Part 43

Arab. "Rasy" = praising in a funeral sermon.

Footnote 325:

Arab. "Manáyá," plur. of Maniyat = death. Mr. R. S. Poole (the Academy, April 26, 1879) reproaches Mr. Payne for confounding "Muniyat" (desire) with "Maniyat" (death); but both are written the same except when vowel-points are used.

Footnote 326:

Arab. "Iddat," alluding to the months of celibacy which, according to Moslem law, must be passed by a divorced woman before she can re-marry.

Footnote 327:

Arab. "Talák bi'l-Salásah" = a triple divorce which cannot be revoked; nor can the divorcer re-marry the same woman till after consummation with another husband. This subject will continually recur.

Footnote 328:

An allusion to a custom of the pagan Arabs in the days of ignorant Heathenism. The blood or brain, soul or personality of the murdered man formed a bird called Sady or Hámah (not the Humá or Humái, usually translated "phœnix") which sprang from the head, where four of the five senses have their seat, and haunted his tomb, crying continually, "Uskúni!" = Give me drink (of the slayer's blood)! and which disappeared only when the vendetta was accomplished. Mohammed forbade the belief. Amongst the Southern Slavs the cuckoo is supposed to be the sister of a murdered man ever calling for vengeance.

Footnote 329:

To obtain a blessing and show how he valued it.

Footnote 330:

Well-known tribes of proto-historic Arabs who flourished before the time of Abraham: see Koran (chapt. xxvi. _et passim_). They will be repeatedly mentioned in The Nights and notes.

Footnote 331:

Arab. "Amtár"; plur. of "Matr," a large vessel of leather or wood for water, etc.

Footnote 332:

Arab. "Asáfírí," so called because they attract sparrows (asáfír) a bird very fond of the ripe oily fruit. In the Romance of "Antar" Asáfír camels are beasts that fly like birds in fleetness. The reader must not confound the olives of the text with the hard unripe berries ("little plums pickled in stale") which appear at English tables; nor wonder that bread and olives are the beef-steak and potatoes of many Mediterranean peoples. It is an excellent diet, the highly oleaginous fruit supplying the necessary carbon.

Footnote 333:

Arab. "Tamar al-Hindi" = the "Indian-date," whence our word "Tamarind." A sherbet of the pods, being slightly laxative, is much drunk during the great heats; and the dried fruit, made into small round cakes, is sold in the bazars. The traveller is advised not to sleep under the tamarind's shade, which is infamous for causing ague and fever. In Sind I derided the "native nonsense," passed the night under an "Indian date-tree" and awoke with a fine specimen of ague which lasted me a week.

Footnote 334:

Moslems are not agreed upon the length of the Day of Doom when all created things, marshalled by the angels, await final judgement; the different periods named are 40 years, 70, 300 and 50,000. Yet the trial itself will last no longer than while one may milk an ewe, or than "the space between two milkings of a she-camel." This is bringing down Heaven to Earth with a witness; but, after all, the Heaven of all faiths, including "Spiritualism," the latest development, is only an earth more or less glorified even as the Deity is humanity more or less perfected.

Footnote 335:

Arab. "Al-Kamaráni," lit. "the two moons." Arab rhetoric prefers it to "Shamsáni," or "two suns," because lighter (akhaff), to pronounce. So, albeit Omar was less worthy than Abu-Bakr the two are called "Al-Omaráni," in vulgar parlance, Omarayn.

Footnote 336:

Alluding to the angels who appeared to the Sodomites in the shape of beautiful youths (Koran xi).

Footnote 337:

Koran xxxiii. 38.

Footnote 338:

"Niktu-hu taklídan" _i.e._ not the real thing (with a woman). It may also mean "by his incitement of me." All this scene is written in the worst form of Persian-Egyptian blackguardism, and forms a curious anthropological study. The "black joke" of the true and modest wife is inimitable.

Footnote 339:

Arab. "Jamíz" (in Egypt "Jammayz") = the fruit of the true sycomore (F. Sycomorus) a magnificent tree which produces a small tasteless fig, eaten by the poorer classes in Egypt and by monkeys. The "Tín" or real fig here is the woman's parts; the "mulberry-fig," the anus. Martial (i. 65) makes the following distinction:—

Dicemus ficus, quas scimus in arbore nasci, Dicemus ficos, Cæciliane, tuos.

And Modern Italian preserves a difference between _fico_ and _fica_.

Footnote 340:

Arab. "Ghániyat Azárá" (plur. of Azrá = virgin): the former is properly a woman who despises ornaments and relies on "beauty unadorned" (_i.e._ in bed).

Footnote 341:

"Nihil usitatius apud monachos, cardinales, sacrificulos," says _Johannes de la Casa Beneventius_ Episcopus, quoted by Burton Anat. of Mel. lib. iii. Sect. 2; and the famous epitaph on the Jesuit,

Ci-gît un Jesuite: Passant, serre les fesses et passe vite!

Footnote 342:

Arab. "Kiblah" = the fronting-place of prayer, Meccah for Moslems, Jerusalem for Jews and early Christians. See Pilgrimage (ii. 321) for the Moslem change from Jerusalem to Meccah and ibid. ii. 213 for the way in which the direction was shown.

Footnote 343:

The Koran says (chapt. ii.): "Your wives are your tillage: go in therefore unto your tillage in what manner so ever ye will." Usually this is understood as meaning in any posture, standing or sitting, lying, backwards or forwards. Yet there is a popular saying about the man whom the woman rides (vulg. St. George, in France, le Postillon); "Cursed he who maketh woman Heaven and himself earth!" Some hold the Koranic passage to have been revealed in confutation of the Jews, who pretended that if a man lay with his wife backwards, he would beget a cleverer child. Others again understand it of preposterous venery, which is absurd: every ancient lawgiver framed his code to increase the true wealth of the people—population—and severely punished all processes, like onanism, which impeded it. The Persians utilise the hatred of women for such misuse when they would force a wife to demand a divorce and thus forfeit her claim to Mahr (dowry); they convert them into catamites till, after a month or so, they lose all patience and leave the house.

Footnote 344:

Koran li. 9: "He will be turned aside from the Faith (or Truth) who shall be turned aside by the Divine decree;" alluding, in the text, to the preposterous venery her lover demands.

Footnote 345:

Arab. "Futúh" meaning openings, and also victories, benefits. The lover congratulates her on her mortifying self in order to please him.

Footnote 346:

"And the righteous work will be exalt": (Koran xxxv. 11) applied ironically.

Footnote 347:

A prolepsis of Tommy Moore:—

Your mother says, my little Venus, There's something not quite right between us, And you're in fault as much as I, Now, on my soul, my little Venus, I swear 'twould not be right between us, To let your mother tell a lie.

But the Arab is more moral than Mr. Little, as he proposes to repent.

Footnote 348:

Arab. "Khunsa" flexible or flaccid, from Khans = bending inwards, _i.e._ the mouth of a water-skin before drinking. Like Mukhannas, it is also used for an effeminate man, a passive sodomite and even for a eunuch. Easterns still believe in what Westerns know to be an impossibility, human beings with the parts and proportions of both sexes equally developed and capable of reproduction; and Al-Islam even provides special rules for them (Pilgrimage iii. 237). We hold them to be Buffon's fourth class of (duplicate) monsters, belonging essentially to one or the other sex, and related to its opposite only by some few characteristics. The old Greeks dreamed, after their fashion, a beautiful poetic dream of a human animal uniting the contradictory beauties of man and woman. The duality of the generative organs seems an old Egyptian tradition; at least we find it in Genesis (i. 27), where the image of the Deity is created male and female, before man was formed out of the dust of the ground (ii. 7). The old tradition found its way to India (if the Hindus did not borrow the idea from the Greeks); and one of the forms of Mahadeva, the third person of their triad, is entitled "Ardhanárí" = the Half-woman, which has suggested to them some charming pictures. Europeans, seeing the left breast conspicuously feminine, have indulged in silly surmises about the "Amazons."

Footnote 349:

This is a mere phrase for our "dying of laughter": the queen _was_ on her back. And as Easterns sit on carpets, their falling back is very different from the same movement off a chair.

Footnote 350:

Arab. "Ismid," the eye-powder before noticed.

Footnote 351:

When the Caliph (_e.g._ Al-Tá'i li'llah) bound a banner to a spear and handed it to an officer, he thereby appointed him Sultan or Viceregent.

Footnote 352:

Arab. "Sháib al-ingház" = lit. a gray beard who shakes head in disapproval.

Footnote 353:

Arab. "Ayát" = the Hebr. "Ototh," signs, wonders or Koranic verses.

Footnote 354:

The Chapter "Al-Ikhlás" _i.e._ clearing (oneself from any faith but that of Unity) is No. cxii. and runs thus:—

Say, He is the One God! The sempiternal God, He begetteth not, nor is He begot, And unto Him the like is not.

It is held to be equal in value to one-third of the Koran, and is daily used in prayer. Mr. Rodwell makes it the tenth.

Footnote 355:

The Lady Budur shows her noble blood by not objecting to her friend becoming her Zarrat (sister-wife). This word is popularly derived from "Zarar" = injury; and is vulgarly pronounced in Egypt "Durrah" sounding like Durrah = a parrot (see Burckhardt's mistake in Prov. 314). The native proverb says, "Ayshat al-durrah murrah," the sister-wife hath a bitter life. We have no English equivalent; so I translate indifferently co-wife, co-consort, sister-wife or sister in wedlock.

Footnote 356:

Lane preserves the article "El-Amjad" and "El-As'ad;" which is as necessary as to say "the John" or "the James," because neo-Latins have "il Giovanni" or "il Giacomo." In this matter of the article, however, it is impossible to lay down a universal rule: in some cases it must be preserved and only practise in the language can teach its use. For instance, it is always present in Al-Bahrayn and al-Yaman; but not necessarily so with Irak and Najd.

Footnote 357:

It is hard to say why this ugly episode was introduced. It is a mere false note in a tune pretty enough.

Footnote 358:

The significance of this action will presently appear.

Footnote 359:

An "Hadís."

Footnote 360:

Arab. "Sabb" = using the lowest language of abuse, chiefly concerning women-relatives and their reproductive parts.

Footnote 361:

The reader will note in the narration concerning the two Queens the parallelism of the Arab's style which recalls that of the Hebrew poets. Strings of black silk are plaited into the long locks (an "idiot-fringe" being worn over the brow) because a woman is cursed "who joineth her own hair to the hair of another" (especially human hair). Sending the bands is a sign of affectionate submission; and, in extremest cases the hair itself is sent.

Footnote 362:

_i.e._, suffer similar pain at the spectacle, a phrase often occurring.

Footnote 363:

_i.e._, when the eye sees not, the heart grieves not.

Footnote 364:

_i.e._, unto Him we shall return, a sentence recurring in almost every longer chapter of the Koran.

Footnote 365:

Arab. "Kun," the creative Word (which, by the by, proves the Koran to be an uncreated Logos); the full sentence being "Kun fa kána" = Be! and it became. The origin is evidently, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Gen. i. 3); a line grand in its simplicity and evidently borrowed from the Egyptians; even as Yahveh (Jehovah) from "Ankh" = He who lives (Brugsch Hist. ii. 34).

Footnote 366:

_i.e._ but also for the life and the so-called "soul."

Footnote 367:

Arab. "Layáli" = lit. nights which, I have said, is often applied to the whole twenty-four hours. Here it is used in the sense of "fortune" or "fate;" like "days" and "days and nights."

Footnote 368:

Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr a nephew of Ayishah, who had rebuilt the Ka'abah in A.H. 64 (A.D. 683), revolted (A.D. 680) against Yezid and was proclaimed Caliph at Meccah. He was afterwards killed (A.D. 692) by the famous or infamous Hajjáj general of Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, the fifth Ommiade, surnamed "Sweat of a stone" (skin-flint) and "Father of Flies," from his foul breath. See my Pilgrimage, etc. iii., 192-194, where are explained the allusions to the Ka'abah and the holy Black Stone.

Footnote 369:

These lines are part of an elegy on the downfall of one of the Moslem dynasties in Spain, composed in the twelfth century by Ibn Abdun al-Andalúsi. The allusion is to the famous conspiracy of the Khárijites (the first sectarians in Mohammedanism) to kill Ali, Mu'awiyah and Amru (so written but pronounced "Amr") al-As, in order to abate intestine feuds in Al-Islam. Ali was slain with a sword-cut by Ibn Muljam a name ever damnable amongst the Persians; Mu'awiyah escaped with a wound and Kharijah, the Chief of Police at Fustat or old Cairo was murdered by mistake for Amru. After this the sectarian wars began.

Footnote 370:

Arab. "Saráb" = (Koran, chapt. xxiv.) the reek of the Desert, before explained. It is called "Lama," the shine, the loom, in Al-Hariri. The world is compared with the mirage, the painted eye and the sword that breaks in the sworder's hand.

Footnote 371:

Arab. "Dunyá," with the common alliteration "dániyah" (= Pers. "dún"), in prose as well as poetry means the things or fortune of this life opp. to "Akhirah" = future life.

Footnote 372:

Arab. "Walgh," a strong expression primarily denoting the lapping of dogs; here and elsewhere "to swill, _saufen_."

Footnote 373:

The lines are repeated from Night ccxxi. I give Lane's version (ii. 162) by way of contrast and—warning.

Footnote 374:

"Sáhirah" is the place where human souls will be gathered on Doom-day: some understand by it the Hell Sa'ír (No. iv.) intended for the Sabians or the Devils generally.

Footnote 375:

His eyes are faded like Jacob's which, after weeping for Joseph, "became white with mourning" (Koran, chapt. xxi.). It is a stock comparison.

Footnote 376:

The grave.

Footnote 377:

Arab. "Sawwán" (popularly pronounced Suwán) = "Syenite" from Syrene; generally applied to silex, granite or any hard stone.

Footnote 378:

A proceeding fit only for thieves and paupers: "Alpinism" was then unknown. "You come from the mountain" (al-Jabal) means, "You are a clod-hopper"; and "I will sit upon the mountain" = turn anchorite or magician. (Pilgrimage i. 106).

Footnote 379:

Corresponding with wayside chapels in Catholic countries. The Moslem form would be either a wall with a prayer-niche (Mihráb) fronting Meccah-wards or a small domed room. These little oratories are often found near fountains, streams or tree-clumps where travellers would be likely to alight. I have described one in Sind ("Scinde or the Unhappy Valley" i. 79); and have noted that scrawling on the walls is even more common in the East than in the West; witness the monuments of old Egypt bescribbled by the Greeks and Romans. Even the paws of the Sphinx are covered with such _graffiti_; and those of Ipsambul or Abu Simbal have proved treasures to epigraphists.

Footnote 380:

In tales this characterises a Persian; and Hero Rustam is always so pictured.

Footnote 381:

The Parsis, who are the representatives of the old Guebres, turn towards the sun and the fire as their Kiblah or point of prayer; all deny that they worship it. But, as in the case of saints' images, while the educated would pray before them for edification (Latria), the ignorant would adore them (Dulia); and would make scanty difference between the "reverence of a servant" and the "reverence of a slave." The human sacrifice was quite contrary to Guebre, although not to Hindu, custom; although hate and vengeance might prompt an occasional murder.

Footnote 382:

These _oubliettes_ are common in old eastern houses as in the medieval Castles of Europe, and many a stranger has met his death in them. They are often so well concealed that even the modern inmates are not aware of their existence.

Footnote 383:

Arab. "Bakk"; hence our "bug" whose derivation (like that of "cat" "dog" and "hog") is apparently unknown to the dictionaries, always excepting M. Littré's.

Footnote 384:

_i.e._ thy beauty is ever increasing.

Footnote 385:

Alluding, as usual, to the eyelashes, _e.g._

An eyelash arrow from an eyebrow bow.

Footnote 386:

Lane (ii. 168) reads:—"The niggardly female is protected by her niggardness;" a change of "Nahílah" (bee-hive) into "Bakhílah" (she skin-flint).

Footnote 387:

Koran iv. 38. The advantages are bodily strength, understanding and the high privilege of Holy War. Thus far, and thus far only, woman amongst Moslems is "lesser man."

Footnote 388:

Arab. "Amír Yákhúr," a corruption of "Akhor" = stable (Persian).

Footnote 389:

A servile name in Persian, meaning "the brave," and a title of honour at the Court of Delhi when following the name. Many English officers have made themselves ridiculous (myself amongst the number) by having it engraved on their seal-rings, _e.g._ Brown Sáhib Bahádur. To write the word "Behadir" or "Bahádir" is to adopt the wretched Turkish corruption.

Footnote 390:

"Jerry Sneak" would be the English reader's comment; but in the East all charges are laid upon women.

Footnote 391:

Here the formula means "I am sorry for it, but I couldn't help it."

Footnote 392:

A noble name of the Persian Kings (meaning the planet Mars) corrupted in Europe to Varanes.

Footnote 393:

Arab. "Jalláb," one of the three muharramát or forbiddens; the Hárik al-hajar (burner of stone), the Káti' al-shajar (cutter of trees, without reference to Hawarden N. B.) and the Báyi' al-bashar (seller of men, vulg. Jalláb). The two former worked, like the Italian Carbonari, in desert places where they had especial opportunities for crime. (Pilgrimage iii. 140). None of these things must be practised during Pilgrimage on the holy soil of Al-Hijaz—not including Jeddah.

Footnote 394:

The verses contain the tenets of the Murjiy sect which attaches infinite importance to faith and little or none to works. Sale (sect. viii.) derives his "Morgians" from the "Jabrians" (Jabari), who are the direct opponents of the "Kadarians" (Kadari), denying free will and free agency to man and ascribing his actions wholly to Allah. Lane (ii. 243) gives the orthodox answer to the heretical question:—

Water could wet him not if God please guard His own; ✿ Nor need man care though bound of hands in sea he's thrown: But if His Lord decree that he in sea be drowned; ✿ He'll drown albeit in the wild and wold he wone.

It is the old quarrel between Predestination and Freewill which cannot be solved except by assuming a Law without a Lawgiver.

Footnote 395:

Our proverb says: Give a man luck and throw him into the sea.

Footnote 396:

As a rule Easterns, I repeat, cover head and face when sleeping especially in the open air and moonlight. Europeans find the practice difficult, and can learn it only by long habit.

Footnote 397:

Pers. = a flower-garden. In Galland Bahram has two daughters, Bostama and Cavama. In the Bres. Edit. the daughter is "Bostan" and the slave-girl "Kawám."

Footnote 398:

Arab. "Kahíl" = eyes which look as if darkened with antimony: hence the name of the noble Arab breed of horses "Kuhaylat" (Al-Ajuz, etc.).

Footnote 399:

"As'ad" = more (or most) fortunate.

Footnote 400:

This is the vulgar belief, although Mohammed expressly disclaimed the power in the Koran (chapt. xiii. 8), "Thou art commissioned to be a preacher only and not a worker of miracles." "Signs" (Arab. Ayát) may here also mean verses of the Koran, which the Apostle of Allah held to be his standing miracles. He despised the common miracula which in the East are of everyday occurrence and are held to be easy for any holy man. Hume does not believe in miracles because he never saw one. Had he travelled in the East he would have seen (and heard of) so many that his scepticism (more likely that testimony should be false than miracles be true) would have been based on a firmer foundation. It is one of the marvels of our age that whilst two-thirds of Christendom (the Catholics and the "Orthodox" Greeks) believe in "miracles" occurring not only in ancient but even in our present days, the influential and intelligent third (Protestant) absolutely "denies the fact."

Footnote 401:

Arab. "Al-Shahádatáni"; testifying the Unity and the Apostleship.

END OF VOL. III.

[Illustration: والسلام]

INDEX.

'Abd = servile, 44

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (Caliph), 319

Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, 318

Abú Kurrat = father of coolness (Chameleon), 165

Abu 'l-Hasan (not Husn), 162

Abu 'l-Hosayn (father of the Fortlet) = fox, 132

Abú Sirhán = father of (going out to pray by) morning, 146

'Ad (pre-historic Arab tribe), 294

Adultery (son of, to one's own child), 219

Akh al-Jahálah = brother of ignorance, 162

Al (the article with Proper Names), 309

Alak = clotted blood, 26

Ali (murder of), 319

Alif (stature like), 236

Allah (give thee profit), 17

—— (unto, we are returning), 317

Allusions (far-fetched, fanciful and obscure), 58, 169, 176, 263

Alpinism (unknown), 324

Amor discende non ascende, 240

Amsa = he passed the evening, etc., 239

Amtár, pl. of Matr, _q.v._, 295

Andam = Brazil-wood, dragon's blood, 263

Angels (appearing to Sodomites), 301

Ape-names (expressing auspiciousness), 159

Arab (pathos), 55

—— (the noble merciful), 88

—— (shop), 163

Arák = (tooth-stick of the) wild caper-tree; Ará-ka = I see thee, 275

Ar'ar = Juniper-tree, "heath," 254

Ardhanárí = the half-woman, 306

Army (divided into six divisions), 290

As'ad = more (or most) fortunate, 346

Asáfírí = sparrow-olives, 295

Ass (goad), 116

—— (voice "most ungrateful"), 117 —— (the wild, "handy" with his hoof), 235

Ayát = signs, Koranic verses, 307

Ayshat al-durrah murrah = the sister-wife has a bitter life, 308

Awwá (name of Satan's wife), 229

Bábúnaj = white camomile, 58

Bachelor not admitted in Arab quarters, 191

Back-parts compared to revolving heavens, 18

Badawi (cannot swim), 69

—— (baser sort), 70

—— (shifting camp in spring), _ib._

—— (noble), 88

Baghdad = Garden of Justice, 100

Bahadur = the brave, 334

Bahram (varanes) = planet Mars, 339

Bakhshish naturalized as Anglo-Egyptian, 45

Bakk = bug, 328

Bulúr (Billaur) = crystal, etc., 194

Banát al-Na'ash = the Great Bear, 28, 221

Bands of bandits, 101

Banner (bound to a spear, sign of investiture), 307

Bárid (cold = silly, contemptible, foolish), 7

Báshik (small sparrow-hawk), 61

Bath (first after sickness), 266

Bází (Pers. Báz) = _F. peregrinator_, hawk, falcon, 138

Beard (long, and short wits), 247

—— (forked, characteristic of a Persian), 325

Beast-stories (oldest matter in The Nights), 114

Beauties of nature provoke hunger in Orientals, 32

Bhang (properties of the drug), 91

Bilád al-Súdán = Land of the blacks (our Soudan), 75

Bilál (benefits), name of Mohammed's Mu'ezzin, 106

Bint 'arús = daughter of the bridegroom (Ichneumon), 147

Birds denote the neighbourhood of a village, 280

Bismillah (Bi 'Smi 'lláh = in the name of God, etc.), 182

Blaze (_see_ Ghurrah), 118

Boasting of one's tribe (_see_ Renowning it), 80

Bostán (female Pr. N.) = flower-garden, 345

Braying of the ass, 117

Brothers of Purity, 150

—— of ignorance = Ignoramus, 163

Brotherhood (forms of making), 151

Bruising the testicles a feminine mode of murdering men, 3

Budúr (Badoura) = full moons, 228

Bukhti (two-humped camel), 67

Caliphs Tái li'llah, 51, 307

—— Walíd (Al-), 69

—— Mu'atasim bi 'llah, 81

—— Wásik (Al-), _ib._

—— Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, 319

—— Ali, _ib._

—— Mu'áwiyah, _ib._

Camels (breeds of), 67, 110

—— (names), 110

—— (haltered, nose-ring used for dromedaries), 120

—— (Mehari, Mahríyah), 277

Camphor (simile for a fair face), 174