Write your own The Arabian Nights Entertainments story

Scheherazade

The wife of a cruel Sultan who tells him a nightly sequence of unfinished stories to delay her own execution, forming the frame narrative for the entire collection. Her tales include those of merchants, genii, princes, and sailors, each interrupted at a cliffhanger to buy her another day of life.

Haroun-al-Raschid

The historical Caliph of Bagdad (786-808 AD) who appears throughout the tales as a ruler fond of secretly touring his city by night in merchant's disguise, accompanied by his grand-vizir Giafar and the eunuch chief Mesrour. He is drawn to sounds of music and laughter in the streets and frequently intervenes personally in the lives of his subjects, rewarding honesty and punishing wrongdoing.

Giafar

The Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid's grand-vizir, a member of the real historical Barmecide family, who accompanies his master on nighttime incognito excursions through Bagdad dressed as a merchant. He is later put to death by the Caliph for reasons the stories never fully explain.

Sindbad the Sailor

A wealthy Bagdad merchant who squandered his inherited fortune in youth, then rebuilt it through seven perilous sea voyages from the port of Balsora. He survives shipwrecks, a giant whale mistaken for an island, the roc (a giant bird capable of carrying elephants), the Old Man of the Sea, valleys of diamonds guarded by serpents and eagles, and cannibal islanders, returning each time to Bagdad richer and giving generously to the poor.

Hindbad

A poor porter in Bagdad who complains of his hard lot outside Sindbad the Sailor's mansion and is invited in to hear Sindbad's stories over a banquet. After each tale Sindbad gives him a hundred sequins, and he returns nightly to hear the next voyage recounted.

Aladdin

A poor tailor's son in a city in China who is tricked by an African magician posing as his uncle into retrieving a magic oil lamp from an underground treasure cave. Using the lamp's genie he builds a fabulous palace, marries the Sultan's daughter, and must later defeat both the magician and his vengeful brother, who tries to trick Aladdin's wife into having a roc's egg hung from the palace dome.

Prince Camaralzaman

The son of King Schahzaman who refuses to marry despite his father's wishes, until a genie and fairy magically bring him together with Princess Badoura of China while both sleep, each wearing the other's ring as proof. He endures long separations from her involving shipwreck, disguise as a gardener's helper, and reunion through the efforts of his friend Marzavan.

Princess Badoura

The Princess of China, famed for her beauty, who is magically brought to sleep beside Prince Camaralzaman by rival genii testing whose beauty is greater. She later disguises herself as a man to rule as regent of the Ebony Island and eventually reunites with her husband.

Maimoune

A powerful fairy who lives in an old well and, together with the genie Danhasch, magically transports Princess Badoura to lie beside the sleeping Prince Camaralzaman as part of a wager over which of the two is more beautiful.

Noureddin

The son of a vizir who falls in love with the Fair Persian, a slave his father purchased as a gift for the king, and secretly keeps her for himself instead. After his father's death he squanders his fortune and is eventually forced to consider selling her, though the two remain devoted to each other.

The Fair Persian

A beautiful and accomplished slave woman purchased by a vizir as an intended gift for his king, who instead falls in love with the vizir's son Noureddin. She plays the lute and sings with great skill and later becomes entangled in schemes involving the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid.

Sidi-Nouman

A man who discovers his wife Amina secretly leaves their bed at night to feast with a ghoul in a cemetery. After confronting her, she transforms him into a dog through sorcery, and he is eventually restored to human form by a kindly magician's daughter, who then punishes Amina in turn.

Amina

The magician wife of Sidi-Nouman, who secretly practices witchcraft, eats almost nothing at meals, and is discovered visiting a ghoul in a graveyard at night to feed on corpses. When her husband confronts her she turns him into a dog, but she is ultimately punished by a rival magician.

Ali Cogia

A merchant of Bagdad who, before departing on pilgrimage, hides gold coins inside a jar of olives and leaves it with another merchant for safekeeping. On his return he discovers the gold has been stolen and replaced with real olives, leading to a dispute resolved before a Cadi (judge).

The African Magician

A sorcerer from Africa who travels to China pretending to be Aladdin's long-lost uncle in order to use the boy to retrieve a magic lamp from a hidden treasure cave. When Aladdin refuses to hand over the lamp he is trapped underground, and the magician later returns disguised as a merchant trading new lamps for old to reclaim it.

The Physician Douban

A learned Greek physician who cures a leprous king through unusual outward remedies without medicine, but is later falsely accused of treachery and executed. As his severed head is presented to the king, it directs him to open a poisoned book, and the king dies turning its pages, fulfilling the physician's dying curse.

Queen of Beauty

A sultan's daughter trained by a magician nurse in seventy rules of magical art, able to recognize enchanted persons on sight and identify who cast the spell. She reveals that a captive monkey at court is actually a prince transformed by the son of a genius, the daughter of Eblis.

The Fisherman

A poor fisherman who draws up a sealed brass vessel in his net containing an ancient genie sworn to kill whoever frees him. He outwits the genie by tricking it back into the vessel and threatens to cast it back into the sea, prompting the genie to bargain and tell stories in exchange for its freedom.

The Three Calenders

Three one-eyed wandering holy men, each the son of a king, who arrive together at a house of five ladies in Bagdad and each recount the strange chain of events—shipwrecks, enchantments, and forbidden curiosity—that cost them an eye and set them wandering in disguise.

Bagdad

The capital city of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid and the home base for many merchants, including Sindbad the Sailor and Ali Cogia. Its streets, markets, and mansions are frequently the setting for chance encounters between disguised nobility and ordinary tradesmen.

The Isle of Serendib

An island kingdom on the equinoctial line, ruled by a generous king, containing the highest mountain in the world (where Adam was said to have been banished), rich in rubies, diamonds, and pearls gathered by divers. Sindbad the Sailor visits it during his voyages and is sent home with gifts and a letter for the Caliph.

The Ebony Island

A kingdom where Princess Badoura, disguised as a man, comes to rule as regent, and where Prince Camaralzaman eventually seeks her out after their long separation. It is the site of many of the couple's later trials before their true identities are revealed.

The Black Isles

A once-flourishing kingdom transformed by a vengeful enchantress-wife into a lake with fish of four colours and four barren hills, after she turned her unfaithful husband half to marble and whipped him nightly. The kingdom's four islands gave the land its name before the curse.

The Barmecides

A real historical family from which Haroun-al-Raschid's grand-vizir Giafar was drawn; in the tales a wealthy Barmecide humorously serves an elaborate imaginary feast of empty dishes to a hungry beggar to test his manners, then rewards his good humor with a real banquet.

The Wonderful Lamp

A humble oil lamp found in an underground treasure cave, which when rubbed summons a powerful genie who obeys whoever holds it, capable of building palaces overnight, producing feasts, and transporting people instantly. It is the central object of Aladdin's story and is fought over by Aladdin, an African magician, and the magician's brother.

The Enchanted Horse

A mechanical flying horse built by an Indian inventor, controlled by turning screws in its neck to make it rise, fly at incredible speed, or descend. Its maker gave it to an Indian courtier only on the condition it never be sold except for something of equal value, leading him to demand a princess's hand in exchange for it from a king.

The Story-Within-a-Story Frame

Many tales are told by one character to another as a means of bargaining for mercy, delaying punishment, or proving a point—such as the merchant pleading for his life before a genie by having three old men tell increasingly marvellous stories in exchange for a third of his pardoned sentence. This nested structure of tales told to save a life or win an argument recurs throughout the collection.

The Old Man of the Sea

A deceptively frail-looking old man encountered on a deserted shore who begs to be carried across a stream on a traveller's shoulders, then clings on and refuses to let go, riding his victim like a beast until tricked into drunkenness and thrown off. Sindbad the Sailor is one of the few to escape him.

Genii (Jinn)

Supernatural beings of vast power, sometimes benevolent and sometimes monstrous, who can be bound to serve whoever controls a talisman such as a lamp, ring, or sealed vessel. They can fly across the world in moments, take animal or human form, build palaces overnight, and are organized into courts with kings, princesses, and rival factions of good and evil spirits.

Ghouls

Demons that haunt deserted buildings and cemeteries, feeding on the flesh of unwary travellers or, failing that, on the bodies of the dead. Human magicians such as Amina are sometimes shown consorting with ghouls at night in graveyards.

The Roc

An enormous white bird of prey so strong it can carry off an elephant in its claws to feed its young, and large enough that its single egg can be hung as an ornament in a great hall. Sailors who anger a roc by killing its chick risk having boulders dropped on their ships from the sky.