Written by Fabio Calo

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Çelebi at İsvan/Aswan

Archaeology and Mythology

Evliya begins his description of Aswan by giving a historical excursus on the founding and history of the city and its castle:

“Some historians assert that this castle of Aswan was constructed by ʿAd before the flood. This must be so, because there is a large church here known as Dayr ʿAryaq, where King ʿAryaq is buried underground in a bronze sarcophagus covered with Hebrew inscriptions. The Copts, who read these fluently, say it belongs to ʿAryaq son of King ʿAywam. It was during the reign of King ʿAywam that the prophet Idris was taken up to heaven.¹ And during the reign of his son King ʿAryaq, who is buried in this church, Harut and Marut were kept in a pit in the city of Babylon. King ʿAryaq was succeeded by his son, Elohim, who is also buried in this church.”²

In Prokosch’s translation, the line “ʿAryak, Sohn des Königs ʿAyvam” is given as translation of one such ‘Hebrew’ inscriptions.³ Dankoff notes that “for Evliyâ, ‘Hebrew’ is not (what we know as) Hebrew. Rather it is one of several languages once widespread in the world, and associated with such pre-Islamic prophets as Adam and Idris, displaced in the Arabian Peninsula by Arabic since the time of Ishmael, but still found in remnant form in Africa.”⁴ So, by ‘Hebrew’ Evliya could be referring to Hieroglyphic, Demotic, or Coptic letters. The church ‘Dayr ʿAryaq’ he is referring to – judged from the Arabic term of ‘Dayr’ rather a monastery – cannot be identified.

By ʿAd, he means the legendary king ʿAd b. Shaddad, the ‘vilayet of Sudan.’⁵ He is not only named as the founder of the castle of Aswan,⁶ but, according to some historiographers, also as the potential builder of the Pyramids of Giza.⁷

The son of King ʿAryaq, Elohim, is also said to be buried in this church,⁸ and this lineage of royal dynasty should also be of significance to Aswan’s architectural features:

“Next in succession was his son Hasaylim who constructed the Nilometer, the remains of which are still visible, here in Aswan. Much later, when the Abbasid Caliph Maʾmun came to Egypt from Baghdad, he constructed the Nilometer that is in Cairo and destroyed Hasaylim’s Aswan Nilometer so that this would be the only one. It was Hasaylim who made Egypt prosper by turning the Nile into canals and tributaries through the science of geometry. He paved all the canals with porphyry and marble and evenly lined both sides of the Nile at Aswan with walls built of rocks the size of elephants. He also built a great bridge over the Nile in the country of Nubia with 12 skyscraping arches. No trace of this bridge remains, since it was destroyed in the earthquake that occurred at the birth of the Prophet, when the Vault of Khosrow also collapsed. But its foundations are still visible in the Nile.”⁹

A multitude of the ancient buildings at Aswan is ascribed to this dynasty,¹⁰ and their footsteps were to be found in ‘Hebrew’ inscriptions on rocks.¹¹ According to Çelebi, Hasaylim was also the founder of the city of Aswan.¹² A broad outline of the mythological history of Aswan is given – before and after the flood – for which Evliya names his sources: the Khiṭaṭ by al-Maqrizi, the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (‘Life of the Prophet of God’) by Muhammad b. Ishaq, and the ‘History of Shababi’, by which he means the Turkish translation of al-Suyuti’s Ḥusn al-muḥāḍara by Şehabi Çelebi.¹³

Three (pre-)Islamic prophets are, according to Evliya, connected to Aswan:

“Die Historiker sind sich nicht darüber einig, ob Lokman – über ihm das Heil! – ein Prophet war oder nicht. In einigen Katechismen steht, daß er ein dunkelbrauner Prophet war und hier in İsvan zur Welt gekommen ist. Auch Zü-n-Nun der Ägypter stammte aus dieser Stadt und wurde ein Gefährte Seiner Heiligkeit des Propheten. Die Einwohner von İsvan behaupten, daß auch der Prophet İdris hier geboren ist, daher besuchte ich auch die Höhlen, die sie als seinen Geburtsort bezeichnen. Ich tat demütig einen Fußfall vor dem deutlichen Abdruck, den sein erlauchter Fuß im harten Felsen hinterlassen hatte, als er in den Himmel auffuhr, füllte meine Flasche mit Wasser und trank daraus. Der Fuß des Propheten hatte sich wie in einem Teig abgedrückt. Jeder Abdruck seines erlauchten Fußes ist acht Spannen lang und drei Spannen breit – so geräumig wie ein Sarg! In einer Anwandlung von Dreistigkeit legte ich mich hinein. Der Abdruck befindet sich unter freiem Himmel, und wenn der Regen, der himmlische Segen, niedergeht, so füllt er die Vertiefung des erlauchten Fußes, so daß Vögel und andere Tiere daraus trinken können.”¹⁴

Directly besides this cave of İdris he claims to have visited the cave of Luqman, a pre-Islamic mythological figure,¹⁵ who is said to have been the physician of the prophet Muhammed and the forefather of all physicians.¹⁶ Evliya tells us that even in his time, this cave was filled with the smell of medicine, especially fennel; for him, this was a proof of Luqman’s status as a prophet.¹⁷ Where those caves are to be located at Aswan and what ‘imprint’ he could be referring to, is difficult to tell. Evliya also describes a large monument to İdris:

“Östlich von İsvan, eine Viertelstunde von der Stadt entfernt, steht inmitten einer Sandwüste, die dem Wadi et-Tîh¹⁸ gleicht, auf einem hohen Hügel eine riesige Säule aus Hornissenmarmor, die – Gott weiß es am besten! – wohl an die hundert mekkanische Ellen mißt. Ganz oben befindet sich eine Statue des Propheten İdris aus hartem schwarzem Stein. Wer sie sieht, könnte meinen, ein Äthiopier sitze da oben – so lebensecht ist sie! Der Prophet ist lächelnd und mit erhobenem Zeigefinger dargestellt, ganz so, als wolle er zum Himmel weisen.”¹⁹

This statue was, so Evliya tells us, the origin of idolatry in the world – a practice that was ended only by the prophet Muhammed.²⁰ Allegedly, the area in which this monument is to be located was in Evliya’s time known as “Rimalu-s-sanem (‚Sandwüste des Götzenʻ),” and:

“[Sie] ist eine bedeutende Sehenswürdigkeit. Die Kopten wenden sich heute noch nach Osten, versammeln sich bei der Statue und verbeugen sich vor ihr.”²¹

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Biography and Work · Geography and Textual Problems · Archaeology and Mythology · Cityscape, Economy, and Population · Aswan Castle

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