THE WORLD OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

224 C.E.	The Sassanid dynasty is established in Persia.
330	Under Constantine, the Roman Empire moves its capital to Con stantinople.
570	Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, is born in the Arabian town of Mecca.
614	Persian armies capture the city of Jerusalem.
622	Persecuted for his preaching, the prophet Muhammad is forced to flee Mecca for Medina, a neighboring town. This flight, known as the hijra, marks the beginning of the Muslim era.
632	Muhammad dies. His Arab followers spread Islam by persuasion and conquest under the first caliph, Abu Bakr.
634	Abu Bakr dies and is succeeded by Omar I, who conquers Persia, Syria, and Egypt.
637	The Arabs capture Jerusalem.
c.640	Arabs reconquer Persia, ending the Sassanid dynasty. Islam re places Zoroastrianism as the established religion of Persia.
c.670	Arab armies continue their conquest of North Africa, spreading Islam.
691	Construction is completed on the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic temple in the heart of Jerusalem.
712	Under Caliph Walid I, the Arabs establish Samarkand as the cul tural capital of Islam, with Damascus as its political center.
749	The Abbasid dynasty becomes dominant in the Islamic world.
762	Abbasid caliph al-Mansur initiates construction of Baghdad and makes it the Islamic capital.
786	Haroun Alraschid [Harun al-Rashid] becomes the fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty; his caliphate marks an artistic flowering for Islamic culture. He is an important character in the Arabian Nights.
800	Haroun Alraschid sends an envoy to meet with the Frankish king, Charlemagne.
809	Caliph Haroun Alraschid dies.
c.845	The renowned poet Abu Tammam compiles the Hamasa, an an thology of Arabian poems.
846	Arab armies capture Rome
c.850	Hazar Afsanah, a book of Persian folk tales that serves as an early source for the Arabian Nights, is translated into Arabic as the Thousand Nights. According to legend, coffee is discovered by the Arab goatherd Kaldi.
915	The great Arab poet al-Mutanabbi is born.
c.950	References to Hazar Afsanah by the scholar al-Mas’udi (896-956), author of a world history titled Meadows of Gold, support the link
965	between the Arabian Nights frame tale and the now-lost Persian manuscript. Bandits murder the Arab poet al-Mutanabbi.
c.1048	Omar Khayyam, a mathematician, astronomer, and the poet of the Rubaiyat, is born.
1099	European Christians pillage Jerusalem, killing the city’s Muslims and Jews; the attack, known as the First Crusade, marks the first European Christian offensive against Muslims in the Middle East.
1187	Jerusalem is recaptured by the Islamic general Saladin.
1189	Richard the Lion-Hearted leads the Third Crusade into the Holy Land.
1258	The Mongols, nomadic tribes from Asia, sack the city of Baghdad, ending the Abbasid dynasty. The stories in the Arabian Nights exist in manuscript compilations; they include folk tales, historical anecdotes, and religious legends added over time by the collec tion’s anonymous editors.
1453	Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II capture Constantinople and es tablish the seat of the Ottoman Empire in the former Byzantine capital.
1520	The reign of the Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent begins.
1704	Antoine Galland, a French Orientalist and Louis XIV’s antiquary, publishes the first European translation of the Arabian Nights. Galland’s translation, Les Mille et une nuits, consists of twelve vol umes based on a rare thirteenth-century Arabic manuscript.
1706	A “Grub Street” (that is, hack writer’s) edition of the Arabian Nights in English is published based on the French translation by Galland; it quickly popularizes the Arabian Nights in England and fuels an interest in the Orient.
1838-1840	Edward William Lane completes his three-volume translation of the Arabian Nights; in copious footnotes, he pays particular atten tion to contemporary Muslim culture.
1882-1884	John Payne publishes the first translation into English of the complete Arabian Nights.
1885-1888	Sir Richard Burton publishes his translation of the Arabian Nights, including Supplemental Nights; the popular book becomes the most renowned translation into English, thanks in part to its inclu sion of the original’s erotic episodes.
1944	A film version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, directed by Arthur Lubin, opens.
1958	The 7th Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, a popular film adaptation, opens.
1974	Italian auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini releases Il Fiore delle mille e una notte, a film adaptation of the Arabian Nights.
1992	Disney Studios releases the animated film Aladdin, starring Robin Williams as the voice of the genie.