_i.e._ as if they were holding a “Durbar”; the King’s idol in the Sadr or place of honour and the others ranged about it in their several ranks.
These words are probably borrowed from the taunts of Elijah to the priests of Baal (I Kings xviii. 27). Both Jews and Moslems wilfully ignored the proper use of the image or idol which was to serve as a Keblah or direction of prayer and an object upon which to concentrate thought and looked only to the abuse of the ignobile vulgus who believe in its intrinsic powers. Christendom has perpetuated the dispute: Romanism affects statues and pictures! Greek orthodoxy pictures and not statues and the so-called Protestantism ousts both.
Arab. “Sa’ádah” = worldly prosperity and future happiness.
Arab. “Al-’Ahd wa al-Mísák” the troth pledged between the Muríd or apprentice-Darwaysh and the Shaykh or Master-Darwaysh binding the former to implicit obedience etc.
Arab. “Taakhír,” lit. postponement and meaning acting with deliberation as opposed to “Ajal” (haste), precipitate action condemned in the Koran lxv. 38.
_i.e._ I have been lucky enough to get this and we will share it amongst us.
Sa’ídah = the auspicious (fem.): Mubárakah, = the blessed; both names showing that the bearers were Moslemahs.
_i.e._ the base-born from whom base deeds may be expected.
Arab. “Badlat Kunúzíyah” = such a dress as would be found in enchanted hoards (Kunúz): _e.g._ Prince Esterhazy’s diamond jacket.
The _lieu d’aisance_ in Eastern crafts is usually a wooden cage or framework fastened outside the gunwale, very cleanly but in foul weather very uncomfortable and even dangerous.
Arab. “Ghull,” a collar of iron or other metal, sometimes made to resemble the Chinese Kza or Cangue, a kind of ambulant pillory, serving like the old stocks which still show in England the veteris vestigia ruris. See Davis, “The Chinese,” i. 241. According to Al-Siyúti (p. 362) the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil ordered the Christians to wear these Ghulls round the neck, yellow head-gear and girdles, to use wooden stirrups and to place figures of devils before their houses. The writer of The Nights presently changes Ghull to “chains and fetters of iron.”
Arab. “Yá fulán,” O certain person! See vol. iii. 191.