Dr. Peterson is currently posting a rough draft of a new book project introducing ten (or perhaps twelve) Muslim classics. He’s started with introductory notes on “One Thousand and One Nights.” In the most recent entry, he provides
notes on how “Nights” came to the West.
One prominent commenter responds to the post with an interesting remark: "I must admit that I am quite surprised that Dan know [sic] all kinds of things about these curious tales."
I note this remark because it raises the important question of how Dr. Peterson knows certain things about “Nights.” Dr. Peterson has not responded to that point, and his post lacks any references.
For myself, I will point out that Dr. Peterson's post has strong verbal similarities to material posted on a
webpage on "One Thousand and One Nights,” which itself credits the Encyclopedia of Islam (see
here). I will refer to the material on the webpage as ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA. Here follows a comparison of material from Dr. Peterson's post (labeled SeN below) and ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA:
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "The entire work is enclosed in a 'frame-story', and this was known in Italy in the Middle Ages. Traces of it are to be found in a novel by Giovanni Sercambi (1347-1424) and in the story of Astolfo and Giocondo which is told in the 28th canto of Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (beginning of the 16th century); travellers who had been in the East may have brought this knowledge to Italy."
SeN: "The frame story of King Shahryār and Shahrazād was known in Italy in the late Middle Ages. Traces of it linger, for example, in a novel by Giovanni Sercambi (1347-1424). Sometime thereafter, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, clear allusions to the story appear in the tale of Astolfo and Giocondo, which is featured in the 28th canto of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. It isn’t known how the story reached Italy, but it’s likely that travelers who had been to the Middle East may have brought it back in some form or another."
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "But the whole Alf Layla wa-Layla came to Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The French scholar and traveller Jean Antoine Galland (1646-1715) published it for the first time. Travelling in the Near East at first as a secretary of the French ambassador, then as a collector of objects for museums commissioned by amateurs, he had known the world of the Orient, and his attention was directed to the great number of stories and fables told there."
SeN: "The whole Alf Layla Washington Layla came to Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the pivotal person in that appears to have been the French scholar Jean Antoine Galland (1646-1715), who published it for first time. Galland had been the secretary to a French ambassador in Near East, which is where he became acquainted with the Nights."
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "Thus he [Galland] adapted his translation to the taste of his European readers, changing sometimes the wording of the Arabic text and paraphrasing things that were foreign to Europeans. Hence the great success of his ‘Nights’. But he was also fortunate in the material which fell into his hands. He began by translating Sindbad the Sailor from an unidentified MS; then he learned that this was part of a great collection of stories called ‘The Thousand and One Nights'."
SeN: "Galland was fortunate in the materials that came to his attention. These first began with stories of Sindbad the Sailor, which have been favorites among Western audiences ever since. Galland then realized that the Sindbad cycle was part of a larger collection ('1001 Nights'), although it must be noted that some manuscripts don’t contain Sindbad at all."
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "[T]hen he [Galland] had the luck to have sent to him from Syria four vols. of a MS of that work which is, except for a small fragment found by Nabia Abbott, the oldest known and contains the best surviving text.
SeN: "So he had four manuscript volumes of the Nights sent to him from Syria, and these remain—apart from a fragment discovered by the modern scholar Nabia Abbot—the oldest and best surviving text of the stories."
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "After his [Galland's] return to France he began in 1704 to publish his volumes Les mille et une Nuits contes arabes traduits en Francais. By 1706 seven vols. had appeared: vol. viii appeared in 1709, vols. ix and x in 1712, vols. xi and xii in 1717, two years after Galland's death."
SeN: "Galland began to publish his version of the Nights in 1704, and publication continued until 1717, two years after his death."
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "He [Galland] was a born story-teller; he had a flair for a good story and a knack of re-telling it well. Thus he adapted his translation to the taste of his European readers, changing sometimes the wording of the Arabic text and paraphrasing things that were foreign to Europeans. . . . But in 1709 he met a certain Maronite from Aleppo, Hanna, brought to Paris by the traveller Paul Lucas, and at once recognized that he had got an oral source of the story material. Hanna told him stories in Arabic, and Galland inserted in his Journal abstracts of some of these. But Hanna also gave him transcripts of some."
SeN: "He was a born story-teller, often re-arranging and paraphrasing his materials. Later, in fact, a Syrian Maronite Christian came to Paris and told him stories orally, which he transcribed and translated."
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "For more than a century Galland's French version meant the Nights for Europe, and two of his stories whose original Arabic texts were not known were even translated into Oriental languages. But meanwhile other MSS, more or less connected with the Nights, were brought to light and, from these, various supplements to Galland were translated and published. Just as the MSS of the Nights themselves varied enormously as to the stories which they contained, so these translators were prepared to attach to the Nights any story that existed in Arabic."
SeN: "Galland’s version was the Nights for many generations of Western readers. And, in fact, two of his stories (for which the original Arabic was was unknown) were eventually rendered into Arabic—so that, in part but in a very real sense, Jean Antoine Galland provided the Nights for an Arabic audience, as well. For a time, indeed, some were willing to attach to the Nights any sufficiently riveting story that was found in Arabic."
ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA: "From the Egyptian Recension have been made all the modern western translations. Lane's translation, incomplete but with a very valuable and full commentary, began to appear in parts in 1839 and was finished in 1841.”
SeN: "I’ll mention two significant nineteenth-century English versions of the Thousand and One Nights. The first, by Edward William Lane, began to appear in parts in 1839 and was finished in 1841. It’s an incomplete production in many ways, but it features a valuable and full commentary.”
“A scholar said he could not read the Book of Mormon, so we shouldn’t be shocked that scholars say the papyri don’t translate and/or relate to the Book of Abraham. Doesn’t change anything. It’s ancient and historical.” ~ Hanna Seariac
