Middle ages religious representations and Islamic propaganda in the Book One Thousand and One Nights

Alf laila wa laila, or One Thousand and One Nights, is one of the best known literary works in the world, containing syncretic and entertaining fantastical tales. The author of this paper, however, calls into question the assertion that One Thousand and One Nights is solely an entertaining and fictional literary work. Analysing numerous quotations and passages from the book this paper’s author claims that the main objective of the persons behind the text was, in fact, religious propaganda interwoven into folk tales of the of Islam in the Middle Ages. Rifling through various tales of the book shows that matters related to religion play a big role, as is exemplified in ‘Slave-girl Tawaddud’. From this perspective Alf laila wa laila is simply a priceless fount of knowledge regarding Muslim religious convictions, customs, cosmological and eschatological ideas about world, ethical norms and moral ideals. Therefore, it seems that the actual objective of the authors and editors through this work was teaching, explaining and moralize to its readers, under the disguise of a series of fantasy tales. From the point of view of religious studies, Alf laila wa laila is an ideological and cultural continuation of the same kind of literature, which was present in this region form antiquity. Collections of the tales found in the book are the ‘successors’ of the ancient Egyptian sadji as well as of the Biblical parables. Likewise as these predecessor texts, also Alf laila wa laila was designated not only to entertain but also to teach the proper conduct, solidify truth of faith and convince its readers of Muslim cultural supremacy over the competing religions of those days