Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics) (65 page)

Niqab
veil.

Nisnas
also
nasnas
, a half man, or a man split in two, of which only half is visible.

Parasang
a Persian measure of length, something between three and four miles.

Pharaoh
the personification of tyranny in the Qur’an and in Islamic folklore.

Qadi
a Muslim judge.

Qaf
a mountain at the end of the world.

Qais and Lubna
Qais (
c
.626–89) was an early Islamic love poet whose beloved wife was unable to bear him a child. Therefore his parents forced him to divorce her. But he remained in love with her and eventually remarried her.

Qamari aloes
this excellent type of aloes wood comes from India.

Al-Qarafa
the cemetery area to the north and south of the Cairo Citadel. According to the twelfth-century traveller Ibn Jubayr, these cemeteries were popular with both robbers and ascetics.

Qintar
a measure of weight, varying from region to region, but amounting to 100
ratl
s.

Qirat
a small weight, also a coin, one twenty-fourth of a gold
mithqal
and one sixteenth of a silver dirham.

Quraish
one of the great Arabian tribes and the one to which Muhammad belonged.

Rafiqa
the site of an Abbasid palace in Syria.

Rak‘a
in the Muslim prayer the bending of the torso from an upright position, followed by two prostrations.

Ratl
a measure of weight, variable from region to region, between two and five kilograms.

Rebab
a stringed instrument resembling the fiddle.

Riyal
a silver coin.

Rum
the Byzantine Empire.

Sabr
patience or steadfastness.

Sa‘id ibn al-‘As
an orphan who grew up in Syria under the protection of the early Umaiyads. Eventually he was appointed governor of Kufa which he administered harshly.

Saihun
the Jaxartes or Darya, a central Asian river which flows into the Aral Sea.

Saj‘
rhymed prose.

Samannud,
Sanawir and Ikhmim
Towns in Egypt dating from Pharaonic times. Samannud is on the left bank of the Damietta branch of the Nile and contains the ruins of the temple of the god Onuris-Shu. Ikhmim, or Akhmim, in Upper Egypt had the reputation of being the home of Egypt’s greatest sorcerers. There were a number of monasteries in its vicinity.

Samhari spear
Samhar was a celebrated maker of lances which were esteemed for their elegance.

Sarha
from context, a kind of musical instrument.

Serendib
Sri Lanka.

Shabbara
a kind of barge with an elevated cabin, used by princes and notables.

Al-Sha‘bi
a well-known expert on hadiths (sayings of the Prophet) who died in 723.

Shaddad
legendary pre-Islamic king of the tribe of ‘Ad, who in myth commanded the construction of the city of ‘Iram of the Columns, intending it to
rival Paradise; consequently he and his city were destroyed by God. A story of a Bedouin who rediscovered the city of ‘Iram while looking for a stray camel was inserted in
The Thousand and One Nights
.

Sind
the delta region of the Indus in the Indian subcontinent.

Sufi
Muslim mystic.

Sultani herbs
it has not proved possible to determine what kind of herbs these were.

Tabuk
a station on the pilgrimage route to Mecca.

Ta’if
an Arabian town in the vicinity of Mecca.

Ubulla
a port on the Gulf.

‘Ud
lute.

‘Udul
plural of
‘adl
, a juristic assistant assigned to a qadi.

Umaiyad
the first Islamic dynasty of caliphs. It came to power in 660 after the first four ‘Rightful Caliphs’. It was overthrown in 750 by the revolution that brought the Abbasids to power.

‘Umar ibn al-Khattab
(581–644). In 634 he became the second caliph after the Prophet. He is reckoned among the Rashidun, or ‘Righteous’ caliphs.

‘Usfur
bird.

‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan
the third of the caliphs, he reigned from 644 to 656. Famous for his piety, he was one of the Rashidun, or ‘Righteous’ caliphs.

Wasit
a town on the Tigris in what is today Iraq.

Yathrib
the pre-Islamic name for Medina.

Zabaj
Java or Sumatra.

Zakat
alms tax.

Zamzam
name of a well in Mecca.

Zanj
black man or woman.

Zubaida
the best-known of Harun al-Rashid’s wives.

I gratefully acknowledge the advice and corrections of Ruth Bottigheimer, Aboubakr Chraibi, Malcolm Lyons and especially Ulrich Marzolph. I am also grateful to Hugh Kennedy for providing me with access to the Arabic text of
Tales of the Marvellous
.

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This translation first published in Penguin Classics 2014

Translation © Malcolm C. Lyons, 2014
Introduction, Further Reading and Glossary © Robert Irwin, 2014

Cover illustration by Nina Chakrabarti, after a 15th-century illumination in the Shiraz style (The Art Archive/Bodelian Libraries, Ouseley Add 176 folio 311v)

Cover design by Isabelle De Cat

All rights reserved

The moral right of the translator and the author of the editorial material has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-141-39505-0