Marjana, Marjana, Quite the Honour!

A typical night in the glory of an Arabian province. A wealthy turban-ed man comes home from a long day of work managing his local oil rig, producing millions upon millions of dollars each week. "Salem, Abdul!", cautiously says one of this seven wives. Yes, this man's name is indeed Abdul Muhammed Nassar. "Prepare me my falafel, woman!" he yells back sternly, and quite honestly, forgetting whether it was Fatima or Alia whom he addressed. At no more than this, the unknown wife runs back into her familiar place in the kitchen, fearing for her life, considering the fate of her predecessors. After all, Abdul has had a long day at work, his personal belly-dancer was ill today, and his cousin, Hakeem Muhammed Sarkis, had died in a local bombing (one which he himself initiated, of course), and at any point, her husband could act homicidally.

What must this do with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? In this apparently simple story, the under lying theme does its best to reject and discredit the many stereotypes the West has developed about the arab culture, most prominently, those regarding Arab women.

Marjana is the lowest of low. She is a slave. And not only is she a slave, be that bad enough, she is a female slave. She serves her master, Qasim, until he is murdered. She then helps dispose of the body by faking a post-mortem death. Be that not clever enough, she saves the life of her more heroic master, Ali Baba, on multiple accounts and continues to murder thirty-eight thieves. Her keen intellect and sharp wits are demonstrated throughout our story, emphasising the fact that this woman is only good befriended, or married to, as Ali Baba took to. 

The cleverness of Marjana in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves annihilates all and any remaining stereotypes about either slaves or women that were perpetuated by the readings of such misogynous stories such as the The Tale of Scheherazade. In that story, the only role women played was to destroy the lives of men, extracting the only meaningful moral which was to control your wives through any means, especially if it means physical beatings or execution. In contrast, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves demonstrates women in a way that strongly benefits the house of Ali Baba Instead of chaos breaking when the woman deals in secrecy, Ali Baba life is spared multiple times, noting that women are much more beneficial in deception than in tight grips, another common stereotype of arab culture.