This is the story of a good man named Ali whose father was a Sultan and about to die. He wanted his son to go out a prove that he had wisdom and courage in the world, but to come back before a year's time because he was weak and old and afraid he might die. Ali set out and he came upon two men who were digging up a grave in a mosque. He called out to them to stop such a scandalous act. The men explained that they were angry that this man died before he could pay them back their money. Ali, out of his good heart decided to pay the men the sum, and so they stopped digging. Ali continued on his journey. As he went along his way, he met a man, Radjab, who was traveling in the same direction. "Let's travel together" he suggested, and so they did. Along the way, they ran into a woman and Ali noticed that Radjab helped her and didn't expect anything in return. And so it went along the journey, Radjab helping people without expectation of reward, but accepting gifts that seemed to have no value at all like branches, a sword, and a dead bird's wings. Then they reached a great city whose Sultan had a very beautiful daughter. They heard the news that the princess was presenting riddles to all potential suitors to test them. Ali explained that he wanted to try, for this is why he set out on his journey. Radjab suggested they go to bed early the night before Ali was to try and solve the riddle. Radjab rubbed a secret ointment on Ali's head so that he didn't awaken, and then he set out to spy on the princess. He saw her stealing away to a witch's house where she asked the witch what question she should use for the next suitor. The witch said for her to ask the suitor to guess what she's thinking about, and then to think of her gloves. Radjab returned without the princess knowing. The next morning he told Ali that if asked what she was thinking about, he should say, "your gloves". Ali did and the princess was surprised, but angry so she said he'd have to come back the next day and answer again. Again Radjab followed her and got the answer, so again Ali knew what to say- that she was thinking of gold coins. Finally, for a third time the princess went to the witch and the witch said, "He'll never guess if you think of my head". The princess left the witch's place, but Radjab went back and hid as he knocked on the door. When the witch opened it, he took his sword and cut off her head. He put it in a box and gave it to Ali the next morning. He instructed him to not open the box until he was asked by the princess what she was thinking. So, Ali went before the princess with all the onlookers and when asked what she was thinking, he said nothing but produced the box and opened it. Everyone was amazed including the princess and she decided that she loved Ali, because he guessed all of her secrets and now she would never have to go back to the witch. Everyone was overjoyed and their wedding was immediately arranged. Ali turned to invite Radjab to be the best man, but Radjab just smiled as he declined. He said that now his debt had been settled because he was the man whose grave Ali defended in the mosque and that now he could finally be at rest. And with that he simply vanished. Ali was able to return to his father with his new wife. And his father was pleased that he could rest in peace knowing that his son would make an excellent Sultan.
"The Sultan's Daughter", Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales
WW. Norton 7 Company (pp.96-101).
El, Koudia J, and Hasan M. El-Shamy.
Moroccan Folktales. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 2003. Print.
This story is not really for the youngest audiences because it is long and complicated. But older elementary children may enjoy it. Probably not 'cool' enough for junior or senior highers. But, once we get to adults, we could again tell the story.
I really liked this story and thought that it opened the door for a lot of room for discussion. It also lends itself to a particularly challenging grammar point that can be discussed after hearing the story- the unreal past conditional. We could build sentences like, "If Ali had not shown kindness when there was nothing to gain, he would not have met Radjab and been helped so that he won the hand in marriage to the princess." Although this is a complicated structure, it is what is expected at level five (the highest) of the ESL courses where I teach. We spend two chapters on conditionals. I would adapt an exercise where we changed the story, and changed the outcome according to their creativity. We would focus on using the correct grammatical forms to match the meaning we intended.
