[84]. Arab. “Haláwat,” lit. = a sweetmeat, a gratuity, a thank-offering.
[85]. Bresl. Edit., vol. vi. pp. 182–188, Nights ccccxxxii-ccccxxxiv.
[86]. “The good Caliph” and the fifth of the Orthodox, the other four being Abu Bakr, Omar, Osman and Ali; and omitting the eight intervening, Hasan the grandson of the Prophet included. He was the 13th Caliph and 8th Ommiade A.H. 99–101 (= 717–720) and after a reign of three years he was poisoned by his kinsmen of the Banu Umayyah who hated him for his piety, asceticism, and severity in making them disgorge their ill-gotten gains. Moslem historians are unanimous in his praise. Europeans find him an anachorète couronné, à froide et respectable figure, who lacked the diplomacy of Mu’awiyah and the energy of Al-Hajjáj. His principal imitator was Al-Muhtadi bi’lláh, who longed for a return to the rare old days of Al-Islam.
[87]. Omar ’Adi bin Artah; governor of Kufah and Basrah under “the good Caliph.”
[88]. Jarír al-Khatafah, one of the most famous of the “Islámí” poets, i.e., those who wrote in the first century (A.H.) before the corruption of language began. (See Terminal Essay, p. [267].) Ibn Khallikan notices him at full length i. 294.
[89]. Arab. “Bákiyah,” which may also mean eternal as opposed to “Fániyah” = temporal. Omar’s answer shows all the narrow-minded fanaticism which distinguished the early Moslems: they were puritanical as any Praise-God-Barebones, and they hated “boetry and bainting” as hotly as any Hanoverian.
[90]. The Saturday Review (Jan. 2, ’86), which has honoured me by the normal reviling in the shape of a critique upon my two first vols., complains of the “Curious word Abhak” as “a perfectly arbitrary and unusual group of Latin letters.” May I ask Aristarchus how he would render “Sal’am,” (vol. ii. 24), which apparently he would confine to “Arabic MSS.” (!). Or would he prefer to A(llah) b(less) h(im) a(nd) k(eep) “W. G. B.” (whom God bless) as proposed by the editor of Ockley? But where would be the poor old “Saturnine” if obliged to do better than the authors it abuses?
[91]. He might have said “by more than one, including the great Labíd.”
[92]. Fí-hi either “in him” (Mohammed) or “in it” (his action).
[93]. Chief of the Banu Sulaym. According to Tabari, Abbas bin Mirdas (a well-known poet), being dissatisfied with the booty allotted to him by the Prophet, refused it and lampooned Mohammed, who said to Ali, “Cut off this tongue which attacketh me,” i.e. “Silence him by giving what will satisfy him.” Thereupon Ali doubled the Satirist’s share.