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Islamic Lore and Supernatural Creatures in the Persian Prose Book of Alexander (Iskandarnama)

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Islamic Lore and Supernatural Creatures in the Persian Prose Book of Alexander (Iskandarnama) Persica 21, 75-87. doi: 10.2143/PERS.21.0.2022788ISLAMIC LORE AND SUPERNATURAL © 2006-2007 by CREATURES Persica. All rights reserved. 75 ISLAMIC LORE AND SUPERNATURAL CREATURES IN THE PERSIAN PROSE BOOK OF ALEXANDER (ISKANDARNAMA) Evangelos Venetis Leiden University* The Iskandarnama belongs to the genre of medieval Persian prose romances. In fact, it is the oldest surviving version of the Alexander romance in Persian prose.1 The medieval written form of the romance can be found in the manuscript held in the private collection of Sa‘id Nafisi in Tehran.2 The text was edited by Afshar in Tehran (1343/1964)3 and a printed English translation of a relatively small part of the text was produced by Southgate in New York fourteen years later (1978).4 The narrative is rich in popular traditions about Alexander with Islamic lore form- ing the backbone of the narration. This analysis deals with the role of supernatural crea- tures as a significant factor contributing to the formation of the Muslim profile of Alexan- der, a Muslim Graeco-Iranian hero, in the Iskandarnama. In particular, these creatures play the role of Alexander’s adversaries in his effort to spread Islam and reach the place where the sun rises. The origin of the majority of these creatures goes back to pre-Islamic times and after the emergence of Islam they were integrated into Islamic lore. They re- flect the Islamic cultural background which contributed to the transmission of Alexan- der’s legend to Islamic Iran. Alexander’s semi-Iranian identity in the narrative reveals his pre-Islamic profile amongst the Iranians. His ethnic identity is successfully combined with that of his reli- gious (Muslim) profile. This twofold dimension of the hero must first have been shaped in the Samanid period, when Iranian history was Islamicized and several legendary Ira- nian figures were assimilated into the Islamic lore (for example, Kayumars and Adam).5 Hence, the Iskandarnama must be seen as part of the Perso-Islamic tradition that was es- * The author would like to thank Prof. Carole Hillenbrand (University of Edinburgh) for her useful remarks during the compilation of this article. 1 W.L. Hanaway, “Eskandar-Nama”, Encyclopaedia Iranica 8: 611. 2 Anon., Iskandarnama (henceforth cited as IN), ed. I. Afshar (Tehran, 1343/1964), introd., 22. 3 Ibid. 4 Anon., Iskandarnamah (henceforth cited as Southgate), trans. M. Southgate (New York, 1978). 5 K. Babayan, K., Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs. Cultural landscapes of Early Modern Iran (Cam- bridge Mass., 2002), 24-25. 0107-07_Pers.XXI_Venetis_06 75 19/9/07, 11:20 am 76 EVANGELOS VENETIS tablished by al-Tabari, when he wrote a history combining a history of the Iranian kings and an Abrahamic record of prophets.6 The role of supernatural creatures in the narrative is indirectly associated with the prophetic notion of the Quranic “double-horned one”, the concept of the Muslim Con- queror and Jihad Warrior, elements which associate the protagonist with Islamic culture. Islamic lore provides the legendary framework through which Alexander’s personality emerges as the dominant figure in the Iskandarnama. Key stories such as those of the Tomb of Adam and the Land of Darkness are indicative of the religious and legendary material used in the Iskandarnama. The following analysis provides a brief guide to the nature and role of supernatural creatures in the Iskandarnama. The davalpayan The case of davalpayan or narmpayan (lit. soft footed) is quite striking in the Iskandar- nama.7 The origin of these unusual creatures, which are often attested in Persian folklore, goes back to the pre-Islamic Iranian past8 and their presence survives in modern Persian narratives.9 As for their description, they appear as anthropomorphic, inhabiting mainly the desert, and are aggressive toward travellers. They are often described as brave tribes dwelling in the Mazandaran region (north-eastern Iran).10 The physical peculiarity of these creatures appertains to the lower part of their body. Their legs are formed of straps (davalpa, himantopous). They cannot walk and move by creeping. The danger for hu- mans is that these creatures induce an unwary traveller to take them on his shoulders. When being carried ‘piggyback’ this evil creature becomes the traveller’s master by en- veloping the unfortunate traveller’s neck with its flexible legs. Thus, the davalpa does not use combat weapons but only the lower part of its own body. They form a basic element of the Islamic literary tradition in Iran and other parts of the Muslim world.11 6 J. Scott Meisami, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh, 1999), 40- 41. 7 These creatures are of pre-Islamic origin and are known in the ancient Graeco-Roman literary tradi- tion as himantopodes. See Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, trans. as Natural History by H. Rackham, vol III, (London-Cambridge Mass., 1947), V:46. They are first mentioned in the Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Romance (fourth century AD) and are called savage himantopodes. There is no description but their name and region is the same as that of Cynocephali. Alexander reached the region of the himantopodes after he had passed through the land of Amazons. See Pseudo-Callisthenes, Der Griechische Alexanderroman, Rezenzion b, ed. L. Bergson (Güteborg–Uppsala, 1965), III.28:4. A detailed analysis of the himantopodes in the Greaco-Ro- man literary tradition is included in N.L. Tornesello’s article “From Reality to legend: Historical Sources of Hellenistic and Islamic Teratology,” Studia Iranica, 31 (2002): 163-192., 177; W.L. Hanaway, Persian Popular Romances before the Safavid Period, unpublished PhD diss. (New York, 1970), 211. 8 According to ‘A.A. Dihkhuda, “davalpay”, in Lughatnama, ed. M. Mu‘in and J. Shahidi (Tehran, 1351/1972), the use of the term davalpa occurred first in ‘Vamiq-u ‘Adhra’, a romance in New Persian deriv- ing from a Pahlavi original. This romance was presented to the Amir ‘Abd Allah b. Tahir (d. 230/844) in Nishapur and was an ancient book dedicated to Khusraw I Anushirwan. It is also noteworthy that davalpayan are closely connected to India but they are not found in Indian mythological narratives. See Tornesello, op.cit.,164. 9 For the role of davalpayan in contemporary Persian literature (Seyyed Muhammad ‘Ali Jamalzada’s Shurabad — 1340/1961 and S. Hidayat’s Neyrangestan — 1933), see Tornesello, op.cit., 173-175. 10 Ibid., 167. 11 Hamadani [Tusi], ‘Aja’ibnama, Bazkhani-yi Mutun, ed. J. Mudarris Sadiqi (Tehran, 1375/1996), 223; In the adventures of Sindbad the Sailor, see H. A‘lam, ‘davalpa(y)’, Encyclopaedia Iranica 7: 129; for the 1001 Nights, see Tornesello, op.cit., 171. 0107-07_Pers.XXI_Venetis_06 76 19/9/07, 11:20 am ISLAMIC LORE AND SUPERNATURAL CREATURES 77 The Shahnama is the earliest Persian source referring to the davalpayan. In Kay Kawus’ reign, it is mentioned that their legs are made up of straps and they derive their name from this feature (the strap-legged).12 In Alexander’s reign, they are named narmpayan and they are described as savage peoples fighting by throwing stones at Alex- ander.13 The inclusion of the davalpayan story into the Alexander cycle of the Shahnama might have had considerable impact on medieval Persian literature. In fact, Firdawsi’s influential tradition might have been one of the main sources, if not the main source, for the author of the Iskandarnama regarding the davalpayan story. In the Iskandarnama they are presented as a group of individuals (tribe, a people) who have captured some traders. After the Land of Gold, Alexander goes on board and embarks on the next stage of his travels, the Land of Darkness. Before reaching this Land though, he sails into the endless sea and arriving at one of the islands he meets with a shepherd from Kirman who is a hostage of the davalpayan.14 Due to their unfamiliarity with fire the latter become frightened and have taken shelter on this little island. The unu- sual nature of the davalpayan is described in every detail; “they are the children of Adam, fair-skinned, beautiful and clean. Their land is fertile…. Their teeth are like those of lions’. They are called davalpayan because they do not have bones in their shanks.”15 Alexander decides to free the shepherds from the hostage of the davalpayan. He tries to submit them peacefully but when he does not succeed this way, he manages to defeat them by setting fire to the forest where they are living. Of particular importance for the interpretation of the presence of the davalpayan in the Iskandarnama is Tarsusi’s prose romance Darabnama. Their description in the narra- tive is quite revealing: they appear with two legs which are similar to straps. Regarding their motion, they first throw their feet ahead of them and then draw themselves along. They creep on their bottoms by drawing their feet.16 They jump onto Alexander’s men’s shoulders, catch and almost choke them by those straps wound around their necks.17 The importance of the Darabnama for the Iskandarnama with respect to the davalpayan is due to the fact that it associates them with Alexander’s story. Given that both narratives belong to the same genre, the Darabnama acts as a comparative factor for the data of the Iskandarnama. In particular, it enables the reader to understand the role of the daval- payan story regarding Alexander’s legendary life and gives an idea of the multiple ver- sions of a story used in narratives of the same genre in parallel time-frames (for example in both narratives the davalpayan are crawling figures. But they can jump in the Darabnama whilst they can swim in the Iskandarnama).
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