by A. S. Byatt
24. The “Kalandar” disfigures himself in this manner to show “mortification.”
25. Arab. “Gharíb”: the porter is offended because the word implies “poor devil;” especially one out of his own country.
26. A religious mendicant generally.
27. Very scandalous to Moslem “respectability”: Mohammed said the house was accursed when the voices of women could be heard out of doors. Moreover the neighbours have a right to interfere and abate the scandal.
28. I need hardly say that these are both historical personages; they will often be mentioned.
29. Arab. “Sama ’an wa tá’atan;” a popular phrase of assent generally translated “to hear is to obey;” but this formula may be and must be greatly varied. In places it means “Hearing (the word of Allah) and obeying” (His prophet, viceregent, etc.)
30. Arab. “Sawáb” = reward in Heaven. This word for which we have no equivalent has been naturalized in all tongues (e.g. Hindostani) spoken by Moslems.
31. Wine-drinking, at all times forbidden to Moslems, vitiates the Pilgrimage-rite: the Pilgrim is vowed to a strict observance of the ceremonial law and many men date their “reformation” from the “Hajj.” Pilgrimage, iii., 126.
32. Here some change has been necessary; as the original text confuses the three “ladies.”
33. In Arab. the plural masc. is used by way of modesty when a girl addresses her lover; and for the same reason she speaks of herself as a man.
34. Arab. “Al-Na’ím;” in full “Jannat-al-Na’ím” = the Garden of Delights, i.e. the fifth Heaven made of white silver. The generic name of Heaven (the place of reward) is “Jannat,” lit. a garden; “Firdaus” being evidently derived from the Persian through the Greek JTapdSeiOO?, and meaning a chase, a hunting park. Writers on this subject should bear in mind Man-deville’s modesty, “Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there.”
35. Arab. “Mikra’ah,” the dried mid-rib of a date-frond used for many purposes, especially the bastinado.
36. According to Lane (i., 229) these and the immediately following verses are from an ode by Ibn Sahl al-Ishbili. They are in the Bul. Edit. not the Mac. Edit.
37. The original is full of conceits and plays on words which in many cases are not easily rendered in English.
38. Arab. “Tarjumán,” same root as Chald. Targum (= a translation), the old “Truchman,” and through the Ital. “tergomano” our “Dragoman;” here a messenger.
39. Lit. the “person of the eyes,” our “babe of the eyes,” a favourite poetical conceit in all tongues; much used by the Elizabethans, but now neglected as a silly kind of conceit.
40. Arab. “Sár” (Thár) the revenge-right recognized by law and custom (Pilgrimage, iii., 69).
41. That is “We all swim in the same boat.”
42. Ja’afar ever acts, on such occasions, the part of a wise and sensible man compelled to join in a foolish frolic. He contrasts strongly with the Caliph, a headstrong despot who will not be gainsaid, whatever be the whim of the moment. But Easterns would look upon this as a proof of his “kingliness.”
43. Arab. “Wa’l-Salám” (pronounced Was-Salám); meaning “and here ends the matter.” In our slang we say, “All right, and the child’s name is Antony.”
44. This is a favourite jingle; the play being upon “ibrat” (a needle-graver) and “’ibrat” (an example, a warning).
45. That is “make his bow;” as the English peasant pulls his forelock. Lane (i., 249) suggests, as an afterthought, that it means:—“Recover thy senses; in allusion to a person’s drawing his hand over his head after sleep or a fit.” But it occurs elsewhere in the sense of “cut thy stick.”
46. This would be a separate building like our family tomb and probably domed, resembling that mentioned in “The King of the Black Islands.” Europeans usually call it “a little Wali;” or, as they write it, “Wely;” the contained for the container; the “Santon” for the “Santon’s tomb.” I have noticed this curious confusion (which begins with Robinson, i. 322) in Unexplored Syria, i. 161.
47. Arab. “Wiswás;” = diabolical temptation or suggestion. The “Wiswási” is a man with scruples (scrupulus, a pebble in the shoe), e.g. one who fears that his ablutions were deficient, etc.
48. Arab. “Katf” = pinioning by tying the arms behind the back and shoulders (Kitf), a dire disgrace to free-born men.
49. Arab. “Nafs.” = Hebr. Nephesh (Nafash) = soul, life, as opposed to “Ruach”=spirit and breath. In these places it is equivalent to “I said to myself.” Another form of the root is “Nafas,” breath, with an idea of inspiration: so “Sáhib Nafas” (= master of breath) is a minor saint who heals by expiration, a matter familiar to mesmerists (Pilgrimage, i., 86).
50. Arab. “Kaus al-Banduk;” the “pellet-bow” of modern India; with two strings joined by a bit of cloth which supports a ball of dry clay or stone. It is chiefly used for birding.
51. In the East blinding was a common practice, especially in the case of junior princes not required as heirs. A deep perpendicular incision was made down each corner of the eyes; the lids were lifted and the balls removed by cutting the optic nerve and the muscles. The later Caliphs blinded their victims by passing a red-hot sword blade close to the orbit or a needle over the eye-ball. About the same time in Europe the operation was performed with a heated metal basin—the well-known bacinare (used by Ariosto), as happened to Pier delle Vigne (Petrus de Vineâ), the “godfather of modern Italian.”
52. Arab. “Khinzír” (by Europeans pronounced “Hanzír”), prop. a wild-boar; but popularly used like our “you pig!”
53. Incest is now abominable everywhere except amongst the overcrowded poor of great and civilized cities. Yet such unions were common and lawful amongst ancient and highly cultivated peoples, as the Egyptians (Isis and Osiris), Assyrians and ancient Persians. Physiologically they are injurious only when the parents have constitutional defects: if both are sound, the issue, as amongst the so-called “lower animals,” is viable and healthy.
54. Dwellers in the Northern Temperates can hardly imagine what a dust-storm is in sun-parched tropical lands. In Sind we were often obliged to use candles at midday, while above the dust was a sun that would roast an egg.
55. Arab. “’Urban,” now always used of the wild people, whom the French have taught us to call les Bedouins; “Badw” being a waste or desert; and Badawi (fem. Badawíyah, plur. Badáwi and Bidwán), a man of the waste. Europeans have also learnt to miscall the Egyptians “Arabs”: the difference is as great as between an Englishman and a Spaniard. Arabs proper divide their race into sundry successive families. “The Arab al-Arabá” (or al-Aribah, or al-Urubíyat) are the autochthones, prehistoric, proto-historic and extinct tribes; for instance, a few of the Adites who being at Meccah escaped the destruction of their wicked nation, but mingled with other classes. The “Arab al-Muta’arribah,” (Arabized Arabs) are the first advenæ represented by such noble strains as the Koraysh (Koreish), some still surviving. The “Arab al-Musta’aribah” (institious, naturalized or instituted Arabs, men who claim to be Arabs) are Arabs like the Sinaites, the Egyptians and the Maroccans descended by intermarriage with other races. Hence our “Mosarabians” and the “Marrabais” of Rabelais (not, “a word compounded of Maurus and Arabs”). Some genealogists, however, make the Muta’arribah descendants of Kahtan (possibly the Joktan of Genesis x., a comparatively modern document, 700 B.C.?); and the Musta’aribah those descended from Adnán the origin of Arab genealogy. And, lastly, are the “Arab al-Musta’ajimah,” barbarized Arabs, like the present population of Meccah and Al-Medinah. Besides these there are other tribes whose origin is still unknown; such as the Mahrah tribes of Hazramaut, the “Akhdám” (= serviles) of Oman (Maskat); and the “Ebná” of Al-Yaman: Ibn Ishak supposes the latter to be descended from the Persian soldiers of Anushirwan who expelled the Abyssinian invader from Southern Arabia. (Pilgrimage, iii., 31, etc.)
56. Arab. “Amír al-Muuminín.�
�� The title was assumed by the Caliph Omar to obviate the inconvenience of calling himself “Khalífah” (successor) of the Khalífah of the Apostle of Allah (i.e. Abu Bakr); which after a few generations would become impossible. It means “Emir (chief or prince) of the Muumins;” men who hold to the (true Moslem) Faith, the “Imán” (theory, fundamental articles) as opposed to the “Dín,” ordinance or practice of the religion. It once became a Wazirial time conferred by Sultan Malikshah (King King-king) on his Nizám al-Mulk. (Richardson’s Dissert. lviii.)
57. This may also mean “according to the seven editions of the Koran,” the old revisions and so forth (Sale, Sect. iii. and D’Herbelot Alcoran). The schools of the “Mukri,” who teach the right pronunciation wherein a mistake might be sinful, are seven, Hamzah, Ibn Katír, Ya’akúb, Ibn Amir, Kisái, Asim and Hafs, the latter being the favourite with the Hanafis and the only one now generally known in Al-Islam.
58. Arab. “Sadd” = wall, dyke, etc. the “bund” or “band” of Anglo-India. Hence the “Sadd” on the Nile, the banks of grass and floating islands which “wall” the stream. There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the “Zauba’ah” as the Arabs call it. Devils, or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots, tearing up trees, which are whirled like leaves and sticks in air and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three thousand feet above the earth, a gigantic cloud of yellow sand which obliterates not only the horizon but even the midday sun. These sand-spouts are the terror of travellers. In Sind and the Punjab we have the dust-storm which for darkness, I have said, beats the blackest London fog.
59. Arab. Sár = the vendetta, before mentioned, as dreaded in Arabia as in Corsica.
60. Arab. “Ghútah,” usually a place where irrigation is abundant. It especially applies (in books) to the Damascus-plain because “it abounds with water and fruit trees.” The Ghutah is one of the four earthly paradises, the others being Basrah (Bassorah), Shiraz and Samarcand. Its peculiarity is the likeness to a seaport; the Desert which rolls up almost to its doors being the sea and its ships being the camels. The first Arab to whom we owe this admirable term for the “Companion of Job” is “Tarafah,” one of the poets of the Suspended Poems: he likens (v. v. 3, 4) the camels which bore away his beloved to ships sailing from Aduli. But “ships of the desert” is doubtless a term of the highest antiquity.
61. The exigencies of the “Saj’a,” or rhymed prose, disjoint this and many similar passages.
62. The “Ebony” Islands; Scott’s Isle of Ebene, i., 217.
63. “Jarjarís” in the Bul. Edit.
64. Arab. “Takbís.” Many Easterns can hardly sleep without this kneading of the muscles, this “rubbing” whose hygienic properties England is now learning.
65. The converse of the breast being broadened, the drooping, “draggle-tail” gait compared with the head held high and the chest inflated.
66. This penalty is mentioned in the Koran (chap. v.) as fit for those who fight against Allah and his Apostle; but commentators are not agreed if the sinners are first to be put to death or to hang on the cross till they die. Pharaoh (chap. xx.) threatens to crucify his magicians on palm-trees, and is held to be the first crucifier.
67. Arab. “’Ajami” = foreigner, esp. a Persian: the latter in The Nights is mostly a villain. I must here remark that the contemptible condition of Persians in Al-Hijáz (which I noted in 1852, Pilgrimage, i., 327) has completely changed. They are no longer, “The slippers of Ali and hounds of Omar”: they have learned the force of union and now, instead of being bullied, they bully.
68. The Calc. Edit. turns into Tailors (Khayyátín) and Torrens does not see the misprint.
69. i.e. Axe and sandals.
70. Lit. “Strike his neck.”
71. A phrase which will frequently recur, whose significance is “the situation suggested such words as these.”
72. The comparison is peculiarly apposite; the earth seen from above appears hollow with a raised rim.
73. A hundred years old.
74. “Bahr” in Arab. means sea, river, piece of water; hence the adjective is needed.
75. The Captain or Master of the ship (not the owner). In Al-Yaman the word also means a “barber,” in virtue of the root, Rass, a head.
76. The text has “in the character Ruká’í,” or Riká’í, the correspondence-hand.
77. A curved character supposed to be like the basil-leaf (rayhán). Richardson calls it “Rohani.”
78. I need hardly say that Easterns use a reed, a Calamus (Kalam applied only to the cut reed) for our quills and steel pens.
79. Famous for being inscribed on the Kiswah (cover) of Mohammed’s tomb; a large and more formal hand still used for engrossing and for mural inscriptions. Only seventy-two varieties of it are known (Pilgrimage, ii., 82).
80. The copying and transcribing hand which is either Arabi or Ajami. A great discovery has been lately made which upsets all our old ideas of Cufic, etc. Mr. Löytved of Bayrut has found, amongst the Hauranic inscriptions, one in pure Naskhi, dating A.D. 568, or fifty years before the Hijrah; and it is accepted as authentic by my learned friend, M. Ch. Clermont-Ganneau (p. 193, Pal. Explor. Fund; July 1884). In D’Herbelot and Sale’s day the Koran was supposed to have been written in rude characters, like those subsequently called “Cufic,” invented shortly before Mohammed’s birth by Murámir ibn Murrah of Anbar in Irák, introduced into Meccah by Bashar the Kindian, and perfected by Ibn Muklah (Al-Wazir, ob. A.H. 328 = 940). We must now change all that. See Catalogue of Oriental Caligraphs, etc., by G. P. Badger, London: Whiteley 1885.
81. Arab. “Baghlah;” the male (Baghl) is used only for loads. This is everywhere the rule: nothing is more unmanageable than a restive “Macho;” and he knows that he can always get you off his back when so minded. From “Baghlah” is derived the name of the native craft Anglo-Indicè, a “Buggalow”
82. In Heb. “Ben-Adam” is any map opp. to “Beni ish” (Psalm iv. 3) =filii viri, not homines.
83. This posture is terribly trying to European legs; and few white men (unless brought up to it) can squat for any time on their heels. The “tailor-fashion,” with crossed legs, is held to be free and easy.
84. This is the vinum coctum, the boiled wine, still a favourite in Southern Italy and Greece.
85. The Caliph Al-Maamún, who was a bad player, used to say, “I have the administration of the world and am equal to it, whereas I am straitened in the ordering of a space of two spans by two spans.” The “board” was then “a square field of well-dressed leather.”
86. The Rabbis (after Matth. xix. 12) count three kinds of Eunuchs; (1) Seris chammah = of the sun, i.e. natural; (2) Seris Adam = manufactured per homines; and (3) Seris Chammayim = of God (i.e. religious abstainer). Seris (castrated) or Abd (slave) is the general Hebrew name.
87. The “Lady of Beauty.”
88. “Káf” has been noticed as the mountain which surrounds earth as a ring does the finger: it is popularly used like our Alp and Alpine. The “circumambient Ocean” (Bahr al-muhit) is the Homeric Ocean-stream.
89. The pomegranate is probably chosen here because each fruit is supposed to contain one seed from Eden-garden. Hence a host of superstitions (Pilgrimage, iii., 104) possibly connected with the Chaldaic-Babylonian god Rimmon or Ramanu. Hence Persephone or Ishtar tasted the “rich pomegranate’s seed.” Lenormant, loc. cit. pp. 166, 182.
90. i.e. for the love of God—a favourite Moslem phrase.
91. Arab. “Báb,” also meaning a chapter (of magic, of war, etc.), corresponding with the Persian “Dar” as in Sad-dar, the Hundred Doors. Here, however, it is figurative “I tried a new mode.” This scene is in the Mabinogion.
92. I use this Irish term = crying for the dead; as English wants the w
ord for the præfica or myrialogist. The practice is not encouraged in Al-Islam; and Caliph Abu Bakr said, “Verily a corpse is sprinkled with boiling water by reason of the lamentations of the living,” i.e. punished for not having taken measures to prevent their profitless lamentations. But the practice is from Negroland whence it reached Egypt; and the people have there developed a curious system in the “weeping-song”: I have noted this in The Lake-Regions of Central Africa. In Zoroastrianism (Dabistan, chap. xcvii.) tears shed for the dead form a river in hell, black and frigid.
93. Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to Baghdad either on account of its superior police or simply because it was the Capital of the Caliphate. The Tigris was also called the “River of Peace (or Security).”
94. This is very characteristic: the passengers finding themselves in difficulties at once take command. See in my Pilgrimage, (i. chap. xi.) how we beat and otherwise maltreated the Captain of the “Golden Wire.”