A second Ali from Cairo

Nights 696-719

Forget the Ali from Cairo from Nights 424-434. This week’s story of Ali al-Zaibaq, also from Cairo, is much more entertaining. 

Unfortunately, it is also problematic, even more than the average Nights story. We get some hatred of Jews, blackface, and a woman who falls in love with Ali because of “the fact that Ali had not raped her.” (p. 839) Also, Ali sexually assaults a woman while he is transformed into a donkey. It’s all meant to be lighthearted. It mostly connects, but it is not something you can casually recommend to today’s audiences.

Ali’s story includes Dalila the Wily, a character from the story before (Nights 698-708). Her story is compelling and silly. I hope she returns in a later story again, just as she came back for Ali’s.

There are a few other shorter stories. The best of the bunch is a reverberation from last week: the musician Ishaq al-Mausili meets the Devil again. It’s a short story, just a few pages. The other short stories were less impressive.

That takes us to the end of Volume 2. We’ve seen a lot of Magic cards so far. There are a few more I’m looking out for: Cuombajj Witches, Cyclone, Desert Nomads, Eye for an Eye, Fishliver Oil, Flying Men, Giant Tortoise, Hasran Ogress, Guardian Beast, Hurr Jackal, Island of Wak-Wak, Kird Ape, Metamorphosis, Naf’s Asp, Sandals of Abdallah, Sandstorm, Singing Tree, Stone-Throwing Devils, Unstable Mutation, War Elephant, and Wyluli Wolf. We can make a case that we’ve seen Desert Nomads and Sandstorm already. Back in Nights 649-680, we saw war elephants; I guess we should count that. For the rest, I’m hoping for something more substantial.