[FN#103] Another famous poet Abu Firas Hammam or Humaym (dimin.  Form), as debauched as Jarir, who died forty days before him in A.H. 110 (= 728-29), as Basrah.  Cf.  Term.  Essay, 231.

[FN#104] A famous Christian poet.  See C. de Perceval, Journ.  Asiat.  April, 1834, Ibn Khallikan iii. 136, and Term.  Essay, 231.

[FN#105] The poet means that unlike other fasters he eats meat openly.  See Pilgrimage (i. 110), for the popular hypocrisy.

[FN#106] Arab.  “Batha” the lowlands and plains outside the Meccan Valley.  See al-Mas’udi, vi. 157.  Mr. (now Sir) W. Muir in his Life of Mahomet, vol. i., p. ccv., remarks upon my Pilgrimage (iii.252) that in placing Arafat 12 miles from Meccah, I had given 3 miles to Muna, + 3 to Muzdalifah + 3 to Arafat = 9.  But the total does not include the suburbs of Meccah and the breadth of the Arafat-Valley.

[FN#107] The words of the Azan, vol. i. 306.

[FN#108] Wine in Arabic is feminine, “Shamul” = liquor hung in the wind to cool, a favourite Arab practice often noticed by the poets.

[FN#109] i.e.  I will fall down dead drunk.

[FN#110] Arab.  “Aram,” plur. of Irm, a beautiful girl, a white deer.  The word is connected with the Heb.  Reem (Deut. xxxiii. 17), which has been explained unicorn, rhinoceros, and aurochs.  It is at the Ass.  Rimu, the wild bull of the mountains, provided with a human face, and placed at the palace-entrance to frighten away foes, demon or human.

[FN#111] i.e. she who ensnares [all] eyes.

[FN#112] Imam, the spiritual title of the Caliph, as head of the Faith and leader (lit. “foreman,” Antistes) of the people at prayer.  See vol. iv. 111.

[FN#113] For Yamamah see vol. ii. 104.  Omar bin Abd-al-Aziz was governor of the province before he came to the Caliphate.  To the note on Zarka, the blue-eyed Yamamite, I may add that Marwan was called Ibn Zarka, son of “la femme au drapeu bleu,” such being the sign of a public prostitute.  Al-Mas’udi, v. 509.

[FN#114] Rain and bounty, I have said, are synonymous.

[FN#115] About L4.

[FN#116] i.e. what is thy news.

[FN#117] Bresl.  Edit., vol. vi. pp. 188-9, Night ccccxxxiv.

[FN#118] Of this masterful personage and his energie indomptable I have spoken in vol. iv. 3, and other places.  I may add that he built Wasit city A.H. 83 and rendered eminent services to literature and civilization amongst the Arabs.  When the Ommiade Caliph Abd al-Malik was dying he said to his son Walid, “Look to Al-Hajjaj and honour him for, verily, he it is who hath covered for you the pulpits; and he is thy sword and thy right hand against all opponents; thou needest him more than he needeth thee, and when I die summon the folk to the covenant of allegiance; and he who saith with his head—­thus, say thou with thy sword—­thus” (Al-Siyuti, p 225) yet the historian simply observes, “the Lord curse him.”