‘Iṣâm, the son of Shahbar, is the exemplar among the Arabs of a man who is great by his own merits, and not by the nobility of his ancestors. He was chamberlain to No‘mân ibn al Munthir, king of Hira, known as No‘mân Abû Ḳâbûs, and in this capacity befriended two of the most eminent poets of the time, An Nâbighat ath Thobyâni and Ḥassân ibn Thâbit. The phrase in the text is taken from some verses of An Nâbi-ghah, who says “the soul of ‘Iṣâm has ennobled ‘Iṣâm:” Arab. Prov. II. 745. Sherîshi, no doubt erroneously, attributes them to ‘Iṣâm himself, who was asked how he who was low of origin had attained to such high rank. Nâbighah, who like most of the poets of the Ignorance was licentious in style, had com­posed some verses celebrating in impassioned language the beauties of Mutejarradeh, the wife of No‘mân, and indicating that she requited his admiration. This Mutejarradeh had been the wife of the king’s father, after whose death the king had married her, a practice permitted among the ancient Arabs, though apparently not generally approved, since it was called , the marriage of hate. It was abrogated by Moḥam-med; see Koran iv. 26. Some say that Nâbighah had entered the apartment of Mutejarradeh; others that he composed the ḳaṣîdeh at the instance of Al Munakhkhal, her lover. The verses were repeated to the king, who was greatly incensed, and would have slain Nâbighah, had not ‘Isâm warned him, so that he was able to escape by flight. He repaired to the court of Ghassân, but being after a time desirous of returning to Hira he sought a reconciliation with the king. No‘mân was sick, and Nâbighah addressed the following verses to the chamberlain:

I conjure thee tell me whether the hero be still borne on the litter;

I do not blame thee that I enter not; but, tell me, what is behind thee, ‘Isâm?

These last words became proverbial, being used when you ask information of any one concerning something that he has seen; Arab. Prov. II. 589, where it is made a woman’s name, . Nâbighah was afterwards received into favour by the king, and remained thenceforward on good terms with him. ‘Iṣâm procured for Ḥassân ibn Thâbit the favour of the king by warning him that when No‘mân spoke against the king of Ghassân, and asked his opinion, he should not join in disparaging him; for No‘mân, though he hated his royal brother and railed at him himself, would not like a king to be ill-spoken of by a subject. These adventures, taken from the Kitâb al Aghâni, will be found at length in the second volume of M. Caussin de Perceval’s Essai. It became a saying in the sense of “Be like ‘Iṣâm whose honour was derived from his own worth, and not like one who relies for honour merely on the bones of his ancestors.” An anecdote of Al Ḥajjâj connected with this phrase is given by Maydâni at the first cited proverb, and from Sherîshi in De Sacy’s commentary. Whether the proverb, “‘Iṣâm was sleeping at the hour of departure,” Arab. Prov. II. 770, refers to the same person I am not able to determine. More on this subject will be found in the notes to the ḳaṣîdeh of An Nâbighah in De Sacy’s Chrestomathie.

Al Asma‘î has been already spoken of. He was celebrated not only for his great learning, but for his cheerful humour and ready wit; of which examples are recorded too numerous to be repeated here. Sherîshi remarks that Al Aṣma‘î is to be con­sidered an ‘Iṣâmî, that is, one who was great on account of his own merits, since he descended from Bâhileh, which is the most bastard and the meanest of the tribes of the Arabs. It is but justice, however, to the great scholar to say that, according to Ibn Khallikân, no such name as Bâhileh appears in his pedigree, which the biographer sets forth up to ‘Adnân himself. He bore the name of Bâhilî, according to this authority, because the wife of Mâlik, one of his ancestors, was named Bâhileh. Whatever may have been the disgrace of belonging to this tribe, Al Aṣma‘î shared it with one of the most illustrious men of Islam, Kutaybet ibn Muslim, who conquered Tartary in the reign of Al Welîd ibn ‘Abd al Melik. Ibn Khallikân, in his life of Kutay-beh, gives several anecdotes illustrative of the contempt in which Bâhileh was held. The Arabs of the desert, he says, hated to bear the name; so that a poet said, “It profits not a man to be descended from Hâshim if he have a Bâhilî soul.” Again, “If it were said to a dog, ‘Thou Bâhilî,’ the dog would turn howling from the reproach of such a pedigree.” The Prophet being asked by Al Ash‘ath ibn Ḳays al Kindi whether all were equally subject to the law of retaliation, namely, that the offender should suffer the precise injury that he had inflicted (Koran ii. 173; v. 49) said, “Yes, even if thou slewest a Bâhilî, I should slay thee to avenge him.” An Arab being told that a certain man had sprung not merely from Bâhileh, but from the slaves of Bâhileh, immediately fell down and kissed his hands and his feet. Being asked why he did so, he replied, “God would never have inflicted on thee such a misfortune in this life unless he had intended to reward thee with Paradise in the next.” This evil renown of Bâhileh caused Abû ‘Obaydeh to doubt whether Al Aṣma‘î could ever have called himself by such a name; since those who belonged to the tribe concealed their pedigree.

Cloak me.—Abû Zayd intends Ḥârith to understand the word in a figurative sense, that of concealing who he was; while the others believe that he merely asks for clothing.

Imbued with the dew of benevolence.—The word in the sense of being imbued or penetrated with anything is taken from Koran ii. 87, “They (the Israelites) were imbued in their hearts with the calf;” or they “were made to drink in their hearts” of it; which is interpreted to mean that they were imbued with the love of it, and the desire to worship it, as the cloth is imbued with the dye: Zamakhshari and Bayḍâwi. It may be, how­ever, that the original phrase indicates a vague acquaintance on the part of Moḥammed with the account given at Exodus xxxii. 20: “And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.”

Well done he.—The measure of these verses belongs to the third ḍarb of the first ‘arûd of the sarî‘. The ‘arûḍ which is originally loses the by , which is the dropping of the last letter of a watad mefrûḳ at the end of a foot; it then suffers , which is the dropping of the quiescent fourth letter. It thus becomes . The ḍarb being also originally suffers , which is the dropping of a watad mefrûḳ at the end of a foot, and becomes .

Jinn.— is another form of . The expression, “Men and Jinn,” is taken from the last Sura of the Koran, which is one of the two prayers for protection.

The silk of Paradise.—The people of Paradise will be clothed in green silk , and in , which is thick woven embroidered brocade. Koran xviii. 30; xliv. 53; lxxvi. 21. God provides these two materials, one fine and the other of a stout texture, that the believers may be gratified according to their fancy. The silk will be green because that is the most beautiful of colours.

A sharp cold was that which froze thee!—This is admirative or ironical.

Prosecute not that.—Koran xvii. 38. For the interpretation of this command see Bayḍâwi. The meaning of or in this passage is taken to be “a following up of a man or thing for the purpose of accusation or calumny;” so that in ordinary phrase signifies that such an one inveighed against or slandered such an one; it is also used of lying and bearing false witness. In a Tradition of the Prophet it is said, using the word , “Whosoever shall prosecute or accuse a Moslem untruly, God shall imprison him amid the sweat of the damned.”

Ṭaybeh.—This was the name which the city of Yathrib re­ceived from Moḥammed: for God “made it sweet and goodly,” as the home of the Prophet during life, and his resting-place after death. The laḳab or appellation of Medinet an Nebî, the City of the Prophet, however, prevailed, and is now used as the proper name of the city.