The Symbolical and Mystical Meanings in ' c Abdullah of the Sea and c

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1 This artile was downloaded by: [El-Zein, Amira] On: 2 Deember 2009 Aess details: Aess Details: [subsription number ] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered offie: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations Publiation details, inluding instrutions for authors and subsription information: The Symbolial and Mystial Meanings in ' Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land' (The Arabian Nights) Amira El-Zein a a Georgetown University Shool of Foreign Servie in Qatar, To ite this Artile El-Zein, Amira'The Symbolial and Mystial Meanings in ' Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land' (The Arabian Nights)', Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 19: 4, To link to this Artile: DOI: / URL: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and onditions of use: This artile may be used for researh, teahing and private study purposes. Any substantial or systemati reprodution, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-liensing, systemati supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the ontents will be omplete or aurate or up to date. The auray of any instrutions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary soures. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, ations, laims, proeedings, demand or osts or damages whatsoever or howsoever aused arising diretly or indiretly in onnetion with or arising out of the use of this material.

2 Islam and Christian Muslim Relations, Vol. 19, No. 4, , Otober 2008 The Symbolial and Mystial Meanings in Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land (The Arabian Nights) AMIRA EL-ZEIN Georgetown University Shool of Foreign Servie in Qatar ABSTRACT This artile argues that the tale (#163, Nights )) from The Arabian Nights, entitled Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land enapsulates highly spiritual and symbolial meanings that appear different on land and on sea. It is divided in three parts. The first takles the view of a simple and lear Islam represented by a fisherman named Abdullah. Part two deals with a more hermeti Islam embodied by a merman who bears the same name. Part three analyses the omplex symbols enoded in the three even numbers, namely, two, four, and 40. The tale as a whole illustrates the differene between exoteri Islam (the Land), haraterized by simpliity and larity, and Sufi Islam, distintive for its depth and its mystery (the Sea). This paper argues that the tale (#163, Nights ) from The Arabian Nights, entitled Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land enapsulates highly spiritual and symbolial meanings. While the Arabian Nights are generally known to be amusing tales with narrative strategies and tatis, this partiular tale fouses on omplex Islami notions through a rather unompliated stream of storytelling. The tale is very original in the sense that the mystial and symbolial onnotations are deployed over two different spaes: the Land and the Sea. In eah domain, the pursuit of meaning manifests itself in a different way. It is as if the spirit of plae imbues eah group of people with a different quest and a different pereption of the Divine. The people of the Land seem to have a straightforward and undemanding understanding of Islam. Their reading of the sared is onrete, lear, and almost naïve. This is what is alled in this artile popular Islam, whih follows the Qur an and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad without interpreting them. Popular Islam is, generally speaking, observed by the uneduated, the simple-minded, and the poor, who are oupied with the searh for their daily bread, like the fisherman Abdullah. Their knowledge of Islam is Correspondene Address: Amira El-Zein, Georgetown University Shool of Foreign Servie in Qatar, LAS Building, Eduation City, Doha, Qatar; aez3@georgetown.edu Print/ Online/08/ # 2008 University of Birmingham DOI: /

3 398 A. El-Zein limited to a few tenets of the religion. Those who observe the religion in this way do not possess the tools to deepen their faith, or revisit onepts. They are ontent with performing their prayers and obeying the laws of the Shari a. In ontrast, the Sea people seem to live out an Islam that is hermeti, onealed, dense, profound, and highly mystial. Mermen appear as mysterious as the deep abyss from whih they emerge. They ommuniate with their fellow Muslims of the Land in an enigmati language that mirrors their entrenhed beliefs. Although they seem to arry out the same rituals and utter the same prayers as their fellow Muslims of the Land, they are almost at the opposite end of the religious spetrum. The first part of this artile deals with the vision of the Land aording to the fisherman. This part deodes first the signifiane of the name Abdullah ; seond, the Islami reliane on God; and third, the Islami ovenant embodied in al-fātiḣa, the opening hapter of the Qur an. The seond part explores the mystial and symbolial signifiane from the perspetive of the merman, who represents the dense and the unfathomable. This part first examines the relationship between the merman and the fisherman; seond, disusses the figure of the Prophet Muhammad as interessor; and finally analyses the question of death. The third part exposes the seret of three numbers that are signifiant to the understanding of this tale, namely, two, four, and 40. Unveiling the meaning of these even numbers will illuminate the sense of the tale as a whole. The methodology used for interpreting this tale is neither historial nor deonstrutive, but rather emblematial, as well as based on a lose reading or textual analysis of the narrative. Summary of the Tale The tale revolves around a destitute fisherman named Abdullah who has a wife and ten hildren. He goes to the sea everyday to fish, and always returns empty-handed. His family is starving. One day, on his way home, the baker gives him bread and money. He ontinues to do so for 40 days without asking to be paid. On the 40th day, the fisherman athes a merman whose name is also Abdullah. The merman is freed after he and the fisherman read the opening hapter of the Qur an. Following this agreement, the fisherman brings the merman fruit every day and, in return, the merman fethes for him jewels from the sea. One day, the jewels of the king s daughter are stolen, and the fisherman is aused of appropriating them. After an inquiry, the king disovers that the fisherman is innoent. He rewards him, and marries him to his daughter. Despite his new wealth as son-in-law of the king, the fisherman ontinues to go daily to the sea to bring fruit to the merman who, in exhange, persists in supplying him with jewels from the sea. One day, the merman takes the fisherman with him down into the deep waters. They meet people daning and hanting. The merman explains to the fisherman that they are elebrating the death of a merman. The fisherman is bewildered and shoked when he hears of these strange ustoms. The two Abdullahs then disuss the themes of death, the return to God, and the visit to the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad. In the end, the two Abdullahs disover that they hold very different views on religious issues. The merman is revolted by the naivety of his friend from the Land and by what he onsiders

4 Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land 399 to be his lak of reverene for the Prophet Muhammad. The story ends with the merman leaving his friend forever, despite the daily alls of his friend from the Land. I. The Perspetive from the Land 1. The Spiritual Name This story is built around the highly symboli meaning of the name Abdullah. In most traditions aross the world, the name arries an exeedingly symbolial meaning, and is pereived as the perfet expression of the person. To name someone or something is to bring him, her, or it into existene. In anient Egyptian religion, it was believed that the reator god Ptah reated the world by uttering the name of every thing. In Islam, God says in the Qur an: When he derees a thing, He but says to it, Be, and it is (Q 19.35). Upon meeting the fisherman, the merman asks him: But thou, what is thy name? He replied, My name is Abdullah of the Sea; and if thou ome hither and see me not, all out and say, Where art thou, O Abdullah, O Merman? and I will be with thee forthwith (Burton, 1885, p. 177). Not only does this sea-being dislose his name to the fisherman, but he also invites him to all it aloud, to reite it to the whole reation, and to speify that it is the name of a merman, as if he is highlighting to whoever hears it that the reatures of the sea follow Islam as well. The merman in turn asks the fisherman his name, and he replies, My name is also Abdullah; and quoth the other, Thou art Abdullah of the Land and I am Abdullah of the Sea; but tarry here till I go and feth thee a present (ibid.). Thus, in the sea, as on land, there are Abdullahs, or ibād allāh. Abdullah is not a proper name in Islam. In fat, there are no proper names in Arabi, sine every Arabi name arries a meaning whih refers to more than the person who bears it; it alludes also to the abstrat onept that is embedded in the name. In the Qur an, the word abd ours several times in the sense of servant and worshiper, as in Q 3.186: And if my servants ask thee about me behold, I am near, I respond to the all of him who alls, whenever he alls unto me. 1 The title of this story already points to the existene of two Abdullahs. But in fat, we have four Abdullahs. The king inquires about the name of the baker whom the fisherman has visited: Quoth the king, What is his name? and quoth the fisherman His name is Abdullah the Baker, and my name is Abdullah of the Land and that of my friend the Merman Abdullah of the Sea. Rejoined the king, My name is also Abdullah; and the servants of Allah are all brethren (ibid., p. 185). By indiating that his name is also Abdullah, the king, who is often pereived in fairy tales as the higher onsiousness, stresses that he too is the servant of God, despite his high position. Interestingly, the four Abdullahs are united in serving eah other. The baker Abdullah helps the fisherman by giving him bread every day without asking for money. Then the merman Abdullah assists the fisherman Abdullah by giving him jewels, whih he sells at the market to buy food for his family. Abdullah the king in turn lends a hand to both the baker and the fisherman by marrying the latter to his daughter, and bringing the former to his palae, and making him his vizier. This symbolial interpretation is found extensively in Sufism, whih delves at length into the meaning of the name Abdullah. To be the abd (servant) of God, implies reognition of His infinite power. From a Muslim point of view, there is no possibility of rossing the borders that separate humanity from Divinity. Ibn Arabī (d. 1240

5 400 A. El-Zein CE), the great Sufi of Islam, wrote the following on the meaning of abd in his Futūḣāt (Revelations): The abd (servant) has no limit set for ibādāt (worship) that he might ross the limit and develop into rabb (God). The abd will remain abd whatever progress he might make. For the work of a real abd is to feel God within. The outome of it is effaement in the essene of God. (Ibn Arabī, n.d., p. 179) In this ontext, it is highly signifiant to note that Abdullah is also one of the names of the Prophet Muhammad. It is known in Islam that the Prophet gave himself many names, inluding Ahmad, al-mustafa, al-mutawakkil, and Abdullah among others. As we shall see later in this artile, the whole tale is permeated with the spiritual presene of Muhammad. The importane of the name is not exlusive to Islam; it oupies a speial plae in fairy tales in general. There is an interesting story in Grimm s Fairy Tales (1812) entitled Rumpelstiltskin, in whih the queen is bound to give her first-born hild to the manikin who saved her life. The only way for her to esape this destiny is to disover the name of the manikin, and thus, destroy his magi powers. She sueeds in doing so, thus having power over him, and the spell ast by the manikin is broken. Moreover the pronuniation of his name auses the manikin to die: And when soon afterwards the little man ame in, and asked: Now, Mistress Queen, what is my name? At first she said, Is your name Conrad? No. Is your name Harry? No. Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin? The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that! ried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in; and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two. (Bottingheimer, 1986, p. 94) 2. Trust in God Tawwakul, or trust in God, is the bakbone of Islami faith and is often referred to in the Qur an. In Q 3.14, we read: Therefore in God let the believers put all their trust. The Qur an states in many plaes that true believers put their trust in Him and do not fear anything. Tawakkul is oneived of in Islam as total reliane on God; it is the strong belief that God is wathing, and will ome to resue. Is not one of his Names the Provider? The fisherman s wife marvellously exemplifies this reliane on God. She relentlessly and onfidently reminds her husband to keep his faith in God alive by repeating this almost ritual phrase, Put thy trust in Allah (Burton, 1885, p. 171). Her immense belief in the Divine Power grants her the ertitude that misery will be over soon. There is no anxiety or despair in her. She is totally serene and has definitely reahed the degree of what is alled in Islam the self in peae, al-nafs al-mutma inna. Clearly and almly she identifies that trust in God also means that nothing ever remains the same. In other terms, she pereives the forthoming transformation. When the fisherman despairs and angrily asks his wife: And when is the good luk oming that we hope for?, she answers: Allah is bountiful; good will presently betide thee (ibid., p. 177). When he is

6 Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land 401 ashamed for not repaying the baker, she says to him: If he press thee, say to him: Wait till there ome the good luk for whih we hope, thou and I (ibid. p. 179). In this last response to her husband, she indiates that it is not only her family who will reeive the bounties of God, but also the baker. She almost knows that the baker will be rewarded for his good deeds toward them. She has faith that every good ation will be reompensed. 3. The Covenant Upon their first enounter, the two Abdullahs, of the Sea and of the Land, seal their friendship through a religious ovenant. They read together the opening hapter of the Qur an, and deide to exhange the fruit of the land for the jewels of the deep sea. It is unthinkable that either of them will break their ovenant beause it is sealed with the words of God. When the fisherman beomes the son-in-law of the king, he does not need to go to the sea every day and bring fruit to the merman in exhange for jewels; and yet he ontinues to do so beause he had reited the Fātiḣa with the merman. Next morning the King looked out of the lattie and saw Abdullah arrying on his head a fish-rate full of fruit. So he alled to him, What has thou there, O my son-inlaw, and wither wendest thou? The fisherman replied, To my friend Abdullah the Merman; and the king said, O my son-in-law, this is no time to go to thy omrade. Quoth Abdullah, Indeed, I fear to break tryst with him, lest he rekon me a liar and say, The things of the world have diverted thee from me, and quoth the king, Thou speakest sooth; go to thy friend and God help thee! (ibid., p. 175) Why do the two Abdullahs make their mutual agreement through the Fātiḣa? The Fātiḣa is the first hapter of the Qur an, though the first sūra to be revealed was sūra 96, alled Iqra, Read! To reite the Fātiḣa in Islam is in fat to reite in a ondensed form all the fundamental priniples laid down in the Qur an. The Fātiḣa is the hapter whih is reited in eah standing station of the prayer. Having only twelve verses, the Fātiḣa is the minimum portion of the Qur an that every Muslim must memorize in Arabi. Apart from its entral plae in the ritual, it is frequently reited as part of a du ā (invoation) or individual and spontaneous prayer. There are several names given to the Fātiḣa in Islam, other than the opening of the divine book. It is also alled sūrat al-ḣamd (hapter of the praise); or asās al-qur ān (the foundation of the Qur an). The Prophet Muhammad used to all it umm al-kutub (the essene of all books). Another name given to it is al-sab a al-muthannī (the seven oft-repeated verses) beause it is repeated several times in the ourse of eah of the five daily prayers. The reiting of the Fātiḣa is essential in Islam. If a person at prayer does not reite the Fātiḣa, he or she has simply not performed the prayer. The two Abdullahs reiting together the opening hapter of the Qur an undersore that they belong to the same set of beliefs and reeds, and follow the same rituals. Although they live in different zones, they are bound to eah other by the sared words of the Book. In addition to the Fātiḣa, the fisherman, despite his unsophistiated beliefs knows that this life is transient and, as he puts it to the king, he does not want his friend the merman to assume if he does not appear as promised that, The things of the world have diverted thee from me. In this instane, popular Islam although less elaborate than Sufism, remains sinere and authenti to the spirit of Islam.

7 402 A. El-Zein II. The Perspetive from the Sea 1. Mermen and Humans The first merman to appear in history is the Babylonian god Ea, the tailed fish, lord of the waters. One of Ea s titles was the great fish of the oean. 2 In Greek mythology, we find another merman, Triton, the son of Poseidon, who from the top of his head, says Apollonius, and about his bak and waist as far as the belly, was wondrous like the blessed gods in form; but below the loins strethed the tail of a sea-monster (1889, Bk IV, ll ). Many Native Amerian and Indian texts reount beautiful stories of love and marriage between humans and mermen, or between humans and mermaids. 3 One is also reminded of Vishnu, the preserver, seond god of the Hindu Trinity, who is often represented in human form from the waist up, while the rest of his body is that of a fish. The sea s urious reatures are also overwhelmingly present in Ielandi legends. Mermen and mermaids are often evil. Their passion is destrutive; they ensnare humans, and provoke their death. They are generally onsidered aliens who share little with humans. 4 In Ielandi folklore, it is said that when humans go down to the sea, their bodies, little by little, are overed with sales and ome to resemble the mermen from the waist down; they beome half fish, half men. This tale does not in the least present a frightening view of the merman as alien. He is unlike the terrifying beings that appear in the seven tales of Sindbad the sailor, who are aggressive, suspiious, and often dangerous. Despite the ultimate separation of the merman and the fisherman toward the end of the tale, the merman appears throughout as a kind, ompassionate, and loving person. His presene perfetly illustrates the Islami belief that all speies, inluding insets, birds, and even inanimate things, suh as mountains, trees, and rivers, innately praise God, eah in its own language and manner. 5 Islam seems to undersore that the Word of God permeates everything in the universe, indiating that it is perfetly normal from the Islami perspetive to find a Muslim merman who not only follows the rituals of Islam, but is also onversant with matters of theology. He wins the onfidene of the fisherman after he announes to his friend that he is Muslim. The fisherman approahes him onfidently, and frees him from the net after having aught him. 6 Instead of making the merman different from humans, the tale, on the ontrary, at least in its beginning, plays on the resemblanes between the two Abdullahs through their belonging to Islam. 7 Whatever the exat nature of this being, it is noteworthy that the merman emphasizes his strong faith in the tenets of Islam: We are people who obey Allah s ommandments and show loving-kindness unto the reatures of the Almighty (Burton, 1885, p. 170). 2. The Prophet Muhammad Toward the end of this tale, the theologial disussion between the merman and his friend from the Land revolves around the visit to the Prophet s tomb and the issue of death. 8 As for the first one, the merman gives his friend from the Land a gift and begs him to plae it on the Prophet s tomb. However, when he asks the fisherman if he has ever visited the tomb, the latter apologizes, and explains that he had not been able to perform this pilgrimage beause he was extremely poor. The merman is taken abak and dismisses his friend s plea. For him, a Muslim should arry out this religious duty, no matter how straitened his irumstanes. It is this final onversation that loses

8 Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land 403 forever the dialogue between the two. The merman appears exeedingly intransigent and obstinate. He dives bak into the mysterious sea leaving behind a perplexed and offended Abdullah of the Land. The disussion between the merman and the fisherman alls attention to a ruial religious topi in Islam, namely, the interession of the Prophet Muhammad for individuals on the Day of Judgment. The Qur an makes it lear in several plaes that no one is allowed to interede exept by Divine permission as in: Who is there that shall interede with Him save by His leave? (Q 3.255). 9 In the Hadith, however, we read on one hand that, He who will visit my tomb, I will interede for him on the Day of Judgment (ited in Haythamī, 2006, p. 36). while, on the other, we find that the Prophet himself warned Muslims against onserating his tomb, saying, Don t regard my tomb as holy, and don t regard your houses as tombs. Pray on me wherever you are for your prayer reahes me (ibid., p. 41). Despite these sayings attributed to the Prophet, it should be noted that orthodox Islam in general rather delines the idea of interession, and undersores the notion that nothing interedes for humans exept their ations in this life. Orthodox Muslims usually refer to the following verse from the Qur an, where the simple and human figure of Muhammad is highlighted: Say [O prophet] it is not within my power to bring benefit to, or avert harm from, myself, exept as God may please. And if I knew that whih is beyond the reah of human pereption, abundant good fortune would surely have fallen to my lot, and no evil would ever have touhed me. I am nothing but a warner, and a herald of glad tidings unto people who will believe. (Q 7.188) In ontrast to Christianity, Islam rejets the onept of mediation between human beings and God, as the Frenh Arabist, Louis Massignon (d CE) explains: If Christianity is fundamentally the aeptane and imitation of Christ before the aeptane of the Bible, Islam on the ontrary is the aeptane of the Qur an before the imitation of Muhammad, as the Prophet himself expliitly delared. He insistently taught the verses emphasizing the strit dependene (and inferiority) of his person in relation to his mandate. (Massignon, 1997, pp , translated by Benjamin Clark) Fundamentalist sets suh as Wahhabism, whih may be onsidered extreme, rather shun visiting the Prophet s tomb, and even ondemn it. When the Wahhabis took power in Medina (in 1931), they not only banned visits to the Prophet s tomb, but even destroyed many of the graves of the Prophet s Companions and the aliphs, as well as all the tombs of the Prophet s family, under the pretext that people would worship them. Until the present time, the Wahhabis strongly believe that visiting the tombs and the holy plaes of the prophets, imams, and saints is a kind of idolatry, and utterly against tawḣid, the Oneness of God. They onsider that these plaes are a temptation to shirk, assoiating saints and holy men with God. Wahhabi soldiers guard the green fene that surrounds the Prophet s tomb, thus preventing pilgrims from touhing it. They even forbid visitors from approahing Muhammad s pulpit.

9 404 A. El-Zein The rest of the Islami world, however, looks upon these plaes with deep veneration, and has strongly deplored the Wahhabi fundamentalist approah, whih even forbids the elebration of the birth (mawlid) of the Prophet. Muslims throughout the world ontinue today to express their belief in the interession of the Prophet, who, they believe, will grant them healing and blessings, and interede for them on the Day of Judgment. We may reall in this ontext the long poem written by the Imam Sharafuddin Muhammad Al-Busiri (d CE) more than 700 years ago, entitled Al-kawākib al-durriyya fī madḣ khayr al-barriyya (The resplendent stars that praise the Best of Creation), whih beame known as Qaṡīdat al-burda. It is believed that the poet omposed it after he dreamt that the Prophet had wrapped his mantle (burda) around him as he slept. Al-Busiri was then suffering from paralysis and had prayed to God for reovery before going to sleep. When he awoke, he was ompletely healed, so he wrote the 160 verses in gratitude to the Prophet. The whole poem revolves around the Prophet s real interession in his life Death Under water, the fisherman sees people elebrating the death of one of their friends by daning, hanting and expressing their joy. Abdullah of the Land is stunned, and the following dialogue ours between him and the merman: Asked the fisherman, Then do ye, when one dieth among you, rejoie for him and sing and feast? And the merman answered, Yes: and ye of the land, what do ye? Quoth Abdullah of the Land, When one dies among us, we weep and keen for him and the women beat their faes and rend the bosoms of their raiment, in token of mourning for the dead. (Burton, 1885, p. 187) Subsequently, the merman took bak the deposit from the fisherman (we do not know the nature of this deposit) and broke the agreement between them, to the astonishment of the fisherman. Then the merman justifies his attitude: Are ye not, O folk of the Land, a deposit of Allah? Yes. Why then, asked the merman, is it grievous to you that Allah should take bak his deposit and wherefore weep ye over it? (ibid). In several verses of the Qur an, one finds mention of death as return to God (e.g. Q 10.56; 29.57). The mystis of Islam, like mystis in other religions, elebrated death as a joy rather than suffering, as a reunion with the Creator rather than a separation from the pleasures of life. Abū Ḣāmid al-ghazālī, the prominent theologian of medieval Islam (d CE) tells many stories on how Sufis elebrated death with joy, for example: Then the angel of death enountered a faithful servant. He saluted him and said to him, I am the angel of death. The other replied, Welome my friend. No absene was more intolerable to my heart than yours. The angel of death said to him, What is your dearest desire. I an help you aomplish it before you die. The other replied, No desire is greater to my heart than the desire of enountering my Lord and returning bak to Him. (Ghazālī, n.d., p. 667) The huge gap that seems to separate the merman and the fisherman with regard to Muhammad s interession and the issue of death has its equivalent in fairy tales and

10 Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land 405 folktales aross traditions. Many stories in Grimm s Fairy Tales, for example, tell of this diffiulty in ommuniation and understanding between humans and supernatural beings, be they mermen, fairies, or dwarves. Gnomes, elves and manikins often offer their help to human beings, who do not get the message quikly enough or do not get it at all. 11 They attempt to give them another version of Reality, but they remain aloof and deaf. Rudolf Meyer, the sholar of fairy tales, in a hapter entitled Helpful beings delves into this role played by alien beings in fairy tales: But most often, the fairy-tales tell of the helpful power of the elementals. The dwarves, who searh in the hills for ore, and the gnomes ative in the realm of roots and rystal, have little diffiulty finding a onnetion with the seeking human soul. They bear a lear intelligene, whih penetrates nature s laws without strained thinking, and regard the human being as a thikhead. So they strive to enlighten man and remind us to be aware and awake. Through listening to the hidden fores ative around us and partiipating with love in the world, the higher organs of the soul are awakened. But often intelletual pride hinders the soul from following the advie of the gnomes. (Meyer, 1988, p. 41) What distinguishes this tale from The Arabian Nights, however, is its deep onern with speifi religious questions, namely death and the visit to Muhammad s tomb. It is evident that the sribe or sribes who set down this tale were anxious to transmit a message on death as a return to God. III. Deiphering the Numbers Rereading Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land, one disovers that mystial quest and symbolism are in fat ombined in the text through numbers. The whole tale is orhestrated around the numbers: two, four, and 40. Numbers are, aross traditions, not only mathematial figures, but also bearers of saredness. Indeed, in the sared books of humanity, numerology is used to denote spiritual serets. Is not the number seven, for example, propitious in most ultures? In the Jewish, Christian, and Islami ultural sphere, the interest in numbers and their peuliarities rests essentially on fundamentals laid down by Pythagoras, whose fous was on the idea of order whether, musial, mathematial, osmi, ethial or soial. 1. Two At first, we are tempted to think that two is opening into three with the baker, then into four with the king, who is also alled Abdullah, and we think that quaternity will overome. But two is the number that seems to prevail, signaling opposition between the merman and the fisherman, rather than symmetry and harmony. After a rather violent disussion on death as a return to God, the merman vanishes forever. Abdullah the fisherman tries to find him, but in vain: Nevertheless, he ontinued for some time to go down to the shore and all upon Abdullah of the Sea, but he answered him not nor ame to him; so at last he gave up all hope of him (Burton, 1885, p. 188). One possible psyhologial reading of this tale is that Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land might be one and the same person: the two Abdullahs

11 406 A. El-Zein represent two opposite faets of the self. The rupture between them is an indiation that the person was inapable of resolving the risis. But this interpretation would b every simplisti. Abdullah of the Land applies Islam without questioning its onepts or revising its reeds, while Abdullah of the Sea interprets it. The fisherman is a good believer, but one who stays at the surfae of things, while the merman dives deeply into the serets of religion. Abdullah the merman, in the unfathomable Sea, is in relusion, so to speak, from the fisherman s world, that of the Land. It is interesting that this story is one of the rare stories in The Arabian Nights in whih a hero does not hange at all. Even after getting to know Abdullah of the Land, the merman returns to his soiety in the deep sea unhanged and more persistent than ever in his beliefs. He hanges the fisherman s life, while he remains the same throughout. This tale is peuliar, and seems to ontradit the fairy tale pattern in whih the end usually opposes the beginning, as Ruth Bottingheimer laims: Inversion of harater traits is a ommon ourrene in fairy tales. A reversal of the onditions prevailing at the start is, after all, manifestly the goal of every tale. The folktale in general, as Max Luthi has observed, has a liking for all extremes, extreme ontrasts in partiular. (1986, p. 107) 2. Four The four Abdullahs in the tale are ehoes of a great many quarternitarian motifs in mythology and religion, suh as the four evangelists, the four sons of Horus, the four winds, the four seasons, the four points of the ompass, et. 12 The Ikhwān al-ṡafā (Brotherhood of Purity) in Medieval Islam (tenth entury CE) offered a view on the number four whih reinfored the Pythagorean view of quaternity: God himself had made it suh that the majority of things of nature are grouped in fours, suh as the four physial natures whih are hot, old, dry and moist, the four humors whih are blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and blak bile, the four diretions envisaged by their relations to the onstellations, the four produts whih are the metals, plants, animals and human beings. (Ikhwān al-ṡafā, 1928, p. 27) The four Abdullahs immersed themselves in the Qur an and based their friendships on the love of God. All four mirror the idea of folktales as highly spiritual texts, and traditional vehiles of man s profoundest metaphysial insights. Unfortunately, the wholeness that number four represents falls apart at the end of the tale, and only the opposition of the two Abdullahs triumphs, thus onserating the polarity of the two kinds of Islam in the tale; popular or simplisti Islam and mystial, hermeti or Sufi Islam. 3. Forty The fisherman suffers for 40 days before his misery is over, and before he enounters the merman who will hange his life forever. These 40 days are days of trial, starvation, and despair. This is also a period of endurane, during whih the fisherman, aided by his wife,

12 Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land 407 matures and grows spiritually. Aross many traditions, the number 40 seems to refer to an extraordinary experiene : The importane of forty days probably arises from the Babylonian forty days, disappearane of the Pleiades, a period of storms, floods and angers. The return of Pleiades was a time of rejoiing, and a bundle of forty reeds were burned for forty days of evil power. The Roman quarantine kept ships isolated for forty days. Forty days of Lent, from Christ s forty days in the wilderness; days of the resurretion, from Easter to asension. (Cooper, 1990, p. 120) In Islam, Muhammad reeived Revelation from the angel Gabriel at the age of 40. In Sufism, the word abdāl (substitutes) also seems usually to be onneted with the number 40. However, it appears to have assumed this high spiritual meaning only gradually. In a number of early Sufi texts, the abdāl are often linked with the asetis. Later, the word ame to signify a saint who, after his death, would be substituted or replaed (badal) by another person. Sufi texts speak of the ontinuous presene of 40 abdāl in the world. It is believed that when one of them dies, God replaes him with another. Conlusion Many sholars of The Arabian Nights seem to think that this tale was written and rewritten in Mamluk Egypt, most probably in the twelfth to thirteenth enturies CE, whih orresponds with the zenith of Sufism in that ountry and elsewhere in the medieval Muslim empire (see espeially, Miquel, 1981, pp ). One might assume that the sribe, or rather sribes, who worked on it were somehow imbued with Sufi ideas. Sufism is mirrored in the disussions about death and about visiting the tomb of the Prophet, as we have seen earlier. But it is also refleted in the merman s last at of plunging in the sea. The merman s return to the deep means his retreat from the world (the Land), while the Sea at the same time represents his own self, as the Hadith points out: He who knows himself knows his Lord. 13 Moreover, Muslim osmology divides the world into seen and unseen and the Qur an states: With Him are the keys of the Unseen. No one knows them save He (Q 6.59). In the ontext of this tale, one ould pereive the Land as being the geography of the visible and the Sea as the realm of the invisible, where ommuniation with the Divine flows and is more subtle. It is in this sense that one should also understand the fat that Abdullah of the Land ontinues to all the merman for days, but Abdullah of the Sea pays him no heed. He ultimately veiled himself from the Land, or the visible world. Furthermore, one ould look at the break betwen the two Abdullahs towards the end of the tale as that whih separates tafsīr from ta wīl in Islam. While Abdullah of the Land sees things as they appear to him and believes in what he has been taught, Abdullah of the Sea is an ative interpreter. He belongs to those who aknowledge that the at of interpreting is endless as long as there are people apable of unovering the meanings. In this ontext, the Sea is, metaphorially and mystially speaking, the unfathomable, the Infinite divine wisdom, the truth. The metaphor of the Sea or the Oean ours often in Sufi texts. Thus, the great Sufi, Abū Ḣāmid al-ghazālī (d CE) ompared the Qur an to a sea. In his Jawāhir al-qur ān (n.d.), al-ghazālī plays on the metaphor of the sea, its depths, and its shores to explain the differene between tafsīr and ta wīl

13 408 A. El-Zein and to onvey the wealth of the Holy Book. His words perfetly reflet the divide that separates the merman and the fisherman: I will rouse you from your sleep, you who have given yourself up to reitation, who have taken the study of the Qur an as a pratie, who have seized upon some of its outward meanings and sentenes. How long will you wander about the shore of the sea with your eyes losed to its wonders? Was it not for you to sail through its depths in order to see its amazing things, to travel to its islands to pik its deliaies, to dive to its bottom and beone rih from obtaining its jewels? Don t you despise yourself for losing out on its pearls and jewels as you ontinue to look only to its shores and exoteri aspets? (ited in Sands, 2006, p. 7) If al-ghazālī ompared the Qur an to a sea, other Sufis, suh as Muḣiyy al-dīn ibn Arabī (d CE), referred to the sea as the perfet symbol for waḣdat al-wujūd, unity of existene. Waḣdat al-wujūd maintains that everything that exists is an aspet of the Divine Reality. In this approah, God is seen as Absolute Beauty and Divine Reality. Earthly beauty and reality is only a refletion of His Beauty and Reality. The sālik, traveler, embarks on a long and diffiult journey. He goes through numerous trials, and enounters enormous hardships before attaining his desired goal of the ripping aside the veils, and union with the Beloved. Obviously, one annot ask Abdullah of the Land to undertake suh a journey. He is neither trained nor knowledgeable enough to reah the goal set for him by his friend the merman. It is from this vantage point that we might interpret the insistene of the merman to take his friend from the Land on a trip underwater. He ould have simply brought the amāna, deposit, to the surfae, sine he was in any ase oming up every day to meet with his friend. But he wants to take him in this journey downwards where everything is different from the Land. The simple Adullah of the Land fails in every sense. His disappointed friend brings him bak to the surfae after he realizes that it is futile to teah his friend. We have already seen that the merman is a very original harater in The Nights in the sense that almost all haraters evolve in the flow of the narrative, while he does not. But why should the merman hange? After all, his Sufi beliefs belong to the perennial perspetive and he is faithful to them. It is rather the fisherman who should have hanged after his trip down into the deep. Finally, it should be noted that this elaborate tale invites us to look at The Arabian Nights from a new perspetive that of the mystial quest. Sholars of The Nights usually fous on the storytelling inventiveness, negleting their profound mystiism. There are numerous mystial tales in The Nights, whose interpretation would lead to a deeper understanding of popular Islam and its relation to Sufi Islam in medieval times. These mystial tales ould unveil a totally hidden fae of The Nights, this inredibly wealthy text. Notes 1. See also Q 15.49): Tell my servants that I I alone Am truly Forgiving, a true Dispenser of Grae, and Q 29.56: O you servants of Mine who have attained to faith! Behold, wide is Mine earth: Worship Me, Me alone. 2. For more information on the god Ea, see Spener, On this issue, see espeially the story entitled The woman who married a merman (Yolen and Oppenheim, 2001, p. 129).

14 Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land See espeially in this ontext Bendell, See, for example, Q 22.18: Has thou not see how to God bow all who are in the heavens, and all who are in the earth, the sun and the moon, the stars and the mountains, the trees and the beasts, and many of mankind? 6. Another interesting story in The Arabian Nights is Julnar the Sea-Born, whih is the story of a mermaid married to the king Shariman who learns from her about people living underwater (Haddawi, vol. 1, pp ). 7. When he heard these words, the fisherman took heart and said, oming up to him, Art thou not an ifrīt of the jinn? And replied the other, No, I am a mortal and a believer in Allah and His Apostle (Burton, 1885, pp ). 8. The merman rejoined, I grant thee leave, on ondition that when thou shalt stand by his sepulher, thou salute him for me with the Salam. Furthermore, I have a trust to give thee; so ome thou with me into the sea, that I may arry thee to my ity and entertain thee in my house and give thee a deposit; whih when thou takest thy station by the Prophet s tomb, do thou lay there on saying, O Apostle of Allah, Abdullah the Merman saluteth thee and sendeth thee this present, imploring thine interession to save him from the Fire. (Burton, 1885, p. 178). 9. See also the following verses, whih stress the same notion: Q 4.85; 7.53; 21.28; 6.51; See in this ontext Annemarie Shimmel s beautiful and fasinating book, And Muhammad Is His Messenger (1989), in whih she analyses many Muslim works related to the Prophet s qualities and to the issue of his interession on the Day of Judgment. 11. See espeially in Grimm s Fairy Tales ([1812] 2003), The Water of Life (pp and The Fisherman and His Wife (pp ). 12. Several quarterian motifs an be found also in the Timaeus of Plato and in Ezekiel s vision of the four seraphim. The number four as the natural division of the irle is a symbol of wholeness in alhemial philosophy. 13. As quoted by Chittik (1989, p. 107). Ibn al- Arabī often quotes this Hadith, although it is onsidered weak by several Hadith sholars. Referenes Apollonius (1889) The Argonautia, trans. E.P. Coleridge (London: G. Bell). Bendell, J. M. (2007) Hildur, Queen of the Elves, and Other Ielandi Legends, retold by J. M. Bendell (Northampton, MA: Interlink Books). Bottingheimer, R. (Ed.) (1986) Fairy Tales and Soiety: Illusion, Allusion, and Paradigm (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). Burton, R. (1885) The Book of The Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol. 9 (London: The Burton Club). Chittik, W. (1989) The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York). Cooper, J. C. (1999) An Illustrated Enylopedia of Traditional Symbols, 3rd edn (New York: Thames and Hudson). Ghazālī, Abū Ḣāmid al- (n.d.), Iḣyā ulūm al-dīn, Vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār al-ma rifa). Grimm Brothers [1812] (2003) Grimm s Fairy Tales, ed. E. Dalton (New York: Barnes and Noble). Haddawi, H. (trans.) (1990) The Arabian Nights (New York: Norton). Haythamī, ibn Ḣajar, Shihāb al-dīn, al- (2006) Tuhfat al-zuwwār ilā qabr al-nabī al-mukhtār (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al- Ilmiyya). Ibn Arabī (n.d.) Al-futūḣāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 3 (Beirut, Dār Ṡādir). Ikhwan as Safa (1928) Rasā il, ed. Khayr al-dīn al-ziriklī, Vol. 1 (Cairo: Al-Maṫba a al- Arabiyya). Massignon, L. (1997) Essay on the Origins of the Tehnial Language of Islami Mystiism, trans. and intro. B. Clark. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press). Meyer, Rudolf. (1988) The Wisdom of Fairy Tales (Barrintong, MA: Sribble Press). Miquel, A. (1981) Sept ontes des mille et une nuits, ou il n y a pas de ontes innoents, Bibliothèque Arabe (Paris: Sindbad). Sands, K.Z. (2006) Sufi Commentaries on the Qur an in Classial Islam (London: Routledge). Shimmel. A. (1989) And Muhammad Is His Messenger (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina). Spener, L. (1921) Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria (New York: Frederik A. Stoks Co.). Yolen, J. and Oppenheim, S. (2001) The Fish Prine and Other Stories: Mermen Folk Tales (New York: Interlink Books).