History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
Ali was signalized in single combat; and the war was protracted
twenty days, till the final separation of the confederates. A
tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents: their
private quarrels were fomented by an insidious adversary; and the
Koreish, deserted by their allies, no longer hoped to subvert the
throne, or to check the conquests, of their invincible exile. 134
128 (return) [ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9) allows
him seventy or eighty horse; and on two other occasions, prior to
the battle of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. 10) and of
500 (p. 66) troopers. Yet the Mussulmans, in the field of Ohud,
had no more than two horses, according to the better sense of
Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. xxxi. p. 65.) In the Stony province,
the camels were numerous; but the horse appears to have been less
numerous than in the Happy or the Desert Arabia.]
129 (return) [ Bedder Houneene, twenty miles from Medina, and
forty from Mecca, is on the high road of the caravan of Egypt;
and the pilgrims annually commemorate the prophet’s victory by
illuminations, rockets, &c. Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]
130 (return) [ The place to which Mahomet retired during the
action is styled by Gagnier (in Abulfeda, c. 27, p. 58. Vie de
Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 30, 33) Umbraculum, une loge de bois avec
une porte. The same Arabic word is rendered by Reiske (Annales
Moslemici Abulfedae, p. 23) by Solium, Suggestus editior; and the
difference is of the utmost moment for the honor both of the
interpreter and of the hero. I am sorry to observe the pride and
acrimony with which Reiske chastises his fellow-laborer. Saepi
sic vertit, ut integrae paginae nequeant nisi una litura corrigi
Arabice non satis callebat, et carebat judicio critico. J. J.
Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalisae Tabulas, p. 228, ad
calcero Abulfedae Syriae Tabulae; Lipsiae, 1766, in 4to.]
131 (return) [ The loose expressions of the Koran (c. 3, p. 124,
125, c. 8, p. 9) allow the commentators to fluctuate between the
numbers of 1000, 3000, or 9000 angels; and the smallest of these
might suffice for the slaughter of seventy of the Koreish,
(Maracci, Alcoran, tom. ii. p. 131.) Yet the same scholiasts
confess that this angelic band was not visible to any mortal eye,
(Maracci, p. 297.) They refine on the words (c. 8, 16) “not thou,
but God,” &c. (D’Herbelot. Bibliot. Orientale p. 600, 601.)]
132 (return) [ Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 47.]
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