A plate from the Fatimid period (1000s AD), Egypt Some Islamic rulers bought or captured young Turkish, Mongol, Kurdish and Christian boys. The rulers took these boys away from their families to be special slaves. [...]
Medieval Islamic people: A plate from the Fatimid period (1000s AD), Egypt Children in the medieval Islamic world Children in the Islamic Empire generally did what their parents did (as many [...]
Medieval Islamic families: The Birth of Mohammed (Iran, about 1315 AD, now in Edinburgh) Did men have four wives? According to the Quran, Muslim men could have as many as four wives if they were [...]
An island turned out to be a whale Sinbad was (as Sheherazade told the story) a trader from Baghdad. He sailed his trading ships all around the Persian Gulf and [...]
Death of Iskandar (Alexander), from the Great Mongol Shahnameh (Iran, 1330s AD) In the 900s AD, Central Asia was the most civilized part of the world. The universities and libraries of [...]
The Devil carries Rostem Like Odysseus or Anansi, Monkey or Br'er Rabbit, the Iranian hero Rustem was a trickster. He uses quick thinking to get out of this fix: Once when he was sleeping alone outside [...]
Rudaba lets down her hair A story from the Shahnameh Rudaba's name means "The River Water Girl". She was a character in the Persian epic Shahnameh, written by the poet Ferdowsi [...]
The poet Rumi (1200s AD) Arabic poetry has a long tradition in the Arabian peninsula even before the development of Islam. People composed and recited long poems that they remembered without writing down. [...]
A pile of gold coins Here's another of the stories Sheherazade told the king: Once the sultan had two viziers, a good one (Khacan) and a bad one (Saouy). Naturally Saouy hated [...]
Grapes on a Seljuk period plate Nasruddin lived in the time of the Seljuk Sultans. One day Nasruddin was coming from the vineyard with baskets of grapes on his donkey. The children crowded around [...]
