Hajji Halef Omar

Hajji Halef Omar Ben Hajji Abul Abbas Ibn Hajji Dawuhd al Gossarah is a literary figure who appears in various adventure novels by Karl May . It is for Winnetou and Old Shatterhand one of the most famous characters from Karl May's works and occurs predominantly in the Ottoman Empire gambling Orient - novels on. Hajji Halef Omar in particular plays a role in the first six volumes of May's Collected Travel Stories , the so-called " Orient Cycle ".

person

Halef, as he is usually called, is the constant companion of the first-person narrator Kara Ben Nemsi on his perilous journeys across the Ottoman Empire . Initially just a brave servant of Kara Ben Nemsi, Halef became more and more a loyal companion and friend in the course of the various novels. At the same time, his social rise from a simple Bedouin to a respected member of the tribe to the sheik of the Haddedihn from the great tribe of the Shammar runs .

After Halef initially tried to dissuade Kara Ben Nemsi from Christianity , he succeeded through his actions to gradually convince Halef of the justification of his Christian way of thinking and acting. At the end of the trip, Halef is "only outwardly a Muslim" and later officially converts to Christianity along with his family, but without losing his status in the Haddedhin tribe.

Unlike in the American novels, in which the first-person narrator Old Shatterhand and his blood brother Winnetou are both "superheroes", Halef is a character with a number of weaknesses that make the hero Kara Ben Nemsi shine in an even brighter light. Small and skinny in stature, but all the greater bravery, often acting hastily and yet full of ingenuity and cunning, Halef is an amiable fellow whose greatest weakness is his tendency to cut open and to boast. Also altruism and anti-materialism are at Halef Omar pronounced less than his master Kara Ben Nemsi. Sometimes he does his good deeds mainly because of the prospect of a baksheesh .

An exception to this status as a brave but physically and in terms of skill fallible warrior Halef experiences in the volume "Am Jenseits". As in other volumes, Kara Ben Nemsi shows Halef several times his mistakes. However, trusting in Halef's now perfected skills, Kara Ben Nemsi has no objections even in combat when Halef volunteers for a duel against a Bedouin. In previous volumes, Kara Ben Nemsi had doubts about Halef's martial skills. In May's late work ( In the kingdom of the silver lion III / IV, Ardistan and Dschinnistan ), Halef increasingly becomes a symbolic figure for the instinctual personality component "anima", which still needs refinement.

Furthermore, Halef's love for his wife Hanneh is characteristic of him. He always describes and praises her in a very flowery way. She also gives birth to their son Kara Ben Halef , who plays a prominent role in later novels.

The term Hajji refers to a Muslim who made the pilgrimage ( Hajj ) to Mecca in the manner prescribed in the Koran . The long name also indicates that both Halef Omar himself and his father Abul Abbas and his grandfather Dawuhd al Gossarah were in Mecca. When Kara met Ben Nemsi in the band Through the Desert Halef, Halef had to admit that neither he nor his ancestors were ever in Mecca and that he was only allowed to call himself Halef Omar. In the course of the trip, however, he visits Mecca together with Kara Ben Nemsi, so that from this point on he can rightly call himself Hajji. On the occasion, Halef meets his wife Hanneh , whom he only marries on the pretense so that she can visit Mecca, which is only allowed to married women. The two then fall in love, and since Halef has in the meantime also earned services to the tribe to which Hanneh belongs, he no longer needs to give her back.

Stories and novels

In the following table, in addition to the original titles, the current numbers of the volume and the story from Karl May's Gesammelte Werken (titles may differ), the title of the corresponding reprint of the Karl May Society as well as the department and volume number of the historical-critical edition of Karl May Works (if already published) indicated.

title	year	Remarks	Karl May’s Collected Works	Reprints of the Karl May Society	Historical-critical edition
Through the desert and the harem	1892	since 1895 under the title Through the Desert	1	Giölgeda padiśhanün - travel adventure in Kurdistan	IV.1
Through wild Kurdistan	1892		2	Giölgeda padiśhanün - travel adventure in Kurdistan	IV.2
From Baghdad to Stambul	1892		3	The death caravan - In Damascus and Baalbeck - Stambul - The last ride	IV.3
In the gorges of the Balkans	1892		4th	The death caravan - In Damascus and Baalbeck - Stambul - The last ride and through the land of the Skipetaren	IV.4
Through the land of the Skipetars	1892		5	Through the land of the Skipetars	IV.5
The Schut	1892		6th	Through the land of the Skipetars
Oranges and dates	1893
•   A Ghasuah			10 , 05	Christ or Muhammad	IV.24
•   Nûr es Semâ - heavenly light			48 , 11	Christ or Muhammad	IV.24
•   Christ's blood and righteousness			48.08	Christ or Muhammad	IV.24
•   Mater dolorosa			48.07	Christ or Muhammad	IV.24
In the land of Mahdi III	1896		18th
On foreign paths	1897
•   Blood revenge			23 , 03	Christ or Muhammad
•   The Kys-Kapchiji			23.05	Christ or Muhammad
•   Mary or Fatima			23.06	Christ or Muhammad
In the realm of the silver lion I.	1898		26th	In the realm of the silver lion
The "Umm ed Jamahl"	1898	later heavily reworked into the realm of the Silver Lion II integrated	48.13	Christ or Muhammad
In the realm of the silver lion II	1898		27	In the realm of the silver lion
On the afterlife	1899		25th
In the realm of the silver lion III	1902		28	At death
In the realm of the silver lion IV	1903		29
With the lepers	1907		81 , 04	Christ or Muhammad
Abdahn Effendi	1908		81.01	The Krumir
Merhameh	1909	Title illustration incorrectly reads Marhameh	81.02	Christ or Muhammad
Ardistan and Jinnistan I	1909		31 , chapters 1-14	The Mir of Jinnistan	V.5
Ardistan and Jinnistan II	1909		31, chapters 15-16 and 32	The Mir of Jinnistan	V.6

As part of the Collected Works , Hajji Halef Omar appears in two other volumes:

• In Mekka (1923), continuation of Am Jenseits by Franz Kandolf
• Allah il Allah! (1931), an adaptation of the gossip novel German Hearts - German Heroes (1885–87).

In the youth story Die Sklavenkarawane (1893) it does not appear, in contrast to the film of the same name .

Karl May films and series

The figure of Hajji Halef Omar appears in many cinema or television productions, some of which are only loosely based on stories by Karl May.

• On the ruins of paradise (1920, silent film ): Meinhart Maur as Halef (= H) and Carl de Vogt as Kara Ben Nemsi (= KBN)
• The Caravan of Death (1920, silent film): Meinhart Maur (H) and Carl de Vogt (KBN)
• The Devil Worshipers (1921, silent film): Meinhart Maur (H) and Carl de Vogt (KBN)
• Through the desert (1936, first Karl May sound film ): Heinz Evelt (H) and Fred Raupach (KBN)
• The slave caravan (1958): Georg Thomalla (H) and Viktor Staal (KBN)
• The Lion of Babylon (1959): Georg Thomalla (H) and Helmuth Schneider (KBN)
• With Karl May im Orient (1963, 7-part television series ): Osman Ragheb (H) and Harry Walther (KBN)
• The Schut (1964): Ralf Wolter (H) and Lex Barker (KBN)
• Through wild Kurdistan (1965): Ralf Wolter (H) and Lex Barker (KBN)
• In the realm of the silver lion (1965): Ralf Wolter (H) and Lex Barker (KBN)
• Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi (1973/75, 26-part TV series): Heinz Schubert (H) and Karl-Michael Vogler (KBN)

Halef also has a say in radio plays. a. in the 1964 production Der Schut , in which he was spoken by the actor Joseph Offenbach .

Stage adaptations

The open-air play Hadschi Halef Omar based on models by Karl May was written by Roland Schmid and Wulf Leisner as a play for open-air stages:

An open-air play based on Karl May's travel stories "Through the Desert" and "Allah il Allah" by Wulf Leisner and Roland Schmid for 3 women, 18 men. Stat.

The open-air play is based on the May texts:

• Through the desert ,
• Allah il Allah! (an adaptation of part of German Hearts - German Heroes ) and
• Merhameh .

The open-air play was premiered in 1955 as part of the Karl May Festival in the Kalkberg Stadium in Bad Segeberg , making it the first ever oriental production after Karl May. Further performances:

• Hajji Halef Omar (Bad Segeberg 1959)
• Hajji Halef Omar (Elspe 1964)

In 2012, the Jonsdorf open-air theater dramatized this selection as The Great Journey to the Orient .

Trivia

• In the children's book adaptation Die Wilden Kerle 3 : The Attack of the Beasts Beasts there is a secondary character. This is called "Hajji Ben Hajji" and builds crazy devices for the wild guys.

music

• In 1979 the group Dschinghis Khan had a song called Hajji Halef Omar , which moved up to number 3 in the Swiss charts and to number 7 in the German charts.
• The group Die Doofen had a song called Hatschi Halef Omar in their 1995 album Songs the World Doesn't Need .

Web links

• Entry in the dictionary of figures
• Entry in the Karl May Wiki

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Hadschi_Halef_Omar_(Bad_Segeberg_1955)
2. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Hadschi_Halef_Omar_(Bad_Segeberg_1959)
3. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Hadschi_Halef_Omar_(Elspe_1964)
4. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Die_große_Orientreise_(Jonsdorf_2012)