“But for him (Lau lá-hu) the world had never come out of nothingness.”
Hence it has been widely diffused. See Les Aventures de Kamrup (pp. 146–7) and Les Œuvres de Wali (pp. 51–52), by M. Garcin de Tassy and the Dabistan (vol. i. pp. 2–3).
[517]. Arab. “Símiyá” from the Pers., a word apparently built on the model of “Kímiyá” = alchemy, and applied, I have said, to fascination, minor miracles and white magic generally like the Hindu “Indrajal.” The common term for Alchemy is Ilm al-Káf (the K-science) because it is not safe to speak of it openly as alchemy.
[518]. Mare Tenebrarum = Sea of Darknesses; usually applied to the “mournful and misty Atlantic.”
[519]. Some Moslems hold that Solomon and David were buried in Jerusalem; others on the shore of Lake Tiberias. Mohammed, according to the history of Al-Tabari (p. 56, vol. i. Duleux’s “Chronique de Tabari”) declares that the Jinni bore Solomon’s corpse to a palace hewn in the rock upon an island surrounded by a branch of the “Great Sea” and set him on a throne, with his ring still on his finger, under a guard of twelve Jinns. “None hath looked upon the tomb save only two, Affan who took Bulukiya as his companion: with extreme pains they arrived at the spot, and Affan was about to carry off the ring when a thunderbolt consumed him. So Bulukiya returned.”
[520]. Koran xxxviii. 34; or, “art the liberal giver.”
[521]. i.e. of the last trumpet blown by the Archangel Israfil: an idea borrowed from the Christians. Hence the title of certain churches—ad Tubam.
[522]. This may mean that the fruits were fresh and dried like dates or tamarinds (a notable wonder), or soft and hard of skin like grapes and pomegranates.
[523]. Arab. “Al-Iksír” meaning lit. an essence; also the philosopher’s stone.
[524]. Name of the Jinni whom Solomon imprisoned in Lake Tiberias (See vol. i, 41).