“Three centuries after its original publication, The Thousand and One Nights is being celebrated with widespread, renewed interest in the work. Hasan El-Shamy’s motif-index, based on an authentic folk edition of Alf laylah wa laylah, provides scholars of various fields accurate information about the content of this classic piece of Arabic folk tradition.”

“This is a valuable reference for university libraries, large public libraries, and Arabic and Middle East study centers. . . . Recommended.”
 — Choice

“Prof. Hasan M. el-Shamy has once again produced an authoritative work on Middle Eastern folklore . . . There exists a cultural chasm between the Middle East and the European West, and major literary works such as 'Alf laylah wa laylah are relatively unknown, or at best reduced to children's tales or Hollywood spectaculars. el-Shamy's A Motif Index of the Thousand and One Nights is not only valuable to the folklorist, but is an element in bridging the gap.Spring/ Summer 2009”
 — Western Folklore

“El-Shamy’s motif index will certainly be helpful for students of The Thousand and One Nights in finding their way through the ever-expanding corpus of material.124, 2011”
 — Journal of American Folklore

“The wealth of information contained in [this] volume is impressive, and one can only wish that more studies of this kind will be undertaken on other narrative corpora of the Near and Middle East. ”
 — Journal of Near Eastern Studies