Ghoul

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File:Amine Discovered with the Goule.jpg

"Amine Discovered with the Goule", from the story of Sidi Nouman in the One Thousand and One Nights

In folklore, a ghoul (from Template:Langx, Template:Transliteration) is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid, often associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. In the legends or tales in which they appear, a ghoul is far more ill-mannered and foul than goblins. The concept of the ghoul originated in pre-Islamic Arabian religion.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Modern fiction often uses the term to label a specific kind of monster.

By extension, the word "ghoul" is also used in a derogatory sense to refer to a person who delights in the macabre or whose occupation directly involves death, such as a gravedigger or graverobber.<ref name="Al-Rawi 2009"> Template:Cite journal</ref>

EtymologyEdit

The English word ghoul is from the Arabic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration), from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) Template:Gloss.<ref name="Lebling2010">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="oed-ghoul">"Ghoul, N." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, December 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2239227052.</ref>Template:Efn The term was first used in English literature in 1786 in William Beckford's Orientalist novel Vathek,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which describes the Template:Transliteration of Arabic folklore. This definition of the ghoul has persisted into modern times, with ghouls appearing in popular culture.<ref name="Al-Rawi 2009" />

In early Arabic, the term is treated as a feminine word. Later, the term became treated as a masculine word, and ghouls became perceived as masculine creatures with Si'lat as feminine counterpart.<ref>Jones, Alan. "Early Arabic poetry: select poems." (No Title) (2011) p. 243</ref>

FolkloreEdit

In Arabic folklore, the ghul is said to dwell in cemeteries and other uninhabited places. A male ghoul is referred to as ghul while the female is called ghulah.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Scholar Dwight F. Reynolds identifies the Arabic ghoul as a female creature – sometimes called "Mother Ghoul" (ʾUmm Ghulah), "Our Aunt Ghoul", or a similar relational term – in tales told to girls and young women. In these tales, the ghoul appears to men as a long-lost female relative or an unassuming old woman; she uses this glamor Template:Efn to lure the hapless characters, who are usually husbands or fathers, into her home, where she can eat them. The male characters' female relatives can often see through the illusion and warn them of the danger; the men survive if they believe the women (and are eaten if they do not).<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

An example of this can be found in a Syrian folktale, The Woodcutter's Wealthy Sister or The Woodcutter's Weary Wife, which was adapted into an animated story in the series Britannica's Tales Around the World. A poor, arrogant and spiteful woodcutter encounters a beautiful, wealthy princess who claims to be his long-lost sister, even though he had no sisters at all. The woodcutter accepts the mysterious princess's invitation to bring him, his abused wife and their numerous children to her palace to live in luxury. However, the wife discovers that the "princess" is in fact a female ghoul (simply referred to as a "monster" in the Britannica adaptation) who is planning to eat the woodcutter and his family. After narrowly escaping the ghoul's attempts to eat them, the wife and her children flee the palace in the night and leave the woodcutter to be devoured by the ghoul.<ref>The Woodcutter’s Weary Wife</ref>

The ghoul is said to lure unwary people into the desert wastes or abandoned places to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, drinks blood, steals coins, eats the dead,<ref name="merweb">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and takes the form of the person most recently eaten. One of the narratives identified a ghoul named Ghul-e Biyaban, a particularly monstrous character believed to be inhabiting the wilderness of Afghanistan and Iran.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A hyena who attacked a woman in Mecca in 1667 was referred to by locals as a ghul, possibly due to a perceived similarity to the creature of folklore.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Al-Dimashqi describes the ghoul as cave-dwelling animals who only leave at night and avoid the light of the sun. They would eat both humans and animals.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

It was not until Antoine Galland translated One Thousand and One Nights into French that the Western concept of ghouls was introduced into European society.<ref name="Al-Rawi 2009" /> Galland depicted the ghoul as a monstrous creature that dwelled in cemeteries, feasting upon corpses.

Similar creaturesEdit

In ancient Mesopotamia, there were demonic entities known as Gallu, which scholar Ahmed Al-Rawi believes may have influenced the Arabic ghoul via early contact between Bedouin traders and Akkadians.Template:Efn The Gallu was an Akkadian underworld demon, associated with the stories of Dumuzid and Inanna.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="al-rawi">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="supernatural">Al-Rawi, Ahmed. Supernatural Creatures in Arabic Literary Tradition. Taylor & Francis, 2023. pp. 19–36.</ref>

Arabic and Islamic literatureEdit

Ghouls belong to the jinn attested in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry.<ref name="Jones, Alan 2011 p. 241">Jones, Alan. "Early Arabic poetry: select poems." (No Title) (2011). p. 241</ref> A famous poem narrates about a fight between Ta'abbata Sharra and a ghoul.<ref name="Jones, Alan 2011 p. 241"/> Belief in ghouls was not universally accepted in Islam, the Mu'tazilites denied their existence.<ref name="Jones, Alan 2011 p. 241"/> Al-Jahiz denounced Ta'abbata Sharra for boasting about his victory over the ghoul.<ref name="Jones, Alan 2011 p. 241"/>

Although not mentioned in the Quran, ghouls appear in hadith. Al-Masudi reports that on his journey to Syria, Umar slew a ghoul with his sword.<ref name="Islam, Migration and Jinn">Template:Cite book</ref> In oneTemplate:Which hadith it is said, lonely travelers can escape a ghoul's attack by reciting the adhan (call to prayer).Template:Sfn Unlike demons, a ghoul may convert to Islam when reciting the Throne Verse.Template:Sfn

The ghoul could appear in male and female shape, but usually appeared female to lure male travelers to devour them.<ref name="Islam, Migration and Jinn"/> According to History of the Prophets and Kings, the rebellious (maradatuhum) among the devils and the ghouls have been chased away to the deserts and mountains and valleys a long time ago.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A ghoul is said to have stolen dates from the house of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. When she was caught, she told him that reciting Ayat Al-Kursi will protect his house from devils and other misfortune. In return for this information, he released her. Muhammad told him that the ghoul spoke the truth, although she is a liar.<ref name="al-rawi" /> Other Muslim scholars, like Abī al-Sheikh al-Aşbahânī, describe the ghoul as a female jinn that was able to change its shape and appear to travelers in the wilderness to delude and harm.<ref name="al-rawi" />

According to some exegetes of the Quran (tafsir) ghouls are jinn and devils (shayatin), who were burned when angels threw meteors at them.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Modern ghoulEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The word ghoul entered the English tradition and was further identified as a grave-robbing creature that feeds on dead bodies and children. In the West, ghouls have no specific shape and have been described by Edgar Allan Poe as "neither man nor woman... neither brute nor human."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Weird Tales v10n04 - Pickman's Model.png

Illustration of a ghoul from "Pickman's Model"

In "Pickman's Model", a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, ghouls are members of a subterranean race. Their diet of dead human flesh mutated them into bestial humanoids able to carry on intelligent conversations with the living. The story has ghouls set underground with ghoul tunnels that connect ancient human ruins with deep underworlds. Lovecraft hints that the ghouls emerge in subway tunnels to feed on train wreck victims.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Lovecraft's vision of the ghoul, shared by associated authors Clark Ashton-Smith and Robert E. Howard, has heavily influenced the collective idea of the ghoul in American culture. Ghouls as described by Lovecraft are dog-faced and hideous creatures but not necessarily malicious. Though their primary (perhaps only) food source is human flesh, they do not seek out or hunt living people. They are able to travel back and forth through the wall of sleep. This is demonstrated in Lovecraft's "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" in which Randolph Carter encounters Pickman in the dream world after his complete transition into a mature ghoul.

Ghouls in this vein are also changelings in the traditional way. The ghoul parent abducts a human infant and replaces it with one of its own. Ghouls appear entirely human as children but begin to take on the "ghoulish" appearance as they age past adulthood. The fate of the replaced human children is not entirely clear but Pickman offers a clue in the form of a painting depicting mature ghouls as they encourage a human child while it cannibalizes a corpse. This version of the ghoul appears in stories by authors such as Neil Gaiman, Brian Lumley, and Guillermo del Toro.

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ReferencesEdit

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