depiction, in particular on portable items, more-
types) a large crescent which frames the entire
over emphasises the prodigious cultural signifi-
upper body, while squatting on a “dais” supported
cance of the signs of the zodiac and the planets
by quadruped protomes, probably horses The
in the medieval Islamic world The prominent
addorsed attendants are related to those of the
depiction of al-jawzahar on objects such as these
Sun but are clad in more angular attire with the
Herati ewers “evidently originates,” as Hartner
jawzahar-like heads growing from their waists
has underlined, “not in a doctrinal astrological
(fig 146) Significantly, as Hartner has observed,
conception, but in a purely metaphysical, one,”
“the scene has no menacing character ”104 A
being associated with “the antagonism between
remarkable depiction of a personified Moon in
the celestial luminaries and the terrestrial light-
Cancer is shown on the so-called “Wade Cup,”
devouring dragon ”100
dated 596/1200–622/1225, now in the Cleveland
As mentioned, a solar or lunar eclipse (al-kusūf)
Museum of Art, featuring a winged figure holding
can occur only when the Moon is at one of the
up a crescent moon and with splayed legs sur-
points of crossing (majāz), or nodes In his Kitāb
mounting the crab; the legs of the moon figure are
al-Tafhīm al-Bīrūnī, moreover, notes that the
held in the claws of the crab and both are flanked
latter are perceived as having separate natures,
on either side by long-eared dragon progeny that
the head being hot, auspicious, and indicating
springs from the base (fig 147) 105
increase of wealth etc and the tail being cold,
The personifications of the Sun and the Moon
bringing misfortune, and indicating diminution
are also featured above a pair of addorsed knotted
of wealth, etc 101 In addition he records the infor-
dragons, serving here as support for the lumi-
mation that “some people say that the dragon’s
naries, as part of a decorative programme on
head is male and diurnal and the tail female and
a large copper alloy basin inlaid with silver of
nocturnal ”102
the thirteenth-century atābeg Badr al-Dīn Luʾluʾ
From about the twelfth-century symbolic
(618/1222–657/1259) of Mosul (fig 148) 106 The
perso nifications of Sol and Luna, often shown
depictions reveal an interest in the translating of
together with the dragon motif, were widely
entities beyond the domain of humankind, such
applied to portable objects, especially on met-
as the two luminaries, into human guise 107 In this
alwork, from greater Khurasan to the Anatolian
context it is interesting to recall that this also cor-
region By virtue of its very characteristic as an
responds to the Turkish tradition of conceiving
eclipse dragon al-jawzahar was directly linked to
the two great luminaries as living beings 108 The
the Sun and the Moon The two luminaries are
selective visualisation of the Sun and the Moon
among the representations of the eight planets
and the menace posed to them in the form of
(the pseudo-planet jawzahar is here represented
solar and lunar eclipses, ascribed to al-jawzahar,
as eighth “planet”) on the lid of a covered copper
is related to the daily relevance afforded to the
alloy bowl, known as Vaso Vescovali, made in
two luminaries in human affairs and existence 109
the Khurasan region in about 1200 103 A three-
While the dragon is mainly associated with the
faced Sun, akin to the one featured on the Qatar
eclipses and, hence, the “devouring of light,” its
ewer (fig 143), surmounts a winged figure who,
positive aspect as giver of light and, consequently,
seated on a pointed support and holding up the
as protector of light is often more difficult to gauge
luminary’s “dais,” is symmetrical y flanked by two
although references are found in Iranian poetry 110
confronted attendants behind whom long-eared
The polymath Asadī Ṭūsī accordingly writes in
jawzahar-like heads grow out of stems which curl
his epic Garshāsp-nāma:
behind their waists (fig 145) The Moon consists
of a human figure holding up with its four arms
the dragon that gives the sun also takes it back
(an image probably informed by Indian proto-
by its poison 111
100
106
Hartner, 1938, p 138
Cf Saxl, 1912, p 164 and fig 10; Sarre and van
101 Tr and ed Wright, 1934, p 233
Berchem, 1907, pp 22, 27, figs 1 and 13
102
107
Al-Bīrūnī introduced these concepts into Muslim lit-
Pancaroğlu, 2000, p 197
108
erature, though not without misgivings as to their veracity,
Roux, 1979, p 179
109
qualifying this information as “quite illogical” ( idem, p 234)
Pancaroğlu, 2000, p 204
103
110
Cf Hartner, 1973–4, p 119; Ward, 1993, p 79
Cf Daneshvari, 1993, p 20
104
111
Hartner, 1973–4, p 119
Asadī Ṭūsī, Garshāsp-nāma, pp 475–6, cited after
105 Rice, 1955, pl VII b; Hartner, 1959, p 235, fig 4
Daneshvari, 1993, p 21
the dragon and astrology
143
The simile “the sun is delivered from the dragon”
break the resistance of the priestess and when she
in the romantic epic, Wīs u Rāmīn,112 almost
is brought in front of Iskandar, Balīnūs declares
certainly of Arsacid Parthian origin, expresses a
“this black dragon is the moon [a moon-faced
related stance It was translated and versified by
beauty]” a pun that implicitly also refers to the
Fakhr al-Dīn Gurgānī around 1050 for the first
dragon’s association with light and, by inference,
Saljuq sulṭān Ṭoghrıl I, his minister Abū Naṣr
perhaps his implicit role as the deliverer and pro-
ibn Manṣūr, and his governor Abu ’l-Fatḥ ibn
tector of light 116
Muḥammad of Iṣfahān
The esoteric conceptualisation of the dragon
The eleventh-century Iranian poet Masʿūd-i
is illuminated in the allegory of a hero’s spiri-
Saʿd-i Salmān ( c. 440/1046–7– c. 515/1121–2)
tual journey in A Tale of Occidental Exile written
whose family came from Hamadān, enjoyed status
by the mystic Shihāb al-Dīn yaḥyā Suhravardī
and fame at the Ghaznawid courts of Lahore and
(d 587/1191):
Ghazna in his youth and again in his later years
If you desire to be delivered along with your
But he also suffered the misery of some eighteen
brother [i e , speculative reason, the guide ( ʿāṣim)],
years of incarceration, resulting in the prison-
do not put off traveling Cling to your rope, which
poetry (ḥabsiyya) for which he is renowned and
is the dragon’s tail (jawzahr) of the holy sphere
in which he metaphorical y employs both fire and
that dominates the regions of the lunar eclipse
dragon imagery:
[the realms of the eclipse denoting the world of
ascetic practice] 117
My heart has become like a fire temple,
fearing it I don’t breath even for a moment,
The hero passes beyond the material world and
until from the heat of my dragon-like heart
reaches a light, the active intellect, which is the
my mouth fills with fire
governor of this world He places the light in the
However he emerges from the dragon’s clutches
mouth of the dragon, the world of the elements,
“like a cool cypress in a garden”113 thereby employ-
that “dwelt in the tower of the water-wheel [i e ,
ing the conventional metaphor which implies that
the sky which turns like a wheel], beneath which
he comes forth unscathed from an eclipse or other
was the Sea of Clysma [i e , the water below the
impending calamity
sky] and above which are the stars the origin of
Comparable imagery governs Niẓāmī Ganjawī’s
whose rays was known only to the Creator and
description in the first part of his Iskandar-nāma,
those “who are well-grounded in knowledge ”” 118
the Sharaf-nāma, of Iskandar’s destruction of the
The metaphysical aspect of the bi-partite
fire temples of the Iranian Zoroastrians during his
dragon is further evoked in a passage of the fables
conquest of Iran (an action for which the histori-
and anecdotes of the early thirteenth-century
cal Alexander is not responsible but that perhaps
Marzubān-nāma with the allegorical allusion,
reflects Niẓāmī’s vague memory of an Iranian
“at dawn, when the black snake of night cast the
religious resistance to Hellenism) 114 Iskandar
sun’s disc out of the mouth of the east,”119 hence
arrives at a fire temple dominated by a powerful
once again implying a double-headed dragon
priestess, Āẓar Humā, who transforms herself into
delivering the luminary and the creation of light
a fire-breathing black dragon to guard the holy
The luminary aspect of the dragon is also
fire of the temple, hence implying that the dark
reflected, as Abbas Daneshvari has pointed out, by
dragon protects the fire and therefore the light
its flanking the mount of finger rings (fig 30) 120
and, by association, the luminaries 115 Through his
In Farīd al-Dīn Aṭṭār’s Ilāhī-nāma (“Book of
talismanic powers Balīnūs (Apollonius) helps to
God”), the magic signet ring of Solomon, an
112 Tr cited after Daneshvari, 1993, p 21
pp 974–5, cited in Pseudo-Apol onius of Tyana, tr and ed
113 Dīwān-i ashʿār-i Masʿūd-i Saʿd, qaṣīda 205, tr Sharma,
Weisser, 1990, p 27
116
2000, pp 94–5 On Masʿūd-i Saʿd-i Salmān, see also Rypka,
Ed Dastgardī, V , Tehran, 1936, p 244, cited by
1968, p 196 Cf the early Indian conception as expressed
Daneshvari, 1993, p 21
117
in the Vedic myth in which, after his defeat by Indra, the
The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Suhrawardi, tr
dragon Vala ( valá-, meaning “enclosure”) frees the goddess
Thackston, 1982, p 102 and ns r and s
118
of dawn, Ushas, whom he had imprisoned See p 87, n 4
Idem, p 105 and ns uu, vv, ww
119
Janda, 2010, pp 45–70, esp 27, 63, 79, 266, 270
Tr Levy, 1959, p 51 Cf Saʿīd al-Dīn Warāwīnī,
114 Cf Stoneman, 1991, p 2
Marzubān-nāma, ed Rūshan, M , 2 vols , Tehran, 1978,
115 Niẓāmī, Sharaf-nāma, ed Dastgardī, V , Tehran, 1936,
pp 96–7, cited by Daneshvari, 1993, pp 20–1
120
p 244, cited by Daneshvari, 1993, p 21; Niẓāmī, Dīwān,
Daneshvari, 1993, p 21
144