ʿAnāq bt. Ādam, the Islamic Story of the Very First Witch
Résumé
Some Islamic traditions mention an enigmatic daughter of Adam named ʿAnāq. Little is known about her; for example, the corresponding entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam simply states that ʿAnāq is the “name given by the Arabs to the daughter of Adam, the twin sister of Seth, wife of Cain and mother of ʿŪd̲j̲.” ʿAnāq is always mentioned in relation to her son, the giant ʿŪj, who was supposed to be the only creature outside the Ark to have survived the Flood in the time of Noah, and who was assumed to have been killed by Moses. We gather here the information and traditions about the Islamic ʿAnāq in order to draw a more coherent and historically contextualized portrait of this legendary first witch.