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Flying Carpets

Kondoru

Kondoru

Beloved of Ra
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Dec 5, 2003
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Its been chilly recently and to save money instead of turning up the heating at night I put a oriental carpet on top of my light all year round duvet. I have several suitably sized for this purpose, at the moment it is an antique Caucasian from Derbend.

I was reading Washington Irvines `Tales of the Alhambra` and in one of the stories there was a flying carpet. (ok, it was silk, whereas mine are all wool.)

This got me to thinking; where did the notion of flying carpets originate? I think it was an Arab tale, rather than comming from a rug producing area.

What do you think?
 
Any connection with flying saucers?

Ezekiel went up in a fiery chariot, which some have likened to a UFO abduction, so why not flying carpets?

Carole
 
Apparently, the story originates in 'The Thousand & One Nights', and I believe crops up in the Sinbad stories (although they may appear elsewhere too).

In general, they symbolise power (in the charismatic sense) (as well as acting as a deus ex machina). I've been told that in some tales it is associated with divided lovers (kind of an equivalent of Rapunzel's hair).

:)
 
are they in the real "core" nights or in the ones added on as they were translated?

Kath
 
Thought it would be K and 1 nights somehow....

But why a carpet? why not something else? there are many types of flying devices in myth.
 
Homo Aves said:
But why a carpet? why not something else? there are many types of flying devices in myth.
Click to expand...

I must say, if you got to have a magic object to fly around on, a carpet sounds lika a very good idea. Comfortable seating, room for one than one person and you're able to bring luggage with you, assuming the carpet is of a fairly normal size. Beats a lumpy broomhandle at any time.

I guess they picked the carpet for the same reason as the europeans picked the broom- it's an object that you can find in most homes, thus everyone is familiar with it. It's easy to imagine a flying carpet.
 
Believe they figure in the canonical stories - certainly seem to be an authentic, rather than rientalist, conceit that happens to have become an orientalist cliche.

Why a carpet....I mean, why not? ;)

One possibility - carpet designs often contain exceedingly old magical motif - for instance, the horizontal 's' motif found on a lot of Western Asia carpets is believed by some scholars to have been an Armenian dragon symbol that had been assimilated into Orthodox iconography.

In so far as that is true, it is not so far an imaginative leap for a carpet covered in sigils to lift off.
 
Yes, my caucasians got birdies running up and down the borders...

(You would like my Bakhtari, its the famous garden design.)

Most of my rugs are simple tribal ones. (when I say tribal I mean the authentic, assymetrical, bumpy, design only goes up 7/8 of the way, type, rather than these modern CAD designed things.) but many do have very ancient designs. I love them all, but a particular fave is the rare one from Karacoram (Ghengis Khans haunt) with the stylised tree of life design. it is dated 1924. (too big for the bed tho and stinks of lanolin, still, means the wools in good order.)

And speaking of magic carpets....

http://www.freud.org.uk/freudcouch.htm

I am a lifelong fan of Goscinny and Uderzo, one of my favorites is `Asterix and the Magic Carpet`of great interest to me, east west links in classical times is one of my areas of study...but flying carpets are not an Indian thing.

(Yes, but a vimana wouldnt be able to carry Obelix...)
 
Bakhtari's are very nice indeed :)

I suppose if carpet design is related to anything it is mandala making. Some motif (like the Turcoman gül) are certainly very reminiscent.

Garden designs, cosmograms, maps of paradise....really is great stuff.

Chinese carpet design carry similar talismanic/doctrinal connotations, though they tend to be more figuratively rendered.
 
First time I took a trip I saw many of the patterns which appear on these carpets and realised that they came from inside our heads, and these were moving patterns (ie.carpets). I imagine that a lot of these patterns are universal whatever your cultural background, after all I'm not of Indian/Persian etc descent as far as I know. Would be interesting to research.If you sit on a carpet rather than in a western style chair while you ingest then why not a 'flying carpet'? Hope this makes sense after coming in from the after show party.;)
 
Another point of departure (possibly)

The standard prayer performed five times a day (three if you are Shi'i) is sometimes equated with the Mir'aj - Muhammad's night-time journey from the Hijaz to Jerusalem, and then up through the heavens to the throne of God.

Seeing as that prayer is performed on a rug and all ;)
 
hello john! wanna buy a new carpet?
(sing to the tune of hello john! wanna buy a new motor?) :D

coat please
 
Kondoru said:
...This got me to thinking; where did the notion of flying carpets originate? I think it was an Arab tale, rather than coming from a rug producing area. ...
Click to expand...

The trail leading back to the origins of the magic / flying carpet concept is murky, branches off in disparate directions, and inevitably leads to lore and legend from multiple cultures and traditions.

The seemingly obvious birthplace for the magic carpet concept (Arab / Muslim lore) isn't a certain, nor arguably even a dominant, contender. Early attributions of a flying carpet are made to multiple historical figures, some attributions pre-date The Thousand and One Nights, and they aren't of Arab origin.

Magic carpets don't get much mention at all in The Thousand and One Nights, and the particular story usually cited as the earliest reference to such carpets concerns a prince who purchased the carpet in India. This carpet was something more akin to a magic portal or apport, insofar as it delivered the owner to wherever he wished to go 'in the twinkling of an eye'.

Writer / blogger Azhar Abidi's essay 'Secret History of the Flying Carpet' focuses on manuscripts attributed to a 13th century Jewish scholar named Isaac Ben Sherira and discovered in Iran by a Frenchman named Henri Baq. This essay is accessible online at Abidi's blog:

http://secrethistoryflyingcarpet.blogspot.com

... and you can access its 2004 published form in:

Robert Dessaix (Editor), The Best Australian Essays 2004, Melbourne: Black, Inc., 2004, pp. 132 ff.

... which can be accessed at Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=q...AQ#v=onepage&q="Secet History of the"&f=false

Ben Sherira highlights Solomon (yes, that Solomon ... ) as the earliest, or one of the earliest, figure(s) to have received and used a magic carpet circa the 10th century BCE. There are two versions of the carpet's origin. One claims God gave Solomon the carpet, and the other claims the Queen of Sheba commissioned it and forwarded it to Solomon as a hopefully overwhelming gift.

As a legend from Jewish lore, Solomon's carpet is cited in The Jewish Encyclopedia:

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13842-solomon#anchor14

It would appear impossible to confirm a single-point source for the magic carpet trope, or even to assign high probability to an Arab origin its historically recent fictional appearances bias us into presuming.
 
They have them in New York -
NYC flying carpet

This is a video of some blokes riding a motorised 'flying carpet' through traffic. It's funniest when one sits cross-legged on it like Aladdin.

It's filmed partly by a guy following on a skateboard and seems quite extraordinarily dangerous.
 
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