A Thousand and

One Nights
The Arabian Nights
 Antoine Galland
Born 1646, Rollot, near Montdidier, France and died in 1715, Paris

He is a French Orientalist and scholar, best known for his adaptation of the Middle Eastern tales Les
Mille et une nuits (1704–17; The Thousand and One Nights).

He is the seventh child of a poor family, Galland was taught Hebrew, Latin, and Greek by canons and
attended the College of Noyon and the Collège de France in Paris.

The stories were popularized in the West by Antoine Galland, a French translator who got the original
manuscript in the 1690s. Galland began republishing these stories in French, which he translated. They
were an instant success. However, some of the most well-known stories, such as Aladdin and Ali Baba,
were not included in the original manuscript. The new uncovering of the true origins of these most
renowned stories has altered our understanding of One Thousand and One Nights.Because this two
stories not in the original Arabic manuscript, they weren’t in any Arabic manuscript. For about 300
years, it seemed they came from Galland himself.
 The Arabian Nights: One Thousand and One Nights Summary

The Arabian Nights is a collection of tales from the Islamic Golden Age, compiled by various
authors over many hundreds of years.Though each collection features different stories,
they are all centered around the frame story of the sultan Shahrayar and his wife,
Scheherazade. After finding out that his first wife is unfaithful, Shahrayar kills her and
swears to marry a different woman each night before killing her the following morning to
prevent further betrayal. Scheherazade, his vizier's daughter, concocts a plan to end this
pattern. She marries Shahrayar, and then begins to tell him a story that night. However,
she stops the story in the middle, so that he will be excited to hear the rest the following
night. The next evening, she finishes that story and then begins another, following the same
pattern for 1,001 nights, until Shahrayar has a change of heart. The stories she tells
comprise the collection.
 Characters

1. Scheherazade- is the legendary Persian queen and the storyteller and

narrator of The Nights. She is the daughter of the kingdom's vizier and sister of
Dunyazad
 2. Shahryar- "city-server" or the king is the fictional Persian
Sassanid King of kings who is told stories by his wife, Scheherazade.
 3. Dunyazad- is the younger sister of Queen Scheherazade. In the story cycle, it is she who (at
Scheherazade's instruction) initiates the tactic of cliffhanger storytelling to prevent her sister's execution by
Shahryar.

4.Scheherazade's Father- sometimes called Jafar, is the vizier of King Shahryar. Every day, on the king's order,
he beheads the brides of Shahryar. He does this for many years until all the unmarried women in the kingdom
have either been killed or run away, at which point Scheherazade offers to marry the king.

5.Shah Zaman or Schazzenan- is the Sultan of Samarkand, sometimes called Samarcande and brother of
Shahryār. Shah Zaman catches his first wife in bed with a cook and cuts them both in two. Then, while staying
with his brother, he discovers that Shahryār's wife is unfaithful

 "Aladdin's Lamp"

tells of a peasant boy who is tricked by an evil magician into

retrieving a magic genie lamp from a cave. However, Aladdin
outsmarts him, keeping the lamp for himself. Through the genie's
power, Aladdin grows rich and marries the sultan's daughter. When
the magician steals the lamp back, Aladdin and his wife thwart and
kill the villain. The magician's brother then attempts to avenge the
dead man, but is equally defeated, so that Aladdin lives happily ever
after.
 Characters

1.Aladdin- Aladdin's name means "nobility of faith" or "nobility of

religion", and is one of many names ending with ad-Din.


2. The genie of the lamp- is the powerful genie trapped inside a lamp and discovered during
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. He is much more powerful and fearsome than the first genie,
who is trapped inside a ring. He is sometimes described as a Marid, the most powerful type of
jinn.
3.Aladdin's mother- Aladdin's mother is a poor widow living in China, very disappointed
by her son's laziness.

4.Princess Badroulbadour- also know as Badroul and Anglicized Buddir-al-Buddoor,

meaning "full moon of full moons" is a princess of China whom Aladdin married. The full
moon is a frequent metaphor for feminine beauty in the Arabian Nights.

5.The sorcerer- The sorcerer is a traveller from the Maghreb. Needing someone to
retrieve the magical lamp for him, he pretends to be Aladdin's long lost uncle and, after
winning the family over with gifts and flattery, promises to help him open a shop

6.The sorcerer's brother- the one who averages his Brother's death by diguising
himself as an old man
 Moral Lesson

The overall theme of Aladdin is that infinite strength

and wealth comes from within, and it is best to be
yourself because poor or rich you are a “diamond in the
rough”. In the original tale Aladdin, the protagonist,
loses his magical genie and discovers that true identity
is a buildup of character not wealth.

 The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the

Sailor
are told by a famous sailor to an impoverished porter, to explain the trials and tribulations
that the sailor suffered at sea. Over the course of his seven voyages, Sinbad faced: various
shipwrecks; strange beasts such as giant eagles, rocs, and giants; malicious figures such as the
Old Man of the Sea; and many other obstacles. Even though he dealt with danger on every
voyage, Sinbad continued to sail, lured by the thrill and excitement of the sea. Finally, after
seven voyages, he decided to settle down with his wealth.
 Moral lesson

Sindbad, the sailor, believed in his luck and good fortunes. His belief
saved him from all struggles and hardships. The sailor's will power
and the people he met on each journey gave him a good lesson and
a good way of living. His longingness towards his hometown was
clearly seen in all his voyages.

 "The Three Princes and the Princes

Nouronnihar"
Details the journeys of three brother princes who each wants to marry
their cousin Nouronnihar. Their father, the Grand Sultan, promises that
whichever brother finds the most valuable item will win the woman's hand.
They each find amazing items - a magic carpet that transports its
owner, a tube that shows whatever the viewer wishes, and an apple that
heals anyone. When the brothers learn that Nouronnihar is ill, they pool
the items and manage to save her life.

 Characters

1. Hussein- was the oldest son,

2. Ali- was the middle son
3. Ahmed- was the youngest son

 Moral lesson
There are several universal themes in THE THREE PRINCES including
the idea that true love triumphs over adversity and that a smart
woman is worth many wonders.
 "The Fisherman and the Jinni"

Tells the story of a fisherman whose nets retrieve a yellow jar from the sea.
He opens it to release a dangerous genie, who has been trapped for hundreds
of years and had decided to kill the man who rescues him. The fisherman tricks
the genie into returning to the jar, and then tells him the story of "The Vizier
and the Sage Duban," . After the story, the genie promises to reward the
fisherman, and indeed shows him a magic lake full of strange fish. The
fisherman sells the fish to the sultan, who explores the area of the lake to
meet a sad prince who had been turned half to stone. He helps the prince, and
then rewards everyone involved.
 "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves"
Hardworking Ali Baba stumbles upon a thieves' hideout full of
treasure, protected by a magic entry. When Ali Baba accidentally
reveals the secret to his richer brother Cassim; Cassim gets
trapped in the hideout, and killed by the thieves. The villains then
try to track down and kill Ali Baba, but their plans are
consistently thwarted by the quick-witted slave Morgiana
 "The Three Apples"
A fisherman finds a chest in the ocean containing a woman's body.
Both her father and her husband try to take the blame, but the
caliph discerns that the husband had killed her, believing her
unfaithful. He had brought her three rare apples when she was sick,
then got mad when he saw a slave with one of the apples, claiming he
had received the fruit from his girlfriend. Believing the slave, he killed
the woman. He then learned that his son had actually given the apple
to the slave, who then lied to stir up trouble. The ruler's vizier Ja'far
ascertains that his own slave is the culprit, and the caliph pardons
everyone.
 "The Vizier and the Sage Duban"

A sage named Duban heals King Yunan's leprosy, but Yunan's vizier
convinces the king that Duban is out to kill him. Yunan has Duban
executed on that suspicion, and Duban gifts him a magic book
before he dies. After the wise man is beheaded, the king flips
through the book, and then dies himself from a poison that Duban
has left on its pages