"And the rain fell not but for the purpose of kissing the ground before thee."

Note [3.] "El-Mo'een" signifies "the Aider," or "the Assistant."

Note [4.] "El-Faḍl," signifying "the Excellence," is here, as a proper name, an abbreviation of "Faḍl-ed-Deen," "the Excellence of the Religion."

Note [5.] This phrase (a person of auspicious aspect[345]) is often used by the modern Arabs and the Turks, and signifies "a virtuous or beneficent man."

Note [6.] This answer is not to be understood in its literal sense; it has become a common form of speech which an Arab often uses for the purpose of obtaining something more than he would venture to demand.

Note [7.] "May it be favourable," or "——beneficial," is a compliment usually addressed to a person who has just been to the bath, and to a man who has just had his head shaved. The reply is, "May God bestow favours upon thee."

Note [8.]—On the Law respecting Murder and unintentional Homicide. The Ḳur-án ordains that murder shall be punished with death; or, rather, that the free shall die for the free, the slave for the slave, and a woman for a woman; or that the perpetrator of the crime shall pay, to the heirs of the person whom he has killed, if they will allow it, a fine, which is to be divided according to the laws of inheritance.[346] It also ordains, that unintentional homicide shall be expiated by freeing a believer from slavery, and paying, to the family of the person killed, a fine, unless they remit it.[347] But these laws are amplified and explained by the same book and by the Imáms.—A fine is not to be accepted for murder unless the crime has been attended by some palliating circumstance. This fine, the price of blood, is a hundred camels; or a thousand deenárs (about 500l.) from him who possesses gold; or, from him who possesses silver, twelve thousand dirhems[348] (about 300l.). This is for killing a free man; for a woman, half that sum; for a slave, his or her value, but that must fall short of the price of blood for the free. A person unable to free a believer must fast two months as in Ramaḍán. The accomplices of a murderer are liable to the punishment of death. By the Sunneh also, a man is obnoxious to capital punishment for the murder of a woman; and by the Ḥanafee law, for the murder of another man's slave. But he is exempted from this punishment who kills his own child or other descendant, or his own slave, or his son's slave, or a slave of whom he is part-owner: so also are his accomplices: and according to Esh-Sháfe'ee, a Muslim, though a slave, is not to be put to death for killing an infidel, though the latter be free. A man who kills another in self-defence, or to defend his property from a robber, is exempt from all punishment. The price of blood is a debt incumbent on the family, tribe, or association, of which the homicide is a member. It is also incumbent on the inhabitants of an enclosed quarter, or the proprietor or proprietors of a field, in which the body of a person killed by an unknown hand is found; unless the person has been found killed in his own house.

Hence it appears, that the punishment with which the Wezeer El-Faḍl threatened his son is not to be regarded as a grave criminal act; especially when we consider the nature of the son's offence: for the slave was the property of the king, and it was not allowable to any other man even to see her without his permission. Many of the characters depicted in the present work would seem incongruous in the extreme, if judged according to European notions of justice and other moral qualities.

Note [9.] "The two professions of the faith," "There is no deity but God," and "Moḥammad is God's Apostle," are generally repeated by a dying Muslim.

Note [10.] This is said to imply (as my sheykh has remarked in a marginal note) that El-Faḍl was a charitable person who bestowed pensions upon the professors of the Ḳur-án and of science. There are many among the modern Muslims who do so, and numbers also who found and endow public schools.