The Mythical Creatures of Arabia

welcome to the 2020 edition of shocktober where we celebrate the month of october by talking about some of the more mysterious and darker aspects of the world's religious traditions and when it comes to the region of arabia and the middle east there is perhaps no more famous creature or monster than the jinn of course and we will or have already dedicated a whole other video specifically to the gin depending on how i choose to release these videos but in this video we're going to be looking at some of the lesser known characters in the folklore of arabia [Music] one good thing to keep in mind about this subject is that before the arrival of islam the arabs were a people who didn't really write very much in terms of written material so when we talk about the mythology of ancient arabia we are mostly relying on later sources often medieval sources or even later than that and and the primary of these sources is actually the stories of the arabian nights or more properly called the thousand and one nights since a lot of the stories originate from regions outside of arabia there are a lot of persian stories a lot of indian stories and so on i also say creatures of arabia and mythology of arabia but when it comes to a lot of these myths they are often shared with a lot of other neighboring cultures and sort of cross over between cultural boundaries so to say and myths like this are rarely exclusive as we will also see there are also sources about this from medieval zoological or philosophical treatises that gives us enough information at least that we know a fair amount about some of the mythology that existed in the region of arabia number one the there are plenty of stories about giant bird-like creatures in many cultures and arabia is no different we find two recurring birds in fact the roh and the anka the roch is a giant bird of prey that is so large that it is said to be able to grab entire elephants with its feet it is thought to live in or come from the island of madagascar and features in several stories and accounts the most famous account of the roch comes from the arabian nights and the story of sinbad the sailor which in itself is one of the most famous stories in that collection simbad actually runs into the rook on two occasions on his second and his fifth voyage and the first time sinbad is stranded on a desert island desperate to escape to come back to civilization when he suddenly finds an enormous bird egg and as he's inspecting this egg the sky suddenly turns black or dark because the mother rooh suddenly appears now as the rook is later sleeping sinbad ties his turban to the feet or the leg of the rooh which then in the morning flies off to distant lands where simbad can can sort of untie himself and quickly hide behind a rock so he escapes the rook this time and it flies back home but not before grabbing a giant serpent with its feet to feed on the second time sinbad encounters the roc does not go as well this time the sailor and his crew find another egg on an island and despite simbad's warnings they crack open the egg and eat the chick inside obviously not the greatest idea as the two parent rooks then appear and enact the revenge by basically destroying their boats and killing the entire crew except for simbad himself who narrowly escapes outside the arabian night we have other accounts as well for example from the famous actual person and and traveler ibn batuta he describes how he once saw what he thought was a flying mountain over the china seas before of course realizing that it was in fact a rooh bird rule of thumb if a creature can be mistaken for a mountain it's generally pretty big similar to the roch the anka is said to be a beautiful large usually female bird that can be found very poetically at quote the place of the setting sun it is sometimes depicted as a phoenix a griffin an eagle or sphinx and just like the jinn the anka is thought to originate on the mythical mount cough which lies at the end of the world or the edge of the world and is a creature that is often used to symbolize the purest of spirits in fact in the writings of the mystic even arabi the anka is described as quote the dust cloud within which god opens up the forms of the universe so you can see that the anka is often used in a symbolic fashion to describe mystical or metaphysical ideas whereas the roch is often presented as an intimidating and dangerous creature the anka is usually benevolent and represents things like purity nobility and beauty as already stated these birds of course remind us of other giant birds in in in mythologies and cultures around the world in particular there is of course a very strong connection here with the seymour of persian mythology who often functions in a very similar way and has become a very important symbol in sufism in particular much thanks to the poet farido di natas masterpiece the conference of the birds similarly the anka which i have just described is used by ibn arabi in his in a treatise he wrote called the itahadar koni which he describes meeting four different birds sitting in the tree of creation or the tree of existence at the center of creation as he is having one of his mystical experiences and one of these birds is indeed the anka number two the bahamut the bahamut is a legendary giant fish or whale there is something about mythology and very large things the bahamut is an unfathomably large creature much larger than anything that has ever lived on this earth as far as we know it is so large in fact that it is said to be the very foundation upon which the world stands in arabic sources like in zechariah or the wonders of creation the earth is described as resting on the back of a giant bull which in turn stands on the bahamut which then obviously is even larger than this bull this big fish or whale itself is then supported by the shoulders of an angel this enormous whale is of course fascinating enough in itself but it is also clearly very similar both in form and definitely in name to the hebrew behemoth that is mentioned in the hebrew bible or old testament it features in one of my favorite books of the bible the book of job and is usually considered a giant chaos monster that existed at the beginning of creation and was defeated by god in like some kind of battle no real physical description is given of this beast other than its very large size but it is unmistakable that the word bahamut in arabic strongly relates to the hebrew behemoth and that we are likely dealing with a cross-culture myth here this shows us how interconnected the cultures and mythologies of the ancient world could be a lot of the time number three nasnas perhaps the most monstrous and gross creature that we'll talk about today is called the nasnas it also features in the arabian nights and in one of the more obscure stories from the collection called the story of the sage and the scholar the nasnas are here and otherwise a kind of zombie-like creature that is half man both literally and figuratively in a figurative sense it is thought that nasnas is the unholy offspring of of the union of a human being and a shack which is a kind of jinn or evil demon-like creature and in a literal sense as a result of this unholy union the the the nas nas are literally half a human being so only has half of the head it's like the head is the body is cut off uh in the middle the sword has one half of a head it has one arm and only one leg but don't let that fool you because apparently they can jump and move at terrifying speeds despite their only having one leg and if one of them catches up to you that's very bad news because according to some stories a single touch from a nas means instant death truly the staff of nightmares the nasnos are seen by some as a kind of jinn while others consider them unique creatures of their own why would someone ever think to come up with such a terrifying creature you ask i i wish i knew number four dun dun returning to the world of very large animals the so-called dun dun is another giant fish or whale while not as enormous as the previously mentioned bahamut the dundan is still large enough that it apparently can swallow an entire ship in a single gulp which is still pretty impressive if you ask me it is most famously mentioned again in the arabian nights where it is described by a merman as the quote largest fish in the sea you can help but think about other similar legends and myths even today there are documentaries dedicated to discussing whether the megalodon which was a giant shark that lived a few million years ago is still lurking in the deep ocean there seems to be this tendency by human beings to imagine what may lie hidden in the undiscovered depths of the sea i mean it is sometimes said that we know more about outer space than we do about our own oceans so who knows after all speaking of merman and giant fish there is another related monster that pops up in medieval arabic and muslim texts who is known as literally translating to the physician of the sea it is described by the very famous early muslim alchemist and philosopher jabed ibn haiyan or gebber in that nice form and is described as a fish-like being of incredible knowledge and power the tagpipe can transform into a mermaid and carries a large jewel on its head which can be used to heal any injuries by simply touching it the bach in the name may literally refer to the sea as the creature's home or it could refer to its immense knowledge like having knowledge as vast as the sea or it's perhaps a reference to both of these in a rather strange account jabet ibn haiyan is said to have actually captured one of these creatures while on a sea voyage one of the crew men later fell in love with it in its beautiful mermaid form and they had a child before the tahabib eventually escaped back into the ocean the tabi balbach is generally thought to be a benevolent creature so not dangerous and nothing to be feared but still anything that hides in the ocean is kind of terrifying to me number five falak that last part certainly can't be said for our last creature today which is known as the falak the phalaq is surprise surprise a giant serpent so if you have a fear of snakes you should probably bail at this point like the bahamut the falak is one of those just unreasonably large creatures if you've seen the harry potter movies and you're thinking about that basilisk think again the falak completely dwarfs it by comparison this serpent is said to reside in the seventh deepest level of hell it is so large that it can swallow the whole world and the only thing that keeps it from doing so is its immense fear of god when we look at the different mythologies and legends of the world's cultures the snake or serpent is one of the most recurring and common symbols and features from the quetzalcoatl of the aztecs and native central americans to the snake of midgard and norse mythology that surrounds the earth the serpent in the garden of eden that tempts adam and eve and also of course now the phalec of the middle eastern folklore there's clearly something about snakes perhaps they somehow represent one of the most dangerous and intimidating animals that exist in our world and their recurrence is a result of our natural fear of them who knows but they are certainly very fascinating so those are some of the most famous and recurring creatures that we find in the folklore of arabia and the middle east generally the most famous of them all which i haven't talked about in this video is of course the gin and they are so famous and an important in fact that i will be dedicating a whole other separate video just to the gin which will have already come out or will come out next week depending on how i choose to structure the or release these videos so look forward to or i hope you liked the video on the gin as always i would like to thank my patrons without whom none of this would be possible it is thanks to you that i can keep making these videos with this level of quality and quantity and of course just inspires me to make more videos if any of the other people out there would like to become patrons there will be of course highly appreciated i will leave a link to my patreon page in the description if not then you can always of course like the video subscribe to the channel if you aren't already and leave a comment so we can continue this discussion and let me know what you thought of this video i'll see you next time you

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 215,519

Keywords: The Mythical creatures of arabia, mythology, mythology arabia, Arabs, Arabic folklore, Arabian folklore, Islamic folklore, Folklore middle east, Jinn, Roc, Dandan, Bahamut, Behemoth, Biblical mythology, Religion, Falak, Giant serpents, mythologies of the world, Arabian monsters, Middle eastern monsters, history of arabia, mythology explained, islamic myths, arabic myths, Arabian nights, 1001 Nights, Sinbad the sailor, One thousand and one nights, Aladdin, Islam, Creatures in Islam

Id: MPUdbYMBgrA

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 11 2020