an ell. I turn my eyes from one end of it to the other, examining it in length and breadth, and can see nothing but darns. I have no doubt but that in former times, it served as a sail to Noah's ark. For me, it is quite enough to see the rest of it falling to tatters on my shoulders. Stop a little longer, o hyæna! before your departure; let not your station here be for the purpose of saying a long farewell (23).

In a piece addressed to a man in high station he resumed the subject and said:

Let me weep for my garment, now, that it has bidden me farewell; I must persist in weeping since it persists (in leaving me). Son of al-Husain! see you not how my vest has become a rag which, through long use, has fallen (into ruin) and become (a network) like a coat of mail. It has so many rents that the zephyr, in breathing upon it, would disperse it like a cloud. My tailasân declares, by its tattered state, that, from it my vest learned to get used and be worn away. May it not obtain the favour of God! it was always a foe to my other garments and made them fall to pieces. The mountains should praise God, for, had they been as old as it, they would now be split open and fallen down.

He said also on the same subject:

Ibn Harb! you clothed me in a tailasân which is for the darner as if he sowed corn in a salt marsh. He that first mended it is dead; his sons are dead also, and his grandsons are now turning gray and becoming old men.

By the same on the same subject:

O that my tailasan had a voice when people think that (what we say of it) is a lie! It is like Tûr (Mount Sinai) which was shattered in its strength and in its foundations when God manifested his presence. We so often mended it when it was torn, that nothing now remains but the patches; all the (original) tailasan is gone.

By the same:

Ibn Harb! I see in a corner of my chamber one of those things with which you clothed so many. It is a tailasân which I darned and darned, and of which I repatched the patches Obedient to decay, it was headstrong and obstinate for him who tried to mend it. When any curious enquirer sees me wear it, he takes me for an apprentice in the art (of darning).

By the same:

Tell Ibn Harb that the people of Noah used to talk of his tailasan. It has never ceased passing down as a heritage through by-gone generations. When eyes are fixed upon it, their glances.

seem to rend it still more. It will perish if I mend it not, and, if I mend it, it will not last It is like a dog; whether you attack him or let him alone, he will be always gaping.

It is stated that the poet composed on this tailasân two hundred pieces, each of them containing an original thought. As for the words of the letter: nor like the skin of Amr which had been lacerated by beating, we may observe that they allude to the example cited by grammarians: Zaid beat Amr, and which is employed by them, to the exclusion of all others (in order to illustrate the double action of the verb). So it might be said of them that they tore to pieces the skin of Amr by frequent beatings. Al-Hamdûi conceived the idea of composing these epigrams on reading some verses which Abú Пlumran as-Sulami had made on a tailasan which was worn out to a shred. Here is the piece

Tailasan of Abû Humrân! existence is for you an affliction, and in it you can find no pleaEvery second day, patching must be recommenced; how foolish to think that what is old can be rendered new! When I put you on with the intention of being present at a festival or an assembly, people turn aside lest their glances might do it harm.

The idea expressed in the third (and last) of these verses is taken from a piece composed by the Motazelite doctor, Abû Ishâk Ibrahîm Ibn Saiyâr an-Nazzâm alBalkhi (vol. I, p. 186), and in which he described a youth of a very slender shape :

He is so slender that, if his trowsers were taken off, he would become light enough to remain suspended in the air. When people look at him, their glances hurt him, and he complains when pointed at with the finger.

In the month of Ramadân, 626 (July-August, A. D. 1229), a literary man at Mosul recited to me the following verses in which a poet had expressed a similar thought:

My eyes saw her in imagination and, the next morning, her cheek bore the impress which my imaginary glances had left upon it. My heart took her by the hand and caused her fingers to bleed; in touching her fingers, my heart left on them a wound.

The sûfi shaikh Aidmor Ibrahîm as-Salami (24) recited to me a quatrain composed by himself on this subject, and which I give here:

When the zephyr blew from Irâk, she (whom I love) charged it to bear her salutations to

me, if it could. And it said to me, fearing for her cheek (25): "If you pass near it, it will be "wounded and complain.

A literary man in decayed circumstances made a complained of his poverty and his thread-bare clothes. an idea similar to the preceding and runs as follows:

piece of verse in which he One of these verses contains.

My clothes are so completely worn out that I dare not wash them, lest that, whilst I wring them, the last shreds may go off with the water.

The same idea has been often expressed in poetry, but here, brevity is preferable. Let us return to our subject. The kadi Abù 'l-Mahâsin followed the habits of the Baghdad (court) in his mode of living, in his usages and even in his dress. The men in office who went to visit him dismounted at his door and took, each of them, the place regularly assigned to him, without daring to pass on (and take a higher one). He subsequently travelled to Egypt for the purpose of bringing to Aleppo the daugther of al-Malik al-Kâmil Ibn al-Malik al-Aâdil, whose marriage with al-Malik al-Azîz, the sovereign of Aleppo, he had negotiated. He set out towards the beginning of the year 629 (november, A. D. 1231), or the end of 628, and returned with her in the month of Ramâdan (june-july, A. D. 1232). On his arrival, he found that al-Malîk al-Aziz was no longer under guardianship and had taken all the authority into his own hands. The atábek Toghrul had left the castle and retired to his house at the foot of the fortress. Al-Azîz then let himself be governed by some of the young men who had been his companions and associates; it was them only whom he minded. The kâdi Abû 'l-Mahâsin, not receiving such countenance as he had a right to expect, retired to his house and never stirred out till the day of his death; but he continued to fill the place of hâkim and receive the revenue of his iktå. The utmost to be said on the subject is that his word had no longer any influence with the government and that his advice was never asked for. He then opened his door every day to students who wished to hear him deliver Traditions. His intelligence at length became so feeble that he could no longer recognise those who came to see him; when a visitor stood up and retired, he would ask who he was. He remained in this state for a short time, was then sick for a few days and died at Aleppo on Wednesday, the 14th of Safar, 632 (8th november, A. D. 1234). He was buried in the mausoleum of wich we have spoken. I was present at his inter

ment and at what passed afterwards. The works composed by him were the Malja 'l-Hukkám and Iltibâs il-Ahkâm (the resource for magistrates when the texts of the law are doubtful), treating of (unforeseen) law-cases, in two volumes; the Daldil al-Ahkâm (indication of the sources from which are drawn the articles of Moslim law), in which he treats of the Traditions from which such articles were deduced, in two volumes; the al-Mujaz al-Bâhir (eminent compendium) on jurisprudence. Amongst the other works of his we may indicate the Kitáb Sîrat Salâh ad-Din (the history of Saladin (26). He left his house to the Sûfis as a convent (khangáh), not having any heir. The legists and Koran-readers frequented his mausoleum for a long time and recited the Koran beside his tomb. Before each of the trellises which we have mentioned, he establised seven readers, so that every night, the whole of that book might be read over his grave. Each of the fourteen readers went over one fourteenth part of the volume after the last evening prayer. On the 23rd of the latter Jumâda (14th march, A. D. 1235) I set out for Egypt, leaving things in this state, but, since then, great changes have taken place, as I am told, and all these establishments are broken up. The shaikh Najin ad-Dîn Ibn al-Khabbâz died at Aleppo on the 7th of Zû 'l-Hijja, 631 (3rd september, A. D. 1234), and was buried outside the city, near the Arbaîn gate. I was present at the funeral service and the interment. He was born on the 29th of the first Rabî, 557 (18th march, A. D. 1162), at Mosul. --The atabek Shihâb ad-Dîn Toghrul died at Aleppo on the eve of monday, the 11th of Muharram, 631 (17th october, A. D. 1233), and was buried in the Hanefite college, outside the Arbaîn gate. He was a slave and, by birth, an Armenian; fair in complexion, virtuous in conduct, praiseworthy in all his actions. I was present at the funeral service and enterment. Abû 'l-Hasan Ibn Kharûf, the literary man of whom we have spoken, lost his life at Aleppo, in the year 604 (A. D. 1207-8), having fallen into a cistern.

(1) See vol. I. page 152.

(2) As-Sizaji means native of Sizaj, a village in Sijistân. Some manuscripts read as-Shirji, which word signifies a dealer in sesame oil. It is worthy of remark that not one of Bahá ad-Din's professors is noticed in the manuscript, no 861, ancien fonds of the Imperial library, which gives a chronological account of the principal Shafite doctors. The date of az-Sizaji's death is given farther on.

(3) These last titles indicate that the bearer was a member of a Sanhajian family, that of the Zirides which reigned at Ashir, a town of Algeria, from the middle of the fourth till the middle of the sixth century of the Hejira. See my translation of Ibn Khaldûn's history of the Berbers, in french, vol. II. p. 9 et seq. 55

VOL. IV.

(4) According to Makkari, the Traditionnist Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Ali Ibn Yasir al-Jaiyâni, a native of Jaen, in Spain, was born in the year 493 (A. D. 1099-1100). He travelled to the East, visited Irak, rambled over the province of Khorâsân and settled in Balkh. In the year 549 (A. D. 1154-5) he arrived at Samarkand and there taught Traditions. The date of his death is not given.-(Makkari.)

(5) The quarter of Baghdad called al-Harbiya took its name from the Bâb Harb, one of the city gates. (6) The Arabic term is moid; see vol. II. p. 223.

(7) Saladin laid siege to Kalat Kaukab, A. H. 583 (A. D. 1187-8) and took it in 584,—Ibn al-Athir.)

(8) A dispute for precedence took place between Ibn al-Mukaddam and Mujîr ad-Dîn Tâshtikîn, chief of the pilgrim-caravan from Irak. A scuffle ensued in which the Syrian caravan was attacked and plundered by that of Irak. Ibn al-Mukaddam lost his life in the skirmish.—(Ibn al-Athir.)

(9) As Abu Muhâsin had just made the pilgrimage to Mekka, we must suppose that the pilgrimage which he now intended to accomplish was the visiting of the holy places in Syria.

(10) The mash-hid, or funeral chapel, outside of Mosul, was probably the pretended tomb of Jonas at Ninevah.

(11) The hâkim was a magistrate with full executive authority.

(12) See vol. III, p. 657.

(13) This passage is given in only one of the manuscripts.

(14) The revenue of any property belonging to the state, such as houses and lands, and the product of certain taxes might be conceded by the sultan as an ikta (detached portion) to any individual whom he chose to favour. The iktas were often granted for life and, in some cases, became hereditary. Iktȧs were granted as fiefs, or benefices, to military chiefs, under the condition that these officers should maintain a certain number of troops and furnish them to the sultan, when required.

(15) The date of this professor's death is given by our author, at the end of the article.

(16) The chapter on verbal declarations, by which an obligation is acknowledged or an intention expressed, is placed, in most Moslem codes, towards the middle of the volume. It is preceded by the chapter on lawsuits and followed by that which treats of compromises.

(17) Bortâs was a town situated to the north of the Caspian sea.

(18) Safad was beseiged and taken by Saladin A. H. 584 (A. D. 1188–9).—(Ibn al-Athir.)

(19) According to Hajji Khalifa, the Okúd al-Jumân (collars of pearls) contained an account of the poets who were the author's contemporaries. It was drawn up by Ibn as-Shiâr, a native of Mosul, who died in the year 654 (A. D. 1256). In the second volume of this translation, page 559, his name is incorrectly spelled.

(20) According to Dr Sontheimer, in his german translation of Ibn al-Baitâr's dictionary of simples, the belâdor is the semecarpus anacardium. The remarkable qualities of the nut which it bears are noticed by authors whose observations are given by Ibn al-Baitår.

(21) In Arabic bakyår. The description which follows indicates c'early what such a piece of dress was and removes every thing doubtful in the note (3) of vol. III. page 299.

(22) The word by or signifies a marten or weasel, but the words ö

seem to indicate

فروة القرض قرض

merely a cloak lined with fur, no matter of what nature.

(23) Why a tattered hood should be thrown to a hyæna cannot readily be answered. Yet all the manuscrips agree in giving the reading Le. In general, those epigrams are insipid and full of far-fetched ideas; but such is usually the case with moslim anecdotes.