and Ibrahîm said, "O Commander of the Faithful! in good truth, the Yémenites were the Arabs to whom everything was subjected. They possessed cities, and never lacked kings and rulers, but one illustrious ancestor transmitted their might to another from the beginning to the end. The Nuʾamanites, the Mundhirites, the Kabusites, and the Tobbaïtes[Endnotes 1] came from them. And from them came he who is praised in the writings of Daûd:[Endnotes 2] and he who was washed by angels.[Endnotes 3] And from them came he whose death shook el-ʾArsh.[Endnotes 4] And from them came he who was spoken to by the wolf.[Endnotes 5] And from them came he who seized all vessels by force.[Endnotes 6] And there was nothing of value but derived its origin from them—whether thoroughbred steeds, or trenchant blades, or impenetrable armour, or rich robes, or precious pearls. If anything were asked from them, they granted it; but if it were demanded of right, they refused it. And if guests came to them, they feasted them. None could excel their greatness, neither could any attain superiority over them. They were the Arabs of Arab descent, and all beside them were but Arabs by nurture."[1]
- ↑ See Note *, p. 79.
- ↑ Nuʾamân, Mundhir, Koubais, and Tobbʾa. Four powerful kings amongst the ancient Arabian tribes who gave their names to their followers and descendants. Tobba was retained as a title by the princes of the Himyarite dynasty. See Note *, p. 178.
- ↑ The Psalms of David. I imagine this refers to "Og the king of Bashan."
- ↑ Hánzhalah, one of the Associates, who was killed at the battle of Ohod, A.H. 3, where Muhammad and his followers were defeated by the Kuraish under Abu-Sufyân. According to Muslim faith, those who die fighting for el-Islám are martyrs, and when their bodies are buried their souls depart at once to Paradise, where they eat and drink and sleep in bliss. Their bodies are buried unwashed, martyrdom being held in lieu of ablution, unless they were known to have entered the fight in a state of ceremonial impurity,—i. e., in a state in which they could not have entered a mosque, nor performed their devotions. After the battle of Ohod, the Prophet beheld angels performing the last offices upon the body of Hánzhalah, showing thereby that he had entered the fight in a state of impurity, but raising him in the opinion of surviving Muslims to the rank of a saint. Occasionally a soul has been known to return in the form it wore while in the flesh, and wash its own lifeless corpse.
- ↑ It is impossible to translate this word in the meaning here intended. This is—What is above the seventh heaven, where the Almighty dwells. The first heaven is of water, solid and hard like ice. The second of green emeralds. The third of brass. The fourth of silver. The fifth of gold. The sixth of fine steel. The seventh of red rubies. Then comes el-ʾArsh, of which no one knows aught save God alone. But of so vast an extent is it, that, were the world and the seven heavens united and laid therein, they would appear but as a scribe's seal set in the midst of the desert. The individual alluded to in the tale was Saʾad, one of the Associates, a man of extraordinary piety, as the supposed effect of his death shows. According to Muhammadan faith, when a corpse is laid in the grave, the sides of the tomb contract and crush the body: with good persons, only "like a mother pressing her child to her bosom," but in the case of sinners with such force as to drive the ribs through the opposite side of the body. When the surviving Associates found out the effect caused in el-ʾArsh by the death of Saʾad, they said to the Prophet, "Surely the tomb will not contract upon him;" but the Prophet told them it would, and it did. And the only person who has ever escaped this torture was Fâtimah, daughter of el-Asad and mother of the Khalîfah ʾAly, into whose tomb the Prophet descended, and in which he slept the night before her burial.
- ↑ I cannot discover anything further concerning these heroes.
- ↑ I cannot discover anything further concerning these heroes.
