[FN#76] In Turkestan: the name means “Two lights.”
[FN#77] In Armenia, mentioned by Sadik Isfaháni (Transl. p. 62).
[FN#78] This is the only ludicrous incident in the tale which justifies Von Hammer’s suspicion. Compare it with the combat between Rustam and his son Sohráb.
[FN#79] I cannot understand why Trébutien, iii., 457, writes
this word Afba. He remarks that it is the “Oina and Riya” of
Jámí, elegantly translated by M. de Chezy in the Journal
Asiatique, vol. 1, 144.
[FN#80] I have described this part of the Medinah Mosque in Pilgrimage ii., 62-69. The name derives from a saying of Mohammed (of which there are many variants), “Between my tomb and my pulpit is a garden of the Gardens of Paradise” (Burckhardt, Arabia, p. 337). The whole Southern portico (not only a part) now enjoys that honoured name and the tawdry decorations are intended to suggest a parterre.
[FN#81] Mohammed’s companions (Asháb), numbering some five hundred, were divided into two orders, the Muhájirin (fugitives) or Meccans who accompanied the Apostle to Al-Medinah (Pilgrimage ii. 138) and the Ansár (Auxiliaries) or Medinites who invited him to their city and lent him zealous aid (Ibid. ii. 130). The terms constantly occur in Arab history.
[FN#82] The “Mosque of the Troops,” also called Al-Fath (victory), the largest of the “Four Mosques:” it is still a place of pious visitation where prayer is granted. Koran, chap. xxxiii., and Pilgrimage ii. 325.
[FN#83] Arab. “Al-Wars,” with two meanings. The Alfáz Adwiyah gives it=Kurkum, curcuma, turmeric, safran d’Inde; but popular usage assigns it to Usfur, Kurtum or safflower (carthamus tinctorius). I saw the shrub growing all about Harar which exports it, and it is plentiful in Al-Yaman (Niebuhr, p. 133), where women affect it to stain the skin a light yellow and remove freckles: it is also an internal remedy in leprosy. But the main use is that of a dye, and the Tob stained with Wars is almost universal in some parts of Arabia. Sonnini (p. 510) describes it at length and says that Europeans in Egypt call it “Parrot-seeds” because the bird loves it, and the Levant trader “Saffrenum.”
[FN#84] Two men of the great ‘Anazah race went forth to gather Karaz, the fruit of the Sant (Mimosa Nilotica) both used for tanning, and never returned. Hence the proverb which is obsolete in conversation. See Burckhardt, Prov. 659: where it takes the place of “ad Graecas Kalendas.”
[FN#85] Name of a desert (Mafázah) and a settlement on the Euphrates’ bank between Basrah and the site of old Kufah near Kerbela; the well-known visitation place in Babylonian Irak.