Mina Masoudi Rad - M.A. student at Firdausi University of Mashhad
Zohre Taebi - Assistant Professor at Firdausi University of Mashhad

One Thousand and One Nights is with no doubt a world literature, holding a mirror to different people and their multifarious cultures. The book is piled up with lives, culture, and values cherished by different nations, among them, India, Iraq, Egypt and Iran. Scholars are unanimous in the fact that the origin of the book lies in Hazar Afsane, an ancient Persian book belonging topre-Islamic era. The oldest version of the Nights known as the Arabian Nights has beentranslated between 9th and 11th centuries from the presumed Hazar Afsane, shaping the Nights as a work of many different faces. Since Galland’s translation of the Nights in 11th century from theArabic compilations and its introduction to the west, many different stories and tales have beenadded, devised and tampered with facts and fiction. The House of Barmakids and Ja’far in particular are characters whose role and status in the Nights have been altered during Abbasids’dynasty; pushing them under the shadow of Abbasid Caliphs. The way in which the character ofJa’far, the vizier of Harun, has been marginalized and refashioned in the process of compilation and translation of the Nights is shed light on in this paper, holding the perspective of NewHistoricism. There will also be an elaboration on the possibilities and the reasons behind specific alterations with regards to historical evidences, supported with the frame work of New Historicism.

Power, Barmakids, New Historicism, Alterations, Abbasid Caliphs, History