[368]. [The MS. is here rather indistinct; still, as far as I can make out, it runs: “wa Hakki man aulàní házá ’l-Mulk” = and by the right of (i.e. my duty towards) Him who made me ruler over this kingdom.—St.]
[369]. [The word in the MS. is difficult to decipher. In a later passage we find corresponding with it the expression “yumázasa-hu fí ’l-Kalám,” which is evidently a clerical error for “yumárasa-hu” = he tested or tried him in his speech. Accordingly I would read here: “yakhburu ma’ahu fí ’l-Kalám,” lit. = he experimented with him, i.e. put him to his test. The idea seems to be, that he first cross-examined him and then tried to intimidate him. With this explanation “yusáhí-hu” and later on “yulhí-hu” would tally, which both have about the same meaning: to divert the attention, to make forget one thing over another, hence to confuse and lead one to contradict himself.—St.]
[370]. Here we find the old superstitious idea that no census or “numbering of the people” should take place save by direct command of the Creator. Compare the pestilence which arose in the latter days of David when Joab by command of the King undertook the work (2 Sam. xxiv. 1–9, etc.)
[371]. The text has “Salásín” = thirty, evidently a clerical error.
[372]. [In Ar. “yanjaaru,” vii. form of “jaara” (med. Hamzah), in which the idea of “raising,” “lifting up,” seems to prevail, for it is used for raising the voice in prayer to God, and for the growing high of plants.—St.]
[373]. The text, which is wholly unedited, reads “He found the beasts and their loads (? the camels) and the learned men,” &c. A new form of “bos atque sacerdos” and of place pour les ânes et les savans, as the French soldiers cried in Egypt when the scientists were admitted into the squares of infantry formed against the doughty Mameluke Cavalry.
[374]. [In the MS. “wáraytaní ilà l-turáb” = thou hast given me over to the ground for concealment, iii. form of “warà,” which takes the meaning of “hiding,” “keeping secret.”—St.]
[375]. [The MS. has “wa dazz-há,” which is an evident corruption. The translator, placing the diacritical point over the first radical instead of the second, reads “wa zarr-há,” and renders accordingly. But if in the MS. the dot is misplaced, the Tashdíd over it would probably also belong to the Dál, resp. Zal, and as it is very feasible that a careless writer should have dropped one Wáw before another, I am inclined to read “wa wazzar-há” = “and he left her,” “let her go,” “set her free.” In classical Arabic only the imperative “Zar,” and the aorist “yazaru” of the verb “wazara” occur in this sense, while the preterite is replaced by “taraka,” or some other synonym. But the language of the common people would not hesitate to use a form scorned by the grammarians, and even to improve upon it by deriving from it one of their favourite intensives.—St.]
[376]. Both are civil forms of refusal: for the first see vols. i. 32; vi. 216; and for the second ix. 309.
[377]. Everything being fair in love and war and dealing with a “Káfir,” i.e. a non-Moslem.