Page 148 - Arabian Studies (II)

140 Arabian Studies II

31. Apart from the above references to the Sifat, cf. also Bakri.Afi/'/ffm, 11,
751; Nashwan, Shams, 51; Yaqut, Mu'jam, III.l, 125—26 (H s 1 al-Zaynah) and
Marasid, II, 47, calling the area erroneously JadTr and the medieval town H s 1
al-D n yah; QazwTnT, Athar, 29, who says that the hound of Saluq is a cross
between a dog and a wolf!
32. We are indebted to Dr A. K. Irvine for this information.
33. Yaqut, Mu'jam, III.l, 126; Marasid, III, 3, describing Saluqlyah as a
stronghold (hisn).
34. Abu’l-Hasan ‘AIT b. al-Husayn al-Mas‘udT, al-Tanbih wa'l-Ishrdf (ed.
‘Abdallah Isma‘11 al-SawT), Baghdad, 1938, 101, tells us that Anfikhus was
responsible for the building of Antioch and Sallqus for the building of
SalTqTyah/SaluqTyah. Both were successors of Alexander the Great. Cf. also
BakrI, Mu'jam, II, 751, quoting an informant who had actually been to
Sallqlyah; Yaqut, Mu'jam, III.l, 127 and Marasid, III, 3; FayruzabadT, Qamus,
III, 246, who adds that the word saluqTyah also means the seat of a ship’s
captain, maq'ad al-rubban min al-safinah.
35. Yet one more suggestion for the origin of the name saluqT, as ingenious
as it is unscientific, appears in al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Bukhalif (ed. Ahmad al-‘Awamiri
and ‘Ali al-Jarim), Cairo, 1939, II, i3. In the text the question is asked why a
saluki is so called. The reply is ‘Because it draws forth and throws down’! The
root s l q is thus achieved from the sentence ‘yaStaLlu wa-yulQV\
36. Cf. A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, Chicago, 1964, 341-2,
404.
37. H. and D. Waters, The Saluki in History, Art and Sport, Newton Abbot,
1969, 18-21, have collected information on the saluki prior to Islam. There are
illustrations of such hounds in ancient Egypt and mention is also made of saluki
types in pre-Islamic Mesopotamia and Syria, not to mention Cyprus.
38. Cf. Waters, Saluki, 65-6.
39. A very brief assessment of these sources is here in order. Firstly the
Hayawdn of Jahiz (ob. 256/869). Though primarily written to amuse and
entertain in keeping with adab literature in general, it without doubt contains
much that is useful for the hound side of the subject under discussion. Jahiz
must have taken much information from the hunters of his time and the debt to
him by the later writers on hunting matters is clear. Kushajim (ob. ca. 350/961)
was a writer also in the adab mould who drew on the Hayawan. He produced an
extremely valuable book in the Ma$ayid which is well laid out and from which
the anonymous author of the Bayzarah took a very great deal. The zenith of
medieval hunting literature comes with the Bayzarah, written by the chief
falconer of the Fatimid caliph in Egypt, al-‘Az!z (365—86/975—996). As one
might expect, it is particularly strong on the care and training of falcons and
hawks in fourth/tenth-century Egypt, though it has little or no practical
application to present day Peninsular techniques. The section on birds has been
translated into French by F. Vir6, ‘Le Traite de l’Art de Volerie’, Arabica, XII,
1965, 1-26, 112-38, 262-96; XIII, 39-76. Cf. also Vir<5, ‘Bayzara’, El2,1,
1153.
40. joshan is also used in the Peninsula for the chest of a horse or hound. Cf.
also Dickson, Arab, 376; Jahiz, Hayawan, II, 46; AbO Muhammad ‘Abdallah b.
Muslim Ibn Qutaybah, 'Uyun al-Akhbdr, Cairo, 1928, II, 80; Kushajim, Masdyid,