One Thousand and One Nights

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  “Pity me, a poor mule

  Parched by the midday sun,

  The salt of sweat on my tongue,

  I assess the distance from my lowly bench

  To this magnificent home.

  Oh, how I envy those living there,

  The comfort and contentment they share.

  My life’s one of hardship day after day.

  We were both conceived from a drop of sperm,

  Yet our lives so disparate, as I had to learn,

  How I yearn to be in his place,

  Though he, I know, doesn’t see my face.”

  When I had finished my song, I shut my eyes and dozed off for a few moments, enjoying a momentary state of bliss before returning to my life of hardship. I awoke to find a very well-dressed young slave standing over me.

  He took my hand, saying, “My master invites you in, for he would like to have a word with you.”

  My first reaction was naturally to refuse, because I knew how ill at ease I would feel inside this piece of Paradise. But I left my load with the gatekeeper and allowed myself to be led inside. There I saw dignified, important men sitting at an amazing banquet table laden with food and wine, while in the background slave girls played the most beautiful music. I was at a loss, for my eyes, ears and nose were totally overwhelmed by what I saw, heard and smelled. But then I gathered myself and remembered my manners, bowing my head to the man at the head of the table, whom I assumed was the master of the house—or rather palace, for it was fit for a sultan or a prince.

  He indicated an empty space next to him, and I took my seat and thanked him for his invitation. He smiled and welcomed me, asking me about my name and occupation. So I told him that my name was Sindbad and I was a porter who carried people’s goods on my head for a fee.

  “You and I have the same name, porter. I am Sindbad the sailor and I heard you singing as I was feeding my gazelles in the garden.”

  I apologised for my song, which revealed poor breeding and jealous envy, but he simply smiled once more.

  “On the contrary, my friend! I enjoyed it very much. Now, why don’t you help yourself and eat something.”

  And I found myself eating as never before, the food was so delicious …

  * * *

  The porter paused, eyeing the mistress of the house. “Not as delicious as your food, my three generous, respected ladies,” he said, and then continued with his tale.

  When I had finished eating, Sindbad the sailor leaned towards me and told me how my songs had transported him back to the poverty of his youth, when he had despaired at his family’s plight, and his mother would say, “A dog alive is better than a dead lion.”

  He described to me how he and his mother would gather wool left on rocks and stones by the river by wool washers, which his mother would weave into prayer rugs. When he had ten carpets in his hand he boarded a ship and sailed away to trade with other merchants.

  For, let me tell you, my Caliph, my Vizier, my poet, my three dervishes and my respected ladies: Sindbad described to me in great detail the seven journeys he undertook. So mesmerised was I that I would have stayed in my seat, listening to him for as long as seven years rather than seven days, which is how long I in fact remained. Each day he would tell me the story of one journey, each more amazing than the previous one. It is impossible to describe how extraordinary these stories were: at times I was so terrified that I nearly shat myself, as Sindbad encountered strange creatures, animals and horrible people alike; then I would find myself on the verge of tears as he outlined his despair, the great labour and hardship he’d undertaken; then my eyes would shine as he described his great good luck in trading wares. I would sigh with happiness and contentment as he described each return to Baghdad, back to his home to be secure among family and friends, swearing never to set foot on a ship again. But then, time and time again, he would answer the call of the sea, exhilarated once more at the prospect of travel, of new encounters with merchants, other races of people and different parts of the world, allowing himself to forget that on his previous voyage he had been nearly eaten alive by the angel of death, before being spat out into life once more.

  Abu Nuwas interrupted the porter. “Let us hope, Sindbad the porter, that you don’t force us to listen to your story for seven hours!”

  The porter smiled.

  To tell you the truth, I have forgotten much of the detail, but not how he was nearly eaten by a whale. He and all the other passengers of a ship had rowed ashore to a beautiful wooded island strewn with beautiful shells. They decided to light a fire and to roast a whole lamb. But as soon as they gathered wood and lit it, the island began to shake and roar and the captain shouted out in terror that this was no island, but rather a lazy whale which had stayed still for so long that moss and trees had grown over its skin. Scorched by the fire, the whale went on a rampage, flipping his tail and creating a huge wave which destroyed the ship and washed the passengers off his back, whereupon some were swallowed and others crushed. In the blink of an eye, Sindbad found himself in the middle of the churning sea. He managed to climb upon a floating wooden beam and lash himself to it, pushing his two arms and kicking his two legs, until, exhausted, he drifted on through the currents until he came close to land, and was spotted by farmers who had climbed high into trees to collect black peppers. They used their small wooden felucca to rescue him, giving him food and shelter. He told them about the whale they had mistaken for an island and the farmers were amazed, and presented him to their King, who welcomed him and enjoyed listening to his adventures.

  Sindbad asked how often ships visited this city, bound for Baghdad, but no one seemed able to give him a clear answer, and he sensed that although the city was by the sea, the inhabitants were in some way isolated. Then, to pass the days while he waited for a ship, he taught them how to trade their goods with one another.

  He also noted that everyone, old and young, high and low—even the King—rode very good horses, bareback. It occurred to Sindbad that he might introduce the people to saddles, and when he was invited to dine with the King, he remarked that a saddle made riding more comfortable and allowed the rider to exert greater control over his steed. The King was perplexed and asked what was this thing called a saddle?

  So Sindbad asked the King’s permission to make him a saddle and the King graciously acquiesced.

  Sindbad acquired the best possible wood, found a carpenter and sat with him, showing him how to fashion a saddle. Next he took wool and made it into felt to place over the wooden frame and then covered the saddle with leather and attached the stirrups and reins. When the saddle was finished Sindbad went to the palace. He chose the best of the King’s horses, a stallion, saddled it and then presented it to the King.

  The King mounted the horse and was filled with admiration and delight. He called for his Vizier, who tried it, and then all the state officials tried it after him, and everyone was greatly impressed and adopted this invention. In no time Sindbad and the carpenter began to manufacture saddles for all the people of the city, making a great deal of money and a name for himself.

  Soon, the King decided that Sindbad should marry, and found him a bride from the best family in his kingdom. Sindbad tried to explain to the King that he wished to return to Baghdad when the first ship appeared. But the King insisted that Sindbad marry, saying that he shouldn’t be living without a woman, and that he had found him the best bride. Sindbad was embarrassed, but he remained silent and obeyed the King, and found himself fortunate enough to be married to a beautiful, rich and distinguished lady. He told himself that as soon as a boat arrived he would leave for Baghdad, taking his wife along with him. Over the days and months, Sindbad fell deeply in love with his wife and they both lived comfortably on what the King and her family provided for them.

  But fate didn’t allow Sindbad to continue in this state of bliss. His wife fell ill and died. He wept and mourned her, and wept again at her beauty as professional washers washed her body. To his surpr
ise they dressed her in her wedding dress, which was studded with glittering diamonds, and they put on her every item of jewellery she owned before they placed her in a coffin.

  The people of the city rushed to console Sindbad, even the King, who was so overcome with emotion that he wept as he embraced Sindbad strongly.

  “We shall meet in heaven, farewell, my good friend,” he said.

  Meet in heaven? Sindbad didn’t understand what the King meant. Did he wish for him to leave his country?

  The coffin of his wife was borne out of the city, with the cortège following, while the King took Sindbad in his carriage, pulled by four horses. When they reached a mountain overlooking the sea, a number of men lifted a huge stone on its side, opened the coffin and to Sindbad’s horror they threw his wife’s body in the hole left by the stone. Then they came towards Sindbad, who was standing weeping for his wife with the King’s hand on his shoulder. One of the men went to tie a rope around Sindbad’s waist.

  “And for what reason are you doing that?” Sindbad asked, perplexed.

  Another man came forward, holding a large jug of drinking water and seven loaves of bread.

  “Didn’t you know? You won’t be separated from your dead wife, because you’ll be buried alive with her in the same grave.”

  Poor fellow! Sindbad felt as though his heart had been wrenched from his chest.

  He pleaded with the King. “Surely what I have heard cannot be true, Your Majesty?”

  But the King squeezed Sindbad’s shoulder, saying, “It is true unfortunately.”

  At these words Sindbad was astonished and terrified, more so even than when he’d faced being swallowed alive by a whale.

  “King of the Age, since I am a foreigner and the customs of my people are different from yours, will you save me, as your people have done once already, so that I might return to my country and be with my family and relatives?”

  “This tradition has been handed down from our ancestors for thousands of years, so that neither partner could enjoy life after the death of the other. I am afraid that these customs are sacred and they cannot be broken, even for the King.”

  Then he embraced our poor man and left. Sindbad told me that his gall bladder almost shattered like a broken mirror at these words. He was seized as he tried to run after the King, screaming, “But I am a foreigner, I have nothing to do with your customs.”

  He was knocked to the ground and tied to a rope, fighting and kicking all the while. The men attached the jug of water and the seven loaves of bread to his waist and lowered him down into the hole, which opened out into an enormous cave beneath the mountain. He screamed as they replaced the huge stone over the opening and the cave was plunged into total darkness.

  Sindbad released himself from the rope and picked his way among the bones and corpses in the darkness of the cave, promising himself that he would not die this terrible death. He didn’t touch the bread or the water until he became famished and violently thirsty.

  Making his way through the pitch-black darkness, broken only by the glittering of precious stones and diamonds adorning the bodies of dead wives, Sindbad searched for a way to escape, but to his horror and despair he found nothing but bones and rotten flesh and glittering jewellery in the foul, stinking grave.

  Soon, his provisions were down to a few mouthfuls of bread and a few sips of water. He lay down and closed his eyes, imagining himself dying on top of a mountain or drowning at sea. Suddenly he heard a tremendous sound and the cave was flooded with light. He saw the corpse of a man being thrown down, and then a woman was lowered down just as he had been. As soon as the big stone was replaced over the opening, Sindbad pounced on the woman and struck her head with a stone, killing her.

  Then he knelt and asked for God’s forgiveness, explaining to the Almighty that he had committed this bad deed because he needed to be with his family, whereas this widow’s family had sent her to her death willingly if not gladly. He took the dead woman’s water and the seven loaves of bread.

  After this, he found himself killing many more women and men who were buried alive with their dead partners, surviving he did not know for how long, since he had lost all sense of the days and nights.

  There came a time when he despaired of ever escaping this hell, and he prayed once more to God, asking the Almighty to do with him whatever he wished. But as he murmured these words, he heard a faint noise coming from one corner of the cave. Sindbad grabbed the jawbone of a dead man and followed the sound until he saw a tiny ray of light. He hurried towards it and found a small opening in the wall, beyond which was a tunnel dug by wild beasts, so that they could sneak in, eat human flesh and escape.

  Sindbad wept silently and thanked God for letting him hear that noise. He squeezed himself into the tunnel, using the jawbone to clear his path, until he heard the sea and came out by the shore. He cheered and jumped into the air. Life was beautiful once more! But then he reflected that so too were wealth and prosperity. He rushed back into the cave, collected the jewels of the dead women, put them in a bundle and dressed in several layers of the clothing of the dead men. Then he made his escape through the tunnel once more.

  He waited patiently and happily by the sea for days and then weeks, drinking from the salty water and eating what little he found in the sea, seaweed and tiny fish, until one morning he saw a passing ship.

  Sindbad cried for joy, and tied a white robe on a stick and ran along the shore with it. Eventually one of the crew spotted him, and the captain sent one of his crew out with a small boat.

  When he was taken aboard the ship, the astonished captain told him that he had been sailing for forty years, and that this was the first time he’d ever seen a human being alive on the shores below that mountain.

  Sindbad said simply that he was a merchant whose ship had gone down in a storm, and that he’d lashed himself to a plank with some of his belongings, and after a great struggle he had finally reached the shore. He was careful not to reveal what had really happened, lest one of the crew was from that city.

  Then he offered the captain and crew some of the jewels in return for their help, for they had rescued him from that terrifying, deadly mountain. But the honourable captain refused to take anything, saying that he and his crew would save any man from the sea, and give them food, water, shelter and clothes. They would even, he told Sindbad, give them a present before they disembarked their ship. These were acts of generosity which reflected the most generous actions of God.

  When the ship finally reached Basra, the captain gave Sindbad a seashell, explaining that if he held it to his ear he would hear the roar of the waves and the crashing of the sea.

  The porter paused.

  “Sindbad put the shell to my ear and, oh, what joy! I heard even the mermaids singing to each other,” he said, and then fell silent in reverie.

  “And now tell us, porter,” said Abu Nuwas. “Sorry, I meant to say Sindbad the porter. Do you still visit Sindbad the sailor?”

  “Yes, I do, often. But let me assure all of you that next time I visit, I shall be able to say to him, for the very first time, ‘Sindbad the sailor, give me a break! Let Sindbad the porter recount to you his own adventures, which began in the market itself, when a beautiful lady asked me to carry her purchases.’

  “And I shall not stop until I have explained to him that in just one night I visited Basra, China, India and Persia—all without a ship!”

  The Resolution of the Porter and the Three Ladies

  orter, you’re such a good storyteller!” said Haroun al-Rashid, when the porter had returned to his seat. “And now your Caliph will surprise you with another story.”

  Once, as I was taking a stroll in my garden early in the morning, I overheard a Bedouin yelling at my guards, insisting that he needed to see me immediately. The guards were explaining to him that it was still early and that he should come back at a certain hour. I found myself hurrying to my audience chamber and ordering the guards to bring the man in. Why? Because
of the urgency in the man’s voice, and the agonised way that he sighed as he spoke.

  As I had foreseen, the man, who was brought in barefoot, said, beseechingly, “Prince of the Faithful! Please, grant me justice against an oppressor, who robbed me of Su’ad.”

  I asked him who was Su’ad and who had taken her.

  “Su’ad is my heart, she is my wife, and the robber is none other than your Governor, Hisham bin Marwan.”

  Then, as though the words were being wrenched out of him, he described “the burning coal which shoots sparks in my heart.” Yes, this was how the Bedouin expressed his pain. He described how his father-in-law had taken his daughter away when the famous drought killed all of the Bedouin’s beasts, camels and horses, leaving them starving. The Bedouin had gone to the Governor and pleaded with him to interfere on his behalf and force his father-in-law to return his wife. The Governor sent for his father-in-law and asked him why he had removed his daughter. But the father-in-law insisted that he had never set his eyes on this Bedouin before.

  So the man pleaded with the Governor to summon his wife so she could refute what her father had said. But when Su’ad entered the court, the Governor was so overwhelmed by her beauty that he dismissed the Bedouin’s case, and sent him to prison.

  A few days later he was brought before the Governor, who sneered at him like an angry tiger and ordered him to divorce his wife. When the Bedouin challenged the Governor, saying that he would never divorce his wife, the Governor ordered his servants to torture him until he couldn’t take it any more. Eventually he agreed to divorce his wife. He was locked up again until the compulsory period during which a woman must wait before remarrying was over. Then the Governor married her, after giving her father a dowry of thousands of dinars.

  When I heard this story I was enraged. I wrote to Hisham bin Marwan, telling him that he had abused his position with his wicked and wrongful behaviour. I ordered him to divorce the woman immediately, which he did as soon as my messenger reached him, but he sent a letter back begging my forgiveness. He sought to explain how he had fallen in love when he was confronted by a beauty which had no match among Almighty God’s creations.