Harun Al-Rashid - Popular Culture and References

Popular Culture and References

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem which started

One day Haroun Al-Raschid read

A book wherein the poet said

Where are the kings and where the rest

Of those who once the world possessed?

• O. Henry uses this character in his theme "Turning the tables on Haroun al Raschid."
• Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem in his youth entitled Recollections Of The Arabian Nights. Every stanza (except the last one) ends with "of good Haroun Alraschid".
• Harun al-Rashid was a main figure and character in several of the stories in some of the oldest versions of the One Thousand and One Nights.
• Hārūn ar-Rashīd figures throughout James Joyce's Ulysses, in a dream of Stephen Dedalus, one of the protagonists. Stephen's efforts to recall this dream continue throughout the novel, culminating in the novel's fifteenth episode, wherein some characters also take on the guise of Hārūn.
• Harun al-Rashid is also celebrated in a 1923 poem by W.B. Yeats, "The Gift of Harun al-Rashid".
• A story of one of Harun's wanderings provides the climax to the narrative game of titles at the end of Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler (1979). In Calvino's story, Harun wanders at night, only to be drawn into a conspiracy in which he is selected to assassinate the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid.
• The two protagonists of Salman Rushdie's 1990 novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories are Haroun and his father Rashid Khalifa.
• In the Sten science fiction novels by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch, the character of the Eternal Emperor uses the name "H. E. Raschid" when incognito; this is confirmed, in the final book of the series, as a reference to the character from Burton's translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night.
• In Roald Dahl's story The BFG, the Sultan of Baghdad says he had an uncle called Caliph Harun al-Rashid who disappeared with his wife and ten children.
• The movie The Golden Blade (1952), starring Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie depicts the adventures of Harun who uses a magic sword to free a fairy-tale Bagdad from Jafar, the evil usurper of the throne. After he finally wins the hand of princess Khairuzan she awards him the title Al-Rashid.
• The comic book The Sandman features a story (issue 50, "Ramadan") set in the world of the Arabian Nights, with Hārūn ar-Rashīd as the protagonist. It highlights his historical and mythical role as well as his discussion of the transitory nature of power. The story is included in the collection The Sandman: Fables and Reflections.
• Haroun El Poussah in the French comic strip Iznogoud is a satirical version of Hārūn ar-Rashīd.
• In Quest for Glory II, the sultan who adopts the Hero as his son is named Hārūn ar-Rashīd. He is often seen prophesying on the streets of Shapeir as The Poet Omar.
• Harun al-Rashid appears as the leader of Arabia in the video game Civilization 5.
• Future US President Theodore Roosevelt, when he was a New York Police Department Commissioner, was called in the local newspapers "Haroun-al-Roosevelt".
• In The Master & Margarita, by novelist Mikhail Bulgakov, Harun al-Rashid is referenced by the character Korovyev in which he wanrs a door man not to judge him "by suit," and to reference the story of "the famous caliph, Harun al-Rashid."
• In Civilization V, he is the leader of the Arabians.