In those vast lands where the sky merges with the earth and the colors of sunset melt into the night, people whisper an ancient name. Not just any name, but the name of someone who is not visible yet known by many, and many swear by God that they have seen him wandering around.
The Baati is a genderless figure. It could be a man or a woman. People generally refer to this figure using “he”. He is the scariest of them all. Wherever and whenever mentioned, his name evokes fear in souls that lasts over time, simply because that is the destiny of the dead. They turn into Baatis, not just because they moved to the other world, but also because they committed (according to the legend) very bad deeds in their previous lives. privous
Al-Baati. He is not just a shadow lurking in the dark, but rather an entity that moves between worlds. He seems like someone standing on the border, separating life and death. Moreover, he appointed himself as the guardian of spirits. That is probably why people fear him the most.
Ancient people believed that Al-Baati was a spirit that rose from his grave three days after his death. I don’t know the secret behind this number, but that is what they believed. The strangest part of his story is that he rose from his grave not to take revenge or frighten people, but to recover something that was lost during his last journey to the other world. It is said that Al-Baati appears on cold nights when silence prevails over small villages, and when the winds stop moving, as if they are scared too.
Al-Baati is not a human entity; he is half present and half absent. He is seen in a pale form, his body worn by time, but he walks between the houses as if driven by longing for the living—mainly his relatives. He wanders around carrying an important message, a message that people don’t wish to know about. They think he did evil during his life. No one knows exactly when Al-Baati appears or for what purpose, but legends say that he only returns when someone is buried improperly or when the living forget their duty to pray for his soul.
Although Al-Baati does not show a clear intention of revenge, his appearance carries a message. Some say he is asking for forgiveness; others think he is searching for peace in his troubled world.
At that moment, the man realized that his wife had not found peace in her grave. He quickly corrected his mistake and performed the rituals he should have performed from the beginning. Since then, the Baati has not appeared to him again, as if his message had been received.
It is also said that children are most likely to see the Baati. Their innocent eyes can distinguish them from the shadows, even if adults do not see them. He appears to them at unexpected times, during moments of play or sleep. But the Baati does not harm them; he watches them from afar as if trying to remind them that life and death are only two sides of the same coin. Al Baati is a very popular ghost; in every house, every village, someone has a story to share about this spirit that returns from the other world searching for something he wasn’t able to achieve in his previous life.