Reading Notes: Folklore of the Holy Land, Part A

Jinns. Web Source: Wikipedia.

My main thoughts when reading these stories were on the similarities and differences with the stories I know about people such as Adam and Eve, Noah, and Abraham. There were, of course, a lot of parallels that I was expecting, so what caught my eye were the differences. However, this course is not about religion, so I will not go into details.

I was intrigued by the Tablet of Destiny, which reminded me of the tablet with the same name in Mesopotamian mythology, which I am doing my storybook on and actually led me to more information about it. According to Wikipedia, the Islamic one is actually called the Preserved Tablet, اللوح المحفوظ, and, like in the story, contains all that will and has happened.

The second piece of the creation story that was interesting from a story perspective was that God created the mind before he created humans. I wonder what that mind was thinking before it was part of humans.

I was highly amused by the comment about European doctors who think they know everything but do not let women chat with new mothers to protect them from jinn. Whether or not you believe in jinn, it does seem important for new mothers to have companionship and help. Here I think they tend to be somewhat isolated. It would be interesting to have a spin-off story about a new mother who is under the care of a Western doctor and her friends have to wage a secret war against the jinn.

Speaking of women, the part of Noah's story with the three types of women also stood out to me. In this story, Noah promises his daughter to three different men. When the first two, who have been gone longer than promised, return, he turns a donkey and a female dog into women to become their brides. Because of this, women are either wonderful and helpful, or share the characteristics of a donkey or a dog, according to this story anyway. Ouch.

Bibliography: J. E. Hanauer's Folklore of the Holy Land, link.