The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume IX Part 26

[FN#535] Father of Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d A.H. 158-169 (=775-785) third Abbaside who both in the Mac. and the Bul. Edits. is called "the fifth of the sons of Al-Abbas." He was a good poet and a man of letters, also a fierce persecutor of the "Zindiks" (Al-Siyuti 278), a term especially applied to those who read the Zend books and adhered to Zoroastrianism, although afterwards applied to any heretic or atheist. He made many changes at Meccah and was the first who had a train of camels laden with snow for his refreshment along a measured road of 700 miles (Gibbon, chapt.

lii.). He died of an accident when hunting: others say he was poisoned after leaving his throne to his sons Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d. The name means "Heaven-directed" and must not be confounded with the t.i.tle of the twelfth s.h.i.+'ah Imam Mohammed Abu al-Kasim born at Sarramanrai A.H. 255 whom Sale (sect. iv.) calls "Mahdi or Director" and whose expected return has caused and will cause so much trouble in Al-Islam.

[FN#536] This speciosum miraculum must not be held a proof that the tale was written many years after the days of Al-Ras.h.i.+d.

Miracles grow apace in the East and a few years suffice to mature them. The invasion of Abraha the Abyssinia took place during the year of Mohammed's birth; and yet in an early chapter of the Koran (No. cv.) written perhaps forty-five years afterwards, the small-pox is turned into a puerile and extravagant miracle. I myself became the subject of a miracle in Sind which is duly chronicled in the family-annals of a certain Pir or religious teacher. See History of Sindh (p. 23O) and Sind Revisited (i.

156).

[FN#537] In the texts, "Sixth."

[FN#538] Arab. "Najis"=ceremonially impure especially the dog's month like the cow's month amongst the Hindus; and requiring after contact the Wuzu-ablution before the Moslem can pray.

[FN#539] Arab. "Akl al-hashamah" (hashamah=retinue; hishmah=reverence, bashfulness) which may also mean "decorously and respectfully," according to the vowel-points.

[FN#540] i.e. as the Vice-regent of Allah and Vicar of the Prophet.

[FN#541] For the superiority of mankind to the Jinn see vol.

viii. 5;44.

[FN#542] According to Al-Siyuti, Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d prayed every day a hundred bows.

[FN#543] As the sad end of his betrothed was still to be accounted for.

[FN#544] For the martyrdom of the drowned see vol. i, 171, to quote no other places.

[FN#545] i.e. if he have the power to revenge himself. The sentiment is Christian rather than Moslem.

[FN#546] i.e. the power acquired (as we afterwards learn) by the regular praying of the dawn-prayer. It is not often that The Nights condescend to point a moral or inculcate a lesson as here; and we are truly thankful for the immunity.

[FN#547] Arab. "Musafahah" which, I have said, serves for our shaking hands: and extends over wide regions. They apply the palms of the right hands flat to each other without squeezing the fingers and then raise the latter to the forehead. Pilgrimage ii.

332, has also been quoted.

[FN#548] Equivalent to our saying about an ill wind, etc.

[FN#549] A proof of his extreme simplicity and bonhomie.

[FN#550] Arab. "Darfil"=the Gr. {Greek} later {Greek}, suggesting that the writer had read of Arion in Herodotus i. 23.

[FN#551] 'Auj; I can only suggest, with due diffidence, that this is intended for Kuch the well-known Baloch city in Persian Carmania (Kirman) and meant by Richardson's "Koch u buloch." But as the writer borrows so much from Al-Mas'udi it may possibly be Auk in Sistan where stood the heretical city "Shadrak," chapt.

cxxii.

[FN#552] i.e. The excellent (or surpa.s.sing) Religious. Shaykhah, the fem. of Shaykh, is a she-chief, even the head of the dancing- girls will be ent.i.tled "Shaykhah."

[FN#553] The curtain would screen her from the sight of men- invalids and probably hung across the single room of the "Zawiyah" or hermit's cell. The curtain is noticed in the tales of two other reverend women; vols. iv. 155 and v. 257.

[FN#554] Abdullah met his wife on Thursday, the night of which would amongst Moslems be Friday night.

[FN#555] i.e. with Sa'idah.