The Origin of Arabian Nights

According to legend, there was a Sasan kingdom between ancient India and China. King Ruyal was cruel and jealous, so he killed the queen because of her bad behavior. After that, he married a girl every day and killed her the next morning as revenge.

Scheherazade, the daughter of the Prime Minister, volunteered to marry the king to save the innocent woman and attract the king by telling stories. Every night, at dawn, the king couldn't bear to kill her and allowed her to continue talking the next night. Her story has been told for 1001 nights, and the king was finally moved to grow old with her.

The social background described in the extended material "Arabian Nights" (hereinafter referred to as "Night") is mainly the heyday of the historical development of Arab Islam. Feudal rulers, characterized by centralized system, changed their power consciousness from the "deliberative system" initiated in the era of Cheng Sheng to the totalitarian autocratic rule, which was decided by the supreme leader of the empire, and formed a social and political system with power as the core.

Since its establishment, Islam has highlighted the exemplary role of leaders and maintained social order with the power of example. Islamic society should advocate the great personality and historical role of Mu Sheng and orthodox caliph, and think that wise leaders are ideal models for leading countries and nations.

In the early days of Abbasid dynasty, the imperial regime with a unified central government emphasized the supreme position of the backbone leader (caliph) in governing the country and managing the people.

Therefore, people's expectations of how the rulers use their power can only be passive, that is, they hope that the rulers "themselves" can take the initiative to govern, enforce the law fairly and become "models." This is actually a kind of helplessness in begging for gifts, and there is no constraint and supervision on power.

The night begins with "reasoning" to convince the tyrant Shanruyar to treat women fairly, and ends with the king's confession and apology. For example, the last chapter of Night describes the prince's words: Scheherazade, I forgave you long before these children were born. Because I have seen your chastity and innocence, and your feelings are sincere.

God bless you, your parents, your ancestors and relatives. I swear to God, I have forgiven all your injuries. In essence, these remorseful words are the king's reflection on his tyrannical behavior of abusing power and hurting innocent people, and also reflect the people's expectation for a wise king. ?

In a word, power and politics are twin brothers, and they are inseparable, so some scholars call power view political view. An important theme of "Arabian Nights" is to promote the power view of "persuading the monarch to be good" through the spread of the story.

This paper describes the basic power characteristics of the feudal social and political structure represented by the "king" and the people's thoughts and demands on the ruler's "power", in which the basic thoughts throughout are to demand "justice" and "equality".

Most of the stories in Night are about rulers. There are four names for kings: king, sultan, caliph and ruler, and there are a lot of descriptions about the cultivation and behavior of kings. The concept of power expounded in this paper is actually based on a political standard culture, which is limited to social and political values and related moral and ethical values, that is, the so-called "rule by the people and benevolent government."

Arabian Nights is the product of multi-ethnic cultural integration bred on the fertile soil of Arab culture. This literary masterpiece brings together myths, legends and fables of all ethnic groups in the ancient Near East, Asia and other regions. The plot is mysterious, fantastic, beautiful and moving, which touches the hearts of readers all over the world and glows with enduring charm.

The characters in the book are various, forming a vast historical picture, which vividly reproduces the social outlook and customs of Arab countries and neighboring countries during the Jin Dynasty. This collection of folk stories vividly depicts a complicated picture of the social life of the little Arab Empire with its bizarre and changeable themes, free and easy artistic techniques and unpredictable owner colors.