[69] An Arabian expression from the Moallakat. “She turns her right side, as if she were in fear of some large-headed Screamer of the night.”
Poem of Antara.
[70] The Mussulmans are immutably prepossessed, that as the Earth approaches its dissolution, its sons and daughters gradually decrease in their dimensions. As for Dagjial, they say, he will find the race of mankind dwindled into such diminutive pigmies, that their habitations in cities, and all the best towns, will be of no other fabrick than the shoes and slippers made in these present ages, placed in rank and file, in seemly and regular order; allowing one pair for two round families.
Morgan’s Hist. of Algiers.
[71] The story of Haruth and Maruth as in the Poem, may be found in D’Herbelot, and in Sale’s notes to the Koran. Of the differing accounts I have preferred that which makes Zohara originally a woman, and metamorphoses her into the planet Venus to that which says the planet Venus descended as Zohara to tempt the Angels.
The Arabians have so childish a love of rhyme, that when two names are usually coupled they make them jingle, as in the case of Haruth and Maruth. Thus they call Cain and Abel, Abel and Kabel. I am informed that the Koran is crowded with rhymes, more particularly at the conclusion of the chapters.
[72] The Ism-Ablah—The Science of the Name of God. They pretend that God is the lock of this science, and Mohammed the key, that consequently none but Mohammedans can attain it; that it discovers what passes in distant countries, that it familiarizes the possessors with the Genii, who are at the command of the initiated and who instruct them; that it places the winds and the seasons at their disposal, that it heals the bile of serpents, the lame, the maimed, and the blind. They say that some of their greatest Saints, such as Abdulkadir Cheilani of Bagdat, and Ibn Alwan who resided in the south of Yemen, were so far advanced in this science by their devotion, that they said their prayers every noon in the Kaba of Mecca, and were not absent from their own houses any other part of the day. A merchant of Mecca, who had learnt it in all its forms from Mohammed el Dsjanâdsjeni (at present so famous in that city) pretended that he himself being in danger of perishing at sea, had fastened a billet to the mast with the usual ceremonies, and that immediately the tempest ceased. He showed me at Bombay, but at a distance, a book which contained all sorts of figures and mathematical tables, with instructions how to arrange the billets and the appropriate prayers for every circumstance. But he would neither suffer me to touch the Book, nor copy the title.
There are some Mohammedans who shut themselves up in a dark place without eating and drinking for a long time, and there with a loud voice repeat certain short prayers till they faint. When they recover they pretend to have seen not only a croud of Spirits, but God himself, and even the Devil. But the true initiated in the Ism-Allah do not seek these visions. The secret of discovering hidden treasures, belong also, if I mistake not, to the Ism Allah.
Niebuhr.
[73] One of the Arabs whom we saw from afar, and who was mounted upon a Camel, seemed higher than a tower and to be moving in the air, at first this was to me a strange appearance, however it was only the effect of refraction. The Camel which the Arab was upon touched the ground like all others. There was nothing then extraordinary in this phenomenon, and I afterwards saw many appearances exactly similar in the dry Countries.