{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/mhm/mhm39.htm","path":"isl/mhm/mhm39.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/mhm/mhm39.htm","text":"The Maq\u00e1m\u00e1t of Bad\u00ed\u2018 al-Zam\u00e1n al-Hamadh\u00e1n\u00ed, tr. W.J. Prendergast [1915]\n\u2018\u00cdS\u00c1 IBN HISH\u00c1M related to us and said: I entered Ba\u1e63ra when I was wide of fame and abundant of reputation, and there came to me two young men. One of them said: 'May God strengthen the Shaikh! this youth entered our house and seized a kitten 4 with vertigo in its head, with the sacred cord 5 and a whirling sphere around its middle. Gentle of voice, if it cries; quick to return, if it flees; long of skirt, if it pulls; slender of\nwaist, weak of chest, 1 of the size of a plump sheep. Staying in the town, yet not abandoning travel. If it be given a thing, it returns it. If it be tasked with a journey, it goes energetically, and, if it is made to draw the rope, it lengthens it. There it is, bone and wood. It contains property, immoveable and moveable, a past and a future. 2 Said the young man: 'Yes, may God strengthen the Shaikh! for he forcibly took from me:--\nSo I said to the first: 'Give him back the comb in order that he may return to thee the spindle.'\n128:4 \u2026 A kitten: The commentator does not consider that \u2026 arabicized from the Persian \u2026 partridge, makes good sense and says that the text is corrupt. He suggests that the correct word is \u2026 from the Persian \u2026 a furred animal and, as the context shows, a kitten. I think his view is correct. If we accept as the arabicized form of \u2026 the slight error in pointing is the kind of one a copyist might easily make.\n128:5 \u2026 Zunnar: Greek \u03b6\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd a cord or girdle worn by the Eastern Christians, the Jews, Magi, and the Brahmins. Originally the lower girdle worn by a woman just above the hips over which the gown was drawn and fell in folds.\n129:1 Weak of chest: Literally, weak in the place of the shirt. \u2026 gives no sense. Probably \u2026 a fat sheep fit to be slaughtered.\n129:2 \u2026 Past and future: That is, ancestral and passing to posterity.\n129:3 Pointed is his spearhead: Metre, rejez. Cf. \u1e24ar\u00edr\u00ed, i, 87.","title":"The Maqamat of al-Hamadhani: The Maq\u00e1m\u00e1t: XXXI. The Maq\u00e1ma of the Spindle","type":"page"}