Karkadann

Lore & Background

In the 14th century, Ibn Battuta, in his travelogue, calls the rhinoceros he saw in India a karkadann and describes it as a ferocious beast that drives away animals as big as the elephant. This legend appears in One Thousand and One Nights in the 'Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor.' The karkadann is referred to by Elmer Suhr as the 'Persian version of the unicorn,' and its name appears in medieval European bestiaries, such as those from Escorial and Paris, where the name karkadann appears in the captions of unicorn illustrations.

Reader's Guide

The karkadann holds significance as a cross-cultural mythical creature that bridges Persian, Arabic, Indian, and European traditions. Its evolution from a factual description of the Indian rhinoceros by Al-Biruni into a fantastical beast with a straight, medicinal horn illustrates how lack of firsthand knowledge and script difficulties can transform natural history into legend. The association of its horn with antidotal properties, as noted by Al-Qazwini, and its later connection to alicorn, helped merge the karkadann with the unicorn in European bestiaries. The creature's name itself—karkadann, meaning rhinoceros in Persian and Arabic—contributed to confusion between the real animal and the mythical one. In modern scholarship, much of the available material was collected by Richard Ettinghausen in his 1950 publication The Unicorn. The karkadann appears in a long poem by Tawfiq Sayigh, hailed as 'the strangest and most remarkable poem in the Arabic language,' and persists in modern Iraqi tradition as 'tears of the karkadann,' reddish beads used in Muslim prayer beads. The creature's legacy endures as a symbol of how myth and reality intertwine across cultures.

Did You Know?

• The word kargadan also means rhinoceros in Persian and Arabic.
• Al-Biruni's description of the karkadann includes a dewlap hanging down under the skin and three yellow hooves on each foot.
• Al-Qazwini noted the karkadann's horn was used as an antidote to poison.
• Some traditions associate reddish beads known as 'tears of the karkadann' with the creature, though their use in Muslim prayer beads is not well-documented.