The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume IV Part 21

[FN#29] Arab. "Sikankur" (Gr. {Greek letters}, Lat. Scincus) a lizard (S. officinalis) which, held in the hand, still acts as an aphrodisiac in the East, and which in the Middle Ages was considered a universal-medicine. In the "Adja'ib al-Hind" (Les Merveilles de l'Inde) we find a notice of a bald-headed old man who was compelled to know his wife twice a day and twice a night in consequence of having eaten a certain fish. (Chaps. Ixxviii.

of the translation by M. L. Marcel Devic, from a ma.n.u.script of the tenth century, Paris Lemaire, 1878.) Europeans deride these prescriptions, but Easterns know better: they affect the fancy, that is the brain, and often succeed in temporarily relieving impotence. The recipes for this evil, which is incurable only when it comes from heart-affections, are innumerable in the East; and about half of every medical-work is devoted to them. Many a quack has made his fortune with a few bottles of tincture of cantharides, and a man who could discover a specific would become a millionaire in India only. The curious reader will consult for specimens the Ananga-Ranga Shastra by Koka Pandit; or the "Ruju 'al-Shaykh ila 'l-Sabah fi Kuwwati 'l-Bah" (the Return of the Old Man to Youth in power of Procreation) by Ahmad bin Sulayman known as Ibn Kamal-Basha, in 139 chapters lithographed at Cairo. Of these aphrodisiacs I shall have more to say.

[FN#30] Ala al-Din (our old friend Aladdin) = Glory of the Faith, a name of which Mohammed who preferred the simplest, like his own, would have highly disapproved. The most grateful names to Allah are Abdallah (Allah's Slave) and Abd al-Rahman (Slave of the Compa.s.sionate); the truest are Al-Harith (the gainer, "bread winner") and Al-Hammam (the griever); and the hatefullest are Al-Harb (witch) and Al-Murrah (bitterness, Abu Murrah being a kunyat or by-name of the Devil). Abu al-Shamat (p.r.o.nounced Abushshamat)=Father of Moles, concerning which I have already given details. These names ending in -Din (faith) began with the Caliph Al-Muktadi bi-Amri 'llah (regn. A.H. 467= 1075), who ent.i.tled his Wazir "Zahir al-Din (Backer or Defender of the Faith) and this gave rise to the practice. It may be observed that the superst.i.tion of naming by omens is in no way obsolete.

[FN#31] Meaning that he appeared intoxicated by the pride of his beauty as though it had been strong wine.

[FN#32] i.e. against the evil eye.

[FN#33] Meaning that he had been delicately reared.

[FN#34] A traditional-saying of Mohammed.

[FN#35] So Boccaccio's "Capo bianco" and "Coda verde." (Day iv., Introduct.)

[FN#36] The opening chapter is known as the "Mother of the Book"

(as opposed to Ya Sin, the "heart of the Koran"), the "Surat (chapter) of Praise," and the "Surat of repet.i.tion" (because twice revealed?) or thanksgiving, or laudation (Ai-Masani) and by a host of other names for which see Mr. Rodwell who, however, should not write "Fatthah" (p. xxv.) nor "Fathah" (xxvii.). The Fatihah, which is to Al-Islam much what the "Paternoster" is to Christendom, consists of seven verses, in the usual-Saj'a or rhymed prose, and I have rendered it as follows:

In the name of the Compa.s.sionating, the Compa.s.sionate! * Praise be to Allah who all the Worlds made * The Compa.s.sionating, the Compa.s.sionate * King of the Day of Faith! * Thee only do we adore and of Thee only do we crave aid * Guide us to the path which is straight * The path of those for whom Thy love is great, not those on whom is hate, nor they that deviate * Amen! O Lord of the World's trine.

My Pilgrimage (i. 285; ii. 78 and pa.s.sim) will supply instances of its application; how it is recited with open hands to catch the blessing from Heaven and the palms are drawn down the face (Ibid. i. 286), and other details,

[FN#37] i.e. when the evil eye has less effect than upon children. Strangers in Cairo often wonder to see a woman richly dressed leading by the hand a filthy little boy (rarely a girl) in rags, which at home will be changed to cloth of gold.

[FN#38] Arab. "Asidah" flour made consistent by boiling in water with the addition of "Same" clarified b.u.t.ter) and honey: more like pap than custard.

[FN#39] Arab. "Ghabah" = I have explained as a low-lying place where the growth is thickest and consequently animals haunt it during the noon-heats

[FN#40] Arab. "Akkam," one who loads camels and has charge of the luggage. He also corresponds with the modern Mukharrij or camel-hirer (Pilgrimage i. 339), and hence the word Moucre (Moucres) which, first used by La Brocquiere (A.D. 1432), is still the only term known to the French.

[FN#41] i.e. I am old and can no longer travel.

[FN#42] Taken from Al-Asma'i, the "Romance of Antar," and the episode of the Asafir Camels.

[FN#43] A Mystic of the twelfth century A.D. who founded the Kadiri order (the oldest and chiefest of the four universally recognised), to which I have the honour to belong, teste my diploma (Pilgrimage, Appendix i.). Visitation is still made to his tomb at Baghdad. The Arabs (who have no hard g-letter) alter to "Jilan" the name of his birth-place "Gilan," a tract between the Caspian and the Black Seas.

[FN#44] The well-known Anglo-Indian "Mucuddum;" lit. "one placed before (or over) others"

[FN#45] Koran xiii. 14.

[FN#46] i.e.. his chast.i.ty: this fashion of objecting to infamous proposals is very characteristic: ruder races would use their fists.

[FN#47] Arab. "Rafizi"=the Shi'ah (tribe, sect) or Persian schismatics who curse the first three Caliphs: the name is taken from their own saying "Inna rafizna-hum"=verily we have rejected them. The feeling between Sunni (the so-called orthodox) and Shi'ah is much like the Christian love between a Catholic of Cork and a Protestant from the Black North. As Al-Siyuti or any historian will show, this sect became exceedingly powerful under the later Abbaside Caliphs, many of whom conformed to it and adopted its tractices and innovations (as in the Azan or prayer-call), greatly to the scandal-of their co-religionists.

Even in the present day the hatred between these representatives of Arab monotheism and Persian Guebrism continues unabated. I have given sundry instances m my Pilgrimage, e.g. how the Persians attempt to pollute the tombs of the Caliphs they abhor.

[FN#48] Arab. "Sakka," the Indian "Bihishti" (man from Heaven): Each party in a caravan has one or more.

[FN#49] These "Kiramat" or Saints' miracles, which Spiritualists will readily accept, are recorded in vast numbers. Most men have half a dozen to tell, each of his "Pir" or patron, including the Istidraj or prodigy of chastis.e.m.e.nt. (Dabistan, iii. 274.)

[FN#50] Great granddaughter of the Imam Hasan buried in Cairo and famed for "Kiramat." Her father, governor of Al-Medinah, was imprisoned by Al-Mansur and restored to power by Al-Mahdi. She was married to a son of the Imam Ja'afar al-Sadik and lived a life of devotion in Cairo, dying in A.H. 218=824. The corpse of the Imam al-Shafi'i was carried to her house, now her mosque and mausoleum: it stood in the Darb al-Sabua which formerly divided Old from New Cairo and is now one of the latter's suburbs. Lane (M. E. chaps. x.) gives her name but little more. The mention of her shows that the writer of the tale or the copyist was a Cairene : Abd al-Kadir is world-known : not so the "Sitt."

[FN#51] Arab. "Farkh akrab" for Ukayrib, a vulgarism.

[FN#52] The usual Egyptian irreverence: he relates his abomination as if it were a Hadis or Tradition of the Prophet with due ascription.

[FN#53] A popular name, dim. of Zubdah cream, fresh b.u.t.ter, "creamkin."

[FN#54] Arab. "Mustahall," "Mustahill' and vulg. "Muhallil"

(=one who renders lawful). It means a man hired for the purpose who marries pro forma and after wedding, and bedding with actual-consummation, at once divorces the woman. He is held the reverse of respectable and no wonder. Hence, probably, Mandeville's story of the Islanders who, on the marriage-night, "make another man to lie by their wives, to have their maidenhead, for which they give great hire and much thanks. And there are certain men in every town that serve for no other thing; and they call them cadeberiz, that is to say, the fools of despair, because they believe their occupation is a dangerous one." Burckhardt gives the proverb (No. 79), "A thousand lovers rather than one Mustahall," the latter being generally some ugly fellow picked up in the streets and disgusting to the wife who must permit his embraces.

[FN#55] This is a woman's oath. not used by men.

[FN#56] p.r.o.nounced "Ya Sin" (chaps. x.x.xvi.) the "heart of the Koran" much used for edifying recitation. Some pious Moslems in Egypt repeat it as a Wazifah, or religious task, or as ma.s.ses for the dead, and all educated men know its 83 versets by rote.

[FN#57] Arab. "al-Daud"=the family of David, i.e. David himself, a popular idiom. The prophet's recitation of the "Mazamir"

(Psalter) worked miracles.

[FN#58] There is a peculiar thickening of the voice in leprosy which at once betrays the hideous disease.

[FN#59] These lines have occurred in Night clx.x.xiii. I quote Mr. Payne (in loco) by way of variety.

[FN#60] Where the "Juzam" (leprosy, elephantiasis, morbus sacrum, etc. etc.) is supposed first to show: the swelling would alter the shape. Lane (ii. 267) translates "her wrist which was bipart.i.te."

[FN#61] Arab. "Zakariya" (Zacharias): a play upon the term "Zakar"=the sign of "masculinity." Zacharias, mentioned in the Koran as the educator of the Virgin Mary (chaps. iii.) and repeatedly referred to (chaps. xix. etc.), is a well-known personage amongst Moslems and his church is now the great Cathedral-Mosque of Aleppo.

[FN#62] Arab. " Ark al-Halawat " = vein of sweetness.

[FN#63] Arab. "Futuh," which may also mean openings, has before occurred.

[FN#64] i.e. four times without withdrawing.

[FN#65] i.e. a correspondence of size, concerning which many rules are given in the Ananga-Rangha Shastra which justly declares that discrepancy breeds matrimonial-troubles.

[FN#66] Arab. "Ghurab al-Bayn"= raven of the waste or the parting: hence the bird of Odin symbolises separation (which is also called Al-bayn). The Raven (Ghurab = Heb. Oreb and Lat.

Corvus, one of the prehistoric words) is supposed to be seen abroad earlier than any other bird; and it is ent.i.tled "Abu Zajir," father of omens, because lucky when flying towards the right and v.v. It is opposed in poetry to the (white) pigeon, the emblem of union, peace and happiness. The vulgar declare that when Mohammed hid in the cave the crow kept calling to his pursuers, "Ghar! Ghar!" (cavern, cavern): hence the Prophet condemned him to wear eternal-mourning and ever to repeat the traitorous words. This is the old tale of Coronis and Apollo (Ovid, lib. ii.).

----------" who blacked the raven o'er And bid him prate in his white plumes no more."

[FN#67] This use of a Turkish t.i.tle "Efendi" being=our esquire, and inferior to a Bey, is a rank anachronism, probably of the copyist.

[FN#68] Arab. "Samn"=Hind. "Ghi" b.u.t.ter melted, skimmed and allowed to cool.

[FN#69] Arab. "Ya Wadud," a t.i.tle of the Almighty: the Mac.

Edit. has "O David!"

[FN#70] Arab. "Muwashshahah;" a complicated stanza of which specimens have occurred. Mr. Payne calls it a "ballad," which would be a "Kunyat al-Zidd."

[FN#71] Arab. "Bahaim" (plur. of Bahimah=Heb. Behemoth), applied in Egypt especially to cattle. A friend of the "Oppenheim" house, a name the Arabs cannot p.r.o.nounce was known throughout Cairo as "Jack al-bahaim" (of the cows).