ANOTHER PITIFUL TALE OF LOVE

A

ND here is a similar love story.

It is said that 'Abd-Allâh-ibn-Můȧmr, el-Kîsy, used to tell the following tale :

I one year made the pilgrimage to the Sacred House of God; and when my pilgrimage was ended, I determined to visit the tomb of the Prophet.* And one night while I was sitting between the tomb and the Rawdat,† lo, I heard some one sighing

* Muhammadans hold the pilgrimage to Mekkah to be so necessary to salvation, that, according to a tradition of their Prophet, he who dies without performing it may as well die a Jew or a Christian. To the Ka'abah, therefore, every Muslim who has health and means sufficient, ought once at least in his life to go on pilgrimage. A visit to the tomb of the Prophet at el-Medînah is constantly the sequel to the pilgrimage to Mekkah, from which place el-Medînah lies 200 miles to the north-west. It is considered a pious custom, and beneficial to him who observes it, but not indispensable to salvation.

66

The following is the account of the Ráwdat given in Burton's "Pilgrimage to El Medînah and Mecca": Arrived at the western small door in the dwarf wall, we entered the celebrated spot called El Rauzah, or the Garden, after a saying

aloud, and groaning heavily. So I listened silently,

and, behold, he was reciting these lines:

Does it grieve thee, the plaining of doves in the lote,*
And awaken bitter grief in thy breast?

of the Prophet's-'Between my tomb and my pulpit is a garden of the gardens of Paradise.””—Vol. ii., p. 64.

"The Garden' is the most elaborate part of the mosque. Little can be said in its praise by day, when it bears the same relation to a second-rate church in Rome as an English chapelof-ease to Westminster Abbey. It is a space of about eighty feet in length, tawdrily decorated so as to resemble a garden. The carpets are flowered, and the pediments of the columns are cased with bright green tiles, and adorned to the height of a man with gaudy and unnatural vegetation in arabesque. It is disfigured by handsome branched candelabras of cut crystal, the work, I believe, of a London house, and presented to the shrine by the late Abbas Pacha of Egypt. The only admirable feature of the view is the light cast by the windows of stained glass in the southern wall. Its peculiar background, the railing of the tomb, a splendid filigreework of green and polished brass, gilt, or made to resemble gold, looks more picturesque near than at a distance, when it suggests the idea of a gigantic birdcage. But at night the eye, dazzled by oil-lamps suspended from the roof, by huge wax candles, and by smaller illuminations falling upon crowds of visitors in handsome attire, with the rich and the noblest of the city sitting in congregation when service is performed, becomes less critical. Still the scene must be viewed with a Moslem's spirit, and until a man is thoroughly imbued with the East, the last place the Rauzah will remind him of is that which the architect primarily intended it to resemble-a garden."-Vol. ii., p. 68.

* The Sidr, or Lotus Tree. Rhamnus Lotus, Linnæus and Reichart. Zizyphus Lotus, Lamarck, Willdenow, Des fon

Has sleep fled thee through musing on the fair ?—
She has bestowed upon thee instead crazing meditation.
O Night! thou hast been long to the sick one;
He suffers through desire and loss of patience.
Thou hast delivered the lover to burning flames :
He is consumed as living coals consume.

The moon bears witness that I love

That love for one fair as herself has subdued me.
I thought not of suffering on her account,
Nor recked I of it ere it smote me.

'Abd-Allâh continues: Then the voice broke, and I knew not whence it had come to me. So I remained motionless, when, lo! verily the weeping and

taines. Zizyphus Sylvestris, Shaw. Rhamnus Napeca, Forskal. This tree bears a small round fruit of much the same size, shape, and colour as a Siberian crab-apple. It is highly astringent, but is considered a delicious fruit by the Bedawîn, to whom its acidity is doubtless a pleasant change from their ordinarily dry food. A decoction of its leaves is used for washing dead bodies. This is one of the traditions called "húkmat taabbud,” i.e., a precept of worship to be obeyed, but for which no reason has been assigned; in contradistinction to the “húkmat maanahu záhir,” i.e., an order for which the reason is apparent. Of the latter class is the order that corpses should be washed in salt water, the reason being that they might thereby be longer preserved from turning to dust. Probably the astringent properties of the lotus were known to the Prophet, who was skilled in chemistry, and he ordered the decoction from these leaves to be used in places inland, where salt water was not procurable.

L

groaning again began, and the man recited these

lines, saying:

The fleeting vision of Riyâ has grieved thee,
And the night is dark as the blackest tresses.
The foundation of love was laid by thine eye;
But the brilliant vision has fled from thy gaze.
I called to the Night—and the darkness was
Like an ocean with rolling billows beating;
Whilst the moon traversed the heavens

As a journeying Monarch with the stars his armies.—

66

O Night! thou hast been weary to the lover,

Only with the Dawn is his aid and succour."

But Night answered me, " Die thy natural death! and know
That love is the self-contempt of the lover."

And at the beginning of his verses I rose in order to find the voice, and he had not ended them before I was with him. And I found him a youth with the down yet on his face, and with tears flowing in torrents over his cheeks. So I said to him, "Good morrow, young man." He replied, "And to theewho art thou?" I answered, "'Abd-Allâh-ibn

M'ȧmr, el-Kîsy."

He asked, "Seekest thou aught?"

I replied, "I was sitting in the Ráwdat, and nothing troubled me this night excepting thy voice. Now my life is at thy service; what is it thou requirest?"

"Sit down," said he. And when I had done so, he continued: "I am 'Utbah-ibn-Khabâb-ibn-elMundzîr-ibn-el-Jamûh, el-Ansâry.* At dawn I repaired to the el-Ahzâb mosque, and remained awhile kneeling and prostrating. Then I withdrew to a distance, and, behold! I came upon women progressing like moons, and having in their midst a girl of marvellous beauty and perfect grace, who advanced towards me, and said, 'O 'Utbah! what sayst thou to an union with one who seeks union with thee?' Then she left me and departed, and I could hear no news nor find any trace of her. And verily, I, beside myself, am speeding from place to place, seeking her."

Then he cried aloud, and swooned lifeless on the ground; and though he presently recovered consciousness, his face was as if it had been dyed with saffron. Then he recited, uttering these verses:

* When the Prophet fled from Mekkah to el-Medînah, then called Yathreb, and whose inhabitants consisted chiefly of the tribe of El-Aus and the Jewish tribe of Kházraj, he was received and sheltered by some of the chief men of the city; in remembrance whereof they and their descendants adopted the name of el-Ansâry (ie., helpers, supporters), and greatly glorified themselves on account of this appellation.