[FN#62] Abdallah ibn ez Zubeir revolted (A.D. 680) against Yezid (second Khalif of the Ommiade dynasty) and was proclaimed Khalif at Mecca, where he maintained himself till A.D. 692, when he was killed in the siege of that town by the famous Hejjaj, general of Abdulmelik, the fifth Ommiade Khalif.
[FN#63] The allusion here appears to be to the burning of part of Mecca, including the Temple and Kaabeh, during the (unsuccessful) siege by Hussein, A.D. 683.
[FN#64] Three Muslim sectaries (Kharejites), considering the Khalif Ali (Mohammed's son-in-law), Muawiyeh (founder of the Ommiade dynasty) and Amr (or Amrou), the conqueror of Egypt, as the chief authors of the intestine discords which then (A.D. 661 ) ravaged Islam, conspired to assassinate them; but only succeeded in killing Ali, Muawiyeh escaping with a wound and the fanatic charged with the murder of Amr slaying Kharijeh, the chief of the police at Cairo, by mistake, in his stead. The above verses are part of a famous but very obscure elegy on the downfall of one of the Muslim dynasties in Spain, composed in the twelfth century by Ibn Abdoun el Andalousi, one of the most celebrated of the Spanish Arabic poets.
[FN#65] i.e. fortune. The word dunya (world) is constantly used in poetry to signify "fortune" or "the fortune of this world."
[FN#66] This line is a characteristic example of the antithetical conceits so common in Oriental poetry. The meaning is, "My grief makes all I behold seem black to me, whilst my tears have washed out all the colour from my eyes."
[FN#68] The wood of which makes a peculiarly fierce and lasting fire.
[FN#73] The gift of God. The h in Nimeh becomes t before a vowel.
[FN#75] Num is synonymous with Saad. The purpose of the change of name was to make the little one's name correspond with that of Nimeh, which is derived from the same root.
[FN#76] i.e. to any one, as we should say, "to Tom, Dick or Harry."
[FN#77] i.e. to any one, as we should say, "to Tom, Dick or Harry."
[FN#78] El Hejjaj ben Yousuf eth Thekefi, a famous statesman and soldier of the seventh and eighth centuries. He was governor of Chaldæa under the fifth and sixth Ommiade Khalifs and was renowned for his cruelty; but appears nevertheless to have been a prudent and capable administrator, who probably used no more rigour than was necessary to restrain the proverbially turbulent populations of Bassora and Cufa. Most of the anecdotes of his brutality and tyranny, some of which will be found in this collection, are, in all probability, apocryphal.