Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves

Ali Baba and Kasim were two brothers. Ali Baba was a caring and humble man who ran a modest shop in the village marketplace. His older brother Kasim, however, was greedy and rude, running a wealthy shop right beside Ali Baba’s.

One morning, Ali Baba was gathering wood in the forest when he saw a group of forty scary-looking men coming, carrying heavy bags filled with something clinking inside. They stopped outside a large cave, and their leader said loudly, “Open Sesame!” To Ali Baba’s surprise, the mouth of the huge cave opened wide.

The forty thieves hurriedly packed their stolen treasures inside, bags and chests filled to bursting with all kinds of valuables and expensive goods. After they had stored everything inside the cave, the leader again shouted, “Close, Sesame!” and the cave’s entrance boomed shut. After the thieves rode off into the forest once more, Ali Baba quietly tiptoed up to the cave entrance himself.

“Open Sesame!” Ali Baba whispered. To his astonishment, the cave’s door slowly creaked open again. Inside, Ali Baba could hardly believe his eyes. Piles upon piles of gold coins, glittering jewelry, carved chests, expensive fabrics, and other precious valuables lay before him as far as his eyes could see. Though Ali Baba was poor, he was morally upright, so he did not take much—just a few coins in a pouch.

“Close Sesame!” Ali Baba said, hurrying from the cave. Once home, he told his wife the whole story with bright, excited eyes. His greedy wife eyed the pouch of coins greedily, insisting Ali Baba go back for more treasure from the secret cave, which could make them richer than Kasim. But good Ali Baba refused, happy with his humble means.

Later, when Ali Baba’s brother Kasim demanded to know why Ali Baba suddenly seemed to have a little extra wealth, naive Ali Baba took his brother into confidence, telling him sincerely about the band of thieves and the secret cave in the woods that contained chests upon chests of gold and jewelry.

Kasim’s eyes went wide with greed and envy at his honest brother’s fortune. Early the very next morning, Kasim saddled up his horse right away and rode full speed into the forest until he located the secret entrance stone doors to the cave, as Ali Baba had described. “Open Sesame!” Kasim cried loudly, then dismounted and strode forward purposefully, a wide grin upon his face at all the overflowing cases of gold and valuables that met his eyes.

Meanwhile, the forty thieves had finished their latest looting trip sooner than expected. As they neared their hidden cave’s stone entrance, the leader’s brow furrowed in confusion, seeing Kasim’s crafty horse tied up nearby. Wary of a trap, he and his thieves stealthily entered their treasure cave and soon spotted a man hurriedly filling bags with their hard-earned gold and riches!

The leader gave a shout, and he and all his thieves fell upon Kasim, ruthlessly cutting him down amidst his terrified screams for mercy that echoed around the cave walls. “Let this be a lesson to anyone else who dares steal from us!” the leader warned his men harshly, eyeing the slain man bleeding out onto their stolen coins. They took Kasim’s body and wickedly hung it inside the front cave entrance as a warning.

When Ali Baba’s brother did not come home that night, nor the next day either, Ali Baba went back to the cave to investigate…and stumbled upon poor Kasim’s gruesome impaled body, already being torn at by buzzards and beasts. Ali Baba cried aloud at his brother’s horrible fate, quickly cutting down Kasim’s remains and giving him a proper burial under an old lotus tree.

Though Ali Baba grieved his brother’s greedy folly, honorable Ali Baba knew this was a dangerous secret, and he must protect even his grasping wife and the rest of his village from sharing Kasim’s doom at the blood-soaked hands of the forty brutal thieves. When the thieves again returned to their lair in the rocky hills, they were enraged to find their warning had been cut down and buried.

So off again into the nearby village rode their angry leader, cleverly disguised as a traveling merchant selling oil and fine cloth. He found work with a local tailor, and keeping his eyes and ears peeled for clues, the cunning thief leader quickly discovered that only one man in town could possibly have the secret knowledge of their hidden treasure cave—it must be Ali Baba! Upon describing Ali Baba’s modest mud brick dwelling, the tailor pointed out the stone marker that lay outside its gate.

Having found his target at long last, the leader returned under cover of night with a large clay jug of oil on his back, but hidden inside that false oil vessel rode the worst of his villainous thieves! Planning mayhem, they approached Ali Baba’s house in the dark, when suddenly, from up above, scalding hot oil poured down all over them with loud hisses and plumes of steam!

The lead thief’s men screamed aloud as they were burned by the boiling liquid. It was Ali Baba’s clever servant girl, Morgiana, who had seen through their scheme and disguises. Quick-thinking Morgiana had heated oil in the kitchen and poured it onto the terrible men, killing a handful as the rest fled in pain and terror into the night back to their secret lair in the hills.

The next morning, their vicious leader tried one last scheme, returning alone once more to Ali Baba’s village square dressed as a seller of strange animals. Hidden nearby were the rest of his vicious thieves, ready for another ambush. But once again, clever young Morgiana saw through the man’s disguise right away when he came asking at their door. Boldly confronting him, Morgiana mocked and chased him off, waving her butcher knife with fiery eyes, sending the leader running as the whole market laughed.

And so Ali Baba, Morgiana, and the village were safe at last from the greedy thieves, thanks to quick wits and just a splash of hot oil. The band of robbers soon broke up, afraid to return lest they incur the fiery wrath of young Morgiana ever again!

And kind Ali Baba, with young Morgiana now like a daughter to him, lived out the rest of his days surrounded by his loving family, never using a single stolen coin from the secret cavern himself but keeping its deadly tempting secrets hidden safely away deep in a cave in the forest for the rest of time.