Bahamut
Bahamut ( Arabic بهموت, DMG Bahamūt ) is, according to an Arab legend, a miraculous fish that swims in baseless waters and carries the entire building of the world on itself. One tradition says:
- God created the earth, but the earth had no support, so he created an angel under the earth. But the angel had no support, so he created a ruby rock under the angel's feet. But the rock had no hold, so under the rock he created a bull with four thousand eyes, ears, noses, mouths, tongues, and feet. But the bull had no hold, and so under the bull he created a fish called Bahamut, and under the fish he put water and under the water darkness, and human science does not know what is beyond this point.
The myth is based on the legendary prehistoric monster Behemoth , which is mentioned in the Book of Job in the Old Testament .
In the Arabian Nights it is reported that Bahamut is so huge and radiant that no one can stand to look at it. All seas of the earth, housed in one of his nostrils, would be like a mustard seed in the middle of a desert. In the 496th Nights of the Arabian Nights it is told that Isa bin Maryam ( Jesus of Nazareth ) was allowed to see Bahamut at his request, with the result that he fell unconscious to the ground and only after three days back out of his Fainted. The size and might of the fabulous fish may represent the cosmos . The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges , on the other hand, suspects that the idea of an angel over a rock, resting on a bull, standing on the Bahamut, swimming over the unknown, relates to Aristotle's causal proof of God : Accordingly, it must, there every cause can be traced back to an underlying cause, give a very first cause in order to avoid a regressus ad infinitum .
Trivia
In the computer game series Final Fantasy Bahamut is contained in almost all parts of the main series as a summoning monster and generally appears in the form of a dragon . Except for the similarity of the name, the computer game figure has nothing in common with the mythological figure.
literature
- Jorge Luis Borges (with Margarita Guerrero): Unicorn, Sphinx and Salamander. The book of imaginary beings (= Jorge Luis Borges: Works. Vol. 20 = Fischer pocket books 10584). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-596-10584-6 .
- Norbert Borrmann: Lexicon of monsters, ghosts and demons. The creatures of the night from myth, legend, literature and film. The (slightly) different who's who. Lexikon-Imprint-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-233-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Danielle Kirby: Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religions, Popular Narratives, and Digital Cultures . Routledge, London / New York 2014, ISBN 9781317543626 , page 126.