Phoenix Or Rook Or Rokh What Is This Legendary Bird, Is It Real!

 “He was burned and then resurrected from his ashes” is a phrase that applies to a mythical being that had a wide resonance in the ancient folklore of many geographically extended peoples around the world, such as the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Chinese. It has an impact on contemporary literature and cultures as a symbol of renewal and eternity, although it is no longer at the core of peoples' beliefs or the second impossibilities as in the past.

It is the Phoenix bird in European heritage (quoting from Greek mythology) or the phoenix (or rook) in Arab heritage, where it was the hero of many tales and legends such as the tales of Sinbad and others, or the firebird in Japan.

So let’s go into the topic to know more about this creature………..

What is the Rook or Phoenix:

• According to the legend, it is a giant, long-necked, multi-colored bird, although it is dominated by the color of red dirt. It is unique and unparalleled. 

• One of them lives between 500 to 1000 years. At the end of his "life," he perches on his nest in silence and mystery, and tweets for the last time in his current life in a low voice. 

• He is sad until the sun illuminates the horizon and he is unable to move, so he burns and turns to ashes as he makes sounds that seem closer to echoes. 

• And when the huge body is completely burnt, a small caterpillar emerges from among its remains and crawls diligently towards the nearest shady spot, soon turning into the next phoenix...and so on.

But how many times it came in historical stories and which culture talks about it?

First In Greek mythology:

• The phoenix was also mentioned in the myths of the Olympian gods when Prometheus conveyed the secret of fire to humans, so Zeus, the chief of the Greek gods, wanted to punish him. He hung him between two mountains and commissioned the phoenix to devour his liver daily.

Second In the books of Arab heritage:

Dawud Al-Antaki

• There are claims that the rook (Rokh) is a large bird that became extinct in the 17th century and was of the large vulture family. Its eggs were found on the island of Madagascar (near the continent of Africa to the east in the Indian Ocean) and the size of the egg was about (30 cm) long. There is much news of this giant bird It is believed that he remained until the time of the Arab scholar Dawud al-Antaki (dead in 1599).

• He described him as follows “The rook is a bird of which it is about the size of a camel and taller than it, and its neck is long, very white, surrounded by yellow. On its stomach and legs are streaks of dust. There are no birds greater than it.” A corpse. He is an Indian who lives in the mountains of Serandib and the mainland of Malacca.

• It is said: He goes to the boats and drowns their people. He lays eggs on land, so his egg is found like a dome.”

Ibn Battuta

• The following is a description of this bird, which was mentioned in one of the books of the important and famous Arab traveler, Ibn Battuta (dead in 1377),

• who said about it: “When it was the forty-third day, after dawn, a mountain appeared to us in the sea about twenty miles between us and it, and the wind carried us towards it. The sailors were amazed and said: We are not near the land, and there is no mountain in the sea, and if the wind forced us to it, we would perish. So the people resorted to supplication, sincerity, and renewed repentance, and we prayed to God with supplication and begged his Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace). Some stillness Then we saw that mountain at sunrise rising into the air and light appeared between it and the sea... What we imagined as a mountain is the rook, and if it sees us we will perish".

The description of Ibn Battuta refers to the extent of the enormous rook bird that led to blocking the sunlight because its color is dark and often black in color, so when it rose in the air, that is, the flight began, and the light appeared again. Because of its magnitude, they imagined it as a mountain, although the distance between them was about twenty miles.

 book “Hayat al-Hiwan al-Kubra,” 

• It was also mentioned by Sheikh Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Musa al-Damiri (dead in 1405) in his book “Hayat al-Hiwan al-Kubra,” where he exaggerated his description when he considered that the length of one wing was ten thousand miles (twenty kilometers). As well as what he mentioned his egg, which reaches fifty meters in diameter. As for the origin of the bird's feather, it was stated that it is nine waterskins, which is a true indication of the greatness of the feather's size and therefore the bone of the wing.

• After scrutinizing much of the ancient Arabic literature that mentioned and described this huge bird, real things about it become clear to us, full of exaggerations and stories about it.

Third Description of Voltaire:

French writer Voltaire

• The famous French writer Voltaire describes the phoenix, saying: "It was the size of an eagle, but the gaze of its eyes was lighter and thinner than the eyes of the threatening and ferocious eagle. Its beak is pink in color, and it is beautiful like the beak of a peacock. In its neck, you find all the colors of the rainbow, but it is brighter and more vibrant, and thousands of golden shades radiate from its feathers." His feet are a mixture of purple and silver, and his tail is like those beautiful birds hanging from Juno's chariot, but he is more beautiful than her."

The Truth About Phoenix (Rook) Bird:

• Dr. Ali Al-Sukari from Cairo University says: "We are facing a real giant bird that was present in the islands of the seas of China and India in the Middle Ages and does not exist now. The ancients exaggerated a lot in describing its size and ability, as they exaggerated in describing its eggs and chicks (until the egg split from It is a chick as if it were a mountain) and it is attributed to its meat that it removes gray hair and returns youth. This bird is part of the huge group of strange animals that lived on the face of the earth for some time until its existence coincided with the existence of man until the Middle Ages, then it was subjected to extinction.

• Some researchers believe that the phoenix (rook) is a bird that has a real existence, even if the ancients exaggerated a lot in its description or size, and that it probably lives in the islands, seas, and oceans of India and China, and it has two large wings of feathers, its color is dark and tends to black, its eggs are large and its chicks are also large, It is a strong predatory bird, its meat gives vitality to the human body, and this bird lived in remote, deserted, spacious areas in a quarter of the globe (southeast),

• where these areas were devoid of urbanization and natural obstacles, and thus constituted a suitable area for the movement and flight of this giant bird, as well as these seas It provided the bird with ample food from fish and other marine animals and shared the large islands in these seas by providing it with many other types of terrestrial food. Contemporary scientific studies on these giant birds indicate that some of their species remained until modern times, the era of the historical existence of man.

• - The Phoenix may be a kind of exciting creature such as a huge reptile, wild dinosaur, and giant bird that appeared on the surface of the earth during the eras of geological time. Many biologists believe that most of these huge organisms have become extinct due to their lack of adaptation to the environment, so it is not possible to know if this bird, which is confusing to the door, 

• is an ancient reality or just a fantasy, because science alone can reveal its existence, and so far no structures or fossils have been found that support the allegations. The many ancient and repeated about it, perhaps we should wait for what science will reveal later. It is not excluded that it will be detected, as scientists are still discovering new species of animals, whether on land or in the depths of the sea.

Discovery in the Empty Quarter:

• The English traveler (John Philby) stops, during his incursion into the Empty Quarter, at the Arabian Rook, whose name is mentioned in the Arab epics and mentioned in ancient legends. The traveler took it with him to the laboratories of England, pointing out that the Arab ostrich disappeared at that time from the Empty Quarter, and only a few remained in the north of the island. 

• In many places in the desert, fragments of the ostrich hatching shell were found, and others that were polished by wind and sand may represent remnants of prehistoric times. History, because Dr. (Lu) from the British Museum had discovered among the group that I brought with me a fragment that they attribute not to the common ostrich, but to an ancient descendant called (Samornis) or the same rook bird that is mentioned in the Arab epics. It was also found in the middle of the desert later on another smashed crust, but complete.

The question is, is this discovery strong evidence of the existence of the Phoenix bird?

Skeptic’s opinion about the existence of this bird:

• Scientific attempts were made starting from the 19th century to research the origin of the legend of the phoenix, and the explanations went to the fact that there is a great deal of exaggeration and intimidation in which the imagination of the ancients contributed to the image of the eagle bird, with its size, strength, and ability to carry a huge elephant with its claws and fly with it.

• Some scientists also believe that the legend originated in Africa, where people used to see a huge ostrich bird unable to fly, so they thought it was a small chick with much larger parents.

• And these beliefs moved from place to place and from time to time, as people introduced a lot of modification, deletion, and addition to them, in addition to learning to write, so they wrote it down and transferred it to us as we know it now.

At The End:

Most likely, the phoenix gains its fame, which reaches the horizons, when it burns, and whoever watches it thinks that it has vanished forever, so the surprise will be that it rises again and realizes the idea of resurrection that defies the laws, even after passing the confrontation against the darkest, most powerful and ferocious forces of nature, craving for destruction, and enjoying not keeping anything alive. It is fire, whatever its kind, igniter, or degree of intensity, but the basic question is whether this creature was real in the past and vanished.

Sure my friends I will wait for your opinion about this creature in a comment and if there is any topic want to know about it can tell me in the comments to make it the next article I will be glad

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