Part 44
[FN#304] The Koranic order for Wuzϊ is concise and as usual obscure, giving rise to a host of disputes and casuistical questions. Its text runs (chapt. v.), "O true believers, when you prepare to pray, wash (Ghusl) your faces, and your hands unto the elbows; and rub (Mas-h) your hands and your feet unto the ankles; and if ye be unclean by having lain with a woman, wash (Ghusl) yourselves all over." The purifications and ceremonious ablutions of the Jews originated this command; and the early Christians did very unwisely in not making the bath obligatory. St. Paul (Heb. xi. 22) says, "Let us draw near with a true heart…having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with clean (or pure) water." But this did not suffice. Hence the Eastern Christian, in hot climates where cleanliness should rank before godliness, is distinguished by his dirt which as a holy or reverend man he makes still dirtier, and he offers an ugly comparison with the Moslem and especially the Hindu. The neglect of commands to wash and prohibitions to drink strong waters are the two grand physical objections of the Christian code of morality.
[FN#305] Arab. "Istinshαk"=snuffing up water from the palm of the right hand so as to clean thoroughly the nostrils. This "function" is unreasonably neglected in Europe, to the detriment of the mucous membrane and the olfactory nerves.
[FN#306] So as to wash between them. The thick beard is combed out with the fingers.
[FN#307] Poor human nature! How sad to compare ita pretensions with its actualities.
[FN#308] Complete ablution is rendered necessary chiefly by the emission of semen either in copulation or in nocturnal pollution. The water must be pure and not less than a certain quantity, and it must touch every part of the skin beginning with the right half of the person and ending with the left. Hence a plunge-bath is generally preferred.
[FN#309] Arab. "Ta'mνm," lit. crowning with turband, or tiara, here=covering, i.e. wetting.
[FN#310] This practice (saying "I purpose to defer the washing of the feet," etc.) is now somewhat obsolete.
[FN#311] Arabs have a prejudice against the hydropathic treatment of wounds, holding that water poisons them: and, as the native produce usually contains salt, soda and magnesia, they are justified by many cases. I once tried water-bandages in Arabia and failed dismally.
[FN#312] The sick man says his prayers lying in bed, etc., and as he best can.
[FN#313] i.e. saying, "And peace be on us and on the worshippers of Allah which be pious."
[FN#314] i.e. saying, " I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the
Stoned."
[FN#315] Certain parts should be recited aloud (jahr) and others sotto voce (with mussitation=Khafi). No mistake must be made in this matter where a Moslem cannot err.
[FN#316] Hence an interest of two-and-a-half percent is not held to be "Ribα" or unlawful gain of money by money, usury.
[FN#317] The meal must be finished before the faster can plainly distinguish the white thread from the black thread (Koran ii. 183); some understand this literally, others apply it to the dark and silvery streak of zodiacal light which appears over the Eastern horizon an hour or so before sunrise. The fast then begins and ends with the disappearance of the sun. I have noticed its pains and penalties in my Pilgrimage, i. 110, etc.
[FN#318] For the "Azαn" or call to prayer see Lane, M. E., chapt. xviii. The chant, however, differs in every country, and a practical ear will know the land by its call.
[FN#319] Arab. "Hadνs" or saying of the Apostle.
[FN#320] "Al-I'itikaf" resembles the Christian "retreat;" but the worshipper generally retires to a mosque, especially in Meccah. The Apostle practised it on Jabal Hira and other places.
[FN#321] The word is the Heb. "Hagg" whose primary meaning is circularity of form or movement. Hence it applied to religious festivals in which dancing round the idol played a prime part; and Lucian of "saltation" says, dancing was from the beginning and coeval with the ancient god, Love. But man danced with joy before he worshipped, and, when he invented a systematic saltation, he made it represent two things, and only two things, love and war, in most primitive form, courtship and fighting.
[FN#322] Two adjoining ground-waves in Meccah. For these and for the places subsequently mentioned the curious will consult my Pilgrimage, iii. 226, etc.
[FN#323] The 'Umrah or lesser Pilgrimage, I have noted, is the ceremony performed in Meccah at any time out of the pilgrim-season proper, i.e. between the eighth and tenth days of the twelfth lunar month Zu 'l-Hijjah. It does not entitle the Moslem to be called Hαjj (pilgrim) or Hαjν as Persians and Indians corrupt the word.
[FN#324] I need hardly note that Mohammed borrowed his pilgrimage-practices from the pagan Arabs who, centuries before his day, danced around the Meccan Ka'abah. Nor can he be blamed for having perpetuated a Gentile rite, if indeed it be true that the Ka'abah contained relics of Abraham and Ishmael.
[FN#325] On first sighting Meccah. See Night xci.
[FN#326] Arab. "Tawαf:" the place is called Matαf and the guide Mutawwif. (Pilgrimage, iii. 193, 205.) The seven courses are termed Ashwαt.
[FN#327] Stoning the Devil at Mina. (Pilgrimage, iii. 282.) Hence
Satan's title "the Stoned" (lapidated not castrated).
[FN#328] Koran viii. 66; in the chapter entided "Spoil," and relating mainly to the "day of Al-Bedr.
[FN#329] Arab. "AI-Ikαlah"= cancelling: Mr. Payne uses the technical term "resiliation."
[FN#330] Freedman of Abdallah, son of the Caliph Omar and noted as a traditionist.
[FN#331] i.e. at a profit: the exchange must be equal—an ordinance intended to protect the poor. Arabs have strange prejudices in these matters; for instance it disgraces a Badawi to take money for milk.
[FN#332] Arab. "Jamα'ah," which in theology means the Greek , our "Church," the congregation of the Faithful under a lawful head. Hence the Sunnis call themselves "People of the Sunnat and Jamα'at." In the text it is explained as "Ulfat" or intimacy.
[FN#333] Arab. "Al-Khalνl," i.e. of Allah=Abraham. Mohammed, following Jewish tradition, made Abraham rank second amongst the Prophets, inferior only to himself and superior to Hazrat Isa=Jesus. I have noted that Ishmael the elder son succeeded his father. He married Da'alah bint Muzαz bin Omar, a Jurhamite, and his progeny abandoning Hebrew began to speak Arabic (ta'arraba); hence called Muta'arribah or Arabised Arabs. (Pilgrimage iii. 190.) He died at Meccah and was buried with his mother in the space North of the Ka'abah called Al-Hijr which our writers continue to confuse with the city Al-Hijr. (Ibid. 165-66.)
[FN#334] This ejaculation, "In the name of Allah" is, I have noted, equivalent to "saying grace." If neglected it is a sin and entails a curse.
[FN#335] The ceremonious posture is sitting upon the shin-bones, not tailor-fashion; and "bolting food" is a sign of boorishness.
[FN#336] Arab. "Zidd," the word is a fair specimen of Arabic ambiguity meaning primarily opposite or contrary (as virtue to vice), secondarily an enemy or a friend (as being opposite to an enemy).
[FN#337] "The whole earth (shall be) but His handful on the Resurrection day and in His right hand shall the Heaven be rolled up (or folded together)."-Koran xxxix. 67.
[FN#338] See Night lxxxi.
[FN#339] Koran lxxviii. 19.
[FN#340] Arab. "Al-Munαfik," technically meaning one who outwardly professes Al-Islam while inwardly hating it. Thus the word is by no means synonymous with our "hypocrite," hypocrisy being the homage vice pays to virtue; a homage, I may observe, nowhere rendered more fulsomely than among the so-called Anglo-Saxon race.
[FN#341] Arab. "Tawakkul alα 'llah": in the imperative the phrase is vulgarly used="Be off!"
[FN#342] i.e. ceremonial impurity which is sui generis, a very different thing from general dirtiness.
[FN#343] A thick beard is one which does not show the skin; otherwise the wearer is a "Kausaj;" in Pers. "Kϊseh." See vol. iii., 246.
[FN#344] Arab. "Al-Khutnah." Nowhere commanded in the Koran and being only a practice of the Prophet, the rite is not indispensable for converts, especially the aged and the sick. Our ideas upon the subject are very hazy, for modern "niceness" allows a "Feast of the Circumcision," but no discussion thereon. Moses (alias Osarsiph) borrowed the rite from the Egyptian hierophants who were all thus "purified"; the object being to counteract the over-sensibility of the "sixth sense" and to harden the glans against abrasions and infection by exposure to air and friction against the dress. Almost all African tribes practise it but the modes vary and some are exceedingly curious: I shall notice a peculiarly barbarous fashion called Al-Salkh (the flaying) still practised in the Arabian province Al-Asνr. (Pilgrimage iii. 80.) There is a difference too between the Hebrew and the Moslem rite. The Jewish operator, after snipping off the foreskin, rips up the prepuce with his sharp thumb-nails so that the external cutis does not retract far from the internal; and the wound, when healed, shows a narrow ring of cicatrice. This ripping is not done by Moslems. They use a stick as a probe passed round between glans and prepuce to ascertain the extent of the frenum and that there is no abnormal adhesion. The foreskin is then drawn forward and fixed by the forceps, a fork of two bamboo splints, five or six inches long by a quarter thick, or in some cases an iron like our compasses. This is tied tightly over the foreskin so as to exclude about an inch and a half of the prepuce above and three quarters below. A single stroke of the razor drawn directly downwards removes the skin. The slight bleeding is stopped by burnt rags or ashes and healed with cerates, pledgets and fumigations. Thus Moslem circumcision does not prevent the skin retracting.
[FN#345] Of these 6336 versets only some 200 treat on law, civil and ceremonial, fiscal and political, devotional and ceremonial, canonical and ecclesiastical.
[FN#346] The learned young woman omitted Ukhnϊkh=Enoch, because not in Koran; and if she denoted him by "Idrνs," the latter is much out of place.
[FN#347] Some say grandson of Shem. (Koran vii. 71.)
[FN#348] Koran vii. 63, etc.
[FN#349] Father-in-law of Moses. (Koran vii. 83.)
[FN#350] Who is the last and greatest of the twenty-five.
[FN#351] See Night ccccxxxviii.
[FN#352] Koran ii., whose 256th Ayah is the far-famed and sublime Throne-verse which begins "Allah! there is no god but He, the Living, the Eternal One, whom nor slumber nor sleep seizeth on!" The trivial name is taken from the last line, "His throne overstretcheth Heaven and Earth and to Him their preservation is no burden for He is the most Highest, the Supreme." The lines are often repeated in prayers and engraved on agates, etc., as portable talismans.
[FN#353] Koran ii. 159.
[FN#354] Koran xvi. 92. The verset ends with, "He warneth you, so haply ye may be mindful."
[FN#355] Koran lxx. 38.
[FN#356] Koran xxxix. 54.
[FN#357] The Sunnis hold that the "Anbiyα" (=prophets, or rather announcers of Allah's judgments) were not sinless. But this dogma is branded as most irreverent and sinful by the Shi'ahs or Persian "followers of Ali," who make capital out of this blasphemy and declare that if any prophet sinned he sinned only against himself.
[FN#358] Koran xii. 18.
[FN#359] Koran ii. 107.
[FN#360] Koran ii. 57. He (Allah) does not use the plurale majestatis.
[FN#361] Koran ii. 28.
[FN#362] Koran xvi. 100. Satan is stoned in the Minα or Munα basin (Night ccccxlii.) because he tempted Abraham to disobey the command of Allah by refusing to sacrifice Ishmael. (Pilgrimage iii. 248.)
[FN#363] It may also mean "have recourse to God."
[FN#364] Abdallah ibn Abbas, before noticed, first cousin of
Mohammed and the most learned of the Companions. See D'Herbelot.
[FN#365] Koran xcvi., "Blood-clots," 1 and 2. "Read" may mean "peruse the revelation" (it was the first Koranic chapter communicated to Mohammed), or "recite, preach."
[FN#366] Koran xxvii. 30. Mr. Rodwell (p.1) holds to the old idea that the "Basmalah" is of Jewish origin, taught to the Kuraysh by Omayyah, of Taif, the poet and Hanνf (convert).
[FN#367] Koran ix.: this was the last chapter revealed and the only one revealed entire except verse 110.
[FN#368] Ali was despatched from Al-Medinah to Meccah by the Prophet on his own slit-eared camel to promulgate this chapter; and meeting the assembly at Al-'Akabah he also acquainted them with four things; (1) No Infidel may approach the Meccah temple; (2) naked men must no longer circut the Ka'abah; (3) only Moslems enter Paradise, and (4) public faith must be kept.
[FN#369] Dictionaries give the word "Basmalah" (=saying
Bismillah); but the common pronunciation is "Bismalah."
[FN#370] Koran xvii. 110, a passage revealed because the Infidels, hearing Mohammed calling upon The Compassionate, imagined that Al-Rahmαn was other deity but Allah. The "names" have two grand divisions, Asmα Jalαlν, the fiery or terrible attributes, and the Asmα Jamαlν (airy, watery, earthy or) amiable. Together they form the Asmα al-Husna or glorious attributes, and do not include the Ism al-A'azam, the ineffable name which is known only to a few.
[FN#371] Koran ii. 158.
[FN#372] Koran xcvi. before noticed.
[FN#373] A man of Al-Medinah, one of the first of Mohammed's disciples.
[FN#374] Koran lxxiv. 1, etc., supposed to have been addressed by Gabriel to Mohammed when in the cave of Hira or Jabal Nϊr. He returned to his wife Khadijah in sore terror at the vision of one sitting on a throne between heaven and earth, and bade her cover him up. Whereupon the Archangel descended with this text, supposed to be the first revealed. Mr. Rodwell (p. 3) renders it, "O thou enwrapped in thy mantle!" and makes it No. ii. after a Fatrah or silent interval of six months to three years.
[FN#375] There are several versets on this subject (chapts. ii. and xxx.)
[FN#376] Koran cx. 1.
[FN#377] The third Caliph; the "Writer of the Koran."
[FN#378] Koran, v. 4. Sale translates "idols." Mr. Rodwell, "On the blocks (or shafts) of Stone," rude altars set by the pagan Arabs before their dwellings.
[FN#379] Koran, v. 116. The words are put into the mouth of
Jesus.
[FN#380] The end of the same verse.
[FN#381] Koran, v. 89. Supposed to have been revealed when certain Moslems purposed to practise Christian asceticism, fasting, watching, abstaining from women and sleeping on hard beds. I have said Mohammed would have "no monkery in Al-Islam," but human nature willed otherwise. Mr. Rodwell prefers "Interdict the healthful viands."
[FN#382] Koran, iv. 124.
[FN#383] Arab. "Mukri." "Kαri" is one who reads the Koran to pupils; the Mukri corrects them. "With the passage of the clouds" = without a moment's hesitation.
[FN#384] The twenty-first, twenty-fourth and eighteenth Arabic letters.
[FN#385] Arab. "Hizb." The Koran is divided into sixty portions, answering to "Lessons" for convenience of public worship.
[FN#386] Arab. "Jalαlah,"=saying Jalla Jalαlu-hu=magnified be His
Majesty!, or glorified be His Glory.
[FN#387] Koran, xi. 50.
[FN#388] The partition-wall between Heaven and Hell which others call Al-'Urf (in the sing. from the verb meaning he separated or parted). The Jews borrowed from the Guebres the idea of a partition between Heaven and Hell and made it so thin that the blessed and damned can speak together. There is much dispute about the population of Al-A'arαf, the general idea being that they are men who do not deserve reward in Heaven or punishment in Hell. But it is not a "Purgatory" or place of expiating sins.
[FN#389] Koran, vii. 154.
[FN#390] A play on the word ayn, which means "eye" or the eighteenth letter which in olden times had the form of a circle.
[FN#391] From misreading these words comes the absurd popular belief of the moon passing up and down Mohammed's sleeves. George B. Airy (The Athenζum, Nov.29, 1884) justly objects to Sale's translation "The hour of judgment approacheth" and translates "The moon hath been dichotomised" a well-known astronomical term when the light portion of the moon is defined in a strait line: in other words when it is really a half-moon at the first and third quarters of each lunation. Others understand, The moon shall be split on the Last Day, the preterite for the future in prophetic style. "Koran Moslems" of course understand it literally.
[FN#392] Chapters liv., lv. and lvi.
[FN#393] We should say, not to utter, etc.
[FN#394] These well-known "humours of Hippocrates," which reappear in the form of temperaments of European phrenology, are still the base of Eastern therapeutics.
[FN#395] The doctrine of the three souls will be intelligible to
Spiritualists.
[FN#396] Arab. "Al-lαmi"=the l-shaped, curved, forked.
[FN#397] Arab. "Usus," our os sacrum because, being incorruptible, the body will be built up thereon for Resurrection-time. Hence Hudibras sings (iii. 2),
"The learned Rabbis of the Jews
Write there's a bone which they call leuz,
I' the rump of man, etc."
It is the Heb. "Uz," whence older scholars derived os. Sale (sect. iv.) called it "El Ajb, os coccygis or rump-bone."
[FN#398] Arab physiologists had difficulties in procuring "subjects"; and usually practised dissection on the simiads. Their illustrated books are droll; the figures have been copied and recopied till they have lost all resemblance to the originals.
[FN#399] The liver and spleen are held to be congealed blood.
Hence the couplet,
"We are allowed two carrions (i.e. with throats uncut) and
two bloods,
The fish and the locust, the liver and the spleen."
(Pilgrimage iii. 92.)
[FN#400] This is perfectly true and yet little known to the general.
[FN#401] Koran xvii. 39.
[FN#402] Arab. "Al-malikhulνya," proving that the Greeks then pronounced the penultimate vowel according to the acute accentνa; not as we slur it over. In old Hebrew we have the transliteration of four Greek words; in the languages of Hindostan many scores including names of places; and in Latin and Arabic as many hundreds. By a scholar-like comparison of these remains we should find little difficulty in establishing the true Greek pronunciation since the days of Alexander the Great; and we shall prove that it was pronounced according to accent and emphatically not quantity. In the next century I presume English boys will be taught to pronounce Greek as the Greeks do.
[FN#403] Educated Arabs can quote many a verse bearing upon domestic medicine and reminding us of the lines bequeathed to Europe by the School of Salerno. Such e.g. are;
"After the noon-meal, sleep, although for moments twain;
After the night-meal, walk, though but two steps be ta'en;
And after swiving stale, though but two drops thou drain."
[FN#404] Arab. "Sarνdah" (Tharνdah), also called "ghaut"=crumbled bread and hashed meat in broth; or bread, milk and meat. The Sarνdah of Ghassαn, cooked with eggs and marrow, was held a dainty dish: hence the Prophet's dictum.
[FN#405] Koran v. 92. "Lots"=games of chance and "images"=statues.
[FN#406] Koran ii. 216. The word "Maysar" which I have rendered "gambling" or gaming (for such is the modern application of the word), originally meant what St. Jerome calls and explains thereby the verse (Ezek. xxi. 22), "The King held in his hand the lot of Jerusalem" i.e. the arrow whereon the city-name was written. The Arabs use it for casting lots with ten azlam or headless arrows (for dice) three being blanks and the rest notched from one to seven. They were thrown by a "Zαrib" or punter and the stake was generally a camel. Amongst so excitable a people as the Arabs, this game caused quarrels and bloodshed, hence its prohibition: and the theologians, who everywhere and at all times delight in burdening human nature, have extended the command, which is rather admonitory than prohibitive, to all games of chance. Tarafah is supposed to allude to this practice in his Mu'allakah.
[FN#407] Liberal Moslems observe that the Koranic prohibition is not absolute, with threat of Hell for infraction. Yet Mohammed doubtless forbade all inebriatives and the occasion of his so doing is well known. (Pilgrimage ii. 322.)
[FN#408] I have noticed this soured milk in Pilgrimage i. 362.
[FN#409] He does not say the "Caliph" or successor of his uncle
Mohammed.
[FN#410] The Jewish Korah (Numbers xvi.) fabled by the Koran (xxviii. 76), following a Talmudic tradition, to have been a man of immense wealth. The notion that lying with an old woman, after the menses have ceased, is unwholesome, dates from great antiquity; and the benefits of the reverse process were well known to good King David. The faces of children who sleep with their grandparents (a bad practice now waxing obsolete in England), of a young wife married to an old man and of a young man married to an old woman, show a peculiar wizened appearance, a look of age overlaying youth which cannot be mistaken.
[FN#411] Arab. "Hindibα"(=endubium): the modern term is
Shakurνyah=chicorιe. I believe it to be very hurtful to the eyes.
[FN#412] Arab. "Khuffαsh" and "Watwαt": in Egypt a woman is called "Watwαtνyah" when the hair of her privities has been removed by applying bats' blood. I have often heard of this; but cannot understand how such an application can act depilatory.
[FN#413] Dictionaries render the word by "dragon, cockatrice." The Badawin apply it to a variety of serpents mostly large and all considered venomous.
[FN#414] Arab. "Zarr wa 'urwah," 1it.=handle. The button-hole, I have said, is a modern invention; Urwah is also applied to the loopshaped handle of the water-skin, for attachment of the Allαkah or suspensory thong.
[FN#415] Koran lxx. 40; see also the chapter following, v. 16.
[FN#416] Koran x. 5; the "her" refers to the sun.
[FN#417] Koran xxxvi. 40.
[FN#418] Koran xxii. 60.
[FN#419] Arab. "Manαzil:" these are the Hindu "Nakshatra"; extensively used in meteorology even by Europeans unconsciously: thus they will speak of the Elephantina-storm without knowing anything of the lunar mansion so called. The names in the text are successively Sharatαn=two horns of the Ram; (2) the Ram's belly; (3) the Pleiades; (4) Aldebaran; (5) three stars in Orion's head; (6) ditto in Orion's shoulder; (7) two stars above the Twins; (8) Lion's nose and first summer station; (9) Lion's eye; (1O) Lion's forehead; (11) Lion's mane; (12) Lion's heart; (13) the Dog, two stars in Virgo; (14) Spica Virginis; (15) foot of Virgo; (16) horns of Scorpio; (17) the Crown; (18) heart of Scorpio; (19) tail of Scorpio; (2O) stars in Pegasus; (21) where no constellation appears; (22) the Slaughterer's luck; (23) Glutton's luck; (24) Luck of Lucks, stars in Aquarius; (25) Luck of Tents, stars in Aquarius; (26) the fore-lip or spout of Urn; (27) hind lip of Urn; and (28) in navel of Fish's belly (Batn al-Hϊt); of these 28, to each of the four seasons 7 are allotted.
[FN#420] The Hebrew absey, still used by Moslems in chronograms. For mnemonic purposes the 28 letters are distributed into eight words of which the first and second are Abjad and Hawwaz. The last six letters in two words (Thakhiz and Zuzigh) are Arabian, unknown to the Jews and not found in Syriac.
[FN#421] Arab. "Zindνk;" properly, one who believes in two gods (the old Persian dualism); in books an atheist, i.e. one who does not believe in a god or gods; and, popularly, a free-thinker who denies the existence of a Supreme Being, rejects revelation for the laws of Nature imprinted on the heart of man and for humanity in its widest sense. Hence he is accused of permitting incestuous marriages and other abominations. We should now call him (for want of something better) an Agnostic.
[FN#422] Koran xxxi. 34. The words may still be applied to meteorologists especially of the scientific school. Even the experienced (as the followers of the late Mathieu de la Drτme) reckon far more failures than successes. The Koranic passage enumerates five things known only to Allah; Judgment-day; rain; sex of child in womb; what shall happen to-morrow and where a man shall die.