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Bur¯Aq Depicted As Amanita Muscaria in a 15Th Century Timurid-Illuminated Manuscript?

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Bur¯Aq Depicted As Amanita Muscaria in a 15Th Century Timurid-Illuminated Manuscript? ORIGINAL ARTICLE Journal of Psychedelic Studies 3(2), pp. 133–141 (2019) DOI: 10.1556/2054.2019.023 First published online September 24, 2019 Bur¯aq depicted as Amanita muscaria in a 15th century Timurid-illuminated manuscript? ALAN PIPER* Independent Scholar, Newham, London, UK (Received: May 8, 2019; accepted: August 2, 2019) A series of illustrations in a 15th century Timurid manuscript record the mi’raj, the ascent through the seven heavens by Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. Several of the illustrations depict Bur¯aq, the fabulous creature by means of which Mohammed achieves his ascent, with distinctive features of the Amanita muscaria mushroom. A. muscaria or “fly agaric” is a psychoactive mushroom used by Siberian shamans to enter the spirit world for the purposes of conversing with spirits or diagnosing and curing disease. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author explores the routes by which Bur¯aq could have come to be depicted in this manuscript with the characteristics of a psychoactive fungus, when any suggestion that the Prophet might have had recourse to a drug to accomplish his spirit journey would be anathema to orthodox Islam. There is no suggestion that Mohammad’s night journey (isra) or ascent (mi’raj) was accomplished under the influence of a psychoactive mushroom or plant. Keywords: Mi’raj, Timurid, Central Asia, shamanism, Siberia, Amanita muscaria CULTURAL CONTEXT Bur¯aq depicted as Amanita muscaria in the mi’raj manscript The mi’raj manuscript In the Muslim tradition, the mi’raj was preceded by the isra or “Night Journey” during which Mohammed traveled An illustrated manuscript depicting, in a series of miniatures, overnight from Mecca to Jerusalem by means of a fabulous thesuccessivestagesofthemi’raj, the miraculous ascent of beast called Bur¯aq. In some versions, the Prophet’s ascent is the Prophet Mohammed through the seven heavens to receive also accomplished by the agency of Bur¯aq. According to God’s instructions for the faithful was produced in 15th tradition, at the site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, century in the city of Herat (Séguy, 1977). This text of the known to Muslims as Haram esh-Sharif (“the Noble mi’raj story is in Turkish, in the Uighur script. The Sanctuary”), Mohammed ascended through the seven manuscript was purchased, on behalf of the French Ambas- heavens in the company of the angel Gabriel, to receive sador, in 18th century Constantinople, and it currently resides God’s instructions for the faithful. Bur¯aq is described as in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, France as Manuscrit being a creature larger than a donkey but smaller than a mule Supplément Turc 190. and is usually depicted as an equine creature with a woman’s Herat,todayinWesternAfghanistan, has been a cross- head and sometimes, but not always, with wings (Hajj¯aj, roads of trade and culture for hundreds of years and 1989; Vuckovic, 2005). formed an important stop on the Silk Route. When the Seale in her visual history of Bur¯aq (2016) notes that Arabs captured Herat in 660 CE, it became a center of the Bur¯aq is “a creature not of scripture but of lore,” first Muslim world. The Mongols swept through and took appearing in an 8th century biography of Mohammed. The control of Islamic Central Asia in the 13th century, and iconography of Bur¯aq from Persian miniatures to the deco- Herat went into decline after being sacked by Genghis ration of Pakistani trucks is such that “there is no original, Khan in 1222–1223. However, control of most of Asia by no definitive Buraq, but rather an unruly palimpsest of the Mongols soon created an environment of tremendous jumbled creeds, kitsch, and sheer artistic caprice.” cultural exchange and Eastern and Central Asian influ- Depictions of Bur¯aq vary from frankly equine to various ences became evident in Islamic art. Timur-i Lenk, the chimeras mixing human and various animal parts (Seale, Turkic conqueror, better known in the West as Tamerlane, 2016). The plethora of literature concerning Muhammad’s took Herat in about 1393, initiating its greatest era under ascension to heaven “slipped its scriptural moorings and Timurid rule, when it became a center of science and culture. The mi’raj manuscript illustrations are a product of the Herat school, a style of miniature painting that * Corresponding address: Alan Piper; Independent Scholar, 56 flourished in the 15th century under the patronage of the Meath Road, Newham, London E15 3DR, UK; Phone: +44 7882 Timurids. 816332; E-mail: [email protected] This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CC License is provided, and changes – if any – are indicated. © 2019 The Author(s) Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/28/21 07:55 AM UTC Piper slid out into poetry and folklore” and Bur¯aq’s body became assertions of Mohammad’s divine authority, these narratives “a receptacle for the many myths, metaphors, and moral “have been developed and transformed in fascinating ways concerns that Islam inherited.” in the diverse contexts in which the story was told and retold Several of the illustrations in the Herat manuscript depict over may centuries” (Gruber & Colby, 2010). Bur¯aq with the distinctive red and white spotted skin of the Nor am I suggesting that Mohammed would necessarily A. muscaria mushroom, exact in the smallest detail. That is be seen as a shaman rather than a spiritual leader, except in to say, they both share a distinctive shade of red as a the sense that his spirit journey could be seen as comparable background color, which is covered by small circular or to those accomplished by a shaman, by those for whom the oval white patches that have ragged edges and, when aged, a narrative fitted this context. In Central Asia, shamanism was darkened center (Figure 1). The pattern and color for the combined with elements of Sufism to adapt to wider Islamic Prophet’s piebald mount could be the result of an imagina- society. To this day, “islamised shamanism” for the purposes tive flight of fancy of the artist, unrelated to the appearance of healing and divination, accomplished through personal of any mushroom. While the suggestion that the Prophet relations with spirits, continues to exist in Kazakhstan, might have had used a psychoactive drug to accomplish his Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirghizstan, Northern Afghanistan, spirit journey would be anathema to orthodox Islam, there is the Turkoman province of Iran, and the Uygur district of a variety of evidence that supports the possibility that this Xinjian province of China (Zarcone & Hobart, 2016). illustration could represent the translation into art of Central Asian shamanic traditions, in which the Prophet’s miracu- The mi’raj as an otherworldly journey in the lous heavenly ascent was interpreted by the artist in terms of shamanic tradition a spirit journey accomplished by the agency of the fly agaric mushroom. The author will draw on botanical, linguistic, The word mi’raj means “ladder” in Arabic, which is a ladder and ethnographic evidence, as well as the history of in the tradition of Jacob’s ladder in the Old Testament story, religious ideas and folklore, to support the conclusion that reaching from earth to heaven with the Angels of God the depiction of Bur¯aq with the distinctive features of ascending and descending upon it (Vuckovic, 2005). A. muscaria is not the product of chance. Mohammed’s ladder may be compared to the notched tent I must make it clear that I am not in any way suggesting pole by means of which Siberian shamans are sometimes that Mohammad’s night journey (isra) or ascent (mi’raj) described as accomplishing their celestial ascents (Stone, was accomplished under the influence of a psychoactive 1992). Since the mi’raj tradition first attracted critical mushroom or plant. I am only asserting that, as Islam scholarly attention, a variety of authors have identified the extended its influence, the isra and mi’raj narratives were mi’raj as drawing on earlier Judaeo-Christian accounts of adapted to different cultural milieus. In the case of the heavenly ascent such as the Book of Enoch and Iranian Timurid miniatures, an artist may have embellished Bur¯aq traditions such as the Arda Wiraf narrative (Vuckovic, with a hide resembling the skin of a psychoactive mushroom 2005). In the Arda Wiraf narrative, a righteous man is chosen based on local awareness of shamanic journeys accom- to visit the spirit world by means of a narcotic potion of wine plished in this way. Although accounts of the isra and and Cannabis or Henbane (Flattery & Schwartz, 1992)to mi’raj are based on a very brief scriptural reference in the determine if the existing forms of Zoroastrian of worship Quran, as agents of missionary conversion and as important were pleasing to God (Haug & West, 1971). Figure 1. Detail from page showing the Night Journey (Mi’raj) of the Prophet Muhammad from, Mira’j-nameh, Manuscrit Supplément Turc 190. Adjacent is a typical example of Amanita muscaria mushroom. Image source of mirajnameh: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Miraj-BNF-1436.jpg. Image source of A. muscaria: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2006-10-25_Amanita_muscaria_crop.jpg. A full sequence of images from the mirajnameh can be freely viewed at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8427195m/f39.image 134 | Journal of Psychedelic Studies 3(2), pp. 133–141 (2019) Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/28/21 07:55 AM UTC Bur¯aq depicted as Amanita muscaria The dependence of the mi’raj story on earlier Iranian and availability of alcohol has been viewed as displacing the Judaeo-Christian narrative traditions, or their common indigenous use of Amanita in the 20th century (Salzman, sources, is still maintained along with the assumption Salzman, Salzman, & Lincoff, 1996) and Amanita usage that these traditions reflect earlier shamanic traditions wide- may have been more extensive in the past.
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