[FN#73] In Night dcclxxviii. supra p.5, we find the orthodox Moslem doctrine that "a single mortal is better in Allah's sight than a thousand Jinns." For, I repeat, Al-Islam systematically exalts human nature which Christianity takes infinite trouble to degrade and debase. The results of its ignoble teaching are only too evident in the East: the Christians of the so-called (and miscalled) "Holy Land" are a disgrace to the faith and the idiomatic Persian term for a Nazarene is "Tarsá" = funker, coward. [FN#74] Arab. "Sakaba Kúrahá;" the forge in which children are hammered out? [FN#75] Arab. "Má al-Maláhat" = water (brilliancy) of beauty. [FN#76] The fourth of the Seven Heavens, the "Garden of Eternity," made of yellow coral. [FN#77] How strange this must sound to the Young Woman of London in the nineteenth century. [FN#78] "Forty days" is a quasi-religious period amongst Moslem for praying, fasting and religious exercises: here it represents our "honey-moon." See vol. v. p. 62. [FN#79] Yá layta, still popular. Herr Carlo Landberg (Proverbes et Dictons du Peuple Arabe, vol. i. of Syria, Leyden, E. J. Brill, 1883) explains layta for rayta (=raayta) by permutation of liquids and argues that the contraction is ancient (p. 42). But the Herr is no Arabist: "Layta" means "would to Heaven," or, simply "I wish," "I pray" (for something possible or impossible); whilst "La'alla" (perhaps, it may be) prays only for the possible: and both are simply particles governing the noun in the oblique or accusative case. [FN#80] "His" for "her," i.e. herself, making somewhat of confusion between her state and that of her son. [FN#81] i.e. his mother; the words are not in the Mac. Edit. [FN#82] Baghdad is called House of Peace, amongst other reasons, from the Dijlah (Tigris) River and Valley "of Peace." The word was variously written Baghdád, Bághdád, (our old Bughdaud and Bagdat), Baghzáz, Baghzán, Baghdán, Baghzám and Maghdád as Makkah and Bakkah (Koran iii. 90). Religious Moslems held Bágh (idol) and Dád (gift) an ill-omened conjunction, and the Greeks changed it to Eirenopolis. (See Ouseley's Oriental Collcctions, vol. i. pp. 18-20.) [FN#83] This is a popular saying but hardly a "vulgar proverb." (Lane iii. 522.) It reminds rather of Shakespear's: "So loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly." [FN#84] i.e. God forbid that I should oppose thee! [FN#85] Here the writer again forgets apparently, that Shahrazad is speaking: she may, however, use the plural for the singular when speaking of herself. [FN#86] i.e. She would have pleaded ill-treatment and lawfully demanded to be sold. [FN#87] The Hindus speak of "the only bond that woman knows—her heart." [FN#88] i.e. a rarity, a present (especially in Persian). [FN#89] Arab. "Al-bisát" wa'l-masnad lit. the carpet and the cushion. [FN#90] For "Báb al-bahr" and "Báb al-Barr" see vol. iii. 281.