The Thousand and One Nights Volume IV Part 35

[FN#3] Governor of the two Iraks (i.e. Ba.s.sora and Cufa) in the reign of Hisham, tenth Khalif of the Ommiade dynasty (A.D.

723-741). He was celebrated for his beneficence and liberality.

[FN#4] Koran iii. 178, etc.

[FN#5] "The hand of a thief shall not be cut off for stealing less than a quarter of a dinar."--Mischat ul Masabih.

[FN#6] El Asmai the poet, author or compiler of the well-known romance of Antar.

[FN#7] Zanzibar (ant. Zengibar).

[FN#8] The word Sherif (lit. n.o.ble) signifies strictly a descendant of the martyr Hussein, son of the Khalif Ali; but it is here used in the sense of "chief" [of the bazaar].

[FN#9] Quaere Mensour en Nemri, a well-known poet of the time and (originally) a protege of Yehya's son, El Fezl.

[FN#10] Intendant of the palace to Haroun er Res.h.i.+d and captain of his guards.

[FN#11] i.e. the Khalif

[FN#12] i.e. As if he were an old Bedouin, with forehead disfigured by the friction of the rope of camel's hair, which is part of the Bedouin headdress.

[FN#13] Mohammed said, "Change the whiteness of your hair, but not with anything black." Henna is the approved hairdye for a true-believer; it changes the hair to a reddish-brown.

[FN#14] i.e. thou that art as dear to me as my sight and hearing.

[FN#15] A fountain of Paradise.

[FN#16] Syn. languis.h.i.+ng (munkesir).

[FN#17] A river of Paradise.

[FN#18] i.e. Orthodox.

[FN#19] These words are a quotation from a well-known piece of verse.

[FN#20] Of the Prophet.

[FN#21] Usually made of palm-fibres.

[FN#22] The distinctive headdress of the Muslims.

[FN#23] The bridge that spans h.e.l.l, finer than a hair and sharper than a sword, and over which all must pa.s.s on the Day of Judgment.

[FN#24] Or leader of the people at prayer, who stands opposite the niche sunk into or painted on the wall of the mosque, to indicate the direction of Mecca.

[FN#25] All this is an audacious parody of the Muslim ritual of prayer.

[FN#26] Lit. "exclamations of 'Glory be to G.o.d!'" which are of frequent recurrence in the Mohammedan formulas of prayer. See last note.

[FN#27] i.e. governor.

[FN#28] The word ucwaneh, here used in the dual number, usually designates the teeth, in its common meaning of "camomile- flower": but the lips are here expressly mentioned, and this fact, together with that of the subst.i.tution, in the Breslau edition, of the word akikan (two cornelians or rubies) for ucwanetan (two camomiles), as in the Calcutta and Boulac editions, shows that the word is intended to be taken in its rarer meaning of "corn-marigold."

[FN#29] Syn. Fortune (ez zeman).

[FN#30] One of the tribes of the Arabs and that to which the renowned Maan ben Zaideh (see Vol. III. p. 317, {Vol. 3, FN#121}) belonged.

[FN#31] The Muslims accuse the Jews of having corrupted the Pentateuch and others of their sacred books, even as the Christians the Gospels (see Vol. II. page 149, note {Vol. 2, FN#97}), by expunging or altering the pa.s.sages foretelling the coming of Mohammed.

[FN#32] See Vol. I. p. 135, note 2. {Vol. 1, FN#45}

[FN#33] i.e. as a martyr.

[FN#34] The force of this comparison will best appear from the actual figuration of the Arabic double-letter Lam-Alif (Anglice L.A.) which is made up of the two letters *

[FN#35] i.e. O thou, whose glance is as the light of the glowing embers.

[FN#36] Thus figured in Arabic *

[FN#37] Thus *

[FN#38] Thus *

[FN#39] Koran xxvil. 12.

[FN#40] Koran iii. 103.

[FN#41] Koran xcii. 1,2.

[FN#42] Sauda, feminine of aswed (black), syn. black bile (melancholia).

[FN#43] The distinctive colour of which is white.

[FN#44] Koran li. 26.

[FN#45] Mohammed.

[FN#46] Koran ii. 64, referring to an expiatory heifer which the Jews were commanded, through Moses, to sacrifice.

[FN#47] See note, Vol III. p. 104 {Vol. 3, FN#19}

[FN#48] Sulafeh.

[FN#49] Sewalif, plural of salifeh (equivalent of sulafeh). A play upon the double meaning of the word is, of course, intended.

[FN#50] Syn. yellowness (isfirar).

[FN#51] A t.i.tle of the Prophet.