Hanna Diyab
Syrian Maronite writer and storyteller
Antun Yusuf Hanna Diyab (Arabic: اَنْطون يوسُف حَنّا دِياب, romanized: Anṭūn Yūsuf Ḥannā Diyāb; born circa 1688) was a Syrian Maronite writer and storyteller. He originated the best-known versions of the tales of Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves which have been added to the One Thousand and One Nights since French orientalist Antoine Galland translated and included them, after which they soon became popular across the West.
Diyab was long known only from brief mentions in the diary of Antoine Galland, but the translation and publication of his Arabic manuscript autobiography in 2015 expanded knowledge about his life. Reassessments of Diyab's contribution to Les mille et une nuits, Galland's widely influential version of the oriental stories of One Thousand and One Nights, have argued that Diyab is central to the literary history of such famous tales as Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, despite Diyab only having been named as "Hanna from Aleppo" in Galland's diary.
Literary scholars Ruth B. Bottigheimer and Paulo Lemos Horta have argued that Diyab should be understood as the original author of some of the stories published by Galland, and even that several of these stories, including Aladdin, were partly inspired by Diyab's own life, as there are parallels with his autobiography.
Further, scholars have argued that the travelogue provides an oriental outsider's view of Paris in 1708–1709, as well as extensive glimpses into other aspects of Diyab's world. Though it may not always reflect Diyab's eye-witness experiences, his autobiography also provides information about the places and cultures he encountered, and his identity as an accomplished oriental raconteur.
Life
Sources
Most of what is known about Diyab's life comes from his autobiography, which he composed in 1763, at around age 75. It survives as Vatican Library MS Sbath 254, although the first few pages are missing, and its lively narrative has been described as picaresque, and a valuable example of the colloquial, 18th-century Middle Arabic of Aleppo, influenced by Aramaic and Turkish.
Other details of Diyab's life are known from the diaries of Antoine Galland and Paul Lucas, who had hired Diyab to accompany him on his journey from Aleppo to Paris, Diyab's marriage contract of 1717, and an Aleppo census of 1740.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hanna Diyab” as syrian Maronite writer and storyteller. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q63341689. VIAF identifies the subject as 317032679. The Library of Congress control number is no2018054609. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1688, 2015, 1708 and 1709.
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