Then laud ye Allah, Lord of Worlds, as long ✿ As soul and body dwell in union!
And a famous tale is told of
[158]. Arab. “Taríkah” = the path trodden by ascetics and mystics in order to attain true knowledge (Ma’rifat in Pers. Dánish). These are extensive subjects: for the present I must refer readers to the Dabistan, iii. 35 and iii. 29, 36–7.
[159]. Alluding to the Fishár or “Squeeze of the tomb.” This is the Jewish Hibbut hak-keber which all must endure, save those who lived in the Holy Land or died on the Sabbath-eve (Friday night). Then comes the questioning by the Angels Munkar and Nakir (vulgarly called Nákir and Nakír) for which see Lane (M. E. chapt. xviii.). In Egypt a “Mulakkin” (intelligencer) is hired to prompt and instruct the dead. Moslems are beginning to question these facts of their faith: a Persian acquaintance of mine filled his dead father’s mouth with flour and finding it in loco on opening the grave, publicly derided the belief. But the Mullahs had him on the hip, after the fashion of reverends, declaring that the answers were made through the whole body, not only by the mouth. At last the Voltairean had to quit Shiraz.
[160]. Arab. “Walí” = a saint, Santon (Ital. form) also a slave. See in Richardson (Dissert. iii.), an illustration of the difference between Wali and Wáli as exemplified by the Caliph al-Kádir and Mahmúd of Ghazni.
[161]. Arab. “Tín” = the tenacious clay puddled with chaff which serves as mortar for walls built of Adobe or sundried brick. I made a mistake in my Pilgrimage (i. 10) translating Ras al-Tín the old Pharos of Alexandria, by “Headland of Figs.” It is Headland of Clay, so called from the argile there found and which supported an old pottery.
[162]. The danik (Pers. Dang) is the sixth of a dirham. Mr. S. L. Poole (The Acad. April 26, ‘79) prefers his uncle’s translation “a sixth” (what of?) to Mr. Payne’s “farthing.” The latter at any rate is intelligible.
[163]. The devotee was “Sáim al-dahr” i.e. he never ate nor drank from daylight to dark throughout the year.
[164]. The ablution of a common man differs from that of an educated Moslem as much as the eating of a clown and a gentleman. Moreover there are important technical differences between the Wuzu of the Sunni and the Shi’ah.