Al-Mi'raj or Almiraj (; ) is a mythical creature resembling a one-horned hare or rabbit, mentioned in medieval Arabic literature.
The name appears in a version of the legend of Iskandar who, after defeating the dragon of Dragon Island in the Indian Ocean, obtained the animal as a gift from the inhabitants. The creature is also said to cause all animals that sets sight on it to flee.
The creature also appears nameless, is given other variant names, or situated elsewhere, depending on the text or manuscript source.
Qazwini's account
Al-miʿrāj is a beast purported to live on an island called ('Sea-Serpent Island' or 'Dragon Island') in the Indian Ocean, according to Qazwini's Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing (c. 1260, aka The Wonders of Creation).
This beast is said to resemble a yellow hare (or rabbit) with a single black horn. All the wild beasts fled at the sight of it (which is a trait also shared by the karkadann, another unicorn of Arabic literature). The islanders made a gift of it to Iskandar (Alexander the Great) after he helped kill a dragon (or large serpent) which had been eating the livestock.
Manuscripts
The hare has been drawn rather faithfully according to text e.g. in the Sarre manuscript (the relevant folio is now in the possession of Freer Gallery of Art), captioned "Dragon of Dragon Island and the Miraculous Hare").
The creature however is depicted rather like a "hybrid animal that looks more like a fierce hound" in the Berlin copy (Staatliche Museen, Islamische Abteilung, now Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin).
The Sarre manuscript and other copies of Qazwini's cosmography fail to mention any name for the horned hare. Michel Wiedemann, who provides a French translation that mentions no name for the hare, is of the opinion that the name didn't occur in the original text but was added by later copyists.
The oldest copy of Qazwini is the Munich manuscript, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB) Cod.Arab. 464, which carries a miniature painting of the dragon and the horned hare on folio 63 (pictured above). The dragon is depicted "devouring sulfur-filled bulls, which look like a red piece of meat".
Idrisi's account
The horned hare is called ʿarāj (), and the dragon-inhabited isle is called Mustashiayn (; ) situated in Western Africa in a recension of Idrisi's Nuzhat al-Mushtaq ("The Book of Pleasant Journeys into Faraway Lands", c. 1154),. Iskandar, here also called Dhu'l-Qarnayn "The Two-Horned", vanquishes the dragon by the same means as in Qazwini's tale, namely, stuffing the two sacrificial oxen with active substances, and the outcome was that the bait "ignites fire inside the [monster's] entrails, and it expires".
In a modern edition of Idrisi, the name of horned hare is given as (), but the account differs as to circumstances: it states that Iskandar had harvested aloeswood on Lāqā, which failed to give off fragrance at first, but turned into fine-scented dense black wood upon departure from the island, and he traded the best specimen with other goods, including the baqrāj which looked like a hare but had a coat of shiny gold and a single black horn; it also caused wild animals (whether predator, mammal, or birds) to flee.
Ibn al-Wardi's treatise
The name of the wondrous beast was copied as al-Maharāǧ (al-Maharāj, , sic.) in Ibn al-Wardī's Margarita mirabilum or Pearl of Wonders during the 14th century.
Miscellaneous
There is a Turkish translation of Qazwini on illuminated manuscript (18th century, Walters Art Museum), and the episode of the dragon's isle and the horned hare is illustrated on one of its leaves (Fig. right).
Also, the Ottoman historian 's Qanun al-Dunya ("Law of the World"), preserved in manuscript (Topkapi Sarayi Museum Library ms. R 1638, fol. 15v), depicts the dragon and the golden one-horned hare.
Dragon-slaying variations
Legend holds that Iskandar carried out his serpent/dragon-slaying using decoy oxen consisting of oxen-hide loaded with lethal material.
In Qazwini's cosmology, the reactive ingredients consisted of coniferous resin/turpentine{ { Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Fichtenharz as given by Ethé is literally "spruce resin", but this is a general term for coniferous resins.}} (or pitch or tar), sulfur, quicklime, arsenic, and iron hooks, or just sulfur and iron hooks, depending on the recension.
Persian version
As for treatments in languages other than Arabic, it is pointed out that the dragon-slaying Iskandar of Qazwini can be identified with one of the shahs of the Persian epic Shahnāma, or "The Book of Kings".