First cousin of the Prophet, son of Abú Tálib, a brother of Al-Abbás from whom the Abbasides claimed descent.
_i.e._ I hope thou hast or Allah grant thou have good tidings to tell me.
Arab. “Nákhúzah Zulayt.” The former, from the Persian Nákhodá or ship-captain which is also used in a playful sense “a godless wight,” one owning no (ná) God (Khudá). Zulayt = a low fellow, blackguard.
Yásamín and Narjis, names of slave-girls or eunuchs.
Arab. Tamar-hanná, the cheapest of dyes used ever by the poorest classes. Its smell, I have said, is that of newly mown hay, and is prized like that of the tea-rose.
The formula (meaning, “What has he to do here?”) is by no means complimentary.
Arab. “Jarrah” (pron. “Garrah”) a “jar.” See Lane (M. E. chapt. v.) who was deservedly reproached by Baron von Hammer for his superficial notices. The “Jarrah” is of pottery, whereas the “Dist” is a large copper chauldron and the Khalkínah one of lesser size.
This sudden transformation, which to us seems exaggerated and unnatural, appears in many Eastern stories and in the biographies of their distinguished men, especially students. A youth cannot master his lessons; he sees a spider climbing a slippery wall and after repeated falls succeeding. Allah opens the eyes of his mind, his studies become easy to him, and he ends with being an Allámah (doctissimus).
Arab. “Bismillah, Námí!” here it is not a blessing but a simple invitation, “Now please go to sleep.”
The modern inkcase of the Universal East is a lineal descendant of the wooden palette with writing reeds. See an illustration of that of “Amásis, the good god and lord of the two lands” (circ. B.C. 1350) in British Museum (p. 41, “The Dwellers on the Nile,” by E. A. Wallis Bridge, London, 56, Paternoster Row, 1885).
This is not ironical, as Lane and Payne suppose, but a specimen of inverted speech—Thou art in luck this time!
Arab. Marhúb = terrible: Lane reads Mar’úb = terrified. But the former may also mean, threatened with something terrible.
Lit. to the son of thy paternal uncle, _i.e._ Mohammed.
In the text he tells the whole story beginning with the eunuch and the hundred dinars, the chest, etc.; but—“of no avail is a twice-told tale.”
Koran xxxix. 54. I have quoted Mr. Rodwell who affects the Arabic formula, omitting the normal copulatives.