List of One Thousand and One Nights characters

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An artistic expression of a city from the One Thousand and One Nights.

Characters in the frame story[edit]

The daughters of the Grand Vizier: Scheherazade and Dunyazade


Main article: Scheherazade
Scheherazade in the palace of her husband Shahryar

Scheherazade (Persian: شهرزاد‎‎ Šahrzād also called Shahrazad) is the legendary Persian queen and the storyteller and narrator of The Nights. She is the daughter of the kingdom's vizier and sister of Dunyazad (Persian: دنیازاد‎‎).



Dunyazad, Dunyazade, (also called Dunyazatde, Dinazade, or Dinarzad) (Persian: دنیازاد‎‎) is the younger sister of Queen Scheherazade. In the story cycle, it is she who (at Scheherazade's instruction) initiates the tactic of cliffhanger storytelling to prevent her sister's execution by Shahryar. Dunyazad, brought to her sister's bedchamber so that she could say farewell before Scheherazade's execution the next morning, asks her sister to tell one last story. At the successful conclusion of the tales, Dunyazad marries Shah Zaman, Shahryar's younger brother.


Scheherazade's Father[edit]


The vizier tells Scheherazade the Tale of the Bull and the Ass, in an attempt to discourage his daughter from marrying the king. It does not work and she marries Shahryar anyway.



Shahryar or Shahriar or Shariar or Shahriyar or Schahryar or Sheharyar or Shaheryar or Shahrayar or Shaharyar (Persian: شهریار - Šahryār‎‎, "city-server" or the king) is the fictional Persian Sassanid King of kings who is told stories by his wife, Scheherazade.

He ruled over a Persian Empire extended to India, over all the adjacent islands and a great way beyond the Ganges as far as China, while Shahryār’s younger brother, Shahzaman (Persian: شاهزمان - Šāhzamān‎‎) ruled over Samarkand.

In the frame-story, Shahryar is betrayed by his wife, which makes him believe that all women will, in the end, betray him. So every night for three years, he takes a wife and has her executed the next morning, until he marries Scheherazade, his vizier’s beautiful and clever daughter. For 1001 nights in a row, Scheherazade tells Shahryar a story, each time stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, thus forcing him to keep her alive for another day so that she can complete the tale the next night. After 1,001 stories she has told Shahryar, she tells him that she has no more stories to tell him. However, during the stories, Shahryar has grown into a wise ruler and rekindles his trust in women.

Shah Zaman[edit]


At the end of the story, Shahryār calls for his brother and tells him of Scheherazade's fascinating, moral tales. Shah Zaman decides to stay with his brother and marries Scheherazade's beautiful younger maiden sister, Dunyazad with whom he has fallen in love.

Characters in Scheherazade's stories[edit]


Sons of the Sultan of the Indies with scimitars. (from Boulanger's painting, A Tale of 1001 Nights)



Main article: Aladdin
Aladdin and the Jinni.

Aladdin is one of the most famous characters from One Thousand Nights and appears in the famous tale of Aladdin and The Wonderful Lamp.

Ali Baba[edit]

Main article: Ali Baba

Ali Baba (Arabic: علي بابا‎) is a poor woodcutter who becomes rich after discovering a vast cache of treasure, hidden by evil bandits.

Ali Shar[edit]

Ali Shar is a character from Ali Shar and Zumurrud who inherits a large fortune on the death of his father but very quickly squanders it all. He goes hungry for many months until he sees Zumurrud on sale in a slave market. Zumurrud gives Ali the money to buy her and the two live together and fall in love. A year later Zumurrud is kidnapped by a Christian and Ali spends the rest of the story finding her.

Prince Ali[edit]



Princess Badroulbadour is the only daughter of the Emperor of China in the folktale, Aladdin, and whom Aladdin falls in love with after seeing her in the city with a crowd of her attendants. Aladdin uses the genie of the lamp to foil the Princess's arranged marriage to the Grand Vizier's son, and marries her himself. The Princess is described as being somewhat spoiled and vain. Her name is often changed in many retellings to make it easier to pronounce.

The Barber of Baghdad[edit]


  • Bacbouc who was hunchback
  • Al-Fakik who was toothless
  • Al-Bakbuk who was blind
  • Al-Kuz who lost one of his eyes
  • Al-Haddar who was very lazy
  • Shakashik who had a harelip


The Forty Thieves attack greedy Cassim when they find him in their secret magic cave.

Cassim is the rich and greedy brother of Ali Baba who is killed by the Forty Thieves when he is caught stealing treasure from their magic cave.







Maruf the Cobbler[edit]

According to the story Maruf is a diligent and hardworking Cobbler in the city of Cairo; he is then married to a mendacious and pestering woman named Fatimah.

Due to the ensuing quarrel between him and his wife Fatimah; Maruf flees the city of Cairo and enters the ancient ruins of Adiliyah there he takes refuge from the winter rains. After sunset Maruf meets a very powerful Jinni, he is then transported by the Jinni to a distant land known as Ikhtiyan al-Khatan.


Morgiana and the Duff


Sinbad the Porter[edit]


Sinbad the Sailor[edit]

Main article: Sinbad the Sailor

Sinbad the Sailor is perhaps one of the most famous characters from the Nights. He is from Basra, but in his old age, he lives in Baghdad. He recounts the tales of his seven voyages to Sinbad the Porter.

Sultan of the Indies[edit]

Sultan of the Indies has three sons Hussain, Ali and Ahmed. All three want to marry their cousin Princess Nouronnihar, so the Sultan says he will give her to the prince who brings back the most extraordinary rare object.


King Yunan is a fictional king of one of the ancient Persian cities, in the province of Zuman, now modern Azerbaijan who appears in The tale of the vizier and the Sage Duban. At the start of the story, Yunan is suffering from leprosy but he is cured by Duban the physician whom he rewards greatly. This makes Yunan's vizier become jealous and he persuades the King that Duban wants to overthrow him. At first Yunan does not believe this and tells his vizier the Tale of the Husband and the Parrot to which the vizier responds by telling the Tale of the Prince and the Ogress. This convinces Yunan that Duban is guilty and he has him executed. Yunan later dies after reading a book of Duban's, the pages of which had been poisoned.

Zayn Al-Asnam[edit]




"Zummurrrud" redirects here. For the crater, see Zummurrud (crater).

Zumurrud-the Smaragdine (Persian زمرد سمرقندی Zumurrud e Samarkandi), which means "emerald from Samarkand" (at the time of the story, Samarkand had been famous for its emeralds), is a slave girl who appears in Ali Shar and Zumurrud. She is bought by, and falls in love with, Ali Shar with whom she lives until she is kidnapped by a Christian. Zumurrud escapes from the Christian only to be found and taken by Javan (Juvenile) the Kurd. Again, Zumurrud manages to get away from her captor, this time by dressing up as a man. On her way back to Ali Shar, Zumurrud is mistaken for a noble Turk and made Queen of an entire kingdom. Eventually, Zumurrud is reunited with Ali Shar.

Real people[edit]

Abu Nuwas[edit]



The flying horse.



Az-Zahir (or Al-Mustazi as he is called in the Nights) was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 1225 to 1226 and appears in The Hunchback’s Tale.

Harun al-Rashid[edit]


Harun al-Rashid, fifth Abbasid Caliph who ruled from 786 until 809. Hārūn the wise Caliph serves as an important character in many of the stories set in Baghdad, frequently in connection with his vizier, Ja'far, with whom he roams in disguise through the streets of the city to observe the lives of the ordinary people.


Ja'far ibn Yahya, Ja'far (also known as Jafar al-Barmaki) was Harun al-Rashid's Persian Vizier and appears in many stories, normally accompanying Harun. In at least one of these stories, "The Three Apples", Ja'far is the protagonist of the story, depicted in a role similar to a detective. In another story, "The Tale of Attaf", he is also a protagonist, depicted as an adventurer alongside the protagonist Attaf.


Khosrau II was a King of Persia from 590 to 628. He appears with his wife, Shirin, in a story on the three hundred and ninety-first night called Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman.




See also[edit]

External links[edit]