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	One Thousand and One Nights is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 17, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted

I don't see in the list here of publications those by Robert Heron?

Arabian Tales, or continuations of Arabian Nights' Entertainments, translated from the French, 4 vols. 1792. Robert Heron.

https://en.wikipedia.org/Robert_Heron_(writer)

Should it be entered or is his publication not considered a true ANE? Just wondering

Just putting another note as I forgot to log in under my wikipedia name — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hanslune (talk • contribs) 02:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

"Arab Culture"?

I noticed this article is being "classified" as an "arab culture" article. This is incorrect as the One Thousand and One Nights book is multi-cultural series of stories encapsulated by a Persian frame story. I think the Arab culture classification is misleading and should probably be removed.Xarhunter (talk) 09:17, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Persian have no thing with Arab culture , and the official language of Islamic civilization was the Arabic. هارون الرشيد العربي (talk) 07:54, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. "1001 Nights" is NOT Arabic, nor is it related to Arabic culture. It was translated to Arabic from Persian because of an Arab ban on the Persian language during the Islamic Arab conquest of Persia. The original works of Hezar Afsaneh ("1000 tales") in Persian are certainly referred to in historical documents as being the source of some, if not all, of the stories, but they were incinerated by the Arabs as "pagan" according to some sources. The fact that the Frame-Story is 100% Persian is proof in itself. This article is in serious need of a revision. Will mark it as as such.Xoltron (talk) 01:22, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Arabic gloss

@Tarook97: I don't know why you called this edit "arbitrary". It reflects the standard Arabic spelling and pronunciation of the title, and I'll now cite a standard reference. If you think that pointed vowels and formal case endings better reflect the body of RSs per WP:NPOV, please present sources to demonstrate it. Eperoton (talk) 00:41, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Point made. I'll remove the reference, no need for it to be there. Tarook97 (talk) 10:09, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

On second thought, the Nights are part of Abbasid literature and are heavily associated with the Abbasid-era, so a Classical Arabic spelling such as would be much more befitting. Tarook97 (talk) 11:10, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

@Tarook97: We don't know what the hypothetical Abbasid-era translations looked like, and the earliest extant manuscript are quite distant from the high classical register. In any case, in relation to the issue at hand this line of reasoning is WP:OR, in particular WP:SYNTH. The question we can ask here per WP policy is how the title is spelled in the body of RSs, in Arabic script and transliteration. I've never seen it spelled with pointed vowels or case endings in sources I've came across myself. You googled for the formal spelling and found it in a couple of books, but presented no evidence that it's a predominant usage, whose use would be compliant with WP:NPOV. As you can verify by another Google search, the spelling alf layla wa-layla is much more common. Not only that, it appears in authoritative references: EI3, which I've cited, EI2, Mahdi (author of the standard critical edition), Iranica. Please don't remove the citation. Content which is likely to be challenged (as you're doing here) needs to be sourced per WP:V. Eperoton (talk) 23:40, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Clarification

Hi Viaros17, i would appreciate a clarification regarding these edits : (removal of "one thousand and one nights" in Persian) and (Shahriyar is a Persian name and is written in Persian, with the Perso-Arabic script of course, this is not an Arabic name). Thanks.---Wikaviani (talk) 20:50, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Just in case you did not notice, I was simply reverting two edits here that were added by two random users with no explanation . Regarding the "Persian title" inclusion, it has been discussed here several times before. So please check the archives. As for the name Shahriyar. I know it is a Persian name. The article clearly state the Persian origin of the name along with an Arabic transliteration since the work was compiled in Arabic. The user Ali mjr, however, changed the language with no explanation and I simply reverted the article to its original form. Viaros17 (talk) 17:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for your answer, i agree that the Persian title should not be included in the article (according to some consensus reached on the TP), however, writing "ar" next to "شهريار" ("Shahriyar" in Perso-Arabic script) instead of "fa" is misleading, therefore, i'll revert your last edit to the previous version. Best regards.---Wikaviani (talk) 23:54, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

When it comes to a Persian name it is better to write it with the two languages; because the language of the story is Arabic, and the origin of the name is Persian. So you cannot remove anyone of them.

هارون الرشيد العربي (talk) 08:11, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

What exactly is wrong with "Arabic versions" for a section heading?

Changing something over and over again doesn't necessarily make it right. If you want to change something and someone else wants to keep the existing text, then it is up to you to justify your change. In general a section heading needs to be the simplest and most straightforward possible description of the section - this particular section has had this heading for a good while and has not been a bone of contention before now. So please justify this edit. A flat assertion that you are "correcting an error" obviously isn't enough. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 20:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

To be fair - there's very little room in an edit summary! --Soundofmusicals (talk) 21:15, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Soundofmusicals

Hi, the problem with the current section heading is exactly the opposite of what you said. It does not provide a correct description of the section. The Nights, though derived from a pre-Islamic Iranian prototype, took its current shape in the Arabic tradition, and that is after undergoing major developments and additions in different places, first in Iraq, and later in Egypt and Syria. Calling this phase a mere "versions" is very misleading and distorts the historical development of the book. The original core of the book (the Indo-Persian stories) was relatively small. The current Arabic book contains also an Iraqi layer of stories recorded between the 10th to 12th centuries, and also a further Arabic layer that developed independently in both Egypt and Syria between the 11th and 15th centuries. The Arabian nights, therefore, has developed from a much smaller Indo-Persian core, it was not just a "version" or translation of that core.

Unfortunately, since the Nights is a composite work and has had a complex history, some of the early contributors to the article has misrepresented the history of the book, and until now there are still many inaccuracies in the article. So just because a certain section heading was there for years that does not make it a correct one, especially when it contradicts the information from the very same section it describes. Best regards. Tvhs91 (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Just because something has always been like this doesn't automatically mean we mustn't change it, but a change to something like this does need to be justified (on the good old principle of "if it ain't broke don't fix it". It is true that the section includes contentious matter but (I believe) it does now constitute a fair summary of something reasonably close to the consensus of scholarly opinion (in so far as such a consensus exists, and within the constraints of a general, popular encyclopedia article). But "Arabic versions" remains as good a title for the section as it ever was. It is succinct, plain and immediately comprehensible, and after all is what the section is mainly about. It is not anything like a complete summary of the section, but then that is not, with respect, what a section title is for. The original titles for the works we know as Robinson Crusoe and A Modest Proposal are examples of what section titles would start to resemble if we tried to make them cover everything in the section. What does "Arabic development" even mean? A reader, as opposed to "me or thee", might well wonder. In this context the title is not the place to raise difficulties - plenty of them in the text to follow. Sorry if this post is a little longer than what I had in mind, but... --Soundofmusicals (talk) 10:14, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Soundofmusicals

The section does not contain a contentious matter IMO, it is just that its contents are misrepresented by the current heading. There are indeed Arabic versions of the Nights (the surviving Arabic manuscripts of the work), these manuscripts, however, are "Arabic versions" relative to an earlier Arabic original, not to a pre-Arabic one as the current title might imply. When we name the section heading as "Arabic versions", we are implying that there exist a non-Arabic version of the book which is wrong. There are no "versions" or "orginals" of this book that are extant in any other language than Arabic. And that is of course does not negate the historical relationship and connection between the current Arabic book and the pre-Islamic Indo-Persian one from which it inherited the frame story and some story cycles. When you have a composite work, it is more natural to speak about "layers" which considers the gradual historical development of the work. That is why scholars speaks about a "Persian layer", an "Indian layer" or an "Iraqi layer" and such.

By the way, I have no problem with keeping the "Arabic versions" title within the section but not as the section heading which is misleading and wrong. You might be right regarding the "Arabic development" title which I am thinking about changing into "Arabic transformation". This is a more appropriate term and a commonly used one when discussing literature. I am open to other suggestions from your part as well. So please don't make this discussion long and lets compromise, specially when we are arguing over a one word change. Tvhs91 (talk) 19:20, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Contentious? Perhaps mainly in the sense of "contended over" - see some of the arguments we have had with Persian chauvinism (mercifully now mostly archived) on this very page. I agree that one word may seem petty, but that cuts both ways, especially if there is doubt about what the word should be. No section heading, perhaps, was ever all things to all men, but I will probably always remain bemused about what is actually wrong with a short simple and very far from irrelevant heading like this one. Time to move on to more vital matters? Not a matter of "winning" - especially with an article like this, which has a very high "hit" rate - the reader must always come first. The heading as it is not only misleads nobody, but it also fails to confuse, a worthwhile aim, when all is said and done. A thought - might "Evolving Arabic versions" - putting an adjective at the front, cut the knot? But I still can't see there is really a knot to cut, or that we are looking at a new heading that is one whit better than the old. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 21:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Soundofmusicals

I am quite aware of those arguments. What I meant is that the section in its present form reflects the current scholarly consensus fairly well. The only problem is with its title. Dealing with uninformed nationalist users is of course another story like you said.

Regarding your proposed title, well, I am not quite sure. The thing is that I am against the word "versions" itself. This word denotes that the work underwent little changes, and is still linked to its supposed original inherently. In terms of literature, versions usually refer to translations, adaptations, abridgments and such things. That is not the case with the Nights, however. Here you have a large composite work with a complex history of authorship, development and collection, in a process that took up centuries to reach its final form. The current Arabic book we have today is a stand-alone work and not a mere version of any previous one whatever that might be. The fact that the Arabic work incorporated a certain pre-Islamic Indo-Persian core, or that an Arabic version of that core had existed at some point in history is irrelevant and beside the point. The section should be discussing the Arabic rendering of the book covering all things related to it from versions, translations, additions, collections, manuscript traditions ..etc. That is why I am more inclined to use the word "transformation". This word is more general and it covers the historical development of the book more comprehensively. It is even used at the beginning of the section itself. So what's your problem with this word exactly? I am willing to settle on a title like "Arabic transformation and versions" or "Arabic version and transformation" if we agree on that. I don't think that 3 or 4 words are too many for a section heading. If you see it that way, however, than I am for "Arabic transformation" title. Your opinion? Tvhs91 (talk) 13:40, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

There is nothing whatever in the dictionary or ordinary use of the word "version" to support your assumption that it implies a "mere" or minor variation - take as an example the "Disneyfied version" of almost anything! "Versions" is of course the right word here - I am totally bemused by the idea that "transformations" would be better in any way. On the other hand do have a look at the heading as it is now ("Evolving Arabic versions") which might be thought to make the nature of the different versions clearer. (Frankly I don't - I much prefer the original, before this argument started!) --Soundofmusicals (talk) 02:27, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm generally pursuaded by Tvhs91's arguments here. Johnbod (talk) 06:07, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Hezār Afsān and the "Nights"

As it it were necessary to defend this article yet again from another set of POV attacks - the scholarly consensus of the relationship between these two works has been well covered for many years and is not disputed by any reputable source (even, so far as I know, by an Iranian one). Not every article in an encyclopedia will ever please everyone - but Misplaced Pages rejects (as it must) every kind of unconfirmed personal opinion or prejudice. If we can't always find the full truth - especially as Hezār Afsān no longer actually exists (for whatever reason) and it is not possible to objectively assess exactly what relation it had to either the "Arabic" work or the Indian prototype - or, for that matter, what stories it contained. Any surmise claiming the consensus of scholars to be erroneous is totally beyond our brief here - if they are wrong then it is simply not our place to correct them off our own bat, replacing what is generally believed with something else - however much we want it to be so. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 02:38, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

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