"Tales from the 1001 Nights"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that "Tales" consists of a thousand tales narrated over a thousand nights by a woman named Sharazad in order to divert King Shahriyar's attention from exploiting and killing more virgin women. The author stresses that three important tales best illustrate the status of women as both empowered and oppressed members of the society: "The Introduction or Prologue;" "The Tale of Bakbook," the Barber's First Brother;" and "The Tale of Al-Haddar," the Barber's Second Brother." The paper summarizes that these tales depict the life of men and women in Islam, how an intolerant Islamic society illustrates, through the tales narrative, the unfair treatment of women in regard to men, and vice versa, and how these conflicts are resolved with religious undertones, with forgiveness and mercy as the main values illustrated and used as the moral for each story.

From the Paper:

"The first tale, that of Sharazad, the protagonist of the main story in the Tales, illustrates the origin of the conflict that would be reflected throughout the story (with the tales). King Shahriyar is portrayed as the king with insatiable desire for women virgins, and mercilessly kills them after exploiting these virgins, primarily due to the betrayal of his wife, who had an affair with their Negro slave. A similar experience has also happened to his brother, King Shah-Zeman, who has witnessed how his own wife, too, has betrayed him by having an extra-marital affair with a black slave also. Because of their unfortunate experiences, the two kings began avenging against women by exploiting and killing them for three years. It was only in the event when after a "scarcity" of virgins occurred, mainly because most of them had been killed or had fled their kingdoms, when Sharazad, Wezir's daughter, took the responsibility of entertaining the King with her different tales for a thousand nights in order to stop the rampage that he started years ago."

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