“The earliest attempt to translate the Arabian Nights was made by Munshi Shams al-Dín Ahmad Shirwáni. A prose version of the first two hundred Nights made by him ‘for the use of the College at Fort St. George’ was lithographed at Madras in the year A.H. 1252 (A.D. 1836) and published in 8vo volumes (pp. 517, 426) under the title ‘Hikayat ool jaleelah’[3] (Hikáyát al-Jalílah). The translation was made from an Arabic original but it does not appear what edition was made use of. The translator had intended to bring out a version of the entire work, but states in his preface that, being unable to procure the Arabic of the other Nights, he could not proceed with the translation, and had to be content to publish only two hundred nights. This version does not appear to have become popular, for no other edition seems to have been published. And the author must not be confounded with Shaykh Ahmad Shirwáni, who, in A.D. 1814, printed an Arabic edition of the Arabian Nights Entertainments (Calcutta, Pereira) which also stopped at No. CC.” “The next translation was made by Munshi ’Abd al-Karím, likewise in prose. From the preface and colophon to this work it appears that ’Abd al-Karím obtained a copy of Edward Foster’s English version of the Arabian Nights, and after two years’ labour completed a translation of the whole work in A.H. 1258 (A.D. 1842). It was lithographed at the Mustafai Press at Kánpúi (Cawnpore) in the year A.H. 1263 (A.D. 1847) and published in four vols., in two royal 8vos, lithographed; each containing two Jilds (or parts, pp. 276, 274; 214 and 195).”