Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights (also: The Thousand and One Nights) is a collection of stories that originated in the Middle East in medieval times. The stories are set in Baghdad during the reign of Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid. The originals are in Persian.

In English translation, they captured the imagination of the Western world, particularly in the Victorian era. John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote that "I used to wish the Arabian tales were true: my imagination ran on unknown influences, on magical powers, and talismans."

The Arabian Nights includes the stories of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," "Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp," and "The Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor." The images of flying carpets and genies in bottles, and the idea of Baghdad as a glittering, cosmopolitan city, come from the Arabian Nights.

The framing story of the collection concerns a cruel king and a brave woman named Scheherazade. The king has been disappointed by his first wife, and decides to take revenge on all women. He marries a new woman each day, beheads her the next day, and marries another. Scheherazade decides to stop him. She marries him herself, and, every night, tells him a wonderful story. Each night, she gets partway through the story, and breaks off at a "cliffhanger" moment. Each day the king decides to let her live another day so that he can hear how the story ends. Of course, as soon as she finishes the last story, she begins another. Her stories emphasize kindness and morality. After one thousand and one nights, the king gradually mellows, realizes that not all women are bad, and makes Scheherazade her queen.

The story of Scheherazade is the subject of a very popular symphonic suite by Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakov, which tries to depict some of Scheherazade's stories in music.