The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 06 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 06 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
[FN#226] Arab. “Ashjár,” which may mean either the door-posts or the
wooden bolts. Lane (iii. 174) translates it “among the trees” in a
room!
[FN#227] Koran (ix. 51), when Mohammed reproaches the unbelievers for
not accompanying him to victory or martyrdom.
[FN#228] Arab. “Kiná,” a true veil, not the “Burká” or “nose bag” with
the peep-holes. It is opposed to the “Tarkah” or “head veil.” Europeans
inveigh against the veil which represents the loup of Louis Quatorze’s
day: it is on the contrary the most coquettish of contrivances, hiding
coarse skins, fleshy noses, wide mouths and vanishing chins, and
showing only lustrous and liquid black eyes. Moreover a pretty woman,
when she wishes, will always let you see something under the veil.
(Pilgrimage i. 337.)
[FN#229] A yellow-flowered artemisia or absinthe whose wood burns like
holm-oak. (Unexplored Syria ii. 43.) See vol. ii. 24 for further
details.
[FN#230] The Farz or obligatory prayers, I have noted, must be recited
(if necessary) in the most impure place; not so the other orisons.
Hence the use of the “Sajjádah” or prayer-rug an article too well known
to require description.
[FN#231] Anglicč a stomach-ache, a colic.
[FN#232] Arab. “Al-Háfizah” which has two meanings. Properly it
signifies the third order of Traditionists out of a total of five or
those who know 300,000 traditions and their ascriptions. Popularly “one
who can recite the Koran by rote.” There are six great Traditionists
whose words are held to be prime authorities; (1) Al-Bokhári, (2)
Muslim, and these are entitled Al-Sahíhayn, The (two true) authorities.
After them (3) Al-Tirmidi; and (4) Abu Daúd: these four being the
authors of the “Four Sunan,” the others are (5) Al-Nasái and (6) Ibn
Májah (see Jarrett’s Al-Siyuti pp. 2, 6; and, for modern Arab studies,
Pilgrimage i. 154 et seq.).
[FN#233] Lane (iii. 176) marries the amorous couple, thus making the
story highly proper and robbing it of all its point.
[FN#234] Arab. “Sabbahat,” i.e. Sabbah-ak’ Allah bi’l khayr =
Allah give thee good morning: still the popular phrase.
[FN#235] Arab. “Ta’rísak,” with the implied hint of her being a
“Mu’arrisah” or she pander. The Bresl. Edit. (xii. 356) bluntly says
“Kivádatak” thy pimping.
[FN#236] Arab. “Rafw”: the “Rafu-gar” or fine-drawer in India, who does
this artistic style of darning, is famed for skill.
[FN#237] The question sounds strange to Europeans, but in the Moslem
East a man knows nothing, except by hearsay, of the women who visit his
wife.
[FN#238] Arab. “Ahl al-bayt,” so as not rudely to say “wife.”
[FN#239] This is a mere abstract of the tale told in the Introduction
(vol. i. 10–12). Here however, the rings are about eighty; there the
number varies from ninety to five hundred and seventy.
[FN#240] The father suspected the son of intriguing with one of his own
women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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