Middle East
Explore tales associated with Middle Eastern storytelling, including selections from the Arabian Nights. Their narrators, settings and publication routes cross regions and languages. The source note identifies the version followed rather than assigning a story’s entire history to one place.
16 stories are in this region right now.
See also: Turkey.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
The Barber’s Tale of His Sixth Brother
Schacabac plays along with a Barmecide's invisible feast, earns a real one and twenty years' favour—then loses all when his patron dies.
Arabian Nights
Scheherazade and the Sultan
To end the Sultan's deadly weddings, the vizier's daughter Scheherazade volunteers as his bride, with a plan that depends on one story.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
The Seven Voyages of Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage
Sinbad’s crew breaks a roc egg and pays with a wreck; washed ashore, he frees himself from the Old Man of the Sea, then harvests nuts via angry monkeys.
Arabian Nights
The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad: Escape from the Cannibals
Sinbad escapes man-eating islanders, introduces riding equipment at a royal court, and survives a burial cave through desperate violence before an animal shows him an exit.
Arabian Nights
The Enchanted Horse
A flying wooden horse carries a Persian prince to the Princess of Bengal, and when its vengeful owner steals her away, a clever trick wins her back.
Arabian Nights
The Tale of Prince Agib
Wrecked by the Magnetic Mountain, Prince Agib finds ten one-eyed hosts and a castle of princesses, then opens the one door he was told to leave shut.
Arabian Nights
Prince Camaralzaman and Princess Badoura
A fairy and a genie bring two sleeping royals together for one night, and a long search, a stolen charm and a princess disguised as a king unite them.
Arabian Nights
Sinbad the Sailor: The Third Voyage
Sinbad survives a ship seizure, a man-eating giant and a huge serpent before a familiar captain restores cargo from an earlier voyage.
Arabian Nights
Ages 6-8
Sinbad the Sailor: The Second Voyage
Left behind on a desert isle, Sinbad ties himself to a roc, then escapes a serpent-filled diamond valley by strapping meat—and himself—for an eagle.
Arabian Nights
The Tale of the Merchant and the Genie
A genie accuses a merchant of killing his son with a thrown date-stone; three travellers’ stories gradually win the merchant’s release.
Arabian Nights
Ages 6-8
Sinbad the Sailor: The First Voyage
Sinbad lands on a green "island" that is a whale's back, survives alone, and later reclaims his cargo from a captain who thought him drowned.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
The Fisherman and the Genie
A poor fisherman tricks a furious genie back into his jar, and the four coloured fish he wins lead a curious Sultan to a palace of black marble.