In Arabian Nights

         “In search of Morocco through its stories and story tellers”

This book was a true eye opening experience to the beauty of Morocco. The author, Tahir Shah, is one beautiful, living, and breathing human being.  His father was a writer who wrote Thousands of Stories about the Arabian nights of Morocco involving his experiences traveling throughout Morocco and over the border into other cities. The beloved cities he describes with his five senses: Marrakech, Casablanca, Fes, Chefchowen, and Tangier.  They come alive with his childhood experiences until his adult life.

 

The Jinns and Baraka

The Jinns are evil spirits that are mentioned in the Quaran.  The home of Tahrir had many jinns inside having different messages and meanings behind them.  While his wife was skeptical about these Jinns, Tahrir was certain that they existed and felt them through his intuitive, spiritual self. 

Baraka: A person, creature, or thing are blessed. The blessing runs so deep that it touches every cell, every atom, so that anything associated with that blessing extends to you

“Real is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you’re home. Its about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pinning to be somewhere else.  Those are the moments of true value.  You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart.”

Morocco is full of stories and symbols, intelligence through real life knowledge gained, interpersonal experience that creates true learning. 

“The stories reflect our lives. The people in them walk a fine line between prosperity and disaster.  That’s the way it’s always been and that’s what makes us who we are.  In a single life a man can know wealth, poverty, thirst, and hunger, as well as satisfaction.  You may describe our lives as being like a rollercoaster up and down. We would say that they are full, that they are rich even though we may be poor.”

“Stories touch us even before we enter the world and they continue on to the next world.  They are in the dreams of unborn baby, in the kindergarten and school, in news, movies, in conversations and nightmares.  We tell each other stories through our waking hours and when our mouths are silent we are telling stories in the secrecy of our mind.  We can’t help but tell stories because they are a language to themselves.  

“From time to time, life sends you someone so unexpected that you wonder how you ever lived without them”