_Page 70._ “He would provide for her a retired apartment,ārNā” &c.—The text reads: “I will prepare an oratory (_sawma`ā_), and make ready for thy sake the means (_asbāb_: furniture) for devotion (_asbāb-i-`ībāda_);” such as a prayer-carpet (_sajjāda_), having a mark upon it pointing towards Mecca, the _Kibla_ of Muslims, or point to which they direct their faces in saying their prayers, as Jerusalem is that of the Jews and Christians: within the mosque it is shown by a niche, and is called _El-Mihrāb_. The hypocritical saint is thus described by Sa`dī (_Gulistān_ ii, 17):
Devotees who fix their eyes on the world, Say their prayers with their backs to the Kibla.
There should also be a fountain of running water (for ceremonial ablution) and a copy of the Kur’ān.
_Page 70._ “Arrived at the city at the time of evening prayer.”—It is incumbent on every good Muslim (says Dr Forbes, in a note to his translation of _Bāgh o Bahār_) to pray five times in the 24 hours. The stated periods are rather capriciously settled: (1) The morning prayer is to be repeated between daybreak and sunrise; (2) The prayer of noon, when the sun shows a sensible declination from the meridian; (3) afternoon prayer, when the sun is so near the horizon that the shadow of a perpendicular object is twice its length; (4) evening prayer, between sunset and close on twilight; (5) the prayer of night, any time during darkness.
_Page 71._ “She begged that he would conceal himself in the apartment whilst she should converse with Kārdār.”—This, it seems to me, is quite after the manner of a modern European play or novel—when the “villain” is made to unmask himself, by a pious _ruse_ of “injured innocence.” I cannot call to mind a similar scene in any other Eastern romance which I have read.
_Page 72._ “Concealed behind the hangings” (see also p. 67, line 8 from foot).—The use of hangings, pictured tapestry, and various coloured carpets has been from the earliest ages prevalent in the East. We read in the Book of Esther, chapter i, &c., of the magnificence of a Persian monarch, who made a feast unto his nobles of Persia and Media, and in his palace had hangings, white, green, and red, fastened with purple cords to silver rings, with beds of gold and silver; and Plutarch, in Themistocles, speaks of the rich Persian carpets, with highly-coloured figures; and in his life of Cato the Censor, he mentions some Babylonian tapestry sent to Rome as a present. The manufacture passed in very early times from Asia into Greece, part of which, indeed, was itself Asiatic. Iris found Helen employed on figured tapestry, and the web of Penelope is sufficiently known (_Iliad iii_).—Sir William Ouseley’s _Persian Miscellanies_.