"The Story of Sidi Nouman", also known as just "Sidi Nouman" with various romanization alternatives, is one of the stories included in the Arabian Nights starting with Antoine Galland's 18th Century compilation Les Mille et Une Nuits. It is to be found in Volume 10, which saw publication in 1712. An English translation from which many other translations followed occurred at the latest in 1721 with the publication of the Grub Street The Arabian Nights' Entertainment. In Richard Francis Burton's influential 19th Century English compilation, it is included in Volume 3 of the Supplemental Nights, which was available to the public some time after 1887. "The Story of Sidi Nouman" is one of the tales Galland received from Hanna Diyab, an influential Syrian writer and storyteller. As per Galland's diary, Diyab told Galland the story on May 10, 1709.
"The Story of Sidi Nouman" is one of three sub-stories of "The Adventures of Harun al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad". The overarching narrative is that the caliph invites people to his palace whose odd circumstances have drawn his attention and who are made to explain themselves. In the case of Nouman, the caliph witnessed him mercilessly abusing a horse and is disconcerted by it.
Nouman explains that it all started the day after his marriage to Amine. When they share their first domestic meal, Amine curiously presents an ear-pick and eats her rice grain by grain. She also limits her consumption to rice and crumbs of bread. Meals thereafter show no improvement and Nouman is all too aware that no human could live on that little. One night, he can't sleep and notices Amine getting up and leaving the house. He follows her to a nearby cemetery and witnesses her meeting up with a ghoul, after which the two dig up a fresh corpse and consume its flesh. Nouman sneaks home and confronts his wife the next day. She breaks out in rage and reveals herself to be a sorceress when she turns her husband into a dog. He escapes her subsequent murder attempt. Finding protection with a butcher and thereafter a baker, who names him Rougeau, the dog becomes famous across town when he proves himself capable of telling counterfeit coins from real ones. This draws the attention of another enchantress and her mother, who realize his condition and make Nouman human again. He tells them his story and the duo send him home with a spell of his own. With it, he turns Amine into the very horse the caliph saw him abuse.
In scholarly works, Diyab's contributions to the Arabian Nights are referred to as the orphan tales because it is unclear if they're his creations or if he passed them on from elsewhere and how closely what Galland penned down matches what Diyab told. Since the time of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index, the second half of the story about animal transformations has become categorized as ATU 449, which even carries the name Sidi Numan. The first half, meanwhile, appears to combine the first half of "The Young King of the Black Isles", one of the core tales of the Arabian Nights, with a gender-inverted variant of ATU 363, titled The Corpse-Eater. Both the "The Young King of the Black Isles" and several variants of ATU 449 unambiguously feature a cheating wife, which in "The Story of Sidi Nouman" is only implied. That said, Galland made it a point to omit any sexual content from his translation, and "The Story of Sidi Nouman" may have been dealt the same treatment.
Although obscure today and often omitted from Arabian Nights compilations, "The Story of Sidi Nouman" had a significant presence in Western popular culture up until the early 20th Century. The focus of this popularity was on the horror aspect of the tale's first half, as the beautiful yet ghastly Amine and her nightly corpse-munching with a ghoul struck a chord with people. On account hereof, "The Story of Sidi Nouman" became a foundational piece in the Oriental Gothic genre and the critical point of introduction of the ghoul into the West's monster repository. The ghoul itself, as personified by Amine even though she is not a ghoul herself in the tale, further pushed and influenced the development of vampire and werewolf fiction.
In Arabic folklore, ghouls hunt humans by means of violence and trickery, in a manner that has them occasionally treated as analogous to ogres. Indeed, Galland's translation of the one core tale of the Arabian Nights to feature a ghoul, namely "The King's Son and the She-Ghoul", presents the ghoul as an ogre. "The Story of Sidi Nouman" was consequently the West's first conscious introduction to the ghoul. "The Story of Sidi Nouman" expressly mentions that ghouls are hunters and excuses the corpse-eating as something ghouls do only when circumstances push them to it, but the imagery of the cemetery-dwelling corpse-eater stuck with the Western public. Corpse-eating is not part of any surviving pre-18th century Arabic folklore regarding the ghoul, but there is anecdotal evidence that hyenas are loosely associated with ghouls in folklore and hyenas have had a reputation of being scavengers, of human corpses too, since the First Century.
"The Story of Sidi Nouman" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Arranged Marriage: Nouman and Amine meet for the first time when the ceremonies leading up to their marriage begin. Nouman is initially pleased with Amine for her looks and conduct. Amine probably is initially happy her groom's house is nearby a cemetery.
- As You Know: There are two moments in which Nouman interrupts his recollection to explain to the caliph things the caliph already knows, but which the Western readers of the tale won't be familiar with. The first moment is to explain Muslim wedding customs and the second moment is to explain what ghouls are.
- Beast and Beauty: Amine and the ghoul are respectively an attractive human woman and a ghoul, which folklorically tend to be unsightly in appearance and Nouman recognizes the ghoul as a ghoul on the spot so it follows the folkloric depiction. The two meet regularly at night at the cemetery to dine on a fresh corpse together. Their relationship is not defined by the story, but they appear to enjoy each other's company.
- Counterfeit Cash: A woman tries to pay the baker with several genuine silver coins and an obvious fake one. The baker refuses it and in the argument that follows jests that even his dog could spot the fake coin. Not expecting anything, the baker calls over Rougeau and tells him to find the fake coin. Because Rougeau is actually a human, this is within his capacity. The woman relents and gives the baker another coin, while the baker is elated to have a dog that knows such a fancy trick that is sure to draw customers.
- Creepy Cemetery: There is a cemetery nearby Nouman's house, which is where Amine and her ghoul friend go with regularity to get human meat to dine on.
- Desecrating the Dead: As human-meat connoisseurs, Amine and the ghoul spare themselves the trouble of the hunt and instead wait for someone to die. The night of the burial, they sneak into the cemetery, dig up the fresh corpse, and dine together. When they're done, they throw the bones back into the grave and rebury them so no one will ever be the wiser.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The only marital activity mentioned between Nouman and Amine is their shared time at dinner, which Amine reluctantly participates in to Nouman's frustration. Then Nouman learns that Amine regularly sneaks out at night to enjoy dinner with a ghoul. While the focus is on Amine's consumption of human corpses, there is an evoked layer of unfaithfulness.
- Dropping the Bombshell: Upon learning of Amine's penchant for digging up corpses and eating their flesh, Nouman decides to confront her but gently so so that she amends her ills. At dinner, he falls into a spiel about their marriage so far, Amine's eating habits, and Nouman's patience and accommodations, which he ends with a careful enquiry if all the different meat dishes she's been offered so far truly are inferior to corpse meat. All of Nouman's tact is for naught as the normally docile Amine flares up in rage and turns him into a dog she intends but fails to kill.
- Evil Counterpart: Amine and the other sorceress were educated in the use of magic by the same teacher at the same time, although the other sorceress chose to avoid Amine because she had a bad feeling about her. While she went on to use her magic for the good of others, Amine uses her magic for her own benefits. Despite her ability to eat regular food, she prefers human meat and is willing to commit murder to keep her secrets.
- Forced Transformation: When Nouman reveals to Amine that he knows she eats human corpses, she becomes enraged and reveals herself to be a sorceress. With words and water, she changes him into a dog with the intent to kill him. He escapes and she leaves it be, but another sorceress finds Nouman and returns him to human form. He tells her his story and she gives him enchanted water to suitably punish his wife and reclaim his possessions. Although Nouman isn't told what the water will do, he throws it at his wife and sees her become a horse. He abuses the horse as an extra measure until Caliph Harun al-Rashid learns of the situation. He tells Nouman that the violence needs to stop, but approves that Amine remains cursed because there's no telling what she'll do if she becomes human again.
- Good Parents: The mother of the second sorceress is not magically inclined herself and cautious about the harm magic can do. She nevertheless let her daughter study and practice it while keeping an eye on her and has grown proud of her accomplishments. She also shows interest in her daughter's work insofar that she is the one to suspect that Rougeau is a transformed human, the one who fetches him, and the one who implores her daughter to undo the spell if one indeed is in effect.
- I Kiss Your Foot: When Nouman is changed back into a human by the good sorceress, he throws himself on the floor and kisses the hem of her dress in gratitude.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Amine eats human flesh, but for convenience sooner than morality limits herself to the consumption of fresh corpses that she digs up with a befriended ghoul. It is because she only has a taste for human flesh that she barely eats normal food. When forced to eat at least something to keep her husband from becoming suspicious, she eats rice grain by grain with an ear-pick, or in other versions with little ivory sticks, tweezers, or a bodkin.
- Odd Name Out: "Rougeau", the name the baker gives to the dog in Galland's version, is unambiguously French amidst the population of Baghdad. It means something like "Little Red". No explanation is given why the baker would give his dog a French name. In Burton's version, the dog is renamed "Bakht", Arabic for "Luck".
- Our Ghouls Are Different: "The Story of Sidi Nouman" is the pivot point between Arabic folkloric ghouls and Western literary ghouls. One ghoul appears in it and dwells in the cemetery to munch on its fresh corpses, which is noted to not be usual ghoul behavior as the creature normally hunts for human meat. Its appearance is not given (although Galland's version is female; later versions often present it as male), but Nouman recognizes it on sight even at a distance at night. Despite being a human-eater, the ghoul is an associate of the human Amine, who herself is a cannibal. They work together digging for corpses, consume the flesh as a pleasant outdoor dinner, and jointly hide the evidence back into the grave.
- To Serve Man: Ghouls are eaters of humans and the ghoul in the tale is no different. They do, however, limit themselves to the flesh of people who already died, which they share with a befriended cannibalistic human.
- The Vamp: Amine is a good-looking woman who can fake an agreeable personality, but in truth she is an evil sorceress who prioritizes herself and has a taste for human flesh. Her marriage gives her convenience and when her husband threatens that convenience, she only barely fails to kill him.
- Water Is Womanly: The two enchantresses use water as the conduit of their magical incantations. This is in line with other stories where magic relies on an elemental conduit, such as in "The Story of the Envious Man and of Him Who Was Envied".
- Words Can Break My Bones: Amine and her former fellow student of magic use a transformation technique that relies on uttering a command and using an elemental conduit, water, to convey it to their mark. To turn Nouman into a dog, Amine dips her fingers into a jug of water and splashes the drops at her husband while vocally cursing him to become a dog. With the same water-based gesture, the other enchantress commands Nouman to stay a dog if he always were a dog, but to become a man if that is his true self. She also gives Nouman a vial of water that apparently is prepared with a curse, because Nouman only has to unspecifically tell Amine to receive her punishment when he splashes her.
