PART 9 OF JINN OF THE UNSEEN WORLD, EXPLORING SOME BASICS...

From the Desk of a Layman, Nasir Ali:

JINN OF THE UNSEEN WORLD, EXPLORING SOME BASICS, PART 9.

Speaking of Ghouls, one must willy-nilly turn to ALF LAYL WA LAYL or THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS which is one of the great books on fiction which fired the imagination of the readers down the centuries in the orient and the occident.   These stories are anonymous and have their roots in an oral culture, passed down from one generation to the next.  The most ancient testimony to the existence of a collection of tales bearing this title is given by Masʿūdī (d. 345/956; see Morūǰ IV, p. 90; ed. Pellat, sec. 1416). He refers to work full of untrue stories translated from Persian, Sanskrit, and Greek, including the “book entitled Hazār afsāna, or the thousand tales, because a tale is called in Persian afsāna. Moreover, the names of the protagonists also suggest Persian origin.  This volume is known to the public under the title "One Thousand and One Nights."  

The French scholar Antoine Galland  [ɑ̃twan ɡalɑ̃]  (1646-1715)  found the Arabic original and translated it into French as Les Mille et Une Nuits.  His version of the tales was published in 12 volumes between the years 1704-1717 and thus it was he who introduced The Nights to Europe.  Despite the interpolations and loose translation, Galland's work was a raging success.      Translations of Galland's into English, Italian, Russian and other languages soon followed.  It exerted considerable influence on subsequent European literature and the western world in its understanding of the Middle East, inspiring the work of William Beckford, the 18th Century author of the Arabian-themed novel "Vathek,. The folkloric studies of Sabine Baring-Gould, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Addison, Johnson and Goethe were among the 18th-century writers whose work was heavily influenced by the Nights.  It even inspired painters, musicians, poets, dramatists, and others. .  

The tales in the collection of Galland and in more complete editions discovered since his time are chiefly Persian, Indian, and Arabian in source, and in ultimate origin come from all the ends of the earth. No two manuscripts have precisely the same contents, and some of the most famous of the tales here printed are probably not properly to be regarded as belonging to the collection but owe their association with the others to their having been included by Galland. Thus “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” is found in no Oriental version of the “Nights,” and “‘Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” was long supposed to be in the same situation, though in recent years it has turned up in two manuscripts.  Contrary to popular assumptions, Galland did not concoct the "Story of Sidi Nouman". He collected it (and composed it up) from a Syriac-Christian storyteller named Hanna Diab, who moreover gave him  "Aladdin" and "Ali-Baba". Consequently "Sidi Nouman" is at least 300 years old and from a truly mid-eastern source (Hanna Diab). It won't be easy to find mid-eastern tales on ghouls older and more authentic than the tale of Sidi Nouman.  The tales of  Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp, The Seven Voyages of  Sindbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves are the most popular of the lot and have even been turned into children’s films and cartoons.

Edward William Lane translated The Thousand and One Night directly from  Arabic into English and published it in three volumes in 1839-41.  Lane was prudish in his interpretation of the Nights as he expunged stories and occurrences that smacked off sexual content.  His abundant endnotes furthered his didactic aims.    On the other hand, Sir Richard Burton produced his English translation from Arabic in 10 books accompanying six supplementary books (1885-8), he retained the sexual settings,  using copious notes on matters of bestiality, homosexuality and emasculation. Though his unexpurgated 16-volume edition was highly praised by some critics for his exceptional literary skill, robustness and honesty, some other critics attacked his Nights as “garbage of the brothels,” and “an appalling collection of degrading customs and statistics of vice.”

It is said that the Nights still carries with it a certain mystique and awe with it as well, as there is a Middle Eastern superstition that no one can read the last of the Nights without falling dead.  

Now, One thousand and one nights tell the tales of fictional Scheherazade, (Shahrzad) narrated to King Shahriyar (Shahryar) who used to kill his virgin bride in the morning after having consummated his marriage during the first night.  This killing spree went on daily for three years till his Vizier could no more find a virgin bride in the kingdom and was compelled to give his own daughter, Scheherazade, in marriage to the king.  Of course, the reluctant Vizier was advised to take this step by Scheherazade herself who was confident of surviving the ordeal.  Scheherazade's self-confidence was not misplaced:  In Sir Richard F. Burton's translation of The Nights: she was described in this way: "[Scheherazade] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of bygone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well-read and well-bred."

When Scheherazade and the King are in bed and he wants to get into her she starts to weep. He asks what is wrong. She says she would like to see her sister before she sees the dawn. Dunyazad (Dīnārzād)  is brought and the King removes the bride’s maidenhead. But at midnight Dunyazad, who has been secretly coached before, asks for a story. Scheherazade is willing to tell her if the King consents, which he does. She makes the king honour-bound to a certain condition that he could kill her in the morning only after she has finished 

relating a story to him at night.  And so the first night of the Thousand Nights and a Night begins.  

Scheherazade narrates tales from within her own tale, but within her tales, characters also tell tales, and within those tales of characters are their characters telling tales.  When morning overtakes the completion of the tale, Scheherazade lapses into silence and the story remains incomplete.  Then Dunyazad exclaims, “Sister, what a strange and entertaining story!”  Scheherazade replies, “This is nothing compared with what I shall tell you tomorrow night if only the king spares my life!”  The king was honour-bound to stay her execution until such time as Scheherazade had completed her story.  The following night when Scheherazade finishes the previous story she then begins a second and more exciting tale.   At the first streak of dawn, she again stops halfway through the story.  As instructed, in the story cycle, it is Dunyazad who initiates the tactic of cliffhanger storytelling to prevent her sister's execution by Shahriyar.  Once again, the king spares her life for one more day so Scheherazade can finish the story.  She never does, for completion of the story would signal the end of her life!  Thus, the nightly tales, also known as The Arabian Nights, go on and on as she weaves a deep narrative, forming links of rich tapestries of old legends and parables, the fantastic and the trivial.  There are palaces in the sky, Jinnis, giant birds, and speaking fish.  When the stories speak of the mighty, they do not leave out the mundane.  When spiritual love is mentioned, sexual pleasures are not avoided.  She entertains the ruler with love stories and erotica, tragedies, comedies, poems, riddles, songs, historical tales, injustice against women,  humour, numerology, occult magic, deceit and vengeance.  This labyrinth of tales entertains us, sometimes instructs us, and sometimes poses a challenge or a chastisement.  The fact is that many fantastic and delightful elements fill its pages as well against the backdrops of not only Baghdad, Basrah, Cairo, and Damascus, but also North Africa, China, Greece, Turkey and India.  The Nights echoes also the similarities of the two societies of jinn and humans in many stories.  Starting from the 271 night and ending on 282 night in the Syrian manuscript (now lost) is the story of Qamar al-Zaman, though it is found in the Egyptian recension of the Nights.  The story of Qamar and Budur is portrayed through various stages of adventures, including their marriage, culminating in years of pain and separation thanks to the interventions of jinniyah Maymuna and Ifrit Dahshan.  

Scheherazade tells the stories each night to create her life anew each night.  After 1001 nights and 1000 enthralling stories, Scheherazade tells the king that she has no more tales to tell him.  By this time the king has already fallen in love with her, and become wiser, with his faith in womanhood restored.  What’s more, Scheherazade has borne him three sons.  Shahriyar deems it fit to make her his Queen.  

Now, why did Shahriyar behave in the manner he did before his meeting with Scheherazade who cured his morbid cruelty, makes for an interesting background which does not figure in the Tales:  Shah Zaman and Shahriyar are brothers and rulers in their particular kingdoms. After a space of twenty long years, the brothers wish to see each other. Shah Zaman, planning to take off but overlooking something at the royal residence, returns to discover his spouse ‘embracing with both arms a dark cook of detestable angle and foul with kitchen oil and grime'. "If such case happens while I am yet within sight of the city what will be the doings of this damned whore during my long absence at my brother's court?"  Shah Zaman draws his scimitar and, cutting the two in four pieces with a single blow, leaves them on the carpet… Arriving at his brother Shahriyar’s house, he falls sick with grief.  Eventually, after his brother leaves for hunting,  Shah Zaman sees his sister-in-law and slaves there having sex as well.  His sister-in-law calls out a title and after that springs with a drop-leap from one of the trees a huge drooling blackamoor with rolling eyes which showed the whites, a genuinely ghastly sight. He walks strongly up to her and tosses his arms around her neck whereas she grasps him as warmly. At that point, he “busses” her and winds his legs around hers, 'as a button-loop clasps a button,' and throws her and enjoys her.  Shah Zaman feels superior on seeing that his brother has more issues than he. Shahriyar inquires after Shah Zaman’s progressed well-being and extracts the secret from him. In secret, they observe the intercourses happen once more after they have faked another hunting trip.   Losing all hope, the brothers spurn their royal residences and meander into the desert until they come to an oasis and a tree.  A column of smoke rises and they hide in the tree. The smoke takes the shape of a Jinni. The Jinni has a key that he uses to release a young lady from a ‘box of seven chains.’

The Jinni copulates with her and falls asleep.  Presently she raises her head toward the treetop and sees the two Kings perched near the summit.  She beckons them to come down, threatening them otherwise to wake up the Ifrit.   So, being afraid, they come down to her, and "she rose before them and said, 'Stroke me a strong stroke, without stay or delay, otherwise will I arouse and set upon you this Ifrit, who shall slay you straightaway.'"  They hesitate but in the long run, succumb to the young lady's demands as the Jinni sleeps. Then the young lady tells them that she was abducted on her wedding night and the Jinni keeps her beneath the sea. The young lady inquires about their seal rings, and she includes them as ‘a jewellery of five hundred and seventy seal rings' belonging to the other men she has loved without the Jinni knowing.  She bids them farewell saying, "But I have lain under as many of my kind as I please, and this wretched Jinni wotteth, not that Destiny may not be averted nor hindered by aught, and that whatso woman willeth, the same she fulfilleth however man nilleth."  The kings decide that if a powerful Jinni can be made a cuckold (and indeed he is described as having mighty horns) then their lot is not so bad, and they decide to go home.  When Shahriar enters his palace, he causes his wife’s head to be cut off at the neck, and in the same way the heads of the slaves, both men and women. Then the embittered misogynist orders the Vizier to bring him a young virgin girl every night, whom he ravishes and, when the night has passed, causes her to be slain the very next morning so that she will not have the opportunity to bring dishonour upon him.

Ghouls were largely unknown to Europe, and it was not until Antoine Galland translated the Arabian Nights into French that the western idea of the ghoul was introduced.  The writings were corrupted because of Galland’s free translation of the Nights.  In truth, he is thought to have made a few characters and included them in stories that were not initially part of the work.  One of these characters was Amina, who figures in the story featuring the ghoul.  This is a story within a story which is narrated by Sidi Nouman to Caliph Haroun Rashid:  Sidi-Nouman is happy with his new wife, Amina, except for one thing: her strange way of eating just a few grains of rice at each meal. One night, hearing her slip out of the house, Sidi-Nouman follows her to a cemetery and hides behind a wall.  He sees his wife devouring a corpse in the company of a ghoul.  When he confronts her, Sidi-Nouman becomes the victim of her magic and is changed into a dog.  Sidi-Nouman is now living the life of a dog.   He roams the streets until a baker takes him in. One day a lady comes in with fake money to buy bread and again Sidi-Nouman points out the bad money.  The baker is astonished by the dog's talent.  Another lady comes in with fake money and Sidi-Nouman points it out, but this time the lady takes the fake money back and pays it with real money. The lady then signals the dog to follow her. So he does. The lady takes Sidi-Nouman to her daughter.  The daughter says that she knows his real identity as he is actually a man inside a dog's body.  She turns Sidi-Nouman back into a human.  The lady’s daughter then gives Sidi-Nouman some water and tells him to return home.  She also instructs him to recite a

mantra on the water and then sprinkle the water on his wife.  Sidi-Nouman does everything the lady´s daughter says.  Once he does it his wife is transformed into a horse.  It was on seeing this horse being beaten most severely by Sidi-Nouman that the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid wanted to know the reason for such cruelty.  It was then that the above tale was narrated before him.  

The other ghoul in Galland's text is also a female, and the mother of a brood of little ghouls as found in the tale of The Vizier who was Punished.  Shortly stated, there was once upon a time a king who had a son who was very fond of hunting. He often allowed him to indulge in this pastime, but he had ordered his grand-vizier always to go with him, and never to lose sight of him.  To come to the point, one day the prince rode so hard while chasing a stag he lost his way back, with the grand-vizier nowhere in sight.  He chanced upon a beautiful lady who was bitterly crying.  She said she was an Indian princess and in the state of sleep, she had fallen off a horse.  The prince took pity on her and offered to take her behind him on the horse.  As they passed by a dilapidated building the lady dismounted and went in.     The prince also dismounted and followed her. To his great surprise, he heard her saying to someone inside, "Rejoice my children. I am bringing you a nice fat youth." And other voices replied, "Where is he, mamma, that we may eat him at once, as we are very hungry?"  The prince at once saw the danger he was in. He now knew that the lady was in fact a female ghoul who lured passersby and made a meal of them.  He was terrified and threw himself on his horse.  The fake princess appeared at this moment, and seeing that she had lost her prey, she said to him, "Do not be afraid. What do you want?"   "I am lost," he answered, "and I am looking for the road."  "Keep straight on," said the female ghoul, "and you will find it."  The prince could hardly believe his ears and rode off as hard as he could. He found his way and arrived safe and sound at his father's house, where he told him of the danger he had run into because of the grand vizier's carelessness. The king was very angry and had him strangled immediately. This brief story continues the longer legend of King Yunan and the Sage Duban, which is narrated by the Fisherman to the Jinni which story is narrated by Scheherazade to Shahriyar. 

The History of Gharib and His Brother Agib is one of the original stories in ‘The Thousand and One Nights’ that highlights ghouls that remained unaltered by Antoine Galland.  Gharib is sent on an errand to get the hand of  Mahdiyyaa in marriage. On the way, he faces the Sa’dan the Ghoul – the master of a castle.  In order to continue with his quest, he must overcome him.   He vanquishes the Ghoul and his sons who accept Islam at his hand.

Literature on the ghouls is too vast to be discussed here.   In spite of the fact that ghouls were now and then related to rummaging hyenas, Arabic writings did not recognize them as grave raiders who feasted on the dead.  According to Researcher, Ahmed Al-Rawi, this detail appears to have risen with the French translation of "The Thousand and One Nights" by Antoine Galland within the early 18th century.  In short, tales of the ghoul circulated throughout the Middle East long before the seventh-century spread of Islam through the region. In fact, the Arabic ghul may stem from gallu, the name of an Akkadian demon in ancient Mesopotamian mythology [source: Al-Rawi]. Arabic scholars of the eighth, ninth and 10th centuries compiled various Bedouin folktales involving ghouls, many of which found their way into the collection "The Thousand and One Nights." Translations of this book travelled to Europe in the 18th century -- as did the notion of the ghoul. Such creative stories from the Middle East and surroundings, that date back past the medieval period have regularly highlighted ghouls as violators of the graves.  Baring-Gould depicts the scene: On a moonlit night, odd shapes are seen stealing among the tombs and digging into them with their long nails in order to reach the bodies of the dead before daybreak when they relinquish their cravings. These ghouls are mainly thought to require the flesh of the dead for magical spells and incantations.  More often though, they desire to disturb the repose of the dead body by just tearing into it.

European depictions of ghouls show that since ghouls are able to acquire the shape of any human whose flesh they have eaten, those who are cautious to conceal their eating propensities can work in human society. Indeed in the event that they are caught, ghouls are mistakenly taken for human cannibals. Their true nature is revealed when they are denied human flesh.  In addition to being pale, these progressed ghouls are shown to have in fact more unmistakable shapeshifting capacities than the early ghouls. It has been suggested that these ghouls can also get to the memories of the person they have eaten up by eating their brain so that it reasonably allows them to blend into society without being found out. Ghouls tend to live in limited zones that are isolated from human society.

Some people who are acquainted with the traditions believe that offspring of this interbreeding between a ghoul and a human occurs only if a human has been buried alive or detained in a tomb for at slightest 24 hours prior to mating. It isn't known if there's any truth to this superstition.  In the extremely popular anime Tokyo Ghoul and the sequel series Tokyo Ghoul, ghouls live among humans and are seen as carnivorous monsters that resemble humans in every way, except for an extreme craving for human flesh and a predatory organ weapon called a "Kagune" unique to each ghoul with special abilities.

 Ghouls can move faster than humans on all fours or on their feet.  Despite their immense speed and massive strength, the Ghouls have a couple of weaknesses that are: decapitation, fire, and concentrated acid. With decapitation, which involves the whole elimination of their head, is rather fatal, while any exposure to concentrated acid would cause the death of a Ghoul.  Fire can kill them if it is sufficiently hot to burn them to a crisp. Since Ghouls have very sensitive eyes, exposure to light can cause them pain. 

To sum up the Ghouls, Professor Rawi says:  “According to Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), ghouls can hurt human beings by eating or spoiling their food or by frightening travellers when they are in the wilderness.  In order to avoid harm, one can recite a verse from the Holy Quran or call for prayer since they hate any reference to God.  Ismâ‘īl bin ‘Umar Abū al-Fidâ’ (?- c. 1372)* mentioned in Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr that ghouls were the ‘demons of genies’, and cited the following famous incident:  According to a prophetic tradition when the Prophet (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam)  met his companion Abū Dharr in a mosque, the Prophet advised Abū Dharr to pray in order to be saved from the mischief of the devils of humans and genies. Abū Dharr was surprised to hear the Prophet confirmed the existence of creatures such as these, which the Prophet identified as ghouls.  In brief, Islam tried to direct the people's way of thinking to the one omnipresent God as the creator and mover of all things and did not acknowledge that there were other forces involved in controlling the universe.” 

*(1300-1372)

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NASIR ALI.