THE ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENT AND THE THREE APPLES

 

                       

                                    

 

THE ARABIAN  NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENT  AND THE THREE APPLES

 

The Arabian Nights is a collection of tales from the Islamic Golden Age, compiled by various authors over many hundreds of years. 

The Arabian Nights' Entertainment is a collection of stories from the 1,001 Nights narrated to Sultan Shahrayar by his new wife Scheherazade to save herself from the guillotine.

 

                           

 

Let's first view the Arabian Nights summary before learning about "The Three Apples".

 

Though each collection features different stories, they are all centered around the frame story of the sultan Shahrayar and his wife Scheherazade.  After finding out that his first wife is unfaithful, Shahrayar kills her and swears to marry a different woman each night before killing her the following morning to prevent further betrayal.

 

Scheherazade, his vizier's daughter, concocts a plan to end this pattern.  She marries Shahrayar, and then begins to tell him a story that night.  However, she stops the story in the middle, so that he will be excited to hear the rest of the story following night.  The next evening, she finishes that story and then begins another, following the same pattern for 1,001 nights, until Shahrayar has a change of heart.  The stories she tells comprise the collection.

 

                                     

 

We must have learned in our school days about the story of "Aladdin's Magic Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor", "The Fisherman and the Jinni", "The Vizier and the Sage Duban", "The Three Princes and the Princes Nouronnihar"  and also "The Three Apples" amongst others.

                             

 

One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition, which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.    

 

                            

                                                             

 

In "The Three Apples", a fisherman finds a chest in the ocean containing a woman's body.  Both her father and her husband try to take the blame, but the caliph discerns that the husband had killed her, believing her unfaithful.  He had brought her three rare apples when she was sick, then got mad when he saw a slave with one of the apples, claiming he had received the fruit from his girlfriend.  Believing the slave, he killed the woman.  He then learned that his son had actually given the apple to the slave, who then lied to stir up trouble.  The ruler's vizier Ja'far ascertains that his own slave is the culprit, and the caliph pardons everyone. 

 

The great Arabian Nights' stories entertained all of us since our childhood days. 

Three Apples That Changed The World :

It is ironic but the world would not have been the same place if those three apples didn’t appear. Maybe you may want to guess which of these three apples has played the most crucial role in mankind’s history till now.

 

1.   The forbidden apple : Christians around the world have grown up with the concept that paradise exists and first humans had the luxury to be hosted there. The myths have traveled through the centuries and it has suffered some slight changes to adjust the society’s way of thinking. According to the Bible Adam and Eve live in the paradise that God had created for them who were his beloved creatures.God generously provides the source of all happiness for them under the term that they would not eat any apples from the apple tree. All of the goods were in the garden and one may think that they wouldn’t have any reason to disobey God’s orders.

         In the Holy Book, a snake appears as pure evil to Eva and persuades her to taste the  forbidden and yet delicious apple. Eva follows the snake’s orders that represent Devil and the tricks he does to distract people. After she tries its taste she convinces Adam to follow her example and this is how the once happy couple loses the privilege of paradise.In an attempt to punish them God tells Adam that he will have to work hard for the survival of his family and Eva will have to suffer horrible pains to give birth to her children. In the beginning, the story seemed to be a symbolic lesson to discourage people from living in sin and help them discipline. At the same time, it explained why men had to worry about survival and women had to worry about reproduction. It was a quick explanation of human nature. Going deeper into the symbolism of the famous myth we will notice an attempt to discourage people from knowledge. For many modern analysts, the apple tree represents the tree of knowledge, and the fact that there was   no obvious reason to avoid eating the fruits from that tree, implies that people were encouraged to obey rules without further questioning.  

Adam's apple: - Eve after committing the original sin persuades Adam to taste the apple.  

   When realized that he is eating the forbidden fruit Adam immediately catches his throat               to spit out the apple leaving a lump in his throat.  This is called the Adam's  apple.            

   One can see a lump in all the men in his throat.

 

 

2. Newton’s apple: 

     Isaac Newton was the first man to establish gravity as a concept in the scientific community. Scientists back then were not just university graduates that had a good understanding of mathematics. They were mostly philosophers who had the luxury to study nature because they were not obliged to work as slaves for the survival of mankind. It is believed that the idea of gravity appeared in Newton’s mind one day, while he was sitting under an apple tree. An apple falling from the tree on his head was an adequate stimulus to capture Newton’s interest.The simple process of fruit falling from a tree to the ground rose the question: ”Why does everything move downwards and not the other way round?” A genuine question of curiosity is what has set our jets to explore the universe searching for life beyond our planet. What is today common knowledge for our society was not a fact until the end of the 17th century. Huge discoveries followed that initial thought of Newton that seems like a genuine inspiration.

  

Newton’s laws of motion would not be doubted by scientists until Albert Einstein came into the picture. Still, the theory, of course, didn’t collapse; it just expanded in a way. The important thing is that this Apple is taught in most schools around the world showing kids how crucial ideas come from simple facts.

 

 

3. Apple company : 

    The famous company perhaps made a very well-aimed choice to decide on the brand’s name. Apples are delicious, apples are famous, they are ancient and they grow in most parts of the world so everyone knows them.The company based in the United States was founded in 1976 in Los Altos of California. No more than five decades have passed since then and the world’s picture has changed more than it had changed for the past centuries till then.

The company is an innovator to everything connected with technology and electronics and most of all internet and connection of people. It has given access to billions of people to the internet and has helped over humanity’s education and communication. People from all over the globe are now able to communicate and learn things that happen on the other side of the world. 

 

 

Apple is not only delicious and famous but also a blessed fruit.

   

It is said "An apple a day keeps the Doctor away".   So, it is a healthy fruit as well.