Arabs

by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

  Ah, woe to him on whom it calls! . . . cringed and crumpled: Ibn al-Wardi in Abu ’l-Fida’, Mukhtasar, part 4, p. 152. The translation is from Mackintosh-Smith, Tangerine, p. 163.

  the all-consuming plague . . . upon it: Ibn Khaldun, Rihlah, p. 74.

  Ibn Khaldun was in the city . . . Mongolian: Ibn Khaldun, Rihlah, p. 408.

  writing to the Berber sultan . . . his hordes: Ibn Khaldun, Rihlah, p. 416.

  an Abbasid chancer . . . puppet-caliph: Ibn Khaldun, Rihlah, pp. 409–10.

  was plundered . . . naked in the wilderness: Ibn Khaldun, Rihlah, p. 413.

  the arabness . . . stressed by local historians: e.g. Ibn al-Khatib I, p. 36.

  a [Berber] Masmudi client of . . . Banu Makhzum: Ibn al-Khatib III, p. 231.

  Ibn Battutah . . . immigrants from West Africa and India: cf. Arié, p. 303.

  an uncle and a nephew were battling . . . the sultanate: Hitti, p. 553.

  Fortune desires . . . busy looms of Yemen: quoted in Irwin, pp. 306–7.

  there was little or nothing . . . 1058: e.g. Baerlein, p. 17; Huart, p. 98.

  If I were asked . . . I would be at a loss to answer: Kilito, p. 8.

  could not outrun its own shadow: Jaroslav Stetkevych, p. 9.

  ’asr al-taraju’, the Age of Retrogression: e.g. Jabiri, p. 328.

  It was an age of condensations . . . of commentaries on all these: Ibn Shaqrun, p. 104; translation from Mackintosh-Smith, Tangerine, p. 43.

  Ibn Khaldun’s ‘turning in’: cf. p. 328, above.

  al-Sahib ibn Abbad’s . . . Arabic philology alone: p. 296, above.

  Most books disappeared . . . a load for a single camel: Suyuti I, p. 74.

  the Arabic world . . . since the fall of Baghdad: Adonis, Poetics, p. 77.

  it has been ruled . . . ‘the resigned mind’: Jabiri, p. 328.

  Half our verses . . . when the building’s falling down?: Qabbani, p. 785.

  imitators in Persian and even Hebrew: EI2, s.v. Maḳāmāt.

  CHAPTER 12 MASTERS OF THE MONSOON

  I do not know . . . either of them: Ibn Battutah III, p. 683.

  the Mamluks’ shadow-puppet caliph in Egypt: cf. pp. 348–9, above.

  two pages . . . about the man’s avarice: Ibn Battutah III, pp. 683–5.

  The Arabic inscription . . . to Caliph al-Mustansir: Hurgronje, pp. 101–2.

  the neighbouring grave . . . of the sultan’s daughter: Lambourn, p. 235.

  By God . . . from such a state of things!: Ibn Battutah III, pp. 684–5.

  Cambay memorials have been found . . . in Java: Mackintosh-Smith, Landfalls, p. 34; Lambourn, passim.

  the ogival tops . . . hanging in a niche: e.g. Daum, pp. 249–51.

  Allah is the Light . . . whomever He wishes: Qur’an, 24:35.

  a quotation from a Persian poem by Sa’di: Lambourn, pp. 229–30.

  particularly from Jain temples: Lambourn, p. 233.

  Two hungers . . . worldly things: quoted in Mackintosh-Smith, Landfalls, p. 339.

  he landed at a place . . . resolutely virgin: Ibn Battutah IV, pp. 884–7.

  that island in al-Hariri’s tales . . . and a sphinx: p. 377, above.

  Dawah wa-batak . . . the Compassionate: Ibn Battutah IV, p. 886.

  Arabic had begun . . . the script of Old Malay: EI2 IV, p. 1128.

  Majapahit coins . . . the messenger of Allah: http://masterpieces.asemus.museum/masterpiece/detail.nhn?objectId=11280 (accessed 1 November 2018). The glorious syncretism has lived on. Writing of those shadow-puppet deities in the mid-twentieth century, Anthony Burgess described a puppet-master calling, before a performance, ‘on many gods and devils … not to take offence at the crude representation of their acts … he abased himself before their greatness. And he remembered the one true religion, invoking the protection of the four archangels of the Koran’. See Anthony Burgess, The Malayan Trilogy, Vintage, London, 2000, p. 346.

  the spiteful Mediterranean . . . precious products: Maqdisi, p. 28; cf. p. 339, above.

  the Sea of India . . . many are its blessings: Sirafi and Ibn Fadlan, p. 125.

  His own verses . . . found in Sumatra: p. 384, above.

  in a song . . . in the Chinese city of Hangzhou: Ibn Battutah IV, p. 903.

  I shall take Persian sulphur . . . I shall give up trading: Sa’di, p. 131.

  the Mongol ravages . . . ‘energized’ ocean trade: cf. Ho, p. 100.

  a hemispheric trade network . . . to the Pacific: Abu-Lughod, pp. 228–30; EI2 IV, p. 641.

  they were expatriate Arabs . . . Hashimi clan: Levtzion and Pouwels, p. 255.

  merchants from Sumatra . . . to attract trade: Ho, p. 102.

  Local histories . . . direct from Mecca to Sumatra: EI2, s.v. Indonesia.

  The flow increased . . . the thirteenth century: cf. Hardy, p. 33.

  Muhammad Shah sent fleets . . . to recruit Arabs: Dunn, p. 226.

  They gathered . . . moths around a candle: Isami quoted in Dunn, p. 183.

  Ghiyath al-Din had . . . a gold bath: Ibn Battutah III, p. 681.

  the buttons . . . were pearls as big as hazelnuts: Ibn Battutah III, p. 683.

  addressed them all as ‘my lord’: Ibn Battutah III, pp. 745–6.

  Muhanna ibn Isa, the amir of the Arabs in Syria: cf. p. 370, above.

  Muhammad Shah assigned . . . of the season: Ibn Battutah III, pp. 686–9.

  The sultan showed . . . in the sultan’s gaol: Ibn Battutah III, pp. 689–90.

  learned good manners and refinement: Ibn Battutah III, p. 692.

  The sultan would share . . . with no one else: Ibn Battutah III, p. 680.

  the part of Delhi . . . the Abode of the Caliphate: Ibn Battutah III, p. 619.

  Muhammad Shah lay . . . on the sultanic neck: Ibn Battutah III, pp. 682–3.

  the Mamluk’s puppet-caliph al-Mustakfi Sulayman: pp. 348–9, above.

  by the time . . . his son and successor: Jackson, p. 272.

  My father prevented . . . to become an idolator: Husain, pp. 173–4.

  in Delhi and then again . . . own birthplace: Ibn Battutah IV, pp. 899–900.

  he stayed with al-Bushri’s brother . . . the Sahara: Ibn Battutah IV, p. 946.

  How far apart they were!: Ibn Battutah IV, p. 900.

  the five sons . . . from Tunisia to Samarqand: p. 194, above.

  the brother governors in Tunisia and Sind: p. 267, above.

  the distinguished Granadan . . . in Timbuktu: Ibn Battutah IV, p. 969.

  names on the surviving . . . Persians and Turks: Mackintosh-Smith, Landfalls, p. 199; cf. Chen and Kalus I, passim.

  the richest city under the heavens: Chen and Kalus I, p. 28.

  twelve of the twenty-two . . . were Muslims: Chen and Kalus I, p. 33.

  Ibn Battutah met a Jew . . . unremarkable: Ibn Battutah II, p. 480.

  Abraham ibn Yiju . . . in the India trade: Ghosh, passim.

  Abu Zikri ha-Kohen . . . in Sudanese Sawakin: Chaudhuri, p. 59.

  when the preacher rose . . . science of grammar: Ibn Battutah II, p. 277.

  the first extant Old Malay text . . . as early as 1326: EI2 IV, p. 1128.

  The list of languages . . . in the Balkans: e.g. Macdonald, Development, p. 22, n. 47; EI2 IV, p. 1113; Kurdi, pp. 47–53.

  certain ‘secret’ languages . . . Madagascar: Versteegh, Arabic Language, p. 232.

  Persian nasta’liq . . . ducks: Kurdi, pp. 363–4.

  In post-Ottoman Turkish . . . still 26 per cent: Versteegh, ‘Linguistic Contacts…’, p. 495.

  attempts to persianize . . . in the nineteenth century: Versteegh, ‘Linguistic Contacts…’, p. 491.

  at least 30 per cent of the vocabulary remains Arabic: Chejne, p. 4.

  Sikh khalsa . . . khalisah is ‘pure’: Yule and Burnell, s.v. Khalsa.

  ‘Blighty’ . . . especially Europe/Britain: Cannon, s.v. Blighty; Yule and Burnell, s.v. Bilayut.

  Bangladeshi Bengali . . . of Arabic origin: Versteegh, Arabic Language, p. 237.

  Arabic
has bequeathed . . . 3,000 loan words: Versteegh, Arabic Language, 238.

  Elcho Island . . . Allah, exalted is He: BBC Magazine (accessed 25 June 2014).

  Banu Hilal . . . arabicized the lowlands: pp. 338–9, above.

  Berber languages . . . now Arabic: Versteegh, ‘Linguistic Contacts…’, p. 482.

  Bornu . . . inhabitants of Arab origin: Versteegh, ‘Linguistic Contacts…’, p. 483.

  Arabic has loaned it . . . half of its vocabulary: <40 per cent according to Versteegh, ‘Linguistic Contacts…’, p. 487; <50 per cent according to Versteegh, Arabic Language, p. 231.

  saikolojia . . . the science of the soul: Versteegh, Arabic Language, p. 230.

  Nafisah’s in Cairo has been mentioned: p. 358, above.

  that of Qutham . . . in Samarqand: pp. 194–5, above.

  a real live Abbasid . . . en route to Delhi: Ibn Battutah, p. 679.

  buried and venerated in . . . Tamil Nadu: Hussein, p. 472.

  the sacred house . . . Vestibule of the Ka’bah: Mackintosh-Smith, Landfalls, p. 276.

  Nizam al-Din . . . on a flying camel: Rizvi, pp. 9–10.

  Daftar Jaylani . . . 5,000 kilometres away: Mackintosh-Smith, Landfalls, pp. 156–7.

  The great number . . . through custom: Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, pp. 414–15.

  are Arabs . . . there is no need for translations: Haeri, p. 75.

  cave eremism . . . from their Buddhist peers: Rizvi, p. 88.

  pranayama . . . from yogis: Rizvi, pp. 95–6 and 189.

  Muslim penitents . . . at Khajuraho: Ibn Battutah IV, p. 790.

  Haydari dervishes . . . penis-piercing: Ibn Battutah III, p. 583.

  from Naga sanyasis: Rizvi, p. 307.

  he converted a Hindu temple . . . with the building: Lawrence, p. 123.

  Isma’ili missionaries . . . Ali of Vishnu: Rizvi, p. 110.

  Mecca was still . . . the navel of the world: p. 123, above.

  Receptive now my heart is . . . my faith: Lings, p. 62.

  metamorphic masks . . . Muhammad’s uncle is cursed: Levtzion and Pouwels, p. 499, ill. 500; the chapter is Qur’an, 111; cf. p. 146, above.

  came here and brought Islam . . . their own beliefs as well: Mackintosh-Smith, Landfalls, pp. 278–9.

  Sulayman al-Mahri . . . Good Hope: Tibbetts, p. 43.

  The Ming revolution . . . foreign traffic: cf. Abu-Lughod, p. 259.

  coming up from every direction . . . attack furious: quoted in Rogan, p. 21.

  and the caliphate . . . were cut off: Jabarti I, p. 37.

  the Ottoman sultans adopted the . . . somewhat gingerly: cf. Hitti, p. 705.

  Leave the Turks alone as long as they leave you alone: p. 306, above.

  al-Suyuti had illustrated . . . second-rate books: p. 375, above.

  The way to a top job . . . non-Muslim subjects: Rogan, p. 31.

  The Arabs fell into a lethargy . . . aware of their Arabness: Chejne, p. 83.

  the intellectual few . . . non-arabophones: e.g. Jabarti I, p. 462.

  it was too early to speak . . . to ‘foreign’ rule: Rogan, p. 24.

  less than 1 per cent . . . would ever learn Turkish: Versteegh, Arabic Language, p. 175.

  Arabs had been ‘masters of the coast’ . . . the time of Pliny: Cherian, p. 1.

  they live in settlements . . . like ‘Kampong Arab’: Young, p. 269.

  trade in rattans and precious aloes-wood: Young, p. 244.

  those same oceanic products . . . of Arab travel: p. 386, above.

  Kaffs and Saqqafs . . . and Colombo: Mackintosh-Smith, Thousand Columns, p. 287.

  Hadrami missionaries . . . seaborne Bugis: Ho, pp. 162–8.

  Sayyid Muhammad . . . could found a dynasty: Taj al-Din, pp. 34 and 45–6.

  rulers of the Comoros . . . today as rajas: Ho, p. 168 and n. 15.

  in 1905, Hadramis . . . numbered 30,000: Versteegh, ‘Linguistic Contacts…’, p. 499.

  the British royal house . . . ‘Islamic’ dynasty: cf. Mather, p. 240.

  Under pressure . . . repeatedly thereafter: EI2 VI, p. 795.

  in Constantinople alone . . . tens of thousands: EI2 VI, p. 795.

  complete Arabic fonts . . . 900-plus different characters: Abu-Absi, p. 340.

  The letter mim . . . seventy-three different guises: Abu-Absi, p. 340.

  the Greek alphabet . . . mid-eighth century BC: Hornblower and Spawforth, s.v. Alphabet; cf. p. 83, above.

  using only the separate forms of characters: Kurdi, pp. 128–9.

  attempts to invent the equivalent of capital letters: Kurdi, pp. 109–10.

  Arabic script . . . of their great leaders: Kurdi, pp. 72 and 160.

  The oldest surviving Arabic printed book . . . in 1514: EI2 VI, p. 795.

  Christians in Lebanon . . . a hundred years later: EI2 VI, p. 796.

  in Aleppo another hundred years on: Hitti, p. 747.

  The first press in Constantinople . . . in 1722: EI2 VI, p. 795.

  The Amir of the Army . . . to the poor and needy!: Jabarti II, pp. 226–7.

  Muhammad Ali Pasha’s . . . in 1822: EI2 VI, p. 797–8; Carmichael, p. 287.

  the European print revolution . . . scientific revolution: e.g. in Wootton, passim.

  Bacon and Carlyle . . . discoveries of modern times: Francis Bacon, Novum Organum I, Aphorism 129; Thomas Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, ‘The State of German Literature’.

  He who first shortened . . . the art of printing: Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus I, chapter 5.

  faqirs . . . Persians, Turks and Anatolians: Ibn Battutah II, p. 479.

  those in the Eastern Desert of Egypt: Ibn Battutah I, p. 68.

  the marauding Arab . . . besieging Tunis: Ibn Battutah IV, p. 922.

  Those accursed a’rab . . . that besets people: Jabarti II, p. 350.

  O people! The ’arab have fallen upon you!: Jabarti II, p. 257.

  CHAPTER 13 IDENTITY REDISCOVERED

  In this age of ours . . . cannot be brought back: Jabarti I, p. 9.

  the wickedest of races: pp. 408–9, above.

  age of oblivion . . . fifty years or so: Jabarti I, p. 12.

  plundered the Mecca pilgrim caravans: e.g. Jabarti I, pp. 309–10.

  the townspeople of Cairo . . . prayers and sticks: Jabarti II, p. 186.

  Each dining-room . . . neither less nor more: Jabarti II, p. 196.

  white, black and Abyssinian . . . Frankish women: Jabarti II, p. 251.

  they tried to get the three . . . tricolour versions: Jabarti II, pp. 203–4.

  for people to travel . . . festivals and weddings: Jabarti II, p. 230.

  shrieking with laughter . . . the common yobs: Jabarti II, pp. 436–7.

  the wheelbarrow: Jabarti II, p. 232.

  the public library . . . lower ranks of the soldiery: Jabarti II, p. 233.

  One’s body . . . being cracked: Jabarti II, pp. 234–6.

  Having demolished . . . properties registered: Jabarti II, pp. 206–10.

  French court procedure was based . . . on reason: Jabarti II, p. 359.

  elections by ballot: Jabarti II, p. 215.

  a chamber of representatives: Jabarti II, p. 238.

  the Arabic world’s . . . friend of Islam: Jabarti II, pp. 226-7; cf. p. 407, above.

  plans for a property tax . . . mosque of al-Azhar: Jabarti II, pp. 219–21.

  Your Lord . . . doers of good: e.g. Jabarti II, p. 351; Qur’an, 11:117.

  Some less philosophical . . . infidel dogs: Jabarti II, p. 318.

  We longed for you . . . Ghuzz and the ’urban: quoted in Pryce-Jones, p. 63.

  stuck on top of a rock between two lions: p. 69, above.

  Caesar and Hulagu . . . its greatest Arabic poet: Qabbani, p. 782.

  The Omani overseas empire . . . maritime power: cf. p. 402, above.

  the burgeoning British . . . Arab Emirates: Parry, p. 35.

  what was left . . . filched or sold off: Jabarti I, p. 11.

  the idea of an ummah . . . a united Arab ‘natio
n’: EI2, s.v. Ḳawmiyyah.

  planted the seed . . . language, culture and history: Rogan, p. 171.

  The expedition of the French . . . acknowledge: Ali Bey I, pp. 311–12.

  the people of Egypt . . . the ‘imported’ Mamluks: Jabarti II, pp. 182–3.

  the sun of Egypt . . . made it all Arab: quoted in Suleiman, p. 80; cf. p. 336, above.

  they re-arabicized Egypt . . . as the official language: Chejne, p. 102.

  Napoleon had been compelled . . . respect to do so: Carmichael, p. 250.

  in 1800 . . . Menou had published Al-tanbih: EI2 II, p. 465.

  in 1826 he sent . . . men to study in Paris: Adonis, Thabit IV, pp. 29–34.

  Does Paris have on earth . . . no morrow yet?: Adonis, Thabit IV, p. 34.

  justice is the foundation of a flourishing civilization: Adonis, Thabit IV, pp. 32–3; Rogan, pp. 105–6.

  was appointed . . . to translate European books: Suleiman, pp. 169–70.

  The pasha’s immediate heirs . . . rolling stock: Searight, p. 110.

  a mad carmagnole . . . all mixed up helter skelter: the Spectator on the opening celebrations for the Canal, quoted in Searight, pp. 117–18.

  their movement . . . to the general Arab Awakening: cf. EI2 I, p. 554.

  the Turks sent a 10,000-strong army . . . bedouin warriors: Rogan, p. 70.

  he went travelling . . . beyond his native plateau: cf. Nicholson, p. 466.

  tawhid . . . associates and intermediaries: cf. p. 3, above.

  the ‘Almohads’ of . . . North Africa and Spain: p. 356, above.

  saying ‘Yes’ to the earthly ruler . . . the heavenly Creator: cf. Adonis, Thabit I, p. 31.

  they even referred to their life . . . as al-Jahiliyyah: EI2 III, p. 1064.

  Persians . . . as they had before Islam: EI2 I, p. 554; Parry, p. 35; and cf. p. 70, above.

  Muhammad ibn Sa’ud: strictly, the name should be vowelled ‘Su’ud’. ‘Al Sa’ud’ are ‘the family/house of Sa’ud’.

  treasures donated . . . threatened with destruction: EI2, s.v. Wahhābiyyah.

  in Shi’i Karbala, the Wahhabis . . . massacred the living townsfolk: Nicholson, p. 466. Nicholson gives the number killed as 5,000.

  The captured Wahhabi leaders . . . thrown into the sea: Rogan, p. 87.

  An epidemical enthusiasm . . . from the old to the young: Johnson and Boswell, A Journey to the Western Islands, Penguin Classics, London, 1984, p. 37.

  The sour Wahaby fanaticism . . . of the nomads: quoted in Tidrick, p. 151.