But, as justly observed by Mr. Payne, the first step when enquiring into the original date of The Nights is to determine the nucleus of the Repertory by a comparison of the four printed texts and the dozen MSS. which have been collated by scholars.[168] This process makes it evident that the tales common to all are the following thirteen:—
1. The Introduction (with a single incidental story “The Bull and the Ass”).
2. The Trader and the Jinni (with three incidentals).
3. The Fisherman and the Jinni (with four).
4. The Porter and the three Ladies of Baghdad.
6. The Tale of Núr al-Dín Ali and his son Badr al-Dín Hasan.
10. Alí bin Bakkár and Shams al-Nahár (with two).
These forty-two tales, occupying one hundred and twenty Nights, form less than a fifth part of the whole collection which in the Mac. Edit.[169] contains a total of two hundred and sixty-four. Hence Dr. Patrick Russell,[170] the Natural Historian of Aleppo,[171] whose valuable monograph amply deserves study even in this our day, believed that the original Nights did not outnumber two hundred, to which subsequent writers added till the total of a thousand and one was made up. Dr. Jonathan Scott,[172] who quotes Russell, “held it highly probable that the tales of the original Arabian Nights did not run through more than two hundred and eighty Nights, if so many.” So this suggestion I may subjoin, “habent sua fata libelli.” Galland, who preserves in his Mille et une Nuits only about one fourth of The Nights, ends them in No. cclxiv[173] with the seventh voyage of Sindbad: after that he intentionally omits the dialogue between the sisters and the reckoning of time, to proceed uninterruptedly with the tales. And so his imitator, Petis de la Croix,[174] in his Mille et un Jours, reduces the thousand to two hundred and thirty-two.
The internal chronological evidence offered by the Collection is useful only in enabling us to determine that the tales were not written _after_ a certain epoch: the actual dates and, consequently, all deductions from them, are vitiated by the habits of the scribes. For instance we find the Tale of the Fisherman and the Jinni (vol. i. 41) placed in A.H. 169 = A.D. 785,[175] which is hardly possible. The immortal Barber in the “Tailor’s Tale” (vol. i. 304) places his adventure with the unfortunate lover on Safar 10, A.H. 653 (= March 25th, 1255) and 7,320 years of the era of Alexander.[176] This is supported in his Tale of Himself (vol. i. pp. 317–348), where he dates his banishment from Baghdad during the reign of the penultimate Abbaside, Al-Mustansir bi ’llah[177] (A.H. 623–640 = 1225–1242), and his return to Baghdad after the accession of another Caliph who can be no other but Al-Muntasim bi ’llah (A.H. 640–656 = A.D. 1242–1258). Again at the end of the tale (vol. i. 350) he is described as “an ancient man, past his ninetieth year” and “a very old man” in the days of Al-Mustansir (vol. i. 318); so that the Hunchback’s adventure can hardly be placed earlier than A.D. 1265 or seven years after the storming of Baghdad by Huláku Khan, successor of Janghíz Khan, a terrible catastrophe which resounded throughout the civilised world. Yet there is no allusion to this crucial epoch and the total silence suffices to invalidate the date.[178] Could we assume it as true, by adding to A.D. 1265 half a century for the composition of the Hunchback’s story and its incidentals, we should place the earliest date in A.D. 1315.