A stream so clear as Rocnabad;
A bower so sweet as Mossellay."
Hafiz, rendered by Sir W. Jones.
1811.—"The stream of Rúknabád murmured near us; and within three or four hundred yards was the Mossellá and the Tomb of Hafiz."—W. Ouseley's Travels, i. 318.
1813.—"Not a shrub now remains of the bower of Mossella, the situation of which is now only marked by the ruins of an ancient tower."—Macdonald Kinneir's Persia, 62.
MOSQUE, s. There is no room for doubt as to the original of this word being the Ar. masjid, 'a place of worship,' literally the place of sujūd, i.e. 'prostration.' And the probable course is this. Masjid becomes (1) in Span. mezquita, Port. mesquita;[[173]] (2) Ital. meschita, moschea; French (old) mosquete, mosquée; (3) Eng. mosque. Some of the quotations might suggest a different course of modification, but they would probably mislead.
Apropos of masjid rather than of mosque we have noted a ludicrous misapplication of the word in the advertisement to a newspaper story. "Musjeed the Hindoo: Adventures with the Star of India in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." The Weekly Detroit Free Press, London, July 1, 1882.
1336.—"Corpusque ipsius perditissimi Pseudo-prophetae ... in civitate quae Mecha dicitur ... pro maximo sanctuario conservatur in pulchrâ ipsorum Ecclesiâ quam Mulscket vulgariter dicunt."—Gul. de Boldensele, in Canisii Thesaur. ed. Basnage, iv.
1384.—"Sonvi le mosquette, cioe chiese de' Saraceni ... dentro tutte bianche ed intonicate ed ingessate."—Frescobaldi, 29.
1543.—"And with the stipulation that the 5000 larin tangas which in old times were granted, and are deposited for the expenses of the mizquitas of Baçaim, are to be paid from the said duties as they always have been paid, and in regard to the said mizquitas and the prayers that are made in them there shall be no innovation whatever."—Treaty at Baçaim of the Portuguese with King Bador of Çanbaya (Bahādur Shāh of Guzerat) in S. Botelho, Tombo, 137.