Tales of Waq Waq!!!

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Navy9
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Tales of Waq Waq!!!

Post by Navy9 »

I find it fascinating the different versions of Waq Waq I come across through the years. I have seen some saying that this word was introduced into the arabic from an old Japanese language where it was originally Wakoo meaning pirates and the arabs pronounced it as Waaq.

And here are other tales of the word:

Waqwaq Island
There is 6-page entry on Waqwaq in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, mainly a debate amongst oriental scholars as to whether Waqwaq referred to a real island, say, Madagascar or Japan, or whether it was purely imaginary: 'Waqwaq referred to a country just beyond one's reach in the general direction of the east' or 'some island a little off the usual path of Arab traders'. In Arabian Nights, Hasan al-Basri is told by his guide, 'You could not gain access to the Islands of Waqwaq even if the Flying Jinn and the wandering stars assisted you, since between you and those islands are seven valleys, seven seas and seven mountains of vast magnitude'.
Waqwaq Tree
There are many groups of stories relating to the Waqwaq tree, for example it appears in a Chinese text, the T'ung-tien of Tu Huan, written between AD 766 and 801 and based on an earlier Arabic text in the K.al-Bad' wa 'l-ta'rikh of al-Mutahhar al-Makdisi. In the story given by Tu Huan the tree bears a crown of small children instead of fruit with human faces. In some versions the fruit of the Waqwaq tree ripens into shapely human females hanging by their hair; eventually these fruit fall to the ground, crying 'Waqwaq'; this gives the tree its name. The women can never leave the shadow of the tree. The talking Waqwaq tree with human heads also appears in the Alexander Romance as 'the transformed oracular Tree of the Sun and Moon which is reputed to have told Alexander of his approaching death'.
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