The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume II Part 24

[FN#369] An Egyptian doctor of the law (ninth century).

[FN#370] Koran lxxvii. 35, 36. This is one of the earliest and most poetical chapters of the book.

[FN#371] Abu Hanifah was scourged for refusing to take office and was put to death in prison, it is said by poison (A.H. 150=A.D.

767), for a judicial sentence authorising rebellion against the second Abbaside, Al-Mansur, surnamed Abu'l-Dawanik (Father of Pence) for his exceeding avarice.

[FN#372] "La rayba fi-hi" says the Koran (ii. 1) of itself; and the saying is popularly applied to all things of the Faith.

[FN#373] Arab. "Rival al-Ghayb," somewhat like the "Himalayan Brothers" of modern superst.i.tion. See Herklots (Qanoon-e-Islam) for a long and careful description of these "Mardan-i-Ghayb" (Pers.), a "cla.s.s of people mounted on clouds," invisible, but moving in a circular orbit round the world, and suggesting the Hindu "Lokapalas." They should not be in front of the traveller nor on his right, but either behind or on his left hand. Hence tables, memorial couplets and hemistichs are required to ascertain the station, without which precaution journeys are apt to end badly.

[FN#374] A sweetmeat before noticed.

[FN#375] Door hinges in the east are two projections for the top and bottom of the leaf playing in hollows of the lintel and threshold. It appears to be the primitive form, for we find it in the very heart of Africa. In the basaltic cities of the Hauran, where the doors are of thick stone, they move easily on these pins.

I found them also in the official (not the temple)City of Palmyra, but all broken.

[FN#376] The effect of the poison and of the incantation which accompanied it.

[FN#377] King Omar who had raped her. My sympathies are all with the old woman who nightly punished the royal lecher.

[FN#378] Arab. "Zunnar," the Gr. . Christians and Jews were compelled by the fanatical sumptuary laws of the Caliph Al- Mutawakkil (AD. 856) to wear a broad leather belt in public, hence it became a badge of the Faith. Probably it was confounded with the "Janeo" (Brahmanical thread) and the Parsi sacred girdle called Kashti. (Dabistan i, 297, etc.). Both Mandeville and La Brocquiere speak of "Christians of the Girdle, because they are all girt above," intending Jacobites or Nestorians.

[FN#379] "Silah dar" (Arab. and Pers.)=a military officer of high rank; literally an "armour-bearer," chosen for velour and trustworthiness. So Jonathan had a "young man" (brave) who bare his armour (I Sam. xiv. 1, 6 and 7); and Goliath had a man that bare the s.h.i.+eld before him (ibid. xvii. 7, 41). Men will not readily forget the name of Sulayman Agha, called the Silahdar, in Egypt.

(Lane M. E. chaps. iv.)

[FN#380] It will be told afterwards.

[FN#381] The elder brother thus showed himself a va.s.sal and proved himself a good Moslem by not having recourse to civil war.

[FN#382] Arab. "Ghazwah," the corrupt Gallicism, now Europeanised=raid, foray.

[FN#383] Turk in modern parlance means a Turkoman, a pomade: the settled people call themselves Osmanli or Othmanli. Turkoman=Turk- like.

[FN#384] Arab. "Nimsa;" southern Germans, Austrians; from the Slav.

"Nemica" (any Germans), literally meaning "The dumb" (nemac), because they cannot speak Slav.

[FN#385] Arab. "Dubara" from the Slav. "Dubrovnik," from "Dub" (an oak) and "Dubrava" (an oak forest). Ragusa, once a rival of Venice, gave rise to the word "Argosy." D'Herbelot calls it "Dobravenedik"

or "Good Venice," the Turkish name, because it paid tribute when Venice would not (?).

[FN#386] Arab. "Jawarnah," or, "Jurnah" evidently Zara, a place of many names, Jadera (Hirtius de Bell. Alex. cap. 13), Jadra, Zadra (whence the modern term), Diadora, Diadosca and Jadrossa. This important Liburnian city sent forth many cruisers in crusading days; hence the Arabs came to know its name.

[FN#387] Arab. "Banu'l-Asfar;" which may mean "Pale faces," in the sense of "yeller girls" (New Orleans) and that intended by North American Indians, or, possibly, the peoples with yellow (or rather tow-coloured) hair we now call Russians. The races of Hindostan term the English not "white men," but "red men;" and the reason will at once be seen by comparing a Britisher with a high-caste Nagar Brahman whose face is of parchment colour as if he had drunk exsangue c.u.minum. The Yellow-faces of the text correspond with the Sansk. "Svetadvipa"--Whiteman's Land.

[FN#388] Arab. "Al-Musakhkham." No Moslem believes that Isa was crucified and a favourite fancy is that Judas, changed to the likeness of Jesus, thus paid for his treason. (Evangel. Barnabae.) Hence the resurrection is called not "Kiyamah" but "k.u.mamah"=rubbish. This heresy about the Cross they share with the Docetes, "certain beasts in the shape of men" (says Ignatius), who held that a phantom was crucified. So far the Moslems are logical, for "Isa," being angelically, miraculously and immaculately conceived, could not be; but they contradict themselves when they hold a vacant place near Mohammed's tomb for the body of Isa after his second coming as a forerunner to Mohammed and Doomday.

(Pilgrimage ii. 89.)

[FN#389] A diviner, priest, esp. Jewish, and not belonging to the tribe of Levi.

[FN#390] Again the coa.r.s.est word "Khara." The allusion is to the vulgar saying, "Thou eatest skite!" (i.e. thou talkest nonsense).

Decent English writers modify this to, "Thou eatest dirt:" and Lord Beaconsfield made it ridiculous by turning it into "eating sand."

[FN#391] These silly scandals, which cause us only to smile, excite Easterns to fury. I have seen a Moslem wild with rage on hearing a Christian parody the opening words of the Koran, "Bismillahi 'l- Rahmani 'l-Rahim, Mismish wa Kamar al-din," roughly translated,

"In the name of Allah, the Compa.s.sionating, the Compa.s.sionate!

Apricots and marmalede." The idea of the Holy Merde might have been suggested by the Hindus: see Mandeville, of the archiprotopapaton (prelate) carrying ox-dung and urine to the King, who therewith anoints his brow and breast, &c. And, incredible to relate, this is still practiced after a fas.h.i.+on by the Parsis, one of the most progressive and the sharpest witted of Asiatic races.

[FN#392] Meaning that he had marked his brow with a cross (of ashes?) as certain do on Ash Wednesday.

[FN#393] Syria, the "left-hand land" as has before been explained.

The popular saying about its people is "Shami shumi!"--the Syrian is small potatoes (to render the sense Americanice). Nor did Syrus, the slave in Roman days, bear the best of names. In Al-Hijaz the Syrian is addressed "Abu Sham" (Father of Syria) and insulted as "Abuser of the Salt" (a traitor). Yet many sayings of Mohammed are recorded in honour of Syria, and he sometimes used Syriac words.

Such were "Bakh, bakh" (=euge, before noticed), and "Kakh," a congener of the Latin Cacus and Caca which our day has docked to "cack." (Pilgrimage iii. 115)

[FN#394] Koran xiv. 34. "They (Unbelievers) shall be thrown therein (i.e., the House of Perdition=h.e.l.l); and an unhappy dwelling shall it be."

[FN#395] The leg-cut is a prime favourite with the Eastern Sworder, and a heavy two-handed blade easily severs a horse's leg.

[FN#396] Mohammed repeatedly declared (Koran lxi.) that the Christians had falsified the pa.s.sage ("I go to my Father and the Paraclete shall come," John xvi. 7) promising the advent of the Comforter, (ibid. xiv. 20; xv. 26) by subst.i.tuting the latter word for glorious, renowned, i.e., Ahmed or Mohammed=the praised one. This may have been found in the Arabic translation of the Gospels made by Warakah, cousin to Mohammed's first wife; and hence in Koran lxi. we find Jesus prophesying of an Apostle "whose name shall be Ahmad." The word has consequently been inserted into the Arabic Gospel of Saint Barnabas (Dabistan iii.

67). Moslems accept the Pentateuch, the Psalter and the Gospel; but a.s.sert (Koran, pa.s.sim.) that all extant copies have been hopelessly corrupted, and they are right. Moses, to whom the Pentateuch is attributed, notices his own death and burial--"the mair the miracle," said the old Scotch lady. The "Psalms of David" range over a period of some five hundred years, and there are three Isaiahs who pa.s.s with the vulgar for one. The many apocryphal Gospels, all of which have been held genuine and canonical at different times and in different places, prove that the four, which are still in use, were retained because they lack the manifest absurdities of their discarded rivals.

[FN#397] Arab. " Labbayka; " the Pilgrimage-cry (Night xxii.) which in Arabic is,

Labbayk' Allahumma, Labbayk'!

La Sharika lake, Labbayk'!

Inna 'l-hamda w'al ni'amata lake wa'l mulk!

Labbayk' Allahumma, Labbayk'!

Some add "Here am I, and I honour Thee, the son of Thy two slaves; beneficence and good are all between Thy hands."With the "Talbiyah"

the pilgrims should bless the Prophet, pray Allah to grant Heaven and exclaim, "By Thy mercy spare us from the pains of h.e.l.l-fire!"

(Pilgrimage iii. 232.) Labbayka occurs in the verses attributed to Caliph Ali; so labba=he faced, and yalubbu=it faces (as one house faces another); lastly, he professed submission to Allah; in which sense, together with the verbal noun "Talbiyah," it is used by Al- Hanri (Pref. and a.s.s. of Su'adah).

[FN#398] Arab. "Kissis" (plur. Kusus) from ? .

[FN#399] Koran ii. The "red cow" is evidently the "red heifer" of Barnabas, chaps. vii.

[FN#400] Arab. "Al-Jasalik"= .

[FN#401] This is from the first "Gospel of Infancy," wherein Jesus said to his mother, "Verily I am Jesus, the Son of G.o.d, the Word which thou hast brought forth, as the Angel Gabriel did declare unto thee; and my Father hath sent me to save the world" (chaps. i.

2.). The pa.s.sage is virtually quoted in the Koran (chaps. iii.

141), of course omitting " the Son of G.o.d"

[FN#402] Mohammed allowed his locks to grow down to his ear-lobes but never lower.

[FN#403] Arab. "Lisam" I have explained as a covering for the lower face, made by drawing over it the corner of the head-kerchief (Pilgrimage i. 346). The Lisam of the African Tawarik hoods the eyes so that a man must turn up his face to see, and swathes all the lower half, leaving only the nose exposed. And this is worn by many men by night as well as by day, doubtless to avoid the evil eye. The native Sultans of Darfur, like those of Bornu and others further west, used white muslin as a face-wrap: hence, too, the ceremonies when spitting, etc., etc. The Kufiyah or head-kerchief of the Arabs soon reached Europe and became in Low Latin Cuphia; in Spanish Escofia; in Ital. Cuffia or Scuffia; in French Escoffion, Scofion (Reine Marguerite) Coeffe (une pellicule, marque de bonheur) Coiffe and Coife, &c.; the Scotch Curch or Coif, opposed to the maiden snood, and, lastly our Sergeant-at-Law's Coif.

Littre, the Learned, who in erudition was ne coiffe, has missed this obvious derivation.

[FN#404] "Cutting," throughout the book, alludes to the scymitar with which Arabs never give point; and "thrusting" to the footman's spear and the horseman's lance.

[FN#405] A popular phrase, I repeat, for extreme tenor and consternation.

[FN#406] The name usually applies to a well-known district and city of Al Yaman, where "Koss the eloquent" was bishop in Mohammed's day: the Negiran of D'Herbelot. Here, however, it is the Syrian Najran (Nejran of Missionary Porter's miserable Handbook), now a wretched village near the volcanic Lajja, about one hundred and twenty miles direct south of Damascus and held by Druzes and Christians.