[45]. Koran xiii. 14.
[46]. i.e. his chastity: this fashion of objecting to infamous proposals is very characteristic: ruder races would use their fists.
[47]. Arab. “Ráfizí” = the Shi’ah (tribe, sect) or Persian schismatics who curse the first three Caliphs: the name is taken from their own saying “Inná rafizná-hum” = verily we have rejected them. The feeling between Sunni (the so-called orthodox) and Shi’ah is much like the Christian love between a Catholic of Cork and a Protestant from the Black North. As Al-Siyuti or any historian will show, this sect became exceedingly powerful under the later Abbaside Caliphs, many of whom conformed to it and adopted its practices and innovations (as in the Azan or prayer-call), greatly to the scandal of their co-religionists. Even in the present day the hatred between these representatives of Arab monotheism and Persian Guebrism continues unabated. I have given sundry instances in my Pilgrimage, e.g. how the Persians attempt to pollute the tombs of the Caliphs they abhor.
[48]. Arab. “Sakká,” the Indian “Bihishtí” (man from Heaven): Each party in a caravan has one or more.
[49]. These “Kirámát” or Saints’ miracles, which Spiritualists will readily accept, are recorded in vast numbers. Most men have half a dozen to tell, each of his “Pír” or patron, including the Istidráj or prodigy of chastisement (Dabistan, iii. 274).
[50]. Great-grand-daughter of the Imam Hasan, buried in Cairo and famed for “Kirámát.” Her father, governor of Al-Medinah, was imprisoned by Al-Mansur and restored to power by Al-Mahdi. She was married to a son of the Imam Ja’afar al-Sadik and lived a life of devotion in Cairo, dying in A.H. 218 = 824. The corpse of the Imam al-Shafi’i was carried to her house, now her mosque and mausoleum: it stood in the Darb al-Sabúa which formerly divided Old from New Cairo and is now one of the latter’s suburbs. Lane (M. E. chapt. x.) gives her name but little more. The mention of her shows that the writer of the tale or the copyist was a Cairene: Abd al-Kadir is world-known: not so the “Sitt.”
[51]. Arab. “Farkh akrab” for Ukayrib, a vulgarism.
[52]. The usual Egyptian irreverence: he relates his abomination as if it were a Hadis or Tradition of the Prophet with due ascription.
[53]. A popular name, dim. of Zubdah, cream, fresh butter, “creamkin.”
[54]. Arab. “Mustahall,” “Mustahill” and vulg. “Muhallil” (= one who renders lawful). It means a man hired for the purpose who marries pro formâ and after wedding, and bedding with actual consummation, at once divorces the woman. He is held the reverse of respectable and no wonder. Hence, probably, Mandeville’s story of the Islanders who, on the marriage-night, “make another man to lie by their wives, to have their maidenhead, for which they give great hire and much thanks. And there are certain men in every town that serve for no other thing; and they call them cadeberiz, that is to say, the fools of despair, because they believe their occupation is a dangerous one.” Burckhardt gives the proverb (No. 79), “A thousand lovers rather than one Mustahall,” the latter being generally some ugly fellow picked up in the streets and disgusting to the wife who must permit his embraces.