Supernatural Trees

Below is my drawing of the mythical Waq Waq tree of medieval Islamic geographical, zoological and imaginative literature. I’ve tried to emphasise its eeriness but there is a lot more to this, and other magical or supernatural trees, within Islamic theology and tradition.

For pre-modern Muslim geographers, Waq Waq referred to a far-off, unknown country. One of the strangest place names in the geographical literature (ranking in weirdness alongside Yajuj and Majuj, which are transpositions of the Biblical lands of Gog and Magog), it has been interpreted by various medieval Arab and later European scholars to refer either to a part of Eastern or Southern Africa, an island perhaps in the Indian or Pacific oceans, or a place in South East Asia, China or Japan. Looking at a circular copy of Idrisi’s world map, one sees the land of Waq Waq near the end of the world, at the southern tip of Africa, on the Eastern coast, facing the Indian Ocean, opposite China. It was clearly a place about which traders may have heard odd and fantastical tales but to which few had ever travelled.

The country is renowned for its strange inhabitants and by the existence of a supernatural tree. One source describes a dark-skinned population who speak an unfamiliar tongue, leading some scholars to speculate that the word may be of onomatopoetic origin – showing the reaction of Arab traders to the so-called ‘click languages’ of southern and eastern Africa. Whatever the case, this race is associated with a mysterious tree that grows fruit that ripens into human forms. Different versions of the story record the tree blooming human heads, animals, children, or a race of small people, who are capable of speech. Some would praise God, whilst others would ripen, fall to the ground and cry out ‘Waq! Waq!’, before dying. The tree sometimes has an oracular function, as in the mythology that surrounds Alexander the Great in Arab and Persian sources. These commonly describe an incident in which the world-conqueror visited and spoke with the tree. It predicted his future and forewarned him of his impending death. This Il-Khanid miniature painting dates from about 1340.   

The great Arab polymath and belletrist, al-Jahiz, described the tree as a cross between plant and creature and there are accounts of its offspring that combine both human and animal forms within a bizarre, inter-species mélange. The 12th century physician and zoologist, al-Marwazi, described the people of Waq Waq as: “a tribe whose nature is like that of men in all their limbs, except the hands, instead of which they have something like wings, which are webbed like the wings of a bat. They, both males and females, eat and drink while kneeling. They follow the ships asking for food. When a man makes for them, they open these wings and their flight becomes like that of birds, and no one can overtake them.” Such creatures are an uncanny mix. One can imagine their eyes widening in alarm as they rush to the air, amidst inhuman caws and the flapping of batty wings. The human/bird mixture appears in other contexts, such as the harpy (female-headed birds) of Arab and Persian art. This luster-painted ceramic from 12-13th century Iran is a good example.  

There is also a sense in which Waq Waq represents not simply a far off land, but a place that can exist only in the imagination. Responding to Hasan al-Basri’s decision to travel there in search of his missing wife, Sheikh Abdul Quddus of the Thousand and One Nights explains it thus: ‘My son, relinquish this most vexatious affair; you could not gain access to the Islands of Waq Waq even if the Flying Jinn and the wandering stars assisted you, since between you and those islands are seven valleys, seven seas and seven mountains of vast magnitude.’ We are not talking, then, about a terrestrial place that you or I can visit. It perhaps existed in what mystical philosophers and theologians, such as Ibn Arabi, called the ‘imaginal world’ (‘alam al-mithal).

The fantastical mixing of plant and animal forms is a notable feature of Islamic art. Here is an early wooden panel that shows birds conceived almost as abstract shapes. 

Historians of Islamic art refer to this as the ‘beveled style’, which began in Iraq in the ninth century. It is less concerned with representation and leans more towards ambiguous, biomorphic shapes. Here is another panel that dates from Egypt in the 11th century. It is clearer in its depiction and shows horses reined within a complex vegetal/plant design. 

It is difficult to ascribe a literal or symbolic meaning to these examples because there are no recorded theories of visual aesthetics—or the nature of symbolism—in the history of pre-modern Islamic art. With the exception of calligraphy, no pre-modern scholars to our knowledge ever sat down and wrote a treatise explaining what the visual arts actually mean. Thus the types of representation shown above may have carried a specific symbolic importance for the intellectual culture of the time (which seems likely), or it may simply have been about following styles, images and forms that were then fashionable (which seems equally as likely). Or it was, probably, a mixture of the two. This ambiguity or ambivalence of meaning is one of the great mysteries of Islamic art, and the thing that makes it fascinating to this day.

Nonetheless, supernatural trees have a firm place in the religious imagery of the Quran. In a passage loaded with allegorical figures, the sacred text refers to the tree of ‘Zaqqum’, which it describes as ‘issuing from the heart of hellfire’, and from which grows fruit that are as repulsive as ‘the heads of devils’. The oppressors (zalimun) of this world (whose greed is often associated with gluttony) will fill their stomachs of this foul fruit, which they’ll wash down with a beverage of scalding despair (37:62-67).

In another verse, the Quran describes a lote tree which stands near the boundary between earth and paradise, and which the Prophet witnessed on his journey to heaven: ‘By the lote tree of the farthest limit, near unto the garden of promise, with the lote tree veiled in a veil of nameless splendour’ (53:13-18). According to Muhammad Asad (who draws from the commentary of the medieval rationalist Zamakshari) the reference to a tree ‘veiled in a veil of nameless splendour’ is deliberately vague (mubham). For how else could one associate something as ineffable and majestic  as paradise with the symbol of tree? The tree then must be described for what it is: as something that cannot be properly visualized or named.

Trees are an elemental symbol of life, fecundity and divine favour. Indeed there are numerous prophetic traditions that refer to the blessings of planting trees, whose fruit represents an act of charity for every person or animal that eats from it. From the standpoint of Islamic theology, everything in creation submits to God’s will and is a reflection of God’s mercy. Thus it is in the tree’s nature – as of every created thing – to acknowledge and praise its creator, which it does with every sprout and branch, every leaf and bloom that shoots out from its trunk. Here lies the spiritual foundation for a theology of environmental protection.  

Human lives are intimately associated with trees. The Prophet used to preach to his companions every Friday by the side of a palm tree. One day a woman from amongst the people of Medina asked if he would like for them to build him a pulpit. The Prophet responded: ‘as you wish’, so they made him a new structure. As he ascended the platform, the tree started to weep and cry like a small child. Responding to this, the Prophet came down and embraced the tree until its sobbing subsided and it had calmed down. According to one of the companions, the tree had sorely missed hearing the Prophet’s recollection (dhikr) of God (Bukhari). Likewise, there is a report about Aisha, the Prophet’s youngest and favorite wife, who in the later stages of her life was said to have wished she were a leaf or a tree uttering the praises of God (Ibn Sa‘d).

This is a leaf inscribed with calligraphy from Turkey (20^th century).

And here’s another one of my sketches.