Mount Judi

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Coordinates: 37.374505° N 42.471119° EMount Judi (جودي), according to the Qur'an (sura 11:44), is the resting place of the Ark built by the Islamic prophet Noah (Nuh) at God's command. Mount Judi is traditionally believed to be situated to the north-east of the Jazirat of Ibn 'Umar in south-east Turkey, close to the Iraqi and Syrian borders.

The name Judi (Turkish Cudi) is probably related to the ethnic name of the Kurds (see section on the origin of the name, below). The 9th century Arab geographer Ibn Khordadbih identified the location of mount Judi as being in the land of Kurdistan [1].

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[edit] Mt Judi in the Qur'an

The Qur'anic account of the Flood and Noah's Ark agrees with that given in Genesis, with a few variations. One of these concerns the final resting place of the Ark: according to Genesis, the Ark grounded on the "mountains of Ararat"; according to surah 11:44 of the Qur'an, the final resting place of the vessel was called Mt. Judi:

"Then the word went forth: "O earth! Swallow up thy water, and O sky! Withhold (thy rain)!" and the water abated, and the matter was ended. The Ark rested on Mount Judi, and the word went forth: "Away with those who do wrong!" (The Noble Quran, 11:44)."

[edit] Mt Judi in Islamic tradition

Mount Judi is traditionally identified with a hill near the town of Jazirat ibn Umar on the east bank of the Tigris in the province of Mosul in northern Iraq. The Abbasid historian Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī (c. 896-956) recorded that the spot where it came to rest could be seen in his time. Masudi also said that the Ark began its voyage at Kufa in central Iraq and sailed to Mecca, where it circled the Kaaba, before finally travelling to Judi. The geographer and encyclopedist Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179–1229), also known as Al-Rumi, mentioned a mosque built by Noah that could be seen in his day, and the traveller Ibn Battuta passed by the mountain in the 14th century.

[edit] Origin of the name Judi

Early Jewish and Christian writers spoke of the Ark as being visible in their days in the "Gordian" or Gordysean mountains, the mountains of Gortouk, Mount Kardu and similar-sounding names; all were variations on Corduene, Gordyene, a small vassal state between the Roman and Persian Empires in what would today be called Turkish Kurdistan: the name is probably derived from that of its Kurdish inhabitants.[2] The proposal that the Qur'anic "Judi" derives from the name of the principality and region of Gordyene was advanced by the English Orientalist George Sale in his translation of the Qur'an published in 1734. Sale's footnote reads:

"This mountain (i.e. al-Judi) is one of those which divide Armenia on the south, from Mesopotamia, and that part of Assyria which is inhabited by the Curds, from whom the mountains took the name Cardu, or Gardu, by the Greeks turned into Gordyae, and other names. ... Mount Al-Judi (which seems to be a corruption, though it be constantly so written by the Arabs, for Jordi, or Giordi) is also called Thamanin ..., probably from a town at the foot of it."

Sale goes on to say that there was once a famous Christian monastery on the mountain, but that this was destroyed by lightning in the year 776 AD, following which "the credit of this tradition hath declined, and given place to another, which obtains at present, and according to which the ark rested on Mount Masis, in Armenia, called by the Turks Agri Dagh ..." — the modern Mt Ararat.[3]

[edit] Mt Judi and Mt Ararat

According to Genesis 8:4, Noah's Ark "rested ... on the mountains of Ararat." Over time the "mountains of Ararat" have become identified in Christian tradition with Mount Ararat itself, a volcanic massif on the border between Turkey and Armenia and known in Turkish as "Agri Dagh" (Ağrı Dağı), or "painful mountain." It seems probable that the writer of Genesis was referring to the region known in the 1st millennium BC as Urartu, equivalent to the later "Gordian mountains" of the Romans.

Contemporary seekers for the physical remains of the Ark have made many attempts to reconcile the Islamic Mt. Judi with the Hebrew Ararat, some taking them to refer to the same mountain, others to different mountains, and still others to refer to the same broad region, rather than to any specific peak. In the 1990s, Bill Crouse, a prominent ark-researcher, wrote:

"Cudi Dagh is located approximately 200 miles south of Mt. Ararat in southern Turkey almost within eyesight of the Syrian and Iraqi borders. The Tigris River flows at its base. The exact co-ordinates are 37 degrees, 21 minutes N., and 42 degrees, 17 minutes E., ... just east of the present Turkish city of Gizre and still within the bounds of the Biblical region of Ararat (Urartu). The Nestorians ... built several monasteries around the mountain including one on the summit called "The Cloister of the Ark". It was destroyed by lightning in 766 A.D. The Muslims later built a mosque on the site. In 1910, Gertrude Bell explored the area and found a stone structure still at the summit with the shape of a ship called by the locals "Sefinet Nebi Nuh" "The Ship of Noah". ... As late as 1949 two Turkish journalists claimed to have seen the Ark on this mountain, a ship 500 feet in length!"[4]

More controversially, in the 1980s, adventurer and self-styled archaeologist Ron Wyatt and his colleague David Fasold claimed to have discovered Noah's Ark at Durupinar, some 20 miles from Mt Ararat; a nearby mountain has subsequently been claimed to be Mt Cudi, the Turkish equivalent of Judi.[5]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ J. P. Lewis, Noah and the Flood: In Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Tradition, The Biblical Archaeologist, December 1984, p.237
  2. ^ Map showing Gordyene and surrounding areas, and also this timeline
  3. ^ Lee Spencer and Jean Luc Lienard, "The Search for Noah's Ark, 2005
  4. ^ Bill Crouse in "Archaeology and Biblical Research", Noah's Ark: Its Final Berth Vol., Vol.5 No.3
  5. ^ Fasold, David (1988). The Ark of Noah. New York: Wynwood Press.
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