One day there was a great king named Sharīf, and he had two sons. The older was named Rafīq and the younger ʿAdil. When the king died, Rafīq became the new king.
The King and the Sorceress:
On the first night of his kingship, he requested of the soothsayers to bring him all the sorceresses in the lands and ask them what would happen to his kingdom if the neighboring kingdoms waged war against him and seized its throne. One of the strongest sorceresses of the lands answered and said: “Your people will hate you and strive to kill your elder brother.” All the other sorceresses agreed with her according to their magic.
Imprisonment and War:
The king ordered all the present to be imprisoned, except that sorceress who was named Azraqā, and requested that she become his personal sorceress. She agreed, wishing to turn a great king to her magic, but she was plotting to request of the soothsayers to throw her brother into prison and order the army to prepare for war.
The King’s Illness:
Azraqā requested of the king to prepare food for him. The king rejoiced and agreed immediately. In the kitchen, Azraqā requested of the cooks to bring her one red rose and one yellow rose from the king’s private garden to place in the food. When one of the cooks asked her: “What is this for?” She said to him: “It is a magical rose that makes a delicious food for the king, and it will amaze the king.”
The Sorceress and Imprisonment:
Azraqā made from the yellow rose a potion that helps in digesting through other people’s magic, and from the red rose magic that makes a person feel love for others. She placed the necessary substances to cure the disease and placed them in the king’s food. The king ate the food and felt love toward all around him. He requested that the sorceress Azraqā hasten the attendance before him and face her. He said to her: “I know what you placed for me in the food, and I feel its love for me. So watch your counsel and I order you to be placed in prison beside your brother Zanāz.”
The Quest for Freedom:
Azraqā sat imprisoned in the palace’s prison. Her friends among the sorceresses would visit her, bringing her news of the king and his war with the neighboring kingdoms. One day, a sorceress said to her: “The king has begun to hate everyone, especially after he defeated the other kingdoms, and he requested from me to kill your brother present in the neighboring kingdom, Zanāz the sorceress Azraqā, during one month and to make his death painful.” Azraqā requested from the other sorceress to release her from prison, so that she might liberate her brother the sorceress until she had an alternative to her brother.
A Scheme to Kill the Prince:
In the neighboring kingdom they found the Prince ʿAdil chained, with severe torture upon him. Azraqā requested from one of the sorceresses to cast her magic upon the soothsayers until they slept, and from another sorceress to cast magic that would kill Prince ʿAdil. Likewise, she requested from another sorceress to cast magic that would hide the prince’s body until they convinced the king that they had killed him by fire, until his form disappeared.
The Condition of Prince ʿAdil:
But Prince ʿAdil refused to go with them, for he feared for his brother from them. Yet they convinced him that the people were in need of him, otherwise his father’s lineage would be cut off forever. ʿAdil agreed to go with them but on the condition that they not harm his brother, and he extracted a promise from them to that.
Reconciliation and Certain Death:
In the palace, the sorceresses replaced the king with his brother. But at that moment, King Rafīq attempted to reconcile the sorceresses and struck his brother with a blow. Azraqā killed him defending her brother. Thus ʿAdil became the official king of the lands.
The Great King ʿAdil:
King ʿAdil stopped the war, honored his fame. The sorceress Azraqā pointed him out before her entrance into prison, for she had killed King Rafīr with conspiracies of princes from neighboring kingdoms to manifest and spread peace. Naturally, the king agreed to remove the hatred between his lands and the other kingdoms. Those kingdoms recognized that King ʿAdil was the greatest king who had ruled, even greater than his father King Sharīf.