[301]. “Them” and “him” for “her.”
[302]. ’Urkúb, a Jew of Yathrib or Khaybar, immortalised in the A.P. (i. 454) as “more promise-breaking than ’Urkúb.”
[303]. Uncle of Mohammed. See vol. viii. 172.
[304]. First cousin of Mohammed. See ib.
[305]. This threat of “’Orf with her ’ead” shows the Caliph’s lordliness.
[306]. Arab. “Al-Bashkhánah.”
[307]. i.e. Amen. See vol. ix. 131.
[308]. When asked, on Doomsday, his justification for having slain her.
[309]. Khorasan which included our Afghanistan, turbulent then as now, was in a chronic state of rebellion during the latter part of Al-Rashid’s reign.
[310]. The brutality of a Moslem mob on such occasions is phenomenal: no fellow-feeling makes them decently kind. And so at executions even women will take an active part in insulting and tormenting the criminal, tearing his hair, spitting in his face and so forth. It is the instinctive brutality with which wild beasts and birds tear to pieces a wounded companion.