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month of Safar, A.H. 543 (July, A.D. 1148). The katib Imâd ad-dîn, however, mentions in his Kharida that his death occurred in the year 546.

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Abû 'l-Hasan Ali Ibn Rustum Ibn Hardûz, surnamed Bahâ ad-din (splendour of religion), and generally known by the appellation of Ibn as-Saâti (1), was one of the leaders in the band of the modern poets. He left two diwâns, or collections of his poems, one in two volumes, filled with pieces of the highest excellence, and the other forming a small volume and entitled Mukattaât an-Nil (the crossingplaces of the Nile). From the latter I extract the following passage :

O the happy day and night we passed at Suyût! time, in its blind vicissitudes, will never again bring about the like. The night was in its youth, yet its head was hoary in the moonlight; the dew-drops were strung on the branches, like orient pearls, and fell to the ground when touched by the zephyr. The birds chanted; the lake was their book, the breeze wrote the lines, and the cloud-drops pointed the letters.

The metaphor is here perfectly wrought out in every point.—I shall now give another extract from the same work :

We landed at a meadow clothing the rugged soil with herbage, and offering pasture to our eyes and to our souls. Reclining in the shade, I admired the beauties of the place, whilst the perfumes were borne around on the breath of the flowers, and my companion swore (2) that the (clear) sky was of amber, the (blooming) groves, of jewels, and the (smooth) meadow, of silk. The (red) anemonies smiled, and the (white) anthemis blossom wished to kiss them, although the narcissus was looking on. That seemed a cheek, this a mouth (3) striving to press it, and there were the eyes (4) always watching them.

The poetry of Ibn as-Saâti abounds with charming ideas. I learned from his son, at Cairo, that he died in that city on Thursday, the 23rd of Ramadân, A.H. 604 (April, A. D. 1028), at the age of fifty-one years, six months, and twelve

days, and that he was buried at the foot of Mount Mukattam.

I have read a

note on him, in the handwriting of some learned shaikh, wherein the date of the death corresponds with that given here, but he says that he lived forty-eight years, seven months, and twelve days, and that he was born at Damascus. God 305 best knows which statement is true. - Suyût is a town in Upper Egypt (Said);

some pronounce this name Usyût.

(1) Ibn as-Saati signifies son of the clockmaker, or son of the dialist.

يحلف Read (2)

(3) The flower of the anthemis is often compared to the mouth, because it is white, as the teeth are. (4) See the observations on the narcissus, in vol. I. Introd. p. xxxvi.

IBN AL-AAMIDI THE KADI.

Abû 'l-Fadâil Ali Ibn Abi 'l-Muzaffar Yûsuf Ibn Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Obaid Allah Ibn al-Husain Ibn Ahmad Ibn Jaafar al-Aâmidi was born at Wäsit of a family which came originally from Aàmid and was noted, at the former place, for producing transmitters of traditional knowledge and men of piety and integrity. Having proceeded to Baghdad, he there devoted some time to the study of the Shafite system of jurisprudence under the tuition of the shaikh Abû Tâlib al-Mubârak Ibn al-Mubarak (1), the disciple of Ibn al-Khall (2), and then under Abû 'l-Kasim Yaish Ibn Sadaka al-Furâti. He assisted the latter in the capacity of a muid (repeater), and repeated, in his name, the lessons which he had received from him, to a class held in the Thikatiya college (3), at the Gate of al-Azaj. He displayed great elegance of language in the discussion of doubtful points, and he knew by heart a considerable quantity of Traditions which he had learned from the lips of numerous teachers at Baghdad and other cities. In the year 604, towards the end of the month of Safar (September, A. D. 1027), he was appointed to the place of kadi at Wàsit; he arrived there in the following month, and was then entrusted with the additional duty of controlling the administration of the cantons which form the dependencies of that

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city. He was a skilful arithmetician and a good poet, having composed these charming verses, which are now so widely circulated :

Admire that passionate lover! he recals to mind the well protected park (4) and sighs aloud; he hears the call of love and stops bewildered. The nightingales awaken the trouble of his heart, and his pains, now redoubled, drive all prudence from his mind (5). An ardent passion excites his complaints; sadness moves him to tears; his old affections awake, but these were never dormant. His friends say that his fortitude has failed; but the very mountain of Yalamlam (6) would groan, or sink oppressed, under such a weight of love. Think not that compulsion will lead him to forget her; willingly he accepted the burden of love; how then could he cast it off against his will?-O Otba, faultless in thy charms! be indulgent, be kind, for thy lover's sickness has reached its height. By thee the willow of the hill was taught to wave its branches with grace, when thy form, robed in beauty, first appeared before it. Thou hast lent thy tender glances to the gazelles of the desert, and therefore the fairest object to be seen is the eye of the antelope. Sick with the pains of love, bereft of sleep and confounded, I should never have outlived my nights, unless revived by the appearance of thy favour, deceitful as it was (7). These four shall witness the sincerity of my attachment: tears, melancholy, a mind deranged, and care, my constant visitor; could Yazbul feel this last, it would become like as-Suha (8). Some reproach me for loving thee, but I am not to be reclaimed; others bid me forbear, but I heed them not. They tell thee that I desire thee for thy beauty; how very strange! and where is the beauty which is not an object of desire? For thee I am the most loving of lovers; none, I know, are like me (in sincerity) or like thee in beauty.

He has left other poems equally remarkable for tenderness of sentiment. I have given the foregoing verses as his, because I found them attributed to him; 306 but am unable to verify the fact. I have discovered, however, in my rough notes, that a person called Ibn al-Aamidi the poet died A.H. 551 (A.D. 1156-7), and that he was a contemporary of al-Ghazzi (vol. I. p. 38) and al-Arrajani (vol. I. p. 134), but I am unable to determine his real name and patronymic so as to identify him. The author whom I copied merely says that he was a native of an-Nil, the village in Irak so called, and that he died, aged upwards of ninety years. It is therefore possible that he may be the author of the piece inserted above, but it is equally possible that it may have been composed by him whose life is here given; I am inclined, however, to adopt the former opinion, because Abû 'l-Fadàil Ibn al-Aàmidi, the kâdi of Wàsit was a jurisconsult, and the other is designated as a poet.— Abû 'l-Fadàil was born at Wâsit, on the 25th of Zû 'l-Hijja, A. H. 559 (November, A. D. 1164), and he died in the same city on the eve of Monday, the 3rd of the 1st Rabi, A. H. 608 (August, A. D. 1211). The funeral prayer was said over him the next morning, and he was interred outside the city, near the graves of

his father and family. We have already stated (vol. II. p. 237) that Admidi means belonging to Admid.

(1) Abu Talib al-Mubarak Ibn al-Mubarak al-Karkhi (a native of Karkh) is generally known as the Disciple of Ibn al-Khall, under whose tuition he had studied the doctrines of the Shafite sect. He wrote so well that species of character which is called al-Khatt al-Mansûb, and of which mention is made in the life of Ibn al-Bawwab, that he was considered to be a better penman than that celebrated katib. It was particularly in the two sorts of hand called Tâmar and Thuluth that he fully displayed his talents; but he was so jealous of his skill that, in giving fatwas to persons who asked them with the hopes of thus obtaining specimens of his writing, he broke the point of the pen before using it. In A. H. 581 (A.D. 1185-6), he succeeded Abû 'l-Khair al-Kazwini as professor at the Nizamiya college, and instructed numerous pupils in jurisprudence. It is said that when he commenced his career, he used to play on the lute, and considered such an amusement as blameless, but he afterwards renounced it, on perceiving that he had become proverbially known as a good lute-player. He then cultivated the art of penmanship till he surpassed Ibn al-Bawwåb, but having conceived a dislike for such an occupation, he devoted the rest of his days to study. He died in the month of Zu 'l-Kaada, A H 385 (December, A. D. 1189), aged eighty-two years.-(Tabakât as-Shâfiyîn.)

I shall now offer some observations suggested by the words al-Khatt al-Mansûb which occur in this notice. That no uncertainty may remain on the point of their being here used to designate a particular species of written character, I shall reproduce the original text:

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ان قيل انه اكتب من ابن البواب وكتب الخط المنسوب الى ان قيل انه اكتب

"And he wrote the mansûb writing till it was said of him that he surpassed Ibn al-Bawwâb in that art.” In Ibn Khallikân's life of Ibn al-Bawwâb (vol. II. p. 282), we read these lines:

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وقيل ان صاحب الخط المنسوب ليس أبا على المذكور

And it is said that the author (or inventor) of the mansub writing was not the Abu Ali above-mentioned." Ad-Dahabi says in his Tarikh al-Islam, MS. No. 646, folio 141 verso; in his article on Ibn Mukla:

محمد بن على بن الحسن بن مقلة ابو على الوزير صاحب الخط المنسوب

"Abû Ali Muhammad Ibn Ali Ibn al-Hasan Ibn Mukla the vizir, the author of the mansub writing."

In Abû 'l-Mahâsin's Nujûm, year 423, we find Ibn al-Bawwab styled "the author of the excellent mansûb

He then adds : He surpassed all his contemporaries in صاحب الخط المنسوب الفائق "writing

"the mansub writing, so that his renown spread east and west." He employs again the same term when speaking of Ibn Mukla.

It appears from these passages that there existed a particular species of writing called, for what reason I cannot discover, al-Mansûb. Ibn Khallikân and other historians say that Ibn al-Bawwâb drew it from the style of writing used by the people of Kûfa, and the perfection to which he brought it is universally attested by them. But there is nothing in Ibn Khallikân's statement which can lead us to suppose that this improved character is the same as that which is now called neskhi and generally employed in Arabic manuscripts. He says, it is true, that it is Abu 'l-Hasan Ibn al-Bawwab's system which is still followed, or as the original text has it, it is on his loom they weave, i. e. they take him for a model. But it cannot be logically concluded from these words that the neskhi did not exist before his time, or that later penmen took him for their model when writing in the neskhi character; neither can it be deduced therefrom that the learned Moslims suppose the Kûfic

as

to have been in general use till the time of Ibn Mukla. Hajji Khalifa says positively in his Bibliographical Dictionary, article, that, under the Omaiyides, the different styles of writing, or pens, they are called, had been already brought into existence. The passage will be found in the third volume of the edition of that work published by professor Flügel.

I have insisted particularly on these points, because the Arabic scholars of Europe generally concluded from Ibn Khallikan's words that Ibn Mukla invented the neskhi, and, that before his time (he died A. H. 328), the Kûfic was the sole character employed. This opinion was completely overturned by the discovery which M. de Sacy made of some passports, in Arabic, drawn up in the second century of the Hijra, and of a letter dated A. H. 40; all written in what is called the neskhi hand. The consequence was, that the authority of Ibn Khallikân and all other Arabic writers who speak of Ibn Mukla's improvement appeared to have sustained a severe shock; whereas a more attentive examination of their words would have completely justified their statement. -I think it necessary to add that oriental scholars have generally given too great an extension to the signification of the word neskhi. With them, the characters called Thuluth, Rihân, Rikda, etc. are all neskhi; but this is an error: the neskhi being itself a particular character (particular in its dimension, not in its form); and yet, on this very error, they have founded their reasonings when endeavouring to trace the variations which the Arabic written character has undergone.

(2) The life of Ibn al-Khall is given by Ibn Khallikân.

(3) This college was founded by Thikat ad-Dawlat al-Anbari. See vol. I. p. 625.

(4) See vol. I. page 123, note (13).

(5) In this verse we must read in the first form.

(6) The Marasid places Yalamlam at a two or three days' journey from Tàif.

(7) The word Jy signifies presumption, hauteur, and coquetry. It bears here the last meaning.

(8) Yazbul is the name of a mountain in Najd, and as-Suha that of a very small star in the Greater Bear.

IMAD AD-DAWLAT IBN BUWAIH.

Imȧd ad-Dawlat (the column of the state) Abû 'l-Hasan Ali Ibn Buwaih Ibn Fannȧkhosrû ad-Dailami was sovereign of Persia. The remainder of his genealogy has been already given (1). This was the first of the Buwaih family who came to the throne. His father was a fisherman, and had no other means of support; he had two brothers, both younger than himself, Rukn ad-Dawlat alHasan, father to Adud (2) ad-Dawlat, and Moizz ad-Dawlat. All of them reigned,

but Imâd ad-Dawlat was the author of their fortune and their wide renown. Persian and Arabian Irak, al-Ahwaz and the province of Fars acknowledged their authority, and their administration was successfully devoted to the welfare

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