Arabian Tales: Stories Full of Suspense and Intrigue

One of the aspects of Arabian tales that I found to be unique is the tradition of having a frame story, where one story spins off into a web of tales (“stories within a story”). This can be seen through one of the most popular group of tales: 1,001 Arabian Nights. In this book the frame story is the tales of the women-killing sultan, his brother, and Shahrazad, an amazing storyteller who outsmarts the king by telling suspenseful and mystical stories every night. The stories blend into each other which is part of the girl’s wit - ending the stories at the perfect time so that the king would be compelled to not kill her in order to hear the rest of the story. The movie version transitions between tales and Shahrazad telling them, only to reveal that the entire movie is her telling the stories to her children. Another aspect of the frame story is the idea of repeating characters like Joha/Djuha and Bablul which keep different tales linked together.

Another element that is extremely and uniquely important in Arabian tales is the idea of suspense. Again, this is very well demonstrated in 1,001 Arabian Nights. None of Shahrazad’s stories fully end in order for her to build suspense and keep the sultan hooked. She also continually keeps returning to a master storyteller in order to get advice (so she doesn’t die). He express the importance of keeping an audience hooked - especially for her, because it is a matter of life and death. He says this suspense is important at the beginning of a tale, which Professor Zaru demonstrated in her talk as well. She said that stories often start with “Kan yama Kan” meaning “it was or it wasn’t.” This aspect of having an unreliable narrator/story provides additional intrigue for the audience, showing the importance of building suspense.

Professor Zaru also said an important part of Arabian culture that is expressed in their stories is the idea that they are not an individualistic society. She said the people were all about unity and community - the self is less important than the family/community. This can be shown by the importance of hospitality in tales - all the community members are there for each other and it is an irredeemable offence to not follow hospitality/community rules. To me, this seems similar to Native American and African stories, both of which have cultures that revolve around community.

Image from “Kalila wa Dimna” 

Professor Zaru also talked about stories in which animal characters have human characteristics. This is similar to Indian tales which feature the puri and the sangkhini, African tales that includes stories like the monkey and the shark, and the stories of animals brides in European tales like “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Frog Prince,” “The Pig King,” etc.). The only difference is that the animals are those more native to Arab regions such as camels (Safra in “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and jackals (in “Kalila wa Dimna”).

Arabic for Allah

I also noticed in the 1,001 Arabian Nights story the prevalence of religious motifs and references to god or “Allah.” There were often prayers or places in which characters invoked the name of Allah, which I thought was interesting because it’s so different to people of my religion's (Catholicism) view concerning invoking the name of god (Catholics think it's a sin). Calling upon Allah happens a lot in 1,001 Arabian Nights. These religious references are similar to religious motifs in Jewish stories and Christian motifs in the Brothers Grimm stories.

Underdog, representing stories featuring underdogs

One thing that I think all of the tales (African, Jewish, Native American and Indian) tend to have in common is their reasons for being told. These folktales, just like all others are told for entertainment, to build community, and to shed insight into human behavior. The stories, like many other cultures tales, often (but not always) have a moral lesson. They also often, like other tales we talked about, involve the success of an underdog.