Hazar Afsan

A Persian book whose title means "A Thousand Fables". According to Ibn al-Nadim, it is the first book composed in the manner of tales (asmar). ¹

Ibn al-Nadim reports that a king of the Persian kings would kill his wife the day after her night with him. He then married Shahrazad. She began to talk to him and would break off the story at the end of the night, so he kept her alive until she bore him a son; she then told him of her stratagem, and he inclined to her. Ibn al-Nadim also gives another account, that the book was composed for Humanay, daughter of Bahman. ¹

Ibn al-Nadim says that he saw the whole of it on several occasions, and his judgement on it was that it is a book of "insipid, cold talk". This is the judgement of Ibn al-Nadim, not the museum's view. ¹