Where is the mysterious Valley of Ghouls?
Explorers have been looking for clues to the infamous valley for quite some time. We did a little bit of hunting into the matter too.
Balochi folklore mentions ghouls, a lot. Scarier and deadlier than the Jinns, their sheer terror makes the matter all the more interesting.
A concept Persian in origin, it is the most dreaded kind of ghost: shapeshifters, who devour humans as a pass time.
They may take up the form of a relative, a friend, or even their voice alone, leading people astray, separating them from company or caravans, to meet death
They are said to be at their strongest, in power and numbers, in the Valley of Izrael.
Hazrat Izrael (A), Malik-al-Mawt, is one of the four archangels and the Angel of Death in Islamic scripture.
In Helmand, Afghanistan, people believe that a ghoul will only meet its death if you kill it with one shot.
A second arrow shot at a ghoul shall bring the ghoul back to life.
Unable to find out the precise location of what may be the Valley of Ghouls, we poured over several sources to no avail.
The dire lack of documentation in the region has left us a little disappointed and very angry.
Anyhow, a similar valley is also mentioned in the tale of King Mahorab!
His son, Prince Zumarad, finds himself alone and trapped in The Valley of Ghouls in the epic 1001 Nights.
Zumarad is a name Persian in origin, and it is likely that from various tales in the Arabic epic picked up from Persia and India, this one may be referring to the same Valley of Izrael mentioned in Balochi lore.
However, there is something rather interesting about the area. A desert, known as the Dasht-e Margo, (Desert of Death) overlaps the border region of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan.
What we can't say for sure, is if the desert earned this name due to ghouls, or because of the lives, that the desert has consumed for various more "scientific" and "logical" reasons.
Comentarios