Mühlau, De Prouerbiis Aguri et Lemuelis (42 sqq.), Leipzig, 1849; and Wellhausen, Reste arabische Heiderstums, p. 149; (2te Auflage), Berlin, 1897.
In ancient Egypt we can trace certain parallels to the Assyrian beliefs, for the ancient Egyptians held that every man had his ka, his double, which when he died lived in the tomb with the body and was there visited by the khu, the spiritual body or soul which at death departed from the body, and although it might visit the body, could only be brought back from its habitation in heaven by the ceremonial performance of certain mystic rites. Yet from one point of view the soul was sufficiently material to partake of the funeral offerings which were brought to the tomb for the refreshment of the ka. One of the chief objects of these sepulchral oblations was to maintain the double in the tomb so that it should not be compelled to wander abroad in search of food. But, as in Assyria, unless the ka were bountifully supplied with food it would issue forth from the tomb and be driven to eat any offal or drink any brackish water it might find. The ka occupied a special part of the tomb, “the house of the ka,” and a priest called “the priest of the ka” was appointed specially to minister to it therein. The ka snuffed up the sweet smell of incense which was very agreeable to it when this was burned on certain days each year with the offerings of flowers, herbs, meat and drink in all of which it took great delight. The ka also viewed with pleasure the various scenes which were sculptured or richly painted on the walls of the tomb. In fact it was not merely capable, but desirous of material consolations. It would appear even that in later times the khu was identified with the ka.
In Arabic the word for horse-leach is عَلَقٌ, while عَوۡلَقٌ, formed from the same root “to hang,” means the kind of Jinn called Ghoul (عوُلٌ). The Ghoul appears as a female demon who feeds upon dead bodies and infests the cemeteries at night to dig open the grave for her horrid repasts. Sometimes she would seem to be a woman, half-human, half-fiend, for in story she is often represented as wedded to a husband who discovers her loathsome necrophagy. She can bear children, and is represented as luring travellers out of the way to lonely and remote ruins when she falls upon them suddenly and devours them, greedily sucking the warm blood
