Editing One Thousand and One Nights (section)

==Synopsis==
{{See also|List of stories within One Thousand and One Nights|List of One Thousand and One Nights characters}}
[[File:Ferdinand Keller - Scheherazade und Sultan Schariar (1880).jpg|thumb|Scheherazade and Shahryar by [[Ferdinand Keller (painter)|Ferdinand Keller]], 1880]]
The main [[frame story]] concerns Shahryār, a king who ruled an empire that stretched from Persia to India.<ref>''The Arabian Nights'', translated by Malcolm C. Lyons and Ursula Lyons (Penguin Classics, 2008), vol. 1, p. 1</ref> Shahryār is shocked to learn that his brother's wife is unfaithful. Discovering that his own wife's infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of [[virgin]]s only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to dishonor him.

Eventually the [[Vizier]] (Wazir), whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. [[Scheherazade]], the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins another one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of that tale as well, postpones her execution once again. This goes on for one thousand and one nights, hence the name.
[[File:Fisherman 2.jpg|thumb|1898 illustration of ''[[The Fisherman and the Jinni]]'' by [[René Bull]]]]
The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, [[Burlesque (literature)|burlesques]], and various forms of [[erotica]]. Numerous stories depict [[jinn]], [[ghoul]]s, ape people, [[Sorcerer (fantasy)|sorcerers]], [[Magician (fantasy)|magicians]], and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. Common [[protagonist]]s include the historical [[Abbasid caliph]] [[Harun al-Rashid]], his [[Grand Vizier]], [[Ja'far ibn Yahya|Jafar al-Barmaki]], and the famous poet [[Abu Nuwas]], despite the fact that these figures lived some 200 years after the fall of the [[Sassanid Empire]], in which the frame tale of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of their own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.

Versions differ, at least in detail, as to final endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife, in some other things happen that make the king distracted) but they all end with the king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life.

The narrator's standards for what constitutes a [[cliffhanger]] seem broader than in modern literature. While in many cases a story is cut off with the hero in danger of losing their life or another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the full text Scheherazade stops her narration in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or complex points of [[Islamic philosophy]], and in one case during a detailed description of [[Medicine in medieval Islam#Human anatomy and physiology|human anatomy]] according to [[Galen]]—and in all of these cases she turns out to be justified in her belief that the king's curiosity about the sequel would buy her another day of life.

A number of [[Story within a story|stories within]] the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' also feature [[science fiction]] elements. One example is "The Adventures of Bulukiya", where the protagonist Bulukiya's quest for the [[Elixir of life|herb of immortality]] leads him to explore the seas, journey to the [[Garden of Eden]] and to [[Jahannam]], and travel across the [[cosmos]] to different worlds much larger than his own world, anticipating elements of [[Galaxy|galactic]] science fiction;<ref name=Irwin>{{cite book |title=The Arabian Nights: A Companion|first=Robert|last=Irwin|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris|Tauris Parke Paperbacks]]|year=2003|isbn=1-86064-983-1|page=209}}</ref> along the way, he encounters societies of [[jinn]]s,<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights: A Companion|first=Robert|last=Irwin|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris|Tauris Parke Paperbacks]]|year=2003|isbn=1-86064-983-1|page=204}}</ref> [[mermaid]]s, talking [[Serpent (symbolism)|serpents]], talking [[tree]]s, and other forms of life.<ref name=Irwin/> In another ''Arabian Nights'' tale, the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater and discovers an underwater [[submarine]] society that is portrayed as an inverted reflection of society on land, in that the underwater society follows a form of [[primitive communism]] where concepts like money and clothing do not exist. Other ''Arabian Nights'' tales deal with lost ancient technologies, advanced ancient civilizations that went astray, and catastrophes which overwhelmed them.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights: A Companion|first=Robert|last=Irwin|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris|Tauris Parke Paperbacks]]|year=2003|isbn=1-86064-983-1|pages=211–212}}</ref> "The City of Brass" features a group of travellers on an [[archaeological]] expedition<ref name="Hamori 1971 p.9">{{cite journal |title=An Allegory from the Arabian Nights: The City of Brass|first=Andras|last=Hamori|journal=[[Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies]]|volume=34|issue=1|year=1971|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=9–19 [9]|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00141540 |s2cid=161610007 }}</ref> across the [[Sahara]] to find an ancient lost city and attempt to recover a brass vessel that [[Solomon]] once used to trap a [[jinn]],{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=148–149, 217–219}} and, along the way, encounter a [[mummified]] queen, [[petrified]] inhabitants,<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights: A Companion|first=Robert|last=Irwin|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris|Tauris Parke Paperbacks]]|year=2003|isbn=1-86064-983-1|page=213}}</ref> life-like [[humanoid robot]]s and [[automata]], seductive [[marionette]]s dancing without strings,<ref name="Hamori 1971 pp.12–13">{{cite journal|title=An Allegory from the Arabian Nights: The City of Brass|first=Andras|last=Hamori|journal=[[School of Oriental and African Studies|Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies]]|volume=34|issue=1|year=1971|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=9–19 [12–13]|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00141540 |s2cid=161610007 }}</ref> and a brass horseman [[robot]] who directs the party towards the ancient city. "The Ebony Horse" features a robot{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=10–11}} in the form of a flying mechanical horse controlled using keys that could fly into outer space and towards the Sun,<ref>{{cite book|title=One Thousand and One Arabian Nights|last=Geraldine McCaughrean|first=Rosamund Fowler|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=1999|isbn=0-19-275013-5|pages=247–251}}</ref> while the "Third Qalandar's Tale" also features a robot in the form of an uncanny [[Sailor|boatman]].{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=10–11}} "The City of Brass" and "The Ebony Horse" can be considered early examples of proto-science fiction.<ref>[http://www.islamscifi.com/?Academic_Literature Academic Literature] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170630231017/http://www.islamscifi.com/?Academic_Literature |date=2017-06-30 }}, Islam and Science Fiction</ref>