Arabian Society in the Middle Ages: Studies From The Thousand and One NightsLane, Edward William
Islamic
Arabian Society in the Middle Ages: Studies From The Thousand and One Nights
Lane, Edward William
Arabian nights; Egypt -- Social life and customs; Islamic Empire -- Social life and customs; Social history -- Medieval, 500-1500
El-Khiḍr and Ilyás (Elias), are both believed to have been
Ḳuṭbs, and the latter is called in the Ḳur-án an apostle; but
it is disputed whether the former was a prophet or merely a welee. Both
are said to have drunk of the Fountain of Life, and to be in consequence
still living; and Ilyás is commonly believed to invest the successive
Ḳuṭbs. The similarity of the miracles ascribed to the Ḳuṭbs
to those performed by Elias or Elijah, I have remarked in a former
work.[66] Another miracle, reminding us of the mantle of Elijah in the
hands of his successor, may here be mentioned.--A saint who was the
Ḳuṭb of his time, dying at Tunis, left his clothes in trust to his
attendant, Moḥammad El-Ashwam, a native of the neighbouring regency
of Tripoli, who desired to sell these relics, but was counselled to
retain them, and accordingly, though high prices were bidden for them,
made them his own by purchase. As soon as they became his property, he
was affected, we are told, with a divine ecstasy, and endowed with
miraculous powers.[67]
Innumerable miracles are related to have been performed by Muslim
saints, and large volumes are filled with the histories of their
wonderful lives. The author of the work from which the above story is
taken, mentions, as a fact to be relied on, in an account of one of his
ancestors, that, his lamp happening to go out one night while he was
reading alone in the riwáḳ of the Jabart (of which he was the
sheykh), in the great mosque El-Azhar, the forefinger of his right hand
emitted a light which enabled him to continue his reading until his
naḳeeb had trimmed and lighted another lamp.[68]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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