The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6

R >> Richard F. Burton >> The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6

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[FN#300] Lane (iii. 237) supposes by this title that the author
referred his tale to the days of the Caliphate. "Commander of the
Faithful" was, I have said, the style adopted by Omar in order to
avoid the clumsiness of "Caliph" (successor) of the Caliph (Abu
Bakr) of the Apostle of Allah.

[FN#301] eastern thieves count four modes of housebreaking,
(1)picking out burnt bricks; (2) cutting through unbaked bricks;
(3) wetting a mud wall and (4) boring through a wooden wall
(Vikram and the Vampire p. 172).

[FN#302] Arab. "Zabbat," lit. a lizard (fem.) also a wooden lock,
the only one used throughout Egypt. An illustration of its
curious mechanism is given in Lane (M. E. Introduction)

[FN#303] Arab. "Dabbus." The Eastern mace is well known to
English collectors, it is always of metal, and mostly of steel,
with a short handle like our facetiously called "life-preterver "
The head is in various forms, the simplest a ball, smooth and
round, or broken into sundry high and angular ridges like a
melon, and in select weapons shaped like the head of some animal.
bull, etc. See Night dcxlvi.

[FN#304] The red habit is a sign of wrath and vengeance and the
Persian Kings like Fath Al Shah, used to wear it when about to
order some horrid punishment, such as the "Shakk"; in this a man
was hung up by his heels and cut in two from the fork downwards
to the neck, when a turn of the chopper left that untouched.
White robes denoted peace and mercy as well as joy. The "white"
hand and "black" hand have been explained. A "white death" is
quiet and natural, with forgiveness of sins. A "black death" is
violent and dreadful, as by strangulation; a "green death" is
robing in rags and patches like a dervish, and a "red death" is
by war or bloodshed (A. P. ii. 670). Among the mystics it is the
resistance of man to his passions.

[FN#305] This in the East is the way "pour se faire valoir";
whilst Europeans would hold it a mere "bit of impudence." aping
dignity.

[FN#306] The Chief Mufti or Doctor of the Law, an appointment
first made by the Osmanli Mohammed II., when he captured
Constantinople in A.D. 1453. Before that time the functions were
discharged by the Kazi al-Kuzat (Kazi-in-Chief), the Chancellor.

[FN#307] So called because here lived the makers of crossbows
(Arab. Bunduk now meaning a fire piece, musket, etc.). It is the
modern district about the well-known Khan al-Hamzawi.

[FN#308] Pronounced "Goodareeyyah," and so called after one of
the troops of the Fatimite Caliphs. The name "Yamaniyah" is
probably due to the story-teller's inventiveness.

[FN#309] I have noted that as a rule in The Nights poetical
justice is administered with much rigour and exactitude. Here,
however, the tale-teller allows the good brother to be slain by
the two wicked brothers as he permitted the adulterous queens to
escape the sword of Kamar al-Zaman. Dr. Steingass brings to my
notice that I have failed to do justice to the story of Sharrkan
(vol. ii., p. 172), where I note that the interest is injured by
the gratuitous incest But this has a deeper meaning and a grander
artistic effect. Sharrkan begins with most unbrotherly feelings
towards his father's children by a second wife. But Allah's
decree forces him to love his half-sister despite himself, and
awe and repentance convert the savage, who joys at the news of
his brother's reported death, to a loyal and devoted subject of
the same brother. But Judar with all his goodness proved himself
an arrant softy and was no match for two atrocious villains. And
there may be overmuch of forgiveness as of every other good
thing.

[FN#310] In such case the "'iddah" would be four months and ten
days.

[FN#311] Not quite true. Weil's German version, from a MS. in the
Ducal Library of Gotha gives the "Story of Judar of Cairo and
Mahmud of Tunis" in a very different form. It has been pleasantly
"translated (from the German) and edited" by Mr. W. F. Kirby, of
the British Museum, under the title of "The New Arabian Nights"
(London: W. Swan Sonnenschein & Co.), and the author kindly sent
me a copy. "New Arabian Nights" seems now to have become a
fashionable title applied without any signification: such at
least is the pleasant collection of Nineteenth Century
Novelettes, published under that designation by Mr. Robert Louis
Stevenson, Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly, 1884.

[FN#312] Von Hammer holds this story to be a satire on Arab
superstition and the compulsory propagation, the compelle
intrare, of Al-Islam. Lane (iii. 235) omits it altogether for
reasons of his own. I differ with great diffidence from the
learned Baron whose Oriental reading was extensive; but the tale
does not seem to justify his explanations. It appears to me
simply one of the wilder romances, full of purposeful
anachronisms (e.g. dated between Abraham and Moses, yet quoting
the Koran) and written by someone familiar with the history of
Oman. The style too is peculiar, in many places so abrupt that
much manipulation is required to make it presentable: it suits,
however, the rollicking, violent brigand-like life which it
depicts. There is only one incident about the end which justifies
Von Hammer's suspicion.

[FN#313] The Persian hero of romance who converses with the
Simurgh or Griffin.

[FN#314] 'The word is as much used in Egypt as wunderbar in
Germany. As an exclamation is equivalent to "mighty fine!"

[FN#315] In modern days used in a bad sense, as a freethinker,
etc. So Dalilah the Wily is noted to be a philosopheress.

[FN#316] The game is much mixed up after Arab fashion. The
"Tufat" is the Siyahgosh= Black-ears, of India (Felis caracal),
the Persian lynx, which gives very good sport with Dachshunds.
Lynxes still abound in the thickets near Cairo

[FN#317] The "Sons of Kahtan," especially the Ya'arubah tribe,
made much history in Oman. Ya'arub (the eponymus) is written
Ya'arab and Ya'arib; but Ya'arub (from Ya'arubu Aorist of 'Aruba)
is best, because according to all authorities he was the first to
cultivate primitive Arabian speech and Arabic poetry. (Caussin de
Perceval's Hist. des Arabes i.50, etc.)

[FN#318] He who shooteth an arrow by night. See the death of
Antar shot down in the dark by the archer Jazar, son of Jabir,
who had been blinded by a red hot sabre passed before his eyes. I
may note that it is a mere fiction of Al-Asma'i, as the real
'Antar (or 'Antarah) lived to a good old age, and probably died
the "straw death."

[FN#319] See vol. ii., p. 77, for a reminiscence of masterful
King Kulayb and his Hima or domain. Here the phrase would mean,
"None could approach them when they were wroth; none were safe
from their rage."

[FN#320] The sons of Nabhan (whom Mr. Badger calls Nebhan)
supplied the old Maliks or Kings of Oman. (History of the Imams
and Sayyids of Oman, etc., London, Hakluyt Soc. 1871.)

[FN#321] This is a sore insult in Arabia, where they have not
dreamt of a "Jawab-club," like that of Calcutta in the old days,
to which only men who had been half a dozen times "jawab'd" (=
refused in Anglo-lndian jargon) could belong. "I am not a
stallion to be struck on the nose," say the Arabs.

[FN#322] Again "inverted speech": it is as if we said, "Now,
you're a damned fine fellow, so," etc. "Allah curse thee! Thou
hast guarded thy women alive and dead;" said the man of Sulaym in
admiration after thrusting his spear into the eye of dead
Rabi'ah.

[FN#323] The Badawi use javelins or throw-spears of many kinds,
especially the prettily worked Mizrak (Pilgrimage i. 349); spears
for footmen (Shalfah, a bamboo or palm-stick with a head about a
hand broad), and the knightly lance, a male bamboo some 12 feet
long with iron heel and a long tapering point often of open work
or damascened steel, under which are tufts of black ostrich
feathers, one or two. I never saw a crescent-shaped head as the
text suggests. It is a "Pundonor" not to sell these weapons: you
say, "Give me that article and I will satisfy thee!" After which
the Sons of the Sand will haggle over each copper as if you were
cheapening a sheep. (Ibid. iii. 73.)

[FN#324] The shame was that Gharib had seen the girl and had
fallen in love with her beauty instead of applying for her hand
in recognised form. These punctilios of the Desert are peculiarly
nice and tetchy; nor do strangers readily realise them.

[FN#325] The Arabs derive these Noachidae from Imlik, great-
grandson of Shem, who after the confusion of tongues settled at
Sana'a, then moved North to Meccah and built the fifth Ka'abah.
The dynastic name was Arkam, M. C. de Perceval's "Arcam," which
he would identify with Rekem (Numbers xxxi. 8). The last Arkam
fell before an army sent by Moses to purge the Holy Land (Al-
Hijaz) of idolatry. Commentators on the Koran (chaps. vii.) call
the Pharaoh of Moses Al-Walid and derive him from the Amalekites:
we have lately ascertained that this Mene-Ptah was of the
Shepherd-Kings and thus, according to the older Moslems, the
Hyksos were of the seed of Imlik. (Pilgrimage ii. 116, and iii.
190.) In Syria they fought with Joshua son of Nun. The tribe or
rather nationality was famous and powerful: we know little about
it and I may safely predict that when the Amalekite country shall
have been well explored, it will produce monuments second in
importance only to the Hittites. "A nomadic tribe which occupied
the Peninsula of Sinai" (Smith's Dict. of the Bible) is
peculiarly superficial, even for that most superficial of books.

[FN#326] The Amalekites were giants and lived 500 years.
(Pilgrimage, loc. cit.)

[FN#327] His men being ninety against five hundred.

[FN#328] Arab. "Kaum" (pron. Gum) here=a razzia, afterwards=a
tribe. Relations between Badawi tribes are of three kinds; (1)
Ashab, allies offensive and defensive, friends who intermarry;
(2) Kiman (plur. of Kaum) when the blood-feud exists, and (3)
Akhwan= brothers. The last is a complicated affair, "Akhawat" or
brotherhood, denotes the tie between patron and client (a noble
and an ignoble tribe) or between the stranger and the tribe which
claims an immemorial and unalienable right to its own lands.
Hence a small fee (Al-Rifkah) must be paid and the traveller and
his beast become "dakhil," or entitled to brother-help. The
guardian is known in the West as Rafik; Rabi'a in Eastern Arabia;
Ghafir in "Sinai ;" amongst the Somal, Abban and the Gallas
Mogasa. Further details are given in Pilgrimage iii. 85-87.

[FN#329] Arab. "Mal," here=Badawi money, flocks and herds, our
"fee" from feoh, vieh, cattle; as pecunia from pecus, etc., etc.

[FN#330] The litholatry of the old Arabs is undisputed: Manat the
goddess-idol was a large rude stone and when the Meccans sent out
colonies these carried with them stones of the Holy Land to be
set up and worshipped like the Ka'abah. I have suggested
(Pilgrimage iii. 159) that the famous Black Stone of Meccah,
which appears to me a large aerolite, is a remnant of this
worship and that the tomb of Eve near Jeddah was the old "Sakhrah
tawilah" or Long Stone (ibid. iii. 388). Jeddah is now translated
the grandmother, alluding to Eve, a myth of late growth: it is
properly Juddah=a plain lacking water.

[FN#331] The First Adites, I have said, did not all perish: a few
believers retired with the prophet Hud (Heber ?) to Hazramaut.
The Second Adites, who had Marib of the Dam for capital and
Lukman for king, were dispersed by the Flood of Al-Yaman. Their
dynasty lasted a thousand years, the exodus taking place
according to De Sacy in A.D. 150-170 or shortly after A.D. 100
(C. de Perceval), and was overthrown by Ya'arub bin Kahtan, the
first Arabist; see Night dcxxv.

[FN#332] This title has been noticed: it suggests the "Saint
Abraham" of our medaeval travellers. Every great prophet has his
agnomen: Adam the Pure (or Elect) of Allah, Noah the Najiy (or
saved) of Allah; Moses (Kalim) the Speaker with Allah; Jesus the
Ruh (Spirit breath) or Kalam (the word) of Allah. For Mohammed's
see Al-Busiri's Mantle-poem vv. 31-58.

[FN#333] Koran (chaps. iii. 17), "Verily the true religion in the
sight of Allah is Islam" i.e. resigning or devoting myself to the
Lord, with a suspicion of "Salvation" conveyed by the root
Salima, he was safe.

[FN#334] Arab. "Sa'ikah," which is supposed to be a stone. The
allusion is to Antar's sword, "Dhami," made of a stone, black,
brilliant and hard as a rock (an aerolite), which had struck a
camel on the right side and had come out by the left. The
blacksmith made it into a blade three feet long by two spans
broad, a kind of falchion or chopper, cased it with gold and
called it Dhami (the "Trenchant") from its sharpness. But he said
to the owner:--

The sword is trenchant, O son of the Ghalib clan,
Trenchant in sooth, but where is the sworder-man?

Whereupon the owner struck off the maker's head, a most
satisfactory answer to all but one.

[FN#335] Arab. "Kuta'ah": lit. a bit cut off, fragment, nail-
paring, and here un diminutif. I have described this scene in
Pilgrimage iii. 68. Latro often says, "Thy gear is wanted by the
daughter of my paternal uncle" (wife), and thus parades his
politeness by asking in a lady's name.

[FN#336] As will appear the two brothers were joined by a party
of horsemen.

[FN#337] "Four" says the Mac. Edit. forgetting Falhun with
characteristic inconsequence.

[FN#338] Muhammad (the deserving great praise) is the name used
by men; Ahmad (more laudable) by angels, and Mahmud (praised) by
devils. For a similar play upon the name, "Allah Allah Muhammad
ast" (God is God the praisworthy) see Dabistan ii. 416.

[FN#339] The Mac. Edit. here gives "Sas," but elsewhere "Sasa,"
which is the correct form

[FN#340] Sapor the Second (A.D. 310-330) was compelled to attack
the powerful Arab hordes of Oman, most of whom, like the Tayy,
Aus and Khazraj, the Banu Nabhan and the Hinawi left Al-Yaman
A.D. 100-170, and settled in the north and north-east of Al-Najd
This great exodus and dispersion of the tribes was caused, as has
been said, by the bursting of the Dam of Marib originally built
by Abd al-Shams Saba, father of Himyar. These Yamanian races were
plunged into poverty and roamed northwards, planting themselves
amongst the Arabs of Ma'add son of Adnan. Hence the kingdom of
Ghassan in Syria whose phylarchs under the Romans (i.e. Greek
Emperors of Constantinople) controlled Palestine Tertia, the
Arabs of Syria and Palestine, and the kingdom of Harah, whose
Lakhmite Princes, dependent upon Persia, managed the Arabs of the
Euphrates, Oman and Al-Bahrayn. The Ma'addites still continued to
occupy the central plateau of Arabia, a feature analogous with
India "above the Ghauts."

[FN#341] I have described (Pilgrimage i. 370) the grisly spot
which a Badawi will dignify by the name of Wady al-Ward=Vale of
Roses.

[FN#342] Koran xiii. 3, "Of every fruit two different kinds "
i.e. large and small, black and white, sweet and sour.

[FN#343] A graft upon an almond tree, which makes its kernel
s..veet and gives it an especial delicacy of favour. See
Russell's (excellent) Natural History of Aleppo, p. 21.

[FN#344] So called from the flavour of the kernel it is well-
known at Damascus where a favourite fruit is the dried apricot
with an almond by way of kernel. There are many preparations of
apricots, especially the "Mare's skin" (Jild al-fares or Kamar
al-din) a paste folded into sheets and exactly resembling the
article from which it takes a name. When wanted it is dissolved
in water and eaten as a relish with bread or biscuit (Pilgrimage
i. 289).

[FN#345] "Ante Kama takul"=the vulgarest Cairene.

[FN#346] This may be Ctesiphon, the ancient capital of the
Chosroes, on the Tigris below Baghdad; and spoken of elsewhere in
The Nights; especially as, in Night dclxvii., it is called
Isbanir Al-Madain; Madain Kisra (the cities of Chosroes) being
the Arabic name of the old dual city.

[FN#347] Koran vi. 103. The translation is Sale's which I have
generally preferred, despite many imperfections: Lane renders
this sentence, "The eyes see not Him, but He seeth the eyes ;"
and Mr. Rodwell, "No vision taketh in Him ( ?), but He taketh in
all vision ," and (better) "No eyesight reacheth to Him."

[FN#348] Sale (sect. 1.) tells us all that was then known of
these three which with Ya'uk and Nasr and the three "daughters of
God," Goddesses or Energies (the Hindu Saktis) Allat Al-Uzza and
Manat mentioned in the Koran were the chiefs of the pre-lslamitic
Pantheon. I cannot but suspect that all will be connected with
old Babylonian worship. Al-Baydawi (in Kor. Ixxi. 22) says of
Wadd, Suwa'a, Yaghus, Ya'uk and Nasr that they were names of
pious men between Adam and Noah, afterwards deified: Yaghus was
the giant idol of the Mazhaj tribe at Akamah of Al-Yaman and
afterwards at Najran Al-Uzza was widely worshipped: her idol (of
the tree Semurat) belonging to Ghatafan was destroyed after the
Prophet's order by Khalid bin Walid. Allat or Al-Lat is written
by Pocock (spec. 110) "Ilahat" i.e. deities in general. But
Herodotus evidently refers to one god when he makes the Arabs
worship Dionysus as {Greek letters} and Urania as {Greek letters}
and the "tashdid" in Allat would, to a Greek ear, introduce
another syllable (Alilat). This was the goddess of the Kuraysh
and Thakif whose temple at Taif was circuited like the Ka'abah
before Mohammed destroyed it.

[FN#349] Shays (Shayth) is Ab Seth (Father Seth,) of the Hebrews,
a name containing the initial and terminal letters of the Egypto-
Phoenico-Hebrew Alphabet and the "Abjad" of the Arabs. Those
curious about its connection with the name of Allah (El), the
Zodiacal signs and with the constellations, visions but not
wholly uninteresting, will consult "Unexplored Syria" (vol. i.
33).

[FN#350] The exclamation of an honest Fellah.

[FN#351] This is Antar with the Chosroe who "kissed the Absian
hero between the eyes and bade him adieu, giving him as a last
token a rich robe." The coarser hand of the story-teller
exaggerates everything till he makes it ridiculous.

[FN#352] The context suggests thee this is a royal form of
"throwing the handkerchief;" but it does not occur elsewhere. In
face, the European idea seems to have arisen from the oriental
practice of sending presents in napkins or kerchiefs.

[FN#353] i.e. if the disappointed suitor attack me.

[FN#354] i.e. if ever I he tempted to deny it.

[FN#355] Arab. "Musafahah,ù' the Arab fashion of shaking hands.
The right palms are applied flat to each other; then the fingers
are squeezed and the hand is raised to the forehead (Pilgrimage
ii. 332).

[FN#356] A city and province of Khuzistan the old Susiana. Dasht
may be either the town in Khorasan or the "forests" (dasht)
belonging to Ahwaz (Ahuaz in D'Herbelot).

[FN#357] This is the contest between "Antar and the Satrap
Khosrewan at the Court of Monzer." but without its tragical
finish.

[FN#358] Elliptical "he rode out in great state, that is to say
if greatness can truly be attributed to man," for, etc.

[FN#359] According to D'Herbelot (s.v. Rostac) it is a name given
to the villages of Khorasan as "Souad" (Sawad) to those of Irak
and Makhlaf to those of Al-Yaman: there is, how ever, a well-
known Al-Rustak (which like Al-Bahrayn always takes the article)
in the Province of Oman West of Maskat, and as it rhymes with
"Irak" it does well enough. Mr. Badger calls this ancient capital
of the Ya'arubah Imams "er-Rastak" (Imams of Oman).

[FN#360] i.e. a furious knight.

[FN#361] In the Mac. Edit. "Hassan," which may rhyme with Nabhan,
but it is a mere blunder.

[FN#362] In Classical Arabic Irak (like Yaman, Bahrayn and
Rustak) always takes the article.

[FN#363] The story-teller goes back from Kufah founded in Omar's
day to the times of Abraham.

[FN#364] This manoeuvre has often been practiced; especially by
the first Crusaders under Bohemond (Gibbon) and in late years by
the Arab slavers in Eastern Intertropical Africa. After their
skirmishes with the natives they quartered and "bristled" the
dead like game, roasted and boiled the choice pieces and
pretended to eat the flesh. The enemy, who was not afraid of
death, was struck with terror by the idea of being devoured, and
this seems instinctive to the undeveloped mind.

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