Mount Qaf

[2] In Iranian tradition this mountain could be any of the following: The Peri and Deev kingdoms of Qaf include are Shad-u-kam (Pleasure and Delight), with its magnificent capital Juherabad (Jewel-city), Amberabad (Amber-city), and Ahermanabad (Aherman’s city).

[3][4] According to Hatim Tai’s account, the Qaf Mountains were said to be composed of green emerald, peridot or chrysolite, whose reflection gave a greenish tint to the sky.

The Earth is considered flat (later Islamic scholars believed that it was round) and surrounded by a series of mountains —including Mount Qaf— that hold it in its place like pegs; the Earth is supported by the Kuyuthan that stands on Bahamut, a giant fish (Arabic: بهموت Bahamūt) dwelling in a cosmic ocean; the ocean is inside a bowl that sits on top of an angel or jinn.

[8] Numerous narratives of Bahr-e Okianus (Ocean Sea) depict a river with no fish but abounding with angels which greet the spiritually aware.

In some Sufi oral traditions, as conceived by Abd al-Rahman and Attar, Mount Qaf was considered as a realm of consciousness and the goal of a murid (seeker).

A cosmological illustration in The Wonders of Creation by Zakariya al-Qazwini showing "a disk-like earth with the surrounding range of Qaf Mountains resting on the back of a giant bull (al-Rayyan), which in turn stands on a vast fish ( Bahamut ) held up by an Angel." This type of visualisation of the structure of the universe was not unusual in the thirteenth century. [ 1 ]