A half-man, half-snake figure known as Shameran has emerged at the centre of recent protests over civil liberties and religious sensitivities in Turkey.
Mythical creatures Included A recent exhibition at Istanbul’s prestigious Bosphorus University featured her image on a pro-LGBTQ poster superimposed over the Kaaba, the sacred black rectangular structure in Mecca that Muslims around the world face when praying.
Although the author remains anonymous, several university students were arrested and charged with insulting Islam in connection with the poster, which also contained a gender identity flag and a statement calling for respect for the rights of women, members of the LGBTQ community, and nature itself.
As a scholar of Islamic art history and visual culture, I was fascinated by the appearance of the Şamelan statue in these protests: its use by young Turkish university students who identify as LGBTQ suggests that they see the mythical creature as an embodiment of their identity.
Mythical Guardian
The figure of Shamelan, meaning “Lord of the Serpents”, dates back to pre-Islamic times and is central to many folk tales. Depicted as a beautiful female face wearing a crown on her torso and a snake from the waist down, Shamelan is a symbol of the serpents that rule the land.
Details vary, but many legends tell the story of a young man named Jamāsp or Jamisav who falls in love with the beautiful Shameran. Coerced by the king’s evil advisor, who is also a magician, Jamāsp is forced to reveal the lair of this mythical creature.
However, distressed at seeing Shahmeran killed, he tries to commit suicide by eating her poisoned flesh. In return, Shahmeran imparts her wisdom to him, and her poison kills the king’s advisor. Thus, the story’s ending suggests a potential redemption for the broken relationship of trust.
Told by both Turkish and Kurdish storytellers, these tales convey the powers of the shamelan to cure illness, bring longevity and grant wisdom.
Her legend is especially popular in Turkey’s eastern Anatolia region and among the Kurds, an ethnic minority that makes up about 15% to 20% of Turkey’s population. Mardin, a city in southeastern Turkey with a diverse population of Kurds and Arabs, is home to a workshop where artists specialize in creating Shamelan figures, which I noticed on a visit to the city a few years ago, are painted on wooden panels, metal plates and mirrors.
A wooden mirror in Mardin with a Shamelan painting. Anonymous, CC BY
Some people hang Chameleon paintings on the walls of their homes for protection, and some wear Chameleon paintings as jewelry for good luck. Such paintings are also popular as talismans, like the five-fingered hand, also known as the Hand of Fatima, and nazar bonjou, a blue glass bead that some people believed would ward off the evil eye.
Activism and Complex Organisms
In recent years, fictional characters such as Shahmeran have been used by Middle Eastern activists to speak out on a range of issues.
Zehra Dogan’s “Beautiful Shameran” was painted in Diyarbakir Prison in southeastern Turkey in February 2018. Image by Zehra Dogan. Photo by Jeff Labiron.
For example, in 2016, Kurdish journalist and artist Zehra Dogan painted a painting of Shameran as a double figure, each with two heads, symbolizing the doubled strength of modern Kurdish women. She painted the painting of Shameran while she was incarcerated for another painting criticizing the destruction of the Kurdish town of Nusaybin by Turkish forces. She also evokes Kurdish identity through Shameran’s painting with red, green and yellow pigments reminiscent of the Kurdistan flag.
Al-Buraq, the mythical creature on which Muhammad is said to have traveled to heaven. Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchase by the Rogers Fund, gift of Elizabeth S. Ettinghausen, in memory of Richard Ettinghausen, gift of Ehsan Yarshater, 1992
Another mythological figure, Al-Buraq, the Prophet Muhammad’s flying human-headed horse, has also been used to draw attention to LGBTQ issues.
Islamic legend describes Al-Buraq as the “Prophet’s Horse” that Muhammad rode on during his heavenly ascension, during which documents say he flew through the heavens, met angels and prophets, spoke with God, and visited heaven and hell in one night.
They also tend to emphasise the composite nature of al-Buraq, which is sometimes said to contain an elephant’s ears, a horse’s rump, a mule’s feet, a bull’s tail and a peacock’s feathers.
Appearing as “non-binary” creatures at the crossroads between human and animal, these mythical figures do not fit into clear categories, and as a result, members of transgender communities in Turkey and elsewhere have embraced Al-Burak and Shameran to express their queer identities.
Outside Turkey, Lebanese artist Chaza Sharafeddine has also superimposed portraits of cross-dressers and transgender people onto her pre-modern painting, Al-Buraq, to draw attention to the discrimination and violence faced by people in Muslim-majority countries and around the world.
Litmus Test
The Shameran poster, which has forced several university students into house arrest, brings together many tense religious, cultural and political issues in Turkey today. Among other issues, the image of this hybrid figure has been used to highlight the lack of freedom for women and discrimination against people with diverse gender identities.
The anonymous artist used a wall-hanging carpet representing the pilgrimage, the Hajj, as a background, on which he superimposed figures of shahmelans and a halo of leaves, so that to the observer it seemed as if important Islamic architectural symbols of worship had been replaced with tributes to women, snakes and nature.
On the one hand, these visual motifs were intended to send a strong message against faith-based misogyny, physical violence, animal cruelty and environmental destruction, as stated in the manifesto. On the other hand, the Turkish government considers this pictorial manipulation an “ugly attack” on Islamic religious values and therefore a “crime” that requires punishment.
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Meanwhile, academics around the world have criticized the arrests of the students, viewing them as a serious violation of academic autonomy and freedom of expression.
In my view, the old figure of Shameran has made a powerful comeback in Turkey’s public sphere, serving as a dangerous testing ground, especially for members of the LGBTQ and Kurdish communities.
