ABSTRACT
This Arabian tale dramatizes the dynamics of faith, whether ideological or religious, and the errors we commonly make with it. In the story a young princess accidentally discovers that her beloved spiritual teacher is a ghoul, so she flees. From then on, the ghoul visits her at night and asks what she saw. She repeatedly says that she saw her teacher praying. The ghoul then inflicts some disaster upon people around her, starting with her parents disappearing, and escalating to kidnapping her newborn babies. In repeating her answer, she affirms her faith: ghouls are normally evil creatures in Arabian culture, but conversion to Islam transforms them.
The story also illustrates the errors we commonly make with faith, in her case, insisting on her religion despite the harm it does to other people. Much of the violence today between various religions and ideologies comes from this error – insisting that others follow a covenant they do not agree to. Fortunately, the Princess does not commit the error of hypocrisy: claiming commitment to a faith, but following only some tenets, and ignoring others she does not like.
