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Arabian Nights
The stories of "Arabian Nights" come mostly from India, Persia and Arabia. These stories reflect the highly civilized Islamic world of the ancient centuries. Many of the people in these areas shared a religion, Islam, a religious language, the Arabic of the Koran, and many cultural elements, which derived from the Koranic culture of Islam and its roots in the Arabian Peninsula, now mostly Saudi Arabia.
The stories of "Arabian Nights" vary as much as the lands they originate from. However, all the stories have a spiritual message and a message about values during life. The stories talk about life and how to live it, based on the Islamic culture and religion.
The wise tales speak of good and bad rulers, and have messages about how to deal with both. They speak of magic, demons, lust and violence, as well as love and spirituality.
BETRAYAL
The story tells the tale of two brother kings, Shahrayar and Shahzaman, both of whom are betrayed by their wives. They search for a man more unfortunate in love than they are, vowing to search until they find him.
In the story, they meet a demon, Jinni, who keeps his wife locked in a glass chest. Still, she manages to betray him. The brothers go to their village to deal with their cheating wives. Shahrayar has his wife killed, and vows to marry a new wife each night and kill her the next morning, so she can't cheat on him.
Shahrazad tells her father she plans marry Shahrayar. Her father tells her The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey to talk her out of the marriage. In this story, the donkey persuades an ox to stop feeding and act sick in order to avoid working. However, the ox's owner, a merchant, understood animal language and...
This story does not grab her attention and it fails to convince her to change her mind about the marriage.
He then tells her The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife, which also fails. In this story, the merchant's wife realizes that he understands animal language and demands to know what the animals said. The merchant tells her that he will die if he reveals the words.
She insists and he prepares to tell her and die. A rooster laughs at him, saying that he is foolish if he cannot control one wife. After all, the rooster controls fifty wives. The rooster urges the merchant to beat his wife, which he does, and he gains control of her. Shahrazad rejects the moral of the story, because she does not relate to it and cannot grasp the lesson.
Shahrazad marries Shahrayar, and arranges for her sister, Dinarzad, to ask her to tell a story to pass the night. This story, and many more, will save her and deliver the people.
THE STORIES
On the first night, she tells the story of the Merchant and the Demon, which keeps the king from killing her. She promises him an even better story the next night and he agrees to let her live. This continues for several nights.
Her first set of stories revolves around justice and forgiveness. Each tale is directly related to the king's life. The stories teach the king about justice with forbearance. Evil people are turned into deer and dogs, not killed, and the innocent are set free.
The stories that follow are not necessarily uplifting. However, all are pious, and most teach about the manners and ethics of survival in a complex, difficult…
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Thousand and One Nights. Translated by Husain Haddawy. In The Norton Anthology: World Masterpieces. Norton, 1995.
Burton, Richard. Selections from The Arabian Nights. International Collectors Library, 1991.
Foreman, Michael. The Arabian Nights: Or Tales Told by Sherherezade During a Thousand Nights and One Night. Morrow, William & Co., 1995.
Mansfield, Peter. The Arab world: a comprehensive history. Crowell, 1976.
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