SHEHERAZADE (Arabic - Legendary) The Heroine of Arabia
Sheherazade, the heroine of The Thousand and One Nights, is sadly neglected in today's records of women of achievement. Although legendary (all legends are based on facts). Sheherazade, a woman of exceptional intelligence, wisdom and bravery saved not only her life by telling a series of spellbinding tales during the dark of Arabian nights, but the lives of a dwindling supply of virgins of her country, and, in so doing, educated a King.
King Schariar, legendary King of Samarkand found he had been deceived by his wife and as punishment had his wife and a succession of three thousand virgins (one each night) put to death.
Against her father's protestations, Sheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King. Once in the King's chambers, Sheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister Dunyazade, who had secretly been prepared to ask Sheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The King lay awake and listened with awe to Sheherazade's first story and asked for another, but Sheherazade said there wasn't time as dawn was breaking, and regretfully so, as the next story was even more exciting.
And so the King kept Sheherazade alive as he eagerly anticipated each new story and after one thousand and one adventurous nights, the King had not only been entertained but wisely educated in morality and kindness by Sheherazade who became his Queen.
The present form of The Thousand and One Nights is completely Muslim in spirit and is thought to be native to Persia or one of the Arabic speaking countries. It is one of the few examples of a woman seen as a heroine in an Arabic country. |
