Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds! Greetings and blessings to the lord of the messengers, our lord and master Muhammad! May Allah bless him and welcome him with blessings and greetings eternal, lasting until the Day of Judgment!

And after that, truly, the tales of the first generations became an edification for subsequent ones, so that a person could see what events happened to others, and learn, and that, delving into the traditions of past peoples and what happened to them, he refrained from sin Praise be to him who made the tales of the ancients a lesson for the nations of the future.

Know, my daughter, - said the vizier, - that one merchant possessed wealth and herds of cattle, and he had a wife and children, and the great Allah granted him knowledge of the language and dialects of animals and birds. And this merchant lived in the village, and he, in his house, had a bull and a donkey. And one day the bull entered the donkey's stall and saw that it was swept and sprinkled, and the donkey had sifted barley and sifted straw in the feeder, and he himself lies and rests, and only sometimes the owner rides him if some business happens, and immediately returns.

First night.

Shahrazad said: “They say, O happy king, that there was one merchant among the merchants, and he was very rich and did great business in different lands. One day he went to some country to collect debts, and the heat overcame him, and then he sat down under a tree, and putting his hand into a saddle bag, he took out a piece of bread and dates and began to eat dates with bread.

Know, O ifrit, the elder said then, that this gazelle is the daughter of my uncle and, as it were, my flesh and blood. I married her when she was very young, and lived with her for about thirty years, but had no child by her; and then I took a concubine, and she endowed me with a son like the full moon, and his eyes and eyebrows were perfect in beauty! He grew up, and became big, and reached the age of fifteen;

Know, O lord of the kings of jinn, the elder began, that these two dogs are my brothers, and I am the third brother. My father died and left us three thousand dinars, and I opened a shop to trade, and my brothers also opened a shop. But I didn’t sit in the shop for long, because my older brother, one of these dogs, sold everything he had for a thousand dinars, and having bought goods and all sorts of good things, he left to travel. He was absent for a whole year, and suddenly, when I was in the shop one day, a beggar stopped beside me. I told him: "Allah will help!" But the beggar exclaimed, weeping: "You no longer recognize me!" - and then I looked at him and suddenly I see - this is my brother!

Oh, Sultan and head of all the genies, - the old man began, - Know that this mule was my wife. I went on a trip and was away for a whole year, and then I ended the trip and returned at night to my wife. And I saw a black slave lying in bed with her, and they were talking and playing and laughing and kissing and fussing. And seeing me, my wife hurriedly got up with a jug of water, said something over it and splashed on me and said: "Change your image and take the image of a dog!" And immediately I became a dog, and my wife drove me out of the house; and I went out of the gate and walked until I came to the butcher's shop.

It came to me, O happy king, - said Shahrazad, - that there was a fisherman who had gone far in years, and he had a wife and three children, and he lived in poverty. And it was his custom to throw his net every day four times, not otherwise; and one day he went out at noon, and came to the seashore, and set down his basket, and, having gathered up the floors, went into the sea and threw down the net. He waited until the net settled in the water, and gathered the ropes, and when he felt that the net was heavy, he tried to pull it out, but could not;

Know, O ifrit, - began the fisherman, - that in ancient times and past centuries and centuries there was a king named Yunan in the city of the Persians and in the land of Ruman. And he was rich and great and commanded the army and bodyguards of all kinds, but there was leprosy on his body, and doctors and doctors were powerless against it. And the king drank medicines and powders and smeared himself with ointments, but nothing helped him, and no doctor could heal him. And a great doctor came to the city of King Yunan, who had gone far in years, whose name was doctor Duban. He read Greek, Persian, Byzantine, Arabic and Syrian books, knew healing and astrology and learned their rules and foundations, theirs; good and bad, and he also knew all plants and herbs, fresh and dry, useful and harmful, and studied philosophy, and comprehended all sciences and so on.

And when this doctor came to the city and spent a few days there, he heard about the king and the leprosy that struck his body, with which Allah tested him, to the fact that scientists and doctors could not cure it.

They say - and Allah knows best - began the king - that there was one king of the kings of the Persians, who loved fun, walking, hunting and catching. And he brought up a falcon and did not part with him day or night, and all night he held him in his hand, and when he went hunting, he took the falcon with him. The king made a golden cup for the falcon, which hung around his neck, and fed him water from this cup. And then one day the king was sitting, and suddenly the chief falconer came to him and said: "Oh, the king of time, it's time to go hunting." And the king ordered to leave and took the falcon in his hand; and the hunters rode until they reached a certain valley, where they stretched out a net for catching, and suddenly a gazelle fell into this net, and then the king exclaimed: "Anyone whose head the gazelle jumps over, I will kill."

Among the Arabian tales, the most famous is a collection of tales called " Thousand and One Nights».

More than two and a half centuries have passed since the whole world first became acquainted with Arabian tales "Thousand and one nights", but even now they enjoy a strong love of readers. The passage of time did not affect the popularity of Scheherazade's stories. There was a huge impact fairy tales 1001 nights on the work of many writers.

It's hard to say which attracts you more. fairy tales 1001 nights- the fascination of the plot, an interesting interweaving of the incredible and the real, juicy pictures of the life of the Arab East, entertaining descriptions of unusual countries or the liveliness of the experiences of the characters of fairy tales.

Tales of a Thousand and One Nights are not the work of a single writer, the collective author is the entire Arab people. As we now know it, 1001 and one night"- a collection of fairy tales in the language of the Arabs, united by a common story about the bloodthirsty king Shahriyar, who every night took a new wife for himself and killed her the next day. History of occurrence Thousand and one nights» has not been clarified to date; its origins are lost in the mists of time. On our website you can see list of tales of the Thousand and One Nights.