Road to Ubar Pa - Nicholas Clapp [110]
In the Koran, there is no mention of a delegation from Ubar/Iram making a pilgrimage to Mecca. This has apparently been added to "bring home" the story by having the 'Ad, who gave the prophet Hud grief, travel to the city that gave the prophet Muhammad grief.
Here also is a glimpse of a pre-Islamic Meccan pilgrimage. The seventy chosen men enter the Sanctuary on jeweled she-camels, and there is a rite involving the draping of robes.
Line 104: "and their names were Qayl, Luqman..."
The inclusion of the name Luqman connects the Iram/Ubar story to a vast web of interrelated Arabian legends. Luqman, it is written elsewhere, was granted the lifespan of seven generations of captive vultures; he wanders the Middle East for 650 to 3,500 years (depending on what source you read and what the author considered a vulture's lifespan).
Our rawi's tale signals Luqman's very first, understated appearance. Unlike his fellow delegates to Mecca, he has nothing to say or do. In years and legends to come, he makes up for it. He appears in Arabian and African tales as a vagabond, a shepherd, a deformed slave, a tailor, a carpenter. He composes proverbs and fables. He has the intellect of a hundred men and is the tallest of all. He becomes vizier to King David, who considers himself fortunate and proclaims: "Hail to thee, thine is the wisdom, ours the pain!" He becomes a king himself, king of'Ad the Second, a realm equated with the city-state of Sheba. There he builds the Great Dam of Marib, which makes it onto several lists of "Wonders of the Ancient World." (Its monumental, ruined masonry is still to be seen.)
When the last of the vultures reared by Luqman finally falls off the perch, Luqman stirs him to fly again, but in vain. The bird dies, and Luqman with him. The name of this last vulture is Lubad—"Endurance."
What a life, what a sustained flight of fancy! Like a genie, a good character let loose is hard to put back in the bottle, and there is no telling what he'll become. This is not to say that a Luqman never existed, only that his early incarnations—as a desert vagabond or shepherd—may have been closer to the truth. (By the same token, Luqman's first Arabian haunt—Ubar—could have been a relatively modest settlement.)
Lines 121–129: "he sent them two slave-girls, called the Two Locusts, who were singers in his service..."
Pairs of singing girls were a staple of pre-Islamic entertainment. What's interesting here is that the Locusts are decidedly free-spirited (a contrast to the reclusive stereotype of women in Arabia today). With little inhibition, they mock their audience of out-of-towners.
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Lines 149–173: "God's angel Gabriel said, 'O cloud of the Barren Wind, be a torment to the people of'Ad and a mercy to others!"'
With these words, a torrent of imagery is let loose. And here we can imagine a blind medieval rawi, on the steps of a Cairo mosque, building to his tale's apocalyptic climax. It is late in the evening. Merchants have shuttered their stalls, yet people are abroad, seeking the breeze that comes on the wings of night. They're drawn to the rawi, who melodramatically lowers his voice as he relates: "On the first day, the wind came so cold and gray that it left nothing on the face of the earth unshattered." The eyes of little boys at his feet widen. The better to hear, the crowd presses in. "On the second day there was a yellow wind that touched nothing it did not tear up and throw in the air." The rawi melodramatically pauses and gropes to light an oil lamp; its flicker eerily brings life to his lifeless eyes. "On the third day a red wind left nothing undestroyed." He talks faster now, mimicking the cry of the defiant 'Adites: "We are mightier than you, Lord of Hud!" The rawi now shouts, louder than anyone could imagine, stunning his audience: "The wind ripped them apart and went into their clothing, raised them into the air and cast them down on their heads, dead." The rawi's