<P> No Arabic source has been traced for the tale, which was incorporated into the book Les Mille et Une Nuits by its French translator, Antoine Galland, who heard it from a Syrian storyteller from Aleppo . Galland's diary (March 25, 1709) records that he met the Maronite scholar, by name Youhenna Diab ("Hanna"), who had been brought from Aleppo to Paris by Paul Lucas, a celebrated French traveller . Galland's diary also tells that his translation of "Aladdin" was made in the winter of 1709--10 . It was included in his volumes ix and x of the Nights, published in 1710 . </P> <P> John Payne, in Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp and Other Stories (London 1901), gives details of Galland's encounter with the man he referred to as "Hanna" and the discovery in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing Aladdin (with two more of the "interpolated" tales). One was written by a Syrian Christian priest living in Paris, named Dionysios Shawish, alias Dom Denis Chavis . The other is supposed to be a copy Mikhail Sabbagh made of a manuscript written in Baghdad in 1703 . It was purchased by the Bibliothèque Nationale at the end of the nineteenth century . However, modern scholars such as Muhsin Mahdi and Husain Haddawy claim that both manuscripts are forgeries--"back - translations" of Galland's text into Arabic . </P> <P> The opening sentences of the story, in both the Galland and the Burton versions, set it in China and imply, at least, that Aladdin is Chinese . On the other hand, there is practically nothing in the rest of the story that is inconsistent with a Persian or Arabian setting . For instance, the Sultan is referred to as such rather being called the "Emperor", as in some re-tellings, and the people we meet in the story are Muslims: their conversation is larded with devout Muslim platitudes . A Jewish merchant buys Aladdin's wares (and incidentally cheats him), but there is no mention of Buddhists or Confucians (or other distinctively Han Chinese people). </P> <P> China's ethnic makeup has long included Muslim groups, including large populations of the Hui people whose origins go back to Silk Road travellers . In addition, large communities of Muslim Chinese have been known since the Tang Dynasty, as well as Jewish communities . Some commentators have even suggested that the story might be set in Turkestan (encompassing Central Asia and the modern Chinese province of Xinjiang). </P>

Where does the story of aladdin take place