The average Abbasid citizen encountering a honey badger for the first time

From Hayat al-Hayawan by Al-Damiri:

az-Zabzab.-A certain beast like the cat; so it is said in al-‘Ubab.

It is related in the Kamil of Ibn-al-Athīr, among the events of the year 304 A.H., that in that year all the people of Baghdad were in a state of alarm, owing to a certain animal which they called az-zabzab; they alleged that they used to see it on the tops of their houses, and that it ate their infants. Sometimes it used to bite the hand of a man or a woman and cut it off.

The people used to defend and guard one another against it and beat basins, plates, and other articles, to frighten it away. Thus Baghdad was in a state of panic on its account. Then after that, the followers of the Sultan seized at night an animal of a mixed colour having black in it and short in its fore and hind legs, and said that that was az-zabzab. They then impaled it over the bridge, which caused the panic among the people to subside.

The badger was a menace indeed

Peak mentioned