Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Moslem, Christian and Jewish

Front matter

FOLK-LORE OF THE HOLY LAND MOSLEM, CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH

BY J. E. HANAUER

EDITED BY MARMADUKE PICKTHALL

Introduction by Marmaduke Pickthall

My aim in this preface being to afford the untravelled reader of the following stories such a glimpse of the country and people which produced them as may render them intelligible, if not coherent, I shall begin with a glance at the past history of the Holy Land as illustrated in its present folk-lore.

Of Old Testament times the fellahìn have countless stories, more or less reminiscent of their religious instruction at the mouth of Greek priest or Moslem Khatìb, vivified by the incorporation in the text of naïve conjectures, points of private humour, and realistic touches from the present day life of the country, which shock the pompous listener as absurd anachronisms. Thus the disguise of a Russian pilgrim—figure now commonly to be met with on the road from Jerusalem to the Jordan—is given to Satan when he beguiles the Patriarch Lot (sect. i. chap. vi.); and our father Adam has been described to me as sitting under the Tree of Knowledge, “smoking his narghileh.” Nebuchadnezzar and Titus become one person (Bukhtunussur) and the personality of Alexander the Great (Iskender Dhu el Karneyn) is stretched so as to include more ancient conquerors. Moreover, the desire inherent in Orientals to know how everything came to be, content with any hypothesis provided it be witty, has produced any number of delicious little fictions which, to all ends but the scientific, are much better than fact. Such jeux d’esprit abound in the following pages, as, for instance, the story of Noah’s daughter (sect. i. chap. i.), and of how the mosquito came to buzz (sect. iii. chap. x.); and they are useful to be known by all who must converse with Orientals, since for the latter they are a part of learning. Mr Kipling’s “Just So Stories”? are examples of this vein of Eastern humour.

Of Our Lord and the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin there are sheaves of legends extant, many of them current among Moslems as well as Christians; for it must not be forgotten that the followers of Muhammad have great reverence for Jesus Christ, whom their Prophet named Ruh’ Allah, the Spirit of God. They believe in His Immaculate Conception and all His miracles, but deny His Divinity. Only St Paul is anathema to them, because they say he took the pure faith of El Islam, the faith of Adam and Noah and Abraham, as restored by Jesus, and made of it a new religion. With the very doubtful exception of the quaint story of Francesco and the Angel of Death (sect. ii. chap. v.), no legend concerning the New Testament period has been included in this work; for the reason that such legends ceased long ago to be local, and are most, if not all, of them elsewhere accessible, in the Apocryphal Gospels or one or other of the multiplied Lives of the Saints.

To most legends of the centuries between Christ and Muhammad, called by Moslems “the Interval,” a like objection seemed to apply. The stories of the Seven Sleepers and of the Martyrs of the Pit, of St Helen’s Dream and the consequent finding of the Cross, no longer belong to Palestine, though they are still told there. But the legend of the Tree of the Cross (sect. i. chap. vi.) and that of St George in the chapter on “El Khudr” (sect. 1.), with a tradition, given in sect. i. chap. vi., concerning some caves in Wady Isma ’in, called “the Upper Chambers of the Maidens,” undoubtedly belong to this period. The romantic deeds of ’Antar and Abu Zeyd, with all the wealth of stories ascribed to the Arabs of the Ignorance, though known to natives of Palestine, have not been localised. They belong to the Arabic language and literature, and must be set down as acquired.

With the conquest of Jerusalem by the armies of the Caliph Omar ibn el Khattâb begins the historical memory in this folk-lore as distinct from the Scriptural and the fabulous; and I have heard Christians as well as Moslems extol the character of Omar and depict it not amiss. They relate that when the homely old man arrived, unattended, upon the camel which had borne him all the way from El Medìneh, to receive in person the submission of a place so holy as Jerusalem, the splendid slaves of the late Byzantine government, cringing, led him to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; fully expecting him to say his prayers there, and turn the church into a mosque. But he declined to pass the threshold, praying from without upon the name of Jesus. He was led thence to other churches, but would enter none of them, preferring for the scene of his devotions the summit of Mount Moriah, site of Herod’s Temple and of Solomon’s, which was at that time a waste of ruins. This was the Beyt el Makdas, the House of the Sanctuary, to which angels came in pilgrimage long before the creation of Adam—that “further temple” to which Muhammad was carried in his sleep from Mekka, and whence he started on his marvellous “night-journey” through the Seven Heavens. Here the conqueror caused to be built a noble shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which we to this day call the Mosque of Omar.

Omar’s severity towards the Christians was so much below their anticipations that he figures in the popular memory almost as a benefactor of their religion. They were deprived of their church-bells, but kept their churches; and if large numbers of them embraced El Islâm, it was through self-interest (or conviction) and not at the point of the sword as has been represented. Indeed, the toleration displayed by the Moslems towards the vanquished, though less than we should practise nowadays, is without a parallel in Europe till many centuries later. It was not emulated by the Crusaders, who, rushing to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the clutch of the “foul Paynim,” were astonished to find it in the hands of Christians, whom, to cloak their disconcertion, they denounced as heretics.

From the Moslem conquest downward—with the exception of the mad destructive inroads called crusades, and the short-lived Frankish kingdom (often referred to by the Mohammedan fellahìn as the Time of the Infidels)—one tradition has prevailed in the land till quite recent years. In that conquest the East reclaimed her own, the young civilisation of the Arabs overpowering the luxury of the moribund Roman empire: a judgment from God, it is said. It was a return to the time of David at least, if not of Abraham; and this tremendous relapse must be borne in mind of those who would deduce from existing conditions in Palestine the life that was led there in the time of Christ. From Omar’s time, with the reservation already made, the fellahìn, whether ruled in chief from Baghdad, Cairo or Constantinople, have been subject to an Oriental form of government, rough in the hand but genial in the head, whichy allowing great liberty to the individual, has furnished rich material for song and story. A vast majority of the stories here collected have the keen Oriental flavour of this period.

In the fourth decade of the last century the Pasha of Egypt, Muhammed Ali, rebelled against his sovereign lord the Sultan; when an Egyptian force under Ibrahìm Pasha invaded Syria and occupied it for some time. Owing to French influence European ideas had already made some way among the governing class in Egypt, and the radicalism of Ibrahim made his rule offensive to the conservative notables of Syria. Still he was the kind of tyrant to appeal most strongly to Orientals, heavy-handed but humorous, knowing how to impart to his decisions that quaint proverbial savour which dwells in the mind of the people, and makes good stories; and his fame among the fellahin is that of a second Solomon (see “Detective Stories,” sect. ii. chap. v.). With him begins the age of progress in the Holy Land. Since the withdrawal of the Egyptian troops in 1840, things have moved fast in a European direction; till there is now such an inflow of civilisation and education as to threaten the very source of folk-lore, making some such Noah’s Ark as this seem necessary, if aught is to survive the banal deluge.

The region from which Mr Hanauer has drawn these stories is the hill-country between Bethel on the north and Hebron in the south. It is holy land for the Mohammedan and the Jew hardly less than for the Christian, and its population comprises all three branches of that monotheistic faith, whose root is in the God of Abraham. The Moslems, who are the dominant class, are the offspring of the Arab conquerors and of such of the conquered as espoused El Islâm; the Christians, the descendants of those old inhabitants of Syria, subjects of the Byzantine Empire, who at the conquest preferred their religion to worldly advancement. Their stories against one another, though abounding in sly hits, breathe as a rule the utmost good nature. Only in the Jewish legends one detects a bitterness which, in view of the history of their race, is pardonable.

In the Middle Ages there existed in Jerusalem and Hebron, as in the cities of Europe, small despised communities of Jews, strictly confined to one quarter, the gates of which were locked at night. To these were added some three hundred years ago a company of Spanish Jews (Sephardim), fleeing hither from the Inquisition with their wives and families; who still at this day form a separate group and use among themselves an antiquated kind of Spanish which they pronounce oddly.

Another company of old time immigrants, whose descendants have preserved individuality, were the Mughâribeh (sing. Mughrabi) or Moorish Jews. Pure Orientals in dress, speech and character, they have earned a bad name in the land as charlatans, many of them being professed wizards and conjurers. But a vast majority of the large and growing Jewish population are immigrants of the last fifty years, borne to Palestine on the waves of the Zionist movement, and looking about them surlily, with foreign eyes. Coming from the towns of East and Central Europe, the agricultural life expected of them is as strange as the country, and at first hostile. The Jew is now a foreigner in the Holy Land; and the standpoint and posture of his ancestors of the time of Christ to-day is found with the Moslem, who also claims descent from Abraham.

About one-third of the matter here presented has been published in America in another version, and the chapters on Animal and Plant-lore were originally contributed to the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, from which they are reprinted by permission of the committee. Stories spread fast and far in the East, and are soon localised (I have found a considerable number of these current among the people of Lower Egypt), and it may well be that some of the following have found their way into print; but the author would have it clearly understood that he has derived them all from the legitimate source of folk-lore, the lips of the people themselves. Where he has observed a coincidence or similarity he has endeavoured to point it out, but neither he nor his editor are skilled folk-lorists. There are sure to be many such kinships which have escaped our vigilance.

Although this compilation is but a pailful from the sea, as compared with the floating mass of folk-lore which exists in Palestine, I know of no other attempt at collection on anything like so large a scale; and it has been our object so to present the stories as to entertain the casual reader without impairing their value for the student of such matters. With much that is puerile, they contain both wit and humour, and withal not a little of that Heavenly Wisdom, the Wisdom of Solomon and of the Son of Sirach, to which, in the East, churches were once dedicated.

MARMADUKE PICKTHALL.

A Mohammedan Legend

A MOHAMMEDAN LEGEND

INTRODUCTORY AND APOLOGETIC

“Tainting the air, on a scirocco day, the carcase of a hound, all loathsome, lay in Nazareth’s narrow street. Wayfarers hurried past covering mouth and nostrils, and at last, when purer air they reached, in Eastern style they cursed the dog, and the dog’s owners’ ancestors, and theirs who, bound to care for public cleanliness yet left the nuisance there to poison all around. Then, that same way, there came ’Isa, the son of Mary, of great fame for mighty deeds performed in Allah’s Name. He said, ‘How lovely are its teeth, so sharp, and white as pearls’: then went his way.”

Be the lot, Reader, thine, ’midst many faults to note some beauty shine: some lesson new in Eastern legends old: and, ’mid much dross, to find some grains of gold.

J. E. H.

A Learned Moslem’s Ideas on Cosmogony

I

Know, that the very first thing which Allah created was the marvellous Tablet of Destiny upon which is written not only all that ever happened in the Past, or that will happen in the Present or the Future, but also every human being's lot for ever: whether he will be happy or wretched, rich or poor in this life; and whether he will be a true Believer and inherit Paradise hereafter, or a Káfir and go to Jehennum. The Tablet of Destiny was made out of an immense white pearl, and it has two leaves like those of a door. There are learned men who assert that these leaves are formed out of two red rubies of incomparable size and beauty, but Allah alone knows if they speak truth.

Allah next created a great pen formed out of a single gem. The pen is so long that it would take one five hundred years to travel from end to end of it. It is split at one end like an ordinary pen, and pointed, and from the point light flowed forth in the same way that ink flows from common pens, or water gushes from a fountain. Then the voice of Allah thundered forth the one word "write," and the sound caused the pen, which was full of life and intelligence, to tremble, and immediately the point began to race across the tablet from right to left, and to inscribe the things that had been, and that then were, and that would happen until the Day of Resurrection. When the tablet was filled with writing the pen dried up, and it and the tablet were removed, and are preserved in the Treasury of Allah, who alone knows all that is written.

The next thing which Allah created was water, and then a great white pearl of the size of the heavens and the earth. As soon as the pearl was formed Allah spoke to it, and, trembling at His Voice of Thunder, it melted and became water which, meeting that first created, formed great billows, deep smiting against deep, and surge upon surge. Then Allah's command again went forth, and all was still—a great expanse of pure undisturbed water, without wave or ripple or foam.

Then Allah created His Throne, the seat of which was formed of two great jewels, and He placed it floating upon the face of the waters.

There are those, however, who maintain that the Throne was created before the water and the heavens and the earth; saying that human builders lay the foundation of a structure before they put on the roof, but that Allah, in order to display His Almighty Power, put up first the roof, which is His Throne.

The wind, which He furnished with wings, was the next thing God created. None but Allah knows how much wind there is, nor how far the atmosphere extends. Allah commanded the wind to bear up the water, in the same way in which the water was supporting the Throne.

After this Allah made a great serpent which lies in a circle surrounding the Throne. The head of this serpent is a great white pearl, its body is of gold, and its eyes are two sapphires. None but Allah Himself knows the size of the serpent.

Now the Throne is the Throne of Might and Greatness, and the Seat that of Glory and Majesty, and they were not created because Allah was in need of them, but only in order to display His Greatness and His Glory Who existed from all Eternity.

Then Allah told the wind to smite the sea, thereby causing great foaming waves to rise with vapour and showers of spray. By Allah's command the foam became solid earth which was caused to float upon the surface of the water, whilst the vapour and spray became the clouds. It took Allah two days' time to do all this. The waves were then in their turn congealed, so as to form mountains which serve to keep the earth steady and prevent it from floating about. The mountain-bases are all connected with the roots of the great Kâf range, which surrounds the world like the high rim of a circular baking-tray and keeps its contents from falling off into space.

Allah next arranged that the water remaining on the surface of the earth should be formed into seven concentric seas, separated from each other by as many continents, but nevertheless connected by divers gulfs and straits, and containing an infinite number and diversity of living creatures, as well as of the nourishment that sustains them. The seven continents likewise vary in their climates and conditions, as in the plants and animals that abound therein. It took Allah two further days to set these things in order.

Now the earth used to rock and roll like a ship at sea, so that all living creatures were very sick. Therefore Allah commanded a strong angel to go beneath the earth and support it. The angel did so, and stretching one arm towards the east, and the other towards the west, he upheld the world. Then, in order that the angel might have something to stand on, Allah created a great rock of green emerald, which He commanded to roll in beneath his feet and support them. Then, as there was nothing for the rock to rest upon, a great bull was created, and ordered to go under the rock and bear it up; some say on his horns, and others on his back. Those who make the former statement explain earthquakes as caused by the movement of the bull’s head when he shifts the rock from one horn to the other. He has eyes so fiery red that no one can look in them without blindness. He is named Behemoth, and stands on the back of a great whale, which swims about in an ocean which Allah created for the purpose. Beneath the ocean, and surrounding it and the world, is air, which rests upon dark- ness, through which in their appointed seasons move the sun, moon, and stars, created for no other service than to give light to the earth.

It sometimes happens that the sun or the moon is eclipsed, and the explanation of the phenomenon is in each case simple. When the moon is at the full, and her light falls upon that part of the great sea in which the whale is swimming, the monster will sometimes open his mouth and seize her. He would doubtless swallow her up whole if Allah permitted it, but he is compelled to relinquish his prey—most speedily if the worshippers of the Unity make great and loud lamentations, and offer prayers. The cause of eclipses of the sun is different. They are signs vouchsafed from Allah, and solemn warnings against sin. The first that ever happened was to bid men heed the preaching of Ibrahim the friend of Allah, on whom be peace; the second, to enforce the doctrine of ʼIsa the son of Maryam, on whom be peace; and in our own days the wonder is of frequent occurrence to the end that all mankind may take to heart the teaching of the Apostle of Allah, on whom be prayer and peace.

Thus, as I have explained, the world rests upon the shoulders of an angel, and the angel upon a great emerald rock, and the rock upon the horns or shoulders of a bull, and the bull upon the back of a great whale, and the whale or dragon swims in a great sea which is upborne by air, which is surrounded by darkness. The heavenly bodies shine at certain seasons through the darkness; but what there is beyond the darkness Allah knows!

Do you ask me how all these wonders came to be known and understood of man? Know then, that, having thus created the world, Allah next called Intellect or Mind into being. And Allah said to the Mind "Imbibe Knowledge," and it imbibed knowledge. Then Allah said to it "Receive the ability to manage matters," and it did so. Then said Allah, "Of all things which I have created by My glory and majesty, I love none but thee. By thee will I deprive; and by thee bestow; by thee will I confirm; and by thee punish." Therefore also Allah has declared by the mouth of His Prophet, on whom be prayer and praise: "The wise man is he who is truthful and patient in his temper; and it is Mind that delivers mankind from Evil." For this cause Allah allows mind an entrance into Paradise to discover all mysteries, and He will not punish the wise in the day of Resurrection in the same manner in which He will punish the ignorant, who flatter with their lips, and lie with their tongues, and meddle in matters that concern them not by asking questions about things which they are unable to comprehend, even though they may possibly know how to read and write.

Our Father Adam

II

Allah formed Adam out of a handful of dust. Some say that this handful was taken from the Sakhrah, or Holy Rock in Beyt el Makdas; but they are more probably right who assert that the dust of which the first man was made had been collected from different parts of the world and consisted of various kinds of soil, which accounts for the divers colours of men and women. When Allah had formed Adam He left the figure lying lifeless forty days, some say forty years, while notice was given to the Angels, the Jinn, and the Jân to be ready to worship and do him honour as soon as Allah had put breath into his nostrils. Though most of them obeyed, yet Iblìs, moved with pride and envy, refused to do so, and was therefore cast out of the Celestial Garden, and became the Satan doomed to stoning, cause of all man's tribulation.

At the first Adam was male and female in one body, man on one side, woman on the other. In due time the female part separated from the male, and became a perfect woman; Adam remaining a perfect man; and the couple mated. But, they were not happy, as the female refused to submit to the male, saying they were made of the same dust, and he had no right to order her about. So she was turned out of Paradise, and, consorting with Iblìs, became the mother of devils. She is called "El Karìneh" by the Arabs, and "Lilith" by the Jews generally; "El-Brûsha" by the Sephardim, or Spanish Jews. She is the deadly enemy of all women, especially such as have recently become mothers. These must be carefully nursed and watched, and, together with their new-born babes, fenced round with charms and holy amulets, and heads of garlic, lumps of alum, blue beads, and so forth, lest the Karìneh strangle them in her jealous fury, or frighten the mother into madness. European doctors, who pretend to know everything, do not know the dreadful dangers to which they expose women in childbed when they forbid other women to visit and amuse them.

When "El-Karìneh" had been driven from Paradise, Allah created our mother Hawa, that is, Eve, out of one of Adam’s ribs, which He had extracted from the latter whilst he slept. Adam and Hawa were very happy together till Iblìs succeeded in getting back into Paradise concealed in the hollow of the serpent’s fangs. The Evil One had bribed the serpent with the promise that it should have the richest and most luscious of food, which, as Iblìs said, was human flesh. How the serpent was outwitted by the swallow, we shall, Inshallah, tell later on in the book. Having entered the garden, Satan succeeded in persuading Hawa to eat of the forbidden fruit, which, according to some of the learned, was wheat. Adam, having been persuaded by his wife to share his offence, was, as a punishment, cast out of Paradise, together with Hawa, Iblìs, and the serpent. He had, however, the sense to snatch up, and bring down to earth with him, an anvil, a pair of tongs or pincers, two hammers, and a needle. He was cast out of Paradise at the gate named the Gate of Penitence; Hawa from the Gate of Mercy; Iblìs at the Gate of Malediction; and the serpent at the Gate of Calamity. So all four of them fell to the earth, each coming down in a different place: Adam at Serendib or Ceylon; Hawa at Jiddah; Iblìs at ’Ailah, or ’Akabah; and the serpent at Isfahan in Persia. Two hundred years elapsed before Adam and Hawa met once more at Jebel ’Arafat, the mountain of Recognition, near Mecca; and, in the meantime, fresh horrors had been enacted, for, being under the curse, Hawa had borne offspring of the seed of devils, and Adam had got many children by female jinns. The descendants of those unclean monsters under the name of afrits, rassad, ghouls, marids, and so on, still people the earth and try to harm mankind.

What happened at the end of two centuries, how Adam repented and was taken by Gabriel to find Hawa at ’Arafat, and how the forgiven couple went and lived in Ceylon, we need not tell, nor the story of their sons Habil, Kabil, and Seth, seeing that this is known to all the People of the Book, whether Moslems, Christians, or Jews. What, however, is not generally known, is that Allah showed Adam all his posterity, even all men that should ever live, between his own days and the day of the Resurrection. It came to pass in this manner: Allah stroked Adam’s back, and forthwith there issued from the latter’s loins multitudes of men, thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands, each man no bigger than an ant; and when these had all borne witness that there is no God but Allah, and that Mûsa should be the one to whom Allah would speak, and Ibrahìm El Khalìl should be the Friend of Allah, and ’Isa ibn Maryam the one who should be born of Allah’s Spirit, and that Mohammad should be the Apostle of Allah, and when each individual had confessed his belief in the World to come and the Day of the Resurrection, they all returned into Adam’s loins.

Adam was a tall man, taller than any palm-tree. The hair of his head was also very long. The angel Gabriel visited him twelve times. When he died, his progeny had grown to the number of forty thousand persons.

Some say, there being others who contradict the statement, that it was he who first built the Beyt el Makdas. There are also different opinions as to the place where he is buried; some stating that his tomb is near Hebron, and others that he was buried with his head at Jerusalem and his feet stretching all the way to Hebron. Others say the case is just the reverse, and that Adam’s head rests at Hebron, but his feet at El-Kûds. Allah knows!

Noah and Og

III

Noah, on whom be peace, was one of the six greatest prophets that ever lived, though he left no writings behind him, as did his grandfather Idris, who was the first human being to use a pen, wherewith he wrote thirty books of divine revelation—besides works on astronomy and other sciences, which are now lost—before Allah removed him to Heaven. Another name of Noah was ’Abd el Ghâfar, which means Servant of the Forgiving One. He was born one hundred and fifty years after the translation of Idris. He lived at Damascus till Allah sent him to warn mankind of the Flood and build the ark. By Allah’s command and direction he made the first nâkûs or gong, such as those which are used to this day in oriental churches and convents.

Noah’s efforts to convert mankind were vain. He was beaten and mocked even by his own wife Wa’ileh, an unbeliever, as well as by his wicked son Canaan, and the latter’s son Uj ibn ’Anak (Og the son of Anak). Anak was the daughter of Adam, a vile woman, and the first of witches. These four wicked persons did their best to persuade everyone that Noah was mad.

The Flood burst forth from underground out of a “tannûr” or oven, the site of which is uncertain, some placing it at Gezer and others at Damascus. The ark was upborne by the rising waters, which were swollen by torrential rains. Noah and his family (his wife, Anak, Canaan, and Og excepted), together with a company of other believers, the number of whom some say was six, others ten, twelve, and even seventy-eight or eighty, half of them men and half women, including Jorham the elder, the preserver of the Arabic language, were saved, as well as the animals which Allah had caused to enter the ark. Among the latter was the ass, under whose tail Iblis had hidden, disguised as a fly. This donkey, reluctant to enter the ark bearing the Evil One with him, was driven in by Noah with hard blows. To compensate the donkey for this injustice, it had been predestined that one of his descendants should enter Paradise. This happened when the ass of ’Ozair was raised to life again and admitted into the Heavenly Garden.