How a wife became a gazelle by Queen Shahrazad
The Story of the Sheikh and the Gazelle – the fascinating stories from 1,001 Nights by Queen Shahrazad (Part Two)
THE MISSING LINK
The first sheikh travelled with a gazelle who was actually the daughter of his father’s uncle and his cousin. She was his wife for about 30 years, but the sheikh was not blessed with any child by her.
LOVE TRIANGLE
His solution was to make his slave a concubine (a woman who has a sexual relationship with a man but has not married him). The sheikh was blessed with a beautiful boy.
BUSINESS CALLING
When the boy was about 15, the sheikh had to go on a business trip.
MY COUSIN, THIS GAZELLE
His cousin wife had studied enchantment and divination. During the absence she transformed the youth into a calf and his mother into a cow. Both were put under the care of the sheikh's herdsman.
THE GRAND RETURNOn his return he asked after his son and concubine. The wife replied – she is dead and your son has fled. She denied knowledge of where they were. He mourned until the Festival of Sacrifice when he sent for the herdsman and ordered him to choose a fat cow.
CONCUBINE IN COW’S CLOTHING
The cow was really the concubine. She moaned so loudly the sheikh had no heart to kill her and ordered the herdsman to do so. However, the herdsman found no fat or flesh but only skin and bone. He then ordered for a fat calf. This calf made such a noise that the sheikh took pity upon it and ordered for a cow instead.
WATCHING WIFE
While this happened his wife urged for the slaughter of the calf. Instead the sheikh gave the calf to the herdsman.
COVERING HER FACEIt just so happened that the herdsman’s daughter also knew enchantment. When she saw the calf, she covered her face and asked her father why he had brought a strange man to her. She recognized that this was the son of the sheikh. The herdsman rushed to tell him. The sheikh entreated the girl to restore his son to him on promise that she could have all his property under the care of the herdsman.
TWO CONDITIONS
The first is that I shall marry your son and the second that I shall enchant the one who enchanted him. Of course the sheikh agreed.
THE GIRL'S PRAYER
If God created you a calf, remain a calf.
But if you are enchanted return to your original form by permission of God, whose name be exalted.
TRANSFORMATION
He shook and became a man!
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH
The sheikh said: “O my son, God hath given you one to liberate you and to avenge you.”
MARRIAGE
The sheikh married the two and then she transformed the wife/cousin into a gazelle.
AND THIS IS MY STORY!The Jinni found the story to be so wonderful that he gave up one third of his claim to the blood of the merchant to this sheikh.
RECAP
One day a merchant had lost his life to a Jinni but three sheikhs bargained with the Jinni that if he liked their story he would give up one third to each sheikh. The first sheikh now has one third of the merchant’s life in his hands.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Wickedness has its consequences.
Shahrazad was the lady attempting to win the love of a king by telling riveting stories. What is the moral of the story of the Sheikh and the Gazelle – Wickedness has its consequences. Also beware of the jealous wife – she bided her time and struck when the sheikh was not able to defend his love and their son. Jealously and wickedness are powerful forces – don’t unleash them upon you in your life. In the end the sheikh ended up with no companions unless you can say a gazelle is a companion. Perhaps the sheikh should have been content with his first wife even though she could not give him a baby.
- The classical image of a 'sheikh': Sheikh Sattam de Haddadin of Palmyra, by Russian painter Alexandr Evgenievich Yacovleff.
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