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The two verses which follow are attributed to him by the author of the Yatima:

Your generosity has planted a garden of gratitude in my heart; but that garden now suffers from drought; let him who planted it give it water. Hasten to revive it whilst life lingers in its branches; once the shrub is dried up, its verdure cannot be restored.

Happening to pass one day near the tomb of a friend, he recited these lines:

On passing by thy tomb, I marvelled how my steps had been so well directed towards it. It may seem to thee that I have at length forgotten our mutual acquaintance; ah! how true the words of those who say: "The dead have no friends."

When his mother died he was deeply afflicted, and, on her burial, he pronounced these verses:

(The object of my affection is now deposited as) a pledge underneath the stones in the sandy desert. She is gone! and the ties which held me to her have been broken. I used to weep when she complained of her sufferings; but now I weep because she complains no longer.

This idea is taken from al-Mutanabbi, who says:

I complain because I no longer feel the pains of sickness; I suffered from them once, but then I had my limbs.

(6) The same thought is thus expressed in a verse of a long kasida composed by Abu Muhammad Abd Allah Ibn Muhammad, a native of Aleppo, and rally known by the name of Ibn Sinan al-Khafàji (7) :

gene

Others weep over the ruins of the dwellings where their friends once resided! O that I had such a motive to shed tears!

The merits of Abd al-Muhsin are great and numerous; but I am obliged to be concise. He died on Sunday, the 9th of Shawwal, A. H. 449 (October, A. D. 1028), aged eighty years, or perhaps somewhat more.

(1) As it is impossible to translate this piece literally, I have merely endeavoured to express the thoughts as closely as the different genius of the two languages would permit.

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(2) Burckhardt says in his Travels in Arabia, vol. II. p. 55: “The Hadj (body of pilgrims) passed at a

quick pace in the greatest disorder, amidst a deafening clamour, through the pass of Mazoumeyn, leading

"to Mezdelfe (Muzdalifa), where all alighted, after a two hours' march."— In place of

the printed text and the MSS. have it, the autograph bears

"I replied, whilst my tears flowed in torrents down my cheeks." inadmissible on account of the recurrence of the word

; فوق

[blocks in formation]

the verse would then signify:

This reading was felt by the copyists to be

at the end of two verses coming very close

to each other; this is contrary to the rule by which verses ending with the same word must be separated by at least six others. The corrected reading seems to be perfectly warranted.

(3) It is thus I render the word; which is the true reading, and found in the autograph alone. This makes another correction necessary in the same verse: a word pointed variously in the MSS. must be replaced by . For the next word I am inclined to adopt ; in the autograph it may be read either way. At a later period Ibn Khallikån inserted in the margin an additional line at the end of this piece; it is more or less corrupted in the few manuscripts which reproduce it, and I now give it here cor

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The act of celebrating his اغنى واعفي مدحه العافين عن كذب ومين : rectly after the autograph

"glory enriches and causes to flourish those who avoid lies and falsehood." It may be observed that I read

.in this verse العافين

(4) The Yatima furnishes very little information respecting Ali Ibn Abd al-Malik ar-Rakki, but it appears from that work, that he lived at Aleppo in the reign of Saif ad-Dawlat Ibn Hamdân, and that he addressed some kasidas to Abû Faràs (vol. I. p. 366), who replied to them in the same manner.

(5) In the printed text, the words must be suppressed.

(6) I suspect the authenticity of the passage which follows; it is written in the margin of the autograph, but in the handwriting of a person who, if we may judge from the general character of his additions, does not seem to be very exact in his quotations.

(7) Ibn Sinân al-Khafaji, a poet and an elegant scholar, made his literary studies under Abû 'l-Alâ alMaarri and other masters, and obtained also a considerable reputation as a traditionist. He died at the castle of Baarân, in the province of Aleppo, A.H. 466 (A.D.1073-4). —(An-Nujùm az-Zahira.)

AL-HAFIZ AL-OBAIDI.

Abu 'l-Maimun Abd al-Hamid, surnamed al-Hafiz (the guardian), was the son of Muhammad Ibn al-Mustansir Ibn az-Zahir Ibn al-Hâkim Ibn al-Aziz Ibn alMoizz Ibn al-Mansûr Ibn al-Kâim Ibn al-Mahdî Obaid Allah: we have already spoken of al-Mahdi and some of his descendants. Al-Hafiz received the oath of fidelity from the people of Cairo as regent and immediate successor to the throne, on the same day in which his cousin al-Aamir was murdered, and he engaged to act in that capacity till the delivery of the female whom al-Aamir had left

450 in a state of pregnancy. Of this last circumstance we shall again speak towards the end of this article. On the same morning, the vizir Abù Ali Ahmad, the son of al-Afdal Shahanshah, the son of Amir al-Juyûsh Badr al-Jamâli (1), received from the troops the oath of allegiance to himself, and having proceeded to the palace, he put al-Hafiz into confinement, took all the authority into his own hands and governed most equitably. He restored to the former possessors the sums which had been extorted from them, and having made open profession of his faith as a follower of the twelve imâms, he rejected the pretensions maintained by al-Hafiz and the Obaidite family, and caused public prayers to be offered up from the pulpits for the Kâim, him who is to rise up at the end of time, and whom, in their mistaken belief, they designate as the expected imâm (alImam al-Muntazir) (2). By his orders, al-Kaim's name was inscribed on the coinage, and the words hasten to the excellent work were omitted in the izân, or call to prayer. Things continued in this state, till an officer of the court attacked and slew him in the Great Garden (al-Bustân al-Kabir), outside of Cairo. This event happened on the 15th of Muharram, A. H. 526 (December, A. D. 1131), and was the result of a plot devised by al-Hafiz. The troops immediately hastened to deliver the prince, and having proclaimed him sovereign under the title of al-Hafiz, public prayers were offered up for him from all the pulpits of the kingdom. Al-Hafiz was born at Askalon, in the month of Muharram, A. H. 467 (September, A. D. 1074), and was proclaimed regent on the day in which al-Aamir was murdered. (See his life in this work.) On the death of Ahmad Ibn al-Afdal he received the oath of allegiance as sovereign, and he died towards the close of Sunday eve, the 5th of the latter Jumâda, A. H. 544 (October, A. D. 1149); some say, 543. According to another statement, his birth took place on the 13th of Ramadân, A. H. 468. The reason of his being born at Askalon was this: During the severe dearth which afflicted Egypt under the reign of his grandfather al-Mustansir, (and of which we shall mention some particulars in our life of that prince,) his father left the country and retired to Askalon, where he awaited the cessation of the famine and the return of abundance; and it was whilst he resided there that al-Hafiz was born. This we give on the authority of our master Izz ad-din Ibn al-Athîr, who states it as a fact in his great historical work.-Al-Hafiz and al-Aâdid were the only two sovereigns of that dynasty whose fathers had not reigned before them. (Of al

Aâdid we have already spoken, p. 72). As for al-Hafiz, his accession to the supreme power resulted from the circumstances which we shall here relate: al-Aâmir died without male children, but left a wife in a state of pregnancy; this caused great agitation among the people of Egypt, and they said: “No "imâm of this family dies without leaving a male child, to whom he transmits "the imâmate by a special declaration; (what is to be done now ?)" But a declaration to that effect had already been made by him in favour of the child still in the womb, which however happened to be a girl. Then occurred the events of which we have already noticed where we relate what passed between al-Hafiz and Ahmad Ibn al-Afdal. Al-Hafiz was therefore declared regent, but, for the reason just stated, the absolute authority attached to the imâmate was withheld from him, as they had resolved on waiting till the child was born.—Al-Hâfiz was subject to violent attacks of cholic, and it was for him that Shirmâh the Dailamite, or Musa an-Nasrani (Moses the Christian) as some say, made the instrument called the drum of the cholic, which was preserved in the treasury of this dynasty till the accession of Salâh ad-din, who ordered it to be broken. The history of this drum is well known. I was informed by the grandson of the Shirmâh above mentioned, that his grandfather had formed it out of the seven metals, which he combined (successively) together at the moments in which each of the seven planets reached its point of culmination. The nature of this drum was such that when any person beat it, wind escaped from his body through the natural vent; it was this which rendered it so serviceable in cases of cholic (3).

(1) See vol. I. page 614.

(2) This was equivalent to a declaration that the Fatimites were not the true Imâms, and had no right to the throne. He intended to establish his own sovereignty as protector of the empire till the coming of the Expected Imam. See further details in the Extraits du Kamel Altewarykh, published by the Académie des Inscriptions, page 393.

(3) It is related by a grave historian, Sibt Ibn al-Jauzi, cited by Abû 'l-Mahâsin in his Nujûm, that one of Salah ad-din's Kurdish soldiers, not being aware of the effects which this drum produced, began to beat it, but immediately experienced its influence to such a degree, that he broke it to pieces in a fit of indignation.

ABD AL-MUMIN AL-KUMI.

Abû Muhammad Abd al-Mûmin Ibn Ali al-Kaisi (1) al-Kûmi was the sovereign indebted for his authority to the exertions of Muhammad Ibn Tûmart, better known by the name of the Mahdi. Abd al-Mûmin's father, a man of consummate prudence and gravity, held an eminent rank in the tribe of Kûmiya, and sold earthen vessels of his own manufacture. It is related that as he was one day engaged at his usual work, with his child Abd al-Mumin sleeping near him, he heard a humming in the air, and on looking up, saw a swarm of bees like a dark cloud which descended towards the house and settled on Abd 451 al-Mûmin, so as to cover him entirely, but without awakening him. His mother screamed with terror at the sight, but the father told her that the child was in no danger. "I only wonder," said he, "what this may portend." He then washed the clay off his hands, and having dressed himself, he waited to see what the bees would do. They at length flew away, and the child awoke unharmed; not the least trace of hurt appeared on his body, although his mother examined him carefully, neither did he utter the slightest complaint. There was a man in the neighbourhood noted as a diviner, and to him the father went and related what had occurred. "This boy," said the diviner, "will soon come to "something great; the people of Maghrib will be all united in obedience unto "him." The subsequent history of Abu al-Mumin is well known (2). I read in a history of Maghrib that Ibn Tûmart had got into his possession the book called al-Jafr (3), and that it contained an indication of all that he was to accomplish, of the history of Abd al-Mûmin, of his personal appearance, and of his A considerable time, says this author, was passed by Ibn Tûmart till he at length found Abd al-Mûmin, who was still a boy; and thenceforward he treated him with marked honour and placed him at the head of his disciples. He then communicated to him the secret (of his destiny) and proceeded with him to the city of Morocco, which was at that time under the rule of Abû 'l-Hasan Ali Ibn Yusuf Ibn Tàshifin, the king of the al-Mulaththamûm (4); it would be too long to relate what passed between that prince and him; we shall merely state that the former expelled him from the city, on which he proceeded to the mountains, where he levied troops and gained over to his cause the tribe of

very name.

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