[215]. Muslim’s Collection of Traditions (ed. of Cairo with commentary), I. 138; al-Jauharî, s.r. fdd. Cf. Dozy, Geschichte der Mauren in Spanien, Leipzig 1874, I. 17.
[216]. Al-Buchârî, Recueil des Traditions Musulmans (ed. Krehl), II. 385 (LX. No. 29).
[217]. Al-Buchârî, Recueil &c., II. 74 (XL I. No. 20).
[218]. Al-Buchârî, Recueil &c. p. 67, No. 2. It is true these expressions might be balanced by a few somewhat opposite in character, such as that which declares that in the judgment of the Prophet the best business is Trade; according to other reporters Manufacture; according to others (whose version is regarded as the correct one) Agriculture (see al-Nawawî on Muslim’s Collection of Traditions, IV. 32). Still such sentences, even when confirmed by others, cannot weaken the force of those cited in the text. I must also mention in conclusion that al Shaʿrânî in his Book of the Balance (Kitâb al-mîzân, Cairo [Castelli], 1279, II. 68) mentions this question as a point of difference among the canonical authorities of Islamic theology: the school of al-Shâfeʿî regards trade as the noblest occupation, whilst the three other Imâms (Abû Ḥanîfâ, Mâlik b. Anas, and Aḥmed b. Ḥanbal) declare for field-labour and manufactures.
[219]. See Alfred von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Khalifen, I. 16.
[220]. Von Kremer, ibid. pp. 71, 77; Culturgeschichtlichte Streifzüge, p. xi.
[221]. Ibn ʿAbdi Rabbihi, Kitâb al-ʿiḳd al-ferîd, ed. Bûlâḳ 1293 A.H., vol. III. p. 347.
[222]. Futuh as-Shâm, being an account of the Moslem conquests in Syria, ed. Nassau Lees, Calcutta 1854, I. 9 et seq.
[223]. This satirical reproach of the Bedâwî often occurs, e.g. sometimes in the Romance of ʿAntar in passages which are not accessible to me at the present moment. We meet with it also in the Persian king Yezdegird’s satire on the Arabs (Chroniques de Tabari, transl. by Zotenberg, III. 387). Later also, in Ibn Baṭûṭâ, Voyages, III. 282, where the Indian Prince describes his Beduin brother-in-law Seif al-Dîn Ġada, who had at first charmed him, but afterwards been disgraced for his want of manners, by the epithet mûsh châr, i.e. ‘field-rat-eater;’ ‘for,’ adds the traveller, ‘the Arabs of the Desert eat field-rats.’ See also Aġânî, III. 33, l. 4 from below, where Bashshâr b. Burd accuses a Bedâwî of hunting mice (ṣeydu faʿrin).
[224]. Prolégomènes, trad. par de Slane, pp. 255–273.