ALIPH. This title amongst the Mahometans comprehends the concrete character of prophet, priest, and king, and is used to signify the Vicar of God on earth. Habesci's State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 9; Herbelot, p. 985. One of his eyes became so terrible. The author of Nighiaristan hath preserved a fact that supports this account; and there is no history of Vathek in which his terrible eye is not mentioned. Omar Ben Abdalaziz. This caliph was eminent above all others for temperance and self-denial, insomuch that he is believed to have been raised to Mahomet's bosom, as a reward for his abstinence in an age of corruption. Herbelot, p. 690. P. 2. Samarah. A city of the Babylonian Irak, supposed to have stood on the site where Nimrod erected his tower. Khondemir relates, in his life of Motassem, that this prince, to terminate the disputes which were perpetually happening between the inhabitants of Bagdat and his Turkish slaves, withdrew from thence, and, having fixed on a situation in the plain of Catoul, there founded Samarah; he is said to have had in the stables of this city a hundred and thirty thousand pied horses, each of which carried by his order a sack of earth to a place he had chosen; by this accumulation an elevation was formed that commanded a view of all Samarah, and served for the foundation of his magnificent palace. Herbelot, p. 752, 808, 985; Anecdotes Arabes, p. 413. In the most delightful succession. The great men of the East have been always fond of music. Though forbidden by the Mahometan religion, it commonly makes a part of every entertainment; female slaves are generally kept to amuse them and the ladies of their harems. The Persian Khanyagere seems nearly to have resembled our old English minstrel, as he usually accompanied his barbut, or lute, with heroic songs; their musicians appear to have known the art of moving the passions, and to have generally directed their music to the heart. Al Farabi, a philosopher, who died about the middle of the tenth century, on his return from the pilgrimage of Mecca, introduced himself, though a stranger, at the court of Seifeddoula, sultan of Syria; musicians were accidentally performing, and he joined them; the prince admired him, and wished to hear something of his own; he drew a composition from his pocket, and distributing the parts amongst the band, the first movement threw the prince and his courtiers into violent laughter, the next melted all into tears, and the last lulled even the performers asleep. Richardson's Dissertation on the Languages, &c. of Eastern Nations, p. 211. Mani. This artist, whom Inatulla of Delhi styles the farfamed, lived in the reign of Schabur, or Sapor, the son of Ardichir Babegan, was founder of the sect of Manicheans, and by profession a painter and sculptor; his pretensions, supported by an uncommon skill in mechanical contrivances, induced the ignorant to believe that his powers were more than human. After having secluded himself from his followers, under the pretence of passing a year in Heaven, he produced a wonderful volume, which he affirmed to have brought from thence, containing images and figures of a marvellous nature. Herbelot, p. 548. It appears from the Arabian Nights that Haroun Al Raschid, Vathek's grandfather, had adorned his palace and furnished his magnificent pavilion with the most capital performances of the Persian artists. P. 3. Houris. The Virgins of Paradise, called from their large black eyes,' Hur al oyun. An intercourse with these, according to the institution of Mahomet, is to constitute the principal felicity of the faithful; not formed of clay like mortal women, they are deemed in the hightest degree beautiful, and exempt from every inconvenience incident to the sex. Al Koran; passim. P. 4. It was not with the orthodox that he usually held. Vathek persecuted with extreme rigour all who defended the eternity of the Koran, which the Sonnites, or orthodox, maintained to be uncreated, and the Motazalites and Schiites as strenuously denied. Herbelot, p. 85, &c. Mahomet in the seventh Heaven. In this heaven the paradise of Mahomet is supposed to be placed contiguous to the throne of Alla. Hagi Khalfah relates that Ben Iatmaiah, a celebrated Doctor of Damascus, had the temerity to assert 1 Might not Akenside's expression: In the dark heaven of Mira's eye have been suggested by the eyes of the Virgins of Paradise? The enthusiasm of the acute Winckelmann for the statuary of the ancients was apt to mislead both his judgment and taste. What but such a bias could induce him to maintain-after asserting that Homer meant by the word Bowas, to characterise the beauty of Juno's eyes, and citing with approbation μελανοφθαλμος-καλη το πρόσωπον as the gloss of the Scholiast upon it-that the epithet the poet had selected was designed by him to express, not what it naturally imports, but a sense independent of it, and which it could only be supposed to imply, from being placed in an absurd connexion? The eye of the animal to which the term belongs is no doubt large, if referred to the human countenance, but not properly so in its own situation. Had Homer applied fowns to the statue of Juno, Bownię (as the Abbé contends) must have been interpreted large eyed, because in this relation no idea except that of magnitude (unless we add prominence) could possibly be extorted from it; but it must be allowed, on the same principle, that an epithet taken from the eye of the ass, or any other creature's of equal size, whatever were its colour, would have become the statue of the goddess as well, and signified precisely the same. On such commentators a poet might justly exclaim: Pol, me occidistis, amici, In their descriptions of female beauty, the poets of the east frequently use the same image with Homer, and exactly in his sense; thus, in particular, Lebeid: "A company of maidens were seated in their vehicles, with black eyes and graceful motions, like the wild heifers of Tudah." that, when the Most High erected his throne, he reserved a vacant place for Mahomet upon it. Genii. Genn or Ginn in the Arabic signifies a genius or demon, a being of a higher order, and formed of more subtile matter than man. According to Oriental mythology, the genii governed the world long before the creation of Adam; the Mahometans regarded them as an intermediate race between angels and men, and capable of salvation, whence Mahomet pretended a commission to convert them. Consonant to this, we read that when the servant of God stood up to invoke him, it wanted little but that the Genii had pressed on him in crowds to hear him rehearse the Koran. Herbelot, p. 375; Al Koran, ch. 72. Assist him to complete the tower. The genii, who were styled by the Persians peries and dives, were famous for their architectural skill; the pyramids of Egypt have been ascribed to them, and we are told of a strange fortress which they constructed in the remote mountains of Spain, whose frontal presented the following inscription: It is no light task to disclose the portal of this asylum: The bolt, rash passenger, is not of iron, but the tooth of a furious dragon: Know thou that no one can break this charm Till Destiny shall have consign'd the key to his advent'rous hand. The Koran relates that the genii were employed by Solomon in the erection of his magnificent temple. Bailly sur l'Atlantide, p. 146; Herbelot, p. 8; Al Koran, ch. 34. P. 5. The stranger displayed such rarities as he had never before seen. In the Tales of Inatulla we meet with a traveller who like this was furnished with trinkets and curiosities of an extraordinary kind; that such were much sought after in the days of Vathek may be concluded from the encouragement which Haroun Al Raschid gave to the mechanic arts, and the present he sent by his ambassadors to Charlemagne; this consisted of a clock, which when put into motion by means of a clepsydrum, not only pointed out the hours in their round, but also by dropping small balls on a bell struck them, and at the same instant threw open as many little doors to let out an equal number of horsemen; besides these the clock displayed |