This animation can only be viewed with Flash Player. Click <a href="http://www.rhymesandsongs.com/2005/">here</a> to download it. The following is the text of the animation.<p><!-- bb --><!-- /bb --><div style='float:left;'></div><div style='float:left;'></div> </p> Long ago, in the land of Persia, lived a poor woodcutter by the name of Ali Baba. Early each morning, he would take his three mules out to the forest where he would chop wood.One morning, as he passed by a great rock, Ali Baba saw a cloud of dust rising in the distance and heard the rumbling of many horses hooves. Fearing for his life, Ali quickly hid his mules in the woods and climbed a large tree. Moments later, forty horsemen arrived and Ali could see from their hard, cruel faces that they were a band of thieves. Their captain came forward and seemed to address the rock. "Open Sesame", he cried, and to Ali's amazement, the rock opened up to reveal a secret cave. After making sure all his men passed in with their loot, the captain entered the cave. The door shut silently behind him. Quaking with terror, Ali dared not climb down the tree lest he be heard and slaughtered. Some time later, the door once again opened and the thieves departed from the cave. Their captain turned and addressed the rock. "Shut Sesame" , he commanded, and the door closed once again. The thieves mounted their horses and quickly departed. Brimming over with curiosity, Ali clambered down from the tree and commanded the rock to "Open Sesame". Ali's eyes filled with wonder as he surveyed the contents of the cave.There were countless bags of gold and silver, jewels worthy of kings, bales of delicate silks, precious plateware and vessels, intricate carpets and rich brocades. Ali soon realised that this all must have been the work of many generations of bandits. Remembering the command to open the door and feeling no remorse over stealing from thieves, Ali loaded his mules with as much gold as they could bear. He then covered the bags with wood to disguise them. After commanding the door to "Shut Sesame", he left. It was late when Ali reached home. He made especially sure to lock the gates behind him before unloading the precious cargo from his mules. He showed the gold to his wife and told her how he had come by it. Being a very practical woman, her head did not turn at the sight of so much wealth but she suggested that they should count the gold immediately and then quickly hide it. It soon became apparent that it would take them well over a week to count the gold coin by coin. Ali's wife proposed to borrow a measure from the house of Ali's brother, to which Ali reluctantly agreed. Ali's brother, Qasim, was a wealthy man who, due to some clever tales about a poor but illustrious lineage, had managed to marry the only daughter of a wealthy merchant. Despite her wealth, or perhaps because of it, Qasim's wife was a very jealous and suspicious woman. She knew that Ali and his family lived from hand to mouth so that when Ali's wife came to borrow the measure, she was beside herself with envy. On the bottom of the measure she placed a small amount of glue made from flour and water so that whatever grain Ali's wife was measuring might stick there and perhaps pass unnoticed. Imagine her shock the next day when Ali's wife returned the measure! For instead of grain, she found a gold coin stuck to the bottom. Rushing to Qasim, she whined " Qasim, Qasim! How is it that your wretch of a woodcutter brother has become so wealthy that he must measure his gold whilst we poor merchants must be content with simply counting ours ? In a fit of envy, Qasim rushed to his brother's house and demanded Ali explain the gold coin his wife had found on the bottom of the measure. "If not," he threatened, "I shall report you to the Qadir, peace be upon him, myself." Despite his brother's threats of treachery, Ali was a very generous man and told Qasim all that had passed. Once he had extracted the location of the cave and the necessary command to open the door from Ali, Qasim fled back home. He commanded his wife to prepare his ten donkeys as he had urgent business to attend to. Upon seeing the trove of treasure, Qasim wept tears of joy and performed his first act of truly heartfelt piety. After struggling with his donkeys for the better part of the journey, Qasim was in no mood to turn around and hide them in the woods. He strode up to the door and commanded it to "Open Sesame." Qasim returned to the cave door so that he might load his donkeys with his new-found riches. "Open Barley" he commanded, and was greatly surprised when the door did not budge. "Open millet,open poppyseeds, open semolina!" he cried. Nothing worked. The more Qasim tried to remember the command to open the door, the more confused his memory became. Unfortunately for Qasim, the thieves chanced to return to their cave that very day. When they saw Qasim's donkeys standing outside, they drew their swords. Who could have discovered their secret and how did he do so ? Commanding the door to "Open Sesame", they entered the cave whereupon they discovered a trembling Qasim and soon made short work of him. After beheading him, they cut him into quarters and strung the pieces about the cave so that any accomplices might be scared off. After Qasim failed to return, Qasim's wife came crying to Ali's house early the next morning as he was preparing his mules. Although Ali realised that Qasim must have forgotten the command to open the cave door, he tried to calm Qasim's wife by telling her that Qasim had probably spent the night in a house of ill- repute. Unfortunately this made matters somewhat worse and Ali decided to make a quick exit. Ali's worst fears were realised when he saw his brother's body parts hung about the cave. He had hoped that he might have found a contrite brother who had merely spent a cold and hungry night. Despite knowing that the bandits were using Qasim as bait to catch any others who might know their secret, Ali felt bound by honour to give his brother a proper and prompt burial. Wrapping up his brothers body in cloth and carpets, he returned to his mules with a heavy heart, a few more bags of gold and made his way back to town. The house of Qasim owned a very intelligent and discreet slave named Morgiana, whom Qasim had acquired through one of his lines of trade. When Ali reached Qasim's house, he spoke quietly with her, " Your master and my brother has come to a bad end. It is imperative that the manner of his death is not known to anyone except to us and the cobbler we shall employ to sew him back together again. Go to the bazaar at once and find the old cobbler Mustapha. As it is, his sight is failing him but he must agree to be blindfolded and led here before you give him this gold. On no account must you tell anyone of this, not even your mistress." Morgiana readily agreed to the plan. On the way to the bazaar, Morgiana stopped at the apothecary and asked in a loud voice for the special white powder which would ease the dying pains of her master. In doing so, she very cleverly prepared the locals to expect his death. When she came to the bazaar, she showed Baba Mustapha the gold and promised there would be more should he agree to be blindfolded and led by her to a secret location. Knowing of noone who wished him ill , Baba Mustapha accepted the offer. He was shocked when he saw the nature of his job but Morgiana offered him so much gold that he gathered courage and industriously set to work. In the meantime, Ali informed Qasim's wife that Qasim had fallen off one of his donkeys and had broken his neck. When the household began their wails of mourning, the neighborhood assumed that it was due to Qasim's mysterious illness which Morgiana had alluded to. It was customary in those days for a man to marry his brother's widow so as to take care of the family. Ali did so and moved his own family into Qasim's home. His own wealth was thus disguised by that of Qasim's wife'. A few days later, the thieves came back to their cave from a raiding party. When they saw that Qasim's body had been removed and more of their gold taken, they resolved to find and murder the accomplices immediately. Commanding one of his men to go into town and inquire after any strange deaths, the captain of the bandits warned that failure to find Qasim's accomplices by evening would result in death. The thief went straight to the source of all gossip and news, the bazaar. Stopping by Baba Mustapha's stall, he asked if there had been any unusual deaths recently. "Well, now that you mention it," began Baba Mustapha. "Yes, go on," coaxed the thief. "Oh, I cannot tell you. I have been paid a vast sum not to tell anyone," simpered the cobbler. The thief pulled two gold coins from his purse and proffered them to Baba Mustapha. " I hardly think that I am the sort of man," Mustapha began to protest with false dignity. The thief offered another five coins with the promise of much more should his information prove accurate. "It will hardly hurt to tell you, you have such an honest face. Well, let me see, the other morning I was quietly sitting here, mending shoes when a vision appeared before me and offered me much gold, much more than this amount you have given me, should I agree to be led blindfolded and perform a secret task. Although I have such a successful business that I am famous for my shoes all over the world and don't need the money, I was much taken with her beauty so agreed. Such a task I have never had before. It was a man who had been quartered and beheaded. My task was to sew him back together again. Not for all the gold in the world would I have performed such a task if I had known the nature of it, but this I did because of the young lady's great distress and my duties to Allah to see this man buried in an honourable fashion.." Tiring of Baba Mustapha's false piety and endless chattering, the thief cut him off and asked if Baba Mustapha could remember his way back to the house. "Oh, I believe so, should you blindfold me. Of course, a little extra compensation will be necessary to make up for the lost hours of income here. My stall is the busiest in the bazaar. People come from all over the world to buy my shoes. Indeed, just the other day, a servant of the Qadir, peace be upon him, was..." Swiftly, the thief drew close to Baba Mustapha, blindfolded him with a scarf and whispered in his ear that if he did not stop talking and lead him to the house immediately, a knife would pierce his heart. When Baba Mustapha and the thief found the house, the thief took a small amount of blue chalk out of his pocket and marked the door with a cross. He threw away the chalk then left town to tell his master of their good fortune. Morgiana returned from shopping for vegetables and saw the blue cross on the door. Immediately, she deduced it's purpose. Setting down her basket, she found the piece of chalk that the thief had thrown away and marked all the doors of the neighbouring houses in the same manner. That evening, the captain of the thieves and his best assassins came to the street in which Ali lived. To their rage, they found that the doors of the entire neighborhood had been marked with blue crosses. They returned to their lair and made an end of the unfortunate thief who had so indiscreetly made known their plans. Baba Mustapha was again blindfolded and led to the house by a thief. This thief thought he was more cunning than the first and so he placed a small red cross where he thought noone would see. However, it did not escape Morgiana's sharp eyes and she marked the rest of the houses likewise. The poor thief met the same end as the first. Finally, the captain of the bandits had Mustapha lead him to the house . He did not mark it in anyway but looked at it very carefully so that he would know it when he returned. He then went back to the cave and ordered two of his men to fetch him nineteen donkeys and 38 oil pots, one of which was to be filled with oil and the rest empty. Having obtained these, he then hid one man in each pot and loaded them onto the donkeys. At dusk, they made their way to Ali Baba's house where the captain asked for lodging as he could find none elsewhere. Ali did not recognise the captain in his disguise and was very hospitable. The captain unloaded his donkeys in the courtyard and whispered to his men that they should get out of the pots when they heard stones thrown from a window. He then followed Ali into the house and was given a room that overlooked the courtyard. It happened that Morgiana was cooking dinner and ran out of oil. " How fortunate", she thought, "that an oil merchant has come to stay with us. I'm sure he won't mind if I take a little oil." She went out to the pots with her pitcher and was astonished to hear a voice from one of the pots. " Is it time yet, master ?" whispered the voice. In a deep whisper, she replied "No, not yet but presently." As she went to each pot, she was asked the same question and she replied in the same fashion. At last she came to the pot of oil and filled her pitcher with it. She filled a great kettle with the oil and brought it to the boil. She then went out to the courtyard and poured the boiling oil over the thieves so that each died. At midnight. the captain of the thieves came to the window and began throwing pebbles into the courtyard below. Morgiana was hiding nearby in the dark so that she could see what the oil merchant looked like. When there was no movement from the pots, the captain came outside and discovered that all his men were dead. Swearing not to rest until he had his revenge, the captain fled the compound to hatch new nefarious plans. The next morning, Morgiana showed her master the pots and explained the bodies found within. Scarcely able to contain his amazement, Ali thanked Morgiana profusely and granted her freedom from slavery. However, as she had nowhere else to go , she decided to remain on as a servant of the household. Together, they buried the thieves in the garden. Months passed by and no more was seen of the pretended oil merchant. Ali's son administered Qasim's former businesses and became very respected within the bazaar. A new merchant named Cogia Hassan set up in the bazaar and acquainted himself with Ali's son. They soon became fast friends and Ali's son was often invited to Cogia Hassan's house to dine. In reality, however, Cogia Hassan was the former chief of the bandits and the same oil merchant who had planned to kill Ali and his family. After returning to his cave, he realised that his plot needed to be more subtle than the methods tried earlier. Accordingly, he found out all he could about Ali's family and when he discovered that Ali's son had become a merchant, he packed many fine stuffs and jewels from his cave and set up his business in the bazaar opposite to that of Ali's son. Within a few months of wining and dining, Ali's son invited Cogia Hassan to his father's house to dine. The thief concealed his sword in his robes before he went to Ali's house. After greeting Ali and his son, he took Ali aside and told him that due to high blood pressure, he could not eat salt and would therefore have to forego eating and just enjoy the pleasure of their company. "Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed Ali, " I shall merely tell our cook not to put any salt in our food." And he went into the kitchen to tell Morgiana just that. In Persia, it is considered a bond of friendship to eat salt in the house of your host. Therefore, Morgiana was very suspicious of the guest who refused to take salt in his food. She peeked her head around the door and looked very hard at Cogia Hassan. Almost immediately, she perceived that it was the oil merchant in a new disguise. Moreover when Cogia Hassan moved a little, she saw the glint of his sword from beneath his overcoat. Scurrying back to the kitchen, she told the scullery boy to get his drum as she would dance for their master's guests after dinner. Morgiana was famous for her dancing and had often entertained Qasim's guests with it so Ali was receptive to the plan when she told him of it. After the three men had finished their meal, they sat out in a courtyard and Morgiana came to dance for them. In one hand she held a tambourine and in the other, a knife. The men were not alarmed at this as she playfully pointed it at each of them. Each thought that it was part of her dance. However, just when her dance reached it's most feverish, Morgiana suddenly lunged and plunged her knife deep into the thief's heart. At first Ali and his son were furious with Morgiana for stabbing their guest. However, when she reached within the thief's robe and took out his sword, their anger turned to astonishment and gratitude. She explained that she had recognised him as the same oil merchant and thief who had tried to kill Ali earlier. Ali Baba was so thankful that he asked Morgiana if she would marry his son to which she agreed, on the proviso she could study opthamology so that Ali and his family might never be deceived by thieves in disguise again. Ali and his descendants became a great merchant family and they all lived happily ever after, at least until 1979.The end. </A>
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