Group 6: “The Story of the Three Apples” & “The Story of the Two Viziers, Nur al-Din Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri”

Summary: “The Story of the Three Apples” 

The caliph, Ja’far returns to the city where he offers to pay for whatever the fisherman catches. The fisherman pulls up a chest containing a dismembered young girl. The king commands Ja’far to find her murderer. A young man confesses and offers his story to the caliph.

The murdered girl was his wife. One day, she asked him for an apple. The man purchased three apples for his wife. When the young man saw a slave with an apple, the slave lied and said his mistress gave it to him. Thinking his wife unfaithful, the young man cut off her head. Soon after, however, his son explained that the slave took the apple from him. 

The young man, crushed by guilt, begs the caliph to take his life. Instead, the caliph commands Ja’far to find the slave. When Ja’far finds the slave, he’s upset to see it’s one of his own. The slave confesses, and the caliph orders him put to death. However, in an attempt to save his slave’s life, Ja’far offers the caliph an amazing story about two viziers.

Summary: “The Story of the Two Viziers, Nur al-Din Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri”

Shams al-Din, the vizier of Cairo, proposes that he and his brother, Nur al-Din, the vizier of Basra, marry on the same day, have children on the same day and, in the future, have their children marry. However, they argue about the dowry and turn on each other. In time, both brothers marry on the same day, and have children on the same day—one a son, the other, a daughter. 

Just before Nur al-Din dies, he tells his son Badr al-Din five lessons for life. Badr al-Din falls asleep near his father’s sepulcher. There, two demons fly Badr al-Din to Egypt in the hopes of stopping the wedding between the vizier’s daughter, Sit al-Husn, and a hunchback. Sit al-Husn and Badr al-Din fall in love immediately. While the demons trap the hunchback in the toilet, Badr al-Din and Sit al-Husn make love.

The demons fly Badr al-Din to Damascus, where he’s taken in by a cook. Back in Egypt, Sit al-Husn’s father, Shams al-Din, discovers the man she fell in love with is his nephew, the very man he wanted her to marry. However, his nephew is nowhere to be found.

For years, Shams al-Din, Sit al-Husn, her son ‘Ajib, and Badr al-Din’s mother search for Badr al-Din. One day, ‘Ajib eats at the shop, where he tells the cook about the father he has lost, not realizing the cook is indeed his father. Badr al-Din, hearing the boy’s words, weeps over his own lost family, not realizing that the boy is, in fact, his son. When ‘Ajib leaves, Badr al-Din follows him, but ‘Ajib hurls a rock at him. Later, ‘Ajib feels bad about hurting the cook, so he apologizes and brings home a pomegranate dish for his grandmother. When she tastes the dish, she knows that only her son, Badr al-Din, could have made it.

Shams al-Din orders men to beat Badr al-Din, lock him a wooden crate, and take him to Cairo. There, they threaten to crucify him for not seasoning the pomegranate dish. It’s all a trick. Badr al-Din is released, and led to a bedroom, where Sit al-Husn waits. Badr al-Din later reunites with his mother and all live happily. Ja’far’s story is so entertaining the king spares his slave’s life. 

Analysis: “The Story of the Three Apples” & “The Story of the Two Viziers, Nur al-Din Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri”

The story of the three apples is the setup for the complex story of the two viziers that follows. However, it does underline the recurring pattern of a misjudgment that ends in tragedy. The young man wrongfully kills his loyal wife because of his willingness to believe a lying slave. He is too quick to believe the lie, too quick to accept his wife’s infidelity. However, the wise caliph realizes that the slave is also guilty of her death, not only her husband. He sends Ja’far to find the slave, who ends up being one of Ja’far’s.

To save the life of his slave, Ja’far certainly rises to the occasion with “The Story of the Two Viziers, Nur al-Din Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri,” the longest and perhaps most complex tale so far. Describing three generations of royal families in Egypt and Basra, the story weaves together many layers, settings, and myriad subplots that contain lots of coincidences. However, since the characters believe so strongly in fate, the coincidences may not be coincidences at all.

The tale also weaves together opposites. Poverty mixes with wealth. Youth mixes with age. Justice mixes with injustice. When Badr al-Din is treated like a criminal simply because of the flavor of a dish he has cooked, it shows how the wealthy and powerful can mistreat the lower classes without any reason at all. However, when the boy ‘Ajib feels guilty for the way he treated the cook, he uses compassion to transcend the social boundaries of the time and initiates the story’s resolution: the reunion of a family. Even the two brothers who serve as co-viziers are torn apart by senseless bickering, choosing their own stubborn pride over family bonds.

The five admonitions given by Nur al-Din on his deathbed to his son are lessons that reverberate throughout The Arabian Nights. They are: Stay aloof to avoid betrayal. Oppress no one lest you be oppressed. Hold your tongue. Beware of wine. Protect your wealth. While these are most certainly important lessons to learn at the time, in many ways, these universal lessons appear as common themes throughout the collection, explicitly articulated, here, in its center for emphasis and clarity. Shahrazad wants to make sure that these five lessons are heard and digested, not only by her husband, Shahrayar, but also her listeners. 

At first glance, the trick that the vizier of Egypt plays on Badr al-Din at the end seems cruel and extreme. The poor Badr al-Din suffers greatly in the wooden crate after his shop is ravaged and he is beaten. He is also mentally tortured by the accusation that the dish he cooked was not well seasoned. Perhaps what happens to the innocent hunchback is likewise cruel. He is humiliated and frightened even though he has done nothing to do deserve it. 

In the world of The Arabian Nights, suffering is not always justified. Sometimes, it is simply part of a much larger plan, or story, and cannot be explained in logical terms. Such situations also mirror the reality faced by some of the story’s listeners at the time: Life can be unfair and cruel, even to those who do nothing wrong. There are situations and characters aplenty in the tales to which all kinds of listeners might be able to connect. While events in a single story move that tale’s plot forward, these details also serve the larger narrative’s purpose, which is both the umbrella story of the section and the much larger story of Shahrayar and Shahrazad. Nothing is too outlandish or unbelievable. Nothing is too extreme, cruel, vulgar, or ridiculous if King Shahrayar remains entertained.