falling into them and a female pigeon entangled in the meshes by her bill. ”87 Then he asks for another painting: “Figure me on the other side a similar figure and represent the she-pigeon alone in the snare and the fowler seizing her and setting the knife to her neck; and draw on the third side-wall, a great raptor clutching the male pigeon, her mate, and digging talons into him. ”88 The three paintings offer narrative continuity and reinterpretation. The male is after all not as treacherous as Dunyā is led to believe. The paintings address her innate fears as they surface in the dreams and engage her most intimate apprehensions. Taken by Freud as closely operating on the id, these paintings should have a direct appeal to Dunyā, especially as she is unaware of the vizier’s design to dislodge her one-sided interpretation of the dream.89 While Tāj al-Mulūk watches from a hidden corner, the princess comes to the pavilion, whereupon she cries, “Exalted be Allah! This is the very counterfeit presentment of what I saw in my dream. . . . O my nurse, I have been wont to blame and hate men, but look now at the fowler how he hath slaughtered the she-bird who set free her mate; who was minded to return to her and aid her to escape when the bird of prey met him and tore him to pieces.”90 Apart from the arrangement to have Tāj al-Mulūk nearby to show himself and surprise the princess in this moment of bewilderment and remorse for mistakenly blaming men at large, the paintings are particularly appealing to the princess. This instance of anxiety and deep thought is the right one for establishing images. They relate directly to her dream and its innate modes of alienation and fear. While her dream envisions how things should turn out, the paintings show

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things as if they were so in life. Unmediated and in the midst of the garden, they give the impression of unadulterated reality. The garden may stand for undefiled nature after all. No wonder she accepts them as they are, endorsing their “hermeneutic composibility” or “the reliance on the human capacity to compose knowledge interpretively, not logically.”91 In the words of E. H. Gombrich, “We can read the image because we recognize it as an imitation of reality within the medium.”92 Furthermore, the woman actor objectifies her experience through experience and discovery, dream and reality, instead of succumbing to socially constructed reality as advanced in verbal communication. She is ready now to assess and judge individuals for their own merits. In a context of feminist identifications, she uses interpretation to gain knowledge regardless of binary structures and terms of opposition and difference. She retains her right, however, to choose her partner. Indeed, she is so self-assured and independent that she is ready to let herself be swept by love and passion and have Tāj alMulūk with her in “one bed and in mutual embrace,” as the report to her father the king says.93 The story ends with rapprochement and reconciliation despite the appearance of the same tidings and signs of confusion that we meet early on in the narrative. Banquets and wedding rituals bring verbal and nonverbal elements together. Everything ends well in an Islamic context that the thirteenth-century author of Kitāb al-§abīkh (A Baghdad Cookery Book) sums up in a saying of a “certain philosopher”: “Four comprise the best things and complete [God’s] grace: strong faith, blameless endeavor, wholesome food and salutary drink.” The wedding brings these together.94

Food Semiotics The role of food as a social entertainment also should be seen in the context of socialization as a strong narrative component. In night 176, for example, we are told that Shams al-Nahār tells the druggist ibn §āhir and (Alī ibn Bakkār: “Enjoy yourselves and forget trouble and pain, for the moments of love are furtive and short-lived.”95 Then she asks the maid to get them food and drink. She adds: “There is nothing more fitting after conversation and fun than enjoying a meal together.”96 The maid then brings three gold trays, “each bearing a different kind of wine in a flagon of cut crystal.”97 Accompanied with music and singing, the occasion changes into one for rapture, for the appearance of food and drink is the most dramatized sign of socialization that will lead to further complications and to further conflict. While a sign of joy and comfort, there is in food and drink

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the implication of an impeding or immanent menace. A girl, “flying like a bee and shaking like a palm tree,” arrives saying that the eunuchs of the Commander of the Faithful are at the door.98 Ironically, their appearance heralds no danger. They inform her of the caliph’s wish to listen to her singing. Apart from its significance for idyllic life, festivity, and social activity, food functions as a power that perpetuates narrative and decides the turn of events. Its nonverbal potential resides in this domain. As Jonathan Culler argues: “The fact that a particular food means something to me or has special associations would not generally be thought to bring food within the scope of semiotics, but if we can argue that different dishes communicate something to members of a culture, then we have made a better case.”99 The case is even better made in the Thousand and One Nights, for there are a number of stories with named dishes that operate on characters and the sequence of events, such as the ragout with cumin in “The Steward’s Tale.” 100 Usually such tales end with a pledge not to eat this particular food again. The enormous and cruel punishment attending eating this particular food without enough washing should be studied in terms of social life in the (Abbāsid period, a point considered elsewhere.101 A mention should be made of (Abbāsid table manners, as they account for nonverbal narratives that otherwise might sound strange or whimsical. The literature on table manners abounds with examples in which caliphs and dignitaries get annoyed at the sight of one of the company touching his beard or face. Indeed, the (Abbāsid caliph al-Ma)mūn (813–833 c.e.) reportedly asked a guest to wash his hand three times after failing to observe table manners.102 The reprimand by the Baghdadi ladies to their visitors for their curiosity falls, for example, within a larger context of elegance and refinement, which was widely held as the epitome of good manners. This applies to social behavior at large, for within the frame story of the hunchback, “The Christian Merchant,” we are told that the young merchant, who is punished for eating ragout with garlic without enough washing of his hands, appalls his wife on her first night with him. Her attendants are unsurprised at her rage; on the contrary, they rejoin: “it is true that he is a man who does not appear to know how to conduct himself, and who seems not to understand your rank, and the respect that is due to you.” 103 The punishment, the severance of thumbs and toes, as in the young man’s case, recurs in the tales whenever there is social transgression, especially in situations demanding good manners. The further implications of the punishment are more complicated, however. Although its Freudian connotations cannot

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be overlooked, its narrative complications lead to other trials. The lady asks the caliph’s wife to let her leave the palace and live with her husband in the city after securing from him a binding oath not to transgress again. When attending the banquet, the young merchant’s host and the other guests are shocked to notice his use of his left hand instead of the right. Considered unclean, as it is reserved for taking care of other physical needs, it is an embarrassment to the host: he “fed himself with his left hand, and . . . [he] was much astonished to observe that he never made use of his right.” 104 The behavior could lead to complications and misunderstandings, and the host ponders the issue: “it is impossible that he can act thus out of contempt for me.” 105 More dynamic is the pomegranate-seed dish. The designated dish has a role to play in the history of Badr al-Dīn masan, which is divided between Cairo and Basrah. The son (Ajīb and the eunuch are in Damascus, and the grandfather, the vizier, and the grandmother remain in Damascus, preoccupied with the memory of their lost son, Badr al-Dīn masan. (Ajīb’s mother stays in Cairo with her family. In the market, (Ajīb is drawn to a small restaurant run by Badr al-Dīn masan. There, (Ajīb and the eunuch enjoy a pomegranate-seed dish, but are annoyed by the extra attention Badr al-Dīn masan pays to the boy. At home the boy is given the same dish, but he finds it insipid and awful in comparison, as “he too was full.” 106 The grandmother is annoyed: “Son, do you find fault with my food? I cooked it myself, and no cook can compare with me, except my son Badr al-Din masan.” 107 (Ajīb replies, “Grandmother, we have just now found in the city a cook who had prepared a pomegranate-seed dish whose aroma delights the heart and whose flavor stimulates the appetite. Your food is nothing in comparison.” 108 Food is brought from the cook’s shop. Badr al-Din’s mother tastes the food and finds it excellent. She realizes who has cooked it and swoons. The vizier is astonished and sprinkles water on her, and when she regains consciousness, she says, “If my son Badr al-Din is still in this world, none has cooked this dish but he.” 109 Recognition scenes like this one pass through a food code that also relates to social sign systems and practices. Unless we understand that cooking receives special attention as an art in medieval Islam, that good and refined manners and training are basic requirements for the µarīf (the refined gentleman), and that they include a knowledge of culinary arts, we may miss the role of the specific dish in this story and also in other stories where food has a role to play.110 Apart from the presence of food in Arab culture, certain dishes have this functional role in narrative, as with any other significant sign system.

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The Zero Meal Even a fake meal has a function. The fake feast plays on daydreaming and fantasy but also leads to a carnivalesque transformation in roles and status. If the basic pattern in the tales is the association between food and narrative, the absence of food can be the propelling dynamic behind the creation of a provocative narrative, one that is no less inviting and igniting than the blank page or the prolonged silence. It is not equal to hunger, because hunger can be appeased sooner or later. Absence here is deliberate; it under­ mines the assumptions of representation and challenges resemblance as a viable discursive space. In the story of the tailor’s sixth brother, the house that he approaches has all the indications of prosperity and wealth, with attendants and servants waiting at its wide entrance. He is told it belongs to a Barmecidal family member. The mention of the Barmakīs should alert us both to a political context and a social one. The Barmakīs were once the pillars of the (Abbāsid empire. Their role in administration, politics, and society was enormous, and their downfall was surprising and shocking to almost everyone. The man whom the sixth brother is about to meet is perhaps among the last of the Barmakīs, and his sardonic humor balances the vicissitudes of fortune and fate. There, in a reception room sits “a handsome man with fine beard.” 111 Expressing his hunger, he is invited to eat with the “Barmecide.” The man cries out every now and then to call on his attendants to bring the ewer and the basin, and to bring a table and food, the types of which he keeps enumerating, feigning eating throughout, and requesting the brother to have more. “Boy, bring the meat porridge first, and don’t spare the butter. . . . Boy, bring us the marinated chicken. . . . My guest, by my life, these chickens have been fattened on pistachio nuts; eat, for you have never tasted anything like them.” 112 Likewise, he implores the poor tailor’s brother to taste imaginary candies. “Eat of this almond conserve, for it is excellent; eat of these fritters. By my life, let me give you this fritter, for it is dripping with syrup.” 113 The brother accepts this pantomime and participates in the same fashion as if he were eating, asking every now and then to have more and expressing in terms of jubilation and gratitude how much comfort and joy he derives from this meal and company. The last scene in the feigned meal is worth quoting, for it operates as a “writing back,” a resistance discourse. It makes use of the master code by imitating the host’s commanding manner. Empowered by this master code but making use of its power to develop its own coun-

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ternarrative, the underdog now responds with mockery at the expense of the master narrative. Pretending to have had enough wine, he acts drunk, raising his arm until his armpit appeared and suddenly hit the host on the back of the neck with a slap so hard that the place resounded with it. Then he gave him another slap, and the host exclaimed, “What is this, you vile man?” My brother replied, “My lord, you have admitted your slave into your house, fed him, and given him wine to drink until he became drunk and unmannerly. You should be the first to tolerate his foolishness and pardon his offense.” When the host heard my brother’s reply, he laughed heartily and said, “Fellow, I have been making fun of people for a long time, but never till now have I met one who has the wit and ability to humor me like you. I do pardon you.” 114

It is only when the host recognizes the wit and the power of the response that he is ready to treat the underprivileged guest as an equal. The anecdote is not merely an account of feigning and humorous encounters. It is also an oblique critique of a society that is becoming less and less hospitable and merciful toward the poor. The Barmecide should have been known for munificence and charity, as the historical record tells us, but he is made to expose and lay bare the change that has overcome even the wealthiest segment of the society. The Islamic manner is sustained at the outset, but it is only a veneer in times of political upheaval and increasing disorder. The fake meal evolves as a critique of the Islamic official discourse and its consolidation of power at the expense of Islamic idealism.115 Like other signs, codes, images, amulets, talismans, and magic, the fake or zero meal has multiple functions. It reminds us of the secrecy surrounding the reasons behind the fall of the Barmakīs, and it leads us not only to the politics of a prosperous system but also to the amount of repression that even the storyteller engages in whenever there is a tale with some political connotations. Like political repression, narrative glossing alerts readers to an underlying irony that corresponds to the religious advice given by some later imams, including al-Ghazālī, not to be close to authority and power. Later in the tale, we are told that even the palace where the fake meal takes place is confiscated. The reader is left with a sense of disparity between appearance and reality, welfare and trouble, and pleasantries and mischief. Food, scriptoria, art, codes, signs, and esoteric practices partake in a creation where they complement and test each other. The pairing of opposites, or abdād, which Nabia Abbott rightly associates with the cultural context

92780 Scheher azade’s Non verbal Narr atives

of the first appearance of the Thousand and One Nights in its Arab-Islamic milieu here functions both as a narrative vehicle of great potential to the structural unity of the collection and as an urban outlook congruent with the new order during the (Abbāsid reign. Everything has a place to fit in, and there is always a discourse with a site and speakers of its own to elevate its merits. What applies to people and places applies to communication: the verbal and the nonverbal, speech and sign, words and things emerge anew with a life of their own that is deeply implicated in Islamic society and culture. The seemingly innocent nonverbal element becomes crucial to the Islamic context, and it functions strongly in a socioreligious milieu where everything has its significance and meaning.

Conclusions

T

he significance of the frame tale for the Islamic context is not limited to its encapsulation of the verbal and nonverbal components that permeate the whole collection, nor is it limited to its adaptability to the new Islamic milieu. Its function as a gravitational center for tales and storytellers also signifies the association between narrative and the imperial center. Baghdad or Cairo and the frame tale reflect on each other, and the tale evolves as a trope for the urban center that in its time was famous for its allure and glory. Like mendicants and other fugitives who settle in an urban center, fugitive tales, through the art of professional storytellers, find the right place in this multilayered narrative. The “thousand and one” becomes synonymous with an ongoing process of change in a cycle of displacement and replacement and rise and fall that belies any search for origins. Poised between polarities, this narrative makes use of the divine and the worldly, the refined and the sordid, the concrete and the abstract, and the everlasting and the ephemeral. Only the Islamic dynamic remains constant, well entrenched to impose its presence between the official discourse and mass religion without the slightest trip into bigotry or absolutism. There is always love, food, joy, and, more importantly, promise that sustains hope in an Islamic milieu where the caliph stands beyond time. He is like the artist behind the amazing storytelling practice, which even publishers cannot contain as it passes through translations, abridgements, expurgations, authentication processes, adaptations, and endless reproduction.

92800 Conclusions

The center/ruler analogy also provides a viable framework where residues, including rituals and practices, substantiate the frame and its elemental narratives with an undeniable Islamic color. In this context, the elemental and the residual work in tandem and harmony. NonMuslims are given a voice, though not a name. They are like the barbers and other professionals. All are subservient to an Islamic supremacy. This supremacy operates under binding laws that may suffer transgressions on occasions. Narratives occur in urban centers that are comparably safer than other places, where robbers or Bedouins may challenge authority. Islamic law functions according to dominating schools and their jurisprudence, however. Especially in Baghdad and Cairo, these schools shunned extremism and catered to the amiable climate that is the dominating tone in these tales. The narrative as a whole provides us with significant parameters to understand the difference between this amiability and the later rigidity of some schools of law that evolved under pressures of political disintegration and foreign invasions. In sum, the Thousand and One Nights has a substantial Islamic context that should complement other narratives and historical accounts. While never a record of life and politics, it offers a climate that we as readers rarely come across otherwise.

Notes

Introduction. Is There an Islamic Context for The Thousand and One Nights? 1. The term means “rejecter,” in reference to some Shī(ī disapproval of the succession process after the Prophet’s death. It is a term of abuse counterbalanced by the term Nāùibī (literary: “installer”), in reference to the Sunni upholding of the succession of the rightly guided caliphs by semiappointment. 2. This may explain the form of Islamic rule until the modern period (and beyond, in certain countries). A basic frame for this reading and application to Islamic history can be traced in (Abd al-Ranmān ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddimah. There is one that is “sometimes based upon a divinely revealed religious authority” and one based upon “rational politics.” This second type “is the one concerned with the interest of the ruler and how he can maintain his rule through the forceful use of power. The general interest, here, is secondary.” See (Abd al-Ranmān ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 256–257. There is an alternative vision he dubs “political utopianism.” A modern frame for such analyses can be found in Paul Ricoeur’s Lectures on Ideology and Utopia as applied by Munammad Jwīlī, Al-Za(īm al-Siyāsī [The political leader], 65. 3. Abbott, “A Ninth-Century Fragment of the ‘Thousand Nights,’  ” 154. 4. The term for the market inspector is muntasib, who, in his religious and juridical capacity, is entrusted with the supervision of the markets and public morality. The term nisbah means the duties of the person in charge or muntasib. See ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 178–179. 5. Writing in 320/932, Abū Bakr al-úūlī reports how during the reign of the caliph al-Muqtadir and while he was tutoring his son Prince Munammad, the servants of the prince’s grandmother, Shaghib, walked in and collected the prince’s books and reading material, to come back later with the material, while the prince, the future Caliph al-Rābī (322–329/934–940) remarked: “You have seen these books and found them to be books of tradition, jurisprudence, poetry, language, history, and the works of the learned—books through the study of which God causes one to benefit and to be complete. They are not like the books which you read exces-

92820 Introduction



6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

sively such as The Wonders of the Sea, The Tale of Sindbad, and The Cat and the Mouse.” Abbott, “A Ninth-Century Fragment of the ‘Thousand Nights,’ ” 155. Al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191), Haykal al-nūr. Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallāj, 3:222. Marzolph, The Arabian Nights Reader. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights. See also Abbott, “A Ninth-Century Fragment of the ‘Thousand Nights,’ ” reprinted in Marzolph, The Arabian Nights Reader. See note 5, above. The pioneering study of cycles is by Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling. See also Ghazoul, The Arabian Nights; Pinault, Storytelling Techniques in the Arabian Nights; and Naddaff, Arabesque. Lane-Poole, ed. Arabian Society in the Middle Ages. Abbott, “A Ninth-Century Fragment of the ‘Thousand Nights,’ ” 155. Cracroft, Essays Political and Miscellaneous, 1:75. See, for example, Thomas Carlyle’s diary, October 1839. Cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 132. See Ghazoul, The Arabian Nights; Pinault, Storytelling Techniques in the Arabian Nights; and Naddaff, Arabesque. See the tale of Anīs al-Jalīs, Būlāq edition, Night 47; and also in Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 138, 139, 166, passim. See Diwān al-Shāfī, 28, 30, 32, passim. On the matter of sociability in French culture, see Goodman, The Republic of Letters; Gordon, Citizens Without Sovereignty; and Craveri, The Age of Conversation. See al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England. See al-Musawi, “Vindicating a Profession or a Personal Career?” 111–135; and “Premodern Belletristic Prose,” 101–133. “The Third Dervish’s Tale,” in Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 62: 132. See al-§abarī, Annals, 3:664–665. Quoted from al-§abarī’s history, in Hourani, A History of the Arab People, 32. Cited in Hourani, A History of the Arab People, 33. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 66: 141. Included in al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 152–153. On this tale and sources, see Pinault, Storytelling Techniques in the Arabian Nights. Abū manīfah’s (d. 767) school has its base in Iraq, where he and his disciples provided terms and answers to contemporary religious, moral, and social problems. These will be discussed below. Manazir Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids, 8–9. He is quoted, for example, in the tale of Anīs al-Jalīs, Būlāq edition, Night 47; and also in Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 138, 139, 166, passim. In the Būlāq edition, see Nights 12, 20, 47, and 180, for example. See Diwān al-Shāfī, 28, 30, 32, passim. Al-Mas(ūdī, Murūj al-dhahab [Meadows of Gold]. Cited from Barbier de Maynard’s translation by Rodinson, Medieval Arab Cookery, 97. Ibid. For examples of affluence and culinary habits, see ibid. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 217: 370. Ibid. Ibid., 373.

1. The Isla mic Factor in Global Times  92830 37. Ibid., 374. 38. Ibid., 371.

1. The Islamic Factor in Global Times

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Quote from Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 32: 77. John Barth, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, 10. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, The First Mendicant’s Tale: 89. Ibid., Night 25: 61. Yanya Ben Ādam, Kitāb al-Kharāj (Taxation in Islam, vol. 1). The )ushr (tithe/tenth of the earnings) is in general the zakāt paid for crops. The matter is discussed in full on 000. Ibid., 108. This was the poll tax levied on non-Muslims. This payment, which was established by the second caliph (Umar, was a discriminatory regulation with respect to non-Muslims. See al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 121, n. 2 (trans. Buckley). Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, 1:63, n. 18. See Buckley’s translation of the excerpt from al-Ghazālī, Inyā )Ulūm al-Dīn [The Revival of the Religious Sciences], in al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 183. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 54. For a discussion of these, but more on storytellers as preachers, see Berkey, Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East, 22–35. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwa, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 60. Cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, from Cornhill Magazine 32 (December 1975): 711–732. See al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 15. See http://www.alriyadh.com/2005/12/08/article113674.html. Cited from his letters in Kennedy, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World, xxiii. See al-Musawi, The Postcolonial Arabic Novel and Al-Riwāyah al-’Arabiyyah. Without the present contextualization, a brief and simplified version of the following paragraphs has already appeared as the introduction to the Barnes and Noble popular edition of the Thousand and One Nights. For an extensive bibliography of these responses until the early decades of the twentieth century, see alMusawi, Scheherazade in England and “The Growth of Scholarly Interest in the Arabian Nights.” Robert Irwin, “The Arabian Nights in Film Adaptations,” 1:25. See Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 37–38. Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, 1:63, n. 18. Chesterton, in Collins, The Spice of Life, 56–60. Cosquin, Etudes folkloriques,265. For the exact quotations, see below. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 77. Ibid., 3. Included in al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 157. Ibid. For these cycles, see Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling, 318–338. See Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 330.

92840  1. The Isla mic Factor in Global Times 30. From a Khurāsānī nobleman to his father, in last years of the eighth century a.d. Cited by Lichtenstadter, Introduction to Classical Arabic Literature, 361. 31. Ibid. 32. See al-Musawi, Anglo-Orient, 52–54. 33. Among writers of Arab origin, see Malti-Douglas, “Shahrazād Feminist,” 40–55. 34. See Barth, “The Scheherazade Factor,” 55: “Scheherazade speaks to me mainly as an image of the storyteller’s condition: Every one of us in this business is only as good as our next story. And there is a sense in which narrating equals living. We really are alive as human beings only as long as we’re still interested in telling anecdotes to one another.” 35. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 326. 36. Ibid., 327. 37. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwa, The Ma(ālim al-Qurab fī Ankām al-misba, 68–69. 38. Ibid., 69. 39. Ibid., 71. 40. Ibid. 41. The )āyah says: “And come not near to unlawful sex. Verily it is abomination, and an evil way.” 42. Ibid., 68. 43. Ibid., 69. 44. Ibid., 10. 45. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 3. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., 5. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid., 8. 51. For a survey of some opinions and also the intimations of some Egyptian shaykhs in early nineteenth-century Egypt, see Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, 4–10. 52. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 8. 53. Ibid. 54. See Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, 37. 55. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 8. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., 9. 58. Ibid., 9–10. 59. Ibid., 10. 60. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwa, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 53. 61. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 11. 62. Ibid., 15. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid., 11. 65. See Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids, 150. 66. The Athenaeum, no. 572 (October 13, 1838): 738–739. The writer for the Asiatic Journal, n.s. 30, no. 117 (September–December 1839): 83, fully developed this point. The Nights, he noticed, “is rather a vehicle for stories, partly fixed and partly arbitrary, than a collection fairly deserving, from its constant identity with itself, the name of a distinct work, and the reputation of having wholly emanated from the

1. The Isla mic Factor in Global Times  92850

67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80. 81. 82.

83. 84. 85. 86.

same inventive mind.” As for the foreign elements, he qualified von Hammer’s early sweeping conclusion, postulating that a “work there may have been similar to the Arabian Nights, whether in Persian, Pahlavi or Arabic, we will not dispute; but we cannot imagine that this has furnished anything but the ground-work of what we now call the Arabian Nights.” Cited from C. Barbier de Meynard’s translation in Irwin, The Arabian Nights, 49. Also available in English as al-Masūdī, The Meadows of Gold. Dodge, trans., The Fihrist of al-Nadīm, 2:713–714. On this early history, see mikmat, “Min Hazār Afsan ilā Hazār distān,” 5–35. British Museum MS, no. 7, 334, fol. 136. The book, which was translated by the same reviewer, is al-Maqqarī, Nafn al-•īb min ghuùn al-Andalus al-ra•īb. P. De Gayangos, the translator of the book (as The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain) and later minister of education and senator in Spain, was in charge of cataloguing the Spanish manuscripts at the British Museum; he was also the reviewer of Oriental books for the Athenaeum. See al-Musawi, Anglo-Orient, 339, n. 8. The citation was transcribed from ibn Sa(īd al-Qur•ubī. See Athenaeum 622 (September 28, 1839): 742; and Littmann, “Alf Layla wa-Layla,” 361. Goitein, “The Oldest Documentary Evidence for the Title Alf Laila wa Laila,” 301–302; and Macdonald, “The Earlier History of the Arabian Nights,” 353–397. Abbott, “A Ninth-Century Fragment of the ‘Thousand and One Nights,’ ” 129– 164. See Goitein, “The Oldest Documentary Evidence for the Title Alf laylah wa-laylah,” 301. Al-Maqrīzī, Al-Khi•a• (Cairo: Būlāq, 1854), 1:448. Dodge, trans., The Fihrist of al-Nadīm, 2:714. My emphasis. See Anmad Amīn and Anmad al-Zīn, eds., Kitāb al-imtā( wa-al-mu)ā(nasah [Book of enjoyment and good company], 1:8. Originally an Indian collection of animal fables meant to instruct princes in the laws of polity, it was composed by an unknown Brahman about the year 300 c.e. in Kashmir. The text consists of an introduction—that would become in the hands of (Abdullah ibn al-Muqaffa( a frame—along with five books. Each of these books had the name tantra, that is, “occasion of good sense.” The oldest descendant of the original work is the Tantrakhyayika. It was translated from Sanskrit into Pahlavi around 531–579 c.e.. The expanded Pahlavi edition was further expanded and remodeled in Arabic to fit its new milieu by (Abdullah ibn al-Muqaffa(. See Ibn (Amr al-Yamanī, Mubāhāt amthāl Kalīlah wa-Dimnah, 2. The book was written in a.h. 340. Cited in al-Najjār, Al-Turāth al-qaùaùī fī al-adab al-(Arabī, 1:143. Cited in Ireland, Book Lover’s Enchiridion, 287. Bookman 31 (1907): 258. This kind of exaggeration is not considered a lie. Al-Ghazālī argues: “it is not improper for someone to say: ‘I’ve looked for you a hundred times today’ or ‘I’ve told you a thousand times’ and such like, where it is obvious that they do not mean this literally.” See appendices to al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector. Toy, “The Thousand and One Nights,” 756–757. Stevenson, in Gentleman’s Magazine 1 (1882–1883): 74. Cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 86. Mew, “The Arabian Nights,” Cornhill Magazine (1875): 712. Cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 42.

92860  1. The Isla mic Factor in Global Times 87. Quoted by von Hammer in his preface to the New Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. 88. Hunt, “New Translations of the Arabian Nights,” 101–137. 89. Ibid., 110–111. 90. Leigh Hunt’s London Journal, no. 30 (October 22, 1834): 233. 91. See Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 44. Also cited in al-Musawi, Anglo-Orient, 27. 92. Quoted in al-Musawi, Anglo-Orient, 27.

2. The Unifying Islamic Factor 1. Hunt, London Journal (October 22, 1834): 233. 2. See, for example, Pinault’s interesting study of repetitive designs, catchwords, leitmotifs, thematic and formal patterning, and dramatic visualization, Storytelling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, 23–24, 28, 127, 131. 3. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, “The Story of the Two Viziers,” Night 72: 157. 4. Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 147. 5. See, for instance, “The Tale of the Enchanted King,” Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 22: 61, 64. 6. Ibid., 64. 7. It is worth noting here that in (Ajīb’s tale as the third mendicant or dervish, the horoscope appears in connection with happenings that incite transgression or determined and fated consequence. Also, the story evolves around the unique exhortation in the tales of not to “invoke the name of God.” Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 54:117. See also the tale of “Abū Munammad the Lazy,” in the Būlāq edition, 1:536. 8. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 144, “The Tailor’s Tale,” 255. 9. See Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 67. 10. Ibid. Such restrictions increased later, after the heyday of the (Abbāsids. The Sufi (Alī b. Maymūn al-Idrīsī (d. 917/1511) was especially shocked by women who perfumed themselves and dressed in the best manner to attract men, as he argued. To him, this taking place in a mosque while listening to a preacher or storyteller is more insidious than adultery. For a review, see Berkey, Popular and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East, 31. 11. Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 67. 12. See my extended bibliography, especially items that relate to theater, in Scheherazade in England. 13. Macdonald, “On Translating the ‘Arabian Nights,’ ” cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 11. 14. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, The Ma(ālim al-Qurab fī Ankām al-misba, 66. 15. Ibid., 85. The same applies to music and dancing, for “they are not in themselves unlawful; it is the constant indulgence in them which is harmful to good conduct.” 16. Ibid. 17. Weber, Tales of the East, 1:xxviii–xxix. 18. The Times, April 5, 1825 (no. 12619). Quoted in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 43. 19. Haddawy, trans, The Arabian Nights, 11. 20. Cited in Buckley’s translation of al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market

2. The Unifying Isla mic Factor  92870

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

Inspector, 3, from ibn (Abd al-Barr al-Qur•ubī, al-Istī((āb f I ma(rifat al-aùnāb, 4:183. See Qur)ān 2:232, 234; 2:221; 4:3, 20, 21, 22–24; 4:25, 35, 128, 129; 24:3, 32, 33; 33:50–52, 49. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 11. Ibid. Ibid., 29. Ibid., Night 60: 129. See Berkey, Popular Teaching, 48. Ibid., 124. Ibid., Night 54: 116. Another occurs in the tale of “Abū Munammad the Lazy,” in the Būlāq edition, 1:536. Ibid., Night 54: 119. Ibid., 116. Ibid. Ibid., 116–117. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 5. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, The Ma(ālim al-Qurba fī Ankām al-misba, 67. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 119. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, The Ma(ālim al-Qurba fī Ankām al-misba, 67. For a survey and study of this, see Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. See al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 28. Hattersley, Dublin Review 7 (February 1840): 119. Ibid. Ibn Taymiyyah, Public Duties in Islam. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 3. Ibid. For classical material on this point, see Ma•lūlb, Abū Yūsuf, 28–37. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 44. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Nights 11–17: 39, 45–47. Ibid., 47. Ibid., Night 18: 48–51. See Stetkevych’s use of Mauss and Gaster in application to the panegyric poem, The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy. Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling, 397, 401. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 5 onward, 25. Cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 79–80. Jacobs, “Introduction,” 1:xxvi. Gissing, Charles Dickens, 29–30. Hunt, London Journal (October 22, 1834): 233. Mahdī, Alf Laylah wa-Laylah fī )Ūùūlih al-(Arabiyyah al-)Ūlā [The Thousand and One Nights from the Earliest Known Sources], Night 1: 73. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 76: 168. Būlāq edition, 1:58. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 48. Habermas’s phrase. Ibid. Būlāq edition, vol. 1. Būlāq edition, 1:12.

92880  2. The Unifying Isla mic Factor 62. Būlāq edition. 2:26. 63. See al-Musawi, Mujtama (Alf Laylah wa-Laylah [The society of the Arabian Nights], 523. 64. Brill, Night 43: 159. 65. Ibid., Nights 301–304: 474–480. 66. Ibid., 477. 67. Ibid., Night 14: 39. 68. Todorov, The Fantastic. 69. Cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 132. 70. Bagehot, “The People of the Arabian Nights,” National Review 9 (July 1859): 45. 71. Toy, “The Thousand and One Nights,” cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 142. 72. Spectator 55 (November 25, 1882): 1513. 73. Nation (September 6, 1900): 185. 74. A letter of October 16, 1797, to Thomas Poole. Taylor, Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1:16. 75. Ibid., 1:12. 76. Borges, Seven Nights, 54. 77. Englishman’s Magazine 1 (August 1831): 621. 78. Henley, Views and Reviews, Works, 5:255–256. 79. See al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 51–54. 80. Ibid., 57. 81. See Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Nights 61–62, 130–132. 82. The rest reads as follows: Yet I could not rest For idleness and ungovernable Fate. And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame (That wonder-working word!), Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans, And soaring, soaring on From air to air, came charging to the ground Sheer. Like a lark from the midsummer clouds, And shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled Flicked at me with his tail, And left me blinded, miserable, distraught. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

Henley, Views and Reviews, 249. See al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 43–44. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 44. Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion. Borges, Selected Nonfictions, 93. Ibid. Eagles, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 64 (October 1848): 472–473. Spectator (November 25, 1882): 1513–1514. Ibid., 1514. Ibid. Ibid. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, 5:189, n. 1.

2. The Unifying Isla mic Factor  92890 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 1 05. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 1 33. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139.

Ibid. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 86. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 255. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, 244. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 65. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 7. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, p. 113. Bagehot, “The People of the Arabian Nights,” 56. A form of colloquial verse with the accompaniment of reed pipe that became a popular form of recitation after the Barmicides’ disaster in Iraq at the hands of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 21, 55. Ibid., Night 2: 20. Ibid., Night 9: 32. Ibid. Ibid., Night 2, 19. Ibid. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 44. Ibid., 7. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights. Night 54: 119. Ibid., Night 54: 116. Ibid., Night 27: 64. Ibid., Night 25: 61. See Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects; also Buckley in alShayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 121, n. 2. Al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 121–122. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 15. Ibid. Ibid. Ibn Khallikān, Wafayyāt al-A(yān (Obituaries of the Notables), 11:38. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 255. Ibid., 256. See al-Ghazālī, in al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 152–153. Payne, “The Thousand and One Nights,” 163–164. Ibid., 164. Cited in Lichtenstadter, Introduction to Classical Arabic Literature, 360. Ibid., 358. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 86. Ibid. Ibid. See al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 120; and ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 60. Manmūd Ma•lūlb, Abū Yūsuf, 28–37. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 73–74. Ibid., 74. Ibid., 84. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 67. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 128–129.

92900  2. The Unifying Isla mic Factor 140. 1 41. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 1 55. 156. 1 57. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 1 63. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 1 70. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183.

Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurba, 67. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 335. Ibid., 340. Ibid., Nights 121–129: 230–232. Ibid., Night 23, “The Steward’s Tale,” 230. Al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 81. Al-Ghazālī, appendix, in al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 182. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 125: 232. Ibid. Ibid., 237. Ibid., 236–237. Brill edition, Night 121: 20; and Būlāq edition, Night 27: 81–85. Brill edition, Night 152, 347–349. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 152: 267. See Abū al-masan (Alī ibn al-musayn al-Mas(ūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab wa-Ma(ādin al-Jawhar, 4:9–10, 231–232; and Ibn(Abd Rabbih, Al-(Iqd al-Farīd, 87. Al-Mas(ūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab, 3:370. For more, see al-Mūsawī, Mujtama(Alf Laylah wa-Laylah [The society of the Arabian Nights], 242–243. Ibn mazm, The Ring of the Dove, 15. Ibid., 21–22. See Burton, The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi. Gerhardt, The Art of Storyt elling, 121. Shaw, “Preface to Three Plays for Puritans,” 710. The review was written in 1900. See al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 124. Stanley Lane-Poole, “The Arabian Nights,” 194. Ibn mazm, The Ring of the Dove, 23. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 194: 335. Ibid. Cited in Walther, Women in Islam, 41. Al-Washshā), Al-Muwashshā or al-µarf wa-al-µurafā), 76, 78. Būlāq edition, Nights 112–120: 236. Al-Washshā), Al-Muwashshā or al-µarf wa-al-µurafā). Cited by Walther, Women in Islam, 160–161. Buckley, Tennyson, 39. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 81: 175. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, 5:191. Walter Bagehot, “The People of the Arabian Nights,” 67. Ibn mazm, The Ring of the Dove, 54. Ibid. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 140: 250. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Al-Mūsawī, Mujtama( alf laylah wa-laylah [The society of the Arabian Nights]. For a review, see my introduction to the Barnes and Noble Classics edition of the Arabian Nights.

3. The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text  92910 184. 1 85. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 1 92. 193. 194. 195. 1 96. 197. 198. 199. 200.

Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 67: 142. Bozorg ibn Schahriar, (Ajā)ib al-Hind, 81–85. Spectator (November 25, 1882): 1513. Al-Jāniµ, “On the Difference Between Enmity and Envy,” 29. Ibid. Ibid., 29–30. For an account of anthropological and philosophical views on this point, see alMusawi, Arabic Poetry, especially the chapter on dedications as poetic intersections. Al-Jāniµ, “On the Difference Between Enmity and Envy,” 29–30. Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 109. Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids, 786–902, 110. From a Khurāsānī nobleman to his father, during the last years of the eighth century c.e. Cited by Lichtenstadter, Introduction to Classical Arabic Literature, 357–362, 359. Ibid. Ibid., 358. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 39: 91. Ibid., Night 52: 113. See the conclusions of Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 139–141. See ibn Khaldūn’s note on the “incentive for inventing and reporting” stories about caliphs, etc., for this “shows a tendency to forbidden pleasures and for smearing the reputation of others.” Muqaddimah, 23.

3. The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Hewitt, “History as Told in the Arabian Nights,” 253. Irwin, The Arabian Nights, 6. For a detailed survey and analysis, see al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England. Hewitt, “History as Told in the Arabian Nights,” 254. See my review and critique of earlier impressions in Scheherazade in England, 26–27, and other places, too. Carlyle, Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1834–1872, 2:316. Certainly its power in evoking music and songs is enormous. Rimsky-Korsakov’s musical piece Scheherazade and Tristan Klingsor’s “Asie” are among many pieces of special interest to the comparativist. Klingsor’s large group of poems titled She´ he´razade, published in the early 1900s, was of special significance for the French composer Maurice Ravel, who selected three of them for his song cycle She´ he´razade in 1903. See al-Musawi, The Annotated Bibliography of the Arabian Nights (forthcoming). Hewitt, “History as Told in the Arabian Nights,” 253. Ibid. Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 23. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 177: 306. Ibrāhīm b. Mun. b. Aydamr b. Duqmāq, al-Jawhar al-Thamīn fī Siyar al-Mulūk wa al-Salā•īn, 223.

92920  3. The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text 13. Cited in al-Kha•īb al-Baghdādī, Tarīkh Baghdad, 52–53. 14. Ibn mazm, The Ring of the Dove, 23. 15. One hundred and seventy female copyists were in Qurtuba alone. See Bint al-Shā•i)’s quotation in Nafn al-•īb by Abū al-(Abbās b. Munammad b. Anmad b. Yahyā alTilimsāī al-Mālikī Shihab al-Dīn al-Maqqarqī, 1:184, in her Turāthuna bayna mābin wa-nābir. On women educators and literati, see al-§abarī, Tārikh, 2:731; and al-Jāniµ, al-mayawān, 2:390–391, al-Bayān, 1: 189; al-Bukhalā), 37. For these and other references, see (Alī Sāmī al-Nashshār, Nash)at al-fikr al-falsafī fī al-Islām. 16. Beeston, The Epistle on Singing-girls of Jahiz. 17. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim, 57. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Burton’s edition, 5:189. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 191. 24. The Mu(tazilī theologian al-Naµµām died between 220/835 and 230/845. He had access to the (Abbāsid court in Baghdad during the reign of the caliph al-Ma)mūn. He was known for his poetical and rhetorical talent, and his poetry combined an intellectual vigor and feeling in an imaginative way which was highly appreciated. He participated strongly in theological debates in urban circles. 25. Burton’s edition, 5: 194. 26. Ibid., 244. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 196. 29. Ibid., 197. 30. Ibid., 203. 31. Al-Kha•īb al-Baghdadī, Tarīkh Baghdad, 82–83. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 23. 35. For a brief survey, see Plessner, “The Natural Sciences and Medicine,” 425–460. 36. Buckley, trans., The Book of the Market-Inspector, 114. 37. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurbah, 57. 38. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 30: 71. 39. Ibid., Night 144: 255. 40. Ibid., Night 42: 94. 41. Ibid., Night 49: 108–109. 42. Bagehot, “The People of the Arabian Nights,” 52–53. 43. Quoted by al-Jāniµ, “On the Difference Between Enmity and Envy,” 28. 44. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 40: 92. 45. Ibid. 46. Reference to Munammad b. Ismā(īl al-Bukhārī’s compilation of the most authenticated sayings of the Prophet: a total of 2,762 from over six hundred thousand. 47. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 40: 92. 48. Ibid. 49. In Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West, 355–365. 50. Cited in ibid., 223.

3. The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text  92930 51. Ibn Khaldūn offers a psychological and religious reading of divination, dreams, magic, and other means of reaching the supernatural. See Muqaddimah, 70–89. 52. Būlāq edition, vol. 1, Night 14: 40. 53. Ibid., 50–51. 54. Brill’s edition, Night 5: 81. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibn mazm, The Ring of the Dove, 59. 57. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 174: 301. 58. Ibid., Night 189: 328. 59. Ibid., Night 197: 338. 60. Ibid. With slight alteration in the translation. 61. See ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 139. 62. Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 51. 63. Ibid., 106. 64. See Makdisi, History and Politics in Eleventh-Century Baghdad, 192–193, and note on the names of vessels in Baghdad in the Abbasid period. 65. Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 55. 66. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 193: 332. 67. See ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddimah, 18–23. 68. Lichtenstadter, “Muslim Culture in Baghdad,” 360. 69. Ibid. 70. Bencheikh, “Historical and Mythical Baghdad,” 17. 71. Cited in ibid., 18. 72. Makdisi, History and Politics in Eleventh-Century Baghdad, 195. 73. Ibid., 190. 74. Ibid. 75. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 188: 325–26. 76. See Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 61. 77. Ibid. 78. Lichtenstadter, “Muslim Culture in Baghdad,” 361. 79. Haddawy, trans. The Arabian Nights. Night 195: 336. 80. Bencheikh, “Historical and Mythical Baghdad,” 21. 81. Ibid., 24. 82. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 176: 304. 83. Ibid. 84. See Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, 2:297–331. 85. Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 61, 108. 86. Ibid., 86. 87. Ibid. 88. From al-Jāniµ, Kitāb al-mayawān, vol. 4, cited in Manazir Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids, 136. 89. Lichtenstadter, “Muslim Culture in Baghdad,” 358. 90. Ibid., 361. 91. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 357. 92. Ibid., Night 202: 346. 93. Ibid. 94. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī (d. 1023 c.e.), Al-Imtā( wa-al-mu)ānasa [Book of enjoyment and good company]. Cited in Lichtenstadter, Introduction to Classical Arabic Literature, 355.

92940  3. The Age of Muslim Empire and the Burgeoning of a Text 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 1 07. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 1 24. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130.

Būlāq edition, 1:128. See al-Musawi, Mujtama( Alf Laylah wa-Laylah, 100–102. Al-Tawnīdī, Al-Baùā)ir wa-al-dhakhā)ir, 6:118. Al-Musawi, Mujtama) Alf Laylah wa-Laylah, 180–181. Lane, Arab Society in the Time of the Thousand and One Nights, 247–249. Ibid., 252. Al-Azdī, mikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdadī. Ibid., 46, 76–86, 88. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 217: 370. Ibid., Night 218: 371. Ibid., 219: 372. Perhaps more can be said in relation to “The Story of the Three Apples.” Ibid., 357. Ibid., Night 36: 85. Ibid., Night, 69: 150. Ibid., Night 62: 133. Ibid., Nights 169–170: 293–295. Ibid., Night 63: 136. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., Night 229, 383. See Lane’s documentation, The Thousand and One Nights, 2:141–145. Ibn Khaldūn thinks of the Mas(ūdī’s account of the “Copper City” as pure fiction, see Muqaddimah, 37. Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, 2:109. Ibid., 2:113. Ibid., 2:115. Ibid., 2:116. Ibid., 2:117. Ibid. Lichtenstadter, “Muslim Culture in Baghdad,” 358. For a survey of sources on the situation as recorded by contemporary historians, see Manazir Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids, 136. Lichtenstadter, “Muslim Culture in Baghdad,” 359. Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 88–89. Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, 2:134. Ibid. Ibid., 137. See Ben Ādam, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 3. See Al-Ghazālī’s treatise on nisbah in Buckley’s translation of al-Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 153.

4. The Changing Order: The Role of the Public in The Thousand and One Nights

1. 2. 3. 4.

Al-Damayrī, mayāt al-mayawān al-Kubrā, 1:24. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 52: 112–113. Ibid., Night 41: 93. Ibid., Night 201: 345.

4. The Changing Order  92950

5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Ibn (Abd Rabbihi, Al-(Iqd al-farīd [The Unique Necklace], 1:53. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 66–67. Bagehot, “The People of the Arabian Nights,” 44–71. Makdisi’s translation and note, History and Politics in Eleventh-Century Baghdad, 189, n. 3. Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism, 264. Ibid., 265. See Schoeler, “Writing and Publishing,” 423–435; Jamil, “Islamic Wiraqah, ‘stationary,’ during the early Middle Ages”; and Toorawa, Ibn Abī §āhir §ayfūr and Arabic Writerly Culture, 56–57. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim, 65–66. Ibid., 14–15. With one modification, cited from Jacob Lassner, trans., Tarīkh Baghdād [History of Baghdad], 47. úārm al-Dīn Ibrāhīm b. Mun. ibn Duqmāq says this upon the fall of Baghdad (February 1258 c.e.). Ibn Duqmāq was the governor of Damietta in the reign of al-Zāhir Barqūq (801/1398). See his al-Jawhar al-Thamīn fī Siyar al-Mulūk wa alSalā•īn [The precious stone in the conduct accounts of kings and sultans], 223. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 144: 255. Ibid., Nights 132–133: 239–241. Ibid., Night 133: 241. Jayyusi, The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 111: 217. Ibid., Night 118: 224. Ibid. Ibid., Night 121: 228. Ibid., Night 122: 229. Ibid. Ibid., Night 149: 262. See Richard van Leeuwen, The Thousand and One Nights. Manazir Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids, 136. Ibn Schahriar, (Ajā)ib al-Hind [The marvels of India], 81. Ibid., 108–109. See al-Musawi, “Elite Prose,” 101–133. Quoted in Petry, The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages, xxi. 1:31; cited in al-Musawi, “Elite Prose,” 130–131. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim, 1–3. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 147: 260. Ibid., Night 112: 218. Ibid., Night 113: 218–219. See Shirley Guthrie, Arab Social Life in the Middle Ages, 76. See al-Musawi, “The Eighteenth-Century Reception of the Arabian Nights,” and al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England. Haddawy, trans, The Arabian Nights, Night 40: 92. For a list of the renowned names of prime ministers, chancellors, secretaries of state, and other professionals, see George Makdisi’s list in The Rise of Humanism, 370–371. Haddawy, trans, The Arabian Nights, Night 52: 113. See ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddimah, 21–23, 153–55, 165.

92960  4. The Changing Order 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

Haddawy, trans, The Arabian Nights, Night 52: 113. Ibid., Nights 28–33: 66–77. Manazir Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids, 111. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 102: 206–207. Ibid., Night, 134: 242. Ibid., Night 113: 218. Ibid., Night 215: 367. Ibid., Night 216: 368–369. Ibid., 369. Al-Ghazālī, treatise on misbah from Inyā) (Ulūm al-Dīn, 188–189. Ibid., 190. The wording relies on an alleged nadith. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurbah fī Ankām al-misbah, 11. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj [Islamic Revenue Code], 331. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurbah fī Ankām al-misbah, 12. Al-Janiµ, “On the Difference Between Enmity and Envy,” and translator’s notes, 26, n. 8. See, for example, Ibrāhīm ibn al-Qāsim Raqīq al-Qayrawānī, Qu•b al-surūr fī awùāf al-khumūr. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 147: 260. Ibid., Night 28: 67. Ibid. Ibid., Nights 64–65: 137–138. Ibid., 65: 139. For a brief account of the fluctuation in this use and the terms of its application since the tenth century, see ibid., 87–88. Ibid., Night 102: 206. Ibid., Night 103: 208. Ibid., Night 104: 209. Ibid., Night 106: 211. Ibid., Night 107: 212. See al-Musawi, Mujtama( Alf Laylah wa-laylah, 489. For a survey of this issue, see Narīman (Abd al-Karīm, Al-Mar)ah fī Miùr fī al-(aùr al-Fa•imī [Women in the Fatimid period], 80, 88. Būlāq edition, 2:79. Ibid., 2:62. Ibid., Night 327: 502. Ibid. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 131: 238–239. Ibn (Abd Rabbihi, Al-(Iqd al-farīd [The Unique Necklace], 8:156–167. Būlāq edition, 1:454–456. Al-Iùfahānī, Al-Aghānī [The Book of Songs], 21:61, 80–81. Ibn §ayfūr, Kitāb Baghdād (The Book of Baghdad), 165. Al-Suyū•ī, Al-Wishān fi fawā)id al-nikān; and al-Nafzāwī, Al-Rawb al-(Ā•ir fi nuzhat al-Khā•ir [The Perfumed Garden]. Al-Jāniµ, Al-Manāsin wa-al-abdād, 282, 183–189. Būlāq edition, vol. 1, Nights 328–331: 503–507. The word means “those who seceded.” They were the group from among the fourth caliph’s army at the battle of úiffīn (37/657) who objected to arbitration, arguing that judgment should be left to God alone. They left the army, and the group has become

5. Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tr adition  92970

85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122.

since then an exclusive sect that may strongly differ from other Muslims. They believe that any believer could become an imam, regardless of color or lineage. The difference between this approach and the Egyptian and Maliki view of almisbah can be seen in ibn Khaldūn’s description of the office. See Al-Muqaddimah, 178. Al-Shayzarī, The Book of Islamic Market Inspector, 120, n. 4. Ibid., 131. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurbah fī Ankām al-misbah. Haddawy, trans, The Arabian Nights, Night 102: 207. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurbah fī Ankām al-misbah, 57. Haddawy, trans, The Arabian Nights, Night 104: 209. Ibid., Night 107: 212. Ibid., Night 131: 238. Ibid. Ibid., 239. Ibid., Night 106: 210. Ibid., Night 102: 207. Ibid. Ibid., Night 112: 217. Ibid., Night 106: 211. Ibid. Hewitt, “History as Told in the Arabian Nights,” 255–256. Muhsin Mahdi, The Thousand and One Nights, 3:127. Ibid., 3:128. Ibid., 3:131. Ibid., 3:133. Haddawy, trans, The Arabian Nights, Night 150: 264. Ibid., Night 161: 280. Ibid., Night 163: 283. Ibid., Night 167: 291. Ibid., Night 168: 292. Ibid., Night 36: 84. Ibid., Night 85. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 144: 255. Ibid., Night 30: 70. Ibid., 72. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 33: 78. Ibn al-)Ukhuwwah, Ma(ālim al-Qurbah fī Ankām al-misbah, 13. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 36: 85. Ibid. Ibid., 188: 326. The tales, in the words of the conservative neoclassicist Bishop Atterbury, “give a judicious eye pain.” Cited in al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 16.

5. Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tradition 1. See Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 83. 2. Ibid., 266–295. 3. Ibid., 266.

92980  5. Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tr adition 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Ibid., Night 152: 267. Ibid. Ibid., 272. Ibid., Night 49: 108. Ibid., Night 156: 272. Ibid. Ibid., 275. Ibid., Night 164: 285. Ibid., Night 167: 291. Ibid., Night 164: 285. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., Night 162: 282. “The caliphate after me will last thirty years; then it will revert to being tyrannical royal authority,” says the Prophet. Cited in ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddimah, 281. Iùfahānī, Kitāb al-Aghānī, 7:22. Kān wa-kān, dūbayt, mufrad, and mawāliyā are among the postclassical genres of poetry, which, except for the mufrad, as a song named after the musical instrument, were the invention of Baghdadi poets dating perhaps from the tenth century, or much earlier for the mawāliyā. The first takes its name from the storytellers’ formula, i.e., “once upon a time.” The second is used alternately with quatrain, though its usage in Iraq denotes the shortest poetic pattern. Mawāliyā or mawwāl is very popular and could have developed among slave singers, with their refrain “O, my master,” or after a Barmakī slave girl who sang in lamentation. It is usually made of an introductory note of blame. The Iraqi poet úafī al-Dīn al-millī (d. 1339 c.e.) offers the definitive view of these “arts of versification.” For a translation of the relevant paragraph and some comments, see Noha Radwan, “Two Masters of Egyptian Āmmiyya Poetry,” 223. Al-Mūsawī, Mujtama( Alf Laylah wa-laylah, 207–240, 281–322. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 81–82. Ibid., 82. Al-Mūsawī, Sardiyyāt al-(aùr al- (Arabī al-Islāmī al-waùī•, 153–174. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Nights 94–101: 194–206, 229–237. See van Gelder, God’s Banquet, 72, 76, 102. Haddawy translates the dish as “ragout” spiced with cumin. See Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Nights 122–129: 312–314. Ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddimah, 85–86, 360. Abū (Abd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) thought of the order as reprehensible. See Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 266–267. Ibid. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 76. Ibid., 83. Cited in Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 267. Ibid., 7–8. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 76. Ibid., 131. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 57. Ibid.

5. Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tr adition  92990 39. Ibid., 58. 40. Chambers, Popular Culture, 101. 41. Al-Mūsawī, Mu jtama( alf laylah (The Society of the Thousand and One Nights), 70–90, 102, 217. 42. Ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddimah, 242; for more, see 233–243. 43. Chambers, Popular Culture, 61. 44. Ibid., 12. 45. Iain Chambers’s phrase, see ibid., 19. 46. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 66. 47. Ibid., 72. 48. Ibid., 73. 49. Ibid., 74. 50. Ibid., 75. 51. Ibid. 52. I am using the term in reference to writings, research, translations, redactions, editions, abridgements, and adaptations in publication, media, cinema, and theater. 53. See ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-quùùāù wa-al-mudhakkirīn. See also Berkey, Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East. 54. See, for example, Pinault, Storytelling Techniques in the Arabian Nights. 55. See al-Aghānī, 16:267–268. 56. Ibid., 5:173–175. 57. See al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 24–25. 58. See Wadī(ah §āhā al-Najm, Al-Qaùùaù wa-al-quùùāù fī al-adab al-(Arabī, 47, 60–61, 63. Certainly, the role of the qaùùāù originated as instruction and edification. Gradually, it lapsed into more dramatization and entertainment to appeal to and influence the common audiences. She noticed that readership increased so much that Abū al-Qāsim al-marīrī (d. 1122 c.e.) had seven hundred students who were licensed to report and teach his maqāmāt (84). 59. See al-Musawi, “Abbasid Popular Narrative.” 60. Abū Alī al-Munāssin al-Tanūkhī, Nishwār al-munābarah wa-akhbār almudhākarah, 1:1, 3:10. Abu Ali al-Muhassin al-Tanukhi, The Table-Talk of a Mesopotamian Judge. See also al-Mūsawī, Sardiyyāt al-(aùr al-(Arabī al-Islāmī al-waùī•, 16–22. 61. For information on tales that are related in other accounts as history, see Amedroz, “A Tale of the Arabian Nights Told as History,” 273–293; Muhsin Mahdi, “From History to Fiction,” 65–79. In Mujtama)alf laylah, I have shown a number of overlapping tales and the surprising documentary and descriptive material involved in narrative, albeit with anachronisms. 62. See Lord, The Singer of Tales, 129–130. 63. See Bakhtin, “Discourse on the Novel,” 286–287. 64. (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ, Al-Bukhalā), 12–13. 65. Al-Azdī, mikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī, 82; see also al-Mūsawī, Mujtama( alf laylah, 243–244. 66. (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ, Al-Bukhalā), 173–175. 67. (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ, Rasā)il al- al-Jāniµ, letter 15, p. 199. 68. aiā) al-Dīn ibn al-Athīr, Al-Mathal al-sā)ir, 1:68. 69. See Prendergast, trans., The Maqāmāt of Badī( al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī, 89. 70. Ibid.

93000  5. Nonreligious Displacements in Popular Tr adition 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

Ibid., 131. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī, Al-Imitā( wa-al-mu)ānasah, 1:225. Abū Manùūr al-Tha(ālibī, Yatīmat al-dahr fī manāsin ahl al-aùr, 3:35. This will be discussed further in the next chapter. Al-Jānīµ, Al-Bayān wa-al-tabyīn, 1:69–70. Abū al-masan (Alī b. al-musayn b. (Alī al-Mas(ūdī, in Murūj al-dhahab (Meadows of Gold), 4:252–254; also in al-Mūsāwi, Mujtama( alf laylah, 53–56. Al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, 86, 208, 227, 367. Ibid., 363–364. Al-Jānīµ, Al-Manāsin wa-al-abdād, 183–189; al-Mūsawī, Mujtama( alf laylah, 58–67. Kitāb al-Aghānī, 5:138. Also in Kennedy, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World, 146. Cited in al-Mūsawī, Sardiyyāt al-(aùr al-(Arabī al-Islāmī al-waùī•, 35–36. Chambers, Popular Culture, 100–101.

6. The Public Role in Islamic Narrative Theorizations 1. See Abū al-masan Munammad ibn Yūsuf al-(Āmirī, Kitāb al-)i-(lām bi-manāqib al-)Islām, 96. 2. (Amr Ibn Banr al-Jāniµ, Rasā)il al-Jāniµ, letter 15, 199. 3. Al-Huùrī al-Qayrawanī approached both the literal and the symbolic meanings in relation to the art, see for example, Jam( al-jawāhir, 14, 21. In a similar vein to Abū Munammad ibn Qutaybah, he argues: “In its variety of discourse, I made it like a feast comprising many dishes, for people’s dispositions vary and their drives differ.” 4. Ibn Qutaybah, X yūn al-akhbār [Springs of information], 1:45–49. 5. See, on this point, al-Mūsawī, Sardiyyāt al-(aùr al-(Arabī al-Islāmī al-waùī•, 99. 6. Cited in ibid., 43–44; also al-Huùrī al-Qayrawanī, Jam( al-jawāhir, 121. 7. See von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, 288. 8. Al-Huùrī al-Qayrawanī, Jam( al-jawāhir, 21–22, 25–26. 9. Ibrāhim b. Munammad al-Bayhaqī, Al-Manāsin wa-al-masāwi), 8, 12. 10. Ibn Qutaybahh, X yūn al-akhbār, 1:45–49. 11. Along with the Sufi and Mu)tazilite objections to jurisconsults, there was a tendency to counteract their increasing influence, an influence that was in keeping with the rising mercantile class. For the fossilization of jurisprudence, see Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 32. 12. Ibn Qutaybah, Kitāb al-shi(r wa )l-shu(arā) [Book of poetry and poets], 1:74–75. 13. Al-Jāniµ, Rasā)il al- al-Jāniµ, letter 3, 1:160. 14. See Abū Isnāq Ibrāhīm B. (Alī B. Tamīm al-muùrī al-Qayrawanī (d. 413/1022), Zahr al-Ādāb, 1:160; and Jam( al-jawāhir, 40. 15. Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-quùùāù wa-al-mudhakkirīn, 25. 16. Ibid., 102, 93. 17. See (Alī b. Tamīm’s book, Al-Sard wa )l-µāhira al-drāmiyya, 257–259, for a survey of positions. 18. Al-Jāniµ, Rasā)il al- al-Jāniµ, letter 13, 3:128. 19. Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-quùùāù wa-al-mudhakkirīn, 75. 20. Ibid., 102.

6. The Public Role in Isla mic Narr ative Theorizations   93010 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

Ibid., 21, 10, 28, 102. Ibid., 93, 94, 95. Ibid., 94. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī, Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa [Book of enjoyment and good company], 1:23; 2:34–38, 44–49; 3:204. For the impact of al-Jāniµ, see Kitāb almaywān, 3:534. See al-Jānīµ, Al-Bukhalā). The editor, §āhā al-mājirī, quotes from al-Jāniµ, al-Bayān, 302. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī, Al-Baùā)ir wa )l-dhakhā)ir, 105. Al-Huùrī al-Qayrawanī, Jam( al-jawāhir, 21–22. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī, Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa [Book of enjoyment and good company], 3:87–97. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 30. Al-Qābī Abū (Alī al-Tanūkhī, Kitāb nishwār al munābara wa-akhbār al-mudhākara bi-alfāµ al-mukhālafa [Book of shared conversation and memorable information by means of contrasted expressions], 1:9. Ibid., 1:10. Ibid. Ibid., 3:7. Ibid., 1:2–7. Ibid, 3:7. Ibid. See Krachkovski, Istiri Arabskoi Geograficheskoi Literatury, 227, 232–233. Abū Isnāq Ibrāhīm b. (Alī B. Tamīm al-muùrī -Qayrawānī, Dhayl zahr al-ādāb, 2. For the confusion between the two books, see the Encyclopedia of Islam and also the other edition as already cited. Also for the exact quotation, see al-Huùrī alQayrawanī, Jam( al-jawāhir, 13–14. Ibid., 7, also 8, 51. Ibid., 52. (Amr ibn Banr al-Jāniµ, Al-Bukhalā), 53. Ibid., p. 4. Al-Huùrī al-Qayrawanī, Jam( al-jawāhir, 15. Abū mayyān al-Tawnīdī, Al-Imtā( wa )l-mu)ānasa [Book of enjoyment and good company], 1:5. Qābī Abū (Alī al-Tanūkhī, Kitāb nishwār al munābara wa-akhbār al-mudhākara bi-alfāµ al-mukhālafa [Book of shared conversation and memorable information by means of contrasted expressions], 13. See al-Mūsawī, Sardiyyāt, 62–63. (Amr Ibn Banr al-Jāhiµ, Al-Bukhalā), 47. For a discussion of this art, see al-Mūsawī, Sardiyyāt, 80–81, 159–174. Al-Azdī, mikāyat Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī, 1–2. Ibid., 70, 71. Abū Isnāq al-Qayrawānī, Jam( al-jawāhir, 24. Ibid. Ibid., 85–86. Ibid., 17. Ibid., 18. Ibid., 420.

93020  6. The Public Role in Isla mic Narr ative Theorizations 57. 58. 59. 60.

Ibid., 85. Ibid., 21. Ibid., 23. Al-Jāniµ, The Epistle on Singing-girls of Jahiz, para. 53. See also Kennedy, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World, 174.

7. Scheherazade’s Nonverbal Narratives in Religious Contexts 1. See Portch, Literature’s Silent Language; Steiner, ed., Image and Code; and Mitchell, Iconology. 2. Culler, “Semiotics: Communication and Signification,” 80. 3. See Axon, Bookman 31 (1907): 258; and Conant, The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century, 238–248. For a summary, see al-Musawi, Scheherazade in England, 6. 4. See al-Mūsawī, Mujtama( alf laylah wa-laylah, 252–322; and an interesting reading of illustration as narrative, Marzolph, Narrative Illustration in Persian Lithographed Books. On food and its functions, see also the entry in The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, 2:552–554. 5. In terms of relevance to the generic characteristics of the Thousand and One Nights, one can cite among books Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling; Ghazoul, The Arabian Nights, Muhsin Mahdi, The Thousand and One Nights, Introduction and Indexes; Elisse´eff, The´mes et motifs des Mille et une Nuits; El-Shamy, Folk Traditions of the Arab World; Naddaf, Arabesque; Hamori, On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature; and Pinault, Storytelling Techniques in the Arabian Nights. Periodical criticism is much larger, especially in French. 6. Abū al-Qāsim (Abd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin al-Qushayrī, Principles of Sufism, 83. 7. Ibid., 51. 8. Portch’s use, in Literature’s Silent Language; Steiner, ed. Image and Code; and Mitchell, Iconology. 9. In Portch, Literature’s Silent Language, 11. 10. Ibid., 5. 11. See Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 77. 12. Ibid., 143. 13. Ibid., 147. 14. Ibid., 96. 15. Of relevance to this subject is Hamori, “A Comic Romance from The Thousand and One Nights: The Tale of the Two Viziers.” 16. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 165. 17. See the Encyclopedia of Islam, CD-rom edition. 18. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 3:25. The tale is in the Būlāq edition. Burton used E. W. Lane’s version. 19. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 3:29. 20. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 47. 21. On the equation between narrative and life as in the Thousand and One Nights, see Chesterton, “The Everlasting Nights”; and Todorov, “Narrative Men,” in The Poetics of Prose. 22. Abū Bakr ibn §ufayl’s mayy Ibn Yaqµān: A Philosophical Tale, 98. 23. Ibid.

7. Scheher azade’s Non verbal Narr atives  93030 24. Abū al-masan (Alī Hujwīrī, Kashf al-manjūb, 153, 170. 25. For the syndrome of the wound and virginity, see Ghazoul, The Arabian Nights. 26. See al-Musawi, “Vindicating a Profession or a Personal Career? Al-Qalqashandī’s Maqāmah in Context,” 111–135; and al-Musawi, “Premodern Belletristic Prose,” 101–133. 27. Todorov, The Fantastic. 28. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 104. 29. Ibid., Night 23: 57. 30. Ibid., 149. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 61. 33. Ibid., Night, 27: 50. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., 61. 37. See Muhsin Mahdi, The Thousand and One Nights, part 3, 138. 38. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Nights 25–27: 61–66. 39. Mitchell, Iconology, 9. 40. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 27: 66. 41. Ibid., Nights 138–139: 248–249. 42. Ibid., Nights 139–149: 256. 43. Steiner, ed., Image and Code, 7. 44. For a review of the story as a story of love, see Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling, 134–137. 45. Burton’s rendition of Lane’s translation. The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 2:300. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., 2:301. 48. Ibid., 2:302. 49. Ibid., 2:302–303. 50. Ibid., 2:305. 51. Ibid., 2:304, n. 1. 52. Ibid., 2:305. 53. Ibid., 2:307. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 2:308. 56. Ibid. 57. See Al-Qushayrī, Principles; and Suhrawardī, The Shape of Light, 111. 58. Al-Qushayrī, Principles, 80. 59. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 2:310. 60. Ibid., 2: 311. 61. Ibid. 62. Munammad b. al-masan b. Munammad b. al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Tabīkh (A Baghdad Cookery Book), 25. 63. Al-Qushayrī, Principles, 80. 64. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 2:311. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., 2:313. 67. Ibid., 2:314.

93040  7. Scheher azade’s Non verbal Narr atives 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 1 04. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

Ibid., 2:314–315. Ibid., 2:323. Ibid., 2:324. Ibid., 2:330. Lotman, “The Discrete Text and the Iconic Text,” 337. For a review of this literature, see Fleckenstein, “Images, Words, and Narrative Epistemology,” 919. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 3:5. Ibid., 3:5–6. Ibid., 3:6. Ibid. Ibid., 3:11. Mitchell, Iconology, 10. See Fleckenstein, “Images, Words, and Narrative Epistemology,” 918. Burton, The Book of The Thousand and One Nights, 3:31. Ibid., 3:31. Ibid. See Fleckenstein, “Images, Words, and Narrative Epistemology,” 922. References are to Jerome Bruner’s Acts of Meaning (1990) and Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1986), and to Susan Aylwin, Structure in Thought and Feeling (1985). Ibid. Quotation in ibid. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 3:33. Ibid. See Fleckenstein, “Images, Words, and Narrative Epistemology,” 920. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 3:36. See Fleckenstein’s summary of Bruner’s views in “Narrative Construction of Reality” (1991), 926. See Gombrich, “Image and Code,” in Image and Code, 11. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, 3:41. Munammad b. al-masan b. Munammad b. al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Tabīkh, 26. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Night 176: 304. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 305. Jonathan Culler, “Semiotics,” 79. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Nights 121–129: 228–237. Al-Mūsawī, Mujtama( alf laylah wa-laylah, 311–319. Manmūd B. musayn Kushājim (d. 961 c.e.), Adab al-nadīm [The Good Manners of the Boon-Companion], 28. Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, 117. Ibid., 99. Ibid. Ibid., 197. Ibid. Ibid., 197–198. Ibid., 198–199. Van Gelder, God’s Banquet.

7. Scheher azade’s Non verbal Narr atives  93050 111. 1 12. 113. 114. 115.

Haddawy, trans., The Arabian Nights, Nights 166–167: 289–291. Ibid., 167: 290. Ibid. Ibid., 291. Although no reasons were given by the caliph, who is sovereign in decisions as in everything else, ibn Khaldūn thinks what angered him was probably the stupendous growth of the Barmecides as the most powerful group. See Muaqaddimah, 20–21.

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Bibliogr aphy  93090 Campbell, Joseph, ed. The Portable Arabian Nights. New York: The Viking Press, 1967. Originally published in 1952. Caracciolo, Peter L. The Arabian Nights in English Literature. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Carlyle, Thomas. Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1834– 1872. 2 vols. London: Chatto and Windus, 1883. Chambers, Iain. Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience. London: Methuen, 1986. Chauvin, V. Bibliographie arabe. Vol. 4. Liege, 1900. Chejne, Anwar G. “The Boon-companion in Early (Abbasid Times.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 85, no. 3 (July–September 1965): 327–335. Chesterton, G. K. Collected Poems. London: Cecil Palmer, 1927. ——. “The Everlasting Nights.” In The Spice of Life and Other Essays, ed. Dorothy Collins, 58–60. Beaconsfield: Darwen Finlayson, 1964. Clouston, William A. Popular Tales and Fictions. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1887. Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, ed. Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. London, 1895. Collins, Dorothy, ed. The Spice of Life and Other Essays. Beaconsfield: Darwen Finlayson, 1964. Cook, M. A. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Coote, Henry Charles. “Folk-lore the Source of Some of M. Galland’s Tales.” The Folk-lore Record 3, pt. 2 (1881): 178–191. Cope, Kevin J., et al., eds. 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era. New York: AMS, 2000. Cosquin, Emmanuel. Etudes folkloriques. Paris, 1922. Cracroft, Bernard. Essays Political and Miscellaneous. 2 vols. London: Trubner, 1868. Crane, T. F. “Italian Popular Tales.” North American Review 123 (July 1876): 25–60. Craveri, Benedetta. The Age of Conversation. Trans. Teresa Waugh. New York: NYRB, 2005. Culler, Jonathan. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. London: Routledge, 1981. ——. “Semiotics: Communication and Signification: Images, Words, and Narrative Epistemology.” College English 58, no. 8 (December 1996): 78–95. Cunningham, Lucia Guerra, ed. Splintering Darkness: Latin American Women Writers in Search of Themselves. Pittsburgh, Penn.: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1990. Al-Damayrī, Kamāl al-Dīn. mayāt al-mayawān al-Kubrā. 2nd printing. Beirut: Dār alKutub al-(Ilmiyyah, 2002. De Gayangos, P., trans. The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain [Nafn al-tīb min ghusn al-Andalus al-ra•īb], by al-Maqqarī. 2 vols. London, 1840–1841. De La Mare, Walter. “The Thousand and One.” In Pleasures and Speculations, 71–76. 1940. New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1960. Diwān al-Shāf (ī. Al-Manùūrah: Dār al-Yaqīn, 2000. Dodge, Baynard, trans. The Fihrist of al-Nadīm. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970. Dunlop, John C. The History of Fiction. 1841. Rev. Henry Wilson. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1888. Eagles, John. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 64 (October 1848): 472–473. Elisse´eff, N. The´mes et motifs des Mille et une Nuits: Essai de classification. Beirut: Institut français de Damas, 1949.

93100 Bibliogr aphy El-Shamy, Hasan. Folk Traditions of the Arab World: A Guide to Motif Classification. 2 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Fawzī, musain. Anādīth al-Sundabād al-qadīm. Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-Miùrī, 1977. Fleckenstein, Kristie S. “Images, Words, and Narrative Epistemology.” College English 58, no. 8 (December 1996): 914–933. Gerhardt, Mia I. The Art of Storytelling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights. Leiden: Brill, 1963. Al-Ghazālī, Abū māmid. Treatise on misbah from Inyā) (Ulūm al-Dīn [The Revival of the Religious Sciences], in The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector (Nihayat al-Rutba fī §alab al-misba: The Utmost Authority in the Pursuit of misba), by (Abd al-Ranman b. Naùr al-Shayzarī, trans. Ronald Paul Buckley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Ghazoul, Ferial. The Arabian Nights: A Structural Analysis. Cairo: UNESCO, 1980. Gissing, George. Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. London, 1904. Goitein, Samuel. “The Oldest Documentary Evidence for the Title Alf Laila wa Laila.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 78 (1958): 301–302. Gombrich, E. H. “Image and Code: Scope and Limits of Conventionalism in Pictorial Representation.” In Image and Code, ed. Wendy Steiner. Michigan Studies in the Humanities. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1981. Goodman, Dina. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994. Gordon, Daniel. Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. Gray, Louis H. “The Sanskrit Novel and the Arabian Nights.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 18 (1904): 39–48. “The Greatest Books of the World: The Arabian Nights.” Women’s Home Companion 40 (February 1913): 16. Guthrie, Shirley. Arab Social Life in the Middle Ages. London: Saqi Books, 1995. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Trans. Thomas Burger. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1999. Haddawy, Husain, trans. The Arabian Nights. Based on the text edited by Muhsin Mahdi. New York: Norton, 1990. Al-makīm, Tawfīq. “Athwāb al-Adab al-(Arabī” [Garbs of Arabic Literature]. In Fann al-Adab. Cairo: Maktabat al-Ādāb, 1952. Hamori, Andras. “A Comic Romance from The Thousand and One Nights: The Tale of the Two Viziers.” Arabica 30 (1983): 38–56. ——. On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974. Hartland, E. Sidney. “The Forbidden Chamber.” Folk-lore Journal 3, pt. 3 (1885): 193– 242. Heath, Peter. “Romance as Genre in ‘The Thousand and One Nights.’ ” Journal of Arabic Literature 18 (1987): 1–121; 19 (1988): 1–26. Henley, William E. Views and Reviews, Works. 7 vols. London: Nutt, 1908. Hewitt, J. F. “History as Told in the Arabian Nights.” The Westminster Review 143, no. 3 (January–June 1895): 253–277. mikmat, (Alī Aùghar. “Min Hazār Afsan ilā Hazār distān: Dirāsah tarīkhiyyah li-kitāb alf laylah wa-laylah.” In Al-Dirāsāt al-Adabiyyah (Al-Jāmi(ah al-Lubnāniyyah), 4:5–35. 1960. Hodgson, Geraldine. The Life of James Elroy Flecker. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1925.

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Index

(Abbāsid Empire, 10, 13, 16–17, 43, 114, 229; appropriation of jurisprudence, 184; decline of, 110, 112, 137; religion, appropriation of, 190–93; statecraft and religious message, 141; travel during, 157 (Abbās, ibn, 94, 111 Abbott, Nabia, 2, 5, 8, 44, 277–78 (Abd Allah, al-Shifā bint, 56 absolutism, dissipation of, 2–3, 41 Abū Murra, 92 accountability, 60–61 adab al-(āmmah (literature of the common public), 14, 220–21, 246 adab (sociability/civility), 3, 8, 28, 194, 261 Adam-and-Eve syndrome, 87 adultery, 12–13, 30, 99–100, 208; motifs, 41–42; punishment for, 12, 34–36, 90. See also love Ansan al-taqāsīm fi ma(rifat al-aqālīm (al-Muqaddasī), 240 Anwal, al-, 151 (Ajā)ib al-Hind (ibn Schahriar), 158 (Ajā)ib al-Makhlūqāt (al-Qazwīnī), 66 akhbār anecdotes, 232–33 (Alā) al-Dīn (Aladdin), 53, 178 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, 210, 258 (Alīds, 195–96

Al-(Īqd al-farīd (The Unique Necklace), 181 allegories, 3, 5, 233, 244; seclusion, 76–77; in source texts, 8–9 (Amirī, Abū al-masan Munammad ibn Yūsuf al-, 228–29 (āmmah, 145 (Ammār, Manùūr b., 234 amulets, 258–61 anachronisms, 91 Anas, Mālik b., 213 Andalusia, 56, 152, 154 Anderson, Benedict, 161 anecdotal literature, 12, 15–16, 107, 277; akhbār, 232–33; changing order and, 149–50, 170–71; decline of, 239–40; female, 33, 40; frame tale and, 42–44, 100; gossip about rulers, 237–38; latenight talks, 5, 45–46, 240, 243–44; Muslim empire and, 131, 134; nādirah/ nawādir, 216, 223, 240–41, 244; nar­ rative theorizations of, 231–40; non­ religious displacements and, 226–27; Scheherazade’s use of, 30, 112; Sufi, 64, 82; urban tales as, 90–92 apelike climbing, trope of, 18, 38–39, 42 apocalyptic vision, 82–83 appropriation, 169, 247–48; colonial, 28– 29, 32; as cultural phenomenon, 109, 116, 189, 191; of earlier sources, 15, 31,

93200 Index appropriation (continued) 67, 146, 225; of jurisprudence, 135–36; of religion, 190–93; translation and, 18, 28–29, 48, 54, 82, 213; tropes of, 31– 32; for urban classes, 3–6, 181, 189–90, 222–26 (Aqīl, ibn, 125, 127–28, 151 Arabian Days and Nights (Power), 70–71 Arabian Nightism, 106–7, 213 Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, 29. See also Thousand and One Nights “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments” (Henley), 70 Arabian Nights (Payne), 82 Arabian Nights Reader, The (Marzolph), 4 Arabic language, 176, 214 (Arabī, ibn, 45, 95 Arab-Islamic tradition, 56 Arabism, 214 Arabs, 28, 133–34 Ardashir, 42 argumentation, 145, 182, 216–17, 224, 229, 243–44 (Arīb (slave girl), 182–83 art, public need for, 237–39 Artabanus V, 42 Arthurian legends, 36 Asadiyya, Samrā) bint Nuhayk al-, 56 Asad wa-al ghawwāù, Al- (The Lion and the Diver), 227 ascetics, 12, 144, 266 Ashras, Thumāmah ibn, 226 al-Aùma(ī, 223, 233 asmār/musāmarāt (late-night talks), 5, 46, 240, 243–44 Aspects of the Novel (Forster), 55 assemblies (maqāmāt), 9, 170, 186, 202, 215, 217–18, 220–22, 239, 245; gossip about court, 237–38 Athenaeum critic, 44–45, 284–85n. 66 Athīr, aiyā al-Dīn ibn al-, 121, 217–18 Atlantic Monthly, 49, 69 authenticity, 37, 223, 235 authority, 226–27 autobiographical tales, 152, 156, 161–62 (Awārif al-ma(ārif (The Bounties of Divine Knowledge) (Suhrawardī), 206 Axon, William E. A., 48

Aylwin, Susan, 271 Ayyubids, 144, 185 Azdī, Anmad Abū al-Mu•ahhar al-, 15, 136, 202, 216, 244–45 (Azīz, (Umar ibn (Abd al-, 80 Bagehot, Walter, 68, 77, 97, 119, 150 Baghdad, 2, 6–7, 8–10; as Abode of Peace, 161, 162, 169, 196; as center, 2, 8–15, 17, 22, 46–49, 81, 99, 111, 116, 130, 132, 136–37, 157, 162, 168, 173, 175, 196, 279; collapse of, 110, 112, 153; cosmopolitanism, 43, 131–33; as melting pot, 104, 137; prior to collapse, 158; topographical divisions, 125–28, 130; travels to, 157–58 Baghdādī, al-Kha•īb al-, 102, 115–16, 143, 244 Baghdādī, (Abd al-La•īf al-, 121 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 50–51, 71, 249 Bakkār, Nūr al-Dīn (Alī, ibn, 94, 96 Banqdārī, al-Malik al-¥āhir Baybars al-, 153 barbers: loquacity of, 117–18, 191, 193– 94, 249, 250–51, 261; not accepted by elites, 211–12 Barmakid, tale of, 16–19, 176–77, 192, 276–78 Barmakids (Barmicides), 111, 126, 142, 192–93, 276–78, 289n. 103; Rasnīd and, 289n. 103, 305n. 115 Barth, John, 21, 35, 284n. 34 Baùā)ir wa-al dhakhā)ir (al-Tawnīdī), 135 basket with rope, trope of, 127, 181–82, 214 Basra, 18, 25, 134, 186, 216 Baùrī, masan al-, 76 Ba••ū•a, ibn, 176 Bayān wa-al-tabyīn, Al- (al-Jānīµ), 222, 224 Bayhaqī, Ibrāhīm b. Munammad al-, 8, 231 beauty, 85–86, 93–94, 174; in classical Arabic literature, 96–97; merits of, 97–98 Bedouins, 3–4, 93, 192, 226 belletristic tradition, 64–65, 148, 151, 180, 211, 225–26 Ben Ādam, Yanya, 23–24 Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine, 127, 130–31

Index  93210 betrayal, 11, 17–18, 30–31, 36–37, 39–40, 43, 65, 130–31, 184, 257 binaries, 40–42, 148, 213, 231, 244, 270, 273; in classical tradition, 214–15; culture/ nature, 39, 42; male/female suspicion, 2; in popular culture, 197–99, 204–5, 212; racial, 29, 41 book markets (warrāqīn), 150–52 Book of Ferzeh and Simas, The, 44 Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, 184–85 Borges, Jorge Luis, 69, 71 Brontë, Charlotte, 62 Bruner, Jerome, 271 Buckley, J. H., 96 Budūr, Princess, 4 Bukhārī, Munammad b. Ismā(īl al-, 53, 292n. 46 Būrān (character), 181–82, 183 Burton, Richard, 71, 74, 75, 263 Buwayhid dynasty, 137, 207, 229 Būzjānī, Abū al-Wafā) Munammad b. Yanyā, 230 Byron, Lord, 26, 68, 71 Cairo, 48, 130–32, 151–60, 169, 209, 275; Ayyubid, 152–54; as center, 12, 186, 211, 279; displacement of sacred onto, 179– 80; Fatimid, 111–13, 144, 146, 152, 179, 184–85; Mamluk, 8, 21–22, 132, 144, 152, 158–59, 215; Moral Court, 27 caliphs: (Alī, 234; Andalusian, 120, 146; authority of, 226–27; as Commander of the Faithful, 9–11, 33, 75–76, 89, 95, 122, 191, 231; as compassionate, 111, 124, 126, 130–31; education into humanity, 146–47; Fā•imīd, 111–13, 144, 146, 152, 179, 184–85, 207; generosity of, 124, 138, 159, 196; intrusion on private sphere, 33–34, 211; ironic double role, 33, 144, 213; legitimacy of, 10– 11, 43, 110–11, 146, 195–96, 237–38; al-Ma)mūn, 125, 171, 183; al-Muqtadir, 132, 143, 281n. 5; Mustanùir Billāh, al-, 91, 198; al-Mu(taùim, 137; al-Rābī, 281n. 5; al-Rashīd, Hārūn, 2, 9–10, 17– 18, 18, 35, 60, 70, 186; Sāmarrā), 24; §ālib, (Alī ibn Abī, 10, 43, 75–76; transgression by, 201–2; (Umar, 56

calligraphy, 121, 151, 257–58 Carlyle, Thomas, 108 carnivalesque, 171, 180, 194, 198–99, 208, 212, 276 censorship, 1, 27, 185 center: Baghdad as, 2, 8–15, 17, 22, 46–49, 81, 99, 104, 111, 116, 130, 132, 136–37, 157, 162, 168, 173, 175, 196, 279; banishment from, 198, 200, 201, 220; Cairo as, 12, 186, 211, 279; center/rule analogy, 279–80; China as, 12, 186; competing centers, 152–55; Damascus as, 186; frame tale as trope for, 8, 279– 80; nonverbal narratives and, 263– 64; palaces and mosques, 9–10, 88– 89, 125, 128, 204; subterranean and, 59, 65, 118, 128–29, 254; temptations in, 155–57; travels to, 157–58 chain transmission, 215 Chambers, Iain, 210 Chambers, Robert, 46 chancery writing, 121, 151, 159, 162, 217, 239–40, 257. See also official discourse Chesterton, G. K., 30 China, as location of tales, 12, 62, 138–39, 176–77, 186, 261 Christians, 79–80, 154–55, 181, 185–89 city-state, 147, 175 class, 14, 82, 127–28, 236–37, 241; appropriation for urban milieu, 3–6, 181, 222–26; food and popular culture, 203–4; al-khāùùah (chosen class), 182, 201; market vs. palace, 89–90; middle class, 177–78; mixing of in popular cul­ ture, 208–9; punishment and, 85, 90 classical tradition: clarity and balance, 216–17, 228–29; oral tradition and, 214–15 codes, 95–95, 250, 276–77 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 62, 69, 110 collective memory, 1, 6–7, 108, 164, 186, 198; changing order and, 145, 147 Commander of the Faithful (amīr almu)minīn), 9–11, 33, 75–76, 89, 95, 122, 191, 231 commitments, 78–81 Companion (Irwin), 106 consciousness, 160–62, 202 consumer culture, 210, 214–15, 218

93220 Index containment, 31, 40–41, 117, 205, 239, 279 Cordoba, 154 Cornhill Magazine, 49 correspondence, 254–55 Cosquin, Emmanuel, 31 counternarratives, 2, 6, 40, 176, 195 court: ethics and, 181–82; gossip about, 237–38; literature of, 11, 13, 14–16; urban separation from, 5–6, 9, 13 Cracroft, Bernard, 5 Crusades, 154 Culler, Jonathan, 250, 274 cultural consciousness, 40–42 cultural contexts, 13, 15, 107, 149, 277–78. See also popular culture curiosity, 40, 56–59, 169; loss and, 58, 62; nonverbal narrative and, 256; social hierarchy and, 198–99; warnings and, 32–33, 56–57, 87–88, 138, 206–8 aannāk, al-musayn al-, 223 Damascus, 12, 16, 48, 152, 154, 158, 186, 188 Al-Damayrī, Kamāl al-Dīn, 145 Dāwūd, ibn, 10, 96 daydreaming, 192, 199–201 death, 140, 141–42 demons, 118–19 dervishes, 21, 206–8. See also under tales desire, 82, 87, 198–99; as sexual intrigue, 183–84; spatial parameters of, 131–32 deterioration, signs of, 140–44 Dhayl zahr al-ādāb (al-muùrī), 240 dhimmīs, 24, 80–81; physicians, 116–17, 187 Dickens, Charles, 63, 70–71, 135 “Difference Between Enmity and Envy, The” (al-Jāniµ), 101–2 Dilā), úarī(, 185 Dīn, Fakhr al-, 120 diviners, 53–54 dome, significance of, 58, 111 dreams and visions, 69, 79, 270–71 dress and conduct, 74, 79–81, 115, 160, 193 Dunyazad (Dinarzad) (Scheherazade’s sister), 42 Duqmāq, ibn, 110, 153 Eagles, John, 72 education, 55–56; artists and cultivated taste, 124–27; of caliphs, 146–47; con-

ditions placed on, 84; in frame tale, 8, 112; for leadership, 161–62; in magic, 121–24; professional, 120–21; rise and fall, paradigm of, 111–17; slaves and, 112, 133; into social order, 146–47; in story of Tawaddud, 112–15; vicissitudes of fate and, 119–21; of women, 25, 56, 112, 120 Egypt, 27, 160 elite writerly efforts, 15, 42–43, 45–46 elitism, 45, 117, 148 eloquence, 24, 120–21, 123–24, 161–62, 165, 217–19 embedding, 31–33, 112 England, 26, 29–30; colonialism, 28– 29, 32; new legalistic discourse, 135–36 envy, 100–102 Epistles (Rasā)il) (al-Jāniµ), 96 epistolographic manuals, 112, 120, 137, 144, 239 epithets, 225 equality, 24, 42, 60, 75 ethics, 180–83, 189, 217, 221 European romanticism, 2, 26, 50–51, 62, 67–72, 102, 131, 176–79 evil, forbidding of, 59–61 expectation and reality, discrepancy between, 181, 263 fables (khurāfāt), 5, 46, 47, 91, 109, 146, 223–25, 233, 244, 285n. 78 Fabā)il Baghdad (ibn Mihmandār), 153 fabā)il genre, 152 Fabl (slave girl), 92 fānishah (abomination), 36 faith, 76–77, 91–92 fantastic, literature of, 33, 62, 178, 224–25 Fantastic, The (Todorov), 67, 73 Faraj Ba(da al-Shiddah, Al- (Relief After Distress) (al-Tanūkhī), 119 Fā•imīd caliphate, 111–13, 144, 146, 152, 179, 184–85, 207 Fihrist (ibn al-Nadīm), 229–30, 244 film noir, 209–10 food and feasting, 16–17, 103, 188, 202; fake feast, 17–19, 176–77, 192, 200, 276–78; manners, 203–4, 274; narrative theorization of, 246, 248–49; non-

Index  93230 verbal meanings of, 265–67, 273–75; refusal to participate, 77, 219 Forster, E. M., 55 frame tale (Thousand and One Nights), 2–3, 5; as appropriation of heathen values, 189–90; art for life, 24, 30, 32, 62; in historical contexts, 42–48; Indo-Persian origin, 7–9, 30–31, 56, 146, 189; Islamic context of, 2, 6–13, 279–80; Islamization of, 31, 36, 44, 47, 186; legitimacy of sovereign debate, 146; of mendicants, 2, 3, 9, 13, 21; moral implications in, 35–38; narrative designs central to, 17–18; as navigational trope, 30; performed version, 46; Sassanid origin, 36, 37, 42, 100; Sharayār (king), 30, 37, 40–41, 175, 184, 227, 237, 241; submission to fate in, 38– 40; three parts of, 31–33; transactional nature of, 21, 24, 30; as urban growth, 48–51; versions of, 31–35. See also Scheherazade; Thousand and One Nights France, 7, 28, 49, 71 freedom, 32, 38, 42, 77; as topography, 128–30 Galland, Antoine, 1, 4, 7, 17–18, 29, 48–51, 68, 120 Gayngos, P. de, 44, 285n. 70 generosity, 2, 120, 137, 224, 248; of caliph, 124, 138, 159, 196 genres, 26–27, 45, 152, 216–17, 223, 229, 245–46, 298n. 19 geographical literature, 157, 178 geography, 147–48 Gerhardt, Mia, 93 gharīb and (ajīb (the strange and the wonderful), 72 Ghazālī, Abū mamid al-, 12, 24, 89, 117, 144, 170, 205–6, 277, 285n. 82 Gissing, George, 63 glass box, trope of, 42 global fraternity, 21 globalization, 27, 105 God: celebration of, 76–78; the Ordainer, 74; submission to will of, 38–40, 60, 77–78; warning against invoking name of, 57–58, 286n. 7

godless universe, 198–200, 220 Goitein, Samuel, 44 Gombrich, E. H., 273 grammar, 236–37 Greek thought, 38, 116–17 group fraternity, 186 Habermas, Jürgen, 25, 65, 238 nadīths (authentic tales), 223 majjāj, ibn al-, 84, 120, 185, 221 Hallam, Arthur Henry, 70 Hamadhānī, Badī( al-Zamān al-, 8, 9, 218 mamdūn the singer, 182–83 māmid, Munammad ibn, 182–83 Hammām, Abū Alī ibn, 223 manafī (Abū manīfah al-Nu(mān), 7 manbalī, al-, 46 Abū manīfa, 60, 84, 104, 171, 282n. 28 marīrī, Abū al-Qāsim al-, 9, 299n. 58 Hārūn (Aaron), 67 Hāshimī, Abū úalin, 216 mayāt al-mayawān al-Kubrā (alDamayrī), 145 Haykal al-nūr (The Shape of Light), 3 mayy ibn Yaqµān (ibn §ufayl), 233 Hazār Afsāna, 4 mazm, ibn, 56, 92–93, 96, 98, 124 heedlessness, 3, 57, 141 Henley, William Ernest, 49, 70 Hewitt, J. F., 106, 107, 189 Hiffān, Abū, 149 hijrah treatises, 153 nikāyah (tale), 216, 219, 223, 230, 244 mikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī (Abulkasim) (al-Azdī), 15, 202, 216, 244–45 nisbah (market inspectors’ manuals), 13, 16, 22, 24, 73, 281n. 4; dating of, 60; diviners in, 53; household undertakings, 32–33; Islamic identity in, 148; nonMuslims mentioned in, 187; ordering of good, forbidding of evil, 59–61; on professions and crafts, 159–60; sects in, 184–85; social order in, 81–84; supernatural in, 63–64; on women, 39. See also market inspector historical accounts, 17, 91, 111, 126, 134, 141, 179, 181–84; love stories and, 183; popularization of, 152; salons, 182–83

93240 Index historical contexts, 25–26, 130; fall-ofempire in, 140–41; frame tale in, 42– 48 historiography, 137, 138 History (al-§abarī), 141 History (al-Ya(qūbī), 108 horoscope, 53, 57, 59, 79, 128, 250, 286n. 7 hospitality, 119–20 Hourani, Albert, 149 human agency: magic and, 123–24; nonverbal narratives and, 252, 258–67 human frailties, 100–105 human reason, 65–67 humor, 17–18, 27, 92, 164, 196; of caliph, 136; mixed with religious discourse, 178–80, 183; in written literature, 231– 32 Hunt, Leigh, 26, 50, 51, 52–53, 54, 63 musayn, Imām, 185 musn, Abū al-, 114 muùrī, al-, 240 hypocrisy, 179–80 Ibrāhīm, Shakyh, 6 iconic inscription, 257–58 idolatry, 173–75, 176–78 Idrīs, Abū (Abdallah Munammad ibn, 7, 286n. 10 Inyā) (ulūm al-Dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences) (al-Ghazālī) imagistic narrative, 251 imitators (nākiya), 222 imperialism, 54, 178; Islamic context, 146–50; tropes for, 132–34 Imtā( wa (l-mu)ānasa (al-Tawnīdī), 230, 236, 242–43 inculcation, process of, 24–25 indoctrination, 163 Indo-Persian sources, 7–9, 30–31, 36, 42, 56, 93, 106, 146, 189 information ((i (lām), 229 inscription, 32–33, 210; iconic, 257–58; nonverbal narrative and, 252–57; at threshold, 32–33, 253 instruction manuals, 46–47 intellectuals, 237 intelligence system, 179 interior infinite, 50–51, 71 introductions, 225

inventiveness, 178, 210, 218 invocations, 90, 123 Iraqi manafite school of law, 13 Iraq war, 210 irony, 17–19, 23, 91, 136, 200, 253, 277 Irwin, Robert, 28, 71, 106 Iùfahānī, Abū al-Faraj al-, 14–15, 56, 102– 3, 108, 225 Isnāq, munain ibn, 151 Iskandarī, Abū al-Fatn al-, 217 Islamic context, 1–2, 5, 7–8, 52, 227; foreign and, 25–26; of frame tale, 2, 6–13, 279–80; of imperialism, 146–50, 178; of nonverbal narrative, 250–51, 261; signs as manifestations of divine, 268. See also Muslim empire Islamic factor, 4–13, 42, 57, 187, 200–201 Islamic factor, unifying: foreign and, 25– 26; moral responsibility and, 65; narrative function and, 67–72; Paradise, 86–88; sanctified sphere, 88–90; stability and prosperity, 173–74; vicissitudes of fortune and human frailties, 100–105 Islamic faith: book markets and, 150–52; equality as tenet of, 24, 42, 60, 75, 89, 113, 128, 133, 145, 192, 201; medieval, 7– 8; parameters of, 2–3, 5–6, 18–19; piety, 180; tolerance of diversity, 186. See also religion Islamic law: needs of empire and, 134– 36; sophistry, 135–36; state and, 84– 85; story of Tawaddud and, 74–75; transgressions and, 12–13; warnings grounded in, 33–35 Jabartī, al-, 135 Jacobs, Joseph, 62–63 Jāniµ, (Amr ibn Banr al-, 8, 100, 113–14, 171, 183, 196, 228–29, 234; on beauty, 96; as chronicler, 247–48; “The Dif­ ference Between Enmity and Envy,” 101–2; humanization of narrative, 218; on khabar practice, 233; Kitab al-Bukhala) (Book of Misers), 216–17, 224, 229, 242–43, 247–48; links between storytelling and art, 241–42; on low humor, 27; writes against educated elites, 133

Index  93250 Jahm, (Alī ibn al-, 196 Jahshiyārī, Munammad Ibn (Abdūs al-, 45, 231 Ja(far the Barmicide, 111 Jam( al-jawāhir (al-muùrī), 240, 246–47 Jam( al-jawāhir (al-Qayrawanī), 236, 300n. 3 Jane Eyre (Brontë), 62 Jawzī, ibn al-, 153, 221–22, 234–36 Jerusalem, 152 Jews, 79–80, 185–89 jinn, 38–39, 224–25 Jung, C. G., 270 jurisprudence, 56, 60, 73–74, 82, 120, 134–35, 300n. 11; appropriation of, 135–36, 184–85; schools of law (madhabs), 7, 12–13, 25, 171, 184–85, 280; storytellers’ dissatisfaction with, 191 jurists, 24–25, 64–65, 84, 116–17, 191; caliphs, relationship with, 61, 76; challenges to, 34, 53, 59, 113, 136; dress codes and, 80, 81; drinking, view of, 170–71; on love, 36, 92–96, 124; migrate to Cairo, 158; popular culture, support of, 148–49; power of, 16, 113; pseudojurists, 232; slavery, view of, 134–35; storytelling, view of, 213–18, 221–24, 234–36. See also traditionalists Kāfūr (slave), 134 Kalilah wa-Dimnah (al-Muqaffa(), 8–9, 225–26 Karīm, Munammad b. al-masan b. Munammad b., 266, 273 Kātib, (Abd al-mamīd al-, 15 Khalaf, Munammad b., 128 Khaldūn, (Abd al-Rahmān ibn, 12, 116, 140, 156, 158–59, 162, 167, 177, 209, 281n. 2 Khālid, Yanya b., 115 Khallikān, ibn, 81 Khāqān, ibn, 148 Khārijīs, 184 Khashshāb, ibn al-, 218 al-khāùùah (chosen class), 182, 201 Kha•āfī, (Umārah b. (Aqīl b. Bilāl al-, 153 Kha•īb, al-, 125, 128 Khazrajī, Abū Dulaf al-, 221

Khuld Palace, 125 Khurāsānī nobleman, 34, 83, 103–4, 126, 132–33, 142, 153 Khu•a• (al-Maqrīzī), 155 Kitāb al-tāj (al-Jāniµ), 223 kitāb, as term, 230 Kitāb al-aghānī (The Book of Songs) (al-Iùfahānī), 56, 102–3, 108, 113–14, 126, 226 Kitāb al-Bukhalā) (Book of Misers) (al-Jāniz), 216–17, 224, 229, 242–43, 247–48 Kitāb al-Fihrist (al-Nadīm), 44, 144 Kitāb al-Kharāj (Qabī Abū Yūsuf), 23– 24, 35, 81 Kitāb al-quùùāù wa-al-mudhakkirīn (alJawzī), 235 Kitāb al-Tabīkh (A Baghdad Cookery Book) (Munammad b. al-masan b. Munammad b. al-Karīm), 266, 273 Kitāb madīth Alf Laylah, 45 Kitāb Kalīlah wa-Dimnah, 47 Kitāb munābarāt al-abrār wa-musāmarāt al-akhyār (The Book of Repartee with the Virtuous and Late-night Talk with the Elect) (Ibn Arabī), 46 Kitāb nishwār al munābara wa-akhbār al-mudhākara bi-al-fāµ al-mukhālafa (Table-talk of a Mesopotamian Judge) (al-Tanūkhī), 239 knowledge: assigned to men, 40; as female property, 208; growth of empire and, 117–19; as means to attain success, 228–29; nonverbal narratives and, 255–56 Lane, Edward William, 4, 24, 30, 38, 50, 68, 70, 74–75, 115, 121, 135, 194, 261 legitimacy, 10–11, 43, 47, 110–11, 146, 195– 96, 237–38 Les Mille et une Nuits, Contes Arabes, 29, 49–51. See also Thousand and One Nights linguistics, Arab, 164 listening, 126 London News, 30 loquacity, 193–94, 249; dislocation of, 250–51, 261; as term for narrative, 117– 18, 191, 194

93260 Index loss, 138; curiosity and, 58, 62 Lotman, J., 268–69 love, 3, 73, 92–100; bankruptcy and, 155, 156; beauty and, 93–94; jurists on, 36, 92–96, 124; sympathy for lovers, 94, 124; urbanity and, 130–32. See also adultery Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth), 51 Macdonald, Duncan Black, 54, 69 Maghāzalī, ibn al-, 222–23 Magians, 23, 79, 174, 260 magic, 258–61; invocations, 90, 123; order and, 52 Manāsin wa-al-abdad (al-Jāniµ), 223 Manāsin wa-al-masāwi ), Al (al-Bayhaqī), 231 Mahdi, Muhsin, 6, 71, 189–90, 198, 260 Manùūl (al-Rāzī), 120 Makdisi, George, 151 “Makfūfiyyah maqāmah” (“Assembly of the Blind”), 218 Makkī, Abū al-§ālib, 235 male/female suspicion, 2 Ma(ālim al-Qurbah fī Ankām al-misba (al-Shāf (ī), 35–36, 185 Mamluks, 8, 21–22, 132, 144, 158–59, 215 Ma)mūn, al-, 125, 171, 183 Manāqib Baghdad (al-Jawzī), 153 manners and refinement, 54, 181–83; dress and conduct, 74, 79–81, 115, 160, 193; food and, 203–4, 274; µarf (refined manners), 127–28, 164, 169, 182 mansion, trope of, 201, 204–5, 213, 227 mansion and mounds, trope of, 14, 86, 197, 205–6, 213, 227 Manùūr, Abū Ja(far al-, 10–11, 43, 128 Man•iqī, Abū Sulaymān al-, 237–38 Maqāmāt (al-marīrī), 9 maqāmāt (assemblies), 9, 170, 186, 202 , 215, 217–18, 237–39, 244–45 Maqqarī, Shihāb al-Dīn Anmad b. Munammad al-Tilimsānī al-, 44, 285n. 70 Maqrīzī, al-, 155, 211 marginal intellectuals, 216–17 marginalized groups, 82, 91, 100, 185, 198, 201, 209, 210, 230–31, 235 Ma)mūn, al-, 274 Marīsī, Bishr al-, 171

market inspector (muntasib), 16, 24, 53, 159, 160, 189, 281n. 4; diviners prohibited, 59; women as, 56. See also nisbah marketplace, 88–89; book markets, 150– 52; discourse of merchants, 219–20; ethics, 217; as setting for tales, 159–60 marriage: nonverbal elements, 260–62; resistance to, 94, 179–80. See also adultery marvelous, 254, 258–60 Marzolph, Ulrich, 4 Massignon, Louis, 3 Mas(ūdī, Abū al-masan al-, 16–17, 91, 222–23 materialism, 154, 168, 219, 256; discomfort with, 197–98, 206 Mawùilī, Isnāq al- (character), 92, 181–83, 225 media and cinema, 27, 28 medieval narrative, 213–14 melodramas, 55 memorization, 121, 214 mendicants (qalandars), 57, 205–6, 249; disillusionment of, 197–98; frame tale of, 2, 3, 9, 13, 21; as transgressors, 66, 212–13. See also “Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” merchants, 158–59, 219–20 Meredith, George, 96 metonymy, 245–46 Mew, James, 26 migration, 207 Mihmandār, ibn, 153 mimics, 222–23 Mitchell, W. J. T., 260, 270 mixed discourse, 178–80, 183, 210–13, 221 monarchy, 36–37 Mongol invasions, 60, 110, 154 monotheism, 79, 174, 176–78 moral authority, supernatural as, 63–67 moral obligations, 34, 177 morals, 180–83, 221 mosques, 9–10, 128, 204; women forbidden to attend, 88–89 Mosul mosque, 152–53 mufābalah subgenre, 21 munammad, (Abd Allah ibn, 10 Munāsibī, al-mārith al-, 235 Munāssin, Abū (Alī al-, 215

Index  93270 muhātarah (frivolous response), 216 muhātīr, 245 Mujtama(alf laylah wa-laylah (The society of the Arabian Nights) (Mūsawī), 99, 202 Mukhtaùar al-Muntahā, 120 Mu(tabid, al-, 137, 170, 237 Mu(taùim, al-, 137 Muqaddasī, Shams al-Dīn Abū (Abdullah al-, 240 Muqaddimah (ibn Khaldūn), 167 Muqaffa(, ibn al-, 8–9, 46, 133, 137, 225, 244 Muqtadir, al-, 132, 143, 281n. 5 Mu)min (believer), 76 Murūj al-Dhahab (Meadows of Gold) (al-Mas(ūdī), 16–17, 91, 141, 223 Mūsā (Moses), 66, 67, 78, 122 Mūsawī, Munsin, 71, 99, 202 Mushākalat al-nās li-zamānihim (Peoples’ Similarity to Their Times) (al-Ya(qūbī), 184 Muslim, Sa(īd, ibn, 149 Muslim, Shaykh, 53 Muslim empire: education and vicissitudes of fate, 119–21; grounding in magic, 121–24; Islamic law and, 134– 36; knowledge and, 117–19; narrative as historiography, 137; representation and parody, 106–11; rise and fall paradigm, 111–17; vagaries of politics in, 138–40; wealth and luxury as signs of deterioration, 140–44. See also Islamic context; Islamic factor; order, ­changing Mustanùir Billāh al-, 91, 198 Mutawakkil, al-, 92, 132 Muwa••a) (The Smoothed Path) (Ibn Anas), 213 muwāzanāt (debates), 8 mysticism, 74 Nadīm, ibn al-, 44, 47, 84, 144, 223, 229– 30, 232, 243–44 nādirah/nawādir (witty anecdotes), 216, 223, 240–41, 244 Nafn al-•īb min ghuùn al-Andalus al ra•īb (The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain) (alMaqqarī), 44

Nafzāwī, (Umar ibn Munammad al-, 93, 183 naming, 18 narrative: as act of containment, 41, 205; heathen vs. Islamic, 189–96; as historiography, 137; humanization of, 218; levels of society in, 181–82; medieval, 213–14; from transmission to narration, 61–62; urban sites, 226–27; as way of life, 61. See also narrative theorization; nonverbal narratives narrative challenge, 55–56 narrative rhythm, 74–75 narrative techniques, 13, 30, 46, 51, 54, 61, 72, 107, 109, 250 narrative theorizations: on anecdotal literature, 231; appeal to entertainment, 240–41; categorization of, 243–44; of food and feasting, 246, 248–49; storytellers as preachers, 234–36; time as determining element of change, 242– 43; vituperative criticism, 108, 228, 238, 245–46; written text, 230–32 nasab (lineage), 152 nation-state, 147, 175, 176 nawādir. See nādirah/nawādir neoclassicists, 48, 68, 108, 148, 150, 214 New World Order, 31–32 night tales (asmār), 5, 45–46, 240, 243– 44 non-Arabs, 133 non-Muslims, 185–89, 280; Christians, 79–80, 154–55, 181, 185–89; Jews, 79– 80, 185–89; Magians, 23, 79, 174, 260 nonreligious displacements: appropriation for urban classes, 222–26; assemblies, 9, 170, 186, 202, 215, 217–18, 220– 22, 238, 239, 245; binaries in popular tradition, 197–99, 204–5, 212; dichotomous patterning, 197–99, 214–15; medieval narrative, 213–14; mixed discourse, 223–24; signs and sights of transgression, 216–22; unwritten tale, 209–13; urban narrative sites, 226–27 nonverbal narratives, 16, 192, 248; correspondence, 254–55; counterhegemonic discourse, 267–68; elements of, 251– 52; embroidery, 269–70; encoding and decoding, 261–67; human agency and,

93280 Index nonverbal narratives (continued) 252, 258–67; iconic inscription, 257– 58; incomprehensible speech, 258–59; Islamic context of, 250–51, 261; manners, 265–67, 273–75; mental images and pictorial resolutions, 268–73; representation and, 192, 251, 257, 270, 272, 276; scriptoria and the blank page, 252–57; semiotics of food, 273–75; supernatural and, 252, 254–55, 257–58; talismans, magical practices, and amulets, 258–61; as understudied, 250–51; verbal elements mixed with, 258, 269. See also silence nostalgia, 6–7, 202–3 Nūrī, Abū musayn al-, 170 oaths, 78–81, 123, 154–55 official discourse, 177, 184–85, 191, 219, 224, 227, 277, 279; mixed with popular culture, 210–12. See also chancery writing Omani merchants, 158 open sesame, trope of, 72–73, 258 oral tradition, 4–5, 40, 149, 213–14, 230; classical tradition and, 214–15; scriptoria and, 45–47. See also storytelling order, 52, 59–61. See also social order order, changing, 145–46; book markets, 150–52; competing centers and dynasties, 152–55; consciousness and, 160– 62; idolatry and monotheism, 176– 78; imperialism and Islamic context, 146–50; in-betweenness, 164–68; metropolitan temptations, 155–57; professions and crafts, 159–60; from regres­sion to progression, 162–64; social interdependency, 172–76; travels to metropolis, 157–59; urban and imperial, 178; wine and Islamic prohibitions, 168–72 Other, 54, 71–72, 107–8 Ottoman empire, 54 Pact of (Umar, 80 Palace of muzayma, 151 Palace of Statues, 18, 39, 125, 136, 172 palaces, 125, 204 Panchatantra, 225

pantomimes, 55 Paradise, 57, 86–88 parasitism, 91 parody, 107–11 Parthian (Arsacid) faith, 42 Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 28 patriarchal code, 40 patrons, 230, 245 patterns, thematic, 52, 72–73; in classical tradition, 214–15; in nonreligious displacements, 197–99, 214–15; nonverbal elements, 252 Payne, John, 70, 82 “People of the Arabian Nights, The” (Bagehot), 119 performance, 45, 215, 217, 219, 222–23, 230, 233, 236 Persian love stories, 93 physicians, 187 piety, hypocrisy and, 179–80 pledges, 78–81 poetry, 15, 55, 202–3, 298n. 19; preIslamic, 93, 216; references in Qur)ān, 55, 232 police control, 154, 156, 161, 194–95, 198 political context, 190–91 politics, vagaries of, 138–40 Poole, Stanley Lane, 4, 94 popular culture, 47–48, 148–49; binaries in, 197–99, 204–5, 212; contemporary, 209, 210–11; food and class, 203–4; literature of the common, 220–21; materialism, discomfort with, 197–98, 206; medieval narrative, 213–14; mixed discourses in, 210–13; poetry, appropriation of, 202–3; reading publics, 214–15, 229–30, 235–36, 241, 246–47; unwritten tale, 209–13; Western, 210–11; witty language, 211–12 popular literature, 12–15, 47–48, 64–65, 213–16, 220–21, 246; Christians and Jews in, 187; religiosity in, 149 Portch, Stephen R., 251–52 “Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” (Thousand and One Nights), 11–13, 154; bath scene, 163–67, 175, 194, 212; class and religion in, 82; dervishes, 206–8; embedding in, 31–33; fifth brother’s tale, 192–93, 199–201; magical prac-

Index  93290 tices in, 259; mansion and mounds in, 204–5; psychological and social interests in, 165; punishment in, 90, 122, 167; second mendicant’s tale, 66, 67, 70, 102–4, 120, 122, 138, 161–62; shopping scene, 167–69, 172–73; strategem of limits, 32–33; “Tale of the Second Lady, The Flogged One,” 99; “The First Lady,” 12, 76, 125, 139, 174–75; third dervish’s tale, 9, 53, 56–138, 57, 59, 65, 70, 79, 86–87, 111, 128–29, 138, 286n. 7 porters, 117–18, 165 preachers, as storytellers, 55, 61, 76, 234– 36 private space, 164–68, 195; caliphs intrude in, 33–34, 211; salons, 7, 71, 181– 82, 238; threshold divides from public space, 32–33, 253; transition to public sphere, 167–68 professional education, 120–21 professions, 13, 83–84, 127–28, 159–60, 193 Prophet, 7, 10; on love, 95; women, view of, 34, 253–54 psychological and sociological interests, 164–65 public sphere, 13, 83–85, 88–90, 144; book markets, 150–52; displacement to other cities, 186–87; drinking and, 171, 194– 95; gossip about court, 237–38; threshold divides from private space, 32–33, 253; transition from private space, 167–68 punishment, 59, 66, 198, 253, 274; for adultery, 12, 34–36, 90; banishment, 198, 200, 201, 220; class differences, 85, 90. See also transgression Qabī Abū Yūsuf, 35 Qalqashandī, al-, 159 Qarmatians, 142 qaùida structure, 232 qaùù, as term, 234 qaùùāù/quùùāù, 213–14, 216, 221, 241, 299n. 58 Qayrawānī, (Alī B. Tamīm al-muùrī al-, 234, 237, 241, 242–43, 245–47, 300n. 3 Qazwīni, Zakariyya b. Munammad al-, 66, 178

quest tale, 36–37, 57, 205 Quraysh tribes, 10 Qur(ānic exegesis, 14 Qur)ān, 3, 10, 24, 63; on adultery, 35, 36; on Arabic language, 214; idolatry, view of, 174; knowledge, emphasis on, 255– 56; magic and, 122–23, 258; as narration, 234; nonverbal and, 252; recitation of, 156–57, 214; references to poetry in, 55, 232; rise and fall motif in, 17, 138–40; supernatural in, 66, 73; on transience, 227 Qur)ān al-qawm, 46 Qutaybah, Abū Munammad ibn, 47, 120, 164, 229, 231–33, 248 race and skin color, 85–86, 96–97, 133, 137, 241 Rābī, al, 281n. 5 Ranīm, (Alī b. Munammad b. (Abd al-, 142 Ranmān the Third, (Abd al-, 146 ransom motive, 61–62 Rasher dynasty, 42 Rashīd, Hārūn al- (Haroun Alraschid), 2, 9–10, 17–18, 102, 186; Barmicides and, 289n. 103, 305n. 115; calls for nadīths, 223; as compassionate, 111, 124, 126, 130–31, 260; dress codes, 80; Haylānah and, 115–16; historical accounts of, 111; Kitāb al-Kharāj addressed to, 35, 60; praise for, 196; slave girl and, 135; wife of, 70 Rawāfibs, 185 Rawb al-(ā•ir fī Nuzhat al-Khā•ir, Al(The Perfumed Garden) (al-Nafzāwī), 93 reading publics, 214–15, 229–31, 241; appeal to, 246–47; corruption of, 235–36 real vs. imaginary, 106–10 recognition scenes, 275 “Recollections of the Arabian Nights” (Tennyson), 2, 94, 96 refrains, 173 religion: appropriation of, 190–93; class and, 82; as culture, 75–76; particular and universal in, 73–76; sects and, 184– 85; as social contract, 78–81; transferred onto foreign cities, 176–80.

93300 Index religion (continued) See also Islamic context; Islamic factor; Islamic factor, unifying; Islamic faith; Islamic law religious discourse, humor mixed with, 178–80 repetition, 52, 73 representation, 16, 54, 106–11, 128; nonverbal narratives and, 192, 251, 257, 270, 272, 276 resistance discourse, 276–77 revenge, 12, 31, 33, 36–39, 85–86, 113, 190 “Revolt of Islam” (Shelley), 68 “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Cole­ ridge), 62 Ring of the Dove, The (ibn mazm), 98 Risālah (The Epistle) (al-Shāf (ī), 213 rise and fall paradigm, 5, 11, 12, 52, 141, 152, 156, 209, 228, 279; center and, 136–39; education and, 111–17; history of nations and, 121; in Qur)ān, 17, 138– 40; resignation and, 162–63; squandering and waste, 12, 17 robbers, 88, 136, 142, 148 Ruùāfiyyah ode, 196 Sabians, 79 Saffān, Abū al-(Abbās al-, 10 ùanīn (al-Bukhārī), 120 Sa(d Allāh, (Abd Allah b. (Shaykh Shu(ayb al-murayfīsh), 57 Sa(dān, Abū (abdallah al-(Ārib, ibn, 45, 230, 237 salons, 7, 71, 181–82, 238 samar (nightly entertainment), 216, 223, 230 Sāmarrā, 137, 153 “same subject, pro and con” (Abdād), 2 Sanā)ī, 206 Sassanid dynasty, 36–37, 37, 42–43, 79, 81, 100 Satan/Iblis, 87, 118–19, 156 Sayyār, Abū Isnaq Ibrāhim al-, 114 Schahriar, Bozorg ibn, 99–100, 158 Scheherazade, 2–3, 7–8, 21; as artist, 35; counternarrative of, 2, 40; cultural consciousness of, 41; education of, 112, 120; father, debates with, 40; knowledge of, 30, 40; meaning of name, 42;

narration as act of containment, 41, 205; narrative challenges and, 55–56; narrative resourcefulness, 30, 35, 41, 199; ransom motive and, 61–62; storytelling as repetition of hearsay, 163–64. See also frame tale (Thousand and One Nights) Scheherazade in England (al-Musawi), 71 schools of law (madhabs), 7, 12–13, 25, 171, 280; sects, 184–85 Scott, Walter, 49 scribes, 15–16, 151, 215, 248, 292n. 15 scriptoria, 45–47, 215; nonverbal narratives and, 252–57 seclusion, 76–77 security, 56–59 Seljūq era, 229 sequentiality, 46 sexuality, 3, 183–84; adultery, 12–13, 30, 32, 34–36, 41–42, 99–100, 208; love and, 92–100; religious discourse and, 180, 183 al-Shāf (ī school of law, 13, 75 al-Shāf (ī, Munammad b. (Abdullah, 6, 7, 15, 22, 55, 213 Shahzaman (king), 37, 146 Shām (Greater Syria), 65 Shapur II, 79 Shahrayār (Thousand and One Nights), 30, 37, 40–41, 175, 184, 227, 237, 241 sharing, 101–2 Shā•ibī, Isnāq Ibrāhīm Mūsā al-Lakhmī al-, 120 Shaw, Bernard, 94 shaykhs, 144 Shayzarī, (Abd al-Ranman b. Naùr al-, 60, 80, 84, 116, 185, 236; on marketplace, 88–89 Sheba, Queen of, 123 Shelley, Percy, 26, 68 Shihāb al-Dīn Yanyā al-Suhrawardī, 3 Shī(ī imam Ja(far al-úādiq, 7 Shī(ism, 184, 207 shopkeepers, 126–27 shu(ūbiyyah (equality movement), 133 Sijistānī, ibn Sulaymān silence, 248–49. See also nonverbal narratives

Index  93310 Sindbad, tale of, 4, 21, 22, 31, 44, 66, 157, 174, 186–87 slave girls, 92, 182–83; as singers, 112–14, 126, 133, 146, 298n. 19; Tawaddud, 24– 25, 34, 74–75, 86, 97, 112–15, 191 slavery: binding system, 134–35; imperial growth and, 132–34 slaves: black, revenge of storyteller and, 85–86; education of, 112, 133; evidence given by, 85; from non-Arab lands, 114, 137; ownership of, 191–92; trangression of roles, 14, 18, 39, 41, 190; zanj revolt, 25, 134, 142. See also women sociability/civility (adab), 3, 8, 28, 194, 261; food as sign of, 273–74 social conformity, 75–77, 122, 125, 185, 202, 212, 226 social context, 190–91 social interdependency, 172–76 social order, 81–84; Christians and Jews, 185–89; education into, 146–47; heathen and Islamic narrative, 189–96; hierarchy, inversion of, 34, 112, 115–17, 194–96, 199; hierarchy, role of, 111–12, 128, 133, 137, 145, 162, 191–92, 216, 229; marginalized groups, 82, 91, 100, 185, 198, 201, 209, 230–31, 235; sects, 184– 85; storytellers transgress, 83–86, 129, 194–95 Solomon (Sulaymān), 63, 66, 122, 123, 254, 258 Spectator reviewer, 74, 100 Spice of Life, The (Chesterton), 30 statecraft, 8, 17, 56, 82, 238–39; changing order and, 190, 192; dress and rank, 75; Islamic faith and, 84–85, 141, 144; wealth and luxury as signs of deterioration, 141–44 Steiner, Wendy, 261 stereotyping, 188 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 49 storytellers, 284n. 34; art for life, 24, 30, 32, 62; art for money, 32, 220; assemblies and, 9, 170, 186, 202, 215, 217–18, 220–22, 237–39, 245; awareness of prohibitions, 169; faith and belief, system of, 224–25; Islamic law, awareness of, 24–25; legitimating process, 104; mockery of religious discourse, 180; as

preachers, 55, 61, 76, 234–36; reliability of, 61; restrictions of center on, 204; revenge on upper-class society, 85–86, 113–15; as revisionist, 109; suppression and, 185–86; theft linked with, 241– 42; transgression of social order, 83– 86, 129, 194–95; types of, 221. See also authors storytelling: jurists’ views of, 213–18, 221– 24, 234–36; as only entertainment mode, 48; power of, 30; quùùāù, 213– 14; systems of thought and behavior, 8; utilitarian concerns, 240, 242, 247. See also oral tradition street songs, 198 ùubn al-a(shā (Dawn of the Benighted Regarding Chancery Craft) (Qal­ qashandī), 159 submission to fate/will of God, 38–40, 60, 77–78, 123; Muslim empire and, 140, 142 Sufis, 3, 82, 205–6, 230, 251; dreams and visions of, 79; on love, 95 Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-Dīn Abū mafù (Umar al-, 206 Sukkarah, ibn, 221 Sunna, 60, 235, 243 supernatural, 178; marriage and, 94; as moral authority, 63–67; natural and, 62–63; nonverbal narrative and, 252, 254–55, 257–58; open sesame, trope of, 72–73, 258 suspense, 55–56, 62 Suyū•ī, al-, 183 synesthesia, narrative, 139–40 §abarī, al-, 10, 141 Tabbān, al-, 237–38 Talbīs Iblīs (al-Jawzī), 235 “Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban, The,” 255–56 Tales of the East (Weber), 55 tales (Thousand and One Nights), 67; (Alī Shār and Zummarad, 180; (Azīz and (Azīzah, 95–96, 180, 203, 261–67; Baghdadi cloth, 203–4; barber and his brothers, 53, 80, 83–84, 99, 138–39, 159, 191–93, 198–201; Barmakid and fake feast, 17–19, 176–77, 192, 276–78;

93320 Index tales (Thousand and One Nights) (continued) brother kings, 37–38, 146; “Bull and the Ox,” 40; Cairene Christian broker, 154–55, 159–60, 274–75; captive bride, 31, 34, 65, 254; The Cat and the Mouse, 4; “The City of Brass,” 12, 73, 82, 138, 139, 141, 143–44, 174; daughter of king of Camphor islands, 255, 270–73; “The Greek King and Douban the Physician,” 101; “History of Qamar al-Zaman . . . and of Badoura, Princess of China,” 96–97; “The History of the First Dervish, Son of a King,” 101, 103, 138; “The History of the Fisherman,” 66, 78, 259–61; “Jewish Physician’s Tale,” 101, 152–54, 158, 177, 181, 187–89; king of China stories, 12, 62, 138–39, 186, 188; King of the Ebony Islands, 76, 77–78, 119, 123; merchant and his wife, 40; Mosul, young man from, 101, 152–54, 158, 169–70, 181; The Tale of Sindbad, 4, 21, 22, 31, 44, 66, 157, 186–87; slave girl Tawaddud, 24–25, 34, 74–75, 86, 97, 112–15, 191; “The Steward’s Tale,” 12, 16, 88–89, 125, 156–57, 177, 187–89, 219, 274; story of (Alī ibn Bakkār and Shams al-Nahār, 88, 94, 110, 124, 130– 31, 136–37, 196, 214; “Story of Noureddin and the Beautiful Persian,” 96, 101, 102, 157; “Story of the Hunchback,” 4, 12, 64, 139, 176–77, 186, 187–89, 274; “Story of the Merchant and The Genie,” 62, 63–64, 78; “Story of the Tailor and the Young Merchant,” 98, 153, 157, 186, 191, 261; “Tale of Nūr al-Dīn and Anīs al-Jalīs, 6, 17, 39, 115–16, 125–26, 132–33, 136, 140, 148, 170, 214; “Tale of the Enchanted King,” 14, 18, 76, 79, 81, 86, 123, 198, 208–9, 258; “Tale of the Second Lady, The Flogged One,” 99; as a trope for lands, 68; two viziers, 12, 16, 64, 97, 148, 255; The Wonders of the Sea, 4. See also “Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad” §ālib, (Alī ibn Abī, caliph, 10, 43, 75–76, 95 §ālibīs, 185

talismans, 67, 258–61 Tanūkhī, Abū Alī al-, 14–15, 111, 119, 152, 233, 239–40, 243 Tarīkh Baghdad (History of Baghdad), 115–16 taste, 28, 29, 46; book markets and, 151– 52; education and, 124–27; Victorian, 100, 193–94 Tawnīdī, Abū mayyān al-, 45, 135, 137, 221, 223, 230, 236, 238, 242–44 Taymiyyah, ibn, 60 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 2, 94, 96 “Terminal Essay” (Burton), 71 tests, 118–19; of faith, 87–88; of love, 95– 96; nonverbal elements, 262–67; selftrial, 78 Tha(ālibī, Abū Manùūr al-, 221 Thief of Baghdad, The (film), 210 thousand, as term, 45 Thousand and One Nights: collective authorship, 25–26, 29; as collective memory, 1, 6, 108, 145, 198; cultural aspect of, 13, 15, 149–50; European interpretations of, 68–72; European reception, 7, 26–28, 49, 71; as global index, 21–22, 29–30, 105; imperialism and Islamic context, 146–50; narrative designs in, 17–18; narrative prioritization of Muslims, 23–24; perspectives on, 26–29; popular idioms derived from, 27–28; as popular literature, 12–15, 47–48, 64–65, 107, 213–16; Qur)ānic recitations in, 76; realistic dimension, 192–93; real vs. imaginary in, 106–10; redactions, 7, 23, 25–28, 47, 120, 158, 202, 209; Shahrayār (king), 30, 37, 40– 41, 175, 184, 227, 237, 241; sources, 7–9, 15; thematic patterns in, 54, 72–73; Editions: Būlāq, 1, 4–5, 122, 261; Galland, 1, 4–5, 7, 17–18, 48–51, 68, 120; Grub street translation, 1, 29, 108; Jacobs, 62–63; Lane, 4, 24, 30, 38, 50, 68, 70, 74–75, 115, 121, 135, 194, 261. See also frame tale; “Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad”; tales threshold, 32–33, 66, 253 Tilimsānī, Abū (Abdullah al-Sharīf al-, 120

Index  93330 time, as determining element of change, 242–43 Todorov, T., 67, 72, 259 topography, 125–28; freedom as, 128–30 Torrens, Henry, 44 tourist industry, 106 Toy, Crawford Howell, 69 traditionalists, 25, 108, 171, 213, 221–22, 228, 233–35. See also jurists transaction, between natural and supernatural, 63–64 transgression, 12–13, 62, 65; binary structure, 197–99; by caliphs, 201–2; law and terms of beauty, 85–86; by mendicants, 66, 212–13; moral obligation and, 34; as reversal of order, 59–60; signs and sights of, 216–22; signs and sites of, 216–22; by storytellers, 83– 84, 129, 194–95; wine and Islamic prohibitions, 168–72, 194. See also punishment translation, appropriation and, 18, 28–29, 48, 54, 82, 213 transmission, 61–62 travelogues, 54, 99, 100, 107, 157, 178, 211 tricksters, 218–19, 220 Trimingham, J. Spencer, 207 §ufayl, ibn, 233, 244, 256–57 §ūsī, Abū māmid al-, 235, 236 twelfth-century loan record, 44 (Ukburī, al-Annaf al-, 221 )Ukhuwwah aiyā al-Dīn Munammad ibn Munammad al-Qurashī al-Shaf (ī, ibn al-, 25, 35–36, 53, 55, 84, 185; on dhimmīs, 80–81; on dress and conduct, 75; on jurists, 113; on physicians, 116–17; on professions, 83; on punishment, 85; on wine, 170–71; on women, 39–40, 88 (Umar, caliph, 56 (Umayr al-Shaybānī, 226 Umayyad dynasty, 43, 80, 141, 191, 216, 257 universal, 28–29, 65, 86, 100, 110; neoclassic view of, 148; religion and, 73–76 urban milieu: anecdotal tales and, 90– 92; appropriation for, 3–6, 181, 189–90,

222–26; frame tale and, 8, 48–51; imperial and, 178; love and, 130–32; in medieval Islam, 7–8; as melting pot, 104, 116–17, 137, 146, 177; rise and fall paradigm, 111–17; shift to, 160–62 (Uyūn al-akhbār (ibn Qutaybah), 229, 232–33, 248 vanity, theme of, 74 vicissitudes of fortune, 100–105, 158 virginity, 21, 88, 257 visual imagery, 271–73 von Hammer, Joseph, 43, 44, 285n. 66 Wafā), Abū al-, 230 Wahhābism, 12 warnings: calamities after, 140; curiosity and, 32–33, 56–57, 87–88, 138, 206–8; grounded in Islamic law, 33–35; against lavishness, 82, 143–44 Washshā), al-, 96 wealth and luxury, as signs of deterio­ ration, 19, 39–40, 77, 140–44, 204, 205 Weber, Henry, 55 “What English Literature Gives Us” (Chambers), 46 wills and testimonies, 64 wine and drinking, 168–72, 188, 194 women: as audience, 236; blamed for downfall of royal house, 36–37; counterhegemonic discourse of, 267–68; education of, 25, 56, 112, 120; envy and, 100–101; excessive sexuality, 39–40; fear of, 30, 199, 208, 227; forbidden to attend mosque, 88–89; limits imposed by, 32–33; old, as go-betweens, 98–100, 179, 180, 194, 200–201, 255; paradisiacal terms to describe, 199–200; in political life, 136; popular culture and, 208–9; Prophet’s view of, 253–54; ransom motive and, 62; as resourceful, 30, 35, 41, 89, 199, 208; treachery of old women, 200–201; veiling of, 88, 147, 199; wiles of, 8, 39, 41, 69, 236, 268. See also slaves Wonders of India, The (ibn Schahriar), 99–100

93340 Index Wordsworth, William, 51 writing: authors as chroniclers, 247–48; chancery, 121, 151, 159, 162, 217, 239–40, 257; elite efforts, 15, 42–43, 45, 46; historical change and, 242; humor and, 231–32; as permanence, 230–31, 239– 40; transactions, 64 Ya(qūbī, Anmad ibn Abī Ya(qūb al-, 108 Ya(qūbī, Anmad ibn Isnāq al-, 184 Yazīd, al-Walīd b., 201, 241 Yunan, King, 61

Yūsuf, Sūrat, 55 Abū Yūsuf, 35, 60, 61, 75, 76, 81, 84, 104, 142, 171 Yūsuf (Joseph), 79, 254, 272 Zamān, Qamar al-, 4, 94, 99 zandaqah (heresy/unbelief), 90 zanj revolt, 25, 134, 142 µarf (refined manners), 33, 127–28, 164, 169, 182 µarīf (person of refinement), 118, 275 Zubaida, Lady, 88–90, 125, 142–43, 156