Re-writing Arab Tales from a Gender Sensitive Perspective
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In the context of Re-writing Arab History from a Gender-Sensitive
Perspective, the Women and Memory Forum is holding in March 1998 a workshop on “Re-reading and Re-writing Arab Tales from aGender-Sensitive Perspective: Preliminary Experiments”. The workshop is going to tackle the following issues: introducing research methodology in Egyptian and Arab folk-narratives, pointing out the often overlooked role of women therein; defining the process of re-reading tales and analyzing them from a gender-sensitive perspective; attempting to rewrite tales from a gender-sensitive perspective. The workshop aims at coming out with alternative versions of a few of the available texts; challenging the existing models, promoting interest in this area, and eventually perhaps publishing and disseminating the versions re-written from a gender-sensitive perspective.
The following story is one way of reading the “frame story” of Alf Layla Wa Layla:
 
The Story of Shahrayar and his Brother
Shahzaman
The version never published before
It has been told and God is better informed and wiser and more generous and kinder than any teller of tales that the King in the ancient kingdom of Sassanhad two sons. The elder was called Shahrayar and the younger Shahzaman. They each ruled a wonderful realm from the many realms their father had conquered and colonized. They were able horsemen and lauded sportsmen but they both (so the original narrator claimed at least) had ungrateful, wicked adulterous wives. It was naturally a terrible shock when they knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that their wives were indeed guilty of that crime. However they found solace in their duplicated misfortune and spent many a night comparing their situations. After a while that heart warming companionship fed by mutual pity was no longer a sufficient source for their daily discourse and eventually their lengthy dwellings on the subject of treacherous wives led them to the logical conclusion that just because they were cursed with illdoomed marriages did not by necessity mean that all women were bereft of the virtue of fidelity. But and in accordance to the same rigor dictated by their scientific thinking they were skeptical about the capacity of any single female for fidelity. The case was an obvious one, for there they were. Two young, handsome, strong, wealthy kings; if they who possessed all that were made to suffer this way, howbe it with other men who could not boast the same fortunate circumstances? And so they decided to journey in quest of a final decisive answer that would put their hearts at rest and ease their minds from the self-doubts that lingered. Fate soon provided them with a most gratifying experience that they could retell to their hearts’ content whenever they chose to confirm their convictions that women were untrustworthy creatures even if chained or locked up one thousand fathoms deep.
 
On the third day of their journey they had come upon a beach and sought a tree that grew not far from the shore to rest. Suddenly they saw a pillar of smoke rise from the waves gradually taking the shape of an enormous creature. A great jinni was rising from the sea. Their hearts pounded and the cold sweat of fear hurried them up the tree for refuge. They clung to each other as they watched the jinni make his way to the shade of the tree where they were hiding and then easing himself languidly began to unlock a box that he had carried all the while. When he finally opened the box, a young woman stepped out. Her hands and legs were shackled in chains and she had a contemptuous and angry scowl on her face. Despite her chains she seemed in a terribly rebellious state of mind. The jinni in his deliberate motions had freed the woman and then asked her to sit so he could rest his tired head on her lap. Soon the jinni was deep in quiet slumber. And the woman proceeded to carefully remove herself and look about her. As she was doing that she spotted the brothers at the top branches of the tree and began to gesture to them to come down. They naturally refused. She then brought out a chain that she swung for them to see. The chain held many rings and sent a tinkling sound, they were curious to know what that was and the woman confidant that she could now engage them in conversation began to explain:
- “This is the number of men who had wanted to sleep with me before they would help me run away from my captor. The jinni carried me off on my wedding night and no one had ever been able to release me.”
She had thought this was challenge enough and expected some kind of   chivalrous remark, noting that the two men had the appearance of well bred knights, but instead they got stuck on the detail about the number of men. The one who spoke first asked with a tinge of irony:
- “And did you give them all they demanded?”
The woman’s voice lost the initial hope it started off with, but she answered defiantly:
- “Yes, that is if you wish to believe the stories they have spread  about me.”
 
Shahzaman then said in the most charming manner he could muster given the circumstances, which promised a lewd tale:
- “Ah, and what do the stories tell about you, sweetie?”
- “The stories say that I summon every passer by to lay with me and that I threaten to wake the jinni if they refuse. And when they out of fear do as I tell them I ask them for a ring, a token of the affair that I may boast their numbers.”
The woman was about to continue, when she felt
Shahrayar’s eyes scanning her body. She put a hand to the topmost button of her dress to make sure all was in modest order while Shahrayar was saying:
 - “It does not seem to me that the story lies.”
The woman was decidedly angry now and answered in a haughty voice:
- “I am in no position to confess or deny such vicious, malign, illogical nonsense” and added after a practical fashion to end a discourse she was now sure would lead nowhere:
- “What do you say; me to get away, to return to my kin and family and I shall forever be grateful.” And then unthinkingly added in a lamenting tone:
- “Alas, I have nothing, I cannot offer you even a single dinar.”
 
As soon as she uttered those words she knew she was mistaken, for the men’s eyes shone and quickly they each removed a ring from their fingers and flung the rings at her. In her panic she hurried to the jinni and began to shake him out of his sleep. But before the slow creature was awake enough to ask her what the matter was, Shahrayar and Shahzaman were galloping away at their speediest.
 
They had not travelled far when they came upon a pleasant little town and immediately sought the inn. The groom took away their horses and they climbed to their rooms to wash and change clothes. In the evening, they came down to the tavern where many travellers gathered, eating and drinking and exchanging stories with the zest and competitiveness of knights in a tournament. The wine had after a few glasses gone to Shahzaman’s head and his imagination was ripe to enter the competition. And so he addressed the gathering:
- “I can tell you a story that would vie with any in the Arabian nights, and more it is true, not like those concocted by narrators to wile the time. This story has actually come to pass. My brother here will testify to its truth.”
For a moment Shahrayar was worried, his brother might divulge the hateful adultery of his wife. But soon his fears were abated when Shahzaman began to tell about the jinni and the woman in the box. He said:
- “Suddenly a huge jinni, enormously built, appeared; on his head was a box, he sat under the tree and when he opened the box there emerged the most beautiful maiden, slender of waist, her eyes like a gazelle’s, her hair a profusion of knee length shining curls. Her every contour a dancing wave of femininity.”
When he had reached that part he sent a sidelong glance to his brother, for while at the top of the tree he had commented on the boyish diffidence which marked the woman. But then when he saw that his brother was not about to contradict him he confidently went on:
- She was as forward as could be. She did not mince her words. That jinni she said had abducted her on her wedding night and now she revenges herself on him every time he sleeps and asks whoever may be passing by to lay her right their next to the sleeping monster. When she is through she asks her partner for that day to leave her his ring and so it came that she now has a chain that holds one thousand five hundred rings.”
 
As soon as Shahzaman was done with his meticulous detailed description of every part of the woman’s body, intimate and otherwise, he went on about the impression he left on that well used body. How she moaned and asked for more, how incomparable she said his virility was and how she cried when he contemptuously threw her his ring and galloped away. Shahrayar who was all through sunk in a melancholy reverie had by then formulated a general moral that he felt was from then onwards to give his life meaning and render his existence worthwhile; and so full of a serene wisdom sighed a stanza that summed up his newly acquired philosophy:
Never trust a woman’s oath
For their love and their spite both
Is inspired by nothing else
But the space between their legs.
 
Hearing the lines the gathering emanated sounds of approval and admiration, Shahrayar snuggly basked in the effect of his extempore verse and a warm benevolence engulfed him, that alas was not allowed the duration of a few minutes, for someone turned to a respectable looking middle aged merchant and asked:
- “What do you say to that sheik Hassan?”
The man answered in a mellifluous sonorous accent:
- “I say it reminds me of the dog, the cock and their master.”
Whence the gathering turned to the promise of a fresh tale and in the voice of one man asked:
- “And what is the story of the dog and the cock and the master?”
The old man poised himself on the lush cushion under his arm and looked around to make sure everyone was listening. Shahzaman was piqued at the thought that they were about to hear a story better than his but the sheer presence of the venerable narrator forced him back in the seat he was about to leave. He looked at his brother and found him deep in thought. The sheik was saying that the story he was about to tell them was a story he had witnessed himself. It did not occur to anyone there that night, that the merchant was about to divulge his own story with an ungrateful wife, except Shahrayar who was sure from the very start that the man must be speaking about himself, for he could not conceive of anyone telling a story except about themselves. He listened anyway albeit half heartedly for he was by then aware of the waitress who was going and coming between them and who was now standing attentively at the door listening with the rest to the merchant’s story. He was admiring her figure and noted the gentleness in her face that seemed to promise an easy and unfastidious character. He was thinking of the best approach to make, when he realized that the sheik’s story was over and that the men around him were making the sounds of leavetaking, wishing each other good night, a safe journey on the morrow and so on. He was preparing to get up himself when he found his brother beside him.
Apparently Shahzaman had been there for sometime chattering, but he had only caught one sentence:
- “You see brother, we are not alone in this misfortune, a woman does not know what virtue means even when circumstances are impossible for vice.”
 
With these words, the portent of which his brother had not an inkling, he proceeded out of the tavern. The waitress was busy mopping up spilt wine, collecting empty glasses and rearranging the chairs and the cushions, when Shahrayar obstructed her way:
     - “What do you say if I asked you to be my companion for the night.”
The girl looked up at him not quite sure how to react. He thought she was playing coy, so he repeated himself, this time smiling enticingly and fidgeting with his heavy purse. The waitress smiled a tired smile, then shook her head and said softly:
    - “I’m sorry sir, I have no time for that sort of thing.”
And so Shahrayar followed his brother who had preceded him up the stairs to their rooms.

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