Among the strangest names preserved in medieval Arabic geography is Waq-Waq.
Sometimes it appears as an island. Sometimes as a group of islands. Sometimes as a faraway land at the edge of the known world. In later books of wonders, it became even stranger: a place of gold, queens, unusual peoples and a tree whose fruit looked like human heads or women hanging from the branches.
But Waq-Waq is not a Qur’anic story, and it is not an authentic hadith.
It belongs to the world of Islamic heritage, especially the literature of geography, travel, maritime reports and ʿaja’ib, the Arabic genre of wonders. That makes it valuable, but it must be read correctly.
Waq-Waq is not an article of creed.
It is a window into how Muslim geographers, travellers and storytellers imagined the far edges of the world.
A Name from the Edge of the Map
Classical Muslim geographers did not all place Waq-Waq in the same location.
Some connected it with the far reaches of the Sea of the Zanj, meaning the East African coast and the wider Indian Ocean world. Others placed it toward the Sea of China and the distant east. Modern researchers have suggested that the name may have been used for more than one place, or that it shifted between regions as geographical knowledge, trade routes and stories developed.
This is one reason Waq-Waq is difficult to identify.
It was not a fixed country on a modern map. It was a name attached to distance, trade, uncertainty and wonder.
Al-Idrisi, the famous 12th-century geographer, placed the islands of Waq-Waq toward the far end of the Sea of China. His Nuzhat al-Mushtaq, completed for Roger II of Sicily, became one of the most important works of medieval geography.
Other sources linked Waq-Waq with trade goods such as gold, ebony, bamboo and marine products, which could have reached Muslim ports through wide commercial networks across the Indian Ocean. The presence of real trade goods, however, does not prove every strange story attached to the name. Medieval geography often mixed trader reports, inherited knowledge, hearsay and wonder literature.
The Waq-Waq Tree
The most famous part of the legend is the Tree of Waq-Waq.
In later versions, the tree produces human-like fruit. Some accounts describe heads. Others describe women hanging from their hair. The name “Waq-Waq” is sometimes explained as the sound made by the fruit when it falls or cries out.
This detail became one of the most recognisable images in the literature of wonders.
Treccani’s entry on the Waq-Waq tree describes it as a fabulous tree from Arabic ʿaja’ib literature whose strange fruit has human-like forms and cries “waq waq”. It notes that Arab and Persian sailor accounts helped spread the legend, and that versions appear in works connected to al-Jahiz, ʿAjāʾib al-Hind, anonymous geography books and al-Qazwini’s ʿAjāʾib al-Makhlūqāt.
But again, caution is necessary.
The earliest geographical layers of Waq-Waq do not always focus on the tree. Some sources speak mainly about distant lands, sea routes, products and peoples. The tree appears to have become attached to the Waq-Waq tradition later and expanded in the books of wonders.
That means the tree may tell us more about medieval imagination than actual botany.
Waq-Waq in Books of Wonders
By the time of writers such as al-Qazwini, Waq-Waq had moved deeper into the world of marvels.
Reports expanded to include islands, queens, wealth, strange creatures and the mysterious tree. Al-Qazwini was not writing a field atlas in the modern sense. His works preserved reports of lands, creatures and wonders, often through transmitted accounts that cannot always be verified.
This does not make his material worthless.
It means we should read it as heritage literature, not as modern science.
Books of wonders preserved the Muslim world’s curiosity about creation, distant nations, rare animals, unexplored seas and strange reports brought back by sailors and travellers. Some reports were grounded in real geography. Others were exaggerated. Others were symbolic, literary or inherited from earlier cultures.
Waq-Waq sits between all of these categories.
Was Waq-Waq a Real Place?
There is no single agreed answer.
Some modern attempts have linked Waq-Waq to Madagascar, Sumatra, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia or other parts of the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. But none of these identifications is certain. Research summaries on the Arabic sources note that Waq-Waq appears across several possible regions and that matching it to one modern location remains unresolved.
A careful conclusion is this:
Waq-Waq may have begun as a geographical name for distant islands or peoples known through maritime trade.
Later, stories of strange trees, women-fruit, gold and unusual kingdoms gathered around the name.
Over time, Waq-Waq became less a map point and more a symbol of the world beyond certainty.
Al-Biruni’s Objection
One of the most important details is that not all Muslim scholars accepted the popular legends uncritically.
Al-Biruni reportedly objected to the common idea that Waq-Waq was simply a tree bearing human heads that cried out. This
