[FN#280] Bresl.  Edit., vol. vii. pp. 260-1, Night dlxviii.

[FN#281] Ibn al-Sammak (Son of the fisherman or fishmonger), whose name was Abu al-Abbas Mohammed bin Sabih, surnamed Al-Mazkur (Ibn al-Athir says Al-Muzakkar), was a native of Kufah (where he died in A.H. 183 = 799-80), a preacher and professional tale-teller famed as a stylist and a man of piety.  Al-Siyuti (p. 292) relates of him that when honoured by the Caliph with courteous reception he said to him, “Thy humility in thy greatness is nobler than thy greatness.”  He is known to have been the only theologician who, ex cathedra, promised Al-Rashid a place in Paradise.

[FN#282] Bresl.  Edit., vol. vii. pp. 261-2, Night dlxviii.

[FN#283] Seventh Abbaside, A.H. 198-227 = 813-842.  See vol. iv. 109.  He was a favourite with his father, who personally taught him tradition; but he offended the Faithful by asserting the creation of the Koran, by his leaning to Shi’ah doctrine, and by changing the black garments of the Banu Abbas into green.  He died of a chill at Budandun, a day’s march from Tarsus, where he was buried:  for this Podendon = = stretch out thy feet, see Al-Siyuti, pp. 326-27.

[FN#284] Sixth Abbaside, A.D. 809-13.  See vol. v. 93:  152.  He was of pure Abbaside blood on the father’s side and his mother Zubaydah’s.  But he was unhappy in his Wazir Al-Fazl bin Rabi, the intriguer against the Barmecides, who estranged him from his brothers Al-Kasim and Al-Maamun.  At last he was slain by a party of Persians, “who struck him with their swords and cut him through the nape of his neck and went with his head to Tahir bin al-Husayn, general to Al-Maamun, who set it upon a garden-wall and made proclamation, This is the head of the deposed Mohammed (Al-Amin).”  Al-Siyuti, pp. 306-311.  It was remarked by Moslem annalists that every sixth Abbaside met with a violent death:  the first was this Mohammed al-Amin surnamed Al-Makhlu’ = The Deposed; the second sixth was Al-Musta’in; and the last was Al-Muktadi bi’llah.

[FN#285] Lit.  “Order and acceptance.”  See the Tale of the Sandal-wood Merchant and the Sharpers:  vol. vi. 202.

[FN#286] This is not noticed by Al-Siyuta (p. 318) who says that his mother was a slave-concubine named Marajil who died in giving him birth.  The tale in the text appears to be a bit of Court scandal, probably suggested by the darkness of the Caliph’s complexion.

[FN#287] Bresl.  Edit., vol. viii. pp. 226-9, Nights dclx-i.

[FN#288] King of the Arab kingdom of Hirah, for whom see vol. v. 74.  This ancient villain rarely appears in such favourable form when tales are told of him.

[FN#289] The tribe of the chieftain and poet, Hatim Tai, for whom see vol. iv. 94.

[FN#290] i.e.  I will make a covenant with him before the Lord.  Here the word “Allah” is introduced among the Arabs of The Ignorance.

[FN#291] i.e. the man of the Tribe of Tay.