294 i.e. gaining the love of another, love.
295 i.e. the abrogated passages and those by which they are abrogated. This division is necessary for “inspired volumes,” which always abound in contradictions. But the charge of “opportunism” brought against the Koran is truly absurd; as if “revelation” could possibly be aught save opportune.
296 Koran iv. 160, the chapter “Women.”
297 She unveiled, being a slave-girl and for sale. If a free woman show her face to a Moslem, he breaks out into violent abuse, because the act is intended to let him know that he is looked upon as a small boy or an eunuch or a Chriastian — in fact not a man.
298 Ilah=Heb. El, a most difficult root, meaning strength, interposition, God (Numen) “the” (article) “don’t” (do not), etc. etc.
299 As far as I know Christians are the only worshippers who kneel as if their lower legs were cut off and who “join hands” like the captive offering his wrists to be bound (dare manus). The posture, however, is not so ignoble as that of the Moslem “Sijdah” (prostration) which made certain North African tribes reject Al-Islam saying, “These men show their hind parts to heaven.”
300 i.e. saying “I intend (purpose) to pray (for instance) the two-bow prayer (ruka’tayn) of the day-break,” etc.
301 So called because it prohibits speaking with others till the prayer is ended.
302 Lit. “any thing opposite;” here used for the Ka’abah towards which men turn in prayer; as Guebres face the sun or fire and idolators their images. “Al-Kiblatayn” (= the two Kiblahs) means Meccah and Jerusalem, which was faced by Moslems as well as Jews and Christians till Mohammed changed the direction. For the occasion of the change see my Pilgrimage, ii. 320.
303 Which includes Tayammum or washing with sand. This is a very cleanly practice in a hot, dry land and was adopted long before Mohammed. Cedrenus tells of baptism with sand being administered to a dying traveller in the African desert.
304 The Koranic order for Wuzϊ is concise and as usual obscure, giving rise to a host of disputes and casuistical questions. Its text runs (chapt. v.), “O true believers, when you prepare to pray, wash (Ghusl) your faces, and your hands unto the elbows; and rub (Mas-h) your hands and your feet unto the ankles; and if ye be unclean by having lain with a woman, wash (Ghusl) yourselves all over.” The purifications and ceremonious ablutions of the Jews originated this command; and the early Christians did very unwisely in not making the bath obligatory. St. Paul (Heb. xi. 22) says, “Let us draw near with a true heart…having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with clean (or pure) water.” But this did not suffice. Hence the Eastern Christian, in hot climates where cleanliness should rank before godliness, is distinguished by his dirt which as a holy or reverend man he makes still dirtier, and he offers an ugly comparison with the Moslem and especially the Hindu. The neglect of commands to wash and prohibitions to drink strong waters are the two grand physical objections of the Christian code of morality.
305 Arab. “Istinshαk”=snuffing up water from the palm of the right hand so as to clean thoroughly the nostrils. This “function” is unreasonably neglected in Europe, to the detriment of the mucous membrane and the olfactory nerves.
306 So as to wash between them. The thick beard is combed out with the fingers.
307 Poor human nature! How sad to compare ita pretensions with its actualities.
308 Complete ablution is rendered necessary chiefly by the emission of semen either in copulation or in nocturnal pollution. The water must be pure and not less than a certain quantity, and it must touch every part of the skin beginning with the right half of the person and ending with the left. Hence a plunge-bath is generally preferred.
309 Arab. “Ta’mνm,” lit. crowning with turband, or tiara, here=covering, i.e. wetting.
310 This practice (saying “I purpose to defer the washing of the feet,” etc.) is now somewhat obsolete.
311 Arabs have a prejudice against the hydropathic treatment of wounds, holding that water poisons them: and, as the native produce usually contains salt, soda and magnesia, they are justified by many cases. I once tried water-bandages in Arabia and failed dismally.
312 The sick man says his prayers lying in bed, etc., and as he best can.
313 i.e. saying, “And peace be on us and on the worshippers of Allah which be pious.”
314 i.e. saying, “ I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the
Stoned.”
315 Certain parts should be recited aloud (jahr) and others sotto voce (with mussitation=Khafi). No mistake must be made in this matter where a Moslem cannot err.
316 Hence an interest of two-and-a-half percent is not held to be “Ribα” or unlawful gain of money by money, usury.
317 The meal must be finished before the faster can plainly distinguish the white thread from the black thread (Koran ii. 183); some understand this literally, others apply it to the dark and silvery streak of zodiacal light which appears over the Eastern horizon an hour or so before sunrise. The fast then begins and ends with the disappearance of the sun. I have noticed its pains and penalties in my Pilgrimage, i. 110, etc.
318 For the “Azαn” or call to prayer see Lane, M. E., chapt. xviii. The chant, however, differs in every country, and a practical ear will know the land by its call.
319 Arab. “Hadνs” or saying of the Apostle.
320 “Al-I’itikaf” resembles the Christian “retreat;” but the worshipper generally retires to a mosque, especially in Meccah. The Apostle practised it on Jabal Hira and other places.
321 The word is the Heb. “Hagg” whose primary meaning is circularity of form or movement. Hence it applied to religious festivals in which dancing round the idol played a prime part; and Lucian of “saltation” says, dancing was from the beginning and coeval with the ancient god, Love. But man danced with joy before he worshipped, and, when he invented a systematic saltation, he made it represent two things, and only two things, love and war, in most primitive form, courtship and fighting.
322 Two adjoining ground-waves in Meccah. For these and for the places subsequently mentioned the curious will consult my Pilgrimage, iii. 226, etc.
323 The ‘Umrah or lesser Pilgrimage, I have noted, is the ceremony performed in Meccah at any time out of the pilgrim-season proper, i.e. between the eighth and tenth days of the twelfth lunar month Zu ‘l-Hijjah. It does not entitle the Moslem to be called Hαjj (pilgrim) or Hαjν as Persians and Indians corrupt the word.
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.
325 On first sighting Meccah. See Night xci.
326 Arab. “Tawαf:” the place is called Matαf and the guide Mutawwif. (Pilgrimage, iii. 193, 205.) The seven courses are termed Ashwαt.
327 Stoning the Devil at Mina. (Pilgrimage, iii. 282.) Hence
Satan’s title “the Stoned” (lapidated not castrated).
328 Koran viii. 66; in the chapter entided “Spoil,” and relating mainly to the “day of Al-Bedr.
329 Arab. “AI-Ikαlah”= cancelling: Mr. Payne uses the technical term “resiliation.”
330 Freedman of Abdallah, son of the Caliph Omar and noted as a traditionist.
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.
332 Arab. “Jamα’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 Jamα’at.” In the text it is explained as “Ulfat” or intimacy.
333 Arab. “Al-Khalνl,” i.e. of Allah=Abraham. Mohammed, following Jewish tradition, made Abraham rank second amongst the Prophe
ts, 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 Muzαz 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 space North of the Ka’abah called Al-Hijr which our writers continue to confuse with the city Al-Hijr. (Ibid. 165-66.)
334 This ejaculation, “In the name of Allah” is, I have noted, equivalent to “saying grace.” If neglected it is a sin and entails a curse.
335 The ceremonious posture is sitting upon the shin-bones, not tailor-fashion; and “bolting food” is a sign of boorishness.
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).
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 xxxix. 67.
338 See Night lxxxi.
339 Koran lxxviii. 19.
340 Arab. “Al-Munαfik,” 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.
341 Arab. “Tawakkul alα ‘llah”: in the imperative the phrase is vulgarly used=“Be off!”
342 i.e. ceremonial impurity which is sui generis, a very different thing from general dirtiness.
343 A thick beard is one which does not show the skin; otherwise the wearer is a “Kausaj;” in Pers. “Kϊseh.” See vol. iii., 246.
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 Circumcision,” 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 fashion called Al-Salkh (the flaying) still practised in the Arabian province Al-Asνr. (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 passed 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 compasses. 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 circumcision does not prevent the skin retracting.
345 Of these 6336 versets only some 200 treat on law, civil and ceremonial, fiscal and political, devotional and ceremonial, canonical and ecclesiastical.
346 The learned young woman omitted Ukhnϊkh=Enoch, because not in Koran; and if she denoted him by “Idrνs,” the latter is much out of place.
347 Some say grandson of Shem. (Koran vii. 71.)
348 Koran vii. 63, etc.
349 Father-in-law of Moses. (Koran vii. 83.)
350 Who is the last and greatest of the twenty-five.
351 See Night ccccxxxviii.
352 Koran ii., whose 256th Ayah is the far-famed and sublime Throne-verse which begins “Allah! there is no god 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.
353 Koran ii. 159.
354 Koran xvi. 92. The verset ends with, “He warneth you, so haply ye may be mindful.”
355 Koran lxx. 38.
356 Koran xxxix. 54.
357 The Sunnis hold that the “Anbiyα” (=prophets, or rather announcers of Allah’s judgments) were not sinless. But this dogma is branded as most irreverent and sinful by the Shi’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.
358 Koran xii. 18.
359 Koran ii. 107.
360 Koran ii. 57. He (Allah) does not use the plurale majestatis.
361 Koran ii. 28.
362 Koran xvi. 100. Satan is stoned in the Minα or Munα basin (Night ccccxlii.) because he tempted Abraham to disobey the command of Allah by refusing to sacrifice Ishmael. (Pilgrimage iii. 248.)
363 It may also mean “have recourse to God.”
364 Abdallah ibn Abbas, before noticed, first cousin of
Mohammed and the most learned of the Companions. See D’Herbelot.
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.”
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 Hanνf (convert).
367 Koran ix.: this was the last chapter revealed and the only one revealed entire except verse 110.
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 assembly 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.
369 Dictionaries give the word “Basmalah” (=saying
Bismillah); but the common pronunciation is “Bismalah.”
370 Koran xvii. 110, a passage revealed because the Infidels, hearing Mohammed calling upon The Compassionate, imagined that Al-Rahmαn was other deity but Allah. The “names” have two grand divisions, Asmα Jalαlν, the fiery or terrible attributes, and the Asmα Jamαlν (airy, watery, earthy or) amiable. Together they form the Asmα al-Husna or glorious attributes, and do not include the Ism al-A’azam, the ineffable name which is known only to a few.
371 Koran ii. 158.
372 Koran xcvi. before noticed.
373 A man of Al-Medinah, one of the first of Mohammed’s disciples.
374 Koran lxxiv. 1, etc., supposed to have been addressed by Gabriel to Mohammed when in the cave of Hira or Jabal Nϊr. He returned to his wife Khadijah in sore terror at the vision of one sitting on a throne between heaven and earth, and bade her cover him up. Whereupon the Archangel descended with this text, supposed to be the first revealed. Mr. Rodwell () renders it, “O thou enwrapped in thy mantle!” and makes it No. ii. after a Fatrah or silent interval of six months to three years.
375 There are several versets on this subject (chapts. ii. and xxx.)
376 Koran cx. 1.
377 The third Caliph; the “Writer of the Koran.”
378 Koran, v. 4. Sale translates “idols.” Mr. Rodwell, “On the blocks (or shafts) of Stone,” rude altars set by the pagan Arabs before their dwellings.
379 Koran, v. 116. The words are put into the mouth of
Jesus.
380 The
end of the same verse.
381 Koran, v. 89. Supposed to have been revealed when certain Moslems purposed to practise Christian asceticism, fasting, watching, abstaining from women and sleeping on hard beds. I have said Mohammed would have “no monkery in Al-Islam,” but human nature willed otherwise. Mr. Rodwell prefers “Interdict the healthful viands.”
382 Koran, iv. 124.
383 Arab. “Mukri.” “Kαri” is one who reads the Koran to pupils; the Mukri corrects them. “With the passage of the clouds” = without a moment’s hesitation.
384 The twenty-first, twenty-fourth and eighteenth Arabic letters.
385 Arab. “Hizb.” The Koran is divided into sixty portions, answering to “Lessons” for convenience of public worship.
386 Arab. “Jalαlah,”=saying Jalla Jalαlu-hu=magnified be His
Majesty!, or glorified be His Glory.
387 Koran, xi. 50.
388 The partition-wall between Heaven and Hell which others call Al-’Urf (in the sing. from the verb meaning he separated or parted). The Jews borrowed from the Guebres the idea of a partition between Heaven and Hell and made it so thin that the blessed and damned can speak together. There is much dispute about the population of Al-A’arαf, the general idea being that they are men who do not deserve reward in Heaven or punishment in Hell. But it is not a “Purgatory” or place of expiating sins.
389 Koran, vii. 154.
390 A play on the word ayn, which means “eye” or the eighteenth letter which in olden times had the form of a circle.
391 From misreading these words comes the absurd popular belief of the moon passing up and down Mohammed’s sleeves. George B. Airy (The Athenζum, Nov.29, 1884) justly objects to Sale’s translation “The hour of judgment approacheth” and translates “The moon hath been dichotomised” a well-known astronomical term when the light portion of the moon is defined in a strait line: in other words when it is really a half-moon at the first and third quarters of each lunation. Others understand, The moon shall be split on the Last Day, the preterite for the future in prophetic style. “Koran Moslems” of course understand it literally.
One Thousand and One Nights Page 768