In The Great Khan’s Tent Episode XVI: The Arabian Nights Part XIV

In the Great Khan’s Tent

In this episode, we continue “The Story of Nur-ud-din Ali and his Son and of Shams-ud-din Mohammad and his Daughter” with Nights XXI and XXII. In this part, unlike in other tales told, we see here believing Jinns directly facilitate the story by transporting Hasan Badr-ud-din, the son of Nur-ud-din to Cario to participate in the shenanigans that are occurring. We also get to see the appearance of the first known Jewish person directly interacting with the main character in a story. In this case it is a money lender named Ishaq, or unnamed in other versions, giving Hasan Badr-ud-din some much needed funds to continue his life after he ran away from being executed. Much of the poetry in this episode can be linked to a poet named al-Mutanabbi (915-965 CE) a court poet during the Abbasid Caliphate.