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I prefer love-pains with hope to repose with despair. Did I not love you, I had spared you my reproaches; and you had then been for me as the rest of mortals.

O Saad! thou hast spoken to me of my beloved and increased my folly; speak yet more to me, O Saad! My heart shall never know any love but that I bear her! it is a love without beginning and without end (7).

Since thy rigours cannot be softened unless by the intercession of another, I renounce such love as requires a mediator. I swear that indifference or dislike are not the motives which withhold me from reproaching thee thy cruelty; it was the certainty that all complaints were useless. If I cannot bear my pains in patience, I must yet submit to them though unwilling.

All his poetry is good. He was the maternal uncle of Ibrahim Ibn al-Abbas as-Sûli, as we have already mentioned (vol. I. page 23). His death took place at Baghdad in the year 192 (A. D. 807-8); but the following anecdote on the subject is given on good authority by Omar Ibn Shabba: "Ibrahim al-Mausili, sur"named an-Nadim, died in the year 188, on the same day as al-Kisâi the gramma"rian, al-Abbas Ibn al-Ahnaf and Hushaima al-Khammàra; (the khalif) ar-Ra"shid, who had been informed of the circumstance, ordered (his son) al-Màmûn "to say the funeral prayers over them, and the corpses were therefore placed "in a line before him. He asked whose body was that which was nearest to him, and on learning that it was Ibrahim al-Mausili's, he ordered it to be " removed and that of al-Abbas Ibn al-Ahnaf to be put in the first place. When "he had finished the prayer and was returning home, Hashim Ibn Abd Allah Ibn " Malik al-Khuzai went up to him and said: My lord! why did you honour “al-Abbas Ibn al-Ahnaf with the first place? To which he replied by repeat"these verses :

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'Some persons accused thee and said that it was thou who caused my pains and afflictions; but I denied the truth of their words, so that their suspicions might be turned

away from thee to another:-I like the lover who refuses (to reveal the name of his ' beloved).'

"Al-Mamûn then said: Can you recollect them?' and Hashim replied: 'I "can,' and then repeated them. 'Well,' said the prince, is not the author "of such verses worthy of the first rank?'-' He is, my lord.'"-I must observe that this anecdote is in contradiction with what we shall say farther on, in the life of al-Kisài. as we there mention that he died at Rai (not at Baghdad); besides which, much incertitude prevails respecting the year of his death, and

moreover, the death of

Abu Bakr as-Sûli says:

al-Abbâs has been placed by some in the year 192.
"Aûn Ibn Muhammad informed me that his father 347

"said to him: 'I saw al-Abbâs Ibn al-Ahnaf at Baghdad after the death of ar

He was a friend of mine, Here as-Sûli remarks that

Rashid, and his dwelling was near the Syrian gate. "and he died before he reached his sixtieth year.'" he must have died later than the year 192, since ar-Rashid's death took place at Tûs on the third of the latter Jumada, 193 (24th March, A. D. 809).—AlAhnaf, the father of al-Abbâs, died A. H. 150 (A. D. 767), and was buried at Basra. Al-Masudi, in his Murûj ad-Dahab, gives the following anecdote on the authority of some natives of Basra: "We set out," said they, "to perform the pilgrimage, and on our way we saw a boy standing by the side of the road, "who called out to us to know if any of us were natives of Basra. On this we "went over to him and asked what he wanted; to which he made answer: 'My "master wishes to give you his dying injunctions.' We then turned off from "the road and followed him till, at some distance, we found a man lying under "a tree and unable to give us any answer. We seated ourselves around him, "and being at length aware of our presence, he looked up at us, but his weakness was so great that he could hardly raise his eyes. He then recited these

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Alas! a stranger, lonely and far from home, is here weeping in affliction! With ' each fresh burst of grief, illness draweth closer to his enfeebled body!'

"He then swooned away, and we remained sitting about him for a long time, "till he at length came to himself. At that moment a raven perched on the 66 top of the tree and croaked aloud, on which he opened his eyes and listened "to its cry. The boy then pronounced these lines :

• The heart receiveth yet a deeper wound from the cry of that bird which lamenteth ' on its branch. The same misfortune which has worn us down afflicteth him and he grieveth! each of us are grieving for the loss of a true friend!'

"The sick man then heaved a deep sigh and breathed his last, and we did "not leave his corpse till we had washed it and shrouded it and said over it the "funeral prayer. prayer. When we had buried him, we asked the boy who it was, "and he said: 'It is al-Abbas Ibn al-Ahnaf.' God best knoweth if this relation be true.-Hanafi means belonging to the tribe of Hanifa, who was the

VOL II.

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son of Lujaim Ibn Saab Ibn Ali Ibn Bakr Ibn Wail; it is a celebrated tribe. Hanifa's real name was Uthål, but it was changed for this reason: he and alAhzan Ibn Aûf al-Abdi were conversing together on a subject which it would take us too long to relate, when Hanîfa struck al-Ahzan with his sword and cut off (jazam) his hand, and al-Ahzan struck Hanifa on the foot and shattered it (hanaf); so al-Ahzam received the surname of Jazima (the one-handed), and his adversary that of Hanifa (the club-footed). This Hanifa was the brother of Ijl the progenitor of a famous tribe).-Yamami means belonging to Yamama, a town in the desert which forms part of the province of Hijàz; the greater part of the inhabitants belong to the tribe of Hanifa. It was there that the impostor Musailama set up for a prophet and lost his life. His history is well known.

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(3) In place of, the autograph has; the sense is then: try and find other eyes to help you. (4) His life will be found in the first volume.

(5) See his life in the first volume.

(6) It must be remembered that al-Abbâs himself belonged to that tribe.

(7) Literally: It has neither before nor after.

AR-RIASHI.

Abû 'l-Fadl al-Abbas Ibn Faraj ar-Riàshi, a grammarian, a philologer, and a native of Basra, was a man of great learning and a trustworthy transmitter of oral literature; he knew besides the traditional accounts of the combats and adventures of the desert Arabs, and possessed great general knowledge. The information which he communicated to others was given by him on the authority of al-Asmâi, Abû Obaida, and other great masters, and his own authority was cited by Ibrahim al-Harbi (1), Ibn Abi 'd-Dunia (2), and others. The following is one of the (curious philological) passages which, according to his statement, he had learned from al-Asmâi: "An Arab of the desert," said he, " passed near 548 us in search of his son, and we said to him: 'Describe him;' and he an

"swered: "He is like a (pretty) little piece of gold;' on which we replied that "we had not seen him. Soon after, he returned with a swarthy little fellow, as “black as a beetle, perched upon his shoulder; and we then said to him: 'Hadst "thou asked us about that fellow, we could have directed thee, for he did not "stir out of our sight all day (3).' Al-Asmâi then repeated these lines:

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'Any bedfellow is good on the break of day, after a frosty night, when the chilled (sleeper) shivers with cold. God makes her as charming to the heart as the son is charming to the eyes of his father!'"'

Ar-Riâshi was slain at Basra during the insurrection of al-Alawi al-Basri (4) the chief of the Zenj. He lost his life in the month of Shawwâl, A. H. 257 (September, A. D. 871). He had been asked towards the end of Zû 'l-Hijja, A. H. 254, how old he was, and he replied: "Seventy-seven years, I believe." Our shaikh Ibn al-Athir mentions, in his great historical work (the Kamil), that ar-Riâshi was killed by the Zenj at Basra, A. H. 265, but this is a mistake; for all persons who have studied history unanimously agree that the Zenj entered Basra at the hour of Friday prayer, on the 16th Shawwâl, A. H. 257; that night and the following Saturday they ravaged the city with fire and sword, and on Monday they entered it again, after the flight of the garrison, and proclaimed a general amnesty; but when any of the people showed themselves, they massacred them. Very few of the inhabitants escaped, and the great mosque with all who were in it was destroyed by fire. Ar-Riàshi lost his life in one of the above-mentioned days, for he perished in the mosque.—Riâshi is derived from Riâsh, which was the name of the ancestor of a man who belonged to the tribe of Judâm ; this man possessed as a slave the father of (al-Abbâs ar-Riâshi,) him who was surnamed after him. The father had (first) received this surname and it never quitted him.

(1) See vol. I. page 46, note (5).

(2) See vol. I. page 531.

(3) This passage contains some diminutive nouns of rare occurrence, and it was therefore precious for philologers and lexicographers.

(4) Al-Alawi al-Basri, i. e. the descendant of Ali and native of Basra. His real name was Ali Ibn Muhammad; he revolted A. H. 255, and after devastating the southern provinces of the khalifat for many years, he was made prisoner and executed, A.H. 270 —(See his history in Abulfeda's Annals; Price's Retrospect, vol. II. page 163; and al-Makin, p. 162. This last writer styles him los (the wicked wretch, chief of the Zenj), which words Erpenius has rendered Habibus Rihorum Dominus.

ب الزنج

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ABD ALLAH IBN AL-MUBARAK.

Abu Abd ar-Rahmân Abd Allah Ibn al-Mubarak Ibn Wâdih al-Marwazi (native of Maru), a mawla to the tribe of Hanzala, was a man possessing profound learning combined with great self-mortification. He studied jurisprudence under Sofyân ath-Thauri, and Malak Ibn Anas (1), from whom he learned by heart the Muwatta, and then taught it to others. He loved retirement and solitude, and was extremely assiduous in the practice of ascetic devotion. It is related of his father, who, like him, was a man of great piety, that he served a master who employed him to work in his garden; he had passed a considerable time in this occupation, when his master came to him one day and told him to bring him a ripe pomegranate, on which he went to a tree and gathered an unripe one. His master having broken it open and found it sour, got angry with him and ordered him to go for a ripe one; he then went and cut one off another tree, but it was also sour, and his master's anger became more violent : "I asked you for a ripe one," he exclaimed, "and you give me a sour one! bring me a ripe one!" He went then for the third time and did as before, on which his master said to him: "Do you not know the difference between a ripe and an unripe pomegranate ?"-"No."-" And how does that hap66 pen ?"-"Because I never tasted of them so as to know the difference.". "And why did you not ?"-"Because I had not your permission." His master having found on examination that he had told the truth, conceived the highest respect for him and gave him his daughter in marriage. It is said that God. blessed this union with a son, this Abd Allah, to whom were transmitted the divine graces granted to his father. In some historical work I have found the same thing related of the pious and holy Ibrahim Ibn Adham (2), and it is told of him also by at-Tortûshi (3), towards the commencement of his work the Siraj al-Mulûk. Abû Ali 'l-Ghassâni (4) relates the following anecdote: Abd Allah Ibn al-Mubarak was asked which was the more blessed man of the two, Moawia Ibn Abi Sofyan or Omar Ibn Abd al-Azîz, to which he made answer : "The very dust which entered into Moawia's nostrils when accompanying God's 349" blessed Prophet is a thousand times more holy than all Omar. Moawia was praying behind the Prophet when the latter said: God hearkeneth to him who

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