Comparing Marzolph's The Thousand And One Nights

“Men have authority over women, because god has made one superior to the other” a quote from the Quran (4:34) itself. In the Islamic faith, it is perceived that women are treated less equal then men. Specifically the relationships between father and daughter, and husband and wife. In the text The Thousand and One Nights we see different types of examples for each relationship. However, it brings the question of what category of literature does this text fall into? Is it folklore, myth, fairytale? Once this question is answered, then the question of how women in the text and in present day Islam are treated will be answered as well. What is The Thousand and One Nights about? Norton Anthology of Western Literature says that it is “a text built

How can this literary work be classified? Ulrich Marzolph addresses this in his book The Arabian Nights Reader. In chapter 8, Peter Heath discusses a genre of romance, and how it has been studied to what this tale can be classified as. Heath then goes to state how each story within the framework can be considered some form of “love story, fairy tale, rouge story, travel tale, etc.” and that while it is individual stories completing one full story, Nights can be considered a “microcosm of medieval Arabic and to some degree, Islamic popular literature. In essence, Nights, can be considered folklore. (Marzolph & Heath

In the text, we see different examples of how women are treated. The Vizier tells his daughter a story of a man who beats his wife because she wants to know his secret. We also see women being killed for infidelity, women who curse men, and women who are portrayed as heroes, such as our young protagonist. (Puchner, Akbari, Denecke, & Fuchs 2014) How then, does this relate to the current times and how women are treated in the Islamic culture? The common picture, is a woman hidden behind a veil, silent, submissive. The web article “Women in Islam” explains that this was once the case in Islam’s dawning days. It quotes “in the tribal culture of Arabs, women were not equal to men with respect to many social and personal conditions and systems…Women did not have businesses, own property, or have independent legal rights…In Arabia, female infants were often abandoned or buried alive; and the practice of polygamy was common.” The article then goes on to explain how, over time, this has changed. The pursuit of knowledge is now the law, and what gender someone is does not stop this. Women also have the right to own land and buy businesses. It is said that during the time of the Islamic prophet SWA, women were encouraged to take place in social, military, and political affairs. His daughter Fatima, was even highly educated and well respected. ("Women in Islam"). There are