ARABIA - ARABS - ARABIANS - ARABIAN NIGHTS
STORIES, FOLKTALES, FOLKLORE, FAIRY TALES,
LEGENDS, MYTHS, NURSERY RHYMES and FACTS
STORY LOVERS WORLD
SOS: SEARCHING OUT STORIES
from Fairy Tales, Folklore, Fables, Nursery Rhymes,
Myths, Legends, Bible and Classics
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BOOKS FOR/BY/ABOUT ARABIA - ARABS - ARABIAN NIGHTS - ARABIANS - ALL AGES
Book titles are in blue and underlined. Click on them to find out more about the books and how to buy them.
To retell any stories, obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
In performance, always credit your sources.
Alphabetized for your convenience with short descriptions to save you research time.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Other Stories (Illustrated Stories for Children)
by A.E. Jackson (illus).
Aladdin and the Magic Lamp (Step Into Reading, a Step 3 Book)
by Deborah Hautzig
With the aid of a genie from a magic lamp, Aladdin fights an evil magician and wins the hand of a beautiful princess.
Genies, Meanies, and Magic Rings
by Stephen Mitchell, Tom Pohrt (illus) and Tracey Campbell Pearson (illus).
Master storyteller Stephen Mitchell brings three of the best loved stories from The Arabian Nights to independent young readers ready for adventure. All richly illustrated with lustrous line drawings throughout, they are here for young readers to rediscover: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Abu Keer and Abu Seer, and Aladdin and the Magic Lamp in its original setting of China. These stories will bring you to a whole new world; one where clever wit will save the day, thieves give chase with
One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (Oxford Story Collections)
by Geraldine McCaughrean and Rosamund Fowler.
King Shahryar kills a new wife every night, because he is afraid she will stop loving him. But his new bride Shahrazad has a clever plan to save herself. Her nightly stories--of Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, and many other heroes and villains--are so engrossing that King Shahryar has to postpone her execution again and again... This illustrated edition brings together all the Arabian Nights tales in an original retelling by award-winning author Geraldine McCaughrean.
Tale from the Arabian Knights (A) (Classics for Kids)
by Vincent Buranelli and Hieronimus Fromm (illus).
Three children, separated from their parents at birth, are reunited with the help of an old man who directs them to a talking bird, singing tree, and water made of gold.
Tales from the Arabian Nights (Classics for Older Readers)
by James Riordan.
Nine of the tales told by Shaharazad to enchant the cruel sultan and stop him from executing her as he had his other daily wives.
FOLKTALES AND ANTHOLOGIES
Arab Folktales
by Inea Bushnaq.
Because this collection of folktales covers the entire Arab world from Morocco to Iraq, no other contemporary collection fills the niche it does. It is divided into six sections in categories such as animal tales or adventure tales. Sectional introductions provide the cultural background useful for interpreting the tales. The approximately 130 tales vary considerably in length and portray heroes and villains, corruption and nobility equally. General readers will find this book very appealing.
Forty Fortunes: A Tale of Iran
by Aaron Shepard and Alisher Dianov (illus).
The royal treasure has been stolen, and not even Iran's finest diviners can locate the forty fortunes. When the King turns to Ahmed to find the treasure, Ahmed is certain that he will be thrown in prison. Yes, he was able to locate a missing ring, but that was pure luck, and he knows that he has no real fortunetelling skills. He has only forty days to find the forty fortunes. Will he find a way to locate the treasure-and save himself-before the time is up?
Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales
by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana.
Were it simply a collection of fascinating, previously unpublished folktales, this book would merit praise and attention because of its cultural rather than political approach to Palestinian studies. But it is much more than this. By combining their respective expertise in English literature and anthropology, the authors bring to these tales an integral method of study that unites a sensitivity to language with a deep appreciation for culture.
Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur!: A Palestinian Folktale
by Margaret Read MacDonald, Ibrahim Muhawi, Sharif Kananah and Alik Arzoumanian (illus). (Preschool-Kindergarten)
In this lively Palestinian tale, a woman wishes for a child to love, "even if it is nothing more than a cooking pot." Voila! Her wish comes true, and red Little Pot appears. The two spend cozy days indoors, but restless Little Pot begs to explore the wider world. Reluctantly, the mother lets her pot outdoors, and its adventures include meetings with a merchant and even the royal family.
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ONLINE LINKS TO STORIES AND INFORMATION BY AND ABOUT ARABIA AND ARABIANS
Online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them to get more stories and information.
Story titles are in italics.
To retell any stories, get permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
Short descriptions included for your convenience and to save you research time.
• http://www.aaronshep.com/stories/folk.html
Aaron Shepard has tales from Iran, India and Pakistan.
• http://www.otan.dni.us/webfarm/emailproject/uae.htm
Five Arab tales at this site. One Thousand and One Nights; A Beautiful Girl and the Prince; Laila; Juhha; Ali Baba.
• http://dmoz.org/Society/Folklore/Literature/Tales/Fairy_Tales/World_Tales/Middle_Eastern/
A few here as well, including The Arabian Nights.
• http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/stories.html
Sufi Tales as told by Idries Shah.
• http://www.vedanta-atlanta.org/stories/Sufi.html
Sufi Tales.
• http://www.princeton57.org/dynamic.asp?id=religion_sufi
Sufi tales as a key to learning.
• http://darvish.wordpress.com/2006/07/04/the-judgment-of-god-a-sufi-tale/
The Judgment of God - A Sufi Tale.
• http://www.zensufi.com/
Zensufi Park.
• http://www.mythiccrossroads.com/asia.htm
Includes Arab folktales.
• http://www.ala.org/ala/booklinksbucket/ArabChildrensLit.pdf
Arab Children's Literature.
• http://www.multilingualbooks.com/arabicchild.html
Multilingual Books - Children's Arabic.
• http://www.npl.org/Pages/Multimac/Booklist/no26/acm.html
The Newark Public Library, Newark, NJ 0 Arabic Children's Materials
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SOS: SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION BY AND ABOUT ARABIA AND ARABIANS
Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians
(excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)
Book titles, movie titles and online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them to get more information.
Story and song titles are in italics.
To retell any stories, obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
Posts are added chronologically as they are received by Story Lovers World.
1) I recommend Wooden Sword from Heather Forest's book Wisdom Tales from Around the World (World Storytelling)
. Heather had lists it as a tale from Afghanistan. It is the story of a king who finds a happy peasant who has faith that everything will be well. The king thwarts him in many ways, but when the peasant (turned solider because of the king's efforts) has to sell his sword blade to eat, the peasant replaces it with a wooden one. The king knowing about the wooden blade decides to test the peasant's faith that all will be well. The king orders the peasant to cut off the head of the thief, or lose his own life. The peasant shows that faith coupled with wit can save your life, as he raises his arms to the heavens and says, "If this man is guilty, I will cut off his head. But if he is innocent, give me a sign ... turn my blade to wood." The king keeps him on as an advisor.
2) Sufi tales/stories - quite a few are on the web. They are short, puzzling, delightful and often funny. Lots of people like them. Idries Shah has published many books of them, including compilations of the Hodja, the Mullah Nasruddin.
3) Zen tales - again, short and frequently funny. Lots available on the web, and various published compilations.
4) The 25 Tales of a Vetala (vampire) - this classic collection of dilemma tales is explicitly designed as a test of wisdom. You can find them as a sub-story within volumes six and seven of the gigantic Ocean of Story, from India. They have also been published under various similar names.
See also:
The ocean of story: Being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's Katha sarit sagara (or Ocean of streams of story)
5) Gesta Romanorum or Entertaining Moral Stories Invent by the Monks
- the gests of the Romans, this was an immensely popular mediaeval collection or moral tales, with commentary. The heavy moral tone of some, and the Christian sensibility, may not be fashionable now.
See also:
Tales from the Gesta Romanorum
6) The mediaeval European collections are all good, though tending to focus on folk wisdom rather than the mystical kind: The Decameron
- The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
, Stories from Pentamerone
, Pleasant Nights (often known by other variations of the name) The most delectable nights of Straparola of Caravaggio
. The majority, at least the first and third of these, are available online, or check out Penguin Classics in book form for the first two.
7) Indian tales - the prototype for most European tales. The Panchatantra
is an all-time best-seller, being translated into every language of the mediaeval world. It's a collection of fables, in a frame. A substantial modern collection of great traditional
8) Indian tales is published as A Flowering Tree: And Other Oral Tales from India
, and by the author's magnanimity, the whole text is available online.
9) Arabian and Persian - these cultures have so many collections of wisdom tales it's ridiculous. Try a few of these:
The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam's Mystical Tradition
by Sana'i - a traditional manual of Sufism in verse. Each chapter contains illustrative stories.
10) The Conference of Birds (Penguin Classics)
by Farid ud-Din 'Attar - a marvelous allegorical rendering of Sufism, consisting of a group of stories bound together by a pilgrimage, not unlike The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics)
, although this predates Chaucer, being 12th century. The birds of the world gather to search for the ideal king.
11) A Book of Wisdom and Lies
, by Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani - A collection of over a hundred fables, stories, proverbs and riddles made at the end of the 17th century. The frame story is of courtiers arguing about wise conduct, each illustrating his every point by means of a fable - a dazzling story-battle.
12) The Gulistan, or, Rose garden of Sa'di
, by Sheikh Muslih-uddin Sa'di Shirazi - 183 instructional stories, mostly very short, divided into subjects.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/sadi-gulistan2.html
13) The Bustan
, by Sheikh Muslih-uddin Sa'di Shirazi - a composition of stories and maxims each representing a flower of the garden.
14) And don't forget the The Arabian Nights : A Companion
.
15) Sari Saltik: A Bektashi Story
Story:
There was in Dobruja a seven-headed dragon, to which the two daughters of the King were allotted as food. Sari Saltik (who had been sent to the region by Hajji Bektash himself) agreed to deliver the girls if their father would embrace Islam. He went to the column to which they were tied as victims for the dragon, accompanied by his seventy Dervishes, who were beating drums and swinging the banner. He untied the Princesses, and then waited with his wooden sword, expecting the dragon himself, as the seventy Dervishes beat their drums.
When the dragon approached, Sari Saltik addressed it with the verse of the Qur'an that begins, "Greeting on Noah in both worlds." He then cut off three of the dragon's heads, so that it fled with the remaining four. Sari Saltik followed him up to his cave, at the entrance of which he cut off the remaining heads with his wooden sword, and followed the dragon into his den. The beheaded dragon began to struggle with Sari Saltik and to press him against the rock, which gave way under his hands and feet — their marks can still be seen there. The dragon, having exhausted his strength, fell to the ground dead, and Sari Saltik, with his bloody breast and wooden sword, now led the two girls to their father the king.
But the man who had shown Saltik Sultan the road to the column had picked up the tongues and ears of the three heads cut off, and had hurried before Sari Saltik to lay them before the king, boasting that he himself had killed the dragon. Now, though the daughters asserted the contrary, yet the impostor persisted in his boast, so Sari Saltik proposed as a proof, to be boiled with the man in a cauldron. Though the pretender did not like this kind of trial, yet by order of the king he was obliged to undergo it. Sari Saltik was tied up by his Dervishes, and the impostor by his companions, and both were put into a cauldron heated by an immense fire.
Hajji Bektash was at that moment at Kirshehri in Anatolia, and was suddenly overcome. He swept with a handkerchief a dripping rock, saying, "My Saltik Muhammad is now in great anxiety, may Allah help him!" Ever since that day salt water has dripped from that rock, and from thence the salt called Hajji Bektash is produced.
http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook/essay_sari_saltik.html
16) If you're going to read the Nights, I highly recommend you get 'The Arabian Nights : A Companion' by Robert Irwin. It really helps with understanding the whole context and contents. You get the tangled history of how the stories were compiled over many centuries, translated, the parallels with other story compilations in history, the storytellers' craft, the cultural context, meanings and significance of many things mentioned in the stories, as well as the considerable impact, consequences and influences of the Nights arriving in the West. It answers many questions that the storyteller may have in attempting to tell or understand these stories.
Tim S. 1/16/06
RESPONSE:
a) I bought this book on your recommendation. It is making me "very happy." It's been several years since I read a book (particularly nonfiction book) with such complete enjoyment. When I was a kid, I was a book-glutton; it's rare now that I get that kind of ice-cream pleasure.
TimJ 1/31/06
17) Bones of the best-known folktales from the Arab World.
Beduin's Gazelle, The
Camel Husband, The
Cat Who Went to Mecca, The
Cobbler Astrologer, The
Division of the Prey
Donkey Driver and the Thief, The
Fisherman and the Genie, The
Father of a Hundred Tricks
Guest Who Ran Away, The
Hospitality of Abu Hussein, The
How the Ewe Outwitted the Jackal
How the Fox Got Back His Tail
King Who Became a Parrot, The
Little Mangy One
Little Red Fish and the Clog of Gold, The
Old Pair of Slippers, The
Princess and the Suit of Leather, The
Scarab Beetle's Daughter, The
Stork Caliph, The
Who Has the Sweetest Flesh on Earth?
Woodcutter and the Lion, The
Woodcutter's Wealthy Sister, The
http://talesandlegends.net/arabpages/fables.html
Created 2005; last update 7/4/09
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