Mount Qaf

Muslims orient themselves toward the Kaaba in Mecca during prayer and some ancient writings consider that location, or rarely Jerusalem, as the center of the world.

However, general Islamic cosmology is largely borrowed from Persian and Indian beliefs, and views Mount Qaf as the earthly axis mundi.

Mount Qaf appears related to mountains known as Hukairya, Hara (Hara Berezaita), and Alburz in Zoroastrian texts. Like the Biblical Eden, this mountain is imprecisely located in ancient texts, stated to rest somewhere to the East in the Varkash Sea.

Muslim texts place Qaf near the mythical city of Jabalqa in the extreme east of the world.

In the Muslim versions of the Alexandrian romances, Zu'l Qarnain (Alexander the Great) travels to Qaf on his eastern quest for the water of life and he meets on its peak the angel Israfil waiting to blow the trumpet on Judgment Day.

Zu'l Qarnain journeyed to Mount Qaf;
He saw it was formed of a bright emerald,
Forming as it were a ring round the world,
Whereat all people are filled with wonder.
He said, "Thou mighty hill, what are other hills?
Before thee they are mere playthings."
The Mount replied, "Those hills are my veins,
But they are not like me in beauty and importance.
A hidden vein from me runs to every city,
The quarters of the world are bound to my veins.
When God desires an earthquake under any city,
He bids me shake one of my veins.
Then in anger I shake that vein
Which is connected with that particular city.
When He says, 'Enough,' my vein remains still,
I remain still, and then haste to perform my work.
Now still like a plaster, and now operating;
Now still like thought, and then speaking my thought.
But they who are void of reason imagine
That these earthquakes proceed from earth's vapors.

Jalaluddin Rumi (13th century CE), Masnavi I Ma'navi IV:9

The mountains said to be made of green emerald or chrysolite, or to have a square green emerald/chrysolite at its peak. This jewel reflected the blue color of the sky, and also the greenish tint in the sky was said to be caused by this jewel.

Blue-Green Connections

We find some resemblance here between the mixtures of blue and green colors with the "Blue-Green Florescence," one of the names of the millenarian isle of Qingtong, the Eastern Lad in Daoist myth, which is likened to a square speculum. Among the Shi'a, the Hidden Imam waits for the end-times on the "Green Isle."

We can also note some similarity here between the idea of all the mountains in the world having connection with Mount Qaf through subterranean "veins" with the Chinese concept of mountains linked by underground grotto worlds. Qaf mountain is said to encircle the world and this may refer specifically to the "roots" that connect one mountain range to another. According to one tradition: "There is no one country amongst all countries, nor a city amongst all cities, nor a town amongst all towns but has a root of its roots," and another states, "nor is there any mountain of all mountains but has a root in Qaf."

The Muslim writer Yaqut mentions that some scholars believed that the Sun both rose and set into Mount Qaf, an explanation that matches our theme of the double mountain. Mount Alburz, one of the Zoroastrian equivalents of Qaf is decribed in a similar fashion: "Alburz is around this earth and is connected with the sky. The Terak of Alburz is that through which the stars, moon, and sun pass in, and through it they come back," (Bundahisn 12:4). From the same work, we hear of the portals in Terak of Mount Alburz through which the Sun and stars pass.

Of Mount Alburz it is declared, that around the world and Mount Terak, which is the middle of the world, the revolution of the sun is like a moat around the world; it turns back in a circuit owing to the enclosure (var) of Mount Alburz around Terak.

As it is said that it is the Terak of Alburz from behind which my sun and moon and stars return again.

For there are a hundred and eighty apertures (rojin) in the east, and a hundred and eighty in the west, through Alburz; and the sun, every day, comes in through an aperture, and goes out through an aperture; and the whole connection and motion of the moon and constellations and planets is with it: every day it always illumines (or warms) three regions (karshwar) and a half, as is evident to the eyesight.

And twice in every year the day and night are equal, for on the original attack, when it (the sun) went forth from its first degree (khurdak), the day and night were equal, it was the season of spring; when it arrives at the first degree of Kalachang (Cancer) the time of day is greatest, it is the beginning of summer; when it arrives at the sign (khurdak) Tarachuk (Libra) the day and night are equal, it is the beginning of autumn; when it arrives at the sign Vahik (Capricorn) the night is a maximum, it is the beginning of winter; and when it arrives at Varak (Aries) the night and day have again become equal, as when it went forth from Varak.

So that when it comes back to Varak, in three hundred and sixty days and the five Gatha days, it goes in and comes out through one and the same aperture; the aperture is not mentioned, for if it had been mentioned the demons would have known the secret, and been able to introduce disaster.

-- Bundahisn 5:3

Some scholars have suggested that these verses describe the Sun and stars as revolving around Terak, but instead it seems as if the celestials bodies enter into the equatorial "apertures" of Terak and then proceed through the subterranean "moat" of Alburz before rising again at the same peak of Terak. The underground arteries or veins of Alburz are also described in the Bundahisn.

First, Mount Alburz arose; afterwards, the other ranges of mountains (kofaniha) of the middle of the earth; for as Alburz grew forth all the mountains remained in motion, for they have all grown forth from the root of Alburz.

At that time they came up from the earth, like a tree which has grown up to the clouds and its root to the bottom; and their root passed on that way from one to the other, and they are arranged in mutual connection.

Afterwards, about that wonderful shaking out from the earth, they say that a great mountain is the knot of lands; and the passage for the waters within the mountains is the root which is below the mountains; they forsake the upper parts so that they may flow into it, just as the roots of trees pass into the earth; a counterpart (anguni-aitak) of the blood in the arteries of men, which gives strength to the whole body.

In numbers, apart from Alburz, all the mountains grew up out of the earth in eighteen years, from which arises the perfection of men's advantage.

Qaf is said to rest on the back of a great fish or whale known as Nun, that is described as shaped like the Arabic letter for "n". Some authorities claimed Qaf rested upon the horns of a great ox, which in turn stood on the back of Nun. The whale was also called Bahmout or Bahamut (Behemoth). Earthquakes arise from the movement of the whale, something we find also in the myths of Southeast Asia. The Nun fish/whale is probably related to the Kar fish of Persian literature described as an 'ass-like fish' or a 'three-legged ass,' the latter description probably referring to the two flippers and tail of a whale. Although the Kar is not related to earthquakes, like the whale/dragon of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, it is linked with the ebb and flow of the tide. While the latter is said to be the cause of the tides, the Kar "knows to the scratch of a needle's point by how much the water in the Ocean shall increase, by how much it is diminishing" (Bundahisn 18:6).

While Qingtong, the Blue-Green Lad is associated with the Blue-Green Florescence in the Eastern Sea, the emerald Mount Qaf is linked with al-Khidr "The Green One," in Islamic lore. Al-Khidr is often equated with the Biblical Elijah, but like Qingtong he is described as an eternal youth sometimes as a boy clad in green garments.

Khidr leads pilgrims to the fountain of youth that exists near Qaf's summit. And like Qingtong, the Green One has eschatological associations. In the end-times, Khidr, along with the Seven Sleepers, seven boys and their dog who have slept in a deep cave since ancient times, accompany the messianic al-Mahdi on his earth-redeeming mission. The cave of the Seven Sleepers is located in Mount Qaf, and it reminds us of Peshotan and the sleeping Zoroastrian heroes of Kangdez, southeast of China, who arise for the final battle at the end of the millennium.


Simurgh Bird and Jinn

Among the inhabitants of Mount Qaf is the Simurgh Bird, which in Persian myth guards the mythical White Haoma Tree in the eastern Varkash Sea.

The Simurgh has its nest at the peak of Qaf and this was the grand destination in the great Sufi poem "Conference of the Birds." In most Arabic literature, this bird is known as 'Anka, but in the Arabian Nights it appears to be called Roc (Rukh).

For the soul of every bird that reaches Mount Qaf,
Confers glory on the whole family of birds.

-- Rumi

Mount Qaf is also said to be the main abode of the Jinn (Djinn) or Genies of Muslim literature, and the great Jinn king resided in this mountain. Both the Jinn and the Simurgh Bird are linked in Islamic tradition with King Solomon.

The Simurgh Bird is said to possess supreme wisdom and the reign of Solomon is known as the "Golden Age of Simurgh." Of all the animals and birds that Solomon was said to have spoken with, the Simurgh was the most important.

Solomon was also said to have special power over the Jinn, which he used to compel them to help build his great temple.

We may see in these connections of Solomon with the Simurgh Bird and the Jinn, some link to Solomon's biblical journeys to the eastern lands of Ophir and Tarshish that may have been connected by Muslim writers with Mount Qaf.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Akkach, Samer. Cosmology and architecture in premodern Islam, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Corbin, Henry. Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi. Princeton University Press, 1998.

West, E. W. Sacred Books of the East, vol. 5, Oxford University Press, 1897.

Wheeler, Brannon. Moses In The Quran And Islamic Exegesis, Routledge Curzon: London, 2002, 95-6.

Eden's Bearings

The position of the Pleiades constellation rising in the East near or conjunct with the ecliptic is a valuable chronometer. This would place it at or close to the point of the spring (vernal) equinox.

Because the period from one vernal equinox to the next is shorter than the stellar year, the star position of the equinox changes by about one degree every 72 years. In about 25,920 years this point marking the beginning of spring will have made a full circle around the zodiac.

Evidence of an early, probably Neolithic people who marked important events not by conventional calendars but by associated astronomical configurations is a major thesis of books like Hamlet's Mill.

Austronesians appear to have been one such type of people. We don't know if Austronesians ever had calendar counts, but if they did these must have been assigned to the recondite knowledge used by initiates only. However, we do know that they often marked events, including those found in their mythologies, with heavenly conjunctions or other phenomenon. For example, the Hawaiian legend of the explorer Hawai`i-loa who noticed a conjunction of the Pleiades and Aldebaran with Jupiter and steered toward these stars to discover Polynesia.

In this case, we see that the stars indicate both place, as directional bearings, and time, by means of the timing of the stellar conjunction.

Babylonian astronomy might preserve something of a similar sort from the Sumerians with regard to the location of our cosmic volcanoes. Mesopotamian seals often contain depictions of astronomical configurations in scenes of significant mythological events.

The star known as Nibiru (also Neberu, Nebiru) to the Mesopotomians has more than one identification by researchers in this field. The one that is of interest for us is Nibiru's identification with Jupiter. In the cosmological Enuma elish (7.124ff), Nibiru is one of the fifty names given to Jupiter, the planet of Marduk:

Nebiru shall hold the crossings of heaven and earth;
Those who failed of crossing above and below,
Ever of him shall inquire.
Nebiru is the star which in the skies is brilliant.
Verily, he governs their turnings, to him indeed they look
Saying: "He who the midst of the Sea restlessly crosses,
Let 'Crossing' be his name who controls its midst.
May they uphold the course of the stars of heaven;
May he shepherd all the gods like sheep.

From the quote above, it would appear that Nebiru is connected in some way with crossings over the sea. In fact, the name "Nebiru" is derived from eberu, "to cross," and actually means "ferry, ferryman, ford." The authors of Hamlet's Mill connect Nibiru with Urshanabi the ferryman to Paradise in the epic of Gilgamesh.

What is particularly interesting about Nibiru is that the planet's "point" or "station" is used by the Babylonians, and also likely by their predecessors, to construct celestial maps. The following quote refers to Jupiter/Marduk measuring the universe:

He determined the year by designating the zones:
He set up three constellations for each of the twelve months.
After defining the days of the year (by means) of (heav­enly) figures,
He founded the station of Nebiru to determine their (heav­enly) bands,
That none might transgress or fall short.
Alongside he set up the stations of Enlil and Ea.

The 'heavenly bands' constructed with the "station of Nebiru" as the reference point are known as the paths of Anu, Enlil and Ea.

According to authorities on Babylonian astronomy referenced in Hamlet's Mill, the path of Anu is parallel to the celestial equator and extends to a point about 15 to 17 degrees north and south of our own equator. The path of Enlil is a band of similar width north of the path of Anu, while the path of Ea is the southern zone of equal measure.

The latitude of 15-17 degrees North, of course, would fit well with both Mt. Pinatubo and Mt. Arayat. The question is though whether this station of Nebiru, obviously a fixed star or constellation used to build the entire planisphere of the Babylonians, was north or south of the equator.

According to researcher F. M. Th. Bohl, the station of Nebiru was the point of entry of Jupiter into the path of Anu observed during the night of the vernal equinox, the Babylonian New Year.

During this period, the equinox occured when the sun entered the constellation I-Iku which is identified either with the square of Pegasus or some location in the Aries group.

In either case, a night observation of Jupiter with that planet entering an area corresponding to the geocentric latitudes (declination) of 15 to 17 degrees would point to the constellation Virgo. I would suggest the star Spica, or alpha Virginis.

Indeed, researchers Paul Neugabauer and Albert Schott following the work of Günter Martiny, have suggested that Neo-Babylonian (Assyrian) temples were oriented toward the azimuth intersecting Spica and the vernal equinox at the horizon. Of the three, Neugebauer gave up on the idea when he could not find any evidence that Spica was an important star in Babylonian astronomy.

However, I would suggest that Spica was indeed the station of Nibiru, the point used to demarcate the boundary of the paths of Enlil and Anu, and by similar proportion also the path of Ea.

During 3102 BC, the date of the beginning of the modern era in the Hindu calendar, Spica was located directly above about 15.48 degrees North latitude. The position was not much different at the beginning of the Mayan calendar according to the estimate that places that date in the year 3114 BC.

Thus, Spica would have been an excellent zenith star for navigators seeking the sacred volcanoes. It would have been very nearly directly overhead at its highest point in the sky. As such, Spica would also have acted as a bearing star since it would be directly to the east when rising and to the west when setting, if the observer is at the corresponding latitude.

With Nibiru as the ferry-person to Paradise from the "confluence of the rivers," it would be logical that his station would be guiding star to that very location, at a time when the Pleiades marked the point of the spring equinox.

Spica is also widely thought to be the starting point of the lunar mansions of the Chinese zodiac. Among Pacific Islanders, Spica is often paired with Arcturus, the zenith star of the island of Hawai'i, by traditional navigators to determine latitude using the different rising/setting times, if any, of both stars.

If we combine this conjecture, with the earlier one made regarding the meridian of Yamakoti, then we get surprisingly accurate coordinates for the ancient axis mundi. Of course, the longitude given by the Hindu astronomical texts depends on whether one identifies "Romaka-pura" as Alexandria or Rome. There is good reason to think it is the former.

According to the astronomer Varahamihira, the Romaka Siddhanta, written in Romakapura, has a year length nearly exactly that used by Ptolemy and Hipparchus. There are also rather close values to Ptolemy's anomaly of the equation of center, and for that astronomer's revolution length of the Moon's nodes. This would indicate that the Romaka Siddhanta borrowed largely from the astronomical work carried out in Alexandria, and specifically by Ptolemy. Yamakoti, or "Yama's Peak" would in this case be the location of the Underworld kingdom where both the good and bad go after death. The same symbolic location within Mt. Mashu traveled to by Gilgamesh.

With Romakapura as Alexandria, the corresponding meridian of Yamakoti to the east of Lanka, which Indian astronomers equate with Avanti (75.76E), would be at about 121.64 degrees East, a bit more than the longitude of Pinatubo.

Varahamihira's Quadrants (Romaka = Alexandria)

Lanka (75.76E) - Romaka (29.88E) = 45.88 degrees

Lanka (75.76E) + 45.88 = 121.64E degrees (meridian of Yama's Peak)

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento