The famous Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875) is famous for his fairy tales like “The Little Mermaid”, “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Princess on the Pea”. Hans Christian Andersen was also a great traveller, and the longest of his journeys took him across Europe to Constantinople in 1841.
He mentions in his diary, “in Constantinople I passed eleven interesting days; and according to my good fortune in travel, the birthday of Mahomet itself fell exactly during my stay there. I saw the grand illumination, which completely transported me into the Thousand and One Nights.”It was from these travel experiences that he wrote the story “Mahomet’s Birthday. A Scene in Constantinople”. A fragment from “Mahomet’s Birthday. A Scene in Constantinople” written by Hans Christian Andersen.
…We wandered down among the cypresses; a nightingale was raising its flute like voice, and turtle doves cooed among the shadows of the trees. We came past a little sentry house, built of planks, and painted red, a little fire had been kindled in front of it, among the gravestones, and soldiers were reclining around it. They were dressed in European garb; but their complexion and features proclaimed them of Ishmaels race, children of the desert. With long pipes in their mouths, they lay and listened to a story. This story was about Mahomet’s birth. The nightingale translated it for us, or we should not have understood it. Here it is:
“La illah ill Allah!” “There is no God but God!”
In the city of Mecca the merchants assembled for the sake of traffic; thither came Egyptian, and Persian, and Indian, and Syrian dealers. Each one had his idol in the temple Kabba, and a son of Ishmael’s race filled the highest office, namely, that of satisfying the hunger of the pilgrims and quenching their thirst. In his piety he wished, like Abraham, to offer up his son as a sacrifice; but the prophetess declared the handsome Abdallah should live, and a hundred camels were sacrificed in his stead.
“La illah ill Allah!” “There is no God but God!”
And Abdallah grew to be a man, and was so handsome that a hundred maidens died for love of him. The prophetic flame shone on his forehead the flame which passed hidden from race to race, until the Prophet was born, Mahomet, the first and last. The prophetess Fatima saw this flame, and she offered a hundred camels if he would be her husband. But he married Amina, and the prophetic flame vanished from his forehead and burned in Amina’s heart.
“La illah ill Allah!” “There is no God but God!”
And the next year came around; the flowers had never been so sweet as they were this year, never had the fruits on the trees swelled with such abundance of juice; and the rocks trembled, and the lake Sava sank into the earth, the idols fell down in the temple, and the demons, who wanted to storm the heavens, fell from the sky like millions of shooting stars, hurled down by the mighty hand that wielded the lance; for in that night Mahomet the Prophet was born.
“La illah ill Allah!” “There is no God but God!”
This was the story the nightingale translated to us, for the nightingale understood Turkish just as well as our own languages.
