Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights)

Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights)

Thousand and One Nights, as one of the most popular books worldwide, has its roots in India, Persia, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt(Marzolph et al., n.d.). One important source of the book is said to be the Iranian Hezār Afsān (A Thousand Tales) which is no longer extant. Bahram Beyzaei carried out exhaustive research attributing the origins of the book to the Iranian Hezār Afsān in a book titled Hezār Afsān kojāst( Where is Hezār Afsān?). Some scholars rejected some of Beyzaei’s claims and scholarship, but it is acknowledged that Iran was a major and indisputable source of the stories.

The book was not translated until the Qajar period in the nineteenth century or there is no clue of the possible translations. During Mohammad Shah’s reign, the book was translated by Abdul Latif al-Tasooji from Arabic into Persian in 1843. Mirzā Mohammad Ali Soroush Isfahāni composed poems as free translations of the poems in the Arabic edition. The book only included about one-third of the Arabic text. Some parts were censored because the translator believed that some of the stories, like those advocating hedonism, would set bad examples for Persian readers including children.

Abdul Latif al-Tasooji
Illustrator: Mirza Hassan Isfahāni
Poet: Mirzā Mohammad Ali Soroush Isfahāni

Published text is held in National Library of Iran

Tehran: Dar ol-Khelāfeh Publication

It was originally published in 1843. The illustrated edition used here was published in 1858.

Mehdi Farhoodinia

Public domain

Persian

Storybook