[FN#172] Arab. “Wa’ar”= rocky, hilly, tree-less ground unfit for riding. I have noted that the three Heb. words “Year” (e.g. Kiryath-Yearin=City of forest), “Choresh” (now Hirsh, a scrub), and “Pardes” ({Greek letters} a chase, a hunting-park opposed to {Greek letters}, an orchard) are preserved in Arabic and are intelligible in Palestine. (Unexplored Syria, i. 207.)
[FN#173] The privy and the bath are favourite haunts of the
Jinns.
[FN#174] Arab history is full of petty wars caused by trifles. In Egypt the clans Sa’ad and Harám and in Syria the Kays and Yaman (which remain to the present day) were as pugnacious as Highland Caterans. The tale bears some likeness to the accumulative nursery rhymes in “The House that Jack Built,” and “The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence;” which find their indirect original in an allegorical Talmudic hymn.
[FN#175] This is “The Story of the Old Man who sent his Young Wife to the Market to buy Rice,” told with Persian reflections in the “Book of Sindibad.”
[FN#176] Koran xii. 28. The words were spoken by Potiphar to
Joseph.
[FN#177] Koran iv. 78. A mis-quotation, the words are, “Fight therefore against the friends of Satan, for the craft of Satan shall be weak.”
[FN#178] i.e. Koranic versets.
[FN#179] In the Book of Sindibad this is the “Story of the Prince who went out to hunt and the stratagem which the Wazir practised on him.”
[FN#180] I have noted that it is a dire affront to an Arab if his first cousin marry any save himself without his formal leave.
[FN#181] i.e. the flowery, the splendid; an epithet of Fatimah, the daughter of the Apostle “the bright blooming.” Fátimah is an old Arab name of good omen, “the weaner:” in Egypt it becomes Fattúmah (an incrementative= “great weaner”); and so Amínah, Khadíjah and Nafísah on the banks of the Nile are barbarised to Ammúnah, Khaddúgah and Naffúsah.