MSFIMA

The Arabian Nights: Sources and Functions in Arabic Medieval Islam (MSFIMA) The Arabian Nights, after The Koran, represent the most remarkable book of medieval Islam, being the most complex work from the cultural and ideological points of view, as well as the most influential one. Since the 18th century, it represents the core component of Orientalism, while the ubiquity of its influence is visibly present in all forms of literature and films universally. In spite of all the work done in the last thirty years, many fundamental aspects of the Nights still remain to be elucidated such as their primary sources and functions. Most of the manuscripts, however, constituting approximately 85%, without considering the analogous manuscripts, are in fact still unpublished. Moreover, concerning the published narratives, we dispose of a few tools permitting us to establish if the texts we have are complete or not, censured or not, and more broadly, to which literary, ideological or artistic movement they originally belonged. Thanks to some samples in circulation, we know how this literature was opposed to the usual standards of the medieval world, if only by the figure of Shahrazâd. And yet, many similar characters still sleep in the manuscripts and wait to be brought to light. It is about a real literary movement, an entire part of another Islam, as a civilisation, which is revealed by these texts. Their publication will shed new light on the world of medieval Islam, in terms of diversity, creativity and attesting to a broad dimension of thought and perception. The twofold aim of the MSFIMA project is firstly, to create a database with the primary sources of the Arabian Nights alongside their analogous texts, in brief, a whole unpublished middle literature, as well as the popular and scholarly variations of it. Secondly, to propose an interpretation of this new corpus in relation to the society of Arabic medieval Islam, according to its meaning in the original Arabic language: What were the functions of this literature? Which lessons and visions did it generate? The database will be built in three fields, each of a different genre: 1 – A new central field will be devoted to references on the Arabian Nights' manuscripts and the collections called analogues, according to David Pinault's terminology, which constitute the middle literature, which are unexplored as such until today, and written in middle Arabic; 2 – A peripheral more scholarly field will contain author's books written in classical Arabic, as they were partly identified by Chauvin and the Arabian Nights Encyclopedia sharing some patterns of plots with the Arabian Nights' tales; 3 – And finally, a peripheral more popular field will reference the Arabic tales written in regional dialects, to which Aarne and Thompson's nomenclature is applied as well as Hasan El-Shamy's one, which also share in these cases, the Arabian Nights' tales' s plot pattern. The database is in itself an invaluable contribution. It will be located at the BULAC, which accepted to take in charge its perennial conservation and diffusion. In addition, three publications in the international journal Arabica (Brill: Leiden), which has also agreed in principle, will present the progress of the project, show and interpret the information collected and provide its broad diffusion. The publications will concern first, the new corpus of the Nights, then the Arabic middle literature which includes the Nights, and finally the relation of all of these to the civilisation which nurtured and elaborated it. We notice that from this point, the way will be paved for the elaboration of a critical edition of the Arabic middle literature's corpus in general, and of the Arabian Nights in particular, without additional financial effort.