The film starts with a street peddler, guiding us through the streets of the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah, which is based mainly on a medieval city in the Middle East, the home of the 1001 Arabian Nights, and there are some inconsistencies in the time period. After trying to sell us on his wares, he pulls out an old oil lamp, claiming it "once changed the course of a young man's life. A young man who like this lamp was more than what he seemed: A diamond in the rough."
The peddler then begins to tell us a tale, beginning on a dark night, where the Sultan's Grand Vizier, Jafar, meets with a thief named Gazeem, who hands over half of a gold scarab beetle, of which Jafar has the second half. Putting them together, the beetle flies off, before causing a giant tiger's head to rise from the sand: A place known as the Cave of Wonders.
