Arab Bed Time Scary Stories

 

Not to scare you or anything but I've been sitting today today and it came up to me that, how come many of my foreign friends don't know about many scary stories we were told while younger either to make us go to sleep ironically, or to simply scare us away like grandma used to do.

I'm going to list the top 3 most known stories every arab knows, or heard of.

Aisha Kandisha/ La Contesa

Aisha Kandisha is a very known Moroccan legend, although it is known in the whole arab world, the story is as it goes: 

Aisha was a Moroccan citizen, she lived in a village, nobody mentions where when they tell the story but most likely to be situated in the north of Morocco because that region was most affected by the the Portuguese cololization. One day they attacked Aisha's village and killed her husband, for no apparent reason obviously, they're european colonizers what did you expect, anyways, Aisha decided to revenge, so she started seducing Portuguese soldiers into a forest and killed them in cold blood, until one day a soldier managed to run away and brought back up; eventually she was hanged in the same forest, soldiers drank to that little victory that night, as Aisha's soul went back to god's hands. they celebrated that night because it was an issue near that camp, that men were disappearing and nobody suspected her, I mean a weak poor widow is all she was to them. And now she's simply gone.

That's where it gets spooky, the disappearing doesn't end, in fact it gets worse, day after day people vanish into thin air, but how could that possibly happen?

A soldier gets back to camp running as if he saw a ghost, all pale, sweaty and out of breath, when questioned, he mentioned that he saw Aisha and she offered him herself, she was more beautiful than before, irresistable he said. And he accepted, except when he got into act, he noticed that her legs weren't human legs, they were a goat's. And that's the concept of Djinn in the arab culture, except it's not supernatural, it's religious. The existence of Djinn is a fact for them. They're creatures made of fire, as the Quran States, and that's what Iblis/Satan was, a Djinn until he rebels.

When he noticed that, he ran for his life, and she let him for some reason, nobody knows what happened after, did they get her again? did she wipe them all? 

This story has different tweaked versions, not many but they're all terrifying, the 2nd story goes as following:

Aisha was a contess which means someone who has a rank of count, she lived in Andalucia, back when arabs where still in the spanish peninsula. In fact right before they got kicked out by the reconquista. The time between both locations is centuries but the concept remains the same. A rebellion against colonizers. 

People say she's looking for unfaithful men, seduces them and kills them. Many movies were made after this story, and it's one of my favorites.

El Ghoul

This is a fun one, ever heard of Shrek? exactly.

El ghoul means ogre in Arabic, except ghouls in my culture aren't as friendly, the origins of this story goes all the way back to Greek mythology then it was tweaked by many people until it got to Muslims in the Arab peninsula. It basically consists of a huge oger that has a bag and will come for you if you don't go to bed early, then he'll cook you alive with a bunch of other kids that didn't go to bed early. 

I know it sounds bit too scaring for some child's mind to process, but that's how we do parenting arounf here. 

Djinn

As mentioned before, the existence of Djinn is a known fact in the Arab world, because Islam says so. And I often heard these stories of Djinn and their appearance as a child and it used the freak the  sh*t out of me. According to Islam, Djinn are believed to be made of fire and they lived on earth long before humans were made, they're creatures with powers such as flying, speed and strengh, except we can't see them because god put this Harry Potter alike cape between our world and theirs, but they can see us, in fact a Djinn can be reading this post with you right now. 

And the fact that they exist here a lot, is that a prophet of Islam's casted them to north Africa and the Arab peninsula as punishment.

They're creatures with normal daily routine with aspirations, goals and emotions just like us.

The first story I heard about Djinn, was back in 2011, my uncle was driving back home at 1:00 am. He works in the military so night drives weren’t a big deal to him. He found a stray dog on the road, picked him up and sat him on the front seat, few minutes passed as he drove in silence, the dog spoke, he asked him to put him back where he picked him up. My uncle acted calmly, drove back and left the dog there. But when he got back home, he couldn’t speak, he was in shock. I mean who wouldn’t be, now I don’t know how true this statement is, all I know is that he had excessive therapy for years, but I was 12 back then so I believed it. Clearly, it cost me few night’s sleep. 

The other thing we’re told, is that Djinn live in toilets, rent free I know, so pouring hot water can really piss them off, and that’s the 2nd story I heard, a woman poured hot water into her bath, and later that night, she went to shower and an old woman crying appears, she’s holding a baby who’s face is burnt, and she keeps crying until the woman asks her: what’s wrong. It’s apparent what happened there, that’s why we’re told to put salt before pouring hot water, as an indication for Djinn to leave. 

The Wolf

This is another classic we've been told, but it's nothing like I've seen before. I think the idea of this story, or let's say the origin emerged long ago when people still had sheep they needed to protect, villages basically. And what's a better idea to scare children than use a beast that feasts on friendly animals they've been hanging arounf with. There's no particular story to this one, but it just consists of describing a scary wolf that's going to hurt you if you don't go to sleep right away.