Shahriyar is a Sassanid king who inherits his father’s kingdom and governs alongside his younger brother Shahzaman, the king of Samarkand. He is initially portrayed as a good king who governed “with such justice that all his subjects loved him” (15). This begins to change once Shahzaman reveals to Shahriyar that his wife has been unfaithful. Given that Shahzaman recently discovered the same of his wife, the two brothers ruminate on and fume over their situations together. Shahriyar suggests to Shahzaman that they travel the world in search of other kings to see if a similar fate has befallen them. The brothers return from their travels believing that women are treacherous. Shahriyar has his wife and her entourage put to death and begins to take a virgin to bed every night, killing her in the morning. His people begin to despair and flee, which prompts Shahrazad to step in.

Shahriyar marries Shahrazad, presumably with the intent to kill her as he has killed his other lovers, but she delays his hand by purporting to tell him a story on the night of their wedding. Because he was “troubled with sleeplessness” (23), he consents and listens eagerly. At the end of the tales, we learn that the stories told by Shahrazad over the course of a thousand and one nights has changed Shahriyar.