Leonid Shmukler - 1001 nights

1. Since I started posting updates on twitter and reading people’s posts, I noticed that a lot of people live in Teleological time. According to what I’ve read, most people just write about the current events that are happening in their lives. Most of my twitter buddies write about what they did this morning or evening. They’re concentrating on the present and not really discussing what they might do in a year from now. I happen to also live in teleological time so I can relate to all these people. I was really affected by what everyone wrote because I felt like I had a connection with people that I barely knew. Everyday, I wonder if anyone is going through the same problems I am. Twitter, and other social networks like it, connects people in such a way that have never been done before since the beginning of civilization. A person can be affected by what another person has to share, half way around the world.

2. The stories of “1001 Nights” as stated “is also “interwoven” of different moments” In other words, although these are fictional stories, the tales are woven together consistently by the author. There are many lessons and small stories within the larger ones and many themes are woven together. Sometimes when events and themes are woven together, one can lose sense of the past, present, and future. In the story “King Sindibad and his Falcon” there is not really a mix of time settings intertwined, rather it seems to flow straight from the beginning of the story to the end. When this occurs, we call this “teleological time” This kind of time has a cause leading to an effect, or a beginning leading to an end, and there is a significant purpose. In this story, there is a beginning of the king raising a falcon, a middle of the story where the king and his men go hunting, where the king finally traps a gazelle with the aid of his falcon, and an ending where the king learns a lesson. He learns that he should not have assumed that his
falcon’s intentions were meant for harm, but rather the falcon’s intentions were for good as it tried to save the king from poison. This story is “teleological’ and has a direct beginning, middle, and end and a specificity of time rather than different phases being intertwined.

3. Most of these works from “1001 Nights” are derived from Arabic cultures and have many meanings that would be understood by the people of these countries. The story of ‘The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot” is a perfect example of a story that is relative to the Arabic culture. In this story, the wife cheats on her husband with a Turkish man while the husband is away. When the husband finds out about this from the parrot, he proceeds to beat her as it states “Thereupon the husband went to his wife in a violent rage and bashed her with a bashing severe enough to satisfy any body.” In many of the Arabic cultures, men are believed to be superior and they believe in beating their wives as is stated “Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All high, All great.” The practice of a husband beating his wife to therefore “punish” her to show power over her is common in many Arabic cultures, as “The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot” suggests.
http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/wife-beating.htm#_Toc160373809

1- I think stellar time is seen on twitter. I was never the kind of person that likes to send emails, use twitter or face book. When I made the account for this class I did not use it the first 2 days. But the first time I went online I was surprised by what my class mates are writing. The write every thing that happens to then in that day. There is no such think as privacy. People tell each other everything on twitter. I know that when a person speaks to a friend about a hardship he will fell a little happier because he has someone to speak to, but no anyone and not everything. This experience only forced my point that twitter, face book and other means of communication that we use these days are only taking us away from real life.

2- In the reading we have stories within stories, and they all interact together to make an ultimate story. A good example is the tale of the Bull and Ass. In that tale you have the story of the farmer who “Allah Most High had endowed him with under standing the tongues of beasts and birds” same as King Salomon. But that gift came with a cost and that is if any one know about the gift the farmer will die a horrible death. The other story is the dialogue between the Bull and the Ass which caused the farmer to laugh and made his wife upset. To make it up for his wife he was going to tell every body about the secret, which meant he wanted to kill himself and all that because of the dialogue between the bull and the Ass. The type of time theory that is presented is cause-effect theory.

3- From my knowledge of the Arabic culture I know that almost everybody has heard or read the 1001 nights. These tales are very famous in Arabic countries and a lot of movies were made from these tales. Prophet Mohammad since the start of Islam 15 centuries ago was asking both men and women to study and seek knowledge. There is a saying that he says “ask for knowledge even if it is in china.” Islam doesn’t treat women bad as the west proclaim. It is the west that treats women as sex object. You do not see as much divorce in Islam as you see in the west and that’s because Islam value women more.

　

　

Diana Liang's response

1. From Twitter I felt that people still followed the Teleological time because they often started off the tweet with “this morning…” or “after work…” or “tonight…”. People often posted what they were about to do because of something that happened to them earlier in the day either at work or at school. It is also hard to get away from Teleological time since we are so use to it and also Twitter tells you when the tweet was posted. Only some people reported on random instances in their lifetime which would reflect the stellar time because I remember looking at a tweet and saying to myself “oh yea that has happened to me before” or felt that there was something I could relate to. I was affected by what people were posting because some people posted interesting articles and news that I ever heard of before. Thereby learning from each classmate and gaining more knowledge.

2.In The Tale of the Bull and the Ass two types of time exist. The story begins with the bull complaining to the donkey about all the labor he must do. The donkey gives him advice as to how he can get out doing work. A farmer gifted with the power to understand animals overhears all this. The farmer makes the donkey do all of the bull’s work. At the end of this story, the donkey tricks the bull back into doing his work. The farmer laughs at the two and begins another story about the farmer and his wife. In this story the farmer also takes advice from the dog regarding his wife. These two stories are told in the Teleological time format because the story is told as things happen and also shows a cause and effect relationship. The next story is involved jumps to tell about the king and a lady by the name of Scheherazade who is transported into his bed room. The story is linked to the previous two stories because Scheherazade hears of them. This is an example of Stella time because the characters in the two stories are intermingling with Scheherazade and affects her life.

3. I think that the Tale of the Husband and the Parrot would be well received by the Islamic countries today. I base my opinion on the recent law passed by the Afghanistan’s government which is the law that it is legal for a man to rape his wife. The law was revoked later on due to pressure from other countries. However this shows that women are treated as second class citizens . In the tale of the Husband and the Parrot, the husband beats his wife when he finds out about her lover. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512556,00.html

Ira Cabrele - 1001 nights of tales and 11 days of Twitter!

1. Twitter has been my first experience of social networking in the web.. And it has been a nice experience. It gave me the opportunity to understand and know a bit more my classmates. I could not wait everyday to connect and see what other people I was following had posted. I think most people posted on Twitter random activities or thoughts or things.Very few people answered or continued an argument started from one of our peers.. So based on this I would say it was very chaotic kind of time. Very few might have experienced stellar time such as changing their course of day based on what some of us posted on Twitter. From what I saw on blog many of us experienced teleological time meaning they were not affected at all but what others had to say. I have to say I read carefully every single twitter and I was trying also to understand a little bit more about my peers in my English class. Usually it is very difficult to get to know every single one and I think twitter was great in helping us or at least me, understand more about my classmates. I cannot say that many twitters changed the course of my days but I really loved reading every single twitter and cared of what everyone of us had to say. My life in general is a stellar time...made of intermingling scenarios that have affected my entire life. I strongly believe every single person comes into our lifes for a purpose. Some times directly or indirectly each of these people we meet give us something that affects us either we recognize it or not. Stellar time in my opinion is more connected to fate and destiny.

2. In the tales of 1001 nights fate and destiny are a common theme. In fact italian filmaker Pasolini said: “every tale in 1001 Nights begins with an 'appearance of destiny' which manifests itself through an anomaly, and one anomaly always generates another. .. The protagonist of the stories is in fact destiny itself.". Stellar time is almost present in every tale. For example you can go from rags to riches by either working hard or just by being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes destiny is not good enought. You have to take advantage when the opportunity presents. For example the tale "The Fisherman and the Jinni" it is all about stellar time where intermingling scenarios affected the fisherman's life by saving not only his life but making him very rich. The fisherman was very old, and poor. He used to cast his net four times a day One day he went to the shore and cast his net. The fourth time he called upon the name of God and cast his net. He found a copper jar with a cap that had the seal of Solomon on it. The fisherman was so happy as he thought he could sell the jar for money. He was curious of what was inside the jar, and removed the cap with his knife. A Jinni came out of the jar who granted the fisherman a choice of the manner of his death. The fisherman pleaded for his life, but the Jinni would not concede. The fisherman decided to trick the Jinni. He asked the Jinni how he managed to fit into the bottle. The Jinni, eager to show off, shrank and placed himself back into the bottle to demonstrate his abilities. The fisherman quickly put the cap back on and threatened to throw it back to the sea. The Jinni pleaded with the fisherman, who began to tell the story of "The Wazir and the Sage Duban" as an example of why the Jinni should have spared him. After the story, the Jinni pleaded for clemency, and swore to help him in return for being released. The fisherman accepted the bargain, and released the Jinni. The Jinni then led the fisherman to a pond with many exotic fish, and the fisherman caught four. Before disappearing, the Jinni told the fisherman to give the fish to the Sultan. The fisherman did so and was rewarded with money for presenting the fishes. Every time a fish was fried, a person would appear and question them, and the fish answered. the Sultan asked the fisherman where he got the fish and went to the pond to uncover their mystery. When he reached his destination, the Sultan found a young man who was half man and half stone. The young man recounted his story, as the story of "The Ensorcelled Prince". The Sultan then assisted the Prince in his liberation and revenge. They became close friends, and the fisherman who first found the fish was rewarded with his son being appointed the Sultan's treasurer, and the Sultan and the prince married the fisherman's two daughters.

3. Afghanistan — One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question. “Are you going to school?”Then the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia’s eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read. This is an extract from an article on NY times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/asia/14kandahar.html). Women in some muslim countries are not even allowed to go to school. And another episode shocked me from an article in AM NY of Oct.22nd " Kwait's highest court granted women the right to obtain a passport without their husband's approval. In many countries in this region women cannot travel or obtain passport without the consent of their male guardians". This was quite a shocking news to a woman like me, who was raised in an Western country and who started to travel indipendently at the age of 14. Scheherazade is definitely a woman who could have been killed or burned by acid by fanatics in countries such as Afghanistan or Kwait. The King Shahryar is an example of a fanatic man at the begenning of the story. He was marrying a new virgin, every day and beheading the one of yesterday only because he found out that his first wife was betraying him. He had killed three thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter. In Sir. Richard F. Burton's translation Shahrazad was described in this way: "Shahrazad had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred."
Scheherazade did not use her body or beauty to seduce the king. Instead she used her wisdom to make the king change his mind and have her not killed. She was married by the king and became queen. From the examples I brought even the king would have not been accepted in some fanatic muslim cultures since he was seduced by a woman's wisdom. For certain fanatics by no means a woman can be wise or think to seduce a man using her wisdom and knowledge.

I really hope in these countries things start to change. For example in Kwait a small change happened by giving woman passports. Women can start travelling and come like this in contact with other cultures and meet new people. I understand that religion is very important for many countries and people, but I do not tollerate when it is used by fanatics to do their own interest and treat women like they are people of an inferior category. There is no GOD in this world that can tollerate or be happy to watch a woman being tortured or being burned by acid. If he does, then sorry but for me he is not the right God! Unfortunately many of these monsters act under the name of God. Everyone who names GOD in doing such atrocities is just a poor COWARD.

It is not the fault of the religion itself even though sometimes it might appears...Muslim religion is as beautiful as Christian of Judaism. Unfortunately religion becomes a dangerous weapon when used from fanatics to do their crazy actions using God as their inspiration. By doing so, and by committing crimes,these fanatics put ashame the muslim culture and tradition. But we have to be smart and open minded and not risk in generalizing and judging a whole beautiful culture and tradition such as Muslim.

Jonathan Yeung's reaction to the reading

T1) The types of time that influences me and others on twitter cannot be surmised with just one theory of time. I believe both the teleological and stellar theories of time are equally admissible to our lives.

We are affected by the teleological theory of time, because events happen in a linear order. I wrote my first tweet on Oct 13^th, my second tweet was on Oct 14^th and so forth. I cannot possibly post a tweet in the present that would have a date of posting in the past, nor in the future.

We experience time in chronological order, as the teleological theory of time commits to us, but we also experience forms of stellar time. No one man is an island; therefore we are all affected by other people and environmental factors. Nothing that was on twitter directly impacted me, but a lot of the topics being discussed did pique my interest: such as a tweet on the book Flowers for Algernion, suishi.

2) The tale of the Husband and the Parrot is supposed to be a comical story told in a linear fashion. The husband goes away on a trip, and buys a parrot to keep track of his wife while he is away. When the huband returns from his trip the Parrot tells him his wife was having sex with a Young Turk. The husband understandably gets mad from his wife infidelity and enacts vengeance on his wife. The wife finds out the parrot squealed on her, so tricks the parrot into thinking its raining. The wife had a slave girl sprinkle water on the parrots cage to make him think it was raining. The parrot would have to believe he was in a stellar time, as it does not rain in mid Tammuz. The world was unfolding in linear time but the parrort was tricked into a stellar time frame by the wife.

3) The treatment of woman in most Islamic states is deplorable. Women are still being stoned to death, and murdered in what are claimed to be honor killing. In this modern age these acts are a disgrace to the human race. With that being said, I think the stories within the 1001 Nights would be not be discredited in modern Islamic cultures. The 1001 Night Tales contains tales of misogyny; the beginning of the 1001 Night Tales has the king declaring all women evil. The king proceeds to kill the virgins he deflowers; the women are treated as expendable. The death of a parrot in “The tale of the Husband and the Parrot” is considered worse than when the husband murders his wife. How woman are treated in Muslim society can be seen here,

http://debate.org.uk/topics/coolcalm/women.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0426-10.htm

http://www.islam-watch.org/SyedKamranMirza/honor_killing.htm

Mei Liu's response to 1001 nights

1. I think stellar time can definitely be seen on twitter. I never really used twitter before this but I find myself going on it more and more often as I use it more. Sometimes just to check other peoples statuses even if it’s not relevant to me, or just to give a 160 character update to my own status. Sometimes when I read the status updates it’s just like for fun, like reading a magazine or something, but other times it causes me to go out of what I was planning to do to do something else. I remember in particular one of my peer update was about having some food and after reading I had the craving for it so badly that I decided to go out to Chinatown to pick some up. It was definitely worth the travel at the moment though. I think how twitter might affect someone is if what the update was relevant or not to what they might. If it was someone completely irrelevant to my life, I would just read it to read it. But if it’s something I can relate to or understand it’ll probably affect me more.

2. In 1001 nights, I think all different time are presented. I thought it was interesting how sometimes you can just put stories within stories and that you can just copy and paste one story and put it before or after another and it can be like this story and then within that story another story happens, so when I was choosing three stories I copied them into a word document and notice how although the three stories I chose were out of order they somehow made sense and connect to each other. With that, it was hard to remember which event happened in which story because then all the stories got mixed together in a sense. In the story of THE FISHERMAN AND THE JINNI, we can see examples of stellar time because in the story one event affected another. Each time when the fisherman cast the net and didn’t catch a fish he was determined to cast it again until he can go home with something to sell. And every action that the fisherman took affected the outcome. And when the Jinni showed up, if the fisherman was not wised about his actions, he could’ve died. Therefore every event that happened affected what is to come.

3. I’m not sure if 1001 nights would be consider a very popular read in modern Islamic countries. A lot of the stories in 1001 nights touch upon morals and very religious. And these stories are told from a woman who is very knowledgeable being able to weave together all these stories. The role of women in modern Islamic is very inferior. They are not allowed to show their faces and must wears veils which shows that they don’t have much rights or not as important as men are consider to be. This literature 1001 nights is the story of a woman telling all these great stories which shows she has very deep understanding and experience in life, but I don’t think that would be accepted in modern Islamic countries.

Eugene Shnayder's Post

1. I think stellar time in which our life consists of intermingling scenarios that affect our daily lives can definetly be seen on Twitter. I had set up a twitter account before this class and I would go on it once in a while, just to see other people tweeting. It was interesting to see what other people post but it does not really affect my every day life. I think people use twitter to show other people what they are doing every minute of the day, and in some cases I think its unnecessary. Being on twitter I was most interested in what celebrites and sports players are doing, because I think its cool that they are sharing their daily lives with people before we can read about it in a magazine or hear it on tv.

2. The Tale of the Bull and the Ass is definetly a story with in a story. A farmer is given a gift from Allah that he can hear animals talk and he is able to speak back to them as well. However if he discloses to people that he knows what animals are saying he will die a horrible death. Then there is a small story about how the bull and the ass become friends. One day the farmer is with his wife and he over hears the bull and ass talking and he laughs. His wife got really upset and begged him to tell her why he was laughing. He decided that becuase he loves his wife he will tell her about his gift and sacrafice himself and die. He gathers his family and friends, but before that he speaks to a dog and the dog gives him advice, but then as he is going to tell his wife the truth she realizes that he does love her and she does not need to know his secret. This is like a Teleological time as well becuase there is a cause-->effect, beginning leads to end. Him keeping a secret from his wife caused to him show his love for her and he was willing to die, but in reality becuase she loved him she decided that he doesn't need to tell her and they love happily ever after together.

The Tale of Three Apples has stellar time becuase it starts by the discovery of a box under the Tigris river, and in it is a fair girl in 19 pieces. It has nothing to do with 3 Apples, but if at all, just one Apple. This apple, a object of desire of the girl, passed hands from the Caliph's garden to her husbands hand to her son and to a black slave, in which she is slain in the process without her knowledge. All of these scenarios are intermingled with eachother which all leads up to one conclusion.


3. The Bull and the Ass shows the love for aminals in Islamics culture. It is stated in the Koran that Allah loves animals, and therefore in this tale he is showing that animals can communicate with eachother, and animals have feelings just like humans do. In Islam there is always a postive attitude toward animals and animlas should be treated fairly.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3687704,00.html