The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, by Richard F. Burton - The Original Classic Edition. Burton Richard
length of the shorts. Dr. Badger uses the acute symbol to denote accent or stress of voice; but such
appoggio is unknown to those who speak with purest articulation; for instance whilst the European pronounces Mus-cat', and the Arab villager Mas'-kat; the Children of the Waste, "on whose tongues Allah descended," articulate Mas-kat. I have therefore followed the simple system adopted in my "Pilgrimage," and have accented Arabic words only when first used, thinking it unnecessary to preserve throughout what is an eyesore to the reader and a distress to the printer. In the main I follow
"Johnson on Richardson," a work known to every Anglo-Orientalist as the old and trusty companion of his studies early and late;
but even here I have made sundry deviations for reasons which will be explained in the Terminal Essay. As words are the embodiment of ideas and writing is of words, so the word is the spoken word; and we should write it as pronounced. Strictly speaking, the e-sound and the o-sound (viz. the Italian o-sound not the English which is peculiar to us and unknown to any other tongue) are not found in Arabic, except when the figure Imalah
obliges: hence they are called "Ya al-Majhul" and "Waw al-Majhul"
the unknown y (i) and u. But in all tongues vowel-sounds, the flesh which clothes the bones (consonants) of language, are affected by the consonants which precede and more especially which follow them, hardening and softening the articulation; and deeper sounds accompany certain letters as the sad ( ) compared with the sin ( ). None save a defective ear would hold, as Lane does, "Maulid" ( = birth-festival) "more properly pronounced
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'Molid.'" Yet I prefer Khokh (peach) and Jokh (broad cloth) to Khukh and Jukh; Ohod (mount) to Uhud; Obayd (a little slave) to Ubayd; and Hosayn (a fortlet, not the P. N. Al-Husayn) to Husayn. As for the short e in such words as "Memluk" for "Mamluk" (a white slave), "Eshe" for "Asha" (supper), and "Yemen" for "Al-Yaman," I consider it a flat Egyptianism, insufferable to an ear which admires the Badawi pronunciation. Yet I prefer "Shelebi" (a dandy) from the Turkish Chelebi, to "Shalabi;" "Zebdani" (the Syrian village) to "Zabdani," and "Fes and Miknes" (by the figure Imalah) to "Fas and Miknas,", our "Fez and Mequinez."
With respect to proper names and untranslated Arabic words I have rejected all system in favour of common sense. When a term is incorporated in our tongue, I refuse to follow the purist and
mortify the reader by startling innovation. For instance, Aleppo, Cairo and Bassorah are preferred to Halab, Kahirah and Al-Basrah; when a word is half naturalised, like Alcoran or Koran, Bashaw or Pasha, which the French write Pacha; and Mahomet or Mohammed (for Muhammad), the modern form is adopted because the more familiar. But I see no advantage in retaining,, simply because they are the mistakes of a past generation, such words as "Roc" (for Rikh),),
Khalif (a pretentious blunder for Kalifah and better written Caliph) and "genie" ( = Jinn) a mere Gallic corruption not so terrible, however, as "a Bedouin" ( = Badawi).). As little too
would I follow Mr. Lane in foisting upon the public such Arabisms as "Khuff " (a riding boot), "Mikra'ah" (a palm rod) and a host of others for which we have good English equivalents. On the other hand I would use, but use sparingly, certain Arabic exclamations,
as "Bismillah" ( = in the name of Allah!) and "Inshallah" ( = if
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Allah please!), (= which have special applications and which have been made familiar to English ears by the genius of Fraser and Morier.
I here end these desultory but necessary details to address the reader in a few final words. He will not think lightly of my work when I repeat to him that with the aid of my annotations supplementing Lane's, the student will readily and pleasantly
learn more of the Moslem's manners and customs, laws and religion than is known to the average Orientalist; and, if my labours
induce him to attack the text of The Nights he will become master of much more Arabic than the ordinary Arab owns. This book is indeed a legacy which I bequeath to my fellow countrymen in their hour of need. Over devotion to Hindu, and especially to Sanskrit literature, has led them astray from those (so called) "Semitic" studies, which are the more requisite for us as they teach us to
deal successfully with a race more powerful than any pagans--the Moslem. Apparently England is ever forgetting that she is at present the greatest Mohammedan empire in the world. Of late years she has systematically neglected Arabism and, indeed, actively discouraged it in examinations for the Indian Civil Service, where it is incomparably more valuable than Greek and Latin. Hence, when suddenly compelled to assume the reins of government in Moslem lands, as Afghanistan in times past and Egypt at present, she fails after a fashion which scandalises her few (very few) friends; and her crass ignorance concerning the Oriental peoples which should most interest her, exposes her to
the contempt of Europe as well as of the Eastern world. When the
regrettable raids of 1883-84, culminating in the miserable
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affairs of Tokar, Teb and Tamasi, were made upon the gallant Sudani negroids, the Bisharin outlying Sawakin, who were battling for the holy cause of liberty and religion and for escape from Turkish task-masters and Egyptian tax-gatherers, not an English official in camp, after the death of the gallant and lamented
Major Morice, was capable of speaking Arabic. Now Moslems are not to be ruled by raw youths who should be at school and college
instead of holding positions of trust and emolument. He who would
deal with them successfully must be, firstly, honest and truthful and, secondly, familiar with and favourably inclined to their manners and customs if not to their law and religion. We may, perhaps, find it hard to restore to England those pristine
virtues, that tone and temper, which made her what she is; but at any rate we (myself and a host of others) can offer her the means of dispelling her ignorance concerning the Eastern races with whom she is continually in contact.
In conclusion I must not forget to notice that the Arabic ornamentations of these volumes were designed by my excellent friend Yacoub Artin Pasha, of the Ministry of Instruction, Cairo, with the aid of the well-known writing artist, Shayth Mohammed Muunis the Cairene. My name, Al-Hajj Abdullah ( = the Pilgrim Abdallah) was written by an English calligrapher, the lamented Professor Palmer who found a premature death almost within sight of Suez.
RICHARD F. BURTON
Wanderers' Club, August 15, 1885.
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The Book Of The
THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT
(ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH.)
In the Name of Allah,
the Compassionating, the Compassionate!
PRAISE BE TO ALLAH THE BENEFICENT KING THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE LORD OF THE THREE WORLDS WHO SET UP THE FIRMAMENT WITHOUT PILLARS IN ITS STEAD AND WHO STRETCHED OUT THE EARTH EVEN AS A BED AND GRACE, AND PRAYER-BLESSING BE UPON OUR LORD MOHAMMED LORD OF APOSTOLIC MEN AND UPON HIS FAMILY AND COMPANION TRAIN PRAYER AND BLESSINGS ENDURING AND GRACE WHICH UNTO THE DAY OF DOOM SHALL REMAIN AMEN! * O THOU OF THE THREE WORLDS SOVEREIGN! And afterwards. Verily the works and words of those gone before us have become instances and examples to men of our modern day, that folk may view what admonishing chances befel other folk and may therefrom take warning; and that they may peruse the annals of antique peoples and all that hath betided them, and be thereby ruled and restrained:--Praise, therefore, be to Him who hath made the histories of the Past an admonition unto the Present! Now of 25 such instances are the tales called "A Thousand Nights and a Night," together with their far famed legends and wonders. Therein it is related (but Allah is All knowing of His hidden things and All ruling and All honoured and All giving and All gracious and All merciful [FN#1]) that, in tide of yore and in time long gone before, there was a King of the Kings of the Banu Sasan in the Islands of India and China, a Lord of armies and guards and servants and dependents.[FN#2] He left only two sons, one in the prime of manhood and the other yet a youth, while both were Knights and Braves, albeit the elder was a doughtier horseman than the younger. So he succeeded to the empire; when he ruled the land and forded it over