The Bizarre Tale Of The Enchanted Golden Mosque Near the Aral Sea

The 12th-century traveler, Abū Hāmid, in his Exposition of Some of the Wonders of the West, claimed that a bizarre structure could be found about 28 miles from the city of Khwārazm, located south of the Aral Sea in what is now Uzbekistan. Travelers on the roadway between Khwārazm and Saqsīn (a city on the northern side of the Caspian Sea) reportedly could see the odd building in a canyon along the route. The site allegedly featured an unnatural mound with a magnificent domed temple built atop it. The temple, which the Islamic travelers identified as a mosque, had four porticoes and four entrances, and was completely covered in gold, so that it shone like a beacon. Encircling the complex was a large moat, reportedly a hundred cubits wide (150 feet), but only about two cubits deep (3 feet). Although everyone in the region apparently wanted to visit the peculiar mosque to see it up close, to pray in the building, or even to pillage its riches, Abū Hāmid knew of only one person who reportedly entered the temple.

As the story goes, the golden mosque near Khwārazm was protected by magic and enchantments. The moat, in particular, was where most of these otherworldly protections were allegedly found. According to Abū Hāmid, “The surface [of the moat] is covered with pondweed and it smells bad. No one dares enter the water, or dip in a hand or foot, since anything which touches the surface of that water disappears and vanishes, and no one can see where it goes”(Exposition of Some of the Wonders of the West, Penguin ed. pg. 90). Abū Hāmid went on to claim that Mahmūd of Ghazna (r. 998-1030) devoted great resources in an attempt to cross the moat. He allegedly had rowboats brought to the place, but as soon as the vessels were set on the water, they sank and disappeared below the pondweed. He similarly was said to have tried to build a causeway across the shallow moat with earth and rock, but no matter how much debris he poured into the water, the moat retained its consistent depth. Similarly, if a beast of burden fell into the water, it too would disappear—when the animal handlers hauled up their lead ropes from the moat, nothing was attached at the end of the line. In the end, Mahmūd of Gazna could not reach the mosque. All he could do was shoot arrows across the moat, which pinged enticingly against the building’s golden tiles.

According to Abū Hāmid, one man did reach and enter the enchanted mosque. The man was a peasant from Khwārazm whose name had been forgotten by the time Abū Hāmid wrote down the tale in the 12th century. This mysterious peasant was said to have appeared one day in the city market with a sizable bowl made of pure emerald. As the peasant was not a man of wealth, the local officials were immediately suspicious and interrogated him about the precious bowl. Under questioning, the peasant reportedly said he had gone out in search of treasure and—apparently without any effort—found a path up to a domed building. He entered the structure and found a tomb built for an unidentified man, who had been laid to rest in an emerald sarcophagus. Around the sarcophagus were vast riches and several emerald bowls. The peasant claimed that the bowl he possessed was the smallest of everything in the tomb, and that he left the rest behind because it was all too heavy to lift. According to the tale, the leader of Khwārazm was eager to loot the remaining wealth and had the peasant retrace his steps back toward the tomb. When they arrived, however, the temple and tomb had reportedly disappeared. As of today, archeologists have found nothing in the region that resembles Abū Hāmid’s enchanted mosque.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Image from page 170 of "Stories from the Arabian nights" (1911), [Public Domain] via Flickr and Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Exposition of Some of the Wonders of the West by Abū Hāmid, translated by Paul Lunde and Catoline Stone. New York, Penguin Classics, 2012. 
• https://www.britannica.com/place/Khwarezm  

The Lightning Curse Of The Volga Bulgars

An Abbasid diplomat named Ibn Fadlān traveled northward between the Caspian and Aral Seas to reach the Volga Bulgars around May 922. The diplomat found them living in yurts and tents at a seasonal market location along the Volga River. The khan of the Volga Bulgars was a recent convert to Islam, and thousands of his people converted with him. Yet, many of the Volga Bulgar people retained their original Tengri faith, and recent converts were slow to leave behind their traditional customs and superstitions.

One such superstition that Ibn Fadlān witnessed during his stay with the Volga Bulgars involved lighting. Like many cultures, the Volga Bulgars considered lightning to be an omen—in their case, a bad omen. If lightning struck one of their tents, the Volga Bulgars reportedly treated the spot as if it were infested with plague. The tent was abandoned, and all of the items that happened to have been inside the tent at the time of the strike were left behind. Even humans who survived such a strike were reportedly shunned and left behind. On this interesting tradition, Ibn Fadlān wrote:

“I have never seen more lightning than in their country. When it strikes a tent, they do not go near it again but leave it as it is, together with anything that is inside it—men, goods or other things—until time has destroyed them. They say that it is a tent upon which the wrath of God has fallen” (Ibn Fadlān, Risala, Penguin edition pg. 37)

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Volga River trade negotiations, painted by S. V. Ivanov  (1864–1910), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Risala by Ibn Fadlān, translated by Paul Lunde and Catoline Stone. New York, Penguin Classics, 2012.

An Admiral Of Constantinople Supposedly Was Told Of The Fall Of Syracuse By Demons

In 877 and 878, the Sicilian city of Syracuse was besieged for nine months by the Aghlabids, an Arab dynasty that ruled the lands known today as Tunisia and Algeria. When word of the siege traveled to Greece, Emperor Basil I of Constantinople (r. 867-886) dispatched a patrician named Adrian with a fleet to aid the Syracusans against the Arabs. Adrian, however, never reached Sicily—he anchored his fleet in the harbor of Hierax, near the city of Monebasia, on the southeast end of the Peloponnesus. While there, he procrastinated for months, supposedly waiting for a favorable wind. When Syracuse was finally seized and pillaged by the Aghlabids on May 21, 878, Adrian and his fleet were unfortunately still loitering in Greece.

In the account of this event written by the 11th-century historian, John Skylitzes, there was an interesting piece of folklore included in the text. According to the tale, some shepherds near Sparta had an odd encounter while tending to their flocks on May 22. It was a day after the fall of Syracuse, but they had no idea that the city had fallen, for the news had allegedly not yet reached Greece. While the shepherds were in the wilderness, they supposedly encountered a group of strange creatures, which they later identified as demons. The creatures apparently had a better communication system than the humans, for the shepherds heard the demons cackling about the downfall of Syracuse.

As the story goes, the shepherds told their friends about what they had seen and heard. The demon sighting and rumors about the demise of Syracuse quickly became the talk of the town, and the conversation eventually weeded its way into the camp of Adrian, who still had his fleet anchored in the Peloponnesus. When Adrian heard the rumors, he was distraught—after all, the emperor had tasked him with saving Syracuse from the Arab siege. He allegedly held a private interview with the shepherds to see if the rumors were true. When they corroborated the story, Adrian supposedly had the shepherds bring him to the spot where they had seen the demons. According to John Skylitzes’ peculiar account, the demons were still there when Adrian arrived and they confirmed that Syracuse had, indeed, fallen to the Arabs. The patrician allegedly kept his calm until three days later, when Peloponnesian Mardaites from the defeated garrison of Syracuse returned to Greece, spreading the story of the city’s grisly capture.

Now certain that his mission had ended with catastrophic failure, Adrian quickly sent his fleet home to Constantinople, but he personally fled to the sanctuary of a church. When Basil I heard of what happened, he had the disgraced patrician dragged out of the sanctuary and sent Adrian into exile.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (The demons of Helos inform the Byzantine admiral Adrianos of the fall of Syracuse to the Arabs, painted c. 13th century, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• John Skylitzes. A Synopsis of Byzantine History: 811-1057, translated by John Wortley. Original text c. 11^th or early 12^th century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aghlabid-dynasty  

The 10th-Century Warrior Emir Of Aleppo Who Plagued The Byzantine Empire

(Illustration of Sayf al-Dawla from a 13th century copy of the History of John Skylitzes (Skyllitzes Matritensis (Biblioteca Nacional de España), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Sayf al-Dawla (also known as Sa’if ad-Dualah, r. 944/945-967 CE) descended from the Hamdanid dynasty, which had a base of power in Al-Jazira and Syria. He managed to set himself up as Emir of Aleppo around 944 or 945 CE and quickly began making a name for himself through military skill and intellectual patronage. During his reign, Sayf spread his influence into Homs, Syria and Turkey.

Almost all of Sayf al-Dawla’s rule was marked by warfare. He sometimes fought against fellow Muslims, must notably with the Ikhshidid (or Ikhshidite) Mamluks of Egypt over lands in Syria, but his most persistent foe was the Byzantine Empire. Sayf al-Dawla and the forces of the Byzantine Empire traded continuous raids and skirmishes across each other’s borders for more than a decade.

In his many years of war, the Emir of Aleppo proved himself as a more-than-competent general. Of Sayf al-Dawla’s many successful conflicts against the Byzantine Empire, two in particular stand out. Around 953 CE, Sayf defeated a Byzantine army that was considerably larger than his own, and even severely injured the opposing general, Bardas Phokas the Elder, who would remain scarred for the rest of his life. Sayf al-Dawla’s three-week raid into the Byzantine Empire in 956 CE was another of his notable accomplishments and is still studied by military historians. In that raid, Sayf was able to embarrassingly outmaneuver and outfight opposing forces as he pillaged and plundered deep into imperial territory. Yet, Sayf al-Dawla’s luck ran out around 958 CE, when he was successfully ambushed by Byzantine troops—he survived the battle, but never regained his momentum. Four years later, the siege and sacking of his capital in Aleppo by a Byzantine army in 962 CE was an unmistakable sign that his fortune had taken a downturn.

Even though Sayf is best remembered as a military leader, he was also a patron of learning. All sorts of scholars and artists were invited to his court, among which were lofty intellectuals such as the philosopher, al-Fārābiī and the great poet, al-Mutanabbī. The Emir of Aleppo, however, did not only provide patronage to others, he also produced his own works—Sayf al-Dawla, himself, was known to be a competent poet. Yet, most of Sayf al-Dawla’s fame and admiration came from the hand of al-Mutanabbī, who presented Sayf as the pristine model of an Islamic nobleman in his poetic panegyrics.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

• John Haldon. The Byzantine Wars. Gloucestershire: The History Press. 2008.  
• John Skylitzes. A Synopsis of Byzantine History: 811-1057, translated by John Wortley. Original text c. 11^th or early 12^th century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sayf-al-Dawlah  
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hamdanid-dynasty 
• http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/ArabicAleppo.htm  
• http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100443950 
• https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/islamiccivilizations/8304.html 

The Groundbreaking Akkadian Priestess Enheduanna Is Mankind’s Oldest Known Author To Have Signed Her Work

She also may be the mother of hymns, poetry and verse, and likely influenced Homer and the authors of the holy texts of Abrahamic religions

(Calcite disc of Enheduanna discovered by Sir Leonard Wooley in 1927 depicting Enheduanna and her attendants, photographed by Mefman00 and cropped, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Enheduanna was born in Akkad (thought to be within modern Iraq), the capital city of the Akkadian Empire, which may be the world’s first multi-ethnic empire. While dating the lives of people from earth’s most ancient civilizations is often unreliable, the scholars seem to be comfortable placing Enheduanna’s life between 2285 and 2250 BCE. Enheduanna was an incredibly bright princess, was the daughter of the empire’s equally brilliant king, Sargon I of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE), also known as Sargon the Great.

Sargon the Great recognized the competence and wisdom in his daughter, and decided to use Enheduanna to his own advantage. The king promoted her to be the high priestess at the temples of Uruk and Ur. Her position as high priestess of the moon god, Nanna (also known as Sin or Suen), in the city of Ur, was by far the highest religious office of her day. As high priestess, Enheduanna ruled effectively, cultivating support for her father and tying the Akkadian and Sumerian religions and cultures together. She also survived a period of exile, when a rebel forcibly removed her from her priesthood. Her nephew, to the priestess' relief, quickly crushed the rebellion and restored her to power. Enheduanna did not, however, spend her more than forty years as high priestess solely administrating—she managed to find time to write.

From what archeologists have discovered, Enheduanna wrote poems, hymns and prayers. Her writings are the oldest so far discovered to have been signed and claimed by a specific author. Enheduanna, as far as we know, also was the first person in history to use the first-person style of writing, describing her hopes, wishes and emotions from her own point of view in her poems and prayers. Though Enheduanna was a priestess of the moon god, Nanna, most of her works are devoted to Inanna, a Mesopotamian goddess of love that later cultures would compare to Ishtar and Aphrodite. Many of the priestess’ hymns have been recovered and translated including  “The Exhaltation of Inanna” (Nin-me-sara), “Inanna and Ebih” (In-nin me-hus-a) and “Lady of the Great Heart,” also known as Hymn to Inanna.

Enheduanna has much more of a legacy than being the oldest known author to claim her work with a signature. The relationship between herself, and her father, King Sargon the Great, began a precedent of royal princesses being placed as high priestesses in Mesopotamia. More importantly, Enheduanna’s hymns became widely used to train Mesopotamian scribes in proper, and beautiful, writing. Her hymns and poems, however, did not only influence Mesopotamia. Many think that Enheduanna’s work served as a major stylistic and structural inspiration for other literary behemoths such as Homer in Greece and the early biblical writers who wrote the oldest texts at the core of the Abrahamic religions. 

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Sources: 

• http://www.ancient.eu/Enheduanna/ 
• https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Enheduanna 
• http://www.ancient.eu/akkad/