Part 45

[FN#79] I cannot understand why Trébutien, iii., 457, writes this word Afba. He remarks that it is the “Oina and Riya” of Jámí, elegantly translated by M. de Chezy in the Journal Asiatique, vol. 1, 144.

[FN#80] I have described this part of the Medinah Mosque in Pilgrimage ii., 62–69. The name derives from a saying of Mohammed (of which there are many variants), “Between my tomb and my pulpit is a garden of the Gardens of Paradise” (Burckhardt, Arabia, p. 337). The whole Southern portico (not only a part) now enjoys that honoured name and the tawdry decorations are intended to suggest a parterre.

[FN#81] Mohammed’s companions (Asháb), numbering some five hundred, were divided into two orders, the Muhájirin (fugitives) or Meccans who accompanied the Apostle to Al-Medinah (Pilgrimage ii. 138) and the Ansár (Auxiliaries) or Medinites who invited him to their city and lent him zealous aid (Ibid. ii. 130). The terms constantly occur in Arab history.

[FN#82] The “Mosque of the Troops,” also called Al-Fath (victory), the largest of the “Four Mosques:” it is still a place of pious visitation where prayer is granted. Koran, chap. xxxiii., and Pilgrimage ii. 325.

[FN#83] Arab. “Al-Wars,” with two meanings. The Alfáz Adwiyah gives it=Kurkum, curcuma, turmeric, safran d’Inde; but popular usage assigns it to Usfur, Kurtum or safflower (_carthamus tinctorius_). I saw the shrub growing all about Harar which exports it, and it is plentiful in Al-Yaman (Niebuhr, p. 133), where women affect it to stain the skin a light yellow and remove freckles: it is also an internal remedy in leprosy. But the main use is that of a dye, and the Tob stained with Wars is almost universal in some parts of Arabia. Sonnini (p. 510) describes it at length and says that Europeans in Egypt call it “Parrot-seeds” because the bird loves it, and the Levant trader “Saffrenum.”

[FN#84] Two men of the great ‘Anazah race went forth to gather Karaz, the fruit of the Sant (Mimosa Nilotica) both used for tanning, and never returned. Hence the proverb which is obsolete in conversation. See Burckhardt, Prov. 659: where it takes the place of “ad Graecas Kalendas.”

[FN#85] Name of a desert (Mafázah) and a settlement on the Euphrates’ bank between Basrah and the site of old Kufah near Kerbela; the well-known visitation place in Babylonian Irak.

[FN#86] Of the Banu Sulaym tribe; the adjective is Sulami not Sulaymi.

[FN#87] Arab. “Amám-ak”=before thee (in space); from the same root as Imam=antistes, leader of prayer; and conducing to perpetual puns, _e.g._ “You are Imám-i (my leader) and therefore should be Amám-i” (in advance of me).

[FN#88] He was angry, as presently appears, because he had heard of certain love passages between the two and this in Arabia is a dishonour to the family.

[FN#89] Euphemy for “my daughter.”

[FN#90] The Badawin call a sound dollar “Kirsh hajar” or “Riyal hajar” (a stone dollar; but the word is spelt with the greater h).

[FN#91] Arab. Burdah and Habárah. The former often translated mantle is a thick woollen stuff, brown or gray, woven oblong and used like a plaid by day and by night. Mohammed’s Burdah woven in his Harem and given to the poet, Ka’ab, was 7½ ft. long by 4½: it is still in the upper Serraglio of Stambul. In early days the stuff was mostly striped; now it is either plain or with lines so narrow that it looks like one colour. The Habarah is a Burd made in Al-Yaman and not to be confounded with the Egyptian mantilla of like name (Lane, M. E. chapt. iii.).

[FN#92] Every Eastern city has its special title. Al-Medinah is entitled “Al-Munawwarah” (the Illumined) from the blinding light which surrounds the Prophet’s tomb and which does not show to eyes profane (Pilgrimage ii. 3). I presume that the idea arose from the huge lamps of “The Garden.” I have noted that Mohammed’s coffin suspended by magnets is an idea unknown to Moslems, but we find the fancy in Al-Harawi related of St. Peter, “Simon Cephas (the rock) is in the City of Great Rome, in its largest church within a silver ark hanging by chains from the ceiling.” (Lee, Ibn Batutah, p. 161).

[FN#93] Here the fillets are hung instead of the normal rag-strips to denote an honoured tomb. Lane (iii. 242) and many others are puzzled about the use of these articles. In many cases they are suspended to trees in order to transfer sickness from the body to the tree and whoever shall touch it. The Sawáhílí people term such articles a Keti (seat or vehicle) for the mysterious haunter of the tree who prefers occupying it to the patient’s person. Briefly the custom still popular throughout Arabia, is African and Fetish.

[FN#94] Al-Mas’údí (chap. xcv.), mentions a Hind bint Asmá and tells a facetious story of her and the “enemy of Allah,” the poet Jarir.

[FN#95] Here the old Shiah hatred of the energetic conqueror of Oman crops out again. Hind’s song is that of Maysum concerning her husband Mu’áwiyah which Mrs. Godfrey Clark (‘Ilâm-en-Nâs, p. 108) thus translates:—

A hut that the winds make tremble Is dearer to me than a noble palace; And a dish of crumbs on the floor of my home Is dearer to me than a varied feast; And the soughing of the breeze through every crevice Is dearer to me than the beating of drums.

Compare with Dr. Carlyle’s No. X.:—

The russet suit of camel’s hair With spirits light and eye serene Is dearer to my bosom far Than all the trappings of a queen, etc. etc.

And with mine (Pilgrimage iii. 262):—

O take these purple robes away, Give back my cloak of camel’s hair And bear me from this towering pile To where the black tents flap i’ the air, etc. etc.

[FN#96] AI-Hajjaj’s tribal name was Al-Thakifi or descendant of Thakíf. According to Al-Mas’udi, he was son of Faríghah (the tall Beauty) by Yúsuf bin Ukayl the Thakafite and vint au monde tout difforme avec l’anus obstrué. As he refused the breast, Satan, in human form, advised suckling him with the blood of two black kids, a black buck-goat and a black snake; which had the desired effect.

[FN#97] Trebutien, iii., 465, translates these sayings into Italian.

[FN#98] Making him a “Kawwád”=leader, _i.e._ pimp; a true piece of feminine spite. But the Caliph prized Al-Hajjaj too highly to treat him as in the text.

[FN#99] _i.e._ “The overflowing,” with benefits; on account of his generosity.

[FN#100] The seventh Ommiade A. H. 96–99 (715–719). He died of his fine appetite after eating at a sitting a lamb, six fowls, seventy pomegranates, and 11¼ lbs. of currants. He was also proud of his youth and beauty and was wont to say, “Mohammed was the Apostle and Abu Bakr witness to the Truth; Omar the Discriminator and Othman the Bashful, Mu’awiyah the Mild and Yazid the Patient; Abd al-Malik the Administrator and Walid the Tyrant; but I am the Young King!”

[FN#101] Arab. Al-Jazírah, “the Island;” name of the region and the capital.

[FN#102] _i.e._ “Repairer of the Slips of the Generous,” an evasive reply, which of course did not deceive the questioner.

[FN#103] Arab. “Falastín,” now obsolete. The word has echoed far west and the name of the noble race has been degraded to “Philister,” a bourgeois, a greasy burgher.

[FN#104] Saying, “The Peace be with thee, O Prince of True Believers!”

[FN#105] Arab. “Mutanakkir,” which may also mean proud or in disguise.

[FN#106] On appointment as viceroy. See vol. iii., 307.

[FN#107] The custom with outgoing Governors. It was adopted by the Spaniards and Portuguese especially in America. The generosity of Ikrimah without the slightest regard to justice or common honesty is characteristic of the Arab in story-books.

[FN#108] The celebrated half-way house between Jaffa and Jerusalem.

[FN#109] Alias the Kohistan or mountain region, Susiana (Khuzistan) whose capital was Susa; and the head quarters of fire-worship. Azar (fire) was the name of Abraham’s father whom Eusebius calls “Athar.” (Pilgrimage iii. 336.)

[FN#110] Tenth Ommiade A.H. 105–125 (=724–743), a wise and discreet ruler with an inclination to avarice and asceticism. According to some, the Ommiades produced only three statesmen, Mu’awayah, Abd al-Malik and Hisham; and the reign of the latter was the end of sage government and wise administration.

[FN#111] About £1,250, which seems a long price; but in those days Damascus had been enriched with the spoils of the world adjacent.

[FN#112] Eleventh Ommiade dynasty, A.H. 125–126 (=743–744). Ibn Sahl (son of ease, _i.e._ free and easy) was a nickname; he was the son of Yazíd II. and brother of Hishám. He scandalised the lieges by his profligacy, wishing to make the pilgrimage in order to drink upon the Ka’abah-roof; so they attacked the palace and lynched him. His death is supposed to have been brought about (27th of Jamáda al-Akhirah = April 16, 744) by his cousin and successor Yazíd (No. iii.) surnamed the Retrencher. The tale in the text speaks well for him; but generosity amongst the Arabs covers a multitude of sins, and people say, “Better a liberal sinner than a stingy saint.”

[FN#113] The tents of black wool woven by the Badawi women are generally supported by three parallel rows of poles lengthways and crossways (the highest line being the central) and the covering is pegged down. Thus the outline of the roofs forms two or more hanging curves, and these characterise the architecture of the Tartars and Chinese; they are still preserved in the Turkish (and sometimes in the European) “Kiosque,” and they have extended to the Brazil where the upturned eaves, often painted vermilion below, at once attract the traveller’s notice.

[FN#114] See vol. iv., 159. The author of “Antar,” known to Englishmen by the old translation of Mr. Terrick Hamilton, secretary of Legation at Constantinople. There is an abridgement of the forty-five volumes of Al-Asma’i’s “Antar” which mostly supplies or rather supplied the “Antariyyah” or professional tale-tellers; whose theme was the heroic Mulatto lover.

[FN#115] The “Dakkah” or long wooden sofa, as opposed to the “mastabah” or stone bench, is often a tall platform and in mosques is a kind of ambo railed round and supported by columns. Here readers recite the Koran: Lane (M.E. chapt. iii.) sketches it in the “Interior of a Mosque.”

[FN#116] Alif (ا) Ha (ه) and Waw (و), the first, twenty-seventh and twenty-sixth letters of the Arabic alphabet: No. 1 is the most simple and difficult to write caligraphically.

[FN#117] Reeds washed with gold and used for love-letters, &c.

[FN#118] Lane introduced this tale into vol. i., p. 223, notes on chapt. iii., apparently not knowing that it was in The Nights. He gives a mere abstract, omitting all the verse, and he borrowed it either from the Halbat al-Kumayt (chapt. xiv.) or from Al-Mas’údí (chapt. cxi.). See the French translation, vol. vi. p. 340. I am at pains to understand why M. C. Barbier de Maynard writes “Réchid” with an accented vowel; although French delicacy made him render, by “fils de courtisane,” the expression in the text, “O biter of thy mother’s enlarged (or uncircumcised) clitoris” (Bazar).

[FN#119] In Al-Mas’údi the Devil is “a young man fair of favour and formous of figure,” which is more appropriate to a “Tempter.” He also wears light stuffs of dyed silks.

[FN#120] It would have been more courteous in an utter stranger to say, O my lord.

[FN#121] The Arab Tempe (of fiction, not of grisly fact).

[FN#122] These four lines are in Al-Mas’údi, chapt, cxviii. Fr. Trans. vii. 313, but that author does not tell us who wrote them.

[FN#123] _i.e._ Father of Bitterness=the Devil. This legend of the Foul Fiend appearing to Ibrahim of Mosul (and also to Isam, N. dcxcv.) seems to have been accepted by contemporaries and reminds us of similar visitations in Europe—notably to Dr. Faust. One can only exclaim, “Lor, papa, what nonsense you are talking!” the words of a small girl whose father thought proper to indoctrinate her into certain Biblical stories. I once began to write a biography of the Devil; but I found that European folk-lore had made such an unmitigated fool of the grand old Typhon-Ahriman as to take away from him all human interest.

[FN#124] In Al-Mas’udi the Caliph exclaims, “Verily thou hast received a visit from Satan!”

[FN#125] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxix. (Fr. transl. vii., 351) mentions the Banu Odhrah as famed for lovers and tells the pathetic tale of ‘Orwah and ‘Afrá.

[FN#126] Jamil bin Ma’amar the poet has been noticed in Vol. ii. 102; and he has no business here as he died years before Al-Rashid was born. The tale begins like that of Ibn Mansúr and the Lady Budúr (Night cccxxvii.), except that Mansur does not offer his advice.

[FN#127] Arab. “Halumma,” an interjection=bring! a congener of the Heb. “Halúm”; the grammarians of Kufah and Bassorah are divided concerning its origin.

[FN#128] Arab. “Nafs-í” which here corresponds with our canting “the flesh” the “Old Adam,” &c.

[FN#129] Arab. “Atmárí” used for travel. The Anglo-Americans are the only people who have the common sense to travel (where they are not known) in their “store clothes” and reserve the worst for where they are known.

[FN#130] _e.g._ a branch or bough.

[FN#131] Arab. “Ráyah káimah,” which Lane translates a “beast standing”!

[FN#132] Tying up the near foreleg just above the knee; and even with this a camel can hop over sundry miles of ground in the course of a night. The hobbling is shown in Lane. (Nights vol. ii., p. 46.)

[FN#133] As opposed to “Severance” in the old knightly language of love, which is now apparently lost to the world. I tried it in the Lyrics of Camoens and found that I was speaking a forgotten tongue, which mightily amused the common sort of critic and reviewer.

[FN#134] More exactly three days and eight hours, after which the guest becomes a friend, and as in the Argentine prairies is expected to do friend’s duty. The popular saying is, “The entertainment of a guest is three days; the viaticum (jáizah) is a day and a night, and whatso exceedeth this is alms.”

[FN#135] Arab. “‘Ashírah.” Books tell us there are seven degrees of connection among the Badawin: Sha’ab, tribe or rather race; nation (as the Anazah) descended from a common ancestor; Kabílah the tribe proper (whence _les Kabyles_); Fasílah (sept), Imarah; Ashirah (all a man’s connections); Fakhiz (lit. the thigh, i.e., his blood relations) and Batn (belly) his kith and kin. Practically Kabílah is the tribe, Ashírah the clan, and Bayt the household; while Hayy may be anything between tribe and kith and kin.

[FN#136] This is the true platonic love of noble Arabs, the Ishk ‘uzrí, noted in vol. ii., 104.

[FN#137] Arab. “‘Alá raghm,” a favourite term. It occurs in theology; for instance, when the Shí’ahs are asked the cause of such and such a ritual distinction they will reply, “Ala raghmi ‘l-Tasannun”: lit.=to spite the Sunnis.

[FN#138] In the text “Al-Kaus” for which Lane and Payne substitute a shield. The bow had not been mentioned but—_n’importe_, the Arab reader would say. In the text it is left at home because it is a cowardly, far-killing weapon compared with sword and lance. Hence the Spaniard calls and justly calls the knife the “bravest of arms” as it wants a man behind it.

[FN#139] Arab. “Rahim” or “Rihm”=womb, uterine relations, pity or sympathy, which may here be meant.

[FN#140] Reciting Fátihahs and so forth, as I have described in the Cemetery of Al-Medinah (ii. 300). Moslems do not pay for prayers to benefit the dead like the majority of Christendom and, according to Calvinistic Wahhábi-ism, their prayers and blessings are of no avail. But the mourner’s heart loathes reason and he prays for his dead instinctively like the so-termed “Protestant.” Amongst the latter, by the bye, I find four great _Sommités_, (1) Paul of Tarsus who protested against the Hebraism of Peter; (2) Mohammed who protested against the perversions of Christianity; (3) Luther who protested against Italian rule in Germany, and lastly (4) one (who shall be nameless) that protests against the whole business.

[FN#141] Lane transfers this to vol. i. 520 (notes to chapt. vii); and gives a mere abstract as of that preceding.

[FN#142] We learn from Ibn Batutah that it stood South of the Great Mosque and afterwards became the Coppersmiths’ Bazar. The site was known as Al-Khazrá (the Green) and the building was destroyed by the Abbasides. See Defrémery and Sanguinetti, i. 206.

[FN#143] This great tribe or rather nation has been noticed before (vol. ii. 170). The name means “Strong,” and derives from one Tamim bin Murr of the race of Adnan, nat. circ. A.D. 121. They hold the North-Eastern uplands of Najd, comprising the great desert Al-Dahná and extend to Al-Bahrayn. They are split up into a multitude of clans and septs; and they can boast of producing two famous sectarians. One was Abdullah bin Suffár, head of the Suffriyah; and the other Abdullah bin Ibáz (Ibadh) whence the Ibázíyah heretics of Oman who long included her princes. Mr. Palgrave wrongly writes Abadeeyah and Biadeeyah and my “Bayázi” was an Arab vulgarism used by the Zanzibarians. Dr. Badger rightly prefers Ibáziyah which he writes Ibâdhiyah (Hist. of the Imams, etc.).

[FN#144] Governor of Al-Medinah under Mu’awiyah and afterwards (A.H. 64–65=683–4) fourth Ommiade. Al-Siyúti (p. 216) will not account him amongst the princes of the Faithful, holding him a rebel against Al-Zubayr. Ockley makes Ibn al-Zubayr ninth and Marwán tenth Caliph.

[FN#145] The address, without the vocative particle, is more emphatic; and the P.N. Mu’awiyah seems to court the omission.

[FN#146] This may also mean that the £500 were the woman’s “mahr” or marriage dowry and the £250 a present to buy the father’s consent.

[FN#147] Quite true to nature. See an account of the quasi-epileptic fits to which Syrians are subject and by them called Al-Wahtah in “The Inner Life of Syria,” i. 233.

[FN#148] Arab. “Wayha-k” here equivalent to Wayla-k. M. C. Barbier de Meynard renders the first “mon ami” and the second “misérable.”

[FN#149] This is an instance when the article (Al) is correctly used with one proper name and not with another. Al-Kumayt (P. N. of poet) lit. means a bay horse with black points: Nasr is victory.

[FN#150] This anecdote, which reads like truth, is ample set off for a cart-load of abuse of women. But even the Hindus, determined misogynists in books, sometimes relent. Says the Katha Sarit Sagara: “So you see, King, honourable matrons are devoted to their husbands, and it is not the case that all women are always bad” (ii. 624). Let me hope that after all this Mistress Su’ad did not lead her husband a hardish life.

[FN#151] Al-Khalí’a has been explained in vol. i. 311 {Vol 1, FN#633}: the translation of Al-Mas’udi (vi. 10) renders it “scélérat.” Abú Alí al-Husayn the Wag was a Bassorite and a worthy companion of Abu Nowas the Debauchee; but he adorned the Court of Al-Amin the son, not of Al-Rashid the father.

[FN#152] Governor of Bassorah, but not in Al-Husayn’s day.

[FN#153] The famous market-place where poems were recited, mentioned by Al-Hariri.

[FN#154] A quarter of Bassorah.

[FN#155] Capital of Al-Yaman, and then famed for its leather and other work (vol. v. 16).

[FN#156] The creases in the stomach like the large navel are always insisted upon. Says the Kathá (ii. 525) “And he looked on that torrent river of the elixir of beauty, adorned with a waist made charming by those wave-like wrinkles,” etc.

[FN#157] Arab. Sabaj (not Sabah, as the Mac. Edit. misprints it): I am not sure of its meaning.

[FN#158] A truly Arab conceit, suggesting—

The music breathing from her face;

her calves moved rhythmically, suggesting the movement and consequent sound of a musical instrument.

[FN#159] The _morosa voluptas_ of the Catholic divines. The Sapphist described in the text would procure an orgasm (_in gloria_, as the Italians call it) by biting and rolling over the girl she loved; but by loosening the trouser-string she evidently aims at a closer tribadism—the Arab “Musáhikah.”

[FN#160] We drink (or drank) after dinner, Easterns before the meal and half-Easterns (like the Russians) before and after. We talk of liquor being unwholesome on an empty stomach; but the truth is that all is purely habit. And as the Russian accompanies his Vodki with caviare, etc., so the Oriental drinks his Raki or Mahayá (Ma al-hayát=aqua vitæ) alternately with a Salátah, for whose composition see Pilgrimage i. 198. The Eastern practice has its advantages: it awakens the appetite, stimulates digestion and, what Easterns greatly regard, it is economical; half a bottle doing the work of a whole. Bhang and Kusumbá (opium dissolved and strained through a pledget of cotton) are always drunk before dinner and thus the “jolly” time is the preprandial, not the postprandial.

[FN#161] “Abu al-Sakhá” (pronounced Abussakhá) = Father of munificence.

[FN#162] ‘Arab. “Shammara,” also used for gathering up the gown, so as to run the faster.

[FN#163] i.e., blessing the Prophet and all True Believers (herself included).

[FN#164] The style of this letter is that of a public scribe in a Cairo market-place thirty years ago.

[FN#165] i.e., she could not help falling in love with this beauty man.

[FN#166] “Kudrat,” used somewhat in the sense of our vague “Providence.” The sentence means, leave Omnipotence to manage him. Mr. Redhouse, who forces a likeness between Moslem and Christian theology, tells us that “Qader is unjustly translated by Fate and Destiny, an old pagan idea abhorrent to Al-Islam which reposes on God’s providence.” He makes Kazá and Kismet quasi-synonymes of “Qazá” and “Qader,” the former signifying God’s decree, the latter our allotted portion, and he would render both by dispensation. Of course it is convenient to forget the Guarded Tablet of the learned and the Night of Power and skull-lectures of the vulgar. The eminent Turkish scholar would also translate Salát by worship (du’á being prayer) because it signifies a simple act of adoration without entreaty. If he will read the Opener of the Koran, recited in every set of prayers, he will find an especial request to be “led to the path which is straight.” These vagaries are seriously adopted by Mr. E. J. W. Gibb in his Ottoman Poems (p. 245, etc.) London: Trübner and Co., 1882; and they deserve, I think, reprehension, because they serve only to mislead; and the high authority of the source whence they come necessarily recommends them to many.

[FN#167] The reader will have noticed the likeness of this tale to that of Ibn Mansúr and the Lady Budúr (vol. iv., 228 et seq.){Vol 4, Tale 42} For this reason Lane leaves it untranslated (iii. 252).

[FN#168] Lane also omits this tale (iii. 252). See Night dclxxxviii., vol. vii. p. 113 et seq., for a variant of the story.

[FN#169] Third Abbaside, A.H. 158–169 (=775–785), and father of Harun Al-Rashid. He is known chiefly for his eccentricities, such as cutting the throats of all his carrier-pigeons, making a man dine off marrow and sugar and having snow sent to him at Meccah, a distance of 700 miles.

[FN#170] Arab. “Mirt”; the dictionaries give a short shift, cloak or breeches of wool or coarse silk.

[FN#171] Arab. “Mayázíb” plur. of the Pers. Mizáb (orig. Míz-i-áb=channel of water) a spout for roof-rain. That which drains the Ka’abah on the N.-W. side is called Mizáb al-Rahmah (Gargoyle of Mercy) and pilgrims stand under it for a douche of holy water. It is supposed to be of gold, but really of silver gold-plated and is described of Burckhardt and myself. (Pilgrimage iii. 164.) The length is 4 feet 10 in.; width 9 in.; height of sides 8 in.; and slope at mouth 1 foot 6 in long.