Duncan Black MacDonald (1863-1943) was an American Orientalist. He studied

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and then

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, before teaching at the

Hartford Theological Seminary The Hartford International University for Religion and Peace (formerly Hartford Seminary) is a private theological university in Hartford, Connecticut. History Hartford Seminary's origins date back to 1833 when the Pastoral Union of Connectic ...

in the United States starting in 1893, founding the first school in the U.S. devoted to Christian missionary work among the Muslims of the Middle East. Waardenburg, Jean-Jacques ''L'islam Dans Le Miroir De L'occident''.

n French N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

Paris: Mouton & Co, 1963. pp.132-135; section II, III.B.4; III.C.4. See also Bijlefeld, W. A. . "A Century of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary."

n English N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

Muslim World 83/2 (1993: 103-17. His main scholarly interest was

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

theology, which led him to the study of the ''

One Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'', as he believed that the ''Nights'' stories reflected the Muslim popular piety. MacDonald was the second Western scholar to investigate the manuscripts of the ''Nights'', after

Hermann Zotenberg Hermann Zotenberg (1836, Silesia – 1894, Paris) was an orientalist and Arabist. He worked for the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. His most celebrated work is his edition of the ''Chronique de Tabari'' (Paris, 1867–1871) Works * ...

, and he began to publish his results in 1908. The Arabic MSS of ''

Ali Baba "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" ( ar, علي بابا والأربعون لصا) is a folk tale from the '' One Thousand and One Nights''. It was added to the collection in the 18th century by its French translator Antoine Galland, who heard ...

'' he discovered at the

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was later found to be counterfeited. But he did successfully prove that the ‘Tunisian MSS’ which Maximilian Habicht claimed to find and use for his Breslau ''Nights'' edition was a fake. MacDonald planned to prepare a critical edition of the only extensively surviving medieval manuscript of the ''Nights'', the three-volume

Galland Manuscript The three-volume Galland Manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MSS arabes 3609, 3610 and 3611), sometimes also referred to as the Syrian Manuscript, is the earliest extensive manuscript of the ''Thousand and One Nights'' (the only earlier wit ...

. However, nothing came out of it, and this critical edition was produced by

Muhsin Mahdi Muḥsin Sayyid Mahdī al-Mashhadani ( ar, محسن مهدي; cited Muhsin S. Mahdi) (June 21, 1926 – July 9, 2007) was an Iraqi-American islamology, Islamologist and Arabist. He was a leading authority on Arabian history, philology, and philosop ...

(with reference to MacDonald's notes) only in 1984. MacDonald also did important work on Arab magic and superstition, and Muslim-Christian relations. The Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at the Hartford Theological Seminary is named after him.

References

Bibliography

* Duncan Black MacDonald, �
“Ali Baba and the forty thieves” in Arabic from a Bodleian MS
��, ''

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society The ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'' is an academic journal which publishes articles on the history, archaeology, literature, language, religion and art of South Asia, the Middle East (together with North Africa and Ethiopia), Central Asi ...

'' (April 1910): 327-386. *Robert Irwin (1994). ''The Arabian Nights: A Companion''. London: Allen Lane. Pages 52-58. *Robert Irwin (2006). ''For Lust of Knowing''. London: Allen Lane. Page 214. {{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonald, Duncan Black 1863 births 1943 deaths American orientalists Hartford Seminary faculty Translators of One Thousand and One Nights