Ibrahim al-Koni considers Tuareg Wantahet, Egyptian Seth, Greek Typhon, German Mephistopheles and Iblis (the Islamic Devil) to be manifestations of the same demon. 73 When asked – at the 2011 Georgetown University Colloquium
on his works (‘Tents in the Desert’) – for further details from Tuareg folklore about Wantahet, Ibrahim al-Koni replied that he uses fragments of folklore as a starting point for his creations.
Hesiod said that Typhoeus (Typhon) has ‘a hundred snaky heads –/Th ose of a dreadful serpent . . .’ . Not surprisingly therefore, ‘when they hissed the echoing sound beneath the hills was heard’. 74 Kerényi described Typhoeus in the following manner:
Above the hips he was shaped like a man . . . From the hips downwards he was shaped like two wrestling serpents, which towered up to the height of his head and yelled hissingly. 75
In al-Koni’s Th e Scarecrow and many other novels, hissing is a sign of Wantahet.
Th e Puppet includes repeated references to serpents – Aghulli, the sage and leader of the oasis community, has a nightmare about a serpent – while in Th e Seven Veils of Seth , Isan, the Seth/Wantahet character, ‘hissed hoarsely: “You didn’t know that Serpent is one of my names” ’. 76
In Islamic terms, Wantahet is presumably one of the jinn – beings who occupy a status below the angels and above human beings. In his encyclopedia, al-Koni associated the word jinn with al- hayya , the word for serpent, and said ‘In the mythology of the ancient world, the serpent is synonymous with the spirit ( al- ruh ) guarding water sources’ and ‘Th e water that the serpent guards is the physical counterpart of the mysterious principle called the spirit ( al- ruh )’. 77 In his encyclopedia he wrote:
Th e serpent in the mythology of the ancient world is synonymous with the spirit ( al- ruh ) that guards springs and wells. 78
Al-Koni’s encyclopedia entry for ‘Iblis’ – the proper name corresponding in Islam to Satan – pairs Iblis with his predecessor, the ancient Egyptian god Set (Seth) as both ‘standing opposite the concept of divine lordship’. 79 Seth famously killed Osiris and fought Horus. Richard Wilkinson summarized Seth’s status:
Seth seems to have been originally a desert deity who early came to represent the forces of disturbance and confusion in the world. 80
Hesiod in his Th eogony mentioned the similar rebellion against Zeus by Typhoeus:
. . . he, Typhoeus, would have been the ruler of gods and men, If not for the keen reckoning of the wise father then . . . 81
Hesiod also attributed gales to Typhoeus, especially damp ones, and said:
And on the boundless, blooming land all these [winds] can equally Destroy the lovely husbandry, the works of earthborn men,
Filling them full of dust through roaring dust storms that cause pain. 82
In al-Koni’s al-Majus , a wind called the Qibli blows sand so hard for so long that the community’s well and survival are threatened.
Al-Koni wrote in his encyclopedia:
Iblis in the primeval language of the Tuareg means anger and was derived from yblys , which means to become extremely angry. It expresses its negative reality in angry outbursts that religions perceive as evil . . . Th e Arabic word bls refers to black hair suits the ancients prescribed for people sentenced to death.
Al-Koni thought this use was derived from the sovereignty of Iblis over the dark recesses or ‘darknesses’ ( al- zulamat ). 83
In an email al-Koni stated that ‘In the Tuareg language the word tyfon means black or dark recesses. . .’ and can also refer to black Africans. ‘Th e devil ( al- shaytan ) . . . is the lord of the dark recesses.’ 84 Th e Arabic title of his masterpiece is al-Majus , which literally means the Magi or Magians, in other words, the Zoroastrians. From a Muslim and especially a Sufi point of view, Zoroastrians are the Other. Th roughout al-Majus , this term is also used to refer to the Other, but now the Other refers not to Zoroastrians but to Bambara and other Bantu adherents of traditional African folk religions – because they are polytheists or ‘animists’ (rather than monotheists), because they practise settled agriculture, and because they trade in gold. Th e word here has also a second, neo-Marxist use, derived from Marx’s discussion of
‘commodity fetishism’. 85 In al-Majus , Idikran, a devotee of the pre-Islamic Tuareg religion, has a long conversation with Adda, the tribe’s leader about who is a Fetishist. Th ey agree he is not the person who bows before a stone god, but a man who replaces concern for God in his heart with a lust for gold. 86
Th e chapter entitled ‘Wantahet’ in Th e Scarecrow includes a version of the famous banquet served on a carpet spread over an abyss – in a tale about a contest between proponents respectively of anger, envy, hatred and revenge. 87 Th e Chief Vassal later remarks to the demonic ruler that by repaying good with evil he has demonstrated he is a human being and not a demon. 88
In Th e Seven Veils of Seth , the chief of the oasis community teases his visitor:
How can you expect our elders not to think ill of you when you arrive on the back of a jenny, as if you were the accursed Wantahet, who has been the butt of jokes for generations? 89
Th ere is a more complete version of this accusation later in the novel:
Th e master of the jenny at the end of time would approach villages to entice tribes to a banquet only to pull the banquet carpet out from under them, allowing them to fall into a bottomless abyss. 90
‘Wantahet’ means ‘Master of the Jenny’, and al-Koni has stated, ‘Th e donkey is the literal embodiment of the spirit of Sheth’. 91 Isan in Th e Seven Veils of Seth is called the Jenny Master because he rides a she- ass, and the novel includes a vivid account of how he learned to hate camels and love a wild she- ass. 92 Similarly, the demonic hero of Lawn al-La‘na is said to have travelled south to Africa’s forestlands on a camel but to have returned on a she- ass. 93
H. Te Velde includes in Seth, God of Confusion a chapter about the ‘Seth- animal’, which has been connected with various mammals, real and imaginary, including the wild ass. 94 E. A. Wallis Budge in Th e Gods of the Egyptians says that ‘Th e Ass, like many animals, was regarded by Egyptians both as a god and a devil’. 95
In Islamic history there is a famous Donkey Master or Sahib al-Himar: Abu Yazid Mukallad ibn Kayrad al-Nukkari (d. 947 ce ) who was a Berber rebel against Fatimid rule in what is today Tunisia. 96 From a Tuareg point of view, this possible counterexample presents no problem, because a Berber rebelling against Shi‘i Arab rule in North Africa channels Wantahet, the Jenny Master.
In his encyclopedia, al-Koni devoted more than half a volume to Seth and then included a separate discussion of the Seth animal. He pointed out that Plutarch in Isis and Osiris associated Seth (called Typhon by Plutarch) with the ass and that in his Table Talk Plutarch discussed the resemblance between the Seth beast and ‘that detestable animal . . . the hare.’ 97 Jan Assman repeats the story that Typhon ‘erected a statue of his sacred animal, the ass, in the temple at Jerusalem’. 98 Al-Koni explained that the Tuareg ‘consider nothing else in the world of the desert as ill- omened as the hare’. 99 It was entrusted with a mandate that would have brought mankind glad tidings of immortality but changed this into a death knell. 100 Al-Koni continued that Tuareg culture forbids any mention of donkey or hare before sunrise. 101
For its part, the ass, al-Koni wrote (according to Isis and Osiris by Plutarch):
Became hated and ill- omened in the primitive mind once it rescued the Beloved Seth, who fl ed on its back, escaping from punishment by Horus by traveling to Jerusalem as king. 102
Both paraphrasing Plutarch and refl ecting Tuareg culture, al-Koni added: ‘Th e factor that the donkey and Seth have in common is their red colour.’ For the
donkey, this is simply its natural color, but, ‘For Seth it is fi re, substance, knowledge, and evil’. 103 Plutarch in Isis and Osiris did say more than once that Typhon has a red complexion. 104
A potion that al-Koni’s Isan (in Th e Seven Veils of Seth ) slips into the pool causes women in the oasis to miscarry, but he can also cure their fertility problems. In his encyclopedia al-Koni wrote:
Since the phallus plants life in a woman’s womb to assure the human genus, it is comparable to divinity that brings creatures to life with the spirit’s miracle . . . Both perform the same creative role. Nature, then, must be paired with the spirit. 105
Te Velde said of Seth that he is ‘the god who brings about abortion’. 106 In Th e Seven Veils of Seth , Seth cures infertility by judicious use of his phallus. Te Velde also said of Seth: ‘Seth is a god of sexuality which is not canalized into fertility.’ 107 In short, in al-Koni’s depiction of his Typhon/Seth archetype, whom he usually calls Wantahet, there is a dialectic between good and evil. He has stated, ‘Our world would not exist if evil did not’. He added that the word ‘veils’ in the title Th e Seven Veils of Seth refers to this profound view. 108
In al-Koni’s encyclopedia, the fi rst chapter of Part II (‘Set (Sheth, Zed, Shaz, Shat’) is entitled: ‘Set: Dialectic of Sanctity and Baseness.’ 109 Th en in Chapter 6 of Part II , he states:
Th e balanced dialectic of the primitive intellect, however, suggests a solution that is simpler than we might expect. Seth is truly a god, and Seth is also a demon.
As a luminous essence, Seth is a principle of goodness, and for this reason is a Beloved Lord. As a fi ery essence, Seth is also an evil principle, and for this reason is an outcast Beloved. God and Satan are two contradictory halves but derive from a single root, which is the letter ‘s’. In the primitive language it stands for two opposites: light and fi re. 110
He later added:
Light is divine so long as it remains light but becomes an enemy of the divine when it turns into fi re. A river’s water is likewise divine and good (Osiris) while fl owing between its banks but evil when it fl oods and becomes a sea (Seth). 111