ḤARĪRĪ [Abū Maḥommed ul-Qāsim ibn ’Ali ibn Maḥommed al-Ḥarīrī,] i.e. “the manufacturer or seller of silk”] (1054–1122), Arabian writer, was born at Baṣra. He owned a large estate with 18,000 date-palms at Mashān, a village near Baṣra. He is said to have occupied a government position, but devoted his life to the study of the niceties of the Arabic language. On this subject he wrote a grammatical poem the Mulḥat ul-ʽIrāb (French trans. Les Récréations grammaticales with notes by L. Pinto, Paris 1885–1889; extracts in S. de Sacy’s Anthologie arabe, pp. 145–151, Paris, 1829); a work on the faults of the educated called Ḍurrat ul-Ghawwās (ed. H. Thorbecke, Leipzig, 1871), and some smaller treatises such as the two letters on words containing the letters sin and shin (ed. in Arnold’s Chrestomathy, pp. 202-9). But his fame rests chiefly on his fifty maqāmas (see Arabia: Literature, section “Belles Lettres”). These were written in rhymed prose like those of Hamadhānī, and are full of allusions to Arabian history, poetry and tradition, and discussions of difficult points of Arabic grammar and rhetoric.
The Maqāmas have been edited with Arabic commentary by S. de Sacy (Paris, 1822, 2nd ed. with French notes by Reinaud and J. Derenbourg, Paris, 1853); with English notes by F. Steingass (London, 1896). An English translation with notes was made by T. Preston (London, 1850), and another by T. Chenery and F. Steingass (London, 1867 and 1898). Many editions have been published in the East with commentaries, especially with that of Sharīshī (d. 1222). (G. W. T.)
HARI-RUD, a river of Afghanistan. It rises in the northern
slopes of the Koh-i-Baba to the west of Kabul, and finally loses
itself in the Tejend oasis north of the Trans-Caspian railway
and west of Merv. It runs a remarkably straight course westward
through a narrow trough from Daolatyar to Obeh, amidst
the bleak wind-swept uplands of the highest central elevations
in Afghanistan. From Obeh to Kuhsan 50 m. west of Herat,
it forms a valley of great fertility, densely populated and highly
cultivated; practically all its waters being drawn off for purposes
of irrigation. It is the contrast between the cultivated aspect
of the valley of Herat and the surrounding desert that has given
Herat its great reputation for fertility. Three miles to the south
of Herat the Kandahar road crosses the river by a masonry bridge
of 26 arches now in ruins. A few miles below Herat the river
begins to turn north-west, and after passing through a rich country
to Kuhsan, it turns due north and breaks through the Paropamisan
hills. Below Kuhsan it receives fresh tributaries from
the west. Between Kuhsan and Zulfikar it forms the boundary
between Afghanistan and Persia, and from Zulfikar to Sarakhs
between Russia and Persia. North of Sarakhs it diminishes
rapidly in volume till it is lost in the sands of the Turkman
desert. The Hari-Rud marks the only important break existing
in the continuity of the great central water-parting of
Asia. It is the ancient Arius. (T. H. H.*)
HARISCHANDRA, in Hindu mythology, the 28th king of the
Solar race. He was renowned for his piety and justice. He
is the central figure of legends in the Aitareyabrahmana, Mahabharata
and the Markandeyapurana. In the first he is represented
as so desirous of a son that he vows to Varuna that if his
prayer is granted the boy shall be eventually sacrificed to the
latter. The child is born, but Harischandra, after many delays,
arranges to purchase another’s son and make a vicarious sacrifice.
According to the Mahabharata he is at last promoted to Paradise
as the reward for his munificent charity.
ḤĀRITH IBN ḤILLIZA UL-YASHKURĪ, pre-Islamic Arabian
poet of the tribe of Bakr, famous as the author of one of the
poems generally received among the Moʽallakāt (q.v.). Nothing is
known of the details of his life.
ḤARIZI, JUDAH BEN SOLOMON (13th cent.), called also
al-Ḥarizi, a Spanish Hebrew poet and traveller. He translated
from the Arabic to Hebrew some of the works of Maimonides
(q.v.) and also of the Arab poet Ḥariri. His own most considerable
work was the Taḥkemoni, composed between 1218 and 1220.
This is written in Hebrew in unmetrical rhymes, in what is
commonly termed “rhymed prose.” It is a series of humorous
episodes, witty verses, and quaint applications of Scriptural
texts. The episodes are bound together by the presence of the
hero and of the narrator, who is also the author. Ḥarizi not only
brought to perfection the art of applying Hebrew to secular
satire, but he was also a brilliant literary critic and his makame
on the Andalusian Hebrew poets is a fruitful source of information.
See, on the Taḥkemoni, Kaempf, Nicht-andalusische Poesie andalusischer Dichter (Prague, 1858). In that work a considerable section of the Taḥkemoni is translated into German. (I. A.)
HARKNESS, ALBERT (1822–1907), American classical scholar,
was born at Mendon, Massachusetts, on the 6th of October 1822.
He graduated at Brown University in 1842, taught in the Providence
high school in 1843–1853, studied in Berlin, Bonn
(where in 1854 he was the first American to receive the degree
of Ph.D.) and Göttingen, and was professor of Greek language
and literature in Brown University from 1855 to 1892, when
he became professor emeritus. He was one of the founders in
1869 of the American Philological Association, of which he was
president in 1875–1876, and to whose Transactions he made
various contributions; was a member of the Archaeological
Institute’s committee on founding the American School of
Classical Studies at Athens, and served as the second director
of that school in 1883–1884. He studied English and German
university methods during trips to Europe in 1870 and 1883,
and introduced a new scholarly spirit into American teaching of
Latin in secondary schools with a series of Latin text-books,
which began in 1851 with a First Latin Book and continued for
more than fifty years. His Latin Grammar (1864, 1881) and
Complete Latin Grammar (1898) are his best-known books. He
was a member of the board of fellows of Brown University
from 1904 until his death, and in 1904–1905 was president of
the Rhode Island Historical Society. He died in Providence,
Rhode Island, on the 27th of May 1907.
His son, Albert Granger Harkness (1857–), also a classical scholar, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on the 19th of November 1857. He graduated at Brown University in 1879, studied in Germany in 1879–1883, and was professor of German and Latin at Madison (now Colgate) University from 1883 to 1889, and associate professor of Latin at Brown from 1889 to 1893, when he was appointed to the chair of Roman literature and history there. He was director of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome in 1902–1903.
HARKNESS, ROBERT (1816–1878), English geologist, was
born at Ormskirk, Lancashire, on the 28th of July 1816. He
was educated at the high school, Dumfries, and afterwards
(1833–1834) at the university of Edinburgh where he acquired
an interest in geology from the teachings of Robert Jameson
and J. D. Forbes. Returning to Ormskirk he worked zealously
at the local geology, especially on the Coal-measures and New
Red Sandstone, his first paper (read before the Manchester
Geol. Soc. in 1843) being on The Climate of the Coal Epoch. In
1848 his family went to reside in Dumfries and there he commenced
to work on the Silurian rocks of the S.W. of Scotland,
and in 1849 he carried his investigations into Cumberland.
In these regions during the next few years he added much to
our knowledge of the strata and their fossils, especially graptolites,
in papers read before the Geological Society of London.
He wrote also on the New Red rocks of the north of England
and Scotland. In 1853 he was appointed professor of geology
in Queen’s College, Cork, and in 1856 he was elected F.R.S.
During this period he wrote some articles on the geology of parts
of Ireland, and exercised much influence as a teacher, but he
returned to England during his vacations and devoted himself
assiduously to the geology of the Lake district. He was also a
constant attendant at the meetings of the British Association.
In 1876 the syllabus for the Queen’s Colleges in Ireland was
altered, and Professor Harkness was required to lecture not only
on geology, palaeontology, mineralogy and physical geography,
but also on zoology and botany. The strain of the extra work
proved too much, he decided to relinquish his post, and had
retired but a short time when he died, on the 4th of October
1878.
“Memoir,” by J. G. Goodchild, in Trans. Cumberland Assoc. No.
