Forgiveness in the Bible

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“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”(Matthew 6:14-15, NIV) Husain Haddawy’s The Arabian Nights discusses many situations in which individuals learn to forgive others for the wrong that they have done against them. The Bible refers to the idea of forgiveness as an act not only for the person that has wronged you but for yourself; in order to grow, we have to forgive because if we do not, God will not forgive us. Haddawy’s literary work emphasizes the importance of forgiveness through the stories relating to the Demon and King Shahrayar.
King Shahrayar and the Demon both feel as if shedding blood is the right path to getting even with the ones that has done wrong against them. There are similarities in the ways that King Shahrayar and the Demon’s mentality changes and how the idea of being able to forgive others is a better approach rather than bloodshed.
The Arabian Nights begins with King Shahrayar’s story. King Shahrayar’s brother King Shahzaman, informs King Shahrayar that his wife, the Queen, is cheating on him. Upon seeing this for himself, King Shahrayar kills his wife due to her disloyalty towards him. He then vows to marry a new woman each night and have her killed the next day. However, the King does not kill these women himself, he appoints his vizier to kill the women. What makes this story much more interesting is that the vizier has a daughter named Shahrazad, and she tells her father about her plan: “I would like you to marry me to King Shahrayar, so that I may either succeed in saving the people or perish and die like the rest.” (p.13) Shahrazad holds no responsibi...

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...f the stories that the old men told. Both King Shahrayar and the Demon learned that there are far worse things that people can do to you. Nonetheless, violence is not the only solution.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you have to become friends with the other person, rather it allows you to let go of that heavy burden you feel inside. It allows you to muddle through the difficulties in your life without causing another issue.

Works Cited

Haddawy, Husain, Muhsin Mahdi, and Daniel Heller-Roazen. The Arabian Nights. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.
Burgess, Olivia. "Forgiveness Is a Choice: A Step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope, And: Total Forgiveness, And: Radical Forgiveness." Project MUSE. Johns Hopkins UP, 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. .

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