The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume V Part 36

[FN#147] Arab. "Arab al-Araba," as before noticed (vol. i. 12) the pure and genuine blood as opposed to the "Musta'aribah," the "Muta'arribah," the "Mosarabians" and other Araboids; the first springing from Khatan (Yaktan?) and the others from Adnan. And note that "Arabi" = a man of pure Arab race, either of the Desert or of the city, while A'arabi applies only to the Desert man, the Badawi.

[FN#148] Koran x.x.xviii. 2, speaking of the Unbelievers (i.e.

non-Moslems) who are full of pride and contention.

[FN#149] One of the Ashab, or Companions of the Apostle, that is them who knew him personally. (Pilgrimage ii. 80, etc.) The Ashab al-Suffah (Companions of the bench or sofa) were certain houseless Believers lodged by the Prophet. (Pilgrimage ii. 143).

[FN#150] Hence Omar is ent.i.tled "Al-Adil = the Just." Readers will remember that by Moslem law and usage murder and homicide are offences to be punished by the family, not by society or its delegates. This system reappears in civilisation under the denomination of "Lynch Law," a process infinitely distasteful to lawyers (whom it abolishes) and most valuable when administered with due discretion.

[FN#151] Lane translates (ii. 592) "from a desire of seeing the face of G.o.d;" but the general belief of Al-Islam is that the essence of Allah's corporeal form is different from man's. The orthodox expect to "see their Lord on Doom-day as they see the full moon" (a tradition). But the Mu'atazilites deny with the existence of matter the corporiety of Alah and hold that he will be seen only with the spiritual eyes, i.e. of reason.

[FN#152] See Gesta Romanorum, Tale cviii., "of Constancy in adhering to Promises," founded on Damon and Pythias or, perhaps, upon the Arabic.

[FN#153] Arab. "Al-Ahram," a word of unknown provenance. It has been suggested that the singular form (Haram), preceded by the Coptic article "pi" (= the) suggested to the Greeks "Pyramis." But this word is still sub judice and every Egyptologist seems to propose his own derivation. Brugsch (Egypt i. 72) makes it Greek, the Egyptian being "Ab.u.mir," while "pir- am-us" = the edge of the pyramid, the corners running from base to apex. The Egyptologist proves also what the Ancients either ignored or forgot to mention, that each pyramid had its own name.

[FN#154] Arab. "Ahkam," in this matter supporting the "Pyramidologists."

[FN#155] All imaginative.

[FN#156] It has always been my opinion founded upon considerations too long to detail, that the larger Pyramids contain many unopened chambers. Dr. Grant Bey of Cairo proposed boring through the blocks as Artesian wells are driven. I cannot divine why Lane (ii, 592) chose to omit this tale, which is founded on historic facts and interests us by suggesting a comparison between Mediaeval Moslem superst.i.tions and those of our xixth Century, which to our descendants will appear as wild, if not as picturesque, as those of The Nights. The "inspired British inch" and the building by Melchisedek (the Shaykh of some petty Syrian village) will compare not unaptly with the enchanted swords, flexible gla.s.s and guardian spirits. But the Pyramidennarren is a race which will not speedily die out: it is based on Nature, the Pyramids themselves.

[FN#157] Arab. "Rizm"; hence, through the Italian Risma our ream (= 20 quires of paper, etc.), which our dictionaries derive from (!). See "frail" in Night dcccx.x.xviii.

[FN#158] Arab. "Tarikah" = the path trodden by ascetics and mystics in order to attain true knowledge (Ma'rifat in Pers.

Danish). These are extensive subjects: for the present I must refer readers to the Dabistan, iii. 35 and iii. 29, 36-7.

[FN#159] Alluding to the Fishar or "Squeeze of the tomb." This is the Jewish Hibbut hakkeber which all must endure, save those who lived in the Holy Land or died on the Sabbath-eve (Friday night). Then comes the questioning by the Angels Munkar and Nakir (vulgarly called Nakir and Nakir) for which see Lane (M.E.

chapt. xviii.). In Egypt a "Mulakkin" (intelligencer) is hired to prompt and instruct the dead. Moslems are beginning to question these facts of their faith: a Persian acquaintance of mine filled his dead father's mouth with flour and finding it in loco on opening the grave, publicly derided the belief. But the Mullahs had him on the hip, after the fashion of reverends, declaring that the answers were made through the whole body, not only by the mouth. At last the Voltairean had to quit Shiraz.

[FN#160] Arab. "Wali" = a saint, Santon (Ital. Form) also a slave. See in Richardson (Dissert. iii.), an ill.u.s.tration of the difference between Wali and Wali as exemplified by the Caliph al- Kadir and Mahmud of Ghazni.

[FN#161] Arab. "Tin" = the tenacious clay puddled with chaff which serves as mortar for walls built of Adobe or sun dried brick. I made a mistake in my Pilgrimage (i.10) translating Ras al-Tin the old Pharos of Alexandria, by "Headland of Figs." It is Headland of Clay, so called from the argile there found and which supported an old pottery.

[FN#162] The danik (Pers. Dang) is the sixth of a dirham. Mr.

S. L. Poole (The Acad. April 26, '79) prefers his uncle's translation "a sixth" (what of?) to Mr. Payne's "farthing." The latter at any rate is intelligible.

[FN#163] The devotee was "Saim al-dahr" i.e. he never ate nor drank from daylight to dark throughout the year.

[FN#164] The ablution of a common man differs from that of an educated Moslem as much as the eating of a clown and a gentleman.

Moreover there are important technical differences between the Wuzu of the Sunni and the Shi'ah.

[FN#165] i.e., by honouring his father.

[FN#166] This young saint was as selfish and unnatural a sinner as Saint Alexius of the Gesta Romanorum (Tale xv.), to whom my friend, the late Thomas Wright, administered just and due punishment.

[FN#167] The verses are affecting enough, though by no means high poetry.

[FN#168] The good young man cut his father for two reasons: secular power (an abomination to good Moslems) and defective t.i.tle to the Caliphate. The latter is a trouble to Turkey in the present day and with time will prove worse.

[FN#169] Umm Amri (written Amru and p.r.o.nounced Amr') a matronymic, "mother of Amru." This story and its terminal verse is a regular Joe Miller.

[FN#170] Abuse and derision of schoolmaster are staple subjects in the East as in the West, (Quem Dii oderunt paedagogum fecerunt). Anglo-Indians will remember:

"Miyan-ji ti-ti!

Bachche-ki gand men anguli ki thi!"

("Schoolmaster hum!

Who fumbled and fingered the little boy's b.u.m?")

[FN#171] Arab. "Mujawirin" = the lower servants, sweepers, etc. See Pilgrimage ii. 161, where it is also applied to certain "settlers" at Al-Medinah. Burckhardt (No. 480) notices another meaning "foreigners who attend mosque-lectures" and quotes the saying, "A. pilgrimaged:" quoth B. "yes! and for his villanies resideth (Mujawir) at Meccah."

[FN#172] The custom (growing obsolete in Egypt) is preserved in Afghanistan where the learned wear turbans equal to the canoe- hats of the Spanish cardinals.

[FN#173] Arab. "Makmarah," a metal cover for the usual brasier or pan of charcoal which acts as a fire-place. Lane (ii. 600) does not translate the word and seems to think it means a belt or girdle, thus blunting the point of the dominie's excuse.

[FN#174] This story, a very old Joe Miller, was told to Lane as something new and he introduced it into his Modern Egyptians, end of chapt. ii.

[FN#175] This tale is a mere abbreviation of "The King and his Wazir's Wife," in the Book of Sindibad or the Malice of Women, Night dcxxviii., {which see for annotations}.

[FN#176] The older "Roe" which may be written "Rukh" or "Rukhkh." Colonel Yule, the learned translator of Marco Polo, has shown that "Roc's" feathers were not uncommon curiosities in mediaeval ages; and holds that they were mostly fronds of the palm Raphia vinifera, which has the largest leaf in the vegetable kingdom and which the Moslems of Zanzibar call "Satan's date-tree." I need hardly quote "Frate Cipolla and the Angel Gabriel's Feather." (Decameron vi. 10.)

[FN#177] The tale is told in a bald, disjointed style and will be repeated in Sindbad the Seaman where I shall again notice the "Roc." See Night dx.x.xvii., etc.

[FN#178] Hirah in Mesopotamia was a Christian city and princ.i.p.ality subject to the Persian Monarchs; and a rival to the Roman kingdom of Gha.s.san. It has a long history, for which see D'Herbelot.

[FN#179] A pre-Islamite poet.

[FN#180] Arab. "Bika'a," alluding to the pilgrimages made to monasteries and here equivalent to, "Address ye to the road,"

etc.

[FN#181] Whose by name was Abu Ali, a poet under the Abbasides (eighth and ninth centuries).

[FN#182] A well-known quarter of Baghdad, often mentioned in The Nights.

[FN#183] Another well-known poet of the time.

[FN#184] Arab. "Sardab": noticed before.

[FN#185] A gigantic idol in the Ka'abah, destroyed by Mohammed: it gave name to a tribe.

[FN#186] Arab. "Ya Kawwad:" hence the Port. and Span.

Alcoviteiro.

[FN#187] Arab "Tufayli," a term before noticed; the cla.s.s was as well-known in Baghdad and Cairo as in ancient Rome.

[FN#188] Arab. "Jauzar"=a bubalus (Antilope defessa), also called "Aye" from the large black eyes. This bovine antelope is again termed Bakar al-Wahsh (wild cattle) or "Bos Sylvestris"

(incerti generic, Forsk.). But Janzar also signifies hart, so I render it by "Ariel" (the well-known antelope).

[FN#189] Arab. "Taraib" plur. of taribah. The allusion is to the heart, and "the little him's a her."

[FN#190] A well-known poet of the ninth century (A.D.).