Shahryār or Shahriār or Shahriyār or Schahryār (, meaning The Great King) is the fictional Sassanid King of kings in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, who is told stories by Scheherazade.

He supposedly ruled over a Persian Empire extended to India, over all the adjacent islands and a great way beyond the Ganges as far as China, while Shahryār’s younger brother, Shāhzamān (شاهزمان) ruled over Samarkand.

In the frame-story, Shahryār is betrayed by his wife, which makes him go mad and believe that all women will, in the end, betray him. So every night for three years, the mad king takes a wife and has her executed the next morning, until he marries Scheherazade, his vizier’s beautiful and clever daughter. For 1001 nights in a row, Scheherazade tells Shahryār a story, each time stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, thus forcing him to keep her alive for another day so that she can complete the tale the next night.

Fictional kings | Fictional Muslims | Fictional Persians | The Book of One Thousand and One Nights | Persian mythology | Characters in Arabian Nights

Shahryar | שאהריאר