{"id":4097,"date":"2019-11-17T03:54:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T07:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=4097"},"modified":"2022-03-11T15:28:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T19:28:22","slug":"kamar-al-zaman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/kamar-al-zaman\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamar al-Zaman’s Hero’s Journey (Arabian Nights)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who was Kamar al-Zaman? How does this prince’s adventures in Arabian Nights<\/em> tales follow the conventions of the hero’s journey<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamar al-Zaman is a prince in the tales of The Arabian Nights<\/em>. The stories of Kamar al-Zaman, Princess Budur, and the otherworldly Maymunah follow the hero’s journey popularized by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ll examine two popular Kamar al-Zaman tales and explore how they follow the stages of Campbell’s hero’s journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Prince Kamar al-Zaman and Princess Budur<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This concept of the hero’s journey stages is well illustrated in the Arabian Nights<\/em> tale of Prince Kamar al-Zaman and Princess Budur. In it, the prince has rejected his father\u2019s demands that he take a wife, citing his desire to commit his life to Allah and avoid the pleasures (and sins) of the flesh. <\/strong>
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The sultan is advised to broach the subject with his son in the presence of a great council of state, the rationale being that the prince will surely be goaded into accepting marriage under these conditions of immense social pressure. But Kamar al-Zaman again refuses his father and insults him in front of his great ministers and viziers. Enraged, Kamar al-Zaman\u2019s father has him imprisoned in a decrepit tower, where he is to reflect upon the injury and shame he has brought upon his family.
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Simultaneously, in distant China, Princess Budur\u2014the beautiful daughter of the emperor\u2014is similarly refusing marriage to all suitors her father presents to her. She even threatens to kill herself with a sword if he brings up the subject of matrimony again. Like the sultan, the emperor locks his daughter up and appoints ten old women to guard her. He then sends messengers to all the kingdoms of Asia, telling the rulers that Princess Budur has gone mad.
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Both the hero and the heroine have taken the negative path and refused the call of destiny. <\/strong>They are a predestined match, but it will take a miracle to bring them together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hero’s Journey, Stage 2: Refusal of the Call<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The story of Kamar al-Zaman demonstrates stage 2 of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey: the refusal of the call<\/a>. A common feature of the monomyth<\/a> is the hero\u2019s refusal of the call<\/strong>, an initial reluctance to follow the steps of their destiny. In folk tales and myths across the world and throughout history, this refusal amounts to a selfish impulse to give up one\u2019s narrow, immediate interests in the pursuit of spiritual awakening or even the salvation of the universe, as is the case with Kamar al-Zaman. In psychoanalytic terms, the refusal represents the clinging to infantile needs for security<\/strong>. Thus, the mother and father are the figures preventing true growth and transformation as the ego fails to develop and embrace the world outside the nursery. 
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The refusal can have grave consequences, both for the hero and for the wider world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n