Historical Prototypes
The nucleus of these stories is formed by an old Persian book called Hezar-afsana or the "Thousand Myths" (Persian: هزارافسانه or هزارافسان).
Scheherazade was identified, confused with, or partly derived from the legendary queen Homāy (همای), daughter of Bahman, who has the epithet Čehrzād (چهرزاد) or Čehrāzād (چهرازاد) "she whose appearance is noble". Harun al-Rashid's mother, Al-Khayzuran, is also said to have influenced the character of Scheherazade.
Read more about this topic: Scheherazade
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or prototypes:
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As our domestic fowls are said to have their original in the wild pheasant of India, so our domestic thoughts have their prototypes in the thoughts of her philosophers.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)