The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XII Part 22

[FN#100] For this reedy Poa, see vol. ii. 18.

[FN#101] I have repeatedly noticed that singing and all music are, in religious parlance, "Makruh," blameable though not actually d.a.m.nable; and that the first step after "getting religion" is to forswear them.

[FN#102] i.e. to find the thief or make good the loss.

[FN#103] i.e. the claimants.

[FN#104] Arab. "Sakiyah:" see vol. i. 123.

[FN#105] The lower orders of Egypt and Syria are addicted to this bear-like attack; so the negroes imitate fighting-rams by b.u.t.ting with their stony heads. Let me remark that when Herodotus (iii.

12), after Psammenitus' battle of Pelusium in B.C. 524, made the remark that the Egyptian crania were hardened by shaving and insolation and the Persians were softened by wearing head-cloths, he tripped in his anthropology. The Iranian skull is naturally thin compared with that of the negroid Egyptian and the negro.

[FN#106] Arab. "Farkalah," {Greek} from flagellum; cattle-whip with leathern thongs. Lane, M.E.; Fleischer Glos. 83-84; Dozy s.v.

[FN#107] This clause is supplied to make sense.

[FN#108] i.e. to crucify him by nailing him to an upright board.

[FN#109] i.e. a native of the Hauran, Job's country east of Damascus, now a luxuriant waste, haunted only by the plundering Badawin and the Druzes of the hills, who are no better; but its stretches of ruins and league-long swathes of stone over which the vine was trained, show what it has been and what it will be again when the incubus of Turkish mis-rule shall be removed from it. Herr Schuhmacher has lately noted in the Hauran sundry Arab traditions of Job; the village Nawa, where he lived; the Hammam 'Ayyub, where he washed his leprous skin; the Dayr Ayyub, a monastery said to date from the third century; and the Makan Ayyub at Al-Markaz, where the semi-mythical patriarch and his wife are buried. The "Rock of Job", covered by a mosque, is a basaltic monolith 7 feet high by 4, and is probably connected with the solar wors.h.i.+p of the old Ph?nicians.

[FN#110] This habit "torquere mero," was a favourite with the mediaeval Arabs. Its effect varies greatly with men's characters, making some open-hearted and communicative, and others more cunning and secretive than in the normal state. So far it is an excellent detection of disposition, and many a man pa.s.ses off well when sober who has shown himself in liquor a rank sn.o.b.

Among the lower orders it provokes what the Persians call Bad-masti (le vin mechant) see Pilgrimage iii. 385.

[FN#111] This mystery is not unfamiliar to the modern "spiritualist;" and all Eastern tongues have a special term for the mysterious Voice. See vol. i. 142.

[FN#112] Arab. "Alayk.u.m:" addressed to a single person. This is generally explained by the "Salam" reaching the ears of Invisible Controls, and even the Apostle. We find the words cruelly distorted in the Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile (partly translated by John E. Taylor, London: Bogue, 1848), "The Prince, coming up to the old woman heard an hundred Licasalemme," p. 383.

[FN#113] Arab. "Al-Zalamah"; the policeman; see vol. vi. 214.

[FN#114] i.e. in my punishment.

[FN#115] i.e. on Doomsday thou shalt get thy deserts.

[FN#116] i.e. what I could well afford.

[FN#117] Arab. Hirfah=a trade, a guild, a corporation: here the officers of police.

[FN#118] Gen. "tip-cat" (vol. ii. 314.) Here it would mean a rude form of tables or backgammon, in which the players who throw certain numbers are dubbed Sultan and Wazir, and demean themselves accordingly. A favourite bit of fun with Cairene boys of a past generation was to "make a Pasha;" and for this proceeding, see Pilgrimage, vol. i. 119.

[FN#119] In Marocco there is great difficulty about finding an executioner who becomes obnoxious to the Thar, vendetta or blood-revenge. For salting the criminal's head, however, the soldiers seize upon the nearest Jew and compel him to clean out the brain and to prepare it for what is often a long journey.

Hence, according to some, the local name of the Ghetto, Al-Mallah,=the salting-ground.

[FN#120] Mr. Payne suspects that "laban," milk, esp. artificially soured (see vol. vi, 201), is a clerical error for "jubn"=cheese.

This may be; but I follow the text as the exaggeration is greater

[FN#121] i.e. in relinquis.h.i.+ng his blood-wite for his brother.

[FN#122] The Story-teller, probably to relieve the monotony of the Constables' histories, here returns to the original cadre. We must not forget that in the Bresl. Edit. the Nights are running on, and that the charming queen is relating the adventure of Al-Malik al-Zahir.

[FN#123] Arab. "Za'amu"=they opine, they declare, a favourite term with the Bresl. Edit.

[FN#124] Arab. "Zirtah" the coa.r.s.est of terms for what the French nuns prettily termed un sonnet; I find ung sonnet also in Nov.

ii. of the Cent nouvelles Nouvelles. Captain Lockett (p. 32) quotes Strepsiades in The Clouds {Greek} "because he cannot express the bathos of the original (in the Tale of Ja'afar and the old Badawi) without descending to the oracular language of Giacoma Rodogina, the engastrymythian prophetess." But Sterne was by no means so squeamish. The literature of this subject is extensive, beginning with "Peteriana, ou l'art de peter," which distinguishes 62 different tones. After dining with a late friend en garcon we went into his sitting-room and found on the table 13 books and booklets upon the Crepitus Ventris, and there was some astonishment as not a few of the party had never seen one.

[FN#125] This tale is a replica of the Cranes of Ibycus. This was a Rhegium man who when returning to Corinth, his home, was set upon by robbers and slain. He cast his dying eyes heavenwards and seeing a flight of cranes called upon them to avenge him and this they did by flying over the theatre of Corinth on a day when the murderers were present and one cried out, "Behold the avengers of Ibycus!" Whereupon they were taken and put to death. So says Paulus Hieronymus, and the affecting old tale has newly been sung in charming verse by Mr. Justin H. McCarthy ("Serapion." London: Chatto and Windus).

[FN#126] This scene is perfectly true to Badawi life; see my Pilgrimage iii. 68.

[FN#127] Arab. "Durraj": so it is rendered in the French translation of Al-Masudi, vii. 347.

[FN#128] A fair friend found the idea of Destiny in The Nights become almost a night-mare. Yet here we suddenly alight upon the true Johnsonian idea that conduct makes fate. Both extremes are as usual false. When one man fights a dozen battles unwounded and another falls at the first shot we cannot but acknowledge the presence of that mysterious "luck" whose laws, now utterly unknown to us, may become familiar with the ages. I may note that the idea of an appointed hour beyond which life may not be prolonged, is as old as Homer (Il. ??? 487).

The reader has been told (vol. vii. 135) that "Kaza" is Fate in a general sense, the universal and eternal Decree of Allah, while "Kadar" is its special and particular application to man's lot, that is Allah's will in bringing forth events at a certain time and place. But the former is popularly held to be of two categories, one Kaza al-Muham which admits of modification and Kaza al-Muhkam, absolute and unchangeable, the doctrine of irresistible predestination preached with so much energy by St.

Paul (Romans ix. 15-24), and all the world over men act upon the former while theoretically holding to the latter. Hence "Chinese Gordon," whose loss to England is greater than even his friends suppose, wrote "It is a delightful thing to be a fatalist,"

meaning that the Divine direction and pre-ordination of all things saved him so much trouble of forethought and afterthought.

In this tenet he was not only a Calvinist but also a Moslem whose contradictory ideas of Fate and Freewill (with responsibility) are not only beyond Reason but are contrary to Reason; and although we may admit the argumentum ad verecundiam, suggesting that there are things above (or below) human intelligence, we are not bound so to do in the case of things which are opposed to the common sense of mankind. Practically, however, the Moslem att.i.tude is to be loud in confessing belief of "Fate and Fortune"

before an event happens and after it wisely to console himself with the conviction that in no way could he have escaped the occurrence. And the belief that this destiny was in the hands of Allah gives him a certain dignity especially in the presence of disease and death which is wanting in his rival religionist the Christian. At the same time the fanciful picture of the Turk sitting stolidly under a shower of bullets because Fate will not find him out unless it be so written is a freak i.e. fancy rarely found in real life.

There are four great points of dispute amongst the schoolmen in Al-Islam; (1) the Unity and Attributes of Allah, (2) His promises and threats, (3) historical as the office of Imam and (4) Predestination and the justice thereof. On the latter subject opinions range over the whole cycle of possibilities. For instance, the Mu'tazilites, whom the learned Weil makes the Protestants and Rationalists of Al-Islam, contend that the word of Allah was created in subjecto, ergo, an accident and liable to perish, and one of their school, the Kadiriyah (=having power) denies the existence of Fate and contends that Allah did not create evil but left man an absolutely free agent. On the other hand, the Jabarlyah (or Mujabbar=the compelled) is an absolute Fatalist who believes in the omnipotence of Destiny and deems that all wisdom consists in conforming with its decrees.

Al-Mas'udi (chaps. cxxvii.) ill.u.s.trates this by the saying of a Moslem philosopher that chess was the invention of a Mu'tazil, while Nard (backgammon with dice) was that of a Mujabbar proving that play can do nothing against Destiny. Between the two are the Ashariyah; trimmers whose standpoint is hard to define; they would say, "Allah creates the power by which man acts, but man wills the action," and care not to answer the query, "Who created the will ?" (See Poc.o.c.k, Sale and the Dabistan ii. 352.) Thus Sa'adi says in the Gulistan (iii. 2), "The wise have p.r.o.nounced that though daily bread be allotted, yet it is so conditionally upon using means to acquire it, and although calamity be predestined, yet it is right to secure oneself against the portals by which it may have access." Lastly, not a few doctors of Law and Religion hold that Kaza al-Muhkam, however absolute, regards only man's after or final state; and upon this subject they are of course as wise as other people, and--no wiser. Lane has treated the Moslem faith in Destiny very ably and fully (Arabian Nights, vol. i. pp. 58-61), and he being a man of moderate and orthodox views gives valuable testimony.

[FN#129] Arab. "Shaykh al-Hujjaj." Some Santon like Hasan al- Marabit, then invoked by the Meccan pilgrims: see Pilgrimage, i.

321. It can hardly refer to the famous Hajjaj bin Yusuf al-Sakafi (vol. iv. 3).

[FN#130] Here the Stories of the Sixteen Constables abruptly end, after the fas.h.i.+on of the Bresl. Edit. They are summarily dismissed even without the normal "Bakhs.h.i.+sh."

[FN#131] Bresl. Edit. vol xi. pp. 400-473 and vol. xii. pp. 4-50, Nights dccccxli.-dcccclvii. For Kashghar, see vol. i. 255.

[FN#132] Mr. Payne proposes to translate "'Anbar" by amber, the semi-fossilised resin much used in modern days, especially in Turkey and Somaliland, for bead necklaces. But, as he says, the second line distinctly alludes to the perfume which is sewn in leather and hung about the neck, after the fas.h.i.+on of our ancient pomanders (pomme d' ambre).

[FN#133] i.e. The Caliph: see vol. i. p. 50.

[FN#134] Arab. "Adab :" see vol. i. 132, etc. In Moslem dialects which borrow more or less from Arabic, "Bi-adabi"--without being Adab, means rudeness, disrespect, "impertinence" (in its modern sense).

[FN#135] i.e. Isaac of Mosul, the greatest of Arab musicians: see vol. iv. 119.

[FN#136] The elder brother of Ja'afar, by no means so genial or fitted for a royal frolic. See Terminal Essay.

[FN#137] Ibn Habib, a friend of Isaac, and a learned grammarian who lectured at Basrah.

[FN#138] A suburb of Baghdad, mentioned by Al Mas'udi.

[FN#139] Containing the rooms in which the girl or girls were sold. See Pilgrimage i. 87.

[FN#140] Dozy quotes this pa.s.sage but cannot explain the word Fawwak.

[FN#141] "A pa.s.sage has apparently dropped out here. The Khalif seems to have gone away without buying, leaving Ishak behind, whereupon the latter was accosted by another slave-girl, who came out of a cell in the corridor." So says Mr. Payne. vol. ii. 207.

The "raiser of the veil" means a fitting purchaser.