[141]. “Notice sur Le Schah-namah de Firdoussi,” a posthumous publication of M. de Wallenbourg, Vienna, 1810, by M. A. de Bianchi. In sect. iii. I shall quote another passage of Al-Mas’udi (viii. [175]) in which I find a distinct allusion to the “Gaboriau-detective tales” of The Nights.
[142]. Here Von Hammer shows his customary inexactitude. As we learn from Ibn Khallikan (Fr. Tr. I. 630), the author’s name was Abu al-Faraj Mohammed ibn Is’hak, pop. known as Ibn Ali Ya’kúb al-Warrák, the bibliographe, librarian, copyist. It was published (vol. i. Leipzig, 1871) under the editorship of G. Fluegel, J. Roediger, and A. Müller.
[143]. See also the Journ. Asiat., August, 1839, and Lane iii. 736–37.
[144]. Called “Afsánah” by Al-Mas’udi, both words having the same sense = tale, story, parable, “facetiæ.” Moslem fanaticism renders it by the Arab. “Khuráfah” = silly fables, and in Hindostan it = a jest:—“Bát-kí bát; khurafát-ki khurafát (a word for a word, a joke for a joke.)
[145]. Al-Mas’údi (chapt. xxi.) makes this a name of the Mother of Queen Humáí or Humáyah, for whom see below.
[146]. The preface of a copy of the Shah-nameh (by Firdausi, ob. A.D. 1021), collated in A.H. 829 by command of Bayisunghur Bahadur Khán (Atkinson p. x.), informs us that the Hazar Afsanah was composed for or by Queen Humái whose name is Arabised to Humáyah. This Persian Marguerite de Navarre was daughter and wife to (Ardashir) Bahman, sixth Kayanian and surnamed Diraz-dast (Artaxerxes Longimanus), Abu Sásán from his son, the Eponymus of the Sassanides who followed the Kayanians when these were extinguished by Alexander of Macedon. Humai succeeded her husband as seventh Queen, reigned thirty-two years and left the crown to her son Dárá or Dáráb 1st = Darius Codomanus. She is better known to Europe (through Herodotus) as Parysatis = Peri-zádeh or the Fairy-born.
[147]. i.e. If Allah allow me to say sooth.
[148]. i.e. of silly anecdotes: here speaks the good Moslem!
[149]. No. 622 Sept. 29, ’39; a review of Torrens which appeared shortly after Lane’s vol. i. The author quotes from a MS. in the British Museum, No. 7334 fol. 136.
[150]. There are many Spaniards of this name: Mr. Payne (ix. 302) proposes Abu Ja’afar ibn Abd al-Hakk al-Khazraji, author of a History of the Caliphs about the middle of the twelfth century.