The story begins with a tailor and his wife who went out one night on a leisurely walk

around the city. On the way home, they encountered a hunchback whose appearance
was described as being "so droll that it's impossible to be sad around him." Amused,
the tailor and his wife invited the hunchback to their home for dinner, during which
the wife - as a joke - placed a wad of fish and bread in the hunchback's mouth,
forcing him to swallow it. The hunchback did just that, but choked on the bone stuck
in the fish and died.

Panicked, the tailor began despairing but his wife told him to get his act together and
help her dispose of the body. They covered it in a silk shawl and went around asking for
a doctor, announcing that the body they're carrying is a vector of the Smallpox, which
ensured that bystanders give them a wide berth on the street. They were eventually
referred to a Jewish doctor, whose house they soon visited. They bade the doctor's
slave to call for her master and while the slave went looking for the doctor, the tailor and
his wife left the body on the doctor's staircase and made a break for it.

The doctor, excited at being told who is requesting his services, ran excitedly to the door,
but in his haste forgot to bring a lamp. As he ran down the stairs in the darkness, he
accidentally knocked the wrapped body down the staircase and he believed that he
killed the hunchback. He showed the corpse to his wife, who then proposed that they
lower it into their neighbor's house from the terrace, their neighbor being a steward of
the sultan's kitchen, stating that the cats, dogs, and rats infesting the place will come to
eat the body and no one will be the wiser.

Shortly after the Jewish doctor and his wife leave the body in the steward's house, the
steward returns and believes he caught a thief. He takes a club and strikes the
hunchback, knocking him down then proceeding to beat the hunchback's chest. The
steward then realizes that the hunchback is dead and he believes that he killed him. In
despair, he prays to Allah and takes the body to the marketplace, leaving the covered
corpse in its outskirts, near a shop at the corner of a side street.

A drunk Christian broker passes by with alcohol-induced hallucinations and, after

stumbling through the streets a bit, notices the hunchback in a shawl and mistakes it
for a robber. He strikes the hunchback across the neck and gets to strangling and
beating it while calling for a guard. A market guard runs up and sees the
commotion, believing that the Christian murdered the hunchback. He then arrests
the Christian and locks him up in the Walī's house to await judgment.

The next morning, the Walī sentences the Christian to death by gallows. Just as the
executioner prepares to hang the Christian, the steward announces that it was he who
killed the hunchback, forcing the Walī to pardon the Christian and have the steward
executed instead. Then just as the executioner put the noose around the steward's
neck, the Jewish doctor appears and announces that he killed the hunchback, asking
that he be executed for the crime instead. The Walī then orders the executioner to hang
the Jewish doctor, but at last, the tailor announces that it was he who killed the
hunchback and left the body in the Jewish doctor's house. The executioner then
prepares to hang the tailor with finality.

The commotion reaches the sultan's ears as the hunchback was his jester, who was at
the time absent. The sultan sends his chamberlain to retrieve the Walī and the four
suspects and present them to him. The chamberlain manages to get to the venue of
the public execution before the tailor was hung and summoned them to the sultan's
palace. Once there, the Walī recounted the story to the sultan who, having found
it a highly entertaining coincidence, could only laugh. The sultan ordered the
palace historian to record the tale in letters of liquid gold and asked the tailor, the
Jewish doctor, the steward, and the Christian broker if they had heard a story equal to -
or surpassing - that days turn of events.

The Christian broker steps up and answers that he knows of such a tale.

The Christian broker used to live and work in Cairo, where he sold sesame for a young
merchant from Baghdad, making the broker a huge profit. After a year of the broker
making money off the returns from investing the young man's profit from the sesame
sale, the broker invited the young man over to dinner and there noticed that he ate with
his left hand - considered rude at the time. When the broker asked about it out of
curiosity, the young man told his story.

When the young man started trading in Cairo, he quickly discovered that the sale
price of the goods he brought from Baghdad will not be enough for him to break even,
so he started selling his goods on credit and collecting money on Mondays and
Thursdays. In his stay there, he fell in love with a wealthy young woman when she
visited the shop of one of the merchants who the young man sold fabrics to. After
selling her expensive silk and allowing her to pay her dues later, they organized a
rendezvous in her mansion the day after.

The young man then began visiting the lady at evening regularly, partaking of dinner
and each other to satiety until the morning, leaving her 50 dīnār in a handkerchief every
time before he left. Soon however, he found himself broke and penniless. In
desperation, he stole from a soldier while out on a walk and was caught. He confessed
before the Walī and he had his hand cut off as punishment for his crime. The soldier
interjected for him however and spared him his left hand.

When his lady found out what had happened to him that night, she felt responsible
and was taken with grief. The morning after, they were married before a witness and a
contract was written stating that all her wealth now belonged to the young man
henceforth - including all the dīnār he left her every day, which she stored in a chest for
him to take back one day. One month after, she fell ill due to melancholy, and then died
another month later.

The broker and the young man then became business partners, trading goods in
Baghdad and going to China. The broker was supposed to rejoin his partner in Egypt,
but was caught into the fiasco involving the hunchback. The king didn't find his story
amusing and threatened to have all of them hung for their crimes against his jester, but
the steward interjected and asked the king spare them if he found his story rightfully
amusing. The king gave the steward a chance.

The steward recounts a marriage feast where the guests partook of a dish called
zīrbājah - a dish made of rice and spiced with garlic and other aromatics. One of the
guests refused to eat the zīrbājah until he washed his hands 120 times, and even then,
ate with great hesitation, as if he was scared of the dish itself. He reveals to the other
guests that he was missing his thumbs and big toes and the astonished partygoers
asked him to tell them his story.

He was a merchant in Baghdad. One day, a beautiful woman came upon his store and
asked if he had any beautiful fabrics in stock, which he had none. He bade her wait until
the other merchants opened up shop and in the meantime, they chatted, and he fell in
love with the lady. In time, he bought her what she needed, but the lady didn't pay him
before she left, putting the merchant in a tricky position with his colleagues as he now
owed them money at week's end - extended to two weeks.

In two weeks, the lady returned with payment though she underpaid. She then asked
him to acquire for her other goods which put him in an even more difficult position as he
fears his losses will eventually drive him bankrupt. At the end of the month, the lady
paid him back more than what she owed and he confessed his love to her, which she
responded to favorably.

The merchant learned that the lady was the foster daughter of Zubaidah, the
favorite wife of the Khalīfah Hārūn al-Rashād, who wouldn't let the lady marry unless
she personally approved of her chosen groom. The lady and her eunuch smuggled the
merchant into the palace where Zubaidah questioned him about his ancestry and
present life. Zubaidah, impressed with the merchant's background, gave him her
blessing to marry her daughter and the marriage ceremony was held in 10 days.

At the wedding feast, he gorged himself of food - including zīrbājah. He wiped

his hands without washing them, which left the pungent smell of garlic on his
fingers. In the bedroom, his wife was disgusted when he touched her and
demanded his hand be cut off as punishment. Though the maids defended him, she still
saw it fit to cut off his thumbs and big toes as punishment. He then made his oath to
wash his hands 40 times with potash, 40 times with soda, and 40 times with soap.

His wife forgave him and they lived together in the palace for some time before moving
to a magnificent mansion away from the palace. After a year, the merchant's wife died
and he sold all his property in Baghdad to travel to China.

The steward concludes his tale, but the king is not impressed. He repeats his threat of
hanging the four suspects, but the Jewish doctor came forward to tell the king his tale.

The Jewish doctor recounts his time studying medicine in Damascus. After finishing
his education there, he was asked to treat a young aristocrat - the son-in-law of the
governor - who had fallen ill. After the young man had made a recovery and the doctor
awarded with fine robes and the title of chief doctor, he discovers that the young man's
right hand had been cut off and that his back was marred with scars from whips and
beatings. The young man tells the doctor his story.

He once lived in Mosul, child to a family who bore considerable influence. After hearing
his uncles speak about the wonders of Egypt, he wished to visit the city of Cairo himself
and asked his father to allow him to join his uncles headed there. His father agreed, but
asked that his uncles leave him in Damascus.

There, he met a beautiful woman who he invited into the home he rented and slept with
once every three days. On their fourth rendezvous, the woman brought along a younger
and even more beautiful lady whom the young man enjoyed more thoroughly than the
first. After sleeping with her, he awoke to find her murdered and realized that the first
woman was the murderer and the motive was jealousy. Panicking, he buried the body
beneath the house and paid the landlord a year of rent in advance. He then set out to
join his uncles in Cairo.

A year later, his uncles completed their business in the city and decided to return to
Mosul. He did not come along as he knew they would pass by Damascus, so he
stayed behind in Egypt. He stayed in Cairo for three years, enjoying himself and
sending rent to his landlord in Damascus. At the beginning of the fourth year, he found
himself almost broke and returned to Damascus.

In his rented house, he discovered the girl's gold necklace set with precious pearls.
Desperate for money, he attempted to sell the jewelry. The broker whom he contacted
lied to him about the necklace's true value and legitimacy and went to the Walī behind
his back, framing him by claiming that he stole the necklace from the broker. The young
man was dragged to the Walī and beaten. Forced to confess to theft he didn't do rather
than tell the truth and be accused of murder, his right hand was cut off.
Three days later, he was fetched by the governor-general's guards and was brought
before the governor himself, where he learned that the necklace belonged to his second
daughter who had gone missing three years prior. He told the governor the truth about
the murder.

The governor explained that the two women were sisters, the elder of whom was the
first to meet the man. She had killed her sister out of jealousy, lied that she
disappeared in the market, and took her own life out of grief. The governor had him
pardoned as he was an innocent man and had the broker who framed him arrested for
perjury. He then offered the young man his third daughter's hand in marriage and the
young man accepted.

The young man and his wife lived together in Damascus since. He invited the doctor as
a guest in their home for three days and saw him off with great wealth, which the
doctor used to travel all over - eventually landing him in China.

The king was impressed, but didn't find the story more amusing than the fiasco with
the hunchback. He repeats his ultimatum and the tailor steps forward to offer the king
his tale.

The tailor recounts a feast organized between the principal members of several guilds.
The master of the house soon arrived and with him, a lame man, who greeted the
congregation and was greeted back in turn. As the master of the house sat, the
lame man tried to leave and the people gathered there persuaded him to speak
about why he wanted to leave the way he did. The lame man then says that he has
sworn to stay as far away from a barber he recognized in the group and told the
gathered people his story.

The lame man was from Baghdad, cursed with a crippling fear of women. One day, he
fell in love with a woman whom he saw watering plants from her window. So much so
that he got over his gynophobia,but fell ill due to lovesickness in return. An old woman
approached him on his sickbed and, after acting as the mediator between him and the
young woman of his desire, convinced the young woman – the daughter of the Kādī - to
let him visit. The young woman allowed the young man to visit her in secret on Friday
before the midday prayer ends, before her father returned from the mosque.

Friday came and the young man prepared for their meeting. The old woman suggested
he groom himself first in the hammam and have his head shaved for his appearance
has become quite ragged in the time he was ill. He sent for a barber. Instead of shaving
the young man's hair, the barber took out an astrolabe and made a horoscope, that it
was a bad day to meet with a woman. The barber then bragged about his skills in
several disciplines of practice and study and praised his own discretion, saying that his
name, al- Sāmit, meant "Silent One." Ironically by using as many words as possible in a
very protracted way to relay that fact. He shaved only as few of the young man's hairs at
a time, trying to stall for time as he was convinced that the young man was in danger.

At noon, the young man set off to his secret meeting with the woman, unaware that
the barber tailed him. The young woman tells the young man that her father rarely
visits her home, but unfortunately for them, that day it just so happened that one of the
slaves had a beating coming. The young man hid while the Kādī beat one of his girl-
slaves, along with one of the slaves of the house. Belabored by the rod, they both
screamed loudly and the barber, who had been waiting near the building all that time,
mistakenly thought the young man was being murdered by the Kādī and caused a
commotion.

The barber then accused the Kādī of murder, to which the Kādī responded by letting
the barber search his home. The young man, not wanting to meet the barber
again, hid himself in a chest. To his misfortune, the barber knew exactly where
he hid and carried the chest out of the house with haste. The young man jumped from
the chest and broke his leg, then he ran away to avoid the barber. The barber ran
after him, claiming that he had saved the young man's life by making sure he
snuck off to his rendezvous as late as possible.

Certain the barber won't leave him alone, the young man bequeathed a will to his
fortunes as if he were dead and left Baghdad headed for China - as far from the
barber as possible. He was relieved to think that he had escaped the barber forever...
only to find that same barber again in China.

After hearing the story, the guests at the feast asked the barber why he would
put the young man through so many unfortunate circumstances. The barber
maintained his position and insisted that his actions saved the man's life. He said
he's the wisest and most discreet of his brothers and would tell a story to prove it.