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Djinn, Genies & The Arabian Nights

What I find truly amazing about Djinn is that some of the more pious peoples can bind them into service. I've heard tell of some very holy muslim scholars who have Djinn guardians. Also, I've heard it said that every mosque has a Djinn protector. From what I understand, they're quite prevalent.
 
I know of folk who work with Djinn for the purposes of divination and magic, although how they went about forging the working relationship I don't know.

As for Djinn bodyguards and watchmen.... Djinn with a spiritual bent are attracted to the spiritual, so I imagine just as people congregate around sheikhs and scholars so do the djinn. Likewise deeply spiritual places.

I shall try to find some literature in Turkish or Osmanlica on the subject of how to summon and bind them - then post the highlights :)
 
Any Experts On The Invisible Realms Out There?

So, are Djinn more closely related to angels and dæmons, or are they closer to elves and the realm of færie?

Are they all related in some way?
 
Re: Any Experts On The Invisible Realms Out There?

AndroMan said:
So, are Djinn more closely related to angels and dæmons, or are they closer to elves and the realm of færie?

Are they all related in some way?
I'm not sure there are any experts on invisible realms. Even shamans aren't always sure who or what they'll meet on their astral journeys. By 'related' are you asking if they are composed of the same ethereal material (for lack of a better word)? If so, I wrote my thoughts on this here. Peni's posts before and after mine are also worth a read.
 
does this help? (hopefully it does :D )

"the rose and the prophet" by tracy hickman and tracy wiess
(forgotten realms)

it deals with djinn, angles etc
 
Re: Re: Any Experts On The Invisible Realms Out There?

Bannik said:
By 'related' are you asking if they are composed of the same ethereal material (for lack of a better word)?
Given that our present state of knowledge, let's us do little more than speculate on the metaphysics of such materials and that I might as well ask are humans and chimpanzees both carbon based life forms, no.

I was thinking more in terms of actually genealogies and family trees.

There are theories that some traditions of the mediæval witch cult of Robin Hood and Maid Marion, were actually based on Middle Eastern hermetic traditions which had been brought back during the crusades.

Perhaps some of the more interesting and elaborate traditions of conjuring spirits and dæmons came to us by a similiar route?

Perhaps, some of the more ancient traditions also show very ancient family ties?
 
Re: Re: Re: Any Experts On The Invisible Realms Out There?

AndroMan said:
Given that our present state of knowledge, let's us do little more than speculate on the metaphysics of such materials and that I might as well ask are humans and chimpanzees both carbon based life forms, no.
But it's fun to speculate. Sorry, when you chose the words "experts on invisible realms" it led me to think you meant in terms of an "astral realm" - something I suppose a shaman or a conjurer of some sort would be the closest thing to an expert on.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Any Experts On The Invisible Realms Out Ther

Bannik said:
But it's fun to speculate. Sorry, when you chose the words "experts on invisible realms" it led me to think you meant in terms of an "astral realm" - something I suppose a shaman or a conjurer of some sort would be the closest thing to an expert on.
Well, yeah. Them too.

I'm not picky. I'm all for the multi-disciplinary approach.

For all I know, there could a whole, hidden, shadow World out there, a mirror to our own.
 
I've heard it said that the 'Barbaric Names of Invocation' were derived from a garbled rendering of the semitic languages in circulation during the late middle ages - Arabic, Aramaic & of course Hebrew. Throw in a little cack-handed New-Testament Greek & some Dog-Latin, and voila - The Lesser Key of Soloman...

As for Robin Hood....Androman, you're opened a whole can of worms...

That some Islamic influence can be found in High & Late Medieval culture is well attested; for instance, Italian & Provencal poets seem to have derived motifs and verse forms from Arabic and Persian modals, though the precise line of transmission (whether it be from Iberia, the Byzantine Balkans or Outremer) is something of a mystery.

However, claims such as those made by Idris Shah to the effect that Chivalry, combatant religious orders and folkloric traditions were shaped by Islamic (and especially Sufic) sources are somewhat shakey.
But some intriguing eches are to be found. Shah claims Morris Dancing was originally 'Moorish Dancing' (can anybody shed any light upon the etymology?). The Green Man, the tying of votive offerings to the branches of trees and the veneration of springs and pools are all witnessed across the Middle East, Western and parts of Central Asia....as they are in the British Isles...
 
alexius - could you be a tad more specific about the examples?

Kath

PS me obsessed? nahhhhhhhh
 
What would you like me to elaborate on, Stonedoggy dearest?:)
 
Ah...the Green Man ;)

Two lines of contacts in the region. The first is in the fertility festivals that are certainly celebrated to this day in Anatolia and Syria . ... lots of foliate imagery, and boys dressed as shrubs parading about the kasaba...in Anatolia, these festivals have become associated espeically with the Alevi and the Bektashi - the home-grown brand of Shii and the Shii/Christian influenced sufi order formerly identified with the Janisery Corps.

The second line is rather deeper...these festivals are identified with Al Khidr. Al Khidr is an Islamic saint who is said to have taught Moses a hard lesson, to have accompanied Alexander the Great in search of the Spring of Eternal youth, beaten him to it, and thus acquired the gift of immortality.

Like Djinn, Al Khidr is widely believed to be around today. And a very serous proposition he is, too. You see, he is a kind of Sufi Kaiser Soze....everybody knows somebody whose Sheikh was initiated by Al Khidr....he is said to appear at times of crisis, and to pay particular attention to travellers and mariners - the Ottoman festival of Al Khidr was maritime, and very similar to the Venetian 'Marriage to the Sea'.

Keaton always used to say that he didn't believe in God, but he feared him. Well, Stonedoggy, I do believe in God, but the only thing that scares me is Al-Khidr... ;)
 
The Green Man, the tying of votive offerings to the branches of trees and the veneration of springs and pools are all witnessed across the Middle East, Western and parts of Central Asia....as they are in the British Isles...

If these are genuinely ancient traditions then this is quite logical - iirc those nice people who inspect mitochondrial dna are of the opinion that as farming spread out from Anatolia where it seems to have originated, the farmers went with it, so 6000 years back, or thereabouts we all have middle-eastern ancestors.

This Al Khidr stuff is fascinating!
 
Very interesting are we beginning to see a link between Islam and the Moors, Morris Dancing and Mummers plays developing? St. George is one of the key characters in many Mummers plays, where he fights a "Turk". See the following thead: http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9029

I already see lots of influence of the Muslim east (most probably brought back from the crusades) in these plays, could the etymology of "mummers" and even "morris" be somehow related to Mohammed (PBUH) and Moor?!?!?
 
You might want to PM Vitrius the etymologist and issue an invite to this thread in case they don't see it?


Kath
 
If I recall rightly, Idris Shah argued that the Morris Dance had peculated back from the Crusades (whether from Iberia, where English crusaders played an intermittant but significant role, or from Outremer seems vague). The stimulus, he argues, was the ritualised military training of the Futuwah fraternities - informal associations of gazi and adventurers who lived according to a religious rule and where employed by the likes of the Abbasi, Seljuk and Osmanli to secure their borders.

Perhaps. Speculation; however, the Futuwah fraternities were and are real, and their training rituals are very reminiscent of the stick clacking, circle dancing business seen around real ale festivals...

A possible antecedent for Mummery can be found in the tradition of story telling and puppetry that is found to this day around Western Asia and the Levent. The tales are usually taken from classic epics like the Shahname or Mecnun and Leila, albeit adjusted and satirised to suit local taste. The idea of some form of transmission is not altogether absurd; after all, Ferid Ad Din Attar i Nishupuri's peerless ' Mantiq ut Tayr' was part of the basis of Boccaccio's Decamerion, which in turn shaped Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and crops up in Chaucer again as 'The Parlement of the Fowls'. Which is to say that the foundational works of the Western vernacular tradition rest in part upon a 12th century Persian collection of Sufi fables.

On the other hand, Stonedoggy may very well be right - these correspondances maybe due to local conditions. The truth I believe is somewhere between the two.

As an aside, Celtic horse symbolism and veneration has a distinct flavour of the steppe, and their are remarkable parallels between Celtic swirly knotwork and Seljuk Turkish decorative schemes - could be due to a common Byzantine source of inspiration, or something deeper.
 
It's a suggestion for discussion rather than an absolute belief - honest!

Kath;)
 
I have heard that a lot of traditional European tales are based upon sufi originals...
 
I always suspect claims that C is based on original B when both B and C are both contemporary. It seems more likely to me that in most cases there is an original A that both B and C are derived from. Without significant evidence it would be impossible to say whether C derived from B or B from C anyways.

There is also the possibility that certain conditions encourage similar stories, a parallel evolution of narrative if you will.
 
I tend to agree - issues of origins and transmission are notoriously difficult to resolve - but tremendous fun to examine, nonetheless.

The way forward perhaps is to take each case on it's own merits. For example, the occurence of motifs reminiscent of Arabic and Persian poetry in Provencal love songs and romances is there for everyone to see, as are the existence of possibly lines of transmission. In a similar vein, a line of transmission can be proposed from the Paulicians, to the Bogomils to the Cathari, giving us good grounds for postulating a Western Asian orgin for the Albigensian heresy.

But is it certain? Course not. But it is suggestive.

Green Man imagery may be as old as the hills, or it may be of more recent origin. What is certain is the tremendous similarity in belief and practise between the British Isles and Western Asia.

I haven't a clue. Which is why I like it so much :)
 
Does the Green Man of these myths correspond to "Wildman" myths & stories in general? If so, and if the book Santa Claus: Last of the Wildmen is to be believed, then all these stories may be pointing towards the earliest ideas about gods, the supernatural, and nature that we have...
 
One of the difficulties is that "green man" is such a general phrase as to be nearly useless.

in much popular folklore in the UK and USA (?australia) etc the term means "foliate head", which is what this type was called before Lady Raglan did her bit in er.... 1939?

green folk or people also turn up in contexts of "strange visitors" - like Woolpit - and "faery types" in general.

Green folk etc can also mean "normal" people dressed in green, including Lincoln Green!

There are zoo/bot hybrids which have a lore of their own, including vegetable lambs, barnacle geese, mandrakes and so on.

Where one draws the line between all these types and, for example, wodewoses, sweeps in particular and garland carriers in general is a moot point!

symbols change depending on context. Straw boaters mean something different when associated with butchers, punts, vaudeville, school girls.


archetypes, according to jung, have a different form every time they occur, dependent on context.


:D :rolleyes: :grrr:

but it wouldn't be so much fun otherwise


kath
 
In Islamic folklore and theology, green is the colour associated with spiritual fetility - Al Khidr is usually said to manifest dressed in green, or else enveloped in a green aura.

Wildmen, woodwoses and woodwives....will make some enquires about similar stories this end, as nothing comes to mind, although the region has it's fair share of bandit legends.

I remeber reading of a village in England that celebrates the coming of spring with a lad parading around dressed as a large bush - which is funny, because that can be occasionally found in Anatolia too.

Anybody have any information?
 
The lad dressed as a bush is the Jack-In-The-Green, I'm fairly sure that although many survivalists would love to see him as an ancient ceremonial forest god I seem to recall that folklorists believe he only appeared in the middle of the 19th century. I will try and remember to look into that tomorrow.

The foliate head is of Norman origin if I remember correctly, although there are very similar designs to be found in the far-east. There is quite a lot more green mannery to be found here.
 
Does the green man first appear in decorative stonemasonry? If so it could well be that he was brought over with the stonemasons during and after the crusades. IIRC many master stonemasons were either from the near east or trained by stonemasons from the near east who had worked on the grand mosques - a good example of their handy work would be Durham Catherdral with it's pillars that resemble the pillars found in mosques.

Edit:

Dan Cruikshank did a program on it as part of his "Britain's Best Buildings" series, highlighting the sacred geometry and sufic/islamic influences, but I can't find any further details...

Edit 2:

Apparently Durham cathedral was influenced by the ninth-century Mosque of the Nine Domes at Balkh - with its mighty round columns and delicate carved floral decoration.

"Whoever designed and built the nave vault realized -- perhaps through observations of nature or through knowledge of the new ideas coming from eastern Islamic cultures...
...while St Calais was away studying new buildings and talking to French master masons and monks, the Benedictines at Durham, perhaps with their own team of masons, must have been working up designs for the new cathedral.
As the Benedictine Order was founded before the schism that divided Eastern and Western Christian churches, it possessed much eastern or secret knowledge that was later frowned on, thought blasphemous or irrelevant to orthodox Christianity. These disciplines included an understanding of sacred geometry. The Benedictines also had particularly direct access to the Muslim world and its reservoirs of knowledge. Monte Cassino, the site of their principal monastery, is near the port of Amalfi, which had strong trade links with the Arab world, so many ideas found their way to the monks. They would have been aware of the recently rediscovered works of Pythagoras and in the 1120s Euclid's Elements of Geometry (obtained in Arab translations from Arab libraries). They would also have acquired knowledge of classical geometry, which Muslims had been applying to the construction of mosques. Monte Cassino itself displayed this new knowledge, for as early as 1066-71 mosque-inspired rib vaults and pointed arches were executed by Amalfi masons in the reconstruction of buildings within the monastery....

http://print.google.com/print/doc?isbn=155297748X
 
The presense of Arab and Byzantine culture in Sicily and Southern Italy provides a line for the transmission of Islamic architectural tropes (which were in anycase deeply indebted to Byzantine modals). The connection between Durham and Balkh (Balkh, of all places! :) ) is truly wonderful and deeply odd - how the hell did that happen?

A good sourse for the history and significence of Islamic architecture & decorative arts can be found in the works of Titus Burkhardt (who was hmself a convert who dabbled in Sufism).

Can anybody provide any further information on the movement of masons during the period. Some have seen the origin of the guild system in the futuwah and akhi fraternities of the levent (although I believe they may be overstating the case somewhat).

Leaving the door wide open to Masoni conspiracy theorists...but at least nobody's mentioned the Templars yet ;)
 
"but at least nobody's mentioned the Templars yet " ... they will :( All we can hope for is that no one confuses roswell and rosslyn!


Looking at Basford 1978 "The Green Man", the extensive photo section is in date order. Pace the usual questionings about dating, the first few are:

Trier, germany first half C2, remounted C6
baalbek, lebanon first half C2
al hadr, iraq mid C2
neumagen, dutch/german border, C2-C3


now, the first trier ones are out of context. Reuse in C6 says zip about where they originated....

comments?

Kath
 
Ahem... I've just spent half an hour in the library reading Idries Shah's "The Sufis". In it there is a chapter where Idries argues a strong connection between what is known of Freemasonry and the Templars and Sufism. I'll try to find an online version of the text as there is too much to sumarise here.
 
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