Page [69]. “It happened that one of the King’s camel-keepers,” &c.—According to the text, “had lost a katar of camels,” that is, several linked together, and following one another.
Page [69]. “At his request she prayed for the recovery of the camels.”—The text says: “The daughter, having raised her face towards heaven, said, ‘O God! Creator! thou knowest that these camels are not his own, and that he is a hired labourer (muzdar), but now is without resource and afflicted, through thy loving kindness and bounty, [be pleased to] restore to him the camels.’” Muhammadans often implore the intercession of saints (and the cameleer, of course, believed the lady to be nothing short of a saint), both living and dead, on their behalf. To be worthy of the dignity of a true saint requires self-denial, mortification, a perfect reliance on Providence, and the keeping aloof from the habitations of men; above all, that, while professing the unity of God (lā ilāha illa-’llāh), no living creature should see their lips move. Lane, in a note to his translation of the Thousand and One Nights (ch. xi, n. 37) states that “the Sayyida Nafīsa, the great-grandaughter of the Imām El-Hasan, was a very celebrated saint; and many miracles are related to have been performed by her. Her tomb, which is greatly venerated, is in a mosque in the southern suburb of Cairo.”
Page [70]. “He would provide for her a retired apartment,” &c.—The text reads: “I will prepare an oratory (sawma`ā), and make ready for thy sake the means (asbāb: furniture) for devotion (asbāb-i-`ībāda);” such as a prayer-carpet (sajjāda), having a mark upon it pointing towards Mecca, the Kibla of Muslims, or point to which they direct their faces in saying their prayers, as Jerusalem is that of the Jews and Christians: within the mosque it is shown by a niche, and is called El-Mihrāb. The hypocritical saint is thus described by Sa`dī (Gulistān ii, 17):
Devotees who fix their eyes on the world,
Say their prayers with their backs to the Kibla.
There should also be a fountain of running water (for ceremonial ablution) and a copy of the Kur’ān.
Page [70]. “Arrived at the city at the time of evening prayer.”—It is incumbent on every good Muslim (says Dr Forbes, in a note to his translation of Bāgh o Bahār) to pray five times in the 24 hours. The stated periods are rather capriciously settled: (1) The morning prayer is to be repeated between daybreak and sunrise; (2) The prayer of noon, when the sun shows a sensible declination from the meridian; (3) afternoon prayer, when the sun is so near the horizon that the shadow of a perpendicular object is twice its length; (4) evening prayer, between sunset and close on twilight; (5) the prayer of night, any time during darkness.
Page [71]. “She begged that he would conceal himself in the apartment whilst she should converse with Kārdār.”—This, it seems to me, is quite after the manner of a modern European play or novel—when the “villain” is made to unmask himself, by a pious ruse of “injured innocence.” I cannot call to mind a similar scene in any other Eastern romance which I have read.
Page [72]. “Concealed behind the hangings” (see also p. [67], line 8 from foot).—The use of hangings, pictured tapestry, and various coloured carpets has been from the earliest ages prevalent in the East. We read in the Book of Esther, chapter i, &c., of the magnificence of a Persian monarch, who made a feast unto his nobles of Persia and Media, and in his palace had hangings, white, green, and red, fastened with purple cords to silver rings, with beds of gold and silver; and Plutarch, in Themistocles, speaks of the rich Persian carpets, with highly-coloured figures; and in his life of Cato the Censor, he mentions some Babylonian tapestry sent to Rome as a present. The manufacture passed in very early times from Asia into Greece, part of which, indeed, was itself Asiatic. Iris found Helen employed on figured tapestry, and the web of Penelope is sufficiently known (Iliad iii).—Sir William Ouseley’s Persian Miscellanies.