Page [91]. “I accept it as a favourable omen.”—Muslims are always on the watch for lucky or unlucky omens. On first going out of a morning, the looks and countenances of those who cross their path are scrutinised, and a frown or a smile is deemed favourable or the reverse. To encounter a person blind of the left eye, or with one eye, forebodes sorrow and calamity. While Sir John Malcolm was in Persia, as British Ambassador, he was told the following amusing story: When `Abbās the Great was hunting, he met, one morning as the day dawned an uncommonly ugly man, at the sight of whom his horse started. Being nearly dismounted, and deeming it a bad omen, he called out in a rage to have his head struck off. The poor peasant, whom they had seized and were on the point of executing, prayed that he might be informed of his crime. “Your crime,” said the King, “is your unlucky countenance, which is the first object I saw this morning, and which has nearly caused me to fall from my horse.” “Alas!” said the man, “by this reckoning, what term must I apply to your Majesty’s countenance, which was the first object my eyes met this morning, and which is to cause my death?” The King smiled at the wit of the reply, ordered the man to be released, and gave him a present instead of taking off his head.[[81]] Another Persian story to the same purpose: A man said to his servant, “If you see two crows together early in the morning, apprise me of it, that I may also behold them, as it will be a good omen, whereby I shall pass the whole day pleasantly.”[[82]] The servant did happen to see two crows sitting in one place, and informed his master; but when he came he saw only one, the other having in the meantime flown away. He was very angry, and began to beat the servant, when a friend sent him a present of choice viands. Upon this the servant exclaimed: “O my lord, you saw only one crow, and have received a fine present: had you seen two, you would have met with my fare.”[[83]] The old pagan Arabs never set out upon any important expedition before consulting their fortune, either by divining arrows or by the flight of birds; if a bird flew to the right, it was a good omen, but if to the left, they would postpone their intended enterprise. In allusion to this superstition the celebrated poet Bahā ’u-’d Dīn Zuhayr, of Egypt, says:
My love is like a young gazelle,
Appearing on the huntsman’s right;
And oh! the bargain prospered well,
When she and I our troth did plight.
Page [91]. “Heir to the crown.”—Bihrūz, no doubt, on being raised to the throne, assumed another name, or the imperial title.
Page [92]. “Purchased a young boy at the slave-market.”—Repellent as even the name of slavery is to a European, and especially to a Briton, it must not be supposed that the condition of slaves in Muhammadan countries bears any resemblance to that of the slaves in the Southern States of North America, before their emancipation, with which such works as Uncle Tom’s Cabin used to harrow up our souls. On the contrary, Muslims are enjoined by their religion to be, and, as a general rule, really are (all things considered), kind and even indulgent to their slaves. Sir John Malcolm (an excellent authority) remarks: “Slaves are not numerous [in Persia], and cannot be distinguished by any peculiar habits or usages from the other classes, further than that they are generally more trusted and more favoured by their superiors. The name of slave in this country may be said to imply confidence on one part and attachment on the other. They are mostly Georgians or Africans; and being obtained or purchased when young, they are usually brought up in the Muhammadan religion. Their master, who takes the merit of their conversion, appropriates the females to his own harem, or to the service of his wives; and when the males are at a proper age, he marries them to female slaves in the family, or to free women. Their children are brought up in the house, and have a rank only below relations. In almost every family of consequence the person in whom the greatest trust is reposed is a house-born slave; and instances of their betraying their charge, or abusing the confidence that is placed in them, are very rare.”[[84]] A curious story is related in the Talmud, of a man making his will in favour of his slave, although he had a son whom he loved fondly. This man, residing at some distance from Jerusalem, had sent his son to the Holy City to “complete his education” (to employ an absurd colloquial phrase for the nonce); and dying during his son’s absence, he bequeathed his entire estate to one of his slaves, on the condition that he should allow his son to select any one article which pleased him for an inheritance. Surprised and naturally angry at such gross injustice on the part of his father, in preferring a slave for his heir instead of himself, the young man sought counsel of his preceptor, who, after carefully considering the terms of the will, thus explained its meaning and effect: “By this action thy father has simply secured thy inheritance to thee. To prevent his slaves from plundering the estate before thou couldst formally claim it, he left it to one of them, who, believing himself to be the owner, would take good care of the property. Now, what a slave possesses belongs to his master; choose, therefore, the slave for thy portion, and then possess all that was thy father’s.” The young man followed this advice, took possession of the slave, and thus of his father’s wealth, and then gave the slave his freedom, together with a considerable sum of money.[[85]]—“The manners of Asia,” says Richardson, “seem in all ages to have pointed to domestic slavery; and Muhammad, in Arabia, made that an article of religion which had anciently been only a custom. The captives of war were, in consequence, with few exceptions, constantly reduced to a state of servitude; and little distinction seems in general to have been made between a princess and her slave; excepting what she derived from a superiority of personal accomplishments. These ideas the Arabians entertained amidst their extensive conquests. Many instances might be given, but two will suffice, as they were daughters of the two greatest princes in the world. In an action after the siege of Damascus, in A.D. 635, amongst other prisoners was the daughter of Heraclius, emperor of Greece, and widow of the governor of that city. Rasi, the Arabian commander, to whose lot she fell, presented her without ceremony as a slave to Jonas, a Grecian, who had embraced the Muhammadan religion; but Jonas, from a principle of honour, returned her, with all her jewels, unransomed to her father. When the Arabians conquered Persia, Shīrīn Bānū, the daughter of the King Yazdejird, was one of the captives, and was publicly exposed to sale in the city of Madīna; but the liberal-minded `Alī thought differently from his countrymen on this occasion; he declared that the offspring of princes ought not to be sold, and married her immediately to his son.”[[86]]—The lot of women in Arabia before the time of Muhammad was at the best a hard one, and it certainly underwent no improvement when they happened to be taken captive in any of the frequent tribal wars. (The brutal treatment of the beauteous Abla, in the Romance of `Antar, when she fell into the hands of the chief of a tribe hostile to that of `Abs, is doubtless a faithful picture of Arabian life in those times.) And there can be no question that the cruel and unnatural practice which prevailed among the pre-Islamite Arabs of burying alive their new-born female children had its origin in a desire to save them from the hardships they were so likely to encounter when grown up. This practice seems to have been at one time common to most of the nations of antiquity.
Page [93]. “Several of the soldiers returned.”—They probably came to report to the King that the enemy were in superior force, and that more troops must be despatched to oppose them.
Page [94]. “Day was beginning to dawn.” The text adds: “He performed the morning-prayer (namāz-i sabā), at the time when [teaches the Kur’ān] ‘you can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread.’” The Persians, who are shī`a (unorthodox), prefer to “distinguish a white horse from a gray horse.”
Page [94]. “Say, King, shall I strike or not?”—It was customary, if I am not mistaken, at the courts of some of the Khalifs or other Eastern monarchs, for the executioner, after being ordered to decapitate a culprit, to ask the King three times: “Shall I strike?”