The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume II Part 27

[FN#496] The men who cry to prayer. The first was Bilal, the Abyssinian slave bought and manumitted by Abu Bakr. His simple cry was "I testify there is no Ilah (G.o.d) but Allah (G.o.d)! Come ye to prayers!" Caliph Omar, with the Prophet's permission, added, "I testify that Mohammed is the Apostle of Allah." The prayer-cry which is beautiful and human, contrasting pleasantly with the brazen clang of the bell. now is

Allah is Almighty (bis).

I declare no G.o.d is there but Allah (bis).

Hie ye to Rogation (Hayya=halumma).

Hie ye to Salvation (Falah=prosperity, Paradise).

("Hie ye to Edification," a s.h.i.+'ah adjunct).

Prayer is better than sleep (in the morning, also bis).

No G.o.d is there but Allah

This prayer call is similarly worded and differently p.r.o.nounced and intoned throughout Al-Islam.

[FN#497] i.e. a graceful youth of Al-Hijaz, the Moslem Holy Land, whose "sons" claim especial privileges.

[FN#498] Arab. "harf'= a letter, as we should say a syllable.

[FN#499] She uses the masculine "fata," in order to make the question more mysterious.

[FN#500] The fountain-bowl is often ornamented by a rude mosaic of black and white marble with enlivenments of red stone or tile in complicated patterns.

[FN#501] Arab. "Kubad" = shaddock (citrus dec.u.mana): the huge orange which Captain Shaddock brought from the West Indies; it is the Anglo-Indian pompelmoose, vulg. pummelo. An excellent bitter is made out of the rind steeped in spirits. Citronworts came from India whence they spread throughout the tropics: they were first introduced into Europe by the heroic Joam de Castro and planted in his garden at Cintra where their descendants are still seen.

[FN#502] Arab. "Baklawah," Turk. "Baklava," a kind of pastry with blanched almonds bruised small between layers of dough, baked in the oven and cut into lozenges. It is still common

[FN#503] Her just fear was that the young woman might prove "too clever by half" for her simpleton cousin.

[FN#504] The curse is pregnant with meaning. On Judgment-day the righteous shall arise with their faces s.h.i.+ning gloriously: hence the blessing, "Bayyaz' Allaho wajh-ak" (=Allah whiten thy countenance!). But the wicked shall appear with faces scorched black and deformed by horror (Koran xxiv.): hence "G.o.d blacken thy brow!" I may observe that Easterns curse, the curse being everywhere the language of excited destructiveness; but only Westerns, and these chiefly English, swear, a practice utterly meaningless. "d.a.m.n it" without specifying what the "it" is, sounds like the speech of a naughty child anxious only to use a "wicked word." "d.a.m.n you!" is intelligible all the world over. It has given rise to "les G.o.ddams" in France, "G.o.dames" in the Brazil and "Gotama" amongst the Somal of Eastern Africa, who learn it in Aden,

[FN#505] Arab. "Zardah," usually rice dressed with saffron and honey, from Pers. "Zard," saffron, yellow. See Night dcxii.

[FN#506] Vulgarly called "knuckle-bone," concerning which I shall have something to say.

[FN#507] A bit of wood used in the children's game called "Tab"

which resembles our tip-cat (Lane M. E. chaps. xvii.).

[FN#508] Arab. "Balah," the unripened date, which is considered a laxative and eaten in hot weather.

[FN#509] Lane (i. 611), quoting Al-Kazwini, notes that the date- stone is called "Nawa" (dim. "Nawayah") which also means distance, absence, severance. Thus the lady threatens to cast off her greedy and sleepy lover.

[FN#510] The pad of the carob-bean which changes little after being plucked is an emblem of constancy.

[FN#511] This dirham=48 grains avoir.

[FN#512] The weight would be round: also "Hadid" (=iron) means sharp or piercing (Koran chaps. Vi]. 21). The double "swear" is intended to be very serious. Moreover iron conjures away fiends: when a water-spout or a sand-devil (called Shaytan also in Arabia) approaches, you point the index at the Jinn and say, "Iron, O thou ill-omened one!" Amongst the Ancient Egyptians the metal was ill- omened being the bones of Typhon, 80 here, possibly, we have an instance of early hom?opathy--similia similibus.

[FN#513] Probably fermented to a kind of wine. The insipid fruit (Unnab) which looks like an apple in miniature, is much used in stews, etc. It is the fruit (Nabak cla.s.sically Nabik) of Rhamnus Nabeca (or Sidrat) also termed Zizyphus Jujuba, seu Spina Christi because fabled to have formed the crown of thorns: in the English market this plum is called Chinese j.a.ponica. I have described it in Pilgrimage ii. 205, and have noticed the infusion of the leaves for was.h.i.+ng the dead (ibid. ii. 105): this is especially the use of the "Ber" in India, where the leaves are superst.i.tiously held peculiarly pure. Our dictionaries translate "Sidr" by "Lote-tree"; and no wonder that believers in Homeric writ feel their bile aroused by so poor a realisation of the glorious myth. The Homerids probably alluded to Has.h.i.+sh or Bhang.

[FN#514] Arab. "Azrar": the open collar of the Saub ("Tobe") or long loose dress is symptomatic. The Eastern b.u.t.ton is on the same principle as ours (both having taken the place of the cla.s.sical fibula); but the Moslem affects a loop (like those to which we attach our "frogs") and utterly ignores a b.u.t.ton-hole.

[FN#515] Alluding to the ceremonious circ.u.mambulation of the Holy House at Meccah: a notable irreverence worthy of Kneph-town (Canopus).

[FN#516] The ear-drop is the p.e.n.i.s and the anklet its crown of glory.

[FN#517] Equivalent to our "Alas! Alas!" which, by the by, no one ever says. "Awah," like "Yauh," is now a woman's word although used by Al-Hariri (a.s.sembly of Basrah) and so Al-awwah=one who cries from grief "Awah." A favourite conversational form is "Yehh" with the aspirate exasperated, but it is an expression of astonishment rather than sorrow. It enters into Europe travel-books.

[FN#518] In the text "burst her gall-bladder."

[FN#519] The death of Azizah is told with true Arab pathos and simplicity: it still draws tear. *from the eyes of the Badawi, and I never read it without a "lump in the throat."

[FN#520] Arab. "Inshallah bukra!" a universal saying which is the horror of travellers.

[FN#521] I have explained "Nu'uman's flower" as the anemone which in Grecised Arabic is "Anumiya." Here they are strewed over the tomb; often the flowers are planted in a small bed of mould sunk in the upper surface.

[FN#522] Arab. "Barzakh" lit. a bar, a part.i.tion: in the Koran (chapts. xxiii. and x.x.xv.) the s.p.a.ce or the place between death and resurrection where souls are stowed away. It corresponds after a fas.h.i.+on with the cla.s.sical Hades and the Limbus (Limbo) of Christendom, e.g.. Limbus patrum, infantum, fatuorum. But it must not be confounded with Al-A'araf, The Moslem purgatory.

[FN#523] Arab. "Zukak al-Nakib," the latter word has been explained as a chief, leader, head man.

[FN#524] Moslems never stand up at such times, for a spray of urine would make their clothes ceremonially impure: hence the scrupulous will break up with stick or knife the hard ground in front of them.

A certain pilgrim was reported to have made this blunder which is hardly possible in Moslem dress. A high personage once asked me if it was true that he killed a man who caught him in a standing position; and I found to my surprise that the absurd scandal was already twenty years old. After urinating the Moslem wipes the os p.e.n.i.s with one to three bits of stone, clay or handfuls of earth, and he must perform Wuzu before he can pray. Tournefort (Voyage au Levant iii. 335) tells a pleasant story of certain Christians at Constantinople who powdered with "Poivre-d'Inde" the stones in a wall where the Moslems were in the habit of rubbing the os p.e.n.i.s by way of wiping The same author (ii. 336) strongly recommends a translation of Rabelais' Torcheculative chapter (Lib i., chaps. 13) for the benefit of Mohammedans.

[FN#525] Arab. "Nuhas ahmar," lit. red bra.s.s.

[FN#526] The cup is that between the lady's legs.

[FN#527] A play upon "Sak" = calf, or leg, and "Saki," a cup- bearer. The going round (Tawaf) and the running (Sa'i) allude to the circ.u.mambulation of the Ka'abah, and the running between Mount Safa and Marwah (Pilgrimage ii. 58, and iii. 343). A religious Moslem would hold the allusion highly irreverent.

[FN#528] Lane (i. 614) never saw a woman wearing such kerchief which is deshabille. It is either spread over the head or twisted turband-wise.

[FN#529] The "Kasabah" was about two fathoms of long measure, and sometimes 12 feet; but the length has been reduced.

[FN#530] "Bat and ball," or hockey on horseback (Polo) is one of the earliest Persian games as shown by every ill.u.s.trated copy of Firdausi's "Shahnameh." This game was played with a Kurrah or small hand-ball and a long thin bat crooked at the end called in Persian Chaugan and in Arabic Saulajan. Another sense of the word is given in the Burhan-i-Kati translated by Vullers (Lex. Persico-Latinum), a large bandy with bent head to which is hung an iron ball, also called Kaukabah (our "morning-star") and like the umbrella it denotes the grandees of the court. The same Kaukabah particularly distinguished one of the Marquesses of Waterford. This Polo corresponds with the folliculus, the pallone, the baloun-game (moyen age) of Europe, where the horse is not such a companion of man; and whereof the cla.s.sics sang:--

Folle decet pueros ludere, folle senes.

In these days we should spell otherwise the "folle" of seniors playing at the ball or lawn-tennis.

[FN#531] "Dalil" means a guide; ''Dalilah," a woman who misguides, a bawd. See the Tale of Dalilah the Crafty, Night dcxcviii.

[FN#532] i.e. she was a martyr.

[FN#533] Arab. "Ghas.h.i.+m" a popular and insulting term, our "Johnny Raw." Its use is shown in Pilgrimage i. 110.

[FN#534] Bathers pay on leaving the Hammam; all enter without paying.

[FN#535] i.e. she swore him upon his sword and upon the Koran: a loaf of bread is sometimes added. See Lane (i. 615).