[29] This incident recalls popular tales current in our own country of witches turning themselves into cats, and some bold fellow smiting off a paw of one of the unholy sisterhood thus transformed, and next day a woman suspected of witchcraft being found in her bed with one of her hands apparently newly amputated.—Similar stories are told of werwolves, or men having the power of transforming themselves for a time into wolves.
[30] Hatim was chief of the Arab tribe of Taï, shortly before the advent of Muhammed, and so highly celebrated for his boundless generosity that at the present day in Muslim countries no greater compliment can be paid to an open-handed man than to call him “another Hatim.”
[31] A gold dínar is worth about ten shillings.
[32] “Darb er-Ramal, or geomancy, by which, from certain marks made at random on paper, or on sand (whence, according to some, its name), the professors pretend to discover past, passing, and future events, is, I am informed, mainly founded on astrology.”—Lane’s Modern Egyptians, ch. xii.
[33] In the East, as in the West, religion is often assumed as a cloak of villainy; and the half-naked darveshes who prowl through Muslim towns and villages, blowing their horns and bellowing their eternal “hakk! hakk!” are for the most part lewd rascals; and not a whit better are most of those who affect to live as hermits. Muhammed said that “there is no monkery in Islám,” which is true in one respect, viz., that while a monk must remain a monk all his life, a darvesh may at any time toss away his begging-bowl and return to his former station in society.
[34] Fars, or Farsistán, is a province of Persia, the capital of which is Shíráz, so much celebrated by Háfiz and other Persian poets. As the Neapolitans have their favourite saying, “See Naples, and die,” so the Persians say that “If Muhammed had tasted the pleasures of Shíráz, he would have begged Allah to make him immortal there.”
[35] This monarch is not to be confounded with that Farídún who was the sixth of the first dynasty (Píshdádí) of ancient Persian kings.
[36] Signet-rings were commonly used throughout the East from the earliest period of which any records have been preserved. When a king gave his signet to any one he was thereby empowered to act in the king’s name. Thus in the Book of Esther we read that King Ahasuerus took his ring from off his finger and gave it first to Haman and afterwards to Mordecai.
[37] In other words, the king resigned his throne in favour of the prince. It seems to have been a common practice for Oriental potentates, at a certain period of life, to retire from the cares of state and turn ascetics—which was very proper, if all the tales be true of their sanguinary doings!
[38] Al-Mu’tasim Billah, was the fourth son of the Khalíf Harún er-Rashíd, and succeeded his second brother, Al-Mámún, A.D. 833. He was the first of the Khalífs who added to his name the title of Billah, which is equivalent to the Dei Gracia of Christian sovereigns. Al-Mu’tasim was the 8th Khalíf of the house of Abbas; was born on the 8th month (Shaban) of the year; ascended the throne in the 218th year of the Hijra; lived 48 years; and died on the 18th of the month Rabí I; he fought 8 battles; built 8 palaces; begat 8 sons and 8 daughters; had 8,000 slaves; and had 8,000,000 dínars and 80,000 dirhams