The Book of One Thousand and One Nights

The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (كتاب ألف ليلة و ليلة in Arabic or هزار و یک شب in Persian), also known as The book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, 1001 Arabian Nights, or simply the Arabian Nights, is a piece of medieval Middle-Eastern literature in the style of a frame tale. The nucleus of these stories is formed by an old Persian book called Hazâr Afsâna (the Thousand Myths) (in Persian ??????????). The later compiler and translator into Arabic is reputedly storyteller Abu abd-Allah Muhammed el-Gahshigar in the 9th century. The frame-story of Shahrazad seems to have been added in the 14th century. The first modern Arabic compilation, made out of Egyptian writings, was published in Cairo in 1835.

Related Topics:
Arabic - Persian - Frame tale - Abu abd-Allah Muhammed el-Gahshigar - 9th century - 14th century - Egypt - Cairo - 1835

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During the reign of Harun al-Rashid, Baghdad had risen to a world metropolitan city.

Related Topics:
Harun al-Rashid - Baghdad

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Merchants from Persia (Iran), China, India, Africa, and Europe were all found in Baghdad. It?s during this time that many of the stories, which are originally folk stories, are thought to have been collected orally over many years and later then compiled to include them in a single book.

Related Topics:
Persia - Iran - China - India - Africa - Europe

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The story starts with the Persian Shahryar, king of an unnamed island "between India and China" (in modern editions based on Arab transcripts he is king of India and China), being so shocked by his wife's infidelity that he kills her and, believing all women to be likewise unfaithful, gives his vizier an order to get him a new wife every night (in some versions, every third night). After spending one night with his bride, the king has her executed at dawn. This practice continues for some time, until the vizier's clever daughter Shahrazad (the name is perhaps better-known in English as "Scheherazade" or "Shahrastini", which is a Persian name) forms a plan and volunteers to become Shahrayar's next wife. Every night after their marriage, she spends hours telling him stories, each time stopping at dawn with a cliff-hanger, so the king will postpone the execution out of a desire to hear the rest of the tale. In the end, she has given birth to three sons, and the king has been convinced of her faithfulness and revoked his decree.

Related Topics:
Shahryar - India - China - Vizier - Shahrazad - Persian - Cliff-hanger

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The tales vary widely; they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques and Muslim religious legends. Some of the famous stories Shahrazad spins in many western translations are Aladdin's Lamp, Sindbad the Sailor, and the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; however Aladdin and Ali Baba were in fact inserted only in the 18th century by Antoine Galland, a French orientalist, who had heard them in oral form from a Maronite story-teller from Aleppo in Syria. Numerous stories depict djinns, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography; the historical caliph Harun al-Rashid is a common protagonist. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.

Related Topics:
Burlesque - Aladdin - Sindbad the Sailor - Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves - 18th century - Antoine Galland - Maronite - Story-teller - Aleppo - Djinn - Caliph - Harun al-Rashid

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