The Badawin are not without a certain Platonic affection, which they call Hawa (or Ishk) uzripardonable love.[FN#26] They draw the fine line between amant and amoureux: this is derided by the tow[n]speople, little suspecting how much such a custom says in favour of the wild men. Arabs, like other Orientals, hold that, in such matters, man is saved, not by faith, but by want of faith. They have also a saying not unlike ours
She partly is to blame who has been tried;
He comes too near who comes to be denied.
[p.95]The evil of this system is that they, like certain Southernspensano sempre al malealways suspect, which may be worldly-wise, and also always show their suspicions, which is assuredly foolish. For thus they demoralise their women, who might be kept in the way of right by self-respect and by a sense of duty.
From ancient periods of the Arabs history we find him practising knight-errantry, the wildest form of chivalry.[FN#27] The Songs of Antar, says the author of the Crescent and the Cross, show little of the true chivalric spirit. What thinks the reader of sentiments like these[FN#28]? This valiant man, remarks Antar (who was ever interested for the weaker sex,) hath defended the honour of women. We read in another place, Mercy, my lord, is the noblest quality of the noble. Again, it is the most ignominious of deeds to take free-born women prisoners. Bear not malice, O Shibub, quoth the hero, for of malice good never came. Is there no true greatness in this sentiment?Birth is the boast of the faineant; noble is the youth who beareth every ill, who clotheth himself in mail during the noontide heat, and who wandereth through the outer darkness of night. And why does the knight of knights love Ibla? Because she is blooming as the sun at dawn, with hair black as the midnight shades, with Paradise in her eye, her bosom an enchantment, and a form waving like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows from the hills of Nijd? Yes! but his chest expands also with the thoughts of her faith, purity, and affection,it is her moral as well as her material excellence that makes her [p.96] the heros hope, and hearing, and sight. Briefly, in Antar I discern
a love exalted high, By all the glow of chivalry;
and I lament to see so many intelligent travellers misjudging the Arab after a superficial experience of a few debased Syrians or Sinaites. The true children of Antar, my Lord Lindsay, have not ceased to be gentlemen.
In the days of ignorance, it was the custom for Badawin, when tormented by the tender passion, which seems to have attacked them in the form of possession, for long years to sigh and wail and wander, doing the most truculent deeds to melt the obdurate fair. When Arabia Islamized, the practice changed its element for proselytism.
The Fourth Caliph is fabled to have travelled far, redressing the injured, punishing the injurer, preaching to the infidel, and especially protecting womenthe chief end and aim of knighthood. The Caliph Al-Mutasim heard in the assembly of his courtiers that a woman of Sayyid family had been taken prisoner by a Greek barbarian of Ammoria. The man on one occasion struck her: when she cried Help me, O Mutasim! and the clown said derisively, Wait till he cometh upon his pied steed! The chivalrous prince arose, sealed up the wine-cup which he held in his hand, took oath to do his knightly devoir, and on the morrow started for Ammoria with seventy thousand men, each mounted on a piebald charger. Having taken the place, he entered it, exclaiming, Labbayki, Labbayki!Here am I at thy call! He struck off the caitiffs head, released the lady with his own hands, ordered the cupbearer to bring the sealed bowl, and drank from it, exclaiming, Now, indeed, wine is good!
To conclude this part of the subject with another far-famed instance. When Al-Mutanabbi, the poet, prophet, and warrior of Hams (A.H. 354) started together with his
[p.97] son on their last journey, the father proposed to seek a place of safety for the night. Art thou the Mutanabbi, exclaimed his slave, who wrote these lines,