Page [14]. “The chief of the caravan.”—The Mihtar Kārwān, or Kārwān Bash, held a position of responsibility and importance. By the payment of armed attendants he took precautions against the attack of brigands, as the merchants who formed a caravan were, it is said, on most occasions, so devoid of courage that they cried “quarter” at the mere sight of a drawn sword.
Page [15]. “He also put on him his own robe” (Kabā-i Khāss).—The Kabā is a tunic, or long cloth coat, of any colour, quite open in front, and worn over the shirt, and is the special garment of the rich, and so distinguished by Sa`dī (Gulistān, ch. ii, story 17) from the aba, or abaya, a kind of woollen cloak, either black or striped brown and white, the garment of the poor.
Page [15]. “The name of Bakhtyār,” that is, “he whom Fortune assists,” or, “Fortune-befriended.”
Page [16]. “The keys of the treasury” were of gold.
Page [16]. “A splendid robe of honour.”—A Khil`at, or dress of honour, is bestowed by Eastern monarchs on men of learning and genius, as well as on tributary princes on their accession to their principalities, and on viceroys and governors of provinces. The custom is very ancient; see Esther vi, 8, 9. “A common Khil`at,” says Morier, “consists of a Kāba, or coat; a Kemerbend, or zone; a gūch pīch, or shawl for the head: when it is intended to be more distinguishing, a sword or a dagger is superadded. To persons of distinction rich furs are given, such as a Katabī, or a Koordī; but when the Khal`at is complete it consists exactly of the same articles as the present which Cyrus made to Syennesis, namely: a horse with a golden bridle; a golden chain; a golden sword[[33]]; besides the dress, which is complete in all its parts.”[[34]]—In India an elephant and a palanquin splendidly decorated are added to the dress, sword, &c. Dr Forbes, in a note to his translation of the Bāgh o Bahār (Garden and Spring), the Hindustani version of the entertaining Persian romance, Kissa Chehar Dervish, or Tale of the Four Dervishes, remarks that “in the zenith of the Mogul empire Khil`ats were expensive honours, as the receivers were obliged to make presents for the Khil`ats they received. The perfection of these Oriental dresses,” he adds, “is to be so stiff with embroidery as to stand on the floor unsupported.”—After Rustam’s Seven Adventures in releasing Kai Kaus from the power of the White Giant, we read in Firdausī’s Shāh Nāma (or Book of Kings) that he received from Kaus a splendid Khil`at besides other magnificent presents. And in the Romance of `Antar, King Zuhayr causes a great feast to be prepared to celebrate the defeat of the tribe of Taï, which was chiefly due to the hero; at which he presents `Antar with a robe worked with gold, girds on him a trusty sword, and placing in his hand a pike of Khāta, and mounting him on a fine Arab horse, proclaims him champion of the tribes of `Abs and `Adnān.
Page [16]. “There were Ten Viziers.”—“Wezeer,” says Lane, “is an Arabic word, and is pronounced by the Arabs as I have written it, but the Turks and Persians pronounce the first letter V. There are three opinions respecting the etymology of this word. Some derive it from wizr (a burden), because the Wezeer bears the burden of the King; others, from wezer (a refuge), because the King has recourse to the counsels of his Wezeer, and his knowledge and prudence; others, again, from azr (back, or strength), because the King is strengthened by his Wezeer, as the human frame is strengthened by the back. The proper and chief duties of a Wezeer are explained by the above, and by a saying of the Prophet: ‘Whosoever is in authority over Muslims, if God would prosper him, He giveth him a virtuous Wezeer, who when he forgetteth his duty remindeth him, and when he remembereth assisteth him; but if He would do otherwise, He giveth him an evil Wezeer, who when he forgetteth doth not remind him, and when he remembereth doth not assist him.’”—The Kur’ān and the Sūnna (or Traditions) both distinctly authorise a sovereign to select a Vizier to assist him in the government. The Prophet makes Moses say (Kur. xx, 30): “Give me a counsellor [Ar. Wezeer] of my family, namely Aaron my brother;” and again, in ch. xxv, 37: “We appointed him [Moses] Aaron his brother for a counsellor.” Wahidi, in his commentary on the Kur’ān, says: “Wezeer signifies refuge and assistance.” In the fourth year of his mission Muhammad assumed the prophetic office, when “he prepared a banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for the entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. ‘Friends and kinsmen,’ said Muhammad to the assembly, ‘I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you to His service. Who among you will support my burthen? Who among you will be my companion and my vizier?’”—Gibbon, chap. 1.
King Āzādbakht, we see, had no fewer than ten of such “burden-bearers”; in chapter ix there is another King with ten viziers; and in an ancient Indian romance referred to by El-Mas’ūdī in his Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, the same number of viziers is given to a king: “Shelkand and Shimas, or the Story of an Indian King and his Ten Viziers”; in what is probably a modernised version of the same romance, included in the Thousand and One Nights, under the title of “King Jilāa, the Vizier Shimas, and their Sons,” there are however but Seven Viziers—the number in most of the romances of the Sindibād cycle. According to the learned Imam El-Jara’ī, cited by Lane, ten is the proper number of counsellors for any man: “It is desirable,” says he, “for a man, before he enters upon any important undertaking, to consult ten intelligent persons among his particular friends; or if he have not more than five such friends, let him consult each of them twice; or if he have not more than one friend, he should consult him ten times, at ten different visits[[35]];—if he have not one to consult, let him return to his wife and consult her, and whatever she advises him to do, let him do the contrary, so shall he proceed rightly in his affair and attain his object.”—This reminds me of a story told of Khōja Nasru-’d-Dīn Efendī, the Turkish joker, who, wishing to make Timūr a present of some fruit, consulted his wife as to whether he should take him figs or quinces, and on her answering, “Oh, quinces, of course,” the Khōja, reflecting that a woman’s advice is never good, took Timūr a basket of figs; and when the emperor ordered his attendants to pelt the Khōja on his bald pate with the ripe, juicy figs, he thanked Heaven that he had not taken his wife’s advice: “for had I, as she advised, brought quinces instead of figs, my head had surely been broken!”[[36]] This most unjust estimate of women, so generally held by Muslims and giving rise to such proverbial sayings as “women have long hair and short wits,” is in accordance with the atrocious saying ascribed (falsely, let us hope) to the Prophet: “I stood at the gate of Paradise, and lo! most of its inmates were poor; and I stood at the gate of Hell, and lo! most of its inmates were women!” Contrast this with the following passage from the Mahābharata: “The wife is half the man; a wife is man’s dearest friend; a wife is the source of his religion, his worldly profit, and his love. He who hath a wife maketh offerings in his house. Those who have wives are blest with good fortune. Wives are friends, who by their gentle speech soothe ye in your retirement. In the performance of religious duties they are as fathers; in your distresses they are as mothers[[37]]; and they are a refreshment to those who are travellers in the rugged paths of life.”
Page [16]. “Indulged in the pleasures of wine.”—The Kur’ān prohibits the use of wine and all other intoxicating liquors: “They will ask thee concerning wine and lots; answer, in both there is great sin” (ch. ii, 216). Some of the early followers of the Prophet held this text as doubtful, and continued to indulge in wine; but another text enjoins them not to come to prayer while they are drunk, until they know what they would say (ch. iv, 46). From this it would appear that Muhammad “meant merely to restrain his followers from unbecoming behaviour, and other evil effects of intoxication;” serious quarrels, however, resulting from drinking wine, a text in condemnation of the practice was issued: “Ye who have become believers! verily wine, and lots, and images, and divining arrows are an abomination of the work of the Devil; therefore avoid them that ye may prosper” (ch. v, 92).—Mills was certainly in error in stating that “for ages before the preaching of the Prophet of Mecca, wine was but little drunk either in Egypt or Arabia.”[[38]] In the Mu`allaqāt, or Seven Poems suspended in the Temple at Mecca, which present true pictures of Arabian manners and customs during the century immediately preceding the time of Muhammad, wine-drinking is frequently mentioned. Thus the poet `Amru calls for his morning draught of rich hoarded wine, saying that it is the liquor which diverts the lover from his passion, and even causes the miser to forget his pelf; Lebeid says that he often goes to the shop of the wine-merchant, when he spreads his flag in the air, and sells his wine at a high price; and the poet-hero `Antar quaffs old wine when the noontide heat is abated. However this may be, the law of the Kur’ān is clear—believers are not allowed to drink intoxicating liquors. Yet it would appear, from the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, that wine was extensively drunk by the higher classes of Muslims in all countries until a comparatively recent date; and assuredly the wine there mentioned was not the harmless beverage which the Prophet indulged in and permitted to his followers—“prepared by putting grapes or dry dates in water to extract their sweetness, and suffering the liquor to ferment slightly until it acquired a little sharpness or pungency”—since we read in the story, for instance, of “The Three Ladies of Bagdād and the Porter,” that wine was drunk to intoxication. The modern Persians justify their occasional excessive wine-drinking by the remark: “there is as much sin in a flagon as in a glass;”[[39]] and the Turks despise the small glasses commonly used by Europeans in their potations.[[40]] Cantemir, in his History of the Othman Empire, relates a curious story of how Murād IV, the seventeenth Turkish Sultan (1622–1639), became a drunkard:
Not content to drink wine in private, Murād compelled even the Muftis and other ministers to drink with him, and also, by a public edict, allowed wine to be sold and drunk by men of all ranks. It is said Murād was led into this degrading vice by a man named Bakrī Mustafa. As the Sultan was one day going about the market-place in disguise, he chanced to see this man wallowing in the mud, almost dead drunk. Wondering at the novelty of the thing, he inquired of his attendants what was the matter with the man, who seemed to him a lunatic. Being told that the fellow was drunk with wine, he wanted to know what sort of liquor that was, of whose effects he was yet ignorant. Meanwhile Mustafa gets up, and with opprobrious words bids the Sultan stand off. Astonished at the man’s boldness, “Rascal!” he exclaimed, “dost thou bid me, who am the Sultan Murād, be gone?”—“And I,” answered the fellow, “am Bakrī [i.e. the Drunkard] Mustafa, and if thou wilt sell me this city, I will buy it, and then I shall be Sultan Murād, and thou Bakrī Mustafa.”—Murād demanding where he would get the money to purchase such a city, Mustafa replied: “Don’t trouble thyself about that; for, what is more, I will buy, too, the son of a bond-woman.”[[41]] Murād agreed to this, and ordered Mustafa to be taken to the palace. After some hours, the fumes of the wine being dispersed, Mustafa came to his senses, and finding himself in a gilded and sumptuous room, he inquired of those who attended him: “What does this mean?—am I dreaming?—or do I taste of the pleasures of Paradise?” They told him of what had passed, and of his bargain with the Sultan. Upon this he fell into a great fright, well knowing Murād’s fierce disposition. But necessity abetting his invention, he declared himself on the point of death, unless he could have some wine to restore his spirits. The keepers, that he might not die before being brought into the Sultan’s presence, gave him a pot full of wine, which he concealed in his bosom. On being ushered into the audience-chamber, the Sultan commanded him to pay so many millions as the price of the city. Taking the pot of wine from his bosom, Mustafa said: “This, O Sultan, is what would yesterday have purchased Istambol. And were you likewise possessed of this wealth, you would think it preferable to the sovereignty of the universe.” Murād asked how that could be. “By drinking of this divine liquor,” answered Mustafa, offering the cup to the Sultan, who, from curiosity, took a large draught, which, as he was unused to wine, immediately made him so drunk that he fancied the world could not contain him. Afterwards growing giddy, he was seized with sleep, and in a few hours waking with a headache, sent for Mustafa, in a great passion. Mustafa instantly appeared, and perceiving the case, “Here,” said he, “is your remedy,” and gave him a cup of wine, by which his headache was presently removed, and his former gladness restored. When this had been repeated two or three times, Murād was by degrees so addicted to wine that he was drunk almost every day. Bakrī Mustafa, his tutor in drunkenness, was admitted among the privy-counsellors, and was always near the Sultan. At his death Murād ordered the whole court to go into mourning, but caused his body to be buried with great pomp in a tavern among the wine-casks. After his decease the Sultan declared he never enjoyed one merry day; and when Mustafa chanced to be mentioned he was often seen to burst into tears, and to sigh from the bottom of his heart. “Seldom, if ever,” moralises Cantemir, “has so much favour been obtained by the precepts of virtue as Mustafa acquired by the dictates of vice.”
To return to the quotation at the beginning of this long note; that the wine in which our young hero Bakhtyār indulged to such an extent as to deprive him of his senses was not a mild beverage, admits of no question: again, in chapter viii, page 93, we find a King and his favourite companion carousing together, until the former falls into a drunken sleep.