In the Islamic tradition (ḥadīth), as Wensinck
make covenant with him … This explains the
points out, the description of the serpent is a
story about the man who saw the huge snake
metaphor for the ocean:
that God had placed around Mount Qāf, which
encircles the world The head and the tail of this
as the Ocean, the Mekkan [ sic] serpent is glit-
snake meet The man greeted the snake, who
tering in the sun and as the Ocean it is black
returned his greeting and then asked him about
and white 7
Shaykh Abū Madyan, who lived at Bijāya in the
The motif of the “serpent whose tail approached
Maghrib The man said to it, “How do you come
its head” is well-known in Semitic cosmography
to know Abū Madyan?” The snake answered, “Is
A key passage in the book of Job (26:12) states:
there anyone on earth who does not know him?11
He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters
According to a saying of the Prophet Muḥammad,
at the boundary between light and darkness
Mount Qāf is separated from the world “by a
region which men cannot cross, a dark area which
The inscribed circle refers to the line of the hori-
would stretch for four months walking ”12 It was
zon, which separates the inhabited world from
thus a distant, marginal area at the boundaries
the waters that surround it 8 These waters are
of the “civilised” world 13 Such liminal regions
symbolised by Leviathan, “the encircler,” who is
primarily a sea monster
were often inhabited by demons Descriptions
9 The name of the bibli-
cal monster Leviathan (Hebr liwyātān) has been
of dragons and other mythical creatures abound
derived from lwh suggested by the Arabic lwy
in such regions in the descriptions of medieval
“turn,” “twist” and the Assyrian lamû “surround,”
Islamic geographical and travel works 14 Their
“encircle,”10 underscoring the probablility of an
topical proliferation serves as a “cultural marker”
original serpent-like nature of Leviathan
(in James Montgomery’s words) indicating to the
The same motif is used by the great Anda-
traveller that he is in a distant land 15 Together
lusian Arab mystic Muḥyi ’l-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī
with other imaginary hybrid creatures, such as
(560/1165–638/1240) whose works draw on many
sphinxes and harpies, the presence of the dragon
sources, including Gnostic, Hermetic and Neopla-
may have signified the outer reaches of the known
tonic works In his discussion of the Pole ( quṭb;
earth This vision of the fabulous distant lands at
an elevated rank of sainthood in ṣūfī mysticism)
the remote ends of the world is also found in the
that represents the living Messenger (rasūl) in
Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes In
the Kitab al-manzil al-quṭb (“Book of the Spiri-
this legend many wondrous feats are ascribed to
tual Dwelling of the Pole”), he describes an enor-
Iskandar who made his way to the furthest west
mous serpent whose head and tail touch and that
and furthest east, the end of the world, entering
encircles Mount Qāf:
the “regions not il uminated by the Sun, the Moon
and the stars and light as day” where he encoun-
The Pole is both the centre of the circle of the
ters creatures such as human-headed birds 16
universe, and its circumference He is the mirror
of God, and the pivot of the world … God is
However, Mount Qāf does not only encircle
perpetually epiphanized to him … He is located
the earth: it also encloses the ocean which “forms
in Mecca, whatever place he happens to be in
a girdle around the earth ”17 The symbolism also
bodily When a Pole is enthroned at the level
occurs in the story of Solomon of the Alf layla
of the quṭbiyya, all beings, animal or vegetable,
wa-layla which recounts how Solomon on his fly-
7 Idem, p 64
the story of a tree being cut to size which then begins to
8 Wakeman, 1973, pp 134–5
move and crawl away in the form of a giant dragon Risālat
9 Gunkel, 1895, p 47 and n 1; Wakeman, 1973, p 135
Ibn Faḍlān, ed Dahhān, S , Damascus, 1959, pp 127–8
and n 1
(fol 4 206 wāw), as cited in Montgomery, 2006, p 72
10 Eadem, 1973, p 64 Cf Grünbaum, 1877, p 275
Cf the dangerous and monstrous creatures of Greek lore
11 The same story, in expanded form, of a man speak-
that dwell at the edges of the earth, the eschatiai, or “most
ing to a serpent appears in the Risālat ruḥ al-quds See
distant lands,” and are very often guardians of treasure,
Chodkiewicz, 1993, p 55 and n 32
for instance, the golden apples of the Hesperides in the
12 Cf Streck [Miquel], “Ḳāf,” EI 2 IV, 400a
far west and the golden fleece of Kolchis in the far east
13 In ancient Greek lore the ends of the earth were inhab-
which are protected by giant serpents; see Romm, 1987,
ited by primeval and/or mythical creatures (for instance in
pp 45–54
Hesiod’s Theogony 270–6) Inaccessible by land, they could
16 Pseudo-Callisthenes II, ch 40, tr and ed Stoneman,
only be reached by the crossing of waters, often described as
1991, p 121 Related conceptualisations of sphinxes and
world-encircling
man-birds appear in the Kitāb-i Samak ʿAyyār; see Gaillard,
14 Cf Montgomery, 2006, p 72
1987, p 120
15 The fourth marvel of Ibn Faḍlān’s Risālat constitutes
17 Streck [Miquel], “Ḳāf,” EI 2 IV, 400a
vestiges of ancient dragon iconographies
147
ing carpet travels through the world and reaches
there would be no sowing and no growth and no
the dragon that encompasses the world 18 Accord-
motivation for the reproduction of all creatures
ing to a popular belief recorded by al-Qazwīnī,
This serpent now stood originally outside the
the earth is supported by the biblical monsters
walls of the sacred precincts and was connected
Leviathan and Behemoth 19 Later Jewish tradition
from the outside with the outer wall, since its tail
similarly states that:
was linked with the wall whereas its countenance
was oriented inwards It did not befit it to enter
the Ocean surrounds the whole world as a vault
the inside, but its place and law was to affect the
surrounds a large pillar And the world is placed
creation of growth and reproduction from the
in circular form on the fins of Leviathan 20
outside, and this is the secret of the tree and the
knowledge of good and evil 23
Similarly a large serpent is said to encircle the
bier of a righteous person, a tradition which pro-
This world serpent, which likewise serves as lim-
vides a microcosmic allegory of the whole world
inal motif between order and chaos by encircling
surrounded and supported by a giant serpent 21
the cosmos, in other words the realm of order, was
It also shows that the Islamic conceptions are
a symbol of great antiquity in the Mesopotamian
in some way connected with ancient biblical
world and beyond 24
notions, which in turn have precedents in the
The writings of mystics such as Ibn al-ʿArabī
Babylonian tradition of chaos 22
were also influenced by the esoteric science of
In his short tractate, the Sod ha-Nachasch
alchemy (al-kīmiyāʾ), considered a form of re -
u-Mischpato (“Mystery of the Serpent”), the
vealed knowledge that had both its spiritual goals
thirteenth-century kabbalist, Joseph Gikatilla
and practical applications A special alchemical
ben Abraham, a disciple of the Spanish mystic
symbol is that of the tail-eating serpent, known
Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (1240– c 1292),
as ouroboros (the etymology is from oura, “tail,”
sheds some light on the mystery of the mythical
and the root of bora, “food,” boros, “voracious”) 25
creature as a liminal symbol, situated upon the
Among the large pseudo-epigraphic litera-
ambiguous dividing line between the divine and
ture of alchemical books composed in the medi-
the demonic:
eval period, an Arabic alchemical treatise titled
Muṣḥaf al-ḥakīm Usṭānis fī-l-ṣināʿat al-ilāhiyya
Know that from the outset of its creation the
(“Book of the Wise Ostanes on Divine Art”) is
serpent represented something important and
attributed to Ostanes (Uṣtānis), the renowned
necessary for harmony so long as it stood in its
Median author of books on magic and gnosis of
place It was the Great Servant who had been
the Achaemenid period 26 It describes how in a
created to carry the yoke of both sovereignty and
dream a creature with serpent’s tail, eagle’s wings
service Its head surmounted the heights of the
earth and its tail reached into the depths of hell
and elephant’s head devouring its own tail (like a
yet in all worlds it had a befitting place and rep-
serpent) guides Ostanes up to the seven gates of
resented something extraordinarily significant for
wisdom for which it gives him the keys 27
the harmony of all stages, each one in its place
An important corpus of alchemical writings,
And this is the secret of the serpent of heaven
compiled at the end of the ninth and beginning of
that is known from the Sefer Yezira, and that sets
the tenth century, is attributed to the celebrated
in motion the spheres and their cycle from east
alchemist Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (d c 196/812), alleg-
to west and from north to south And without it
edly from Ṭūs in Khurasan,28 who according to
no creature in the sublunar world had life, and
tradition was a personal friend of the sixth Shīʿite
18 Marzolph and van Leeuwen, 2004, p 356
24 Schütt, 2002, p 106
19 Cf Streck [Miquel], “Ḳāf,” EI 2 IV 400a It is notewor-
25 Needham and Wang, 1965, p 374; Anawati, “Arabic
thy that Behemot is known as Lawatyā (Leviathan, see Job
Alchemy,” EHAS, 1996, vol 3, p 863
41:1), the patronymic part of the name (kunya) is Balhūt and
26 Sezgin, 1971, pp 51–4; Ullmann, 1972, pp 184–5;
Bahamūt (Behemot, see Job 40:15) Cf al-Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ
Anawati, “Arabic Alchemy,” EHAS, 1996, vol 3, p 862;
al-anbiyāʾ, p 4, cited after Thackston (tr al-Kisāʾī’s Qiṣaṣ
Needham and Wang, 1965, pp 333–5 In Zoroastrian
al-anbiyāʾ), 1978, p 338, n 9
pseudo-epigrapha which include those of Ostanes, the
20 Bet ha-Midrasch, 1853–77, vol 2, p 63, 17–8
magus is said to have accompanied Khshayārshā (Xerxes)
21 Babylonian Talmud Bava Metsiah 84b-85a, as cited in
during the great Persian invasion of Greece Cf Boyce and
Epstein, 1997, p 74 This is supported by the Hasidic verse
Grenet, 1991, pp 494–6
zaddik yesod olam: “a righteous person is the foundation of
27 Reitzenstein, 1916, pp 3335; Ullmann, 1972, pp 184–5
the world” (Proverbs 10:25), cited after idem, p 74
and ns 1 and 2; Anawati, “Arabic Alchemy,” EHAS, 1996,
22 Streck [Miquel], “Ḳāf,” EI 2 IV, 400a
vol 3, p 862
23 Scholem, 1957, repr 1988, p 437
28 Ullmann, “Al-Kīmiyāʾ,” EI 2 V, 110a
148