The image chosen to represent this passage of the story is the genie in the lamp from the animated movie and children’s story Aladdin. In the movie, like the phial, the lamp was found. The lamp had its own magical powers with the ability to change and transform lives, this is similar to that of what occurred in the story of “The Prophets Hair“.
Throughout the movie, “Aladdin” different characters owned the genie in the lamp and they all had different results. The results, however, did not mean that the object (genie in the lamp) changed but rather it brought out the true nature of its owners based on their intentions for its use. The movie shows that when Jafar the evil wizard gained control of the lamp his greed and desire for power consumed him and eventually led to his demise. Similarly, in “The Prophets Hair“, the moneylender was seemingly a decent man from the outside, however, when in possession of the phial the true characters of his family members and mainly himself were displayed in the story, which ended with their deaths. In both Aladdin and “The Prophets Hair“, the object that persons were seeking did not change but rather when owned or held by men with evil hearts it led to their demise. In the story of Aladdin and “The Prophet’s Hair“, the lamp and the phial resulted in positive changes in the lives of Aladdin and the thief’s family and resulted in the destruction of Jafar and Hashim.
The final parallel drawn from the story of Aladdin to “The Prophets Hair” is that of the thief. In the story of Aladdin the magician could not enter the cave to take the lamp, he needed someone else to retrieve it for him. The thief in “The Prophet’s Hair” also had to be genuine to retrieve the phial as those persons who knew about it could not do it, this was indicated by Hasim’s daughter in the line where she indicated “But it must be a genuine robbery, carried out by a real thief, not by one of us who are the hair’s victims.” Although Aladdin wasn’t given as many details as Sin the thief, the magician and Hashims daughter have similar roles to elicit the help of a third party to retrieve a valuable object they needed. In both Aladdin and “the Prophet’s hair” the person who wanted the item retrieved did not get it, they both promised the retriever many riches in exchange of getting the object they desired, however, both Aladdin and the thief were given no riches from the merchant or Hashims daughter.
Ultimately, all characters were victims but the overall power of the phial was out of anyone’s control, it was as though the phial came with the fate of everyone who came across it.