The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 15 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (classic romance novels .TXT) 📖

City of the Prophet, and vulgarly, Al-Madinah, the City.

“Tayyibah,” the good, sweet, or lawful: “Al-Munawwarah” = the enlightened, i.e. by the light of The Faith and the column of (odylic) flame supposed to be based upon the Prophet’s tomb. For more, see my Pilgrimage, ii. 162. I may note how ridiculously the storyteller displays ignorance in Al-Hajjaj, who knew the Moslem’s Holy Land by heart.

[FN#52] In text “Taaw�l,” = the commentary or explanation of Moslem Holy Writ: “Tanz�l” = coming down, revelation of the Koran: “Tahr�m” = rendering any action “har�m” or unlawful, and “Tah�l” = the converse, making word or deed canonically legal.

Those are well known theological terms.

[FN#53] The Ban� Gh�lib, whose eponymous forefather was Gh�lib, son of Fihr, the well known ancestor of Mohammed.

[FN#54] In text “Hasab wa Nasab.” It is told of Al-Mu’izz bi D�ni’llah, first Fatimate Caliph raised to the throne of Egypt, that he came forward to the elective assembly and drew his sword half way out of the scabbard and exclaimed “H�z� Nasab�” (this is my genealogy); and then cast handfuls of gold amongst the crowd, crying, “H�z� Hasab�” (such is my title to reign). This is as good as the traditional saying of Napoleon the Great at his first assuming the iron crown—“God gave her to me; woe for whoso toucheth her” (the crown).

[FN#55] [In MS. “takhs-u,” a curious word of venerable yet green old age, used in the active form with both transitive and intransitive meaning: to drive away (a dog, etc.), and to be driven away. In the Koran (xxiii. 110) we find the imper.

“ikhsa�” = be ye driven away, an in two other places (ii. 61, vii. 166), the nomen agentis “kh�si” = “scouted” occurs, as applied to the apes into which the Sabbath-breaking Jews were transformed. In the popular language of the present day it has become equivalent with “kh�ba,” to be disappointed, and may here be translated: thou wilt fail ignominiously.—ST]

[FN#56] Scott introduces (p. 262), “the tyrant, struck with his magnanimity, became calm, and commanding the executioner to release the youth, said, For the present I forbear, and will not kill thee unless thy answers to my further questions shall deserve it. They then entered on the following dialogue: Hyjuawje hoping to entrap him in discourse.”

[FN#57] See the dialogue on this subject between Al-Hajjaj and Y�hy� ibn Yamar in Ibn Khallikan, iv. 60.

[FN#58] Surah xxxiii. (The Confederates), v. 40, which ends, “And Allah knoweth all things.”

[FN#59] Surah lix. (The Emigration), v. 40: the full quotation would be, “The spoil, taken from the townsfolk and assigned by Allah to His Apostle, belongeth to Allah and to the Apostle and to his kindred and to the orphan and to the poor and to the wayfarer, that naught thereof may circulate among such only of you as be rich. What the Apostle hath given you, take. What he hath refused you, refuse. And fear ye Allah, for Allah is sure in punishing.”

[FN#60] The House of H�shim, great-grandfather to the Prophet.

[FN#61] Ibn Khallikan (vol. i. 354) warns us that “Al-Ta�” means belonging to the Ta� which is a famous tribe. This relative adjective is of irregular formation; analogy would require it to be T���; but the formation of relative adjectives admits some variations; thus from dahr (time) is derived duhr� (temporal) and from sahl (a plain), suhl� (plain, level). The author might also have told us that there is always a reason for such irregularities; thus “Dahr�” (from Dahr) would mean a Mundanist, one who believes in this world and not the next or another.

[FN#62] The “Ban� Thak�f” was a noble tribe sprung from Iy�d (Ibn Khallikan i. 358-363); but the ignorant and fanatic scribe uses every means, fair and foul, to defame Al-Hajjaj. It was a great race and a well known, living about T�if in the Highlands East of Meccah, where they exist to the present day. Mr. Doughty (loc.

cit. ii. 174) mentions a kindred of the Juhaynah Badawin called El-Thegif (Thak�f) of whom the Medinites say, “Allah ya’alan Theg�f Kudd�m takuf” (God damn the Theg�f ere thou stand still).

They are called “Yahud” (Jews), probably meaning pre-Islamitic Arabs, and are despised accordingly.

[FN#63] In Arab. “Jady” = the Zodiacal sign Capricorn.

[FN#64] We find similar facetia in Mullah J�m� (Garden viii.).

When a sheep leapt out of the stream, her tail happened to be raised, and a woolcarder said laughing:—“I have seen thy parts genital.” She turned her head and replied, “O miserable, for many a year I have seen thee mother-naked yet never laughed I.” This alludes to the practice of such artisans who on account of the heat in their workshops and the fibre adhering to their clothes work in naturalibus. See p. 178, the Beharist�n (Abode of Spring). Printed by the Kamashastra Society for Private Subscribers only. Benares, 1887.

[FN#65] This passage is not Koranic, and, according to Prof.

Houdas, the word “Muhkaman” is never found in the Holy Volume.

[The passage is not a literal quotation, but it evidently alludes to Koran iii. 5: “Huwa’llaz� anzal� �alayka �l-kit�ba minhu �y�tun muh-kam�tun” = He it is who sent down to thee the book, some of whose signs (or versets) are confirmed. The singular “muhkamatun” is applied (xlvii.) to “S�ratun,” a chapter, and in both places the meaning of “confirmed” is “not abrogated by later revelations.” Hence the sequel of my first quotation these portions are called “the mother (i.e. groundwork) of the book,”

and the learned Sayyid is not far from the mark after all.—ST]

[FN#66] Surah ii. (The Cow) v. 56, the verse beginning, “Allah!

there be no God but He; … His Throne overreacheth the Heavens and the Hearth,” etc.

[FN#67] Surah lxxiii. (The Bee) v. 92, ending with, “And he forbiddeth frowardness and wrongdoing and oppression; and He warneth you that haply may ye be warned.”

[FN#68] Surah (Meccah) xcix. vv. 7 and 8: in text “Mithk�la Zarratin,” which Mr. Rodwell (p. 28) englishes “an atom’s weight of good,” and adds in a foot-note, “Lit. a single ant.” Prof.

Houdas would render it, Quiconque aura fait la valeur d’un mitskal de millet en fait de bien; but I hardly think that “Zarrah” can mean “Durrah” = millet. [“Mithk�l” in this context is explained by the commentators by “Wazn” = weight, this being the original meaning of the word which is a nomen instrumenti of the form “Mif’�l,” denoting “that by which the gravity of bodies is ascertained.” Later on it became the well-known technical term for a particular weight. “Zarrah,” according to some glossarists, is the noun of unity of “Zarr,” the young ones of the any, an antlet, which is said to weigh the twelfth part of a “Kitm�r” =

pedicle of the date0fruit, or the hundredth part of a grain of barley, or to have no weight at all. Hence “Mukhkh al-Zarr,” the brains of the antlet, means a thing that does not exist or is impossible to be found. According to others, “Zarrah” is a particle of al-Hab�, i.e. of the motes that are seen dancing in the sunlight, called “Sonnenst�ubchen” in German, and “atomo solare” in Italian. Koran xxi. 48 and xxxi. 15 we find the expression “Mithk�la Habbatin min Khardalin” = of the weight of a mustard-seed, used in a similar sense with the present quotation.—ST]

[FN#69] Surah lxx. 38, Mr. Rodwell (p. 60) translates, “Is it that every man of them would fain enter the Garden of Delights?”

[FN#70] Surah xxxix. 54: they sinned by becoming apostates from Al-Islam. The verset ends, “Verily all sins doth Allah forgive: aye, Gracious, and Merciful is He.”

[FN#71] Surah ii. 159; the quotation in the MS. is cut short.

[FN#72] Surah ii. 107; the end of the verse is, “Yet both are readers of the Book. So with like words say they (the pagan Arabs) who have no knowledge.”

[FN#73] Surah li. (The Scattering), v. 56.

[FN#74] Surah ii. v. 30.

[FN#75] Surah xl. (The Believer), v. 78. In the text it is fragmentary. I do not see why Mr. Rodwell founds upon this verset a charge against the Prophet of ignorance concerning Jewish history: Mohammed seems to have followed the Talmud and tradition rather than the Holy Writ of the Hebrews.

[FN#76] Surah (The Believers) lxiv. 108.

[FN#77] Surah xxxv. (The Creator or the Angels), v. 31: The sentence concludes in v. 32, “Who of His bounty hath placed us in a Mansion that shall abide for ever, therein no evil shall reach us, and therein no weariness shall touch us.”

[FN#78] Surah (“Sad”) lix. 54; Iblis, like Satan in the Book of Job, is engaged in dialogue with the Almighty. I may here note that Scott (p. 265) has partially translated these Koranic quotations, but he has given only one reference.

[FN#79] In text “An� min ahli z�lika,” of which the vulgar equivalent would be “Kiz�” (for “Kaz�lika,” “Kaz�”) = so (it is)!

[FN#80] i.e. On an empty stomach, to “open the spittle” is = to break the fast. Sir Wm. Gull in his evidence before a committee of the House of Commons deposed that after severe labor he found a bunch of dried raisins as efficacious a “pick-me up” as a glass of stimulants. The value of dried grapes to the Alpinist is well known.

[FN#81] Arab. “Al-Kad�d” = jerked (charqui = chaire cuite) meat-flesh smoked, or (mostly) sun-dried.

[FN#82] I have noticed (i. 345) one of the blunders in our last unfortunate occupation of Egypt where our soldiers died uselessly of dysenteric disease because they were rationed with heating beef instead of digestible mutton.

[FN#83] Arab. “Al-Marham al-akbar.”

[FN#84] [In the text: “Al-Kisrat al-y�bisah ‘al� ‘l-R�k fa-innah�

tukhlik jam�‘a m� ‘al� fum al-m�dah min al-balgham,” of which I cannot make anything but: a slice of dry bread (kisrah = piece of bread) on the spittle (i.e. to break the fast), for it absorbs (lit. uses up, fourth form of “khalik” = to be worn out) all that there may be of phlegm on the mouth of the stomach. Can it be that the dish “Khushk-n�n” (Pers. = dry bread) is meant, of which the village clown in one of Spitta Bey’s tales, when he was treated to it by Harun al-Rashid thought it must be the “Hamm�m,”

because he has heard his grandmother say, that the Hamm�m (bath) is the most delightful thing in the world?�ST]

[FN#85] The stomach has two mouths, oesophagic above (which is here alluded to) and pyloric below.

[FN#86] Arab. “‘Irk al-Uns�” = chord� testiculorum, in Engl.

simply the cord.

[FN#87] The “‘Aj�z” is a woman who ceases to have her monthly period: the idea is engrained in the Eastern mind and I cannot but believe in it seeing the old-young faces of men who have “married their grandmothers” for money or folly, and what not.

[FN#88] Arab. “Al-‘Ak�k,” vol. iii. 179: it is a tradition of the Prophet that the best of bezels for a signet-ring is the carnelian, and such are still the theory and practice of the Moslem East.

[FN#89] Arab. “Tuh�l;” in text “Tayhal.” Mr. Doughty (Arabia Deserta, i. 547) writes the word “Tahal” and translates it “ague-cake,” i.e. the throbbing enlarged spleen, left after fevers, especially those of Al-Hij�z and Khaybar. [The form “Tayh�l” with a plural “Taw�hil” for the usual “Tih�l” = spleen is quoted by Dozy from the valuable Vocabulary published by Schiaparelli, 1871, after an old MS. of the end of the xiii.

century. It has the same relation to the verb “tayhal” = he suffered from the spleen, which “Tih�l” bears the same verb “tuhil,” used passively in the same sense. The