Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp: Part 3

A Folk Tale

Jul 06, 2025

Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp: Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

The cavern in which Aladdin was imprisoned would have been impenetrably dark had not the sorcerer given the boy his magic ring, a ring that not only provided illumination but ensured he would never die of hunger or thirst. But his stomach would not stop grumbling and his throat felt like it was stuffed with dust. The ring’s lurid carnelian light discovered the sheer wall of ice on one side of him and the unscalable column of sand on the other.

Aladdin pulled the lamp out of the sand, smirking at how cheap it looked. “Why did my so-called uncle want this stupid thing?”

After posing the question aloud, he examined the lamp in silence because talking was making him even more thirsty. Looped around the lamp’s base was the strip of cloth Aladdin had torn from his shirt, so that he could cinch it round his waist when he climbed the shaft to the cave’s exit.

The costly vestments the wicked sorcerer had bought Aladdin were reduced to rags, shirt and pantaloons torn to ribbons. Even the slippers were pocked with holes.

Because there was nothing to do in the narrow space allotted to him, Aladdin spent hours standing up or sitting down or walking in circles to exercise his legs. He upbraided himself for his stupidity in going along with the sorcerer’s scheme. That man bewitched me, he thought. Otherwise, I would never have stepped into the Taklamakan Desert.

He tried banishing from his mind the melancholy vision of his mother grieving for him. She had lost her only son. And it was not only the plight of Umm-Aladdin that wore heavy on him, but his father’s as well—Mustafa the tailor. Aladdin was ashamed he had mistreated the poor man so. His father had loved Aladdin more than anything else in the world. And look where I am now.

Two days passed. The wall of ice tempered the heat of the sun that had been trapped in the sand, which had rushed down the shaft when the sorcerer broke the spell keeping it whirling above the desert. Now the chamber was starting to feel chilly. Aladdin had been burrowing in the sand to sleep, but now even the damp grains were cold.

He blew hot air into his cupped palms and rubbed them together vigorously. When he did this, the friction rubbing against the ring caused the jinni living inside it to pop out and fill the narrow space beneath the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The jinni’s eyes exuded a glow of the same hue as the eyes of the demonic face carved into the ring. The creature wore the brocade robe of a mandarin and its head was crowned with a tall scholar’s cap.

“What do you want?” the jinni asked. (His voice was not nearly as imposing as his appearance.) “I have to obey whoever wears the ring. Apparently, that means I have to obey you. How old are you? You can’t be over fifteen.”

“I’m exactly fifteen. If you’re a jinni, didn’t you know that already?”

The creature’s eyebrows shot up. He grinned and bobbed his head. “I suppose I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t already know you were fifteen.”

“That means you were lying when you pretended not to know. You’re a deceiver.”

The jinni scowled. “Make a wish.”

Aladdin wondered if he had died. Maybe the jinni was part of the dying process, a kind of formality one had to go through before getting sent to everlasting reward or punishment. I don’t remember the imam ever delivering a sermon on the rigmarole one has to go through the instant one stops living.

He needed to be careful what he wished for. If he seemed greedy and asked for wealth, the jinni might send him directly to Hell. “I wish to be out of this place,” Aladdin said, irritably. “I want to go back to the city.”

Aladdin had to cover his eyes because he was dazzled by the sun’s intensity. He swayed and fell to his knees, and could hear bare feet padding toward him. He kept blinking until his eyes were accustomed to the light. The carved Buddhas smiled serenely down on him. He was on the mountain steps that out of the city gate. The jinni did exactly what I asked him to do.

Two Buddhist monks in saffron robes were helping him up. Another offered him a cup of water. Aladdin drank the cup dry and asked for more. When he had slaked his thirst, he mounted the next step to leave.

But one of the monk’s detained him. “You forgot this,” he said, handing Aladdin the lamp.

“Thank you,” the boy replied, accepting it with reluctance. The tattered cloth that had been tied round its base was gone.

Aladdin dashed up the mountain steps as fast as he could, heading to the clothier's quarter where he lived.

The mean hovel where he and his mother lived had no windows, and only a filthy rug nailed to the lintel to serve as a door. The interior was blazing in tallow candles.

Veiled and robed in black, Aladdin’s mother, having assumed her son to be dead, had been mourning her loss day and night. She could not believe her folly in allowing her son to go away with that man who had claimed to be Aladdin’s uncle and had called himself al-Gharib (the stranger).

“There is no power or might save in Allah,” she said, lifting her palms to the ceiling. “O Lord, grant me a sign that my son has found favor in thine eyes.”

Aladdin stepped inside.

“Where have you been, you stupid runt?!” she exclaimed, clenching her fists. “I could kill you for causing me so much worry!”

“Mama,” Aladdin said, staggering in a faint. “I’m so hungry. Please, I want to eat something!”

Umm-Aladdin retrieved the leftovers she had served Aladdin and the sorcerer three nights before. Some of the food had spoiled and had been thrown out. But there were still chunks of meat and other delicacies which, though bereft of freshness and savor, were still filling. The boy ate ravenously.

His mother warned him to slow down, stressing that it was unhealthy and dangerous to eat so much and so rapidly, no matter how starved one was. Aladdin obeyed, pointing to his mouth to demonstrate that each morsel was being slowly and deliberately masticated. Umm-Aladdin removed her veil so that he son could see the expression of maternal triumph that now overspread her face.

He told his mother all that had happened. Whenever he mentioned the wicked imposter who had tricked them both, Umm-Aladdin punched the air. He spoke of the Cave of Wonders, and how he had embarked on something called a boat to cross an expanse of water, which was called a lake, until he had reached an island full of trees laden with glass fruits.

This reminded him that he had slipped three of these into his pockets. He removed them and handed them to his mother.

Like her son, she had never in her life seen precious gems and had no idea of their worth. She handled the sapphire, ruby, and emerald with disinterest, unaware that these treasures would have enabled them to purchase three cantons in China.

“Put them behind the cushion over there,” she said, thrusting them into her son’s hands as if they were worthless. “What else did you find in the cave?”

Aladdin stuffed them behind a ragged bolster before answering. “I found that lamp over there by the door. The light it emitted made every chamber in the cave glow with a green light. The sorcerer told me to blow out its flame and pour the oil out. Mama, the lamp was the only thing he cared about. When I wouldn’t give it to him right away, he got mad and caused all the sand in the sky to crash down on the desert floor. I was buried alive.”

His mother paced the room, studying the floor. “If you were trapped in the cave, how were you able to escape?”

“The sorcerer gave me this,” he said, lifting his hand to display the ring on his finger. “When I rubbed the ring a jinni came out. He asked me what I wanted, so I told him I wanted to go back to the city. And here I am.”

“Astaghfirullah!” Umm-Aladdin exclaimed, covering her eyes. “My son, the jinn are not to be trusted. That wicked man who gave you the ring was a gibbering wizard. Do you not recall in the Qur’an how the Lord sent the angels, Harut and Marut, to teach magic to the Babylonians? What did they tell mankind before they shared with them these forbidden secrets?”

Aladdin could not remember the verse’s exact wording, so he paraphrased it. “The angels Harut and Marut warned the Babylonians that they had been sent to test mankind, so that Allah would know who among sons of Adam had chosen of their own free will to practice the dark arts.”

A sharp gust of wind blew inside, extinguishing the candles. The carpet violently flapped and overturned the lamp, which fell on its side with a hollow clunk.

“Remove the ring, Aladdin!” his mother said urgently. “And do not summon the jinni again!”

When he pulled the finger from his finger, the gold band expanded once more to accommodate the finger of a grown man. The boy examined the cursed object in his palm. “Should I throw it away?”

“No. An innocent might find it and be led astray. Put it behind the cushion with those useless glass fruits, and forget it exists.”

Aladdin did as she commanded. Then he went to his mother and hugged her, yawning from the food he had eaten and the excitement of the day. Umm-Aladdin urged him to go to bed. He stretched out on his reed mat and fell into a deep slumber.

It was not until late the next morning that he woke up. On the far side of the room, Umm-Aladdin was held up a clean silken deel for him to wear, one of the last things his father Mustafa had made for his son before he died.

As soon as he was dressed, he began complaining. “Now that I’m not wearing that ring, I’m hungry again. I could eat an entire ox.”

Umm-Aladdin sighed. “You finished up all the food yesterday. There is no longer so much as a crust of bread in the house. But I will card some wool, and take it to the weaver at the end of the street. Perhaps he will buy it from me.”

“Mama, I have an idea. I’ll go sell the lamp in the khan. I know that it’s a piece of junk, but maybe I can get enough money from it to buy us food for the rest of the day.”

His mother stooped down and picked it up. She told Aladdin to take a seat and she sat on the cushion next to him, turning lamp over in her hands. “It’s so filthy,” she said. She grabbed a cloth and began polishing it.

At once, they were no longer in the house, but sitting on the floor of what looked like an opulent palace with soaring columns. The misty virid glow, which the lamp had shed throughout the Cave of Wonders now filled the entire room. In the midst of it loomed a turbaned jinni that was as tall as a minaret. The creature stood beneath a disc of white light.

It dawned on Aladdin as he looked at the creature that the disc of light was actually the tiny aperture through which the wick of the lamp had been inserted. Aladdin curled his nose because the stench of naphta was pungent. Mama and I are inside the lamp, he thought.

Umm-Aladdin fainted dead away and the lamp rolled out of her hand.

“Why have you summoned me?” the creature said. (His voice was not nearly as amiable as the other jinni’s.) “I am the slave of whosoever holds the lamp. I must grant you your every wish—I and the other jinn that reside within it.”

When Aladdin heard this, he snatched up the lamp and gripped it tightly in both hands. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re not the only jinni in the lamp?”

The creature’s deathless eyes lowered until they fell on Aladdin like the eyes of an owl contemplating a field mouse. “Do you . . . wish to know the answer to that question?”

That’s a strange thing to say, Aladdin thought. He didn’t say I have a limit on the number of wishes I can make. I wonder if something bad will happen in exchange for each wish. But if that were the case, then something bad should’ve happened when I asked the other jinni to get me out of the cave. Maybe this jinni is more powerful. Yes, that must be it. That’s why the sorcerer wanted this jinni, instead of the silly one inside the ring. So do these jinn operate by different rules? I better make this wish simple until I have more information.

As Aladdin turned the matter over in his mind, the jinni grew impatient and started plucking lint from his immaterial clothing.

“I’m ready to make my wish,” Aladdin said. “My mother and I are hungry. Give us food and wine to drink!”

No sooner had he said this than the jinni vanished and Aladdin and his mother were back in their house. But every square inch of the floor was covered with plates and bowls of pure silver that were full of seasoned rice, steaming cuts of meat, date puddings, yogurts, and citruses. There were twenty silver goblets filled to the brim with choicest wine of Shiraz, and a silver decanter as well. The forks, spoons and knives—all were silver.

When Umm-Aladdin recovered from her swoon, she screamed. “How did all of this get here?!” She was in shock and could not remember anything. “Did the Sultan have pity on us?”

Aladdin told her that he would explain everything once they had eaten their fill. And so they ate, and ate, and ate. They wine made them merry, and they took naps in order to let the food digest. When they woke up, they began to eat again.

They went outside several times to relieve themselves, and when they returned they resumed their feast. Soon they were pointing to each other and laughing, because their bellies were sticking out and their faces had become wide.

“We look like engorged ticks!” Umm-Aladdin tittered.

The next day, neither of them was hungry.

Umm-Aladdin shook her head incredulously. “I’ve never opened my eyes to a day in which I did not feel an urge to put something in my belly. She shooed the flies from the empty platters. “Aladdin, you must tell me: where did all of this food come from?”

Aladdin related to her all that had happened; how she had rubbed the lamp, and a jinni had come out of it. “You fainted out of fright. So I picked up the lamp and the jinni told me that it obliged to do whatever the holder of the lamp asked.”

Umm-Aladdin boxed her son’s ears. “I have gone all my life, and never met a person who so much as laid eyes on a single jinni!—And now my son has brought not one but two into the house. What other items from the Cave of Wonders have jinn in them?—What about those glass fruits?”

Aladdin went to the bolster and removed the priceless fruits. He rubbed each one several times and shook it for good measure. But nothing came out of them.

“I checked, Mama. There aren’t any jinn in these fruits.”

“Aladdin, as I told you before. It is not safe to have dealings with the jinn. They were created from smokeless fire, so they are subtle, unpredictable, and cannot be manipulated. Pray to Allah, my son, that you have not caused some misfortune to befall upon us by asking them for . . . help.”

As her voice trailed off, she and her son overheard an ominous buzzing coming from outside. Something was off. There were only a handful of flies in the house, despite the greasy plates and empty goblets strewn about their feet. There should have been hundreds of flies drawn to the leftovers.

The neighbors were talking among themselves in the alley. Aladdin drew aside the carpet hanging from the lintel, and peered outside. Umm-Aladdin assumed her veil and joined him at the threshold.

The orphan, Negübei, lay dead in front of them, covered in flies. Negübei was the scar-faced boy, who had chucked a pebble at Aladdin from the rooftop on the morning he and the sorcerer had disappeared into the desert. The neighbors had sent a runner to fetch the authorities to take the body away.

Is this the only consequence of the wish? Aladdin thought. If so, it’s not that bad. Negübei was jealous of me. He wanted to be the leader of the gang. But even as Aladdin thought this, something melted in his heart. He clutched his chest and tears welled in his eyes. Just because Negübei wanted to be the leader, didn’t mean he was a bad person. He didn’t deserve to die.

Umm-Aladdin drew her son back inside the house. When he had wiped the tears from his eyes, his mother spoke to him in a grave whisper. “You must put the lamp with the ring—and never use either of them again.”