Arabic Mythology

Al-Mi’raj

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Tradition: Turkish Mythology, Arab Mythology
Alternative Names: Almiraj, ٱلْمِعْرَاج, ʿArāj, Baqrāj, Horned Hare, Miraculous Hare
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

Al-Mi’raj is a mythical animal resembling a yellow or golden hare with a single black horn. Its shiny golden coat and strange appearance make it feared by other animals. According to the stories, any wild beast that sees it immediately flees, whether it is a predator, another mammal, or even a bird.

The creature appears in stories about Iskandar, also known as Alexander the Great. In one account, Al-Mi’raj lives on Dragon Island in the Indian Ocean, where a terrible dragon or giant serpent has been killing livestock. Iskandar helps the island’s inhabitants defeat the monster by using bait that ignites a fire inside its body. Grateful for his help, the inhabitants give him the miraculous horned hare as a gift.

Other versions place the dragon’s island in western Africa and give the creature different names. Some accounts describe it simply as a horned hare, while others portray it as a fierce, dog-like hybrid. Despite these differences, the creature remains extraordinary for its single black horn and its ability to make other animals flee at the sight of it.

Sources

“Al-Mi’raj.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mi%27raj

Zaqqum

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Tradition / Region: Arabic Mythology
Alternate Names: Tree of Hell, Infernal Tree
Category: Plant

The Myth

Deep in the center of Hell there is said to grow a dreadful tree known as Zaqqum. Its roots sink into the fire itself, and its trunk rises from the depths of torment, nourished not by water or soil but by flame and suffering.

The tree bears fruit, yet its fruit is not a blessing. Its growths are said to resemble twisted heads, foul and terrifying to behold. The damned are driven by hunger to eat from it, though they know what awaits them. When they swallow the fruit, it burns inside their bodies, scorching their stomachs like molten metal. Afterward they are forced to drink boiling liquid, which only deepens their torment.

The tree stands as part of the landscape of punishment, feeding those who cannot escape it. Its branches spread through the infernal realm, and its presence reminds the inhabitants of Hell that their suffering is unending.

Thus Zaqqum is remembered as the tree of fire and bitterness — a plant rooted in the depths of the unseen world, whose fruit is not life but the taste of punishment itself.

Gallery

Sources

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Zaqqum. In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 1, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaqqum.

Interpretive Lenses

Religious Readings
  • Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
  • Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
  • Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
  • Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
  • Marxist Deep Dive

Tree of Waq Waq

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Tradition / Region: Arabic mythology
Alternate Names: Waqwaq Tree, Tree of Women, Waq Waq Islands Tree
Category: Plant

The Myth

Far beyond the known seas, on distant and mysterious islands, travelers spoke of a marvelous tree unlike any other. This was the Tree of Waq Waq, a tree said not to bear fruit, but living beings.

From its branches grew figures shaped like humans. In some tellings they were small children, hanging from the limbs like strange blossoms. In others, especially in the western Islamic lands, the fruits of the tree were beautiful women. They formed gradually, swelling and ripening as if nourished by the tree itself, until they were complete.

When the time came, the figures would detach and fall to the ground. As they dropped, they gave out a sharp cry — “Waq! Waq!” — the sound from which the tree took its name. Some were said to live after falling, while others perished the moment they struck the earth, like fruit that had ripened only to spoil.

Sailors, merchants, and scholars repeated stories of these islands, placing them somewhere at the edges of the world, beyond India or near the lands of the rising sun. Some described entire shores lined with these trees, their branches heavy with human forms swaying in the wind.

Because the tree produced only women in certain accounts, it was said that this was how the island’s people reproduced, the tree itself sustaining their lineage generation after generation.

Thus the Tree of Waq Waq stood in legend as one of the wonders of the world — a living tree whose fruit was human life itself.

Gallery

Sources

Sibree, J. (1896). Madagascar before the conquest: The island, the country, and the people, with chapters on travel and topography, folk-lore, strange customs and superstitions, the animal life of the island, and mission work and progress among the inhabitants. New York: Macmillan; London: T. F. Unwin.

Interpretive Lenses

Religious Readings
  • Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
  • Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
  • Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
  • Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
  • Marxist Deep Dive