THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AS A SOURCE FOR DAILY LIFE IN THE MAMLUK PERIOD

The story collection the Arabian Nights is problematic as a source for social history. How much in these stories can we accept as accurate descriptions of social life? In Muhsin Mahdi's opinion, the stories should not be used as a source for the study of the 'manners and customs of Oriental societies'. According to him, the stories were of exotic places and times filled with characærs who could experience more or less anything. (Mahdi 1994: 180, n. 58.) But fairy tales always æll something about tt¡g society of their audience. To make the story interesting to the audience, a storyt€ller or an author had to tetl about problems or conflicts that the audience could recognise even though the particular story was set in an imaginary land and had mermaids or fairies as major characters. The storytellef could not paint too odd a picture, but had to retain some degree of familiarity so that the audience was able to imagine tlrc scenery. Therefore, mixed witlr the remarkable occl¡Íences, all stories contain small everyday details or references to customs with which the contemporary audience was familiar. This applies to the Nights ' stories as well. The fantastic stories contain many details: the house of a physician is described, the friends of a ba¡ber a¡e listed, a broker collects his fees, etc. In this a¡ticle I intend to look into these dehils and try to find out if they are confirmed or discounted by what is othen¡vise known of the period. I also try to estimaûe the value of the Nights as a soulce for studying the daily life of the Mamluk-period commoners, i.e. people who did not belong to tlrc scholarly elite or the ruling class. The cornmonefs included various wage eamers: unskilled workers, artisans, professionals such as physicians, and small scale merchants, even beggars can be considered to have worked for their living. The distinction between the commoners and the elite was wealth and scholarship