THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT.
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful! Praise be to God, the Lord of the two worlds,[1] and blessing and peace upon the Prince of the Prophets, our lord and master Mohammed, whom God bless and preserve with abiding and continuing peace and blessing until the Day of the Faith! Of a verity, the doings of the ancients become a lesson to those that follow after, so that men look upon the admonitory events that have happened to others and take warning, and come to the knowledge of what befell bygone peoples and are restrained thereby. So glory be to Him who hath appointed the things that have been done aforetime for an example to those that come after! And of these admonitory instances are the histories called the Thousand Nights and One Night, with all their store of illustrious fables and relations.
It is recorded in the chronicles of the things that have been done of time past that there lived once, in the olden days and in bygone ages and times, a king of the kings of the sons of Sasan, who reigned over the Islands[2] of India and China and was lord of armies and guards and servants and retainers. He had two sons, an elder and a
- ↑ i.e. The visible and the invisible. Some authorities make it three worlds (those of men, of the angels and of the Jinn or genii), and others more.
- ↑ The Arabic word for island (jezireh) signifies also “peninsula,” and doubtless here used in the latter sense. The double meaning of the word should be borne in mind, as it explains many apparent discrepancies in Oriental tales.
