This episode marks two important milestones that we have reached here at In The Great Khan’s Tent!

Firstly this is the 40th episode we have reached! Secondly, we have reached 2,000 all time downloads!

Both could not have happened without the support of our listeners, our supporters, and those who continue with us on our journey to examine the Literature and Folk Literature from the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, Mongolia and the Russian Far East.

We will continue to strive to bring you the same informative, educational, and entertaining content that we have been doing! Thank you all and hope you continue this journey with us!

In light of reaching these milestones, I have decided to update our cover art and logo. I would really appreciate your comments if you like this one or prefer our older one.

In this episode, we continue our exiting exploration of the One Thousand and One Nights with the continuation of the story of “The Story of Ghanim, the son of Ayyub, the Distracted Slave of Love” with Nights 42 and 43.

Once again the historical characters of Harun al-Rashid and Jafar al-Barmaki appear but this time, their roles are clearly superseded by our main characters, Ghanim and Qut al-Qulub, and they are reduced to being secondary characters.

What differs from other stories we have encountered so far that feature Harun al-Rashid, he this time appears as someone who is more religiously inclined than before with clear issues about being punished in the afterlife. This is shown by  how many times both Qut al-Qulub and his main wife Zubeydah, are either told to as in the case of Zubeydah by the old woman, or is known as when Qut al-Qulub indicates.

This indicates, to me, that this might have been told and written down when Harun al-Rashid was older and somewhat more mature than was previously shown.

We are also re-introduced to the characters of Ghanim’s mother and his sister, Fitneh, as they appear lamenting the supposed loss of Ghanim. The concept of mistaken identity is continual here with how often all three women characters overlook Ghanim due to the troubles he finds himself in and the state, both mentally and physically, he is reduced to due to his separation from Qut al-Qulub.

In the next episode, we will conclude our special series, In The Great Khan’s Tent Presents: Tales from Central Asia, with Episode 4. However, fear not listeners, we will have a new special series to replace this one coming out next month!