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66-641: The Barmakids were remarkable for their majesty, splendor and hospitality. They are mentioned in some stories of the One Thousand and One Nights . The family is traceable back to the hereditary Buddhist administrators of the Buddhist monastery of Nava Vihāra (Nawbahar) west of Balkh (Northern Afghanistan). Historians of Islam have sometimes considered the Barmakids to have been Zoroastrian priests before converting to Islam, an erroneous view based on

132-517: A Madhab elementary school for orphans, al-Haytami issues a fatwa outlining a structure of maktab education that prevented any physical or economic exploitation of enrolled orphans. In the 11th century, the famous Persian Islamic philosopher and teacher, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the West), in one of his books, wrote a chapter dealing with the maktab entitled "The Role of the Teacher in

198-689: A sheikh teaches a group of students who sit in front of him on the ground. Until the 20th century, when modern schools developed, kuttabs were the prevalent means of mass education in much of the Islamic world . Kuttab refers to only elementary schools in Arabic. This institution can also be called a maktab ( مَكْتَب ) or maktaba ( مَكْتَبَة ) in Arabic—with many transliterations. In common Modern Standard Arabic usage, maktab means "office" while maktabah means "library" or "(place of) study" and kuttāb

264-483: A chance to dishonor him. Eventually the Vizier (Wazir), whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade , the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear

330-547: A few hundred nights of storytelling, while others include 1001 or more. The bulk of the text is in prose , although verse is occasionally used for songs and riddles and to express heightened emotion. Most of the poems are single couplets or quatrains , although some are longer. Some of the stories commonly associated with the Arabian Nights —particularly " Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp " and " Ali Baba and

396-556: A future career . He wrote that this was a transitional stage and that there needs to be flexibility regarding the age in which pupils graduate, as the student's emotional development and chosen subjects need to be taken into account. In medieval times, the Caliphate experienced a growth in literacy , having the highest literacy rate of the Middle Ages , comparable to classical Athens ' literacy in antiquity . The emergence of

462-451: A group of travellers on an archaeological expedition across the Sahara to find an ancient lost city and attempt to recover a brass vessel that Solomon once used to trap a jinn , and, along the way, encounter a mummified queen, petrified inhabitants, life-like humanoid robots and automata , seductive marionettes dancing without strings, and a brass horseman robot who directs

528-487: A name but a title of the high priest of the fire temple of the city, though recent research makes it certain that it was a Buddhist title changed to look more Iranian. His wife was enslaved during the battle for Balkh in 705 and given to the Arab general's brother 'Abd-Ullah. Their sexual relation produced a son known as Khalid, whom 'Abd-Ullah later acknowledged as his natural son. She was later restored to her husband after peace

594-470: A richly layered narrative texture. Versions differ, at least in detail, as to final endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife, in some other things happen that make the king distracted) but they all end with the king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life. The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature. While in many cases

660-531: A room built above the sabil. These "sabil-kuttabs" were a common feature of the architectural complexes in Mamluk architecture and subsequent Ottoman Egyptian architecture . In Ottoman architecture , the mektep or sibyan mektebi (both Turkish terms for the kuttab/maktab) was a recurring element of külliye s or religious complexes. In Istanbul , mektep s were included in the Fatih Mosque complex ,

726-414: A small group of historical figures from ninth-century Baghdad, including the caliph Harun al-Rashid (died 809), his vizier Jafar al-Barmaki (d. 803) and the licentious poet Abu Nuwas (d. c. 813). Another cluster is a body of stories from late medieval Cairo in which are mentioned persons and places that date to as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Two main Arabic manuscript traditions of

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792-412: A son, he had Jafar suddenly arrested and beheaded, and the rest of the family, except Yahya's brother Muḥammad, also imprisoned and deprived of their property. However, these claims lack credibility as they are unconvincing legends, fake stories and fiction that has no basis whatsoever. In reality, after the death of Abbasa's first husband Muhammad ibn Sulayman ibn Ali , her brother Harun Al-Rashid arranged

858-432: A story is cut off with the hero in danger of losing their life or another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the full text Scheherazade stops her narration in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or complex points of Islamic philosophy , and in one case during a detailed description of human anatomy according to Galen —and in all of these cases she turns out to be justified in her belief that

924-559: A variety of practical skills). Ibn Sina refers to the secondary education stage of maktab schooling as the period of specialization, when pupils should begin to acquire manual skills, regardless of their social status. He writes that children after the age of 14 should be given a choice to choose and specialize in subjects they have an interest in, whether it was reading, manual skills, literature, preaching, medicine , geometry , trade and commerce , craftsmanship , or any other subject or profession they would be interested in pursuing for

990-825: Is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age . It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights , from the first English-language edition ( c.  1706–1721 ), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment . The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West Asia , Central Asia , South Asia , and North Africa . Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic , Sanskrit , Persian , and Mesopotamian literature. Most tales, however, were originally folk stories from

1056-528: Is a plural word meaning "Books". In Morocco, this institution can be referred to as a m'siid ( مْسِيد ). In Persian , it is a or Maktabkhaneh مکتبخانه . In Turkish the institution is called a mektep . Maktab is used in Dari Persian in Afghanistan as an equivalent term to school , including both primary and secondary schools . In Bosnian , it is called a mejtef or mekteb. In

1122-557: Is a type of elementary school in the Muslim world . Though the kuttab was primarily used for teaching children in reading, writing, grammar, and Islamic studies , such as memorizing and reciting the Qur'an (including Qira'at ), other practical and theoretical subjects were also often taught. The kuttāb represents an old-fashioned method of education in Muslim majority countries, in which

1188-729: Is represented in the Nights by certain animal stories, which reflect influence from ancient Sanskrit fables . The influence of the Panchatantra and Baital Pachisi is particularly notable. It is possible that the influence of the Panchatantra is via a Sanskrit adaptation called the Tantropakhyana . Only fragments of the original Sanskrit form of the Tantropakhyana survive, but translations or adaptations exist in Tamil, Lao, Thai, and Old Javanese . The frame story follows

1254-579: The Hezār Afsān has survived, so its exact relationship with the existing later Arabic versions remains a mystery. Apart from the Scheherazade frame story, several other tales have Persian origins, although it is unclear how they entered the collection. These stories include the cycle of "King Jali'ad and his Wazir Shimas" and "The Ten Wazirs or the History of King Azadbakht and his Son" (derived from

1320-742: The Abbasid and Mamluk eras , while others, especially the frame story, are probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hezār Afsān ( Persian : هزار افسان , lit.   ' A Thousand Tales ' ), which in turn may be translations of older Indian texts . Common to all the editions of the Nights is the framing device of the story of the ruler Shahryar being narrated the tales by his wife Scheherazade , with one tale told over each night of storytelling. The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while some are self-contained. Some editions contain only

1386-455: The Nights is extremely complex and modern scholars have made many attempts to untangle the story of how the collection as it currently exists came about. Robert Irwin summarises their findings: In the 1880s and 1890s a lot of work was done on the Nights by Zotenberg and others, in the course of which a consensus view of the history of the text emerged. Most scholars agreed that the Nights

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1452-539: The One Thousand and One Nights was published in 1775. It contained an Egyptian version of The Nights known as "ZER" ( Zotenberg 's Egyptian Recension) and 200 tales. No copy of this edition survives, but it was the basis for an 1835 edition by Bulaq, published by the Egyptian government. Kuttab A kuttab ( Arabic : كُتَّاب kuttāb , plural: kataatiib , كَتاتِيبُ ) or maktab ( Arabic : مَكْتَب )

1518-504: The curriculum of a maktab school in some detail, describing the curricula for two stages of education in a maktab school. Ibn Sina wrote that children should be sent to a maktab school from the age of 6 and be taught primary education until they reach the age of 14. During which time, he wrote that they should be taught the Qur'an , Islamic metaphysics , language , literature , Islamic ethics , and manual skills (which could refer to

1584-485: The maktab and madrasa institutions played a fundamental role in the relatively high literacy rates of the medieval Islamic world. In many regions of the Islamic world, kuttabs were historically built as part of religious and charitable complexes sponsored by rulers or local elites. In Egypt – especially Cairo – kuttabs were often paired with sabils (kiosks dispensing water to the public). They usually consisted of

1650-461: The medieval Islamic world , an elementary school was known as a maktab , which dates back to at least the tenth century. Like madrasas (which referred to higher education ), a maktab was often attached to a mosque . In the 16th century, the Sunni Islamic jurist Ibn Hajar al-Haytami discussed maktab schools. In response to a petition from a retired Shia Islamic judge who ran

1716-480: The 'Leiden edition' (1984). The Leiden Edition, prepared by Muhsin Mahdi , is the only critical edition of 1001 Nights to date, believed to be most stylistically faithful representation of medieval Arabic versions currently available. Texts of the Egyptian tradition emerge later and contain many more tales of much more varied content; a much larger number of originally independent tales have been incorporated into

1782-489: The Barmak died, nor is his conversion certain, despite al-Kirmani's account. al-Kirmani states that he may have retained his faith as his son Khalid's beliefs were suspect, according to Ibn 'Asakir . Ibn al-Faqih records that his father had to abandon Islam after converting due to pressure from local magnates as well as people of Tukharistan and was even attacked by Tarkhan Nizak, being killed along with his ten sons. Khalid

1848-408: The Barmakids as the founders of the class designated as 'people of the pen' ( ahl al-qalam ). The long neck which Barmakids possessed is said to have been responsible for the introduction of the custom of wearing high collars. The first extant Arabic report on India was prepared under the directions of Yahya ibn Barmak by his envoy. The Barmakids invited several scholars and physicians from everywhere in

1914-529: The Caliph Harun al-Rashid . Also, perhaps from the tenth century onwards, previously independent sagas and story cycles were added to the compilation [...] Then, from the 13th century onwards, a further layer of stories was added in Syria and Egypt, many of these showing a preoccupation with sex, magic or low life. In the early modern period yet more stories were added to the Egyptian collections so as to swell

1980-557: The Forty Thieves "—were not part of the collection in the original Arabic versions, but were instead added to the collection by French translator Antoine Galland after he heard them from Syrian writer Hanna Diyab during the latter's visit to Paris . Other stories, such as " The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor ", had an independent existence before being added to the collection. The main frame story concerns Shahryār, whom

2046-564: The Levant. In Baghdad, the Barmakid court became a centre of patronage for the Ulema , poets, scholars alike. The first member of the family whose identity is known in historical records was a physician of Balkh. He is reputed for a pill named after him and also recommended by Avicenna in addition to a scent which was widely used by prostitutes. According to al-Masudi , the name Barmak was not

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2112-552: The Nights are known: the Syrian and the Egyptian. The Syrian tradition is primarily represented by the earliest extensive manuscript of the Nights , a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Syrian manuscript now known as the Galland Manuscript . It and surviving copies of it are much shorter and include fewer tales than the Egyptian tradition. It is represented in print by the so-called Calcutta I (1814–1818) and most notably by

2178-495: The Persian Hezār Afsān , explaining the frame story it employs: a bloodthirsty king kills off a succession of wives after their wedding night. Eventually one has the intelligence to save herself by telling him a story every evening, leaving each tale unfinished until the next night so that the king will delay her execution. However, according to al-Nadim, the book contains only 200 stories. He also writes disparagingly of

2244-815: The Persian and Arabic error of thinking that the term "Nowbahār" was the name of a Zoroastrian fire temple headed by the Barmakids as reported in Islamic sources. The Pramukhas converted during the Arab invasion of the Sasanian Empire . Harold Bailey proposed that the name of the Barmakids may derive from the Sanskrit word प्रमुख Pramukha, meaning “leader,” although the theory is subject of debate. The Barmakids are also suggested to have been of Kashmiri Buddhist descent. The Barmakids were highly educated, respected and influential throughout Arabia, Persia, Central Asia and

2310-471: The Training and Upbringing of Children", as a guide to teachers working at maktab schools. He wrote that children can learn better if taught in classes instead of individual tuition from private tutors , and he gave a number of reasons for why this is the case, citing the value of competition and emulation among pupils as well as the usefulness of group discussions and debates . Ibn Sina described

2376-477: The broad outline of a concubine telling stories in order to maintain the interest and favour of a king—although the basis of the collection of stories is from the Panchatantra —with its original Indian setting. The Panchatantra and various tales from Jatakas were first translated into Persian by Borzūya in 570 CE; they were later translated into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqaffa in 750 CE. The Arabic version

2442-450: The bulk of the text sufficiently to bring its length up to the full 1,001 nights of storytelling promised by the book's title. Devices found in Sanskrit literature such as frame stories and animal fables are seen by some scholars as lying at the root of the conception of the Nights . The motif of the wise young woman who delays and finally removes an impending danger by telling stories has been traced back to Indian sources. Indian folklore

2508-976: The caliphate to the court of Abbasids. During the Caliphate campaigns in India , Khalid ibn Barmak built the city of Mansura (Brahmanabad) there. Khalid was later in charge of the building of Baghdad . On 30 July 763, the caliph Al Mansur concluded the construction of the city. Baramkeh , which is named after the Barmakids, is a neighborhood and district in the Qanawat municipality of Damascus . One Thousand and One Nights Features Types Types Features Clothing Genres Art music Folk Prose Islamic Poetry Genres Forms Arabic prosody National literatures of Arab States Concepts Texts Fictional Arab people South Arabian deities One Thousand and One Nights ( Arabic : أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ , Alf Laylah wa-Laylah )

2574-457: The collection over the centuries, most of them after the Galland manuscript was written, and were being included as late as in the 18th and 19th centuries. All extant substantial versions of both recensions share a small common core of tales: The texts of the Syrian recension do not contain much beside that core. It is debated which of the Arabic recensions is more "authentic" and closer to

2640-425: The collection's literary quality, observing that "it is truly a coarse book, without warmth in the telling". In the same century Al-Masudi also refers to the Hezār Afsān , saying the Arabic translation is called Alf Khurafa ('A Thousand Entertaining Tales'), but is generally known as Alf Layla ('A Thousand Nights'). He mentions the characters Shirāzd (Scheherazade) and Dināzād. No physical evidence of

2706-612: The conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins another one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of that tale as well, postpones her execution once again. This goes on for one thousand and one nights, hence the name. The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques , and various forms of erotica . Numerous stories depict jinn , ghouls , ape people, sorcerers , magicians , and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. Common protagonists include

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2772-605: The establishment of the first paper mill in Baghdad. The power of the Barmakids in those times is reflected in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights ; the vizier Ja'far appears in several stories, as well as a tale that gave rise to the expression "Barmecide feast". "We know of Yahya ibn Khalid al-Barmaki (d. 805) as a patron of physicians and, specifically, of the translation of Hindu medical works into both Arabic and Persian. In all likelihood however, his activity took place in

2838-486: The fact that Balkh was known as an important centre of Zoroastrianism, or from a simple failure of early Islamic sources to distinguish Zoroastrians from Buddhists. In fact, the Barmakids descended from the chiefs, or administrators of the Buddhist monastery called Navavihāra (Skt. नवविहार) or "New Monastery", that was described by the Chinese Buddhist diarist Xuanzang in the seventh century which may have led to

2904-412: The family lost favor in the eyes of Harun al-Rashīd, and many of its members were imprisoned. The decision came as sudden to many. However, Harun ar-Rashid is also reported to have given orders to his sahib-al-shurta al-Sindi ibn Shahak of confiscation of Barmakid properties one year before the events, implying it to be planned action. According to Rit Nosotro, Harun al-Rashīd found his chief pleasure in

2970-503: The historical Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid , his Grand Vizier , Jafar al-Barmaki , and the famous poet Abu Nuwas , despite the fact that these figures lived some 200 years after the fall of the Sassanid Empire , in which the frame tale of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of their own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in

3036-571: The king's curiosity about the sequel would buy her another day of life. A number of stories within the One Thousand and One Nights also feature science fiction elements. One example is "The Adventures of Bulukiya", where the protagonist Bulukiya's quest for the herb of immortality leads him to explore the seas, journey to the Garden of Eden and to Jahannam , and travel across the cosmos to different worlds much larger than his own world, anticipating elements of galactic science fiction; along

3102-580: The marriage of his sister to Ibrahim ibn Salih . Al-Tabari and Ibn Khaldūn mentioned completely other different reasons ensuring that their decline was gradual and not sudden. These other reasons are: The fall of the Iranian Barmakids did not, however, affect the prominent position of the Persians in the Abbasid court, which continued until al-Mutawakkil . Felicia Hemans reflects on

3168-530: The mid-20th century, the scholar Nabia Abbott found a document with a few lines of an Arabic work with the title The Book of the Tale of a Thousand Nights , dating from the ninth century. This is the earliest known surviving fragment of the Nights . The first reference to the Arabic version under its full title The One Thousand and One Nights appears in Cairo in the 12th century. Professor Dwight Reynolds describes

3234-405: The narrator calls a " Sasanian king" ruling in "India and China". Shahryār is shocked to learn that his brother's wife is unfaithful. Discovering that his own wife's infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has

3300-407: The officials of the diwan al-Kharaj ; the guardians of knowledge which was inaccessible to the uninitiated and was passed by inheritance. In 765, Khalid al-Barmaki received the governorship of Tabaristan , where he crushed a dangerous uprising. During his governorship of Upper Mesopotamia , Khalid, through a mix of firmness and justice, brought the province quickly into order and effectively curbed

3366-572: The orbit of the caliphal court in Iraq , where at the behest of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809), such books were translated into Arabic. Thus Khurāsān and Transoxiana were effectively bypassed in this transfer of learning from India to Islam, even though, undeniably the Barmakī's cultural outlook owed something to their land of origin, northern khurasan, and Yahya al-Barmakī's interest in medicine may have derived from no longer identifiable family tradition." In 803,

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3432-416: The original: the Egyptian ones have been modified more extensively and more recently, and scholars such as Muhsin Mahdi have suspected that this was caused in part by European demand for a "complete version"; but it appears that this type of modification has been common throughout the history of the collection, and independent tales have always been added to it. The first printed Arabic-language edition of

3498-450: The party towards the ancient city. "The Ebony Horse" features a robot in the form of a flying mechanical horse controlled using keys that could fly into outer space and towards the Sun, while the "Third Qalandar's Tale" also features a robot in the form of an uncanny boatman . "The City of Brass" and "The Ebony Horse" can be considered early examples of proto-science fiction. The history of

3564-528: The provinces and prepared estimates and accounts. An influential stratum of officialdom, the Irano-Islamic class of secretaries ( kuttab in Arabic, dabiran in Persian), was formed which considered itself as the main support of the state. Their knowledge of the complex system of the kharaj (land tax) which took account not only of the quality of the land but of the produce of the crops sown, made

3630-458: The seventh-century Persian Bakhtiyārnāma ). In the 1950s, the Iraqi scholar Safa Khulusi suggested (on internal rather than historical evidence) that the Persian writer Ibn al-Muqaffa' was responsible for the first Arabic translation of the frame story and some of the Persian stories later incorporated into the Nights. This would place genesis of the collection in the eighth century. In

3696-454: The society of his sister ʿAbbāsa and Barmakid prince Jafar bin Yahya . In order that these two might be with him continuously without breach of the restrictions on women, he persuaded them to contract a purely formal marriage. This marriage was on condition the two would meet only in his presence, and never produce an heir. This condition was broken, and when Harun learned that ʿAbbāsa had borne

3762-434: The subsequent transformations of the Arabic version: Some of the earlier Persian tales may have survived within the Arabic tradition altered such that Arabic Muslim names and new locations were substituted for pre-Islamic Persian ones, but it is also clear that whole cycles of Arabic tales were eventually added to the collection and apparently replaced most of the Persian materials. One such cycle of Arabic tales centres around

3828-643: The suppression by Hārun even of their name in her poem The Mourner for the Barmecides , published in 1826. A number of canals, mosques and other public works owe their existence to the initiative and munificence of the Barmakids. Al Fadl ibn Yahya is credited with introducing the use of lamps in the mosques during the holy month of Ramadan . They are also credited with the establishment of the first paper mill in Baghdad. Jafar ibn Yahya acquired great fame for eloquence, literary activity, and calligraphy . Hitti argues that chiefly because of him, Arab historians regard

3894-581: The unruly Kurds. Khalid's son, Yahya ibn Khalid (d. 806), at one time Governor of Arminiya , was entrusted by Caliph al-Mahdi (775-85) with the education of his son, Harun, the future Caliph al-Rashid . Yaḥya's sons al-Fadl (766–808) and Ja'far (767–803), both occupied high offices under Harun al-Rashid. The Barmakid family was an early supporter of the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads and of As-Saffah . This gave Khalid bin Barmak considerable influence, and his son Yahya ibn Khalid (d. 806)

3960-712: The way, he encounters societies of jinns , mermaids , talking serpents , talking trees , and other forms of life. In another Arabian Nights tale, the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater and discovers an underwater submarine society that is portrayed as an inverted reflection of society on land, in that the underwater society follows a form of primitive communism where concepts like money and clothing do not exist. Other Arabian Nights tales deal with lost ancient technologies, advanced ancient civilizations that went astray, and catastrophes which overwhelmed them. "The City of Brass" features

4026-468: Was a composite work and that the earliest tales in it came from India and Persia. At some time, probably in the early eighth century, these tales were translated into Arabic under the title Alf Layla , or 'The Thousand Nights'. This collection then formed the basis of The Thousand and One Nights . The original core of stories was quite small. Then, in Iraq in the ninth or tenth century, this original core had Arab stories added to it—among them some tales about

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4092-571: Was born a Buddhist and later converted to Islam, taking various ministerial jobs within the Abbasid Caliphate . The Buddhist ancestry of Barmakids seems to have stimulated interest in Indian sciences in the eighth century. Khalid al-Barmaki (705–782) occupied distinguished positions under first two Abbasid Caliphs, al-Saffah (722–754) and al-Mansur (714–775). He had risen to be the vizier, following death of Abu Salma and Abul Jahm. Khalid

4158-535: Was on such intimate terms with al-Saffah that his daughter was nursed by the wife of the Caliph. Likewise, Caliph's daughter was nursed by Khalid's wife. Under Abbasid regime Khalid rose to the headship of the department of Finance ( diwan al-Kharaj ) This department was concerned with Taxation and Land Tenure. Genuine budgets began to be drawn up for the first time and offices sprang up for various departments. The extensive staff of officials engaged in correspondence with

4224-520: Was reached. Barmak had also been summoned to cure Caliph Abd al-Malik 's son Maslama in 705. Abu Hafs 'Umar al-Kirmani's account narrates that the Barmak was brought among a party of shakirriya (thought to be slaves or retainers) and honored by the Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik who increased his status and was impressed by him. He then became a Muslim and enjoyed a high status. Clifford Edmund Bosworth states that it isn't known when or where

4290-465: Was the vizier of the caliph al-Mahdi (ruled 775–785) and tutor of Harun al-Rashid (ruled 786–809). Yahya's sons al-Fadl and Ja'far (767–803), both occupied high offices under Harun. Many Barmakids were among many patrons of the sciences, which greatly helped the propagation of Iranian science and scholarship into the Islamic world of Baghdad and beyond. They patronized scholars such as Gebir and Jabril ibn Bukhtishu . They are also credited with

4356-529: Was translated into several languages, including Syriac, Greek, Hebrew and Spanish. The earliest mentions of the Nights refer to it as an Arabic translation from a Persian book, Hezār Afsān (also known as Afsaneh or Afsana ), meaning 'The Thousand Stories'. In the tenth century, Ibn al-Nadim compiled a catalogue of books (the " Fihrist ") in Baghdad. He noted that the Sassanid kings of Iran enjoyed "evening tales and fables". Al-Nadim then writes about

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