The Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights or its name in Arabic Alf Layla wa Layla has captivated its audience for hundreds of years and we can still see its influence spilling into our society even till this day in forms such as movies, magazines, and television. Beginning with selected tales for the first time translated into French by Antonio Galland, Western audiences have been captivated and fascinated by the many stories of courage, adventure, comedy, drama and sexual promiscuity. For the first time ever Western audiences had a look into the strange land of the Orient and the collection of stories that have made up The Thousand and One Nights, and ever since it was made available The Nights has greatly shaped the views on Middles …show more content…
The first document that we can trace bearing any physical evidence of the story dates back to 879 C.E. when a Syrian paper was found by a scholar studying in Cairo. The paper contained among other scrawls and jottings, a signature, a date, and a few words from the open lines of the Nights. We then continue to see the mentions of the stories that make up the larger text pop of over the next couple hundred years through catalogues of book dealers and other ancient writers. The first time the title was used in a complete manuscript was in a Syrian text from the fourteenth century titled Alf Layla or Thousand Nights. These separate collections and stories were first put together for a Western audience by the Frenchman Antonio Galland. Historian Pamela Toler at the University of Chicago describes Galland’s translations beginning as a hobby, that he never intended to translate and all encompassing text but rather a collection of stories he found interesting. Galland translated much of his work from manuscripts he had acquired in the early eighteenth century. Toler states that “Scholars have identified two of them: a manuscript version of the “Sinbad the Sailor” tales and a Syrian manuscript of collected tales dating from the 15th century”. In addition to the manuscripts Toler explains Galland had access to another source “Hanna, a Christian Arab from Aleppo who had traveled to Paris in 1709. Hanna told Galland 14 “very beautiful Arabic stories,” including “Aladdin,” “Ali Baba” and “Prince Ahmed and the Peri Banou.” Galland wrote summaries of the tales in his journal, and the fully developed versions that appeared in volumes nine and ten of the Mille et Une Nuits became some of the most popular in the collection”. Galland would pick and choose these tales by how he thought they
Stories like Sindbad, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp and other popular stories are very common today in the western culture. Animated movies were also made for the entertainment of kids on these popular stories. One might wonder that where these stories originated and how it came down and made place in the western culture. Although these stories are very popular in both the western culture and the eastern culture but the original literary work is not so popular in common people. Theses stories are some of the stories from the Arabic work "The Thousand and One Nights." The work of "The Thousand and One Nights" represents basically a female that is a strong and clever idol and
The Arabian Nights also known as 1001 nights is a collection of entertaining and meaningful stories within stories translated by Husian Haddawy. According to Haddawy, “The stories in The Arabian Nights are works that have been collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia”. The stories in the book are not only entertaining but are also meaningful. Even though The Arabian Nights does not relate to the Quran, there are important Muslim values that are emphasized in the stories, and these values can be applied to our everyday life. Some important Muslim values in The Arabian Nights are the value of aiding those in need, the value of telling the truth, and the value of taking responsibility of your actions. The most important out of all these values is the value of aiding those in need.
The first night's story in Arabian Nights is that of the Merchant and the Demon. Told by Shahrazad, the story offers a remarkable parallel to her own situation as she faces immanent death. Thus, the story of the Merchant and the Demon is told as a parable within the frame story, presenting a poignant analogy for Shahrazad's own situation. The Merchant and the Demon is a short tale but one filled with themes such as power, guilt, justice, and moral responsibility. Through the clever analogy with her own situation, Shahrazad also explores the theme of creative problem solving in tricky situations. Moreover, the story illustrates the core differences between pre-Islamic and Islamic values in Arabian society. Because the theme of gender roles and norms are not present within the Merchant and the Demon, the story shows how sexism is simply a form of general political and social oppression.
Writing Women's Worlds is some stories on the Bedouin Egyptian people. In this book, thwe writer Lia Adu-Lughod's stories differ from the conventional ones. While reading, we discover the customs and values of the Bedouin people.
Ready Player One hits some of the same situations as in the holocaust or for the book that we read “Night” like taking people spread out over a good area and combining them into a small dense area. They both also touch on the topic of how when someone is killed or something is blown up now one raises an eyebrow or if they do no one does anything about it.
The novel “Night” is a vivid representation of a man’s loss of faith from the beginning to the end of the catastrophic era in which this book takes place. As a young boy Elie’s inquisitive mind directed him to the synagogue where he would study the Kabbalah’s revelations and mysteries. Here is where “Moishe the beadle,” a friend to Elie, would sit with him in the synagogue and they would talk for hours about the intriguing secrets of Jewish mysticism. One important piece of advice that Moishe told Elie was, “There are a thousand and one gates allowing entry into the orchard of the mystical truth.” This simply meant he would need to pursue these answers on his own. However, Elie believed Moishe would help him bind his questions and answers as well, into one. These meetings were interrupted when Moishe was extracted from the Sighet where he experienced malice.
Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a story about a Jewish boy growing up during World War II. The main character in the book, Eliezer Wiesel, talks about the different experiences he had during World War II. He started off by talking about how everything was normal, and no one was too worried about the war that was going on. One man, Moishe the Beadle, was taken off to another country, and when he managed to get back, he warned everyone what would happened if they did not leave. A few people listened to him, but not Eliezer’s parents. A couple years later, when the war sounded like it was almost over, Germans entered the town that Eliezer’s family were living in. After this, the
In The Thousand and One Nights the audience is introduced to a pair of brothers who share a similar misfortune: unfaithful wives. While the younger brother, Shahzaman, handles the unfortunate situation at a more intimate level, the older brother, Shahrayar, takes his revenge to a grander scale. Becoming completely untrusting of women and even developing an intense hatred for them, Shahrayar forms a plan to marry a new woman in the town every day, sleep with them, and then kill them the next morning. His plan progresses at such a quick rate that the only girls left in the town are his vizier’s daughters. The older of the two, Shahrazad, who is established as being well-educated in a multitude of topics such as knowing “poetry by heart, had studied historical reports, and was acquainted with the sayings of men and the
I went Into Elie Wiesel 's Night having read the book in various stages in my life. It seems to follow me through my schooling years. In junior high I read it in standard English class, just like any other book I would have read that year. In high school I read it for a project I was creating on World War II, looking at it from a more historical approach. Being a firsthand account of concentration camps made it a reliable source of historical information. But during previous times when I was reading, I never thought to take a look at it from a theological point of view. Doing so this time really opened my eyes to things and themes I hadn 't noticed during previous readings.
The book night is narrated by Eliezer. A jewish boy in his mid teens. He studies the Torah and lives in Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. He also studies the Cabbala (a doctrine of Jewish mysticism). His instructor a man named Moshe the Beatle was abruptly deported. After a few months went by Moshe returned with horrible news. He claims that the GESTAPO (German police) took control of his train and led everyone in the woods were they systematically killed of many Jews. No one takes Moshes story to be believable and he is labeled as a lunatic. Then in the spring of 1944, Nazi Germany occupy
In Thousand and One Nights, Shahrazad has volunteered to marry the king, knowing that he kills the women he sleeps with the next morning (p.554). Shahrazad’s plan is to tell him stories every night with each one being better than the last (p.554). The king will not want to kill her because he will want to hear her stories and by doing this she hopes to teach the king how to restore order in his own realm and his own soul (p.554).
When people hear of a King, they immediately envision someone who ought to be powerful, whom they can admire. They visualize someone who is knowledgeable and wise. People tend to assume that for a King to be successful, he needs to gain the respect of his kingdom and not be questioned whatsoever. No one ever imagines someone who can come and alter the King’s perspective for good. No one believes someone, a woman, can overpower a King by only using words. In The Thousand and One Nights, Shahrazad is shown to be more educated and wise, because of her knowledge she is able to change the King’s perception towards women.
The author also delightfully reminds the reader that it was in Baghdad that Scheherazade told the famous tales of the One Thousand and One Nights.
Stories like Sindbad, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp and other popular stories are very common today in the western culture. Animated movies were also made for the entertainment of kids on these popular stories. One might wonder that where these stories originated and how it came down and made place in the western culture. Although these stories are very popular in both the western culture and the eastern culture but the original literary work is not so popular in common people. Theses stories are some of the stories from the Arabic work "The Thousand and One Nights." The work of "The Thousand and One Nights" represents basically a female that is a strong and clever idol and continuously imaginative and creative. It is an anonymous work
On my 7th birthday, my least favorite uncle gave me a book titled Alibaba and the Forty Thieves. I was surprised because he is my least favorite uncle for a reason, he doesn’t just surprise you with a gift for no reason at all. Little did I know, he just succeeded in getting me to do exactly what I said I wasn’t going to do all summer long, READ ANYTHING! He knows how much I love the Arabian night’s stories and he used this knowledge to get me to change my initial decision of not reading any book during the summer. So failure to recognize the strength in others makes us blind to our own weaknesses. In the One Thousand and One Nights text, some of its characters experience changes due to the fact that they failed to recognize the strength and abilities or capabilities of other opposing characters.