纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 052后宫壁画残片（2）（在线收听）

Today, we mostly know the Arabian Nights through the distorted filter of Hollywood and pantomime. They summon up a kaleidoscope of characters. Sinbad, Aladdin and the Thief of Baghdad, caliphs and sorcerers, viziers and merchants, and lots of girls - many of them slaves, but still talented, and outspoken. We see all of them within the vast bustling landscapes of the great Muslim cities of the age: Baghdad at its height, of course, but also Cairo and - most important for this programme - Samarra, the city which straddles the River Tigris north of Baghdad in modern Iraq.

We treat the Arabian Nights as exotic fiction, but in fact they tell us a lot about real life in the court of the Abbasid caliphs, the supreme rulers of the vast Islamic Empire that in the eighth to tenth centuries stretched from Central Asia to Spain. The Abbasid name doesn't often make it into Hollywood, but we can learn something about it through the tales. The historian Robert Irwin has written a companion to the Arabian Nights, and has traced its various historical connections:

"Some of these stories do reflect the realities of Baghdad in the eighth and ninth centuries. The Abbasid caliphs employed a group of people known as 'nudema' - these were professional cup companions, their job was to sit with the caliph as he ate and drank, and entertain him with edifying information, jokes, discussions of food, and stories. So, some of the stories in the Arabian Nights are part of the repertoire of these cup companions.