Khaled

by F. Marion Crawford

A Tale of Arabia is an oriental fantasy-romance novel by F. Marion Crawford written in the style of the Arabian Nights. It was first published in 1891; its first paperback edition was issued by Ballantine Books as the thirty-ninth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in December, 1971. The Wildside Press edition includes a new introduction by fantasy scholar Lee Weinstein.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1891

About the author

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels. He was born at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. In 1879 he went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited the Allahabad Indian Herald. Returning to America he continued to study Sanskrit at Harvard University for a year, contributed to various periodicals, and in 1882 produced his first novel, Mr Isaacs. This book had an immediate success, and its author's promise was confirmed by the publication of Doctor Claudius: A True Story (1883). After a brief residence in New York and Boston, in 1883 he returned to Italy, where he made his permanent home. He also published the historical works, Ave Roma Immortalis (1898), Rulers of the South (1900) renamed Sicily, Calabria and Malta in 1904, and Gleanings from Venetian History (1905). The Saracinesca series is perhaps known to be his best work, with the third in the series, Don Orsino, set against the background of a real estate bubble, told with effective concision. A fourth book in the series, Corleone, was the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.

Reviews

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of Khaled the believing genius, which he caused to be written down in letters of gold by the most accomplished scribe in Nejed, that all men might remember it.

Khaled is a charming fairytale penned by one of the most popular American Romantic writers of the 19th century. His name was unfamiliar to me so his popularity proved not so long lasting. I initially thought the author was a lady named Marion and I only came across the name here on Goodreads when I mentioned I am interested in stories set in the Arab world. The comparison between this story and the Arabian Nights seems appropriate, and there may be a connection between the Burton translations and the renewed interest of the public in the romance of the desert, in beautiful dark haired beauties hiding behind the screens of the harem and in fierce warriors fighting for their attention, in genies flying across the night skies and in fabulous wealth hidden under the sands. Khaled has it all - love and danger and betrayal and supernatural intervention. Some may call the style old-fashioned and formal, I prefer to look at it as timeless storytelling. Here is how Zehowah - the princess of Riad in the kingdom of Nejed - is described in one of the opening scenes:

: Her eyes are as the deep water in the wells of Zobeideh when it is night and the stars are reflected therein. Her hair is finer than silk, red with henna, and abundant as the foliage of the young cypress tree. Her face is as fair as the kernels of young almonds, and her mouth is sweeter than the mellow date and more fragrant than 'Ood mingled with ambergris.

Princes from all over the world are coming to petition the sultan her father for her hand in marriage, riding on elephants and carrying magnificent gifts. Yet she is unimpressed looks upon them with a cold and critical eye. Someone else is watching over the events : a genie of the desert named Khaled. Without going into detail, Khaled makes a bargain with the Angel Azrael where he renounces his immortality and he is promised a soul, if only he can win the love of the beautiful Zehowah. She proves very hard to woo, and the poor genie tries everything in his (now mortal) power to demonstrate his true passion.

Her : Then love is indeed a fancy. For if you could not see me, nor touch me, nor hear me, what would remain to you but an empty thought?

and in another dispute: What is this love of which you talk? Is it a rich garment that you can wear? A precious stone that you can fasten in your turban? A rich carpet to spread in your house? A treasure of gold, a mountain of ambergris, a bushel of pearls from Oman? Why do you covet it? Am I not beautiful enough? Then is love henna to make my hair bright, or kohl to darken my eyes, or a boiled egg with almonds to smooth my face?

Him : Love is the first mystery of the world. Death is the second. Between the two there is nothing but a weariness darkened with shadows and thick with mists. What is gold? A cinder that glows in the darkness for a moment and falls away to a cold ash in our hand when we have taken it. But love is a treasure which remains. What is renown? A cry uttered in the bazaar by men whose minds are subject to change as their bodies are to death. But the voice of love is heard in paradise, singing beside the fountains Tasnim and Salsahil. What is power? A net with which to draw wealth and fame from the waters of life? To what end? We must die. Or is power a sword to kill our enemies? If their time is come they will die without the sword. Or is it a stick to purify the hides of fools? The fools will die also, like his master, and both will be forgotten. But they who love shall enter the seventh heaven together, according to the promise of Allah. Death is stronger than man or woman, but love is stronger than death, and all else is but a vision seen in the desert, having no reality.

I believe you see why I'm calling the novel Romantic: exotic locations, heroic figures, predestination, wars and passionate discourses. Reading the novel with modern eyes, I was impressed mostly by two aspects:

- the book was written before we started the stereotypes of the Arabs as dirty, uncultured, religious maniacs. I don't know where Crawford did his research, but the society described in Khaled rings true, both in the importance of religion in the everyday life of the Muslim, and in the Bedu raiders rigid moral codes. The portrait of women shows the restrictions imposed on them by the system, but also the respect and consideration that is due to them as a matter of course. Zehowah is strong minded and independent, even dominating in conversation and logic Khaled with his belief that a strong arm, faith and courage are enough for a man. I believe I learned more about the country and its people here that I could reading a recent thriller with suicide bombers and depraved oil sheiks.

- two other writers , Washington Irving writing also in the 19th century and recently Wilfred Thesiger writing in the 1940's, remarked on the generosity and integrity of the desert people. Both stress the fact that what we consider now chivalry arrived in Europe from the Arabs by way of the Crusades and of the Moorish kingdom of Al Andalus. Khaled is another example that reinforces the thesis embraced by these two writers. The only complaint I might make about his character is a resignation in the face of adversity and a too strong belief in predestination. The two are related, leading to an attitude that 'what is written is written, and a man can do nothing to change what the God has in store for him. Many people consider this aspect one of the crucial differences of mentality between the East and the West, between a life of contemplation and one of action, between a gardener and a conqueror.

I guess that's enough rambling on my part. I recommend reading the story and not try like me to read too much hidden meaning in the text. It's a fairytale after all. My favorite passage is a song (a kasid) by Zehowah, a metaphor about love as a precious pearl lost at the bottom of the sea by a fisherman who was too concerned about the dangers and the pain he had to go through to get his hands on it. I didn't quote the kasid because it is rather long, and it is better appreciated in the context where it is sung.

For a similar type of story I recommend The Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving.

[Dfordoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering the extent of the 19th century obsession with The Mysterious East and the enormous vogue for orientalist art it’s perhaps surprising that there weren’t more novels using Arabian Nights-style settings. There was of course William Beckford’s Vathek, and there was also F. Marion Crawford’s Khaled: A Tale of Arabia.

Apart from a couple of much-anthologised short stories (notably For the Blood is the Life The works of the amazingly prolific American writer F. Marion Crawford (1854-1909) are very unjustly neglected. His gothic novel The Witch of Prague is well worth seeking out.

Khaled, published in 1891, is a story of the fantastic and a love story. The princess Zegowah has many suitors but the only one she has seriously considered marrying is an Indian prince. He is unfortunately an unbeliever but Zehowah is led to believe that he will convert to the true faith if she consents to be his wife. The genie (or djinn or whichever other alternative spelling you prefer) Khaled knows that the Indian prince intends to deceive Zehowah and in a fit of anger he slays the prince.

Had the prince been one of the faithful Khaled would have faced instant destruction for his action but since the man he killed was a hypocite and an unbeliever Allah offers Khaled a chance. He will turn Khaled into a man, but without a soul (djinns do not have souls). If Khaled can win the love of Zehowah he will gain a soul and will have the same chance as any mortal of entering Paradise at the Last Judgment. If he fails to win her love then he will face oblivion when he dies.

Winning Zehowah’s love turns out to be quite a challenge. She has never experienced love and he knows little of women. He tries to achieve his objective by performing heroic deeds. He wins a kingdom, but winning the love of a woman is not so easy. Zehowah is determined to be a good wife but she believes herself to be incapable of feeling love. Khaled finds he has much to learn about women, and also much to learn about what it means to be a human being. And he must himself learn what love really means.

It’s an engaging tale of intrigue and adventure as well as being a great love story. Highly recommended.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Shakespeare wrote a comedy set in the Arabian Nights, this would be it. That's probably a bit excessive for praise, but not by a huge amount. The plot beats are there, with the contrived situation, the will-they, won't-they tension (spoiler: of course they will, eventually), the panoply of ancillary characters that provide their own levity, and the set piece of the protagonists resolving their differences with a bit of trickery.

(Trickery in real life that would amount to emotional manipulation, but here we are.)

He takes a woman whose logic and savvy is impeccable but perhaps is not really in touch with her feelings and matches her with a man (a former genii) who knows little about how to relate to women and perhaps fails to understand that he is not owed affection because of his deeds.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever read. Khaled is a genie who is also an adherent to the Muslim faith who strives always to live by Allah’s dictates. He steps astray, however, when he intervenes in human affairs and kills a non-Muslim prince from India who has lied about his willingness to genuinely convert to Islam in order to gain the hand in marriage of a Muslim princess named Zehowah. As punishment, or possibly as reward, for killing the prince Allah decrees that Khalid will become a human man and if he can win Zehowah’s love, he will gain a soul and have the chance that every human has to achieve paradise.

This is a truly beautiful tale. Khaled knows little of women and Zehowah believes she knows nothing of love and is incapable of feeling it. So they have great discussions about the nature of love and the ways in which men and women should interact. Khaled tries various strategies to win Zehowah’s love, becoming increasingly frustrated with each failure. Yet, he never loses his faith in Allah and his desire to act rightly in accordance to Allah’s plan no matter what the consequence to himself. For her part, Zehowah has a genuine desire to be a good wife, but just doesn’t have the sort of feelings that Khaled needs from her. This is a tense and intriguing masterpiece from an author I’d never encountered before, but will definitely read again.

[William Hahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by a new friend, I took up this author's work for the first time and was just bowled over. Probably one of the easiest genre-settings to do poorly would be an Arabian Nights kind of tale. But Mr. Crawford displays an ironclad grip of the descriptions, the dialogue, plus a detailed knowledge of the Muslim faith (at least in the spectacular themes of the afterlife and supernatural creatures it mentions). This was a truly fascinating tale, at heart a love story but nothing like the romance novels I've read. If you loved Scheherazade, don't hesitate to take in this lovely, gritty, inspiring tale of heroism and the meaning of love.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m filing this under fantasy but really this comes under that charming subgenre of Middle-East/Arabia = fantasy because it’s a bit exotic like the Arabian Nights, isn’t it?

But let’s not be unfair, just as Haggard’s hoary old Imperialist sensibilities produced some surprisingly rousing, but also sensitive literature so too have Crawford’s, and this is less of a white man’s adventure than a white man’s attempt to understand the other religious mind. And whilst, yes, it is all pure fantasy in terms of the belief that the Arabic sensibility is somehow all about harems and beheadings and exoticism, nevertheless this is a lovely more-modern recreation of an Arabian-Nights type story which offers some slippery sentiments all of its own. At first I figured it or a basic fairytale but Crawford let’s the scenario of a fallen angel seeking to make a beautiful princess fall in love with him – in order to regain his immortality – linger on the tongue and the relationship between Khaled and Zehowah is more complex and intriguing than one initially imagines, his attempts to inspire admiration, jealousy and hatred all feel as natural as they are frustrating and by the end of the tale I too was feeling anxiety for poor Khaled’s immortal soul.

This may not quite be a pure-fantasy tale but it proved to be a very worthwhile diversion and I may wish to read more from Marion Crawford in the future.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the world of the Arabian Nights, this is the story of a hard-working djinn named Khaled. He is so conscientious that, while watching the parade of princes and sultans seeking the hand of the lovely Princess Zehowah, he takes an Indian prince, who was about to win Zehowah’s hand in marriage, into the desert and kills him. Khaled’s punishment is mitigated by the fact the prince was not a Muslim, and would have treated Zehowah badly back home. He is sent to Earth as a man, and his task is to win Zehowah’s love, in order to gain a soul and enter paradise.

Khaled has nothing to offer Zehowah in the way of silks and jewels, but she decides to marry him (her father, a Sultan, lets her decide) as a political union. There is much talk between them about the real meaning of love. Khaled conquers other tribes, and brings Zehowah more gold and riches, hoping to win her heart, but it doesn’t work. Also taken in battle is Almasta, a woman from Central Asia with flaming red hair. She is given to a local sheik, to be one of his wives. The sheik is found dead. Almasta is given to Zehowah’s father, the Sultan, as one of his wives. He is found dead the next morning, without a mark on him. She is then given to Abdullah, sheik of a tribe of Bedouins camping outside the city. Khaled, now the Sultan, makes it very clear that if Abdullah should suffer an untimely demise, Almasta will be the next one to die.

Abdullah hatches a plot to force Khaled from the Sultanship. His men spread out all over the city, spreading whispers about Khaled. They say that he is a Shiite in a Sunni country, that no one knows his father’s name or the name of his tribe, and that he will hand the city over to the Persians. A member of Abdullah’s tribe tells his cousin, the sheik of the beggars inside the city, and a counter-plan is hatched to keep Abdullah under surveillance at all times while he is in the city. At a convenient moment, Abdullah is to be kidnapped, and held until after the time that he told his followers that he will open up the castle, from the inside, and give away the riches within. Khaled knows nothing about the counter-plan, because he expects to be killed by Abdullah’s men, or captured and then killed.

Few novels have been written about the Arabian Nights; fewer still, that are really good and worth reading. If you can find a copy, the reader will not go wrong with this one.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Arabian-Nights-style tale of a djinn who, after taking it upon himself to kill a hypocrite who would have pretended to convert to Islam in order to marry a sultan's beautiful daughter, is both punished and rewarded by being made human. However, he has to win a soul for himself by getting the sultan's daughter to love him. Along the way, they encounter a femme fatale, a slave from Georgia who, desiring the newly human djinn for herself, ends up orchestrating a plot against him when he refuses to take her as a second wife.

Not all of the decisions people make necessarily seem to make a lot of sense, and the main character is often passive and fatalistic, partly because he's not very subtle and so can't work out what to do; he has to be rescued by wise and heroic beggars. His love interest doesn't have a lot of depth to her either, and (partly because of the status of women in the culture of the time) also doesn't have much agency. Yet somehow it managed to be a reasonably satisfying story, possibly because of the vigorous descriptions and the well-sustained Arabian Nights tone.

The edition from Standard Ebooks is cleanly edited and professionally presented, making this volunteer effort a lot better than most of the books I see from Open Road, which is converting old books for money. Of course, it's had a lot more work put into it by volunteers than Open Road could afford to pay for and still make a profit, but it's proof, if proof were needed, that the voluntary sector can do better than the commercial sector sometimes.

If you have a particular liking for the Arabian Nights, it's definitely worth a look.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK 👌listening

Another will written fantasy romance short story by F. Marion Crawford about a sheik's daughter looking for a husband and the men who come calling. I would recommend this novella to readers of romance. Enjoy the adventure of reading 👓 or listening 🎶 to Alexa as I do because of eye issues and damage from nerve damage caused by shingles. 🏡🔰👒☺ 2022

[Temucano · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Es mas fácil conquistar un reino que el corazón de una mujer", premisa clave en esta fantasía oriental, al estilo de las mil y una noches, pero que Crawford adereza con este dilema del amor y su significado, en las alcobas de palacio, en el desierto, en la Arabia de Alá y su único profeta, Mahoma.

Muy bien escrita, va claramente de menos a más, y al final te deja más de una sonrisa.

[Leanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. There are a lot of stereotypes and such in this book and its certainly a product of its time, BUT there is a fabulous strong female character who I loved! The Princess is definitely not what I was expecting her to be and Khaled really has to fight for her affections. I really enjoyed the dynamic between them.

[Robert MacKenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Crawford’s weird ghost stories better, but Khaled was definitely worth a read. In the Oriental fantasy tradition, Khaled is a jinn who must win a human woman’s love to earn a soul. Lighthearted and enjoyable.

[mzbeastle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prose and poetry define this gently revealing, powerfully beautiful book. I'd never read anything by F. Marion Crawford previously, but that's my new mission: to find more of his work.

It's so sweet and philosophical and heartwarming all at the same time. What a jewel!

[Ibnu Syarif Al Husein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Khaled, the most respectful genie. One of the underrated fable that should known. I read this book from StandardEbook edition.

[Denese D. Enriquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely LOVE this book! and I want to read more like it.

[Widad Hameed · Rating 1 out of 5]

الترجمة رديئة والقصة تدعو الى الطائفية لم تعجبني

[Tattu · Rating 3 out of 5]

No soy muy partidaria de los libros tan antiguos, porque me aburre la narrativa de esa época. Este no fue la excepción, al principio estaba entusiasmada porque hablaba de una cultura que no conozco, en un país que no conozco y que no suele verse en la televisión. Pero nunca logré conectar con el libro.
Sí es interesante, y una vez que me acostumbré, avancé más rápido y disfruté un poco más.
Me gustó mucho la actitud anti-amor de Zehowah. Me gusta cuando los personajes se enamoran de a poco, que se vayan conociendo. Y además el amor no lo es todo en la vida.
Le di tres estrellitas, que para mí significa que el libro no es malo, pero tampoco me gustó tanto. Está en el medio digamos.

[Neema · Rating 5 out of 5]

And what is a beautiful woman without love? She is like a garden in which there are all kinds of rare flowers, and much grass, and deep shade, but in which a man cannot live, because nothing grows there which he can eat when he is hungry.

Khaled has been, and might forever be, my favorite novel I have ever read. I have never felt so much emotion and cared about characters so deeply. The story is fast paced and engaging and the prose just absolutely beautiful to read. I highly highly recommend you read this book!

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a sweet little oddity.