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Group 10: “The Story of Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Bakkar and the Slave-Girl Shams al-Nahar”

Summary: “The Story of Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Bakkar and the Slave-Girl Shams al-Nahar”

Per Shahrayar’s request, Shahrazad tells the story of a druggist in Baghdad. 

The druggist is close friends with a handsome young man, Ali ibn-Bakkar, who is the descendent of kings of Persia. One day, the beautiful Shams al-Nahar visits the druggist, where she and Ali ibn-Bakkar meet and instantly fall in love. She invites both men to a feast.

At the feast, Shams al-Nahar enters, and Ali ibn-Bakkar is overwhelmed with passion and desire. He learns that she is a slave and concubine to the caliph Harun al-Rashid, and this is his palace. Ali ibn-Bakkar and Shams al-Nahar exchange words of love and embrace. When Shams al-Nahar learns that the caliph wishes to spend the night with her, she asks a woman to sneak the druggist and Ali ibn-Bakkar out of the palace. Ali ibn-Bakkar is beside himself with despair. He returns home, feeling ill. The next day, Shams al-Nahar’s maid arrives and tells him that her mistress is also sick with love and desire.

The lovers exchange letters professing their desires and torment, which worries the druggist. He doesn’t want the caliph to know he’s involved. The druggist confesses his fears to a friend who is a jeweler. After hearing the story, the jeweler vows to help Ali ibn-Bakkar. Soon, Shams al-Nahar’s maid and the jeweler work together to keep the lovers’ letters secret.

The jeweler arranges for the lovers to meet at his house. While they feast, a servant exclaims that robbers are raiding the house. The frightened jeweler hides. The next day, a man leads the jeweler across a river to a house where the robbers have imprisoned Ali ibn-Bakkar and Shams al-Nahar. After the jeweler tells the lovers’ story, the robbers agree to return the jeweler’s goods and release the lovers. The jeweler later goes to Ali ibn-Bakkar’s home and finds him near death from wanting Shams al-Nahar but begs him to be patient.

The jeweler goes to see Shams al-Nahar but the caliph, having heard rumors from a servant, has imprisoned her. The caliph doesn’t believe she was unfaithful, but he is still furious just to hear the story. 

To hide from the caliph, the jeweler and Ali ibn-Bakkar flee to a mosque. There, a heartsick Ali ibn-Bakkar dies. The jeweler returns to the city to tell Ali ibn-Bakkar’s mother of his passing. There he learns that Shams al-Nahar has also died. 

Analysis: “The Story of Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Bakkar and the Slave-Girl Shams al-Nahar”

This story is unique because King Shahrayar requests it by title, so it must be a story that was previously well known. It is the archetypal tale of two star-crossed lovers, Ali ibn-Bakkar and Shams al-Nahar, doomed to lovesick deaths. No one who tries to help them—the druggist, the jeweler, the maid, even the men who rob the jeweler’s house—succeeds in comforting their torment or bringing them together. A fleeting tryst is the best they can hope for, and it doesn’t last long. As far as readers know, their love is never consummated, yet it lasts throughout the story until the bitter end.

It was not unusual for caliphs to have many concubines, and Harun al-Rashid is no exception. Shams al-Nahar is one of them. She has maids and servants of her own, but she is not free to love whom she wants. The title calls her a “slave-girl” because she lacks freedom, owned by the caliph who controls her when he is at the palace. Although the caliph believes in her goodness in the end, refusing to accept rumors of her infidelity, he imprisons her. Ali ibn-Bakkar is doomed from the start because he loves someone who is the property of royalty. Even though the druggist expresses the hope that fate will bring the two lovers happiness, it is a false hope. Reality overcomes optimism. The class system overcomes true love. Power overcomes passion. This tale does not end happily or well.

The story is told from the perspectives of two outsiders: the druggist and the jeweler. Neither is protagonist or antagonist, but both are swept up in the emotions and passions of the lovers they befriend. The druggist is introduced as well liked, friendly, and truthful. He genuinely cares about Ali ibn-Bakkar and his devotion. However, he realizes that his own livelihood and health are at stake because of his role as intermediary between the two lovers, so he escapes to Basra to save himself. His close friend, the jeweler, then becomes swept up in the lives of the two lovers as well. The jeweler risks his own life and property to help Ali ibn-Bakkar and Shams al-Nahar. He even agrees to follow a stranger to an unknown place only to learn that the robbers have kidnapped the lovers. Somehow, the robbers agree to release them and return the jeweler’s goods based on the story he tells. Once again in The Arabian Nights, telling a story is the key to survival.

The suspense in the story arises from the all-too-human belief that true love really can conquer all, even social hierarchies. Readers, like the two intermediaries, hope and even believe that the two lovers will prevail because love is so powerful that it can overcome any adversity. However, this is not that kind of tale. Instead, it is a dark tale of woe, loss, and inescapable death. Love is powerful, to be sure, powerful enough to kill these two beautiful young people who dare defy the social norms. The caution in this story is to be careful whom you fall in love with.

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