the illness and the Prophet sent ʿAlī to read the
Contrarily, knots were also designed to protect
two sūra s At each verse (āyaʿalāʾiyya) a knot was
from harm, and served to safeguard health and
untied and the Prophet was cured 11 His third
love relations 17 Release from binding spells,
and favourite wife ʿĀʾisha is recorded as saying:
ḥall al-maʿqūd (“unbinding the tied”), is one of
As soon as he recited the Qurʾân over one of
the stated uses of early magic-medicinal bowls
these knots into which a spell against him had
The word maʿqūd means one who is bound with
been placed, that particular knot became untied 12
knots, a commonly used term for a person on
whom a spell has been cast The knot is alle-
The Basran Muslim mystic, Abū ʿAbd Allāh
gorically referred to in the Qurʾān, when Mūsā
al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (d 243/857), said that God
implores God to loosen a knot from his tongue
helps the man who persists in his wrongdoing
( sūra 20, 27) The nightly recitations of the Qurʾān
and is in need of something “which unties in his
(tahajjud) are said to be justified on the basis that
heart the knots of persistence in evil, in such a
it loosens one of the knots which Satan ties in the
way that he may return to his Lord in repentance
hair of a sleeper ( sūra 17, 81) 18
of his offence ”13 In Muslim religious science the
It is notable that the same concept existed in
act of loosing or untying a knot is considered the
the Turkic culture where the concept “magic” is
resolving of a difficulty (ḥulūl) which in Hellenis-
also expressed in “bond, fetters” (bag) 19 A magical
tic philosophy denotes the inherent accident in
association with knotting is also made in one of
an object as well as the substantial union of soul
the earliest prose romances in Persian, the Kitāb-i
and body 14 This is also noticeable in the custom
Samak ʿAyyār, in which the magicians who are
that the garments of pilgrims conducting the ḥajj
captured may be bound by a rope only if the
must be knotless, which is in accordance with the
binder knows the special types of knots and the
widespread belief that those who officiate at either
appropriate manner of fastening them 20
religious or magical ceremonies should have no
More mundane are the allegorical associations
knots on their person 15
made by the Rūm Saljuq chronicler Ibn Bībī in
Describing a magical act directed against an
his al-Awāmir al-ʿAlāʾiyya fī ’l-ūmur al-ʿAlāʾiyya,
enemy, the historian and jurist Abū Zayd ʿAbd
who writes that in spite of the waning fortunes
al-Raḥmān Walī al-Dīn al-Ḥaḍramī, known as Ibn
of the empire:
Khaldūn (732/1332–784/1382), recounts how the
magician created an image of the intended victim
it occurred to no one that the knot of this empire
and then began to pronounce the spell:
could dissolve and that the sun of this fortune
could set 21
during the repeated pronunciation of the evil
words he collected spittle in his mouth and spat
For the successful conclusion of the Rūm Saljuq
upon (the picture) Then he tied a knot over
sulṭān ʿIzz al-Dīn Kay Kāwūs’s marriage prepara-
the symbol in an object that he had prepared
tions he elaborates upon the commonly used met-
for this purpose since he considered tying knots
aphor “to tie the marriage knot” (ʿaqdi zanāshūʾī
and (making things) stick together to be auspi-
bastan) 22 in the following manner:
cious (and effective in magical operations) In
this manner the magician can inflict upon his
…when the knot of the agreement was tightened
victim what he had intended
and the rope of the bond gained firmness 23
16
11 Johnstone, 1976, pp 79–80 Cf Muslim, Īmān, vol 2,
18 Abū Dāwūd, Tatawwuʿ, bāb 18 Wensinck, “Tahadjd-
p 275, cited after Fahd, “Sihr,” EI² IX, p 567b
jud,” EI² X, 87a
12 Muqaddima, tr Rosenthal, 1958, vol 3, pp 160, 168
19 The word bag is derived from the verb ba- “to bind,”
13 In his Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Al āh (“Book of
hence a magic spell can be bound I would like to thank
Observance of the Rights of God”), al-Muḥāsibī includes
Professor Dr Zieme for elucidating this point
the study of the “repentant ones,” al-tawwābūn Arnaldez,
20 Samak-i ʿAyyār II, p 354; V, p 532, as cited in
“al-Muḥāsibī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥārith,” EI² VII, 466b
Omidsalar, “Magic in literature and folklore in the Islamic
14 Massignon [Anawati], “Ḥulūl,” EI² III, 570b
period,” EIr Cf Gaillard, 1987, pp 19–21
15 Frazer, 1913, repr 1980
21 “… es niemandem … in den Sinn [kam], daß der
16 Muqaddima, tr Rosenthal, 1958, vol 3, p 161 Cf
Knoten jenes Reiches sich auflösen und die Sonne jenes
Scheftelowitz, 1912–913, pp 15–6 and n 1
Glückes untergehen könne ” Ibn Bībī, al-Awāmir al-ʿalāʾiyya,
17 Cf Chwolsohn, 1856, vol 2, pp 138–9, n 144 In the
tr Duda, 1959, p 47
Talmud the third-century rabbi Abaji says that when three,
22 Steingass, 1892, repr 1981, pp 623, 857
five or seven knots are tied to the left arm, they have power,
23 “… als der Knoten des Vertrages zusammengezogen
respectively, to protect from ill-health, to heal and to protect
war und das Seil der Verbindung Festigkeit erhalten hatte ”
from magic
Ibn Bībī, al-Awāmir al-ʿalāʾiyya, tr Duda, 1959, p 79
the knotted dragon motif
161
The allegory of the knotted dragon tail is used
ters (an important part of magical practice), was
by the early thirteenth-century secretary in the
presumably intended to intensify their beneficial
administration of Jamāl al-Dīn Ay Ana Ulugh
effect by invoking the concept of a continuous,
Bārbak,24 Abu ’l-Sharaf Nāṣiḥ Jarbādhqānī, who
endless protection 30 To this may be added the
records that:
definition given by the fourteenth-century Otto-
Abu ’l-Ḥasan was commanded to Sistan and with
man theologian and biographer, ʿIṣām al-Dīn
cunning, boldness and skill to bring success to
Ṭashköprüzāde, of the Arabic word ṭilasm, or
this travail, which had become knotted as the
talisman, as “indissoluble knot ”31
Dragon’s tail … to free the troops from the straits
of exile, the locks and bolts of affliction25
b The knotted dragon
hence alluding to these military difficulties as
“knots” in the dragon’s tail
It has been suggested that the motif of entwined
It should be remarked in this connection that
dragons with necks or bodies interlaced to form
the use of knots as apotropaic devices perpetu-
a single loop, occasionally a knot, consistently
ates earlier practice seen in the architecture of the
employed in medieval Islamic architecture on
early Islamic period 26 It is significant that these
gates and portals, is subject to different interpreta-
were also placed in or near thresholds The desert
tions 32 Guitty Azarpay more clearly specifies that:
residence of Khirbat al-Mafjar, possibly built by
the eighth-century Umayyad prince and later
the theme of the entwined dragons finds Central
caliph al-Walīd ibn yazīd,27 for instance, had spe-
Asian forerunners that doubtless contributed to
cially designed mosaics with magic knot designs
the widespread use of the motif in Islamic art
placed on the thresholds to ensure the magical
patronized by Turkish dynasties 33
entrapment of any evil force trying to enter the
This is il ustrated on memorial steles, a celebrated
throne hall (dīwān) 28 Similar knot designs were
example being the early eighth-century entwined
employed in contemporary churches of Syria and
dragons that crown the stele of the Turkic com-
Palestine suggesting that the apotropaic associ-
mander-in-chief Köl Tigin, inscribed with a
ations of ancient times were incorporated into
bilingual text in Chinese and Turkic, in Chöshöö
Christian concepts as well 29
Cajdam in Mongolia (fig 165) 34 Together with
The knotting aspect can also be observed in
the memorial complex the stele was built in 731
Islamic epigraphy on portable objects, for instance
with the help of Chinese palace artists sent by
on the Bobrinski bucket, dated 559/1163 Cir-
the Chinese emperor Xuanzong (r 712–756) The
cumscribing the body at mid-section is an epi-
Chinese artists worked under Turkic instructions
graphic frieze with a benedictory content which
overseen by Köl Tigin’s older brother Bilgä
has constantly repeated knotted hastae (fig 34)
Qaghan (d 734), hence one may surmise that the
In addition to their decorative function, the redu-
iconographies figured in the memorial stele were
plication of potent signs such as complex knot-
intended, in accordance with Turkic cosmogonic
ted forms, in this case mainly of a quadripartite
and cosmological beliefs, to smooth the way of
configuration, together with the reiteration of let-
the deceased into the afterlife 35 The stele was
24 Jamāl al-Dīn Ay Aba Ulugh Bārbak played an impor-
32 Azarpay, 1978, p 366, n 20; Tabbaa, 1997, p 77;
tant role in the politics that followed after the death of last
Santoro, 2006, p 550
Great Saljuq ruler in the west, Ṭoghrıl III ibn Arslan
33 Azarpay, 1978, p 366, n 20
25 Meisami, 1999, p 260
34 The interlaced dragon motif has a very long history
26 For an example of the use of knots of Solomon as an
in the Central Asian region, as is exemplified by a pair of
apotropaic device, see the eight Solomon knots that appear
inlaid and pierced gold belt plaques with a pair of entwined
as isolated motifs in the mosaic pavement that covers the
lupine dragons in combat with birds, probably griffins, found
threshold block of the synagogue at Sardis, rebuilt in the
at kurgan 3, datable to the second or first century bc, in
fourth century Cf Dinkler, 1978, p 78, pl XVII, 13
Tchaltyr, Miasnikovski district, a region bordering Kuban in
27 Ettinghausen, 1972, p 42
Rostov province, near the Sea of Azov in south Russia, which
28 Cf idem, pp 17–65, esp pp 47, 63, pls 17–27; Farès,
are part of the stylistic repertoire of Scytho-Siberian art
1959, p 33
Museum of Azov, inv no KP-24444/1 and 2 Schiltz, 2001,
29 Ettinghausen, 1972, p 47; Farès, 1959, p 52
pp 178–9, cat no 198
30 Cf p 107, n 209
35 Scharlipp, 1992, p 51 Excavations of the Köl Tigin
31 In his encyclopaedia Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāh
memorial complex revealed that its gates were oriented
al-siyāda I, 277, 3 to 278, 3. Ullmann, 1972, p. 362 and n. 3.
towards the east, the direction held sacred in Turkic belief
162