A treasure-trove of grisly Arab tales may appeal more to an Isis fighter than your average British reader

The marvellous tales of the title are not just confined to the contents of this book, for the travels and travails of the lone manuscript in which they were inscribed are also something of a wonder, and deserve to be told.

The original collection appears to have been composed in the 10th century, and it is easy to imagine some of these stories doing the rounds of Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus while the crusaders were making trouble in the neighbourhood. This particular version of the stories was written down in the 14th century, probably in Cairo, for that is where the manuscript can be traced. In 1517 when the Renaissance was in full flood, the Ottoman Sultan Selim — ‘the Grim’ — watched the crucifixion of the last of the Mamluk rulers of Egypt at one of Cairo’s great gates. Among the treasures that Selim took home to Istanbul was the only manuscript of this cycle of stories.