This one, whom hunger plagues, and rags enfold, ✿ Dearer than tribe and kith and kin I hold;
Than crownèd head, or deputy Marwán, ✿ Or all who boast of silver coins and gold.
Then said she, “By Allah, O Commander of the Faithful, I will not forsake him for the shifts of Fortune or the perfidies of Fate, there being between us old companionship we may not forget, and love beyond stay and let; and indeed ’tis but just that I bear with him in his adversity, even as I shared with him in prosperity.” The Caliph marvelled at her wit and love and constancy and, ordering her ten thousand dirhams, delivered her to the Arab, who took his wife and went away.[[150]] And they likewise tell a tale of
[141]. Lane transfers this to vol. i. 520 (notes to chapt. vii.); and gives a mere abstract as of that preceding.
[142]. We learn from Ibn Batutah that it stood South of the Great Mosque and afterwards became the Coppersmiths’ Bazar. The site was known as Al-Khazrá (the Green) and the building was destroyed by the Abbasides. See Defrémery and Sanguinetti, i. 206.
[143]. This great tribe or rather nation has been noticed before (vol. ii. 170). The name means “Strong,” and derives from one Tamim bin Murr of the race of Adnan, nat. circ. A.D. 121. They hold the North-Eastern uplands of Najd, comprising the great desert Al-Dahná and extend to Al-Bahrayn. They are split up into a multitude of clans and septs; and they can boast of producing two famous sectarians. One was Abdullah bin Suffár, head of the Suffriyah; and the other Abdullah bin Ibáz (Ibadh) whence the Ibázíyah heretics of Oman who long included her princes. Mr. Palgrave wrongly writes Abadeeyah and Biadeeyah and my “Bayázi” was an Arab vulgarism used by the Zanzibarians. Dr. Badger rightly prefers Ibáziyah which he writes Ibâdhiyah (Hist. of the Imams, etc.)
[144]. Governor of Al-Medinah under Mu’awiyah and afterwards (A.H. 64–65 = 683–4) fourth Ommiade. Al-Siyúti (p. [216]) will not account him amongst the princes of the Faithful, holding him a rebel against Al-Zubayr. Ockley makes Ibn al-Zubayr ninth and Marwán tenth Caliph.
[145]. The address, without the vocative particle, is more emphatic; and the P.N. Mu’awiyah seems to court the omission.
[146]. This may also mean that the £500 were the woman’s “mahr” or marriage dowry and the £250 a present to buy the father’s consent.