Wafting through the Raleigh offices of the John Locke Foundation today has been the beautiful Scheherazade suite by Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov. The music actually has a free-market twist to it, believe it or not.

Scheherazade uses music to tell some of the stories from the classic 1001 Tales of the Arabian Nights. The name of the suite comes from the heroine, who you may remember outwits a misguided and murderous sultan of Persia who has been driven mad by the infidelity and treason of his sultana as well as the sultana of his brother, the sultant of Transoxiana (today?s Uzbekistan and parts of Afghanistan and nearby countries). The betrayed sultan marries a young woman from his realm each day and then has her killed the following morning. Scheherazade is the daughter of the grand vizier, and demands to be the sultan’s bride. She then tells such a wonderful story each night that the sultan keeps delaying her execution, and eventually he comes to his senses and all live happily everafter.

The central tales in the Arabian Nights concern Simbad the Sailor. What?s neat about this is that Simbad?s adventures are those not of a warrior or conqueror but of a merchant. Every time he goes out on a voyage, his ship is stocked with trade goods. Things go horribly awry ? an island turns out to be an angry sea monster, etc. ? but Simbad always manages to escape captivity or desolation, and always with interesting new trade goods that he sells to become fabulously wealthy.

Governments are often questionable in the stories, while explorers and merchants are the good guys. Never let anyone tell you that Islamic or Arabian culture is hostile to enterprise and profit. Even the children?s stories show this is false.