1001 Nights Resource

by Michael Lundell

While several sources, including documented historical writings from the 900s AD, point to a collection of ancient Persian stories known as Hazar Afsanah as being the genesis of the 1001 Nights, no physical evidence of Hazar Afsanah has ever been found.

This remains one of the most enduring problems with stating that the 1001 Nights are completely Arabic translations of ancient Persian stories. In addition most of the stories of the 1001 Nights were added by European translators and their publishers.

Some of the earliest Arabic publications were done by the British East India Company in order to teach their soldiers Arabic and contain stories with no clear etymologies. Yet there is a tradition among Iranians to claim all of the Nights as their own (and not "Arabian") and a tradition of contemporary scholars in the Middle East to claim the Nights as their own Arabic tradition rather than paying homage to the European translators and writers who made the Nights famous and who added (from unknown sources, probably their own) the most famous of the tales themselves.

Yet the history of the Nights is far more complicated than a chest-thumping cultural war. And unfortunately for anyone claiming the Nights as "their" own they have to share them with different world cultures and different time periods.

I hope to make this resource a valuable one for academics interested in the 1001 Nights. Since I am also in the process of doing a PhD on the 1001 Nights I hope to make this resource as seriously scholarly as possible.

Please feel free to email me at "articles at gomideast dot com" (written as such to avoid spam robots) with suggestions or additions you'd like to see.

Currently my resource consists of the following links (also on each 1001 Nights page at the top for navigation):

Homepage (this page)

A Brief Introduction to the 1001 Nights

A Historical Timeline of the 1001 Nights

A Comprehensive Bibliography of Academic Articles and Books on the Nights

A Bibliography of Related Readings

Versions of the 1001 Nights Online

for inquiries (non-commercial only please):