Not engaged in children’s business, lit., whose children were not called upon. This proverbial expression is variously interpreted, but the most satisfactory explanation seems to be that of Abû ‘Obaydeh, who says it is applied to an affair of great importance, to which no children are summoned, but only their elders. It appears, however, from various quotations in De Sacy’s commentary, that in course of time the original meaning of the phrase has been forgotten, and that it has been joined to any noun, in order to emphasize the idea contained in it. For instance, tûbah, “repentance,” followed by lâ yunâdá walîdu-hâ, lit., “whose child is not called upon,” would signify a repentance of intense acuteness (see Ar. Prov., ii. 895).
Heedless of knocks and pushes, in Arabic ughẓî li ’l-lâkizi wa ’l-wâkizi, “conniving at him who strikes with his fist and him who pushes aside.”
She boasts of them the straightest ḳiblah, for it is stated that the kiblah for the people of Baṣra, that is to say, the direction to be observed by them in prayer, points exactly to the door of the Ka‘beh.
Opposite the portal and the station, i.e., the door of the Ka‘beh (see the preceding note) and the structure which is called the station of Abraham, and for which see the article “Maqûmu Ibrahîm” in the “Dictionary of Islâm,” p. 313.
One of the two wings of the world, alluding to a saying attributed to Abû Hurayrah, that the world represents the shape of a bird, whose wings are Baṣra and Cairo, and that, if those two were destroyed, a general downfall would ensue. Others say: “The world is a bird, with Baṣra and Kufa for its wings, Khorasan for its breast, Transoxania for its head, Mecca for its heart, Yemen for its rump, Syria and Maghrib for its thighs, and Egypt for its skull.”
A city founded on the fear of God, as built by the Moslems under the Khalif ‘Omar, and not inhabited, like the surrounding places, by fire-worshippers and other idolaters.
Therein meet the ships and the saddle-beasts, on account of its being equally accessible by roads traversed by travellers on land, and sea-routes frequented by voyagers. Similar meanings are conveyed by the meeting of the fish and the lizard, as the former lives exclusively in the water, which is avoided by the latter; by that of the camel-driver and the sailor, of the herdsman and the swimmer, while other juxtapositions point to the variety of trades pursued in a city of such importance.
The marvel of the tide that swells and the ebb that sinks, the fluctuations of the Indian Ocean affecting the river up to Baṣra in a similar manner as the tide influences the Thames at London.
Your ascetic is the most devout of mankind, etc.—The ascetic here
alluded to is Ḥasan Al-Baṣrî, who has been mentioned in Assembly
XL., p. 247, above. Your scholar is meant for Abû ‘Obaydeh, born
The imitation of the ceremonies at ‘Arafât . . . the morning bounty in the holy month.—Yauma ‘arafata is the ninth day of the month Ẕû ’l-ḥijjah, on which the pilgrims congregate and pray on Mount ‘Arafât, and it became the custom of Mohammedans living in towns distant from Mecca to imitate on that day the ceremonies performed on this occasion by processions and devotions outside their gates, a practice which was called ta‘rîf, and is tersely explained by the commentators as “a celebration of the day of ‘Arafah without Mount ‘Arafât.” It was instigated at Baṣra by Mohammed’s cousin, ‘Abdallah Ibn ‘Abbâs (for whom see vol. i., p. 332), and the observance soon spread to other Moslem communities. Tasḥîr, from saḥar, the dawn before sunrise, is another custom introduced by the inhabitants of Baṣra, which consisted in holding a market for the supply of food in the early mornings during the month of Ramadân, where the poor were allowed to satisfy their wants on their asking for leave.
But as for me, he who knows me—well, I am such, i.e., as he has learnt to know me from long acquaintance, meant, in connection with the clause following, as a hint to Al Ḥârith not to betray him, which would be a mean action under the present circumstances.
The hoofs of camels and their humps.—This may be taken literally, meaning the camels that have carried me on my numerous journeys, or figuratively, as a note in my MS. explains, in the sense of “people high and low.”
How many a flint I have made to split by my spells, lit., on how many a stone I have practised magic until it split asunder, i.e., how many a miser I have wheedled into liberality.
And the hair of my temple raven-black, in Arabic wa ’l faudu ghirbîbun.—The commentators agree that the meaning of the word ghirbîb is “intensely black,” but while some derive it from ghurâb, raven or crow, others trace it to the infinitive of the 4th from ighrâb, being far removed, as a black which surpasses in blackness everything else, and consider the name of the raven to be a derivative of the same verbal noun, either on account of his colour, or of his living at a distance from human habitations. In the Koran the term occurs in a corroborated form, which by Zamakhshari is explained with great subtilty and described as a highly energetic mode of expression, in the passage xxxv. 25: “Seest thou not that God sendeth down water from the Heaven, and that by it We cause the upgrowth of fruits of varied hues, and that on the mountains are tracks of varied hues, white and red, and others are of a raven black.” The last two words of Rodwell’s translation are in the original gharâbîbu sûdun, literally, ravenish (or exceedingly) black, and the peculiarity of the idiom as a corroborative consists in the idea being twice expressed, first in an implied form (gharâbhîbu, pl. of ghirbîb) and then in reality (sûdun). Similarly the poet Nâbighah says:
“By Him who protects the seekers of refuge, the birds, whom the pilgrims to Mecca pass between Ghîl and Sanad,”
where the birds who first were intimated by the expression “seekers of refuge” are subsequently explicitly named by way of explanation and corroborative emphasis.
That on every day a glance from Allah, be He exalted, falls upon you, i.e., a glance of compassion and benevolence. A tradition attributes to Mohammed the prophetic saying: “On every day God Almighty vouchsafes two glances, one upon the people of the earth to the East and West, the other upon the people of Baṣra.”
For He is lofty in dignity, etc., allusion to Koran, xl. 15: “Of exalted grade,” and xlii. 24: “He it is who accepteth repentance from His servants, and forgiveth their sins and knoweth your actions.”
Would that I had been afore forgotten, in Arabic nisyan, or nasyan, a thing forgotten that on account of its contemptibleness does not occur to the mind, a word borrowed from the Koran, xix. 23: “And the throes came upon her (Mary) at the trunk of a palm. She said: Oh would that I had died ere this, and been a thing forgotten, forgotten quite (nasyan mansîyan).”
To whom their hearts incline, in Arabic ṣaghat qulûbuhum ilai-hi. The verb ṣaghw, like its synonym mail, may have the meaning of inclining, tending towards, or of declining, deviating from, according to the preposition by which it governs. Here this preposition is ilá, to, but the same verb occurs in the opposite sense, Koran, lxvi. 4: “If ye both be turned to God in penitence, for now have your hearts gone astray (ṣaghat qulûbu-kumâ),” where ‘an-hu, from him, is to be supplied, so that the literal translation would be “your hearts have declined or deviated from him.”