Publications, Volume 28

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Royal Asiatic Society, 1922

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Page 86 - ... some officer's retainer; and ask the master to keep the matter quiet from his employer for the sake of both; displaying a uniform, and suggesting that if the master chose to dishonour his household, he could not bring him before the Sultan on a charge of adultery. However much the master might shout Thief!, he would repeat his story, and when the neighbours assembled, they would advise the master of the house to hush the matter up. When the master objected, they would attribute his conduct to...
Page 191 - I testify that there is no God but Allah. I testify that Mohammed is the apostle of Allah. Come to prayer. Come to security. Allah is most great. There is no Deity but Allah!". In the morning he adds,
Page 160 - ... to absurd lengths by a whimsical and reckless caliph like Mutawakkil. This prince, it is reported, once "desired that every article whereon his eye should fall on the day of a certain drinking bout should be covered yellow. Accordingly there was erected a dome of sandalwood covered and furnished with yellow satin, and there were set in front of him melons and yellow oranges and yellow wine in golden vessels; and only those slave girls were admitted who were yellow with yellow brocade gowns. The...
Page 168 - Mu'taŁ?id then ordered Badr to send her at once to her husband with a trustworthy escort, who should bring her into her house and explain the affair to her husband, with a request from the Caliph to him not to send her away, but to treat her kindly. He then summoned me, and while I stood listening, he began to question the soldier as follows: How much, fellow, is your allowance? He gave the amount. Your pay? — So much. — Your perquisites? — So much. — Then he began to enumerate the gratuities...
Page 86 - ... where there was an old woman aged more than ninety years; he not knowing of this. Caught by the master of the house he tried to make his usual insinuation; the master said to him: Scoundrel, there is no one in the house but my mother, who is ninety years old and for more than fifty of them she has spent her nights in prayer and her days in fasting; do you maintain that she is carrying on an amour with you or you with her? So he hit him on the jaw and when the neighbours came together and the...
Page 8 - This is why noble deeds done under these [present] dynasties are obscured . . . ; for men of worth will not spend their days in eternizing other peoples' glories . . . when they are to have no profit or benefit themselves. . . . For all that in our time and that which immediately preceded it such secrets of science have been discovered, such subtleties of thought have been made known as might well have been too hard for or even inaccessible to, our predecessors in past ages.
Page 160 - ... aesthetizing ritualization of life in which it excels. This ritualization ideally molds every segment of life. The styling of common experience to cover up its repetitiveness or its vulgarity is carried to absurd lengths by a whimsical and reckless caliph like Mutawakkil. This prince, it is reported, once "desired that every article whereon his eye should fall on the day of a certain drinking bout should be covered yellow. Accordingly there was erected a dome of sandalwood covered and furnished...
Page 160 - Isa feel uncomfortable, and he kept silent. Acts of Prodigality Mutawakkil19 desired that every article whereon his eye should fall on the day of a certain drinking-bout should be coloured yellow. Accordingly there was erected a dome of sandalwood covered and furnished with yellow satin, and there were set in front of him melons and yellow oranges and yellow wine in golden vessels; and only those slave-girls were admitted who were yellow with yellow brocade gowns. The dome was erected over a tesselated...
Page 84 - Ubaidallah b. Mohammed the Shoemaker that he had seen a thief caught and charged with picking the locks of small tenements supposed to be occupied by unmarried persons. Entering the house he would dig a hole such as is called "the well" in the nard game, and throw some nuts into it as though some one had been playing with him, and leave by the side a handkerchief containing some two hundred nuts. He would then proceed to wrap up as many of the goods in the house as he could carry, and if he passed...
Page 5 - ... from the mouths of people now dead who had reported to him on a fairly remote past] . . . , nay, more, those characters are the very contrary of the characters, habits, ways and manners of their predecessors, as indicated by their narratives; so much so that if any survivor among those old men tell a story of this type in the presence of the rulers and magnates of our time (particularly if it deal with munificence, good nature, high fortune, magnanimity, broad-mindedness, easy circumstances or...

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