Alienne Laval, Magistra PhD – Qaswarah - 1/2

The Arab at the tiller holds up his hand, and says one word:—"Simba (lion)!"
- H. Rider Haggard, 1886

Ikrimah said: "al-qaswarah is archers."

Then a man told Ikrimah: "It is 'lion' in the language of the Ḥabashah (Ethiopians)."

Ikrimah said: "The name of the lion in the language of the Ḥabashah is anbasah."

Ibn Abbās said: It is asad (lion) in Arabic, and in Persian šēr ( ‫) شري‬, and in Nabataean aryā (‫)ܐܪܝܐ‬,
and in Ethiopic: qaswarah.

What then is lion in Arabic? Or were/are more terms in use? Could it also be that the idea of „lion“
itself went into oblivion during the centuries without them?

What is the word for lion in Swaheli? Arabs avoid this discussion like the devil holy water...

And maybe in Ethiopic the hunters felt identic with their game? Elias Canetti hints at this
possibility.

The according Quranic passage (Sura 74:51) reads as follows:

ٌ َ َّ ‫َ َأ‬ َ ْ َ
{‫} ف َّرت ِمن ق ْس َو َرٍة{ * } ك ن ُه ْم ُح ُم ٌر ُّم ْست ِنف َرة‬
ka'annahum ħumurun mustanfirah * farrat min qaswarah
As if they were wild asses. Fleeing from a Qaswarah.

What are „wild donkeys“? Wood donkeys? Is so much known about lions hunting donkeys? Are not
they rather after antilope, gnu, or zebta? Most variances of donkeys are anyway domesticated
forms. „Wild donkeys“ rather sounds like an idiom (the donkeys went wild…cp. „Esel“ in German,
synonymous for „idiot“) – and this justifies the translation as „wild asses“.

Muhammad (pbuh) never had been to Axum and Sheba, only his cousin Uthman was who wrote the
spoken Quran down and later compiled it.

As Allah said (Sura 41:3):

„The Holy Quran is written in an Arabic for a people who know.“

What then fled those „wild asses“? Some speaker I would say because the Sura in discussion
belongs to the chapter „The Cloaked One“. Finally, at the deep structure, Allah is always the one
who is cloaked, using certain superficies or instruments (cp. Plutarch, „Pythia“) to express His will.

This also could be a dancing girl.

Generally a girl goes at the left side of a man to keep his „weapon arm“ free. If he had a second girl
she would have „to heel“ at his right side.

So, it might be correct to derive the word „qaswarah“ from old Yemenite Arabic for „left“ - „qswr“
(right would be „nbs“).
Alienne Laval, Magistra PhD – Qaswarah - 2/2

Maybe a final „t“ got lost in oral tradition, but „Qaswarat“ would mean female.

I guess that Qaswarah is related to Khazar or Kassar (in Gorean), a wagon people (btw. the surname
Caesar/Kaiser1 – title - derive from that). Most probably the use of this term in the Land of Habasha
was prejudicative, and, as terminus generalis, had no ethnic meaning – it meant Jewess and Gypsy.

I came to that while considering the Arabic kazari*n (is) like a seed... (Sura 48:29:32)

I then named the magpie birds "kazari"... because they eat (ate) sunflower seeds on my balkony...

Coincidence or not: the dispersal area of these birds is similar to that of the Silk Road track of the
wagon peoples... from the North Sea Jade Bay up to North Korea…

Cassowary... wading birds, unable to fly. Today they are restricted to New Guinea and Australia, but
there is much evidence that variances of these sometimes man attacking birds were far more spread
once. Shamans etc. like/d to use their feathers as part of their dresses, and some are said of to shape
shift into cassowary in dream state.

Qaswaratun means a mighty thing, a majestas (mysterium fascinans and mysterium tremendum) or
a hunter. A lioness from Zion? In her gypsy wagon?
A compositum... maybe an analogizing synthetical term to describe a Simurgh? A being that cannot
be described in its wholeness by analytical humans because of its complexity?
Sekhmet..

1 Worthy to be noticed here: it may well be that Octavian, the adopted son of Gaius Julius Caesar
and later Kaiser Augustus, crucified his step-brother Caesarion in Axum to where Cleopatra had
exiled him. Arabic lore tells that he escaped direction Aesir/Jemen…