A (The Seven Viziers)

From The Seven Sages of Rome

The version of the Sindbad narrative titled Kitāb al-Sindbād, or الوزراء السبعة [Al-Wuzarāʾ al-sabʿa, The Seven Viziers] is referenced in Arabic literature dating from the 9th and 10th centuries. Though no early versions of the full text survive, allusions to the narrative may be found in the works of the historian such as al-Ya'qūbī (9th century) and al-Shābushtī (d. after 998 CE / late 4th century AH), suggesting that the narrative was well known by the 10th century, with the original Arabic transmission date by the 9th, or possibly even 8th century (Krönung 2016, p. 370). Additional references to the narrative are found in Murūj al-Dhahab by al-Masʿūdī’ (d. 956 CE / 345 AH), who claims the popular entertainment book Kitāb al-Sindbād refers to the sage Sindbād who lived during the reign of the Indian king Kush and relates the story of the Seven Viziers, the Prince, and the King's wife; it is also mentioned in al-Fihrist by Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 995 CE / 385 AH), in which Kitāb Sindbād al-Ḥakīm is referenced as a book of entertainment that exists in two forms - long and short - and has either Persian or Indian origins (see Ateş 1948, pp. 12-13). Ibn al-Nadīm identifies the Arabic poet Abān al-Lāhiqī as the author of one version, and also 'transmits the name of the Persian scholar Mūsā b. 'Īsā al-Kisrawī (d. 874/875 CE), one of the leading translators from Persian into Arabic, who has been unanimously identified in modern scholarship as Mousos from Andreopoulos's Preface' in the Greek version (Krönung 2016, p. 370).


The surviving copies of the text in Arabic are much younger than this, however, and they fall into three distinct versions or redactions:

  • A1001: The version of The Seven Viziers found in the One Thousand and One Nights
  • A101: The version of The Seven Viziers embedded in the One Hundred and One Nights
  • Arabic Version A: The Seven Viziers redacted indepently of a larger frame structure.


There is some variation within each of the above groups. The independent Seven Viziers redactions, discussed below, demonstrate some variation in the number and order of stories contained within them. For example, the earliest surviving independent Seven Viziers text - c. 1535, edited by Ateş in the appendix to his edition of Sindbad-name (1948), found in the Ali Paşa Library in Istanbul - contains the 21 stories listed below. Other later versions from the 18th century, including Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 3670 and Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 3639 edited by Basset in 1903, include 24 stories instead. Notably, they include some stories - e.g. Curiositas, Imago, Capsa - that appear infrequently elsewhere in the tradition.

Language and Composition
Original language of version Arabic
Language of text Arabic
Regional or specific language of version
Translated into (languages)
Place of composition
Date of composition 700 - 850
Islamic date of composition
Hebrew date of composition
Source for date of composition Krönung (2016)Ateş (1948)
Modern Scholarship and Editions
Modern research literature Ateş (1948)Krönung (2016)Redwan (2023)Ott (2012)Artola (1978)Perry (1960)Basset (1903)Belcher (1987)
Modern Editions Ateş, Sindbād̲-nāme (1948)
Notes and Commentary
Note
Notes on motifs
Notes on the frame
Pattern of embedded stories in this version

Connected prints

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