[45]. A neat specimen of the figure anachronism. Al-Hajjaj died in A.H. 95 (= A.D. 714), and Cairo was built in A.H. 358 (= A.D. 968).
[46]. Perfectly true even in the present day. The city was famed for intelligence and sanguinary fanaticism; and no stranger in disguise could pass through it without detection. This ended with the massacre of 1840, which brought a new era into the Moslem East. The men are, as a rule, fine-looking, but they seem to be all show: we had a corps of them in the old Básh-Buzuks, who, after a month or two in camp, seemed to have passed suddenly from youth into old age.
[47]. In text “Yasta’amilúna al-Mrd,” which may have a number of meanings, e.g. “work frowardness” (Maradd), or “work the fruit of the tree Arák” (Marad = wild capparis) and so forth. I have chosen the word mainly because “Murd” rhymes to “Burd.” The people of Al-Yaman are still deep in the Sotadic Zone and practice; this they owe partly to a long colonization of the “’Ajam,” or Persians. See my Terminal Essay, § “Pederasty,” p. 205.
[48]. “Burd,” plur. of “Burdah” = mantle or woollen plaid of striped stuff: vol. vii. 95. They are still woven in Arabia, but they are mostly white.
[49]. So in Tabari (vol. iii. 127) Al-Hajjáj sees a man of haughty mien (Abd al-Rahmán bin Abdullah), and exclaims, “Regarde comme il est orgueilleux: par Dieu, j’aurais envie de lui couper la tête!”
[50]. [The phrase is Koranic (viii. 24): “Wa ’lamú anna ’lláha yahúlu bayna ’l-mari wa kalbi-hi,” which Rodwell translates: Know that God cometh in between man and his own heart.—St.]
[51]. “Yathrib,” the classical name Ἰατρίππα, one of the multifarious titles of what is called in full “Madínat al-Nabi,” City of the Prophet, and vulgarly, Al-Madinah, the City. “Tayyibah,” = the good, sweet, or lawful: “Al Munawwarah” = the enlightened, i.e. by the light of The Faith and the column of (odylic) flame supposed to be based upon the Prophet’s tomb. For more, see my Pilgrimage, ii. 162. I may note how ridiculously the story-teller displays ignorance in Al-Hajjaj, who knew the Moslem’s Holy Land by heart.
[52]. In text “Taawíl,” = the commentary or explanation of Moslem Holy Writ: “Tanzíl” = coming down, revelation of the Koran: “Tahrím” = rendering any action “harám” or unlawful, and “Tahlíl” = the converse, making word or deed canonically legal. Those are well-known theological terms.
[53]. The Banú Ghálib, whose eponymous forefather was Ghálib, son of Fihr, the well-known ancestor of Mohammed.
[54]. In text “Hasab wa Nasab.” It is told of Al-Mu’izz bi Díni’llah, first Fatimite Caliph raised to the throne of Egypt, that he came forward to the elective assembly and drew his sword half way out of the scabbard and exclaimed, “Házá Nasabí” (this is my genealogy); and then cast handfuls of gold amongst the crowd, crying, “Házá Hasabí” (such is my title to reign.) This is as good as the traditional saying of Napoleon the Great at his first assuming the iron crown—“God gave her to me: woe for whoso toucheth her” (the crown).