Alf Laila - Story

Alf Laila - Story



Have you heard the stories about the Alladin's magic lamp, Ali Baba and the forty thieves, and Sindbad the sailor? These and many other stories come from Alf Laila Wal Layl (Literally meaning one thousand and one nights), which is commonly called Alf Laila. It was originally written in Arabic In the west it is known as the Arabian Nights. It is a dastan, or a long story written in prose, and it's author is not known.
The story tells about a king whose wife betrayed him. He become so crazy with anger that every night he married a woman, and killed her the next morning. Scheherazade, the clever daughter of the Vizier, at last agreed to marry the king but started telling him a story that was so long that it did not end by the morning. The king spared her life for a few nights because he wanted to hear the story till the end. Scheherazade kept on telling one story after another for one thousand and one nights. By listening to all these stories, the king was able to learn about human life and realized his own mistakes so that in the end he spared the life of Scheherazade and became a normal person again.