[406] See Life of Mahomet, p. 64. His height only equalled that of an ordinary man seated.
[407] An extraordinary grant of one hundred dirhems was made to each. The civil list and pensions were settled by Omar in his Dewân; but the means of paying the allowances was by local assignments; so that each city was dependent on its endowment, from which all the expenditure of administration had to be met.
[408] According to some authorities, however, neither Abu Bekr nor Omar appointed any Câdhy to Kûfa or Bussorah.
[409] The calculation was already by strictly lunar notation of months, according to the Arab calendar; for that had been fixed by a Divine ordinance at the Farewell Pilgrimage. (Life of Mahomet, p. 486.) But the commencement of the era, and numbering of the years, was introduced only now. Note that the i is short in Hegira.
[410] See Life of Mahomet, p. 349.
[411] Take, for example, two lines with the play on the name Leila, or night—
I thought of Leila, but the heavens are between us;
Neither is her night (Leila) mine; nor my night hers.
[412] Many stories are told of Omar’s stern punishment of wine-drinkers. The house of one who surreptitiously trafficked in spirits, he caused to be burned over his head. Another culprit, expelled for drinking, escaped to the Byzantine territory and apostatised.
[413] See The Corân: its Teaching and Precepts, p. 61.