Middle East
Stories from Middle Eastern and Arabian traditions.
Arabian Nights
The Tale of Prince Agib
The Third Kalandar's Tale from the Arabian Nights: Prince Agib survives a ship-eating magnetic mountain, a brazen horseman and a boatman of brass, only to lose an eye to the one forbidden golden door he was begged to leave shut.
Arabian Nights
Prince Camaralzaman and Princess Badoura
The Arabian Nights romance of Qamar al-Zaman and Budur: a fairy and an ifrit wager over two sleeping royals, kindling a dream-love that survives oceans, a stolen carnelian talisman, and a princess who rules a kingdom disguised as a king.
Arabian Nights
The Story of the Three Apples
The Story of the Three Apples: In the golden city of Baghdad, during the reign of the great Caliph Harun al-Rashid, a mystery unfolded that would test the
Arabian Nights
Sinbad the Sailor: The Third Voyage
The darkest of Sinbad's seven voyages: a storm strands the merchants on the Mountain of the Apes, a man-eating giant pens them in his house, and Sinbad must blind the monster and outwit a giant serpent to win his way home — the Arabian Nights' famous Polyphemus tale.
Arabian Nights
Sinbad the Sailor: The Second Voyage
The voyage of the Roc and the Valley of Diamonds. Marooned on a deserted island, Sinbad ties himself to a giant bird, survives a ravine of serpents and gem-strewn rock, and rides a slab of meat back to freedom and fortune.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
The Tale of the Merchant and the Genie
The first tale Shahrazad ever tells: a merchant condemned to die for an accidental killing is ransomed from a demon's wrath by three strangers who pay with nothing but wondrous stories.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
Sinbad the Sailor – The First Voyage
Sinbad the Sailor - The First Voyage: In the ancient city of Baghdad, where palaces rose like mountains and the markets overflowed with the riches of the known
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
The Fisherman and the Genie
A poor old fisherman draws a sealed copper jar from the sea and frees a furious ifrit who vows to kill him - then must use his wits alone to survive. A classic tale of the Thousand and One Nights, retold with full scholarly attribution.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The world-famous orphan tale of the Thousand and One Nights: a poor woodcutter, the magic words Open Sesame, forty robbers, and the quick-witted servant Morgiana who outwits them all.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
A scholarly retelling of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, the famous orphan tale of the Arabian Nights told to Antoine Galland in 1709 by Hanna Diyab of Aleppo, and the story of how a poor, idle boy grows worthy of the power he finds.
Arabian Nights
All Ages
The Story of the Slave Kafur
An enslaved boy in the Arabian Nights tells one lie a year. The year his lie convinces a whole household their master is dead, and the master that his household is dead, a city is thrown into mourning over corpses that never existed - a comic, unsettling parable on the runaway speed of a falsehood.
Arabian Nights
All Ages
The Story of Ghanim ibn Ayyub, the Slave of Love
Locked out of Baghdad at nightfall, the young Damascus merchant Ghanim finds a living woman sealed in a chest among the tombs - and loves her so honourably he will not touch her. One of the great romances of the Arabian Nights.