The Arabian Nights this is not a religious text. According to the Foreword, the stories within the Arabian Nights are meant to be “agreeable and entertaining,” and have “highly edifying histories and excellent lessons for the people of distinction.” The Foreword does not mention a religious agenda, or any instruction on how to perform religious prayers or sacrifices. The Arabian Nights are meant to teach lessons and be entertaining, which allows it to derail from religious expectation.

However, some might argue that introducing the foreword with “praise be to God, the Beneficence King, the Creator of the world and man” shows that these tales intend on teaching a religious agenda. But to that, I say that this is normal speech, given the times that it was written. The praise to God at the beginning of this Foreword could be similar to a dedication page, and it reflects the importance of God in the time that it was written.

Once you go into the text, you see an innumerable amount of references to God (Allah). Characters are either thanking God, or using God as a witness to their promises. However, these uses of God are the equivalent to us saying “Oh my God” or “I swear to God”.

The thing I could compare the Arabian Nights to is the works of Plato, especially his Socratic dialogues. These dialogues, like the Arabian Nights, where meant to teach many things to those who read it, whether it is philosophy or learning how to debate (this makes me think of the quote from the Foreword, “this book […] teach the reader to detect deception and protect himself from it.”). Also, like the Arabian Nights, the Socratic dialogues had a huge impact on the society that they were written in.

The most important similarity, though, is that many of the Socratic dialogues references and quotes from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Countless times, Socrates quotes these two sacred texts, just as those in The Arabian Nights describe ideas and rituals from the Quran. Such an example can be seen on the sixteenth night during the tale of the king’s son and the she-ghoul. In it, the king’s son asks God to protect him from the ghoul, quoting the Quran saying, “Everything is within your power.” There is another point, during the tenth night, where we hear the past of the demon in the jar. He “rebelled against the prophet Solomon, the son of David.” However, a quote from a sacred text it does not make the text quoting it holy.

The profanity in the stories can be seen in this general idea: It is wrong, but we still want to see it. Especially in the case of the enchanted prince, on the twenty third night, when seeing his wife begging the black man outside of the city, saying “O my lover and my heart’s desire, if you remain angry at me, whom else have I got […] who will take me in?” Ultimately, she is punished for her profane actions. Though she is punished, we still get the see what she does to get punished and killed. We see her get undressed with the man and take verbal abuse from him, being called a “cursed woman”. There seems to be a form of erotica in this scene of the princess begging and being abused by the black man.

Such erotic sections, though, are looked down upon, especially be those of royal and “pure” blood. When the prince watched the events occurring between the man and his wife, “the world started to turn black before [his] eyes.” This cheating episode is done between a person of royal blood and one without. Such cheating has not occurred between those of royal blood. Such erotic blasphemy only occurs when someone not of royal blood is involved in an affair with someone who has royal blood.  Ultimately, as seen towards the end of the enchanted prince tale, pure royal blood wins over the wicked as the king kills the enchanted prince’s twisted wife.

3. Talk about the relationship in this text between the sacred and profane: is this a religious text, or not? Be specific in your answer and support it with evidence from the story (quotes).  

In the Arabian Nights we find a variety of motifs that are both religious and secular in nature. In this book, certainly the influence of Islam is felt. The characters frequently offer prayers of thanks or praise to Allah. In Islam, One must remain devout and faithful and allow Allah’s will to be done, and generally one will be rewarded. It is interesting that both kings continuously praise God and ask him for guidance in order for them to be faithful and at the same time be successful in their royal positions. Even though the personages of this book are largely influenced by religious beliefs, I believe that this book is not religious. The Arabian Nights is an entertaining and valuable piece of literature, and its tales mainly tend to target married couples and have them learn and understand certain situations so they can avoid such terrible consequences that have happen and still continue to happen. The women in the  Arabian Nights are frequently adulterous. In this context I would consider this as profane act because women are not obeying God’s law nor respecting their husbands. In addition, even the king’s reaction to their wives betrayal is considered wrong and exaggerated, and their rage led to the act of killing innocent people. But what is considered sacred and profane? A sacred man is the one who not only obeys God’s laws, but the one who uses his knowledge and wisdom to do good deeds and this leads to accomplish a sacred act. Meanwhile, profane is the contrary of sacred; it is an act against God and people. In this book mostly is being exposed the negative part of humans such as infidelity and revenge other than unification and forgiveness. What stands out though in this book is the heroic part of Shahrazad, whom is willing to put her life in jeopardy in order to attempt saving others from death. Sacrificing for others is considered sacred; this is what makes people great. 

The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon:

I think the lesson that is being taught in this story is never be arrogant about our own power. The demon (Jinni) is stuck in a jar for centuries. When the demon is released by the fisherman, he offers the fisherman to choose the way of his own death. The fisherman outsmarts him by asking him how does he fit into the jar, and the demon wants to show off his great power, shrink himself and go back to the jar. The fisherman puts the cap back on the jar, and threatens the demon. The situation quickly turns around here. It is obviously that the demon was so much more powerful than the fisherman. However,  the demon is outsmarted because his arrogance. He is too confidence because he processed the power to manipulate the fisherman’s death. This is a lesson that arrogance can lead anyone to failure, no matter how powerful the individual is.

The Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban:

The lesson being taught here is that we should be grateful for help that offered to us. In the story, Duban is a extremely wise man who is able to cure diseases. He offers his help to King Yunan to cure his leprosy. However, after Duban successfully cure King Yunan, King Yunan is persuaded that Duban can possibly kill him, because Duban is so powerful that he can poison him by the same way he heals him. King Yunan decides to execute Duban. Before Duban’s execution, he offers one of his book to the King that is full of wisdom. When King Yunan opens and reads the book, he can not find any text or printing. He is confused, then he continues to flip pages, and wetting his own fingers in his month to separating pages. He accidentally absorb the poison which Duban placed on every page in the book, and eventually he dies. In this story, Duban offers his help to King Yunan. His help deserves appreciation. However, King Yunan do not appreciate Duban’s contribution. The ending will be different if King Yunan is grateful for Duban’s help. I think King Yunan’s doubt of Duban leads to his own death.

The fisherman and the demon
The lesson being taught in this story is to be grateful when luck comes your way. The demon was stuck in the bottle for hundred and hundred of years but the first few hundred he promised to make the man to save him very rich. As more time when by he got angry and swore to kill the man who saved him. Instead of being thankful to the fisherman who saved him he tried to kill him. Luckily the fisherman realized he could outsmart this demon and when he did, he swore to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else again. This lesson is taught using the actions of the demon to basically show how being ungrateful gets you nowhere except back where you started. It does a good job to portray the consequences of the actions of the demon, which get him sent back to sea where he will be left for many years.

The Husband and the Parrot

The lesson being taught in this story is to not make decisions so quickly that you will regret them.  The man was angry he was being cheated on by his “perfect” wife and was acting out of rage.  The parrot helped him the first night and the second night was tricked by the maids buy order of his wife. The parrot told the truth to the husband and was so angry he didn’t believe him and thought the parrot was against him as well. This decision left him tremendous remorse about what he had done when the neighbors told him what the wife had done. The lesson is taught by the remorse and regret he had after he killed the parrot.  He acted to quickly because he was angry about his wife and made a decision on impulse and it had consequences. The delivery of the story does a good job to explain the effects of impulse decisions and how people can be manipulated by emotions.

I am not surprised, at all, how the book portrays people of a different race’s. In those days, there was no concept, or understanding, of equality. So the people fortunate enough to be born into a bloodline that the culture deems noble or royal, simply had a better life.
The stories themselves hide their racism in undertones and innuendo’s. For example: the story of the fisherman and the demon, when the black man appears through the palace walls, the story says – “He was as tall as a reed, as wide as a stone bench, and he held a green palm leaf in his hand. Then in clear but unpleasant language.” ‘Clear and Unpleasant language’ – Just a nice way of saying that he’s uneducated and unable to speak with the eloquence of the more fortunate class.
Segregation also seems to be popular in these stories. Even when the population is put under a spell and turned to fish, they are separated by color corresponding to their religion/background/race. Though I am unsure if there is a significance of the colors corresponding to the religion. Blue is the color of Christianity, but yellow has no place in Judaism. Unless it’s implying yellow to be gold and gold as greed. But I’m not sure if that’s what it meant.

However, these were the times they lived in. And all races living side by side in harmony was a long ways away from their time. Hell, we haven’t entirely succeeded in reaching that state of utopia today.

It’s going for about $3.65 plus free ship.
Linky – http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=hackett&sts=t&tn=the+prince

1. How does race function in these stories? How are different racial categories defined (appearance, religion?), and in what ways do they matter?

Within the stories, there is a theme of black men being the source of all problems within the kingdom. This vision of black men is a fundamental theme in the epic tales A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, in fact it sets the events in motion that supplies the reason for Scheherazade’s fascinating tales.The evidence can be found in the first tale of this Arabic epic, the tale recounts how two mythical Persian kings, Shahryar was driven to madness due to his discovery that his queen was having an affair with black men. The depiction of these black men is that of bestial slaves, yet these women, the wives of kings, found them irresistible. The fact that his wife was having an affair with a black man, within his own kingdom was what really tore the King apart. This was just the beginning of the insanity that was about to ensue.

To continue, at the beginning of the text we can see the fear and contempt for women; the king immediately decides that he despises all women and wants continue killing all of them within the kingdom. There is also a sense of racist hostility and sexual terror created out of the king’s hysteria towards this “erotic prowess” of black men. And a conviction that black men should be slaves.

In this epic, racial categories are defined as both appearance and religion. However I think another crucial category that isn’t necessarily racial is the category of gender. I feel as though women are treated as a separate entity, just as blacks are treated, at least in the beginning. The king treats them just as poorly as he does black people. Appearance and religion hugely matter because it establishes the difference between the king, his people, and everyone else. Those who are different, are not treated as well.