HISTORY OF SIDI NU’UMAN 585 HISTORY OF KHWAJAH HASAN AL-HABBAL 587 ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES 590 ALI KHWAJAH AND THE MERCHANT OF BAGHDAD 596 PRINCE ADMAD AND THE PERI BANU 600 THE TWO SISTERS WHO ENVIED THEIR CADETTE 617 ADDITIONAL NOTES:— THE TALE OF ZAYN AL-ASNAM 649 ALADDIN; OR THE WONDERFUL LAMP 650 ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES 650 THE TALE OF PRINCE AHMAD 652 THE TALE OF ZAYN AL-ASNAM. (_ARABIC._) Now when it was the Four Hundred and Ninety-seventh Night,[7] Quoth Dunyázád, “O sister mine, an thou be other than sleepy, tell us one of thy fair tales, so therewith we may cut short the waking hours of this our night;” and quoth the King, “Let it be _THE TALE OF ZAYN AL-ASNAM._”[8] Shahrázád replied:——With love and good will! It hath reached me, O King of the Age, that in Bassorah-city[9] reigned a puissant Sultan, who was opulent exceedingly and who owned all the goods of life; but he lacked a child which might inherit his wealth and dominion. So, being sorely sorrowful on this account, he arose and fell to doing abundant alms-deeds to Fakírs and the common poor, to the Hallows and other holy men and prayed their recourse to Allah Almighty, in order that the Lord (to whom belong Might and Majesty!) might of His grace bless him with issue. And the Compassionate accepted his prayer for his alms to the Religious and deigned grant his petition; and one night of the nights after he lay with the Queen she went away from him with child. Now as soon as the Sultan heard of the conception he rejoiced with exceeding great joyance, and when the days of delivery near drew he gathered together all the astrologers and sages who strike the sand-board,[10] and said to them, “’Tis our desire that ye disclose and acquaint us anent the birth which is to be born during the present month whether it shall be male or female, and what shall befal it from the shifts of Time, and what shall proceed from it.” Thereupon the geomantists struck their sand-boards and the astrophils ascertained their ascendants and they drew the horoscope of the babe unborn, and said to the sovran, “O King of the Age and Lord of the Time and the Tide, verily the child to which the Queen shall presently give birth will be a boy and ’twill be right for thee to name him Zayn al-Asnám—Zayn of the Images.” Then spake the geomantists, saying, “Know then, Ho thou the King, that this little one shall approve him when grown to man’s estate valiant and intelligent; but his days shall happen upon sundry troubles and