The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 05...

363. It may also mean “have recourse to God.”

364. Abdallah ibn Abbas, before noticed, first cousin of Mohammed and the most learned of the Companions. See D’Herbelot.

365. Koran xcvi., “Blood-clots,” 1 and 2. “Read” may mean “peruse the revelation” (it was the first Koranic chapter communicated to Mohammed), or “recite, preach.”

366. Koran, xxvii. 30. Mr. Rodwell (p. 1) holds to the old idea that the “Basmalah” is of Jewish origin, taught to the Kuraysh by Omayyah, of Taif, the poet and Haníf (convert).

367. Koran ix.: this was the last chapter revealed and the only one revealed entire except verse 110.

368. Ali was despatched from Al-Medinah to Meccah by the Prophet on his own slit-eared camel to promulgate this chapter; and meeting the assembly at Al-‘Akabah he also acquainted them with four things; (1) No Infidel may approach the Meccah temple; (2) naked men must no longer circuit the Ka’abah; (3) only Moslems enter Paradise, and (4) public faith must be kept.

369. Dictionaries give the word “Basmalah” (= saying Bismillah); but the common pronunciation is “Bismalah.”

370. Koran xvii. 110, a passage revealed because the Infidels, hearing Mohammed calling upon The Compassionate, imagined that Al-Rahmán was other deity but Allah. The “names” have two grand divisions, Asmá Jalálí, the fiery or terrible attributes, and the Asmá Jamálí (airy, watery, earthy or) amiable. Together they form the Asmá al-Husna or glorious attributes, and do not include the Ism al-A’azam, the ineffable name which is known only to a few.

371. Koran ii. 158.

372. Koran xcvi. before noticed.

373. A man of Al-Medinah, one of the first of Mohammed’s disciples.

374. Koran lxxiv. 1, etc., supposed to have been addressed by Gabriel to Mohammed when in the cave of Hira or Jabal Núr. He returned to his wife Khadijah in sore terror at the vision of one sitting on a throne between heaven and earth, and bade her cover him up. Whereupon the Archangel descended with this text, supposed to be the first revealed. Mr. Rodwell (p. 3) renders it, “O thou enwrapped in thy mantle!” and makes it No. ii. after a Fatrah or silent interval of six months to three years.

375. There are several versets on this subject (chapts. ii. and xxx).

376. Koran cx. 1.

377. The third Caliph; the “Writer of the Koran.”

378. Koran, v. 4. Sale translates “idols.” Mr. Rodwell, “On the blocks (or shafts) of stone,” rude altars set by the pagan Arabs before their dwellings.

379. Koran, v. 116. The words are put into the mouth of Jesus.

380. The end of the same verse.

381. Koran, v. 89. Supposed to have been revealed when certain Moslems purposed to practise Christian asceticism, fasting, watching, abstaining from women and sleeping on hard beds. I have said Mohammed would have “no monkery in Al-Islam,” but human nature willed otherwise. Mr. Rodwell prefers “Interdict the healthful viands.”

382. Koran, iv. 124.

383. Arab. “Mukri.” “Kári” is one who reads the Koran to pupils; the Mukri corrects them. “With the passage of the clouds” = without a moment’s hesitation.

384. The twenty-first, twenty-fourth and eighteenth Arabic letters.

385. Arab. “Hizb.” The Koran is divided into sixty portions, answering to “Lessons” for convenience of public worship.

386. Arab. “Jalálah,” = saying Jalla Jalálu-hu = magnified be His Majesty!, or glorified be His Glory.

387. Koran, xi. 50.

388. The partition-wall between Heaven and Hell which others call Al-‘Urf (in the sing. from the verb meaning he separated or parted). The Jeus borrowed from the Guebres the idea of a partition between Heaven and Hell and made it so thin that the blessed and damned can speak together. There is much dispute about the population of Al-A’aráf, the general idea being that they are men who do not deserve reward in Heaven or punishment in Hell. But it is not a “Purgatory” or place of expiating sins.

389. Koran, vii. 154.

390. A play on the word ayn, which means “eye” or the eighteenth letter which in olden times had the form of a circle.

391. From misreading these words comes the absurd popular belief of the moon passing up and down Mohammed’s sleeves. George B. Airy (The Athenæum, Nov. 29, 1884) justly objects to Sale’s translation “The hour of judgment approacheth” and translates “The moon hath been dichotomised” a well-known astronomical term when the light portion of the moon is defined in a strait line: in other words when it is really a half-moon at the first and third quarters of each lunation. Others understand, The moon shall be split on the Last Day, the preterite for the future in prophetic style. “Koran Moslems” of course understand it literally.

392. Chapters liv., lv. and lvi.

393. We should say, not to utter, etc.

394. These well-known “humours of Hippocrates,” which reappear in the form of temperaments of European phrenology, are still the base of Eastern therapeutics.

395. The doctrine of the three souls will be intelligible to Spiritualists.

396. Arab. “Al-lámi” = the l-shaped, curved, forked.

397. Arab. “Usus,” our os sacrum because, being incorruptible, the body will be built up thereon for Resurrection-time. Hence Hudibras sings (iii. 2).

The learned Rabbis of the Jews

Write there’s a bone which they call leuz,

I’ the rump of man, etc.

It is the Heb. “Uz,” whence older scholars derived os. Sale (sect. iv.) called it “El Ajb, os coccygis or rump-bone.”

398. Arab physiologists had difficulties in procuring “subjects”; and usually practised dissection on the simiads. Their illustrated books are droll; the figures have been copied and recopied till they have lost all resemblance to the originals.