DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0266
184
R. H. Blanchard
bread when lo, there was his own bowl before him, heaped with the home food he had
desired!
Now at about that time the Sheykh’s slave Mesa'ud had been standing before the
house in Kuft, when suddenly he thought he heard a voice calling him. He listened,
and clearly heard the voice telling him to have made ready the bowl full of food. So he
went to his mistress and said: “Cook a meal, and put it into the master’s wooden bowl.”
And the woman did so and gave him the bowl. And the slave Mesa'ud took the bowl
out of the house, and spoke a prayer over it, holding it on his out-stretched hands. And
as he finished his prayer, the bowl rose in the air and vanished.
A long time after, the master returned from Mekkah. He greeted his kinsmen,
his friends, and his wife; and then he asked for his wooden bowl. And his wife told
him how the slave had asked for it, and how she had given it, and she named the day and
the hour. And when he had heard her story he showed her the bowl, with his own mark
on it, and told her all that had happened. And the Haggi and his wife were at first
bewildered. But the piety of the slave was clear to them, and the Haggi cried “By Allah,
I swear that forever hereafter when men name me, they shall first name my pious servant
Mesa'ud!” And so to this day Sheykh Mesa'ud and Sheykh Haggi Hasan are always
named and invoked together, and the servant before the master.
Another Upper Egyptian saint of peculiar interest is Sheykh Haridi. His sanctuary,
in the form of a kubbah, or small domed shrine, stands in a picturesque depression among
the rocks of the gebel bearing his name, to the east of the Nile near Tahta. Popular belief
asserts that after a life of holiness the Sheykh was by God’s will reincarnated in the form
of a serpent which had its home in a cleft of the rocks. When the French traveler Lucas
visited Egypt in the 17th century a kubbah had recently been erected on the site of the
serpent-saint’s home,1 and today a second shrine, consecrated to his “wife”, stands
beside the sanctuary. Many miracles are locally attributed to Sheykh Haridi, and so
firmly rooted is popular belief in them that even the Copts do not deny them. The latter,
however, take no part in the festivals of the saint, whom they have, to their own satis-
faction, identified with Asmodeus.
Sheykh Haridi is a famous healer, and the manner in which his aid is invoked by
the peasantry has been related in some detail by an old Danish writer.2 According to
his account the invalid regularly sent a virgin to fetch the Snake; nor would the Sheykh
obey the summons if he had reason to suspect the purity of the emissary. Haridi’s
moled, which is of eight days’ duration, takes place in the month following Ramadan.
1 P. Lucas, Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas. . . .dans la Turquie, 1’Asie,. . . .Haute et Basse Egypte, etc., Amster-
dam, 1720, vol. 2, p. 82 sq.
2 F. L. Norden, Voyage d’Egypte et de Nubie, ed. L. Langlee, Paris, 1795, vol. 2, p. 64-69.
R. H. Blanchard
bread when lo, there was his own bowl before him, heaped with the home food he had
desired!
Now at about that time the Sheykh’s slave Mesa'ud had been standing before the
house in Kuft, when suddenly he thought he heard a voice calling him. He listened,
and clearly heard the voice telling him to have made ready the bowl full of food. So he
went to his mistress and said: “Cook a meal, and put it into the master’s wooden bowl.”
And the woman did so and gave him the bowl. And the slave Mesa'ud took the bowl
out of the house, and spoke a prayer over it, holding it on his out-stretched hands. And
as he finished his prayer, the bowl rose in the air and vanished.
A long time after, the master returned from Mekkah. He greeted his kinsmen,
his friends, and his wife; and then he asked for his wooden bowl. And his wife told
him how the slave had asked for it, and how she had given it, and she named the day and
the hour. And when he had heard her story he showed her the bowl, with his own mark
on it, and told her all that had happened. And the Haggi and his wife were at first
bewildered. But the piety of the slave was clear to them, and the Haggi cried “By Allah,
I swear that forever hereafter when men name me, they shall first name my pious servant
Mesa'ud!” And so to this day Sheykh Mesa'ud and Sheykh Haggi Hasan are always
named and invoked together, and the servant before the master.
Another Upper Egyptian saint of peculiar interest is Sheykh Haridi. His sanctuary,
in the form of a kubbah, or small domed shrine, stands in a picturesque depression among
the rocks of the gebel bearing his name, to the east of the Nile near Tahta. Popular belief
asserts that after a life of holiness the Sheykh was by God’s will reincarnated in the form
of a serpent which had its home in a cleft of the rocks. When the French traveler Lucas
visited Egypt in the 17th century a kubbah had recently been erected on the site of the
serpent-saint’s home,1 and today a second shrine, consecrated to his “wife”, stands
beside the sanctuary. Many miracles are locally attributed to Sheykh Haridi, and so
firmly rooted is popular belief in them that even the Copts do not deny them. The latter,
however, take no part in the festivals of the saint, whom they have, to their own satis-
faction, identified with Asmodeus.
Sheykh Haridi is a famous healer, and the manner in which his aid is invoked by
the peasantry has been related in some detail by an old Danish writer.2 According to
his account the invalid regularly sent a virgin to fetch the Snake; nor would the Sheykh
obey the summons if he had reason to suspect the purity of the emissary. Haridi’s
moled, which is of eight days’ duration, takes place in the month following Ramadan.
1 P. Lucas, Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas. . . .dans la Turquie, 1’Asie,. . . .Haute et Basse Egypte, etc., Amster-
dam, 1720, vol. 2, p. 82 sq.
2 F. L. Norden, Voyage d’Egypte et de Nubie, ed. L. Langlee, Paris, 1795, vol. 2, p. 64-69.