One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  The Seạláh, or Saạláh, is another demoniacal creature, described by most authors as of the Jinn. It is said that it is mostly found in forests; and that when it captures a man, it makes him dance, and plays with him as the cat plays with the mouse. A man of Iṣfahán asserted that many beings of this kind abounded in his country; that sometimes the wolf would hunt one of them by night, and devour it, and that, when it had seized it, the Seạláh would cry out, “Come to my help, for the wolf devoureth me!” or it would cry, “Who will liberate me? I have a hundred deenárs, and he shall receive them!” but the people knowing that it was the cry of the Seạláh, no one would liberate it; and so the wolf would eat it.[] — An island in the sea of Eṣ-Ṣeen (China) is called “the Island of the Seạláh,” by Arab geographers, from its being said to be inhabited by the demons so named: they are described as creatures of hideous forms, supposed to be Sheyṭans, the offspring of human beings and Jinn, who eat men.[]

  The Ghaddár, or Gharrár,[] is another creature of a similar nature, described as being found in the borders of El-Yemen, and sometimes in Tihámeh, and in the upper parts of Egypt. It is said that it entices a man to it, and either tortures him in a manner not to be described, or merely terrifies him, and leaves him.[]

  The Delhán is also a demoniacal being, inhabiting the islands of the seas, having the form of a man, and riding on an ostrich. It eats the flesh of men whom the sea casts on the shore from wrecks. Some say that a Delhán once attacked a ship in the sea, and desired to take the crew; but they contended with it; whereupon it uttered a cry which caused them to fall upon their faces, and it took them.[]

  The Shiḳḳ is another demoniacal creature, having the form of half a human being (like a man divided longitudinally); and it is believed that the Nesnás is the offspring of a Shiḳḳ and of a human being. The former appears to travellers; and it was a demon of this kind who killed, and was killed by, ´Alḳamah, the son of Ṣafwán, the son of Umeiyeh; of whom it is well known that he was killed by a Jinnee. So says El-Ḳazweenee.

  The Nesnás (above mentioned) is described as resembling half a human being; having half a head, half a body, one arm, and one leg, with which it hops with much agility; as being found in the woods of El-Yemen, and being endowed with speech: “but God,” it is added, “is all-knowing.”[] It is said that it is found in Ḥaḍramót as well as El-Yemen; and that one was brought alive to El-Mutawekkil: it resembled a man in form, excepting that it had but half a face, which was in its breast, and a tail like that of a sheep. The people of Ḥaḍramót, it is added, eat it; and its flesh is sweet. It is only generated in their country. A man who went there asserted that he saw a captured Nesnás, which cried out for mercy, conjuring him by God and by himself.[] A race of people whose head is in the breast, is described as inhabiting an island called Jábeh (supposed to be Java), in the Sea of El-Hind (India).[] A kind of Nesnás is also described as inhabiting the Island of Ráïj, in the Sea of Eṣ-Ṣeen (China), and having wings like those of the bat.[]

  The Hátif is a being that is heard, but not seen; and is often mentioned by Arab writers. It is generally the communicator of some intelligence in the way of advice, or direction, or warning.

  Here terminating this chapter, I must beg the reader to remark that the superstitious fancies which it describes are prevalent among all classes of the Arabs, and the Muslims in general, learned as well as vulgar.

  CHAPTER III.

  SAINTS.

  The Arabs entertain remarkable opinions with respect to the offices and supernatural powers of their saints, which form an important part of the mysteries of the Darweeshes (Dervishes), and are but imperfectly known to the generality of Muslims.

  Muslim Saints and devotees are known by the common appellation of Welees, or particular favourites of God. The more eminent among them compose a mysterious hierarchical body, whose government respects the whole human race, infidels as well as believers, but whose power is often exercised in such a manner that the subjects influenced by it know not from what person or persons its effects proceed. The general governor or coryphaeus of these holy beings is commonly called the Ḳuṭb, which literally signifies a “pole,” or an “axis,” and is metaphorically used to signify a “chief,” either in a civil or political, or in a spiritual sense. The Ḳuṭb of the saints is distinguished by other appellations: he is called Ḳuṭb el-Ghós, or Ḳuṭb el-Ghóth (the Ḳuṭb of Invocation for Help), etc.; and simply, El-Ghós.[] The orders under the rule of this chief are called ´Omud (or Owtád), Akhyár, Abdál, Nujaba, and Nuḳaba: I name them according to their precedence.[] Perhaps to these should be added an inferior order called Aṣḥáb ed-Darak, i.e. “Watchmen,” or “Overseers.” The members are not known as such to their inferior unenlightened fellow-creatures, and are often invisible to them. This is more frequently the case with the Ḳuṭb, who, though generally stationed at Mekkeh, on the roof of the Kaạbeh, is never visible there, nor at any of his other favourite stations or places of resort; yet his voice is often heard at these places. Whenever he and the saints under his authority mingle among ordinary men, they are not distinguished by a dignified appearance, but are always humbly clad. These, and even inferior saints, are said to perform astonishing miracles, such as flying in the air, passing unhurt through fire, swallowing fire, glass, etc., walking upon water, transporting themselves in a moment of time to immense distances, and supplying themselves and others with food in desert places. Their supernatural power they are supposed to obtain by a life of the most exalted piety, and especially by constant self-denial, accompanied with the most implicit reliance upon God, by the services of good genii, and, as many believe, by the knowledge and utterance of “the most great name” of God. A miracle performed by a saint is distinguished by the term “karámeh” from one performed by a prophet, which is called “moạjizeh.”

  El-Khiḍr and Ilyás (Elias), are both believed to have been Ḳuṭbs, and the latter is called in the Ḳur-án an apostle; but it is disputed whether the former was a prophet or merely a welee. Both are said to have drunk of the Fountain of Life, and to be in consequence still living; and Ilyás is commonly believed to invest the successive Ḳuṭbs. The similarity of the miracles ascribed to the Ḳuṭbs to those performed by Elias or Elijah, I have remarked in a former work.[] Another miracle, reminding us of the mantle of Elijah in the hands of his successor, may here be mentioned. — A saint who was the Ḳuṭb of his time, dying at Tunis, left his clothes in trust to his attendant, Moḥammad El-Ashwam, a native of the neighbouring regency of Tripoli, who desired to sell these relics, but was counselled to retain them, and accordingly, though high prices were bidden for them, made them his own by purchase. As soon as they became his property, he was affected, we are told, with a divine ecstasy, and endowed with miraculous powers.[]

  Innumerable miracles are related to have been performed by Muslim saints, and large volumes are filled with the histories of their wonderful lives. The author of the work from which the above story is taken, mentions, as a fact to be relied on, in an account of one of his ancestors, that, his lamp happening to go out one night while he was reading alone in the riwáḳ of the Jabart (of which he was the sheykh), in the great mosque El-Azhar, the forefinger of his right hand emitted a light which enabled him to continue his reading until his naḳeeb had trimmed and lighted another lamp.[]

  From many stories of a similar kind that I have read, I select the following as a fair specimen: it is related by a very celebrated saint, Ibráheem El-Khowwáṣ.— “I entered the desert [on pilgrimage to Mekkeh from El-´Iráḳ], and there joined me a man having a belt round his waist, and I said, ‘Who art thou?’ — He answered, ‘A Christian; and I desire thy company.’ We walked together for seven days, eating nothing; after which he said to me, ‘O monk of the Muslims, produce what thou hast in the way of refreshment, for we are hungry:’ so I said, ‘O my God, disgrace me not before this infidel:’ and lo, a tray, upon which were bread and broiled meat and fresh dates
and a mug of water. We ate, and continued our journey seven days more; and I then said to him, ‘O monk of the Christians, produce what thou hast in the way of refreshment; for the turn is come to thee:’ whereupon he leaned upon his staff, and prayed; and lo, two trays, containing double that which was on my tray. I was confounded, and refused to eat: he urged me, saying, ‘Eat;’ but I did it not. Then said he, ‘Be glad; for I give thee two pieces of good news: one of them is that I testify that there is no deity but God and that Moḥammad is God’s Apostle: the other, that I said, O God, if there be worth in this servant, supply me with two trays: — so this is through thy blessing.’ We ate, and the man put on the dress of pilgrimage, and so entered Mekkeh, where he remained with me a year as a student; after which he died, and I buried him in [the cemetery] El-Maạlà.” “And God,” says the author from whom I take this story, “is all-knowing:” i.e. He alone knoweth whether it be strictly true: but this is often added to the narration of traditions resting upon high authority.[]

  The saint above mentioned was called “El-Khowwáṣ” (or the maker of palm-leaf baskets, etc.) from the following circumstance, related by himself.— “I used,” said he, “to go out of the town [Er-Rei] and sit by a river on the banks of which was abundance of palm-leaves; and it occurred to my mind to make every day five baskets [ḳuffehs], and to throw them into the river, for my amusement, as if I were obliged to do so. My time was so passed for many days: at length, one day, I thought I would walk after the baskets, and see whither they had gone: so I proceeded awhile along the bank of the river, and found an old woman sitting sorrowful. On that day I had made nothing. I said to her, ‘Wherefore do I see thee sorrowful?’ She answered, ‘I am a widow: my husband died leaving five daughters, and nothing to maintain them; and it is my custom to repair every day to this river, and there come to me, upon the surface of the water, five baskets, which I sell, and by means of them I procure food; but to-day they have not come, and I know not what to do.’ Upon hearing this, I raised my head towards heaven, and said, ‘O my God, had I known that I had more than five children to maintain, I had laboured more diligently.’” He then took the old woman to his house, and gave her money and flour, and said to her, “Whenever thou wantest anything, come hither and take what may suffice thee.”[]

  An irresistible influence has often been exercised over the minds of princes and other great men by reputed saints. Many a Muslim Monarch has thus been incited (as the Kings of Christendom were by Peter the Hermit) to undertake religious wars, or urged to acts of piety and charity, or restrained from tyranny, by threats of Divine vengeance to be called down upon his head by the imprecations of a welee. ´Alee, the favourite son of the Khaleefeh El-Ma-moon, was induced for the sake of religion to flee from the splendour and luxuries of his father’s court, and after the example of a self-denying devotee to follow the occupation of a porter in a state of the most abject poverty at El-Baṣrah, fasting all the day, remaining without sleep at night in a mosque, and walking barefooted, until, under an accumulation of severe sufferings, he prematurely ended his days, dying on a mat. The honours which he refused to receive in life were paid to him after his death: his rank being discovered by a ring and paper which he left, his corpse was anointed with camphor and musk and aloes, wrapped in fine linen of Egypt, and so conveyed to his distressed father at Baghdád.[]

  Self-denial I have before mentioned as one of the most important means by which to attain the dignity of a welee. A very famous saint, Esh-Shiblee, is said to have received from his father an inheritance of sixty millions of deenárs (a sum incredible, and probably a mistake for sixty thousand, or for sixty million dirhems) besides landed property, and to have expended it all in charity: also, to have thrown into the Tigris seventy hundred-weight of books, written by his own hand during a period of twenty years.[]

  Sháh El-Karmánee, another celebrated saint, had a beautiful daughter, whom the Sulṭán of his country sought in marriage. The holy man required three days to consider his sovereign’s proposal, and in the mean time visited several mosques, in one of which he saw a young man humbly occupied in prayer. Having waited till he had finished, he accosted him, saying, “My son, hast thou a wife?” Being answered “No,” he said, “I have a maiden, a virtuous devotee, who hath learned the whole of the Ḳur-án, and is amply endowed with beauty. Dost thou desire her?”— “Who,” said the young man, “will marry me to such a one as thou hast described, when I possess no more than three dirhems?”— “I will marry thee to her,” answered the saint: “she is my daughter, and I am Sháh the son of Shujáạ El-Karmánee: give me the dirhems that thou hast, that I may buy a dirhem’s worth of bread, and a dirhem’s worth of something savoury, and a dirhem’s worth of perfume.” The marriage-contract was performed; but when the bride came to the young man, she saw a stale cake of bread placed upon the top of his mug; upon which she put on her izár, and went out. Her husband said, “Now I perceive that the daughter of Sháh El-Karmánee is displeased with my poverty.” She answered, “I did not withdraw from fear of poverty, but on account of the weakness of thy faith, seeing how thou layest by a cake of bread for the morrow.”[]

  One of my friends in Cairo, Abu-l-Ḳásim of Jeelán, entertained me with a long relation of the mortifications and other means which he employed to attain the rank of a welee. These were chiefly self-denial and a perfect reliance upon Providence. He left his home in a state of voluntary destitution and complete nudity, to travel through Persia and the surrounding countries and yet more distant regions if necessary, in search of a spiritual guide. For many days he avoided the habitations of men, fasting from daybreak till sunset, and then eating nothing but a little grass or a few leaves or wild fruits, till by degrees he habituated himself to almost total abstinence from every kind of nourishment. His feet, at first blistered and cut by sharp stones, soon became callous; and in proportion to his reduction of food, his frame, contrary to the common course of nature, became (according to his own account) more stout and lusty. Bronzed by the sun, and with his black hair hanging over his shoulders (for he had abjured the use of the razor), he presented in his nudity a wild and frightful appearance, and on his first approaching a town, was surrounded and pelted by a crowd of boys; he therefore retreated, and, after the example of our first parents, made himself a partial covering of leaves; and this he always afterwards did on similar occasions, never remaining long enough in a town for his leafy apron to wither. The abodes of mankind he always passed at a distance, excepting when several days’ fast, while traversing an arid desert, compelled him to obtain a morsel of bread or a cup of water from the hand of some charitable fellow-creature.

  One thing that he particularly dreaded was to receive relief from a sinful man, or from a demon in the human form. In passing over a parched and desolate tract, where for three days he had found nothing to eat, not even a blade of grass, nor a spring from which to refresh his tongue, he became overpowered with thirst, and prayed that God would send him a messenger with a pitcher of water. “But,” said he, “let the water be in a green Baghdádee pitcher, that I may know it to be from Thee, and not from the Devil; and when I ask the bearer to give me to drink, let him pour it over my head, that I may not too much gratify my carnal desire.”— “I looked behind me,” he continued, “and saw a man bearing a green Baghdádee pitcher of water, and said to him, ‘Give me to drink;’ and he came up to me, and poured the contents over my head, and departed! By Allah it was so!”

  Rejoicing in this miracle, as a proof of his having attained to a degree of wiláyeh (or saintship), and refreshed by the water, he continued his way over the desert, more firm than ever in his course of self-denial, which, though imperfectly followed, had been the means of his being thus distinguished. But the burning thirst returned shortly after, and he felt himself at the point of sinking under it, when he beheld before him a high hill, with a rivulet running by its base. To the summit of this hill he determined to ascend, by way of mortification, before he would taste the wat
er, and this point, with much difficulty, he reached at the close of day. Here standing, he saw approaching, below, a troop of horsemen, who paused at the foot of the hill, when their chief, who was foremost, called out to him by name, “O Abu-l-Ḳásim! O Jeelánee! Come down and drink!” — but persuaded by this that he was Iblees with a troop of his sons, the evil Genii, he withstood the temptation, and remained stationary until the deceiver with his attendants had passed on and were out of sight. The sun had then set; his thirst had somewhat abated; and he only drank a few drops.

  Continuing his wanderings in the desert, he found upon a pebbly plain an old man with a long white beard, who accosted him, asking of what he was in search. “I am seeking,” he answered, “a spiritual guide; and my heart tells me that thou art the guide I seek.” “My son,” said the old man, “thou seest yonder a saint’s tomb; it is a place where prayer is answered; go thither, enter it, and seat thyself: neither eat nor drink nor sleep; but occupy thyself solely, day and night, in repeating silently, ‘Lá iláha illa-lláh’ (There is no deity but God); and let not any living creature see thy lips move in doing so; for among the peculiar virtues of these words is this, that they may be uttered without any motion of the lips. Go, and peace be on thee!”

  “Accordingly,” said my friend, “I went thither. It was a small square building, crowned by a cupola; and the door was open. I entered, and seated myself, facing the niche and the oblong monument over the grave. It was evening, and I commenced my silent professions of the unity, as directed by my guide; and at dusk I saw a white figure seated beside me, as if assisting in my devotional task. I stretched forth my hand to touch it; but found that it was not a material substance; yet there it was: I saw it distinctly. Encouraged by this vision, I continued my task for three nights and days without intermission, neither eating nor drinking, yet increasing in strength both of body and of spirit; and on the third day, I saw written upon the whitewashed walls of the tomb, and on the ground, and in the air, wherever I turned my eyes, ‘Lá iláha illa-lláh;’ and whenever a fly entered the tomb, it formed these words in its flight. By Allah it was so! My object was now fully attained: I felt myself endowed with supernatural knowledge: thoughts of my friends and acquaintances troubled me not; but I knew where each one of them was, in Persia, India, Arabia, and Turkey, and what each was doing. I experienced an indescribable happiness. This state lasted several years; but at length I was insensibly enticed back to worldly objects: I came to this country; my fame as a calligraphist drew me into the service of the government; and now see what I am, decked with pelisses and shawls, and with this thing [a diamond order] on my breast; too old, I fear, to undergo again the self-denial necessary to restore me to true happiness, though I have almost resolved to make the attempt.”