Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, Volume 1

Front Cover
Oriental translation fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1843

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 291 - Misr (Egypt) journeying to a certain village, and I fell asleep in one of the deserts on the way. And my eye was opened, and lo, a little bird, still blind, fell from its nest to the ground. Then the ground split open and two trays came forth, one of gold, the other of silver ; in one was sesame, and in the other water ; and the bird ate of that, and drank of this. ' That, said I, ' is a sufficient warning for me ; I renounce the world.
Page 423 - I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I : We are two spirits dwelling in one body. If thou seest me, thou seest Him, And if thou seest Him, thou seest us both.
Page 482 - And when we resolved to destroy a city, we commanded the inhabitants thereof, who lived in affluence, to obey our apostle; but they acted corruptly therein: wherefore the sentence was justly pronounced against that city; and we destroyed it with an utter destruction.
Page xxvi - Iraq possessed but few traditions, they had recourse to analogical deductions, and attained great proficiency therein, for which reason they were called the followers of private judgment...
Page 357 - Kill a black kid and give its blood to the child to drink ; the next day do the same thing ; the third day slay a black he-goat, and give the blood to be drunk by the child; then kill a snake, and make the child swallow the blood, and daub his face with some of it .; if you do this the child will take the breast on the fourth day.
Page xxii - Wars, a work of which we possess but a small portion, containing the life of Muhammad, with notes and additions by a later editor, Ibn Hisham ; this is a book of the highest authority, and deservedly so, but it is unfortunately of great rareness. The History of Islamism, by At-Tabari, was formed also in a similar manner ; being merely a collection of individual narrations preceded by their isndds; many of them relate to the same event, and from their mutual comparison a very complete idea can be...
Page 33 - If their aversion to thy admonitions be grievous unto thee, if thou canst seek out a den whereby thou mayest penetrate into the inward parts of the earth, or a ladder by which thou mayest ascend into heaven, that thou mayest show them a sign, do so, but thy search will be fruitless; for if GOD pleased he would bring them all to the true direction : be not therefore one of the ignorant.
Page 315 - There was a time when this anniversary found me " with four hundred female slaves standing behind me to await my orders, and " yet I thought that my son did not provide for me in a manner adequate to " my rank; but now my only wish is to have two sheep-skins, one to serve me " for a bed and the other for a covering.
Page xxxvii - ... the whiteness of the complexion, camphor; and a mole or beauty-spot, musk, which term denotes also dark hair. A mole is sometimes compared also to an ant creeping on the cheek towards the honey of the mouth ; a handsome face is both a full moon and day ; black hair is night ; the waist is a willow-branch or a lance; the water of the face* is self-respect: a poet sells the water of his face when he bestows mercenary praises on a rich patron.
Page 470 - I can recite to you, for each letter of the alphabet, one hundred long poems rhyming in that letter, without taking into count the short pieces, and all that composed exclusively by poets who lived before the promulgation of Islamism.

Bibliographic information