On backs of Mahrî camels.—Mahrî is the noun of relation formed from Mahrat ibn Haydân, chief of a tribe of Yemen, and its feminine Mahrîyah means a camel descended from those bred by him, which were celebrated for their swiftness, said to surpass that of horses.
Some promising business had cropped up for me at Ṣuḥâr.—This is one of the chief towns of the district ‘Omân, on the south-eastern coast of Arabia, and an emporium for the trade of the country by means of the Persian Gulf, with a harbour one parasang square. The above passage runs in Arabic, wa qad sanaḥa lî arabun bi-Suḥâra, where I translate arabun, an affair or matter, by “promising business,” on account of the verb sanaḥa, which, as was mentioned in a previous note, means: presented itself under favourable auspices.
Who blames himself and finds excuses, i.e., who reproaches himself for venturing on a sea-voyage and exposing himself to its dangers, but at the same time finds excuses, on account of the quantity of his merchandise, which would render the land journey too tedious and expensive.
O ye people of this strong-built ship, etc.—Allusion to the following passages of the Koran, xvii. 68: “It is your Lord, who speedeth onwards the ships for you in the sea”; vi. 96: “This is the Ordinance of the Mighty, the Wise”; lxi. 10: “O ye who believe! shall I direct you unto a merchandise which shall deliver you from the sore torment?”
Whose shadow is not heavy, for: who is no encumbrance, or will not prove a bore, taken from the saying: thy shadow weighs heavy upon me (comp. Assembly XXII., vol. i., p. 230, l. 13; and the note on Deemed his shadow to be heavy, ibid., p. 473).
And not to be stingy in providing for his needs.—The word mâ‘ûn, here translated “in providing for his needs,” has occurred in Assembly XXXVI., p. 80, l. 4 from the bottom, where I have rendered it by “bounty.” It is, according to most lexicographers, a derivative of the measure fâ‘ul, from the verb ma‘n, to flow, whence it signifies rain, and in accordance with the connection existing in the Arabic mind between the idea of water and moisture and that of bounty, of which Chenery speaks in his interesting note on A bucket from his stream (vol. i., p. 282), it becomes synonymous with ma‘rûf, in the sense of kindness, beneficence, etc. A more far-fetched explanation is, that it stands for ma‘ûnah, aid, assistance, from the verb ‘aun, to help, and that the letter of prolongation in the first syllable is inserted to compensate for the dropped termination of the feminine. Be that as it may, the term mâ‘ûn is further applied to anything useful, or borrowed for use, as a kettle, an axe, or household utensils in general. Abû ‘Obaydeh says, mâ‘ûn has in the time of Ignorance the meaning of advantage, gift, and in Islâm that of obedience, piety, legal alms. In modern Arabic, mâ’ûnu ’l-waráq is a ream of paper.
I take refuge with Allah from the paths of destruction.—An ejaculatory prayer of this kind, on embarking in a vessel, is approved of by Mohammed in the following words of a tradition: “It is a safeguard from drowning for my people when they mount their ships.”
Allah . . . has not made it binding on the ignorant to learn, any more than He has made it incumbent on the learned to teach, i.e., He has enjoined the one at the same time, or as well as the other. This alludes to the saying attributed to ‘Alî: “Allah has imposed upon the ignorant the duty of learning, as he has imposed upon those possessed of knowledge the duty of teaching.” Similarly Mohammed bin Ka‘b says: “It is not allowed to one of the learned to be silent concerning his learning, nor is the ignorant allowed to keep silence concerning his ignorance, but he should ask.” The equivalent for “He has made binding upon” is in Arabic akhaẕa, “he has taken from,” where the word ‘ahd or mîs̤âq, “covenant,” is understood, which idiom occurs in full, Koran, iii. 184: “Moreover, when God entered into a covenant with (lit., took a covenant) from those to whom the Book had been given, . . . they cast it behind their backs and sold it for a sorry price! But vile is that for which they have sold it.”
He quoted from the Koran, saying, lit., he read, qara’a, the verb from which the name Qu‘rân or Koran itself is derived. The passage quoted is xi. 43.
By Him who holds in bondage the fathomless sea (al-baḥra ’l-lujjîya). —Lujjî, derived from lujjah, an abyss, is that of which the bottom cannot be reached, and applies likewise to the sea in Koran, xxiv. 40: “Or like the darkness on the unfathomable sea, when covered by billows riding upon billows, above which are clouds: darkness upon darkness. When a man reacheth forth his hand, he can scarcely see it! He to whom God shall not give light, no light at all hath he!”
How could the son of brightness (ibnu jalâ) remain hidden?—a designation given to a man of fame or mark, either because it is used as a metaphor for the morning, the moon, or the dawn of day, or after a notorious depredator, thus called, for whom see Ar. Prov., i. 46.
While the sea was calm (wa ’l-baḥru rahwun), again taken from Koran, xliv. 23: “And leave the sea behind thee resting in calmness,” i.e., restored to its natural condition, after it had swallowed the Egyptians in pursuit of Moses and his people. Rodwell translates here “the disparted sea,” following the interpretation of those commentators who explain the word by opened or split asunder, from rahâ, he opened his legs wide. It is, however, evident, from our text, that Ḥarîri leans to the former notion.
And the travellers forgot all that had been, i.e., the state of things which had prevailed in the early part of their voyage.
But we proceeded to search within its inmost part, etc.—Allusion to the following passages of the Koran, xvii. 5: “So when the menace for the first crime (the slaughter of Isaiah and the imprisonment of Jeremiah, punished by the invasion of the Assyrians) came to be inflicted, We sent against you our servants, endued with terrible prowess; and they searched the inmost part of your abodes, and the menace was accomplished”; ibid., xvi. 50: “Have they not seen how everything which God hath created turneth its shadow right and left,” where the verb tafaiyu’ is used in the sense of turning one’s shadow, which in the text of the Assembly has the meaning of seeking shade; ibid., xxii. 44: “And how many cities which had acted wickedly have We destroyed, and they are laid low in ruin on their own foundations, and wells abandoned and lofty castles.”
We found every one of them in the predicament (lit., skin) of one broken down, and the grief of one taken captive.—This is the reading of De Sacy and my MS., which I follow in my own edition. The Beyrout and Boulak prints have instead: But we found every one of them sorrowful, deep in grief, so that we fancied him utterly broken down or taken captive.
When we saw that their fire was the fire of al-Ḥubâḥib. — This refers to the proverb, akhlafu min nâri ’l-ḥubâḥib, more deceitful than the fire of al-Ḥubâḥib or of Abû Ḥubâḥib (Ar. Prov., i. 454; ii. 343; iii., P. 1, 28), said to have been a miser, who used to kindle his fire from thin wood, so that it was extinguished before any guest, speculating on his hospitality, could approach it. According to others, the appellative applies to the glow-worm, commonly called sirâju ’l-lail, lamp of the night, or to the sparks struck by the hoofs of a horse on stony ground, or produced by the collision of stones in the air. Al-Kat̤âmî says in the Ḥamâseh:
“For sooth, the fires of Kays in winter-time are to the night farer but like the fire of al-Ḧubâḥib,”
which Tabrîzî explains: “Like the sparks springing from a stone under the horse’s hoof.”
And be the churl cursed (qabuḥa), the Arabic verb being taken in the sense in which it is used in Koran, xxviii. 42: “We pursued them with a curse in this world, and they shall be of the execrated (mina ’l-maqbûḥîna) on the day of Resurrection.”
The Shâh of this territory.—The Persian word shâh, king, lends local colour to a scene enacted on an island of the Persian Gulf, and at the same time it contains an allusion to the king of chess, in connection with ruq‘ah, territory, which also means a square of the chess-board.
When it took no longer than to say: Nay, nay!—For this proverbial phrase to express shortness of time and quickness of action see Ar. Prov., ii. 295. It occurs in the following line of Al Komayt ibn Zayd, of whom an account is given by Chenery, vol. i., p. 320:
“The alighting of the people therein is like (saying) nay, nay, for a little while, without putting saddle near saddle,”
i.e., without unsaddling. Jerîr uses in the same sense the expression like nay and like this, in speaking of a short snatch of sleep.
Or an enemy frankly hostile, in Arabic wa ‘adûwin mubînin, allusion to Koran, xvii. 55: “Enjoin My servants to speak in kindly sort: Verily Satan would stir up strifes among them; aye, Satan is man’s avowed foe.”
Sound advisers how often are they suspected, lit., how many a sound adviser is set down as one to be suspected (z̤annîn), a word borrowed from Koran, lxxxi. 24, where, however, the reading ẓannîn, niggard, seems preferable. The Koranic passage refers to Mohammed, of whom it is said that he does not stint or keep back heaven’s secrets. With the reading z̤annîn the meaning would be, he is not subject to the suspicion of falsehood, when he speaks of the invisible world and its mysteries.
That the hand of none menstruous must touch it, indicating that the spell is something sacred, in allusion to a woman in this state being forbidden to touch the sacred book.
Or the interval which the milker observes in drawing milk.—To one who hurries another on, it is said amhilnî fuwâqa nâqatin, allow me the collecting time (fuwâq) of a she-camel, i.e., the time in which she collects a fresh flow of milk, after being milked (Ar. Prov., ii. 602).
So that I was made to fancy him Uwais al Karanî or Dobays al-Asadî. —The former, a native of Karan in Nejd, was the most eminent ascetic and devotee of Kûfa, who was killed in the battle of Ṣiffîn; Dobays, known as Amîr Dobays, or Amîr Saif ad-daulat al-Asadî, a grandee of Bagdad and contemporary of Ḥarîri, noted for his generosity, of which he gave signal proofs to the author of the Makâmât on hearing that he had mentioned him in this work.