No. 5.
GOOD MAGHRIB WRITING.
قال ابقراط رحمه الله العمر قصير والصناءة طويلة والوقت ضيق والتجربة خطر والقضاء عسر
Qāla Abuqrāt̤u raḥima-hu ʾllāhu ʾl-ʿumru qaṣīrun wa ʾṣ-ṣināʾatu t̤awīlatun wa ʾl-waqtu ẓaiyiqun wa ʾt-tajribatu k͟hat̤irun wa ʾl-qaẓāʾu ʿasirun.
“Hippocrates, may God have compassion upon him, said: Life is short, art is long, Time is narrow, experience dangerous, judgment difficult.”
No. 6.
SUPERIOR MAGHRIB WRITING.
ان ابقراط لم ياذن لمن دعته شهوته الى الشرب بالليل ان يشرب او
لا يشرب لكنه ان شرب ونام بعد شربه فانه اجود من ان لا
ينام وذلك لان النوم يتدارك ضرر الشرب وذلك ان العادة لم
تجر بالشرب بالليل فاذا شرب فيه فلا محالة ان ذلك الشرب يحدث
فى الهضم فجاجة وفسادا كحال الماء البارد اذا صب فى قدر
فيها طعام وهو يغلى على النارInna Abuqrāt̤a lam yaʾẕan li-man daʿat-hu shahwatu-hu ilā ʾsh-shurbi bi-ʾl-laili an yashraba aw
lā yashraba lakinna-hu in shariba wa nāma baʿda shurbi-hi faʾinna-hu ajwadu min an lā
yanāma wa ẕālika liʾanna ʾn-nauma yatadāraku ẓarara ʾsh-shurbi wa ẕālika anna ʾl-ʿādata lam
tajri bi-ʾsh-shurbi bi-ʾl-laili fa ʾiẕā shariba fī-hi fa-lā maḥālata anna ẕālika ʾsh-shurba yuḥdis̤u
fī ʾl-haẓmi fajājatan wa fasādan ka-ḥāli ʾl-māʾi ʾl-bāridi iẕā ṣubba fī qadrin
fī-hā t̤aʿāmun wa huwa yag͟hlī ʿala ʾn-nāri.“Hippocrates neither allows nor forbids a man, who has a desire to drink at night-time,
to satisfy his desire. If, however, he drinks, and sleeps after drinking, it is better
than not to sleep, this being so because sleep counteracts, in this case, the evil effect of drinking;
for it is not customary to drink at night-time, and if one does so, this will of necessity produce
a disturbance and derangement in the digestion, just as if cold water were poured into a vessel
containing food that is being boiled.”
These two fragments scarcely call forth any further remark, except that in the last both forms of the Tashdīd are employed, the ordinary form even more frequently than the Maghrebian; for the latter occurs only twice, in bi-ʾsh-shurbi, which is the second word in the fourth line, and in ash-shurba, which is the last word but one in the same line. Moreover, it will be useful to notice the peculiar shape which the letters د (d) and ذ (ẕ) take in the Mag͟hrib character, as in the words ajwadu towards the end of the second line, and yaʾẕan near the beginning of the first.
Dismissing the Mag͟hrib-Berber style of Arabic writing, with its numerous local varieties, as less interesting for the English reader, we now turn to the Oriental style, where we meet again with a bipartition, viz. into the Eastern Nask͟hī, as it is written in Arabia itself, Egypt, and Syria, and the T̤aʿlīq, current in Persia, India, and Central Asia.
No. 7 is a specimen of the Nask͟hī in the more limited sense of the word, meaning the style generally employed in manuscripts, and derived from nask͟h or nusk͟hah, “copy.”