Al-Sharif ibn al-Sharif Daftar Kwan al-Tusi al-‘Adili Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Reza ibn Muhammad al-Husayni al-Musawi (d.1257 AD), Alf Ghulam wa-Ghulam (A Thousand and One Loveable Boys), Near East, 13th century

A RARE ARABIC 13TH CENTURY LITERARY WORK

According C. Brockelmann the name of the author of this work is Abu Mansur ‘Abdalmalik ibn Muhammad Ismail al-Tha’alibi (d.1038), see GAL, S I, Leiden, 1996, pp.499-502. Different Arabic references attribute this work to different authors, and a copy that attributes it to the name that appears in the present manuscript - Al-Sharif ibn al-Sharif Daftar Kwan al-Tusi al-‘Adili Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Reza ibn Muhammad al-Husayni al-Musawi - is in the Escorial Library, Spain. Brockelmann mentions the Escorial copy and gives the name evident here, but he begs to differ (see pp.337 and 339 in GAL, volume 1).

Al-Sharif ibn al-Sharif Daftar Kwan (1193-1257 AD) was a poet and author born in Hama, Syria, who is also responsible for a 'sister' work to the present book, called Alf jariya wa-jariya (A Thousand and One Lovable Girls). Both titles are a play on the famous Alf layla wa-layla, the thousand and one Middle Eastern folk tales that were already known to have been transcribed in Iraq and Egypt by the ninth and twelfth centuries respectively. Only one copy of Alf jariya wa-jariya is preserved today, in the Austrian National Library, Vienna (see Jürgen W. Weil, 'Madchennamen - verratselt: Hundert Ratsel-Epigramme aus dem adab-Werk Alf gariya wa-gariya (7./13.jh)', in Review of Middle East Studies, Berlin, 1984.

The first line on the last page of the present work - Alf ghulam wa-ghulam - states that three thousand and three verses have been completed, although there are fewer in the present copy as the manuscript is incomplete at the beginning. It may be that it represents one part of a manuscript written in multiple volumes. A selection of descriptions of ghulam (which can be translated as 'beautiful/loveable boys' or 'favourites') are listed in the outer margins of each page, including he who "stands under the rain; collects hailstones; stands in the snow; plays with snow; slips in the mud; likes to spend money; drinks in taverns; swims across the sea; dives in the water; drowns".

The paper and script of the manuscript are consistent with a thirteenth-century production, suggesting that this is an extremely early copy of the work, possibly even written during the author's lifetime.