Kufa.—Of Kufa in Irak, the rival in eloquence and learning to Basra, I have spoken in the Introduction.

Whose complexion was of a two-fold hue, whose moon was as an amulet of silver.—The meaning of this description is that it was a night of a crescent moon, which sets early and leaves the earth in darkness, so that the night is one of two hues, the moonlight and the gloom. The amulet to which the moon is here com­pared was a crescent-shaped piece of silver hung round the neck of children to preserve them from Jinn, the evil eye, and other dangers. It was generally inscribed with verses of the Koran.

Saḥbân.—Saḥbân Wâ’il was the most celebrated preacher and orator of the early days of Islam, and his name has become pro­verbial, like that of Ḳoss, bishop of Najrân. He was born in the time of Moḥammed, and died in the year 54 (a.d. 673). It is related of him that he could preach for hours, and that he once preached before the Khalif Mu‘âwiyeh from early morning to the mid-day prayer. He required to hold a staff in his hand, and on being told that this was not suitable to the presence of the Khalif, he defended himself by the example of Moses, who held a staff when delivering the messages of God. Koran xx. 72, and xxvi. 31. One of the earliest extant specimens of an Arab in rhymed prose is by Saḥbân. It contains the usual incentives to morality, founded on the shortness of life, and the certainty of future reward and punishment. Some specimens of his versifi­cation have been preserved. The family of Ṭalḥah, at Basra, was noted for its generosity. The most illustrious member of it, called for his munificence Ṭalḥat aṭ Ṭalḥât, was governor of Sejestan, and Saḥbân thus addressed him:

O Ṭalḥah, most noble in worth, most generous with thy hereditary wealth;

Thine it is to give, so give to me; then on me will it be to praise thee in the assemblies.

Ṭalḥah said, “Choose what thou wilt.” Saḥban answered, “Thy bay horse, and thy baker lad, and thy castle of Zerenj, and ten thousand dirhems.” Ṭalḥah said, “Fie! thou hast asked of me according to thy own measure, and that of thy people Bâhileh, not according to my measure; thou art to be blamed for asking so little; if thou hadst asked all my castles, slaves, and beasts I would have given them.” It may be re­marked that Bâhileh was the least esteemed of the Arab tribes. It is related of Saḥbân that, on a question of reconciliation between two tribes, he spoke half a day, without repeating a single word. See Prov. Arab. I. 450. “More eloquent than Saḥbân Wâ’il.”

Each was a man to remember from and not to guard against.— It is impossible to avoid some awkwardness in the translation of this sentence, in which the word is used in two different though cognate senses.

Fascinated us, or gained the mastery over us. A similar use of the word occurs in the Forty-third Assembly.

Rousing the dogs.—Literally, making them to bark. When a traveller lost his way in the darkness, he shouted so as to set barking any dogs that might be near. By these means he was guided to a habitation. Compare Imr al Ḳays, Dîwân, p. 49, last line of the poem. The word is often used by poets as synonymous with a belated traveller.

O people of the mansion.—The metre of these verses is like that of the verses on the denar, in the Third Assembly, with the exception that here the last foot suffers , which is the dropping of the last letter of a at the end of a foot, and the quiescing of the letter before it. By this licence becomes . It will be observed that there is here an uneven number of verses, so that the distinction between and cannot exist.

Like the new moon.—He likens himself to the new moon, because he is thin, bent in shape, and pale or yellow in com­plexion.

Begging boldly.—In the Koran, xxii. 37, the believer is com­manded to give of his meat both to the and the , ex­plained to mean him who waits and is content with what is given him without begging, or else begs very humbly, and him who begs boldly and openly. Abû Zayd uses both terms in these verses as descriptive of himself.

Knew what was behind his lightning.—One of the many figurative expressions taken from the rain-cloud, to signify a knowledge of a man’s real nature and acquirements. We knew by the verses which he uttered that behind the sudden solicita­tion of the traveller was hidden a night’s amusement for us.

I will not roll my tongue over your food.—This word, which signifies to move the tongue in the mouth over the remains of a mouthful, is used in the Thirty-seventh Assembly in the sense of to taste, to get the full savour. Abû Zayd’s son complains that his father made him taste the savour of beggary. Compare Job, xx. 12.

In a note to the verses on the letter , in the Forty-sixth Assembly, two other forms of are given, namely and . This variability of the third radical is very common in Arabic, particularly in words that express very familiar ideas, and are much in the mouth of the people. A certain weakness in one of the radicals, generally the third, is to be remarked both in Arabic and Hebrew, and has encouraged the belief that the original Semitic roots were biliteral and monosyllabic, and that another letter was developed in the course of ages, as a larger variety of ideas required expression. M. Ernest Renan (His-toire des Langues Sémitiques, p. 96) says, “On est amené à se représenter chaque racine sémitique comme essentiellement com­posée de deux lettres radicales, auxquelles s’est ajoutée plus tard une troisième, qui ne fait que modifier par des nuances le sens principal, parfois même ne sert qu’à compléter le nombre ternaire. Les monosyllabes bilitères obtenus par cette analyse auraient servi, dans l’hypothèse que nous exposons, de souche commune à des groupes entiers de radicaux trilitères offrant tous un même fond de signification. Ce seraient là, en quelque sorte, les élé-ments premiers et irréductibles des langues sémitiques. En effet, presque tous ces radicaux bilitères sont formés par onoma­topée.” The two letters , for instance, express the idea of scratching or scraping which is found in the verbs ; to the two letters belong a similar series of verbs. Similarly, in Arabic, we have , etc. Compare also M. Renan’s remarks in the same work (Book V. chap. 2.) It has also been observed that the etymologies, or rather plays on words, in the Pentateuch often assume the biliteral root, (Genesis iv. I, v. 29.) The Arab authors have not failed to observe this characteristic of their language. De Sacy, in his Anthologie, page 449, gives several passages from Moṭarrezi, in which that acute grammarian, commenting upon Ḥarîri, re­marks upon the , or letter-formation of certain verbs, as expressing certain classes of ideas. Bayḍâwi, in his commentary on the first verses of the second chapter of the Koran, says and are of kin, and if you go through the verbs which begin with these two letters, and , you will find that they have the signification of “departing” or “going out.” He makes a similar observation on the verb , which, whether it be spelt with a or a , signifies the gaining of something sought or “the opening of the way of success.” Then he adds that words which resemble it in the first two letters, such as , and , express the notion of “breaking” and “opening.” The interest which scholars feel in determining the early structure of the Semitic languages, and their relations to those called Aryan, must be my excuse for this somewhat irrele­vant note.

And forbids him his repasts.—Compare Prov. Arab. I. 540, “Sometimes one eating hinders several.”

The best suppers are those that are clearly seen.—The full proverb is given, Prov. Arab. I. 442. “The best morning meals are the early ones, the best evening meals are those that are clearly seen, or that show their face,” that is, that are taken before dark.

Unless, by Allah.—On the usage of see the commentary to the Forty-third Assembly, p. 563, De Sacy’s edition, where also it is explained that the fetḥah at the end is in substitution for the vocative particle. Compare the French note to p. 569. But the two may be exceptionally combined in poetry: Alfîyeh, v. 584. See also Bayḍâwi on Koran, iii. 25. The peculiar force of as unless indeed, unless possibly, suggests a com­parison with <Greek> in Greek.