THE ARABIAN NIGHTS: ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS SUMMARY

The Arabian Nights is a collection of tales from the Islamic Golden Age, compiled by various authors over
many hundreds of years.

Though each collection features different stories, they are all centered around the frame story of the
sultan Shahrayar and his wife, Scheherazade. After finding out that his first wife is unfaithful, Shahrayar
kills her and swears to marry a different woman each night before killing her the following morning to
prevent further betrayal. Scheherazade, his vizier's daughter, concocts a plan to end this pattern. She
marries Shahrayar, and then begins to tell him a story that night. However, she stops the story in the
middle, so that he will be excited to hear the rest the following night. The next evening, she finishes that
story and then begins another, following the same pattern for 1,001 nights, until Shahrayar has a change
of heart. The stories she tells comprise the collection.

"Aladdin's Lamp" tells of a peasant boy who is tricked by an evil magician into retrieving a magic genie
lamp from a cave. However, Aladdin outsmarts him, keeping the lamp for himself. Through the genie's
power, Aladdin grows rich and marries the sultan's daughter. When the magician steals the lamp back,
Aladdin and his wife thwart and kill the villain. The magician's brother then attempts to avenge the dead
man, but is equally defeated, so that Aladdin lives happily ever after.

In "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," hardworking Ali Baba stumbles upon a thieves' hideout full of
treasure, protected by a magic entry. When Ali Baba accidentally reveals the secret to his richer
brother Cassim, Cassim gets trapped in the hideout, and killed by the thieves. The villains then try to track
down and kill Ali Baba, but their plans are consistently thwarted by the quick-witted slave Morgiana.

In "The Three Apples," a fisherman finds a chest in the ocean containing a woman's body. Both her father
and her husband try to take the blame, but the caliph discerns that the husband had killed her, believing
her unfaithful. He had brought her three rare apples when she was sick, then got mad when he saw a
slave with one of the apples, claiming he had received the fruit from his girlfriend. Believing the slave, he
killed the woman. He then learned that his son had actually given the apple to the slave, who then lied to
stir up trouble. The ruler's vizier Ja'far ascertains that his own slave is the culprit, and the caliph pardons
everyone.

"The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor" are told by a famous sailor to an impoverished porter, to explain
the trials and tribulations that the sailor suffered at sea. Over the course of his seven voyages, Sinbad
faced: various shipwrecks; strange beasts such as giant eagles, rocs, and giants; malicious figures such as
the Old Man of the Sea; and many other obstacles. Even though he dealt with danger on every voyage,
Sinbad continued to sail, lured by the thrill and excitement of the sea. Finally, after seven voyages, he
decided to settle down with his wealth.

"The Fisherman and the Jinni" tells the story of a fisherman whose nets retrieve a yellow jar from the sea.
He opens it to release a dangerous genie, who has been trapped for hundreds of years and had decided
to kill the man who rescues him. The fisherman tricks the genie into returning to the jar, and then tells
him the story of "The Vizier and the Sage Duban," detailed below. After the story, the genie promises to
reward the fisherman, and indeed shows him a magic lake full of strange fish. The fisherman sells the fish
to the sultan, who explores the area of the lake to meet a sad prince who had been turned half to stone.
He helps the prince, and then rewards everyone involved.

In "The Vizier and the Sage Duban," a wise healer named Duban heals King Yunan's leprosy, but Yunan's
vizier convinces the king that Duban is out to kill him. Yunan has Duban executed on that suspicion, and
Duban gifts him a magic book before he dies. After the wise man is beheaded, the king flips through the
book, and then dies himself from a poison that Duban has left on its pages.

Finally, "The Three Princes and the Princes Nouronnihar" details the journeys of three brother princes
who each wants to marry their cousin Nouronnihar. Their father, the Grand Sultan, promises that
whichever brother finds the most valuable item will win the woman's hand. They each find amazing items
- a magic carpet that transports its owner, a tube that shows whatever the viewer wishes, and an apple
that heals anyone. When the brothers learn that Nouronnihar is ill, they pool the items and manage to
save her life.
ARABIC LITERATURE literary works written in the Arabic language. The great body of Arabic literature
includes works by Arabic speaking Turks, Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Indians, Jews, and other Africans
and Asians, as well as the Arabs themselves.

The first significant Arabic literature was produced during the medieval golden age of lyric poetry, from
the 4th to the 7th cent. The poems are strongly personal qasida, or odes, often very short, with some
longer than 100 lines. They treat the life of the tribe and themes of love, fighting, courage, and the chase.
The poet speaks directly, not romantically, of nature and the power of God. The qasida survive only
through collections, chiefly the Muallaqat, Hamasa, Mufaddaliyat, and Kitab al-Aghani. The most
esteemed of these poets are Amru al-Kais, Antara, and Zuhair.

With the advent of Islam, the Qur'an became the central work of study and recitation. Extra-Qur'anic
poetry underwent a decline from which it recovered in a far different form. The Qur'an supplanted poetry
by becoming the chief object of study of the Muslim world. Poetry regained some prestige under the
Umayyads, when al-Akhtal (c.640–c.710) and al-Farazdaq (c.640–732) wrote their lyric works.

Under the Abbasids (750–1258), Hellenic, Syrian, Pahlavi, and Sanskrit works became available in
translation, and the Arabic language further developed as a vehicle of science and philosophy. Among the
pioneers of Arabic prose were Ibn al-Muqaffa, the translator of the Indian fables of Kalila wa Dimna, and
al-Jahiz (d. 868), an influential figure in the establishment of the belles-lettres compendia (adab) as a
dominant literary theme.

The next great period of Arabic literature was a result of the rise of the new Arabic-Persian culture of
Baghdad, the new capital of the Abbasids, in the 8th and 9th cent. Philosophy, mathematics, law, Qur'anic
interpretation and criticism, history, and science were cultivated, and the collections of early Arabic
poetry were compiled during this period.

At the end of the 8th cent. in Baghdad a group of young poets arose who established a new court poetry.
A prominent court poet was Abu Nuwas. Asceticism, not yet developed into Sufism, evolved into a poetic
genre with Abu al-Atahiya. Among the most popular of Arabic poets, Mutanabbi (915–65) wrote some of
the most complex, and most eloquent, Arabic poems. The poet Hariri sought to combine refinement with
dignity of style, and brilliancies with jewels of eloquence. Abu al-Ala al-Maarri was an outstanding Syrian
poet of great originality. The greatest mystic poet of the age was Omar Ibn al-Faridh (1181–1235).

The influence of India and Persia is seen in Arabic prose romance, which became the principal literary
form. The greatest collection is the Thousand and One Nights. The major writers of historical and
geographical works in Arabic include Bukhari, Tabari, Masudi, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn al-Athir (d. 1234), and Ibn
Batuta. The foremost Arab theologian was al-Ghazali; Avicenna, the great physician, wrote on medicine.
The central Asian scholar al-Faralsi, wrote fundamental works on philosophical and musical theory. In the
field of belles-lettres, essays and epistles of great wit and erudition, known as risalas, were composed on
subjects as diverse as science, mysticism, and politics. Chief practitioners of the genre include Ibn al-
Muqaffa (d. 757), the unsurpassed al-Jahiz, and Ibn Qutayba (d. 889).

The Western center of Arab culture was Spain, especially Córdoba under the Umayyads. The Spanish Arabs
produced fine poets and scholars, but they are less important than the great Spanish philosophers—
Avempace, Averroës, and Ibn Tufayl. Their works became known in Europe chiefly through the Latin
translations of Jewish scholars. Since 1200 in Spain and 1300 in the East, there has been little Arabic
literature of wide interest.

During the 19th cent., printing in Arabic began in earnest, centered in Cairo, Beirut, and Damascus.
Newspapers, encyclopedias, and books were published in which Arab writers tried to express, in Arabic,
their sense of themselves and their place in the modern world. Simultaneously with a reaction against
Western models in Arabic literature, the novel and the drama, forms never before used, developed. The
first modern Arabic novel is generally recognized to be Zaynab (1912) by the Egyptian Muhammad Husayn
Haykal. Arabic fiction was virtually unknown in the West, with fewer than five novels translated into
English by the 1950s. Interest in modern Arabic literature increased after 1988 when the Egyptian novelist
Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Other notable 20th- and 21st-century writers in Arabic
include the novelists Abdelrahman Munif, Sonallah Ibrahim, Yahya Hakki, Ghassan Kanafani, Alaa Al
Aswany, Elias Khoury, and Mahmoud Saeed and the short-story writers Mahmud Tymur and Yusuf Idris.
Interest in Arabic fiction has been further stimulated by the establishment (2007) of the International
 Prize for Arabic Fiction, an award aimed at securing recognition, readership, translation, and publication
of outstanding contemporary Arabic fiction. Funded the the Emirates Foundation of Abu Dhabi, it is
modeled after the Booker Prize. Notable playwrights in Arabic include Ahmad Shawqi and Tawfiq al-
Hakim; notable poets, Hafiz Ibrahim, Badr Shakir as-Sayyab, Nazik al-Malaika, Abdul Wahab al-Bayati,
Nizar Qabbani, Mahmoud Darwish, and Adonis.

ALIBABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES

SUMMARIES

• A boy prince, raised by forty thieves, takes revenge on the Mongol invaders who murdered
his father and stole his kingdom.

—J. Spurlin

• Ali Baba, son of the Kalif of Bagdad is brought up by the 40 Thieves after his father is killed by the soldiers of
Hugalu Khan, who received the necessary information by traitor Cassim. Ali becomes the leader of the thieves and
they are fighting for the freedom of his land. Per chance Ali captures the fiancée of Hugalu Khan, who turns out to
be his girl friend Amara. After a few misunderstandings Ali uses her wedding day with Hugalu Khan as the day for
the liberation of Bagdad.

—Stephan Eichenberg <[email protected]>

• After the conquest of the Arab caliphate of Bagdad by the unstoppable conqueror Hugalu Khan's devastating
Mongol hordes, caliph Hassan is killed when Prince Cassim betrays him, hoping in vain to prevent a bloody revolt,
but the legal heir Ali, a minor, escapes and finds the secret of Sesame, the magical desert cave of the forty robbers.
When the band finds Ali and sees he has the imperial seal, their headman old Baba virtually adopts the brave boy
under the name of Ali Baba; the next ten years they are the only true resistance against the Mongolian oppression.
When they tempt to plunder the caravan which brings the tyrannical khan his beautiful bride Amara, daughter of
prince Cassim -the present grand vizier-, who as child mixed her blood with Ali's, she -masquerading as her
handmaiden- tricks Ali so Mongolian horse guards can capture him; he is delivered for public execution in Bagdad,
even after Cassim sees his royal seal, but the other robbers free him and abduct Amara. Her loyal, patriotic servant
Jamiel joins Ali and wins his trust for an alliance against the khan, demanding Cassim's life for hers; the princess
has Ali's heart and is released on his orders anyway, even before she learns the truth about Ali and reconsiders her
betrothal, Ali devises another ploy...

—KGF Vissers

• In Baghdad, in the days of the Mongol invasion lead by the cruel Hugalu Khan, the caliph Hassan is betrayed by
Prince Cassim and killed by the Mongols. His son Ali, who had just pledged love to Prince Cassim's daughter Amara,
escapes and accidentally finds the magic cave Sesame, the hiding place of forty thieves leaded by Baba. Ali is
adopted by Baba, who assigns the strong Abdullah to protect him. For ten years, the Mongols held Baghdad, and
Ali Baba becomes the leader of the forty thieves, now beloved by the population for challenging the invaders.
When the thieves acknowledge that a caravan is bringing Lady Amara to marry the tyrant Hugalu Khan, Ali Baba
meets her bathing and does not recognize her. The Mongols capture him and he believes she betrayed him.
Amara's servant Jamiel helps Ali Baba, and the thieves rescue him in Baghdad and abduct Amara. In the garden of
Prince Cassim's garden, they have recollections of their childhood, but they do not recognize each other. When Ali
finds the truth, he fights for his love and for the freedom of Baghdad.

—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ali Baba was a poor woodcutter who lived in the forest with his wife and children. His brother, Cassim,
married a wealthy woman and lived in the city. One day while Ali Baba was working in the forest, a
group of 40 men approached the area. Ali Baba climbed into a tree to escape detection, fearing correctly
that they were thieves.

Ali Baba watched the thieves, who stopped in front of a cave. The captain of the thieves called "Open
Sesame!" and the thieves disappeared into the cave. When they returned the captain called "Close
Sesame!" and the cave closed behind them.
Curious, Ali Baba climbed down from the tree after they left and discovered their treasure
store hidden in the cave, only seen by calling the magic words.
He took some of the gold and his wife borrowed Cassim's scale to weigh it. Cassim learned of the
treasure and demanded to see it. Upon entering the cave he forgot the words to exit and was found and
killed by the thieves. Ali Baba found his brother's body and returned it to Cassim's wife for burial.

The thieves sought out Ali Baba for stealing their gold. Thirty-nine of the thieves hid in oil barrels while
the captain posed as an oil merchant seeking shelter from Ali Baba for the night. The slave girl Morgiana
discovered the thieves hiding and poured boiling oil on them, killing them.

The captain escaped but returned later under a different disguise. Morgiana recognized him and bravely
stabbed the captain before he could kill Ali Baba or his family. As a reward, Ali Baba married Morgiana to
his son and they all lived happily with the thieves' treasure.

The Thousand and One Nights, also called The Arabian Nights, Arabic Alf laylah wa laylah,
collection of largely Middle Eastern and Indian stories of uncertain date and authorship. Its
tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sindbad the Sailor have almost become part of Western folklore,
though these were added to the collection only in the 18th century in European adaptations.
As in much medieval European literature, the stories—fairy
tales, romances, legends, fables, parables, anecdotes, and exotic or realistic adventures—are set
within a frame story. Its scene is Central Asia or “the islands or peninsulae of India and China,”
where King Shahryar, after discovering that during his absences his wife has been regularly
unfaithful, kills her and those with whom she has betrayed him. Then, loathing all womankind,
he marries and kills a new wife each day until no more candidates can be found. His vizier,
however, has two daughters, Shahrazad (Scheherazade) and Dunyazad; and the elder,
Shahrazad, having devised a scheme to save herself and others, insists that her father give her in
marriage to the king. Each evening she tells a story, leaving it incomplete and promising to finish
it the following night. The stories are so entertaining, and the king so eager to hear the end, that
he puts off her execution from day to day and finally abandons his cruel plan.

Though the names of its chief characters are Iranian, the frame story is probably Indian, and the
largest proportion of names is Arabic. The tales’ variety and geographical range of origin—
India, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and possibly Greece—make single authorship unlikely; this view
is supported by internal evidence—the style, mainly unstudied and unaffected,
contains colloquialisms and even grammatical errors such as no professional Arabic writer would
allow.

The first known reference to the Nights is a 9th-century fragment. It is next mentioned in 947
by al-Masʿūdī in a discussion of legendary stories from Iran, India, and Greece, as the
Persian Hazār afsāna, “A Thousand Tales,” “called by the people ‘A Thousand Nights’.” In 987 Ibn
al-Nadīm adds that Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbdūs al-Jahshiyārī began a collection of 1,000 popular
Arabic, Iranian, Greek, and other tales but died (942) when only 480 were written.

It is clear that the expressions “A Thousand Tales” and “A Thousand and One…” were intended
merely to indicate a large number and were taken literally only later, when stories were added
to make up the number.

By the 20th century, Western scholars had agreed that the Nights is a composite work consisting
of popular stories originally transmitted orally and developed during several centuries, with
material added somewhat haphazardly at different periods and places. Several layers in the work,
including one originating in Baghdad and one larger and later, written in Egypt, were
distinguished in 1887 by August Müller. By the mid-20th century, six successive forms had been
identified: two 8th-century Arabic translations of the Persian Hazār afsāna, called Alf
khurafah and Alf laylah; a 9th-century version based on Alf laylah but including other stories then
current; the 10th-century work by al-Jahshiyārī; a 12th-century collection, including Egyptian
tales; and the final version, extending to the 16th century and consisting of the earlier material
with the addition of stories of the Islamic Counter-Crusades and tales brought to the Middle
East by the Mongols. Most of the tales best known in the West—primarily those of Aladdin, Ali
Baba, and Sindbad—were much later additions to the original corpus.

The first European translation of the Nights, which was also the first published edition, was made
by Antoine Galland as Les Mille et Une Nuits, contes arabes traduits en français, 12 vol. (vol. 1–
10, 1704–12; vol. 11 and 12, 1717). Galland’s main text was a four-volume Syrian manuscript, but
the later volumes contain many stories from oral and other sources. His translation remained
standard until the mid-19th century, parts even being retranslated into Arabic. The Arabic text
was first published in full at Calcutta (Kolkata), 4 vol. (1839–42). The source for most later
translations, however, was the so-called Vulgate text, an Egyptian recension published
at Bulaq, Cairo, in 1835, and several times reprinted.

Meanwhile, French and English continuations, versions, or editions of Galland had added stories
from oral and manuscript sources, collected, with others, in the Breslau edition, 5 vol. (1825–43)
by Maximilian Habicht. Later translations followed the Bulaq text with varying fullness and
accuracy. Among the best-known of the 19th-century translations into English is that of Sir
Richard Burton, who used John Payne’s little-known full English translation, 13 vol. (9 vol., 1882–
84; 3 supplementary vol., 1884; vol. 13, 1889), to produce his unexpurgated The Thousand Nights
and a Night, 16 vol. (10 vol., 1885; 6 supplementary vol., 1886–88).
THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS

The Thousand and One Nights, also know as The Arabian Nights, or Alf laylah wa laylah in Arabic, is a
collection of stories from unknown dates and authors taking place largely in the Middle East. The range
of locations of the stories - India, Iran, Egypt - indicates that the tales came from multiple authors. The
earliest narratives were written around 750 AD, while others were first told centuries later. Famous stories
include Aladdin, Sindbad the Sailor, and Ali Baba. The Thousand and One Nights follows the story of the
king, Shahryar, and his wife, Shahrazad, who tells him part of a story each night before dawn.

ORIGIN

The earliest piece of the frame story of Shahryar and Shahrazad was written in the ninth century, written
in Arabic. A century later, al-Mas'udi, an Arabic historian, wrote about Alf Layla or "Thousand Nights," and
suggests that their origin is Persian. He also describes the Persian works of Hasar Afsana or "Thousand
Legends." The stories changed over the years as they were translated and rewritten to accommodate the
current society. It circulated throughout the Middle East before being introduced to Europe in the 18th
century. It was first translated into French by Antoine Golland. Golland also added the stories of Aladdin
and Ali Baba to the work, which were told to him by a friend's Arabic friend. The first English version
appeared in the 19th century, translated by Sir Richard Burton. In 1814, the first Arabic printed edition
was published. Since then, there have been a series of new translations and editions.

PLOT SUMMARY

The primary story is about Shahryar and Shahrazad. When Shahryar discovers that his queen at the
beginning of the tale is being unfaithful, he declares that all women are the same and vows to take a new
bride each night and have her killed the next morning. The people shocked by the brutality of this law and
watches in horror as their king murders their daughters. Shahrazad, daughter of the vizier, convinces her
father to offer her to Shahryar. She asks her sister, Dinazad, to wake her before sunrise and ask for a story.
Dinazad wakes her as commanded and, with the king's permission, Shahrazad begins to tell her a story.
But she halts her story at a suspenseful moment and tells Dinazad that she will finish the tale the following
night, if the king permits her to live so long. Shahryar wishes to hear the rest of the story, so he agrees.
This continues for 1,001 nights (although it has actually been counted to be 280 nights).

Shahrazad tells stories about romances, tragedies, and epic adventures. Often, one of her characters will
tell his own story, creating an imbedded narrative. Eventually, Shahryar falls in love with her and
renounces his law.

ALADDIN
Aladdin is a misbehaving young boy who joins the company of a sorcerer who pretends to be Aladdin's
uncle. The sorcerer promises Aladdin's mother that he will help him become a wealthy merchant. One
day they go for a walk outside of town, and the sorcerer convinces Aladdin to enter a cave to fetch a lamp;
he gives Aladdin a ring for protection. The sorcerer reveals his true motives and attempts to take the lamp
but fails, and Aladdin is trapped in the cave. He accidentally rubs the ring and a genie appears and takes
him home. Aladdin gives the lamp to his mother for cleaning. When his mother rubs lamp, an even more
powerful genie appears.

Aladdin uses the genie to provide him and his mother with food, and eventually becomes very wealthy.
He uses the magic to marry Princess Badroulbadour and build a great palace.

The sorcerer attempts to recover the lamp by tricking Princess Badroulbadour into exchanging it for a new
one. Aladdin uses the power of the genie from the ring to transport him to the sorcerer where he takes
back the lamp and kills the sorcerer.

The sorcerer's brother attempts to avenge his brother's death by disguising himself as an old woman.
Princess Badroulbadour falls for the disguise and takes him in. Aladdin is warned by the genie and kills the
brother. Everyone lives happily ever after and Aladdin becomes king.

The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies

A porter in Baghdad is hired by a beautiful lady on her own to carry her goods. She makes various stops
in the market before going back to her house, where she lives alone with two other beautiful women,
although one of them has scars on her body. Over the entrance are the words, "Whoever speaks of what
concerns him not, lest he hears what pleases him not." They allow him to stay for dinner and feast on the
day's purchases, and they agree that he may spend the night if he heeds the words above the entrance.

Later, three one-eyed dervishes arrive, as well as the disguised Caliph and vizier. They agree not to ask
questions. Then, the first woman beats two black dogs, the second woman sings sad love songs, and the
third woman screams in pain. The Caliph has his vizier question the ladies.

The First Dervish's Tale

The first Dervish used to be a prince. He had taken out his father's vizier's eye in a slingshot accident, and
lost his own eye as vengeance. He leaves his home to visit his uncle, and shortly after, his cousin goes
missing. The prince and his uncle find his cousin in a tomb with his cousin's sister; the bodies were charred.
They had been in love, despite their uncle's disapproval, and had tried to consummate their love in the
tomb, leading to their death. When they leave the tomb, they find that the land had been taken over by
the vizier. He escapes and encounters the other dervishes before meeting the three ladies.

The Second Dervish's Tale

The second dervish was also once a prince who was ambushed during travel. He escaped and made his
way to a village, where he began work as a woodcutter. In the forest, he meets a beautiful woman who is
prisoner to an Ifrit, who visits once every ten days. The prince spends the other nine nights with her, but
then he challenges the Ifrit. The Ifrit captures the prince, kills the lady, and is about to kill the prince when
tells the Tale of the Envious and the Envied as a plea for mercy. Instead of killing him, the prince is turned
into an ape. The prince becomes a scribe for a king, and is recognized as a human. The king's daughter
fights the Ifrit's magic and returns the prince to human form, but dies in the process. The dervish loses his
eye during the fight. The king asks the prince to leave, and he becomes a dervish.

The Tale of the Envious and the Envied

The Envious and the Envied were two neighbors. The Envied left his home and became a holy man when
he discovered that the Envious was jealous of him. The Envious visited him, and pushed him down a well,
but he was saved by several demons, who told him that the princess was possessed by a demon, and that
she could be cured by burning seven hairs from a black cat. The Envied saved the princess and was married
to her as a reward. He eventually became king, and sent riches to the Envious instead of punishment.

The Third Dervish's Tale

The third dervish was also a prince whose ship is destroyed by a magnetic mountain. He makes it to an
island and stays with a boy in an underground hiding place. The boy was hidden there to avoid fulfilling a
prophecy of his death. They keep each other company for forty days, until the prince accidentally tripped
while holding a knife and pierced the boy's heart. The prince leaves and finds a castle with ten one-eyed
men. During the night, they painted their faces black and beat themselves, weeping. The prince begs to
know why they behave this way, and they give him instructions to get to a castle. The prince finds a castle
full of women. He sleeps with another women every night, and is free to explore the castle as long has he
doesn't enter a certain room. His curiosity gets the best of him and he finds a room with a winged horse.
He gets on the horse and is flown away from the castle. He is hit by the horse and loses an eye. Then he
becomes a dervish.

THE TALE OF THE FIRST LADY

The first lady was travelling with her two sisters. She came across a city where all its inhabitants had been
frozen for worshiping a false religion, except for the prince. She and the prince were married, but were
thrown overboard by her sisters out of jealousy. The prince drowned, but the lady survived and saved a
serpent from a larger serpent. The serpent turns out to be magical, and in return, turns the two older
sisters into dogs that must be beaten every day. But the lady no longer wishes to hurt them.

The Tale of the Second Lady

The second lady married a prince under the condition that she wouldn't interact with other men. One day,
a merchant convinces her to kiss him in exchange for cloth. She does and he bites her cheek. She lies to
her husband about the mark, but he learns the truth and beats her severely before making her leave. She
moves in with one of her sisters. They agree to remain single
At the end of the story, the Caliph summons the magical serpent to turn the dogs back into sisters. He
says that his son was married to one of the sisters, and he makes her go back to him. The three ladies are
married to the dervishes, and the Caliph marries the last lady.

Literary Techniques

Frame Story and Subsequent Layers

A frame story, often used with imbedded narratives, sets the stage for other stories to be told. In The
Thousand and One Nights, Shahryar and Shahrazad provide the frame story. Many of Shahrazad's stories
also serve as frame stories for their characters to tell about their own adventures. Subsequent layers are
the levels of stories within stories. The Thousand and One Nights often goes several layers deep.

Repetition

The Thousand and One Nights uses repetition to create a rhythm to the storytelling. For example, The
Story of the three Calenders, Sons of Kings includes the embedded narratives of each of the Calenders.
There is also repetition in the story of Shahryar and Shahrazad, where Shahrazad tells part of a story every
night and asks her husband for another day to continue the tale.

Point of View

The stories use a variety of points of view. This has the effect of showing different perspectives in the
world, including the female perspective. This encourages sympathy and understanding among the
characters. The point of view also has an effect on the message. At the beginning, the king encounters a
woman who is possessed by a genie, but chooses to sleep with other men. He views her as an unfaithful
woman. But a story from her perspective might show her as a prisoner trying retain some of her agency
and get revenge on the genie.

Themes

Mercy

Many of the stories involve a character asking for mercy or forgiveness. In The Merchant and the Genie,
the merchant accidentally kills the genie's son and will be killed for revenge. But three sympathetic
travelers make an agreement with the genie that the merchant should be pardoned in exchange for three
fantastic stories. One of the travelers tells the story of how his wife turned his son into a cow. But the man
didn't want his wife to die and had her turned into a dog instead as an act of mercy. Meanwhile in the
frame story, Shahrazad asks the king to prolong her life. So there are three levels of mercy occurring at
that moment.

THE POWER OF STORY TELLING

Storytelling is used to soften the heart and elicit sympathy. In The Merchant and the Genie, the three men
exchange stories for a man's life. In The Story of the Three Calenders, the calenders share their life
histories to prevent their being killed. In the frame story, Shahrazad uses stories to make the king forget
his grudge against women and fall in love.

Storytelling is also used as a warning. In the beginning, Shahrazad's father tells her stories to try to change
her mind about marrying the king.

In Modern Culture

The Thousand and One Nights has been adapted into many films. These include Arabian Nights in 1924,
and Disney's Aladdin, which was released in 1992 with Robin Williams as the genie. It also influenced Jorge
Luis Borges.