7 Myths And Legends Of The Arab World

From legendary female leaders to one thousand and one nights of wonder, Arabian mythology carries a generous stream of stories that never ceases to fascinate

One Thousand & One Nights

Regarded as a universal monument of storytelling that inspired countless Hollywood films and animated Disney features, One Thousand & One Nights, often referred to in English as Arabian Nights, unfolds as an extensive collection of multi-genre folk tales from the ancient world.

The frame story that holds all featured tales together is that of Shahrazad [Scheherazade] and Shahrayar [Shahryar]. Simply put, the plot follows King Shahrayar who, after being betrayed by his wife, developed a loathing for womankind, vowing to wed a new bride every day only to have her executed the next morning. With no more eligible brides left in the land over time, the vizier’s daughter Shahrazad sets out to marry the king, using her storytelling talents as a clever scheme to save both herself and others. Every night, she narrates a new story to the king but leaves out the ending for the following evening, prompting him to spare her life until the next day to know the rest of the story.

One thousand and one nights later, Shahrayar’s distrustful condition is ultimately alleviated as he decides to keep Queen Shahrazad by his side forever after. The stories of uncertain date and authorship “combine the magical, the mystical, and the mythical, with the real and the historical” explains Arab World Specialist, Muhannad Salhi on the official blog of the Library of Congress, the world’s largest library. Many of them have subsequently become famous in their own right, including Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sindbad, which we will delve deeper into in the paragraphs to come.

Aladdin & The Magic Lamp

Despite not being part of the original text, Aladdin became the single most popular tale from One Thousand & One Nights after being added in the 18th century by French scholar Antoine Galland who heard it from Syrian storyteller Hanna Diyab alongside the stories of Ali Baba and Sindbad.

Soaring in popularity thanks to its iconic Disney adaptations, the original Arabian folklore tale traces the adventures of an orphaned young man named Aladdin who gets tricked by an evil sorcerer into stealing an oil lamp from a magic cave only to find himself trapped inside with a magic ring lent to him by the sorcerer still around his finger.

Rubbing his hands in despair, he accidentally releases a genie who helps him return to his mother. As she cleans up the lamp for the purpose of selling it to buy food, a second genie vested with unlimited powers to make the lamp holder’s every wish come true appears. Aladdin becomes rich and established thanks to the genie’s superpowers and goes on to marry the sultan’s daughter Princess Badroulbadour [dubbed Jasmine in Disney’s Aladdin].

The genie even erects the couple a marvellous palace surpassing that of the Sultan in splendour. Jealous of Aladdin’s good fortune, the evil sorcerer returns to seize the lamp by talking the princess, still unaware of its powers, into exchanging it for a new one. He then orders the genie to transport the entire palace to his home in Maghreb. Aladdin in turn uses his magic ring to summon the initial genie who transports him to the sorcerer’s hometown where he is able to recover the lamp, slay the sorcerer and bring back the palace, before ultimately succeeding to the sultan’s throne.

Atlantis Of The Sands

Let us dive into the lost city of Atlantis, one of the world’s most celebrated mysteries. While the legend of Atlantis has long been familiar to populations worldwide, Arabia has its own version of the lost city, dubbed Atlantis of the Sands, which continues to spark debate among scholars to this day.

This ancient city, alternatively referred to as Ubar or Iram of the Pillars, is believed to have been entirely buried in sand by natural disaster deep within the desert due to divine wrath. For centuries, eager explorers have searched for it, such as British archeologist T. E. Lawrence [Lawrence of Arabia] who coined the widely used Atlantis of the Sands nickname.

But out of the many expeditions led across the Arabian Peninsula over the years in search of the lost desert city, it was a team of NASA researchers who ultimately discovered hints of an ancient city beneath the sands of southern Oman’s Shisr oasis in 1992 using pictures from space shuttle Challenger.

“Expedition leaders Nicholas Clapp and George R. Hedges speculated the city may have been the earliest known shipping centre for frankincense, a fragrant gum resin harvested further south,” The Washington Post reported back in the day. More ruins dating back to 1,000 BC including fortress walls seemingly set over a limestone cave were also uncovered later on. While many researchers believe that the Shisr archaeological site is in fact Atlantis of the Sands, others are still waiting for it to be found as the sands of time slip by.

Sindbad The Sailor

The third popular story added to the Arabian Nights collection by French scholar Antoine Galland is the Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor. The fable begins in Baghdad with a poor man dubbed Sindbad the Porter lamenting to God about the unfairness of life while sitting on a bench facing a wealthy merchant’s house. The merchant known as Sindbad the Sailor coincidentally hears him and invites him in. Upon discovering they share the same name, he proceeds to tell him of the seven marvellous trips at the origin of his fortune. His first voyage takes him to an island whose king rewards him with generous gifts for saving his horse.

He goes back to Baghdad a rich man after selling his gifts for profit and embarks on a second voyage where he finds himself attached to the leg of a mythical bird that carries him to the diamond valley, prompting his return to his hometown as an even richer man. On the way to his third journey, he is captured by sea monsters along with his shipmates but they manage to blind them and sail off to another island where merchandise they thought was lost at sea is recovered.

After escaping vicious cannibals at the start of his fourth trip, Sindbad is carried to a kingdom where he weds a beautiful woman but when she suddenly dies, he robs the grave and runs away to avoid being buried with her as per the island’s customs. His fifth voyage lands him at the City of the Apes. He teaches them to pluck fruits and sells them, bringing more riches home.

Upon surviving a shipwreck during his following trip, he is taken to the monarch of a rural area who sends him back to Basrah loaded with lavish gifts. Sindbad’s seventh and last voyage sees him marrying the daughter of a kind island king and ultimately returning to settle down with her in Baghdad.

Septimia Zenobia

While multiple legends may surround her ancestry, no one can contest the historic impact of this celebrated warrior queen. Third-century queen of Roman Colony Palmyra that stretched across present-day Syria, Septimia Zenobia was a woman of exceptional character and far-reaching leadership who challenged the authority of Rome during a tumultuous period in Roman history known as the Imperial Crisis [235–284 AD], establishing herself as the legitimate monarch of the east.

English historian Edward Gibbon describes her as “perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia” in his six-volume classic The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Zenobia became ruler following the assassination of her husband Odaenathus, Roman governor of Syria, at the hand of his nephew. She surrounded herself with intellectuals and philosophers and was well-versed in the Greek, Syriac and Egyptian languages in addition to the Latin tongue.

Known for her endurance and excellent horse-riding ability, she set out to conquer Egypt in 269 AD before adding the Levant and Asia Minor regions to her growing empire as a result of diplomatic negotiations and declaring independence from Rome. Zenobia was ultimately captured by Roman Emperor Aurelian who besieged Palmyra upon defeating her armies in Antioch and Emesa. She was sent hostage to Rome with her son [believed to have died on the way] where some historians claim she died of a hunger strike or committed suicide emulating her alleged ancestor Cleopatra.

Ali Baba & The Forty Thieves

Another world-famous story from One Thousand & One Nights, the legend of Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves that gave us the popular expression “Open Sesame” is often revisited in children’s books to hone their sense of right and wrong.

The folk tale follows deprived woodcutter Ali Baba who stumbles upon 40 thieves hiding their loot inside a secret cave in the forest that can only be accessed using magic command, “Open, Sesame” and then proceeds to collect riches from it through the overheard phrase. He brings back a bag of gold to his wife who subsequently borrows a scale from his wealthy brother Cassim’s wife to weigh it, thereby leading her to sneakily discover the gold. She notifies her husband who in turn pressures Ali Baba into revealing the secret behind his gold coins.

Cassim then heads to the cave in the hope of amassing as much gold as possible but, overwhelmed with excitement, forgets the magic words needed to make his way out and gets killed by the thieves.

To avert suspicion, Ali Baba brings back the body home for burial and resorts to the help of his brother’s clever maid Morgiana to make the cause of death seem natural. It doesn’t take long for the thieves to suspect Ali Baba and plot his murder by hiding in large oil jars inside his courtyard, only to be exposed by Morgiana who pours hot oil into them and kills the robbers.

Upon saving Ali Baba’s life, she is freed and married off to his son and the whole family lives prosperously ever after thanks to the wealth sourced from the cave.

Zarqa’Al-Yamama

Yet another legendary woman of Arabia, Zarqa’ Al-Yamama was known for her unparalleled intuition and sharp vision said to be further enhanced by darkness. Named after her striking blue eyes that helped her foresee the future, she used her gift to defend her tribe against lurking enemies by detecting them from afar.

To avert her piercing gaze, a group of rivals plotted to cut down trees from the surrounding area and carry their branches as cover-ups on their way to conquer her hometown of Al-Yamama.

The blue-eyed woman was nonetheless able to see straight through their scheme and repeatedly tried to the warn the people of Himyar [Yemen] to no avail. Thinking she has gone mad, they disregarded the threats, which resulted in enemy troops killing every man in the tribe and gouging out Zarqa’s eyes prior to crucifying her.

Al Athmad, a vision-enhancing type of kohl she was allegedly the first to use, remains popular among Arab women today in quest of a vision “as sharp as Zarqa’s sight” as the saying goes.

Illustrations by Virginia Frances Sterrett

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s September 2021 issue