Edward William Lane

“ But I have not yet mentioned all that contributes to the pleasures of an Eastern carousal. For what is the juice of the grape without melodious sounds? "Wine is as the body; music, as the soul; and joy is their offspring." ”

“ Indeed, the slaves in general take too much advantage of the countenance of their masters, especially when they belong to men in power. The master is bound to afford his slaves proper food and clothing, or to let them work for their own support, or to sell, give away, or liberate them. It is, however, considered disgraceful for him to sell a slave who has been long in his possession; and it seldom happens that a master emancipates a female slave without marrying her to some man able to support her, or otherwise providing for her.
The Prophet strongly enjoined the duty of kindness to slaves. ”

“ Few modern Arab musicians are so well contented with extraordinary payment and mere sweet sherbet as with a moderate fee and plenty of wine and brandy; and many of them deem even wine but a sorry beverage.
It was usual with the host and guests at wine-parties to wear dresses of bright colours, red, yellow, and green; [168] and to perfume their beards and mustaches with civet, or to have rose-water sprinkled upon them; and ambergris or aloes-wood, or some other odoriferous substance, placed upon burning coals in a censer, diffused a delicious fragrance throughout the saloon of the revels. ”

“ In the following night, however, I saw in my sleep neither Moḥammad, nor El-Khiḍr, nor the Seyyid El-Bedawee, unless, like Nebuchadnezzar, I was unable on awaking to remember my dreams.
Some reputed saints of the more respectable class, to avoid public notice, wear the general dress and manners of their fellow-countrymen, and betray no love of ostentation in their acts of piety and self-denial ”

“ Many doctors have argued that destiny respects only the final state of a certain portion of men (believers and unbelievers) , and that in general man is endowed with free will, which he should exercise according to the laws of God and his own conscience and judgment, praying to God for a blessing on his endeavours, or imploring the intercession of the Prophet or of any of the saints in his favour, and propitiating them by offering alms or sacrifices in their names, relying upon God for the result, which he may then, and then only, attribute to fate or destiny. ”

“ A slave, among Muslims, is either a person taken captive in war, or carried off by force, and being at the time of capture an infidel; or the offspring of a female slave by another slave or by any man who is not her owner, or by her owner if he does not acknowledge himself to be the father: but the offspring of a male slave by a free woman is free. A person who embraces the Mohammadan faith after having been made a slave does not by this act become free, unless he flies from a foreign infidel master to a Muslim country and there becomes a Mohammadan. ”

“ A man having a wife who has the misfortune to be barren, and being too much attached to her to divorce her, is sometimes induced to take a second wife, merely in the hope of obtaining offspring; and from the same motive he may take a third, and a fourth; but fickle passion is the most evident and common motive both to polygamy and to repeated divorces. They are comparatively few who gratify this passion by the former practice. I believe that not more than one husband among twenty has two wives. ”

“ The answer to this is that our actions are judged good or evil according to our intentions, if we have faith: good actions or intentions, it should be added, only increase, and do not cause, our happiness if we are believers; and evil actions or intentions only increase our misery if we are unbelievers or irreligious: for the Muslim holds that he is to be admitted into heaven only by the mercy of God, on account of his faith, and to be rewarded in proportion to his good works. ”

“ But he is exempted from this punishment who kills his own child or other descendant, or his own slave, or his son's slave, or a slave of whom he is part-owner; so also are his accomplices: and according to Esh-Sháfi ́ee, a Muslim, though a slave, is not to be put to death for killing an infidel, though the latter be free. A man who kills another in self-defence, or to defend his property from a robber, is exempt from all punishment. The price of blood is a debt incumbent on the family, tribe, or association, of which the homicide is a member. ”

“ Moḥammad Ibn-Eṭ-Ṭeiyib, the dyer of Baghdád, who died in the year of the Flight 423, aged eighty-five years; of whom it is related on most respectable authority that he married more than nine hundred women! [254] Supposing, therefore, that he married his first wife when he was fifteen years of age, he must have had, on the average, nearly thirteen wives per annum. The women, in general, cannot of course marry so many successive husbands, not only because a woman cannot have more than one husband at a time, but also because she cannot divorce her husband. ”

“ The reader should have some idea of the qualifications or charms which the Arabs in general consider requisite to the perfection of female beauty. He must not imagine that excessive fatness is one of these characteristics, though it is said to be esteemed a chief essential to beauty throughout the greater part of Northern Africa: on the contrary, [214] the maiden whose loveliness inspires the most impassioned expressions in Arabic poesy and prose is celebrated for her slender figure,—she is like the cane among plants, and is elegant as a twig of the oriental willow. ”

“ One-eighth is the share of the wife or wives of the deceased if he have left issue, and one-fourth if he have left no issue. A husband inherits one-fourth of his wife's property if she have left issue, and one-half if she have left no issue. The debts and legacies of the deceased must first be paid. A man may leave one-third [but no more] of his property in any way he pleases.—When a concubine slave has borne a child to her master, she becomes entitled to freedom on his death.—There are particular laws relating to commerce. ”

“ In what may be termed the Middle Age of Arabic literature, beginning with the triumph of the Mohammadan religion and extending to the foundation of the Empire of Baghdád, the power of eloquence over the educated classes of the Arabs probably increased in proportion as it became less familiar to them: for early in this age they began to simplify their spoken language in consequence of their intercourse with strangers, who could not generally acquire the difficult, old dialect of their conquerors, which consequently began to be confined to literary compositions. ”

“ There is no woman who spins until she hath clothed herself but all the angels in the Seven Heavens pray for forgiveness of her sins; and she will go forth from her grave on the day of judgment wearing a robe of Paradise and with a veil upon her head, and before her shall be an angel and on her right an angel who will hand her a draught of the water of Selsebeel, the fountain of Paradise; and another angel will come to her, and carry her upon his wings, and bear her to Paradise. And when she enters Paradise, eighty thousand maidens will meet her, each maiden bringing a different robe ”

“ Their services are commonly light: the usual office of the male white slave, who is called "memlook," is that of a page or a military guard. Eunuchs are employed as guardians of the women, but only in the houses of men of high rank or great wealth. On account of the important and confidential office which they fill, they are generally treated in public with especial consideration. I used to remark, in Cairo, that few persons saluted me with a more dignified and consequential air than these pitiable but self-conceited beings. ”

“ When a man, from being the husband, becomes the master, of a slave, the marriage is dissolved, and he cannot continue to live with her but as her master, enjoying, however, all a master's privileges, unless he emancipates her, in which case he may again take her as his wife with her consent. In like manner, when a woman, from being the wife, becomes the possessor, of a slave, the marriage is dissolved, and cannot be renewed unless she emancipates him, and he consents to the re-union. ”

“ As a slave enjoys less advantages than a free person, the law in some cases ordains that his punishment for an offence shall be half of that to which the free is liable for the same offence, or even less than half: if it be a fine or pecuniary compensation, it must be paid by the owner to the amount, if [252] necessary, of the value of the slave, or the slave must be given in compensation. ”

“ Very few Muslims of the higher classes have condescended to study music, because they would have been despised by their inferiors for doing so; or because they themselves have despised or condemned the art. Ibraheem, the son of the Khaleefeh El-Mahdee, and competitor of El-Ma-moon, was a remarkable exception: he is said to have been an excellent musician and a good singer.
In the houses of the wealthy, the vocal and instrumental performers were usually (as is the case in many houses in the present age) domestic female slaves, well instructed in their art by hired male or female professors. ”

“ A truly virtuous wife is, of course, excepted in this rule: such a person is as much respected by Muslims as she is (at least, according to their own account) rarely met with by them. When woman was created, the Devil, we are told, was delighted, and said, "Thou art half of my host, and thou art the depository of my secret, and thou art my arrow, with which I shoot, and miss not." [248] What are termed by us affairs of gallantry were very common among the Pagan Arabs, and are scarcely less so among their Muslim posterity. ”

“ I hope I have shown that though I consider polygamy as necessary in the constitution of Muslim society, to prevent a profligacy that would be worse than that which prevails to so great a degree in European countries, where people are united in marriage after an intimate mutual acquaintance, I consider it as a necessary evil. ”

“ The law allows him to see the face of the girl whom he proposes to marry, previously to his making the contract; but in the present day this liberty is seldom obtained, except among the lower orders. Unless in this case, a man is not allowed to see unveiled any woman but his own wife or slave, and those women to whom the law prohibits his uniting himself in marriage: nay, according to some he is not allowed to see his own niece unveiled, though he may not marry her. ”

“ We have already seen how a Khaleefeh ordered the mouth of a learned man to be filled with jewels. To cram the mouth with sugar or sweetmeats for a polite or eloquent speech, or piece of poetry, has been more commonly done; but the usual presents to learned men were, and are, dresses of honour and sums of money. ”

“ It is the colour of these mountains, said the Prophet, that imparts a greenish hue to the sky. It is said, in a tradition, that beyond these mountains are other countries; one of gold, seventy of silver, and seven of musk, all inhabited by angels, and each country ten thousand years' journey in length, and the same in breadth. [110] Some say that beyond it are creatures unknown to any but God: [111] but the general opinion is, that the mountains of Ḳáf terminate our earth, and that no one knows what is beyond them. They are the chief abode of the Jinn, or Genii. ”

“ A person cannot have as a slave one whom he acknowledges to be within the prohibited degrees of marriage. The slaves of the Arabs are mostly from Abyssinia and the Negro countries: a few, in the houses of very wealthy individuals, are from Georgia and Circassia.
Slaves have no civil liberty, but are entirely under the authority of their owners, whatever may be the religion, sex, or age, of the latter ”

“ Recourse is had to it for the discovery of hidden treasures, for alchymical purposes, for the acquisition of the knowledge of futurity, to procure offspring, to obtain the affection of a beloved object, to effect cures, to guard against the influence of the evil eye, to afflict or kill an enemy or a rival, and to attain various other objects of desire.
There are two descriptions of magic: one is spiritual, and regarded by all but freethinkers as true ”

“ The Prophet said, 'There is no people holding a consultation at which there is present one whose name is Moḥammad or Aḥmad, but God blesseth all that assembly:' and again he said, 'Whoever nameth his child by my name, or by that of any of my children or my companions, from affection to me or to them, God (whose name be exalted) will give him in Paradise what eye hath not seen nor ear heard.' And a son should not be named King of kings, or Lord of lords; nor should a man take a surname of relationship from the name of the eldest of his children ”