Shahrazad

Scheherazade شهرزاد
One Thousand and One Nights character
Scheherazade, painted in the 19th century by Sophie Anderson
Portrayed by	Mili Avital, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Claude Jade, Anna Karina, María Montez, Cyrine Abdelnour, Sulaf Fawakherji
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Queen consort
Family	The chief vizier (father) Dunyazad (sister)
Spouse(s)	Shahryar
Children	3 sons
Other names	Shahrazad, Shahrzad

Scheherazade /ʃəˌhɛrəˈzɑːd, -də/, or Shahrazad (Arabic: شهرزاد‎ Šahrazād, derived from Middle Persian Čehrāzād), is a character and the storyteller in One Thousand and One Nights. This book includes the tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba and many more.

According to modern scholarship, the name Scheherazade derives from the Middle Persian name Čehrāzād, which is composed of the words čehr (lineage) and āzād (noble, exalted).

The earliest forms of Scheherazade's name in Arabic sources include Shirazad (شيرازاد Šīrāzād) in Masudi, and Shahrazad (شهرازاد Šahrāzād) in Ibn al-Nadim, the latter meaning in New Persian "the person whose realm/dominion (شهر šahr) is free (آزاد āzād)". It is shortened as "Shahrzad" (شهرزاد Šahrzād/Šarzād) in modern Persian.

The story goes that Shahryar (شهریار Šahryār, from Middle Persian šahr-dār, "holder of the realm, king") found out one day that his first wife was unfaithful to him. Therefore, he resolved to marry a new virgin each day as well as behead the previous day's wife, so that she would have no chance to be unfaithful to him. He had killed 1,000 such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter.