The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume V Part 40

[FN#324] I need hardly note that Mohammed borrowed his pilgrimage-practices from the pagan Arabs who, centuries before his day, danced around the Meccan Ka'abah. Nor can he be blamed for having perpetuated a Gentile rite, if indeed it be true that the Ka'abah contained relics of Abraham and Ishmael.

[FN#325] On first sighting Meccah. See Night xci.

[FN#326] Arab. "Tawaf:" the place is called Mataf and the guide Mutawwif. (Pilgrimage, iii. 193, 205.) The seven courses are termed Ashwat.

[FN#327] Stoning the Devil at Mina. (Pilgrimage, iii. 282.) Hence Satan's t.i.tle "the Stoned" (lapidated not castrated).

[FN#328] Koran viii. 66; in the chapter entided "Spoil," and relating mainly to the "day of Al-Bedr.

[FN#329] Arab. "AI-Ikalah"= cancelling: Mr. Payne uses the technical term "resiliation."

[FN#330] Freedman of Abdallah, son of the Caliph Omar and noted as a traditionist.

[FN#331] i.e. at a profit: the exchange must be equal--an ordinance intended to protect the poor. Arabs have strange prejudices in these matters; for instance it disgraces a Badawi to take money for milk.

[FN#332] Arab. "Jama'ah," which in theology means the Greek , our "Church," the congregation of the Faithful under a lawful head. Hence the Sunnis call themselves "People of the Sunnat and Jama'at." In the text it is explained as "Ulfat" or intimacy.

[FN#333] Arab. "Al-Khalil," i.e. of Allah=Abraham. Mohammed, following Jewish tradition, made Abraham rank second amongst the Prophets, inferior only to himself and superior to Hazrat Isa=Jesus. I have noted that Ishmael the elder son succeeded his father. He married Da'alah bint Muzaz bin Omar, a Jurhamite, and his progeny abandoning Hebrew began to speak Arabic (ta'arraba); hence called Muta'arribah or Arabised Arabs. (Pilgrimage iii.

190.) He died at Meccah and was buried with his mother in the s.p.a.ce North of the Ka'abah called Al-Hijr which our writers continue to confuse with the city Al-Hijr. (Ibid. 165-66.)

[FN#334] This e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "In the name of Allah" is, I have noted, equivalent to "saying grace." If neglected it is a sin and entails a curse.

[FN#335] The ceremonious posture is sitting upon the s.h.i.+n-bones, not tailor-fas.h.i.+on; and "bolting food" is a sign of boorishness.

[FN#336] Arab. "Zidd," the word is a fair specimen of Arabic ambiguity meaning primarily opposite or contrary (as virtue to vice), secondarily an enemy or a friend (as being opposite to an enemy).

[FN#337] "The whole earth (shall be) but His handful on the Resurrection day and in His right hand shall the Heaven be rolled up (or folded together)."-Koran x.x.xix. 67.

[FN#338] See Night lx.x.xi.

[FN#339] Koran lxxviii. 19.

[FN#340] Arab. "Al-Munafik," technically meaning one who outwardly professes Al-Islam while inwardly hating it. Thus the word is by no means synonymous with our "hypocrite," hypocrisy being the homage vice pays to virtue; a homage, I may observe, nowhere rendered more fulsomely than among the so-called Anglo-Saxon race.

[FN#341] Arab. "Tawakkul ala 'llah": in the imperative the phrase is vulgarly used="Be off!"

[FN#342] i.e. ceremonial impurity which is sui generis, a very different thing from general dirtiness.

[FN#343] A thick beard is one which does not show the skin; otherwise the wearer is a "Kausaj;" in Pers. "Kuseh." See vol.

iii., 246.

[FN#344] Arab. "Al-Khutnah." Nowhere commanded in the Koran and being only a practice of the Prophet, the rite is not indispensable for converts, especially the aged and the sick. Our ideas upon the subject are very hazy, for modern "niceness"

allows a "Feast of the Circ.u.mcision," but no discussion thereon.

Moses (alias Osarsiph) borrowed the rite from the Egyptian hierophants who were all thus "purified"; the object being to counteract the over-sensibility of the "sixth sense" and to harden the glans against abrasions and infection by exposure to air and friction against the dress. Almost all African tribes practise it but the modes vary and some are exceedingly curious: I shall notice a peculiarly barbarous fas.h.i.+on called Al-Salkh (the flaying) still practised in the Arabian province Al-Asir.

(Pilgrimage iii. 80.) There is a difference too between the Hebrew and the Moslem rite. The Jewish operator, after snipping off the foreskin, rips up the prepuce with his sharp thumb-nails so that the external cutis does not retract far from the internal; and the wound, when healed, shows a narrow ring of cicatrice. This ripping is not done by Moslems. They use a stick as a probe pa.s.sed round between glans and prepuce to ascertain the extent of the frenum and that there is no abnormal adhesion.

The foreskin is then drawn forward and fixed by the forceps, a fork of two bamboo splints, five or six inches long by a quarter thick, or in some cases an iron like our compa.s.ses. This is tied tightly over the foreskin so as to exclude about an inch and a half of the prepuce above and three quarters below. A single stroke of the razor drawn directly downwards removes the skin.

The slight bleeding is stopped by burnt rags or ashes and healed with cerates, pledgets and fumigations. Thus Moslem circ.u.mcision does not prevent the skin retracting.

[FN#345] Of these 6336 versets only some 200 treat on law, civil and ceremonial, fiscal and political, devotional and ceremonial, canonical and ecclesiastical.

[FN#346] The learned young woman omitted Ukhnukh=Enoch, because not in Koran; and if she denoted him by "Idris," the latter is much out of place.

[FN#347] Some say grandson of Shem. (Koran vii. 71.)

[FN#348] Koran vii. 63, etc.

[FN#349] Father-in-law of Moses. (Koran vii. 83.)

[FN#350] Who is the last and greatest of the twenty-five.

[FN#351] See Night ccccx.x.xviii.

[FN#352] Koran ii., whose 256th Ayah is the far-famed and sublime Throne-verse which begins "Allah! there is no G.o.d but He, the Living, the Eternal One, whom nor slumber nor sleep seizeth on!"

The trivial name is taken from the last line, "His throne overstretcheth Heaven and Earth and to Him their preservation is no burden for He is the most Highest, the Supreme." The lines are often repeated in prayers and engraved on agates, etc., as portable talismans.

[FN#353] Koran ii. 159.

[FN#354] Koran xvi. 92. The verset ends with, "He warneth you, so haply ye may be mindful."

[FN#355] Koran lxx. 38.

[FN#356] Koran x.x.xix. 54.

[FN#357] The Sunnis hold that the "Anbiya" (=prophets, or rather announcers of Allah's judgments) were not sinless. But this dogma is branded as most irreverent and sinful by the s.h.i.+'ahs or Persian "followers of Ali," who make capital out of this blasphemy and declare that if any prophet sinned he sinned only against himself.

[FN#358] Koran xii. 18.

[FN#359] Koran ii. 107.

[FN#360] Koran ii. 57. He (Allah) does not use the plurale majestatis.

[FN#361] Koran ii. 28.

[FN#362] Koran xvi. 100. Satan is stoned in the Mina or Muna basin (Night ccccxlii.) because he tempted Abraham to disobey the command of Allah by refusing to sacrifice Ishmael. (Pilgrimage iii. 248.)

[FN#363] It may also mean "have recourse to G.o.d."

[FN#364] Abdallah ibn Abbas, before noticed, first cousin of Mohammed and the most learned of the Companions. See D'Herbelot.

[FN#365] Koran xcvi., "Blood-clots," 1 and 2. "Read" may mean "peruse the revelation" (it was the first Koranic chapter communicated to Mohammed), or "recite, preach."

[FN#366] Koran xxvii. 30. Mr. Rodwell (p.1) holds to the old idea that the "Basmalah" is of Jewish origin, taught to the Kuraysh by Omayyah, of Taif, the poet and Hanif (convert).

[FN#367] Koran ix.: this was the last chapter revealed and the only one revealed entire except verse 110.

[FN#368] Ali was despatched from Al-Medinah to Meccah by the Prophet on his own slit-eared camel to promulgate this chapter; and meeting the a.s.sembly at Al-'Akabah he also acquainted them with four things; (1) No Infidel may approach the Meccah temple; (2) naked men must no longer circut the Ka'abah; (3) only Moslems enter Paradise, and (4) public faith must be kept.

[FN#369] Dictionaries give the word "Basmalah" (=saying Bismillah); but the common p.r.o.nunciation is "Bismalah."