[25]. The Angel who acts door-keeper of Hell; others say he specially presides over the torments of the damned (Koran xliii. 78).
[26]. The Door-keeper of Heaven before mentioned who, like the Guebre Zamiyád has charge of the heavenly lads and lasses, and who is often charged by poets with letting them slip.
[27]. Lane (i. 616), says "of wine, milk, sherbet, or any other beverage." Here it is wine, a practice famed in Persian poetry, especially by Hafiz, but most distasteful to a European stomach. We find the Mu allakah of Imr al-Kays noticing "our morning draught." Nott (Hafiz) says a "cheerful cup of wine in the morning was a favourite indulgence with the more luxurious Persians. And it was not uncommon among the Easterns, to salute a friend by saying:—May your morning potation be agreeable to you!" In the present day this practice is confined to regular debauchees.
[28]. Koran xii. 31. The words spoken by Zulaykhá's women friends and detractors whom she invited to see Beauty Joseph.
[29]. A formula for averting fascination. Koran, chapt. cxiii. 1. "Falak" means "cleaving"; hence the breaking forth of light from darkness, a "wonderful instance of the Divine power."
[30]. The usual delicate chaff.
[31]. Such letters are generally written on a full-sized sheet of paper ("notes" are held slighting in the East) and folded till the breadth is reduced to about one inch. The edges are gummed; the ink, much like our Indian ink, is smeared with the finger upon the signet-ring; the place where it is to be applied is slightly wetted with the tongue and the seal is stamped across the line of junction to secure privacy. I have given a specimen of an original love-letter of the kind in "Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley," chapt. iv.
[32]. Arab. "Salb" which may also mean hanging, but the usual term for the latter in The Nights is "shanak." Crucifixion, abolished by the superstitious Constantine, was practised as a servile punishment as late as the days of Mohammed Ali Pasha the Great. The malefactors were nailed and tied to the patibulum or cross-piece, without any suppedaneum or foot-rest and left to suffer tortures from flies and sun, thirst and hunger. They often lived three days and died of the wounds mortifying and the nervous exhaustion brought on by cramps and convulsions. In many cases the corpses were left to feed the kites and crows; and this added horror to the death. Moslems care little for mere hanging. Whenever a fanatical atrocity is to be punished, the malefactor should be hung in pig-skin, his body burnt and the ashes publicly thrown into a common cesspool.
[33]. Arab. "Shaytán" the insolent or rebellious one is a common term of abuse. The word is Koranic, and borrowed as usual from the Jews. "Satan" occurs four times in the O. T. o£ which two are in Job, where, however, he is a subordinate angel.
[34]. Arab. "Alak" from the Koran xxii. 5. "O men ... consider that we first created you of dust (Adam); afterwards of seed (Rodwell's "moist germs of life"); afterwards of a little coagulated (or clots of) blood." It refers to all mankind except Adam, Eve and Isa. Also chapt. xcvi. 2, which, as has been said was probably the first composed at Meccah. Mr. Rodwell (v. 10) translates by "Servant of God" what should be "Slave of Allah," alluding to Mohammed's original name Abdullah. See my learned friend Aloys Sprenger, Leben, etc., i. 155.