Arabic Version A101 (Hundred and One Nights)

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The story collection titled the One Hundred and One Nights (مائة ليلة وليلة, Miʾat layla wa-layla), is linked to its longer sister-narrative, the Thousand and One Nights (ألف ليلة وليلة, Alf layla wa-layla). The frame story in both concerns a king who, embittered and vengeful after witnessing his wife's adultery, marries a new maiden every night, and has her executed every morning. The string of murders is broken when the king marries Shahrazād, a vizier’s daughter. Shahrazād delays her own death and keeps the king's attention by telling incomplete stories every night, promising their resolution the following evening if the king allows her to live on. In the end, Shahrazād wins the king’s affection, and all ends happily. Both the Thousand and One Nights and the One Hundred and One Nights contain a version of the Seven Sages narrative as one of the embedded stories that Shahrazād tells the king, usually referred to in English as the Seven Viziers.

Produced in the Maghreb or Western periphery of the Muslim world (Muslim Spain or North Africa) sometime between the 10th and 14th centuries (according to Ott, 2012), the Hundred and One Nights differs in several respects from the Thousand and One Nights (which was composed in the Eastern region of the Islamic world, e.g. Egypt, Iran, and/or Syria). The One Hundred and One Nights contains not only fewer but also different stories than its longer analogue, and the relationship between the frame story and the embedded tales is less persistently emphasised. In fact, only two of the eighteen stories in the One Hundred and One Nights are also found in the longer text: The Ebony Horse, and the version of the Seven Sages narrative known as The Seven Viziers (Krönung 2016).

The version of the Seven Viziers contained within the One Hundred and One Nights shares about half of the embedded stories with the version found in the Thousand and One Nights. This iteration of the Seven Viziers is less embellished than that found in the Thousand and One Nights, and diverges in some notable ways: it opens with Elephantus, the story of the king and the elephant, told by the sage Sindbad as a model of an exempla prior to the storytelling contest. It includes five stories that do not appear in the Thousand and One Nights version, and it ends with the empress-figure being pardoned (Lacarra 2009).

Such differentiations are central to critical analysis of the transmission history of the early 'Eastern' versions of the narrative, and to understanding the relationships between different branches of the tradition. For example, tracking these and other key distinctions, Bettina Krönung (2016) observes the 'striking closeness' between the Greek Syntipas, Syriac Book of Sindbad, Spanish Libro de los Engaños, the independently transmitted Arabic Seven Viziers, and the version in the One Hundred and One Nights (p. 374). On the other hand, the divergent story orders in the One Thousand and One Nights, Hebrew Mishle Sendebar, and the Persian Sindbād-nāma are distinct enough to reveal the shared 'cores' of the other 'Eastern' texts, and to suggest that they may represent something 'very close to the Middle Persian original' (ibid.).

There is some variation in the Seven Viziers stories contained in different manuscripts of the One Hundred and One Nights. The story order below (from Fudge's edition of BNF Arabe 3662; see also Nishimura and Krönung) is broadly reflective of the pattern found in most exemplars of the One Hundred and One Nights, which are usually consistent from the beginning through story 18, Elephantinus (The Elephant Figurine). The story order listed below is also found in BNF Arabe 3661, Tunis T4057, and Aga Khan Museum, according to Nishimura; however, the final stories vary in some other manuscripts. For example, BNF Arabe 3660 omits Nomina and concludes with the Amantes and Lac venenatum after the stories listed below. In Leiden Or. 14.303, the story Ingenia 2 follows Ingenia, and the text concludes with Linteum (see Nishimura for more details).

There are now modern translations of the One Hundred and One Nights in Japanese, based on the Tarshūnah edition (Hyakuichiya Monogatari: Mō hitotsu no Arabian Naito [The One Hundred and One Nights: The Other “Arabian Nights”] trans. by Akiko Sumi, Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2011), English (Fudge, One Hundred and One Nights (2016)), and German (Ott, 101 Nacht (2012)).

Identification and general Information
Reference Number
Siglum of the version of the Seven Sages	A101 (Hundred and One Nights)
Version Number
Title	مائة ليلة وليلة (Hundred and One Nights)
Author

Tradition and Lineage
Branch of the tradition	Book of Sindbad
Adapted from (version)
Adapted into (version)
Source for composition and adaptation information

Recorded secondary versions
Seven Viziers Arabic Version A (The Seven Viziers) Syriac Sindban Arabic Version A1001 (Thousand and One Nights) Arabic Version A101 (Hundred and One Nights)

Connected manuscripts

Manuscript Language Location Date of Production Algiers Bibliothèque nationale d'Algérie MS Arabic Unknown; possibly in private collection 1841 Leiden Universiteit Or. 14.303 Arabic Aramaic Leiden, Universiteitsbiblioteek Leiden Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 3660 Arabic Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 1701 - 1800 Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 3661 Arabic Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 1800 - 1900 Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 3662 Arabic Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 1776 Toronto Aga Khan Museum 00513 Arabic Toronto, Aga Khan Museum 1234 Tunis Bibliothèque national de Tunisie, MWT 18260 Arabic Tunis, Bibliothèque nationale de Tunisie Tunis Bibliothèque nationale de Tunisie, MWT 04576 Arabic Tunis, Bibliothèque nationale de Tunisie 1268 AH (1852)

Language and Composition
Original language of version	Arabic
Language of text	Arabic
Regional or specific language of version	Maghrebi
Translated into (languages)
Place of composition	Maghreb, Western Islamic world
Date of composition	900 - 1350
Islamic date of composition
Hebrew date of composition
Source for date of composition	Lerner (2018), Marzolph and Chraïbi (2012)

Modern Scholarship and Editions
Modern research literature	Lerner (2018), Grotzfeld (1984), Walther (1987), Chraïbi (2008), Ott (2012), Gaudefroy-Demombynes (1911), Lacarra (2009), Krönung (2016), Marzolph and van Leeuwen (2004), Fudge (2016)
Modern Editions	Tarshuna, Miʾat layla wa-layla (1984), Shuraybiṭ, Miʾat layla wa layla (2005), Ott, 101 Nacht (2012)

Notes and Commentary
Note	Note: the story order below (from Fudge, relying largely on BNF Arabe 3662, and Krönung) is broadly reflective of the pattern found in most exemplars of the 101 Nights, which are consistent from the beginning through story 18, Elephantinus. However, the final stories vary from text to text; BNF Arabe 3660 ends after Lac venenatum, following the order presented here, while in BNF Arabe 3662 and Leiden Or. 14.303, Nomina follows Elephantinus, then Ingenia, and in the Leiden text, is then followed by Linteum.
Notes on motifs
Notes on the frame

Pattern of embedded stories in this version

Has Short Title Has Sequence Number Has Narrator Has Name Variation Elephantus 1 Sindbad   Leo 2 First Master   Avis – The Bird 3 First Master   Lavator 4 Empress   Panes 5 Second Master   Gladius – The Drawn Sword 6 Second Master   Striga – The Prince and the Ogress 7 Empress   Mel 8 Third Master   Zuchara 9 Third Master   Fons 10 Empress   Balneator 11 Fourth Master   Canicula 12 Fourth Master   Aper – The Boar and the Fruit 13 Empress   Canis – The Faithful Dog 14 Fifth Master   Pallium 15 Fifth Master   Simia 16 Empress   Piscis 17 Sixth Master   Elephantinus 18 Sixth Master   Nomina 19 Seventh Master   Copy Embedded Stories Copy Embedded Stories × Select Target Page: Close Process

Connected prints
No connected prints