The Thousand and One Nights: Space, Travel and Transformation (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures)

The Thousand and One Nights

In many stories of the well-known masterpiece of Arabic literature, the Thousand and one nights, themes and motifs of space and travel are of essential importance for the structure of the narrative. This volume discusses these themes and shows that they are used not only as a setting in which the story unfolds, but also as the dynamic force which propels the heroes and the story to the final dénouement. Richard van Leeuwen argues that a disruption of a spatiotemporal balance represents the main incentive for many of the stories, initiating a series of events meant to restore a form of equilibrium. These events often symbolize a process of transformation, in which the hero has to search for his destined role or strive to attain the object of his desire. In this way, themes of travel are the narrative backbone of stories of various genres including: • • • •

love stories in which the lover has to conquer the obstacles which separate him from his beloved, in the spatial settings in which love is situated; religious stories in which spiritual awakenings are projected on a sacred landscape; stories of magic in which supernatural spaces intertwine with the regular world; stories of adventure in which boundaries, body-doubles and moral admonitions determine the narrative structure.

The matrix of the spatiotemporal dimension of the stories is provided by the framing story, which explores the interconnections between space, mobility, narrativity and power. The analyses of the stories are based on recent theories of space and narrative and ultimately refer to the function of spatial constructions for narrativity, and vice versa. This book not only gives a fresh approach to many stories of the collection, but also proposes new insights in the nature of the Thousand and one nights as a self-reflexive narrative. It is essential reading for scholars of Arabic literature. Richard van Leeuwen is currently affiliated to the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He has published extensively on the Thousand and one nights, modern Arabic literature, Middle Eastern history and Islam. He has also worked as a translator of Arabic literature and he is currently doing research on Middle Eastern travel and Rashı-d Rid. a-.

Routledge studies in Middle Eastern literatures Edited by James E. Montgomery University of Cambridge

Roger Allen University of Pennsylvania

Philip F. Kennedy New York University Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures is a monograph series devoted to aspects of the literatures of the Near and Middle East and North Africa both modern and pre-modern. It is hoped that the provision of such a forum will lead to a greater emphasis on the comparative study of the literatures of this area, although studies devoted to one literary or linguistic region are warmly encouraged. It is the editors’ objective to foster the comparative and multi-disciplinary investigation of the written and oral literary products of this area. 1. Sheherazade Through the Looking Glass Eva Sallis 2. The Palestinian Novel Ibrahim Taha 3. Of Dishes and Discourse Geert Jan van Gelder 4. Medieval Arabic Praise Poetry Beatrice Gruendler 5. Making the Great Book of Songs Hilary Kilpatrick 6. The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985 Samah Selim 7. Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Arabic Writerly Culture A ninth-century bookman in Baghdad Shawkat M. Toorawa 8. Religious Perspectives in Modern Muslim and Jewish Literatures Edited by Glenda Abramson and Hilary Kilpatrick 9. Arabic Poetry Trajectories of modernity and tradition Muhsin J. al-Musawi

10. Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture in the Mediterranean Three ladies and a lover Cynthia Robinson 11. Writing and Representation in Medieval Islam Muslim horizons Julia Bray 12. Nationalism, Islam and World Literature Sites of confluence in the writings of Mahmu-d al-MasadıMohamed-Salah Omri 13. The Oral and the Written in Early Islam Gregor Schoeler Translated by Uwe Vagelpohl Edited by James Montgomery 14. Literature, Journalism and the Avant-Garde Intersection in Egypt Elisabeth Kendall 15. The Thousand and One Nights Space, travel and transformation Richard van Leeuwen

The Thousand and One Nights Space, travel and transformation

Richard van Leeuwen

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 1006 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 Richard van Leeuwen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-96124-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-40039-2 (Print Edition) ISBN13: 978-0-415-40039-8

Contents

Preface 1 Background

viii 1

2 Travelling, boundaries and narratives

15

3 Roads to power

28

4 Night and day: the two faces of man

45

5 Marginality, individuality and the traveller

60

6 The spirit of place

77

7 The domains of love

90

8 Magic and the logic of narrative space

107

9 Some conclusions

124

Notes

142

Bibliography

147

Index

156

Preface

The main part of this study is the result of research conducted in the framework of the research programme Individual and society in the Mediterranean Muslim world, sponsored and organized by the European Science Foundation, in the period 1996-2001. Several chapters have been presented as papers in ‘Atelier 5’ during meetings in Florence, Istanbul, Leiden and Castelvecchio Pascoli. I would like to thank the ESF and the prominent colleagues who invited me to participate in the workshops and enabled me to discuss my thoughts about the Thousand and One Nights with them, especially Remke Kruk, Robin Ostle, Geert Jan van Gelder, and Sabry Hafez. Other chapters have previously been presented as papers at various conferences in Uppsala, Beirut, Bamberg, Rabat, Cambridge, and in the workshops of the research programme ‘Genre, narrative and ideology’ organized by SOAS in London (2001-2003). My thanks go to all organizers of these events, especially Tetz Rooke, Bill Granara, Wen-chin Ouyang, Angelika Neuwirth and Jean-Luc Joly, who gave me the opportunity to exchange views with colleagues, ask their comments and gain new insights. I owe special thanks to Roger Allen, who has not only stimulated my research efforts on Arabic literature, but also enabled me to complete this project, and Philip Kennedy, for his comments on the text. I am grateful for the hospitality, open-mindedness, enthusiasm and criticism of these colleagues. I would also like to express my thanks to Arnoud Vrolijk of the University Library in Leiden, who is always helpful in tracing and collecting material, to Sheila Ottway, who corrected the English, and to Maaike Voorhoeve, who assisted with editing the text. Needless to say, any mistakes and deficiencies remaining in this study, even after the support of so many distinguished colleagues, are entirely my own.

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Background

Writing a book about the Thousand and one nights is a hazardous undertaking. The risks are not merely professional: every student of the Thousand and one nights has to confront the traditional warning that nobody can read the complete work and survive it; even if he succeeds in reading all the tales, in the end he will be a different person. He will never be the same again. This fear of the hidden powers of the Thousand and one nights is connected to the apparent endlessness of the cycle and its explicit function as a force of transformation. It is Shahraza-d’s intention to realize the transformation of Shahriya-r, by storytelling, and, through him, of the reader, who will be taught to look at life from a new perspective. The characteristic fluidity of the Thousand and one nights is reflected in its textual history. The corpus of texts that are in some way or another related to the Thousand and one nights is still expanding, obscuring rather than clarifying the philological history of the work. The collections and separate tales have taken on many guises in the course of time, adapting themselves to cultural fashions and tastes, to historical contexts and newly invented media. There is no end to the Thousand and one nights and anyone who enters the world of Shahraza-d may be lured into an inextricable maze, in which he will in vain look for a secure exit. It is precisely these metamorphic qualities of the Thousand and one nights that link the work to the idea of the journey. Of course, the journey is one of the main metaphoric complexes in human culture: it dominates our vision of life, of many projects and actions which we undertake, and of our speaking and thinking about the world. Moreover, it has become perhaps the main metaphorical reference in literatures all over the world, and it seems justified to say that all landmarks of literature, which have changed the course of literary history and which contain the essential qualities of literature as an art and an expression of culture, are somehow imbued with the concept of the journey. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the Thousand and one nights, too, there is hardly a story which is not in some respect related to the broad idea of travelling and mobility. In many stories travelling represents the core of the symbolic structure, the framework around which the narrative is built. In fact, the concept of travelling, in its many manifestations, seems to be so essential for the art of storytelling in the Thousand and one nights that it is surprising that it has not been the subject of more research. This book aims at contributing to this wide field of research, proposing a narratological

2

Background

approach to the phenomenon of the journey as an essential component in a vast number of tales from the Thousand and one nights. But before embarking upon this undertaking, it is necessary to mark off the field and the material under study, and to outline the premises on which the discussion will be based. First, a brief survey will be given of the basic hypotheses concerning the history and the generic context of the Thousand and one nights; then a concise inventory will follow of the main theoretical ideas that have facilitated the analysis and interpretation of stories, clarified the concepts of space and mobility and provided the tools for structuring the discussion. It should be noted that the theoretical premises will not be derived from a single model or approach, but will rather be taken from the many different, and often complementary, views of questions of narrative and space that have been developed in recent decades. This implies that the discussion will not lead to a single, well-defined concept of the role of journeys in the Thousand and one nights, or to a description of a coherent conception of space as expressed in the tales. As will be shown below, the diverse nature of the text(s) precludes such a pretentious conclusion. It is our aim, rather, to give a panorama which brings to light the many different components of the metaphor of the journey, as it is used in various stories of the Thousand and one nights. If it is possible at all to escape from Shahrazad’s . labyrinth, it may not be by seeking a monumental exit, but by mapping the many side-gates.

Textual and generic history There is no definitive reconstruction of the textual history of the Thousand and one nights. This circumstance enhances the literary interest of the work, as a fascinating phenomenon emerging out of the mists of history, but it greatly hampers the task of scholars studying the nature and characteristics of the work. Philological research into the origins of the Thousand and one nights, which started in earnest at the end of the eighteenth century, has produced a threephased model for the development of the text. First, a collection of stories was made in Baghdad in the 8th or 9th century, possibly based on a Persian example, the Haz-a- r afsa- ne, or Thousand nights; second, this core of tales was supplemented with Arabic material to form the first truly Arabic version of the collection (ninth to tenth centuries); finally, in the so-called ‘Egyptian period’, from the twelfth to eighteenth centuries, stories were added to give the work the shape with which we are familiar now. The evidence supporting this reconstruction is rather vague, as relatively few manuscript versions of the Thousand and one nights have survived, and the material that we have, and whose philological status can be established, is incomplete. Persian predecessors, including the Haza-r afsa-ne, have never been found, and we have hardly any indication about the contents or form of the early versions. The references to the Thousand and one nights in the Arabic literary tradition itself are scarce and contradictory, and the earliest manuscript that contains a substantial part of the work dates back to the fifteenth century, that is, probably five or six centuries after its conception. This text, the version used by Galland for his translation in the eighteenth century, contains only 282 nights.1

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3

The Galland text was edited in 1984 by Muhsin Mahdi, who thus fulfilled an old wish of students of Arabic literature. Mahdi not only intended to compile a first Thousand and one nights text which could measure up to modern scholarly standards, he also attempted to formulate a theory about the historical evolution and the philological status of the various texts. In particular, he revealed the mystifications concocted by some eighteenth-century Arabic scholars in Paris, which confused many later researchers. Furthermore, he clarified the status of most of the nineteenth-century editions and translations of doubtful origin. By chasing away these ‘intruders’, Mahdi paved the way for his thesis that the Galland text should be seen as the only ‘authentic’ version of the Thousand and one nights. According to Mahdi, the original text did not contain Thousand and one nights, but the manuscript of the core stories was used by later compilers as the basis for their versions, which they supplemented with stories from various other sources to reach the number 1001. That in fact copyists provided apocryphal compilations is confirmed by historical evidence. Several European travellers who visited the Levant in the eighteenth century recounted that no standard version of the Thousand and one nights existed, but that copyists were perfectly willing to procure compilations on demand. The result was that several different versions of the Thousand and one nights, mostly consisting of the core stories supplemented with apocryphal material, were brought on the market. Some of these texts were lost in shipwreck, other texts, such as the so-called Montague manuscript, have survived. Therefore, all manuscripts that appeared after the publication of Galland’s translation (1704-1717) are at least of doubtful status.2 Mahdi may be correct in assuming that the Galland text which he edited represents the oldest surviving version of the Thousand and one nights. It is questionable, however, if this text represents the ‘original’ work. The manuscript contains a text from the fifteenth century which is clearly marked by influences from its Mamluk environment and whose relationship to earlier versions is unclear. Mahdi is also right in claiming that the stories after the 282nd night were added by compilers of the eighteenth century, exploiting various sources, but we cannot tell whether these compilers were treacherous impostors or scholars who made a serious attempt to reconstruct a version of the Thousand and one nights as they knew or suspected it to be from their literary ‘memory’. The Austrian traveller Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, for instance, relates of an Egyptian sheykh who prepared a reconstruction of the Thousand and one nights around 1771.3 Unfortunately, he does not mention his name or the contents of his compilation, but this work may be the source of the more or less uniform Egyptian manuscript versions that we possess in the form of the Bula-q and Macnaghten editions. Some stories which appear in this version and which have been preserved in separate manuscripts, too, date back to the period before the 15th century and could have been part of an early version of the Thousand and one nights. There exists a Turkish manuscript of the Thousand and one nights, for instance, which dates from the 17th century and which includes the story of Sindba- d of the Sea. This story does not occur in the Galland text, but was added by Galland to his Mille et une nuits because he suspected it had been part of the Thousand and one nights. Could this story have

4

Background

been part of the original Thousand and one nights, in the part that was lost after the fifteenth century, and re-incorporated into the collection in the eighteenth century? Even after the research done by Mahdi, many questions remain to be answered. The few references to the Thousand and one nights in Arabic literary works, especially in the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadı-m and the Muru- j al-dhahab of al-Ma‘su-dı-, are too vague to be of any help, and in fact only complicate matters. It is certain that some version of the Thousand and one nights circulated in Baghdad and Cairo in the ninth century, but is it possible to speak of a single, uniform text? Was the text copied in writing, or did it proliferate within the circuits of oral storytelling? Did the text contain newly invented stories, or only an anthology of existing stories? To what extent was the core part a translation from a Persian original? What is the relation between the collection as a whole and the stories that appear in some or all versions of the work but which have also survived in separate manuscripts? What is the relationship between the Thousand and one nights and similar collections of tales, such as the Kita- b al-h.ika- ya- t al-‘ajı-ba and the Hundred and one nights?4 What is the relation between the Thousand and one nights and other forms of literature, such as adab texts, popular epics, literature of entertainment, prophets’ stories, fables and anecdotes, etc.? The historical picture that we have of the Thousand and one nights is far from complete, and until new evidence turns up, it is doubtful if a major breakthrough in our knowledge can be achieved. Since there are so many lacunae in our knowledge of the textual history of the Thousand and one nights, some scholars have argued that the philological foundation is insufficient to allow a serious narratological analysis of the stories themselves. The status of the various texts is still unclear, making a reliable demarcation of the material virtually impossible. Some stories are only known from nineteenth-century editions, and it is not known if they were copied from ancient manuscripts, or ‘created’ by the compiler of the edition. Some stories may have been taken from the tradition of folklore and recorded from the mouth of a nineteenth-century storyteller, without any evidence that it existed in the fifteenth century or earlier. Any general conclusion about the structure or contents of the stories is thus built on quicksand; it is ahistorical and devoid of any serious significance. Only the status of the Galland text is sufficiently established to make a research of narrative aspects possible, or so it seems. Still, even in the case of the Galland text, conclusions would refer to a text pertaining to the Mamluk period, and not to an ‘original’ Thousand and one nights. After all, the coherence that the stories of the Galland manuscript show may be an intervention by the copyist of an earlier version. Others have retorted that although the status of several versions of the collection and some separate tales is unclear, they still belong to the tradition of Arabic stories and tales, which have been gathered here in a more or less coherent corpus. If the stories were perhaps not part of an original version of the Thousand and one nights, this does not in itself disqualify them as an object of research, as long as the conclusions are presented as preliminary and not generalized. There is no reason why stories which were probably not part of the original Thousand and

Background

5

one nights, but which were considered by compilers as part of the same corpus, should not be studied for their specific narratological interest. What is more, since philological research has stagnated for some time and seems unable to produce new, positive results, other approaches to the texts may help to provide new insights, which in their turn may lead to new clues with regard to the history of the text. Narratological study can perhaps show new relationships between stories, reveal thematic patterns and indicate formal techniques. Thus, however tentative narratological approaches may be, they have their own justifications, as long as certain parameters are kept in mind. They may open new tracks for reconsidering the reconstruction of the textual history of the collection. In this study, needless to say, the latter opinion will prevail, but we will not lose sight of the limitations imposed on the text by philological hypotheses. This means, firstly, that texts compiled by Europeans, possibly distorted by European influences, are not taken into consideration, and that the material used will be confined to the Mahdi edition and the Bula-q edition (1835), which is the only ‘complete’ text edited by an Arab scholar which still enjoys the ‘benefit of the doubt’. It is clear, of course, that the Bula-q text, too, consists of the core stories and spurious material taken from later – probably eighteenth-century – manuscripts and/or adab texts and existing cycles of tales. Nevertheless, these additions have been taken from Arabic sources and may come closer to an effort at reconstructing the text than the obvious mystifications by European editors. It should be acknowledged, however, that the philological status of the two source texts makes it impossible to study the Thousand and one nights, from a narratological perspective, as a coherent whole. Any analysis should focus on separate stories or groups of stories, and, in some cases, a comparison between stories. No conclusions can refer to the collection as a unified narrative, since the philological relationship between at least part of the stories has not been established with any measure of certainty. Within these limitations, an analysis of stories can be fruitful and can reveal relationships which underlie generic patterns. It is clear that the holistic approaches by al-Qalama-wı- and Gerhardt,5 for example, are outdated, in spite of their sometimes very insightful interpretations. Their surveys have provided an introduction to the literary analysis of the Thousand and one nights and have paved the way for other researchers. In more recent years, studies by Naddaf, Pinault, Bencheikh, Miquel6 and others, have shown how the Thousand and one nights can be approached from a narratological point of view, taking into account the nature of the material, formal structure, textual correspondences and metaphoric strategies. In all these cases, the analysis was focused on separate stories – sometimes in different versions – and conclusions were partial rather than comprehensive. Here, the Thousand and one nights is seen as a collection in which perhaps various coherences can be discovered, on the linguistic or the thematic level, but which cannot be studied as if it were composed as a unity in the form that has reached us. Still, it is a collection of Arabic stories which deserve to be studied and which are part of a tradition and which are sufficiently associated with one another to be gathered into a single collection.

6

Background

In this study the focus will be on separate stories and types of stories, avoiding the harmonization of the collection into a unified whole. In some cases, relationships between stories will be suggested, especially between the framing story of Shahraza- d and several stories of the collection itself. These suggestions should be considered with some reservations, since if the relation of specific stories to the collection as a whole is not always clear, its relation to the framing story is equally uncertain. Nevertheless a copyist or editor may have ‘recreated’ relationships within the text which are in themselves interesting and artful, although they may not have been part of the original setup of the cycle. As long as the historical dimension of the various components is lacking, any suggestion of relationship remains speculative.

The generic context As a collection, the Thousand and one nights has usually been associated with such well-known works as the Pantchatantra, the Tu-tina- ma, the Sindba- dna- ma (inserted into the Thousand and one nights as the Craft and malice of women7), and Kalı-la wa-Dimna.8 These works belong to the dawn of Islamic literatures and represent some primordial literary form: they are intended to provide instruction and entertainment simultaneously, and to epitomize a vision of life and society in their respective periods. They were composed originally to instruct princes to prepare them for their future task as rulers, and should therefore be categorized within the ancient genre of the ‘mirrors for princes’. Apart from these common features, the works are characterized by a similar structure: they are all shaped as frame-stories, juxtaposing a framing story and a cycle of inserted stories. It is this combination of explicit intention and formal resemblance which is the basis of a generic pattern. The functioning of the generic characteristics can be summarized as follows. First, the alternation between frame-story and inserted stories produces a regular interruption of the narrative. Although it may seem paradoxical, it is this systematic interruption that gives the work its formal coherence. Interruption is used as a strategic narrative device, breaking up the continuum of the narrative, providing it with rhythm and movement, inserting transitions, perspectives, intervals, contradictions, connections, boundaries, pauses, etc. These indicate that the narrative is not a homogeneous and continuous whole, but rather consists of a complex unity, of a multi-layered configuration of components, of a multidimensional construction. It is through the technique of interruption that the work presents itself as a separate narrative, by breaking up a narrative continuum. Only through this fragmentation can new meanings be created from the flux of ‘normal’ events. Second, the alternation between framing story and the inserted stories create what may be called a ‘situation of dialogue’, in the Bakhtinian sense.9 This dialogue is not only present in the discussion of the prince and his tutor, but also in the interaction between framing and framed stories. It is the interruption that creates a boundary, a dual perspective, which, as a form of dialogue, is the basis

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of the generation of meaning, as an exchange of visions and observations from different angles. The stories are responses to questions, remarks and events in the framing story, creating a ‘split-level’ from which the meanings of the work as a whole are derived. Third, the framing story forms a link between reality and the fictional world of the inserted stories. The inserted stories contain an allegorical representation of the world, which acquires its meanings by associating it with a realistic ‘metanarrative’. It is acknowledged that the stories are not identical with reality and that they have a meaning which transcends real, incidental events. They contain a general lesson, not meant for just one situation, but for a category of situations. These categories are defined by the framing story, which anchors the metaphorical representations in ‘real life’. Here, the technique of interruption is used to fulfil one of the main functions of literature: the linking of fictional worlds to a realistic world, of representation to reality, of allegory to the experience of life. Fourth, the basic form of the ‘dialogue’ and the intention to instruct gives the works the character of an initiation. The prince is instructed about human nature and the world in a systematic way to prepare him for his future position. The prince is shown an alternative reality, which was outside the scope of his experiences, in the form of stories which epitomize the essential truth of reality, a vision of the world which is sanctioned by tradition and life experience. The stories are a symbolic boundary which the prince has to cross before he can take on his new personality and his function as a ruler, aware of the wisdom generated within his society. To a certain extent these generic characteristics define what was considered legitimate fictional literature in the Persian-Arabic tradition: a combination of entertaining stories and moral admonition; a moral view of the world wrapped in an intellectually and artistically appreciable form.10 They represented the quintessence of fictional literature and for this reason were considered as the primordial model to which later authors should conform. In some of the cycles mentioned above, the basic form of the framed stories is supplemented with an additional element: the time-frame. In the Sindba- dna- ma (Persian version 1190; possibly an earlier Arabic version), for example, the prince is confined to the royal harem because, as a result of a divination, he is not allowed to speak for ten days. Within this time-span, the queen accuses him of trying to seduce her, and the king intends to have him executed. Since the prince cannot speak to defend himself, the ten viziers of the king tell a story each day, in response to stories told by the queen, to persuade the king to postpone the execution of the prince. After the tenth day, the prince is released from his predicament and is saved. In this cycle, the mechanism of framed and framing stories is used as in the other cycles, but there is an important difference; here time is introduced as a structuring element. The specific function of the time-frame, which can also be found, for example, in the Tu-tina-ma and the cycle of the Forty viziers,11 can be summarized as follows. First, the time-frame imposes a regular pattern of time on the cycle, limiting the fictional character of the tales by the realistic temporal sequence of the frame. This not only strengthens the suggestion of reality, placing the cycle in the normal

8

Background

experience of time, it also suggests that the stories are not an abstraction, lacking a link to real life, but that they can influence the course of events. The stories are told to effect or to prevent the death sentence of the prince, so each story can lead to his redemption or death. The time factor thus introduces the element of contingency in the narrative, the idea that fiction can intervene in reality, that metaphorical representations can change the course of events. This is echoed in the intention of the narrative as a whole: it can change the life of the reader. Second, the temporal frame produces what Frank Kermode has called ‘the sense of an ending’.12 The period of ten days suggests that the story has a beginning, a middle and an end, which are not randomly connected to one another, but are linked by the laws of logic and causality. The components together form a coherent whole and are each part of a process which is fitted into a specific order. Events and stories are not merely marking off the passage of time, they have acquired a meaning which is determined by their relation to the expected ending. Third, the suggestion of a logical sequence of events, together with a strict timeframe, strengthens one of the essential strategies of literary narratives, which can be linked to the Freudian idea of the ‘delay of gratification’. The time division indicates that the narrative is constructed to achieve a specific aim, which will be revealed at the end. This aim is to reveal a truth, which will give the cycle and the separate stories their final significance and definitive interpretation. To disclose this truth, reality has to be unravelled in a series of abstract representations, because reality is complex and there is always something hidden under the surface. Narratives consist of strategies to explore the relationship between beginnings and endings, postponing the reward of knowing the plot to the very last moment. Readers are misled, side-tracked, guided through labyrinths of related and unrelated meanings, to be taught all the various aspects of the relationship between beginning and end. The dénouement finally puts all the elements in their proper place. It is the deviation that is the purpose of narrative strategies, slowly disclosing not one meaning, but a whole range of meanings, which form a pattern that can only be discerned when the last component is added. Finally, the time-frame transforms the process of initiation suggested by the structure of the framing and framed stories into a systematically constructed ‘rite of passage’. In the Sindba-dna-ma, the well-known phases of this ritualized transition are clearly marked: the prince’s separation from his social environment; his isolation in a ‘liminal’ phase; his re-incorporation as a different, transformed, personality. The liminality of the prince is stressed by his inability to speak, and by his uncertain position: if his initiation succeeds, he will live; if it does not, he will be executed. The true initiation consists of the stories that teach him all he has to know to be able to continue his life as a royal heir. It is also suggested that the rite of passage marks the prince’s growth to sexual maturity. In the meantime, evidently, it is the reader who is initiated, too, the ten-day span representing an interruption of the life of the prince, but also of the life of the reader, who absorbs the instructions and admonitions through the figure of the prince. The works mentioned above show sufficient formal and thematic similarities to be grouped together as a separate genre. A literary genre is here defined as

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9

a coherent set of visions expressed in narratives which have specific formal characteristics in common. It is shaped by dialogical processes and intended to record visions of reality in a structured set of representations. Genres are designed to bring order into information and experiences and to establish hierarchies, rules and codes within recognizable textual forms, and to define the relationships of specific texts to reality. These forms and the vision that they represent are not fixed, but always subjected to processes of change. Genres can be transformed, become extinct or be swallowed by other, new, genres, or be adapted to new visions and new forms of dialogue. Dialogues are processes in which visions of life and the world are exchanged, generating multiple visions and new interpretations and concepts. In the theories of Bakhtin and others, it is the act of dialogue that produces new meanings and views, on the level of individuals, groups, societies and cultures. These sets of meanings crystallize into genres which can be reproduced and preserved for later generations.13 The cycles of the Persian-Arabic mirror for princes tradition conform to a clear generic pattern. They have a similar formal structure, they make use of similar narrative techniques and strategies, they reflect their dialogic origin in their form, their relationship to reality is explained in a similar way and they are part of a process of development, showing variations on a basic pattern. Apart from this, they reflect a common thematic, or even ideological, purport which is profoundly patriarchal: a wise man will not give in to his passion and only trust his reason; he will dedicate himself to the affairs of the state and the dynasty; and, above all, he will not heed the advice of women, nor tolerate their meddling in affairs of the state, nor be seduced by their devious behaviour. In this ideology, women are portrayed as a source of evil; they represent chaos, lust, irrationality and deceit. Men are identified with the interests of the state, or with the positive forces upholding society in general. These common interests link the texts together as a separate genre, representing a coherent view of life. There is one more point to add: all these cycles are explicitly linked to the threat of death and destruction. Pending death sentences, executions, the ruin of the empire, these are the motifs that govern the thematic development. It seems that the genre proposes an essential association of storytelling with death. Apparently, death is seen as the final act in the signifying process, the ‘moment of truth’, in which the true nature of reality, of the past and the present, is revealed. Only someone who is dying, or who is threatened by death, has a complete vision of his life. Only under the threat of death can the idea be imposed that life has a meaning, an aim, a content. Death is the main, perhaps the only, source of meaning. How does the Thousand and one nights relate to the generic model outlined above? At first sight the similarities seem overwhelming. The work is construed as a frame with a series of embedded stories, it describes a process of initiation, it contains the ‘sense of an ending’ with all its implications, it contains a deaththreat, an alternation of ‘real’ and metaphorical episodes, and techniques aimed at the ‘delay of gratification’. Moreover, in the prologue it is stated that the intention of the work is similar to that of the mirrors for princes: it is written to instruct and to entertain, to convey knowledge and to warn readers against betrayal and deceit.

10

Background

In the framing story there are references to the genre of the fable, as a source of wisdom and a moral example, such as the stories of the Bull and the ass and the Merchant and the jinni.14 It is clear that the Thousand and one nights, in its intention and formal set-up, is closely related to the type of the mirror for princes. Still, there is something different, which can best be illustrated by a comparison with the cycle King Jalı-‘a- d and his son Wird Kha- n.15 This cycle, which probably dates back to before the 10th century, is included in the Egyptian versions of the Thousand and one nights, but it has also been preserved in separate manuscripts. It was probably added to the Thousand and one nights in the 18th or 19th century. In the story of King Jalı-‘a- d, the king dies after having instructed his son Wird Kha-n about the proper conduct of a ruler. He entrusts the prince to the care of the wise and knowledgeable vizier Shı-ma-s. However, in spite of his thorough education, Wird Kha-n becomes recalcitrant and refuses to follow the advice of his viziers. He retires into the harem, neglecting his duties as a king, and indulges in his passion for women. Shı-ma-s tells him stories to have him improve his conduct, but Wird Kha-n has him and the other viziers executed on the instigation of his wife. Soon, a neighbouring king, having heard of Wird Kha-n’s predicament, threatens to invade and destroy the empire, and it seems that the catastrophe is unavoidable. Now Wird Kha-n realizes that he has neglected his duties. He traces the son of Shı-ma-s, who is appointed vizier and who saves the empire by a ruse. The cycle fits into the generic pattern of the mirror for princes, as explained above, but the framing story is somewhat more elaborate than in the other cases. The ideological purport is even more clearly expressed than in the case of the Craft and malice of women. The resemblances between the cycle of King Jalı-‘a-d and the framing story of the Thousand and one nights are obvious, as are the differences. Shahriya-r and Wird Kha-n are both symbols of absolute power, who are forced to combine two components of their personality, the discipline required for their royal tasks, and their relationship with women, their sexual passion. But whereas Wird Kha-n delivers himself to his women and their destructive wiles, and has his viziers killed, Shahriya-r uses his power as a king to eliminate the threat of women. In both cases, the empire is threatened by ruination, either because the affairs of the state are in chaos, or because a rigid regime prevents the birth of an heir to the throne and gradually depletes the reservoir of marriageable young women. Whereas Wird Kha-n is saved by a clever young man, Shahriya-r’s empire is rescued by an equally intelligent young lady. Wird Kha-n’s transformation is completed by the execution of the women of his harem; Shahriya-r’s transformation is sealed by the king’s restored relationship with women. In the case of Wird Kha-n, normality is restored at the expense of women, in the case of Shahriya-r women are saved from a state of anomaly. This brief comparison reveals that the divergencies between the two cycles are achieved by an ingenious inversion of roles combined with a strong appeal to the ideological connotations of the generic model. Like the story of Jalı-‘a- d, the Thousand and one nights, too, refers to patriarchal repression, misogyny, and the idea of women as a destructive force, but here this philosophy is unmasked by Shahraza-d as an aberration. It is a woman who brings back the equilibrium in

Background 11 Shahriyar’s life; it is a woman who turns out to be not the force of destruction, but the force of recovery, procreation, and stability. It is the combination of inversion and a strong reference to the ideological concept of the genre that makes it possible to describe the Thousand and one nights as a ‘parody’, a re-using of generic conventions to comment on the concepts related to them; imitating generic patterns with the aim of turning the visions that are expressed in them upside down. This typification of the Thousand and one nights is important for the analysis of its contents, for the search for interpretations and possible intentions, at least insofar as the framing story is concerned, and the stories of the ‘core’ whose relationship with the framing story has been established as virtually certain. From its way of transforming the generic pattern by parodying it, it seems clear that the first compiler of the cycle had specific intentions and did not just confine himself to a mere collecting of tales. Moreover, the idea of parodying the mirrors for princes, and its formal and thematic elements, may have provided the main criteria for later copyists and editors to select the material to be added to the core. Thus, the association of the Thousand and one nights with a specific generic pattern may elucidate the form and thematic layers that characterize the versions that have survived.

Theoretical approaches As has been remarked above, this study is not meant to apply a specific theoretical model to the material of the Thousand and one nights. Instead, various theoretical concepts will be used which seem profitable for the analysis of specific stories. Narratological analysis can make use of insights taken from theories of various kinds, from the psychoanalytical models of Freud and Lacan, to Bakhtin’s chronotope, and the perceptions of space developed by Foucault, Lefebvre or Deleuze; critical observations by Gerhardt can be supplemented by the concept of the ‘homme-récit’ proposed by Todorov and the narratological notions of Riffaterre. As far as this study is concerned, theoretical approaches are not used for the sake of supporting or rejecting certain schools of thought; they are rather used as tools to unravel the techniques and concepts used to elaborate the themes that interest us here: journeys and the relationships between the narrative and concepts of space. This procedure is not inspired by an essential distrust of theoretical models; on the contrary, it stresses the necessity and profitability of theoretical concepts for literary analysis. In the case of the Thousand and one nights, however, the application of a single model would not be in conformity with the essential diversity of the collection and the lack of a unified coherence. The work is not inspired by one main idea; the work has not been written by a single author with a single purpose; the fragmented history of the text does not justify the treatment of the collection from a single perspective. The general hypotheses which have been the starting-point of the discussion can be summarized as follows: First, it is presupposed that conceptions of space are fundamental in shaping our perceptions of reality, our emotional experiences and our thinking. As is argued

12

Background

by Malpas, in his investigation into the relation between human thought and space, our grasp of the space surrounding us gives unity to our sense of reality and a sense of continuity, counter-balancing the fragmentation and transitoriness of time. Places are among the main components of our memory and the standard of our sense of proportions. It is our relation with spaces that determines our relation to reality, our sense of orientation, the scope of our actions and the focus of social intercourse. It is the basis of any sense of coherence.16 To quote Malpas: ‘The crucial point about the connection between place and experience is not, however, that place is properly something only encountered in experience, but rather that place is integral to the very structure and possibility of experience’.17 And: ‘A grasp of the concept of space is necessary for the sort of experience and understanding of the world that is characteristic of human experience and thought’.18 Thinking is impossible without some notions of space which function as an ordering principle. Second, space is not seen as a continuum, but as divided according to hierarchical systems and orderings. Concepts of space can only exist through the existence of boundaries, which bring diversity to spatial unity and which endow places with separate meanings and connotations within the spatial configuration. Thus, the significance of places is related to spatial systems and hierarchies, and the ideological, emotional and intellectual concepts with which they are imbued. Still, the components belong to a larger whole, they are the parts of a complex: ‘Recognition of the complexity of place should, in this respect, direct our attention to the very unity in which place also consists. The complexity of place does not entail a dispersion of elements, but rather enables their “gathering together” – their interconnection and unification – in such a way that their multiplicity and differentiation can be both preserved and brought to light’.19 Boundaries endow places with differentiated meanings, but simultaneously link them to a unified system of spatial meanings. Third, the dialectic between the diversity of places and the unity of spatial systems is reflected in and achieved by the construction of narratives. Narratives of various natures, literary, ideological, juridical etc., at the same time define boundaries and link the spatial components to the overarching system. Moreover, they relate concepts of space with concepts of time, in order to preserve the coherence of our experiences and the meanings of places. Malpas states: ‘We understand a particular space through being able to grasp the sorts of “narratives of action” that are possible within that space; we understand a place and a landscape through the historical and personal narratives that are marked out within it and that give that place a particular unity and establish a particular set of possibilities within it’.20 This implies that our experience of place is essentially imaginary and constructed, within coherences tailored to our individual and social requirements. Fourth, as places are shaped by narratives, narratives are shaped by places. All narratives contain an explicit or implicit representation of space: ‘Just as narrative provides a means to grasp and to articulate the unity of space or region, so, too, is narrative itself necessarily worked out in relation to such spatial and topographic structures’.21 In fictional stories these representations are manipulated in specific ways to support the various levels of the narrative structure. Places are not

Background

13

just settings, they are imbued with the emotions of characters, they are a means to refer to a specific reality, they are used to juxtapose scenes, to divide the sequence of the story, to influence the relationships between the characters, to display and to hide. As Hamon has shown in his study of 19th-century French authors, representations of space are part of the formal structure as well as the conceptual structure of narratives.22 Fifth, perceptions of space are developed through the interaction between immobility and mobility. As Leed says in his book on travelling: ‘Travel is a central rather than a peripheral force in historical transformations; and the creation of locale, the mapping of territory, the territorialization of humanity are achievements of mobility’.23 The centrality of travelling is here not only acknowledged as the main factor in the creation of spatial systems, it is also seen as a central component of fictional narratives, as one of the main structuring elements. From ancient times, fictional narratives have been shaped by the ‘discourse’ of travel, as if forms of displacement are the most important incentives to tell a story. Mobility is an important means to perceive the complexity of space, as Malpas argues: ‘A completely static space, a space that allowed merely the simultaneous presentation of images, would not be a space that offered any possibility for the unification of those images. Instead, those images must be connected, and such connection is possible only through the displacement of space that is tied to movement and that, therefore, takes place in time’.24 And he continues: ‘Movement allows for a multiplication in the aspects that the same object or scene presents to us, but if such multiplication were all that resulted, one would be lost in a chaos of such representations. Movement is, however, always movement grasped from within a particular subjective point of view – and so related to that point of view and to the capacities for activity with which that point of view is associated – and mapped out with respect to an objective space – a space in which both the subject and the objects surrounding it can be located. Movement, or activity in general, is thus the means by which space is grasped in its complexity, while the possibilities of movement enable the ordering of things in space, since such ordering is always an ordering dependent on our own capacities for moving and acting’.25 Sixth, in the following analyses of stories, journeys will be related to two levels of the stories, their formal structure – the sequence of events, the location of events, instances of mobility and immobility – and the symbolic level, as referred to by Riffaterre: [Symbolic systems] must be understood as networks of signs, each organized by an ad hoc grammar that does not supersede the grammar of the context surrounding the system but that may suspend or modify some of its rules. Two such systems have the function of injecting a qualitatively different truth, a poetic truth, into a world of truth by verisimilitude: the sustained metaphor and the metatext’.26 This vision of a text with split levels implies a specific definition of metaphor, not as a linguistic anomaly, but as a semantic and conceptual device. A metaphor

14

Background

is part of a conceptual system by which reality, or specific parts of reality, are represented. Such systems can consist of hierarchically ordered components, central concepts and derived concepts. Conceptual metaphors are essential for our comprehension of reality, as they structure images as well as language, mediating between reality and clusters of associated meanings. Narratives almost by definition contain metaphors, which can be arranged within coherent systems to support the thematic schema of the story. As a metaphorical concept, the ‘journey’ is very rich in associations and connotations, derivatives and components. This is undoubtedly why it has acquired such a prominent role in the history of literature.27 Finally, journeys, and especially the accounts of journeys, can be analyzed as a structural process, fitting into a model consisting of departure/ dissociation, passage/ liminality, and arrival/ (re-) incorporation. This model structures not only the phases of the journey, as a sequence of time, but also the experiences of the traveller, and his relationship to his non-mobile surroundings. It is the model that turns mobility into a narrative and that dominates its complex of metaphors.28 These seven presuppositions are the basis of the discussion in the following pages, which will focus, first, on the relationship between boundaries and texts, and then on several stories of the Thousand and one nights in which the journey plays a particularly important role. In each chapter a component of the broad concept of travelling will be analyzed in relation to one or more stories, thus adopting a thematic approach which will allow us to review various types of stories. In the end, an image will emerge which will certainly not be exhaustive, but which will give an idea of the variety of usages of the journey theme in the Thousand and one nights. As has been said above, there will be no overall conclusion, only indications of the itineraries outlined by the stories. The various theoretical approaches mentioned above do not, of course, exhaust all possibilities to analyse the spatial aspects of the Thousand and one nights. In the concluding chapter of this study an effort will be made to link the concept of the Thousand and one nights, as it is represented in the framing story, with three theoretical models in which visions of space and storytelling are combined. After all, in spite of the diverse character of the collection, the framing story suggests a very specific idea of the function and nature of storytelling as a linguistic, psychological, cultural and literary phenomenon. This idea will be examined and related to theories developed by Jacques Derrida, Michel de Certeau and Slavoj Zˇiˇzek/Jacques Lacan, who speak of the cognitive, transformative and symbolic functions of storytelling using spatial metaphors. This chapter will not focus on an analysis of specific stories, but rather on the overall concept of the Thousand and one nights. To conclude, it hardly needs to be said that other scholars have addressed the subject of journeys and space in the Thousand and one nights. Remarkably, however, their number is relatively small. Gerhardt discusses the theme of the journey in a concise way; Laveille has made an inventory of the travel theme; Henninger has inventoried geographical references29; others have treated specific stories or settings. Their work will be referred to, but hopefully this study will add something new to their efforts.

2

Travelling, boundaries and narratives

It is the paradox of the concept of travelling that it is inseparably related to its opposite: immobility. From the times when man gave up his nomadic existence and settled in agrarian communities, it has been the sedentary perspective which has given the concept of mobility its meaning and connotations, as a source of wonder and longing, of the contrast between the familiar and the exotic and between everyday reality and dreams of other worlds. Immobility is the precondition of what may be called the sense of a horizon, a line separating the visible surroundings from an unknown, invisible beyond. It is the sedentary perspective, too, which is the basis of all systems of boundaries, of marking off spatial domains, of creating places that have various statuses which are incorporated into hierarchical systems of spatial organization. Immobility is the source of a differentiation of spaces according to distance, functions, ownership and social relationships. This differentiation is anchored in systems of boundaries which delimit spatial domains and link the spatial organization to the structures of a society. Immobility is the source of the construction, definition, and preservation of boundaries of various kinds, connecting human individuals and communities to their spatial environment.1 Whereas the essence of immobility consists of the construction of boundaries, mobility derives its meaning from the crossing of boundaries. Mobility is only meaningful as the antithesis of the permanent attachment to a specific place, to the stability of the sets of boundaries of which this place is the centre and to the unchangeability of the social structure related to it. When a traveller departs, he dissociates himself from his social and spatial surroundings and the limits imposed by the relationships within his society. He leaves behind the identity belonging to his role in his society and can adopt various roles and identities in accordance with the spaces which he traverses. He becomes an ‘unknown’ person, on which no specific identity is inscribed, except that of the traveller, the stranger and the ‘other’, a status with both positive and negative connotations. He confronts the vicissitudes of the world, dangers, threats and hostility, but he also harvests the rewards of hospitality, discoveries and new experiences. He develops a subtle sense of differentiation and integration, since he becomes familiar with the habits of other peoples and notices the differences and resemblances between them and his own community. Since he stays in places only temporarily, he is never fully integrated into the social relationships of the communities he visits. His horizon is

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Travelling, boundaries and narratives

always further away. His view of spaces is dynamic and transcends conventional boundaries, and mechanisms of authority affect him only superficially. He remains outside the regular procedures and leaves one domain of power for another.2 The meaning of mobility is thus based on a differentiation of spaces which is reflected in boundaries separating spaces of various characteristics and categories. In this chapter we will consider the interaction between the forces of mobility and immobility, the formation and functions of boundaries and, more specifically, the relationship between these spatial categories and texts. How this interaction can be conceived theoretically is shown by a fundamental binary opposition of space categories which reflects an essential spatial differentiation and which has been conceptualized by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their influential book A thousand plateaus.3 Deleuze and Guattari conceive the construction of space as a continual interaction between two types of space which represent the contrast between dynamic and static visions of space, mobility and immobility: ‘smooth’ space and ‘striated’ space. The first is a space which is open and unlimited by external boundaries or internal divisions; it is a space in which the traveller can roam at will, led by a sense of direction, by events that occur on the way and by intuitive responses to the qualities of the landscape. It is not occupied by its inhabitants, who are rather diffusely distributed over its surface. Striated space, in contrast, is bounded and closed; its surface is quantified and divided into compartments of various statuses; it is organized on the basis of policies and ideologies; it is stable and occupied by sedentary people. Striated space is conquered at the expense of nomad space, but, conversely, when striated space recedes, nomad space advances. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the dual nature of space has a metaphorical dimension. It is not only a vision of physical and social spaces – deserts, cities, sea and cultivated areas – it is also a dual approach to thinking, experience and human action. The two tendencies reflected in spaces are integrated into human culture and social relations. Nomad space is the space of movement, of unlimited vision, of new impulses and fresh energy, of revolutionary ideas and of approaches to life which are unheeding of limits and boundaries. Striated space is marked off by strict boundaries and hierarchies, by a dissociation of the inhabitants from the land, by quantified surfaces and distances, by the allocation of properties, by efforts to realize a homogeneous, unchanging and controlled domain. However, due to their continual interaction, both spaces contain elements of the other. Striated spaces are interspersed with nomad spaces, which undermine them and try to expand, while striated spaces invade nomad spaces to impose structures and a sense of order. The two cannot exist without each other, as communicating vessels. Each spatial system is the outcome of the balance between these two components and limited by a boundary. The striation of spaces, based on the preservation of boundaries is, typically, related to the domain of the state. The main task of the state is to build, strengthen and perpetuate the institutions in which power and authority are concentrated; to achieve this, it is necessary to control the forces of transformation and the flow of persons, commodities and ideas. It is here that the functions of boundaries become clear as an indispensable instrument of the state to establish and preserve

Travelling, boundaries and narratives 17 its power. The functions of boundaries, in relation to the exertion of power, can be summarized as follows: first, boundaries define the space in which experience, actions and thought are delimited. They determine a scope of vision and of acting and create a sense of orientation which affects the attitudes of the people. They are points of reference of collective and individual objective and subjective spaces; second, boundaries define the internal organization of space, a differentiation between core and peripheral areas, with its socio-economic implications; third, boundaries are the markers of history, transforming people into a community and laying the basis for foundation myths, a sense of historical mission and membership of a kind of pre-established order; fourth, boundaries provide the state with a homogeneous territorial control, as a basis for the power apparatus and a power structure; fifth, boundaries create a differentiation with others, a contrast between inside and outside, a possibility of inclusion and exclusion, and ‘dialogic’ relations in which identities and world-views can be developed; sixth, boundaries are instrumental in the containment of masses and the regulation of mass emotions and migrations. In short, boundaries are the basis on which a state can build its system of power, both in the practical sense – the structuring of the society and the economy – and in the field of the imagination – the shaping of ideas and mental attitudes. Of course, systems of boundaries are not constructed and preserved by laws, decrees and regulations only. They are also supported by narratives of various kinds, such as narratives of history, of ideology and politics, of collective and individual identities. Boundaries define and order the relationship of communities and individuals with their physical surroundings, which is imbued with all kinds of experiences, memories and expectations. They produce the general setting in which human bodies and minds can co-exist with the world, both with the physical environment and with other people. Boundaries thus affect all the dimensions of existence, since they define social statuses, relationships and perceptions. Boundaries define the distance from ‘others’ and the image of ‘others’, a sense of proportions and scopes of action, senses of belonging and estrangement, senses of intimacy and aversion. In short, spatial boundaries are related to the fundamental system of differentiation that underlies every social structure and every manifestation of culture. It is no wonder, therefore, that there exists a tight, inseparable symbiosis between boundaries and narratives. Borders and boundaries are explained, legitimized and perpetuated by texts of various kinds, ranging from foundation myths, folklore, fictional literature and historiography, to legal documents, political treaties and ideological and administrative discourses. Boundaries derive their meanings from texts, but, vice versa, there is no text which is not, explicitly or implicitly, built around a system of boundaries of some kind. Every text has its own geography, which may or may not refer to an existing geography. Every text is located in a specific spatial setting, which preconditions the account, structures it and defines its relationship to reality. Texts are created by mapping an imagined, symbolic, geography on another geography, political, social or physical. This is a complex procedure, since it is an effort to combine different worlds, the material surroundings and conceptual geographies established in sets of boundaries and

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Travelling, boundaries and narratives

spatial systems. The quintessential kind of text that reflects this complexity is the travel account, which reveals the permanent interaction between mobility and immobility and shows how the two define each other. In writing an account, the traveller is not free to record personal observations and experiences. The mission is to build a system of boundaries within the text, since the quintessence of this text is that the geographical world being passed through is heterogeneous and that boundaries of various kinds will have to be crossed. Any representation is bound, first, by the object of the journey; this object will define the route taken, the temporal schema of travelling, the people met (Or claims to have met), and the ordering of an imagined geography. Mapping of the journey will be built on a system of boundaries, obstacles, detours, centres and peripheries, which are related to the object and which give the account the coherence of a unified narrative. If motives are religious, the itinerary will be related to a sacred geography, to a sacred history and a sacred symbolism with which the places visited are imbued. If the aim is commerce, the description of places and communities will be different, adapted to the purpose of the journey. Second, travellers are bound by the conventions of the genre of the travel account as it has been developed by predecessors. A mission is comparable to that of an explorer, sent out by a community to visit ‘other’ places and to report on observations in the account. Depending on the aim of the journey, the traveller is required to do justice to the symbolic value of a journey, but also to record descriptions, characterizations, visits and events, and perhaps even judgments. The traveller has to tell the truth, but this truth is qualified by the nature of the journey. If going beyond a certain boundary, the traveller is expected to report on experiences within the conjectural places and with peoples on the other side, to confirm the myths that are considered true by the community. Personal experiences have to be told also adventures, events witnessed personally, but related to images that are common and familiar among society. Travelling is an individual experience, but it always refers to a collective identity and a collective world-view. Travel accounts are as a rule a means for identification, they are intended as forms of incorporation, integrating domains in the world into the collective imagination. The example of the travelogue shows how boundaries are constructed and re-constructed by the interaction of mobility and immobility, experiences of striated and nomad spaces, reality and imaginary, symbolic visions of spaces.

The Arabic context To travel is to endure hardships. Especially in ancient times, travellers ran the risk of being attacked by robbers, of suffering from hunger, thirst, cold, shipwreck, loneliness, exhaustion, bad company, saddle-pain, diseases, boredom, strange customs, insects, dirt, stench, hostile tribes and other inconveniences. In times when the infrastructure and the means of transportation were unsophisticated, it was advisable not to travel at all, or only in cases of extreme necessity. The Prophet Muh.ammad advised the Muslims not to leave their settled existence, except for three reasons: when travelling was intended to fulfil the duties of religion, such

Travelling, boundaries and narratives 19 as the pilgrimage, or hajj; when migration was required to earn a livelihood; when a journey was intended to acquire knowledge and learning. Of course these recommendations by the Prophet indicate that the Muslims as a community had rejected the nomad life of the bedouin tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. The spread of Islam marks the transition, within Arabic culture, of a nomad civilization to a settled civilization, which was primarily centred and developed in towns and cities. The nomad perspective was, quite rapidly, substituted by a sedentary perspective; society was relocated from the desert to the urban centres of the newly conquered empire. In spite of this transition, the idea of nomadism, or at least of the primordial society based on migration, tribal customs and travelling, remained in the centre of Arabo-Islamic culture. For instance, nomad life, or idealized representations of it, remained one of the sources of tropes and metaphors in Arabic poetry. Journeys were related to the absence of the beloved, the longing for faraway places, the evocation of emotions by traces of separation and the hardships of a life of continual mobility. These motifs were for a long time seen as the quintessence of poetical aesthetics and they can be found in most later forms of poetry. Another highly symbolic form of travelling, which perhaps dated back to ancient, pre-Islamic times, but which was cultivated under Islam in a special way, was the practice of pilgrimage. The hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, became one of the main religious duties of the believer, and the focus of a complex set of pious practices and cults. It was a form of mobility which was not only recommended, but prescribed, as a factor fostering the cohesion of the community. Thus, with the rise of Islam, nomadism was transformed into various forms of travelling and the experience of permanent mobility was turned into literary tropes and religious symbols. As a medium for the expression of the essential connotations of travelling, poetry was gradually replaced by the literary genre of the travelogue, in its manifold manifestations. As Touati demonstrates in his study of medieval travel in the Muslim world,4 the genre of the travelogue in Arabic literature was rooted in two forms of the journey, or rih.la: the scholarly journey, undertaken for the acquisition of knowledge; and the pilgrimage, the sacred journey meant to salvage the soul. Both these types of journeys were of fundamental significance for the development of scholarly and religious thought. By their travelling, scholars created a geography of learning, with its own infrastructure of institutions and centres of scholarship. Towns and regions were ordered in hierarchies for their specific merits for learning and -the H . ıjaz was singled out as a space where the true values of Islam, the characteristics of authentic Arabic, and the sanctity of the first community of believers could still be studied and experienced. As Touati beautifully demonstrates, travel became unseparable from the scholarly paradigm, since it was instrumental in the discovery of the truth and the experience of reality. Journeys became the most reliable means to gather knowledge and facts. In later periods, too, scholars were assiduous travellers and their careers were often related to networks covering wide geographical spaces. The metaphorical and social significance of the pilgrimage, as a source of collective awareness, as a spatial reflection of the contact with the Divine, and as

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Travelling, boundaries and narratives

a source of status, is evident. The institution of the pilgrimage, in its various historical manifestations, created a specific geography, too, based on the hierarchies of regions and towns, in accordance with their role in sacred history and texts and as centres of learning. The metaphorical meaning of the journey was further developed by mystics, whose theories often took the guise of sacred topographies or discourses of travel. For them, the desert was endowed with a whole set of meanings, not only related to asceticism, initiation and inner struggles, but also to emptiness and purification. The desert was not only a space without any ordering, but also a space without the semiology of history, and therefore a place where a complete isolation from the world could be achieved.5 These two forms of travelling laid the foundation of Islamic geography, which was mainly developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. As a rule, the geographers were travellers as well, and their first task was to find ways to reconcile traditional views laid down in texts with a reality which they observed themselves and which was much more complex and diverse. A new type of description was developed to fit specific realities into a general view and ways were sought to cope with the heterogeneity of space, the multiplicity of the geographical ordering. But even when geographers acknowledged the complexity and heterogeneity of the spaces they described, they could not dissociate themselves from the basic idea of the unity of Islam. This meant that the geographical world had to be harmonized to some extent, that the diversity of spaces had to be fitted into a general pattern, that divergent spaces had to be given a place in the pattern and a specific meaning to explain their anomaly. Since the framework of the geographers was based on the scholarly and sacred geographies, they had no instrument to create a new geography based on divisions according to radically new criteria. The transition from nomad culture to a sedentary culture thus had important consequences for the perception of space: it created a new perspective, a new spatial diversity, new spatial hierarchies and a horizon which enclosed a specific space and which locked out an exotic and strange world. It created forms of territorialization, for the community of believers, for social groups and for individuals. Travelling was no longer a condition of life, it was a way of partaking in one of the newly established geographies, learning, religion and trade. It was also a prerequisite for the formation of boundary systems within the Arabo-Islamic realm and the concept of the ‘traveller’ and the genre of the travel account. From the tenth century onwards, the Muslim empire was carved up into various regional states and dynasties, which reflected political differentiation and the articulation of regional geographical systems. If one takes the growing political fragmentation into account, it is perhaps surprising that in the famous accounts of Ibn Jubayr (twelfth century) and Ibn Bat.t.u-t.a (fourteenth century) little mention is made of political borders on land. Both travellers mention boundaries, of course, but these tend to be only of a more or less natural character: sea-ports, fringes of the desert, mountain areas and ethnic regions. Ibn Jubayr mentions only three ‘real’ boundaries: the port of Alexandria, where the travellers have their luggage inspected and where custom duties are collected; a similar border between Aydhab and Jedda; and the strongly

Travelling, boundaries and narratives 21 guarded border between the Christian area of Tripoli and the Muslim territory, where a fee is levied. Ibn Bat.t.u-t.a mentions a tightly supervised border between Egypt and Syria, in the Sinai desert, and a border at the crossing of the Indus river on entering the realm of Muh.ammad T.ughluq in India. The mentioning of these borders suggests that other borders, too, would have been mentioned if they had in some way affected the journeys. The absence of political borders in the travel accounts of Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Bat.t.u-t.a does not mean that political differentiation did not exist, or that it was of no significance. Both travellers mention their leaving one domain and entering another – from the Arabian peninsula to Iraq, for instance, or from Syria to Anatolia – but these boundaries are marked by natural spaces and not by welldefined borderlines. In Anatolia, Ibn Bat.t.u-t.a carefully mentions all the sultanates he visits, not by reporting on borders which he crossed, but by describing how he was received at the royal courts in the capitals, where he received his ‘endorsement’ as a legal foreigner. This custom, of granting a ‘visa’ at the centre of power, is clearly explained when he joins the travelling court of the Khan of the Golden Horde in Kipchak. Indeed, even the extensive formalities on the border of Hind are only a preparation for his audience at the court of the sultan and for the ritual of being accepted in his favour. The Egyptian borders, finally, which apparently were carefully defined, at least in Alexandria and the Sinai, are described as fiscal borders only, where travellers are subjected to oppressive measures due to the greed of local rulers. Ibn Jubayr gives this fiscal aspect a certain political dimension by praising Sultan S.ala-h. al-Dı-n for abolishing certain levies and deploring that his authority is insufficient to end the malpractices still current in Aydhab.6 Part of the scarcity of political borders in the accounts can be explained by the context of generic conventions. After all, both journeys were primarily intended as pilgrimages, implying that political geography would be subordinated to the ordering of sacred geography. Significant boundaries would not be those separating the domains of secular rulers, but rather those marking sacred precincts and historical places related to the life of the Prophet; or regions mentioned in sacred texts as particularly privileged. However, this explanation is unsatisfactory, not only because of the distinctly realistic aspect of the accounts, also imposed by generic conventions, and the eagerness to describe the obstacles conquered by the pilgrim en route, but mainly because the act of travelling creates a perspectival view, projecting one geography – sacred geography, in this case – on another, noting the points where the two do not coincide. Hence the great irritation when borders are used to subject the pilgrims to financial ‘extortions’. Here too, it seems more likely that borders were not sharply drawn and that political boundaries were a derivative of the power of the ruler in the core city of his realm. As the example of S.ala-h. al-Dı-n given by Ibn Jubayr shows, this authority was not limited by an official border, but rather gradually faded away as the distance from the capital increased. Geographical divisions in the political sense were vague and consisted of alternating cores and peripheral zones. Moreover, where borders were upheld, they were of a fiscal rather than of a political nature.

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Travelling, boundaries and narratives

These observations seem to confirm those made above concerning the representation of borders in fictional narratives: borders were integrated into the centres of power and were only vaguely projected into geographical space; also political and ethnic boundaries often coincided with natural boundaries. Still, there is a clear awareness that the traveller is transgressing spatial boundaries, but these are defined in the narratives of the Faith and of anthropological and political diversity. These observations also seem to confirm the findings of Brauer, who analyzed the representation of borders by medieval Muslim travellers and geographers. He notices the absence of well-defined borders, the identification of political domains with centres of power and the predominance of fiscal and natural boundaries. Political units were apparently not based on ideological claims to specific territories, but rather on de facto relations of power between various rulers within a certain region.7 The diffuse character of borders should primarily be ascribed to the fact that the Islamic world was essentially seen as a unity and political subdivisions were irrelevant to the ideological and religious coherence and sense of cultural affinity. Apparently, borders were not only seen as vague, but also as fluid and dynamic. The external borders were in principle only temporary, since they could – and should – change with the advance of the Faith. Internal borders were not supported by deep-rooted narratives of origin and territoriality, but were rather shaped by de facto configurations of power. Political borders were irrelevant because they were dynamic and subject to change and were not supported by formalized claims legally and ideologically dividing up the Islamic realm. The combination of ruler and territory was not seen as a source of self-identity. The idea of dynamic and fluid borders conforms to the ideas of the 14th-century philosopher Ibn Khaldu-n on the life-cycle of empires and societies. According to Ibn Khaldu-n, the borders of empires are derived from the strength of the centralized power of the dynasty and are continually subject to cyclic changes. The driving force in history is the interaction between the nomadic tribes of the desert and the sedentary, urbanized dynasties, or a continual struggle between two spaces, the realm of civilization and the realm of anarchic fervour. It is the alternating predominance of these two forces, their mutual encroachment and intertwinement, that gives societies their vitality and energy.8 This binary view of spaces is also reflected in the works of travellers, who not only contrast the world of Islam to the domain of the Christians, but also project the real and symbolic difficulties of their journey on the seas, deserts and mountains that they have to cross, as opposed to the cities as centres of civilization, comfort and learning.

Boundaries and spaces in the Thousand and one nights In principle, fictional narratives are part of the general corpus of narratives that support definitions and the preservation of boundaries of any kind. For fictional narratives, too, the rule applies that every story has its own ‘geographical universe’ and its own construction of space. However, in the case of fictional narratives, the systems of boundaries are potentially more complex than in non-fictional texts,

Travelling, boundaries and narratives 23 since the obligation of referentiality is less severe, and the explicit subjectivity of the text – its generic function – allows more freedom for manipulating the spatial setting. Moreover, it gives more opportunity for the linking of spatial domains with internal psychological domains or with personal emotions. When a character is in love, for instance, the description and nature of the setting can be adapted to his emotional state, creating a ‘geography of love’ which reflects the phases of his relationship to his beloved. Travelling is always essentially the linking of time and place to a person, and therefore as a rule portrays a development or an individual transformation. Travelling is developing, growing, becoming; immobility is equivalent to stagnancy and extinction. The insertion of boundaries in fictional narratives belongs to the basic techniques of storytelling, determining the sequence of the story and the meaning of the ‘stage’ on which the characters appear. These real and imagined boundaries are meant to lock up, set free, mislead, lock out, attract, dispel, distance, dissociate, associate, negotiate, hide, disguise, seclude, isolate, differentiate, exhibit, spy, disclose, etcetera, to shape the intrigues and the plot. In these configurations, places are never something meaningful in themselves; their significance is determined by their function as the object of journeys, or their relation to the situation of the heroes. In the Thousand and one nights an extensive repertoire of boundaries can be found, ranging from enclosed spaces of various kinds (palaces, houses), half-open spaces, such as souqs and bath-houses, natural spaces, such as caves and underground crypts, natural boundaries, such as mountains, seas and deserts, and supernatural boundaries, usually between the realms of human beings and the jinn. Political and religious boundaries are usually vague and conform to the flexibility of borders discussed above. Political authority is as a rule centred in cities, and when a hero travels from one kingdom to another, he does not cross a border, but enters the kingdom officially only when he has reached the capital and is given permission to stay by the king. In the story of Ajı-b and Gharı-b,9 every king has a city with its hinterland, and when a military campaign is prepared, the troops from the region are gathered in the capital. In other stories the king notices the presence of a foreign army only when it has laid siege to the capital. There is no mention of borders guarded by troops, or carefully demarcated territories. The authority over land is derived from the power to control it, not from formal narratives or treaties related to specific territories. Authority is vested in the person of the king and radiates from him over the kingdom. Apart from these geographical boundaries, all kinds of spaces, objects, actions or events can represent a boundary in the narratological sense, if it causes segregation, departure, imprisonment, interruption, stagnation, etc. These metaphoric boundaries give the story its direction, separating the components which together produce the plot. The narratives cannot unfold without the contrasts and differentiations provided by the boundaries that form the backbone of their structure. On the other hand, however, the boundaries are the reflection of other deep-rooted narratives, such as the separation of religious realms, the segregation of the sexes, the confrontation between patriarchal conventions and individuality and the belief in hidden worlds. They are the result of a world view in which geography is

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Travelling, boundaries and narratives

heterogeneous, consisting of spaces of various kinds, which have their own laws, which are opposed to each other, but which are also in communication with one another. It is through journeys that this heterogeneity is disclosed and linked to the transformation of individual lives and collective experiences. Geography is not used in a referential way, but rather to structure the formation of human experience. In the end, in some stories, a new form of harmony and spatial harmonization is achieved, by the incorporation of the hero into his social environment or by the incorporation of alien spaces into the geography of Islam. As we will see below, some stories derive their incentive from religious categories, especially the dichotomy between Christian and Muslim realms, or pagan and (proto-) Muslim realms. If it is possible at all to speak of a ‘geography of the Thousand and one nights’, the only meaningful proposition would probably be that it consists of a heterogenous conception of space. This heterogeneity is partly connected to cosmological and folkloristic visions of the world and the universe, especially when the realms of the supernatural, jinn and invisible worlds, are concerned. This can be found in what may be called ‘fantastic journeys’, to which we will turn our attention below. Here we will briefly discuss the aspects of referentiality in stories that should be classified as ‘realistic’ or ‘semi-realistic’ journeys. The central story, in this respect, is the well-known cycle of Sindba- d the seaman,10 which shows a remarkable effort to integrate storytelling and geographical knowledge. The origins of the cycle are not known, although researchers have dated the version that we know back to the ninth or tenth century. It may be, however, that the origins of the stories go back to the sailors’ lore which emerged in Baghdad and/or Basra in an earlier period and found its way to the cycle. Efforts to trace its origin to Homer’s Odyssey seem not to be fruitful: it is more likely that the motifs of the marvellous adventures of Sindba-d were rooted in the Near-Eastern traditions of myths and folklore. The story of Sindba- d begins with the porter Sindba-d bursting into song complaining about the hardships of life and the unequal burdens that men have to bear. This song is a typical boundary, in the narratological sense, which at the same time establishes a division and a contact. The unity, which is suggested by the two characters bearing the same name, Sindba-d, is split into two categories, thereby providing the incentive for telling the story. By setting himself off from his namesake, the porter in fact creates the possibility of meeting him. The song produces a unity that consists of two separate worlds, and it is this linkage of differences which is the source of a meaningful story, the source of meanings that can be shaped into a story. A dialogue is started which will bring these meanings to light, which consist of a play with similarities and differences. The porter is invited to enter the house, setting foot in the closed realm of Sindba-d of the sea, in order to be initiated into this realm, its history, its moral connotations, and its ‘true nature’. In the end, he will know more about the world and have a better understanding of his position among his fellow-men. The cycle of stories that Sindba-d tells is presented as a series of adventures, but also as the account of real journeys. In fact, the stories have such a realistic

Travelling, boundaries and narratives 25 overtone that some scholars have attempted to reconstruct Sindba-d’s peregrinations. Although their efforts have not resulted in a clear itinerary, they showed that links with ‘real’ geography, and perhaps with historical journeys, are highly probable. Interpretations of the cycle have mostly been related to the realistic framework, seeing Sindba-d as the quintessential merchant, who embodies the spirit of enterprise, the class of wealthy urban tradesmen, whose hardship and willingness to expose themselves to danger are rewarded by immense riches. It is clear that trade – the object of the journey – defines the journeys and structures their components. Sindba-d is searching for trade and after every journey returns to Baghdad with large profits.11 Still, the actual process of trading is only marginal in the stories and plays hardly any dramatic role at all. It seems to be no more than a narrative framework to reveal something else, a showcase to exhibit the real narrative material. Sindba-d’s stories are, of course, not about trade, nor about the hardships of the life of a merchant; they are about travelling. For his first journey, Sindba-d still needs the incentive of material poverty to depart from Baghdad. He leaves his safe, well ordered, space to enter another type of space, which is governed by different semiological codes, by a different structure. This regime consists of the knowledge of navigation, the basic system of spatial ordering on which the networks of trade are built. However, the sea is in essence a ‘nomad’ space, which is only partly striated. In fact, nautical knowledge even indicates where the boundaries between ‘striated’ and ‘nomad’ seas are to be found: in some adventures the captain of the ship knows that he has entered fatally dangerous waters, from which a return is virtually impossible. As in the case of the desert, the ‘smooth’ character of the sea is not just adventurous, it almost equals the borderline between life and death. The separation between the two domains is realized especially by shipwreck. In every storm the effects of the domain not being striated are continued on land, where Sindba-d meets the wonders and dangers that confirm the heterogeneity of space. From his second voyage onwards, it is this heterogeneity which becomes Sindba-d’s true incentive to travel. It is the call of nomad space, the wonder that has opened Sindba-d’s mind to the true nature of the world, which provokes in him the desire to travel. It is what has been called the ‘geographical desire’, a yearning to experience the difference of spaces, the disorder of travelling, which urges Sindba-d to undertake new journeys. It is the crossing of this boundary that produces the marvellous, that defines the events as marvellous and alien, obeying different laws, at the same time frightening and fascinating, beautiful and monstrous. After discovering this new dimension of the world, Sindba-d must cross the boundary again and again, because the antithesis between the two worlds has become the basis of his existence, the main definition of his ‘real’ self. Here we come close to the way in which Molan interpreted the Sindba-d-cycle. Molan has argued that Sindba-d was essentially driven by greed, that he practised unjustifiable violence to acquire wealth, and that his urge to tell his stories sprang from his repressed guilt and his wish to expiate himself.12 This interpretation is perhaps giving too much credit to Sindba-d as a literary character, and to the story

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Travelling, boundaries and narratives

as a psychological novel. As Todorov has argued, the figure of Sindba-d is an exponent of the ‘homme-récit’, or the character that is not shaped by inner thoughts, wilful decisions and internal motives, but rather by events and responses to events.13 The truth may be somewhere in between the two approaches. As a character, Sindba-d is not so much shaped by events, but rather by his stories. He is a transparent figure, who, through his transparency, reveals the dual nature of the geographical world. And because this duality is shown through him, it seems that it is reflected in his soul: Sindba-d has discovered a dichotomy within himself, a permanent struggle between striated and nomad spaces, between prescribed roles and a longing for non-identity, the immersion in the unknown. His desire to travel is derived from his desire to integrate these two components of his character, which can only be achieved by exploring the other side of the boundary. It has to be remarked that the exotic geography sketched by Sindba-d should not be completely relegated to the realm of the imagination. As De Goeje has shown, parts of the stories have been taken from various geographical handbooks, especially those by Ibn Khorda-dhbih (9th century) and Ibn al-Wardı- (14th century).14 The motifs belonged to the common corpus of geography, perhaps not as descriptions of ‘pacified’ areas, but still as ‘conjectural’ spaces, whose descriptions were taken either from ancient sources, or from the accounts of travellers and merchants. They were myths, but still fitted within the conventions of geographical lore. The Sindba-d-cycle added a literary element to these motifs, since they are presented as part of eye-witness accounts and perilous adventures, substituting the descriptive listing in the geographical encyclopedias. This procedure can be seen as a form of mimesis, of deriving material from authoritative sources with the aim of claiming truthfulness, however strange or wondrous the descriptions may be.15 What is more remarkable is the transformation of the geographical conventions into a fictional narrative. Now the geographical material becomes at once referential, referring to an existing, or at least described, reality, and simultaneously the foundation of the theme of the story, that is, part of its symbolic subtext. It supports the evocation of the concept of travelling, of the fundamental heterogeneity of the earth’s geography, and of the way in which this heterogeneity is reflected in human beings. We can now see that the Sindba-d-cycle fits into a familiar pattern. First, a dialogic situation is created by setting the two Sindba-ds off against each other and bringing them together. Then, the technique of the frame-story is adopted to strengthen this dialogue and to convey the idea of an initiation. Sindba-d the porter is shown a reality behind the reality that is known to him. His host presents him with representations of the world which are new and marvellous to him, but which are nevertheless convincing, since they are based on personal experiences. In the end, the porter is a different man. He has a different view of his host, and of himself, vis-à-vis his host. He has a different view of the world, which is now divided into realms of the familiar and the strange. And he realizes how these differences affect the society in which he lives, how it has engendered the social distinctions which have caused the difference between him and his host.

Travelling, boundaries and narratives 27 The boundaries that he noticed and complained about in the beginning have been crossed, and by having been crossed, they are explained, confirmed and re-established, but only after they have fulfilled their functions: they have been given a new meaning for Sindba-d the porter. The cycle of Sindba-d shows how geography and fictional narrative converge to create a new vision, a new balance between integration and differentiation, and how essential the concept of the boundary is in this procedure. There are other stories in the Thousand and one nights which more or less confirm the same idea. In the story of ‘Abdalla- h of the land and ‘Abdalla- h of the sea,16 for instance, the boundary is created by ‘Abdalla-h’s sudden failure to catch fish. The borderline between the land and the sea has become an obstacle which cannot be transgressed, until ‘Abdalla-h of the sea appears and offers him a fair trade deal with his submarine domain. Now the boundary has been established, at the same time segregating and connecting the two domains. This boundary has to be crossed, and indeed ‘Abdalla-h of the land is invited for a visit to the world at the bottom of the sea. In this world everything is different and strange, customs are often the reverse of those on land. In the end it is revealed that the submarine creatures have interpreted God’s message in a way which fundamentally differs from the interpretation by humans. It is an interpretation which appears more sincere, more pious, and more pure. ‘Abdalla-h returns to the land with a new view of life. In this story we encounter the familiar motifs of the boundary, the journey, the initiation into new parts of the world, and the gaining of new insights, derived from the differences by which the narrative is structured. Again, we see the differences in the outside world reflected in man’s soul. In the case of this story, the geographical component can hardly be called referential, or even mimetic in the sense that it is based on authoritative sources. What we do find is the remarkable coincidence of the similar names, which suggests that in fact the two characters are two sides of the same person, or at least that it is external dichotomies that have caused the diversity among humans, splitting one person into two manifestations. The stories of Sindba-d and ‘Abdalla-h contain many of the spatial motifs that we will also find in other stories of the Thousand and one nights, and they show how they are integrated into a fictional narrative. In this sense they are a model for the integration of fictional narrative and conceptions of space, related as much to the genre of the travelogue as to the genre of marvellous literature. Their spatial framework provides a main setting in which the story is located, but also a differentiation of settings, which separates the strange from the familiar. They show how this differentiation is constructed by a combination of mobility and immobility, and how one boundary is related to a whole set of boundaries, the influence of which can be perceived even on the level of individual relationships. The interaction between mobility and immobility, between striated and nomad spaces, occurs not only in the spatial environment, but also in society and in the minds of individual persons.

3

Roads to power

Stories of creation are perhaps the quintessential metaphorical narratives defining concepts of space. Creation is by definition concerned with space, and it seems justified to say that it is in fact the spatial representation of an idea, or the definition of space through an idea. After all, stories of creation do not only relate how spaces came into existence, they also suggest that the created spaces contain the ordering of a Divine plan, or a Divine spirit. All matter, moulded into spatial form, encloses an idea, a secret, which is the reason for its existence. Stories of creation may partly explain this reason, but they typically leave questions unanswered, which it is the task of man to solve. Stories of creation consciously ‘speak’ in symbols, in superhuman categories, in abstract realms which reflect the inner fears, hopes and desires of mankind, giving them a place in the incomprehensible physical world. As a rule, the initial ordering of space structurally pervades all matter and is preserved in spite of many obvious changes and transformations; it is above time, it cannot be affected by the human will. Spaces, and the transformation of spaces, are linked to a broader process of transformation which encompasses human beings and which deeply affects, perhaps even determines, their fate. As a rule, too, stories of creation, whether belonging to the world of myths, religious eschatologies, scientific paradigms, folklore, or philosophical speculation, are accounts of the differentiation of space. A universal spirit, an amorphous mass of matter, or a primordial god, splits itself and turns into various kinds of matter, taking the forms of the many manifestations of matter that can be perceived by the human senses, or be suspected by the human imagination. The Divine spirit takes on many material forms, which occupy their specific places according to the great plan. Not only lifeless material forms are given their place, the diversified spaces are filled with the population that the plan requires: angels, gods, prophets, animals, vegetation, etc. The secrets of religion acquire a spatial dimension; they are transformed into geographical descriptions of heaven and hell, paradise and the habitats of souls, places of epiphany and wonders, places where Divine and earthly forces meet. It is of course this differentiation, and the rationality that inspired it, that is at the basis not only of cosmological and geographical views of the world, but also of the organization of social space, of the relationship of man with his spatial environment.

Roads to power 29 Stories of creation are therefore at the source of large corpuses of narratives, ranging from scholarly treatises to everyday folklore, from mathematical reasoning to fictional literature, from astrological speculations to religious revelations. In Islam, too, there exists a rich literature in which ideas about the shape of the universe and the underlying notions are recorded.1 In this chapter we will direct our attention to two stories of the Thousand and one nights which are related to Muslim visions of the ordering of the world, the location of the Divine spirit in the realm of matter and form, and the description of the spatial differentiation that it implies. Neither of these stories belongs to the oldest core of the collection, and their relationship to the ‘original’ version of the Thousand and one nights is uncertain. However, the two stories reflect themes which often recur in Arabic stories, both inside and outside the Thousand and one nights, and thus reflect many important thematic concepts. Apart from this, and typically, they take the form of journeys, or expeditions, which seal the link between the spiritual and material aspects of space. The first story to be considered is the story of the Queen of the serpents, including the inserted tales of ‘Bulu-qiya-’ and ‘Ja-nsha-h’. Subsequently we will proceed with a discussion of one of the two romances of chivalry in the Thousand and one nights, the story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b. In both cases, the theme of the journey will be the pivot of the analysis.

The Queen of the serpents, Bulu-qiya- , and Ja-nsha-h The story of the Queen of the serpents2 is composed of three separate stories, which are seemingly linked together in a rather artificial way. In the framing story the adventures of H.a-sib Karı-m al-Dı-n are told and his meeting with Yamlı-kha, the queen of the serpents. The second story, the story of Bulu- qiya- ,3 is told by the serpent queen to H.a-sib, and the third story, of Ja-nsha-h,4 is told by Ja-nsha-h himself to Bulu-qiya-, when he meets him during his journey. In the end the story returns to the level of the frame and is led to its dénouement. Little is known about the historical background of these three stories and the logic of their being put together into one complex story. The story of Bulu-qiya- is known from other sources, especially several collections of the qis.as. al-anbiya-’, or ‘tales of the prophets’, in which traditions concerning Islamic eschatology and the lives of prophets and saints are recorded. As we will see below, it is clear that the story has been taken from these sources and moulded to fit into another story with a different generic context. The story of Ja-nsha-h consists of familiar narrative components, which can also be found, for example, in the story of H.asan of Basra. But before discussing the rationality integrating the three components, we will give summaries and evaluations of the separate stories.5 Like most stories of this type, the story of H . asib Karı m al-Dı n begins with a disruption. A Greek philosopher – later described as ‘prophet’ – named Da-niya-l has no son, but after he has prayed to God his wife becomes pregnant. Then Da-niya-l embarks on a journey on a ship, which is destroyed by shipwreck. All Da-niya-l’s books, an invaluable treasure of knowledge, disappear in the waves except

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Roads to power five pages, which Da-niya-l, after he has been saved, hides in a small box. H . asib is born after his father’s death. As a young boy he refuses to learn anything and he is finally given to the care of a group of lumbermen to enable him to earn a living. On an ominous day, the group seeks shelter against the rain in a cave, and when H . asib casually hits the floor with his axe, he finds an opening covered with a tile with a ring. They open the tile and see a door which gives access to a crypt filled with honey. H.a-sib goes inside to scoop out the honey and give it to his friends. They collect the honey, leave H.a-sib imprisoned in the crypt and return to their town. There they say that H.a-sib has been killed by a lion. They sell the honey and indulge in a life of luxury and feasting. In the meantime H . asib, following the path of a scorpion, finds a way out of the crypt. He enters a hall with a door of black iron, a silver lock and a golden key. After opening the door he sees a vast lake, a hill of green chrysolite, and a golden throne, surrounded by chairs made of gold and silver. He falls asleep in one of the chairs, but is woken by a hissing sound. Suddenly he finds himself surrounded by a great number of ferocious-looking snakes. A large snake carries a plate with a smaller snake on its back: this is Yamlı-kha, the queen of the serpents, who rules over the snakes of hell, which are spat out onto the earth twice every year, by the breathing of hell. The queen puts H.a-sib’s mind at rest and tells him the story of Bulu- qiya- , forcing him to listen in spite of his repeated requests to be transported back to the human world. Bulu-qiya- is the son of the king of an Israelite tribe living in Cairo. After the death of his father, who was also well-versed in the sciences, he succeeds him as king. When Bulu-qiya- one day enters the royal treasury, he finds a cell with a trunk, which contains a golden box with a book. The book contains a description of the future Prophet Muh.ammad. Fascinated by the message of the prophet, Bulu- qiya- takes off his royal robe and sets out on a journey, hoping to meet, or at least find out more about, Muh.ammad. He travels on a ship to an island where he falls asleep and is left behind. Another ship picks him up and takes him to an island where he meets the serpent queen, before he can continue his journey to Jerusalem. There he meets the scholar ‘Affa-n, who has studied the books of the Jews, the Christians, and Ibra-hı-m (Abraham). ‘Aff a-n tells him that he has read that whoever possesses the ring of Solomon will take over his authority. Solomon’s grave is behind the Seven Seas which can be reached by using a magic herb which enables man to walk on water. The herb can only be obtained with the help of the serpent queen. ‘Affa-n proposes to catch the serpent queen, travel to the grave of Solomon and then to the Sea of Tenebrity to drink from the Fountain of Youth to acquire eternal life. Bulu-qiya- agrees, since if he can live forever, he will be able to meet the Prophet Muh.ammad. Eventually they reach the grave of Solomon which is protected, however, by a fierce dragon. While trying to steal the ring, ‘Affa-n is killed, but Bulu-qiya- is saved by the sudden appearance of the archangel Jibrı-l (Gabriel). Here ends the first episode of the story of Bulu- qiya- , in which the main framework of the narrative is constructed. The story has been given the structure of a journey, based on a system of boundaries, phases of mobility and envisaged destinations. The

Roads to power 31 boundaries include, first, the death of Buluqiya’s father and the entering of the cell where Bulu-qiya- finds the revelation, which subsequently separates him from his regular life as a king and connects him to a meta-historical secret. This ‘transition’ is marked by the taking off of his royal garb and his departure. Second, Bulu-qiyafalls asleep on an island during his journey to Jerusalem. This may be seen as an act of divine interference to interrupt the course taken by Bulu-qiya- and to lead him instead on a course which is largely beyond his will. It also suggests that the subsequent episodes of the story are a dream or a vision, or that they take place in a domain other than the regular human world. Third, Bulu-qiya- succeeds in leaving the known world behind, crossing the almost insurmountable boundary of the Seven Seas. However, it is his destiny that his travels should not end here. His will has been made subservient to God and he now fulfils a role in a story different to the one conceived by himself. This is shown by the intervention of Jibrı-l to save his life in spite of his obviously evil intention to steal Solomon’s ring. The next part of the story is the continuation of the story through a kind of ‘underworld’, which is elaborately described. The spatial components can be summarized as follows: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Bulu-qiya- visits seven islands, each containing mysterious creatures, natural phenomena or objects; he sees monsters coming out of the sea with luminescent gems, talking to the wild beasts; he sees magnets, crystal, and gold; he finds flowers of gold which have fallen from the sun and which serve as an elixir to make gold; he sees trees with human heads and birds as fruits which cry and laugh; he sees mermaids playing; he meets a giant and sees the paradisiac apple tree. After he has left the seven seas behind, Bulu-qiya- comes to the land of the jinn, dominated by the figure of Shadda-d ibn ‘Ad, the legendary leader of an Arabian tribe, who strove after earthly power and refused to acknowledge God, and was subsequently destroyed.6 A jinn-king describes to him the evolution of the jinn and of Iblı-s, the devil, and the seven levels of hell. After this excursion to the jinn, Bulu-qiya- enters a kind of mythical landscape in which he meets several angels, each charged with some vital cosmic task. Finally, he reaches the Qa-f Mountain which surrounds the earth. Here the Islamic cosmography is explained to him, the location of hell, the lands of the angels, and the supports of heaven and the earth. Bulu-qiya- enters a gate which can only be opened by Jibrı-l, and comes to another landscape where angels are fulfilling their tasks. Bulu-qiya- walks over the seas and reaches an island where he finds a person weeping between two graves. This person is Ja-nsha-h, who claims that he has seen Solomon during his lifetime and who is willing to tell Bulu-qiya- his story.

The story that Ja-nsha-h relates to Bulu-qiya- is also the account of a journey. Jansha-h is the son of King Tighmu-s. When he is born, the astrologers warn the king that the boy is to reach prosperity only after having successfully overcome great dangers in his fifteenth year. In spite of all precautions, it appears that fate cannot

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be avoided. When one day the boy goes out hunting, he sets off in a boat to pursue his game and is caught by a violent storm. He and a small group of slaves are washed ashore on an island where they are besieged by a bunch of strange men, who split themselves into halves. Ja-nsha-h sails on and reaches a paradisiacal island with a magnificent castle built of white marble, crystal, and gems. Here the prince is abducted by a tribe of apes, who make him their king. At a certain point, Ja-nsha-h finds a table on which a saying by Solomon is written and which indicates a way to escape through the Valley of the Ants. Ja-nsha-h follows the instructions but is pursued by the apes, who are repelled, however, after a fierce struggle against giant ants. Ja-nsha-h escapes by crossing a river and ends up in a city of Jews. Here an episode follows which is similar to the adventure of Hasan of Basra on the Mountain of the Clouds (see chapter eight): he accepts the task of having himself sewn into the skin of a mule, to be lifted by a giant bird onto a mountain from which he can throw down the gems that are in the bird’s nest. Ja-nsha-h is left on the mountain and starts wandering, finally reaching a palace in the valley. This turns out to be a palace of Solomon, where the birds of the world meet once a year, and which is guarded by sheykh Nas. r. While waiting to continue his journey, Ja-nsha-h enters a forbidden door and comes to a terrace, where he sees three birds changing into three beautiful girls. Ja-nsha-h falls desperately in love, but he has to wait for another year to be able to catch one of the girls. After Ja-nsha-h has captured his bride, a jinn-princess, the young couple returns home. One day, however, the jinniyya recovers her robe of feathers and flies away, calling out to Ja-nsha-h to follow her to the Castle of Taknı-. Ja-nsha-h sets out on a long and arduous journey to find the Castle of Taknı-, retracing his previous journey. He is sent to a hermit, the king of the beasts, and to his brother, who has once been the prisoner of Solomon, and finally to Yaghmu-s, an old sorcerer, who has supreme power over the other sorcerers and the animal world. He finds one bird who is willing to take him to the region where the castle should be located. There Ja-nsha-h falls asleep, and when he awakes, he sees a castle made of red rubies and gold, with a thousand towers of precious metals from the Sea of Tenebrity. This is the home of Shamsa, his jinni-wife. Shamsa’s parents consent to their marriage and the couple decide to spend alternately one year in Taknı- and one year in the palace of Ja-nsha-h. On one of the journeys, however, Shamsa is killed by a seamonster, while they are sitting on this island. Ja-nsha-h buries her and now awaits his own death, to be able to lie down beside her. Bulu-qiya-, having heard Ja-nsha-h’s story, continues his journey, passing the island where al-Khad. ir lives – the legendary saint who spreads God’s message and acts as a patron for travellers7 – who finally takes him back to Cairo. Bulu-qiya- then requests the serpent queen to give him a herb which will protect him against sickness and death, but she refuses to give it to him. Now that the serpent queen has finished the story of Bulu- qiya- , she allows H . asib Karı-m al-Dı-n to go back to the world of humans. But she only consents to let him go on condition that, when he has returned, he will never in his life enter a bathhouse. H . asib solemnly gives her his promise and is brought back to the world

Roads to power 33 through a deserted well. Of course, H.asib is unable to keep his vow and on an inauspicious day, urged by his friends, he enters a bath-house. Immediately he is taken away by a group of soldiers, who tell him that it is prophesied that he will help to cure the king of Persia, who suffers from a serious illness. But H.a-sib can only heal him through the intercession of the serpent queen. Reluctantly, H.a-sib agrees and shows them the well. To H.a-sib’s dismay, the vizier of the king summons the serpent queen to the surface of the well, by a magic ritual. The serpent queen soothes H.a-sib by explaining that everything, including his breach of faith, was pre-ordained by Fate. She instructs him what to do next: the vizier will kill her, cut her into pieces and cook the meat until it foams. He will put the foam into a bottle and ask H . asib to drink it. Then he will cook the meat again and put the foam into another bottle. H.a-sib must change the bottles and drink only from the second one, which will turn his heart into a ‘house of wisdom and knowledge’. Everything happens as the serpent queen has predicted. The king is cured by the meat, the vizier drinks from the wrong bottle and bursts into pieces, and H . asib drinks from the other potion and is suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of happiness and joy. He sees the seven heavens and the lotus tree in paradise, the celestial spheres, the planets and the stars, the land and the sea. He has knowledge of all sciences, of the eclipses of the sun and the moon, of the metals, the plants, the trees, the powers and energies of nature. He is well-versed in medicine, chemistry, astrology, magic, alchemy and he knows the art of making gold and silver. This total insight is sealed by the recovery of the five pages that his father had left him when he died. This rather long summary shows that the story of the Queen of the serpents is a complex narrative, which is to a large extent descriptive. Its complexity is partly derived from the variety of geographical settings, which determines the pace of the story, but also from the combination of stories which requires that the reader switches from one world to another, from one spatiotemporal structure to another. We will now examine the coherence of this narrative structure, the interaction between framing and framed stories.

Narrative structure The three stories gathered together in the story of the Queen of the serpents are of a quite diverse nature. The story of Ja-nsha-h, which is first of all a love story, is perceptibly out of place. It is clear that the material for the story comes from another generic context, and it is noteworthy that in the version of Bulu-qiya- in the qis.as. al-anbiya-’ it is not the story of Ja-nsha-h that is inserted, but the story of the Prophet S.a-lih., who, according to the legend, was sent by God to admonish the Arabian tribe of Tha-mu-d.8 This suggests that the story of Ja-nsha-h was inserted with a specific intention and that the three stories have to a certain extent been adapted to foster the coherence of the story as a whole. After all, it is clear that the stories are not randomly put together, but that they are thematically linked in several respects. In fact, it is the thematic parallels between the separate stories

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that support the interpretation of the cycle as a whole, although some important divergencies remain. Whatever the philological evolution of the cycle may have been, we can discern the following significant resemblances: 1.

2.

3.

All three stories spring from an interruption of the regular cycles of continuity and reproduction. This interruption is caused by the death of the father and the inability of the son to assume his place. In the case of Ja-nsha-h, it is the threat that the heir to the throne will not survive; in the case of the other two stories it is the corpus of knowledge that has been collected by the father which is not ‘absorbed’ by the son. All three stories are thus concerned with the issue of time, as a force of disruption and/or preservation; in Bulu- qiyaand the Queen of the serpents, at least two levels of time are distinguished: a human history marked by the regular cycle of procreation and social reproduction, and a kind of meta-history in which fundamental knowledge of the world is stored, which exists separately from the human categories of past, present and future. This enables Bulu-qiya-, for instance, to know in advance about the coming of the Prophet and to attempt to travel through time to meet him. In both stories the two time-levels are linked through the pages of the books of Da-niya-l and the text hidden in the royal treasury, and by the figure of the serpent queen. All three stories are concerned with the differentiation of earthly space. In fact, this spatial differentiation can be seen as the main theme linking the tales. In each of the stories the hero crosses a boundary dividing different realms - of creation, H . asib by opening the tile of the underground crypt, Buluqiya by falling asleep on an island and by crossing the Seven Seas, and Jansha-h by losing his way at sea and by entering the forbidden door in the castle of sheykh Nas- r. In all three cases, the heroes leave the regular human world and enter a kind of ‘underworld’ which is on several occasions explicitly linked to the figure of King Solomon. The castle of Solomon, the sorcerers instructing Ja-nsha-h, the tablets with instructions by Solomon, the grave of Solomon, are all focal points in a space which has once been reigned over by the legendary king and which is now taken care of by guardians of various kinds. It is the world where the kingdoms of the animals and the jinn come together, where the forces of nature are at work, where the hidden mechanisms of creation and the cosmic cycles are located. It is a world full of signs indicating the functioning of the world and the manifestations of the Divine. Thus, the differentiation of time is combined with a differentiation of space. All three stories take the narrative form of journeys. This form has three main functions. First, it determines the structure of the stories and its different phases, such as the dissociation from the past and the social environment; the incentive to acquire an object of desire, which is present somewhere in the folds of time and space; the phase of mobility, when the heroes roam through unknown lands; and the return to the previous state, albeit with newly gained knowledge and experiences. Second, the concept of the journey provides the opportunity to establish a link between the different spatial and temporal

Roads to power 35

4.

domains. The heroes have to depart from their homes and arrive at transition points in order to be able to leave the regular, visible world and enter the domain that underlies it and that contains its hidden forces. Before this can be achieved, boundaries have to be crossed and dangers have to be averted. Bulu-qiya- can enter the Solomonic world and come into contact with metahistorical time by undertaking an arduous journey, helped by scholars, a magical herb, archangels, jinn and al-Khad.ir. Ja-nsha-h, with the support of various helpers, succeeds in finding his bride and reaching the Castle of Taknı-. The journey, of course, illustrates the hardships that have to be endured before the object of desire can be reached. The distance of Taknı- symbolizes the difficulty of effecting love between a man and a jinniyya; the dragon guarding Solomon’s grave symbolizes man’s inability to acquire eternal youth. Third, the journey represents the development of the heroes, from young and innocent boys to adult men. All three stories depict a process of initiation. Ja-nsha-h is initiated into the secrets of love, the hardships of love and the worlds that may separate lovers. Bulu-qiya- has a vision about the constitution of the cosmos, the hidden mechanisms of nature and an outline of the Divine plan, returning to resume his task as a king. H.a-sib Karı-m al-Dı-n, finally, in spite of all odds, gains insight into all the secrets of life, the design of the world, the sciences, magic and alchemy and visions of Divine places. He is not only instructed by the stories of the serpent queen, which convey to him all the knowledge previously gained by Bulu-qiya- and Ja-nsha-h, he is also allowed to acquire a knowledge of which they are deprived, enabling him to become vizier. It should be noted that the process of initiation is successful only in the case of H.a-sib Karı-m al-Dı-n. Bulu-qiya-, although he is initiated into a treasury of knowledge, is not allowed to meet the Prophet. Ja-nsha-h is afforded a taste of the love for a jinniyya, but his love ends in distress. This implies that the worlds in which they have travelled remain separate. Bulu-qiya- does not succeed in integrating both timespheres inside himself, and Ja-nsha-h fails to integrate the worlds of jinn and men to perpetuate his love. Only in the case of H . asib does an integration seem to take place: his insight combines the world of man and the world of the serpent queen from whom he receives his knowledge. However, H.a-sib’s initiation does not occur without difficulty. He is held in a state of liminality for some time, to listen to the stories of the serpent queen, and he is bound by an oath which associates his knowledge with a fatal taboo. Still, after having withstood these difficulties, his unsuspected destiny is fulfilled. In spite of adverse signs, Fate has shaped him to succeed, in contrast to Bulu-qiya- and Ja-nsha-h. But whatever the outcome of the initiation may be, the combination of desire, discovery and travelling seems sufficient to justify the qualification of the three stories as the accounts of quests – quests for knowledge, experience and love.

Through these thematic parallels, the three stories seem to supplement one another, signifying that everyone is the captive of fate, from which there is no

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escape. Moreover, they contain elaborate descriptions which together present an image of the ‘underworld’ as it is preserved in ancient traditions and tales. The reader is initiated, too, into the lore of creation and the design of the world. The story of the Queen of the serpents shows the dichotomy between worldly pleasures and Divine knowledge, the one represented by the villainous lumbermen, who indulge in riches, the other by H.a-sib, who gives away the honey but receives an invaluable treasure of knowledge. As in the case of the story of Shahraza-d and Shahriya-r, the initiation of the hero by storytelling, interrupting the regular course of his life, is paralleled by the instruction and education of the reader. Now it becomes clear why the Thousand and one nights editor of the story of the Queen of the serpents replaced the story of S.a- lih., which was inserted in the version in the qis.as. al-anbiya-’, with the story of Ja-nsha-h. In the first case, the link between the the stories was the figure of the prophet and the announcement of the advent of the Prophet Muh.ammad, whereas in the latter case the link is found in the theme of the quest and the connections between different domains of creation. The substitution marks the transition of the story from one genre to another. Before continuing with an assessment of some other aspects of the story of the Queen of the serpents, we will discuss a separate story, which shows some significant parallels to those issues outlined above, especially concerning the application of heavenly design.

The stories of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b The stories that are put together in the story of the Queen of the serpents are first of all descriptions of the cosmos as it was designed by a Divine plan. But this design includes a future in which the Prophet Muh.ammad will complement God’s creation. The world is designed to receive him and predictions of his coming can sometimes be perceived, but the world of human beings, of Bulu-qiya-, H . asib Karım al-Dın and Janshah, is still untouched by the ordering of the Faith. Creation holds a vision of Islam as its pre-ordained future, but there is no effort to organize the world and society according to the principles of the Faith. While the ‘Solomonic underworld’ from the beginning openly manifests its obedience to God, the ‘real’, visible world is still pagan and largely unaware of the secret codes that will govern it one day. The story of the serpent queen is a narrative set in and about the historical past from the perspective of that past’s own future which it reflects. This complex perspective can also be found in the story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b,9 which describes a subsequent Islamization of the human world: the establishment of the Faith’s ordering avant la lettre. The story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b begins with the birth of ‘Ajı-b, who grows up to become a fierce warrior. He kills his father, usurps the throne and subjects the empire to his authority. Then he discovers that one of his father’s concubines is pregnant, and in spite of his efforts to have her killed, the girl is saved and his half-brother Gharı-b is born in the forest. Gharı-b is adopted and raised by a tribe of Bedouin. Following a well-known pattern of the Arabic roman de geste, or

Roads to power 37 sı-ra, Gharı-b becomes involved in inter-tribal struggles and falls in love with Mahdiyya, whom he has rescued after she has been kidnapped by a rival tribe. Before he is allowed to marry her, he is sent to the Valley of the Flowers, where a black giant lives in a castle built by a descendant of Shadda-d ibn ‘Ad, the legendary king, who was destroyed after his refusal to heed the call of God. On his way to the valley, Gharı-b meets a sheykh of 340 years of age, who lives in a cave and tells him his life-story. He is also a descendant of Shadda-d ibn ‘Ad. The sheykh was spared because he complied with God’s will. Gharı-b, too, is converted to the Faith and the sheykh gives him weapons to fight the fearsome giant Sa‘da-n. The company of newly converted Muslims succeed in beating Sa‘da-n and his sons and occupy the castle. What is more, Sa‘da-n, who was a sun-worshipper, now embraces Islam. Among the prisoners in the castle is Fakhrta-j, the daughter of Sabu-r, the king of Persia, who has been abducted while returning from her annual pilgrimage to the fire-convent. Gharı-b wants to marry her, but is asked first to deliver the head of a rival king to Sabu-r. What follows is a huge military campaign during which several city-kingdoms in Mesopotamia are subdued and converted to Islam. After ‘Ajı-b has rejected Gharı-b’s call to join the new Faith, he becomes the sworn enemy of the Muslims and allies himself to various recalcitrant kings. However, Gharı-b steadily expands his realm, advancing even to the faraway region of Oman, which is conquered as well. Here, Gharı-b, while resting in an idyllic valley, is kidnapped by jinn and taken to Mar‘ash, a jinn-king who worships fire. After the impotence of the fire-gods has been proved, Mar‘ash converts to Islam and joins forces with Gharı-b. Together they vanquish some rebellious jinn-kings and repel a counterattack against Oman by ‘Ajı-b, who succeeds in escaping but is killed soon afterwards. After an excursion into India, Gharı-b is finally reunited with the women whom he has acquired during his expedition, and, miraculously, with his son, borne to him by Fakhrta-j. The story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b is a typical example of the sı-ra genre, with its adventures, marvellous plots, magic, heroic feats, villains and, especially, its religious dimension. Its main intention is to present an account of the struggle to eliminate pagans and idols and to establish the True Faith. In this respect it is similar to the story of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n, which is, however, much more complex and which describes not so much the establishment of Islam, but rather the more or less continuous struggle between the Muslims and the Christian Byzantines. The latter story differs in some other essential characteristics, too, as we will see below. The dating of both sı-ras is uncertain, and estimates for ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b range from the sixth to the tenth centuries. It is probable that it originated in the period before the crusades, since the Christians play no part in it. It is possibly derived from ancient Arabian narrative material which also inspired other sı-ras, such as Sayf ibn Dhı- Yazan and al-Amı-ra Dha-t al-Himma. In these sı-ras, too, pre-Islamic heroes prefigure the revelation of Islam and subdue the realms of paganism and magic.10 What interests us here is first of all the aspect of space and mobility. In his study of the story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b, André Miquel observes that the story is not constructed within a coherent spatiotemporal structure.11 The story is structured as

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a series of sequences following the movements of the characters, partly through a realistic geography, partly through a legendary geography and partly through an ambivalent geography, which can be localized although it is part of a legendary vision of the world. The movements of the heroes are spatially and temporally linked to forms of magic, or the supernatural, especially when Gharı-b is transported to the world of the jinn and during his peregrinations in India. In these cases, deplacements are detached from realistic temporal schemas. The essence of the story, according to Miquel, is Gharı-b’s struggle against what seems to be his predetermined fate: he is second in rank in his country of birth, but through his moral and physical excellence, and through the help of God, he succeeds in advancing to the first rank and in acquiring the throne in the countries that he conquers, at the expense of his half-brother ‘Ajı-b. It is the story of the triumph of justice and the Faith against seemingly overwhelming odds.12 The story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b is evidently ordered by the continual mobility of the heroes and thereby by a concept of space. As in the case of the stories collected in the Queen of the serpents, the world is divided into two realms, separated by a boundary which can only be crossed by magic means. The ‘underworld’ is governed by the jinn, who are still fire-worshippers and whose history is linked to the primeval legends of the ancient ancestors. They live in strange palaces and possess several kinds of magic objects and animals, related to the magical powers of the forefathers. With these powers the jinn can interfere in the ‘real’ world, but only when they have allied themselves to Gharı-b in his war against ‘Ajı-b. The ‘magical’ fringes of the world which Gharı-b visits after he has subdued the human world seem to be rather artificially attached to the story, perhaps only with the aim of prolonging Gharı-b’s adventures and to add a separate category of narrative motifs to the story, which is related to the theme of the story as a whole: the struggle for conversion against the forces of evil and magic. The subjection of queens with magical powers is a recurrent topos in stories of this kind, showing the victory of the Faith over ancient idols and deceitful sorcerers. Magic is replaced by the Faith. The human world is the domain of the fire-worshippers until ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b are born. As in other stories, a spatial differentiation is heralded by the birth of the two half-brothers, threatening the unity of their father’s empire. This differentiation is effected when Gharı-b is ‘exiled’ from his natural environment after ‘Ajı-b’s usurpation of the throne. This exile detaches Gharı-b from a spatial structure and relocates him into a liminal position without the social embedding that he deserves. In spite of his noble descent, he is a wanderer, a traveller without a meaningful, fixed, territorial association. This situation changes when Gharı-b meets the old sheykh and is converted to Islam. This transformation is immediately translated into a spatial equivalent when Gharı-b and his troops, provided with new weapons, conquer the castle in the Valley of the Flowers. The valley, described as an exceptionally beautiful, blissful and idyllic place, becomes the nucleus of a new space. It is a place imbued with a new meaning. It is miraculously lifted from its spatial surroundings to become part of another geography which has not yet established itself. It embodies an essential transformation of reality according to a grand Divine plan.

Roads to power 39 From here the destiny of the world unfolds itself. The conversion of Gharı-b has created a spatial differentiation between the ‘land of Islam’ and the land of the fire-worshippers, the space of ‘good’ and the space of ‘evil’. This differentiation naturally produces the urge to move: every disharmony in space can only be countered by mobility, by responding to the desire for unification, harmony and equilibrium. The Divine plan can only be implemented when the transformation that Gharı-b has undergone is projected onto space, when his new personality is expanded in geographical territory. Gharı-b combines moral superiority with military prowess and these assets enable him to fulfil a victorious journey through a space which is structured only in a negative way, by the absence of a unifying moral principle, by a lack of significance. Gharı-b embodies a qualitative change of the ‘real’ world and impregnates the space in which he moves with his own metamorphosis. Whatever he conquers and possesses becomes not only part of his authority, but also part of a new spatial ordering, and of a pre-destined Divine scheme. The women whom Gharı-b conquers during his journey are landmarks which symbolize the establishment of this new order, the anchoring of Gharı-b, as a person and as an abstract idea, in space. The story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b is not so much a narrative of description, but rather the account of a transformation: the metamorphosis of an essentially amorphous space into a geography related to religion and the sacred. This metamorphosis is realized by God, of course, as part of His design of creation, but it is effected by a human hero who reflects the Divine presence in the material world. The world has become part of a new phase of history in which a new morality reigns. In fact, through its linking to the Divine plan and the pre-destined design of creation, it has now become part of history as the only significant form of existence. The material world is moulded according to the spatiotemporal structure of Islam, even before the birth of the Prophet Muh.ammad. This latter historical ‘layer’ of the narrative is the setting of the other sı-ra in the Thousand and one nights, the beautiful and complex romance of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n and his sons. It contains many themes and motifs similar to those in the story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b, but it departs from a different epistemological framework, from a realistic, historical point of view. The story of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n is not a historical novel in which the future is projected into the past; it is a realistic novel which encompasses a dream, a vision of a possible, and longed for, future. In ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n,13 too, we find an essential differentiation of space between the realm of the Muslims, governed by King ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n in Baghdad, and the realm of the Christians, over which the Emperor of Constantinople reigns. The two realms are rather clearly separated by a boundary zone which is explored during the first Muslim expedition against the Christians led by Sharrka-n. A further differentiation is heralded by the birth of ‘Umar’s two sons and daughter, Sharrka-n, D . aw al-Makan and Nuzhat al-Zaman. At first, it seems that the story takes a course similar to the fatal fratricidal struggle between ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b. Sharrka-n feels that his position is threatened by D . aw al-Makan, and the latter enters a ‘liminal’ phase when he goes on a pilgrimage to Mecca with Nuzhat al-Zama-n and is unable to return for some time due to a serious illness. However, the spatial arrangements within the narrative prevent such a fateful outcome: Sharrka-n is

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appointed governor of Damascus, while his father retains the throne in Baghdad, and D . aw al-Makan only re-enters the stage when ‘Umar al-Nu‘man has died and he can inherit the kingdom. The two brothers are reconciled and accept the division of authority and space. Instead of engaging in internal strife, they direct their attention to the common enemy, the Christians, and prepare the campaign in unison. Here the potential narrative intricacies and plots based on an internal division of the Muslim camp are deliberately avoided in favour of a division between the Muslim and Christian camps. That does not mean that the ‘internal’ spatial aspects are of no significance. Sharrka-n’s first expedition to the border area grants him possession of Abrı-za, the Christian princess. During his absence she is raped by ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n, causing her to flee, pregnant with a son. Apart from this, the pilgrimage of D . aw al-Makan and Nuzhat al-Zaman skilfully weaves the theme of mobility, the attraction between brother and sister, the liminal status of the prince and princess and the typical coincidences of travel (sickness, losing one’s way, dangers, recognition, disorientation, separation, robbers, etc.) into a fine subplot. It is D . aw al-Makan’s absence that enables the narrator to tell the events occurring in Baghdad and to prepare D . aw al-Makan for his future role. It is Nuzhat al-Zaman’s journey that determines her future, as the husband of Sharrkan’s chamberlain, and the mother of Qudiyafaka-n, the future wife of D . aw al-Makan’s son Kanmakan. Thus, there are disruptions within the family, which are countered by journeys of various sorts and which create the necessity of mobility. The spatial setting is fully exploited, by using the juxtaposition of administrative centres (Damascus, Baghdad), holy places (Mecca, Jerusalem), the transgression of boundaries (Christian-Muslim; women’s domains; separate rooms), separate locations (desert, inn, palace, tent, etc.) and the symbolic aspects of mobility. However, the disruptions caused by spatial fragmentation and travelling are finally healed in order to confront a powerful enemy. The story contains an account of a great expedition of the Muslims against Constantinople, initiated by the fact that the murderer of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n was the mother of the Byzantine emperor. The description of this campaign follows the well-known pattern of the sı-ra, with its many sub-plots, its use of ruses and magic, the feats of heroes, the death of heroes, the deprecation of the enemy, loyalty and deceit, disguises and traps, etc. After their failure to conquer Constantinople, the Muslims are once again threatened by internal strife. After D . aw al-Makan’s death, the throne is usurped by the previous chamberlain of Sharrkan. Kanmaka-n’s is banned from Baghdad, since he openly declares his love for his cousin Qudiyafaka-n, the daughter of the chamberlain. The love story, which will be treated more elaborately in chapter six, is combined with Ka-nmaka-n’s struggle to oust his uncle from power and to win the throne for himself. When these efforts are finally successful, all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place: the evil Christians are punished and the new emperor of Constantinople turns out to be the son of Abrı-za sired by ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n. The unity of the family is restored, Constantinople is added to the Muslim Empire and the dynasty is saved. The spatial dichotomy resulting from the hateful presence of the Christians is eliminated.

Roads to power 41 We can say that the story of ‘Umar al-Nu‘man is set against the background of history rather than legend, and that the narrator has attempted to create a credible historical spatial setting. As in the story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b, the story of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n is about the establishment of a spatial organization based on the elimination of a differentiation. This differentiation is the cause of the mobility of the main characters, resulting ultimately in the amalgamation of the two antagonistic spheres. It is not so much a story of conversion, but rather of the homogenization of space, by removing the evil element that caused the fateful duality. It is the beneficial powers of the Faith that made this homogenization possible, and the new spatial order consists not only of a (re-) unification of territories, but rather of a transformation of the relationships between the characters with their spatial surroundings, which are now impregnated with the positive connotations of the Faith, both in the moral and in the political sense. By carrying out their expedition, the heroes not only exhibit their physical strength by challenging the authority of the enemy over their space, they also fulfil a moral mission, embodying the positive values of the Faith. It is this moral force, rather than violence, which in the end brings the story to its satisfactory conclusion.

Conclusions It is one of the basic ‘laws’ of travelling that the traveller on returning home, is not the same person as before setting out. During his journey he has acquired something. The traveller has added something to his possessions, or to his personality, or to his status. Even if the added value is only related to the passage of time, change is inevitable and relationships with social surroundings are re-established on a different basis. In narrative texts such as the romances analyzed above, the transformations generated by the journey are usually positive. Sometimes the newly gained assets of the protagonists are clear, for example, knowledge, riches or a bride; in other instances, however, their gains are less obvious, for example, when they are mainly symbolic or combined with the loss of certain prerogatives. A returning traveller may have won spiritual insight, but in the meantime may have lost all his possessions. Sometimes the gains can only be recognized by a few other people, thus limiting the change of status to a confined social context. Re-incorporation into a former social environment may be connected to forms of taboo or an intricate social conflict.14 Since the transformation of the hero is mostly depicted as something positive, the change in social status resulting from this transformation can be explained in terms of an increase in power. This power may be vested in personal relationships, such as the hero’s conquest of a beloved, or the defeat of enemies, or new status as a wealthy person. In the Foucauldian vision, relationships between people are always structured by power hierarchies, and changes in status directly affect the balance of power within these relationships. Power is also concentrated in institutions which structure social relationships into hierarchies and which support various forms of authority. This form of power becomes manifest in the legal system, the privileges of kingship, the centres of worship and learning and in the sets of conventions that are inherited from the past and continue to be held

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in esteem. Institutions of power of whatever kind are reproduced through people, but before a hero is qualified to act accordingly, he has to acquire the required status and personal maturity. It is here that the metaphor of the journey is an adequate device. In his study of Greek and Mesopotamian myths, Charles Penglase15 shows how in these narratives the structure and connotations of the journey are used by gods and kings to acquire and demonstrate their power. For them, the journey is a way to mark off a territory, to invest a certain space with their authority and to prove that this authority rests on a solid power base. Here the gains of the protagonists are purely symbolic; it is a ritual rather than a military campaign that is completed. Obstacles and trials are not embodied by ‘real’ enemies attempting to subvert the foundations of power, but rather abstract forces which by being subdued help the hero to show prowess and strengthen claims to leadership. These trials can be represented by a monster symbolizing the ravaging forces of nature, but also by an expedition to a ‘Fountain of Youth’. The journeys can also be purely ritual, involving a number of sacred places within the empire which integrate divine and territorial authority. In most cases, however, the journeys are not confined to the physical world, but extended to the domain of the supernatural or the divine. Usually a visit to an underworld is incorporated in the journey, with the obvious aim of showing the king’s ability to defy and defeat death. It is in this feat that the ultimate claim to kingship is expressed. The hero acquires new status by proving that the hidden forces underlying the cycle of life and death can be conquered, returning safely and unharmed. It has often been assumed that the story of the Queen of the serpents – and in particular the story of Bulu- qiya- – is linked to the ancient Mesopotamian traditions of myths and legends; especially the parallels with the Epic of Gilgamesh seem obvious. The story is a good example of a quest for knowledge and insight into the secrets of creation. Bulu-qiya- receives this knowledge through his journey, which includes a visit to an ‘underworld’, after which his kingship is confirmed. H . asib Karım al-Dın is initiated rather through the crossing of a spatial threshold and through being told the experiences of others. Before this knowledge can lead him to a status of power, a taboo has to be broken which is symbolized by a series of acts which refer directly to the procedures of alchemists and which have possibly been inspired by alchemist models. After all, in the visions of Zosimos, the ancient philosopher, it is explained how a snake is cut into pieces and prepared as a phase in the process of acquiring insight.16 Here, too, the snake, often a symbol of fertility and continual reproduction, is sacrified in order to achieve superior knowledge. A part of nature is destroyed to free the forces that reproduce esoteric knowledge in another creature. Not everyone has a right to be initiated into this knowledge. H.a-sib Karı-m al-Dı-n was chosen by Fate. An alchemist interpretation of this episode is confirmed by other references to alchemist practices throughout the story, such as the search for the Fountain of Life, the mentioning of several kinds of metals the ability to transform metals into silver and gold. The story of H . asib Karı m al-Dı n, in particular, shows traces of alchemist and Neo-Platonist influences through a remarkable parallel with one

Roads to power 43 of the works of the famous Neo-Platonist philosopher Porphyry, the essay The cave of the nymphs. The cave of the nymphs, referring to an episode of Homer’s Odyssey, is filled with honey, too, and has two entrances/exits, one of which may only be used by the chosen few who have gained divine knowledge. The name ‘Yamlı-kha’ may not refer to Semitic names, but perhaps to Porphyry’s contemporary and Neo-Platonist Iamblichus. It has been established that at least some of the works of Porphyry were known in Abbasid times, and it is not impossible that the Cave of the nymphs was also known in a certain period, although no Arabic translation may have survived. More generally, Neo-Platonist theories have had a profound impact on Islamic philosophy and mysticism, and it seems obvious to associate the story of the Queen of the serpents with this tradition.17 The story cannot be classified as a story of conversion or an exemplary tale. It is an exploration rather than a conquest, an exploration of the workings of the natural and Divine forces in the world and the place of the human soul in it. The secrets of the world are metaphorically located in a spatial world with its boundaries and landmarks, seas, islands and landscapes, and it is because of this narrative device that the metaphor of the journey receives its full meaning: knowledge is spread out in space and time; to retrieve it is to travel to the far corners of the world. The pattern of creation is first of all a pattern inscribed in space, and it is this linkage that enables the human mind to explore it. Whatever meaning there is, it is anchored in the order of space. In the story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b, too, there is a clear link between power and space. Once again, insight into a secret ordering of the world provides the incentive to conquer spaces and to wipe out the spatial ordering, which, in this case, is subjected to various forms of idolatry. The antithesis of the Faith – avant la lettre – is especially represented by the fire-worshippers and their senseless practices. The story should be located on the borderline between legend and romance, combining legendary figures, anachronisms and references to a legendary past, with ‘real’ geographical settings and visions of a ‘historical future’. It is the integration of these elements, legend, religion and space, that grants Gharı-b his powerful status. Here it is not only visions or narratives that effect the transformation, but rather the forceful subjugation of geographical space and the societies linked to it. Special powers are given to Gharı-b during his visit to the ‘underworld’ of the jinn. He acquires a magic sword and a flying horse with which he can definitively defeat his enemies. Power thus has a clear spatial dimension and in the stories analysed in this chapter the powers hidden in space are extracted by travelling in various forms. Travelling here signifies the integration of authority and space, the absorption of the power component in space, to establish a new sovereignty, which in turn transforms the symbolic contents of space. This form of integration is achieved by crossing boundaries and incorporating elements from both sides to buttress extraordinary claims to power. Knowledge, insight, magic weapons and real faith are connected to spaces and can be acquired by appropriating these spaces by mobility. In the Queen of the serpents and ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b the story reflects a transition between two kinds of power, the power of the unbelievers,

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the fire-worshippers and the earthly power of such arrogant leaders as ‘Ad ibn Shadda-d on the one hand and the power of the believers in God’s true Faith on the other. One final remark has to be made about the formal aspects of the cycle of the Queen of the serpents. In the narrative structure of the story we see the same concept that characterized the story of Shahraza-d and Shahriya-r and the generic pattern of the mirror for princes: here, too, the ‘prince’, notably H.a-sib Karı-m al-Dı-n, is initiated by storytelling, by a form of interruption and by being placed in a liminal state. We see the principle of the dialogue, the juxtaposition of ‘real’ and metaphorical representations, the structuring by interruptions and the phases of an initiation repeated according to the generic model outlined in the introduction. As in the case of the story of Sindba-d of the sea the initiation of the prince takes the form of a journey, of an introduction to the spatial differentiation of the world and its meanings. A story of creation is unfolded through the process of learning of H . asib, with whom the reader inevitably has to identify.

4

Night and day: the two faces of man

It is no coincidence that the framing story of the Thousand and one nights begins with a departure. And it is no coincidence either that the event that will become the main starting-point of the narrative – the adultery of Shahzama-n’s wife – takes place at night. These two elements form the basis of a spatiotemporal structure which is elaborated in the framing story and which provides a model referred to in many stories of the collection. It has been remarked above in chapter one that the time-frame is inserted essentially for reasons of narrative strategy, emulating the generic pattern of the mirror for princes genre. In the Thousand and one nights, however, another element is added. The temporal component does not only fulfil a formal function, as a technique to structure the story; here it has become a narrative component in itself, impregnated with its own subtext of metaphors, connotations and annotations. The ‘night’ is constructed as the basis of a pattern which determines the perspective from which the collection should be read, a dimension of meanings added to the inserted stories. In this chapter we will analyse the spatiotemporal model set by the story of Shahraza- d and Shahriya- r1 and relate it to some other stories of the Thousand and one nights. On an ominous evening, King Shahzama-n sets out visit his brother Shahriya-r. While camping outside his city, he returns to his palace at night to fetch something and finds his spouse in bed with a kitchen-help. This is an event of enormous proportions, not only for the trespassers, who are both slain, but also for Shahzama-n, who sees it as a fatal blow to his authority and integrity as a man and a king. The same thing happens at the court of Shahriya-r, when he goes out hunting, ironically, perhaps, since in many stories hunting is used as a metaphor for setting out in search of the beloved. After witnessing the disaster, Shahriya-r and his brother decide to spend the rest of their lives roaming through the world, leaving their lives which had appeared so secure, their wealth and the paraphernalia of their authority, to live a life of poverty, anonymity and hazards. Only when they have discovered that even a powerful jinni has been betrayed by a woman – a woman whom he carries in a trunk on his back – do they return to install the fateful regime of marrying a virgin every night and having her killed in the morning. That is until Shahraza-d intervenes. The story of Shahraza- d and Shahriya- r has been interpreted in many ways, most of which are indebted to Freudian and psychoanalytical concepts, perhaps

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inspired by Bettelheim’s analysis of the story. Bettelheim suggests that Shahriya-r represents man governed by his Id, who lets himself be carried away by his desires, while Shahraza-d represents the Ego, which brings a new equilibrium between reason and passion.2 According to Clinton, in his youth Shahriya-r has developed a deep-rooted fear of women, because he grew up in an environment which gave women no significance. He failed to build a positive bond with women or with the feminine qualities in himself. Therefore, the act of adultery makes him lose his identity and his sense of wholeness, and he endeavours to restore his relationship with women through the fatal cycle of sexuality and death. Shahraza-d, however, undertakes the difficult task of teaching him the variety and complexity of the human personality and thus supplements the undeveloped parts of Shahriya-r’s character. Her stories are of a didactic nature and show him the injustice of irrational revenge, by demonstrating parallels to his own situation. She gives him examples of virtuous women and slowly cures him of his childhood trauma and psychosis. Storytelling is a therapy, a verbal weapon against Shahriya-r’s violent aberration.3 Attar and Fischer argue, in a similar vein, that Shahriya-r has to be saved from his fear of female sexuality. He is blinded by the ideology of patriarchal society. The balance between male and female components is disturbed, and the storytelling is seen as an effort to ‘civilize’ Shahriya-r, to make him familiar with the feminine element, and to restore a balanced relationship between men and women. This process of civilization, in the Freudian sense, results in a new sensitivity in Shahriya-r, but it fails to bring forth a genuine emancipation of Shahraza-d, or women in general, either in the domain of sexuality, or in the domain of public functioning.4 This kind of interpretation of the framing story has found support in various sorts of feminist approaches, which stress the role of Shahraza-d as the saviour of her sex and which juxtapose untempered male violence and female sophistication and rationality. This confirms the idea of the parodic nature of the Thousand and one nights (see the chapter one), which seems to comment on the staunch conventions dictated by patriarchal customs and ideology. To cite one example, Fadwa Malti-Douglas assesses Shahraza-d’s triumph as the ‘replacement of an immature male pattern of excitement, satisfaction, and termination, with what can be called a more classically female pattern of external and continuous desire and pleasure’.5 Beaumont goes one step further in the Freudian analysis of the framing story by invoking the development of the human personality as it has been described in the theories of Jacques Lacan. He argues that the cure of Shahriya-r should be seen as the transition from the ‘imaginary’ phase, in which the child does not see itself as a separate body, but thinks it is one with the material surroundings, to the ‘mirror-stage’, in which the child discovers itself as a subject and sees itself as a separate unity as a result of the confrontation with an ‘other’. Beaumont sees the story as the reflection of an Oedipal crisis, in which Shahriya-r is alienated from himself and destroys the other who is the cause of this alienation. He stresses the importance of the figure of the slave, who turns the relationship between Shahriya-r and Shahraza-d into a triad, adding the component of hierarchy and authority. Through the influence of Shahraza-d, who refuses to be a slave and acts as a master in her own right, the ‘dyadic relations of the mirror stage’ give way to the ‘triad of

Night and day: the two faces of man

47

the symbolic’. The symbolic stage, when the child enters the realm of signs, language and laws, is of course aptly represented by Shahraza-d’s storytelling, which teaches Shahriya-r the functioning of narrative and of representations of reality.6 These interpretations all have value in their own right. They are complementary rather than contradictory and differ not so much in essence as in the extent to which psychoanalytical theories are harnessed to fit the pattern of the story. What the interpretations all agree upon is that Shahriya-r’s personality has become unbalanced, that he has lost part of his self-identity, and that Shahraza-d restores his vision of himself and of the world. The traumas that underlie this transition are not clear, since very little is told about the history preceding the story or the circumstances in which Shahriya-r has lived with his spouse. One of the remarkable things is that, apparently, neither Shahzama-n nor Shahriya-r has any children, suggesting that either marital relations were not as they should have been, or that even before the dramatic events the preservation of the empire was in danger, since no successors to the throne were produced. Were the two brothers unaware of the significance of the sexual act? Or is this lack rather a narrative device to create the circumstances in which the story can acquire its meaning? Here we will not try to evaluate the different interpretations of the framing story, but will confine ourselves to a discussion of the story from the perspective of our theme: the way in which spatial elements and the motif of mobility are used within the narrative, to support the formal and thematic structures.

Authority and place In most interpretations of the story of Shahraza- d and Shahriya- r, Shahriya-r is represented as the quintessence of patriarchal authority, as the greatest king of his time. It can be argued, however, that this image and self-image is an illusion. Perhaps he should have been the symbol of male dominance and the embodiment of authority, but as it is his authority seems to be only a derivative. Although not much is mentioned about the historical context of the story, we can conclude from the scarce evidence that the real symbol of authority is Shahriya-r’s father. It was his father who ruled over a unified empire and signifies a kind of primordial unity. It is his father who represents the congruence of locus, body and authority which is the basis of kingship, of patriarchal authority, since it is the total amalgamation of these different components that constitute a king and a single, coherent identity, related to masculinity, place and power. After the death of the father, the empire was divided between his two sons, Shahriya-r and Shahzama-n. Now, the essential unity is broken. Each of the brothers occupies a different space, thereby creating a spatial differentiation, a boundary, which breaks up the primordial continuum which the empire represented. But most of all, it creates distance and thereby the preconditions for mobility. Whereas the congruency of locus and king preconditioned immobility, self-sufficiency and stability, the creation of spatial differentiation and distance makes movement almost inevitable. Although distance in itself may be sufficient to create the desire to travel, in the case of Shahzama-n there is a deeper incentive at work. The distance indicates that

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the two brothers are the split halves of a unity that has been lost. They are two of the same kind, whose natural situation it is to be united, to strive for a unification which would restore the memory of a lost stability, a state of primordial bliss. Of course, this feeling is not made explicit, but it is a motif which occurs many times in the Thousand and one nights and in other stories: two mirror-figures who are irresistibly attracted to each other, because it seems that they have been part of a harmony that has been broken, a symbiosis that has been dissolved by the passage of time. The idea of a self-contained unity is shattered, since now there are two components, which are different and still the same, and which are related to and dependent of each other in a specific way. This differentiation has its repercussions for the figure of the king, and this is shown by the disruptive forces that are evoked by Shahzama-n’s departure, by the destabilization inherent in mobility. The spatial differentiation which resulted from the death of the father and the inheritance of the two sons produces a rift in the primordial integrity of the figure of the king. In the story this is also represented in spatial terms, by the separation of Sha-hzama-n from the palace, the locus of his power. The king is not only the embodiment of authority, it is the bodily presence of the king that establishes authority, that affects the status of the place and that acts as the centre of a system of boundaries, both in the spatial and in the social and moral sense. The king’s body contains the power to impose his rule, symbolizing the unity of his identity as a king. Mobility of the body displaces the spatial and material locus of power from the palace and immediately impairs the authority of the king. His identity is related to a point in space, to his relations to other persons in a spatial perspective, and once he has gone ‘outside’, this perspective is lifted. When Shahzama-n returns and re-enters the locus of his power, to his abhorrence he sees his spouse in bed with a kitchen-help. His horror is not so much caused by jealousy, or by the fact that he has been cuckolded by the meanest and lowest of persons, it springs from the sudden projection of himself on the body of the slave. His unified ‘royal’ body has split into two bodies, which reveal that his status as a king was no more than an illusion. After Shahzama-n has left the palace and looks from the outside to the place that he, as a king, has left, he sees a body phantom of himself making love to the queen. The kitchen-help has not just taken his place, he is the embodiment of himself, his alter ego, the bodily presence of himself after he – in his role of the king – has left. The unity of his person has suddenly become divided into a body outside the palace, emptied of its royal power, and a slave occupying the site of his authority. This slave is subjected to the wishes of the queen, his mistress. Shahzama-n now realizes that in his relationship with his wife he has no more value than an ordinary slave, or even less, and that he, too, has always played the role of a slave. This discovery produces a division of his identity which he cannot simply repair. The two appearances of himself cannot amalgamate again, and the change and differentiation created by mobility seems to be irreversible. He will remain divided for the rest of his life, robbed of the royal congruency of body, place, and authority, if he does not try to exorcize the pariah from his imagination. But the killing of the slave only destroys a part of himself and deprives him of the

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possibility to have a relationship with his wife, which was vested in the figure of the slave. He kills her, too, and now the dramatic event of the narrative has taken shape: the breaking of the primordial unity has resulted in a dislocation, which has caused the fragmentation of the essentially unified identity of the king. This fragmentation in its turn produces an imbalance between the masculine and feminine elements which prevents the continuation of the dynasty. Inevitably – since Shahriya-r is Shahzama-n’s mirror-image, the other, symmetrical half of the unity from which they have sprung forth – the same events repeat themselves at the court of Shahriya-r. The experiences of the brothers can only be complete when they are experienced by both. Shahriya-r, too, sees himself impersonated by what he considers the vilest of creatures, a lusty black slave, who seems to represent his identity in his sexual relationship with the queen. The dislocation is here caused by the hunting party that Shahriya-r undertakes, leaving behind his suffering brother. Ironically, in many stories of the Thousand and one nights, the hunting party is a symbol of male pursuits and male prowess, especially the search for the beloved. Shahzama-n is relieved to witness the adultery of the queen, since he now knows that even his powerful brother is suffering from the schizophrenic loss of the unified vision of himself. Shahriya-r now realizes that he is not the integrated person that he considered himself to be. The vision of his body phantom from the outside has revealed a part of himself that he has never known. It is this part, not his power and authority as a king, that governed his relationship with his wife and that seems to be ultimately beyond his control. A boundary is revealed between two parts of himself, fragmenting the cohesion of his identity, creating a dialectic force between two components which Shahriya-r is incapable of re-integrating. The boundary shows two different domains that are nevertheless unseparably linked to each other, or so it seems. Shahzama-n has attempted to eliminate the boundary weakening his power. Shahriya-r has another remedy: he leaves the palace to spend the rest of his life roaming the world. As a result of the disastrous experiences of Shahriya-r and Shahzama-n, especially after they have subjected themselves to the forces of mobility, their bodies have lost their meaning for spatiotemporal ordering. Their bodies used to be the centre of a system of boundaries of all possible kinds. This power is now lost, since it appears that there exist boundaries and domains, in the very heart of the empire, over which they have no control. Perhaps these boundaries emanate from their bodies, too, but their existence was unknown to them and it seems that they fall beyond the reach of their authority. Subsequently, the two brothers depart on a peregrination through God’s world, without an identity, in a reality which is in no way spatially ordered by their presence. They go, as it were, into hiding, blending into the colours of their environment, entering anonymity, and giving up all marks distinguishing their identity. They resemble King Solomon, who in the legend, after the jinni S.akhr has stolen his ring and taken his place on the throne, roams through the world as a body without a soul, while his phantom rules over his kingdom and his wives. Here, too, we see a dislocation accompanied by a body doubling in the heart of power, stripping the king of his identity and revealing an essential dichotomy that can only be countered by a re-assertion of authority, but that cannot be repaired.

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Here, too, we see the structuring force of the locus of power, the place supporting kingship, opposed to an essentially amorphous outside space, where identity dissolves and differentiating meanings disappear. In this tale, too, we witness the birth of an evil, disruptive force. What happens next seems at first to remedy the brothers’ distress. The two hapless kings are actively involved in the cuckolding of a jinni, who holds his woman imprisoned in a chest which he carries on his back. It turns out that, while the jinni is asleep, the lady makes love to as many men as she can, to punish him for abducting her. The two brothers now see their misfortune from a different angle. The jinni has chosen another strategy to establish his authority: by carrying his woman in a trunk on his back, he can travel without breaking the congruency of his body, his locus and his authority, since the locus is vested in the trunk. In this case, mobility does not cause a dislocation of authority. His ‘dislocation’ is caused by sleeping, which immediately causes two ‘body-doubles’ to take his place. What is more, they come to the – wrong – conclusion that the cause of the catastrophe should not be sought in themselves, but in women. After all, they have just witnessed how a woman has made even a powerful jinni into a pitiful cuckold and how she has used the jinni’s power to manipulate others, to have her wishes fulfilled. They are convinced that it is women who have split their souls in halves, who have usurped part of their personality, which they control as if it were their property and which they mould according to their will. To eliminate the boundary within themselves, they have to let their royal identity prevail over the influence of women. To restore the integrity of this identity, they have to return to the palace, stay in the palace, and either not sleep or eliminate the ability of women to gain mastery of their souls. This sets the fatal cycle of sexuality and death in motion with which Shahriya-r hopes to become a whole person again, eliminating the forces of disintegration and fragmentation. As we will see below – and as we have seen in the cases of Sindba- d the seaman and ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b – the motif of the body phantom, or body double, often recurs in the stories of the Thousand and one nights, usually in relation to moral or psychological dichotomies. More often than not they are related to a disruption of the spatiotemporal system of the narrative. In the three events represented in the framing story, two motifs are combined in each case: dislocation and sleep, dislocation and the garden, dislocation and the night. Each of these motifs bears a connotation of disruption, of a meeting of two domains, of a dislodging of a situation of normality. The motif of mobility has been discussed above, and the motif of the garden will be examined in chapter seven. We will presently turn to one of the basic constituents of the Thousand and one nights: the night.

Nights As has been argued in Background above, in the Thousand and one nights the ‘night’ is, first of all, part of the time-frame, which gives the collection its required combination of coherence and fragmentation. It is a technical device to create a contrast, a juxtaposition of domains, a differentiation. Its connotations

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refer to the passage of time, the power of fate, transitoriness and the human struggle to intervene in the course of events. The time-frame will make the reader believe that the episodes are part of a sequence, which will lead to a dénouement and which will endow them with the logic with which the events can be explained and understood. A similar functioning of time-frames can be found in the story of Sindba- d the seaman, discussed in chapter one, and in the story of the Third qalander.7 Here, the hero is living in an underground space with a youth, who is hidden there because of a prediction that he will die within forty days after his fifteenth birthday. He is supposed to be killed by a person who bears the same name as the hero. Of course, the hero does not heed the warning. He believes that he is acting by means of his own free will and refuses to see that in fact it is the mighty force of fate that is steering his life. In the end, in the last night before the prediction will be overcome, the hero ‘accidentally’ kills the youth. His destiny is fulfilled. Time has taken its due. A similar pattern can be seen in another episode of the story of the Third qalander, where the hero arrives at a palace inhabited by jinn princesses who introduce him to the pleasures of life. When the princesses have to go away for forty days, they give him the keys of forty doors, which he is allowed to open except one. Each day the hero opens one of the doors behind which the wonders of creation are displayed. Of course, in the end the hero opens the forbidden door and is snatched away from his blissful life. The motif of the forbidden door, which, in a slightly different form, can also be found in the stories of Ja- nsha- h and H . asan of Basra, is related to the functions of the episodes within the narratives. They depict an initiation, juxtaposing reality and a manipulated form of reality, or idealized representations of reality. This can also be said of the framing story, but here Shahraza-d’s storytelling is strictly confined to night-time. Apart from the night’s function as part of the passage of time, the night is also part of the ‘eternal’ cycle of night and day, of light and dark. In most mythologies the alternation of day and night is related to the process of creation, bringing forth light out of darkness, existence from non-being. Accordingly, the night is associated with absence and death, with chaos and primordial forces, whereas the day is equated with presence and life, order and the logic of reality. Night and day are the two components of the essential dichotomy of nature and life, with its social and cultural connotations. The night is associated with darkness, obscurity and irrationality; the day represents light, clarity and reason. The day is meant for work, for social duties, for tasks imposed by the community, while the night is reserved for love, passion, pastimes, privacy and social pleasures. But of course darkness is also the realm of lawlessness and crime, of betrayal, of the lack of social control, anarchy and perversity. With the falling of darkness, the world relapses into a state of disorder, to be born again in its regular appearance, ordered by divine principles and social conventions when the sun re-appears.8 The alternation of night and day, therefore, reflects the dichotomy of life, which in turn is reflected in human nature. The night is a form of interruption, but it is an interruption that is filled with the chaos that preconditions creation: only through the ‘otherness’ of the night is recreation and re-vitalization possible.

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Order can only exist if its antithesis, chaos, exists as well, on the other side of a boundary, a boundary which should be crossed to keep the equilibrium intact. At night, the spatiotemporal organization of society changes: life is re-located to other places, social gatherings have different meanings and functions, forms of privacy and solitude replace the imposed sociability of daytime. The night is the time for the unseen, the ‘absent’ parts of regular life. Darkness deprives people of the references that govern visible life and creates spaces for other parts of the self, enabling them to ‘recreate’ themselves in the morning. What happens at night is part of a separate domain, a world with its own rules and its own logic. The night is, of course, also the domain of love. Nocturnal settings and metaphors belong to the universal stock of literary stereotypes, and in this respect Arabic literature is no exception. In the Thousand and one nights, too, the heroes enjoy blissful nights filled with the pleasures of love. But the night is not only meant for love; it also provides the opportunity for betrayal and infidelity. Darkness covers the adventures of adulterous lovers, but it also hides all kinds of sexual taboos. In the stories of the Ensorcelled prince9 and Alı- ibn Bakka- r,10 for instance, various kinds of illicit love take place at night, while in the story of the First qalander11 a form of incest is practised in an underground crypt at night. In this tale, the motifs of taboo and punishment are combined: the setting in an underground cave, the perversity of incest and the punishing hand of fate. Finally, the story of ‘Azı-z and ‘Azı-za,12 which will be discussed more elaborately in chapter seven below, the unfortunate hero is lured into the snares of a cruel mistress during a series of fateful nights. These examples show the relationship between the night and passion, both in its positive and negative manifestations, as the pursuit of love and as a force of destruction and disruption. In the Thousand and one nights, the dichotomy between night and day is further accentuated by the association of the night with many kinds of anomalies. In the story of Jullana- r,13 for example, Queen La-b makes love to a slave who is turned into a raven and is subsequently punished by a spell cast by Badr Ba-sim. In the story of Gha- nim ibn Ayyu- b,14 the hero finds a trunk which contains one of the favourite slave-girls of the caliph, when he is forced to spend the night at a graveyard. Attempts at murder and rape take place at night in such stories as ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n and Ma‘ru- f the cobbler15; theft and deceit are relegated to the night in the stories of Mercury ‘Alı-16 and Ala- al-Dı-n Abu- al-Sha- mat.17 All these examples show that the night is a symbol of the forces of vice, disorder, sin and general anomalies which are incompatible with life during the daytime. There is a clear separation between two worlds, reflected not only in darkness and light, but also in the duality within the characters themselves. The day is reserved for decency, the adherence to rules and regulations, and the night is conceded to outrages, disobedience and vileness. Finally, in many stories the night is associated, for obvious reasons, with sleeping. Sleeping is a state of unconsciousness, but it is related in some way with irregular forms of consciousness, such as magic and the supernatural. This is especially the case when dreams are involved, which as a rule are significant for geomancy and fortune-telling, but in many cases sleeping is in itself sufficient to

Night and day: the two faces of man 53 evoke strange events. Qamar al-Zaman and Budu-r, for instance (the story of Qamar al-Zama-n and Budu-r18), are brought together from the outer fringes of the world by a jinni during their sleep. Badr al-Dı-n H . asan (the story of Nur al-Dı n ‘Alı 19 and his son Badr al-Dı-n H asan ) is taken away from his beloved in Cairo during . his wedding-night and is set down before the gate of Damascus. Ja-nsha-h, Bulu-qiya-, and H. a- sib Karı-m al-Dı-n – in the story of the Queen of the serpents – fall asleep during their peregrinations before they embark upon the most mysterious parts of their voyage, on their way to the Castle of Taknı- of the jinn, the tomb of Solomon, and the meeting with the serpent queen. In ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b, the hero is abducted to the realm of the jinn while sleeping in an idyllic place. In these stories, and in many others, the night is not only the domain of the strange and anomalous, it is a symbolic, almost spatial, boundary between the realms of reality and magic, between the worlds of man and jinn. The night is a threshold where different worlds underlying reality can be entered, a point where reality and the hidden forces of creation meet. It should be noted that this symbolic connotation of the night and of sleeping is often combined with the motif of travelling, or dislocation in general. More often than not the new spatial dimension is opened to the hero only when he is not sleeping safely at home, in his own bed. These symbolic connotations of the night are systematically exploited in the construction of the narratives in which they occur. The main function of the night is to interrupt and dislodge the normal course of events, and this makes it one of the essential components of the story. The night – in its different guises – can change the course of a story in various directions. It can provide the incentives for stories, adventures, strange experiences, marvels and moral dilemmas. It can mingle the worlds of fiction and reality with the aim of surprising and amazing the reader. It can allow the combination of seemingly opposing or mutually exclusive forces, and it can make the invisible seen, or hide what may not be seen. The night is the temporal equivalent of the journey, of displacement, of the dislodging of normal congruencies. The night represents the absence of structure, which determines, justifies, preconditions the structure of the day. The experience of the day harbours the desire for the experience of the night, and vice versa, as if the one draws its strength, its power to exist, from the other, as if the lack of one in the other produces the dynamism that sustains the cycles of nature and life. It is this dimension of the night, as a liminal experience, that determines its function as a motif in the Thousand and one nights. Whatever the philological status or mutual relationship of stories, the night keeps re-appearing as a dynamic element, propelling the story to its aim, setting the story in motion, and providing it with its metaphoric subtext. The night is presented as a spatiotemporal boundary. But as a boundary, its ‘other’ side has a permanent relationship to the side of the ‘real’ and the ‘ordered’ world. What happens during the day is only part of reality; it is an effort to create stability and order. But this order is ‘wrested’ from a state of chaos, every day anew, and the boundary between the night and the day has to be permanently re-defined and re-established. The day inevitably contains the traces of the night and to control these, the forces of the night have to be preserved as an ‘other’ from which the ‘self’ derives its justification. To achieve

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this, the boundary has to be crossed and re-crossed. The two realms must be harmonized as two components of a coherent whole. How this is achieved can be shown by examining two examples in which the complex symbolic connotations of the night and of the motif of mobility are exploited.

- n al-Rashı-d The nightly journeys of Ha-ru The story of the Mock caliph20 begins with a familiar motif. Caliph Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d is unable to sleep. His restlessness urges him to call his vizier Ja‘far and his swordsman and executioner Masru-r, and ask them to accompany him on an inspection tour in Baghdad. The three men disguise themselves and walk through the city, until they hear from a boatman that every night the caliph makes a boat-trip on the Tigris and forbids anyone else to do the same. Intrigued, the next night the caliph ventures out on the river and sees a barge with torches and a throne on which a caliph is sitting – the image of himself – surrounded by a cortège of pseudo-courtesans, among them images of Masru-r and Ja‘far. The caliph follows the strange company, who go ashore, and attends a festive banquet in a palace. Then, when a slave-girl sings a love song, the pseudo-caliph starts screaming and tearing his clothes. His back shows the traces of whipping. When the caliph asks the young man about his peculiar behaviour, he tells him that he used to be a jeweller who was married to the daughter of Ja‘far the vizier. One day his wife went to the bath and had him promise to wait for her return. While he was waiting, Zubayda, the wife of Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d, asked him to come to her rooms, and when his wife returned from the bath, she did not find him. In her anger she ordered his execution, but after the intervention of a slave-girl he was only whipped and thrown out of the palace. Subsequently, he sold all his possessions and became a mock caliph every night. This story has probably been taken from the adab tradition to be included in the later – Egyptian – edition of the Thousand and one nights. It contains some well-known motifs, which link it to other stories of the collection, both stories pertaining to the ‘original’ core, and stories that were probably added later. The motif of the citizen falling in love with a lady from the palace, the entourage of the palace-harem with lady Zubayda, the arrogance of Zubayda, and the jealousy of the lady resulting in a severe punishment and the end of a state of bliss, can be found in several other stories, as well as the motif of the outburst of emotion and the showing of the scars on the body of one of the characters. The main link between this story and a group of other stories, however, is of course the nightly excursion of Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d. Within this motif we can discern a complex combination of symbolic references to both the concept of the night and the concept of mobility and wandering, related to the story’s incentive, its dramatic purport, and its meaning. The story explores the phenomenon of the night, in relation to authority, love and identity, within a conventional narrative configuration. At night, when he is stripped of the paraphernalia of his power, Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d becomes restless, since he misses the references to a part of his identity. He is thrown back on himself; he has become a private person, dissociated from the

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hierarchical link to his subjects. In some stories, he asks a cup-companion to tell him one of his adventures; in others, he sets out to inspect the situation of the empire. Evidently, he can only go out in disguise, first because the boundary between the palace and the outside world cannot be transgressed without a change in status, and, second, because Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d is not in his normal state: he is not the caliph, but another person, without his formal power; he is the nightly image of himself. Without the framework of official ceremony, Haru-n can roam through the city unhindered, disregarding the strict relationship between places and his official status. He does not have to conform to a ‘symbolic’ map of the city. He has entered a liminal status which enables him to experience things that would be unthinkable during the day. The symbolic connotations of the night are accentuated not only by the metamorphosis of Ha-ru-n, but also by the careful juxtaposition of light and dark when he approaches the boat of his ‘rival’, and of course the figure of the body-double. Ha-ru-n’s disappearance as a daytime character, in favour of his nightly double, is compensated by the appearance of a third character, who perfectly impersonates the daytime version of the caliph. He is a replica of the caliph himself, but transferred to the night. He has created a world of his own, to compensate for the harshness of the real world, to exorcize his distress, and to usurp the power which he so painfully lacks during the day. He has re-ordered his world, re-creating space according to the symbolic map that reflects Ha-ru-n’s authority during the day, with full ceremony, pomp and prohibitions. He has exploited the absence of the official spatial organization during the night to duplicate the daytime organization on his own terms, with himself – using the symbolic power of the caliph – as the ordering principle. On the basis of the spatial structure of the day, he has created an illusion, an anomaly, which holds a spell on the environment, because by ‘going out’, the official, caliphal, ordering of space is imposed on it. The concept of the night is thus defined as a different spatiotemporal domain, associated with illusions, falsification and anomaly. The night is a domain of chaos on which a daytime regime can be imposed, in which deceit can be maintained without the regular forms of control. It is also associated with injustice and the tortures of love. Since he is bereft of his beloved, the young man leads a shadow existence in order to preserve a part of his person that has been taken away from him, inflated to a disproportionate size. The main defining factor, however, is the caliph himself, who crosses the boundary between the two domains and reinforces it by his obliged transformation. He crosses a boundary in himself, too, disclosing the nightly appearance of his person, confronting him with another part of himself, a mirror-image explicitly related to his position as a ruler. He is confronted with his impersonation since there is a lack, an injustice, an anomaly, which has to be put right. The young man has to be wrested away from the domain of the night and re-incorporated into the regular structure of life. But Ha-ru-n can only achieve this after he has re-crossed the boundary, re-integrated the parts of himself and re-assumed the garb of his official status during the day. By re-uniting the couple, the caliph not only repairs an injustice, he also restores the balance between night and day, between the two components of himself.

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A similar story, in some respects, is the story of the Porter and the three ladies of Baghdad.21 In this story, too, Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d goes out wandering during the night in disguise. He hears music and laughter from a house and decides to enter. He is allowed in, and after he has promised to heed the warning inscribed above the door not to ask questions about things that are not his business, he joins the company, consisting of three ladies – the owners of the house – a porter and three one-eyed qalanders. Suddenly one of the ladies takes out two dogs from an adjacent room and starts flogging them. Later, the two other ladies burst into tears when they hear a love song and start tearing their clothes. Now, the caliph can no longer control himself and asks the reason for this mysterious behaviour. Furious, the ladies call seven black slaves and threaten to have their guests killed. However, the guests are requested to tell their stories first. In the end, the visitors are released and the next morning Haru-n has the whole company come to the palace and asks the ladies to tell their stories. It turns out that the eldest lady had two sisters. After the death of their parents, two of them married, embarked on journeys for the purposes of trade and returned as beggars, forsaken by their husbands. They re-married with the help of the eldest sister, only to be deceived once again. After a year, the three sisters go on a journey together and arrive on an island. The eldest sister finds a city turned into stone and wanders through its palace, where she loses her way and suddenly finds a beautiful youth reciting the Koran. The youth explains to her that the city belonged to Magians, who refused to heed the call to convert to Islam and were subsequently punished. Only the boy, who had been instructed in the Koran, was saved. He joins the lady, because it is his destiny to return to Baghdad with her and to be married to her. However, the two sisters are jealous and throw their sister and the young man overboard. The boy drowns, but the lady is saved. She rescues a serpent which turns out to be a jinniyya. The jinniyya punishes the two sisters by changing them into dogs and commands the lady to beat them every night. The story of the second lady is similarly an account of the injustices of love. She was seduced into marrying a handsome nobleman, but when she was, unjustly, suspected of unfaithfulness, she was beaten and thrown into the street. The ladies meet each other and decide to lock themselves in the house, hiding during the day and enjoying life during the night. After Ha-ru-n has heard these stories, he summons the jinniyya before him, breaks the spell, and re-unites the estranged couple. In this story, too, we see the nightly appearance of Ha-ru-n, wandering in an unstructured domain, crossing a second boundary to find himself in a strange environment which is dominated by a spell, a taboo and an anomalous way of life. Again, the night is set off against the day, with the familiar connotations of magic, merrymaking, eroticism, injustice, love, etc. Again, Ha-ru-n re-crosses the boundaries between the domains and returns to his official self to put all irregularities in order. But there is one important component added. As Naddaf and others have observed,22 the house of the three ladies is very explicitly a female domain, controlled by women and ordered by women. This enclosed feminine space is established as the outcome of several journeys, which have resulted in the estrangement of the women from men. This is not the place to discuss the topos

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of women-travellers (see chapter seven); what is important here is that the regular relationship between the ladies and the world of men has been broken and that they can live only within this isolated setting. Their adventures have forced them into a separate domain, an involuntary seclusion, a separate spatiotemporal structure, where they can combine quiet living with the strange remnants of their past. The night is here associated with a social anomaly, women feasting without the control of men, women living together without a socially accepted sexual relationship, women isolated from society by a spell. Here, the night is associated with the unhindered expression of female sexuality, without the control of men and without the disciplining force of social constraints. The ladies are their own guardians, for the greater parts of their lives, and have usurped the night as their special domain. This is not an act of liberation, however, it is rather a situation imposed by circumstances, by the laws of a patriarchal society, and by a magical enchantment. It is Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d who re-integrates the domains, and thereby, as in the story of the Mock caliph, the different appearances of himself. These are only two examples of the way in which the motif of the night is utilized in the Thousand and one nights as a metaphorical concept. The night contains everything that is an excess of the spatiotemporal structure, it represents the phase of chaos in the cycle of creation, the spheres outside the regular spatiotemporal patterns, the duality of life. These symbolic connotations of the night re-occur in the Thousand and one nights in a systematic way, both in stories belonging to the old core of the collection, and in stories that have probably been added at a later phase. Even if stories seem not to be linked in the philological sense, or if they date back to different periods, the complex dualism between night and day can be perceived. Even if one cannot adopt it as a characteristic contributing to the formal and thematic unity of the collection as a whole, it seems to be one of the most persistent symbolic concepts of the Arabic tradition of storytelling. Therefore, it opens up a reservoir of metaphorical motifs which puts the framing story of Shahraza- d and Shahriya- r into a certain perspective and helps us to unravel the narrative strategies that have shaped it.

Shahriya- r and the night After our analysis of the stories of the Porter and the three ladies and the Mock caliph, it would seem no coincidence that the acts of adultery in the framing story and the storytelling by Shahraza-d take place during the night. When Shahzama-n returns to the palace in the night of his departure, he not only sees a double of himself in the arms of his wife; he sees a nightly appearance of himself. He sees an image of himself in a specific context, in a domain which is governed by female sexuality, by chaos, by lust, by deceit. He realizes that in spite of his royal status during the day, his all-powerful identity, at night he is no more than a slave under the command of his wife. Shahzama-n now becomes conscious of the fact that his identity is not a unity, that it does not consist of a unified spatiotemporal structure, but that his self is divided into two components, one of which becomes manifest during the day, and the other during the night. This boundary

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within himself and in the spatial setting coincides with the boundary between day and night. The act of adultery signifies that the night has been usurped by the queen, that she is the mistress who dominates his nocturnal existence. But because the slave has now become part of himself, the usurpation of the night implies not only a unmasking of his nightly identity, but also an affront to his daytime authority. As in the case of Wird Kha-n, in the story of Jalı-‘a- d,23 the queen blurs the boundaries between day and night and affects the position of power of the sultan. Thus, the departure of Shahzama-n has unhinged the spatiotemporal congruence that was the foundation of his rule and of his self-image. The balance between the two components of life, and of the sultan’s personality, has been disturbed, delivering the sultan to the forces of chaos, irrationality, deceit, illusions and the predominance of female sexuality. This catastrophe is repeated in the case of Shahriya-r, who also discovers the fragmented nature of his authority by watching his antithesis, his other self, under the lustful control of his spouse. After a phase of confusion, as described above, Shahriya-r responds by restoring his formal authority over the night. He uses his formal daytime authority to bring order to the domain of the night. But this order is maintained by a regime of violence: by executing his wives, he prevents them from appropriating the domain of the day, the official part of his person, and from endangering hierarchies and systems of rules. He takes control of the night, but by doing so he reverses the situation that was produced by the act of adultery. He does not restore the dualistic opposition between day and night, but instead has the day swallow the night. There is no alternation of light and dark, order and chaos, there is only the one-dimensional force of control. Thus, Shahriya-r has usurped the domain of the night. The rational part of his personality has usurped the domain of his emotions, his Ego has disciplined his Id. He has refused to comply with the multiple, or at least dual, nature of his personality, and the result is a monolithic character with a distorted view of himself and the world. It is a personality that can only preserve its wholeness, balance, and coherence by the use of violence and the disturbance of the natural course of life and its reproduction. It is a regime of continual interruption eliminating the forces of mobility, transformation and renewal. Every day a Shahriya-r is born that is identical to the Shahriya-r of the day before, with all his absolute power intact. The progress of time has no meaning, since change has become impossible. Life has become an endless repetition, like a ritual in which time exists only for the sake of repeating ceremonies. Since there is no change or progress, the empire is doomed. After all, the regular mechanisms of reproduction and procreation are destroyed. There will be no-one to succeed Shahriya-r, who is only interested in cloning himself day after day. This fatal cycle is broken by Shahraza-d. She undertakes the immense task of restoring the domain of the night, to teach Shahriya-r that the domains of the day and the night are complementary, that the ‘otherness’ of the night should exist next to the regularity of the day, that the admission of women in his life is

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essential for the process of reproduction and that the boundary between day and night should not only be a natural dichotomy, nor be imposed on women only, but should also be accepted within himself. For Shahriya-r the night is a form of absence, of death, because it negates the unity of his person, as a man and as a king, but Shahraza-d shows that his unity, after the image of his father, is a destructive illusion. Real unity consists of a harmony between various components and only the acceptance of the complexity of life and persons can guarantee the continuation of the life-cycle. Boundaries are a pre-requisite for procreation, revitalization and reproduction. Shahraza-d leads Shahriya-r back to an awareness of historical time, in which causality and continuity are restored. She removes the cyclic interruption of life every morning and replaces it with another sense of order, which is not based on a ritual pattern of time, but on a concept of time that is based on fluidity and the deployment of meaning. Shahraza-d’s well-known strategy to confront Shahriya-r’s regime of violence with the power of the word, to teach him the diversity of the world, the importance of balanced judgments, the many amazing aspects of life, the many dilemmas that may occur, the many similes of Shahriya-r’s experiences, is meant to represent the world in the domain of the night, when the ‘real’ world is absent and invisible. She creates a world in which sexuality, emotions and imagination are tightly interwoven and which can substitute the aberrant vision of Shahriya-r. It is a world which is different from the visible world, an illusion, perhaps, but Shahraza-d is the link between the two. She convinces Shahriya-r that her stories have a bearing upon life in daytime, that the two realms of night and day are separate but linked to each other. Since she succeeds in claiming this intermediary role, she restores the duality in Shahriya-r’s personality, reconciling the two components and simultaneously restoring Shahriya-r’s relationship with women. But what is perhaps most important is that Shahraza-d succeeds in transforming a system of interruptions and boundaries into a force of coherence and continuity. What has seemed a force of disruption has now become a harmonious multiplicity, securing the preservation of the empire. And this is perhaps the main underlying theme of the Thousand and one nights: restoring a spatiotemporal equilibrium in a world in which a primordial form of unity has been broken; restoring the balance in a world in which the fragmentation of patriarchal identity has created distances, boundaries, desires, displacements, and estrangement from the self. Shahraza-d does this by mobilizing the regenerative powers of the night. She shows Shahriya-r a representation of the world, a metaphoric reconstruction of life, which reveals that the realm of the virtual, of the fabulous, can affect the world of daytime reality, that in fact it is indispensable for the dynamism of real life. She creates a virtual time and a virtual space that explain the multiplicity of life and the fact that life is first of all constructed by human intelligence and human emotions. She demonstrates, simultaneously, the generative role of women, as opposed to the patriarchal image of the disruptive and destructive nature of femininity. Shahriya-r is reborn as a person who can interpret reality as a complex of signs, as a constellation which derives its meanings from its diversity.

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One of the main stereotypical metaphoric manifestations of the journey in fictional narratives is the quest for the beloved. This concept is especially elaborated in the many types of love romances, which became popular in the Middle Ages, not only in Europe, but also in Greek and Arabic literature. In fact, the genre transcends linguistic boundaries to such an extent that it is likely that the various models in different languages influenced one another and that they are part of a large corpus of related texts. The question of generic relationship has remained a matter of speculation, however, since no historical framework supporting theories of mutual relationships has been conceived until now. Nevertheless, the generic resemblances are clear because the stories follow similar patterns and have many themes and motifs in common. In Arabic literature, the Thousand and one nights is one of the main sources where love romances in various forms can be found, either as part of the ‘original core’ or as later additions and components of complex stories of different genres. This has led Von Grünebaum to search for parallels between the Thousand and one nights and some examples of Greek love romances, comparing Greek and Islamic concepts of love and arguing that the Arabic texts were modelled after Greek examples. In view of the lack of a broader historical context illuminating possible influences between Arabic and Greek literatures, his conclusions seem premature, but whatever the true relationship is between some specimens of the love romance, the parallels are sometimes striking.1 A framework for the analysis of the generic characteristics of love romances, especially their spatiotemporal structure, has been conceived by the Russian thinker Bakhtin in his theoretical essays on the question of genre. For Bakhtin, literature is an act of communication, whose meaning is not conveyed by linguistic or syntactic principles, but by generic principles. These determine not only our ways of communicating, but also our way of perceiving and conceptualizing reality. Genres are not only modes of perception, however, they are also the vehicle of memory, by which experiences are transferred from one generation to the next. Within genres forms of seeing and interpreting the world are accumulated, accommodated and transmitted. With regard to literature, this implies that the development of genres is linked to changes of the modes of perception and that the interpretation of texts is determined by the sets of potential meanings that have been conveyed within the framework of generic conventions. The

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genre is thus a formal agreement between the author and his audience about the framework in which reality is perceived and, consequently, in which the text should be interpreted.2 This basic concept of genre is elaborated in Bakhtin’s famous distinction between the epic and the novel. For Bakhtin the epic is a genre which is confined to the past and which is concerned with the heroic beginnings of nations. It is not an evocation of a historical past, however, but the representation of an absolute past, with a distinct moral component. It is closed off from the present, because it is completed and finished, both in its generic form and in its world-view. The epic world is isolated from personal experiences or personal evaluations, since it consists of immutable values and terminated events. The hero is an integrated character, there is no discrepancy between his essence and its external manifestation. He does not undergo any development, because all components of his personality are there from the beginning. He is a self-contained, schematic person who lives in a self-contained, schematic world. To this static and monolithic type of text Bakhtin juxtaposes the novelistic genres. In his definition, the novel is flexible, characterized by a sense of indeterminacy, a measure of openness and contact with unfinished contemporary reality. The hero is not heroic, but fragmented, showing negative and positive features. He is not a completed person, but develops during the course of the story, a process which can be open-ended and is not necessarily finished in the last chapter. In novels, there is maximal contact with contemporary reality, leading to a view on the future. Novels are not dominated by a single world-view, a centralized perspective or linguistic and formal uniformity. They present a multi-layered, relative reality, seen from various view-points. The epic and novelistic genres represent two opposing world-views. The epic world is ossified and absolute, symbolizing a single, uniform identity, presenting a clear division between good and evil and the subjugation of man to the power of fate. The novelistic world-view is based on the interaction between peoples, cultures and languages, on exchange, relativity and continual transformation. It is directly linked to a delimited movement of time, it acknowledges the possible inadequacy of the hero’s fate and the incongruity of man with himself. The key to the transformation from the epic to the novelistic genre is primarily the confrontation with the other, the extrapolation of meaning from a dialogue between a linguistically and culturally exotic outer world. This dialogism, to be found in the structure of texts, is the source of meaning in the novelistic genre and the basis of its interpretation. According to Bakhtin, the love romance in the Greek-Byzantine guise belongs generically to the group of proto-novels. His analysis of the genre is centred around the concept of the ‘chronotope’, which he defines as the ‘intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature’. In the ‘literary artistic’ chronotope, ‘spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole’, and it is this intersection of time and space that ‘defines genre and generic distinctions, for in literature the primary category in the chronotope is time. The chronotope as a formally constitutive category determines to a significant degree the image of man in literature

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as well. The image of man is always intrinsically chronotopic.’3 Bakhtin continues to examine the Greek love romance sketching a generic pattern which consists of well-known literary stereotypes: the boy and girl of marriageable age, their beauty and chastity, their unexpected meeting and sudden passion, obstacles for their union, separation, obstruction by parents, journeys, dangers and escapes, disguise, presumed deaths, recognition and the final reunion of the lovers in legal marriage. This pattern can of course be extended by various other narrative motifs, but these do not fundamentally alter the narrative strategy of the genre. Within the framework of these events, a spatiotemporal structure is created which, according to Bakhtin, is not in any way related to historical time or space; it should rather be described as an ‘alien world in adventure-time’. This ‘adventuretime’ is characterized by the complete lack of development: the love of the hero does not grow and is not tested; the heroes do not mature or learn about one another, themselves, or the world; there is no psychological growth; in short, there is no ‘biographical time’; the heroes seem to live outside time, in a narrative world which follows only its own logic, which is built of the juxtaposition of narrative episodes that are only used to give an enumeration of events. These components are linked by a system of interruptions: Moments of adventuristic time occur at those points when the normal course of events, the normal, intended or purposeful sequence of life’s events is interrupted. These points provide an opening for the intrusion of non-human forces – fate, gods, villains – and it is precisely these forces, and not the heroes, that in adventure-time take all the initiative. Of course the heroes themselves act in adventure-time – they escape, defend themselves, engage in battle, save themselves – but they act, as it were, as merely physical persons, and the initiative does not belong to them.4 Similarly, the spatial setting of these stories is abstract, with no historical depth; the link between time and space is not of an ‘organic’ but of a purely ‘mechanical’ nature. Space consists of the opposition of proximity and distance, of obstacles and settings for meetings, separations, etcetera, without other connotations. This view of the hero in love romances resembles Todorov’s model of the ‘homme-récit’, who is also propelled by chance and external forces.5 He has no will with which he can change the course of his life, but he has to resign himself to the vicissitudes of Fate. There is no trace of an individual character which develops in a historical setting of space and time. The heroes are no more than the chronotope of the narrative, the prism through which an abstract and alien world is conveyed. Still, within this setting they are solitary, individual persons, with no ties to their surroundings. This seemingly paradoxical idea is explained by Bakhtin in the following way: The novel as a whole is conceived precisely as a test of the heroes. Greek adventure-time [...] leaves no traces – neither in the world nor in human beings. No changes of any consequence occur, internal or external, as a result

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of the events recounted in the novel. At the end of the novel that initial equilibrium that had been destroyed by chance is restored once again. Everything returns to its source, everything returns to its own place. The result of this whole lengthy novel is that – the hero marries his sweetheart. And yet people and things have gone through something, something that did not, indeed, change them, but that did (in a manner of speaking) affirm what they, and precisely they, were as individuals, something that did verify and establish their identity, their durability and continuity. The hammer of events shatters nothing and forges nothing – it merely tries the durability of an already finished product. And the product passes the test.6 In the field of Arabic love romances, it is especially Peter Heath who has attempted to formulate a definition of the genre. He states: the primary theme of romance, a fundamental aspect of the genre’s “informing drive”, investigates the concerns of honour as balanced between the demands of love and social propriety, within the context of Fate: “investigates”, because matters of direction, parameter, and outcome are not necessarily prescribed; “honour”, because this is a concept which represents a convergence between individual and social values; “love”, because this is romance’s dominant, although not exhaustive, realm of human interest and activity, a central arena where one’s “honour” is tested; “social propriety”, because society’s objective rules of conduct must be dealt with [...]; and “Fate”, because it is a prime postulate of the genre that poetic justice exists, that there is a suprahuman force rewarding those who adhere to honour’s dictates and punishing those who do not.7 According to Heath, while the narrative unfolds, the heroes experience ‘developmental progressions within moral and psychological matrices, movements from innocence to experience, ignorance to knowledge, naiveté to maturity’.8 They are as a rule detached from their social environment, so that they are in a state where ‘they have only themselves to rely on, where they must truly assume full responsibility for the decisions they make, where they themselves must define the identity they assume’.9 In the end ‘the protagonists are no longer defined by external criteria such as family, geographical location, or social context. It is they, through the experience of their trials, who have now established these aspects of their identities through their own exertions, decisions and qualifications’.10 It seems, then, that Heath confirms not only the individuality of the heroes, as narrative agents, but also their ability to develop, to change, to mature and to shape their own identity. Nevertheless, perhaps paradoxically, Heath stresses the importance of Fate, ‘the guiding force of romance’s world’, which tests the hero’s integrity and character. The many occasions of chance and coincidence are used to affirm a ‘Divine Plan’, to show that ‘order and organization, not chaos, prevail in the world. And this, the genre affirms, is why the tales are worth telling’.11

64 Marginality, individuality and the traveller This brief summary of some theoretical issues related to the analysis of love romances shows that interpretation has to focus on the relationship between individual and society, space and time and the opposition between Fate and free will, predestination and contingency. It is these issues that are vital to the broader question of the kind of genre to which the romances should pertain. To examine these questions, we will now turn to one of the most significant love romances of the Thousand and one nights, which at the same time represents a model of the genre and stands out because of its literary merits: the story of Qamar al-Zama- n and Budu- r, followed by its continuation, the story of As‘ad and Amjad. We will focus on the spatial aspects of the narrative, both in their formal and metaphoric functions.

The romantic hero and his landscape: the story of Qamar al-Zama-n The story of Qamar al-Zama- n12 consists of two main components; firstly, the story of the love between prince Qamar al-Zama-n and princess Budu-r, and secondly, the adventures of the two sons of Qamar al-Zama-n, As‘ad and Amjad. Within the latter part a love story is inserted, the story of Ni‘ma and Nu‘m.13 Especially the first story falls into the category of the love romance, with some specific features; the second follows the scheme of the romance, but is still somewhat different from the stereotype. The story of Qamar al-Zama.n begins with the king of the Kha-lida-n Islands expressing his fear that his empire will fall into ruin since he has reached old age and does not yet have a successor. However, due to the will of God, he begets a son, whom he calls Qamar al-Zama-n. When Qamar al-Zama-n has reached his adolescence, the king suggests that he should marry, in order to secure the continuation of the dynasty. To his great dismay, however, the boy refuses adamantly, claiming that he abhors women. After persisting in his refusal, he is finally locked up in one of the towers of the palace. Far away, on the other side of China, lies the island empire ruled by King Ghayu-r. He has a stunningly beautiful daughter, who, in spite of her father’s insistence, refuses to marry any of her many suitors. Furious, the king puts his daughter into confinement. The two episodes are clearly mirrored: Qamar al-Zama-n and Budu-r are each other’s reflection, and this determines their fate. They are brought together by two ugly jinn, see each other briefly, fall deeply in love, exchange rings and are separated again. As a result of the separation from their beloved, after such a brief moment of bliss, both Qamar al-Zama-n and Budu-r pine away from grief. They are thought to have become mad and are put into seclusion. Budu-r’s brother Marzuwa-n hears of his sister’s illness and decides to help her. He penetrates her cell disguised in women’s clothes, discovers the true nature of her illness and promises her to find her beloved. He travels to faraway lands and eventually, after a shipwreck, is cast away on the shore of the castle where Qamar al-Zama-n is imprisoned. He succeeds in healing Qamar al-Zama-n by promising to take him to Budu-r, and without informing his father, Qamar al-Zama-n follows him to his land. They conceive

Marginality, individuality and the traveller 65 a ruse to make Qamar al-Zaman’s father believe that his son is dead, leaving bloody traces to pretend that he has been killed by a lion. Once they have arrived in al-Ghayu-r’s capital, Marzuwa-n instructs Qamar al-Zama-n to disguise himself as a soothsayer, go to the palace and claim that he is able to cure the princess. Qamar al-Zama-n obeys and succeeds in healing Budu-r with a letter in which her ring is concealed. In a very fine, although not very subtle passage, it is told how the princess breaks her iron chains through the sheer force of her love, and embraces her beloved. After a while, Qamar al-Zama-n expresses the wish to return to his father and introduce Budu-r to him, and the couple depart for the long journey. While resting on the way, however, Qamar al-Zama-n cannot resist untying Budu-r’s clothes while she lies asleep beside him, and he finds a precious gem hidden inside her trousers. While Qamar al-Zama-n looks at the gem, it is suddenly taken away by a bird. Chasing the bird Qamar al-Zama-n loses his way and ends up in a strange town. It is a town of fire-worshippers, but fortunately the prince is given shelter by one of the few Muslims living there, who employs him as a gardener. After Budu-r discovers the disappearance of her lover, she decides to disguise herself in Qamar al-Zama-n’s clothes to keep the situation secret and to protect herself. Eventually, she arrives at the court of the king of the Ebony Islands, who asks her/ him to marry his daughter H.aya-t al-Nufu-s and inherit his throne. Budu-r agrees out of fear of being discovered and she becomes king of the Ebony Islands. In the final episode of the story the two lovers are miraculously re-united. Qamar al-Zama-n retrieves the gem, which he hides in sacks of olives that are loaded in a ship bound for the world of Islam. However, the ship departs without him, because he attends to his protector who has fallen ill and dies. The olives are brought to Budu-r, who discovers the gem and sends a ship to fetch Qamar al-Zama-n. The circumstances of the reunion are told in a playful and somewhat scabrous passage, when Budu-r, still in men’s clothes and unrecognized, invites Qamar al-Zama-n to illicit sexual acts, which at first he refuses, before complying reluctantly. Evidently, soon he discovers Budu-r’s true identity and quickly all intrigues are unravelled: all characters assume their true identities, Qamar al-Zama-n becoming king of the Ebony Islands, with Budu-r and H.aya-t al-Nufu-s as his wives. A situation of normality has been restored, at least to some extent. The structure of the story of Qamar al-Zama- n is similar to that of many other love romances. First, there is the threat to the stability of the dynasty and to the continuation of the structure of royal rule. When the threat seems to be removed by the birth of a son, a second disruption appears when the son refuses to accommodate to the regular system of social and dynastic reproduction. Instead of complying with the laws governing his position and role, the prince dissociates himself from the conventions on which the preservation of the structure is based. The confrontation between Qamar al-Zama-n’s individuality and the system of conventions, completed by his romantic love for Budu-r, immediately results in his isolation from the system. By his refusal, the prince has become a marginal person, who operates outside the laws of the established order. The same applies to princess Budu-r, whose marginality is stressed by contrasting her imprisonment

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to the seven palaces that have been built for her to support her role in the reproduction of the kingship. However, this situation in which the two protagonists are segregated from their conventional roles seems to preclude any solution. The system of conventions is rigid and unable to generate a solution for this kind of internal disruption. Nobody can heal the prince and the princess, since the cause of the illness is external, or, perhaps more accurately, it is caused by the rigidity and isolation of the system of conventions itself. What is necessary is an intervention from outside to break the stagnancy and have the mechanisms start functioning again. It is here that Marzuwa-n appears. Marzuwa-n has three characteristics: he is fond of travelling, he understands the nature of love and he is able to change roles at will. Although he is a marginal character within the narrative, he is in fact the only one capable of breaking the deadlock, since he represents the forces of movement and flexibility opposing the stagnant forces of the vested order. Marzuwa-n enters the ‘margin’ to which Budu-r is confined, disguised as a woman, because the domain of the marginal cannot be entered in any normal way, so he has to become ‘marginal’ himself. Similarly, he succeeds in meeting Qamar al-Zama-n only because he suffers shipwreck and is led to him by the hand of fate. In order to save Budu-r, Qamar al-Zama-n has to go even deeper into his marginal role, feigning to have died to mislead his father – the ultimate disguise – and pretending to be a soothsayer to be able to approach and heal the princess. It is here that the first phase of marginalization ends. The prince and princess temporarily assume their normal roles. The second motif that derives from the generic conventions of this kind of stories is the separation of the two lovers. Here too, the themes of marginality and disguise are key elements in the narrative structure. The two beloved are separated through a gem, whose various symbolic connotations will be discussed below. Their separation once again immediately results in their marginalization. Qamar al-Zama-n loses his identity completely and hides himself in a hostile environment in the guise of a simple gardener. Budu-r, too, quickly changes roles, because as a woman without a man she has become unprotected and vulnerable. Ironically, she disguises her marginal position as a woman by putting on Qamar al-Zama-n’s clothes, thus taking over his role. Again, the positions of the two lovers are mirrored by the change of roles, the prince turning into a humble worker, while the socially weaker woman assumes a powerful position, confirmed by her marriage to the princess of the Ebony Islands and her accession to the throne. Thus, the prince, who essentially is not marginal, becomes a marginal person, while the princess from being essentially marginal becomes part of the core, due to her disguise. The third element of the generic conventions of the love romance is of course the reunion of the lovers. With a fine sense of deferment of the plot’s ending, the disguises and the marginal roles linked to them are gradually thrown off, the regular identities are restored and the lovers return to their state of bliss. The roles of the various characters are fitted into the regular, lawful system, protected by convention, although the prince still has not returned to his father’s empire and the final reintegration is still postponed.

Marginality, individuality and the traveller 67 The story of Qamar al-Zama- n is structured as a journey. The transitions between the various phases of the story are marked by the crossing of boundaries which separate spatial and symbolic worlds. In fact, since the story is for the main part written in the form of a journey, spatial representations are the main structural turning-points in the story and a key to its interpretation. First, both the empires are located on islands. Evidently, islands are symbols of a peripheral world which can only be reached by a perilous journey over the sea and which is isolated not only geographically, but also socially and culturally. It is a world where monolithic systems can survive since the influence from other societies is minimal. There is little structural interaction with other societies, unlike the situation on the mainland. On the other hand, however, because it is surrounded by precarious seas, the island society is vulnerable to the vicissitudes of fate, both in the positive and in the negative sense. Islands are places where heroes of tales end up by coincidence, not on purpose, in order to meet their destiny. It is the place where human society and social structures are at least partly shaped by the hand of fate.14 The second significant space in the story is the council hall, in which the king summons his son to accept a suitable marriage candidate. As the vizier indicates, a refusal in this ambience is of a completely different order than simple disobedience of a son towards his father. The council hall is the ‘container’ of the authority of the dynasty and the state. Qamar al-Zama-n’s marriage is no longer a personal affair; it has become a matter of the state and a condition for the preservation of the imperial structure. This authority is inescapably expressed by locking up the prince in the tower, when he still refuses to obey. Imprisonment is the ultimate restriction of the individual will, the imposition of collective authority upon a person, making it impossible to fulfil or even to strive to fulfil personal aims. Moreover, by putting Qamar al-Zama-n into a tower which is so desolate that it is only inhabited by jinn, the father/ state is minimizing the possibility of interference from outside. Thus, the imprisonment symbolizes the view of self-sufficiency that the system has of itself and its laws, its essential introversion which leads to stagnancy. It is precisely in this situation of seemingly inescapable confinement that the element of the journey, of mobility, is introduced. The jinni who has just arrived from the other side of the world is struck by the resemblance between Qamar al-Zama-n and Budu-r. As we have seen in other stories, likeness produces attraction; it reveals forms of unity, while at the same time indicating a differentiation. The unity is symbolized by love; the differentiation is reflected in the enormous distance separating the two lovers. The typical function of a boundary, creating a difference and a link, is introduced in a similar way as in the stories of Shahraza- d and Shahriya- r’ and Sindba- d of the sea, and will be one of the dynamic elements of the story, imposing inevitably a conflict between immobility and mobility. The discovery of the resemblance and chemistry of love generate the desire to travel. Finally, a boundary consists of the remains of the animal which Marzuwa-n and Qamar al-Zama-n slaughter to mislead their pursuers. They symbolize a separation

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between two worlds, the world of Qamar al-Zama-n’s father and the authority and system associated with him, and the new world that Qamar al-Zama-n is entering in the pursuit of his love. The feigning of death is not only a disguise or a symbol; it will also prevent Qamar al-Zama-n’s father from continuing his search and from encroaching upon the world that Qamar al-Zama-n has now demarcated as his own. However, to reach his beloved, within this world, the prince has to cross two more boundaries, first to penetrate into the seclusion of the imprisoned princess, then to ensure that she recognizes him, by showing her the ring. The ring is not the only object symbolizing the separation and subsequent reunion of the lovers, creating and dissolving an essential boundary. The gem found in Budu-r’s trousers has the same function. It separates Qamar al-Zama-n from the princess, because he wants to make love to her without her consent, and it re-unites him with her in the end, when the transitional phase has been completed. The gem, as a symbol, can be interpreted in various ways. It may represent the desire for material treasures which leads Qamar al-Zama-n away from his love, to the real treasure he will find in the city of the Magians. It may also represent Budu-r’s womanhood, which is taken away by Qamar al-Zama-n, enabling her to change into a man, and is given back to her in the end, preparing the playful sexual dénouement, where the two lovers regain their true sexuality. The gem represents not only a symbolic boundary, however, but also a spatial one, since it leads Qamar al-Zama-n away to an unknown land in which he becomes trapped for several years. It is another kind of imprisonment, in a new role, expressed not by the forces of paternal authority, but by the forces of fate, which rule this disorderly world. Qamar al-Zama-n’s situation is mirrored by that of Budu-r, who becomes trapped in her own disguise. This disguise is the final boundary that has to be crossed, and Budu-r’s erotic game is the ritual that accompanies Qamar al-Zama-n’s return into the regular world and the elimination of disguises, false boundaries and fake roles. Moreover, the homoerotic inclinations that have been suggested at the beginning of the story, by Qamar al-Zaman’s dislike of women, have now convincingly been eliminated. After this summary of the story and its structure, the significance of the motifs of individuality and disguise become clear. The incentive to tell the story is the confrontation between the individual personality and the inflexibility of conventions. The conflict is symbolized by the intervention of romantic love as opposed to a pre-arranged marriage, a force which shakes the foundations of the established order and which paralyzes the process of reproduction. This paralysis is healed by travelling, as opposed to the stagnancy of the internal order, bringing two systems in contact with each other. The liaison that results from this contact is not a metaphor of subjugation or imperial expansion, as in the case of epics. It is a conjugation accepted out of free will, out of the necessity to renew the cycle of reproduction. As long as the forces of love are not incorporated into the formal system, but governed by free choice, the characters operate outside the established order; they are marginalized, pushed out of their normal roles into marginality, because in the core there is no place for the anarchic impact of passion. Soon it becomes clear, however, that this marginalization is in fact a transitional

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phase, governed by its own conventions, which are in essence unpredictable and subject to the vicissitudes of life, as opposed to the regulated, pre-arranged order of the imperial dynasty. It enables the two lovers to undergo some stages of development which will ultimately prepare them for their re-integration into the system. In this process of transition and marginalization, disguise and the changing of roles are of crucial significance, since they enable the characters not only to overcome their marginality, but in fact to make use of the power with which it endows them. Especially the temporary metamorphosis of Budu-r shows how the phase of marginality allows her to play with the regular relations of power, which is possible only because both lovers find themselves outside the reach of the structuring hierarchies of conventions. Budu-r utilizes her disguise to exploit the opportunities offered to her by her marginality, to acquire powers which would otherwise have been beyond her reach as a woman. This is symbolized by her bold sexual initiative towards the prince. The confrontation between the laws of convention and Qamar al-Zama-n’s personal inclination would define the prince, as a character in the narrative, as not a mere puppet in the system, but a very distinct personality. He does not automatically act according to the schemes that have been laid out for him beforehand, but follows his own preferences and choices. Qamar al-Zama-n’s individuality is confirmed by his love for Budu-r, who is the opposite of a woman who is forced upon the prince by the laws of convention, just in order to preserve the social and reproductive order; Budu-r is chosen by Qamar al-Zama-n himself, she is singled out by him because of her beauty and loveliness, without any political, dynastic, diplomatic or strategic considerations. The characterization of the relationship between the two beloved as a bond between two individuals on the basis of free choice, is emphasized by their chastity when they meet for the first time. Throughout the story their love is reserved for the other. Evidently, the processes of transformation that are depicted in the narrative are inextricably linked to the juxtaposition of spaces and the opposition between mobility and immobility. The central metaphor structuring the ‘chronotope’ of the narrative in the formal sense is the journey, which provides the story not only with its spatiotemporal framework, but also with its narrative dynamism. But before we proceed to analyse this aspect of the story in more detail, we will first discuss the second part of the story, the adventures of As‘ad and Amjad, the sons of Qamar al-Zam‘an.

As‘ad and Amjad When the first part of the story of Qamar al-Zama- n ends, the heroes are still on an island, and this spatial peculiarity indicates that the story does not really end here. Qamar al-Zama-n has reached a third island empire during his peregrinations and this has to be somehow fitted into the configuration of the two other kingdoms. The open ending suggests that the equilibrium between the forces of individuality and social conventions is not yet sufficiently restored. This is due to two

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problems which have not yet satisfactorily been resolved: Qamar al-Zama-n has two wives, which is an anomaly in a romantic love story; and in the final dénouement of the story it is not the prince but Budu-r who holds the reins of power. It is she who arranges their reunion, who assumes the dominant sexual role in their erotic ‘unmasking’ and who invests him with the power that should have been his all the time, without her intervention, without the humiliating inversion of roles. Of course, the ‘emancipation’ of Budu-r may be the major theme of the story and the whole process of transition, marginalization and disguise may be just a metaphor for Qamar al-Zama-n’s growing consciousness and appreciation of the true nature of Budu-r. If there is a personal development in the story, it may be that Budu-r and Qamar al-Zama-n confirm their equality in their relationship, in spite of social conventions. The sequence of the story may have been added because this ending was not deemed satisfactory. As for Qamar al-Zama-n having two wives, this may just have been a device to clear up all the loose ends of the story, or to smoothe the passage to the other story. As a plot, it is not very elegant, however, and it prevents a re-incorporation of the characters into the regular system. Therefore, a reconciliation of Qamar al-Zama-n with his father, which is of course the final, unavoidable dénouement of the story, is not yet possible. The continuation of the story of Qamar al-Zama- n, the story of As‘ad and Amjad, is a complete story in itself, not embedded as a separate story, but linked to it on the same level.15 The story begins with the two wives of Qamar al-Zama-n each giving birth to a son, named As‘ad and Amjad respectively. When the two boys have reached the age of adolescence, both women fall passionately in love with the son of the other. The boys refuse to respond to their advances, however, and the women take revenge by telling Qamar al-Zama-n that they have been raped by them. Qamar al-Zama- n subsequently sentences the two boys to death. The boys are taken into the forest to be killed, but the execution fails and they succeed in escaping in secret. From here a journey starts which takes them to an unknown world, segregated from their country by mountains and forests. After some time they arrive at a bifurcation of the road, leading into a mountainous area. They choose one of the roads, but soon have to retrace their steps, since the road leads only to desolate wastelands. The other road, however, takes them to a spring with a pomegranate tree and a prayer niche. These enable the two brothers to survive and to continue their journey. On the other side of the mountains, they see a city in the distance and As‘ad decides to enter it, hoping to find water and food. Roaming through the streets on his way to the souk, As‘ad meets an old man, who persuades him to follow him to his home, promising a delicious feast. The man is a Magian, however, who locks As‘ad up in a cellar and has him tortured every day. After a while, Amjad becomes worried and enters the city in search of his brother. He, too, roams through the streets. Eventually, he meets a Muslim who protects him against the Magians. Some time afterwards, however, Amjad is seduced by a woman in the street. He follows her through the alleys and ends up in a strange house. Soon the evil intent of the girl becomes clear and she is subsequently killed by Amjad,

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who by doing so saves the life of the owner of the house. When the case is brought before the king, Amjad is appointed vizier, and after some adventures, As‘ad is freed and the two brothers are reunited. In the meantime, their father, Qamar al-Zama-n, has found out the truth about the betrayal of his two wives. He sets out to find his sons and is reconciled with them. Then, as the final strand of the story, Qamar al-Zama-n is reunited with his own father. All the available thrones are distributed among the sons and grandsons, so that not only the continuity of the dynasty is preserved, but the empire has gained new territories and new dynastic relationships. Remarkably, Budu-r returns to the island of her father, without punishment, together with her son Amjad, who inherits the throne. H.aya-t al-Nufu-s, Qamar al-Zama-n’s second wife, is no longer mentioned, although As‘ad, her son, becomes king of the Ebony Islands. Now the saga of Qamar al-Zama-n and his family can come to a conclusion. The various peregrinations have ended, and the heroes have reached their destination. As in the story of Qamar al-Zama- n, the journey of As‘ad and Amjad has all the characteristics of a process of individual growth. Here, too, the story describes the development of the hero from a state of innocence, protected by the palace walls, to a specific knowledge of the world and the achievement of a new equilibrium which includes the outside. Here, too, the experiences of the two brothers prepare them for their future roles as kings. There is one important difference, however, since the process of individuation is not, as in the case of Qamar al-Zama-n, instigated by personal choice, but rather forced upon them by the treachery of their mothers. The idea that the story of As‘ad and Amjad describes a process of individuation and the deployment of a personality is strengthened by the striking resemblance of the motifs of the story to the theories of the French structuralist psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Of course the theories of Lacan are only one of many views of the process of individuation and the formation of the consciousness of identity, but an association of them with our story may be elucidating if we want to analyse the tension between individuality and conventions in this particular story. It may also show the internal coherence of the story, in relation to the story to which it is attached. The theory of Lacan, summarized in chapter four, centres around the growth of a child’s self-awareness in the first years of its life. This process can be marked by two transitions: the entering of the ‘imaginary’ phase, and, later, the entering of the ‘symbolic’ phase. The first transition occurs when a child discovers that it is, physically, a separate person, through the confrontation with its mirror image. The symmetry gives the child a sense of space, which, although virtual, determines its consciousness of a self separated from its surroundings and of the boundaries of its ego. This phase is dominated by the bi-polar relation between the child and its mother. The second phase of development is the child’s entry into the realm of language, signs and social exchange. The child has to find its place in a ‘symbolic’ world, which is defined by language and which contains the codes that shape its sense of the outer world. Gradually, the child becomes acquainted with the systems of meaning, identity and power, as they are defined by culture and social relations.

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The starting point for the transition to the second phase, according to Lacan, is the development of the incest taboo and the subsequent flight from the mother. The bi-polar relation of the imaginary phase is broken, resulting in a sense of alienation, which forces the child to establish its relations with the outside world. The mother-child symbiosis is now replaced by a triad relationship including the father. The entering of the symbolic phase is thus simultaneously a submission to the rules that govern language – the domain of the signifier and signified – and to the laws of the father which are vested in the predominance of language. It is these rules which force the child to restrain his desires and learn to organize them in accordance with socially acceptable terms. Only when the laws imposed by the threefold authority of language, the father and the incest taboo have been internalized is the process of individuation completed. The child has come to terms with the system of social relations and is able to define its identity within the system of symbolic meaning.16 This brief summary of Lacan’s ideas on the formative phases of the individual personality shows a remarkable congruity with the main motifs of the story of As‘ad and Amjad. First, there is the mirror image, the two inseparable half-brothers who can be seen as a double image of the same personality. It is only in the hostile city that the two are separated temporarily, until they are re-united under the wings of the true Faith; second, the incest taboo is the motif that sets the story in motion and which is the cause of the brothers’ separation from their home and their subsequent quest; third, it is the father who intervenes and breaks up the symbiosis between mother and child. It is he who imposes the sanctity of the incest taboo and uses his authority to preserve it; fourth, the journey of the two brothers symbolizes their alienation from their social surroundings and social identity. They penetrate an unfamiliar, hostile world, culminating in the labyrinth of the city, and become marginal and estranged; fifth, the city is full of physical enticements, such as delicious food and beautiful girls. The two brothers follow their desires and enter a tumultuous episode of kidnapping and torture; sixth, the laws of social authority, the law of the incest taboo and the suppression of desires is recognized and accepted, recovering the heroes from their false tracks and their erroneous identification with their surroundings; finally, the two heroes emerge victoriously from their trials and are re-united, not only with each other, but also with their father. The process of individuation is completed and normal relations are restored. As in the case of Qamar al-Zama-n, the themes of marginality, disguise and individuality seem highly relevant to the story of As‘ad and Amjad. The process of individuation, sparked off by the supposed violation of the incest taboo, turns As‘ad and Amjad into marginal characters, roaming aimlessly in a hostile world, without any status, identity or protection. The marginal roles are reinforced by their feigned death to mislead their father, the torture of As‘ad by the fireworshippers and Amjad’s disguise as a tailor and as a notable, when he is seduced by the beautiful girl. These roles signify their alienation: by their symbolic death they leave their old personalities behind, including their relationship with their parents and their identity prescribed by convention and heritage. Their marginal

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status is finally lifted when they are safely reunited and ultimately reintegrated into, first, the system of moral values imposed by the Faith, and, second, the dynastic system of their kingdom. Again, the marginal status, symbolized by disguise and the change of roles, is a phase in a process of transition, which ultimately leads to the formal restoration of the previous status. Apart from the growth to self-awareness of the two heroes, implicitly a second process is completed: the predominant influence of the women in the household of Qamar al-Zama-n is restrained and the integrity of patriarchal authority is restored. It was the women who caused the estrangement of Qamar al-Zama-n from his father and of As‘ad and Amjad from their father; it is the reconciliation of these men that pushes the women back to the margin. Remarkably, in the final dénouement, only Budu-r reappears, and she is sent back to her native land. The dynasty is saved. It is not saved by warfare, force or subjugation, however, but by the completion of phases in the personal development of individuals, by the fertile interaction between conventions and individual aspirations and by the interruption of social patterns.

The spatial dimension Travelling implies first of all separation, the dissociation from the familiar environment and social relationships. By departing, the traveller creates a ‘difference’, not only a distance in space, but also a fracturing of the regular patterns of life. Leed has described the act of farewell as educational and profitable, as a kind of ‘psychological birth’ of the individual. The traveller uses his departure as a ‘recapitulation’ of his personal and social history, to define his own position within the structures in which he is embedded. Here we see the opposition between the forces of immobility and those of mobility: the place of birth is associated with questions of identity, with the preservation of specific models, which are resistant to change. It is inherently inclined to reproduction in the form of cloning existing patterns and prescribed social roles. Travelling is a way to escape these predetermined matrices and to challenge, or at least to examine, the inherited system of boundaries and hierarchies. In fact, departure itself is already an effort to draw a new boundary, to dislodge the existing ones, since after a departure, nothing will ever be the same again.17 Travelling is thus an expression of individuality, of creating a differentiation between the individual self and the ‘social’ self. Travelling is the deployment of a budding Ego; the confrontation of the Ego with an outer world which is not organized according to familiar codes. It implies exposing the self to communication with others, to the codes of others, and to the perspective of others, to different forms of inclusion and exclusion. The world-view of Qamar al-Zama-n’s father represents a self-sufficient, enclosed space, symbolized essentially by the prison in which he holds his son. Qamar al-Zama-n introduces a new, dynamic, sense of space, breaking through existing boundaries, including new dimensions and eventually incorporating new lands in the empire. It is individuality that brings this new dynamism into the empire, symbolized by the act of travelling.

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The travelling, in turn, is engendered by desire and love: ‘Love and desire confuse the boundaries between subject and object, and between self and other, often dividing the soul into two in a movement that seeks to incorporate part of the self into the object of desire, and then bring the parts together in a more inclusive alliance’.18 Travelling is the means to enable a character to project an Ego on a set of spaces, or a spatial organization, to impregnate space with personal. The character changes spatial structures and appropriates them in order to be able to identify with personal space and reach a proper place. But during this process the personality that was hidden inside develops into its final shape. If we view the stories of Qamar al-Zama- n and ‘As‘ad and Amjad’ from the perspective of the idea of the chronotope, we can see first of all that the story is constructed as a juxtaposition of various spaces. The spaces are not described mimetically, as realistic settings of the events, but rather as settings explaining specific situations of the story, which are related to the conditions of the protagonists. What is important are the circumstances such as imprisonment, distance, separations, meetings, mobility, etc., which are linked to the perspective of the heroes. One can say that, in both stories, spaces stretch and contract according to the phase in which the heroes find themselves. Spaces are not neutral settings in which the heroes roam; they are projections of the hero’s feelings, they are the road signs on the way to the hero’s destiny. Spaces are not significant in themselves, they are important in the sequence of the hero’s life, in his transformation. With the transformation of the hero, they are transformed, too. In the end, the journey has resulted in a re-ordering of space with which the congruity of personality and space is achieved. His life is directed at this process of integration: bringing harmony between his individual condition, his social function, and his spatial environment. Spaces are thus subjected to the experiences of the hero, they are moulded to the narrative logic with which his personality is built up. This is why it is not necessary to use spatial descriptions in a referential way, to suggest a realistic setting. Space and time are compressed into the metaphor of the journey, they are, as it were, replaced by the metaphorical concept of the journey, to enable them to be permanently reshaped and transformed. Mimetic references do not add anything to the meaning of the story, because what is intended is not to give a realistic account, but to create a symbolic subtext, which contains the essence of the ‘truth’ that has to be conveyed. Maybe this is best illustrated by the way in which the Turkish author Orhan Pamuk has described the difference between Islamic miniature painting and European conventions of mimesis in his novel My name is red: for Muslim painters truth or veracity was produced not so much by a mimetic representation of the outer appearance, but rather by depicting an inner essence. To depict this inner essence, referential descriptions are useless; what is important is diversity, the juxtaposition of spaces of different qualities, differentiations, systems of boundaries. It is these systems of boundaries and the place the hero has within them that determine the phases of the development of the hero, which reveal the ‘truth’ about him. The diversity of spaces is again related to forms of the body-double, of the composite nature of the world as reflected in the characters of the heroes.

Marginality, individuality and the traveller 75 An analysis of the story of Qamar al-Zama- n and its sequence, the story of As‘ad and Amjad, seems to lead to the conclusion that these romances are already remote from the predominance of epic generic conventions, as defined by Bakhtin. They seem to allow an escape from the monolithic, one-dimensional world through the intervention of free will and the prevalence of free choice. It can be discussed whether the adventures of the heroes are still determined by the all-powerful forces of Fate, or the ordinances of the true Faith. Of course, in the end everything takes its normal course, the regular systems governing life are restored and it seems that the narrator of the story wants to say that some principle is always returning the course of events to their pre-established pattern, that some hidden rationale – Fate or Faith – is bound to restore harmony and the stability of the social structure. However, this seems not to be the reason why the story was conceived in the first place, because the raison d’être of the story is the interruption of the normal course of events, the fact that not everything fits neatly into the pre-arranged patterns and systems, and that ultimately the reproduction of patterns is secured not so much by fate, but rather by processes of individual deployment and the growth of self-awareness. The regular structure of social relations and hierarchies is presented as much as a disguise as the various marginal roles; before our protagonists can take on this disguise, they have to experience other disguises and discover their true identity. Thus, the main theme of the stories is not the cycle of harmony and regularity, but conversely, the cycle of individuality and irregularity. This means that the protagonists have gained something; their personality, their social status and even their royal status is not the same as before their adventures. They have travelled to ‘smooth’ spaces to be initiated into the structures of ordered spaces, and they have incorporated a vision of spatial differentiation. This interpretation should be linked to the framing story of the Thousand and one nights. In the story of Shahraza- d and Shahriya- r the themes of individuality, disguise and marginality are prominently present. By setting in motion the vicious cycle of sexuality and death, Shahriya-r establishes a system which forcefully drives women to the margin of society and which is based on a monolithic view of male authority and dominance. He has no regard for the value of individual persons and the positive sides of individuality. It is clear that this cycle can only lead to doom and that it will destroy the empire without being able to secure its reproduction. This system of conventions, if one may call it that, is challenged by Shahraza-d. As in the stories themselves, here too salvation derives from the interaction between the margin and the core. As a woman, Shahraza-d’s position is profoundly marginal, but she assumes a specific role to penetrate into the core and, with her individual talents, break the pattern of destruction. It is of course no coincidence that it is by telling stories that Shahraza-d is able to challenge the rules of convention and even absolute male power. From the beginning it is made explicit that stories have a didactic function, that they can teach the listeners/ readers things about the world and about ways to behave. The main lesson that Shahraza-d wants to convey to Shahriya-r, in order to cure him of his obsession, is that his world-view is too simplified and rigid. She wants to show him the

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complexity of the world and human existence and the possibility of making different choices in specific circumstances. She teaches him that no system can prevent the unexpected from happening or people from acting according to their own personal preferences. Thus, the fact that he has been deceived by his wife should not be countered by imposing a rigid system of authority on society, but by a multi-layered world-view in which room is left for the unexpected and for individual choices. Shahriya-r’s aberrant outlook is juxtaposed to a representation of the world as containing countless meanings and possibilities, many different solutions to problems, many different kinds of people, perspectives and experiences. It is by introducing him to this multidimensional world that she saves him from his fixation on sexuality and death. It is through an exchange of multifarious experiences, comprised in life-stories and tales and, ultimately, through the principle of dialogue that a new interpretation of events is made possible. This dialogic structure is not only found in the stories themselves, or in the suggestion that they are told to the king, but also in the relation between the stories and the frame-story. It indicates that the chain of stories is endless, that they present versions of events that are directly relevant to the reader/ listener and that will enable him to revise his world-view and make him less vulnerable to deceit. In this way Shahriya-r is lured out of his epic world and gradually transformed into an individual. This process of transformation also defines the process of storytelling. First, Shahraza-d takes on a disguise, because, as a story-teller, she is part of another, imaginary world; the story itself is a ‘world in disguise’. Second, the confrontation of the individual with the system of conventions is, in this perspective, at the very heart of storytelling: it is the main reason for inventing and telling stories. Third, stories are intended to show the two sides of marginalization and to restore the ties between the marginal and the core; they structure the relations between the individual and the social world and dislodge the fossilized predominance of the latter in the epic world-view. Fourth, storytelling is part of present reality and not confined to the past, since it provides various models for the interpretation of reality. It is because of this characterization of storytelling that the quintessence of the novelistic genre, as defined by Bakhtin, can be found in several stories of the Thousand and one nights.

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In the previous chapters, we have seen various examples of how spatial representations are manipulated to convey a development of personalities and an expansion of the Ego in space within a narrative logic. It is clear, however, that the deployment of individuality and the shaping of individual visions of the world are always related to societies and communities. The refusal of Qamar al-Zama-n to marry in accordance with his father’s wishes is not only an act of revolt marking his ‘birth’ as an individual, it also threatens the very survival of a dynasty and a community. The purport of the story is not only an interest in the Werdegang of one individual, it is the individual’s role in the context of social relations and the stability of the society as a whole that are at stake. In the end the balance is restored when the hero returns home, bringing a new spatial organization of the world in harmony with the requirements of the conventions of his society. In the words of Steven Hutchinson: ‘More and more, the way out leads back home, losses are restored, wrongs are righted, the youth lost to society find themselves in others and return transformed and ready to renew the social order. [...] The journey in these novels circumvents and escapes social institutions only to reaffirm them’.1 But this re-affirmation can only be achieved after the hero has established his value as an individual and has gained something during his travels. Individual spaces are thus related to collective spaces, and the interaction between the two is what essentially shapes spatial visions in general. Collective visions of space are constructed out of the multiplicity of individual visions, out of the common denominators of various perspectives, a consensus about what the material world looks like when viewed from different angles. These collective views are recorded in all kinds of texts, ranging from scholarly treatises to poetry and fictional narratives, from religious texts to inscriptions in monuments and landmarks, from legal texts to historical accounts. They are part of an imagined geography by means of which the world is ordered and organized, or of various geographies which overlap and influence one another. Within these geographical constructions, journeys are intended first as a form of exploration, second as a form of confirmation, and third as a form of incorporation. In all cases, the traveller is in agreement with his society; he is sent out to re-explore the existing geography of the world, perhaps add some new domains, and report truthfully to his audience.

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We have seen, too, that in fictional narratives of the kind that is treated here, spatiotemporal structures are more often than not part of a subtext, a layer in the text that gives coherence to the themes and that breaks through the surface in the form of specific motifs. The theme is related in spatiotemporal terms, as if life itself is reduced to a permanent negotiation between mind and space, as the symbols of soul and matter. Spaces reflect inner conditions of the hero and only in the second instance conditions of the material world. Descriptions are subjected to functions, not meant as representations. Still, they are ever-present, they are the parts from which societies are constituted, and they are the inescapable accompaniment of emotions, thoughts, beliefs and ideologies. This is the reason why these spiritual conditions are so often expressed in spatial metaphors, and why life, as the quintessential manifestation of time, is linked to the idea of the journey. The journey, or space in general, has a distinct metaphoric value and is part of extensive systems of metaphors which imbue texts, representations and visions of reality. There is no individual life without a wide range of spatial visions, and there is no community without standardized visions of space, and the two overlap partly in the domain of metaphor. In this chapter we will look more closely at the relationship between text and subtext, directing our attention mainly to the concept of the metaphor, as part of the mechanisms for the construction of spaces in narratives. We will discuss three particular stories in which a specific spatial setting plays a decisive role: the city. In recent years, the perception of the nature of metaphors, as they occur in speech and texts, has been radically revised and the debate has acquired an unprecedented complexity. In brief, three approaches should be distinguished. In the ‘traditional’ view, metaphor is seen as a linguistic anomaly, a distortion of the ‘truth’, which is conveyed by literal language. This view considered metaphors as a subject not worth discussing, but scholarly interest in the phenomenon of metaphor was revived after it was represented not as an anomaly, but as a regular linguistic device to convey meaning. By connecting two otherwise unrelated semantic fields and juxtaposing specific words with their semantic spectra, a new meaning is constructed. This meaning is not seen as deviant from normal linguistic usages; it could also have been formulated by using merely literal language; the traditional, linguistic, approach and the semantic approach, based on semantic fields, have been contested by the advocates of a conceptualist view of metaphor. According to them, there is no distinction between ‘literal’ and ‘metaphoric’ language. Metaphors are an expression of concepts which are a structural part of our perception of the world and are defined as coherent sets of experiences. The effect of a metaphor is realized by expressing elements belonging to a certain concept in terms of another concept. As a result of a ‘mapping’ procedure of the qualities associated with one concept (the ‘source domain’) onto those of another concept (the ‘target domain’), a variety of structurally linked expressions and images appear, which pervade texts as well as everyday speech.2 The analysis below is indebted more to the conceptualist view than to the semantic approach, since it is primarily concerned with metaphoric structures on various levels and acknowledges the existence of conceptual domains covering narratives as structures, transcending mere linguistic techniques, without

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presupposing an opposition between literal and metaphoric uses of language. By narrowing the field of interest, some of the weaker points of the conceptualist approach may be avoided and a practical guideline for the investigation of metaphors in literary texts can be developed.

The city and narrative structure The stories selected for this analysis have one feature in common: they are all stories of journeys, where and cities are halting places for the main figures travelling with or without a specific aim. Since the sequence of the narrative is structured by the movement from one place to another, spatial representations form the backbone of the story and structure the time-sequence of the story, both in a technical way, suggesting the mobility of the hero and, in a figurative way, developing the meaning of the story on its various levels. The concept of the ‘journey’ is one of the important source domains for the metaphoric structuring of fictional narratives and it seems evident, therefore, that the formative elements of the narrative, the representations of space, are part of the overall metaphoric structure of the story. The interpretation of the metaphoric meaning of specific spatial representations, such as cities, should not be confined to isolated descriptions, but should be extended to the function of these representations within the narrative context. One can say that no metaphoric use stands by itself; it always supports a broader system of metaphors organized in a hierarchic way. Especially in travel stories this structural function becomes visible. In the story of As‘ad and Amjad, a summary of which is given in the previous chapter, the process of individuation is guided along a complex set of spatial boundaries and divisions. First, as in other stories, we have the body-double, in the shape of the two half-brothers, who reflect a disequilibrium in their social setting; second, the two brothers are expelled from the palace as a result of the accusation of perversity, thus separating the two from their home and transforming them into travellers; this transformation is sealed by the traces of the failed execution, which confirm that for the brothers there is no way back and that they are definitively separated from the realm of their parents and their youth. Here the actual journey begins, covering three spatial domains: the mountain, which separates the more or less familiar world from a strange, unknown world full of threats; the two mountain roads, one leading to perdition and the other to salvation; and, finally, the city of the Magians. These settings contain the driving force of the narrative, since the story can only unfold through spatial diversity and the crossing of boundaries. Within the spatial system of the story, the concept of the city is rather diffuse. In the descriptive passages, no mention is made of walls or gates or other obstacles indicating clear boundaries. The streets and souks are mentioned, but they are not represented as part of a coherent whole, grouped around a central palace, or separated from its environment. This lack of coherence is reflected in the diversity of the inhabitants, who consists predominantly of Magians, but also of a minority of Muslims. The king who appoints Amjad as his vizier seems to be a Muslim, although his faith is not explicitly mentioned. The threats and dilemmas posed by the city are foreshadowed by the bifurcation of the road in the mountains: the

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ways of the two brothers become separated, one taking the road to perdition, the other to salvation, at least initially. Both their ways are paved with obstacles, difficulties and dangers. Significantly, the spatial bifurcation is also mirrored in a religious one: the duality between Magians and Muslims. It is important to note that from their escape from execution onwards the two brothers have no aim or destination and they wander without knowing where they are heading for. They are lost in the mountains and the city strengthens their sense of estrangement. Both As‘ad and Amjad roam through the streets of the city in search of the centre, represented by the souk, and both are led astray by temptations which are depicted as typical of city-life, respectively the banquet and the fulfilment of sexual desire. These temptations are immediately juxtaposed to their negative implications: the treachery of the Magian and the girl. In the city, the two roads are strewn with hardships and dangers, but in the case of Amjad the forces of evil are suppressed, whereas in the case of As‘ad they seem to be triumphant until the final dénouement. It is of course no coincidence that this crucial episode of the story is located in a city. The world in which As‘ad and Amjad roam is incomprehensible and their peregrination culminates in their entanglement in the spatial and moral labyrinth of the city. The comparison with the labyrinth is especially apt, since the city is an artificial environment, created by men, a combination of rationality and irrationality, order and chaos and, finally, containing civilization with its positive and negative aspects.3 In this story the urban civilization splits into two directions, represented by good and evil, the Faith and the unbelievers. It is As‘ad’s and Amjad’s task to find their way in this labyrinth, conquer its many obstacles and search for the road to salvation. They have to lose their way in order to be able to differentiate between the two options and to know for certain that, ultimately, there is only one ‘right’ way, the way of the true Faith. This motif of the city as a labyrinth represents an essential component of the structure of the story, since it is here that the fundamental oppositions appear at the surface and are unravelled. Already foreshadowed in the mountains, the city fulfils the function of ‘obstacle’ that takes the story to another level, which provides the story with its reason for being and which determines the thematic contents and its structural course. It is the city that disentangles the possible contradictions between the two brothers and their confrontation with an unfamiliar society torn by moral dualism. These contradictions steer the sequence of the story and provide its raw material. Apart from this, the insertion of the city as a labyrinth buttresses the metaphoric purport of the story. The city is not only a metaphor for a material labyrinth, but even more so for a moral labyrinth, containing the struggling forces of good and evil. As‘ad’s and Amjad’s peregrination therefore is a quest for truth in a world which is still only partly structured by the Faith, in which human effort has not yet crystallized and in which the truth has not yet prevailed. The city, as a spatial metaphor representing human society, moral dilemmas and a labyrinthine structure, supports the metaphoric interpretation that the journey symbolizes not only a process of individuation, as explained in chapter four above, but also a quest for truth. This conclusion is of course also reflected

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by the discovery of the treachery of the two stepmothers, by Qamar al-Zaman, and the triumph of the truth on the level of the narrative. The function of the city as a labyrinth is also obvious in the story of ‘Abdalla-h ibn Fa-d.il and his brothers4 (see also the story of the Eldest lady5). Here, too, the story begins with a rupture, the death of the father and the fragmentation of paternal ‘unity’ and moral guardianship. Two of the brothers embark on travels and waste their fortune. They are helped by their third brother, ‘Abdalla-h, who finally joins them on a trade journey. During the sea voyage, the ship stops at an island where ‘Abdalla-h kills a dragon attacking a snake, which turns out to be a jinniyya. Eventually, the ship is driven off course by a storm and arrives at an island. Here ‘Abdalla-h starts wandering in search of water and sees a city in the distance. His brothers refuse to follow him, but he enters the city and finds that everything and all inhabitants have been turned into stone. He wanders through a magnificent palace, full of precious stones and valuable ornaments. On a marvellous throne sit a king and a queen of stunning beauty. Suddenly he hears a voice reciting the Koran. It turns out to belong to a beautiful girl who tells him what happened to the city: it once belonged to a powerful king and was the centre of a mighty empire. One day, al-Khad.ir arrived summoning the king and his subjects to convert to Islam. The king refused, however, and al-Khad.ir cast a spell on the city turning it and its inhabitants into stone. Only the girl herself was saved, since she had been converted previously. Al-Khad.ir planted a magical pomegranate tree for her and predicted the arrival of ‘Abdalla-h. ‘Abdalla-h takes the girl with him to the ship, but she arouses the jealousy of his two brothers. They throw him and the girl overboard, but he is saved by the jinniyya whose life he had saved before. The jinniyya pronounces an enchantment changing the brothers into dogs, and obliges ‘Abdalla-h to flog them every night. It is Haru-n al-Rashı-d who summons the jinniyya before him and has her lift the spell. Here ends the episode that is relevant to our analysis. The two brothers are incorrigible, however, and they throw ‘Abdalla-h into the Tigris. He is saved by a passing caravan and travels to a female saint, who turns out to be his beloved and who was saved by al-Khad.ir. The journey of ‘Abdalla-h, in the main episode of the story, is divided into five spatial stages: the island where ‘Abdalla-h meets the jinni; the sea where the ship drifts off course; the city turned into stone; the land of the jinn where ‘Abdalla-h’s rescue is arranged; and, of course, ‘Abdalla-h’s home town, from where he departs and to which he returns. A vast spatial differential emerges from the various stages of this story. It is explicitly stated in the story that love for the homeland is part of the faith; that whoever suffers in his own land will suffer abroad, too; that a man has to remain in his home; and finally, that whoever ‘goes out to sea is forlorn, and who returns is reborn’. As in other stories, an essential differentiation has already taken root in the brothers themselves, by the fragmentation of harmony, represented by the father, and, as becomes clear at a later phase, by a dichotomy between good and evil. This makes mobility inevitable: an equilibrium is broken which forces the protagonists to redefine the geography of their souls, to find a new harmony between morality and matter. The sea represents, once again, the

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unordered, ‘smooth’ space, where one loses way because there are no systems of human organization. It is a liminal space where one can enter the realm of the jinn. In contrast to the story of As‘ad and Amjad, in the story of ‘Abdalla- h the city is quite clearly defined. It is primarily described as a space enclosed by walls and towers, containing high, solid buildings. Again, the container-city is separated from the outside world, not only by material boundaries, but also by mental boundaries, such as its strangeness and the fear of the travellers. However, ‘Abdalla-h is tempted to enter the city by the expectation of finding water and other comforts. He enters the gate, roams through the streets and the souks and admires the priceless treasures in the shops and the palace. Finally, he reaches the core of the city, which, in this case too, is both a spatial and a moral focal point: a princess reciting the Koran. It is the juxtaposition of material riches, the true faith and the fragility of life which is central to the nature of the city in question. The city is a metaphoric space, embodying the components of a moral and spiritual dilemma. It is a complex material form, in which the struggle between the forces of good and evil have materialized and where the Faith has ultimately prevailed. The city reflects the struggle between ‘Abdalla-h and his brothers and supports the metaphorical dimension of the story as a whole: life is a journey and a struggle against evil. As in the case of the story of As‘ad and Amjad, the city contains the opposite sides of the moral dilemma. The girl who has embraced Islam is saved in a miraculous way by al-Khad.ir and by the fate linked to ‘Abdalla-h’s life. In the city several thematic lines of the story come together, the salvation of the girl by her conversion to the true faith, the symbolic struggle between good and evil, and the fulfilment of destiny, the true reason for his journey.

The City of brass In the stories of As‘ad and Amjad and ‘Abdalla-h, the city is represented as a material and moral labyrinth, a metaphor of the dilemmas of good and evil. They are the setting where these dilemmas pose themselves and are solved, and they are thus the locus where the thematic dénouement is prepared. This metaphoric function of the city and its integration into the thematic subtext can be more elaborately illustrated by an analysis of one of the most remarkable and interesting stories of the Thousand and one nights: the story of the City of brass.6 Several aspects of this story have been studied by various scholars. Pinault has traced relationships between the different texts of the story and other legends and tales, while Gerhardt and Hamori have concentrated more on the theme and structure of the story. It seems justified to say that the City of brass is a story whose history goes back to the domain of legend and forms of primordial history. However, part of these stories can be found in Arabic geographical lore and in handbooks which contain scholarly geographical information. The City of brass should be sought at the interface of legend and history, reality and fiction. The story begins when at a soirée one of the courtiers of Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik Marwa-n tells that in the Western Ocean jars can be found in which King Solomon has imprisoned rebellious jinn. This story arouses the curiosity of the caliph, who

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decides to send an expedition to the West to acquire one of these remarkable jars. He charges Emir Mu-sa-, who is in Egypt at that time, with the leadership of the expedition. The emir asks the wise scholar sheykh ‘Abd al-S.amad al-Qudu-s to accompany him, because the sheykh is acquainted with the geography of North Africa. The journey takes the company through the desolate Libyan desert, where they find a number of strange objects along the way: a deserted palace which is inscribed with admonitions about the transitoriness of life, of the ubi sunt genre; a brass knight who points his lance in the right direction and a jinni locked in a stone vessel. After passing by the city of brass they finally arrive in the land of a black people where the coveted jars can be obtained. This concise summary shows how the narrative is constructed: it is the account of a journey through an exotic landscape which is divided into different episodes by the objects that the travellers find on the way. The main spatial characteristics that are relevant for this structure are the distance that has to be covered and the boundaries that have to be crossed. These characteristics not only organize the physical spatial structure, but also the perceptions and emotions that accompany it, such as familiarity and estrangement, threat and peacefulness; the great distance that has to be overcome creates a clear division between the familiar world in which the company lives and the aim of the expedition. It is precisely this physical and conceptual distance that produces the amazement and wonder which in turn create incentives for undertaking the journey. It is a sense of wonder that brings forth the desire for mobility. However, not only is the distance great, the road that has to be followed is unknown and at regular intervals the expedition needs new indications to be able to continue its journey. The space that has to be crossed has a special character, which is perhaps best described as a labyrinth separating the travellers from their destination and forcing them to find their way through it. The suggestion of a labyrinth and the feeling of estrangement accompanying it are reinforced by the description of the city of brass, where Emir Mu-sa- and his men arrive after an exhausting journey. The city is surrounded by an impregnable wall without gates, which is not only too high to be climbed, but which also seems to be made of massive stone or iron. When the travellers see the strange design of the city from a nearby hilltop, they decide to enter the city at all costs. They prepare a ladder to climb the wall, but the fortification appears to be reinforced by a talisman. When the soldiers have reached the top of the wall they throw themselves down to their deaths, on the other side of the wall, each with a blissful smile on his face. After this enchantment has been broken by the ingenious sheykh ‘Abd al-S.amad, and a mysterious door in one of the wall-towers has been unlocked by solving a mysterious riddle, the city gate can be opened from the inside and the men can go in. They find all the inhabitants turned into motionless statues. This episode indicates that the city of brass is imagined as a well-defined spatial entity which is closed off from the world outside. The enclosedness of the city and the marvellous architecture strengthen the feeling of exoticism and estrangement. Apart from this, the first characteristic that the travellers note when

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they see the city is the curious beauty of the buildings. The enchantment which has to be lifted before the walls can be scaled consists of a group of virgins of unearthly beauty who exhort the men to jump from the wall. This ambiance of magnificence and enticements is continued when the company enter the city and roam through its souks, where silk, jewels, gold, silver and spices are exhibited everywhere. After they have admired the treasures and decorations of the palace, they arrive at the ‘heart’ of the city: the throne with the body of the queen, ornate with jewelry and clad in her most sumptuous robe. Here the secret of the city of brass is revealed: at one time the city was the centre of an empire which stretched out over an enormous area and where welfare and happiness reigned. Suddenly the empire was struck by disaster and ruined by drought and famine. All treasures were procured to avert perdition, but in vain: the whole population died and their bodies remained intact as an admonition for peoples of future times. This description completes the definition of the city of brass as a conceptual city, that is, as a spatial entity. The essence of the definition is not limited to its material form, but is also expressed by the social entity that it encloses, as the nucleus of a society in which material wealth is concentrated. But this is not all. The city of brass is represented as being eternalized and fossilized, but by being opened, it is reincorporated into the regular course of human time. The opening of the city occurs through a combination of human ingenuity and a firm belief in God. When the enchantments are broken and the core of the city has been reached, it becomes clear that the city of brass does not symbolize eternity, but the transitoriness of earthly goods and human endeavour. The material riches and sensual enticements are set off against the uselessness of treasures before the vicissitudes of Fate and the will of God. This contrast is emphasized by the unfortunate T.a-lib ibn Sahl, who refuses to heed the taboo on the body of the queen and is killed as a result of his covetousness. The city of brass is not only a locus where material treasures and a social formation are preserved; it also hides a fundamental moral dilemma. Since the story takes the form of a journey, it seems justified to suppose that the episode of the city of brass marks a development in the structure of the narrative. The previous spatial motifs in the story function as indicators of the road to follow and thus draw the contours of the labyrinth which the expedition is passing through. Within this structure, the city of brass represents one of the obstacles in the labyrinth: it is made by humans and provided with all kinds of obstacles, not only the walls, but also the talismans, magical locks, difficult passages and complex buildings and the taboo. However, whoever succeeds in finding the right way will acquire a reward, consisting of jewels, gold and treasures, and a wise lesson about the fragility of existence. With this labyrinthine structure the framework of the story is sketched. In analyses, especially by Gerhardt, it has been remarked that this structure shows a lack of coherence and should be characterized as a rather artificial association of unrelated motifs. However, it seems that this judgment is too exclusively inspired by the configuration of episodes and descriptions as they appear on the surface, and takes little account of the metaphorical subtext. Within this subtext, spatial representations have a prominent function.

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The first spatial element that takes a central position within the metaphoric structure of the story is the ‘jar’, or more generally, the ‘closed vessel’. The jars with the jinn, the mysterious palace, the jinn in the stone vessel, and, finally, the city of brass, are all vessels which are closed off from the world outside, or at least fix their ‘inhabitants’ to a place. They all contain a moral dilemma: the admonitions on the empty palace and in the city of brass point to the transitoriness of life and the fragility of power; the jinn in the jar and the stone vessel represent the punishment for those who refuse to obey the Divine will. The second metaphorical concept in the story is the journey. This journey leads the heroes along a series of beacons towards the core which embodies the moral dilemma. They are prepared by the ubi sunt warnings and the account of the jinni; but it is in the city of brass that the dénouement of the story is made possible, because here the travellers are themselves exposed to the essential moral choice. The closed ‘vessels’ that the travellers find on their way contrast sharply with the openness of the land of the black people, who possess the coveted jars. Their abode is not defined by borders and is not connected with the metaphor of the ‘container’. These people live in poor and primitive circumstances, but they have been converted to Islam. In all respects they symbolize the opposite values to those of the rich, materialistic community that once inhabited the city of brass. The contrast is supported by the labyrinthine function of the city of brass, where the travellers are confronted with the central dilemma of the story. Because they, except T.a-lib ibn Sahl, make the right choice, respecting the taboo resting on the jewels of the queen, and thereby prove that they have understood the admonitions, they can continue their journey and reach their destination. They obtain the jars which, on their return to Damascus, are opened in the presence of the caliph. The punished jinn come out, show remorse, and are released. Now it is clear how the metaphoric concepts determine the interpretation of the story: the journey, which is meant to open ‘vessels’ of various kinds, is in reality a quest for spirituality and truth, an inner journey to disclose a moral domain: that of the superiority of the spiritual over the material, and of the true Faith.7 It has been remarked above that the narrative material from which the story of the City of brass is composed is derived from historical and geographical sources. It is a fictional story which is moulded out of historical knowledge and geographical lore. This procedure should be seen as a form of mimesis, not so much aimed at a truthful description of a ‘seen’ reality, but rather at the use of material which is part of the corpus of ‘true’ knowledge of the world. It is a mimesis within the hierarchical network of texts, with the intention of exploiting the status of specific texts to strengthen the suggestion of realism. Thus, this kind of material in a fictional text is a form of referentiality, of referring to a ‘real’ spatial setting.8 The material of the story of the City of brass is derived from a limited number of historical sources related to an expedition led by an Emir Mu-sa- to Andalusia, under the authority of Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik Marwa-n (685-705). The texts that include this material are inventoried by Gerhardt, in her study of the Thousand and one nights, as follows: 1. A history of Andalusia, presumably dating from the 9th century, in which Mu-sa-, on his expedition, meets a brass figure who kills two

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of his men with arrows; he arrives at a brass stronghold which is inhabited by jinn; in the end he finds the chests in which the jinn are imprisoned; 2. An encyclopedia of mirabilia (10th century) in which Mu-sa- finds a city without an entrance; some soldiers throw themselves from the wall for an unknown reason; 3. The work of the great historian/ geographer al-Mas‘u- dı- (10th century) who describes a city of brass supposedly located in the deserts of Andalusia (North Africa); as his source he mentions a ‘well-known’ book that is said to have been written by Mu-sa-; 4. According to the historian al-T.abarı- (d. 923), God granted a brass fountain to King Solomon as a gift (see the Koran, 34:12 ff.); Solomon then ordered the jinn to build a city at the border with Andalusia; he subsequently stored his treasures and books there; Emir Mu-sa- is later charged by the caliph to discover this city, which he indeed finds; however, he fails to enter it and some of his men throw themselves from the wall, laughing; 5. This description resembles the one by the geographer Ibn al-Faqı-h (d. 903), who, however, gives a part to the legendary saint al-Khad.ir and adds two elements: the brass jars in the water and the fact that the mysterious city is partly built from bah.t stone, a kind of stone which causes everyone who looks at it to laugh uncontrollably, until death follows; 6. The 13th-century geographer al-Qazwı-nı- assumes that the city of brass was built by Alexander the Great, who allegedly stored his treasures and books there; the city, built on the inside from bah.t stone, is located in the Andalusian desert and is inaccessible due to a cordon of enchantments; 7. The famous scholar Ibn Khaldu-n (d. 1406), finally, rejects the stories of the city of brass as a myth, which is kept alive by public storytellers. According to him the deserts of North Africa have been sufficiently explored to allow the conclusion that no trace of the city can be found.9 This survey of source-texts can be supplemented with other sources, which do not, perhaps, refer to the legend of the city of brass specifically, but which belong to the family of legends to which the story in the Thousand and one nights is related. Pinault, for instance, points at the similarities between the story of the City of brass and the lore about Queen Zenobia of Tadmur, Syria, who may have been the model for the dead queen in the story.10 In a presumably Coptic text, which has been translated into French as L’Abrégé des merveilles, and which contains the legends of the forefathers, from Creation until pharaonic times, mention is made of several magic cities or palaces built in the desert by ancient kings, usually made of metal or glass.11 Apart from this, for obvious reasons, the expedition of Mu-sa- is often related to the traditions about Alexander the Great (the city of the dead), al-Khad.ir (sometimes as Alexander’s vizier), and Solomon.12 It should be noted that all these corpuses of tales and legends were built around a nucleus of historical evidence and in the time of the first recording of the story may have been considered historically ‘true’ to a large extent. This survey of historical and geographical sources of the story of the City of brass suggests how the author has proceeded while writing or editing the material. He apparently took a historical event (the expedition) and historical figures (the caliph, Emir Mu-sa-, possibly Sheykh ‘Abd al-S.amad) and linked them to the geographic context to which they belonged. He chose the elements from the

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sources that were at his disposal, which could be used for the theme of the story and which would, moreover, strengthen the coherence of the narrative structure. He had sufficient knowledge of the material to be able to make a selection; and he deemed it sufficiently well-known to his audience to be certain that it would produce the desired effect. This latter aspect is of course of essential significance for the question as to what the author wanted to achieve by using the historical material. After all, in all cases it is related to an agreement between the author and his public, a contract in which the fantasies of both are harmonized. It seems reasonable to surmise that the author has used the material from historical-geographical sources with the aim of strengthening the suggestion of truthfulness and the credibility of the story. In the case of the city of brass these considerations seem less important, however, since the story is quite clearly presented as fiction, by the framing story, by the ways in which the story is structured and the material is manipulated, and by the deliberate emphasis on the exotic component. On the other hand, the author wants to show that the geographical world is diverse, that space is not a unified continuum, but is imbued with strange and wondrous elements. It is the imaginary representations and associations linked to the differentiation which he evokes that he wants to incorporate into the thematic structure of the story. The realistic connotations of the source-material may not be neglected. The historical expedition of Mu-sa- should be seen in the context of the expansion of Islam to the west under the Umayyad caliphs in the 7th and 8th centuries. The motifs that are incorporated into the legends and in the story indicate that the city of brass is represented as part of a chaotic, inaccessible and heathen domain. In contrast to the historical accounts, in the Thousand and one nights this chaotic domain is pacified by human ingenuity and the power of Islam. Now we have arrived at the crucial difference between the sources and the fictional narrative: only in the fictional story of the expedition do Mu-sa- and his men succeed in opening the city and penetrating into the mystery of its past and present. This is the essence of the story which enables the conveying of a message: an ‘abnormal’ situation can be restored to normality. By being opened, the city of brass is not only relocated in the natural context of time and space, by assuming its proper place as a historic ‘monument’, it is also added to a new spatial organization of the world, under the aegis of the true Faith. It is as if the technique of referentiality is used especially to make this one deviation possible which gives the story its final meaning. This relocation of the city in the spatiotemporal structure is therefore not only an ‘act of geography’, it has a temporal dimension as well. Kilito has argued in his essay on the Thousand and one nights that the visit to the city of brass should be seen as a meeting between two distant periods.13 By entering the city, Mu-saand his company transgress not only a spatial boundary, but also a temporal boundary. This crossing-over is prepared by the different phases of the journey, especially by the empty castle, which recalls the enormous power of the legendary forefathers, a race of giants now reduced to dust through the mighty hands of time and fate. The worldly power that they represented is now fitted into a new vision

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of the world based on awe for the omnipotence of God and consciousness of the transitoriness of life and earthly possessions. It may even be justified to say that the entering of the city of brass is like entering the realm of the dead and the hereafter, which reveals insight and truths about life. The city and its inhabitants have been frozen in time and represent a perfectly ‘true’ image of the past, a past which does not exist any more, but which is now allowed to influence reality. A contact is established which re-establishes the ties between the past and the present, just as the jinni is released after many years of imprisonment.

Journeys and incorporation Stories of journeys are always accounts of forms of incorporation, either on the individual or on the collective level. The stories that we have analyzed in this chapter illustrate how individual and collective experiences of space are linked and used to convey a specific message. It has been shown in the previous chapter how the story of As‘ad and Amjad can be interpreted as the account of a process of individuation, in the Lacanian sense, as a transition from the ‘imaginary’ to the ‘symbolic’ phase, that is, a transformation of a particularly personal, psychological, nature. However, this transformation is linked to a collective transformation; the discovery of the right path by the two brothers is placed in the context of the victory of the Faith, of the impregnation of the values of Islam in a hitherto ‘unploughed’ land. The individual transformation is reflected in a collective transformation, and vice versa. In the story of ‘Abdalla-h and his brothers, a similar transformation takes place, with the difference that here the city in which the hero roams has refused to undergo the transformation required by the appearance of Islam. A contrast is created between the fossilization of the heathen town and the girl who has understood the truth, and whose destiny is thus linked to that of ‘Abdalla-h, who has also heeded the truth, in contrast to his brothers. Here, the distinction between the two options, good and evil, is stressed by linking, and differentiating, the obsolete world of the past from the living realm of Islam. This theme is elaborated in a more sophisticated way in the story of the City of brass. Here one can see first of all the personal transformation of Emir Mu-sa-, who, affected by the moral warnings that have been sent to him on his journey, decides to retire in Jerusalem and dedicate himself to piety and meditation. His new vision of life is the result of an arduous journey, which has placed the world in another perspective and which forces him to reconsider the course of his life. But his journey, the crossing of the desert and the opening of the city of brass, is also a symbol of the triumph of the Faith in general, over a heathen area and a heathen past. The journey has led to the incorporation of uncultivated areas into the realm of Islam, with its historical, geographical, and moral dimensions. The story has thus become the account of a conquest, not in the military sense, but in the spiritual and intellectual sense, as the linking of an identity to a specific place, as the adding of an area to a geographical map and to a sacred geography. The space has been impregnated with new meanings, incorporating its geographical

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and historical characteristics, not by destroying or violating them, but by respecting their intrinsic wisdom. What are the narrative strategies that are used to explain this transformation? First of all, a relationship is established between characters and spaces. Space is represented as differentiated, divided by boundaries into familiar and strange realms. This differentiation is reflected in the heroes, who are all in some way marked by a fractured psyche, a fractured unity, or a fractured morality. This is the basis for the utilization of space as a metaphor, as part of a symbolic subtext. It is this fracturedness that necessitates a journey and the beginning of a process of change. Second, the integration of text and subtext, of form and theme, is achieved by using the metaphoric value of the city, as a labyrinth and a complex site where various forces, good and evil, power and weakness, wealth and faith, converge. But the labyrinth is not only a metaphor; it is also a spatial construct, which produces the opposition between inside and outside, losing one’s way and finding the right path, of belonging to a community or not. This makes it possible to link the narrative components of the story – wandering, losing one’s way, being separated from each other – with the thematic components – moral choices, finding the truth. Thus, the city, with its complex nature, provides the space where the dénouement is prepared, where the narrative elements can be linked together and where the ‘meaning’ of the story is unravelled. The city is the destination that enables the travellers to continue their journey and reach their destiny. How the symbolic connotations of the city are linked to the theme of the journey is shown most clearly in the story of the City of brass: the city is one of a series of containers, which enclose some elements of a moral discourse. The journey is the only means to discover these containers, open them, find the truth that is hidden inside them, and reconcile them with the new ‘regime’ of Islam. It is noteworthy that the closedness of the city of brass is contrasted with the openness of the habitat of the people of the jars, who have been converted to the True Faith by al-Khad.ir. By using historical material, the purport of the story is enriched with a wide set of references to collective images, emotional values, and experiences. The imaginary world that is evoked in the story is bounded by the suggestion of reality of the historical material, which is then manipulated to exploit the basic metaphor when the city of brass is opened. The result is, as in the other cases, a form of reconciliation between the components of a multiple, fragmented world, by defining the world on the ‘other’ side of the boundary, by allowing the spatiotemporal exotic to influence the ‘here and now’.

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The domains of love

One of the most prominent characteristics of Muslim societies is the strict segregation of men and women. This segregation not only pervades public social life, it also affects private relations and the domains in which the private and the public meet, such as weddings and religious celebrations. Social practices are imbued with a strong patriarchal tradition, which gives men the authority to guard the social equilibrium and the relations between the sexes. The segregation of men and women thus creates a boundary which to a large extent determines the structure of the society; it produces the fundamental differences around which social relations, identities and sets of meanings are built. Moreover, boundaries related to this segregation govern the organization of spaces, since they require the creation of separate spaces, of an architecture which protects the integrity of women, of a division of spaces which ensures the sacrosanctity of private spheres. According to some, the logic of Muslim architectural design and the formal aspects of cities can ultimately be traced back to the tradition of sexual segregation.1 The two main aspects of the segregation, its conceptual rigidity and its manifestation in space, provide story-tellers with a treasure-trove of material, with all the ingredients of a good story. They provide them with the components needed for the manipulation of contrasts, between male and female, between fantasies and reality, between social conventions and individuality, and between descriptive and metaphorical images. The spaces they describe are endowed with a variety of meanings: they are the expression of a complex set of differentiations invented to regulate the relations between the sexes; they are impregnated with the opposition between earthly pleasures and taboos; they represent boundaries not only between happiness and frustration, but also between life and death; they are the reflection of an authority which reaches into the most intimate domains of life. The combination of the conceptual and spatial aspects of sexual segregation gives the storyteller not only a thematic framework for his story, but also a structural framework. The distance between the lover and his beloved is not only determined morally and socially, it consists of real material obstacles, too, which have to be conquered before the union can be realized. These obstacles are as metaphorical as they are material; they are the points where metaphorical and material boundaries converge. Therefore, the lover who wants to conquer his beloved has to move; he

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has to cross boundaries; he has to penetrate the walls that shelter his beloved from the outside world. It is this form of mobility, structured by what can be called the ‘domains of love’, that will be discussed in this chapter. In the previous chapters several aspects of love stories from the Thousand and one nights have been analyzed, especially the stories of Qamar al-Zama-n (conventions versus individuality), and ‘A.zı-z and ‘A.zı-za (the motif of the night). The story of H . asan of Basra will be treated in the following chapter. Especially in the case of Qamar al-Zama-n, it was shown how the concept of the journey was used to structure the story as a quest, projecting an individual transformation on a representation of space, as two manifestations of the same process, in which space is subjected to the condition of the hero. In this chapter we will further explore the spatial aspects of the love romances, which appear in the Thousand and one nights in various forms. It is not possible to analyse all examples in the context of this study, nor will all dimensions be examined. The generic aspects, relations with philosophical and social attitudes toward love and sexuality are treated in articles by Heath, Miklos, Rosenthal, Bürgel and others.2 Here we will concentrate on the representations and functions of space and mobility within the narrative structure with regard to matters of love and sexual relationships. But before we can discuss the aspects of the journey as a theme, we have to focus first on the ways in which the segregation of the sexes is represented in the descriptions of spaces and spatial domains.

The female domain The most conspicuous image of sexual segregation in Arabic culture is of course the women’s compound, or harem – a word which does not occur in the Thousand and one nights in the sense that it is understood in Europe. The harem is the spatial reflection of the sexual taboo, but also of its opposite, of lasciviousness and indulgence in corporeal pleasures. These connotations of the harem are related to images which partly derive from the Western imagination, but which are also based on descriptions that can be found in the Thousand and one nights. The historical aspects do not interest us here, however, since we will concentrate on the function of the harem within the narrative structure of the stories, as a stronghold protecting the chastity of women, and as a female domain symbolizing the role of women in sexual relations. In the Thousand and one nights, descriptions of harems can especially be found in stories about the Abbasid court and the notables of Baghdad. These stories generally focus on efforts by lovers to penetrate the harem from outside to meet the beloved. This entering of the harem is especially poignant when a simple merchant’s son is involved, who falls in love with one of the concubines of the caliph. The scenes of young men being smuggled into the harem in a trunk, or disguised as a slave-girl, belong to the typical episodes of the Thousand and one nights. The harem evidently derives its reputation as an impregnable stronghold from its enclosed nature. Harems are part of the inner rooms of palaces, which can only be reached after passing through several gates and corridors guarded by eunuchs.

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However, their sacrosanctity is guarded not so much by this kind of fortifications, but rather by the effective authority of the caliph. It is his formidable power that shields the women from the world outside and that prevents commoners from trespassing into his private domain. Still, within the harem itself, the patriarchal authority of the caliph is not absolute or self-evident. The relationship between the wives and concubines is regulated by a complex set of codes, which gives the formal spouse of the caliph some form of de facto authority in the harem, while the concubines can enjoy a certain measure of privacy. Thus, when a lover has succeeded in entering the harem, he can be summoned to appear before the caliph’s spouse, or he is able to stay in the rooms of his beloved for an indefinite period of time before his presence is revealed by some intrigue. Often helpers are involved, such as old wet-nurses or concubines, who create a buffer-zone between the focus of control and the ‘drives’ of passion. One can say that in love stories it is the discrepancy between the formal, and seemingly absolute, authority of the caliph or king – linked to the dangers of the taboo – and the intricacy of his practical relationship with the harem, that is the crux of the story and the catalyst of its plot. The tension between patriarchal stringency and practical flexibility in the case of the harem has some parallels in stories of a different type. In the story of H . asan of Basra, for instance, seven jinn-princesses are imprisoned in a remote and isolated castle by their father, because he does not want them to marry. In the same story, the Wa-q-islands contain a matriarchal society ruled by seven sister-queens. However, here too ultimate authority lies with the father. As we will see below, the complexity of the control of the harem reflects the underlying conflict between social conventions and individual emotions, between power and passion. Another example is the story of Uns al-Wuju-d and al-Ward f ı- al-Akma-m, in which the father locks his daughter up in a remote castle to separate her from her beloved, who is deemed unworthy to marry her.3 In the stories mentioned above the dilemma is usually not whether the lover succeeds in conquering his beloved, but whether the beloved succeeds in gaining sufficient control of her own sexuality to defy the pressure of patriarchal authority. This theme recurs in various guises and in various degrees. In some cases, the ladies are real or virtual prisoners, isolated from the outside world, for example when they are held captive in a cave by a jinni, or, more symbolically, when they are obsessed by an aversion to men, as the result of an ominous dream, or, finally, when their father or husband is keeping them in confinement. The case of Sitt al-Mana-r, in the story of H . asan of Basra, is somewhat ambivalent, since the beloved is captured by the hero; she subsequently escapes to the Wa-q-islands, where she returns to the care of her father, but finally decides to stay true to H.asan. It is suggested that Sitt al-Mana-r has defied the authority of both H.asan, her husband, and her father, and makes her final decision of her own free will. However, her decision is motivated by the conventional argument that a wife should be loyal to her husband and obey him. Another complicated case is Abrı-za, the Christian princess in the story of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n (see above, chapter two), who follows the call of her heart and joins the Muslim prince Sharrka-n. Abrı-za, a heroine of the Amazon type, casts off the burden of patriarchal authority and takes control of her own sexuality and life.

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93 For this drastic step she is punished, however, when she is raped by Sharrkan’s father, who abuses her unprotected status and ultimately causes her tragic death. In the same story her behaviour is contrasted with that of Qudyafaka-n, who carefully complies with the social and familial conventions and waits until her lover has overcome the obstacles to their union. Similarly, in the story of the The porter and the three ladies of Baghdad, the apparent independence of the heroines is clearly seen as an anomaly, leading to unlimited indulgence in carnal pleasures – controlled by the ladies – but also to the effectuation of an enchantment of the ladies, who live in an enclave of magic forces in the realm of the caliph. The caliph himself resolves this situation by having the ladies marry, thus breaking the spell that strained their ties with society. There are also instances where women do succeed in fully controlling their sexuality and it is here that the segregation of the male and female domains is most strongly attested. In the story of ‘Azı-z and ‘Azı-za the pitiful hero, who is engaged to be married to his cousin ‘Azı-za, falls into the hands of two relentless ladies, who initiate him into the secrets of sexuality. The first lady lures him into his home with some enigmatic signs, which are explained to him by his cousin, who loves him so dearly that she cannot stand between him and his passion. In this way, ‘Azı-za makes possible the meeting of the two lovers, but she realizes the dangers involved and tells him the formula with which he can protect himself. One day, ‘Azı-z is locked up under false pretences in the house of another lady, who wants him to do ‘what the cock does to the hen’ and forbids him to leave the house for a whole year. When he finally is allowed to go outside for one day, he cannot help but visit his other beloved, who is furious on account of his disloyalty and has him castrated. In this story the domain of sexuality is represented as being completely controlled by women. The idea of the story is not that ‘Azı-z is a stupid anti-hero, who fails to see that it is his cousin whom he should love, but rather that sexuality is governed by a system of codes, which is known only to women. The signs made by the first lover can only be deciphered by ‘Azı-za, who gives her cousin another ‘secret’ code as a message to his mistress. ‘Azı-z’s initiation into sexuality is connected with cruel tests and imprisonment resulting from the uncompromising jealousy of his lovers. His two lovers represent opposite aspects of love, one sending him away repeatedly and refusing to let him into her domain for not responding in the correct way, while the other more or less kidnaps him into her house, immediately asks him to make love to her and imprisons him for her own pleasures. He thus enjoys the fruits of passion in various ways, but at the price of giving up his personality, his freedom, and, finally, his manhood. He is only a slave in a territory dominated by women and he has to pay dearly for his failure to challenge the regular ‘system’ and to heed the proper conduct with regard to the relations between the sexes: he should have followed the directives of his father; he should have obeyed the call of love and loyalty; he should have married ‘Azı-za. These categories of women, varying according to the measure of their independence and ability to stand up against patriarchal control, are each associated with specific spatial settings. The most direct forms of control are symbolized by

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palace-harems, prisons or remote caves, such as the harems of Haru-n al-Rashı-d or princess Dunya-, or the castle where Budu-r and al-Ward f -ı-al-Akma-m are imprisoned, or the cave where the princess is held captive by a jinni in the Second qalander’s tale. Control from a distance can be found in the cases of the monastery-castle of Abrı-za, the castle of the jinn-princesses and the Wa-q-islands in the story of H . asan of Basra. Here the women have their own spaces, which are under the control of men who are not physically present. These spaces symbolize unnatural situations, such as the refusal of a father to have his daughter married, or the preservation of forms of matriarchal authority. Finally, women who have complete control of their spaces, for instance in the stories of the Three ladies and the porter, ‘Azı-z and ‘Azı-za, live in enclosed houses, surrounded by warnings and threats. This secrecy enables the women to indulge in sexual outrages and unchecked violence. When they are not restrained by the intervention of patriarchal authority, men may be afflicted by humiliation, slavery, castration or death.

Travelling men It is clear from all cases mentioned above that patriarchal authority represents the systems of sedentary life, and the material and symbolical boundaries which are associated with it. Authority is by definition expressed in boundaries, which close off domains of control and exclude influences and penetration from outside. Boundaries create a differentiation of domains of power, locked up in their respective enclosures. In our stories, it is not so much the opposition of these sedentary domains that represents the thematic incentive of the narrative, it is rather the opposition between sedentariness and mobility. Fortifications are made porous by the presence of women, but some form of movement is required to turn the weak link in the system of defence into the subject of a story. A narrative structure not only needs a place, a symbolical and realistic setting, it also requires a temporal component which subjects this setting to change. It is here that the concept of the ‘journey’ is introduced as the general representation of the forces of mobility, of the interaction between time and place. In chapter four we saw how Shahriya-r’s authority is undermined because the congruity between his bodily presence and the locus of his authority is disturbed. Shahriya-r’s authority is imposed on the locus and on the persons inhabiting it. But this congruency is based on a state of stagnancy: it can only be preserved by excluding any influence of dynamic forces. As soon as these forces penetrate the system – which they inevitably do, since they represent the passage of time – the continuation of the system is endangered. Here we find perhaps the crucial dilemma that underlies the main theme of our analysis: to secure the preservation of a regime – or social structure, or power structure – the forces of change are eliminated; but at the same time any reproduction of a structure is subjected to the passage of time and therefore requires the disruption of stagnancy and immobility. The dilemma is perhaps most aptly illustrated by the tension between preservation and reproduction, the first being associated with stagnancy and resistance to change, while the second is associated with dynamism and transformation.

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It is only a small step to link this fundamental dilemma concerning the reproduction of systems of authority to the intricacies of love. After all, love and sexuality are in the very core of the mechanisms of reproduction, in more than one sense, and in the core of the system of power governing social relationships. Not surprisingly, in the case of our love stories, the forces of preservation are represented by the fences guarding the integrity of princesses and concubines, the idea of mobility and the dynamic forces are embodied by male lovers, preferably a young prince or a handsome merchant. It is the male hero who, after having caught a glimpse of his beloved, has to find ways to transcend the boundaries separating him from his happiness and who has to break down the walls of immobility by his inherent urge to move. The narrative composition of this adventure has some standard elements which can be shown in the example of the story of - 4 Ardashı-r and H . ayat al-Nufus, which to a large extent contains the same motifs as the story of Taj al-Muluk and princess Dunya-,5 and some parallels with the story of Ibra-hı-m and Jamı-la,6 and with several other stories. The story of Ardashı-r can be summarized as follows: the king has no heir to his throne, but with the help of some medicine he begets a son, named Ardashı-r. After hearing a description of H.aya-t al-Nufu-s, Ardashı-r falls in love, but his proposal is rejected, since the princess refuses to marry any of her suitors. His father then offers to wage war against H . ayat al-Nufus’s father to force him to consent to the marriage, but the young prince prefers an attempt to win her heart by a ruse. He disguises himself as a merchant, travels to the town of his beloved and, through his disguise and the help of a messenger, succeeds in establishing contact with the princess. She rejects his advances, however, since she has had a dream which has convinced her of the evil intentions of all men. In the end, Ardashı-r finds a way to meet her in the palace garden and she immediately falls in love with him. He is smuggled into the palace and the two lovers are united until they are betrayed by a eunuch. H.aya-t al-Nufu-s’s father decides to execute Ardashı-r, but at that moment Ardashı-r’s father arrives with an army to rescue his son. Now Ardashı-r formally proposes to H.aya-t al-Nufu-s’s father to be married to his daughter (who is still a virgin), and the marriage is concluded. This summary shows the theme of the story and the motifs used to elaborate it into a narrative structure. The theme is the danger that the dynasty of the king, and of course the government and prosperity of the empire, cannot be continued, since the king has no successor. The whole story is focused on the precarious efforts to safeguard the preservation of the throne and the reproduction of the system related to it. This theme is embedded in the following motifs: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

the unexpected birth of a prince; the threat that the continuity of the dynasty will be disrupted because the princess obstinately refuses to marry; the prince sees an image of the princess or hears a description (sometimes vice versa) and falls in love with her; the prince rejects a violent solution; the prince sets out to conquer his beloved;

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6. 7.

the two lovers meet and declare their love for each other; the princess is cured; the final impediments are removed and the prince and princess are bound in legal matrimony.

The theme is embedded in a number of motifs, which all have a spatial dimension and which support the meaning and interpretation of the story. First, the two kingdoms are isolated and lack regular relations with the outside world; second, the princess is enclosed in a well-fortified palace, or imprisoned in an isolated castle, or held in an impregnable harem; third, when the prince becomes aware of the existence and attractiveness of the princess, he faces a huge geographical distance to be crossed and physical barriers to be surmounted; fourth, as a rule, the meeting takes place in a palace garden, or some other locus amoenus where the senses are stimulated and which is the only semi-open space where the princess appears. Apart from its symbolic connotations – a heavenly abode, more or less detached from everyday reality – the garden functions as a buffer-zone between the closed private space of the palace and the public space outside. It is the place that represents the porousness of the fortifications surrounding the virginity of the princess; finally, the union of the lovers symbolizes the establishment of relations between the two kingdoms, either in the form of vassalage or in the form of a fusion, taking both kings out of their isolation. The main spatial motif, however, which is so crucial that it should perhaps be called a second theme, or a counter-theme, is the journey. It is through the journey, the act of movement in space, that the spatial motifs are linked to the theme and to one another. By travelling the prince establishes contact with the princess; by travelling he rescues both kingdoms from their isolation; and, finally, by travelling he ensures the continuation of the dynasty. His journey is not only a movement in space, however; it is also a symbolic journey marking the transformation which makes possible the transition from a stagnant state to a dynamic state; from a threatening extinction to an era of new prospects and prosperity. To achieve this, the prince, first of all, has to break the ties with his family and give up his position within the system of power. He takes on a disguise which represents a new, temporary, identity, which will enable him to circumvent the pitfalls of the system of conventions. The disguise enables him to leave the configuration of enclosed and isolated spaces and enter into an intermediate space, usually the souq, from where he can attempt to penetrate the realm of the princess. In this public space he can meet people who will help him, and take on a role which will allow him to convey his message to the princess. Moreover, the journey forces the prince to conquer certain obstacles and to meet several tests of his personality, especially meant to examine his intelligence, eloquence, strength, beauty, manners and ingenuity. He has to prove his resourcefulness in finding another way to achieve his goal than by using force and he has to show his loyalty and endurance by proving his determination to sacrifice everything for his beloved, for one, carefully chosen, person. It is the journey, then, that shapes the juxtaposition of spaces and gives them their meaning, that provides the story with its essential opposition between

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stagnancy and dynamism; between extinction and revitalization; between the forces fostering isolation and those fostering expansion and extroversion; between barrenness and fertility. It also illustrates the interplay between conventions and individuality: as in the case of Qamar al-Zama-n, the prince and princess challenge the regular cycle of reproduction by refusing to conform to the regular pattern of procreation. They are meant for each other as individuals, not merely in their roles as heirs to the throne or mechanical instruments securing the perpetuation of the dynasty. They are not driven by pragmatic or conventional considerations, but by love for a specific person. To realize their aim, they have to detach themselves from the identity that is imposed on them and that forces a stereotypical identity upon them obscuring their individual personality. By his journey, in disguise, the prince defies the system of conventions, destabilizes it in order to penetrate it as a person, not as a puppet fulfilling a predestined role. In the end, this detour proves to be the only way to return to the system of conventions, filling it with new strength and vitality and saving it from collapse. It is this cycle of resuscitating conventions by proving the necessity of individual strength that is the quintessence of this type of story and it is here that the main significance of the metaphor of the journey must be sought. Although evidently not all stories of the same type conform to the pattern discussed above, the functions of the journey, as part of the narrative and symbolic structures, are broadly similar. In fact, the meaning of male journeys as a concept is supplemented by other connotations and associations which support the model sketched above. The most obvious metaphorical journey occurring in many love stories is the hunt. The lover – or proto-lover – sets out to go hunting, but at some point he loses his way, is separated from his companions and is directed to the trail leading to his beloved. Hunt and amorous inclinations are nicely brought together in the story of Ta-j al-Mulu-k and princess Dunya-, when the prince while hunting gazelles finds ‘Azı-z, who shows him a cloth with the image of a gazelle, which has been embroidered by the beautiful Dunya-. Subsequently Ta-j al-Mulu-k and ‘Azı-z disguise themselves and depart for the journey towards their beloved. The connotations of the hunt, as a manly pursuit, are clear, of course, but it is the component of straying off that links the hunt to the concept of the journey. The motif of wandering can also be found in other forms, for example, in the story of ‘Azı-z and ‘Azı-za, when ‘Azı-z walks into an alley unknown to him after his visit to the bath-house. He is then caught in the net of his lover and misses his own wedding ceremony. He has left the straight path of true love and continues to go astray, with fatal consequences. In the story of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n, the hero Sharrka-n dozes off while riding his horse and ends up at the castle of Abrı-za. In the story of Uns al-Wuju-d and al-Ward f ı- al-Akma-m the hero starts on a desperate journey through the desert, hoping to find a trace of his beloved. Finally, in the story of ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n, the enamoured hero Ka-nmaka-n ventures into the desert after having failed to conquer his beloved, only to return after many adventures, heroic feats and peregrinations. These excursions into unknown and desolate areas are not merely literary topoi and echoes of the exiles of ancient

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Arabic poetry. They reflect a specific vision of space and a specific connection between spaces and states of mind. They reflect a conception of love in its relation to society and the system of conventions. Although in some cases mentioned above the hero’s ‘exile’ in desolate places is intentional and chosen by his own free will, still the influence of fate is prominently present. The heroes are guided partly by their own choices and actions, vindicating obstacles and meeting tests of courage, endurance and artfulness. Nevertheless it is mostly fate that leads them to their beloved, and the narrator seems to suggest that if the hero proves that he is capable of withstanding the trial of the strenuous journey, fate will help him and unite him with his predestined lover. Here, especially in the adventures of Ka-nmaka-n, we can perceive a fundamental dichotomy between two types of space: on the one hand the well-organized, well-controlled space of the kingdom, or the capital, governed by a powerful sovereign, a power structure, and a system of conventions; and on the other hand a ‘smooth’ space, outside the control of the king, governed by the forces of nature, by animals, bandits, stray lovers and, ultimately, fate. The hero, confronted with formidable obstacles on the way to his beloved, in the domain of society and conventional power relations, places himself outside this domain by giving himself a different identity, not only to prove his qualities and to gain the merit of his beloved’s attention, but also to appeal to fate to counter the injustice of the forces separating the lovers. Ka-nmaka-n establishes his authority in this ‘smooth’ space; he conquers a physical and a symbolic space. This dichotomy of spaces reflects the model of spatial categories devised by the French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari (see above, chapter two), which juxtaposes ‘striated’ space, or space organized by boundaries, power hierarchies, laws, and stagnancy, with ‘smooth’ space, without boundaries or hierarchic divisions, where the laws of nature are predominant, a space which is permanently changing, transforming, a space which is inherently dynamic. The two types of space cannot exist without each other; they are linked to each other as communicating vessels, constantly making incursions upon each other, imposing themselves upon each other, and penetrating each other. Whereas striated space continually strives to expand at the expense of smooth space, the latter is equally adamant in undermining the rigid organization of the first, by challenging its boundaries and fixed structural set-up. But while the two types of space are tied together in their permanent struggle, they also infuse each other with new vitality and dynamism. A similar symbiosis of apparently opposite spaces can be discerned in the love stories discussed here. Spaces of kingdoms are associated with stagnation, power, taboos, conventions and sedentary life, while the desert, the forest, the sea and other ‘smooth’ spaces are associated with individuality, anarchy, passion and fate. In the cycle of reproduction both spaces have their part. The boundaries between the two are in the core of the society and the one is required to secure the preservation of the other. And there is one domain in which the struggle between the two is fought: the domain of love. In some cases the peregrinations of the lover are extended to the domain of the supernatural and the jinn. We have already discussed the story of Ja-nsha-h in

The domains of love 99 this respect. Another example is the story of Sayf al-Mulu-k and Badı-‘ al-Jama-l 7, concerning the long quest of the hero for his beloved. He is made aware of her existence by a present from King Solomon, a coat bearing her picture on the inside. He travels to China and the far corners of the world to trace her, and he finally finds her imprisoned in a cave on a remote island. She was captured by a jinni who had her immobilized by a strong talisman. Only by breaking the talisman and destroying the jinni can the young lady be rescued. A similar motif, though inverted, can be found in the story of Abu- Muh.ammad hight Lazybones8: a young lady is protected by a talisman against the eager advances of a jinni. Abu- Muh.ammad is persuaded to break the talisman, enabling the jinni to capture the girl and abduct her to a city of brass. What follows is the account of Abu- Muh.ammad’s arduous journey to retrieve his beloved, to break the spells surrounding her and destroy the jinni.

Travelling women The analysis above gives us a reasonably clear idea of the significance of the journey as a literary motif in love stories. The male hero dissociates himself from his environment, enters into a phase of ambiguity, overcomes the immobility of his beloved and re-enters his environment as a new, experienced, and richer, person. This trajectory is represented as configurations of spaces reflecting mobility and stagnancy, conventional authority and individuality, etc. But it is not always only men who travel; there are cases of travelling heroines, who seemingly defy the rule, at least of literary conventions, that it is the woman who is patiently waiting to be saved by her future husband. However, these instances are often only variations of a pattern, since the peregrinations of women are mostly the result of some disruption of the regular course of events or of a forced separation from their lovers. They can be categorized, nevertheless, to the extent to which the journeys are imposed on them or undertaken out of their own free will. For example, there are, first, the women who are abducted by jinn, such as Badı-‘ al-Jama-l, in the story of Sayf al-Mulu-k and Badı-‘ al-Jama-l, who is held captive in a cave on an island in a faraway corner of the world and only released after Sayf al-Mulu-k has destroyed the jinni. Second, some women are imprisoned by their parents to separate them from their lover, such as al-Ward fı-al-Akma-m, who is locked up in a castle on an island which allegedly cannot be reached by jinn or men. These captured heroines force their lovers to embark upon so-called ‘spermatic’ journeys,9 desperate wanderings in search of their beloved. In some cases, such as H . asan of Basra and Janshah, it is the hero who captures his beloved, in both cases a jinn-princess who subsequently escapes from his control and forces him to re-enact his love-journey to conquer her. In most stories of this kind the brides are jinniyyas who, with the long distances they can cover and their strange abodes in the corners of the world, illustrate the taboos surrounding the hero’s initiation into love and sexuality. This initiation is also symbolized by other spatial motifs, such as forbidden doors and staircases separating two different realms.

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Third, some women leave the protective shelter of their parents to go wandering through the world, usually after a conflict about a pre-arranged marriage. In some cases the women end up at the slave-market, where they meet their future lovers. Examples of this type of travelling ladies are Maryam the girdle-maker and Zumurrud,10 who are both kidnapped by evil Christians. Eventually they succeed in escaping, making use of men’s clothes to hide their female identity. In the story of ‘Alı- Sha-r and Zumurrud a variation is given on the motif of the ‘waiting bride’, when Zumurrud, disguised as a man, becomes king of a certain town and has a square cleared before the palace to hold festive meals for the inhabitants of the town and visitors. By this strategem she succeeds in punishing her kidnappers and retrieving her lover. Here the motif of the loss of protection, the female journey, the inversion of roles, the male journey, and the interaction between spaces are combined in a different and inventive way. Zumurrud utilizes the enclosed ‘nature’ of the palace not only to hide her identity, but also to create an intermediate space which will guide her lover on his spermatic journey towards her, just as in other stories the souq and the garden are used to enable lovers to meet. Needless to say, perhaps, in the stories of Maryam and Zumurrud it is the women who are the real heroines, while their lovers are pathetic anti-heroes. The most determined travelling lady in the stories of this type is the brave princess Abrı-za, who has been mentioned above. She is portrayed as a staunch Amazon, with a strong will and a free spirit and matching physical strength and beauty. After she has tested her lover, prince Sharrka-n, she decides to leave the protection of her parents and her people behind and follow him to the capital of the Muslim empire. For this bold move she has to pay dearly, however, since she is raped by Sharrka-n’s father and killed while on the way back to her parents. Abrı-za is the antithesis of Maryam, who is fighting fiercely to break out of her Christian environment and is finally rewarded for her efforts in the Muslim camp. Abrı-za’s ‘mission’ fails in the first instance and is only crowned with success when it turns out that her son has succeeded his grandfather on the Byzantine throne and is reconciled with his Muslim relatives. Moreover, both king ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n, Sharrka-n’s father, and Sharrka-n himself are killed by Christian hands, an act of revenge which paves the way for the final plot. It is remarkable, but perhaps not surprising, that the majority of travelling women are Christians. In cases when the heroine leaves her home because she refuses to accept a pre-arranged marriage, thus endangering the continuation of the dynasty, it is because her destiny lies with the Muslims and because it is not she who is destined to secure the preservation of the throne, or, in the case of Abrı-za, because the preservation of the throne is ensured only by intermingling with the Muslim camp. In other cases, the female journeys are forms of exile or abduction, either imposed by the parents of the heroine, or by a jinni or a villain. In the story of Umar al-Nu‘ma-n, the king’s daughter Nuzhat al-Zama-n escapes from her father’s palace together with her brother, with the intention to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way back, they decide to travel via Jerusalem, where her brother falls ill and she is forced to go out alone. She is immediately captured

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by a villain and a slave-trader, who in the end sells her to her other brother. The woman’s wandering is punished by a sexual abuse, when she marries her own brother without knowing it. Finally, there is the group of jinniyyas who travel freely without any form of custody. The journeys give the heroines the opportunity to show their courage, inventiveness and steadfastness, thereby proving their individual qualities as opposed to their pre-determined roles. But when they are not guarded and are forced to travel on their own, they disguise themselves in men’s clothes. Maryam, Zumurrud, Abrı-za and Budu-r all have to take on a male role to set things straight and to arrange their reunion with their lovers. Just like men, they show their independence of the system of conventions, and in the end conform to it of their own free will. As far as the spatial aspects are concerned, it is clear that for women the boundaries between spaces of various categories are more rigid than for men. In fact, there are only two kinds of spaces, it seems: home, or the palace, or the harem; and public space, where dangers of all kinds threaten the heroine’s chastity. The only ‘semi-impermeable’ spaces for women are gardens, as we have seen, and bath-houses. As soon as a woman leaves her confinement, she enters a symbolic smooth space in which she is an easy prey for any good or evil ‘protector’ who will either save her or lead her to her doom. Conversely, it is as if women carry their own smooth space inside themselves: in enclosed spaces they represent the breach through which the forces undermining patriarchal authority penetrate; when they leave their confinement, they create a nomad space for men, eliminating the regular pattern of social relationships and social control, creating distances and dichotomies which force men to travel, breaking down boundaries and partition walls, and producing emotional states of mind which drive them into exile and peregrinations. Because women cannot be contained, they turn every striated space into a smooth space which men have to subjugate in some way or another.

Spaces of love Our brief survey of love stories in the Thousand and one nights shows that representations of places are used to accentuate the contrast between stagnancy and mobility, between the fortifications of society and the expansion of individuality. This contrast is projected to the segregation of the sexes, in the moral and the spatial sense. The boundaries upholding this segregation are the source of the dynamism of the story; they indicate the phase of the development and the ‘place’ of the hero in the narrative cycle; they support the narrative logic that moves from one episode to the next until it reaches its dénouement. Distances and boundaries, combined with the attraction of beauty, produce the desire to travel and to establish a unification which at first seems unthinkable. In some cases it is not so much the hero’s free will that induces him to embark upon a journey, it is rather Fate that causes him to go astray and to lose his way, ending up in one of the ‘domains’

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of love. How should we evaluate the spaces that structure the domains of love and the intercourse between them? The first space that fulfils a central role in most stories of love is the palace or the castle that contains the enclosed compounds of the princess. Evidently, the palaces are symbols of luxury, wealth and beauty, built to express the strength of absolute power. Palaces and castles are physical strongholds testifying to the determination of society to defend itself against foreign intruders and other dangers from outside. But they are not only meant as a means of defence; they are also the cores of the spatial organization of society, the embodiment of the boundaries that divide the society into hierarchical components and visualize the differentiation of domains. They symbolize the boundaries between dominant and dominated groups, and the inaccessibility of the exponents of power. They are containers of power, both in the spatial and in the symbolic sense, impregnable enclosures, where the material riches of the society are concentrated. This function of palaces is perhaps best illustrated by a remark of King ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n, after princess Abrı-za has escaped from his palace: ‘If everyone can just walk out of my palace, this means that there is no order in the empire’. The boundaries of the palace are congruous with the ability to impose one’s authority. As a symbol of authority, the palace represents the system of social conventions and patriarchal power. This system is based on the total control of the father over the process of social reproduction and the preservation of social stability. It is achieved by a total control of female sexuality, effected, symbolically, by confining the princess to her compound and refusing her any contact with the world outside. The fortifications of castles symbolize the power of the king to guard the virginity and chastity of his daughter. In the story of Qamar al-Zama-n this confinement is turned into explicit imprisonment, when the princess refuses to comply with her father’s wishes with regard to her marriage – contrasting sharply with his first offer to build seven palaces for her. The palace is the image where the ideology of patriarchy and its projection in space come together, where the cultural ‘structure’ of a society is inscribed in the material world; where a design of morality and propriety is moulded into tangible reality. The castle is the epitome of an attitude toward sexuality, as the symbol of impregnability and the imposition of moral boundaries. The relationship between palaces and sexuality is perhaps even more clearly illustrated by the palaces inhabited solely by women. Here it seems that women have taken control of a space of their own, spending their life indulging in luxury and pleasures. In the case of Abrı-za, this impression is strengthened by her ability to control the access to the palace – apart from her Amazon determination – when she subjects Sharrka-n to an extensive trial before she accepts him as a guest and a lover, and when she scolds her father’s soldiers for entering the palace without her permission. These signs of authority are misleading, however, since they herald a complete break with her father and her community, when she follows Sharrka-n to the Muslim camp. The arrival of Sharrka-n, his passing the test of love, and his crossing the boundary of the castle have transformed the status of

The domains of love 103 the castle and separated it from the authority of Abrı-za’s father. Before this happened, the castle was under the control of her father, as in the case of the castle in the story of H . asan of Basra, or the ‘golden cage’ in which al-Ward f ı al-Akmam is imprisoned by her father, to prevent her from marrying Uns al-Wujud. These Amazon palaces are prisons, too, meant to buttress patriarchal authority and to preserve the boundaries on which it is construed. The conspicuous association of palaces with sexuality suggests that young, marriageable princesses are not just locked in to control their passions, but that the palaces are purposely built to contain the unsteady element that these virgins represent. As explained by Irigaray, these young women are an excess of patriarchal society; they are an element which cannot be integrated into society and have to be concealed and locked away, to protect society against its dangers. The palaces represent the institutions of a society that represses the idea of female sexuality as a source of disorder, anarchy and revolt. Because society is unable to deal with these uncontrolled energies, it designs its institutions with the aim of stowing it away and containing it, under the pretext of protection and propriety. Thus, young virgin princesses are the reason why palaces are built, they are the reason why they are constructed in their specific form, and they are the secret that they conceal. Castles, palaces and harem compounds are intended to control the transition of the princess from a marriageable virgin to a married lady, integrated in the structure, codes and hierarchy of patriarchal society.11 Still, the raison d’ être of palaces is also their weak spot. It is through the concealment of princesses that patriarchal authority is most forcefully challenged and that the limits of patriarchal power become manifest. That is because the authority of fathers has to be replaced, at a certain point, by the authority of husbands, to prevent a situation of stagnation and extinction. The princesses are the essence of continuity, of revitalization. This implies that women, who have no space of their own, are nevertheless the focal point for men to organize their spaces, either as institutionalized forms of authority, or as a differentiation between domains of control, or as places of exile, wandering, and wildness. It is the relationship of spaces to the virgin princess that determines their status, and it is the differentiation resulting from this that enables the prince to expand his Ego in space and to contest the power of other men. The status of spaces is designed to incapsulate the princess, to hide her and to contain the anarchic effects of her beauty and her passion. Palaces do not so much symbolize the segregation of the sexes in the realm of space, they rather represent an effort to eliminate women from space as it is constructed by men in order to contain their sexual drives. The palace represents the well-ordered, ‘striated’ space of society reflecting patriarchal ideology and institutions, and the mechanisms of control, although it harbours, within itself, the seed of destruction and revolt. The opposite of this ‘striated’ space is the ‘smooth’ space which is not disciplined by forms of control, not conquered by forms of measurement and classifications. Although it is a space of anarchy and chaos, this space is not a ‘feminine’ space, as one might expect, but rather a space conceived by men to express their position vis-à-vis certain women.

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The smooth space is a place of exile, of homelessness, of placelessness, in which the hero wanders aimlessly. It is a space where fate rules, where the laws of nature reign, and where the hero is subjected to hardship and suffering. It is defined by the lack of his beloved, because it is only she who can establish a relationship between the hero and his space. She represents his ‘home’, the congruency between a stable identity and a place; the possibility to define his position in space and the spatial range of his actions. The beloved embodies space, the idea of space, and the potential of space. Only after he has conquered her, will he be re-incorporated into the spatial order that is constructed by his society and be able to give up his peregrinations. If there is one space in which the feminine element is allowed to come to the surface, it is the garden. In the Islamic tradition, gardens are not seen as extensions of nature, but rather as spaces conquered from the cruel, disorderly forces of nature and cultivated by human ingenuity. Gardens are carefully structured, according to geometrical patterns and botanical scholarship. They are preferably provided with sophisticated irrigation works and ingenious artifices, such as automata, artificial birds, fountains, etc. A prototypical description, in which the natural and artificial components are combined, can be found in the story of Ibra-hı-m and Jamı-la. Gardens are part of architecture, especially of the design of royal palaces, as a token of wealth, dominance and luxury. As in the European tradition, in Islam gardens are considered as the representation of paradise on earth, with plenty of fresh water, aromatic plants, an abundance of fruits and tamed animals. They are explicitly described as locus amoenus, or ‘place of delight’, as opposed to the hardships of nature, especially the desert. It is from this context that the garden derives its significance as a narrative motif. It is a place of beauty, where man’s senses are pleased by delicious smells and sounds, where his mind is refreshed by the sight of trees, ripe fruits, and carefully designed flower beds. It is the place where the senses are opened to the experience of beauty in all its manifestations. But because of this sensual aspect, the garden also has its dangers. It is here that young men indulge in eating, drinking and love-making, and lose their sound judgment. It is here that decent young men are deceived by bad friends, or enemies, with the aim of manipulating them and realizing their evil schemes. Gardens are intoxicating and affect the rational mind; they are the locus of irresponsibility, deceit, and the prevalence of lust and desire. Finally, gardens are sometimes inhabited by jinn, or visited by jinn who are passing by. These dangerous aspects of gardens turn them into one of the spatial equivalents of the night: a domain where the unexpected may happen, where other forces, other laws reign, and where the marvellous and the real meet. This ambiguity of gardens is systematically explored in the love stories of the Thousand and one nights. Gardens are often annexed to palaces, and they are depicted as the only place where the princess can go outside the palace, evidently accompanied by eunuchs or a wet-nurse. The sense of freedom that is thus evoked is strengthened by the aesthetic and sensual connotations of the garden, which are all, suddenly, converged in the person of the prince, who seems to embody the delights of the garden, the passion

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of love, and the alternative to imprisonment under patriarchal authority. In the stories of Ardashı-r and Ta-j al-Mulu-k, the elements of dreaming and pictorial images are added to supplement the connotations of the garden with elements of delusion, the ‘magic’ of artificial representation, and the persuasive powers of beauty. The real antithesis of the palaces, apparently, is the garden, since here the strict control of patriarchy is loosened. The garden is the flaw, or the gap, in the system of control, since even if it is carefully guarded, it cannot contain the sensuality which it inspires. The boundary between the garden and the palace is the only boundary that is permeable, since both sides are infiltrating in each other, the princess being the sensual element in the palace, while the garden is formally part of the structure of authority. The garden shows that no structure of authority can cover all aspects of human life and human emotions, but also that every human state has a spatial counterpart, and that spaces exist as much within humans as in their physical environment. There is no real separation between the two, and it is impossible to neutralize spatial constructions which are present in women and to eliminate them from the institutionalized forms of space. Gardens will always exist, since they are in the minds and hearts of the heroes, and these are the ultimate sources for the production of space. Thus, human nature itself resists total enclosure. Human passion will always find spaces in-between, from which to penetrate into fortified structures.

Conclusions Among the many factors determining the production of spaces in the narrative texts of the Thousand and one nights, love is perhaps the most powerful. The force of attraction between the sexes belongs to the quintessential elements of storytelling, implying that many stories can only be interpreted through its prism and the structure of stories can only be analyzed through its logic. In fact, forms of love can be considered as the fundamental, primordial cause of the creation of spaces and spatial differentiations. This is not due to the projection of sexual differences in space, by demarcating several domains reflecting the segregation of the sexes, but rather to the opposition of a space and a non-space; a male spatiotemporal structure which can only be constructed by relegating women to a spatial void. It is only through the presence of women that an outline of spatial hierarchies and spatial forms is constructed. Man can only establish a projection of his identity in a spatial construction through the ordering principle of the female presence. When the connection between the hero and his beloved is broken, he is cast into a non-place, an amorphic space in which he cannot draw the contours of his self-image, a space where he has no status or context. The concept of woman as a non-space is derived from the linkage of the feminine – and its connotations, beauty, passion, lust – with chaos and disorder. The only way to control the anarchic force of femininity is by institutionalizing a strict system of boundaries, which combine the fields of morality and spatiality. But still woman resists spatial harmony. In the words of Irigaray:

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The domains of love The feminine becomes elaborated as darkness and abyss, as void and chaos, as that which is both fundamentally spatial and as that which deranges or unhinges the smooth mapping and representation of space, a space that is too self-proximate, too self-enclosed to provide the neutrality, the co-ordinates of self-distancing, to produce and sustain a homogeneous, abstract space. The feminine becomes a matrix that defies co-ordinates, that defies the systematic functioning of matrices that propose to order and organize the field’.12 Elisabeth Grosz adds: ‘She functions as container, as envelope, as that which surrounds and marks the limit of man’s identity. This is a paradoxical relation: woman comes to provide the place in which and through which man can situate himself as subject, which means that she represents a place that has no place, that has no place of its own but functions only as a place for another.13

The feminine is thus the incentive and the focal point that make a construction of space possible, but it is not a stable foundation; in fact, it is not a foundation, but rather the unstable element that has to be incapsulated within a spatial order. This instability is the reason why the love stories were composed. They signal the inconsistency in the system and exploit it as a source of adventure and narrative tension, only to restore a form of harmony in the end: as is often the case in love stories, the essential anarchy of love is finally neutralized when the lovers are linked in legal matrimony and re-incorporated into the system of conventions which they threatened to undermine. In the end, the striated space of power triumphs; the juxtaposition of and interaction between the various spaces only lead to the strengthening of the dominant spatial construction of patriarchal society, closing the cycle of social reproduction. Again, the feminine is hidden in the patriarchal institutions, as the wings of Shamsa are buried under the main column of the palace of Ja-nsha-h.

8

Magic and the logic of narrative space

In the previous chapters we have discussed stories in which journeys govern the formal and metaphorical structures of the narrative spaces, by using the structural components of the concept of the journey and its symbolic connotations. As a rule, spaces are intimately linked to the hero, who shapes the spaces surrounding him, as it were, reflecting his experiences, his mental state and his position in the sequence of time. This implies that, at least in some types of stories, spatiotemporal structures are not used in a referential way, granting connections with ‘real’ times and spaces, but are rather organized by a logic inherent in the narrative, which is explained in the story itself and which has no intrinsic significance outside the story. Moreover, places derive their meaning from their location within the spatiotemporal framework of the story, as part of a broader pattern, as a component whose function can only be assessed by observing the whole configuration. In some cases, it appears as if the spatial structure of the narrative is not subject to the development of the hero, but to some extent dictates the course of events according to a specific ‘narrative logic’. In this chapter we will discuss two stories in which a spatial logic imposes itself on the narrative structure and in which journeys are ‘caused’ by the juxtaposition of spaces, rather than conversely. Apart from this, the spatial logic of the narrative is supplemented with an element that has received little attention until now: 1 magic. The first story under consideration will be the story of H . asan of Basra. This story has survived in versions which date back to the 19th century, and it is possible that it was compiled from various narrative elements in an artificial way at a relatively late date. However, the story is clearly related to a cluster of stories connected with the romance (sı-ra) of Sayf ibn Dhı- Yazan,2 and the story of Azem and Mazem.3 At least the origins of the romance of Sayf are traced back to the 13th to 16th centuries. It seems, therefore, that the narrative elements from which the story is composed belong to an ancient corpus. Apart from this, the question of origin is only partly relevant to a structural analysis of the story, since even if the story was composed ‘artificially’, as a form of bricolage, then it would still be governed by a certain structural logic. Every compiler would attempt to enhance the thematic and formal coherence of his narrative, and the techniques that he uses to realize this can be analyzed and interpreted. Among the other stories that will be discussed in this chapter is the story of Jullana-r, a version of which can be found in the Book of marvellous tales (Kita-b

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Magic and the logic of narrative space al-h.ika-ya-t al-‘ajı-ba4). Since this book is one of the oldest collections of Arabic tales that have survived, it could have originated in a very early period. Estimates go back as far as the 10th century, but there is no decisive evidence for an exact dating of the work.

The adventures of H . asan of Basra Like many other, similar stories, the story of H . asan of Basra begins with a break in the cycle reproducing the structures of everyday life. When his father dies, H . asan receives a small inheritance which he uses to open a jeweller’s workshop. The death of his father takes away the shield of social protection and exposes H . asan to the dangers of the world. These soon appear in the guise of a Persian magician, who ingratiates himself with H . asan by promising to teach him the art of turning brass into gold. Despite the warnings of his mother, H . asan innocently lets himself be deceived by the Persian, who poisons him with henbane and abducts him in a coffin on board a ship. When H . asan awakes, he discovers that the Persian is a fire-worshipper. He begs him for mercy, claiming that they have taken ‘salt and bread’ together, but the Persian has him whipped and tortured until God intervenes and sends a storm which only subsides after he has promised to treat H . asan well. When they reach the land of their destination, H.asan is taken on a magic camel to the Mountain of the Clouds, where the clouds split apart and where the herb grows that contains the secret of the magician’s art. H.asan is stuffed into a camel’s skin, taken up to the mountain by a bird, and requested to throw the elixir down. Now the magician reveals that he will leave H.asan behind to die in this secluded place. H . asan starts wandering, however, and finally reaches a castle where seven daughters of a jinn-king live. He is hospitably welcomed by them and lives happily in their midst. When the next year the Persian appears again with another Muslim boy, H.asan kills him and releases the boy. This first episode contains some of the main motifs and themes pervading the story as a whole. First, there is the motif of disguise and betrayal. The Persian misleads H . asan by acting as his mentor and promising material gain. As an alchemist, he is the exponent of the forces of metamorphosis and transmutation, but his ability is based on false pretences, such as the belief in the sacredness and magic power of fire, the lust for material profit and enmity towards the true Faith. His magic is restricted by moral taboos, since not only is the art prohibited by the governor of the town, it can also be performed only once a year, with the help of a very specific elixir. The deceit of the Persian is contrasted with the fidelity and truthfulness of H . asan, who stresses the obligations of friendship through the bond of salt and bread and refuses to relinquish his faith in God. This belief in faithfulness is what in the end saves him from the unreal, unreliable world of the magician, governed by the forces of metamorphosis. Second, the narrative has taken the form of a description of a journey of the hero and his dissociation from his normal social environment. The breaking up of the normal cycle of social roles is foreshadowed by the death of his father and effectuated by his abduction by the Persian. The labyrinth motif is here represented by the sea, which separates H.asan’s hometown from the faraway domain of magic,

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where the Persian replenishes his magical powers. The journey also marks the inner development of H.asan from innocence to the discovery of the betrayal of the Persian. Although he makes the wrong choice in the beginning, seduced by the prospect of wealth and material gain, he is saved by his adherence to faithfulness, and finally recognizes that the world of the magician represents the forces of evil. In the end, the Persian is killed and H.asan is happily taken up by the small community of the jinn-princesses, in a blissful, paradisiacal environment. With his arrival at the castle of the princesses, H . asan has reached his first destination. He is taken as a foster-brother by one of the princesses and is accepted as a guest living with them in the castle. Moreover, he has found out a ‘truth’ about life, which symbolizes his moral ‘homecoming’ into a world where fraud, tricksters and the delusion of magical transmutations are unmasked and subdued. On both levels of the text, H . asan is incorporated into a new framework and reaps the rewards of his journey. The castle and its surroundings are luxuriant and pleasant, accentuating the positive effects of H.asan’s newly gained insight. He has substituted belief in God for belief in magic, his faith in spiritual values for his belief in material gain, and his belief in the forces of stability and faithfulness for his belief in transmutation. In a certain sense, the story could have ended here. However, the spatial setting indicates that H . asan’s journey is not yet completed. The castle is not a place which harmonizes with his status as a human being, nor with his fate: he is still a guest, a marginal person in an ambivalent space. The spatial sequence of the story, as in other, similar stories, forms the backbone of the narrative structure. First, H . asan is lured from Basra, the place where he belongs, after his ties with the setting have been jeopardized by the death of his father; second, the sea represents the labyrinth motif, as a realm of uncertainty and vicissitude, and a boundary between two domains; thirdly, the magic realm of the Mountain of the Clouds, and especially the castle, is an explicitly marginal space. The princesses have been locked up in the castle because their father refused to have them married. Evidently, the unability to be incorporated into society as a married woman and a mother has pushed the princesses into the margin of their society, separating them from the core. This marginalization is expressed by the castle, where they lead a segregated life: it is a castle which nobody can reach, built by a refractory jinn and afterwards deserted. It is in this golden cage that the princesses lead their secluded life. The castle is situated in an area where two domains overlap, the world of human beings, separated from the normal world by a sea, and the world of the jinn. The place is difficult to reach for both humans and jinn, and it is filled with extraordinary forces and characteristics. It thus becomes a marginal space for both, a hybrid no-man’s land used as an antithesis to the core structures of both societies. H . asan cannot become integrated into this spatial environment. He will remain a guest who has reached a destination, but not his destiny. The story has to continue. The second episode The second part of the story begins when the princesses, in accordance with their custom, are invited by their father to visit him. H.asan stays behind in the castle.

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He receives the keys to all the inner doors and is allowed to open every door except one. After a while he decides to have a look and opens the doors one by one. Behind them he sees the most wondrous and beautiful treasures. Finally he cannot resist the temptation of the last, forbidden door. He opens it and finds a staircase leading to a terrace with a magnificent garden overlooking the sea. H . asan sits down in a pavilion next to a pond. Suddenly he sees ten birds approaching from afar. They alight near the pond, throw off their feathers and turn out to be ten extremely beautiful girls, who start bathing and amusing themselves in the water. H.asan immediately falls in love with one of the girls, and after they have once again put on their feathers and flown away, he falls prey to the sickness of passion. In spite of the fact that H . asan has violated the taboo of the forbidden door, his foster-sister, after her return to the castle, promises to help him conquer his beloved. This is no easy task, however, since she, his beloved, appears to be the daughter of a powerful jinn-king ruling over humans, jinn, magicians and sorcerers, and vast countries and provinces, called the Wa-q-Islands. He is immensely rich and has a huge army at his disposal. His seven daughters each rule a country covering an area of one year’s travelling and surrounded by a river. They command an army of twenty-five thousand female sword-fighters. Nevertheless, H.asan’s foster-sister pledges unconditional support, ‘even if it would cost her life’. The only way to catch the girl, she says, would be to steal her robe of feathers and thus prevent her from flying away. Eventually, H.asan succeeds in capturing her, taking her into the castle and locking her up. With the help of the persuasive words of his foster-sister the princess seemingly becomes resigned to her fate and marries H . asan. The festivities continue for forty days. In this episode, the motifs of the first part are continued, and especially the spatial metaphors acquire their full meaning. After all, the events of this episode can only happen here, at the point where the human and jinn realms meet in a carefully structured interface. The doors that H . asan is allowed to open give access to material wealth, which he now despises, but the forbidden door hides a mystery. It represents the boundary between the two realms and again the labyrinth motif is introduced, the staircase, to mark the passage between the two. The door also marks the access to the realm of love and sexuality, whose forces immediately take possession of H.asan’s heart, mind and body. It is no coincidence, of course, that the realms of love and the jinn are combined: it stresses the irresistibility of the forces of pure, total love, but also the impossibility of consummating it, since it belongs to another domain: it requires the amalgamation of two seemingly different species. In this marginal space, however, such a union is not inconceivable. By using a stratagem and with the help of his foster-sister, H.asan succeeds in having his beloved cross the borderline into the human realm and in finding some kind of balance between the two domains, resulting in the marriage. In this passage the possibilities of the marginal nature of the spatial setting are exploited to the full, giving a new impetus and a new turn to the story, adding a dimension to the story that provides new opportunities. Again, the motif of metamorphosis is prominently utilized, not in the form of the transmutation of matter,

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but in the form of the transformation of the jinniyya, from a bird into a human shape. Again, too, the theme of the first episode, fidelity and truthfulness, is taken up in the attitude of H.asan’s foster-sister, who is prepared to help him regardless of the consequences. It seems, then, that the story could have ended here. After the arrival and incorporation of H.asan, we have now witnessed the arrival and incorporation of the jinn-princess. It is again the spatial setting that, metaphorically, precludes such an ending. The marginality of the space affords the meeting and union of the hero and the heroine, but it is not the natural environment of either of them. There is no unity between their soul and their physical surroundings. They may experience a blissful time here, but they will never acquire true happiness. H . asan has tasted from the source of love, but he has not yet taken up the role of husband. Likewise, the jinn-princess may have acquiesced in her situation, but she is still an abducted jinn, not a regular, human, wife. Therefore, the story should continue. The third episode After having enjoyed the union with his beloved, H.asan dreams of his mother. Filled with remorse he asks the princesses’ permission to return to Basra with his wife and be reunited with his mother. After a journey on magic camels, which cover a distance of three months in three days, H.asan comes home. He decides to move to Baghdad, to avoid the suspicion of the neighbors, since he has now become a wealthy man. In Baghdad, his wife, whose name is Mana-r al-Sana-, bears him two sons. Anxious about the jealousy of others and fearing that she might escape, H . asan keeps her isolated from the outside world and carefully hides the robe of feathers. After a while he decides to visit his foster-sister in the castle, summoning his mother to prevent Mana-r al-Sana- from finding her robe of feathers. However, Mana-r al-Sana- overhears the conversation and conceives a ruse to regain her robe after her husband has departed. Insisting that she needs a bath, she persuades H . asan’s mother to take her to the bath-house, where she is seen by a servant of Lady Zubayda, the wife of Caliph Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d. She is subsequently summoned to appear before Zubayda, whom she persuades to return the robe of feathers to her. As soon as she has it in her possession, she flies away with her two sons to her own land. However, she says that if H . asan is unable to bear the separation from her, he should come to her on the Wa-q-Islands. It is clear from this episode that H.asan’s wife, although she may have taken a human shape, is still a jinniyya. She is taken to Baghdad, the core of the human domain, but is unable to accommodate to her environment, probably because she has been taken there without her full consent and is kept in isolation as a prisoner. Therefore, for the princess the house of H.asan in Baghdad is a marginal space in which her heart is not at rest. She has not ‘arrived’ in the metaphoric sense. Moreover, H . asan makes the mistake of leaving her to visit the castle, thus neglecting her instead of fostering her integration into his world. She subsequently succeeds in breaking out of her seclusion, entering the semi-public space of the bath-house, which is on the one hand a secluded space for women, but on the other

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a space where the princess can exhibit her beauty. She shrewdly exploits the power relations that are dominant there to reverse her transformation, regain her intermediary shape and return to her homeland. It is important for the story that H . asan and his wife move from Basra to Baghdad. With this displacement H.asan enters the direct sphere of authority of the Caliph and his court. Here his personal power, as a man over his wife, is juxtaposed to the general power of the caliph and Zubayda. Once Mana-r al-Sana- has reached the public space, she has entered the domain that is structured by the authority and power of the court. She cleverly manipulates the mechanisms of this authority to achieve her goal. The power of the caliphal court is also juxtaposed to the royal power of the father of the princess, the supreme authority in her homeland. It is these authorities that seem to have the power to set boundaries, to enable people to cross them, or prevent them from crossing, and to forestall that the two incompatible lovers are united. They seem to be accomplices of the forces of infidelity. When H.asan returns to Baghdad and finds his wife gone, in one sense the previous equilibrium has been restored. He is a wealthy citizen living in Baghdad with his mother and the princess has returned to her natural environment. Still H . asan’s soul has not yet reached its destiny, since the gains of his journey have not been incorporated into his new life. His two children are far away and, more importantly, his love has been shattered by an act of infidelity. It is his new, firm belief in faithfulness which urges him to go and recapture his beloved. As we will see below, Mana-r al-Sana-, too, has not truly arrived at her home. Her new situation prevents her from taking up her former position in the social structure of the Wa-q-Islands. The story cannot end here. The fourth episode To recuperate his wife H.asan sets out on a complicated journey, which takes him first to the Mountain of the Clouds, the gateway to the realm of the jinn. His fostersister promises to help him and calls in the support of her uncle ‘Abd al-Quddu-s, who says that it is impossible to reach the Wa-q-Islands, even with the help of a flying jinni or a planet. The Islands are separated from the Mountain of the Clouds by seven valleys, seven seas and seven huge mountains. However, since he notices H . asan’s firm determination, he takes him on a magic elephant to a blue mountain, which harbours a cave with a door of Chinese steel. They pass through a long corridor and a courtyard and enter a door of yellow brass, which gives access to a vast steppe. Here H.asan continues his journey on a magic horse which brings him to the entrance of a cave, where he has to wait five days and deliver a letter to Sheykh Abu- al-Ruwaysh, the son of Bilqı-s, the queen of Sheba. After he has been admitted by the sheykh, he walks for half a day through a corridor, passes through a steel door into a marble hall, and comes into a garden with adjacent sitting rooms and a fountain, where a company of men are reading books. Partly because of his unshakable determination and the recommendation of Sheykh ‘Abd al-Quddu-s, partly because of his brave performance against the Persian magician, in the first episode, H . asan receives the support of Sheykh Abu al-Ruwaysh.

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He is put on the back of a jinni, which brings him to the Camphor Land, where he has to walk for ten days before arriving in the capital city. The king of the city sends him on a merchant ship to a seashore, where an old woman, the commander of an army of female warriors, takes him under her protection. Disguised as an Amazon H . asan travels with the army to the Waq-Islands, passing through the Land of the Birds, the Land of the Beasts of Prey and the Land of the Jinn. Finally, they reach the river that marks the border of the Wa-q-Islands. With H.asan’s arrival at the Wa-q-Islands, we have reached the final spatial setting in which the story reaches its dénouement. The peculiarities of the Islands have been described elsewhere, and it is unnecessary to go into the details here.5 We will confine ourselves to some of the main characteristics and connotations that are relevant to our analysis. In our story, the Wa-q-Islands contain a society which is at the same time simple and extremely complex. They are governed by a king, who has appointed his seven daughters as queens over the seven Islands. These queens rule over an Amazon society, which means that the Islands are not only isolated in the geographical sense, since they are so far away that they can hardly be reached at all, they are also inaccessible in the moral and social sense, since they harbour an exclusivist society which is hostile to any foreigner, but especially to men. These characteristics make the Wa-q-Islands into a geographically and socially marginal space, where regular social conventions are replaced by an anomalous set-up which denies the conventional rules for gender relations. In this sense they mirror the function and status of the castle on the Mountain of the Clouds, where the jinn-princesses live in a secluded place and are divested of their conventional roles as women. The peculiar nature of the Wa-q-Islands evidently greatly complicates H.asan’s task. He not only has to cover an enormous distance, pass through dangerous lands and overcome unsurmountable obstacles, he also has to penetrate a territory which is set apart from the normal world and surrounded by taboos. There is only one way to cross the last boundary: by disguising himself as a woman. However, when he is led before the queen of the first island, who is the sister of Mana-r alSana-, he has to throw off his disguise and explain the reason for his journey. The queen becomes infuriated, because a stranger, and even a male stranger, has come to her island, to ‘tear away their veils’, ‘watch their faces and everything else’ and ‘tarnish their honour’. He is bound to tell everyone what he has seen and by doing so will open up the way for other adventurers to come to the Wa-q-Islands. The queen’s fear is not wholly unfounded, since H.asan, on his way with the Amazon army and still disguised as a woman, had inspected the Amazons while they were bathing, to find out if his beloved was among them. This episode is very explicit in its description and leaves no doubt about one of the metaphorical meanings of the story: the penetration of a man into a female domain. His physical reaction almost spoils H.asan’s disguise. The queen’s wrath is not only directed against H . asan, however, the intruder from outside, but also against Manar al-Sana, who has been inobedient not only to her father, by marrying a human being and hiding it from him, but also to her husband, whom she has left without his consent, taking his children with her. It is clear that this female society is not a society where

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women are free to act as they wish; it is a society without men, but dominated by male authority, structured by the king and governed by patriarchal rules. Paradoxically, this is what saves H.asan from being immediately executed. Having first been saved by his disguise as a woman, he is now saved by his status as a husband. He thus has a complex role, or set of roles; as a man he is a trespasser in the female domain, but his rights as a husband overrule this offence, since marriage and fatherhood create a relationship in which women are subservient to men. It is the father-king who in the end gives the queen permission to have both H . asan and Manar al-Sana executed. Before this can be realized, however, H . asan succeeds in rescuing Manar al-Sana and his two children, with the help of a magic cap which makes him invisible. Subsequently, the company travel back to Baghdad by magic means, defeating the pursuing armies of the malevolent queen and securing her subjugation. In the end, the two sisters are reconciled. When he has reached Baghdad, H.asan seems to have achieved the impossible: he has travelled to the fringes of the world, overcoming tremendous obstacles; he has defied a stubborn king upholding an anomalous society in a territory surrounded by the strictest taboos and he has broken the dominance of the social conventions governing the Wa-q-Islands. His most important achievement, however, is that he has succeeded in winning the heart of Mana-r al-Sana-, or at least in convincing her that her place is with him. When they are reunited, Mana-r al-Sana- begs him to forgive her for leaving him without his permission. She acknowledges that ‘a woman only knows the value of a man when she is separated from him’, and that ‘women are only created for men’. This incites the goodhearted H.asan to apologize for having left her in Baghdad when he himself travelled to the jinn-castle. In this final episode the themes and motifs introduced in the previous episodes are continued. Of course, the motif of disguise is very prominent on various levels and connected with the changing of roles. There is a constant alternation between marginal and core roles, related to the hybridity of the spatial and social settings and the mechanisms of the exertion of power. H . asan has to disguise himself as a woman, suppressing his male physical impulses and becoming an unreal, marginal person, only able to survive through the protection of the old woman. Eventually he becomes an outcast in the female society of the Wa-q-Islands, because he is a man. Conversely, as long as she hides her circumstances, Mana-r al-Sana- is in the core of the social structure of the Wa-q-Islands, but as soon as her true status, as a married woman with children, is discovered, she becomes an outcast and has to be eliminated. They only succeed in throwing off their disguises and their marginal status by the use of magic and by fleeing from the marginal space of the Wa-q-Islands to the land of Islam, where normal social relations prevail. Again, the motif of disguise and transformation is linked to the structure of the journey, but in some respects here the function of the journey metaphor diverges from that in other similar stories. After all, H . asan is not travelling as a regular traveller, or aimlessly roaming through ‘real’ space. The obstacles with which he is confronted are not ‘normal’ difficulties, such as hunger, shipwreck, disease, villains, etc., but rather focal points in the vast magical labyrinth that separates

Magic and the logic of narrative space 115 the Waq-Islands from the normal world. At these focal points he is provided with new means of transport to cover enormous distances in a magical way, on condition that he passes the test: on every occasion he is warned of the dangers of his undertaking and he has to prove that his determination is still unwavering, that his love is real and, particularly, that he values fidelity higher than his life. This firm belief in fidelity transforms space into an insignificant factor, reflected in the magical means of transport which are put at his disposal and which are stronger than the laws of time and space. It is this firmness that transforms Mana-r al-Sanainto a faithful wife. She has made the mistake of leaving her husband and choosing the path of infidelity. As a result of H . asan’s journey she now gains the insight that fidelity is preferable and that her hybrid status in the Amazon society is untenable. H.asan’s belief is stronger than the laws of space, it is stronger than the power of kings and it is stronger than the forces fostering hybridity. The narrative and metaphorical structure of the final episode is not uncommon in tales of this genre. Elsewhere I have shown how the labyrinthine journey leading to an enclosed spatial entity containing some moral dilemma or some anomalous practice is used to reflect a quest for a spiritual truth and, simultaneously, the incorporation of marginal spaces into the well-ordered geographical and moral space of Islam.6 However, this explanation, and especially the second component, seems somewhat at odds with the conventions of the love romance. Of course, the impregnability and marginality of the Wa-q-Islands primarily serve to symbolize the difficulty of reaching true love and the forces that have to be submitted before love can be incorporated into the regular social structure. However, it seems that the stress on the territorial aspects of the Wa-q-Islands – the authority of the king, the anomaly of social relations, the hostility towards foreigners – is artificial and rather unbalanced. An explanation of the use of this episode may reside in the parallels between our story and the romance of Sayf ibn Dhı- Yazan, in which a similar escapade to the Wa-q-Islands occurs.7 In the case of Sayf the context is the reverse, however, since the Islands are not used metaphorically to illustrate the vicissitudes of love; it is rather the metaphor of love that is used to illustrate the forces of conquest and subjugation. After all, Sayf is a romance about the way in which the new faith, Islam, neutralizes the forces of magic in the barbaric lands. By subduing the magic spells protecting these lands and eliminating divergent practices, Sayf incorporates the various lands into the realm of Islam. Here too the journey metaphor is not meant to structure an internal development of the hero, but rather his ability to conquer and subject space and to penetrate into every domain. His aim is to realize a transformation and substitute Islam for anomalous heathen practices. This type of the reversal of anomalous practices is used in our story, too, as a metaphor of the transformation of Mana-r al-Sana-.

Space and narrative structure It is clear that the story of H . asan of Basra is built up of several components which do not together form a harmonious whole. It seems that episodes have been taken from other stories and moulded to fit into the narrative structure of our story.

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However, this does not mean that the pieces are put together in a haphazard way. On different levels the coherence of the story is secured by mutual references between the episodes and the basic formal framework. On the thematic level, it is the phenomenon of metamorphosis which pervades the various episodes. Metamorphosis occurs in different ways in the story, such as the motif of changing brass into gold, the transformation of the bird into a girl and vice versa, and the various motifs of disguise connected with the changing of roles. The theme of metamorphosis is juxtaposed with the idea of fidelity and faithfulness, which prevails in the end. Secondly, there are several other motifs, apart from the ones mentioned above, that link the episodes to one another, especially the jinn-castle on the Mountain of Clouds and the Wa-q-Islands, where women in an extraordinary social position are kept isolated from the outside world. Other motifs include the abduction, first of H.asan by the magician, later of Mana-r al-Sana- by H . asan, the recurrence of the magical animals used for transportation, and the women helping H.asan to achieve his goal. Finally, the metaphor of the journey gives the story its structure and coherence, since the spatial representations reflect the phases in the development of the narration and contain the starting points for the next episodes. The settings silently determine the inevitable sequence of H.asan’s adventures and symbolize the segregation of H . asan’s soul from the spiritual world to which he belongs and which contains his destiny, or his reunion with it. The journey symbolizes the stages of H . asan’s love, first taking him from his familiar surroundings, than confronting him with the dilemma of betrayal versus fidelity, and finally initiating him into the forces of true love. The marginal spaces through which he passes are reflected in the marginality of his own roles and of his relationship with Mana-r al-Sana-. However, as we have argued above, after the first episode it is not H.asan’s psyche that undergoes the transformation reflected in the journey; it is rather H.asan’s inflexibility that is contrasted to the essential inconstancy of travelling. The journey does not change H.asan, it changes Mana-r al-Sana-, who has gone through a process of union, separation and reunion before she realizes that the idea represented by the person of H . asan should prevail. This consciousness is developed by her own free will and is contrasted with the abductions which lead to unsatisfactory outcomes. These interpretations of the metaphors of transformation – disguise, transmutation, journeys – lead us to the theme of individuality. To what extent is the process described in the tale the report of the development of an individual personality, or of the contrast between individual choices and social conventions? It seems justified to say that here, as in the case of the story of Qamar al-Zama-n, a number of decisive turning points in the story support the conclusion that a cycle is suggested between the pursuit of individual urges and the structure of social conventions. The episodes are centred on choices, or the lack of choice: In the first episode H.asan takes the wrong decision to let himself be deceived by the magician; in the second and third episodes he takes the wrong decision to abduct Mana-r al-Sana- and take her to his homeland; in the third episode both Mana-r al-Sana- and H . asan take the wrong decision to leave each other; and, finally, in the fourth episode H . asan recognizes that

Magic and the logic of narrative space 117 his love for Manar al-Sana represents his personal destiny and Mana-r al-Sanachooses to be his faithful wife. Between these choices lie transitional phases, in which roles are switched and the heroes travel from margins to cores, from various marginal roles to their true social status. Marginality, again, is an expression of the pursuit of individuality, which is needed to enable the hero to reconquer his or her position in the social structure and for the social structure to secure its reproduction. It may be argued that it is the social system that eventually seems to prevail over individuals and that the dynamic of the story is from the beginning directed at restoring the integrity of the system of conventions, thus subjecting individuality to the general framework of society. After all, the wrong choices are systematically punished and re-enacted to lead the heroes to salvation. However, the reason for telling the story in the first place is the freedom of individuals to make the wrong choices and to learn from them; if they do so they are not just reintegrated into the social structure, but rather have gained from their experience, for instance by having found true love. Thus the raison d’être of the story is the way in which individual choices and experiences enrich and revitalize the system of conventions and thus are the main force ensuring its reproduction. At the heart of every transformation is the art of magic, which consists of the manipulation of space and time, and the transformation of matter. We should distinguish between evil magic and good magic, however, the first practised by wicked magicians trying to make the material world subservient to their avarice, and the second practised by those who are part of a network of sorcerers – half human, half jinn – countering the forces of evil and supporting H.asan on his journey. These magicians subjugate time and space for a lofty aim, of which H . asan is the vehicle. However, it is unwavering determination in pursuit of the good and the rejection of evil that realizes the final metamorphosis. It is not magic, but faith and fidelity, or perhaps the more earthly magic of love, that is needed to transform a jinn Amazon girl into an obedient wife.

Manifestations of magic The story of H . asan of Basra is first of all a love story, following a familiar narrative pattern which has been discussed in its own context in the previous chapter. What interests us here are the systematic references to different kinds of magical practices and their use as a narrative device. The categories of magic or derivatives of magic that are mentioned are alchemy, the magic of sorcerers, and the magic related to jinn. As we will see, these domains of magical manipulation are closely related, and they sometimes interact. The magic of sorcerers is often due to their authority over jinn and their power to have them obey their commands. We will now briefly discuss the three main fields of magic, before analysing how they are integrated in various stories of the Thousand and one nights, and, finally, how they affect the spatial structuring of the narrative and the motif of mobility. The practice and theory of alchemy is based on the assumption that every phenomenon, every object, and every creature on earth is somehow related to a

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unifying, higher system, which controls the nature of beings and the course of events. The creation as we know it is a microcosmos that is linked to a macrocosmos which determines everything that happens, grows, and decays. In a more practical sense, it is the science of the nature of matter, explaining natural forces as the balance between four elements – air, earth, water, fire – and the amalgamation of specific components, especially sulphur and mercury. It works with specific symbols and coded language, in order to enhance the esoteric character of the Master Work, the fabrication of the elixir, which gives the ability to change copper into gold and/or which grants man eternal youth. The combination of theoretical beliefs and practical knowledge, and the diverging aims of the Great Work show that alchemy is part of a complex epistemology, an effort to see the world as a coherent unity and to explain natural phenomena. But it is also a practice aimed to manipulate natural forces, and in this it is related to the domains of magic. The dual nature of alchemy is reflected in its place in the history of Islamic thought and science. Alchemical theories were an integral part of the natural sciences and cosmological reconstructions, and the concepts of matter and soul. Famous scientists such as al-Ra-zı- (Rhazes, d. 923) and Ibn Sı-na- (Avicenna, d. 1037) incorporated elements of alchemy in their philosophies, showing that alchemy was an important component in the medieval Islamic world-view, not only in the field of science, but also in popular belief. However, Ibn Sı-na explicitly condemned alchemist practices, such as efforts to transform metals into gold, as deceit. These practices were only performed by impostors, who were seeking material gain by misleading the people. This reflects the general attitude in Islam towards alchemy: it was incorporated into scientific world-views and reconciled with the tenets of the Faith, but excesses were rejected. This places alchemy in the same category as, for instance, astrology, which was also based on a holistic vision of life and the cosmos. The relationships between the various cosmic components were acknowledged, but the practices derived from them were as a rule denounced.8 A similar ambivalence can be discerned with regard to magical theories and practices. As in Europe, a distinction was made between ‘white magic’, that is manipulating natural forces with the help of God, or religion, and ‘black magic’, or the manipulation of natural forces with the help of the devil and evil spirits. Evidently, the first category was admitted as part of the design of nature and in conformity with God’s will, while the second category was condemned as belonging to the domain of sin. In the Koran magic is mentioned as an existing practice, but the believers are warned against the evil intentions of sorcerers. In Islamic stories of conversion, the spreading of the Faith is generally achieved by the extirpation of all kinds of magical superstitions and practices by evil sorcerers, who are subdued by the heroes of Islam and replaced by the ‘rational’ world-view of the Faith. In some traditions, magic, like other trades and arts, is associated with King Solomon, the ruler of nature in its diverse appearances, whose orders the natural forces obeyed. Although excessive practices were banned, therefore, the medieval Islamic world-view was steeped in magical beliefs. Sorcery, too, was often ascribed to Magian priests and their harmful occult practices.9

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The world of the jinn has always been part of the Islamic view of creation. The jinn are creatures made of fire, with a thin skin, who can change themselves into any shape they desire. There are many stories about the jinn in legends and traditions, especially about the jinn who disobeyed their king Solomon, or the jinn who refused to acknowledge Adam as their master. These are either the wellknown jinn imprisoned in jars, or the followers of Iblı-s, or Satan. Among the jinn are believers and unbelievers, who each act according to their nature. They are organized in tribes and kingdoms and live either in ‘underworlds’ of various kinds, or in specific places, such as seas, islands, ruined buildings, bath-houses, forests, deserts, etc. As a rule, they are less intelligent than humans, but they have magic powers as compensation. Often they are the guardians of talismans and enchantments.10 These categories of the ‘supernatural’ to a large extent shaped the Islamic view of the world in the pre-modern period, and it is not surprising that they found their way into storytelling in general and the stories of the Thousand and one nightstype in particular. They belonged to popular culture and high culture, albeit in different variants, and determined the nature of stories which became so specifically associated with the Thousand and one nights. References to alchemy are to be found in stories such as the Queen of the serpents, as we observed in chapter 11 three, H . asan of Basra, and Judar and his brethren. Practitioners of alchemy are as a rule associated with fireworshippers, who believe in the divine capacities of fire and who are especially inclined to lure young men into their power, after which they abduct them to be sacrificed in their fire-temples at the annual feast, or for other purposes. In the story of ‘Ajı-b and Gharı-b the oven of the Magian jinn-king is crushed by a falling stone. These references indicate the ambivalent attitude towards alchemy in Islam: in the Queen of the serpents it is part of the sciences to which H . asib Karım al-Dın gains access, in other stories it belongs to the realm of evil which is contained either by the will of God, or by the ‘good’ natural forces. Sorcery is a motif in several stories, varying from Jullana-r to Ju-dar and his brethren and the stories of the Second qalander12 and the first, second and third Sheykh.13 Usually it is learned from books, or recorded in books, as a form of esoteric knowledge. The princess in the story of the Second qalander has learnt the ‘chapters’ of sorcery from her nurse, while the Maghribi sorcerer in Ju-dar has read about a magic treasure in a book of sorcery inherited from his father. In other cases it is explicitly linked to persons such as the old sorcerer in the story of Ja-nsha-h, who survived from the time of Solomon. An evil sorceress is Queen La-b in the story of Jullana-r, who terrorizes the island where she lives and transforms its inhabitants into horses, mules or birds. Sorcery can be linked to objects, too, for instance, the magic stone that ‘Ala-’, al-Dı-n Abu- al-Sha-ma-t uses to procure a flying bed, or the cap that makes H . asan of Basra invisible, a tub of water sprinkled over someone to change his shape, the magic saddle-bag of Ju-dar, and the magic ring in the story of Abu- Qı-r and Abu- Sı-r.14 Finally, sorcery is often associated with the power to command the jinn and use their magical forces. Jinn are so omnipresent in the stories of the Thousand and one nights and they have such a determining function that the variety of their occurrences is difficult

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to summarize. One can say that they ‘embody’ the power of magic, in its manifold manifestations, and that they represent a magical world which interlaces with the human world. They appear in many shapes, often human, they can be cruel or benevolent, they can be the slaves of magical objects, but they can also themselves possess magical objects or animals. They can change humans into animals and vice versa and hold humans prisoners by casting a spell (the stories of the Second qalander, Muh.ammad hight Lazybones). They guard treasures by means of talismans (Ju-dar; ‘Alı- from Cairo15), and form fearsome armies attacking armies of men or jinn. They inhabit the ‘underworld’ in the story of Bulu-qiya-, and the sea in the stories of Jullana-r and ‘Abdalla-h ibn Fa-‘dil, with their palaces and kingdoms. They can carry humans over enormous distances in the blink of an eye (Ma‘ru-f the cobbler,16 Qamar al-Zama-n), and they embody the idea of metamorphosis in the widest sense of the term. In most of these cases, forms of magic are among the decisive motifs of the story, either representing the incentive for a change of the regular course of events, or the interference in regular life from the realm of the supernatural, or creating coincidences which have to be solved within the context of the ‘normal’ world. They can provide explanations for anomalous behaviour, but they can also provide the opportunities to prepare the plot of stories, as a deus ex machina, or as carefully mobilized forces. They can represent the opposite forces of good and evil, or some pre-human history, related to legendary times and the process of creation. Jinn are, one could say, the main link between the human world and the supernatural world, often executing the orders of fate, leading characters to their destiny or interrupting their life to direct them to their predestined course. They can make simple people tremendously rich, but they also abduct and imprison young women and threaten innocent fishermen. In short, they represent the element of contingency, of unpredictability and surprise, the secret forces hidden in the folds of creation, which may suddenly manifest themselves.

Magic and place When magic is concerned with the manipulation of natural forces, it is obvious that it is related to visions of the nature and transformations of space. As we have seen in chapter two, in the ‘magical’ world view, the earthly space is part of a great design, involving the gradual differentiation of an essential unity. Spatial differentiation in nature is explained by theories of the creation and transformation of matter, governed by the laws and ‘mechanisms’ established when the earth was created. Magic can be seen partly as the ability to manipulate these mechanisms, or at least some of them, in order to interrupt the regular pattern of events. Defined in this sense, magic, and the appearance of jinn, implies the linking of two domains which are visualized spatially in Islamic cosmology, the domain of the earth and its human inhabitants, and the domain of the cosmic mechanisms where the cycles of nature are controlled. Magic is the interference between specific spatial domains, the penetration of one into the other, and the capability to control the forces that are unleashed by this mingling.

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It seems justified to say that magic is based on and pre-conditioned by a differentiation of space, which is nevertheless related to a conceptual unity. It is essentially a method of playing with the different natures of the various domains, of combining forces of a different nature within a complex but coherent unity. Magic is thus organically linked to spatial differentiation, on different levels. In some cases, the domains of visible nature and ‘supernatural’ forces are clearly separated. This can be seen in the story of H . asan of Basra, when the sea has to be crossed before the Mountain of the Clouds can be reached; and the forbidden door in the palace of the jinn-princesses, that gives access to the world of the jinn. In the story of Jullana-r, the demarcation is even more distinct, since here the domain of the jinn is under the water, hidden from human perception. By coincidence Jullana-r leaves her submarine home to live on earth, but the boundary is still upheld, in a metaphorical sense, since she refuses to speak to her husband, the king. Only when she has become pregnant and Badr Ba-sim is born does she initiate the king into her secret. Badr Ba-sim is allowed to transgress the boundary and enter the domain of the jinn, as a child of two worlds. But when he wants to penetrate too deeply into the jinn-domain, by asking the hand of Princess Jawhara, the forces of rejection are mobilized. A passage from one domain into the other is possible, but a complete amalgamation is almost unthinkable. The impossibility of merging the two domains, of man and jinn, is a topos in love romances such as Ja-nsha-h, which shows that a human man and a jinn-girl can meet and fall in love, but that marriage between them is hindered by almost invincible obstacles. The idea behind this is that the world may be ordered by a unified spirit, but that it is still spatially heterogeneous; that there is not one system of natural laws that governs the various domains, but that the epistemological unity is fractured into at least two different, but linked, spheres. This heterogeneity is usually represented spatially as well, by the enormous distances between the two domains, by seas and islands separating them, by taboos, closed doors, high mountains, time-gaps, spells, etc. The gates to the ‘underworld’ are at the fringes of the earth, in places where geography gradually changes into cosmography, where the Qa-f-mountains surround the inhabitable world. Transition between the two domains is as a rule represented as a journey, either covering great distances, or conquering huge obstacles, or crossing some strongly fortified boundary. The demarcation between the two worlds is not necessarily expressed by distance. The power of magic lies in the fact that the forces of the supernatural domain can be evoked, mobilized and manipulated inside the human world, thus creating a kind of insular realm where the laws of nature are suspended and which is cut off from its surroundings. It is temporally, or partially, integrated into the supernatural domain, although it seems to be located in the perceptible world. This is realized by enchantments and talismans, usually installed by sorcerers and jinn, freezing a specific situation in a spatiotemporal immobility, transforming the character of a place and perpetuating its ‘new’ status. More often than not, the extraordinary status can only be discovered by accident, since its appearance does not betray its enchanted nature, or, perhaps more accurately, by an act of fate. As a rule, enchantments are seen as anomalies, which indicate some kind of disorder,

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crime or taboo. They have to be put right by removing the reason of the spell or by dissolving the talisman. There are many examples in the Thousand and one nights of this type of magic. In the story of the Ensorcelled prince17 a whole city is turned into a lake, with fishes of three colours, due to a sorceress who deceives her husband with a black slave. The spell can be lifted only after the sorceress is lured by a ruse into revoking it. In the story of Ju-dar a lake contains the magic ‘key’ to a treasure, which is protected by a talisman. The enchantment is discovered by chance, when Ju-dar is forced to find a place for fishing. In the story of Jullana- r, the sorceress Queen La-b holds an island in her power by using her magical knowledge to change people into animals. Finally, there are various examples of young ladies who are held captive by a jinni, either in a cave, or in some other space. They are ‘immobilized’ by forms of talismans, as for instance in the story of the Second qalander – the lady in the crypt –, or in the story of Muh.ammad hight Lazybones, where a girl is ‘imprisoned’ by a spell cast by the jinni who covets her, and, finally, in the story of Sayf al-Mulu-k, whose beloved is kept prisoner by a jinni in a cave on an island, locked in by a complicated spell. These examples make the lady in the trunk, who was kidnapped by a jinni, as related in the story of Shahraza-d and Shahriya-r, the more remarkable. In all these cases, the spells require some form of redress, the restoration of normality, the re-integration of spaces and persons into the natural domain. The examples above show that magic is first of all concerned with forms of transformation and metamorphosis, challenging the regular laws of space and time. Magic distorts realistic spatiotemporal structures, for instance by the introduction of magical means of transport, such as flying horses, magic camels, the Prophet al-Khad.ir, or jinn who cover thousands of miles in a single hour. Therefore, magic is intimately related to forms of mobility, not only as a means of displacement, the installation of boundaries or the transformation of spaces, but also as a phenomenon which symbolizes the traveller’s estrangement from his environment. Whoever travels far from home, or in a strange environment, is bound to be confronted with irregularities, either strange manifestations of nature, or mysterious powers that are dangerous to strangers and intruders. Magic and sorcery are thus part of the vicissitudes of the journey, threatening the traveller who lacks the stability of his familiar environment. Enchantments and spells represent the permanent threat of metamorphosis to which every traveller, who has discarded the stable identity linked to immobility, is exposed. As in the case of Badr Ba-sim and Queen La-b, in the story of Jullana-r, magic is part of the ritual by which a stranger is received and incorporated into the milieu of the place he visits. Magic, especially when related to journeys, also symbolizes forms of initiation. Young boys, such as H . asan of Basra and Judar are supposedly initiated into the art of magic, but in fact they are brought into contact with realms of life which were until then unknown to them, or from which they were shielded by the protection of their fathers. Here magic signifies an interruption, a separation from a familiar life and the transition to a new phase, usually associated with love or morality. This transition is linked to hardships, distances, dangers and taboos,

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demarcating the different stages of life and the difficulties that have to be overcome to reach adulthood and true love. Magic is the vehicle of interruption and change heralding sudden changes in the destiny of the hero, creating inherent fissures and disequilibriums which have to be countered by mobility and faith. In this sense, magic is the symbol of the incapability of the hero to localize himself, to imagine a close relation between a coherent identity and a place. It is a sign of hybridity, of disconnectedness and of the uncertainty of the relation between body and space. Through magic, familiar orientations through the body are no longer valid, perceptions are distorted and self-images are invaded by what appears to be the realm of delusions, which has its own logic and coherence.

Conclusions In many stories of the Thousand and one nights magic is one of the main factors in what may be called the production of spaces. In fact, it epitomizes the way in which spaces are produced in general and the fact that spaces are something that is produced. One of the definitions of magic may be the ability to create, or re-create, spaces, in all their aspects, their form, function, meaning, time, atmosphere, measurements, etc. It can change spaces or fix them in time; but it can also, conversely, change humans into shapes that affect their relationship with spaces, which is after all essentially determined by the body. In narrative texts, these functions of magic create the possibility of interruptions, hybridities, disequilibriums and boundaries which represent the basic incentives for stories. The disturbance of the hero’s relationship with space produces a dislocation, which is a reason for mobility, which in turn restores the relationship within a new configuration. The cycle of displacement/departure, liminality/mobility and re-incorporation/arrival follows its logical course. As we have seen, the ‘magical status’ of places can be used as the backbone of a narrative, hiding in itself the necessity to travel, and to continue the story. Incongruencies in the relationship between the hero and a specific space necessitates further peregrination; hybrid spaces cannot be congruent with the hero’s destiny, because it reflects an inner hybridity which must be neutralized. Within the narrative context, magic as a rule remains an anomaly, although in some cases, such as the story of Ju-dar and the story of Ma‘ru-f the cobbler, it is in the end incorporated into the regular life of the hero. Here, what seemed to be a delusion ultimately turns out to be reality, ending an ingenious play between truth and deception, as a comment on simplistic images of reality. It is noteworthy that this play mirrors the technique of the Thousand and one nights as a whole, using storytelling, or the invention of lies, as a means to postpone a potentially fatal dénouement. In the case of magical themes, too, the narrative fulfils its role as an effort to create coherence, to show that the complexities of the visible and invisible worlds are ultimately derived from a unified concept of the cosmos, that boundaries in space, thought and identity have to be continually crossed and re-defined.

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Some conclusions

In Background above it was argued that the Thousand and one nights, as a literary work, cannot be considered as a coherent whole, but rather as a generically and structurally diffuse collection. This implies that the work cannot be studied from a single perspective or within the framework of a single totalizing approach. The Thousand and one nights is a text that requires the acceptance of a multiplicity of approaches from different angles, which may or may not interconnect at certain points. Moreover, it seems impossible, considering the multifaceted character of the work, to draw all-encompassing and systematic conclusions with regard to the work as a whole. All conclusions have to be mitigated by reservations concerning the philological status or generic peculiarities of the stories and have to do justice to the complexity of the work’s concept. Stories may be connected by certain themes or motifs, but this does not mean that they have been conceived by a single author or have been developed in the same period. Some stories may originally have been linked to the framing story, while others were only added as part of an associative process of compiling and editing. Conclusions, therefore, can only be based on specific questions about specific stories, or about clusters of stories. The work can be discussed and analyzed, but it cannot be ‘reconstructed’ within the scope of general conclusions. In the final chapter of our study we will therefore not attempt to present general conclusions rounding off the discussions in the previous chapters in a decisive way. We will rather pick up some of the threads that have been followed in the course of our discussion and view them from the perspective of some recent theories about storytelling, travelling and the representation of spaces. The discussions will be brought together within the framework of three ‘codes’ of interpretation, which correspond to layers within the work that have been signalled in the analysis of single stories or groups of stories. These codes will be related to the theories of three contemporary thinkers, who are rather en vogue these days, but whose ideas can contribute to a better understanding of the Thousand and one nights as a literary text and as a cultural phenomenon. The three codes are: the ‘narrational’ code, related to the theories of Michel de Certeau; the ‘psycho-analytical’ code, related to Slavoj Zˇ izˇ ek’s ideas on popular culture; and the ‘cognitive’ code, based on the concept of spatiality found in the work of Jacques Derrida.

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The narrational code In chapter three it has been suggested that if the concept of the Thousand and one nights, especially the framing story and its structuring function, is governed by a single idea, it might be the destruction and subsequent restoration of a spatiotemporal equilibrium. Shahriya-r’s obsessive behaviour is the result of a form of displacement, the disruption of a spatiotemporal unity, and Shahraza-d’s remedy is to create a new form of unity in which time and space are re-integrated into a new harmony. This attempt at reconstruction is achieved primarily by the act of storytelling, by a ‘narrational’ intervention. Some aspects of the relationship between storytelling and spatiotemporal structures have been studied by Michel de Certeau in his influential work The practice of everyday life, in a way that seems to give insight into the conceptual depth of the Thousand and one nights. Both in the theory of De Certeau and in the framing story of the Thousand and one nights, storytelling is seen as a form of empowerment, of re-adjusting unbalanced relations of power. Storytelling is an ongoing process, gnawing its way into established power structures and filling it with utopian alternatives. According to De Certeau, societies are constructed basically by two opposing forces. The first one is the structuring force which we recognize as all imposed forms of power and ordering, embodied by laws, institutions, ideologies, organizational planning, systematic knowledge, established hierarchies, etc. These normative ‘practices’, which presuppose abstract visions of society constructed according to rational principles, a drive for ordering and systematization and the exclusion of everything that can disrupt the coherence of this vision, conform to real social relations only to a certain extent. After all, imposed practices of this kind are adapted, re-shaped, re-interpreted and, above all, put into practice by what De Certeau calls ‘consumers’, those who have to live within the framework of imposed practices and mould them to the requirements of everyday life. Thus, the socioeconomic order is constructed by a grid of discipline and order, and by myriad ‘ways of operating’ by which ‘consumers’ re-appropriate their space for living, by manipulating the manifestations of power: A society is thus composed of certain foregrounded practices organizing its normative institutions and of innumerable other practices that remain “minor”, always there but not organizing discourses and preserving the beginnings or remains of different (institutional, scientific) hypotheses for that society or for others. It is in this multifarious and silent “reserve” of procedures that we should look for “consumer” practices having the double characteristic, pointed out by Foucault, of being able to organize both spaces and languages, whether on a minute or a vast scale.1 This is the basic idea of an ‘anthill’ society, constructed both out of general designs and structures and the countless efforts of individuals who ‘use’ the general design in their daily behaviour, in the ways they use their imagination to counter the oppressive forces of the imposed order, in their effort to carve out a

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space for their personal lives. All these individual efforts, which in themselves may seem insignificant, are in fact the main constitutive force of the social order, since by gradually accumulating they build the actual ways in which forms of power become manifest. Parallel to the dual notion of ‘ordering practices’ and ‘user’s practices’, De Certeau discerns two general ways of operating. The first is related to the notion of ‘ordering practices’ and is named ‘strategic’: [Strategy is] the calculus of force-relationships which becomes possible when a subject of will and power can be isolated from an “environment”. A strategy assumes a place that can be circumscribed as proper and thus serve as the basis for generating relations with an exterior distinct from it.2 The second, related to the ‘user’s’ way of operating is called ‘tactical’: [...] a calculus which cannot count on a “proper” (a spatial or institutional localisation), nor thus on a borderline distinguishing the other as a visible totality. The place of a tactic belongs to the other. A tactic insinuates itself into the other’s place, fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, without being able to keep it at a distance. It has at its disposal no base where it can capitalize on its advantages, prepare its expressions, and secure independence with respect to circumstances. The “proper” is a victory of space over time. On the contrary, because it does not have a place, a tactic depends on time - it is always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized “on the wing”. [...] It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into “opportunities”.3 It is clear from these quotations that, in the view of De Certeau, the ways of operating in both categories are directly linked to visions of spatiality and the organization of spaces. The ordering principle/strategy nexus has a different relationship to spaces than the ways of operating/tactic nexus: [Strategy] postulates a place that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority composed of targets and threats (customers or competitors, enemies, the country surrounding the city, objectives and objects of research, etc.) can be managed. As in management, every “strategic” rationalization seeks first of all to distinguish its “own” place, that is, the place of its own power and will, from an “environment”. [p. 36] And: Tactic is a calculated action determined by the absence of a proper locus. No delimitation of an exteriority, then, provides it with the condition necessary

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for autonomy. The space of a tactic is the space of the other. Thus it must play on and with a terrain imposed on it and organized by the law of a foreign power.4 Concomitantly, they have a different relationship to time: [Strategies] privilege spatial relationships. At the very least they attempt to reduce temporal relations to spatial ones through the analytical attribution of a proper place to each particular element and through the combinatory organization of the movements specific to units or groups of units.5 And: Tactics are procedures that gain validity in relation to the pertinence they lend to time – to the circumstances which the precise instant of an intervention transforms into a favourable situation, to the rapidity of the movements that change the organization of a space, to the relations among successive moments in action, to the possible intersections of durations and heterogeneous rhythms, etc. [...] Strategies pin their hopes on the resistance that the establishment of a place offers to the erosion of time; tactics on a clever utilization of time, of the opportunities it presents and also of the play that it introduces into the foundations of power.6 Strategies are thus concerned with mummification, with the preservation of the status of places excluding the time factor, which may undermine established institutions. Tactics, on the other hand, seek to make use of the time factor, introducing the element of change, transformation and contingency. Both seek to ‘invade’ the other, and together they produce a spatiotemporal balance. Within this complex of opposing forces, which are the constitutive components of society, storytelling, as an oral practice, belongs to the realm of everyday practices and tactics, since in its language, its unboundedness, its imaginative force, its popular basis, its utopian contents, it refuses to comply with the norms of disciplined, rationalized and systematized knowledge. It is an activity which recuperates, stores and makes visible the excesses of normative institutions and the remains of practices excluded from the ‘panoptical’ control of society. It creates, preserves and conveys alternative visions of society, fantasies of better worlds and better lives and the disruption or reversal of hierarchic relationships. It represents an alternative order, which preconditions the possibility of living under an imposed order; it carves out a space for living within the grid of the spaces shaped by strategies. This function is even more important than the content of the stories itself: Narration does indeed have a content, but it also belongs to the art of making a coup. It is a detour by way of a past [...] or by way of quotation [...] made in order to take advantage of an occasion and to modify an equilibrium by taking it by surprise. Its discourse is characterized more by a way of exercising itself than by the thing it indicates.7

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Storytelling is thus an act of transformation; it contains the potential of change, and it has the power to change. De Certeau relates the transformative capacity of storytelling – through the concept of memory – to the notion of spatiality. This notion is built up from a duality, too, since he opposes ‘place’ and ‘space’ as derivatives of the opposition between order/ strategy and practices/ tactics: A place is the order (of whatever kind) in accord with which elements are distributed in relationships of coexistence. It thus excludes the possibility of two things being in the same location. The law of the “proper” rules in the place: the elements taken into consideration are beside one another, each situated in its own “proper” and distinct location, a location it defines. A place is thus an instantaneous configuration of positions. It implies an indication of stability.8 Space, on the contrary: exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables. Thus space is composed of intersections of mobile elements. It is in a sense actuated by the ensemble of movements deployed within it. Space occurs as the effect produced by the operations that orient it, situate it, temporalize it, and make it function in a polyvalent unity of conflictual programmes or contractual proximities. In this view, in relation to place, space is like the word when it is spoken, that is, when it is caught in the ambiguity of an actualization, transformed into a term dependent upon many different conventions, situated as the act of a present (or of a time), and modified by the transformations caused by successive contexts. In contradistinction to the place, it has thus none of the univocity or stability of a “proper”.9 The status of places is thus imbued with opposing forces, which determine their position within the complex interaction of the socioeconomic configuration. The transformative power of storytelling/ memory resides in its having originated outside the here and now. It comes from another place and reconstructs a place by inserting numerous alternative spaces, drawn from the past, from the lives of others, and from ‘utopian’ visions. It intervenes in the set-up of places by adding elements from an unlocalizable outside and thereby transforms these places by supplementing it with new meanings. It introduces the time factor, the element of change, duration, and contingency, into the complex defining and stabilizing the status of a place: Memory produces in a place that does not belong to it. It receives its form and its implantation from external circumstances, even if it furnishes the content (the missing detail). Its mobilization is inseparable from an alteration. More than that, memory derives its interventionary force

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from its very capacity to be altered, unmoored, mobile, lacking any fixed position.10 And: Memory mediates spatial transformations. In the mode of the “right point in time” (...), it produces a founding rupture or break. Its foreignness makes possible a transgression of the law of place. Coming out of its bottomless and mobile secrets, a “coup” modifies the local order. The goal of the series is thus an operation that changes the visible organization. But this requires the invisible resources of a time which obeys other laws and which, taking it by surprise, steals something from the distribution owning the space.11 Like memory, stories have a vital function in the process of building a spatiotemporal equilibrium: ‘Stories thus carry out a labour that constantly transforms places into spaces. They also organize the play of changing relationships between places and spaces’.12 After this brief survey of the ideas of De Certeau about the nexus between storytelling, time and space, we can now see how they can be related to the Thousand and one nights, especially the story of Shahriya-r and Shahraza-d. As we have seen in chapter three, the obsession of Shahriya-r was created by a form of displacement, which the sultan sought to repair by installing a regime aimed at restoring his authority, excluding the time factor and the forces of excess, represented by women. This manoeuvre can be considered, in the words of De Certeau, as a strategic action, imposing a form of order by the use of power and authority, excluding what is in excess to its inner logic: the fragmentation of the self and the existence of the feminine as a constitutive element in life and society. Shahriya-r attempts to eliminate forces from the place of his power which he sees as threatening to the congruency of his authority and his ‘proper’ place. He re-establishes his ‘proper’ place as a basis of power, an ‘inside’ from which his authority emanates and radiates over an ‘outside’. It is an order that is exclusively vested in place, excluding the influences of time, contingency and change, subjecting society to an atemporal ritual cycle in which every form of evolution and reproduction is blocked. Shahriya-r re-appropriates a place which was taken from him by the disruption of the logic of power. Shahraza-d obviously represents the forces opposing Shahriya-r’s effort to install a coherent system of power in a specific place. What Shahriya-r’s measure achieves is first of all the elimination of women from the place of his authority, breaking the link between women and the palace, regarding them as an excess that must not only be controlled, but eliminated, because he sees them as the cause of the rupture, the dissonant in the strict striating of his space. When Shahraza-d decides to marry the sultan, she has no place of her own. She moves to the place that is owned by an ‘other’ and whose possession of this place is fundamentally oppressive. She represents the appearance of ‘tactics’, in De Certeau’s definition, by which the ‘strategic’ regime is apparently accepted, but at the same time manipulated to

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make the place habitable and to carve out a space within a space. She does not oppose the logic of Shahriya-r, but inserts her own operations, thereby slowly modifying the imposed regime into everyday practices. The oppressive regime is not confronted and fought, it is rather hollowed by operations, by filling it with concrete practices. These practices consist of Shahraza-d’s storytelling. Shahraza-d not only enters into the enemy space herself, she is accompanied by a host of stories from other places, from other times, and from the lives of other people. The stories are an external element, with its own variety of logical coherences, which is ‘smuggled’ into Shahriya-r’s space. The logic of the stories is not bound by or derived from Shahriya-r’s spatial order, and that is why the confrontation between them and Shahriya-r’s space produces a new meaning. Shahraza-d introduces the spaces of others into the place of Shahriya-r, turning the one-dimensional spatiality into a multiple spatiality, a space which encompasses a variety of other spaces. Thus, Shahriya-r’s place and its imposed order are changed by the addition of alternative spaces which change the elements determining them. A place imbued with stories cannot remain the same place; it has become another place, related to the myriad external spaces that help to shape it, which affect its order and the implementation of its rules. Exterior spatialities are incorporated into the interior, ‘proper’ place of Shahriya-r, by an operational practice which is hardly even noticed by Shahriya-r, because it does not visibly disrupt his ‘strategic’ regime. One of the main functions of Shahraza-d’s storytelling is the re-establishment of the influence of time. Shahriya-r’s strategy has eliminated time, in order to completely appropriate the place. By the daily sequence of interrupting and continuing stories, Shahraza-d restores a normal pattern of time, creating a longing for gratification that is dependent on a form of contingency: the next night, the story may bring satisfaction, but it may also bring disappointment, amazement, fear, wrath, or simply, the end. This time-element of daily interruptions symbolizes the contingency within the stories themselves, which show that life is subjected to the changes of fate, to coincidence and unexpected events, which can only be countered by ingenuity and imagination. It is this particular significance of the stories, combined with the rhythm of daily interruptions, that re-introduces the time factor in Shahriya-r’s spatiality, which changes the imposed regime into a new balance of complex spatiality and regular temporality. The stories reconcile Shahriya-r’s imposed spatiality with the passage of time and turn it into a spatiality that is affected by contingency and the forces of change. Shahriya-r’s place has been transformed into a space in which an equilibrium is realized between temporality and spatiality, between an abstract logic and the practicalities of life, everyday operations that shape spaces. In spite of philological difficulties, one of the intriguing aspects of the Thousand and one nights will always be the relationship between the framing story and the framed stories. To what extent is it possible, and plausible, to see the story of Shahriya- r and his brother as a model, an epitome of the stories it encompasses? Is the framing story really a statement about storytelling which is exemplified, elaborated and reiterated in the stories that follow? Or is it merely a structuring

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device, an artificial link between the stories? Whatever may be the case, the mere fact that the stories have been put together in a single frame suggests the possibility of comparing them, of applying perspectives on them that reveal differences and parallels. Parallels may not be caused by structural relationships within the framework of the collection, but, for example, by generic conventions or traditional functions of storytelling. If one applies De Certeau’s schema of strategies, tactics, spatiality and temporality to stories of the Thousand and one nights, especially the stories analyzed in the preceding chapters, such as the stories of Sindba-d, Ardashı-r, Sayf al-Mulu- k, H . asan of Basra, and the Queen of the serpents, a remarkable pattern reveals itself: in other stories, too, the main dynamism of the narrative is caused by the disruption of a spatiotemporal balance, by the predominance of a ‘proper’ place over time and by the opposition of ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’. In most stories, the heroes fight strategic situations on ‘enemy territory’, in spaces owned by others and imposed regimes that seem to have lost contact with the realities of everyday life, of individual emotions, of the existence of the ‘excess’. By using all kinds of tactical operations – including very often forms of storytelling – a new equilibrium is established between the one-dimensional order and the multiplicity of real life. In many stories places are transformed into spaces, by re-introducing the time factor, by filling them with new meanings and experiences, by introducing external elements into seemingly closed ‘interiors’. It seems that, in Arabic literature as elsewhere, this was an essential function of storytelling. This is confirmed by a comparison between the Thousand and one nights and the genre of the mirrors for princes, as discussed above in the introduction: here, storytelling is explicitly represented as a means to achieve transformations. It is not impossible that the Thousand and one nights itself was conceived as a tactical operation to modify the imposed, strategic ideology of patriarchism, which was expressed in the generic tradition of the mirrors for princes. If the framing story is interpreted according to De Certeau’s concepts, it should be remarked that the figure of Shahriya-r does not represent a pathological state or a mental abberration, but rather one of the forces shaping reality and a necessary component of the formation of power.

The psychoanalytical code It is not evident that literary texts can be viewed from the perspective of psychoanalysis. Texts are not psyches or forms of behaviour, they are not persons or the unmediated expressions of personalities; a text is not a human being. Still, psychoanalytical theories now belong to the stock of tools that are used for literary analysis. Conversely, psychoanalysts have increasingly interpreted their theories in terms of narrativity. Especially Jacques Lacan has explored the relationship between language and cognition, between narration and mental states, between patients’ statements and constructed narratives, between concrete experiences and symbolic systems. It seems possible, therefore, to use these insights from one domain to clarify certain aspects of the other, without necessarily acknowledging

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that the two forms of narrativity be part of a single domain. How this can be done in a fruitful way is illustrated by the efforts by Slavoj Zˇ izˇ ek to show the relevance of Lacanian concepts for the study of popular culture, especially literature and film. It is Zˇ izˇ ek’s thesis that the effects achieved by strategies used in expressions of popular culture reflect Lacan’s notions of the transition of the child from the imaginary stage to the symbolic stage, in which it learns the use of signs and the limitations put on desire by the Law of the Father, as explained in our analysis of the story of As‘ad and Amjad, in chapter four. But more specifˇ zek focuses on the notion of the Real, of the absent object which ically, Ziˇ cannot be comprehended, because it cannot be incorporated into the symbolic system. Zˇ izˇ ek’s analysis of the realm of popular culture is mainly based on the contrast between ‘reality’ and the ‘Real’ developed in the theories of Lacan. For Lacan, reality is what is constructed by the logic of the symbolic order. It is not ‘real’, but just the opposite: it is an illusion covering the Real by the logical coherence of the system of signs. The Real is what underlies this symbolic order, what is excluded from it, pushed out of sight. It is chaotic and incomprehensible, because it not only cannot be incorporated into the system of signs, it is principally outside it, because the system of signs is built to encapsulate it, to withdraw it from our view and to make its logic possible. The Real can be identified as the Freudian ‘Thing’, the object of desire which is pushed out of our rational thought: As soon as we take into account that it is precisely and only in dreams that we encounter the real of our desire, the whole accent radically shifts: our common everyday reality of the social universe in which we assume our usual roles of kind-hearted, decent people, turns out to be an illusion that rests on a certain “repression”, on overlooking the real of our desire. This social reality is then nothing but a fragile, symbolic cobweb that can at any moment be torn aside by an intrusion of the real.13 The symbolic order is thus self-contained, inherently coherent, because it excludes the Real. Its relationship with the Real is negative: it is an order of discourse in which the very identity of each element is overdetermined by its articulation, i.e., in which every element “is” only its difference from the others, without any support in the real.14 Seen from this perspective, the Real only appears as a disruption of the symbolic order, when something that is left unspoken, unqualified by the system of signs, reveals itself and disrupts the coherence of the symbolic order. Because the system of signs is built around the lack of the Real, the Real will always manifest itself, either in an object of desire, or in the form of a threatening ‘return of the repressed’.

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According to Lacan, the ‘object of desire’, the absence of the Real, is part of fantasies about desired objects and the relationship of the subject to them. These fantasies do not represent the fulfilment of desire, they rather define it: ‘It is only through fantasy that the subject is constituted as desiring’.15 The object of desire, as the manifestation of the absence of the Real, is not a lack that can be filled by obtaining the object; it is not satisfaction that is the aim of desire, it is the perpetuation of desire, its reproduction around the object of desire. The object cannot be obtained and should not be obtained; it is the desire for it, contained in the symbolic order, which is essential: What the fantasy stages is not a scene in which our desire is fulfilled, fully satisfied, but on the contrary, a scene that realizes, stages, the desire as such. [...] That is to say, the realization of desire does not consist in its being “fulfilled”, “fully satisfied”, it coincides rather with the reproduction of desire as such, with its circular movement.16 This brief synopsis of Zˇ izˇ ek’s interpretation of Lacan gives us the basic elements for applying it for an analysis of the Thousand and one nights as a narrative construction. It is clear that Shahriya-r’s perception of reality and of his authority was part of a constructed reality, of a system of signs that was built to cover a reality that was essentially chaotic and anarchic. His discovery of the adultery of his wife can be seen as a confrontation with the Real, laying bare his alter ego, and his repressed sexuality. It revealed the illusionary character of his vision of reality and his place in it, and showed that his strategy to obtain the fulfilment of his desire was false. The Real returned as an uncontrollable force, disrupting constructions of reality and showing that outside the symbolic order only horror and emptiness exist. There is no significance of the Real, no reason, no sense, only a lack that embodies the impossibility of the fulfilment of desire, but also the fear to obtain satisfaction, because it is outside the realm of human comprehension. Shahriya-r incorrectly identifies the Real with ‘woman’, confuses ‘desire’ with sexual satisfaction and constructs a new reality from which the feminine Real is eliminated. Woman is an object of desire, which, when it is attained, must be destroyed before it can disrupt the symbolic order. But it is precisely this cycle that allows the Real to undermine the symbolic order on a perpetual base: a disequilibrium between the Real and reality is created that prevents the reproduction of society. The exclusion of too great a part of reality by violence allows the Real to swallow the symbolic order which is a precondition for the perpetuation of society. As long as women are not integrated into the symbolic order, reality will collapse and be absorbed by the Real. It is Shahraza-d who restores the functioning of the symbolic order in Shahriya-r’s mind and life. She presents Shahriya-r with an image of the world, a replica made of metaphors, symbols and signs, a world which has its own logic and which is built around the void of the Real. In other stories, too, people are confronted with manifestations of the Real, with the deficiencies of the symbolic order, and with

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unattainable objects of desire. She shows Shahriya-r that the horror of the Real, of death and loss of self-awareness through betrayal in sexuality can be overcome by constructing an alternative set of images, which does not represent, or replace, real life, but is real life. The Real cannot be excluded by the use of violence, because death is a part of the Real and any attempt to have it penetrate the symbolic order will break the inherent coherence of this order, because it cannot be incorporated, it can only be excluded and encapsulated by a fabric of signs, rituals, and social customs. Shahraza-d’s stories exemplify a sophisticated way to cover the Real by restoring the integrity of the symbolic order, re-integrating what Shahriya-r has eliminated and fitting it into a symbolic structure. Shahriya-r has to realize that women are part of the same symbolic order as he, and not part of the Real as it manifests itself in death and sexuality. What Shahraza-d teaches Shahriya-r, too, through her inventive technique of storytelling, is that the purpose of life, of the drive of desire, is not the fulfilment of desire, but its perpetuation. Desire is aimed at a constructed object, but it is the constructing of the object, and not the object itself, which is essential. Desire exists in order to reproduce itself within a continual process of construction, without approaching its fulfilment, because fulfilment is linked to death and the triumph of the Real. By postponing her own death, Shahraza-d postpones the gratification of Shahriya-r’s desire; she defers the disclosure of the meaning of her stories, to teach Shahriya-r that the gratification inherent in stories is not the dénouement, but the telling of the story itself, the process by which the dénouement is separated from the beginning of the story. By imposing a regime of deferment on Shahriya-r, Shahraza-d gradually re-integrates him into a symbolic order which replaces the Real with reality. Life consists of the ‘management’ of desire, of a construction of objects of desire that make life possible in a world that is essentially a horrifying nightmare. Only this construction can prevent a fatal collision with the Real. Lacan’s concept of the Real can be linked to Freud’s ideas on the ‘return of the repressed’ and of the ‘haunted house’: experiences that are excluded from constructed realities, memories and life histories, because they cannot be integrated into a coherent narrative. Narratives are built to exclude them, and therefore they are inherently present in them. At some point they will show themselves, breaking the coherence of the narrative, but showing its other ‘ratio’, the reason why it was constructed, why it can never be complete and always contains a lack, something unspoken, in its centre, and why it is bound to collapse. It is this complex of Things, of objects of desire excluded from the symbolic system, which is the reason for storytelling, to regulate their function in individual and social life, and to prevent, postpone, or mitigate the confrontation with them. The Thing, in any form, can be found in many stories of the Thousand and one nights, in the guise of death, sexuality, magic, wealth, coincidence or fate. It is the confrontation with the unspeakable which drives the heroes on, in an effort to incorporate the Real into their life-narratives. The heroes explore the limits of the symbolic order, hitting upon its deficiencies and lacunae, and trying to repair it by restoring a form of coherence. In the stories, a shadow-reality is built that at the same time

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hides and reveals the fact that this reality is not the Real, that it is a construction that preconditions living with the Real and a consciousness of reality. The heroes are the needles stitching the fabric of reality. This may be a general characteristic of storytelling, but it is made explicit by the story of Shahriya-r and Shahraza-d, whose ratio radiates over the other stories of the collection.

The cognitive code The spatial aspects of the Thing, the excess of the symbolic order, are elaborated by Jacques Derrida as the metaphor of the Tower of Babel, a structure whose essence is that it cannot be completed: The “Tower of Babel” does not merely figure the irreducible multiplicity of tongues; it exhibits an incompletion, the impossibility of finishing, of totalizing, of saturating, of completing something on the order of edification, architectural construction, system and architectonics. [...] There is then something like an internal limit to formalization, an incompleteness of the construction.17 This internal contradiction which prevents completion and totalization is exemplified by architectural metaphors: The edifice is erected, that is, presents itself as a building, only by concealing this strange element that exceeds its structural logic. At the same time, that logic depends on what it conceals. Deconstruction is concerned with that which exceeds building, the confusion of structure that is hidden by it and makes it possible.18 And: Again, the basic structure of architecture, that which produces the effect of solidity and security, is understood to be its capacity to conceal. A structure is only able to stand by concealing something, something that occupies the space of the building without being visible within it, something that can only be found within the institutional discourse and yet always exceeds it, something within but inaccessible to the discourse that actually organizes its architecture.19 Spatial structures, therefore, are imagined and constructed; they are part of a reality that is built in order to conceal what it cannot grasp. It derives its logic from this lack, which is the source of its coherence and of its instability at the same time. Spatial constructs are not part of a separate domain, they pervade all forms of cognition and thinking, connected with other forms of representing reality and

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shaping signifying systems. Derrida has summarized this complex of concepts in the term ‘spacing’: [Spacing is] the “becoming space” of space, the opening up of spatial distances, the opening of another kind of distance between the world of those distances and that of prespatial presence, and the internal division of that world, its primordial opening to its other.20 And: Spacing is that which produces both the sense that things are exterior to each other, that they are spaced out in some kind of space, and the sense that space itself is exterior to some other domain, that the spatial world is detached from one that is without space. Spacing is the “distance” of representation: both the spatial intervals between signifiers and the effect of substitution, the production of the sense that the material signifier “stands in for” something detached from it, the sense that space is an exterior domain of representation detached from that of presence, which is to say, the sense of an exterior divided from an interior. In such terms, theories of representation are necessarily theories of space.21 And: “Spacing designates nothing, nothing that is, no presence at a distance; it is the index of an irreducible exterior, and at the same time of a movement, a displacement that indicates an irreducible alterity. I do not see how one could dissociate the two concepts of spacing and alterity.” This argument renders alterity internal, or, rather, problematizes the very sense of interior and thereby the whole economy of identity, propriety, immediacy, presence, and so on, which is based on it: “spacing is the impossibility for an identity to be closed on itself, on the inside of its proper interiority, or on its coincidence with itself. The irreducibility of spacing is the irreducibility of the other”.22 Spacing thus consists of the definition of boundaries, the acknowledgment of the existence of others, the creation of distances, the construction of differences. But the act of constructing, of defining an ‘interior’ and an ‘exterior’ implies a systematization which can never be complete and which, in fact, implies its opposite: by relegating something to the exterior, it is implicitly incorporated into the structure of the interior, since the interior is constructed in order to exclude it. Inside and outside always merge: The house’s ability to domesticate is its capacity to define inside and outside, but not simply because that which is located inside is domesticated. For Derrida, the “outside” of a house continues to be organized by the logic of the house and so actually remains inside it. By being placed outside, the other

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is placed, domesticated, kept inside. To be excluded is to be subjected to a certain domestic violence that is both organized and veiled.23 The inherent interconnection between outside and inside is symbolized by Freud’s image of the ‘haunted house’: In this structural slippage from heimliche to unheimliche that which supposedly lies outside the familiar comfort of the home turns out to be inhabiting it all along, surfacing only in a return of the repressed as a foreign element that strangely seems to belong in the very domain that renders it foreign.24 It is impossible to eliminate the ‘intruder’ from the constructed space without fundamentally disrupting it: The logic of incorporation turns out to be that of the parasite, the foreigner occupying the domestic interior and unable to be expelled from it, by being thrown up and out, without ruining the space. This hidden logic of the domestic is again tacitly understood as a haunting of the house. The uncanniness of the parasite is that it “is never simply alien to and separable from the body to which it has been transplanted or which it already haunts.” The space is haunted by that which exceeds it (...). The house, as the paradigm of place, is haunted by that which disrupts place but cannot be expelled from it.25 Every edifice harbours a contradiction that is the basis of its design and cannot be eliminated from it without breaking it apart. The Derridan re-workings of the concept of the Thing and the ‘haunted house’ provides us with a convenient framework for discussing some spatial aspects of the stories of the Thousand and one nights. It is clear that Shahzama-n and Sahriya-r’s vision of themselves, as men and as rulers, is based on a conception of space: authority consists of a set of boundaries, which emanate from their persons, and on the establishment of an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ represented by the palace. As has been argued in chapter four, it is the congruence of a space, the body of the king and the authority of the king that is the basis of their identity. This view is the essential egocentric vision of life: it leaves no space to an other; it excludes the other from the discourse of authority. However, when the kings depart from their palaces, a process of ‘spacing’ begins which completely topples the carefully constructed congruence: the boundaries that closed off the palace and thereby seemed to ‘totalize’ the discourse of authority, appears to harbour an intruder, a foreign element, and, what is more, precisely the element that the boundaries were meant to exclude: the lowest of creatures engaged in a sexual act with the queen. The palace, constructed as a spatial home for the male identity and the integrity of kingship, actually contains its excess, the element of exteriority which it was designed to keep out. This is

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what makes the intrusion so far-reaching: it undermines the essence of the boundary, of all differentiations which determine the construction of reality and identities. Shahriya-r subsequently, and erroneously, identifies the foreign intruder as his spouse. He then proceeds to impose a new spatial regime, forcing the feminine element into the most extreme confines, by the use of violence. The cycle of killing represents essentially a process of ‘anti-spacing’: not only the refusal to acknowledge the existence of the other, but even eliminating the other, to return to a prespatial congruence of the body and male identity. He returns to a primordial vision of women: The classical figure of the feminine is that which lacks its own secure boundaries, producing insecurity by disrupting boundaries, and which therefore must be housed by masculine force that is no more than the ability to maintain rigid limits, or, more precisely, the effect of such limits, the representation of a space, a representation that is not only violently enforced by a range of disciplinary structures (...), but is itself already a form of violence. Masculinity is not only an erection but also an enclosure, the logic of the house is as phallocentric as that of the tower.26 What Shahriya-r fails to see, of course, is that the foreign element in his palace is not his wife, but rather his alter ego, a part of himself that is not incorporated in his discourse of identity and that is excluded from his constructed reality. The other, that defies the clear segregation of inside and outside, that ‘haunts’ the palace as a home of masculinity, is in fact hidden in Shahriya-r himself, as an inherent dissonant. But Shahriya-r’s choice for anti-spacing is from the beginning fatal: by enclosing himself in his totalized space, he isolates himself from society and from the cycles of life. By locking women out, he locks himself in, and paralyses the forces of reproduction that are based on a regular interaction between interior and exterior spaces. He detaches himself from a society that is based on the impossibility of a totalizing discourse. Then comes Shahraza-d. Her strategy is essentially to resume the process of spacing which has been so violently interrupted by Shahriya-r’s fixation. She imbues Shahriya-r’s privileged space with a mass of ‘others’ who all add new dimensions to the spatial construction, relating the inside to the outside and redefining Shahriya-r’s position within his self-conceived boundaries. She restores the position of women in the spatial construct of the palace and provides the king with a host of alter egos, which are a kind of intruders, but intruders who are part of the complex network of relationships in which spatial constructions are embedded and who are integrated in a representation of life that accepts the ‘other’ as part of the interior, as part of a self that cannot be defined as a totalized whole. She shows Shahriya-r ‘the impossibility for an identity to be closed on itself, on the inside of its proper interiority, or on its coincidence with itself. The irreducibility of spacing is the irreducibility of the other’. Through Shahraza-d’s representations, Shahriya-r becomes aware that the ‘other’ cannot be eliminated from the spatial

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construct supporting his power, nor from his own interior self. This ‘other’ is in fact the kernel of every identity and its projection into space. As we have seen in various chapters above, the concept of ‘spacing’ can easily be recognized in many stories of the Thousand and one nights. Motifs contrasting exteriority and interiority, enclosure and freedom, intruders and foreigners, all seem to portray strategies regulating the process of developing a vision of alterity, to define identities by embedding them in a spatial construct that is based on distances, boundaries and different perspectives. Personalities are shaped, or re-shaped, within changing spatial patterns, which include or exclude others in order to build a new coherent spatial system and to restore the vital entwinement of identity and place. To achieve this, a part of ‘otherness’ has to be recognized as being an irreducible component of the interior, linking it to the outside; another part has to be incorporated into the discourse explaining the congruency between the narratives of a person and his place.

Travelling With the linking of (post-) modern theories to an ancient collection of stories such as the Thousand and one nights, we explore the limits of the interpretation of literature. The author/storyteller/compiler of the Thousand and one nights was not aware of the concepts that have dominated intellectual discussions at the turn of the 21st century. But just as Shahraza-d’s tales receive a new meaning because they are placed in a new context, as the past being incorporated into the present, or as a past that is juxtaposed to a specific situation within the present, the meaning of the Thousand and one nights does not remain static; it acquires new meanings because the contexts change, and it is remarkable that the stories, as they are ‘structured’ by the framing story, retain their relevance in spite of the many contextual transformations. Of course, concepts such as ‘tactical operations’, the Real and ‘spacing’, are not confined to the conditions of modern times, but seek to unravel deeprooted mechanisms underlying the development of human reality, and, especially, the links between this reality and its narrative representations. It is especially this latter element that makes a comparison between these concepts and the multifaceted tactics of Shahraza-d so irresistible: Some of the concepts seem to have been ‘known’ to Shahraza-d, in a veiled and indirect way; they seem to have inspired and shaped the storytelling as if to convey these ‘secrets’ to perpetuity, as if it contains an invisible dynamic mechanism adapting its components to the changes of time. The Thousand and one nights has detached itself from any fixed place and has become a pure manifestation of the passage of time. These remarks apply, too, to the main focus of this study, the poetics of the journey. Since the theories of De Certeau, Zˇ izˇ ek and Derrida are so concerned with the spatial embedding of human thought and experience, they are implicitly or explicitly linked to the concept of the journey. They all see the construction of spatiality as an ongoing process, that is not outside human thought, but an essential part of it. All thinking is spatial, every thought, every experience, can

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only be grasped within a spatial setting, a setting which is not a pre-given condition, but a system constructed within the processes of cognition, perception and abstraction. This recognition of the crucial significance of spatiality evidently reflects concepts of the journey. Travelling is not the mere representation of the development of a character, of the passage of time, or of a description of reality; it is a cognitive experience by which the spatiotemporal structuring of reality is invented and realized; it is the most important means by which humans establish their relations to a changing environment, as a complex of mental and physical components, encompassing individual and collective senses of time and place. In the works of De Certeau the relationship between the ordering of space and travelling is very explicit. Travelling is a signifying practice that is at the source of the invention of spaces, and related to the transformative impact of memory/ storytelling: Travel (...) is a substitute for the legends that used to open up space to something different. What does travel ultimately produce if it is not, by a sort of reversal, “an exploration of the deserted places of my memory,” the return to nearby exoticism by way of a detour through distant places.27 Travelling is a form of tactical operation countering the influence of the imposed order, filling places with the contingencies of time and chance. It is one of the forms of constructing reality. And, finally, it is intimately linked to the practice of storytelling: ‘Stories traverse and organize places; they select and link them together; they make sentences and itineraries of them. They are spatial trajectories’.28 And: ‘Every story is a travel story – a spatial practice. For this reason, spatial practices concern everyday practices’.29 Therefore, the significance of the journey in the stories of the Thousand and one nights is no coincidence; it is in accordance with the nature of the work as a tactical operation, as a means to create a world within a world. In the work of Zˇ izˇ ek, too, the journey represents an important element in the function of storytelling, as a mechanism that may be called the ‘management of desire’. It not only symbolizes the quest for desired objects, it is also essential in the more fundamental processes of the definition of these objects and the perpetuation of desire. Travelling implies not the triumph over obstacles separating persons from their aims; it most of all springs forth from the wish that these obstacles exist or are created to separate them from their aims: The point, therefore, is not simply that we set up additional conventional hindrances in order to heighten the value of the object: external hindrances that thwart our access to the object are precisely to create the illusion that without them, the object would be directly accessible - what such hindrances conceal is the inherent impossibility of attaining the object. The place of the Lady-Thing is originally empty: she functions as a kind of ‘black hole’ around which the subject’s desire is structured. The space of desire is bent

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like space in the theory of relativity; the only way to reach the Object-Lady is indirectly, in a devious, meandering way - proceeding straight on ensures that we miss the target.30 And: The Object is attainable only by way of an incessant postponement, as its absent point of reference. The Object, therefore, is literally something that is created – whose place is encircled – through a network of detours, approximations and near-misses. It is here that sublimation sets in – sublimation in the Lacanian sense of the elevation of an object into the dignity of the Thing: ‘sublimation’ occurs when an object, part of everyday reality, finds itself at the place of the impossible Thing. Herein resides the function of those artificial obstacles that suddenly hinder our access to some ordinary object: they elevate the object into a stand-in for the Thing. This is how the impossible changes into the Thing and some positive object rendered inaccessible through artificial obstacles.31 And: (...) the logic of courtly love: some common, everyday object or act becomes inaccessible or impossible to accomplish once it finds itself in the position of the Thing – although the thing should be easily within reach, the entire universe has somehow been adjusted to produce, again and again, an unfathomable contingency blocking access to the object. (...) What we truly expect and want from the Lady is simply yet another new ordeal, yet more postponement.32 These manifestations of the detour, as a form of postponement, as a form of increasing complexities, and as a form of perpetuating life, can be perceived throughout the Thousand and one nights, both in the collection as a whole and in many individual stories. It is the journey that is essential, the means to shape reality, not the attainment of the object or even the reintegration of characters and events into normality. Finally, the concept of spacing is implicitly linked to forms of travelling, since it is structured by processes of de-territorialization, nomadism, and re-territorialization, phases that are the essence of the construction of spatiality. Spaces, boundaries and distances are shaped by travelling; they only exist through mobility, through the dynamic process of movement. The establishment of the relationship of humans with their environment can essentially only be achieved by travelling. In the Thousand and one nights, journeys are represented as the constituting element defining the relationship of personalities with their habitat and with others, as part of a process of self-identification. The journey is a process of cognition, and, vice versa, every thought is part of a journey, since it is always related to an everchanging surrounding space. The ultimate lesson of Shahraza-d, in the words of Gilles Deleuze: ‘To think is to voyage’.33

Notes

1 Background 1 For a brief reconstruction of the textual history of the Thousand and one nights, see Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004. The main introductory analyses can be found in: Grotzfeld/ Grotzfeld 1984; Mahdi 1994; Irwin 1994. For bibliographical data and surveys of manuscripts and edited versions, etc., see: Chauvin 1892-1922. 2 Mahdi 1994: 1-10; Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004, vol. 2, articles ‘Textual history’, ‘Editions’, and ‘Manuscripts’. 3 Seetzen 1854-9: vol. 3, pp. 166, 397-8, vol. 4, p. 498. 4 The Kita- b al-h.ika- ya- t al-‘a ı-ba is a collection of stories similar to the Thousand and one nights, but without a framing tale. It contains some stories that can also be found in the Thousand and one nights. It probably dates back to the 14th century (Wehr 1997). See also: Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004. The Hundred and one nights refers more directly to the Thousand and one nights, but is much shorter; see: Ibid. 5 Qalama-wı- 1976; Gerhardt 1963. Qalama-wı-’s work was the first comprehensive study of the Thousand and one nights in Arabic, first published in 1943 under the supervision of the famous scholar Taha Husayn; Gerhardt published the first narratological analysis of the work. See: Van Leeuwen/ Marzolph 2004, vol. 2, article ‘Gerhardt’, vol. 1, passim. 6 Naddaf 1991; Pinault 1992; Miquel 1977; 1981; Bencheikh 1988. 7 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 181; nights 577-600 (night numbers refer to the Bula-q edition). 8 About these works, and their relationship to the Thousand and one nights, see: Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004. 9 Bakhtin 1994. About dialogism, see: Morson/Emerson 1990 and Holquist 1994. 10 See: Bonebakker 1992a and 1992b. 11 A version of the ‘Forty viziers’ is inserted into some editions of the Thousand and one nights. See: Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 507. 12 Kermode 1967. 13 Bakhtin 1994. For a useful introduction to the genre-theory of Bakhtin, see: Morson/ Emerson 1990: 272-305. 14 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: nos. 2 and 3, respectively. The stories are inserted into the framing story. 15 Ibid. 2004: no. 236; nights 899-930. 16 Malpas 1999: 174-182. 17 Ibid. 1999: 31-2. 18 Ibid. 1999: 49. 19 Ibid. 1999: 174. 20 Ibid. 1999: 186. 21 Ibid. 1999: 187-8. 22 Hamon 1992.

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23 24 25 26 27

Leed 1991: 18-9. Malpas 1999: 165. Ibid. 1999: 166. Riffaterre 1993: 54. For a discussion of the theories of metaphors in general, and especially ‘conceptual’ metaphors, see: Ortony 1995; Lakoff/Johnson 1980. 28 Leed 1991. 29 Gerhardt 1963; Laveille 1998; Henninger 1949. See also: De Goeje 1889; Walckenaer 1832. 2 Travelling, boundaries and narratives 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Leed 1991: 17-8. Ibid. 1991: 8, 20. Deleuze/ Guattari 1999, see especially pp. 351- 423; 474- 500. Touati 2000. See also: Schöller 2000. Ibn Jubayr 1980; Ibn Bat.t.u-t.a (no date); the most recent translations of these accounts can be found in: Voyageurs arabes (1995). Brauer 1995. Ibn Khaldun 1992: chapter 2. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 210; nights 624-680. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 179; nights 536-560. The main studies of this cycle are: Miquel 1981; De Goeje 1889; Walckenaer 1832; Miquel 1981; Molan 1978b; Casanova 1922. See also: Hole 1970. See especially Miquel 1981. Molan 1978b. Todorow 1971, 1969. De Goeje 1889. Gebauer/ Wulf 1995, especially pp.61- 75. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 256; nights 939- 946.

3 Roads to power 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

For a survey of Muslim cosmological theories, see: Nasr 1993. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 176; nights 482- 536. Ibid. 2004: no. 177; nights 486 - 498. Ibid. 2004: no. 178; nights 499 - 530. The main studies about the three stories are: Bencheikh 1988, Segert 1963; 1997, Kilito 1992, Horovitz 1901, Dalley 1991. About Shadda- d ibn ‘A d and his role in the Thousand and one nights, see: Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: art. ‘‘A d’. About al-Khad. ir and his role in the Thousand and one nights, see: Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: art. ‘al-Khadir’. See: al-Tha‘labı- (n.d.): 315-322, and Ibn Iya-s 1992: 157-8; this latter work should not be confused with that of the historian Ibn Iya-s. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 210; nights 624-680; an analysis of the story can be found in: Miquel 1977. For a survey of Arabic sı-ras, see: Lyons 1995; a partial translation has been published by Lena Jayyusi: The adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan (1996). See also Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: art. ‘Romances of chivalry’. Miquel 1977: 166-171. Ibid. 1977: 272 ff. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 39; nights 43-145. See Leed 199: 26-7.

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15 Penglase 1997: 15-72. 16 See: Holmyard 1990. 17 See for the influence of Neo-Platonism and Porphyry on Islamic philosophy: S. Hossein Nasr and O. Leaman (eds), History of Islamic philosophy, London/New York: Routlegde, 2003; P. Adamson en R.C. Taylor (eds), The Cambridge companion to Arabic philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; M. Fakhry, A history of Islamic philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press, 1983; Porphyry, The cave of the nymphs in the Odyssey: a rev. text with translation, Buffalo: Arethusa, 1968. 4 Night and day: the two faces of man 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 1; see also the thematic part. Bettelheim 1977: 86-90. Clinton 1986. Attar/ Fischer 1991. Malti-Douglas 1991: 22; see also Ibid. 1997. Beaumont 1993 and 2002: 42-65. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no 18; nights 15-16. For a discussion of the night as a cultural ‘archetype’, see: Alvarez 1994. Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 13; nights 7-9. Ibid. 2004: no. 60; nights 153-169. Ibid. 2004: no. 15; nights 11-13. Ibid. 2004: no. 41; nights 112-128. Ibid. 2004: no. 227; nights 738-756. Ibid. 2004: no. 36; nights 36-44. Ibid. 2004: no. 262; nights 989-1001. Ibid. 2004: no. 225; nights 708-719. Ibid. 2004: no. 63; nights 249-270. Ibid. 2004: no. 62; nights 170-248. Ibid. 2004: no. 22; nights 20-24. Ibid. 2004: no. 73; nights 285-294. Ibid. 2004: no. 14; nights 9-19. See: Naddaf 1991, Ghazoul 1996, Perfetti 1999, Hamori 1994. Discussed in ‘Chapter one.

5 Marginality, individuality and the traveller 1 Grünebaum 1942. See also: Beaton 1996: 126, 138-9. 2 Bakhtin 1994: see especially the chapters Epic and novel and From the prehistory of novelistic discourse. For a discussion of Bakhtin’s theories, see Morson/ Emerson 1990. 3 See Bakhtin 1994: chapter Forms of time and the chronotope in the novel; Morson/ Emerson 1990: 366-433. 4 Bakhtin 1994: 95. 5 Todorov 1971. 6 Bakhtin 1994: 106-7. 7 Heath 1987: 14. 8 Ibid. 1988: 10-11. 9 Ibid. 1988: 13. 10 Ibid. 1988: 15. 11 Ibid. 1988: 10. 12 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 61; nights 170-217; this story is often compared to the Greek romance Imperios and Margarona and its European versions Pierre de Provence and the fair Maguelonne. The story has been analysed by Bencheikh 1984; 1988, Heath 1988, Beaumont 2002, Matarasso 1982, Hamori 1985 and others. 13 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 62; nights 237-246; this story will not be discussed here.

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14 See: Reig 1997. 15 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 61 (within the discussion of the story of Qamar al-Zama- n; the main study of the story is Sironval 1984. 16 For a brief introduction to Lacan’s work, see Bowie 1991. The relationship between Lacan’s theories and culture has been investigated by Zizek 2002. Beaumont (2002) discusses some stories in the light of Lacan’s ideas. 17 See: Leed 1991: 19, 49. 18 Hutchinson 1992: 65. 6 The spirit of place 1 Hutchinson 1992: 116. 2 For the theoretical discussion on metaphor, see: Lakoff/ Johnson 1980; Ortoni 1995 (ed.); Lakoff/ Turner 1989; Turner 1987. 3 For a discussion of the concept of the labyrinth and its uses as a symbol, see: Reed Doob 1992. 4 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 261; nights 978-989. 5 Ibid. 2004: no. 19; nights 17-18. 6 Ibid. 2004: no. 180; nights 566-578. For a thorough philological study of this story, see: Pinault 1992; see also Gerhardt 1963; Hamori 1974. 7 This spiritual dimension of the story is emphasized by Hamori 1974. 8 See: Gebauer/ Wulf 1995. 9 Gerhardt 1963: 211-236. 10 Pinault 1992: 202-210, 217-221. 11 L’Abrégé des merveilles (1984); see especially pp. 248, 255, 311-6. 12 See about these connections: Pinault 1992. 13 Kilito 1992: 86-103. 7 The domains of love 1 See for instance: S. Bianca 2000. 2 Heath 1987, 1988; Miklos 1994; Matarasso 1982; Rosenthal 1979; Bürgel 1979; see also Giffen 1972. 3 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 104; nights 371-381. 4 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 226; nights 719-738. 5 Ibid. 2004: no. 40; nights 107-137. 6 Ibid. 2004: no. 258; nights 952-959. 7 Ibid. 2004: no. 229; nights 758-778. 8 Ibid. 2004: no. 78; nights 298-305. 9 See: Leed 1991: 217-230. 10 Respectively in: ‘Alı- Nu- r al-Dı-n and Maryam the girdle-girl, and ‘Alı- Sha-r and Zumurrud, Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 233 and no. 82; nights 863-894, 308-327. 11 Quoted in Grosz 2001: 156-7. 12 Quoted in: Grosz. 2001: 158. 13 Ibid. 2001: 59. 8 Magic and the logic of narrative space 1 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 230; nights 778-831. For an analysis of the story, see Brémond 1992. 2 Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004: no. 536; the text is not included in the Bu- la-q edition; see also above, p. //. 3 This variant of the story can be found in the Habicht translation, vol. 10, pp. 269-321. 4 Edited by Wehr 1956; there exists a German translation of the text: Das Buch der wundersamen Geschichten (1999).

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5 For a brief summary of the lore about the Wa-q-Islands, see the article ‘Wa- q Islands’ in: Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004; see also Malti-Douglas 1991. 6 See above, chapter 5. 7 See The adventures of Sayf ben Dhi Yazan (1996), pp. 239 ff. 8 See the article ‘Alchemy’ in Marzolph/Van Leeuwen 2004. 9 See the article Magic in: Ibid. 2004. 10 See the article Demons in Ibid. 2004. 11 Ibid. 2004: no. 209; nights 606-624. 12 Ibid. 2004: no. 16; nights 13-14. 13 Ibid. (2004): nos. 5, 6 and 7; nights 1-3. 14 Ibid. (2004): no. 255; nights 930-940. 15 Ibid. (2004): no. 155; nights 424-434. 16 Ibid. (2004): no. 262; nights 989-1001. 17 Ibid. 2004: no. 13; nights 7-9. 9 Some conclusions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Certeau 1988: 48. Ibid. 1988: XIX. Ibid. 1988: XIX. Ibid. 1988: 37. Ibid. 1988: 38. Ibid. 1988: 38-39. Ibid. 1988: 79. Ibid. 1988: 117. Ibid. 1988: 117. Ibid. 1988: 86-87. Ibid. 1988: 85. Ibid. 1988: 118. Zˇ izˇ ek 2002: 17. Ibid. 2002: 39. Ibid. 2002: 7. Ibid. 2002: 6-7. Derrida, cited in: Wigley 1997: 31. Ibid. 1997: 44. Ibid. 1997: 55. Ibid. 1997: 74. Ibid. 1997: 70. Ibid. 1997: 73. Ibid. 1997: 107. Ibid. 1997: 108. Ibid. 1997: 179-180. Ibid. 1997: 137-138. Certeau 1988: 106-107. Ibid. 1988: 115. Ibid. 1988: 115. Wright/ Wright 1999: 155. Ibid. 1999: 156. Ibid. 1999: 156-157. Deleuze/Guattari 1999: 482.

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Index

Abdalla-h and his brother 88 Abdalla- h ibn Fa-dil: possessing magical objects 120 Abdalla- h of the land 27, 82 Abraham 30 Abu- Qı-r: sorcery motif 119 Abu- Sı-r: sorcery motif 119 adab tradition 54 adultery 45 adventure 24–5 adventuristic time 62 Affan 29, 30 Ajı-b and Gharı-b 23, 50; alchemy references 119; story 29, 36–41, 53 Ala- al-Dı-n Abu- al-Sha- mat 52 alchemy 119; dual nature 118; theory 117, 118 Alı- from Cairo: possessing magical objects 120 Alı- ibn Bakka- r 52 Alı- Sha- r and Zumurrud: waiting bride 100 allegory: linking to experience of life 7 al-Ra- zı- 118 alter ego 48 Amjad 69–73 anti-spacing 137 Arabian Peninsula 19 Arabic literature 3, 4, 18–22; travelogue 19 Arabic love romances 63 Arabic roman de geste 36 Arabic scholars 3 Arabic version 2, 7 Arabo-Islamic culture 19 architectural metaphors 135 Ardashı-r: disruption of spatiotemporal balance 131 Ardashı-r and H.aya-t al-Nufu-s: authority systems linked to love 95 Ardashı-r and Ta-j al-Mulu-k: patriarchal authority 105

As‘ad and Amjad 69–73, 88 A thousand plateaus 16 authority 16; and place 47–50 awareness 19 Azem and Mazem 107 Azı-z and Azı-za 52, 93; love domains 91; wandering 97; women with own spaces 94 Background 50 Badr al-Dı-n H.asan 53 Badı-‘ al Jama-l: quest of hero for his beloved 99 Baghdad 4 Bakhtin 61; static and monolithic type 61 beloved: absence 19; quest for 60 betrayal motif 108 Bettelheim’s analysis 45 black hole 140 black magic 118 body double 50, 55, 74 body phantom 50 Book of marvellous tales (Kita-b al-h.ika-ya-t al-‘ajı-ba) 107 boundaries 15–27, 17, 23, 59, 67, 101 bricolage 107 Bula-q text 5 Bull and the ass 10 Bulu-qiya- 28–44; tales of 29 Cairo 4 children: self-awareness 71 chronotope 61, 74 city: ‘Abdalla-h ibn Fa-d.il and his brothers 81; concept of 79; Eldest lady 81; enclosures 83; as labyrinth 80, 81; and narrative structure 79–82; relocation in spatiotemporal structure 87; as spatial metaphor 80; symbolic connotations 89; City of brass 82–8, 88, 89

Index 157 cognitive code 124, 135–9 coherence and fragmentation: combination 50 conceptualist view 78 confinement: mobility introduced 67 continuity: interruption 34 contrast 50 Craft and malice of women 6, 10 creation: defined 28; secrets 42; stories 28 day. See Night and day. death 9 de Certeau, Michel 124, 125; ordering of space and travelling 140 de Certeau’s schema of strategies, tactics, spatiality and temporality 131 de Certeau’s theory: spatial embedding of human thought and experience 139 Deleuze, Gilles 16 Derrida, Jacques 124 Derrida’s theory: spatial embedding of human thought and experience 139 destiny fulfillment 82 detour: manifestations 141 dialogic structure 76 dialogue 7; situation of 6 differentiation 50; elimination 41; narrative strategies 89 dignity of the Thing 141 disguise 72, 116 disguise and betrayal motif 108 disguise and transformation motif: journey structure 114 disguise motif 114 dislocation motif 53 distance 47, 101 divine spirit 28 dream 31 dynamic forces 94 dynamism 94 earthly space: differentiation 34 ego 46 Egyptian manuscript 3, 10 ending: sense of 8 Ensorcelled prince 52; magic spells 122 entertaining stories 7 envisaged destinations 30 Epic of Gilgamesh 42 events: sequence of 8 fable: wisdom and moral example 10 faith 118 fantasy stages: defined 133

faraway places: longing 19 fate 35, 101; importance 63; influence 98 female domain 91–4 fertility: symbol 42 fictional narratives 77 Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadı-m and the Muru-j al-dhahab of al-Ma‘su-dı- 4 First qalander 52 fluid borders 22 fluidity 59 forbidden door motif 51 formative phases: Lacan’s ideas 72 Forty viziers 7 Foucauldian vision 41 frame-story 26 framework of three codes of interpretation 124 framing and framed stories 141; interaction 33 framing story 6, 51, 124; linking reality and fictional world 7 Freudian analysis of framing story 46 Freudian and psychoanalytical concepts 45 Freudian Thing 132 Freud’s image of the haunted house 136 Galland text 2–3, 4 garden 105 generic model 9; divergencies 10 genres 61; transformation 9 geographical desire 25 geographical world: harmonized 20 Gha-nim ibn Ayyu-b 52 good and evil: symbolic struggle 82 gratification: delay of 8 Guattari, Felix 16 hajj 19 harem: execution 10 harmony fragmentation 81 Ha-ru-n al-Rashı-d: nightly appearance 56; nightly journeys 54–7 Hasan of Basra 29, 51, 107, 117; adventures 108–15; alchemy references 119; disruption of spatiotemporal balance 131; first episode 108; fourth episode 112–15; love domains 91; magic linked to spatial differentiation 121; second episode 109–11; third episode 111–12; women with own spaces 94 H . asib Karım al-Dın 32–4; adventures 29 haunted house 133

158

Index

Haz-a-r afsa-ne 2 Heath, Peter 63 heavenly design: application 36 heroes: concept of space 38; continual mobility 38; movements 38; spatially and temporally linked 38; transformation 41; travel from margins to cores 117 heroines: journeys 101 historical spatial setting 41 Homer; Odyssey 24, 43 homme-récit 11, 26 Todorov’s model 62 hospitality: rewards 15 Ibn Sı-na- 118 Ibra-hı-m 30 Ibra-hı-m and Jamı-la 104; authority systems linked to love 95 identity: leaving behind 15 immobility 15 immobility and mobility: conflict 67 individual growth 71 individuality 72; traveller 60–76 individual spaces: interaction with collective spaces 77 initiation 7; process 35 inserted stories 6; containing allegorical representation of world 7 interaction 16 internal spatial aspects: significance 40 interpretation: framing story 46 Islam: attitude towards alchemy 118, 119; unity 20 Islam gardens: representing paradise of earth 104 Islamic eschatology 29 Islamic geography 20 Islamic literature 19; dawn 6 Islamic view of creation 118 Jalı-‘a-d 10 Jalı-‘a-d and his son Wird Kha-n 10 Ja-nsha-h 31, 32, 36, 51, 97–9; merging two domains 121; tales of 29 journey 60; accounts 14, 31; based on system of boundaries 30; concept of 79; formal structure 12; and magic 122; metamorphic complexes 1; narratological approach 1; shaping spaces juxtaposition 96–7; structural process 14; structure and connotations 42; symbolic level 12 journey metaphor 116

journeys and incorporation 88–9, 116 Ju-dar and his brethren: alchemy references 119; magic spells 122; sorcery motif 119 Jullana-r 52, 107; magic linked to spatial differentiation 121; magic spells 122; possessing magical objects 120; sorcery motif 119 juxtaposition of domains 50 Kalı-la wa-Dimna 6 Kermode, Frank 8 Khaldu-n 22 king: eliminating women 10 King Jalı-‘a-d and his son Wird Kha-n 10 kingship 47 King Tighmu-s 31 Kita-b al-h.ika-ya-t al-‘ajı-ba 4, 107 knowledge: quest for 42 Koran magic 118 L’Abrégé des merveilles 86 labyrinthine journey: enclosed spatial entity 115 labyrinthine structure 84 labyrinth motif 108 Lacan, Jacques 131 theories 46 Lacanian concepts for study of popular culture 131–32 laws of convention: vs. Qamar al-Zama-n’s personal inclination 69 life: dichotomy of 51 life-cycle 22 light and dark: eternal cycle 51 liminal phase 39 liminal position 38 literary genre 8–9 love: authority systems linked to 95; comparing Greek and Islamic concepts 60; domains 90–106; space 101–05 love domains 91 love romances 61; characteristics 60; generic conventions 64; stability threat 64 lovers: separation 64; love story 40, 117 magic 117 concerned with transformation and metamorphosis 122; defined 120, 123 magical theories 118 magic and place 120–23 magic manifestations 117–20

Index 159 magic spells 122 Mahdi, Muhsin 3 Mahdi edition 5 male and female components: balance 46 Mamluk period 4 mapping procedure 78 marginality 72, 117; traveler 60–76 marginalization 69 Ma‘ru-f the cobbler 52 Ma‘ru-f the cobbler: possessing magical objects 120 meaning: deployment of 59 Mecca 19 memory: spatial transformations 129 memory and place 128 men and women: segregation 90 Merchant and the jinni 10 Mercury ‘Alı- 52 metamorphosis 116 metaphoric structures 78 metaphors: expression 78 metaphors of transformation: interpretations 116 Mille et une nuits 3 mirror-image 55 mirror stage: dyadic relations of 46 misogyny 10 mobility 1; phases of 30; space 13 Mock caliph 54, 57 Montague manuscript 3 moral admonition 7 mother-child symbiosis 72 Muhammad hight Lazybones 99; magic spells 122; possessing magical objects 120 mummification 127 Muslims: characteristics 90; and Christian Byzantines struggle 37 narration: content 127 narrational code 124–31 narrative 6, 8, 15–27, 17, 45; component 45; journey description 108; places shaping 12; spatial aspects 64 narrative device: creating circumstances 47 narrative form: functions 34 narrative intricacies and plots based on internal division 40 narrative of description transformation 39 narrative space: magic and logic 107–12 narrative structure 33–41 coherence 33 cycle 44

night 50–4, 52; concept 55; liminal experience 53; spatiotemporal organization of society changing 52; symbolic connotation 53, 55; usurped domain 58 night and day 45–9; alternation 51; dichotomy between 52; eternal cycle 51 night motif 57 nomad culture: sedentary cultures 20 nomad space 16 novelistic genres 61 Bakhtin definition 76 Nu-r al-Dı-n ‘Alı- 53 object: defined 140 object of desire 132 Odyssey; see also Homer Oedipal crisis 46 ordering practices 126 palaces: relationship with sexuality 101; representing striated space 101 Pantchatantra, the Tu-tina-ma, the Sindba-dna-ma 6 patriarchal authority 47, 101, 105 patriarchal repression 10 pattern of time 59 Penglase, Charles 42 Persian-Arabic mirror 9 Persian-Arabic tradition: legitimate fictional literature 7 Persian version 7 physical spatial structure 83 pilgrimage 19 places: defined 128; memory 12; narrative shaping 12; spatial systems 12; spirit 77–89 political borders 21 political fragmentation 20 Porphyry 43 Porter and the three ladies of Baghdad 56, 57; heroines independence 93 power 41; of fate 51; kinds 44; manifestations 125; manipulating others 50; road 28–44; link to space 43; spatial dimensions 43 psychoanalytical code 124, 131–4 psychoanalytical concepts 45 psychological birth 73 Qamar al-Zama-n 64–9, 116; love domains 91; possessing magical objects 120; story structure 64; structured as journey 67a

160

Index

Qamar al-Zama-n and Budu-r 53 qis.as. al-anbiya-’ 36 Queen of the serpents 29, 36, 53; alchemy references 119; disruption of spatiotemporal balance 131 raison d’être: of story 117 Real: Lacan’s concept 133 reality and Real contrasts 132 referentiality technique 87 religious dimension 37 repressed: return of 133 reproduction: interruption 34; symbol 42 rihla 19 romance: vs. epic generic conventions 75; primary theme 63 romantic hero: landscape 64–9 S.a-lih. 36 Sayf al-Mulu-k: disruption of spatiotemporal balance 131; magic spells 122 Sayf al-Mulu-k and Badı-‘ al-Jama-l quest of hero for his beloved 99 Sayf ibn Dhı- Yazan 107 scholarly journey 19 Second qalander: magic spells 122; possessing magical objects 120; sorcery motif 119 Second qalander’s tale: women with own spaces 94 sedentary perspective 15 Seetzen, Ulrich Jasper 3 segregation: aspects 90 self-awareness: children 71; growth to 73; separation 19 sexuality: association of palaces with 101; women controlling 93 Shahraza-d: framing 6; Shahriya-r transformed by storytelling 1 Shahraza-d and Shahriya-r 45; interpretations 47; magic spells 122; storytelling 133; storytelling, time and space 129 Shahriya-r and the night 57–9 Sheykh: sorcery motif 119 Shı-ma-s 10 Sindba-d cycle 25, 26 Sindba-d na-ma 7, 8 Sindba-d of the Sea 3, 24; disruption of spatiotemporal balance 131 Sindba-d the seaman 50, 51 sı-ra genre 40 example 37 sleeping: symbolic connotation 53

smooth spaces 101 associations 97 snake 42 social embedding 38 social relationships 15 societies: construction 125 socioeconomic order: construction 125 sorcery 118 sorcery motif 119 soul: sacred journey 19 source domain 78 space(s) 20; construction 16; defined 128; dual nature 16; hero experiences 74; hierarchical systems 12; immobilitymobility interaction 13; juxtaposition 74; linked to hero 107; of love 101–5; narrative strategies 89; and narrative structure 115–17; open 16; organized by boundaries 97; shaping reality 11; striated 16; transformation 28 spaces of kingdoms: associations 97 spacing: defined 135, 136; designates 136; irreducibility 138 spatial and temporal indicators 61 spatial arrangements: within narrative 39–40 spatial bifurcation: religious 80 spatial components 31 spatial differentiation 34, 38, 44, 48; created 39; creation 47 spatial dimension 73–6; theme 96 spatial logic: narrative structure 107 spatial metaphors 110 spatial motif 96 spatial organization: establishment 41 spatial sequence 109 spatial stages: Abdalla-h’s journey 81 spatial structures 135 spatial system 79 spatial visions 77 spatiotemporal balance: disruption 131 spatiotemporal congruence 58 spatiotemporal dimensions 141 spatiotemporal domain 55 spatiotemporal equilibrium 59, 129 spatiotemporal model 45 spatiotemporal structure 45, 77, 107; relocation 87 state: men identified 9 status of places: defined 128 story: metaphorical dimension 82; metaphoric structure 85; structured 37–8; triumph of justice and faith 38 story of conversion: vs. space homogenization 41

Index 161 story of journeys: cites as halting places 79 story-teller 76 storytelling: defined 127; therapy 46 strategy 126, 127 striated space: juxtaposed with smooth space without boundaries 97 structural slippage 136 supernatural: categories 119 symbiosis: boundaries and narratives 17 symbolic order 132, 133 symbolic stage 46 symbolic systems 12 symbol of authority 101 tactics: defined 126 Ta-j al-Mulu-k and princess Dunya-: authority systems linked to love 95; hunt and amorous inclinations 97 target domain 78 temporal component 45 temporal frame 8 territorialization 20 texts: created 17–8; relationship to subtext 78 The cave of the nymphs 43 thematic purport 9 theoretical approach 14 theory of Lacan 71 The practice of everyday life 125 Thing: spatial aspects 135 Thing and haunted house: Derridian re-working 137 thinking: dual approach 16 Third qalander 51 Thousand and one nights 48, 50, 52, 60, 101, 104, 117, 125; alchemy references 119; boundaries and spaces 22–7; coincidence or fate 133; disruption of spatiotemporal balance 131; Egyptian period 2; framed stories 130; framing story 45; generic context 6–11; genre of mirrors 131; geography 24; hidden powers of 1; history and generic content 2; love domains 91; magical world 119; magic spells 122; Mamluk environment 3; metamorphic qualities 1; metaphorical concept 57; Muslim visions 29; as narrative construction 133; narratological study 5; Persian predecessors 2; spacing 138; storytelling, time and space 129; textual and generic history 2–6; theoretical approaches 11–4, 14; travelling 139–41,

141; typification 11; underlying theme 59; versions 3; whole vs. collection 124; Zˇ izˇek’s interpretation of Lacan 133 Three ladies and the porter: women with own spaces 94 Tighmu-s 31 time: concept of 59; force of disruption or preservation 34; passage 51 time-frame 8, 45, 50, 51 Tower of Babel: metaphor 135 transformation 94; heart 117 transformation motif: journey structure 114 transition 69 transmutation 116 travel 1, 15–27; basic laws 41; centrality 13; concept of spacing 141; defined 140; men 94–9; motif 53; theme 14; time and place 23; women 99–101 traveller: account writing 18 triad relationship 72 Tu-tina-ma 7 two mirror-figures 48 ubi sunt genre 83 ubi sunt warnings 85 ‘Umar al-Nu‘ma-n 52, 92, 100; story 41 underworld: images 36 unity 59 unordered smooth space 82 Uns al-Wuju-d and al-Ward f ı- al-Akma-m 92 user’s practices 126 visa 21 vision 31 viziers: murder 10 wandering 97 Werdegang 77 white magic 118 Wird Kha-n 10 women: destructive forces 10, 11; with own spaces 94 world in disguise 76 Yamlı-kha 29 Zˇ izˇek, Slavoj 124, 131 Zˇ izˇek’s analysis of realm of popular culture 132 Zˇ izˇek’s interpretation of Lacan 133 Zˇ izˇek’s theory: spatial embedding of human thought and experience 139 Zˇ izˇek’s work: journey represents 140