ARABIAN NIGHTS This story is about Sultan Shahriar and Sheherezade.

Sultan Shahriar had a beautiful wife and he loved her very much but he found her with another man so he cut off the mans head and her head. From that night the sultan began to hate all women and he married a new wife every day and cut her head off the next morning. The vizir had to find a new wife every night every day but no girl wanted to be the sultans wife for one night and then die. Fathers began to send their daughters away. The vizir had two daughters: Sheherezade who was very beautiful and very clever and Dunyazade. One day Sheherezade told her father that she wanted to marry the Sultan, but her father and sister didnt agree. Sheherezade told her sister she had a plan and asked her to sleep with her and to tell her a story every night. The Sultan liked Sheherezade and married her. Sheherezade told the Sultan the beginning of a story every night and continued it the following night, so she saved her life because the Sultan wanted to know the end of the story and finally they fell in love and lived happily ever after. The first night she told the Sultan the story Behind the Door. This story is about Salem who was very rich but lost his money very quickly, so he sat in the streets and waited for her. One day an old man spoke to him and took him to live and work with him and other 10 old men. The house was very beautiful inside but also a very unhappy place. The rooms were very big with floors of different colours and it had a beautiful garden full of flowers and birds. One day he saw the old men who wore black clothes and cried all day. Salem worked hard in the house for many years, the old men died and in the end there was only he and Salems friend who told him never to open the door in his room because he would be unhappy. The old man died and he left the house and the money to Salem. But one day Salem decided to open the door he found a dark cave and then he followed the path that took him to a the sea where a big bird took him to a beautiful beach. There he met a lovely woman in a lovely house. They got married and lived happily for a while. This house also had a door that he couldnt open. One day he opened the door and the same large bird took him back to his old house. He could never go back to his lovely wife. Now he knew why the old men were so unhappy. Then she told the Sultan other stories. Sultan Haroun Laughs The great Sultan Haroun couldnt sleep. One night he asked his vizir what he could do to make the nights shorter. The Sultan had a servant called Masrour who helped him night and day and who laughed because he remembered jokes Abdurrazak told. The Sultan asked his servant to bring Abdurrazak to make him laugh. Masrour found Abdurrazak and took him to the Sultan, but the servant asked the Abdurrazak to give him half his fee. When they went to Sultans home everybody laughed except the Sultan, so the Sultan asked Masrour to hit the

man 10 times. When Masrour hit him 5 times he asked him to stop and told the Sultan that Masrour asked him 50% of the fee so now he had to receive the 5 hits. The Sultan asked Masrour if he wanted the fee but he rejected it. When the hitting finished the Sultan gave Abdurrazak a 100 pieces of gold but Masrour took nothing. Now Haroun laughed. Faisal was a rich young man who lived in a large house with many servants but didnt have a wife and wasnt interested in love. One day he saw a beautiful and fell in love with her. He wanted to meet her but didnt know what to do. An old woman told him that her father wasnt at home on Fridays so Faisal prepared to go to see her. He went to the Barber to have his hair cut. The Barber asked him a lot of questions because he wanted to know where Faisal was going. As Faisal didnt tell him he followed him and saw when Faisal went into the Judges house. Sometime later the Judge arrived home and found his servant with his money so he Judge began to hit him. Outside the Barber heard the mans cries and thought the Judge was killing Faisal. The Barber started crying that Faisal loved the Judges daughter and went into the house to look for him. Faisal climbed into a box and the Barber took him downstairs. In the street Faisal wanted to get rid of the Barber who followed him saying that he wanted to help him. Shahriar liked this story very much and laughed a lot. The people were surprised at this and the following night Sheherezade began a new story. Ali had a cake shop in Baghdad. He wasnt rich but he was a good man who worked very hard and saved some pieces of gold in a jar. When Ali was 50 years old he went to see the world so he put some olives on the top of the jar and asked his friend Husein to look after the olives jar. One day Huseins wife wanted so olives and he opened the jar to take some, so he discovered the pieces of gold. He buried the gold in the garden and didnt tell his wife. Some days after Ali went back and asked Huseim for the olives jar. When he opened the jar he found it was full of olives so he asked Husein for his gold. Husein said he didnt know about any gold so they went to the judge. The judged asked for advice to a boy who gave some olives to an olive seller. This man said that these olives where not old but new, so the judge knew that Husein opened the jar, took the gold and replaced the olives. A man who sold fished invited a dwarf to dinner because he knew a lot of good stories. The dwarf ate too much and fell ill. The man thought the dwarf was ill and didnt want to go to prison so he took him to the doctors house. When the doctor found him he didnt want the people to think he was a bad doctor so he threw the dwarf to his neighbours garden. His neighbour did the same and took the judge to a rich mans house. When the rich man found the dwarf he started to kick him. The judge thought the rich man killed the dwarf and wanted to execute him. But the doctor, the fish seller told the truth and when

they hit the dwarf on the back he coughed and a big fish came out of his mouth. The dwarf was not dead! Kassim and Ali Baba were brothers. Kassim was rich, had a house and a beautiful garden but Ali was poor, he was a woodcutter. One day he wanted to cut wood so he took his two donkeys and went to a mountain. There he saw a group of 40 men and thought they were thieves so he climbed up a tree. From there he saw a thief who stood in front of the wall in the mountain and said Open Sesame and the wall opened. The thieves carried a lot of bags of gold into the cave. When the thieves left, Ali went into the cave and took his two donkeys full of gold. Alis wife was very happy. The next day she was happy and when she met Kassims wife, who was a gossip, asked her why she was very happy. Alis wife said they were going to be rich. Kassims wife told him who wanted to know. Ali finally told him. The next day Kassim went to the cave and he saw and heard the thieves. When the thieves went away Kassim went into the cave, but when he wanted to go out he couldnt because he forgot the magic words. When the thieves came back to the cave they found him, killed him and cut him in four pieces. As Kassim didnt go back home his family were worried, so Ali went back to the cave and found Kassim. He took him to the town and asked an old shoemaker who could not see very well to put the four pieces together, and then they buried Kassim. The 40 thieves were very angry and wanted to find who took Kassim out of the cave. The shoemaker told them about Ali. One of the thieves pretended to be oil sellers and they went to Alis house and hid in jars of oil, but his servant found this and killed them. Two thieves followed an old man in the street and robbed him his monkey. When old man realized one of the thieves pretended to be the donkey that turned into a man. He told the old man he was bad and hit his mother so his mother wished him to become a monkey and after some time his ears grew longer and his armed changed into legs. The old man gave the thief some money and went away. The following day he saw his donkey in the street and thought he had turned into a donkey again. He didnt want to buy him again because he was a bad son. Aladdin lived with his mother in a great city. They had little money. His father was dead and his mother made clothes for rich people. One day a man who said was his uncle asked him to go with him to pick up a dirty old lamp. When Aladdin found the lamp his uncle wanted to take it. But this man wasnt his uncle. He was a magician. When Aladdin moved his arms over the lamp a genie appeared. Aladdin asked him for a lot of things and the genie gave him gold and a big house. Then he married the Sultans daughter. Sometime later the magician came back and took Aladdins lamp together with his house and wife. When Aladdin came back he couldnt find his house and wife so he travelled a long way until he found them. The magician wanted to marry Aladdins wife so they planned to put something to put him to sleep that night.

When the magician was asleep Aladdin took the lamp and asked the genie to go back to his city. They lived together with the lamp. So Sheherezade won the Sultans love with her stories. She loved him too, and they were very happy.