The Middle Eastern Mermaid: Between Myth and Religion

Manal Shalaby

Introduction

While this volume principally addresses the dissemination of Western mermaid imagery and associations across a range of international locations, the region profiled in this chapter, the Middle East, is notable for having compound human-piscine figures prior to their earliest recorded appearances in European material, literary and/or folkloric cultures. While no clear linear pattern of dissemination from the Middle East to Europe has yet been established, the presence of such figures is significant in that they originated within a context that was closely networked to ancient Greece – initially through trade connections and then by the expansion of the Greek Empire initiated by Alexander the Great in the 4th Century BCE. There have been various terms used to refer to lower-half fish and upper-half human creatures in the region over the last 2500 years. In Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the term khayilaan denotes a mythical sea monster/beast that is half-human, half-fish (without specification of the gender of the human part). The more common term for mermaid-like figures, which is used both inMSA and in colloquial Arabic, is hourriyat al-bahr. The latter term has some resemblance to the English-language term 'mermaid' by virtue of combining a reference to the sea (al bahr) with hourriya, a term that refers to a woman with an almost supernatural beauty. The mermaid is also referred to in Arabic as arous al-bahr or arusat al-bahr – a phrase that literally means bride/maid/doll of the sea. In addition to these terms, there are also a number of others that apply to related entities. These include: al-naddaha of the Nile Delta region, a dangerous siren, usually fully human in form but able to shape-shift; the giant, (usually) human-form, carnivorous aeisha qandesha of Moroccan folklore; and the seductive om al-deiwees of the Persian Gulf. Equivalent male entities, sometimes referred to as insan al-maa ('man of the water'), are far less common in regional folklore and mainly manifest in a small group of literary texts. This chapter provides analyses of early representations of hourriyat al-bahr and insan al-maa, including those present in the One Thousand and One Nights (Anonymous nd) compendium of regional folklore, and of more recent representations in contemporary audiovisual media.

I. Mythology and Ancient Regional Culture

Myth has always been an integral component of the cultural heritage of the Middle East and many manifestations have persisted to the present. In Libya, for instance, the coastal city of Zuwarah holds an annual festival called Awessu. Although the contemporary festival is limited to celebrating traditional food and music, and hosting sporting events, the occasion can be traced back to a Berber ceremony in which people purified themselves in seawater and sought the blessings of a male sea deity similar to the Greek god Poseidon. In Egypt, following a Pharaonic tradition of offering sacrifices to the gods at burial places, people still visit cemeteries with offerings – mainly raisin bread or fruits – to be given to the poor and needy in order to solicit Allah's mercy and favour for the deceased. In Iraq, some people celebrate birth as the Sumerians did by attaching pieces of gold to the newborn's clothes in order to fend off evil spirits. In Turkey and other areas, people continue to believe in the nazar amulet's ability to ward off the evil eye – a pre-Islamic notion that has roots in many ancient regional civilizations and religions.

These examples serve as proof that the Middle East's adoption of the three largest Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) did not entirely divorce regional populations from their rich cultural histories. The myths and religions of ancient regional civilizations have seeped into the practices of these three religions and have been assimilated into the wider cultural identity of the Middle East. However, as much as the surviving traces of ancient beliefs tell us about the strong impact of certain civilizations, they also highlight the Abrahamic religions' politics of integration. While some beliefs were ultimately deemed pagan and rejected, others were implicitly acknowledged and incorporated within the new systems, not only for the purpose of appealing to the region's masses but as part of the power play between the monotheistic religions. All this emphasises the important role of Sumerian, Ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian and other ancient societies in shaping the cultural and religious identity of Middle Easterners. Since mythology constitutes a significant aspect of those past civilizations, it comes as no surprise that these societies' stories and teachings abound with mythical creatures and legendary feats which, albeit reshaped and appropriated over the years, are still observed (sometimes unbeknownst to modern populations) in cultural traditions, folklore and popular art. Hourriyat al-bahr and insan al-maa exist in this context as figures that have been represented innumerous times in different cultural contexts.

Insan al-maa's most obvious antecedence is with the Babylonian god Oannes, who is mainly known from fragments of writing from the 3rd Century BCE priest Berossus that were summarised by subsequent Greek historians (see Burstein 1978) and a small group of visual representations. Oannes was believed to have resided in the Persian Gulf and to have emerged periodically to educate men in the arts and sciences. His form was variously represented as that of a fish with human head and feet, or else as a fish-tailed human. Despite the emphasis placed on his role in enhancing Babylonian civilization in Berossus's writings (ibid), his...