Assignment:
The Thousand and One Nights is known to derive mostly from cultures that are not Arabic. Do some research on the internet to discover some other traditions these stories are from. Which cultures do you find most surprising, and how were these cultures related to the spread of Islam at the time of the stories' translation in Baghdad?
Alternatively, which famous stories came to be known because of this collection of stories, and which have become famous enough to be widely known (e.g., stories you've heard before, or stories that have been adapted into movies)?