East Meets West: Hannā Diyāb and The Thousand and One Nights

Abstract

I argue that the tales told by Hannā Diyāb to Antoine Galland in 1709 ("Aladdin," "Ali Baba," "Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Pari-Banou," "The Enchanted Horse," and "The Two Jealous Sisters") are heavily colored by European fairy-tale conventions; that "The Two Jealous Sisters" derives from Giovanni Straparola's Pleasant Nights; and that Hannā Diyāb told his tales to Galland not in Arabic but in French. Galland's journal for 1709 provides direct evidence for the argument, with sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Levantine political history, commercial practice, and educational institutions along with Hannā Diyāb's autobiography providing explanatory context.

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