Play with music.
Kismet's story is played out over the course of one day, with Act 1 set during the morning and Act 2 set during the evening. The epilogue contains a number of songs and dances and is played out in a street in front of the Mosque of the Carpenters.
Hajj, a beggar whom we soon gather was not always so, chances upon a bag of gold flung at him by his one-time enemy Sheikh Jawan, when he foolishly prophesises that the sheikh will meet his long-lost son before the day has ended. Meanwhile, the young Caliph Abdullah, who is in disguise, meets Hajj's only child, the beautiful Marsinah, and falls instantly in love with her. She, in turn, falls for him, but is under the impression he is the gardener's son. Puffed up with pride at having found a windfall, Hajj promises his daughter that she will have a rich marriage.
As the story progresses Hajj undergoes a series of adventures, which include tricking some tailors out of fine garments and end with him being hauled before the wicked Wazir Mansur on stealing charges. The wazir plies Hajj with wine and puffs up his pride even further, promising to marry Hajj's daughter if Hajj will kill the young Caliph Abdullah. In his state of stupor, Hajj agrees but when his attempt to kill the caliph fails, he is thrown into the same prison as Sheikh Jawan, whom he had denounced to Wazir Mansur as a robber. Hajj kills Jawan, breaks out of gaol in Jawan's clothes, rescues his daughter and the caliph, and kills the wazir (who proves to be Sheikh Jawan's long-lost son) by holding him under the water of his own women's bath. Although Hajj has helped the caliph and become his father-in-law, he is banished from the city, and the play ends with him returning to the market place (where only that morning he had been a beggar). As he begins his pilgrimage to Mecca to atone for his sins, Hajj surmises that 'many strange things may happen to men by the will of Allah between sunrise and sunset.'
