[111] “Had it not been for thee, verily the heavens had not been created.”—Kurán.
[112] Burák was the name of the animal that carried Muhammed on his famous (and fabulous) Night Journey through the Seven Heavens; for an account of which see Muir’s Life of Mahomet, ii, 219-222; Lane’s Modern Egyptians; and D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale, art. Borak.—According to the Sikandar Náma (Alexander-Book) of Nizamí, Burák was silken as to body, silvern as to hoof, and to such a degree swift moving that nothing could equal him.—Canto iv, 12, p. 32 of Clarke’s translation.
[113] Alí was the son-in-law of Muhammed, having married Fatima, the beloved daughter of the Prophet. Of the two great sects of Muslims the shi’ahs consider Alí and his immediate descendants (eleven in number) as “the true and only imáms” in succession of Muhammed, while the súnís regard the khalífs—’Umar, Abú Bakr, etc.—as the lawful representatives of the Prophet. The Persians and the Indian Muslims are (like our present author) shi’ahs; the Turks and Arabs are súnís.
[114] “Ornament of kings.”
[115] The Hercules of the Persians, and the principal hero of the Sháh Náma (Book of Kings), Firdausí’s great epic.
[116] “Crown of kings.”
[117] It is still a common practice in Persia and India when a child is born—especially a son—for an astrologer to be employed to “cast his horoscope” and thereby foretell the child’s career in life. “In 1670 the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars prevailed in France among persons of the first rank. The new-born child was usually presented naked to the astrologer, who read the first lineaments in its forehead and the transverse lines in its hands, and thence wrote down its future destiny. Catherine de Medicis brought Henry IV, then a child, to old Nostradamus, whom antiquaries esteem more for his Chronicle of Provence than for his vaticinating powers. The sight of the reverend seer, with a beard which ‘streamed like a meteor in the air,’ terrified the future hero, who dreaded a whipping from so grave a personage. Will it be credited that, one of these magicians having assured Charles IX that he should live as many days as he should turn about on his heel in an hour, standing on one leg, his majesty every morning performed that solemn exercise for an hour, the principal officers of the court, the judges, the chancellors, and the generals likewise, in compliment standing on one leg and turning round!”—Demonologia, by J. S. F.
[118] Abú-Síná, or Abú ’Alí Síná, or Ibn-Síná, called generally in Europe Avicenna, was a famous physician and philosopher at the court of Baghdád. Born, at Bukhárá, A.H. 373 (A.D. 983), died, at Hamadán, A.H. 427 (A.D. 1035). He wrote nearly one hundred books on medicine, most of which are now lost. He was also a poet, and some of his verses are still extant.
[119] The patriarch’s grief for the loss of his favourite son Joseph is proverbial among Muslims; but our author has done the “Man of Uz” a great injustice when he likens him to the blind king, as “waiting with impatient anxiety”!
[120] A comely youth is always said by Muslim writers to resemble Joseph, the son of Jacob the Hebrew patriarch, who is considered as the type of manly beauty.