_Arab Tree Worship--Story of Kaimun, the Captive Slave--Miracle of the
Date Tree--Persian Bushes--Plane Tree--The Great Cypress--The Old Man
of Diarbekir--The Feroüers--Anecdote of Xerxes--Anecdote of a Merchant
and his Wife--The Bush of the "Excellent Tree"--The Cypresses of
Zoroaster--Motawakel--The Triple Tree of Abraham--Tree of the Club of
Hercules--The Tree Menelais--The Tree of Passienus Crispus--The Virgin
Mary's Fig Tree--Tree of Mohammed's Staff--The Neema Tree of the
Gallas--Irish Superstitions--Saint Valeri--People of
Livonia--Destruction of a Sacred Tree._
Among the Pagan Arabs of a very early date according to Ousley, was a tree
worshipped by certain tribes as an idol, under the name of _Aluzza_ or
_Alozza_, according to original authority, cited by the learned Pococke.
This is said to have been the Egyptian Thorn or Acacia, a reference to
which is found in the Preliminary Discourse to Sale's translation of the
Koran. "_Al Uzza_, as some affirm, was the idol of the tribes of _Koreish_
and _Kenanah_, and part of the tribe of _Salim_; others tell us it was a
tree called the Egyptian Thorn or Acacia, worshipped by the tribe of
Ghatsan, first consecrated by one Dhalem, who built a chapel over it
called Boss, so contrived as to give a sound when any person entered."
The manuscript chronicle of Tabri, written in the ninth century, says that
the people of Najrán (in Yemen or Arabia Felix) had been idolaters, like
all the neighbouring tribes, until a remarkable event induced them to
embrace Christianity. "And they had," says he, "outside the city, a date
tree of considerable base; and every year on a certain day, they held a
solemn festival; and on that day all the people assembled round the tree,
and they covered it with garments of rich embroidery, and brought all
their idols under it; and they went in ceremonious procession about that
tree, and offered up prayers, and an evil spirit or devil spoke to them
from the midst of it, and they having paid reverence to that tree,
returned. It afterwards happened," continues the historian, "that a man
of Syria, named Kaimun, a descendant from the Apostles of Jesus, came into
Arabia, fell among thieves, was taken and sold as a slave in the land of
Najrán. Here his master surprised him at midnight, reading the Gospel by a
ray of celestial light, which illuminated the whole house, and Kaimun soon
after, through divine assistance, caused the tree which had been
worshipped as a divinity, to come forth, root and branch, from the earth;
such a miracle effected an instantaneous conversion of the people, who
destroyed all their idols and became zealous disciples of Jesus."
"Whatever circumstances in this anecdote may appear marvellous, there is
little reason to doubt that a tree was once among the objects of
idolatrous veneration at Najrán; and as we learn from authentic history,
the people of that place were cruelly persecuted for their adherence to
Christianity, by Dhú Nawa's, also named Yusef (Joseph), a prince of the
Jewish religion, who reigned in the sixth century; about seventy years
before Mahommed. That the ancient Arabians practised pagan rites, we learn
from Zakaria Cazvini, who wrote in the thirteenth century. They observed,
says he, at first, the religion of Abraham, but afterwards sunk into gross
idolatry; some worshipping a stone, and some a tree. He then relates the
story of that tree-idol, _Aluzza_, above mentioned, with a slight
variation of circumstances, not claiming particular notice."
The trees and bushes which the modern Persians regard with particular
respect, have been noticed by most travellers in that country. Mr. Morier,
in his journey through Persia in the years 1808-9 (vol. I., p. 230), says
that according to superstitious belief, the rags deposited on certain
bushes by persons suffering from diseases, and taken thence by other
patients, who in turn substitute their own, prove an infallible remedy. In
his second volume also (p. 239), he mentions the tomb of some Persian
saint, and growing close to it, a small bush on which were fastened
various rags and shreds of garments; these, as was generally fancied, had
acquired from their vicinity to the saint, virtues peculiarly efficacious
against sickness.
In the eighteenth century, it was remarked by Chardin at Ispahan, that the
religious Mahommedans chose rather to pray under a very old tree than in
the neighbouring mosque. They devoutly reverence, says he, those trees
which seem to have existed during many ages, piously believing that the
holy men of former times had prayed and meditated under their shade.
He noticed also at Ispahan a large and ancient plane, all bristling with
nails and points, and hung with rags as votive offerings from dervishes,
who, like monks of the Latin church, were professed mendicants, and came
under the tree to perform their devotions. He next describes another
plane, said to be in his time above one thousand years old; it was black
with age, and preserved with extreme care. This attention, adds he, arises
from a superstitious respect entertained by the Persians for those ancient
trees already mentioned. They call them _Dracte fasel_, or _the excellent
trees_, venerating them as having been miraculously preserved by God so
many years, because they had afforded shade and shelter to his faithful
servants, the Dervishes and others professing a religious life. Another
plane, one of these _excellent trees_, held in veneration, to which the
devout resorted, is then described by this celebrated traveller (tome
VIII., p. 187). One, also, at _Shiráz_, to which they tied chaplets,
amulets, and pieces of their garments; while the sick (or some friends for
them) burned incense, fastened small lighted tapers to the tree, and
practised other superstitions in hopes of thereby restoring health.
Throughout all Persia, adds Chardin, these _Dracte fasels_ are venerated
by the multitude, and they appear all stuck over with nails used in fixing
in them shreds of clothes and other votive offerings. Under their shade
the pious love to repose whole nights, fancying they behold resplendent
lights, the souls of _Aoulia_ or blessed saints, who had under the same
trees performed their devotions. To those spirits, persons afflicted with
tedious maladies devote themselves; and if they recover, the cure is
attributed to their influence and proclaimed a miracle.
The plane trees of Persia, the reverence paid to them as divinities, and
the worship accorded them on account of their great age, are mentioned
also by others, notably by Father Angelo, who resided in the country for a
considerable period.
Ousley says--"Pietro della Valle, in 1622, celebrated the great Cypress of
Passa, anciently Pasagarda according to the general opinion; and, nearly
two hundred years after, I beheld this beautiful tree with admiration
equal to that expressed by the Italian traveller. He mentions that it was
regarded with devotion by the Mahomedans; that tapers were often lighted
in the capacious hollow of its trunk, as in a place worthy of veneration;
the people respecting large and ancient trees, supposing them to be
frequently the receptacles of blessed souls, and calling them on that
account, _Pir_ or 'aged,' a name equivalent to the Arabic _Sheikh_; also
_Imám_, signifying a priest or pontiff; so they entitle those of their
sect whom they imagine to have died in the odour of sanctity. Therefore
when they say that such a tree or such a place is a Pir, they mean that
the soul of some holy elder, a venerable personage whom they believe
blessed, delights to reside in that tree or to frequent that spot. This
most excellent traveller then observes that the veneration paid to trees
may be considered as a remnant of ancient paganism, and aptly quotes
various lines from Virgil in confirmation thereof."
Similar testimony to the above is supplied by Barbaro, who, two centuries
before Chardin and Angelo, when travelling through Persia observed
thornbushes to which were attached great numbers of old rags and scraps of
garments, supposed to be efficacious in banishing fevers and other
disorders.
"Whatever suspicion," says Ousley, "may be excited by this practice" we
are discussing, "it is certain that the Mahommedans shudder at any
imputation of idolatry, and fancy that in their addresses or offerings to
those trees, they only invoke the true God, the great Creator. This will
appear from an anecdote related by Saadi, who was born in the twelfth and
lived during most part of the thirteenth century, eminent among Persian
poets and philosophers. It occurs in the sixth chapter of his _Gulistan_,
or Rose Garden, a work which has been published in various European
languages, and so well translated into English by Mr. Gladwin, that I
shall borrow his words upon this occasion, as it would be unnecessary and
presumptuous to substitute my own. 'In the territory of Diarbeker I was
the guest of a very rich old man, who had a handsome son. One night he
said, 'during my whole life I never had but this son. Near this place is a
sacred tree, to which men resort to offer up their petitions. Many nights
I besought God until he bestowed on me this son.' I heard that the son was
saying to his friends in a low tone of voice, how happy should I be to
know where that tree grows, in order that I might implore God for the
death of my father.'"
"It seems probable that the early _Muselmans_ who invaded _Iran_ or Persia
in the seventh century, found this invocation of trees established there
from ages long elapsed, and that they soon adopted the popular
superstition (if, indeed, some practices of the same or of a similar
nature were not already frequent among themselves), reconciling it to
their own faith, by addressing the Almighty, or, as we have seen, the
intermediatory spirits of the saints. By the ancient Persians, especially
those who professed Magism as reformed according to Zeratusht or
Zoroaster, image-worship and other forms of gross idolatry, were held in
as much abhorrence as afterwards by the Muselmans themselves; and they
contemplated the Sun and its representative, material Fire, with
veneration, merely as bright symbols of the sole invisible God. Yet in
some of those sacred books which their descendants the _Gabrs_ and Parsis
attribute to Zeratusht himself (but which we may reasonably suppose were
compiled in the third century, from fragments of ancient manuscripts and
from tradition); it seems that trees were invoked as _pure_ and _holy_,
and that a form of prayer (izeshne) was particularly addressed to
_Feroüers_, or spirits of saints through whose influence the trees grew up
in purity, and which, placed above those trees as on a throne, were
occupied in blessing them.
"From want of a more expressive term, I have called the Feroüers,
'spirits,' but it is not easy to describe by one word those imaginary
creatures; for, at first, they existed singly; were then united to the
beings which they represent, forming, as it would seem, part of their very
souls; there are Feroüers of persons not yet born, although properly
united only with rational beings, yet they are assigned to water and to
trees ('Les saints Feroüers de l'eau et des arbres.'--Zendav. II., p.
284). Some are described as females; all are immortal and powerful, but
beneficent; pleased with offerings, they protect their votaries, and are
prompt in carrying off the petitions of those who invoke them to the
mighty Ormuzd.
"Here we find the supposed agency of preternatural beings, intermediate
between man and his Creator; and to this I would ascribe an act of the
great Xerxes which is represented as extraordinary and even ridiculous;
but of which, in my opinion, the motive has not been rightly understood.
"To Xerxes I have already alluded as the Persian king, who, almost five
centuries before our era, although he may have worshipped God under the
symbol of Fire or of the Sun, appears as if willing to propitiate some
invisible superhuman power, by offerings suspended from the branches of a
tree, in which he believed it resident.
"The anecdote is first related by Herodotus, and in such a manner as
leaves but little doubt of its authenticity. The fact which it records I
hope to prove conformable with Persian usage and opinion. But many
circumstances are related of Xerxes by the Greek writers, which can
scarcely be reconciled to probability. Xerxes, according to that venerable
historian above-named, having come from Phrygia into Lydia, arrived at a
place where the road branched off, leading on the left towards Caria, on
the right to Sardis. Those who travel by this road, says he, must
necessarily cross the river Mænder, and pass the city of Callatebos,
wherein dwell confectioners, who compose sweetmeats of tamarish-honey and
wheat. Xerxes, proceeding on this road found a plane tree, which on
account of its beauty he decorated with golden ornaments; and leaving to
guard it one of his troops, called the Immortals, advanced on the next day
to Sardis, the chief city of the Lydians.
"This anecdote is related with an amplification of circumstances, and his
own comments, by Ælian, who ridicules the Persian monarch because, having
undertaken a very important expedition, he pitched his camp and delayed a
whole day in a desert of Lydia, that he might pay homage to a great plane
tree, on the branches of which he hung rich garments, bracelets, and other
precious ornaments; and left a person to guard it, as if the tree had been
a beloved mistress; such is the sum of Ælian's words. He does not impute
this act of Xerxes (although it wore a semblance of worship) to any
religious or superstitious motive, but to an absurd admiration of the
tree, an inanimate object, on which from its very nature, says he, neither
the gold nor splendid garments, nor the other gifts of that barbarian,
could confer any benefit or additional beauty.
"To the same story Ælian alludes again, in a chapter recording instances
of strange and ridiculous love; and it is noticed by Eustathius in his
commentary on Homer.
"But these Greek writers could scarcely have suspected the true motive of
Xerxes in this act, since Herodotus, the very historian by whom it was
first related, had described the Persian religion as incompatible with
what would appear a kind of idolatry. Yet the reader has, perhaps, already
seen enough to convince him that Xerxes, while he affixed his jewels and
garments on the plane tree, was engaged in solemn invocation; soliciting,
on the eve of an important military enterprise, the Almighty's favour
through the intercession of some imaginary power.
"That such is a just interpretation of the circumstance will further
appear when we consider that it is not merely in case of sickness (though
a very frequent occasion), that the present Muselman Persians (no less
averse from gross idolatry than their early predecessors) invoke the
spirits supposed to dwell in certain trees, by hanging on the branches
pieces torn from their garments; but as I have learned from several among
them, on every undertaking which they deem of magnitude, such as a
commercial or matrimonial speculation, the building of a new house, or a
long journey; and as almost six hundred years ago, when Saadi wrote his
work above quoted, offerings are daily made by votaries desirous of having
children.
"On this subject an anecdote was told by a person at _Shiraz_, from whom I
sought information respecting some trees and bushes covered with old rags,
in the vale of _Abdui_ and other places. He assured me that before the
arrival of our Embassy at Bushehr, a merchant, lately married to a
beautiful girl, but who had not yet given him reason to expect the
blessing of an heir, was travelling with her, and finding a pleasant spot,
halted there awhile, the sun's excessive heat inducing him to seek
shelter. He perceived at a little distance from the road some ancient
walls, among which grew a shady and handsome tree, to this he retired with
his young wife, leaving the mules or horses in a servant's care. The tree,
from its situation, had until that time, escaped the notice of most
passengers, and did not exhibit on its branches even one votive offering,
but the merchant, whose fondest wish was to obtain a son, fastened on it a
shred torn from his clothes, and the united vows of himself and his fair
companion were crowned with success before the expiration of a year. The
circumstance being known (although some would, perhaps, think the event
possible without any preternatural agency), was ascribed to the tree's
efficacious influence, and within another year the branches were covered
with several hundred rags, by as many votaries; not all, however, acting
from the same motive."[15]
As might reasonably be anticipated, the imagination has readily lent
itself to the development and propagation of the superstitious idea now
under consideration, and we find many an ancient bush exalted into a
_Dirakht-i-fazel_ from the fancied appearance of fire glowing in the midst
of it, and then suddenly vanishing; this name, as we have already seen,
implying according to Chardin, "the excellent tree," and bestowed, as
several travellers have observed, on every bough or tree that exhibits
votive offerings, without regard to size or species, age, beauty or
situation.
"Where trees are generally scarce, the votary," says Ousley, "must not be
fastidious in selection; _Dirakht-i-fazels_ are found near tombs
containing the bodies of supposed saints, or Imámzádehs, but I have as
frequently observed them in desert places where it could not be imagined
that they derived any virtue from such sacred relics.
"As the Persian villagers in their rustic dialect give the name of _fázel_
(still perhaps retaining its sense as the epithet excellent) to certain
preternatural beings, so _Dirakht-i-fazel_ would express 'the tree of the
genii.' This circumstance I learn from a note written at my request, after
some conversation on the subject, by Mirza Mohammed Saleh, of Shiraz, a
very ingenious and well-informed young man of letters. And that
preternatural beings were supposed to frequent a certain tree, I learn
from an author of the twelfth century, quoted by Hamdallah Cozvini. He
relates that among the wonders of Azerbaijan (or Media) there is at the
foot of Mount _Sabalan_, a tree, about which grows much herbage; but
neither is this nor the fruit of that tree ever eaten by beasts or birds,
as they dislike it, and to eat of it is to die. This, as tradition
reports, is the residence of jinn or genii."[16]
The MS. Diet of Berhan Kattea, contains a long passage concerning two
cypress trees of high celebrity among the Magians, the young plants of
which had been brought, it is said, from Paradise, by Zeratusht or
Zoroaster himself, who in an auspicious hour planted one at _Kashmúr_ and
the other at _Fármad_. After they had flourished one thousand four hundred
and fifty years, the Arabian _Khalifah_, Motawakel (who reigned in the
ninth century), commanded Taher Ben Abdallah, the governor of Khorásán, to
cut them down and send both their trunks and branches to Baghdád, near
which city he was constructing a palace. With such veneration were these
ancient cypresses regarded by the Magians, that they offered, but in vain,
fifty thousand _dinars_ or pieces of gold coin, to save them from the
fatal axe. At the moment of their fall, an earthquake spread consternation
through the surrounding territory. Such was their immense size, that they
afforded shade at once to above two thousand cows or oxen and sheep; with
the branches alone, thirteen hundred camels were loaded, and in
transporting the huge trunks on rollers to Baghdad, five hundred thousand
_direms_ (pieces of silver coin) were expended. On the very night that
they reached the stage next to Motawakel's new edifice, this Khálifah was
assassinated by his servants.
Ousley says--"The assassination of Motawakel happened on the tenth of
December, in the year of our era 861; and not without a strong suspicion
that his own son concurred in the atrocious deed."
Ancient writings supply an abundance of anecdotes relating to wonderful
trees which have flourished at various periods of the world's history, but
many of these are so thickly encumbered with matter purely legendary that
it is often difficult to distinguish the genuine from the apochryphal.
Among others there is in a Greek manuscript preserved in the library of
Augsburgh, and quoted by Jacobus Gretser, in his work "De Sancta Cruce,"
an account of an extraordinary triple tree, planted by the patriarch
Abraham, and existing until the death of Christ--a period of about
nineteen hundred years.
Greek writers tell of a wild olive which had taken root and grown from the
club of Hercules, and Pausanias describes it as existing in the second
century.
The same writer speaks of a number of other celebrated trees remaining in
his own time, including the large and beautiful plane called _Menelais_,
which was planted at Caphya by Menelaus, when engaged in military
preparations for the siege of Troy, or by his brother Agamemnon, described
as the "king of men," according to Pliny.
An instance of tree veneration somewhat similar to that recorded by
Xerxes, already cited, may here be mentioned. According to the historian
we are quoting, the consul Parsienus Crispus so loved a certain tree that
he was accustomed to kiss and embrace it, to lay himself down under it and
to besprinkle it with wine. "The kisses and embraces," says Ousley, "might
have authorized Ælian to give the Roman consul a place in his chapter on
strange and ridiculous loves. But to recline under the shade of a
beautiful tree seems perfectly natural; and, perhaps, we may discover in
the libation or affusion with wine, something of a religious ceremony, for
it appears that the tree stood in an ancient grove consecrated to Diana,
and we know that wine was sprinkled on trees in the early ages, as still
in some parts of France."
Near Cairo, at a fountain wherein the Virgin Mary washed her infant's
clothes, a lamp was, three centuries ago, kept burning to her honour in
the hollow of an old fig tree, which had served them as a place of
shelter, according to the "Itinerario de Antonio Tenreio;" and Maundrell,
who travelled in 1697, saw between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the famous
turpentine tree, in the shade of which the blessed Virgin is said to have
reposed when she was carrying Christ in her arms.
In the time of Hamdallah Cazvini (fourteenth century), a dry or withered
tree distinguished the grave of a holy man at _Bastam_; this tree had once
been (they say) Mohammed's staff, and was transmitted through many
generations, until finally deposited in the grave of Abu Abdallah
Dasitani, where it took root and put forth branches, like the club of
Hercules. Those who injured this sacred tree perished on the same day.
In the time of Plutarch, an aged tree still bore the title of "Alexander's
Oak," and marked a spot rendered memorable by one of that hero's exploits.
It stood near the river Cephisus, and not far from the burial-place of
many valiant Macedonians. How old this tree may have been during
Alexander's youth, does not appear; but it grew near Cheronæa where he
signalised himself in battle 337 years before Christ; and Plutarch died
119 years after Christ. It may, however, have existed to a much later
period.
In Africa, the modern Muselmans and Pagans seem equally inclined to
distinguish particular trees as sacred objects. Every tribe of the Galla
nation, in Abysinnia, worship avowedly as a god, the Wanzey tree. Mr. Salt
confirms this statement of Bruce, using similar language. Mungo Park
mentions the Neema Tuba, a large tree decorated with innumerable rags or
scraps of cloth--"a tree which nobody presumed to pass without hanging up
something."
Barbot informs us that the inhabitants of Southern Guinea make offerings
and pray to trees, more especially in time of sickness; from an
expectation of thereby recovering their health.
Colonel Keatinge, in his "Travels in Europe and Africa," speaks of a
resemblance or identity between the _Argali_ (wild olive) and the _Arayel_
or the sacred tree of the Hindus; and he noticed the offerings strung upon
those _Argali_, "rags, potsherds, and the like trash." Why such things
were offered, or the origin of such a custom, no person attempts to
explain, but he observes, "a traveller will see precisely the like in the
west of Ireland, and will receive an equally satisfactory account upon the
subject."
A multiplicity of extracts might be quoted to prove how long this
superstition lingered among various nations of Europe, besides the Irish.
We need scarcely premise that it was widely diffused in pagan times
throughout those nations. We have already seen it among the Greeks and
Romans. It flourished among the ancient Germans, as Tacitus and Agathias
inform us; among the Scandinavians also, and different tribes of the
north, according to their _Edda_ and other works. The Druids of the Celts,
Gauls and Britons of course afford familiar examples. But after the
introduction of Christianity we find the worship of trees condemned, as a
practice still existing, by the councils of Auxerre, of Nantes, and of
Tours. It was also strongly forbidden by the laws of Canute, as may be
seen in Wilkins's "Leg. Ang. Sax."
Many anecdotes are recorded, says Ousley, of holy men who exerted
themselves in efforts to abolish the superstition. Thus we read in the
History of Saint Valeri, that this pious abbot, having discovered the
trunk of a large tree which the rustics zealously worshipped with pagan
devotion, immediately directed that it should be destroyed.
Notwithstanding such laudable exertions, we learn from Ditmar, an author
of the eleventh century, that in his time the people of Ridegast, in
Mecklenbourgh, revered a certain gloomy forest and were afraid to touch
the trees of which it was composed.
Leonard Rubenus, late in the sixteenth century, found Livonia still
infected with the idolatrous veneration of trees; for passing through the
sacred woods of the Esthonians, he perceived an immense pine, which the
neighbouring people adored, loading its branches with pieces of old cloth,
and expecting that any injury offered to it would be attended with some
miraculous punishment. Rubenus, however, tells us that he cut on this pine
the figure of a cross, and, lest the superstition should be thereby
augmented, he afterwards marked on it the form of a gibbet, in contempt
for the tree, regarded by those rustics as their god.
At a much later period this kind of idolatry existed among the same
people. Abel Burja, who visited them in 1777, mentions their sacred trees,
and relates an anecdote which he heard at Petersburgh from a priest of
Finland, whose father had likewise exercised the sacerdotal office in that
country, where his parishioners had long honoured a certain tree with
religious homage. This worthy pastor, having excited the good humour of
those peasants, whom he treated with brandy, exhorted them to cut down the
object of their superstitious worship, but they refused to touch it,
fearing that on the first application of an axe they should be destroyed
by thunderbolt. Their pastor, however, struck it with impunity; encouraged
by the brandy, they followed his example, and soon prostrated the ancient
tree.[17]