One of the strange things found in the heritage books is the “water man,” and sometimes they call him the Jewish sheikh and others call him “the sheikh of the sea.” There are also what the Arabs called “the daughters of water.”
With regard to the water man, it was mentioned in some old books, including the book “The Great Animal Life” by Al-Damiri, which says “the water man: he resembles man, except that he has a sin.”
Al-Qazwini said: A person came with one of them in our time, as we mentioned, and it was said: In the Levant Sea, at times, he looks like a human and has a white beard. They call him Sheikh al-Bahr, and if people see him, they are glad of his fertility.
It was said that a king, a man brought water to him, and the king wanted to know his condition, so he married him to a woman, and a boy came to him from her who understood the words of his parents, and he said to the boy: What does your father say? He said: He says the tails of the animal are all at the bottom, so what about these people whose tails are in their faces?
As for the daughters of water, they were described by Al-Damiri in his book “The Greater Animal Life”: “Daughters of Water: Ibn Abi Al-Ash^ath said: They are fish in the Roman Sea, similar to women with tribe hair, their colors to tan… and words that are hardly understood, and they laugh and giggle. Perhaps they fell into the hands of some of the people of the boats… It was narrated from Al-Ruyani, the owner of the sea, that if a fisherman came to him with a fish in the form of a woman, he swore that he did not come close to her.
The idea of the Arabs about the creation of the water man
Bazrak bin Shahryar Al-Ramharmaziyy mentioned in his book “Wonders of India: Land, Sea and Islands” he said: “Some of those who entered Al-Zalaa and the country of Abyssinia told me that in the Abyssinian Sea there are fish that have a face like the face of the children of Adam and bodies with hands and legs, and that the poor and extremist celibate fishermen are on the outskirts of deserted coasts, islands, reefs and mountains which healers do not follow throughout their lives, if they find that fish similar to the children of Adam, they gather with him and breed among them offspring similar to the children of Adam that live in the water and the air.”
The Water Man in Fiqh
Ibn Wahb said: I asked Al-Layth bin Saad about eating the water pig, the water dog, the water human and all the water beasts, so he said: As for the water person, it is not eaten in any of the cases, and the pig, if people call it pig, is not eaten, and God Almighty has forbidden the pig.
Others said what means: “As for that which inhabits the water’s hollow and does not live except in it, it is all permissible whatever it is found, whether it was taken alive and then died or died in the water, floating or not floating, or killed by a marine or land animal, it is all permissible to eat.” And whether a water pig, a water human, or a water dog and so on, that is permissible to eat, all of that killed a pagan, a Muslim, or a Christian, or no one killed him. Proof of this is the saying of God Almighty:
(وما يستوي البحران هذا عذب فرات سائغ شرابه وهذا ملح أجاج ومن كل تأكلون لحما طريا)
and Allah Almighty said:
(أحل لكم صيد البحر وطعامه متاعا لكم وللسيارة)
So God Almighty did not specify anything from anything
(وما كان ربك نسيا)
The quote ended.
Ibn Abidin – Hanafiyy – said in Radd al-Muhtar (6/307): “Except for the types of fish, such as a water human being and an evil pig, so he remained inside under the prohibition.”
