Of Alice, Angels and Apsaras

Many of the fuqaha’ mentioned mermaids and differed on the ruling concerning them. Some of them said that they are permissible (to eat) because of the general meaning of the evidence which says that whatever is in the sea is permissible. This is the view of the Shaafa’is and Hanbalis, and is the view of most of the Maalikis and of Ibn Hazm and others. And some of them regarded it as haraam because it is not a kind of fish. This is the view of the Hanafis and of al-Layth ibn Sa’d.

Ibn Hazm (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in al-Muhalla (6/50): As for that which lives in the water and cannot live anywhere else, it is all halaal no matter what state it is in, whether it is caught alive and then dies, or it dies in the water and then floats or does not float, whether it was killed by a sea creature or a land animal. It is all halaal to eat, whether it is the pig of the sea (i.e., a dolphin), a mermaid, or a dog of the sea (i.e., shark) and so on. It is halaal to eat, whether it was killed by an idol-worshipper, a Muslim, a kitaabi (Jew or Christian) or it was not killed by anyone.

What’s outside the box?

And it goes on… ending, mercifully:

And Allaah knows best.

Sometimes I think those might be my favorite words evvah!

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Are mermaids real enough for religious scholarship to address them?

Is Alice?

John Daido Loori Roshi, late zen master and abbot of the Mountains and Rivers Order’s Mt Tremper abbey, once gave a teisho using a passage from Alice as his koan:

Many Zen koans contain references to myths and folktales of ancient India, China, and Japan. Since Westerners generally are not familiar with these stories, koan study without extensive background information is often a frustrating and exasperating process.

In this dharma discourse, Abbot John Daido Loori fashions a koan, complete with pointer and capping verse, from a classic of children’s literature, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The koan revolves around Alice’s encounter with a caterpillar who explains the magical properties of a special two-sided mushroom that to Alice’s eyes appears perfectly round. Alice’s struggles with this dilemma make for a stimulating story that mirrors the conflicts and dualities we face in our everyday life.

You can read it here.

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All of which brings me to the question of the place of deep imagination in a sometimes shallow world.

Alice, do you believe in her? Mermaids and Macbeth mean something to sailors and theater-folk, respetively. Angels? If angels, then the djinn, too? Christian scripture speaks for the existence of one, the Qur’an of both — is one more probable, more real, perhaps, than the other?

And what of the gandharvas and apsaras — middle panel — the celestial musicians and airy dancers who move to their music? Is there any poet who can claim never to have sensed them?

**

And thus we come to Robert Graves and the muse as he depicts her, in his book The White Goddess, and in many poems such as this:

In Dedication

.

Your broad, high brow is whiter than a leper’s,

Your eyes are flax-flower blue, blood-red your lips,

Your hair curls honey-colored to white hips.

All saints revile you, and all sober men

Ruled by the God Apollo’s golden mean;

Yet for me rises even in November

(Rawest of months) so cruelly new a vision,

Cerridwen, of your beatific love

I forget violence and long betrayal,

Careless of where the next bright bolt might fall.

**

But here the waters are getting deeper…

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