‘’arabian nights’’

SHAHRYAR

(THE KING)

Millions of innocent wives

Scheherezade

The stories of the Arabian Nights were

written by many people over the

course of hundreds of years.

The earliest mentions of the Nights refer to it as an Arabic translation from a Persian book,

 Hezār Afsān meaning 'The Thousand Stories'. In the 10th century

 Ibn al-Nadim compiled a catalogue of books (the "Fihrist") in Baghdad. He noted that

the Sassanid  kings of Iran enjoyed "evening tales and fables".Al-Nadim then writes

about the Persian Hezār Afsān, explaining the frame story it employs: a bloodthirsty

king kills off a succession of wives after their wedding night; eventually one has the

intelligence to save herself by telling him a story every evening, leaving each tale

unfinished until the next night so that the king will delay her execution. However,

according to al-Nadim, the book contains only 200 stories. He also writes disparagingly

of the collection's literary quality, observing that "it is truly a coarse book, without

warmth in the telling". In the same century Al-Masudi also refers to

the Hezār Afsān, saying the Arabic translation is called Alf Khurafa 

('A Thousand Entertaining Tales') but is generally known as Alf Layla

 ('A Thousand Nights'). He mentions the characters Shirāzd (Scheherazade) and Dināzād.