Alibaba and the Forty Thieves
Alibaba and the Forty Thieves is a story that is part of the One Thousand and One Night stories. Like many folk tales Alibaba and the Forty Thieves has no known author, there are some historians who believe that this story was written by a European translator named Antoine Galland who claimed he had heard the story in Aleppo Syria from an Arabian man. However, other historians claim that this story is an original part of the ancient tales of A Thousand and One Nights. This story is about Greed, Simplicity, and decency. It takes place in Persia, it is about two brothers, Ali Baba and his elder Brother Cassim who was rich because he married a wealthy woman. Alibaba was poor due to his decency and his marriage to a poor woman.
One day Alibaba was at work cutting wood and collecting firewood in the forest, and he happens to overhear a group of forty thieves visiting their treasure store. The treasure is in a cave. The cave door opens on the words “Open Sesame” when the thieves are gone Alibaba enters the cave where he finds treasures of gold coins that he takes home with him. Alibaba borrows his sister in law’s scale to weigh this new wealth of gold coins he found. Out of curiosity his brother’s wife wants to know what Ali is using the scale for, she puts a glob of wax on the scale, she then finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her husband Cassim, Ali Baba’s rich and greedy brother. Ali baba is now forced to reveal the secret of the cave. Cassim goes to cave and enters with the magic words “Open Sesame”, unfortunately due to his excitement and greed he forgot the magic words to get out of the cave. The thieves find him there, and kill him.
The moral of the story is about the decency and greed. Cassim was filled with greed that is why he married rich to satisfy his monetary greed. On the other hand, Alibaba wasn’t a greedy man he always showed his decency towards every thing he did. Even after taking the gold coins he never acted like a proud or wealthy man. He kept his decency first and worked with his heart and soul that is why God helped him.