The Serpent That Performed the Hajj: Seven Circles Around the Ka'ba 🐍

The Name: Al-Aym, the Male Serpent

Short entry, so let me get the words right. Al-aym and al-ayn are the book's word for the serpent — the big snake. Al-Azraqi, in his History of Mecca, specifies that al-aym means the male of the serpent. The grammarian Ibn al-Sikkit adds a language note: the word was originally “aym” and got lightened the way Arabic softens similar words — like lin from layn — with the plural ayyum. Dry linguistics, but it tells you something: this is a real word from the old Meccan vocabulary, not a fairy-tale invention.

Then comes the story. And the story is the whole reason this entry exists.

Seven Circles, Two Rak'as

Talq ibn Habib narrates it — and it's one of those accounts the book gives you straight, with a chain of transmission and named witnesses, like a hadith. “We were sitting with Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As in the Hijr” — the walled enclosure beside the Ka'ba — “when the shade shrank and the gathering stood.” Midday. Everyone dispersing.

“And then we saw a gleaming aym coming out of the gate of Banu Shayba.”

A gleaming serpent, emerging from the gate like it had business there. “And the eyes of the people rose to it.” Of course they did.

Then — and this is the part that makes the entry unforgettable — the serpent circled the House seven times and prayed two rak'as behind the Maqam. Full tawaf. Full prayer. A snake performing the rites better than most of the humans watching.

The people went to it and addressed it directly — “O pilgrim” (mu'tamir), they said, “GOD has completed your rites. But in our land there are slaves and fools, and we fear for you from them.” They weren't afraid of the serpent. They were afraid the local idiots would hurt the holy serpent.

“Then it departed toward the sky, and we did not see it.”

And Yet: Kill the Aym

And then the entry turns on a dime. From the hadith: he commanded that the aym be killed.

The book sets both facts side by side with zero commentary — the serpent that did Hajj like a saint, and the standing command to kill serpents. No reconciliation, no softening. That is medieval natural history for you: it records the world as it was reported, contradictions included, and leaves the reader sitting with them.

Al-Damiri adds one scholarly breadcrumb at the end: al-Azraqi recorded something similar right after this account, which you will find under al-ka'ib — coming later in the book. Book order. We're getting there.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is al-aym?

   Al-aym (الأيم) is the Arabic word for the male serpent, per al-Azraqi's History of Mecca — the plural is ayyum, and the grammarian Ibn al-Sikkit traces it through the same lightening pattern as lin from layn. In Hayat al-Hayawan it gets one short entry: a definition, a pilgrim story, a hadith, and a cross-reference. Nothing more — and nothing more is needed.

2. Did a serpent really perform Hajj?

   That is what the book reports, citing al-Azraqi's History of Mecca with a chain of transmission through Talq ibn Habib and named witnesses: seven circuits of the Ka'ba, two rak'as behind the Maqam, a polite farewell from the Companions' circle, and an ascent skyward. Treat it as a historical report from a 700-year-old book, not verified zoology — but al-Damiri presents it as seriously as anything else in the volume.

3. Why is the aym commanded to be killed, then?

   The entry quotes a hadith commanding the killing of the aym and offers no commentary reconciling it with the pilgrim-serpent story. The two facts sit side by side exactly as the medieval tradition preserved them. If that feels strange, it felt strange in the 1300s too — the book simply refused to smooth it out.