Lessons of Shahrazad

Tales of “One Thousand and One Nights” and its general framework occupied a wide place in Arab popular culture, and its superstitious stories, which are not symbolic of some lessons learned from life experiences, or from some situations that reflect the culture, values ​​and standards prevailing in Arab societies in the Middle Ages, intertwined with popular literature Oral and fairy tales in different oriental civilizations, especially Hindi, Persian and Arabic; which resembled the dominance of patriarchal society and the male culture that dominates the position of men over the status of women in society. This gave a distinctive impression, as long as it accompanied the talk about Shahrazad, the central figure in the tales “One Thousand and One Nights”.

This book provides a contrasting reading of the stereotypical image of Shahrazad as a symbolic figure that summarizes the image of the weak, submissive Arab woman; a woman who is subject to the will of the man and his dominant authority in Arab and eastern societies since ages. Hence, this book provides a sociological gender reading of the figure of Shahrazad, highlighting the capability of Arab women, if they wanted, to confront the grievances of patriarchal society and male culture over them, It also explains that discrimination against women is not based on fixed natural differences and characteristics, instead it is a cultural issue related to the prevailing economic, social and educational factors in any society .