Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 1501 CE–1700 CE

Country or Culture: Afghanistan

Genre: Folktale

Overview

“Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha”is a folktale from Afghanistan that tells of the triumph of two young lovers in a race against time and distance. In the far indeterminate past, there lived a beautiful princess known only as Moghol-Dokhter (Moghol or Mongol girl). When she is at a marriageable age, noblemen from across Eurasia come to the Moghol capital to woo her. However, her father, the king, sets high requirements that none of her suitors are able to meet.

Among the suitors is Arab-Pasha (Arab king). He is rejected as well, but he finds and takes home a picture of Moghol-Dokhther. He puts the picture inside a gold box, which he stores at a special palace of his. Soon, his son, Arab-Bacha (Arab boy), notices his father’s frequent trips to that palace. Throwing a tantrum, Arab-Bacha gains access to the palace, where he finds the picture of Moghol-Dokhter. Enamored at the sight of her, he persuades his parents to equip him for a journey to the Moghol capital.

My faithful Prince,

I wish you to understand that the things that are happening are not due to my decision. Be patient and follow the caravan. We’ll make further plans when the time comes.

Your beloved.

“The Romance of Mongol Girl and Arab Boy”

In the Moghol capital, Arab-Bacha manages to see Moghol-Dokhter at her palace. He sings two love songs to her but is rejected initially. When he sees her and sings to her again at her gardens, she returns his gaze and falls in love with him. When Arab-Bacha approaches Moghol-Dokhter’s father, the king tells him that just yesterday, he agreed to marry her to the son of the Qajar king. Only if Arab-Bacha will come back with the dowry of forty camels packed with jewels before the Qajar king arrives with his camels, will Arab-Bacha gain the hand of Moghol-Dokhter.

Thus begins a race against time that Arab-Bacha loses by one day. When Arab-Bacha returns to the Moghol capital with his camel train, the Qajar king has just left the day before with Moghol-Dokhter in his caravan. As Arab-Bacha pursues the caravan of the Qajar king, he is accosted by a robber, who wounds him in the foot. Yet when Arab-Bacha tells the robber his story, the two become adoptive brothers and pursue the Qajar king’s caravan.

Catching up with Moghol-Dokhter at last, Arab-Bacha and she communicate. They plan to overcome Moghol-Dokhter’s imminent marriage to the Qajar king’s son. This sets up the dramatic finish of “Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha.”

“Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha” was collected in three oral versions by Hafizullah and Marcia Baghban. The first version was told personally to Hafizullah Baghban by Muhammed Hashim in a village near Herat, Afghanistan, in 1961. In June 1967, Baghban obtained a second version from Juwaher, a peasant woman living near Herat, who agreed to have her tale recorded. The last version was collected live in May 1973 by Marcia Baghban from a woman named Madar Amin. Out of this collection, the Baghbans assembled a transcribed and translated English version, “The Romance of Mongol Girl and Arab Boy,” which was published in the 1978 anthology Folktales Told around the World edited by American folklorist Richard Dorson, then chair of the Folklore Institute of Indiana University in Illinois. In that text, the terms “Mongol” and “Moghol” are used interchangeably; both refer to the Moghol or Mughal Empire that ruled parts of Afghanistan and most of India from the 1500s to the mid-1800s.

An analysis grounded in literary criticism will show how the tale constructs a dramatic quest for two young lovers who must overcome a variety of challenges to achieve romantic success. Cultural criticism looks at how the tale incorporates elements of Afghan cultural concerns and historical issues. A feminist analysis contributes to the exploration of the relationship between Moghol-Dokhter and her beloved Arab-Bacha by examining issues of female self-determination, authorship of fate, and gender relations against the backdrop of a patriarchal and feudal society. Here, the issue of polygamy can be analyzed, as well as royal family relationships and the relationship between outlaws and society. New historicism analyzes the tale’s creation and content as related to the tradition of both oral and written romantic tales in Afghanistan, including cross-cultural influences on it. This approach helps to date the origin of the folktale. Transcription and translation into English adds some further noticeable cross-cultural influences.

Summary

“Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha”begins by introducing the female protagonist, the princess called Moghol-Dokhter. She is described as being famous for both “her beauty and good manners” when the tale opens (Dorson 211). In consequence, rulers from around the world propose to marry her. Yet her father, the king, rejects every suitor.

Among the rejected suitors is Arab-Pasha. Before leaving the Moghol capital, Arab-Pasha finds a picture of Moghol-Dokhter. At home, Arab-Pasha stores the treasured picture inside a gold box kept at a special palace of his named Qasr-i-Khas. His son, the prince Arab-Bacha (Arab Boy), learns of his father’s frequent visits to Qasr-i-Khas. He becomes curious and demands to visit the palace. Denied this, Arab-Bacha threatens to commit suicide by drowning. His father gives in and provides Arab-Bacha with the key to Qasr-i-Khas.

There, Arab-Bacha finds the gold box. When he opens it, he sees Moghol-Dokhter’s picture inside. Attracted by her beauty, Arab-Bacha takes the picture, shows it to his father, and asks about her identity. The king refuses to answer. Denied again, within a few months, Arab-Bacha becomes “listless and pale” to the point of possible death (Dorson 212).

Now, his father forsakes his own love for the girl in the picture and follows his fatherly love for his son. He provides Arab-Bacha with the story of Moghol-Dokhter but warns him of her apparent unattainability. Undeterred, Arab-Bacha demands to be provided with the means to see her in the Moghol capital. Resignedly, his parents agree.

After many weeks of travelling on horseback, Arab-Bacha arrives at the Moghol capital. He asks for lodgings from an old woman and pays her some gold for it. Telling the old woman of his quest, she surprises him with the news that she can see Moghol-Dokhter’s dressing room from her window.

Next morning, when Arab-Bacha sees Moghol-Dokhter for the first time, he breaks out into a song praising her. He sings songs to her, and she to him later on, throughout the tale. Each song relates poetically to the situation at hand. Arab-Bacha’s songs always end with the same final couplet: “Come, my delicate Moghol. / Come, my harvest of flowers” (Dorson 213). Hearing Arab-Bacha’s song for the first time, Moghol-Dokhter becomes angry with the singer. She stands up looking for the singer, whereupon Arab-Bacha launches his next song. Afraid of the princess’s anger, the old woman pulls Arab-Bacha from her window. She tells him that he, along with all her suitors, can see Moghol-Dokhter on Friday when she goes to her garden outside the royal palace.

Come Friday, Arab-Bacha spots Moghol-Dokhter going to the garden. He climbs the garden wall and sings to her for the third time. Now, his fortune changes, as Moghol-Dokhter looks directly at Arab-Bacha during his fourth song: “Love replaced Moghol-Dokhter’s anger . . . . She sent him a message to propose to her through her father” (Dorson 215). When he goes to see the Moghol king, Arab-Bacha learns he is one day too late; the Moghol king has already promised Moghol-Dokhter to the Qajar king for his son—if the Qajar king could come back with “forty camel loads of jewels for her dowry” within forty days (215). But there is hope, setting up a race against time. If Arab-Bacha can bring the same dowry in shorter time, he can marry Moghol-Dokhter.

Arab-Bacha hurries home. He rides his horse so hard it dies halfway along the journey. This forces Arab-Bacha to walk to the border of his father’s kingdom. There, he receives transportation to the capital. Immediately, he asks for and receives from his parents forty camels loaded with jewels led by forty slaves.

Arab-Bacha is late again by one day. When his caravan enters the Moghol capital on the forty-first day of their journey, he is told that yesterday, the Qajar king brought in his caravan and took away Moghol-Dokhter. In despair, Arab-Bacha sends his own caravan to the palace and follows the Qajar king on horseback.

At night at a crossroad, Arab-Bacha is attacked by a thief. When the thief demands his money, Arab-Bacha replies he has none and tells his story instead. Moved, the thief offers to help Arab-Bacha if he takes him as a brother. This Arab-Bacha does.

Two days later, the two men catch up with the Qajar king’s caravan at night. The former thief advises Arab-Bacha to sing to Moghol-Dokhter to find out her feelings for him. After his song, Arab-Bacha receives a message from Moghol-Dokhter through her maid. In it, Moghol-Dokhter asks Arab-Bacha to follow the caravan and wait.

When they arrive at the Qajar capital behind the king’s caravan, Arab-Bacha settles in a mosque to wait. He constantly communicates with Moghol-Dokhter who is placed in a palace to await arrival of her intended groom, the Qajar prince, from the province he governs.

The Qajar prince, a Muslim, is married already and wants to take a second wife. His first wife secretly poisons some apples, which she gives her husband as gift for his new wife. On his way to the capital, the Qajar prince eats some of these apples, planning to replace them with better ones later. Soon after, the prince dies.

Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha hear of this. At midnight, Arab-Bacha wakes up Moghol-Dokhter by song. She opens the palace door for him. They flee on horseback, joined by Arab-Bacha’s newly adopted brother, and try to reach Arab-Bacha’s home.

On their journey, Arab-Bacha constantly sings to Moghol-Dokhter, commenting on the scenery. Once, he calls her a widow, a term she angrily refutes until he confesses he used it for rhyming reasons only. Next, they meet a shepherd who has just lost a sheep to a wolf. Arab-Bacha chases the wolf on horseback, rescuing the sheep that the wolf lets go, but his horse dies from exhaustion after the chase. Now, Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha ride on the surviving horse of the former thief, who walks ahead of them. One night, Arab-Bacha falls asleep before dinner, and Moghol-Dokhter wakes him with her own song, the first and only time she sings to him in the folktale.

Once they enter his father’s kingdom, Arab-Bacha points out all the features of the kingdom in his songs. He offers everything in sight to his beloved Moghol-Dokhter, including sheep, camels and their herdsmen, and horses. Arriving at the capital, Arab-Bacha introduces his two companions to his parents. Moved by his loyalty to Arab-Bacha, the king adopts the former thief as his son. Next, the king holds a magnificent double wedding celebration for his daughter and adopted son and for Moghol-Dokhter and Arab-Bacha.

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