“A Thousand and One Nights”  reflects the Islamic civilized world of the ninth to thirteenth centuries known as the “Islamic Golden Age”. Through extensive research, scholars remain puzzled in regards to its exact origin. Formerly, “A Thousand and One Nights” was a folktale communicated only as oral literature before later translating to text as “anonymous works” with no known author. The tale trended the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and the West. Known in the English language as “Arabian Nights”, ‘A Thousand and One Nights-The Tale of King Shahryar’ is one of many tales in the story.

Lewd sexual references and forbidden acts in the text, caused great commotion throughout Muslim countries and Egyptian literary scholars. They argued, the book should be banned and is not a representation of Islam, nor has a known author. This “unmarked territory” is vulnerable to any writer who wishes to add, subtract, translate, and publish in any manner he pleases.

By the teachings of Islam, men are to maintain power and control over women. In return, women are to be passionate and subservient to their husbands. Sexual intimacy with anyone other than your spouse is prohibited. Muslim men are permitted to practice polygamy if desired but women are not. In the story, female character roles shift as they possess the power and dominate the men who once oppressed them. In this story, you are urged to peer in a historical lens through the ninth to thirteenth-century eyes of Islam.