Part 2: The Earth and What is Connected With it

Taken from: Father Giovanni Vantini FSCJ's Oriental Sources Concerning Nubia

 

The length of the Nile is over 3,000 farsakhs (1) [= 15,000 km]. Others say: It flows four months’ through

the wasteland (kharab), two months’ in the country of the Sudan and one month’s in the country of Islam.

 

Part 3: The Animals and Their Natures

Taken from: Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms. Festschrift for Wolihart Heinrichs on his 65th Birthday Presented by his Students and Colleagues by Beatrice Gruendler, ‎Michael Cooperson

Taken from: al Waraq.com

 

p41

About the natures of the giraffe. In the language of the Bedouins giraffe means collectivity, because the characteristics of many animals are joined in it: the neck of the camel, the skin of the panther, the horns of the gazelle, the teeth of the cow, the head of the deer. For that reason one of the naturalists says that it is generated among animals. He says that the cause of this is that wild animals and grazing beasts (dawabb) come together in the heat of summer at watering places and mate, and what is fertilized is fertilized, and what comes to no avail comes to no avail. Sometimes a female animal mates with various animals and the seminal fluids (miyahuha ) mix, which results in creatures of different appearance, color and form. The Persians call the camel ushturgavpalang, i.e., “camel-cow-hyena”. This agrees with what you saw the Arabs say about the existence of various composite animals. Jahiz is not (sic) surprised about what they say, and calls it the utmost stupidity, something that cannot derive from someone knowledgeable, because God Most High creates what He wills and as He wills, and it is a separate kind of animal like the horse and the donkey. This is confirmed by the fact that it begets its like, something that has been observed. It has long forelegs, a very long neck, and no knees. But it has knees in its forelegs like all other grazing animals. When it eats what is on the ground it spreads its legs because its neck is shorter than its forelegs. It walks by putting forward its right foreleg and left hind leg, as opposed to other quadrupeds. They all put forward [simultaneously] their right foreleg and their right hind leg. It is by nature sweet and loving, and man tames it. It ruminates and voids globular dung.

 

P44

About the alhimar alwahshi (wild ass)

It is called Aleayra; the wild one (al farra), which cannot be separated before it reaches thirty months, they are described as jealous and protective for the whole time. It is said that if a female is impregnated by a different male, the female escapes to him, so that there is no other male in the group. Al Jahiz said: That Aba al-Akhdar mentioned that its origins are unknown. That the child is not made by the male, but produced by some sperm from the wild. It was mentioned that it is because of the fancy from the females for the fancy for the male of its kind, but this gives quite some rancour from the master,  who wants to impregnate what is not impregnated and he does not want the young one, and no single males and it is said: The alhimar alwahshi (wild ass) lives for more than two hundred years, and every hundred years he gets an extra bird mark, and some was seen as having three and four, so there is a tight difference between them and the once from Nubia and Zaghawa (2) where they are of old covered with columns of white and black in long rectangles,  and rounds while circulating more correctly dividing. And the best of the order of the wild-blooded class are called Al-Akhdari, the longest living it is said are from among the Al Akhdari,......

 

P48

(about monkeys) …in light spirits with a round face, and a quick understanding… on the B.kg.n river, al-Zang and the China Sea….

 

P71

The musk rat (3) ….in the north of al-Zhang and carried to the land of Sindh….

 

P??

….. and the black raven is the same in Zunuy (=pl of zanj). He was tightened. Misery and creation made a combination and a mixture, as if the country was cold, they did not ripen (in the womb), or when his country was hot they heated up and burned (=black).

 

P104

… said Jahiz: migration in wild fish is as in birds, the people of Basra know about a fish al-Usbur who comes to them three months of the year and then it leaves them nine months and is succeeded by others in this period, called the al-jawaf  then they go and return the al-Usbur who are then at the thickness of the so-called albarst.wk of the country of Zinj, and none remained in Zinj while they migrated, the same applies to none remain in Basra at the time they are in Zinj,… (4)

(1) Farsakhs: Parasang: 1 parasangs or farsakhs = 2.8 nautical miles/ about 5km

(2) Zaghawa: also called Beri or Zakhawa, are a Sahelian Muslim ethnic group primarily residing in Fezzan North-eastern Chad, and western Sudan, including Darfur.

(3) The musk rat….in the north of al-Zhang and carried to the land of Sindh…. : This in al Zang is the civet cat (not rat).

Note: other works mentioning the civet from Africa are (see my webpage:) Al-Jahiz Al-Fakhar al-Sudan (869); Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr (11th); Yakut al Hamawi (1220); Nur al-ma'arif (1295); al-Watwat (1318); Ibn Battuta and the African Diaspora (1331); Joseph ibn Abraham (1137); Al-Saghani (1252); Nur al-ma'arif (1295); Friar Jordanus; (1329); Cowar el-aqalim (1347); From the Court of Al-Zahir (1439); Ibn al-Ahdal (1451); Ibn Madjid: As-Sufaliyya (1470); Ibn al-Dayba (1496);

(4) The migrating fish at Basra…..  The barastouj …… : these paragraphs are repeated by many authors: Jahiz's Kitab al-Hayawan (869); Ibn al-Fakih al Hamadhani (903); Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr: (11th); Mohammad ebn Mahmud ebn Ahmad Tusi (1160); Al-Zamakhshari (d1144); Al-Qazwini(d. 1283); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (around 1300); al-Watwat (d1318); Rukneddin Ahmed (1420).