Anāq Bt. Ādam, The Islamic Story of The Very First Witch

Journal of Women of the Middle East
and the Islamic World 17 (2019) 135–167

brill.com/hawwa
ʿAnāq bt. Ādam, the Islamic Story of the Very

First Witch
Gender and the Origins of Evil Magic
Jean-Charles Coulon
Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (section arabe), Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique
jean-charles.coulon@irht.cnrs.fr
Abstract
Some Islamic traditions mention an enigmatic daughter of Adam named ʿAnāq. Little
is known about her; for example, the corresponding entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam
simply states that ʿAnāq is the “name given by the Arabs to the daughter of Adam, the
twin sister of Seth, wife of Cain and mother of ʿŪd̲ j.̲ ” ʿAnāq is always mentioned in
relation to her son, the giant ʿŪj, who was supposed to be the only creature outside
the Ark to have survived the Flood in the time of Noah, and who was assumed to have
been killed by Moses. We gather here the information and traditions about the Islamic
ʿAnāq in order to draw a more coherent and historically contextualized portrait of this
legendary first witch.
Keywords
ʿAnāq bt. Ādam – Og – ʿŪj – witchcraft – magic – sorcery – Lilith – Enki – Venus –
Anāhīd – femininity
Résumé
Quelques traditions islamiques mentionnent une mystérieuse fille d’Adam appelée

ʿAnāq. Peu de choses sont connues à son sujet : ainsi, l’article correspondant dans
l’Encyclopédie de l’Islam affirme simplement que ʿAnāq est le « nom donné par les
Arabes à la fille d’Adam, sœur jumelle de Seth, épouse de Caïn et mère de ʿŪd̲ j ̲ ». ʿAnāq
est systématiquement mentionnée en rapport avec son fils : le géant ʿŪj, supposé être
la seule créature qui n’était pas sur l’Arche à avoir survécu au Déluge et avoir été tué par
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/15692086-12341355

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136 Coulon
Moïse. Notre propos est de réunir ici les données et traditions sur la ʿAnāq islamique
afin de dresser un portrait cohérent et historiquement contextualisé de cette légen-
daire première sorcière.
Mots clés
ʿAnāq bt. Ādam – Og – ʿŪj – magie – sorcellerie – Lilith – Enki – Venus – Anāhīd –
féminité
Some Islamic traditions mention an enigmatic daughter of Adam named

ʿAnāq. Little is known about her; for example, the corresponding entry in the
Encyclopaedia of Islam simply states that ʿAnāq is the “name given by the Arabs
to the daughter of Adam, the twin sister of Seth, wife of Cain and mother of
ʿŪd̲ j.̲ ”1 ʿAnāq is always mentioned in relation to her son, the giant ʿŪj, who was
supposed to be the only creature outside the Ark to have survived the Flood
in the time of Noah, and who was assumed to have been killed by Moses. We
gather here the information and traditions about the Islamic ʿAnāq in order to
draw a more coherent and historically contextualized portrait of this legend-
ary first witch.
The Islamic History of ʿŪj
Although ʿŪj’s name (ʿĀj in some sources) does not appear in the Qurʾān, ʿŪj is
related to two biblical figures, Nūḥ (Noah) and Mūsā (Moses). The two relevant
episodes are reported in al-Ṭabarī’s (d. 310/923) chronicle. The first mention of
ʿŪj relates to the Flood:
The water increased wildly and, as is assumed by the people of the Torah,
rose fifteen cubits over the mountain tops. All creatures in the face of the
earth, every inspirited being or tree, disappeared. No creature remained
except Noah and those with him in the boat, as well as Og b. Anak, as is
assumed by the people of the Book. The time between God’s sending the
Flood and the receding of the water was six months and ten nights.2
1 “ ʿAnāḳ.” EI2.
2 al-Ṭabarī, Ta⁠ʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901), 192;
al-Ṭabarī, General Introduction, and, From the Creation to the Flood, trans. Franz Rosenthal
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), 361.
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ʿ Anāq bt. Ādam, the Islamic Story of the Very First Witch 137
The second episode relates to Mūsā:
Moses sent out twelve chiefs, [one] from each of the Israelite tribes, who
set out to bring him an account of the giants. One of the giants, who was
called Og, met them. He seized the twelve and placed them in his waist-
band, while on his head was a load of firewood. He took them off to his
wife and said to her, “Look at these people who claim that they want to
fight us.” He flung them down in front of her, saying, “Shouldn’t I grind
them under my foot?” But his wife said, “No, rather let them go, so they
will tell their people what they have seen.” He did that.3
The chapter continues with the return of the chiefs to Mūsā, who decides to
meet Og:
When Moses met Og, he leapt ten cubits into the heavens. His staff was
ten cubits, and his height was ten cubits. His staff struck Og’s anklebone,
killing him.
Ibn Bashshār related to us—Muʾammal—Sufyān—Abū Isḥāq—Nawf:
The base of Og’s head was eight hundred cubits high, while Moses’ height
was ten cubits and his staff ten cubits. Then he jumped into the air ten
cubits and struck Og, hitting his anklebone. Og fell down dead, becoming
a bridge for the people to cross over.
Abū Kurayb related to us—Ibn ʿAṭīyah—Qays—Abū Isḥāq—Saʿīd b.
Jubayr—Ibn ʿAbbās: Moses’ staff, his leap, and his height were each ten
cubits. He struck the anklebone of Og, killing him. Og then became a
bridge for the people of the Nile. One said that Og lived for three thou-
sand years.4
These passages are the basic framework of all the stories and information
about ʿŪj and ʿAnāq. They belong to the Isrāʾīliyyāt narratives (narratives from
the Jewish tradition that supplement information lacking from the Qurʾān
about biblical events).5 They were considered in the medieval Islamic tradition
as historical sources, but medieval scholars also debated their authenticity.
Thus, ʿŪj is ʿŌg in the Jewish tradition. In the Bible, ʿŌg was an Amorite king,
ruler of Bashan, during the time of Moses.6 He was purportedly a giant. We
3 al-Ṭabarī, Ta⁠ʾrīkh, 498-9; al-Ṭabarī, The Children of Israel, trans. William M. Brinner (New York:
State University of New York Press, 1991), 81.
4 al-Ṭabarī, Ta⁠ʾrīkh, 501; al-Ṭabarī, Children of Israel, 83–4.
5 Georges Vajda, “Isrāʾīliyyāt,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.
6 Josef Segal, “Og,” Encyclopaedia Judaica2, 15:391–2.
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138 Coulon
can find some other information in the Aggadah (the non-legalistic exegetical
texts in the classical rabbinic literature, mainly recorded in the Talmud and
Midrash). Indeed, Sihon and ʿŌg are introduced as the descendants of Ahijah,
son of the fallen angel Shamḥazai and of Ham’s wife.7 They are both giants,
and their bare feet were 18 cubits long. The Aggadic ʿŌg was born before the
Flood and was saved from it by Noah on condition that he and his descendants
serve Noah as slaves in perpetuity.8 ʿŌg is also identified with Eliezer, who was
a servant gifted by Nimrod to Abraham.9 Islamic sources do not record the
existence of a brother to ʿŌg or any connection with Abraham.
ʿŪj’s Parent’s Name
As for the name of ʿŌg’s (male or female) parent, Hebrew sources do not seem
to refer to her as ʿŪq, ʿAnaq/ʿUnuq, or ʿAnāq (the spelling can differ slightly
between sources). Although most Islamic sources refer to ʿŌg’s parent as ʿAnāq
or ʿAnaq/ʿUnuq, some authors claim that ʿŪj’s parent was ʿŪq. For example,
the lexicographer al-Azharī (d. 370/980), in his dictionary Tahdhīb al-lugha, in
the entry for the root ʿ-w-j, provides some information about ʿŪj b. ʿŪq10 that
was taken up by later lexicographers, such as by Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311–12) in
his dictionary Lisān al-ʿArab. Ibn Manẓūr repeats al-Azharī’s entry verbatim
and adds more details, taken from al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad’s Kitāb al-ʿayn.11 We can
read that
ʿŪj is the name of a man. << Al-Layth said: “ ʿŪj b. ʿŪq is a man mentioned
among the greatest of creation in terms of hideousness.” It is mentioned
that he was born in the house of Ādam and lived until the time of Mūsā—
peace be upon him—and that he slaughtered Mūsā’s troops—prayers of
7 Segal, “Og.”
8 Segal, “Og.”
9 Segal, “Og.”
10 al-Azharī, Tahdhīb al-lugha, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm al-Najjār (Cairo: al-Dār al-Miṣriyya lil-Ta⁠ʾlīf
wa-l-Tarjama, [1964]–7), 3:49.
11 al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-ʿayn, ed. Mahdī l-Makhzūmī and Ibrāhīm al-Sāmarrāʾī (Beirut:
Dār wa-Maktabat al-Hilāl, 1986), 2:185. In his entry, al-Khalīl claims that “ʿŪj b. ʿŪq: one
says that he is the one who owned a rock (ṣāḥib al-ṣakhra) Mūsā—peace be upon him—
killed. One says that when he stood up, the clouds became a coat to him. He was among
Egypt’s pharaohs ( farāʿinat Miṣr).” We can notice that Ibn Manẓūr did not take exactly
al-Khalīl’s text word for word, but al-Khalīl’s entry clearly was his second source about
ʿŪj b. ʿŪq.
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God upon our prophet and upon him. >>12 It is mentioned that ʿŪj b. ʿŪq
was with Egypt’s pharaohs ( farāʿinat Miṣr). One says that he was the one
who owned a rock (ṣāḥib al-ṣakhra) who wanted to throw it at Mūsā’s
army—peace be upon him—. He is the one whom Mūsā killed—prayers
of God upon our prophet and upon him.13
The name ʿŪj b. ʿŪq can also be found, for example, in al-Fayrūzābādī’s
(d. 817/1415) al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ.14 Later, al-Zabīdī (d. 1205/1791), in his Tāj al-
ʿarūs, also reports this opinion, tracing it specifically to al-Azharī.15 Lastly, in
his geographic dictionary Muʿjam al-buldān, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (d. 626/1229)
maintains that “ ʿŪq is the father of ʿŪj b. ʿŪq,” without any substantial infor-
mation about him or his son.16 As we can see, the opinion that ʿŪj’s parent is a
man named ʿŪq remained known, but, in point of fact, it seems to have been
limited to the works of lexicographers who drew upon al-Azharī. The majority
of Islamic sources consider the name of ʿŪj’s parent to be ʿUnuq/ʿAnaq/ʿAnāq.
In fact, we can establish a parallel between the Islamic name ʿAnaq/ʿAnāq
and the biblical Anak, son of Arba. In the Jewish tradition, Arba was the great-
est of the Anakim and Anak’s father. In the Bible,17 the Anakim are depicted as
Nephilim, a Hebrew word for the giants.18
We can hypothesize that the name ʿAnaq/Anak correlates with the Sumerian
god Enki (Akkadian Ea). He is often called the Lord of the Abzu (Apsu in
Akkadian), the freshwater sea or groundwater located within the earth, and
saved humankind from the Flood; in Sumerian mythology, he tells Ziusudra,
the Noah-analogue, to build a boat. In other words, the Islamic ʿŪq/ʿUnuq/
ʿAnaq/ʿAnāq gave birth to the only creature who survived the Flood without
the Ark, while the Sumerian Enki gave birth to humankind and saved it from
the Flood.
However, the question still remains: was the Islamic ʿUnuq/ʿAnaq/ʿAnāq ʿŪj’s
father or mother? Islamic sources are equivocal, although it is quite apparent
12 The sentences between square brackets is al-Azharī’s quotation.

13 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, ed. ʿAbdallāh ʿAlī al-Kabīr, Muḥammad Aḥmad Ḥasb Allāh,
and Hāshim Muḥammad al-Shādhilī (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1981), 4:3156.
14 al-Fayrūzābādī, al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ, ed. Muḥammad Naʿīm al-ʿArqasūsī (Beirut: Muʾassasat
al-Risāla, 2005), 200.
15 al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs min jawāhir al-Qāmūs, ed. Ḥusayn Naṣṣār (Kuwait City: Maṭbaʿat
Ḥukūmat al-Kuwayt, 1969), 6:127.
16 Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1977), 4:168.
17 Num 13:33: “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the
Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to
them.”
18 “Anak, Anakim,” Encyclopaedia Judaica2, 2:125–6.

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140 Coulon
that there is a large majority in favour of a female character. This debate con-
tinued through history, and we can take the example of the aforementioned
late Arabic dictionary, al-Zabīdī’s Tāj al-ʿarūs:
ʿŪq is like Nūḥ: i.e. a name. He is the father of ʿŪj the famous giant
(al-ṭawīl al-mashhūr). Al-Azharī said that. He who said “ʿŪj son of ʿUnuq”
makes a mistake. What makes him make this mistake is that it is well
spread among people. Our sheikh said: a group among the story keep-
ers (ḥuffāẓ al-tawārīkh) claimed that ʿUnuq is ʿŪj’s mother and ʿŪq is his
father, and there is no mistake nor error. And ʿArqala al-Dimashqī, who
died in 567[/1171–72], mentioned in a poem in Badāʾiʿ al-badāʾih: “After
ʿŪj b. ʿAnāq walks the one-eyed Antechrist” (khalf ʿŪj b. ʿAnāq / aʿwar
al-Dajjāl yamshī).19
In this notice, al-Zabīdī brings together the two main traditions about ʿŪj’s
parentage—that his father was ʿŪq and his mother was ʿUnuq/ʿAnaq/ʿAnāq.
This point of view is unique, as Islamic sources usually do not bring together
these two names as the parents of ʿŪj.
Some authors also point out a significant fact about the origin of ʿŪj—that
he was born from illicit sexual intercourse (zinā). For example, Ibn Kathīr
(d. ca. 774/1373), in al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya, clearly claims that “his mother ʿAnaq
bt. Ādam gave birth to him from illicit sexual intercourse” (waladat-hu um-
muhu ʿAnaq bt. Ādam min zinā). This illicit origin is connected to the mon-
struosity of ʿŪj.
The Account of Wahb b. Munnabih
Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 101 or 102/719–20) is a prominent figure of the Jewish and

so-called Jewish narratives. He is the presumed author of a Kitāb al-Mubtada⁠ʾ,
also entitled Isrāʾīliyyāt. Only a few of his works are published, although he
seems to have written many treatises. As a result, it is not surprising that some
authors referred to Wahb b. Munabbih to explain the identity of ʿŪj and ʿAnāq.
The traditionist Abū l-Shaykh al-Aṣbahānī (d. 369/979) vouched for a ver-
sion of ʿŪj’s story according to Wahb b. Munabbih in his hadith collection
al-ʿIẓma:
19 al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs, 6:127; al-Aʿwar al-Dajjāl is an equivalent of al-Masīḥ al-Dajjāl, i.e.,
the Antechrist.
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Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Muṣāḥifī reported from Muḥammad b. Aḥmad

b. al-Barrāʾ that ʿAbd al-Munʿim b. Idrīs reported from his father that he
said: Wahb b. Munabbih mentioned ʿŪj b. ʿAnaq/ʿUnuq: his mother was
among Ādam’s—peace be upon him—daughters, and she was the most
beautiful and handsome among them. ʿŪj was among those who were
born in Ādam’s—peace be upon him—home.
He was a tyrant; God—exalted is He—created as He wanted to create
him. [His] power, height and lifetime are indescribable. He lived during
three thousand and six hundred [years]. His height was three hundred
cubits and his width four hundred cubits. [He lived] until he reached the
epoch of Mūsā—peace be upon him—and the Banū Isrāʾīl. He asked
Nūḥ—peace be upon him—to accompany him in the Ark. Nūḥ—peace
be upon him—answered to him: “I have not been ordered to bring you
[on the Ark], o enemy of God! Get away from me!” It was the age of the
Flood, and the water reached his hip. He grabbed the Whale from the sea
and raised it with his hand to the air. He roasted [it] in the heat of the sun,
and then ate it. The cause of his death was that he came to some Banū
Isrāʾīl—and they were in their army—and he tormented them enough
to make them know his might. Their army was two parasangs [long].
[ʿŪj] headed for a mountain. He picked up a rock from [this mountain]
the size of the army. Then, he carried it on his head and wanted to crush
them with it. God—Glorified and Sublime be He—sent a hoopoe (hud-
hud) to show them His power. He sent it with a pebble of diamond (ḥajar
min al-sāmūr) in his beak. It punched in the rock a hole of the size of Ūj’s
head without ʿŪj realizing it. Then, it struck at his arm and [the rock] felt
down on his neck. Mūsā—peace be upon him—was informed of this and
he came out and met him with his rod (al-ʿaṣā). When Mūsā—peace be
upon him—took a look at him. His height was seven cubits, the length of
his rod was seven cubits and he jumped seven cubits high to the sky. He
struck him with his rod at the lower part of his ankle joint and killed him.
His corpse remained some time among the Banū Isrāʾīl.20
This narrative, related by Wahb b. Munabbih, is a more developed framework

of the story of ʿŪj. Al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) reproduced this story almost verbatim
in the chapter “al-Ūj fī khabar ʿŪj” (“The top in ʿŪj’s story”) from his al-Ḥāwī
lil-fatāwā.21 Some elements are allusions to other biblical or Qurʾānic
20 Abū l-Shaykh al-Aṣbahānī, al-ʿIẓma, ed. Riḍāʾ Allāh b. Muḥammad Idrīs al-Mubārakfawrī
(Riyadh: Dār al-ʿĀṣima, 1408[/1987]), 5:1519, §989.
21 al-Suyūṭī, al-Ḥāwī lil-fatāwā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), 2:343.

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142 Coulon
legends. For example, the hoopoe (hudhud) is a bird mentioned in relation to

Solomon—it was missing when Solomon assembled the birds, but it informed
Solomon about the queen of Saba⁠ʾ and was sent with a letter to the people
of Saba⁠ʾ. Some hadiths tell us that the Prophet has forbidden the killing of
hoopoes.22 The scene of the rock falling on ʿŪj’s shoulders is depicted in illumi-
nations in some manuscripts.23 The whole chapter about ʿŪj in al-ʿIẓma con-
tains two other hadiths, whose transmission chains (isnāds) are respectively
Isḥāq b. Jamīl > Abū Hishām al-Rifāʿī > Abū Bakr b. ʿIyāsh > al-Kalbī > Abū
Ṣāliḥ > Ibn ʿAbbās, and Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṣūfī > ʿAlī b. al-Jaʿd > Zuhayr >
Abū Isḥāq > Nawf, or (alternate isnād) ʿAbdallāh b. Saʿīd b. al-Walīd > ʿAbd al-
Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b. Sallām > Abū l-Naḍr > Abū Khathīma > Abū Isḥāq
al-Hamdānī > Nawf. Both hadiths focus only on the fight between Mūsā and
ʿŪj, without any precision about ʿŪj’s parentage or fabulous elements such as
the hoopoe carrying a diamond. However, the last hadith seems to have some
precedent in the writing of Islamic scholars—it claims that “Mūsā was ten cu-
bits high, his rod’s length was ten cubits, and his jump, when he jumped, was
ten cubits high,”24 and these are precisely the measurements given by other
scholars. Another element of this last hadith is that ʿŪj fell dead on the Nile.
Therefore, this hadith related to Nawf is the source of al-Ṭabarī’s aforemen-
tioned account, although al-Ṭabarī did not accept the one related to Wahb b.
Munabbih.
Some historians gathered and compiled both accounts. For instance, Ibn al-
Jawzī (d. 597/1200), in his historical chronicle al-Muntaẓam, devotes a passage
to ʿŪj:
Mūsā—peace be upon him—killed ʿŪj b. ʿAnāq. Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī told

that ʿŪj lived for a thousand years. He met Mūsā. Then, Mūsā hit ʿŪj’s
ankle joint and killed him.
ʿAnāq was the name of [ʿŪj]’s father. Wahb b. Munabbih said: “On the
contrary, [it was ʿŪj]’s mother’s name, and she was among Adam’s
daughters.”
He said: ʿŪj was born in Adam’s epoch. He was a tyrant whose power
was indescribable. His lifetime lasted three thousand and six hundred
years until Mūsā became an adult. The water in the age of the Flood
22 Arent Jan Wensinck, “Hudhud,” EI2.

23 See e.g. Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd b. Aḥmad Ṭūsī Salmānī, ʿAjāʾib Nāmah, Paris, BnF,
suppl. pers. 332, fol. 199r: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8422994d/f411.item, accessed
28 November 2016.
24 Abū l-Shaykh al-Aṣbahānī, al-ʿIẓma, 5:1522, §991.
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reached his hip. He grabbed the Whale from the sea and raised it with his
own hands to the air. He roasted [it] in the heat of the sun and then ate
it. The cause of his death was that he picked up a rock from a mountain,
took it on his head in order to slaughter Mūsā’s army. God sent a bird to
dig the rock. It flew down on his neck. Then, Mūsā came, hit him with his
rod on his ankle joint and killed him.
As we can see, Ibn al-Jawzī mentions two sources, al-Ṭabarī and Wahb b.
Munabbih. However, he takes from al-Ṭabarī the story of ʿŪj and from Wahb
b. Munabbih the information concerning his mother and the bird sent by God.
We must point out that the hoopoe (hudhud) is an undefined bird (ṭāʾir) in Ibn
al-Jawzī’s text. The two pieces of information that can be traced back to Wahb
b. Munabbih concerning ʿAnāq are that she is ʿŪj’s mother and that she was
one of Ādam’s daughters. These two details might not have always been clearly
connected during the first centuries of Islam. For example, in the Risālat al-
tarbīʿ wa-l-tadwīr, al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868–9) asked his opponent, who purported
to be learned, “How distant are we from the time when ʿŪj died?”25 Later, he
also asked, “Inform me about ʿAnāq bint Ādam.”26 However, there is no appar-
ent connection between the two names, separated by a few sentences. In any
case, ʿAnāq is clearly known as a daughter of Ādam.
Only a few works from the huge collection of texts attributed to Wahb b.
Munabbih have been published and academically edited. The majority of his
work is known through quotations from later scholars. However, we can find
an account about a daughter of Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ in Wahb b. Munabbih’s
Kitāb al-tījān:
Wahb said that Ibn ʿAbbās said that their rivalry was about Qābīl’s sister
who was born with him in the belly. She was beautiful. Hābīl asked to
marry her, but Qābīl answered: “I will marry her.” Hābīl said to him: “She is
lawful to you.” Qābīl said to him: “I will make a sacrifice with you. He
whose sacrifice will be eaten by the fire will marry her.” They made the
sacrifice: the fire ate Hābīl’s sacrifice, and Qābīl’s sacrifice remained in-
tact. Hābīl desired her, and [Qābīl] pounced on him and killed him.27
25 al-Jāḥiẓ, Majmūʿ rasāʾil (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Taqaddum, n.d.), 96; Maurice Adad, “Le Kitāb
al-tarbīʿ wa-l-tadwīr d’al-Jāḥiẓ: traduction française, II,” Arabica 14 (1967): 32, §38.
26 al-Jāḥiẓ, Majmūʿ rasāʾil, 99; trans. Adad, “Kitāb al-tarbīʿ wa-l-tadwīr,” 38, §47.
27 Wahb b. Munabbih, Kitāb al-tījān fī mulūk Ḥimyar (Sanaa: Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth
al-Yamaniyya, 1979), 23.

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One might be tempted to consider this daughter—the cause of the first

murder—as ʿŪj’s mother.28 Nonetheless, the scholar al-ʿIṣāmī (d. 1111/1699–
1700) quoted a passage from Wahb b. Munabbih’s Kitāb al-mubtada⁠ʾ in his Samṭ
al-nujūm al-ʿawālī fī anbāʾ al-awāʾil wa-l-tawālī. Indeed, he wrote:
Since the speech has expanded to mention ʿŪj b. ʿAnaq, let’s mention
him and his mother. It is said in al-Qāmūs that ʿŪj b. ʿAnaq was born in
Ādam’s—peace be upon him—home, he lived until the time of Mūsā,
and one describes his nature as hideousness. [Al-Qāmūs] stops [here].
His mother is ʿAnaq bint Ādam [born] from his [own] kidney. One said
that her name is ʿAnāq, with an alif before the qāf, and she was the first
of Ādam’s descent to commit transgression on the face on earth. She
practiced magic (siḥr) and sinned in broad daylight. God created for her
twenty fingers in each hand, the length of each finger was two cubits for
a cubit, and there were in each finger two sharp nails like two powerful
sickles. The place of her inner circle (majlis) on earth was a valley ( jarīb).
When she committed transgression, God created for her lions like ele-
phants, wolves like camels and panthers like donkeys. He gave them
power against her, so they killed her and ate her.
In the Kitāb al-mubtada⁠ʾ, [one can read that] Ḥawwāʾ gave birth to
ʿAnaq on her own in her belly. The only single children she gave birth to
were Shīth and this sinister (mashʾūma) [infant]. She had a vision in her
sleep that a snake (ḥayya) with a great head got out of her, and as if she
immediately flew, fell on earth, suffocated and swelled, and she did not
look at any face without it burning like fire and smoke. She described her
vision (ruʾyā) to Ādam. He said: “I please you, but you conceived a child
and we must ask God’s salvation against his evil!” Ḥawwāʾ almost died on
the spot. She took a look at her and it did not look like the appearance of
her other children, because God made [ʿAnāq’s] appearance hideous and
her nature unsustainable.
This description of ʿAnāq deserves careful analysis. The excerpt claims, first,
that ʿAnāq was “[born] from [Ādam’s own] kidney” (li-ṣulbihi), which means
that she is directly descended from Ādam. However, al-ʿIṣāmī quotes a passage
of the Kitāb al-mubtada⁠ʾ that totally contradicts this first assertion, namely
that ʿAnāq was Ḥawwāʾ’s attempt to procreate by herself. The result of this
28 For example, the entry ʿAnāḳ in the Encyclopaedia of Islam states that she was “the daugh-
ter of Adam, the twin sister of Seth, wife of Cain and mother of ʿŪd̲ j,̲ ” refering to al-Jāḥiẓ’s
al-Tarbīʿ wa-l-tadwīr.
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childbirth without sexual intercourse is a monstrous creature. ʿAnāq is also

presented as one of the only two children (with Shīth) born without a twin
brother or sister. This means that the unnamed sister of Qābīl cannot be ʿAnāq.
However, there is a great contradiction between this excerpt and the other
descriptions of ʿAnāq attributed to Wahb b. Munabbih: ʿAnāq reportedly was
the most beautiful daughter of Ādam, whereas al-ʿIṣāmī’s quotation regards
her as a hideous freak of nature.
The idea that ʿAnāq was not Qābīl’s twin sister is suggested by other schol-
ars, such as the Meccan historian and Ḥanafī qāḍī Ibn al-Ḍiyāʾ (d. 854/1450) in
his Ta⁠ʾrīkh Makka l-musharrafa wa-l-masjid al-Ḥarām:
The biographers said: The Amalekites lived in Ghazza, ʿAsqalān, the coast
of the Byzantines’ sea and [the region] between Egypt and Palestine.
In those days they lived in Mecca, Medina and the entire Ḥijāz. They
were overproud. Mūsā sent them a troop from the Banū Isrāʾīl and [the
Amalekites] killed them. According to Zayd b. Aslam, he said: “I have
been informed that a hyena has been seen with her children laying down
in the pen of one of the Amalekites.” He said: “And at that time four hun-
dred years went by and no one heard about a funeral.” Jālūt was among
the Amalekites, and so were ʿŪj and his mother among the Amalekites
who were in Arīḥā.
According to Ibn ʿUmar, he said: ʿŪj’s length was twenty-three thou-
sand three hundred thirty and two-thirds cubits which are royal cubits.
He lived three thousand years. He took one of Ādam’s daughters and had
children with her [lit., from his own kidney]. And she was the first to com-
mit transgression29 on the surface of the earth and she was slaughtered.
Each of her fingers was three cubits long by two. Ḥawwāʾ gave birth after
her to Qābīl, then to Hābīl.30
This paragraph, attributed to Ibn ʿUmar (d. 73/693), the son of the second ca-
liph ʿUmar (r. 13/634-23/644), adds to the other accounts two pieces of infor-
mation, that ʿŪj had a lineage, and that ʿAnāq is the elder child for she was
born before Qābīl and Hābīl. This information can be related to Genesis 5:4
(“After Seth’s birth, Adam lived 800 years; he had other sons and daughters”).
29 The edition has taghannā (“the first who sang”). The other sources about ʿAnāq claim that
she was “the first to commit transgression” (awwal man baghā/baghat). Our translation
conforms with this common reading.
30 Ibn al-Ḍiyyāʾ, Ta⁠ʾrīkh Makka l-musharrafa wa-l-masjid al-Ḥarām wa-l-madīna l-sharīfa
wa-l-qabr al-sharīf, ed. ʿAlāʾ Ibrāhīm al-Azharī and Ayman Naṣr al-Azharī (Beirut: Dār
al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1997), 215–16.

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146 Coulon
Thus, the Old Testament ascribes to Adam and Eve a mysterious progeny after
Abel, Cain, and Seth, but, according to Ibn al-Ḍiyāʾ and Ibn ʿUmar, ʿAnāq was
born before.
On the whole, Wahb b. Munabbih, as the main Isrāʾīliyyāt collector, is a
source of information about ʿAnāq. Nonetheless, some conflicting information
can be found. To solve this problem and understand these differences, we must
analyze another means of transmission about ʿAnāq.
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the Story of the Very First Witch
As we have seen in al-ʿIṣāmī’s, ʿAnāq is introduced in some sources as a freak

of nature, the first to commit sins in broad daylight and to practise magic. Al-
ʿIṣāmī did not give his sources for this information. However, the narratives
about her as the very first witch can be traced back to Akhbār al-zamān (The
book of wonders) by Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh (al-Waṣīfī, fl. 357–462/968–107031):
Let us come back to what must be mentioned among the anecdotes that
remain about Ādam—peace be upon him. ʿAnāq bint Ādam was born
alone, without a brother. She was hideous and had two heads. She had
ten fingers in each hand, and each finger had two nails like sharp sickles.
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib—peace be upon him—mentioned her, and he said:
“She is the first who committed transgression on earth, she did debauch-
ery (al-fujūr), she sinned in the broad daylight, she subdued the demons
(istakhdama l-shayāṭīn) and had power over them by the means of magic
(al-siḥr).”
God—Glorified and Sublime be He—sent down to Ādam—peace be
upon him!—the names that made the demons obey and He ordered him
to convey them to Ḥawwāʾ and to make her wear [the names] on herself
to be an amulet (ḥirz) for her. He did so, and Ḥawwāʾ kept [the names]
and she was protected by them. ʿAnāq took advantage of her lack of at-
tention while she was asleep. She took [the names] from her, she made
the demons (istajlabat al-shayāṭīn) come to her by these names, she
performed magic (ʿamilat al-siḥr), she uttered divinatory omens (takal-
lamat bi-shayʾ min al-kihāna) and sinned in broad daylight. She led many
of the descendants of Ādam—peace be upon him—astray. Ādam—
peace be upon him—invoked [God] against her, and Ḥawwāʾ was safe.
31 André Ferré, “Un auteur mystérieux : Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh,” Annales Islamologiques 25
(1991): 150.
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God sent to [ʿAnāq], on her path, a lion more powerful than an elephant.
[The lion] attacked her in the caverns, killed her and mangled her limbs.
God set Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ free from her.
Hadith collectors (ahl al-āthār) say that ʿŪj the tyrant (al-jabbār)
was among her descendants. He had not been submerged in the Flood.
The water only reached a part of his body, and he sought for the Ark
to sink it. God made him blind [to move him away] from it. [ʿŪj] lived
until Pharaoh’s time. He picked up a rock (qaṭaʿa ṣakhra) of the size of
Mūsā’s—peace be upon him—army (ʿaskar), which contained more than
two hundred thousand [people]. He put [this rock] on his head to throw
it at them. God sent a bird (ṭayr) against him on his path. [The bird] dug
into this rock until he punched a hole inside, so [the rock] fell from his
head to his shoulders, and his head was stuck into the stone: it prevented
him from seeing and he could not move [any more]. God—Glorified and
Sublime be He—ordered Mūsā—peace be upon him—to kill [ʿŪj]. Mūsā
had a strong hand. [Mūsā]’s pounce was ten cubits, his rod’s length was
the same, and his [own] height was a lot [of cubits]. He pounced on him
and did only strike his ankle with the tip of his rod. [ʿŪj] fell and weighed
down by the rock, and [Mūsā] killed him. His fall matched the length of
the Nile. He stood like the bridge on the Nile, through which the people
and the beasts crossed [the Nile] for a long distance.32
Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh starts with ʿAnāq’s story, before discussing ʿŪj. Notably,
ʿAnāq is here not a digression from a speech about ʿŪj but the subject of the
text. This specific place in the Akhbār al-zamān is particularly meaningful.
Indeed, the Akhbār al-zamān, sometimes wrongly attributed to al-Masʿūdī
(d. 345/956), belongs to the geographical ʿajāʾib genre (a literary genre focus-
ing on the marvels of different countries). The Akhbār al-zamān sets out the
ancient history of Egypt. It relates the marvellous rule of the magician-kings of
Antiquity in Egypt, who were believed to have established a lot of talismans,
bringing prosperity to Egypt through the centuries. Some non-Egyptian narra-
tives of Antiquity are also introduced. In fact, the Akhbār al-zamān has been an
influential text for Egyptian historiography, and was so for the Fatimid rulers,
who wanted to affirm Egyptian identity to establish themselves as the legiti-
mate successors of those Egyptian kings. Of course, the story of ʿAnāq has no
32 Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh, Akhbār al-zamān (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Aḥmad Ḥanafī,
1938), 92–3; Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh, L’abrégé des merveilles, traduit de l’arabe d’après les
manuscrits de la bibliothèque nationale de Paris, trans. Bernard Carra de Vaux (Paris, 1898),
142–3.

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148 Coulon
apparent connection to Egypt, but ʿŪj’s story clearly does, because of his en-
counter with Mūsā, and because some scholars consider him as one of Egypt’s
pharaohs, as mentioned above.
The story of ʿAnāq stealing the names from Ḥawwāʾ can be compared in
particular to the Egyptian myth of Isis attested by a few Ramesside (1292–1077
bce) magical texts.33 Indeed, in Egyptian mythology, Isis succeeded in taking
the secret name of the god Rā. In this myth, only the knowledge of a secret
name can give its owner power over other creatures. Hence, Isis collected some
saliva of the old god and mixed it with clay to create a venomous snake to bite
Rā. As she was a magician-goddess, she offered to cure Rā but needed his secret
name to perform her formula. Rā finally gave her his secret name.34
As for the story of ʿAnāq, the names that God gives to Ādam are an allu-
sion to Q 2:31,35 in which God teaches Ādam the names of all things. However,
the story may also draw on the story of the Testament of Solomon, in which
Solomon summons the king of the demons and commands him to introduce
all his subjects. The king teaches Solomon the name of each demon, its field
of action, and how to instruct him not to harm any human being.36 In Ibrāhīm
b. Waṣīf Shāh’s text, the names taught to Ādam are clearly the demons’ names,
although the Qurʾānic verse considers only the names of created things. It is
interesting that before ʿAnāq steals the names, they are depicted as a protec-
tive amulet (ḥirz) for Ḥawwāʾ, whereas ʿAnāq performs demonic magic (siḥr)
by the same names. This makes it clear that the same knowledge can protect
or harm.
As we can see, in both texts Isis and ʿAnāq use a stratagem to steal the
name—Isis creates a new creature; ʿAnāq awaits Ḥawwāʾ’s sleep. In both cases,
33 Although the story of Isis was not widespread during the Middle Ages, the alchemical and
hermetist treatise Isis the Prophetess to Her Son Horus contains the alchemical teachings
of Isis to her son Horus, and particularly a sign. This text seems to have been mentioned
in another alchemical work, The True Book of Sophé [= Cheops] the Egyptian and the God of
the Hebrews, Lord of the Powers, Sabaōth. This treatise was written before the third century
and merged both Egyptian and Jewish traditions, according to André-Jean Festugière. See
André-Jean Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2006),
253–60.
34 Joris F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 51–5.
35 “And He taught Adam the names, all of them; then He presented them unto the angels
and said, ‘Now tell Me the names of these, if you speak truly’ ” (trans. Arberry).
36 Pablo A. Torijano, Solomon the Esoteric King: From King to Magus, Development of a
Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 41–87 (chap. 4). This framework story is also exposed in Ibn
al-Nadīm’s Fihrist. See the second section of the eighth chapter: Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist,
ed. Riḍā Tajaddud (Tehran: Marvi Offset, 1971), 370; The Fihrist of al-Nadīm, ed. and trans.
Bayard Dodge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 2:727–8.
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the name is a way to perform magic. We may add that Isis uses the name to
cure the snake bite and repel the snake’s venom, while ʿAnāq uses the name to
control demons (shayāṭīn), which show themselves in the shape of animals in
the Arabic mythology, too, particularly snakes. ʿAnāq herself appears as a snake
in Ḥawwā’s pregnancy dream according to the Kitāb al-mubtada⁠ʾ as quoted by
al-ʿIṣāmī, as shown above. We may recall that the name Ḥawwāʾ itself refers in
Arabic to the men who collect snakes (ḥāwin, ḥawwāʾ). Indeed, the ḥāw/ḥawwāʾ
was the person who expelled the snakes from the house by means of incanta-
tions (ruqya), according to al-Jāḥiẓ.37 Even if we cannot be sure that the legend of
Isis was known somehow in Islamic culture, the stolen names are used in
both legends to practise magic—the names are a divine secret for a wise god/
prophet, but a malevolent person can divert them for magical purposes. In
both cases, the central character is a woman (a beautiful woman, if we con-
sider Wahb b. Munabbih’s early hadith).
Finally, another important element is the originator of the story, ʿAlī b. Abī
Ṭālib, who was the cousin of Muḥammad and his son-in-law, the fourth caliph,
and the first Shīʿī imām. Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh wrote during the Fatimid rule
on Egypt. The Fatimids are Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī, and according to the Shīʿī, ʿAlī had
knowledge of the esoteric meaning of the Qurʾān and was the Prophet’s suc-
cessor. The imams have all the relics and writings of the prophets. Hence, they
are supposed to know the secret stories of the Ancient times.
This recension of the story of ʿAnāq can also be found in some other works,
such as Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī’s (fl. second half of the fifth/eleventh century)
al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik:
[...] He said and claimed that when he stood up, the clouds became a coat
to him. And another said that he is ʿŪj b. ʿAnāq.
In some stories, it is mentioned that Ḥawwāʾ gave birth for Ādam to
ʿAnāq, all alone, without any penis, [ʿAnāq was] hideous, she had two
heads, she had in each hand ten fingers, and each finger had two nails like
two sharp sickles. ʿAlī—God be satisfied with him—mentioned and said
she was the first who committed transgression, made immoral things,
sinned in broad daylight, and controlled demons. She had power upon
them by means of magic (siḥr). God—Glorified and Sublime be He—had
sent down to Ādam protections (ʿuwadh) and names to subjugate the de-
mons and rule by them. He suspended [these names] on Ḥawwāʾ to be an
37 al-Jāḥiz, al-Ḥayawān, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn (Cairo: al-Dār al-Ḥalabī,
1965–9), 4:184–5. See also Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 2:1063 (who defines the ḥāw as the
person who gathers the snakes).

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150 Coulon
amulet (ḥirz) for her. Ḥawwāʾ has kept them, but ʿAnāq took advantage of
her lack of attention during her sleep to take them. [ʿAnāq] called out the
demons by these names, she practiced magic, she sinned in the broad
daylight, she led a lot of the descendants of Ādam astray, she gave birth to
ʿŪj the oppressor (al-jabbār) … Ādam invoked [God] against her, and
Ḥawwāʾ was safe. God sent a lion more powerful than an elephant to
[ʿAnāq]. [The lion] tore her limbs apart and God made her die.
ʿŪj lived until Pharaoh’s time. He had not been submerged in the
Flood. The water only reached a part of his body and he sought for the
Ark to sink it. He picked up a rock of the scale of Mūsā’s camp (muʿaskar),
which contained more than two hundred thousand [people], to throw it
at them. God sent a bird against him. [The bird] dug into the rock, which
fell from his head to his neck, so he could not move. God—Glorified and
Sublime be He—ordered Mūsā to kill [ʿŪj]. Mūsā pounced on him. His
pounce was ten cubits, his own height was the same, and his rod’s length
was the same as well. He reached only his ankle and killed him. [His
body] became a bridge on the Nile, through which the people and the
beasts crossed [the Nile] for a long distance.38
Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī used Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh’s Akhbār al-zamān, so it is not
surprising that we find the same narrative. Later, the Egyptian man of letters al-
Ibshīhī (d. after 850/1446) reproduced Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh’s account almost
verbatim in his anthology al-Mustaṭraf fī kull fann mustaẓraf.39
This developed story of ʿAnāq and ʿŪj has also been summarized in chroni-
cles or adab texts. For example, the Egyptian scholar al-Nuwayrī (d. 733/1333),
in his anthology Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab, summed up the relevant
information:
They said: “She was ʿŪj’s mother.” She is called ʿAnāq, and she is one of
Ādam’s daughters from his own kidney.
One says that she was the first who committed transgression on the
surface of the earth. Each of her fingers was three cubits, in each fin-
ger were two sharp nails like two sickles. The place of her throne was
a valley on earth. When she committed a transgression, God—let Him
38 Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī, Kitāb al-masālik wa-l-mamālik, ed. A. P. van Leeuven and A. Ferré
(Carthage: al-Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1992), 1:82–3.
39 al-Ibshīhī, al-Mustaṭraf fī kull fann mustaẓraf (Cairo: Maktabat al-Jumhūriyyat al-
ʿArabiyya, n.d.), 2:128–9; al-Ibshīhī, al-Mostaṭraf, trans. Gaston Rat (Paris: E. Leroux, 1899–
1902), 2:316–17; al-Ibshīhī, Démons et merveilles, trans. Gaston Rat (Beirut: Les Editions de
la Méditerranée, 1981), 126–7.
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be exalted!—sent her lions like elephants, wolves like camels and pan-
thers like donkeys. He gave them power against her, so they killed her and
ate her.40
This account is about “the journey of the [Banū Isrāʾīl] to Arīḥā and the story of
ʿŪj b. ʿŪq.” Although al-Nuwayrī first mentions him as ʿŪj b. ʿŪq, he then names
his mother ʿAnāq.
The description of ʿAnāq as a monstrous daughter of Ādam, who was the
first to commit transgression on the surface of the earth and the first to prac-
tise evil magic, suggests a parallel with a well-known figure of Jewish demon-
ology, Lilith.41 Indeed, Lilith is thought to have been the first wife of Adam.
Lilith has her origins in a Sumerian she-demon, depicted as a beautiful woman
with wings and owl feet.42 She inhabits the margins of the world and is asso-
ciated with owls, birds of prey, ostriches, jackals, snakes, desert dwellers and
he-goats, as well as ruins.43 Lilith is particularly known since the Alphabet
attributed to Ben Sira (2nd century bce) referred to her in the fifth response to
King Nebuchadnezzar. This text is a narrative and satirical work, written prob-
ably during the Geonic period (seventh to eleventh centuries) in the Islamicate
Middle East.44 As she is described in this Alphabet, Lilith was Adam’s first wife.
40 al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab, ed. Mufīd Qumayḥa (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub
al-ʿIlmiyya, 2004), 13:224–5.
41 Raphael Patai, “Lilith,” The Journal of American Folklore 77/306 (1964): 295–314; Joseph
Dan, “Samuel, Lilith, and the Concept of Evil in Early Kabbalah,” Association for Jewish
Studies Review 5 (1980): 17–40; Jacques Bril, Lilith ou la mère obscure (Paris: Payot, 1981);
Michèle Britton, “Lilith ou la Première Ève un mythe juif tardif,” Archives de sciences so-
ciales des religions 35/71 (1990): 113–36; Rebecca Lesses, “Exe(o)rcising Power: Women as
Sorceresses, Exorcists, and Demonesses in Babylonian Jewish Society of Late Antiquity,”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69/2 (2001): 343–75; Vanessa Rousseau, “Lilith:
une androgynie oubliée,” Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 48/123 (2003): 61–75;
Kelley Coblentz Bautch, “What Becomes of the Angels’ ‘Wives’? A Text-Critical Study of
‘1 Enoch’ 19:2,” Journal of Biblical Literature 125/4 (2006): 766–80; Henrik Frey-Anthea,
“Concepts of ‘Demons’ in Ancient Israel,” Die Welt des Orients 38 (2008): 38–52; Catherine
Halpern and Michèle Bitton, Lilith, l’épouse de Satan (Paris: Larousse, 2010); Hyacinth
Madondo, “‘Pourquoi dois-je me coucher sous toi? […] moi aussi j’ai été faite avec de la
poussière, et je suis donc ton égale’ Lilith, première Ève et sage-femme,” in Femmes mé-
diatrices et ambivalentes. Mythes et imaginaires, ed. Anna Caiozzo and Nathalie Ernoult
(Paris: Armand Colin, 2012), 99–105.
42 Patai, “Lilith,” 295–6.
43 Frey-Anthea, “Concepts of ‘Demons’,” 45–6.
44 Joseph Dan, “Ben Sira, Alphabet of,” Encyclopaedia Judaica2, 3:375–6. Some scholars also
point out that we can find allusions to this text in Arabic literature. For example, Emile
Marmorstein, in a note, points out that in Abū l-Barakāt al-Anbarī’s (d. 577/1181) Nuzhat
al-alibbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-udabāʾ, we can find a dialogue between governor al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf

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She refused to lie underneath him during intercourse, considering herself as

Adam’s equal, as she was also created from dust. When she thought that Adam
wanted to dominate her, “she uttered the magic name of God, rose into the air,
and flew away to the Red Sea, a place of ill repute, full of lascivious demons.”45
Some accounts, such as the Zohar, gave her a male partner who is Samael.46 In
fact, when she was chased away from Heaven, God sent three angels to con-
vince her to come back to Heaven and obey Adam. As long as she refused,
God threatened that he would kill the children born from her intercourse with
Samael, and she decided that she would not return, but sacrifice her own chil-
dren, taking her revenge by killing her children just after their birth or during
pregnancy.47 We can draw a parallel between Lilith and an Arabic evil spirit
known as Umm al-Ṣibyān or the qarīna (and sometimes the tābiʿa).48 Seeing
her as the archetype of the demoness and exaltation of primordial feminine
principle, some modern scholars consider that she was comparable to other
demonesses (like Medusa) or enchantresses (like Circe).49
As we can see, although ʿAnāq is Ādam’s daughter, whereas Lilith is his first
wife, some elements are common to the two characters—they both have been
chased away from heaven, they are both reputed to have used magical names,
and they are both closely linked to the demons. Another element must be
pointed out: the word ʿanāq in Arabic can refer to a “she-kid when a year old or
not yet a year old,” or to “a certain beast of the beasts of the earth, like the fahd
[or lynx], about the size of the dog, an animal of prey, that hunts, smaller than
the fahd, long in the back, also called al-tufah.”50 Therefore, ʿAnāq’s name could
refer to two animals associated with Lilith. The nails of ʿAnāq, described as
“sharp sickles,” remind us of the claws of a bird of prey, as the feet of Lilith are
(d. 95/714) and Abū Sulaymān Yaḥyā b. Yaʿmūr al-ʿAdwanī, dealing with a text reported
by Kaʿb al-Aḥbār (d. ca. 32/652–53). Marmorstein finds that the passage quoted prob-
ably comes from the Alphabet attributed to Ben Sira. Emile Marmorstein, “A Note on the
‘Alphabet of Ben Sira’,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 41/3 (1951): 303–6.
45 Patai, “Lilith,” 296.
46 Patai, “Lilith,” 300; see also 307–8.
47 Rousseau, “Lilith,” 68–9.
48 Madondo, “‘Pourquoi?’,” 103. The tābiʿa can refer to a spirit killing children, but it usually
refers to a sort of jinn-like partner following each human. For more details about Umm
al-Ṣibyān, see Anne Regourd, “Représentations d’Umm Sibyān dans les contes yéménites :
de la dévoreuse d’enfant à la djinniyya possédant les humains,” in Femmes Médiatrices
et Ambivalentes: Mythes et Imaginaires, ed. Anna Caiozzo and Nathalie Ernoult (Paris:
Armand Colin, 2012), 63–72.
49 Rousseau, “Lilith,” 71–2.
50 Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1968), 5:2176.
Edward William Lane nearly translated the Lisān al-ʿArab’s entry. Cf. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān
al-ʿArab, 4:3135.
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described, and as they are depicted in statues. Both ʿAnāq and Lilith resemble
the striges, or sirens of Antiquity.
ʿAnāq, Venus and Iblīs’s Daughter: Gendered Evil Magic
As we have seen, the figure of ʿAnāq can be linked to the Sumerian god of magic
Enki and the Egyptian goddess of magic Isis. Here, let us introduce another
aspect of ʿAnāq that is found in Islamic sources. The theologian al-Qurṭubī
(d. 671/1272), in his Qurʾānic exegesis (tafsīr) of Q 5:22 dealing with a tribe of
giants (qawman jabbārīna),51 relates the story of ʿŪj, whom he classifies as one
of these giants. Al-Qurṭubī summarizes different aspects of the accounts about
ʿŪj according to different scholars, namely Muḥammad b. Isḥāq, al-Ṭabarī,
Makkī and others (dhukira hādhā l-maʿnā bi-khtilāf alfāẓ Muḥammad b. Isḥāq,
al-Ṭabarī, Makkī wa-ghayrihim). However, immediately afterwards, he states
that “al-Kalbī said that ʿŪj is a descent of Hārūt and Mārūt when they had sex
with the woman and made her pregnant. God knows” (wa-qāla l-Kalbī: ʿŪj man
walada Hārūt wa-Mārūt ḥayth waqaʿā bi-l-marʾa fa-ḥamilat. Wa-Llāh aʿlam).52
At the beginning of the passage, al-Qurṭubī introduces ʿŪj as ʿŪj al-Aʿnaq (“ ʿŪj
the long-necked”) but not as ʿŪj b. ʿAnāq. His mother’s name does not appear
in his commentary. Hishām b. Muḥammad b. al-Sāʾib al-Kalbī (d. 204/819 or
206/821) was the author of an anthology of Arabic pagan deities, Kitāb al-
aṣnām, and his father, Muḥammad b. al-Sāʾib al-Kalbī (d. 146/763), was the au-
thor of a tafsīr work now lost. It is not possible to be certain which al-Kalbī is
quoted here, to assign him the idea that ʿŪj was Hārūt and Mārūt’s son.
Hārūt and Mārūt are the two fallen angels of Q 2:102.53 They are those who
taught magic (siḥr) in Babylon among demons and human beings. Of course,
51 “They said, ‘Moses, there are people in it very arrogant; we will not enter it until they de-
part from it; if they depart from it then we will enter.’ ”
52 al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān wa-l-mubayyin li-mā taḍammanahu min al-sunna
wa-āy al-furqān, ed. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla,
2006), 7:398.
53 “And they follow what the Satans recited over Solomon’s kingdom. Solomon disbelieved
not, but the Satans disbelieved, teaching the people sorcery, and that which was sent
down upon Babylon’s two angels, Harut and Marut; they taught not any man, without
they said, ‘We are but a temptation; do not disbelieve.’ From them they learned how they
might divide a man and his wife, yet they did not hurt any man thereby, save by the leave
of God, and they learned what hurt them, and did not profit them, knowing well that
whoso buys it shall have no share in the world to come; evil then was that they sold them-
selves for, if they had but known. Yet had they believed, and been godfearing, a recom-
pense from God had been better, if they had but known. O believers, do not say, ‘Observe

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154 Coulon
the idea of fallen angels teaching magic upset exegetes because it questions
the role of angels in God’s creation. Al-Qurṭubī tells the story of these two an-
gels in a summarized form in his tafsīr:
It is told in ʿAlī, Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn ʿUmar, Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, al-Suddī
and al-Kalbī what [this verse] means: when corruption ( fasād) spread
among the descents of Ādam—peace be upon him—, and that was at the
time of Idrīs—peace be upon him—, the angels maligned them. God—
Exalted is He—said: “If you were in the same place and I put in you what
I put in them, you would act like them!” They answered: “Glory be to You!
This cannot be among us!” He said: “Choose two angels among the best of
you,” and they chose Hārūt and Mārūt. God made them go down to earth
and put in them the appetite. A single month did not pass before they
were seduced by a woman whose name was Bīdhukht in Nabatean, Nāhīd
in Persian and al-Zuhara in Arabic. She complained to them and they
asked her to yield to their proposition. She refused unless they followed
her religion, drank wine, and killed someone forbidden by God. They an-
swered her, they drank some wine, and they sinned in that. A man saw
them, so they killed him. She asked them the name (ism) they used to go
up into the sky, and they taught her. She uttered it and she went up. She
was turned into a planet (kawkab).54
This story is particularly relevant for our analysis. Indeed, al-Zuhara is the
Arabic name for Venus. This account deals with the origin of the planet, asso-
ciated with the Persian goddess Anāhitā, who was the divinity of “the Waters”
(Aban) and who was associated with fertility, healing, and wisdom. We can
trace this story of Venus to the end of the third/beginning of the tenth century.
For example, Hūd b. Muḥakkam al-Hawwārī (d. end of the third/beginning
of the tenth century) states in his tafsīr that “al-Zuhara went down to [the
two angels] in the shape of the most beautiful woman to complain” (nazalat
ʿalayhimā l-Zuhara fī ṣūrat aḥsan imra⁠ʾa tukhāṣimu)55. Later, he is more pre-
cise: “They mentioned according to ʿAlī that he said: ‘She went by the name of
Anāhīdh.’ ”56 Notably, ʿAlī is once more introduced as the source of the legend.
us,’ but say, ‘Regard us’; and give ear; for unbelievers awaits a painful chastisement” (trans.
Arberry).
54 al-Qurṭubī, Jāmiʿ, 2:284.
55 Hūd b. Muḥakkam al-Hawwārī, Tafsīr Kitāb Allāh al-ʿazīz, ed. al-Ḥājj b. Saʿīd Sharīfī
(Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1990), 1:132.
56 al-Hawwārī, Tafsīr, 1:132.
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As we can see, al-Zuhara found a way to beguile the two angels in order to
obtain the name by which she could ascend to the sky. The prominence of the
question of the “name” should be seen in connection with the names ʿAnāq
stole from Ḥawwāʾ to invoke chthonian spirits (demons), or the magical name
of God Lilith uttered to fly.
At about the same time, al-Ṭabarī related the story of Hārūt and Mārūt in a
variety of different versions, but one of them is of peculiar interest:
Mūsā b. Hārūn reported that ʿAmr reported that Asbāṭ reported from al-
Suddī about Hārūt and Mārūt’s affair, and that they maligned the inhabit-
ants of earth in their judgements. [God] said to them: “I gave to Ādam’s
son ten appetites, and they sin because of these.” Hārūt and Mārūt re-
torted: “O our Lord! If you gave us those appetites and brought us down,
we would rule by justice.” [God] responded to them: “Go down! I gave you
those ten appetites, then rule among human beings.” They went down in
Bābil Dunbāwand and they both reigned, until the night came so they
went back up, then, when the morning came, they went back down.
They continued this way until a woman came to them to complain about
her husband. They marvelled at her beauty. Her name was al-Zuhara in
Arabic, Bīdhukht in Nabatean, and Anāhīd in Persian. One [of the two
angels] said to the other: “I find her attractive!” The other answered: “I
wanted to tell you, but I felt ashamed by your side.” The other said: “Do
you want me to tell her?” and the other answered: “Yes! However, how
would we manage God’s punishment?” The other retorted: “We hope for
God’s mercy!” When she came [back] to complain about her husband,
they told her [about their infatuation]. She said: “No, unless you deliver a
judgement in my favour against my husband,” and they delivered a judge-
ment in her favour against her husband. Then, she told them a time at
which they were to meet her in a certain ruin. So, they joined her. When
one wanted to engage in sexual intercourse with her, she said: “I will not
do anything unless you inform me of the words (kalām) you use to go up
into the sky, and the words you go down from it.” They informed her, so
she pronounced the formula and she went up. God made her forget the
means to go back down so she stayed in her place and God made her be-
come a planet (kawkab). Each time ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar saw her, he cursed
her and said: “She is the one who captivated Hārūt and Mārūt!” When the
night came, they wanted to go up but they were no longer able to do so
and realized that they were lost. They were granted to choose between
the punishment of this world or of the hereafter. They preferred the

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punishment of this world to the one of the hereafter. They were suspend-
ed in Bābil, and began to give teachings to humans ( fa-jaʿalā yukallimāni
l-nās kalāmahumā), and [what they taught] was magic (siḥr).57
Two remarks can be added in connection to ʿAnāq. First, this text relates how
Hārūt and Mārūt’s lover became a celestial body (kawkab), and al-ʿAnāq is also
the name of a star in Arabic astrology.58 Conceivably, al-Qurṭubī also had in
mind this element when he identified ʿAnāq and al-Zuhara. Moreover, ʿAlī was
apparently the first to transmit the Islamic legend of Venus in connection to
Hārūt and Mārūt, and the first to transmit the legend of ʿAnāq as the first ma-
gician. It is meaningful that these two etiological stories give a mythological
sense of celestial bodies. Second, ʿAnāq met the angels among ruins (i.e., in the
places ruled by Lilith).
As we can see in al-Ṭabarī’s narrative, the story takes place in the Ṭabaristān,
since Bābil is identified with Mount Damavand (Dunbāwand). This moun-
tain is particularly important in the Persian collective imagination about
magic and sorcery because it was the prison of the magician-king and tyrant
al-Ḍaḥḥāk, captured by the hero Afrīdūn.59 It was also the prison of the jinn
Ṣakhr who stole Solomon’s ring and replaced him on the throne,60 and there
was also a fortress for sorcerers whose master was Hendese.61 Regarding all
these elements, it is unsurprising that this mountain is also the place of Hārūt
and Mārūt’s punishment. The story seems to have some Iranian origins.
In this view, Georges Dumézil considered Hārūt and Mārūt as a borrow-
ing from Vedic religion. Indeed, he compared al-Ṭabarī’s narrative to certain
mythological twins.62 For example, Haurvatār and Ameretāt are two of the six
57 al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan ta⁠ʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad Shākir and
Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (Cairo: Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, 1954–68), 2:431, §1686.
58 al-ʿAnāq is precisely “the name of the middle star [ζ] of [the three stars called] banāt
naʿsh al-kubrā [in the tail of Ursa Major]”. See Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 5:2176; and
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 4:3135. See also Ahmed Benhamouda, “Les noms arabes des
étoiles. Essai d’identification,” Annales de l’Institut d’Études Orientales 9 (1951): 84.
59 al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, ed. and trans. Charles Barbier de
Meynard and Abel Pavet de Courteille, rev. Charles Pellat (Beirut: al-Jāmiʿat al-Lubnāniyya,
1965–79), 1:264–5; al-Masʿūdī, Les prairies d’or, trans. Charles Barbier de Meynard and Abel
Pavet de Courteille, rev. Charles Pellat (Paris: Société Asiatique, 1962–97), 1:199–200.
60 Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī, Mukhtaṣar Kitāb al-buldān (Leiden: Brill, 1885), 279; Ibn
al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī, Abrégé du Livre des pays, trans. Henri Massé (Damascus: Institut
Français de Damas, 1973), 334.
61 Marina Gaillard, “Foi héroïque contre magie démoniaque : une lutte exemplaire,” Res
Orientales XIV : Charmes et sortilèges. Magie et magiciens 14 (2002): 120.
62 Georges Dumézil, “Les fleurs Haurot-Maurot et les anges Haurvatât-Amĕrĕtât,” Revue des
É tudes Arméniennes 6/2 (1926): 43–69; Georges Dumézil, Naissance d’archanges (Paris:
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Amesha Spenta entities of Avesta. They represent health and life respectively.
He also compared these two entities to the Nāsatya or Asvin twins, who were
physicians among the gods. According to the Mahābhārata, they lived both on
earth and in the sky, but usually rather on earth. They saw a beautiful woman
whose name was Sukanyā, and fell in love with her. When they told her, she
answered that she was Cyavana’s wife. So, as they were physicians, they offered
to rejuvenate her husband, provided that she choose between her current hus-
band and one of the two twins after the cure. She accepted, but chose her origi-
nal husband, and the twins were allowed to became full divinities. This telling
narrative contains the same elements as that of Hārūt and Mārūt’s—they lived
between the earth and the sky, they fell in love with a married woman, and
they used their knowledge to satisfy her. Of course, the stories end very differ-
ently: Sukanyā chooses her husband, while Venus leaves him; and the Nāsatya
twins are rewarded for their action, while Hārūt and Mārūt are punished for
their disobedience.
Going back to ʿŪj as Hārūt and Mārūt’s son, other sources may shed fur-
ther light on the origins of these characters, such as the Book of Enoch and
the Midrash Abkir. Indeed, the Book of Enoch focuses on the fallen angels who
have intercourse with human women, who give birth to giants. The Midrash
Abkir relates an account very close to the Islamic legend of Hārūt and Mārūt
from the Qurʾānic exegesis. In this story, the fallen angels who teach magic to
humankind are Shemḥazai, ʿUzza, and ʿAza⁠ʾel. They harass a beautiful woman,
Naʿama, and she succeeds in obtaining from them the name of God that they
use. So, the fallen angels lose their powers, and Naʿama escapes them. Finally,
God rewards the woman for her chastity by turning her into the celestial body
Gallimard, 1945), 158–70; Georges Dumézil, Le roman des jumeaux: Esquisses de my-
thologie (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 67–78. See also Jean Kellens, “Les Fravashi,” in Anges et
démons: Actes du colloque de Liège et Louvain-la-Neuve (25–26 novembre 1987), ed. Julien
Ries (Leuven: Centre d’Histoire des Religions, 1989), 99–114; A. Shapur Shahbazi, “Hārut va
Mārut,” Encyclopædia Iranica; and Constant Hamès, “La notion de magie dans le Coran”,
in Coran et talismans: Textes et pratiques magiques en milieu musulman, ed. Constant
Hamès (Paris: Karthala, 2007), 17–47, esp. 33–7. In fact, this hypothesis can be traced to
Paul Boetticher, who draws attention to the possible Vedic origin of Hārūt and Mārūt. Paul
Boetticher, “Notizen, Correspondenzen und Vermischtes. Vergleichung der armenisch-
en Consonanten mit denen des Sanskrit,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft 4 (1850), 368. However, James Darmesteter refutes this idea, arguing that the
names are insufficiently close for such a hypothesis. James Darmesteter, Haurvatât et
Ameretât. Essai sur la mythologie de l’Avesta (Paris: Librairie A. Franck, 1875), 60–1, n. 3. Of
course, such an objection is shaky, with regard to the possibilities of deformation through
history, especially in ancient times.

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158 Coulon
known as Venus.63 To sum up, in this Hebrew version, Venus is a positive

female figure harassed by the fallen angels because of her beauty, whereas in
the Arabic version Venus is a negative figure who uses her beauty to manip-
ulate the fallen angels. In both cases, feminine charms lead to the downfall
of the fallen angels. The angels’ names, possibly corresponding to Hārūt and
Mārūt, are ʿAzāʾīl and Shemḥazai (Semiazas in the Greek version of the Book of
Enoch), and Shemḥazai is said to have two sons, Hiya and Hiwa.64 ʿŌg and his
brother Ṣīḥūn are said to be descended from Shemḥazai and Ḥam’s wife. Here
is another element that connects Jewish tradition to ʿŪj b. ʿAnāq. Possibly, the
figures of Haurvatār and Ameretāt, the Nāsatya twins, and Shemḥazai merged
to produce Hārūt and Mārūt. Mani would have had knowledge of Enochian lit-
erature, probably through Aramaic versions already known and spread among
Christian communities. P. J. de Manasce hypothesizes that the Indian-Iranian
legend spread out from a northern dialect milieu (he points out that Central
Asia and Sogdian played an important role in transmitting this telling) at the
beginning of Sassanian rule.65
We must draw another parallel with the figure of Isis. Indeed, in the al-
chemical treatise Isis the Prophetess to Her Son Horus, Isis explains to her son
Horus that an angel from the first firmament had seen her and desired her.
She wanted to know from him how to prepare gold and silver. The angel re-
fused but asked a greater angel to come to her. This angel, Amnael, had a sign
on his head. Amnael desired Isis like the first angel did. Isis refused to satisfy
him unless he revealed his sign. The angel finally agreed to teach her the sign
after making her swear that she would teach it to no one except her son.66 This
story is obviously inspired by the legend of the fallen angels in the Book of
Enoch, and it allows us to draw a parallel between Isis and Venus (al-Zuhara/
Anāhīd/Bīkhukht).
The confusion between ʿAnāq as ʿŪj’s mother and al-Zuhara/Anāhīd/
Bīkhukht is also important in understanding why ʿAnāq is introduced as
the first who practised magic. Indeed, this information can appear as spuri-
ous from a Qurʾānic perspective because, according to the Qurʾān, magic is
the teaching of Hārūt and Mārūt to the human beings and the demons, and
it presupposes that humankind is already created. Certainly, some sources
took liberties with the Qurʾānic account. For example, in Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf
63 Shahbazi, “Hārut va Mārut.”

64 Jean de Menasce, “Une légende indo-iranienne dans l’angélologie judéo-musulmane : à
propos de Hrt et Mrt,” Études Asiatiques 1 (1947), 16.
65 Menasce, “Légende,” 17.
66 Festugière, Révélation, 253–60.
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Shāh’s Akhbār al-zamān, we can read about the antediluvian (and legendary)
Egyptian magician-king ʿAdīm that
the two angels who fell from the sky lived during his reign. ʿAdīm was
reputed to have learned much of their knowledge before they went to
Bābil. The Egyptians and the Copts say that they were two demons whose
names were Mahla and Mahāla. (wa-kāna fī waqtihi l-malakān alladhān
uhbiṭā min al-samāʾ wa-yuqālu inna ʿAdīm istakthara min ʿilmihimā
thumma ntaqalā ilā Bābil. Wa-ahl Miṣr wa-l-Qibṭ yaqūlūna inna hādhayn
shayṭānān yuqālu la-humā Mahla wa-Mahāla.)67
In this case, the two fallen angels were in Egypt before Iraq. As for the question
of the teaching of magic, Bīdhukht had a specific place in some texts. Ibn al-
Nadīm (d. 385/995 or 388/998), in the second section of the eighth chapter of
his Fihrist, devoted to the “accounts of the exorcists, jugglers, magicians, and
those who use incantations, tricks, and talismans,” describes Bīdhukht as a
kind of queen of evil magicians:
This system which is condemned (shameful) is the system of the magi-

cians. Those informed about it claim that Bīdhukh is the daughter of the
Devil (Iblīs), or it is also said of the Devil’s son, and that she had a throne
on the water. If he who seeks this affair comes to her after doing for her
what she wishes, she makes a servant of whomever he desires and fulfills
his purposes. He is not isolated from her nor from anyone who makes
offerings to her from among humans and animals, if he renounces the or-
dinances [of religion] and employs that which is repugnant to the mind.
It is also said that Bīdhukh is the Devil himself. Another person has
stated that Bīdhukh is seated on her throne, and that whoever seeks to
obey her is brought to her and worships her. Almighty is Allāh and sancti-
fied are His names!68
This excerpt manifests some kind of gender confusion about Bīdhukht. Is she
the daughter or son of Satan, or Satan himself? Another important element is
that she has a throne on water, and Anāhīta is the goddess of the waters, the
67 Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh, Akhbār al-zamān, 189; Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh, Abrégé des mer-
veilles, 244–5. See also al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa-l-āthār,
ed. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid (London: al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2002), 1:86;
al-Maqrīzī, Description topographique et historique de l’Égypte: Première partie, trans.
Urbain Bouriant (Paris, 1895), 1:89.
68 Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist, 371; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist of al-Nadīm, 2:730.

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Sumerian god of magic Enki is the lord of the freshwater sea, and so forth. It
also reminds us that ʿAnāq has her place in a valley according to some scholars
(and to have a majlis in it, just as the magicians’ majlis of Bīdhukht).
Among the magicians belonging to this “condemned system” is Ibn
Waḥshiyya (d. ca. 324/935), the author of al-Filāḥa l-nabaṭiyya, who introduces
himself in this treatise not as its author but as the translator of a Nabatean
book about agriculture. In this book, two magicians (sāḥirān) are mentioned
by name, ʿAnakbūthā (or ʿAnkabūthā) and Ṣībāthā.69 They are said to have
both composed books about talismans. Ibn Waḥshiyya tells us that ʿAnakbūtha
succeeded in creating a human being, thanks to the teachings of Asqūlūbiyā’s
Kitāb asrār al-shams.70 Asqūlūbiyā refers to Asclepius, son of Apollo (the sun-
god), who was killed by Zeus because he began to resurrect the dead. Moreover,
Ibn Waḥshiyya claimed that ʿAnakbūthā was “the imam of the magicians and
originator of many magical operations” (imām al-saḥara wa-mubtadiʾ bi-ashyāʾ
kathīra min aʿmāl al-siḥr) and that “Ṣabīthā’s epoch is closer to our era than
ʿAnakbūthā, because ʿAnakbūthā lived a long time before Ādam, and Ṣabīthā
[lived] a long time after Ādam” (zamān Ṣabīthā aqrab ilā zamāninā min zamān
ʿAnakbūtā, li-anna ʿAnakbūtā kāna qabla Ādam bi-zamān ṭawīl wa-Ṣabīthā baʿd
Ādam bi-dahr ṭawīl).71 Of course, it would be too easy to simply draw atten-
tion to the phonetic similarity. Indeed, the natural way to pronounce the name
would be “ ʿAnkabūthā,” in connection to the Arabic word ʿankabūt (spider).
However, the relation to a character named Ādam—this Ādam is not the first
man created but the name of a mysterious Ancient Nabatean; nonetheless,
there is some confusion between the two figures—his designation as the imam
of the magicians (as Bīdhukht is for the “condemned system” of magic), and as
“the originator” of many magical operations (as ʿAnāq is the first to practise
magic), are all elements that remind us of characteristics of the Islamic ʿAnāq.
Ibn Waḥshiyya wrote before Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh, and we might wonder if
this ʿAnakbūthā might have provided some of the elements that went toward
constructing the figure of ʿAnāq as the first magician.
A Doubtful Story
We can observe in Islamic sources that the reliability of the story of ʿŪj was
debated. For example, the Maghribī scholar Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406) gave
69 Ibn Waḥshiyya, L’agriculture nabatéenne, ed. Toufic Fahd (Damascus: Institut Français de
Damas, 1993–8), 2:1312.
70 Ibn Waḥshiyya, Agriculture, 2:1318.
71 Ibn Waḥshiyya, Agriculture, 2:1447.
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his opinion about the narratives of ʿŪj in the twenty-eighth chapter of his
Muqaddima:
It should be known that all these works of the ancients were possible
only through engineering skill and the concerted labor of many workers.
Only thus could these monuments (haykal) and works be constructed.
One should not think, as the common people do, that it was because the
ancients had bodies larger in size than our own. Human beings do not
differ in this respect as much as monuments (haykal) and relics differ.
Storytellers have seized upon the subject and used it to make exagger-
ated (fables). They have written stories in this vein about the ʿĀd and the
Thamūd and the Amalekites, which are complete lies. One of the strang-
est of these stories is about Og, the son of Anak, one of the Canaanites
against whom the children of Israel fought in Syria. According to these
storytellers, he was so tall that he took fish out of the ocean and held
them up to the sun to be cooked. To their ignorance of human affairs, the
storytellers here add ignorance of astronomical matters. They believe
that the sun is heat and that the heat of the sun is greatest close to it.
They do not know that the heat of the sun is (its) light and that (its) light
is stronger near the earth (than it is near the sun) because of the reflec-
tion of the rays from the surface of the earth when it is hit by the light.
Therefore, the heat here is many times greater (than near the sun). When
the zone in which the reflected rays are effective is passed, there will be
no heat there, and it will be cold. (That is) where the clouds are. The sun
itself is neither hot nor cold, but a simple uncomposed substance that
gives light.
Also, (the storytellers) say that Og, the son of Anak, was one of the
Amalekites or Canaanites who fell prey to the children of Israel when
they conquered Syria. Now, even those of the children of Israel who at
that time were the tallest in body, had bodies in size very like our own
bodies. This is proven by the gates of Jerusalem. They were destroyed and
have been restored, but their (original) shape and measurements have
always been preserved. How, then, could there have been such a differ-
ence in size between Og and his contemporaries?
The error of (the storytellers) here results from the fact that they ad-
mired the vast proportions of the monuments left by nations (of the past),
but did not understand the different situation in which dynasties may
find themselves with respect to social organization and co-operation.
They did not understand that (superior social organization) together
with engineering skill, made the construction of large monuments pos-
sible. Therefore, they ascribed such monuments to a strength and energy

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162 Coulon
derived by the peoples of the past from the large size of their bodies. But
this is not so.72
Ibn al-Azraq (d. 899/1491) quoted this passage in his Badāʾiʿ al-silk fī ṭabāʾiʿ
al-mulk.73 The idea that the storytellers have forged wrong stories about ʿŪj
came up for discussion later in the Muqaddima:
In their belief that (the ancient had excessively large bodies, the storytell-
ers) exaggerate so much that they believe that Og, the son of Anak, one
of the Amalekites (or Canaanites), used to take fish fresh out of the water
and cook them in the sun. They have that idea because they think that
the heat of the sun is greater close to it. They do not know that the heat
of the sun here among us is its light, because of the reflection of the rays
when they hit the surface of the earth and the air. The sun itself is neither
hot nor cold. It is a star of an uncomposed (substance) that gives light.
Something of this was mentioned before in the second chapter; there we
mentioned that (the size of the monuments of) dynasties is proportion-
ate to their original power.74
As we can see, the wondrous nature of ʿŪj embarrassed Ibn Khaldūn, but he
invoked scientific arguments against it, such as the (perhaps surprising) fact
concerning the nature of the heat of the sun, which was, according to him,
less hot closer to it than farther from it. He also invoked the matter of ʿŪj’s size.
This latter problem was also the main argument against the authenticity of the
story according to al-Suyūṭī in the aforementioned chapter “al-Ūj fī khabar ʿŪj”
from his al-Ḥāwī lil-fatāwā.75 This chapter is entirely devoted to the question of
the veracity of the story, and he demonstrates that it is apocryphal.
We might wonder if the “mathematical” problem of ʿŪj’s size is the real
problem of this story or if it was a rather that it was a popular narrative that
could hardly conform with the teachings of the Qurʾān.
72 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldūn, ed. Étienne Quatremère (Paris: Benjamin Duprat,
1858), 1:318–19; Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz
Rosenthal (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1958), 1:357–8.
73 Ibn al-Azraq, Badāʾiʿ al-silk fī ṭabāʾiʿ al-mulk, ed. ʿAlī Sāmī al-Nashshār (Cairo: Dār al-Salām,
2007), 2:689–90.
74 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, 2:207; Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 2:240–1.
75 al-Suyūṭī, Ḥāwī, 2:343.
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Conclusion
Recent scholarship has demonstrated renewed interest in female figures

in Near Eastern cultures. For example, in 2012, Anna Caiozzo and Nathalie
Ernoult edited Femmes médiatrices et ambivalentes. Mythes et imaginaires. In
2015, the Journal Asiatique gathered surveys on almost the same topic, in line
with a colloquium organized by the Société Asiatique. Following these studies,
this article has focused on the almost totally unknown figure of ʿAnāq.
It must be borne in mind that all the sources quoted above were written by
men for a male readership. The question of femininity in this kind of literature
corresponds to male fantasies and fears—ʿAnāq is the uncontrollable daugh-
ter (as Lilith is the uncontrollable wife) who stole her own mother’s means of
protection and sought out the company of demons.
The figure of ʿAnāq bt. Ādam represents, in a way, the “dark side” of feminin-
ity, as the archetype of the primordial sorceress. Indeed, through the Middle
Ages, we can trace several lines of transmission. These lines of transmission
contain several contradictory elements, but they all describe a female figure
barred from heaven on account of her evil habits, which led her to sin, brought
her close to demons, and induced her to practice magic. The information given
by or attributed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Wahb b. Munabbih, Ibn ʿUmar, and al-Kalbī
seems to originate from different traditions, among them the Sumerian Enki,
the Jewish Lilith, the Mesopotamian Bīdhukht, and the Persian Anāhīd. We
might suppose that, the well-known and widespread figure of Lilith not hav-
ing a counterpart in early Islam, the figure of ʿAnāq filled a void as the original
female magician.
Acknowledgements
I am particularly grateful to Korshi Dosoo for his comments and remarks, in

both form and substance. I also would like to thank Teresa Witcombe and
Simon Walduck for reading this paper and polishing its style. All errors are
my own.
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Anāq Bt. Ādam, The Islamic Story of The Very First Witch

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Journal of Women of the Middle East

and the Islamic World 17 (2019) 135–167

ʿAnāq bt. Ādam, the Islamic Story of the Very

Quelques traditions islamiques mentionnent une mystérieuse fille d’Adam appelée

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/15692086-12341355

Some Islamic traditions mention an enigmatic daughter of Adam named

The Islamic History of ʿŪj

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The second episode relates to Mūsā:

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ʿŪj’s Parent’s Name

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12 The sentences between square brackets is al-Azharī’s quotation.

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The Account of Wahb b. Munnabih

Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 101 or 102/719–20) is a prominent figure of the Jewish and

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Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Muṣāḥifī reported from Muḥammad b. Aḥmad

This narrative, related by Wahb b. Munabbih, is a more developed framework

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legends. For example, the hoopoe (hudhud) is a bird mentioned in relation to

Mūsā—peace be upon him—killed ʿŪj b. ʿAnāq. Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī told

22 Arent Jan Wensinck, “Hudhud,” EI2.

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One might be tempted to consider this daughter—the cause of the first

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childbirth without sexual intercourse is a monstrous creature. ʿAnāq is also

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As we have seen in al-ʿIṣāmī’s, ʿAnāq is introduced in some sources as a freak

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She refused to lie underneath him during intercourse, considering herself as

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ʿAnāq, Venus and Iblīs’s Daughter: Gendered Evil Magic

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known as Venus.63 To sum up, in this Hebrew version, Venus is a positive

63 Shahbazi, “Hārut va Mārut.”

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This system which is condemned (shameful) is the system of the magi-

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Recent scholarship has demonstrated renewed interest in female figures

I am particularly grateful to Korshi Dosoo for his comments and remarks, in

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al-Jāḥiẓ. Majmūʿ rasāʾil. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Taqaddum, n.d.

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hawwa 17 (2019) 135–167

Heller, Bernard, and Steven M. Wasserstrom. “ʿŪdj.” EI2.

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12 The sentences between square brackets is al-Azharī’s quotation.

22 Arent Jan Wensinck, “Hudhud,” EI2.

63 Shahbazi, “Hārut va Mārut.”