963—978 Qamar al-Zaman • 978—989 Abd Allah ibn Fadil and his brothers • 989—1001 Ma’ruf the cobbler
The final three stories in the collection begin with an extremely liberal take on sex and sexuality. The titular protagonist is Qamar al-Zaman, and his face is so beautiful that even the men have lusty feelings for him. This induced fluidity of the sexualities is presented as entirely normal and permitted in the circumstances.
The effect that our hero has on the world is personified in the character of a pious dervish, who has had a chequered past. I enjoyed the simple yet telling phrase
He had experience of both nights and days
Tasting both licit and illicit love
A lover of both women and of men.
Burton has this as:
He had studied Love both by day and night
And had special knowledge of Wrong and Right;
Both for lad and lass had repined his sprite …
So the dervish seems to be openly bisexual. This is not presented as a moral failing per se, but Qamar’s father does seem anxious to protect his son from any advances, and resolves to kill the dervish if he succumbs to Qamar’s temptation. Bizarrely, in an unfair and creepy scheme, the father then encourages Qamar to attempt to seduce the dervish, the better to test the limits of the dervish’s self control. The dervish manages not to succumb and is spared, thus telling the tale of a beautiful woman he has seen in Basra. Like so many naive heroes before him, Qamar becomes obsessed with the story of this woman and sets himself the quest of finding her.
The woman is Halima, the wife of the jeweller of Basra, Ubaid. Qamar is able to track her down and follows the scheming of a barber’s wife (a sort of budget Delilah-the-Wiley) in order to meet and seduce her. They concoct a clever scam to gaslight the jeweller, steal his money, and elope back to Egypt.
When they get there however, the story takes a darker, misogynistic turn. The fact that Halima has so cunningly duped and dumped her husband is considered proof of her untrustworthiness. Qamar and his father imprison her, and then allow her cuckolded husband to strangle her in revenge. Shahrazad does not shy away from describing this in detail: “He squeezed her windpipe with such violence that he broke her neck.” These murders are celebrated by the other men and no punishment befalls them.
It is in stories like these that I feel the most distance from the authors of these stories and their audience. The woman here is certainly a participant in the adultery and theft, but Qamar is a willing protagonist too. The discrepancy between their eventual fates is glaring and it’s difficult to see how any audience could tolerate this unfairness, if men and women were part of a shared moral system. The story only makes any sense if men and women were considered as different as masters and slaves, humans and dogs.
That said, this is another story that makes sense from Shahrazad’s point of view. She does not know how long she must sustain her storytelling, but the conclusion to this one is shrewd. In the final lines, she compares the unfortunate Halima to Qamar’s equally beautiful sister, who is widowed by rejects the sultan’s advances:
If this woman was unwilling to exchange her dead husband for a king, how does she compare with one who exchanged her living husband for a young man of whose background she knew nothing…?
The final line is something we can all agree with, and important for Shahriyar to hear: “Whoever thinks that all women are alike is suffering from a disease of madness for which there is no cure.” She softens this rather pointed criticism of her husband-listener with some flattery: “Praise be to the Sovereign King, Who lives and never dies.” Is she talking about Shahriyar here, or Allah?
The flattery of the king clearly persists into the next story, that of Abd Allah. The main character, like Judar on Night 608, is cursed with a couple of terrible brothers who seek to steal from him at every opportunity. Abd Allah’s kindness to a jinn princess leads to his salvation.
What’s interesting is the Nights’ discussion of the limits of the power of the jinn. Throughout the collection, these beings are portrayed as having access to almost limitless magic. Why do they not simply obliterate the mortals and rule the world?
The answer to this is theological.
My daughter, we are bound to obey the authority of the king of men, whose writ extends over us … Were he to become angry with us, he could destroy every last one of us…
— Night 986
However great the jinn’s power, it is nothing compared to that of God the Creator. And kings (in this case, fan-favourite Harun Al-Rashid) are Defenders of the Faithful. The caliph may not wield magic powers himself, but he enjoys the protection of God. Were a jinn army to attack a kingdom, Allah would side with the humans. The jinn know to keep to their own territory because of the Divine Right of Kings to rule.
This is transparent propaganda, but I suppose that once again Shahrazad’s wider project is served.
The final story in the whole collection is a long comedy, that of Ma’ruf the Cobbler. Our titular character is a comedic character, similar to Khalifa who we met on Night 831. He is dirt-poor and struggles to earn enough to eat. His wife is an utterly bonkers woman named Dung Fatima, and their relationship has a Punch and Judy quality. She threatens him with physical violence if he does not fulfil her demands, and he falls deep into debt trying to satisfy her whims. Eventually, he has to sell off his tools and can no longer earn a living.
Driven away, a chance encounter with some magic teleports him into a faraway city.
Given a chance to start afresh, Ma’ruf decides to reinvent himself as a successful merchant. But instead of doing this by trading with the capital a friend has advanced to him, he conjures up a sort of Ponzi scheme. Merchants are persuaded to loan money to him, which he redistributes to the poor. Such generosity is taken to mean that he must be hugely wealthy — the folk of the Arabian Nights are often preposterously credulous.
Eventually Ma’ruf marries the king’s daughter and an extravagant wedding is planned. As his charade begins to undermine the local economy, Ma’ruf makes his escape before his con is discovered.
Despite the delusions and lies, Ma’ruf is a sympathetic character with a good heart — is not as if he keeps the loaned wealth for himself. During his escape he shows a kindness to a peasant, and the narrative rewards him with the luck of a magic ring. The jinn within allows him to make true what was once a lie, and he can return triumphant to the city and repay his debts.
The story finishes with a flourish. Clearly, the ring is key to Ma’ruf’s success, but the king’s suspicious vizier realises this and makes an attempt to steal it. On Night 999, which we know is almost the end of the book, the vizier manages to wrest the ring from Ma’ruf and seize control of the kingdom.
Were this a traditional western faerytale, we would not be worried: the good guys always win. But that rule is simply not true in the Arabian Nights. Recall what happened to thoroughly decent Judah? Recall what happened to Abriza and Sharkan in the tale of Umar ibn al-Nu’man, back on Night 45? No-one is safe.
Fittingly and pleasingly, it is a young woman, an echo of Shahrazad herself, who saves the day. With Ma’ruf defeated and the king deposed, the (sadly unnamed) princess seduces the vizier and retrieves the ring. And in probably best conclusion we could hope for… she takes the ring of power for herself! “It is not for you or for him” she says. “I shall keep it and I shall probably guard it better than either of you.” Given Ma’ruf’s carelessness and the king’s dangerous credulity, this is certainly for the best.
This outcome has additional value too. It is a conclusion that rights some of the wrongs we encountered in earlier stories — this is surely the ending that Zummurud deserved back on Night 326 — and it provides a fitting, feminist message to leave us with as our time with Shahrazad comes to an end.
Stray observations
- Abd Allah ibn Fadil’s brothers are crucified on Night 987. I had assumed this was a Roman thing, but I now learn that it is endorsed in Islam: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and spread mischief in the land is death, crucifixion,”
- “He showed the dervish a thigh that would shame both wine and cupbearer” — Night 965. I’m at a loss to explain what this means, but it seems as profound as “my ear outstripped my eye.”
- Night 968: “If I were not afraid of offending you, I would say that he was a thousand times more beautiful than you.” Amusing
- Night 971 — Sexual metaphor watch (1)
“… he spent the rest of the night embracing her, joining the preposition with what it governed by agreement, adding the connection to what was to be connected and leaving the husband and the elided ending of a word.” - Night 993 — Sexual metaphor watch (2)
“He got between her legs and set about the two tasks, exclaiming: ‘Father of the two veils!’ before priming the charge, lighting the fuse, adjusting the compass and then applying the fire. All four corners of the tower were demolished as the strange adventure, which none can question, took place…” This does not seem like a particularly pleasant experience for the woman in this tryst. - Sexual metaphor watch (miscategorisation):
“And she continued kissing and embracing him, wrapping her legs around his, until east lightened with the approach of dawn. At that, she put four knucklebones in his pocket before going off and leaving him.”
Now I assumed that the ‘four knuckle bones in his pocket’ was a circuitous way of suggesting that Halima had put her own hand in Qamar’s pocket, as a way of — ahem — reliving him. You know, a clenched fist means knucklebones are visible, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. But it turns out that the sentence is entirely literal. She puts four actual knuckle bones in his pocket as a cryptic message. - “There is no greater pimp than a husband who describes a man to his wife as both handsome and generous with his money.” Night 968
- “He entered the city on a procession splendid enough to cause the gall bladder of the envious to burst” Night 997
- Throughout the Arabian Nights there are pockets of poetry about certain themes. Night 998 presents a late anthology of poetry about drinking alcohol which I really enjoyed.
This is the only type of alchemy there is
And what is said of other types is false
One carat’s weight of wine in one qintar of grief
Is instantly transmuted into joy. - “Did I tell you to toast the bread or to burn it?” Love this idiom on Night 992, when Maruf’s pal berates him for going to far with their little con. The modern equivalent might be to “over-egg the pudding”.
- It’s great that the final story end with the now familiar refrain: “They continued to enjoy the most prosperous, pleasant and enjoyable of lives until they were visited by the destroyer of delights, the pattern of companions, the ravager of prosperous lands, who orphans children.” The lone and level sands stretch far away.