Editing One Thousand and One Nights (section)

=== Genre elements ===
{{Anchor|Crime fiction elements}}

====Crime fiction====
[[File:Godefroy Durand - Morgiane.jpg|thumb|Illustration depicting [[Morgiana (character)|Morgiana]] and the thieves from ''[[Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves]]'']]
An example of the [[murder mystery]]<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Reader|first=Ulrich|last=Marzolph|publisher=[[Wayne State University Press]]|year=2006|isbn=0-8143-3259-5|pages=240–242}}</ref> and [[Thriller (genre)|suspense thriller]] genres in the collection, with multiple [[plot twist]]s{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=93,95,97}} and [[detective fiction]] elements{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=91,93}} was "[[The Three Apples]]", also known as ''Hikayat al-sabiyya 'l-maqtula'' ('The Tale of the Murdered Young Woman').<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Reader|first=Ulrich|last=Marzolph|publisher=[[Wayne State University Press]]|year=2006|isbn=0-8143-3259-5|page=240}}</ref>

In this tale, [[Harun al-Rashid]] comes to possess a chest, which, when opened, contains the body of a young woman. Harun gives his vizier, [[Ja'far ibn Yahya|Ja'far]], three days to find the culprit or be executed. At the end of three days, when Ja'far is about to be executed for his failure, two men come forward, both claiming to be the murderer. As they tell their story it transpires that, although the younger of them, the woman's husband, was responsible for her death, some of the blame attaches to a slave, who had taken one of the apples mentioned in the title and caused the woman's murder.

Harun then gives Ja'far three more days to find the guilty slave. When he yet again fails to find the culprit, and bids his family goodbye before his execution, he discovers by chance his daughter has the apple, which she obtained from Ja'far's own slave, Rayhan. Thus the mystery is solved.

Another ''Nights'' tale with [[crime fiction]] elements was "The Hunchback's Tale" story cycle which, unlike "The Three Apples", was more of a [[suspense]]ful [[comedy]] and [[courtroom drama]] rather than a murder mystery or detective fiction. The story is set in a fictional China and begins with a hunchback, the emperor's favourite [[comedian]], being invited to dinner by a [[tailor]] couple. The hunchback accidentally chokes on his food from laughing too hard and the couple, fearful that the emperor will be furious, take his body to a [[Medicine in medieval Islam|Jewish doctor]]'s [[Bimaristan|clinic]] and leave him there. This leads to the next tale in the cycle, the "Tale of the Jewish Doctor", where the doctor accidentally trips over the hunchback's body, falls down the stairs with him, and finds him dead, leading him to believe that the fall had killed him. The doctor then dumps his body down a chimney, and this leads to yet another tale in the cycle, which continues with twelve tales in total, leading to all the people involved in this incident finding themselves in a [[courtroom]], all making different claims over how the hunchback had died.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia|last=Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen|first=Hassan Wassouf|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|year=2004|isbn=1-57607-204-5|pages=2–4}}</ref> Crime fiction elements are also present near the end of "The Tale of Attaf" (see [[#Foreshadowing|Foreshadowing]] above).

{{Anchor|Horror fiction elements}}

==== Horror fiction ====
[[Haunting]] is used as a [[plot device]] in [[gothic fiction]] and [[horror fiction]], as well as modern [[paranormal fiction]]. Legends about [[haunted house]]s have long appeared in literature. In particular, the ''Arabian Nights'' tale of "Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad" revolves around a house haunted by [[jinn]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West|last=Yuriko Yamanaka|first=Tetsuo Nishio|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]]|year=2006|isbn=1-85043-768-8|page=83}}</ref> The ''Nights'' is almost certainly the earliest surviving literature that mentions [[ghoul]]s, and many of the stories in that collection involve or reference ghouls. A prime example is the story ''The History of Gherib and His Brother Agib'' (from ''Nights'' vol. 6), in which Gherib, an outcast prince, fights off a family of ravenous Ghouls and then enslaves them and converts them to [[Islam]].<ref>{{cite web|title=''The Story of Gherib and his Brother Agib''|work=Thousand Nights and One Night|author=Al-Hakawati|access-date=October 2, 2008|url=http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Stories_Tales/laila170.asp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081221142538/http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Stories_Tales/laila170.asp|archive-date=December 21, 2008|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Horror fiction elements are also found in "The City of Brass" tale, which revolves around a [[ghost town]].<ref name=Hamori>{{cite journal|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00141540|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 [10]|s2cid=161610007}} The hero of the tale is an historical person, [[Musa bin Nusayr]].</ref>

The horrific nature of [[Scheherazade]]'s situation is magnified in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Misery (novel)|Misery]]'', in which the protagonist is forced to write a novel to keep his captor from torturing and killing him. The influence of the ''Nights'' on modern horror fiction is certainly discernible in the work of [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. As a child, he was fascinated by the adventures recounted in the book, and he attributes some of his creations to his love of the ''1001 Nights''.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind Lovecraft's Legend |author=Daniel Harms |author2=John Wisdom Gonce III |publisher=Weiser|year=2003|isbn=978-1-57863-269-5|pages=87–90}}</ref>

{{Anchor|Fantasy and science fiction elements}}

==== Fantasy and science fiction ====
[[File:More tales from the Arabian nights-14566176968.jpg|thumb|An illustration of the ''story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou'', ''More tales from the Arabian nights'' by Willy Pogany (1915)]]

Several stories within the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' feature early [[science fiction]] elements. One example is "The Adventures of Bulukiya", in which the [[protagonist]] Bulukiya's quest for the [[Elixir of life|herb of immortality]] leads him to explore the seas, journey to [[Paradise]] and to [[Hell]], and travel across the [[cosmos]] to different worlds much larger than his own world, anticipating elements of [[Galaxy|galactic]] science fiction;{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=209}} along the way, he encounters societies of [[jinn]],{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=204}} [[mermaid]]s, talking [[Serpent (symbolism)|serpents]], talking trees, and other forms of life.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=209}} In "[[Abu al-Husn and His Slave-Girl Tawaddud]]", the heroine Tawaddud gives an impromptu [[lecture]] on the mansions of the [[Moon]], and the benevolent and sinister aspects of the planets.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=190}}

In another ''1001 Nights'' tale, "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman", the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater and discovers an underwater 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 also depict [[Amazons|Amazon]] societies dominated by women, lost ancient technologies, advanced ancient civilizations that went astray, and catastrophes which overwhelmed them.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=211–212}}

"The City of Brass" features a group of travellers on an [[archaeological]] expedition<ref name="Hamori 1971 p.9" /> across the [[Sahara]] to find an ancient lost city and attempt to recover a brass vessel that [[Solomon]] once used to trap a [[jinni]],{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=148–149, 217–219}} and, along the way, encounter a [[mummified]] queen, [[petrified]] inhabitants,{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=213}} lifelike [[humanoid robot]]s and [[automata]], seductive [[marionette]]s dancing without strings,<ref name="Hamori 1971 pp.12–13" /> and a brass horseman [[robot]] who directs the party towards the ancient city,{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=10–11}} which has now become a [[ghost town]].<ref name=Hamori/> The "Third Qalandar's Tale" also features a robot in the form of an uncanny [[Sailor|boatman]].{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=10–11}}