The earliest picture in Islam?

Comments (11)

1. I wouldn’t mind some more information – for example, which “same myths we find in Europe” are you thinking of? (I can’t think of any that involve women growing on trees.)

   It would also be nice to have more independent information about this tree, but I’ve done an Internet search myself and there isn’t much (which seems surprising for something said to be “often depicted”, but here’s one link).

   The text accompanying this image is a grammatical disaster. It tells us that the fruit is “never the whole body” in a caption to a picture in which the fruit is the whole body. (And if this picture is the sole exception, then I have some questions, like whether anything else is unusual about this source.) Moreover, if read carefully it actually tells us that the heads of women, men and animals grow on the tree, whereas the “whole body” (note: only one body to go with all those animal and human heads) does not grow on the tree but instead grows on an island. Hmmm.

   When our only readily available source for an interesting bit of information is written so badly, we have a problem.

2. Its not easy stuff to deal with and it is still ongoing research so it’s tentative.

   Try a Google on the “Adne Sadeh”, Adrian.

   The wak wak tree may explain why we get a variant tradition in the western legend of the barnacle goose.

   It may also explain a number of points of similarity with the goose and wild man legend in Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

   This is one other late example of the Jewish myth

   http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jv-pv47G5ZsC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=barnacle+goose+bible&source=bl&ots=K3gbd62Leu&sig=OtsLJqBbUcLlJDNv3Zo2iTF_MWU&hl=en&ei=l29WSrWdAsOLjAfN96HCAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false

   It is almost certainly related to the European wild man legend and may prove to have a connection not only with the barnacle but with myths that surround the orang-utan (this was a generic term for all species of monkey but increasingly refers to the chimp) as well.

   http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/3206.html

   But I have a lot more to do; it looks like the transmission route into Europe for the origin of the barnacle goose legend may be identical to that of the wild man.

   This is a late source for the wak wak it’s by no means the only one though.

3. Slightly OT.

   Depistions of the mohammed are, some muslims say, not allowed. Seems straneg that early muslims didn’t subscribe to this.

   http://www.religionfacts.com/islam/things/depictions-of-muhammad-examples.htm

   @Adrian Morgan
   …Scandinavian myth tells us of the creation of human beings. Humans were created by the Gods from trees, the first man and woman being called Askr and Embla respectively. Askr literally means ‘Ash’, Embla is more ambiguous. It could mean ‘elm’, or perhaps creeper/vine. But the important thing is that the ancestors are literally formed from two trees.
   http://www.traditionalharp.co.uk/Caer_Feddwyd/articles/ash%20tree.htm

   Not exactly the same of course.

   I have seen a similar tree with peoples heads on it such as the Zieba tree in European reference books.
   http://www.godecookery.com/mythical/mythic06.htm

4. Anyone for a glass of Baby Tree Beer

5. there’s an island way out in the sea
   where the babies they all grow on trees
   and it’s jolly good fun to swing in the sun
   but ya gotta watch out if you sneeze sneeze
   ya gotta watch out if you sneeze

   yeah you gotta watch out if you sneeze
   for swinging up there in the breeze
   you’re liable to cough
   you might very well fall off
   and tumble down flop on your knees knees
   tumble down flop on your knees

   and when the stormy winds wail
   and the breeses blow high in a gale
   there’s a curious dropping and flopping and plopping
   and fat little babies just hail hail
   fat little babies just hail

   and the babies lie there in a pile
   and the grownups they come after while
   and they always pass by all the babies that cry
   and take on the babies that smile smile
   take on the babies that smile

   even triplets and twins if they’ll smile…..

   “The Baby Tree” by Rosalie Sorrels from “Blows Against the Empire” By Jefferson Starship aka The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra.

   1. “Thousands of Barnacles, small and great
      Stick to the jolly old Ship of State;
      So we musn’t be cross if she seems to crawl-
      It’s rather a marvel she goes at all”

6. Thanks to Jeb and Chris for the extra information. To clarify, by “readily available source” I meant one that is accessible to an ordinary guy with an Internet connection and not much else.

   1. Nice short textual history half way down the page here.

      Charts the origins of the wak wak from it’s first recording in a certain chinese encyclopedia of the 8th century along with some later Western sources.

      http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200504/the.seas.of.sindbad.htm

7. There’s also the mutton-tree of the Latin bestiaries, on which whole sheep were said to grow; apparently a misunderstanding of how Indians got their “wool” (i.e. cotton) from trees.

8. The vegtable lamb is one other intresting one. Mis- observation is often given as the origin of these beliefs but I do’t think it provides many answers with regard to the sheer popularity of these creatures and the widespread development of these myths.

   As the wak wak tree is the first printed pictorial representation in the Islamic world the barnacle goose is firmly established in literature and iconography with the invention of printing. It is an early and popular theme, with considerable mass appeal.

   As one 12th century member of the learned order noted with regard to the barnacle goose.

   “what public opinion asserts, philosophy indignantly denies”

9. Kit?b Ghar??ib al-fun?n wa-mulah? al-?uy?n’
   (The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes)

   http://bp1.blogger.com/_qTDAEasFLtU/RhVqD3PLYnI/AAAAAAAACn0/hJBNANRyNCA/s1600-h/Illustration+of+a+Waq+Waq+tree.jpg

   ” On the W?q-W?q Island, which is an island bordering on Sofalah, one of the Islands of the Zanj, there is a tree bearing fruits that look like women suspended by their hair as if by green cords. They have breasts, female sexual organs, and curvaceous bodies, and they scream ‘w?q w?q’. When one of them is cut off the tree, it falls down dead and does not talk any more. Their insides and outsides, their faces and their limbs, are entirely made of something resembling the down of a feather. ?
   When a person advances further into the island, he finds a tree with more attractive fruits with plumper posteriors, bosoms, genitalia, and faces, which scream louder than the ones described above. If this fruit is cut off, it survives for a day or part of a day before it stops talking and screaming. The person who cuts down this second type of fruit may sometimes have sexual intercourse with it and derive pleasure from it.”

   A rather nice digital version of the text with translation

   http://cosmos.bodley.ox.ac.uk/hms/mss_browse.php?expand=732,803,&act=swtab_readable

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