Thousand & One Nights: 77th Night

Stories by the vizier, Ja'far, of the Caliph Harun al Rashid continue. These stories are the inner layers of the stories told by Shahrazad the queen of Indian King Shahriar to lead him to the path of reason. At the previous night, we saw Badr al-Din Hasan sleeping at the cemetery and a demon visiting him.

The demon looked at Badr al-Din Hasan al Basri, marveled at his beauty and said to himself, "This can be none other than one of the children of paradise, whom God has created to tempt all mortals." He looked upon him for a long time; then he flew up in the air, rising until he was between the heaven and the earth where he ran into a flying she- demon. He asked her, "Who are you?"
She replied, "I am a she-demon." He greeted her and asked, "She-demon, will you come with me to my cemetery, to see what the Almighty God has created among men?"

She replied, "Very well."

They flew down to the cemetery, and as they stood there, the demon asked, "In all your life, have you ever seen a young man more beautiful than this one?"

The she-demon looked at Badr al-Din Hasan and examined his face, she said, "Glory be to Him who has no rival. By God, brother, with your leave,  I will tell you about an extraordinary thing I have witnessed this very night. 

" There was a land called Kemet [1]   meaning black land, referring to its black soil. But the Greeks called it Aegyptos, meaning land behind Aegean Sea. As time went on people called it Egypt. In Egypt there is a city called Cairo. Cairo has a king, and the king has a vizier. His name is Shams al Din Muhammad. He has a daughter, twenty years old. She has the most striking resemblance with this young man. She is beauty. She is charming and she walks gracefully. The king of Egypt heard of her; summoned her father, the vizier and asked her in marriage. The vizier replied, "O king, accept my apology and do not reproach me but grant me your indulgence. As you know, I had a brother called Nur al Din Ali, who shared the vizierate with me in your service. It happened that one night, we sat discussing marriage and children, but the next morning he disappeared. It is twenty years since. I have never heard of him. Recently it is heard that he had died in Basra, where he was a vizier, leaving behind a son. I had recorded the date of my marriage. The night I went into my wife. And the day she gave birth. I have reserved my daughter for her cousin. Besides, there are plenty of other women and girls for our lord."

The king was angry.

End of the Night 


Notes:-
1. The word 'Kemet' means the land of black soil. Egypt was referred to as a land of black soil, because of the its colour and fertility. it was an endonym. The language of Kemet was called Kemetic. Beyond Kemet was land of red soil, or desert. Written Kemetic uses a combination of 22 letter alphabets and pictograms. Some of the pictograms represented linguistic elements as well as concepts. These pictograms are called Kemetic symbols.




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