Hızır arrives with drops from heaven

Six weeks long, the people in the low lands of Northwest Europe enjoyed the rays of Helios without being disturbed by drops from the skies. Apparently, Haddad¹ became so inconvenient about this exceptionally long period, that he finally made it rain yesterday.

It's quite remarkable that it started raining on this specific day, the 6th of May. No, I'm not referring to the misfortune of Sarkozy being elected president and neither to the hanging of 21 prominent Muslim and Christian Arabs in Beirut and Damascus by Djemal Pasha, 91 years ago on this day (and please don't make me start talking about the inability of the Turkish parliament to elect any president, whatever his political background!). I'm rather referring to the much more pleasant event of Hıdırellez, the day that marks the beginning of the Days of Hızır.

Hıdırellez is a holiday celebrated in the Levant, mostly in Turkey, but also by Roma and Albanians in the Balkans. In the Western world the holiday is better known by its Romany name, Ederlezi, due to Emir Kusturica's "The Time of the Gypsies" ("Dom za vešanje") and Goran Bregović's soundtrack for this film, "Ederlezi".

The name Hıdırellez is actually a contraction of the names Hızır, or Hıdır (Arabic: الخضر, al Khiḍr), and Ilyas (Arabic: إلياس), both of them religious personages. Hızır is believed to be a saint, sometimes also considered a prophet, that became immortal by drinking from the spring of life (ab-ı hayat) and has pretty much all of Jesus' (or any other prophet's) supernatural abilities. Ilyas is the Arabic, Persian and Turkish name for Elijah, a prophet in ancient Israel mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), the Christian Bible (New Testament) and the Qur'an (Newest Testament?).


Hızır and Ilyas sitting at the Fountain of Life.
source: www.khidr.org

In Turkey, the two act among others as the protecters of travellers. According to traditional belief, 6 May (23 April according to the Julian calendar) is the day on which Hızır and Ilyas meet each other to decide in which part of the world each of them will serve. It is usually thought that Ilyas takes care of travellers at sea and Hızır of those on land.²

This great meeting, however, is not the main reason for people celebrating it. Hıdırellez is actually a holiday marking the beginning of a new season: the summer. In the old Rumî (=Julian) calendar, the year was usually split in two seasons: the summery Days of Hızır (6 May - 8 November) and the winterly Days of Kasım. In this respect, Hıdırellez is actually part of an old common tradition in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East of celebrating the arrival of the temperate season. Nowruz is another example of such a tradition.

In fact, celebrations on the 6^th of May are also held by Orthodox Christians in the Balkans. They celebrate the day of Saint George (Serbian: Ђурђевдан, Đurđevdan, Bulgarian: Гергьовден, Gergyovden), a saint considered important by many Christian nations. However, just as in the case of Hıdırellez, the celebration is actually related to the arrival of the summer.

It may not be a complete coincidence that Saint George's Day and Hıdırellez fall on exactly the same day and are so similar to each other. There are some indications that Hızır is actually associated with Saint George (Arabic: مار جرجس, Mar Jirjis/Girgis). Near Betlehem, Muslim and Christian Arabs and Jews commonly visit a shrine of Saint George and all refer to the saint by the name al Khiḍr. In the Balkans, Muslim Albanians refer to the saint as Hızır, while Christian Albanians call him Saint George.³ It must be no coincidence either that the alternative name for Hıdırellez is simply Ruz-ı Hızır: Hızır's Day.

Anyhow, while the Balkans and the Levant are welcoming summer with celebrations, I'm welcoming it with drops falling from a grey sky...

1. Haddad, sometimes called Ba'al (Lord), is the Mesopotamian God of the sky, the storm and the rain. He is equated to the Egyptian Set, the Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter, Norse Thor and Germanic Thunder.
2. Uysal, A.E. and W.S. Walker, "An Ancient God in Modern Turkey: Some Aspects of the Cult of Hizir" in Journal of American folklore nr. 86, 1997; available at http://khidr.org/hizir.htm (accessed on 07/05/07)
3. Hanauer, J.E., Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Moslem, Christian and Jewish, 1907; available at http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/flhl/flhl12.htm (accessed on 07/05/07);
Hasluck, F.W., Christianity and Islam under the Sultans. Oxford University Press, 1929, pp. 319-336 Chapter 2: "Koranic Saints"; available at http://khidr.org/khidr-turkey.htm (accessed on 07/05/07).