One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan Al-Shaykh

I’ve always seen her as a literary feminist icon,” said Sameena Mughal, author of Scheherazade’s Daughters. “Scheherazade has always been one of my favourite literary characters. Shahrazad is well educated and prepared for the task, having “read books and histories, accounts of past kings and stories of earlier peoples, having collected, it was said, a thousand volumes of these, covering peoples, kings and poets.” It is this accumulated intelligence, along with her courage that enables her to save both herself and the women of her kingdom.

These tales are first a form of entertainment, but are also carefully crafted to engender underlining messages about morality and justice. Every night she begins a tale but does not finish it, so that King Shahriyar must allow her to live another night in order to learn the ending. Her plan is simple and eloquent - use stories of adventure and wonder to keep herself alive long enough to humanize the king and save the women of the city from his wrath. Learning of this violence, Shahrazad marries the king despite the objections of her father and with a complete understanding of the dangers to herself. Every night for three years, he would take a virgin girl to his bed and then kill her in the morning. In the frame story that anchors The One Thousand and One Nights, King Shahriyar discovers his wife in the act of adultery and cuts off her head. Shahrazad, the intelligent and cunning heroine of the One Thousand and One Nights (or The Arabian Nights), has been recognized in recent years as a feminist literary figure, a woman who uses her abilities to save not just her own life, but the lives of other women.

“Scheherazade and the Sultan” by the Iranian painter Sani ol Molk (1849–1856).

One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan Al-Shaykh