Arabian Society In The Middle Ages Part 10

The Arab music is generally of a soft and plaintive character, and particularly that of the most refined description, which is distinguished by a peculiar system of intervals. The singer aims at distinct enunciation of the words, for this is justly admired; and delights in a trilling style. The airs of songs are commonly very short and simple, adapted to a single verse, or even to a single hemistich; but in the instrumental music there is more variety.

Scarcely less popular as an amus.e.m.e.nt and mode of pa.s.sing the time is the bath, or hammam,--a favourite resort of both men and women of all cla.s.ses among the Muslims who can afford the trifling expense which it requires; and (it is said) not only of human beings, but also of evil genii; on which account, as well as on that of decency, several precepts respecting it have been dictated by Mo?ammad. It is frequented for the purpose of performing certain ablutions required by the religion, or by a regard for cleanliness, for its salutary effects, and for mere luxury.

The following description of a public bath will convey a sufficient notion of those in private houses, which are on a smaller scale and generally consist of only two or three chambers. The public bath comprises several apartments with mosaic or tesselated pavements, composed of white and black marble and pieces of fine red tile and sometimes other materials. The inner apartments are covered with domes, having a number of small round glazed apertures for the admission of light. The first apartment is the meslakh, or disrobing room, which has in the centre a fountain of cold water, and next the walls wide benches or platforms encased with marble. These are furnished with mattresses and cushions for the higher and middle cla.s.ses, and with mats for the poorer sort. The inner division of the building, in the more regularly planned baths, occupies nearly a square: the central and chief portion of it is the princ.i.p.al apartment, or ?ararah, which generally has the form of a cross. In its centre is a fountain of hot water, rising from a base encased with marble, which serves as a seat. One of the angles of the square is occupied by the beyt-owwal, or antechamber of the ?ararah: in another is the fire over which is the boiler; and each of the other two angles is generally occupied by two small chambers, in one of which is a tank filled with warm water, which pours down from a spot in the dome; in the other, two taps side by side, one of hot and the other of cold water, with a small trough beneath, before which is a seat. The inner apartments are heated by the steam which rises from the fountain and tanks, and by the contiguity of the fire; but the beyt-owwal is not so hot as the ?ararah, being separated from it by a door. In cold weather the bather undresses in the former, which has two or three raised seats like those of the meslakh.

With a pair of wooden clogs to his feet, and having a large napkin round his loins, and generally a second wound round his head like a turban, a third over his chest, and a fourth covering his back, the bather enters the ?ararah, the heat of which causes him immediately to perspire profusely. An attendant of the bath removes from him all the napkins excepting the first; and proceeds to crack the joints of his fingers and toes, and several of the vertebrae of the back and neck; kneads his flesh, and rubs the soles of his feet with a coa.r.s.e earthen rasp, and his limbs and body with a woollen bag which covers his hand as a glove; after which, the bather, if he please, plunges into one of the tanks. He is then thoroughly washed with soap and water and fibres of the palm-tree, and shaved, if he wish it, in one of the small chambers which contain the taps of hot and cold water; and returns to the beyt-owwal.

Here he generally reclines upon a mattress, and takes some light refreshment, while one of the attendants rubs the soles of his feet and kneads the flesh of his body and limbs, previously to his resuming his dress. It is a common custom now to take a pipe and a cup of coffee during this period of rest.

The women are especially fond of the bath, and often have entertainments there; taking with them fruits, sweetmeats, etc., and sometimes hiring female singers to accompany them. An hour or more is occupied by the process of plaiting the hair and applying the depilatory, etc.; and generally an equal time is pa.s.sed in the enjoyment of rest or recreation or refreshment. All necessary decorum is observed on these occasions by most ladies, but women of the lower orders are often seen in the bath without any covering. Some baths are appropriated solely to men; others, only to women; and others, again, to men during the forenoon, and in the afternoon to women. When the bath is appropriated to women, a napkin, or some other piece of drapery is suspended over the door to warn men from entering.

Before the time of Mo?ammad, there were no public baths in Arabia; and he was so prejudiced against them, for reasons already alluded to, that he at first forbade both men and women from entering them: afterwards, however, he permitted men to do so, if for the sake of cleanliness, on the condition of their wearing a cloth; and women also on account of sickness, child-birth, etc., provided they had not convenient places for bathing in their houses. But notwithstanding this license, it is held to be a characteristic of a virtuous woman not to go to a bath even with her husband's permission: for the Prophet said, "Whatever woman enters a bath, the devil is with her." As the bath is a resort of the Jinn, prayer should not be performed in it, nor the ?ur-an recited. The Prophet said, "All the earth is given to me as a place of prayer, and as pure, except the burial-ground and the bath."

Hence also, when a person is about to enter a bath, he should offer up an ejaculatory prayer for protection against evil spirits; and should place his left foot first over the threshold. Infidels have often been obliged to distinguish themselves in the bath, by hanging a signet to the neck, or wearing anklets, etc., lest they should receive those marks of respect which should be paid only to believers.[211]

Hunting and hawking, which were common and favourite diversions of the Arabs, and especially of their kings and other great men, have now fallen into comparative disuse among this people. They are, however, still frequently practised by the Persians, and in the same manner as they are generally described in the "Thousand and One Nights."[212] The more common kinds of game are gazelles, or antelopes, hares, partridges, the species of grouse called "?a?a," quails, wild geese, ducks, etc. Against all of these, the hawk is generally employed, but a.s.sisted in the capture of gazelles and hares by dogs. The usual arms of the sportsmen in mediaeval times were the bow and arrow, the cross-bow, the spear, the sword and the mace. When the game is struck down but not killed by any weapon, its throat is immediately cut. If merely stunned and then left to die, its flesh is unlawful food. Hunting is allowable only for the purpose of procuring food, or to obtain the skin of an animal, or for the sake of destroying ferocious and dangerous beasts; but the rule is often disregarded. Amus.e.m.e.nt is certainly, in general, the main object of the Muslim huntsman; but he does not with this view endeavour to prolong the chase; on the contrary, he strives to take the game as quickly as possible. For this purpose nets are often employed, and the hunting party, forming what is called the circle of the chase (?al?at e?-?eyd), surround the spot in which the game is found.

"On the eastern frontiers of Syria," says Burckhardt, "are several places allotted for the hunting of gazelles: these places are called 'masiade' [perhaps more properly, 'ma?yedehs']. An open s.p.a.ce in the plain, of about one mile and a half square, is enclosed on three sides by a wall of loose stones, too high for the gazelles to leap over. In different parts of this wall, gaps are purposely left, and near each gap a deep ditch is made on the outside. The enclosed s.p.a.ce is situated near some rivulet or spring to which in summer the gazelles resort. When the hunting is to begin, many peasants a.s.semble, and watch till they see a herd of gazelles advancing from a distance towards the enclosure, into which they drive them: the gazelles, frightened by the shouts of these people and the discharge of fire-arms, endeavour to leap over the wall, but can only effect this at the gaps, where they fall into the ditch outside, and are easily taken, sometimes by hundreds. The chief of the herd always leaps first: the others follow him one by one. The gazelles thus taken are immediately killed, and their flesh is sold to the Arabs and neighbouring Fella?s."[213] Hunting the wild a.s.s is among the most difficult sports of the Arabs and Persians.

FOOTNOTES:

[150] A pious Muslim generally sits at his meals with the right knee raised, after the example of the Prophet, who adopted this custom in order to avoid too comfortable a posture in eating, as tempting to unnecessary gratification.

[151] Hist. Aegypt. Compend. 180-182. (Oxon. 1800.)

[152] El-Ma?reezee's Khi?a?: Account of the Khaleefehs'

Palaces.

[153] Mishkat el-Ma?abee?, ii. 329.

[154] Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, 8vo. ed. i. 178, 179.

[155] Price's Retrospect of Mahom. History, ii. 229.

[156] Mishkat el-Ma?abee?, ii. 339.

[157] De Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe, i. 125-131, Arabic text.

[158] That is, a race-course for sallies of wit and eloquence on the subject of wine: the word "k.u.meyt" being used, in preference to more than a hundred others that might have been employed, to signify "wine,"

because it bears also the meaning of "a deep red horse." The book has been already quoted in these pages.

[159] His name is not mentioned in my copy; but D'Herbelot states it to have been Shems-ed-Deen Mo?ammad ibn-Bedr-ed-Deen ?asan el-?a?ee; and writes his surname "Naouagi," or "Naouahi."

[160] [Mr. Lane followed the usual custom of travellers of his day who wished to be intimate with the Egyptians, and took the name of Man?oor Effendee. A letter from Bonomi to him, under this name, exists in the British Museum (25,658, f. 67), and has led the compilers of the Index to the Catalogue of Additions to the MSS., published in 1880, into the pardonable error of inventing an "Edward Mansoor Lane."

S. L-P.]

[161] ?ur. ii. 216.

[162] ?ur. iv. 46.

[163] Lev. x. 9.

[164] ?ur. v. 92.

[165] ?albet el-k.u.meyt, chap. ix.

[166] Ibid, khatimeh.

[167] ?albet el-k.u.meyt, 1. 1.

[168] Fakhr-ed-Deen, in De Sacy, Chrest. Arabe.

[169] "While tears of blood trickle from the strainer, the ewer beneath it giggles." (E?-?adr Ibn-El-Wekeel, quoted in the ?albet el-k.u.meyt, chap. xiii.)--The strainer is called "rawoo?."

[170] The Mo?tesib is inspector of the markets, the weights and measures, and provisions, etc.

[171] Mir-at ez-Zeman, events of the year 295.

[172] The cup, when full, was generally called "kas:" when empty, "?ada?," or "jam." The name of kas is now given to a small gla.s.s used for brandy and liqueurs, and similar to our liqueur-gla.s.s: the gla.s.s or cup used for wine is called, when so used, "koobeh:" it is the same as that used for sherbet; but in the latter case it is called "?ulleh."

[173] Es-Suyoo?ee, account of the fruits of Egypt, in his history of that country (MS.)

[174] Es-Suyoo?ee.

[175] Ibid.

[176] El-?azweenee, MS.

[177] Ibid.

[178] Es-Suyoo?ee, ubi supra.

[179] Ibid.

[180] The Arabic names of these fruits are, tuffa? (vulgo, tiffa?), k.u.mmetre, safarjal, mishmish, khokh, teen, jummeyz (vulgo, jemmeyz), 'eneb, nab? or sidr, 'onnab (vulgo, 'annab), ijjas or bar?oo?, joz, loz, bundu?, fustu?, burtu?an, narinj, leymoon, utrujj or turunj, kebbad, toot, zeytoon, and ?a?ab es-sukkar.

[181] ?albet el-k.u.meyt, chap. xvii.; and Es-Suyoo?ee, account of the flowers of Egypt, in his history of that country.

[182] ?albet el-k.u.meyt, chap. xvii.

[183] Ibid.

[184] Es-Suyoo?ee, ubi supra.

[185] The night of the Prophet's Ascension [in dream, into Heaven].

[186] Gabriel, who accompanied the Prophet.

[187] The beast on which Mo?ammad dreamed he rode from Mekkeh to Jerusalem previously to his ascension. These traditions are from Es-Suyoo?ee, ubi supra.