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Hello everybody, this is Christine and I would like to welcome you to

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Footnoting History does Footnoting Disney, episode 2: Aladdin, but I also want you to

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know that this is our 7th anniversary. That's right, this episode marks 7 years since we first

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burst onto the podcasting world. And whether this is your first time listening to us or your 200th,

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we are so thankful that you are here and, of course, a big extra

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hug and kiss of gratitude to those of you who rallied to our cry and have been supporting us

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on Patreon. We hope you are sporting your Footnoting History merchandise with pride.

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And now without further ado, here's Elizabeth to tell you about the history behind Aladdin.

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Did the story of Aladdin come from the imagination of an older French diplomat or was it based on

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the travels of a young Syrian man? We’ll discuss that today on Footnoting History.

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**music** Hello listeners and welcome

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to this installment of #FootnotingDisney. This is Elizabeth and in this episode,

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I will be taking you far behind the scenes of the Disney movie Aladdin. For those not familiar with

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the tale - I mean I guess not everyone received the original soundtrack along with a CD walkman

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for their 13th birthday - I will now provide a quick rundown: in the story Disney created,

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a young “streetrat” named Aladdin is a “diamond in the rough” who is the only one who can, therefore,

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successfully retrieve a magic lamp that contains a genie. Jafar, who is the sultan’s vizier,

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meaning main adviser, and who is actually an evil sorcerer, realizes that Aladdin

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is the key to getting the lamp and forces the orphan to retrieve the lamp for him. Aladdin

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does successfully get said lamp, but, shenanigans ensue, he has already fallen in love with Princess

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Jasmine, the sultan’s daughter whom he met when she escaped from the palace for an afternoon,

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yada yada yada, Aladdin is truly a great guy and uses his last wish to free the genie but,

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in a spectacular twist, Jafar is tricked by the genie and everyone gets a happy ending … except

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for Jafar who neither gets the lamp, the girl, or control of the country.

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Alright, so that’s the Disney movie. For most of the general public,

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the story of Aladdin is believed to be part of a collection of fables contained in a work known as

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1001 Nights but, in English, more commonly it is called Arabian Nights. This belief is based on an

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early 18th century work in which Frenchman Antoine Galland translated and published numerous stories

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from 13th- to 15th-century Syrian and Egyptian manuscripts. These stories are largely stories

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within stories as the main narrative or - to be somewhat technical - the framing device is that

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of a young bride who is married to a Sultan known for executing his wives the day after he marries

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them because of the infidelity of one wife. In order not to die, the wife of the stories - named

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Scheherazade (shuh hair ruh zad) - tells her husband fascinating stories that she never quite

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completes before it’s time to fall asleep on the premise that he won’t execute her in the morning,

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so he can learn the ending - but because of the story within a story, there is no ending until,

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finally, the Sultan decides that he loves his wife so much he won’t kill her. Like the 1001 Nights,

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both Disney versions of Aladdin use a framing device where someone is telling you the story.

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But Aladdin is not actually one of the stories found in pre 1700 collections of 1001 Nights.

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As far as could be determined, Galland included in his collection some stories, such as Aladdin,

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that did not appear in Galland’s manuscript sources - in fact, there’s no evidence of

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any story about Aladdin and his magical lamp in any source prior to Galland. Galland stated that

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he had been told these tales by a young Syrian man named Hanna Diyab as the young man traveled

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through France, but for centuries Galland’s explanation seemed like nothing more than

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complete fabrication used to try and give his new stories legitimacy and an middle eastern flare.

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What this left us with is that in the late 20th-century it was assumed that Aladdin was

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a French invention inserted into the stories to help reach the number in the work’s title - 1001.

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In fact, this was the scholarly belief when Disney produced its animated film at the end of 1992.

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But it turns out everything we knew was wrong. In 1993, the year after Disney’s animated Aladdin

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premiered, a memoir by an 18th-century Syrian man named Hanna (Hannuh) Diyab (Die-yeeb) about

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his travels through France in the early 1700s was found in the Vatican archives. It then took about

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ten to twenty years for this discovery to be fully digested and analyzed. Paulo Lemos Horta,

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a history professor at NYU Abu Dhabi, raises the idea in his 2017 work Marvellous Thieves and then

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again in the introduction he wrote for Yasmine Seale’s 2018 translation of the Aladdin story

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that the ragamuffin boy with the heart of gold who saw and experienced wondrous events was not

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just invented by Dayib but was to an extent an autobiographical re-telling of the young man’s

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travels with some magical touches added by him and Galland before the final product was created.

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And that brings us to an extremely condensed re-telling of the story of Aladdin The translation

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I read was done by French-Syrian linguist, Yasmine Seale, and published in 2018. You can, as I’m sure

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you would expect, find a link to the work on our further reading at www.footnotinghistory.com

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In the original tale, Aladdin was a poor but selfish only child being raised in a Muslim

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kingdom in China. Why China? In Europe but also in West Asia, China was still seen as

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a mysterious region and, therefore, home to many potential strange and magical events.

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Many of the stories in the original, if we can use that term - we probably shouldn’t. Okay,

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in the earlier versions of 1001 Nights, many were situated in China and it was most likely

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because China was seen as a wealthy and impressive area that for many centuries that due to either

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geographic factors, like deserts and mountains, and imperial policy kept itself isolated

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off and on from the rest of Asia. There was, therefore, scope for the imagination and, also,

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no one was going to be able to prove you wrong. Aladdin’s father, a tailor, tried to inspire the

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boy to learn his father’s craft, but Aladdin refused and the father died of a broken heart.

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After his father’s death, a man comes to Aladdin and his mother pretending to be his paternal uncle

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- after showering Aladdin and his mother with gifts, the man, who was actually a Maghreb wizard,

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invited Aladdin on a walk and uses geomancy, a method of divination, to reveal a secret

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chamber in the ground. What were the Maghreb? Well, actually, it should be where was Maghreb

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(Mag Rib) - and I apologize for not attempting the Arabic pronunciation. As anyone who has listened to my 54-40 or Fight episode on Oregon can attest, I don’t always have a good ear. Maghreb was a region of North Africa and was inhabited by Muslim Arabs, but some of our listeners may

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be more familiar with them as the term they were known by in Europe: the Moors. The more

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correct term for these people were the Maghrebi (Mag Ruh Bee) and it is that region that the

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wizard who tricks Aladdin was from. The wizard gives Aladdin a ring, tells the boy to enter

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the secret chamber and to take a lamp, but avoid anything else except for fruit. Aladdin does so

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but on his return refuses to give over the lamp until the wizard helps him out of the chamber

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and, in the wizard’s anger, he seals the boy and the lamp in the ground. A few days later and near

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death, Aladdin inadvertently rubs the ring the wizard gave him and out pops a jinni who - at

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Aladdin’s request - saves the boy. In Islam, Jinn are supernatural beings who are different

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from angels and demons. In a few other stories from 1001 Nights, jinni play an important role.

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Once safely returned home, Aladdin and his mother discover that by rubbing the

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lamp they can also summon a second jinni to do their bidding. While Aladdin and his mom use

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the jinnis somewhat to their advantage, in many ways, seem to be dreaming small until, that is,

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Aladdin sneaks into a forbidden place and sees the sultan’s daughter unveiled. He is smitten and,

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through jinni involved machinations, not only ends up married to the princess, but also has the most

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impressive palace in China. Over time, Aladdin makes himself a much beloved prince as he visits

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the public and becomes known for his kindness. But the story isn’t done yet, the evil wizard returns,

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tricks the princess out of the lamp and steals the palace and Aladdin’s wife, but Aladdin uses

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the jinni in his ring to right these wrongs and also trick the wizard into drinking a poisoned

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goblet of wine. But wait, there’s more. You see, the wizard had a brother and when that wizard uses

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magic and learns of his brother’s death, he wants revenge - I know, it’s easy to see how this story

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could break off just at an exciting moment and leave you hanging until the next night.

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This second wizard kills a holy woman named Fatimah, disguises himself as her,

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and uses the holy woman’s reputation to gain entrance to Aladdin’s palace, but a few missteps

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and Aladdin learns of the subterfuge and kills the wizard. The story finishes quickly after

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this with the princess inheriting the kingdom as she had no brothers and she and Aladdin

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rule it well and their line continues after their death. There is a post-script, however.

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Sharazad (shuh hair ruh zad), the story teller, takes a moment to explain the moral of the tale

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to her husband the sultan before assuring him that she has, as always, more stories to tell.

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As I said earlier, this story that I just told you is now considered to be an amalgamation of

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Galland and Dayib’s experiences which means we now need to turn toward those experiences to better

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understand from where came the story of Aladdin. We’ll go in age order and start with Galland who,

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by the time he recorded or wrote - depending on your interpretation - the story of Aladdin

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he was already in his mid-60s. Galland was born in the 1640s in France.

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At age 25, he was appointed to be a member of the French embassy to Istanbul due to

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his knowledge of languages such as Greek and Arabic. Galland’s diplomatic mission’s goal

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was to preserve the special protections of the French merchants in the Ottoman empire

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and also to make sure that Christians in the Ottoman territory were being well cared for.

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It is assumed by Horta that the accounts in Aladdin of processions were based on Galland’s

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time in the Ottoman court as the diplomat often wrote of the impressive pageantry.

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Also, he was there to get information that supported the Catholics in their war against

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Protestantism. Eventually he became responsible for collecting manuscripts and antiquities for

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Louis XIV, king of France. The motivation behind the collection was making sure that France was

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just as “up to date” with having exotic materials as the other European kingdoms. While most

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students might recognize the name Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Louis XIV’s finance minister

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who was constantly trying to balance the French budget, Colbert was also responsible for helping

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to create and expand Louis XIV’s collection and he was Galland’s boss in this endeavor. Colbert

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felt like ancient Greek and Latin manuscripts were well-represented in Europe - instead,

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Colbert’s instructions to Galland were to buy manuscripts on medicine, history, and geography

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in any language as long as the manuscripts were complete and in perfect condition. Galland’s

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purchases were not with his own money but at the behest of Colbert for various patrons

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back in France, including the French East India Company - and here’s a confession:

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until this moment I’m not sure I knew there was a French East India Company as it was overshadowed

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in my brain by the Dutch and British East India Companies - the French East India Company was the

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brainchild of Colbert and it was Colbert and the French East India Company who paid for Galland’s

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third voyage to the East, but there was a caveat: Galland couldn’t buy texts of the Quran, lives of

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the Prophet, or Arabic works of poetry or fiction: according to Colbert, France had enough of those.

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But Galland kept wanting to go off script because of the fabulous works he found. Over the next few

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decades, Galland continued to hear more and more stories and, in 1701, he bought a collection

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of 282 tales from a Syrian friend - these tales were the core of the work known as 1001 Nights,

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and Galland translated them and over the next 16 years published them in 12 volumes, but he

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renamed them Arabian Nights. Galland, you see, was an Orientalist. The word Oriental, which is French

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in origin, originally meant “the East” and the term for the West was “Occident.” (Ock sih dint)

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Over time, the Orient became somewhat synonymous with East Asia and those interested in the Orient

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studied Arab, Islamic, and Indian languages and history. During the 18th and 19th centuries,

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learned European men worked to be just as educated in Eastern studies as they were about Western

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history and literature. Galland, therefore, was ahead of his time but not by much. He became an

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important and early figure in Orientalist studies and, by 1709, he held a professorship of Arabic

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at Le College Royal, now known as the College de France, a university established in 1531 which

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sits just across the street from the Sorbonne. The school was largely intended for linguists

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and it is unsurprising that Galland would join them. By 1709, the same year he was granted this

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professorship, he had already published 7 volumes of Arabian Nights. However, he just felt like he

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didn’t have enough stories for his collection. The number 282 was just so unsatisfying. And, then,

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on March 25, 1709, he met a young Syrian man, also a linguist, at the Paris apartment of Paul Lucas.

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Lucas was known as a collector of curiosities and antiquitie and really he deserves his own episode,

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but, unfortunately, we just don’t have the time for that right now, so let me just mention that

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Dayib, the young Syrian man, believed - at least according to his memoir - that Lucas owned the

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elixir of life and could miraculously heal people - I told you he needs him own episode. Anyway,

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back to Galland and this chance meeting that quickly evolved into 12 meetings between May 5 and

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June 2, 1709, during which the young man, Hanna Diyab, told Galland 16 stories. Galland picked ten

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of these stories for the final three volumes of his work and one such story has become one of the

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most popular of the Arabian Nights: yes, you’ve guessed it: Aladdin. Scholars refer to the Diyab

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stories as the “orphan tales” because they have no Arabic manuscript source. It is also hard to

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say where Diyab stories ended and Galland’s began. And, it seems like this is as good as time as any

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to turn our attention to that young man: Hanna Diyab, whose memoir that he wrote as an old man

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and was found in the Vatican archives in the 1990s completely upended what we thought we knew.

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Very recently - and I mean January 2020 recently, there is an English translation

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of the book - the translation is so recent that I haven’t looked at it yet (when I wrote this

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the only translation I could find was in French so … that was interesting) but the link to the

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work is on our Further Reading. If you get a chance to read it, let us know what you think!

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Before I recount Dayib’s life story, I should note that he wrote it between 1763 to 1764 when he was

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about 75 and the section we are largely interested in took place when he was 20 in 1709 - this

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memoir, therefore, is largely based on memories from decades before. Dayib was born in Aleppo,

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a trading city in Syria, into a Christian Maronite family. The Maronite Church was traditionally part

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of the Eastern Christian faith but also officially part of the Catholic Church of Rome. Adherents

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were super into miracles and the Blessed Virgin also known as Mary, the mother of Jesus. Like

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Aladdin, Dayib’s father died when he was a boy, and, later, he worked for a French merchant

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named Rimbaud. Dayib’s family’s social class had a lot of interaction with Europeans,

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and as a resident of Aleppo, Diyab was exposed to stories from the Levant as well as also India,

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China, France, and Italy. These stories were often told in coffeehouses and while they may

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not have been as ubiquitous as, say, a Starbucks, Aleppo had its fair share with at least 60 coffee

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houses during this period. My favorite part of the coffee house experience in Syria was that

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it mimicked the framing tale from 1001 Nights. At the coffeehouses, storytellers would begin

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their stories, get the crowds invested and riled up, and, then, just at the most exciting moment,

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they would throw down their arms and leave the establishment not to return until the next night.

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Angry customers would argue with each other about what comes next - it’s basically the

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pre-television version of “To Be Continued.” Dayib was fluent in Arabic, French, Provencal,

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Italian, and Turkish. As a teen, he joined a monastery for a quick minute

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but within a few short months realized it was not for him and then, in 1707,

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he met Paul Lucas and traveled through Lebanon, Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Italy, and France.

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On their journey, they met pirates and robbers. They also, at times, under Lucas’s directions

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became robbers themselves, although their goal was often tombs. In his memoirs, Dayib relates

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a story of how they came upon a cave that was too narrow for an adult to fit into and so Lucas hired

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a young boy who entered the opening and then returned with a lamp and ring. Sound familiar?

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Well, that’s not the only time that Lucas plays a role in Aladdin. At the onset of their journey,

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Lucas had promised Dayib a job as librarian of Arabic in the French royal collections,

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but it didn’t happen and it is possible that the Maghrebi wizard who tricked Aladdin and his

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mother was based on this Frenchman. But, while Lucas didn’t get Dayib the position he promised,

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he did present the young man to the king at Versailles and, as evident from Dayib’s memoir,

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was incredibly impressed by the palace, its grounds, and its princesses. There could

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be an additional connection between Dayib and Versailles. In the palace that Aladdin built,

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he included a room of 24 windows that were decorated with gems that no one but a magical

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jinni could create. As I read, all I could think of was the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

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For WWI buffs, it was in the Hall of Mirrors that the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919.

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The Hall of Mirrors - which includes 357 mirrors and 17 arches was built between 1678

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and 1684 - Dayib most likely saw it on his tour there 25 years later and when he met Galland,

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it may have influenced the palace he described Aladdin’s jinni as creating.

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In March 1709, Dayib met Galland at Lucas’s Paris apartment and, on learning that Galland

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was running out of stories, Dayib told him tales to be helpful. Even though Galland was

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also a linguist, they conversed in French. In his memoir, Diyab refers to Galland as an

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“old man” to whom he helped out by telling him some tales to complete his work. It seems that

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Diyab did not know what collection some of his tales went into nor was he aware of the impact

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these stories had on French and then European literary culture. In 1710, he returned to Aleppo,

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joined the family textile business, and opened a shop with help from his brother. About 7 years

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later, Dayib married, and, by 50, he lived in one of the largest houses in his community. Galland

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was not the only one Diyab told stories to: in his memoir, Dayib describes wowing the residents

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of Aleppo with his stories of Italy. By the end of his life, he was also a book collector and author.

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As Horta explains, Diyab’s background represented the overlapping worlds of the East and West

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and although Galland might have been trying to create Oriental stories, the stories reflect not

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only Dayib’s childhood and adolescence in Aleppo, but also his travels and impressions of France.

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The story of Aladdin, therefore, is one in which we see magic and wonder presented

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across cultures - you may even say together Dayib and Galland created a whole new world.

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And, of course, the best stories are always in the footnotes.