Persian Rugs are Not Magic Carpets

(But wouldn't that be just totally awesome?)

Although Persian rugs unfortunately do not have any real supernatural powers, flying carpets are known to children the world round thanks largely to the Disney movie Aladdin, featuring a flying carpet imaginatively named "Carpet". Magic carpets are household concepts for most Americans. However, the tale originally comes from the popular One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of tales from ancient Arabic cultures. It has also been called "The Carpet of Prince Housain". Originally, the Pesian rug seemed like any other worthless carpet on the street, dingy and dirty, uninteresting. It was from the Persian city of Tangu. But when the hero happens upon this seemingly innocuous old antique rug, it can fly!

Solomon's carpet, a similar tale from other origins, was said to have been made of silk, gold and green, and was more than sixty by sixty square miles! And when Solomon himself sat on the carpet, it was said that he was "caught up by the wind", and then could fly across the sky so fast that he could eat breakfast in Damascus and catch a sunset dinner in Media. According to this tale, the wind itself obeyed his commands, and this is what made the carpet go where he wanted.  Apparently also it was constantly shaded from the burning desert sun by an enormous flock of birds which acted as a canopy.

In another story, a Shaikh named Abdul Qadir Gilani was able to walk across the Tigris river in Mesopotamia, and a huge prayer rug then magically apparates into the sky above him, just like Solomon's rug.

Usually in these tales, the magical woven rugs are able to help the hero achieve some goal or transport him to distant and mysterious lands.  The stories are truly wonderful, and as rich as the tapestries they describe.