With the live action movie releasing today, I thought it would be a good time to address the time period of the movie by examining the events and locations in the film to point out an era and setting for the movie. Full disclosure, while I did study some parts of Islamic history for my medieval history degree, I am still by no means an expert on the culture or history of Islam.
The first thing that must be made certain is that the characters are definitely Muslim. The sultan even says “Praise Allah” so the faith of Islam has been established. Jasmine also almost loses a hand for stealing. While looking up when such practices might have started, I found that this punishment is listed in the Quran, which was written between 609 and 632 AD. So we can assume that the movie takes place after 632 when the Islamic faith was fully formed.
After the “Whole New World” segment, Aladdin and Jasmine land on the roof of the Forbidden City in China. The building finished being constructed in 1420, meaning the movie cannot take place any sooner.
During the song “A Whole New World”, Aladdin and Jasmine fly from Agrabah heading to the Great Sphinx of Giza, then to Greece, and finally to the Forbidden City in China. The merchant at the beginning of the movie mentions “This side of the River Jordan” which runs through modern day Israel, but doesn’t specify which side of the River he’s talking about.
According to Disney Wiki, Agrabah was based on Bagdad as well as the Abassid Calliphate (750 - 1258) and Medieval Persia (633-1219). While technically both continued past these points, these are when these powers were at their height. Interestingly, by 1420, Persia had been invaded and conquered by the mongols in 1219, and the forbidden city was built during the Timurid Empire (1370-1507).
However, the Timurid Empire was not led by a Sultan, but was ruled by an Emir. However, a powerful kingdom that was ruled by both Sultans and Grand Viziers was the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) On a side note, in the Aladdin television series, Aladdin’s enemy, Mozenrath, is the leader of the Mamluk people. The mamluk Sultinate ruled Cairo from 1250-1517. Since Mozenrath is a contemporary of Aladdin, this changes the world setting.
With Aladdin’s rival, Mozenrath ruling Cairo, this means that the film cannot take place any earlier than the decline of the Mamluk Sultinate in 1517, and based on the colorations of this map, takes place as early as 1451. However, considering Aladdin and Mozenrath were frequent adversaries, it’s more likely that the movie is set later, closer to 1481, and closer to the eventual downfall of Mozenrath’s sultanate.
I am by no means an expert in Islamic fashions. However, knowing as little about Islamic beliefs as I do, I highly doubt that Princess Jasmine should be walking around in such revealing clothes. She is literally dressed the same as the concubines. While in more modern Islamic countries, women are not forced to wear Hijab, considering Jasmine is living in a medieval/renaissance Muslim country when religion held greater power and thieves lost hands instead of just going to prison, I don’t believe that the general consensus would react positively to a Muslim woman showing such immodesty. Now, I will give the movie slight credit in knowing that she couldn’t walk around outside dressed like a harlot, but it’s still wildly inappropriate and is an example of exoticizing and romanticizing another culture for Western consumption. While it’s true that some women, such as belly dancers, did dress something like this many centuries later, this is wildly out of place for the conservative era that Jasmine is living in. To be fair, this general look is not something I know the history behind. It is only something I have seen in old cartoons and movies from the 1930s and 40s as exotic Muslim women dressing this way was seen as erotic and tantalizing.
With everything we have to go off of, Aladdin is set in the 15th century in the Ottoman Empire. With Agrabah seemingly being in a desert, I initially set this movie in 1521 after the conquest of Cairo and the areas of Arabia that bordered the Red Sea. But with Mozenrath ruling over Cairo, this means that the Ottoman empire hasn’t reached that far and the film is set between 1420 when the Forbidden City was built and 1517 when the Mamluk kingdom fell. Thus, I have to assume that Agrabah is a stand-in for Istanbul, despite Istanbul not being located in the middle of a desert. Based on the map above, I would have to finalize my findings by saying that Aladdin is set in 1481 when the Ottoman empire was expanding, and before the conquest of Mamluk territory along the Red Sea, with the assumption that during Aladdin’s eventual reign as Sultan, he would go on to defeat Mozenrath’s forces and conquer the Mamluk Sultanate for the Ottoman Empire in 1517, 36 years later.
Setting: “Agrabah” (Istanbul, Turkey)
Kingdom: Ottoman Empire
Year/Era: 1481
Language: Ottoman Turkish
