Shamharush

What it is

Shamharush belongs to Islamic esoteric lore as one of the seven jinn kings, and tradition puts him first among them in age, judgement and influence. Jinn are beings of the unseen in Islamic thought. He is said to rule law, justice, abundance and childhood, and to hold a court over quarrels between people and jinn. His day is Thursday, his planet Jupiter, his colour purple and his metal tin. An angel, Sarfya'il, is described as overseeing his work. Writers also call him Shamhurish or Sidi Chamharouch. He is honoured as a guardian close to a saint, though that honour has been strongly contested.

Where it comes from

One strand of his story accounts for the title Nasrani, meaning Christian: he is said to have followed another faith until he met the Prophet Muhammad, and to have accepted Islam afterwards. That meeting, tradition says, came about while he was roaming the human world to watch its people. Recognition followed, and he became Great Qadi, a judge, and a noted authority on Islamic law. The shrine linked to his name near Aroumd is described as ancient. From the sixteenth century his standing shrank sharply, and much of what is written about him comes through later esoteric work such as the Kitab al-Bulhan, the Book of Wonders.

How it is done

The shrine near Aroumd is the setting for his cult. It is a chamber sunk into the ground beneath a large whitewashed boulder, with green and white flags on top and a mosque alongside. There the seat is called the highest court for quarrels between humans and jinn. Such disputes are said to be announced by thunder and lightning, and by shadows appearing without cause. The building has stood empty for decades. Honour was paid to him as a guardian figure, in the manner shown to a saint rather than to an ordinary spirit.

Tools and materials

Purple and tin belong to him, as do Thursday and Jupiter in the same scheme of correspondences. In miniatures from the Kitab al-Bulhan his picture carries dense sigils and the hexagon known as Khatam Sulayman, the Seal of Solomon. Its two triangles interlock, and the esoteric tradition reads them as heaven and earth joined. He is shown holding a naked infant upside down, a pose taken to mean that his hold over infancy runs two ways at once. Green and white cloth flies above his shrine.

What it is for

People turn to him for judgement. He is held to be fair, and to know governance well enough to teach it to other rulers of his kind; his tribunal is said to draw every jinn king, Iblis included. He is also linked to plenty and to the care of small children, and he is called Father of the Newborn, or Abu al-Walid. Tradition credits him with mercy, describing wrongdoers as given room to make amends rather than simply punished. The shrine served as a place where conflicts between humans and jinn could be settled.

Who does it

Veneration came from traditional officials and pashas, who treated him as a guardian in the way a saint is honoured. Against the practice stood the ulama, the Moroccan scholars and theologians trained in Islamic law, who rejected it on doctrinal grounds; over time their view prevailed in wider society. Elsewhere the figure is handled by writers in the esoteric tradition, who set out his rank, his correspondences and his place among the seven kings of his kind.

Peoples and places

The cult is Moroccan. Its one known shrine sits near Aroumd, a village under the High Atlas, and the surrounding mountain country is where the veneration held on longest, remote enough to keep the practice when pressure from orthodox teaching pushed it out of the towns. Arab and Islamic storytelling also carries him beyond Morocco: he appears in legends told across the region, and in one of them the mountain itself is named for him.

What people believe

The world behind this figure is the Islamic one of jinn, unseen beings who live alongside humans. Seven of them are held to be kings, and Shamharush is counted the eldest, the wisest and the most influential. An angel, Sarfya'il, is said to watch over his activity, and even Iblis attends his court. Because he accepted Islam and mastered its law, tradition places him among Muslim judges rather than among outside powers, though his old title Nasrani keeps the memory of what he was before.

When it is done

Thursday is his day, and Jupiter his planet. That pairing belongs to a set of correspondences which also gives him purple and tin. On the human side his care falls at the start of life: he is called Father of the Newborn, or Abu al-Walid, and his painted image carries an infant. Accounts of the shrine at Aroumd speak of it in the past tense, so the old pattern of visits there is not set out as a living calendar.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Writers treat the loss of his standing as a religious campaign rather than a slow fading of belief. Moroccan ulama, the class of legal and theological scholars, are named as the likely source of the hostile stories, and the tale of Aicha Kandish is said to have carried them widely. The argument was doctrinal: honour paid to a jinn in the manner owed a saint, a wali, was judged to be shirk, the sin of worshipping something alongside God. The esoteric tradition that produced the Kitab al-Bulhan reads his picture as carrying layered meaning about infancy and about heaven meeting earth.

Compare and confuse

He is also written Shamhurish, and in Morocco is often called Sidi Chamharouch. The best-known story that touches him really belongs to another figure: Aicha Kandish, or Kandisha, a female jinn said in one popular version to have been born to a noblewoman and to have become a killer of men after her death. That tale is sometimes told as his offspring, which is how he acquired a reputation as the parent of seductive demons.

Law and persecution

Honouring a jinn as a saint drew the charge of shirk, the offence of giving a created being the worship owed to God. Moroccan ulama led the case against the practice from the sixteenth century, and his standing fell steadily as a result. The effect reached beyond Morocco and was felt inside the country as well. The veneration held on in a handful of mountain villages, where orthodox pressure arrived with less force, and the shrine that carries his name has stood abandoned for decades.

Today

Veneration is now confined to a small number of Moroccan mountain communities. The name Sidi Chamharouch stays attached to the site near Aroumd, and the peak above it is sometimes called Mount Shamharush in his honour, on the strength of legends that he once lived on the summit. Beyond Morocco he survives mainly as a figure in esoteric writing and in the study of the seven jinn kings.

Questions people ask about Shamharush

Good reading and sources

• Shamharush on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data