Page 30 - Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean (before portuguese)_Neat

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I 216 ARAB NAVIGATION d
a as well.62 Leave the abusive chatter to them. This will not harm you I

I at all during your life or after your death, but it will increase your
* reward and honour because people only envy those who have
!*; excellent qualities, as one of the early writers put in a poem: THE TENTH FA’IDA M ;
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If they envy me, I will not blame them, On Islands %
Before me, many excellent people have been envied.
(a) The Arabian Peninsula
!, ! • We have made you conversant with many of the affairs of this The first island is the Jazirat al-'Arab. From the creation of the 5*
science, but the large well-known inhabited islands we will leave for ! £><
!!■ world this was an island isolated by sea [and this state lasted] until
5 another fa'ida. the flood of Noah. After the flood it became joined to the mainland : t?
on the west and north, in one case to Egypt and in the other to ; 1;
! « i.c. if the envious and ignorant people are going to steal your knowledge and V,
‘Iraq al-‘Arab, so that in our time it is no longer an island, but one
I practical methods, do not let them steal from you the art of bragging. can actually go to Abyssinia and China overland and the world has II
i!; become one piece. It is said to be divided into five parts lengthwise, ; I
these are the Tihamah and Najd with the Hijaz standing as a barrier ;
till between them.1 The latter are high mountains and belonging to this r •
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ten; district is Mecca and its mountains for branches of the Hijaz range I
protrude into the Tihamah coasts like Yalamlam, Ru<Jwa and Jabal
;
Subh, all branches of the Hijaz! range protruding into the coastal 1 I
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; region. Also belonging to the Arab peninsula is Yemen and Syria i
and Mashariq (the eastern ^arts).2 A place is called Tihamah when­
ever it drops down and it is called al-Ghur also. The best story that
■ I have heard about it is that of ‘Abd al-Malik b. Merwan3 when he
i. bought a slave girl in the market and called together a meeting in %
Damascus and announced that anyone who could cap a verse of
1: poetry with a second verse [f. 68r] would be given the slave girl. This ill i

x\\ is what he said,
When the lover weeps in Tihamah and the loved one is in Najd I
|: How can these two lovers meet. i
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The Arabs (i.e. poets) made many attempts to cap this and also
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h! learned scholars. But fAbd al-Malik was not satisfied until Jarir said,
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The one in Najd should go down and that one should go up 'i'­
ll!
Who is in the valleys of Tihamah, then they will meet.
};>:.
Then ‘Abd al-Malik said, “Take the slave girl and may God not
!!. bless you by her,” then he added, “Surely this verse falls after the
1 first verse as one horse’s hoof falls after another.” He meant by
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1 >rL- The word Hijaz is derived from the same root as the word for barrier.
He does not explain the other two parts.
* I have never found this used as a proper name of part of the Arabian peninsula !i
elsewhere. i
5 The Umayyad Caliph, a.d. 685-705.
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