 SUBSCRIBE

 Coronavirus Brief
 What to Know
 Maps
 Staying Healthy

 Newsletter

 U.S.

 POLITICS

 WORLD

 TECH

 ENTERTAINMENT
 SUBSCRIBE
 Coronavirus Brief
 What to Know
 Maps
 Staying Healthy

 Newsletter

 Home
 U.S.
 Politics
 World
 Business
 Tech
 Health
 Entertainment
 Science
 Newsfeed
 Living
 History
 Ideas
 Sports
 The TIME Vault
 Magazine
 TIME Immersive
 Audio
 Longform
 Photography
 Videos
 Press Room
 Shop TIME
 The 100 Most Influential People
 Guns in America
 Next Generation Leaders
 Person of the Year
 Space Explorers: The ISS Experience
 TIME Cover Store
 TIME for KiDS
 TIME Edge

 Subscribe
 Give a Gift
 Newsletters
 Feedback
 Jobs
 Privacy Policy
 Your California Privacy Rights
 Terms of Use
 Ad Choices
 TIME Apps
 Advertising
  Reprints and Permissions
 Help
 Site Map
 Customer Service
 EU Customer Service

Stay Connected

U.S.

President Trump: No
Quarantine, But Travel
Advisory for New York,
Connecticut and New Jersey

U.S.
3 More National Parks Close
to Prevent Coronavirus
Spread

Health

Rhode Island Governor

Announces National Guard
Will Go 'Door-to-Door' to
Identify New Yorkers to
Slow...

World
Whales May Face More Fatal
Ship Collisions as Ocean
Temperatures Warm

1. History
2. movies
3. Was Aladdin Based on a Real Person? Here‟s Why Scholars Are
Starting to Think So

Was Aladdin Based on a

Real Person? Here’s Why
Scholars Are Starting to
Think So

Mena Massoud is Aladdin and Will Smith is Genie in Disney‟s live-action Aladdin,
directed by Guy Ritchie.
Photo Credit: Daniel Smith—Disney
By Olivia B. Waxman
May 23, 2019

When the new live-action adaptation of Disney‟s animated classic, Aladdin,

hits theaters on Friday, it will be just the latest step in the very long history
of the tale — one with surprising origins. The rags-to-riches story of a street
urchin named Aladdin who asks a genie in a lamp to make him a prince is a
work of fantasy. And yet, some scholars say the central character could be
partly inspired by a real person.

Here‟s what we know and don‟t know about the history of the story,
according to scholars who have studied the origins the Aladdin story:

How old is the original story

of Aladdin?
In the past, credit for telling the tale of Aladdin has often gone to Antoine
Galland, a scholar and diplomat who served as a secretary to the French
ambassador to Constantinople in the 17th century. He worked on
Bibliothèque Orientale, a scholarly encyclopedia in French that would have
been well known by anyone doing work related to the Middle East at the
time. And, crucially, he was the first European translator of the Les mille et
une nuits: Contes Arabes (“1001 Nights: Arabian tales”), sometimes known
in English as One Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights.

Aladdin Official Trailer

Aladdin Official Trailer
Share
Play Video
PlayNext playlist item
Unmute
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration 2:46
Loaded: 5.97%
Stream Type LIVE
Seek to live, currently playing liveLIVE
Remaining Time -2:46
1x
Playback Rate
Chapters

 CHAPTERS
Descriptions
 descriptions off, selected
Captions
 captions settings, opens captions settings dialog
 captions off, selected
Audio Track
 default, selected
Fullscreen

Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

TextColor Transparency BackgroundColor Transparency

White Opaque Black
WindowColor Transparency
Opaque Black Transparent
Font Size Text Edge Style Font Family
100% None Proportional Sans-Serif
Reset restore all settings to the default valuesDone
Close Modal Dialog

End of dialog window.

Play
Mute
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration 0:00
Loaded: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Seek to live, currently playing liveLIVE
Remaining Time -0:00

1x
Playback Rate
Fullscreen
Close Modal Dialog

This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape
key or activating the close button.

Clos e M odal Dialo g

This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape
key or activating the close button.
This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape
key or activating the close button.

Long Shot Official Trailer

Close
One Thousand and One Nights started as a series of translations of an
incomplete manuscript of a medieval Arabic story collection that dated back
to the late 14th century, says Muhsin J. al-Musawi, Professor of Arabic and
Comparative Studies at Columbia University and an expert on Arabian
Nights. Between 1704 and 1706, Galland published seven volumes,
comprising about 40 tales spread over 282 nights of storytelling.

But, though those tales were of medieval origin, Aladdin may be a more
recent invention. Scholars have not found a manuscript of the st ory that
predates the version published in 1712 by Galland, who wrote in his diary
that he first heard the tale from a Syrian storyteller from Aleppo named
Hanna Diyab on May 8, 1709.

French orientalist and archaeologist Antoine Galland (1646 - 1715), circa 1675.
Engraving by J. Cazon.
Kean Collection/Getty Images

By 1709, Galland had translated all of the stories in the original incomplete
manuscript he‟d been working with, and was trying to find the others.
“When Galland ran out of stories in his Arabic manuscript of the Nights, his
publisher inserted stories from a Turkish collection into the eighth volume
[in 1709] to meet the public demand for more tales,” says Horta. “This
angered Galland and prompted him to procure tales to fill out further
volumes.”

Related Stories
Entertainment

Can the Movie Theater Possibly

Survive Coronavirus?

Entertainment

Now Is the Perfect Time to Revisit

the Movies That Brought America
Comfort in the Past
Perhaps in search of more clues, Galland went to the apartment of his friend
and rival Paul Lucas, a “tomb raider,” who traveled back and forth between
Paris and the Middle East to satisfy Louis XIV‟s taste for jewels and other
precious objects from the region. Lucas‟ apartment, full of his collections,
had become a tourist destination in its own right, and it was there that
Galland first met Diyab, who accompanied Lucas as a travel companion and
interpreter, on Mar. 25, 1709.

When Galland asked the young Syrian if he knew any “Arabian Nights”
stories, Diyab said he did. Over a series of one-on-one meetings, Diyab told
Galland the story of Aladdin, in addition to other now-famous tales such as
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. These stories ended up in volumes nine
through 12 of Galland‟s translation of the One Thousand and One Nights,
completed in 1717.
Scholars have long known that Diyab gave Galland the story of Aladdin, but
they don‟t know exactly where Diyab heard the story in the first place.

“We don‟t know whether Diyab created the story by combining elements
that he learned from hearing other storytellers — in Aleppo or on the
journey through the Mediterranean to Paris — or whether he heard the
whole story in this form and recorded it in a manuscript or whether he
found a now lost manuscript of the story and passed it on to Galland,” says
Paulo Lemos Horta, author of Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the
Arabian Nights, who edited a translation of Galland‟s Aladdin by Yasmine
Seale that came out in 2018.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History
newsletter

Where does Aladdin take

place?
Scholars have seen a mix of different places in the Aladdin story. In the
newest film adaptation, the design of the Sultan‟s palace is inspired by a
Burmese temple. Galland‟s Aladdin story is explicitly set in China, but the
world it describes doesn‟t seem to match up with the real place. “The
characters live in a society defined by Muslim practices,” says Horta. “The
very fact of a genie coming out of lamp means the story has been thoroughly
Arabized.” (Genie, or jinni, mythology has its own long history.)

Arafat A. Razzaque, a research associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies at

the University of Cambridge, points out that early Arabic descriptions of an
exotic, faraway land were often about China. Early British depictions of the
Aladdin story in pantomime theater productions and Victorian illustrated
texts depicted Chinese elements too, reflecting Brits‟ fascination with the
region around the time when the British were fighting opium wars there.

Spotlight Story
'Without Empathy, Nothing Works.' Chef José Andrés Wants to Feed the World Through
the Pandemic
Celebrity chef José Andrés is focused on feeding Americans affected by coronavirus.
Here's how he plans to do it.

Disney‟s 1992 animated musical version was originally supposed to be set in

Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, but current events prompted filmmakers to
switch gears. As one of the directors of that film John Musker has
explained: “We kept it Baghdad in our first treatment, and then the Gulf
War happened — the first Gulf War. Roy Disney said, „This can‟t be in
Baghdad.‟ So, I took letters and did a jumbled anagram and came up with
Agrabah. We came up with a few alternates.” He also debunked rumors that
Agrabah was “post-apocalyptic, futuristic or in some other time.”

Will Smith is the Genie and Mena Massoud is Aladdin in Disney‟s live-action Aladdin,
directed by Guy Ritchie.
Photo Credit: Daniel Smith—Disney

Is the character of Aladdin

based on a real person?
Despite the fantastical elements of the story, scholars now think the main
character may actually be based on a real person‟s real experiences. “Now a
lot of new research being done about the man behind Aladdin,” says
Razzaque.

Many scholars now think that that man could be Diyab himself.

Though Galland never credited Diyab in his published translations of the

Arabian Nights stories, Diyab wrote something of his own: a travelogue
penned in the mid-18th century. In it, he recalls telling Galland the story of
Aladdin. Historian Jérôme Lentin found this document in the Vatican‟s
library in 1993, but it didn‟t become more widely known until more recently.
Lentin and fellow historian Bernard Heyberger published a French
translation by Paule Fahmé-Thiéry, in 2015, and a new English translation
of this travelogue and analysis of the text by Elias Muhanna and Johannes
Stephan is expected to come out in 2020.

In that memoir, Diyab describes his own hard-knocks upbringing and the
way he marveled at the extravagance of Versailles. The descriptions he uses
were very similar to the descriptions of the lavish palace that ended up in
Galland‟s version of the Aladdin story. With that in mind, Horta believes
that “Aladdin might be the young Arab Maronite from Aleppo, marveling at
the jewels and riches of Versailles.”

This idea is hugely significant in the history of the story. For 300 years,
scholars thought that the rags-to-riches story of Aladdin might have been
inspired by the plots of French fairy tales that came out around the same
time, or that the story was invented in that 18th century period as a
byproduct of French Orientalism, a fascination with stereotypical exotic
Middle Eastern luxuries that was prevalent then. The idea that Diyab might
have based it on his own life — the experiences of a Middle Eastern man
encountering the French, not vice-versa — flips the script.

“That‟s a mind-blowing revision of our understanding of where the story

came from — the recognition that Aladdin is not just the fantasy of a 60-
year-old French scholar and translator, but that it was born through the
narrative skills and distinctive experience of a 20-year-old traveler from
Aleppo,” says Horta. “Diyab was ideally placed to embody the overlapping
world of East and West, blending the storytelling traditions of his homeland
with his youthful observations of the wonder of 18th-century France.”

In the travelogue, Diyab describes how Lucas presented him in the court of
Louis XIV at Versailles as a curiosity of sorts. “Lucas insisted that Diyab
dress in stereotypically Oriental fashion — a long tunic, baggy pantaloons, a
headscarf of Damascene fabric, a precious belt, a silver dagger and a fur cap
from Cairo,” says Horta. “Diyab was also asked to carry a cage containing
two jerboas [a desert rodent] for presentation to the „sultan of France.‟

“Diyab himself came from a modest background, and hungered for the class
ascension that occurred in story of Aladdin,” says Horta. “He wanted to
have a market stall, and in the Aladdin story, the magician, masquerading as
Aladdin‟s uncle, promises to set him up as a cloth merchant with a shop of
his own so he might live as a gentleman. As a teenager Diyab had been an
apprentice with one the great merchant families of the Levant, but he had
been dismissed, ending his hopes of achieving success in the profitable
textile trade of Aleppo.”

So Diyab ran away from home, and eventually met Lucas. Diyab eventually
went back to Aleppo after Lucas reneged on his promise to get him a
position at the French King‟s library of Arabic manuscripts. Living in
Aleppo appeared to be easier for Diyab as an adult than as an adolescent, as
a census showed he had one of the bigger houses in the city. “[He] went
back and made good,” Horta says.

Why has Aladdin been

remade so many times?
To the scholars who study the tale, its narrative drama isn‟t the only reason
storytellers keep finding reason to return to Aladdin.

It reflects not only “a history of the French and the Middle East, but also [a
story about] Middle Easterners coming to Paris and that speaks to our world
today,” as Horta puts it. “The day Diyab told the story of Aladdin to Galland,
there were riots due to food shortages during the winter and spring of 1708
to 1709, and Diyab was sensitive to those people in a way that Galland is
not. When you read this diary, you see this solidarity among the Arabs who
were in Paris at the time. You arrive with nothing and there‟s a network of
people helping each other out. There is little in the writings of Galland that
would suggest that he was capable of developing a character like Aladdin
with sympathy, but Diyab‟s memoir reveals a narrator adept at capturing
the distinctive psychology of a young protagonist, as well as recogniz ing the
kinds of injustices and opportunities that can transform the path of any
youthful adventurer.”

Razzaque adds, “What [Aladdin„s origins story] shows is a history of more

complex intercultural relations. Syrians were teaching Arabic in Paris, in
Rome. Aleppo was a cosmopolitan world, the place where coffee houses
come from — a lively story culture.”
And the fact that it was remade over the years is proof the story speaks to a
timeless theme, not just one rooted in certain countries‟ histories.

Aladdin is one of the folk tales “central to the postmodernist and also post -
industrial and imperialist mind,” says al-Musawi. “Directors find some
material there to cope with the New World Order, not necessarily to accept
it, but to traverse it, parody it and also expose it.”

Most Popular on TIME

1

How to Grocery Shop Amid Coronavirus

Report of Urns in Wuhan Raises Questions About COVID-19 Death Toll

Will COVID-19 Ever Really Go Away?

Get our History Newsletter. Put today's news in context and see highlights
from the archives.

Sign Up Now

Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME.

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

WRITE TO OLIVIA B. WAXMAN AT OLIVIA.WAXMAN@TIME.COM.

Sponsored Stories


Data Scientists
demand will rise by 28% - IBM Simplilearn

Julia Roberts
Spends $8.3M on a Century-Old San Francisco Victorian Mansion
Global


 US woman
who survived coronavirus shares her experience: I caught it at a small
house party India Today

6 Incredible
Journeys Inspired by Indian Railways https://livingfoodz.com


 [Pics] Why You
Don't See Jessica Alba Onscreen Anymore CelebsPulse

Best Apps for

Work From home-Dropbox, Skype, Doodle, Zoom,WhatsApp BGR

Recommended by
Read More From TIME

World
China Sends Aid to Pakistan to
Combat COVID-19
The country has reported 1,408 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 11 deaths

World

U.K. Cabinet Member Has COVID-19

Symptoms

World

Young Medical Graduates Find

Themselves on the Front Lines of
Italy's Coronavirus Fight

Politics
Trump Considering Enforceable
Quarantine on New York, New
Jersey and Connecticut

Health

What It's Like Working a Drive-Thru

COVID-19 Testing Center
EDIT POST

Subscribe & Save

Subscribe today and save up to 84% off the cover price.
SUBSCRIBE NOW

Sign Up for Our Newsletters

Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know now on politics, health and more
SUBSCRIBE

 Home
 U.S.
 Politics
 World
 Business
 Tech
 Entertainment
 Health
 Science
  Newsfeed
 Living
 Ideas
 History
 Sports
 The TIME Vault
 Magazine
 Newsletters
 Masthead

 TIME Immersive
 Audio
 Longform
 Subscribe
 Give a Gift
 TIME for Kids
 TIME Edge
 TIME Cover Store
 Press Room

 Customer Service
 EU Customer Service
 Site Map
 Ad Choices
 Advertising
 Careers

© 2020 TIME USA, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of
our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy (Your California Privacy Rights) and California Do Not
Sell My Personal Information.
TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this
website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.

California Residents: Do Not Sell My Personal Information

California residents may opt out of sharing of your name and contact information with third parties using this form.
Go to Opt Out Form

Privacy Policy
Allow All

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be
switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions
made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your
privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your
browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site
will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable
information.

Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and
personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose
services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies
then some or all of these services may not function properly.

Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure
and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages
are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the
site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore
anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you
have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Social Media Cookies

These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have
added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and
networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and
building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and
messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these
cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
 Targeting Cookies
Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners.
They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests
and show you relevant advertising on other sites. They are based on
uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. You can turn off the
use of cookies for targeted advertising here. When the button is green,
targeted cookies are on. When the button is red, targeting cookies have been
turned off.

Confirm My Choices

Back

Performance Cookies

Vendor Search

Clear Fliters

Information storage and access

Apply

All Consent Allowed

33Across
host description

View Cookies
 o Name

cookie name

Host

cookie host

Duration

cookie duration

Type

cookie type

Category

cookie category

Description

cookie category

33Across

View Privacy Notice

3 Purposes

Consent Purposes

Location Based Ads

Consent Allowed

Legitimate Interest Purposes

Personalize

Require Opt-Out

Features

Location Based Ads

Confirm My Choices