Leg over Leg: Volume Two

Notes

409 409 Notes 1 “the Five Stars” (al-nujūm al-khamsah): the planets known to Islamic astronomy (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury), called khunnas because they return (takhnusu) in their courses. 2 “the Mijarrah—‘the gateway of the sky, or its anus’” (mijarratuhā—bāb al-samāʾi aw sharajuhā): the Lisān explains the first part of the gloss by the resemblance of the Milky way to an arch. 3 “the rujum—‘the stars used for stoning’” (rujumuhā—al-nujūmu llatī yurmā bihā): the stars with which God stones Satan, who is commonly referred to as al-rajīm for this reason; in popular belief, shooting stars (see, for Egypt, Lane, Manners, 223). 4 “the Two Calves” (al-farqadayn): stars γ and β in Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper); also known as Pherkad and Kochab (al-kawkab). 5 “all those gazettes” (fī hādhihi l-waqāʾiʿ al-ikhbāriyyah): no doubt a reference to Al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Miṣriyyah, on which see further n. 132 to 2.11.5 below. 6 “Friends of God” (awliyāʾ Allāh): individuals believed to be chosen by God for special favor; sometimes they manifest unusual spiritual powers. 7 “to bring about divorces” (li-l-taṭlīq): a reference, perhaps, to the notary (maʾdhūn) who gives formal recognition to a divorce. 8 “as a legitimizer” (li-l-taḥlīl): if a Muslim man divorces his wife three times—thus irrevocably —and then regrets his act, he may hire a man (known as a muḥallil, approx. “legitimizer ”) to marry her and then divorce her, rendering remarriage legally possible. 9 Though the references in the following passage are, in some cases, at least, to recognized rhetorical figures, their precise meaning is less important than the impression of erudite obfuscation that they convey. 10 “the method of the sage” (uslūb al-ḥakīm): taking advantage of an inappropriate or unanswerable question to open a more important discussion. 11 “person-switching” (iltifāt): a rhetorical figure consisting of an “abrupt change of grammatical person from second to third and from third to second,” as in the words of the poet Jarīr “when were the tents at Dhū Ṭulūḥ? O tents, may you be watered by ample rain!” (Meisami and Starkey, Encyclopedia, 2:657). 12 “tight weaving” (iḥtibāk): a rhetorical figure defined, in a widely taught formulation (http://www.alfaseeh.com/vb/showthread.php?t=9355), as “the omission from the 410 410 Notes earlier part of the utterance of something whose equal or equivalent comes in the later, and the omission from the later of something whose equal or equivalent comes in the earlier”; an example is the Qurʿānic verse “a company that fights for God and a disbelieving company” (Q Āl ʿImrān 3:13), meaning “a [believing] company that fights for God and a disbelieving company [that fights for the Devil].” 13 “an Arabized word”: via Latin, from Greek manganon. 14 “like common caltrops” (ʿalā mithāl al-ḥasak al-maʿrūf): i.e., like starweed (Centaurea calcitrapa), whose spiked seed-cases pierce sandals and feet when stepped on. 15 “a padded outer garment . . . a weapon . . . thick shields”: the confusion as to the word’s meaning seems to stem from its foreign, probably Persian, origin. 16 “a device for war worn by horse and man alike”: cataphract armor. 17 al-ʿadhrāʾ: literally, “the virgin”—“a kind of collar by means of which the hands, or arms, are confined together with the neck” (Lane, Lexicon). 18 Jadīs and Ṭasm: related tribes of ʿĀd, a pre-Islamic people destroyed, according to the Qurʾan, for their ungodliness. 19 al-ʿAbbās ibn Mirdās: an early Meccan convert to Islam who burned al-Dimār, the idol of his clan. 20 ʿAmr ibn Luḥayy: a leader of Mecca in the Days of Barbarism, and supposedly the first to introduce the worship of idols into the Arabian Peninsula. 21 “Ilyās, peace be upon him”: Ilyās (Elias) is regarded in Islam as a prophet. 22 “ʿUrwah’s hadith ‘al-Rabbah’” (ḥadīth ʿUrwatin al-Rabbah): the tradition recounts that a recent convert to Islam, ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd, was refused entry to his home unless he first visited “al-Rabbah” (literally, “the Mistress”), “meaning al-Lāt, which is the rock that [the tribe of] Thaqīf used to worship at al-Ṭāʾif” (see Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Nihāyah, 1:56...