56 pages • 1 hour read
AnonymousOne Thousand and One Nights
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Sea
The sea as a symbol of the supernatural world is pervasive throughout Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Much like the supernatural world, it serves as a backdrop for many of the tales in the collection. It produces marvelous things like jinnees in bottles, donkeys, apes, islands atop whales, and massive serpents—throwing both obstacles and opportunities in the paths of characters such as Sindbad and Khalifa the Fisherman. Many of the characters, especially Sindbad, are at the mercy of the seas in the same way that all of the characters in the collection are often at the mercy of the supernatural world, particularly jinnees and jinniyahs. Nevertheless, the supernatural, especially in the form of the sea, allows characters such as Sindbad to travel the wide world, make a living, and encounter delightful marvels. It is therefore both feared and revered.
Baghdad and Basra
The Abbasid cities of Baghdad and Basra are the settings for many of the tales in this compendium, and they symbolize the diversity and richness of Abbasid society and the medieval Islamic world at large. The city of Baghdad is touted as the City of Peace and, pranks and prejudices aside, its Christian, Jewish, and Muslim residents seem to reside alongside one another in peace. This reflects the Islamic and Abbasid practice of considering “Peoples of the Book” as protected subjects. Throughout the tales, there is the sense that Baghdad is a place of wealth, luxury, entertainment, and learning. This aligns with the historical record of Abbasid Baghdad being a center of learning and the Abbasid caliphs and courts serving as patrons of the arts. It also aligns with the fact that Abbasid caliphs did pour money into building up the city. The account of Basra as a commercial hub and the main point of access to the sea aligns with the historical record of the city. Basra symbolizes the wealth and diversity of the medieval Islamic world through the traders who flocked to the city to sell and move their merchandise to other parts of the Islamic world and the world at-large.
Merchants
There is a mention of a merchant in almost every tale within the compendium. Like the city of Basra, merchants symbolize the incredibly mercantile medieval Islamic society, especially within hubs such as Cairo, Baghdad, and Basra, and its highs and lows. In some cases, we learn about merchants who have squandered their entire fortune. In others, we hear about celebrated merchants such as Sindbad who continue to turn a profit as they travel and sell their goods. In many ways, the medieval Islamic period was the age of the merchant, so it is fitting that these tales focus so heavily on and celebrate this historical actor, which likely consumed and retold many of these tales. Most of the successful merchants in the tales—such as in Sindbad’s stories or in Ma’aruf the cobbler’s acquaintance Ali—are celebrated for their bravery, cunning and business acumen. Even failed merchants, such as the merchant in the tale “The Dream,” are able to regain their wealth by capitalizing on far-fetched opportunities. Merchants are symbolic of a large segment of Abbasid society, both elite and non-elite, which made up the commercial core of the empire.
Old Women
In many of the tales in this compendium, old women appear as portents of ill fortune and gateways to ruin in a variety of forms. In some of the tales, they lead men and women into situations in which they are seduced or fall in love with dangerous or ill-fitting people. These old women usually facilitate the process by promising to unite the lovers or by enticing them to meet. This is the case in the tale of the lame young man, the second girl, the dervishes, and the barber’s brothers. In many of these cases, their victims end up receiving physical attacks or suffering a disfiguring accident. The old women are especially ominous because they remain shadowy throughout the tales, and their roles and statuses are never defined. On the spectrum of revered to reviled women in the tales, they are definitely reviled.
Eunuchs
Eunuchs appear as both primary and secondary characters in some of the tales and symbolize Abbasid politics and the Abbasid court. The Abbasid caliphs employed eunuchs in their courts, and many of these eunuchs held positions of great power and influence. This may be the reason they come to symbolize the court, court intrigue, and traits such as dishonesty and malice. In “The Tale of Kafur the Black Eunuch,” Kafur plainly states that he is a pathological liar and that he had visited misfortune on every household that he served, noting that he is currently in the service of the Abbasid caliph. In portions of his tale, he makes light of his deceit. It may be that the tales’ perspective on eunuchs was formed by non-elites observing and discussing Abbasid elites and members of the court. Many of these eunuchs were imported as slaves from Africa and perceived as outsiders, particularly based on their race, so it is likely that their portrayal as malicious characters may have been informed by these biases.
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