Book highlights era of Abbasid caliphate

Author says most incidents in book are documented

LAHORE: Abbassid caliphs were preoccupied with the thoughts of Yajuj Majuj (gog and magog), they once sent a messenger to check if the wall of the city had fallen after rumors of attacks, said Musharraf Ali Farooqi during a session ‘Book Launch- An illustrated Talk on The Merman and the Book of Power: A Qissa’ on the first day of the eighth edition of Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) held at Alhamra on Friday.

He maintained that most of the incidents written in the book were documented. The session was moderated by Usman Tanweer Malik.

While speaking about the book, Farooqi said that while tracing the history of the Abbassids, the rumors of an attack by the residents of that time were viewed as fall of the apocalypse. “They would give up all of their business and the whole empire would come to a standstill,” he said.

He further highlighted that the seventh Abbasid caliph Mamoon Rasheed once dispatched an army with the pretext to engage Yajuj Majuj at the Syrian border so that the caliph can get time to bow before God with ummah.

While narrating about his evolutionary experience of growing up, the author said that the challenge before an author would be the execution of the story rather than imagination.

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He continued that the perception of Mongols as barbarians was not true. “They were empire builders, they looked for people who could work for them,” he said. “They had an idea of what sort of literature and art to be preserved and patronized,” he added.

He quoted Qazwini who did the job of selection of books from the libraries.

In another section, Book-2- ‘Kitab-e-Zakhira-Sikandar Zulqarnain’ he pointed towards Qazwini's research about marine creatures with human features. He quoted a few of these like The Seikh of sweet speech (stole and bartered the secrets of conjugal beds), the man of the sea (Tues offending his benefactor), Sheikh Yehudi- a demon tortoise whose reincarnation was interrupted.

He also spoke about Qazwini's theories of two kinds of beasts; complex beast humans and beasts of the apocalypse.

He continued that people were extremely afraid of Dajjal at that time. It was propagated at that time that the end of the world was going on when Halagu attacked Baghdad.

He also pointed towards ‘Tannen,’ a beast that was attributed to causing a stir in the sea. “The tides in the sea were reportedly caused by its movement,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2020.