Week 4 Storytelling: The Sisters Who Became Heroes

There once lived a Sultan named Schahriar who had a beautiful wife named Sahrita. The Sultan was a man of great strength with all the nation’s power at his fingertips, but he one weakness and that was his wife. Sahrita knew the Sultan adored her and she used it to her advantage to get whatever her heart desired; she had the finest dresses and jewels in all the land. She also had the finest men that she kept on the side for when the Sultan was away on business, but Schahriar was so in love with her that he never caught onto her adulterous ways. Until one day when he came home from a trip early and found her together with one of the younger men who worked in the palace, in a fit of rage and heartbreak he stabbed the man and strangled his wife. 

Ever since that day the Sultan was never the same, everyone knew how much he loved Sahrita and her betrayal caused him to go insane. He had no one to check his power so whatever rash rules Schahriar instituted became law and no one had the right to question (that is if they wanted to keep their head.) Schahriar became convinced that the entire female gender was evil and that it needed to be eradicated, but he was sensible enough to understand that killing off all of the women would result in the ending of his people. So instead he came up with a horrific punishment that he thought was fitting to pay for the pain he had endured. He wanted others to suffer the way he had and still did.

(Palace)

The Sultan issued that every day he would pick whoever he liked as his new bride and they would have the perfect day, but he would have them strangled the next morning before they could betray him or wrong him in any way. He believed that this way he would only experience the good and the woman he married would not even have time to show her bad side. His grand-vizir, Shoma, was the one the Sultan sanctioned to perform all the killings, even though he thought this law was as crazy and terrible as everyone else. What made it especially terrible to Shoma was that he had two daughters, Scheherazade and Dinarzade, who the Sultan could choose at any time and then Shoma would be the one who would have to execute his own flesh and blood. Shoma warned his daughters every day to stay inside and keep themselves hidden from the Sultan so that their lives might be spared another day.

(Scheherazade, Dinarzade, and the Sultan)

Scheherazade and Dinarzade had different plans than their father, they were not content to sit back and watch the daughters of their country being murdered one by one. So they devised a plan. Scheherazade had always enraptured her friends with her storytelling, her details and imagery made you feel like you were on a great journey every time she sat down to tell a tale. They approached their father and told him their idea to present the Scheherazade to the Sultan as his next bride; of course he was adamantly against the idea but the girls’ minds were made up and Shoma knew it was only a matter of time until the Sultan chose them anyway.

The Sultan was shocked to see his grand-vizir’s daughters before him, but they were both so beautiful, he was intrigued to listen to what they had come to say. Scheherazade offered herself up and told the Sultan she would be honored to be next bride, she only requested that her sister stay with her on her last night on earth. The Sultan accepted this offer, thinking that he would just take Dinarzade once he had killed Scheherazade the next day.

As the sun was setting and the day was coming to a close the girls began to put their plan into motion. Dinarzade begged her sister to tell her a story before they went to sleep. When Scheherazade began the Sultan was not paying her much attention, but without even realizing it he became completely captivated and two hours passed in what seemed like 5 minutes. Scheherazade told her sister it was time to get some rest, but the Sultan insisted she keep going. She told him they would have plenty of time to finish it tomorrow. And this is how Scheherazade was able to save her own life and the lives of all the other young women in her country. The Sultan fell in love with her and his hard heart was softened. He did away with his awful law and Dinarzade was granted a position in the palace for her faithful work to abolish the law.

Author's Note:

In the original story there in not any background on the Sultan and his first wife, so I tried to provide a glimpse of how in love they were and some explanation as to why he went so crazy when he found out she had betrayed him. I also wanted to give more of a dual role to the sisters in saving the country as opposed to just Scheherazade because in the story she is the favorite of her father but Dinarzade is neglected, even though she does a play a part in the original story by going with her sister to the Sultan's room like in my story. They both were brave and I wanted them both to be recognized for it. I also added the part of Scheherazade and the Sultan falling in love...because who doesn't love a happy ending?

Bibliography:

Arabian Nights: Scheherazade by Andrew Lang