ems to follow from the fact that the only mention of them is found in
Makrisi's 'Description of Cairo' (1400) and in Abu al-Mahasin, another
historian of Egypt (1470). The collection cannot have been made later
than 1548, the date placed by a reader on the manuscript used by
Galland. But that its date is not much earlier is shown by various
chance references. The mention of coffee (discovered in the fourteenth
century); of cannon (first mentioned in Egypt in 1383); of the wearing
of different-colored garments by Muslims, Jews, and Christians
(instituted in 1301 by Muhammad ibn Kelauen); of the order of
Carandaliyyah (which did not exist until the thirteenth century); of
Sultani peaches (the city Sultaniyyah was founded in the middle of the
thirteenth century)--point to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as
the approximate date of the final composition of the 'Nights.' This is
supported by the mention of the office of the Sheikh al-Islam, an office
not created before the year 1453. Additions, such as the 'Story of Abu
Ker and Abu Zer,' were made as late as the sixteenth century; and
tobacco, which is mentioned, was not introduced into Europe until the
year 1560. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries are a
period of the revival of letters in Egypt, which might well have induced
some Arab lover of folk-lore to write down a complete copy of these
tales. The Emperor Salah-al-din (1169) is the last historical personage
mentioned, and there is absolutely no trace of Shiite heresy to be found
in the whole collection. This omission would be impossible had they been
gathered up at the time of the heretical Fatimide dynasty (900-1171).

But it seems equally certain that the 'Nights' did not originate
altogether in the land of the Nile. The figure of Harun al-Rashid, the
many doings in the "City of Peace" (Bagdad), lead us irresistibly over
to the Eastern capital of the Muhammadan Empire. The genii and Afrits
and much of the gorgeous picturing remind one of Persia, or at least of
Persian influence. The Arabs were largely indebted to Persia for
literature of a kind like this; and we know that during the ninth and
tenth centuries many books were translated from the Pahlavi and Syriac.
Thus Ibn al-Mukaffah (760) gave the Arabs the 'Kholanamah,' the
'Amirnamah' (Mirror of Princes), 'Kalilah,' and 'Dimnan.' etc. The
historian Masudi (943) expressly refers the story of the 'Thousand and
One Nights' to a Persian original.