The Prophet Muhammed Was Afraid of Geckos

The Prophet Muhammed was afraid of Geckos. He was and is not alone. I have met dozens of people who share the fear of this inoffensive, harmless little lizard. It is then somewhat surprising that there does not appear to be a name for this phobia, this fear of Geckos.

The Gecko is found widely through warm and tropical countries and there are reckoned to be over two thousand different species. Not a single one is poisonous or shown to be of any danger to man. In fact the opposite applies. Geckos help in controlling the insect population.

Although the Gecko is looked upon as a bringer of Good Luck in South East Asia the opposite applies through much of India, Pakistan, the Middle East and parts of Europe and Africa.

The fear of Geckos is so strong in some societies that in Madagascar a hut will be evacuated and set alight if a Gecko is seen within.

In some parts of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan Geckos are considered even dangerous to touch and that they will poison any food they come into contact with.

There are numerous superstitions and beliefs surrounding the poor little Gecko. Here I have listed a few.

• If a Gecko falls on your head you will hear news of death
• If a Gecko falls in front of you it means bad luck
• If you are about to leave your house and you hear a Gecko you should change your mind
• In Northern India it is common to imitate the sound of a Gecko when heard otherwise bad luck will befall
• If a Gecko crawls across the body of a sleeping person they will be dead within days
• In the Iberian Peninsula the Gecko was said to search out women during their period and crawl into the vagina whilst they slept
• In Murcia it is believed that Gecko falling on your head will cause baldness
• In the Philippines when a familiar Gecko leaves a house it is believed a member of the household will die
• In parts of Pakistan it is believed that killing a Gecko is dangerous as you may expose a rainbow inside. Seeing this rainbow you will surely die.
• Again in the Philippines. The call of a Gecko indicates the arrival of a visitor

Although there are both diurnal and nocturnal Geckos it is the nocturnal, the 'active by night' animal that most people are familiar with. As a creature of the night it already has a few cards stacked against it in the superstition stakes. Anyone who has heard a Gecko call loudly would vouch that it can be a frightening sound so that is another black mark.

At the time of the Prophet, before Islam was firmly established there was Judaism, Christianity and Paganism. The Pagans clung onto beliefs that had come out of ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians believed that the Gecko, along with snakes were venomous and were sometimes depicted being held in the hands of protective demons (to be seen in the tomb of the Theban Mayor at Montuemhat). Even today there are those who believe that the Gecko can carry leprosy.

Folklore surrounding Ibrahim (Abraham), the Father of Prophets told that when the priests of Babylon built their fire to burn him that the Gecko blew upon the flames to make the fire burn hotter.

"Ibrahim would have been harmed by its coldness.'' Qatadah said: "On that day there was no creature that did not try to extinguish the fire for Ibrahim, except for the gecko.'' Az-Zuhri said: "The Prophet commanded that it should be killed, and called it a harmful vermin.''"

عن أبي هريرة قال قال رسول الله : من قتل وزغة في أول ضربة كتب له مائة حسنة ، وفي الثانية سبعين حسنة . رواه مسلم .

Who kills a lizard in one stroke gets 100 hasana, and who kills it in the second stroke gets 70 hasana

As it happened Ibrahim had a lucky escape as according to legend at the last minute God/Allah intervened and the fire was turned to water and the firewood into fish.

As this condemnation was not enough the humble Gecko gets the blame yet again. As legend would have it when the Prophet Sulaiman was in hiding from his enemies all the animals were trying to distract them apart from the Gecko which was using its tail to point to Suleiman's place of hiding.

The Prophet is believed to have killed Geckos in his home with a stick. His dislike of this harmless little reptile was such that he is said to have said that anyone who killed Geckos would be rewarded by Allah and have some of their sins forgiven.

The Gecko Is Harmless. It is an inoffensive little creature which would do nobody any harm. It is time to push away the stuff, nonsense, legend and superstition and let it live its life in peace.