Page [59]. “If I succeed in hitting that crow (properly, raven),” &c.—The superstitious belief in divination from the flight, motions, and positions of birds (ez-zijr, el-īyafa), which prevailed so much among the Arabs at the time when the Prophet began his great mission, although it is denounced by the Kur’ān, prevails even now in the East, where the raven is called the “Father of Omens” (Abū-Zājir), and the “Bird of Separation” (ghurabi-’l-bain); its appearance betokening a change of circumstances, which for the King of Yemen denoted liberty from a state of slavery. According to an author cited by Bochart (Hier. i, p. 20), Noah sent forth from the ark a raven, to observe whether the water had abated, and it did not return, hence it is called “the bird of separation.” In the Gulistān, iv, 12, an execrable voice is compared to the croak of the Raven of Separation, or, as some render the passage, “the raven of ill omen” (see Lane’s Arabic Lexicon, vol. i). Ravens in many countries have been considered as birds of ill omen. Thus, in Dryden’s Virgil:
The hoarse raven on the blasted bough,
By croaking to the left, presaged the coming blow;
and in Gay’s Fables (xxxvii, 27, 28):
That raven on yon left-hand oak,
Curse on his ill-betiding croak.
Page [59]. “The law of retaliation, which would not award a head for an ear.”—In accordance with the text of the Kur’ān, v, 49: “We have therein commanded them that they should give life for life, and eye for eye, and ear for ear, and tooth for tooth; and that wounds should also be punished by retaliation,” &c. (compare Exod. xxi, 24; Levit. xxiv, 20; Deut. xix, 21). For unintentional mutilation the Muhammadan law permits the payment of half the price of blood, as for homicide; for a member of which there are two, from the rich man 500 dīnars (£250), from the less opulent 6000 direms (£150). The delinquent in the present instance, being penniless, the King of Zangībār had no choice but to exact “ear for ear.” (Sale’s Kur’ān, Prel. Disc., sec. vi; Mills’ History of Muhammedanism, ed. 1817, pp. 319, 320.)
Notes on Chapter VI.
Page [62]. “Represented the danger of letting an enemy live when in one’s power.”—This unmerciful suggestion[[59]] ill accords with the humane precept of Hūshung, an early King of Persia, surnamed Pīshdād (the First Distributor of Justice), and dictated by him to Tahmuras, the heir apparent: “The sovereign extends the skirt of pardon and the robe of clemency over those who have erred; ... acting according to this injunction: When thou hast prevailed over thy foe, pardon him, in gratitude for the power obtained over him. ‘Bind him,’ says the poet, ‘with the chains of forgiveness, that he may become your slave.’”
Page [62]. “Advised him not to be precipitate.”—With more eloquence does a falsely accused lady plead to her husband in the Anvār-i Suhailī (p. 243 of Eastwick’s translation): “The wise think deliberation requisite in all affairs, especially in shedding blood, since if it be necessary to take life, the opportunity of doing so is left; and if—which God forbid!—they should, through precipitation, put an innocent person to death, and it should afterwards be known that he did not deserve to be slain, the remedy would be beyond the circle of possibility, and the punishment thereof would hang to all eternity on the neck of the guilty party.” And elsewhere in the same charming work we are told that “the heart of a King ought to be like the billowy sea, so as not to be discoloured by the dirt and rubbish of calumny; and the centre of his clemency should be like the stately mountain, firm in a position of stability, so that the furious wind of anger cannot move it.”