The Saints of the Nights
Nights 247-263
Lots to say about this week! First, we end the story of Qamar and begin the story of ‘Ala’ al-Din. As I expected, the story of Qamar, which started out so well, ended badly. There were happy endings for everyone except Qamar’s two wives, who were not mentioned. I assume they were executed? It’s not great to see them discarded.
Then in ‘Ala’ al-Din’s story, women also get discarded. We meet a married woman, Zubaida, who has sex with our hero through absurdly legitimized circumstances. Then she is killed off to advance the plot. Harun al-Rashid and friends return (p. 852, night 258), and try to give our hero a slave to help him through his grief. But he doesn’t like her and instead finds a slave at the market named Yasmin (like “Jasmine”). She looks like she’s in for some trouble in the next few nights.
The story also has bawdy episodes. Our hero is conceived only because his father received the best possible medicines to “thicken” his “semen.” (p. 834, night 250). All grown up, our handsome hero is pursued by an aggressive gay man, like we have seen in earlier episodes. And on page 849 (night 256), when he has his night with Zubaida, we get some euphemisms for increasingly passionate sex acts. You can see how the lonely merchants would like this part of the Nights.
The merchants also would enjoy the inciting incident that puts the hero on his journey. He is rich and doesn’t need to work, but he meets other men his age who talk about how they feel fulfilled by traveling and earning money. The hero wants to do it. His father warns him about the dangers he may encounter ahead. When the dangers come, the hero’s piety saves him. Like a medieval Christian praying to the saints, he asks for help twice: “Oh for your blessing, my lord ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani” and “Oh for your blessing, Lady Nafisa!” (night 255, p. 845). The index tells me that the former is indeed a Sufi type of saint. The latter isn’t in the index, but from Wikipedia, it is likely Sayyida Nafisa.
One last note of trivia: there is no Night 261. We go straight from Night 260 to Night 262, with the footnote explaining, “There is no Night 261 in the Calcutta II text”. (p. 860). The plot doesn’t seem to have needed it.