The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume II Part 22

"Ali" and "Gebr." Ali is a n.o.ble figure in Moslem history.

[FN#279] The emanc.i.p.ation from the consequences of his sins; or it may mean a holy death.

[FN#280] Battle fought near Al-Medinah A.D. 625. The word is derived from "shad" (one). I have described the site in my Pilgrimage, (vol. ii. 227).

[FN#281] "Haphsa" in older writers; Omar's daughter and one of Mohammed's wives, famous for her connection with the ma.n.u.scripts of the Koran. From her were (or claimed to be) descended the Hafsites who reigned in Tunis and extended their power far and wide over the Maghrib (Mauritania), till dispossessed by the Turks.

[FN#282] i.e. humbly without the usual strut or swim: it corresponds with the biblical walking or going softly. (I Kings xxi. 27; Isaiah x.x.xviii. 15, etc.)

[FN#283] A theologian of the seventh and eighth centuries.

[FN#284] i.e. to prepare himself by good works, especially alms-giving, for the next world.

[FN#285] A theologian of the eighth century.

[FN#286] Abd al-Aziz was eighth Ommiade (regn. A.H. 99=717) and the fifth of the orthodox, famed for a piety little known to his house.

His most celebrated saying was, " Be constant in meditation on death: if thou bein straitened case 'twill enlarge it, and if in affluence 'twill straiten it upon thee." He died. poisoned, it is said, in A.H 101,

[FN#287] Abu Bakr originally called Abd al-Ka'abah (slave of the Ka'abah) took the name of Abdullah and was surnamed Abu Bakr (father of the virgin) when Mohammed, who before had married only widows, took to wife his daughter, the famous or infamous Ayishah.

"Bikr" is the usual form, but "Bakr," primarily meaning a young camel, is metaphorically applied to human youth (Lane's Lex. s.

c.). The first Caliph was a cloth-merchant, like many of the Meccan chiefs. He is described as very fair with bulging brow, deep set eyes and thin-checked, of slender build and lean loined, stooping and with the backs of his hands fleshless. He used tinctures of Henna and Katam for his beard. The Persians who hate him, call him "Pir-i-Kaftar," the old she-hyaena, and believe that he wanders about the deserts of Arabia in perpetual rut which the males must satisfy.

[FN#288] The second, fifth, sixth and seventh Ommiades.

[FN#289] The mother of Omar bin Abd al-Aziz was a granddaughter of Omar bin al-Khattab.

[FN#290] Brother of this Omar's successor, Yezid II.

[FN#291] So the Turkish proverb "The fish begins to stink at the head."

[FN#292] Calling to the slaves.

[FN#293] When the "Day of Arafat" (9th of Zu'l-Hijjah) falls upon a Friday. For this Hajj al- Akbar see my Pilgrimage iii. 226. It is often confounded by writers (even by the learned M. Caussin de Perceval) with the common Pilgrimage as opposed to the Umrah, or "

Lesser Pilgrimage" (ibid. iii. 342, etc.). The latter means etymologically cohabiting with a woman in her father's house as opposed to 'Ars or leading her to the husband's home: it is applied to visiting Meccah and going through all the pilgrim-rites but not at the Pilgrimage-season. Hence its t.i.tle "Hajj al-Asghar" the "Lesser Hajj." But "Umrah" is also applied to a certain ceremony between the hills Safa (a large hard rock) and Marwah (stone full of flints), which accompanies the Hajj and which I have described (ibid. iii. 344). At Meccah I also heard of two places called Al-Umrah, the Greater in the Wady Fatimah and the Lesser half way nearer the city (ibid. iii. 344).

[FN#294] A fair specimen of the unworthy egoism which all religious systems virtually inculcate Here a pious father leaves his children miserable to save his own dirty soul.

[FN#295] Chief of the Banu Tamin, one of the n.o.blest of tribes, derived from Tamim, the uncle of Kuraysh (Koreish); hence the poets sang:--

There cannot be a son n.o.bler than Kuraysh, Nor an uncle n.o.bler than Tamim.

The high minded Tamin is contrasted with the mean-spirited Kays, who also gave rise to a tribe; and hence the saying concerning one absolutely inconsistent, "Art thou now Tamin and then Kays?"

[FN#296] Surnamed Al-Sakafi, Governor of Al-Yaman and Irak.

[FN#297] Tenth Ommiade (regn. A H. 105-125 = 724-743).

[FN#298] Or "clothe thee in worn-out clothes" i.e. "Become a Fakir"

or religious mendicant.

[FN#299] This gratuitous incest in ignorance injures the tale and is as repugnant to Moslem as to Christian taste.

[FN#300] The child is named either on the day of its birth or on that day week. The father whispers it in the right ear, often adding the Azan or prayer-call, and repeating in the left ear the "Ikamah" or Friday sentence. There are many rules for choosing names according to the week-day, the ascendant planet, the "Sortes Coranicae," etc.

[FN#301] Amongst Moslems as amongst Christians there are seven deadly sins: idolatry, murder, falsely charging modest women with unchast.i.ty, robbing orphans, usury, desertion in Holy War and disobedience to parents. The difference between the two creeds is noteworthy. And the sage knows only three, intemperance, ignorance and egoism.

[FN#302] Meaning, "It was decreed by Destiny; so it came to pa.s.s,"

appropriate if not neat.

[FN#303] The short, stout, dark, long-haired and two-bunched camel from "Bukhtar" (Bactria), the "Eastern" (Bakhtar) region on the Amu or Jayhun (Oxus) River; afterwards called Khorasan. The two-humped camel is never seen in Arabia except with northern caravans, and to speak of it would be a sore test of Badawi credulity.

[FN#304] "Kaylulah" is the "forty-winks" about noon: it is a Sunnat or Practice of the Prophet who said, "Make the mid-day siesta, for verily at this hour the devils sleep not." "Aylulain" is slumbering after morning prayers (our "beauty-sleep"), causing heaviness andid leness: "Ghaylulah" is dozing about 9 a.m. engendering poverty and wretchedness: "Kaylulah" (with the guttural Kaf) is sleeping before evening prayers and "Faylulah" is slumbering after sunset--both held to be highly detrimental. (Pilgrimage ii 49.)

[FN#305] The Biblical "Hamath" (Hightown) too well known to require description. It is still famous for the water-wheels mentioned by al-Hariri (a.s.sembly of the Banu Haram).

[FN#306] When they say, "The levee flashes bright on the hills of Al-Yaman," the allusion is to the south quarter, where summer-lightning is seen. Al-Yaman (always with the article) means, I have said, the right-hand region to one facing the rising sun and Al-Sham (Syria) the left-hand region.

[FN#307] Again "he" for "she," in delicacy and jealousy of making public the beauty or conditions of the "veiled s.e.x." Even public singers would hesitate to use a feminine p.r.o.noun. As will be seen however, the rule is not invariably kept and hardly ever in Badawi poetry.

[FN#308] The normal pun on "Nuzhat al-Zaman" = Delight of the Age or Time.

[FN#309] The reader will find in my Pilgrimage (i. 305) a sketch of the Takht-rawan or travelling-litter, in which pilgrimesses are wont to sleep.

[FN#310] In poetry it holds the place of our Zephyr; end the "Bad- i-Saba"=Breeze o' the morn, Is much addressed by Persian poets.

[FN#311] Here appears the nervous, excitable, hysterical Arab temperament which is almost phrensied by the neighbourhood of a home from which he had run away.

[FN#312] Zau al-Makan and Nuzhat al-Zaman.

[FN#313] The idea is essentially Eastern, "A lion at home and a lamb abroad" is the popular saying.

[FN#314] Arab. "Hubb al-Watan" (= love of birthplace, patriotism) of which the Tradition says "Min al-Iman" (=is part of man's religion).

[FN#315] He is supposed to speak en prince; and he yields to a prayer when he spurns a command.

[FN#316] In such caravans each party must keep its own place under pain of getting into trouble with the watchmen and guards.

[FN#317] Mr. Payne (ii. 109) borrows this and the next quotation from the Bull Edit. i. 386.

[FN#318] For the expiation of inconsiderate oaths see Koran (chaps.

v.). I cannot but think that Al-Islam treats perjury too lightly: all we can say is-that it improves upon Hinduism which practically seems to leave the punishment to the G.o.ds.

[FN#319] "Kausar," as has been said, represents the cla.s.sical nectar, the Amrita of the Hindus.

[FN#320] From Bull Edit. i. 186. The couplet in the Mac. Edit. i.

457 is very wildly applied.

[FN#321] The "insula" of Sancho Panza.