The myriad of tales in the Arabian Nights are brought to
life in this wonderful book. It’s a brilliant collection of tales from Arabia,
India, and Persia dating back thousands of years, sand though it was banned in
some states for naughty scenes, it’s still a fantastic tale.
When you look at the stories in the Arabian Nights, you can
tell that some of them could not have come from Arabia. The ones where the
protagonist is a woman could not have come from there, because talking about
women in Saudi Arabia is a big no-no. In the Quran, you don’t have all of the “damsel
in distress” stories that you do here. But in Persian mythology, you do. In
fact the stories with female characters are more likely to have come from Iran
than anywhere else. Look at it this way; in Iran and Muslim India, female
musicians were a common sight, but in Arabia, no. In fact in some parts of
Arabia, music is considered haram.
The stories about the Jinn are both funny and terrifying;
the Jinn can be good or evil, but they can also be imprisoned in bottles,
leading to shocking discoveries when they are released. Then you have the magic
talismans, magic potions, and lots of wacky mythical creatures. Some say that
the Giant Roc bird of the Sinbad stories is based on a giant ostrich that lived
in Madagascar and became extinct in the 1400’s. Arab sailors took the eggs and
used them to store water, and that probably led to the bird’s demise.
The bottom line is this; the Arabian Nights stories are from
all over the Muslim world, but they show us that Muslim countries aren’t all
the same. Some are stricter than others, and some have customs that date back
to long before Islam.
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