1878.] 
19 
C. J. Lyall —The Mo l allaqah of Zuheyr. 
“ Circle round,” tdfa haulahu ; the tawdf\ or going 1 round seven times, was one of 
the most ancient rites of the religion of the Arabs ; it was the mode of worship used 
not only for the Ka‘beh, but also for the other objects of reverence among the pagan 
Arabs : see Lane, s. v. Duwar. 
v. 18. In this verse md beyna-l- l ashireti must be understood as meaning the 
friendship of the two houses of the family. Beyn (“that which is between”) has two 
contrary significations : disunion, that which parts or separates, and concord, that 
which joins ; so Tdtu-l-beyn means both enmity and friendship. 
‘ Ashireh here means the stock of Baghid son of Reyth son of Gfhatafan, the com¬ 
mon father of ‘Abs and Bubyan ; according to the dictionaries ‘ asliireh is the smallest 
sub-division of the tribe, but its use here is clearly opposed to that view. The various 
words meaning tribe and family are very loosely applied in the old poetry, and the 
distinctions drawn between them by lexicographers (see Lane s. v. sha l b) do not seem 
to be borne out by usage. In v. 24 ‘Abs and Bubyan are each called qaum, and in v. 
34 ‘Abs is a hayy. 
v. 19. The literal translation of this verse is— 
“Ye two repaired the condition of ‘Abs and Bubyan (by peace), after that 
they had shared one with another in destruction, and had brayed between them 
the perfume of Menshim.” 
The second hemistich is said to refer to a custom which existed among the Arabs 
of plunging their hands into a bowl of perfume as they took an oath together to fight 
for a cause until the last of them was slain. Menshim, the commentators say, was a 
woman in Mekkeh who sold perfume. Such an oath was followed by war to the bitter 
end, and so “he brayed the perfume of Menshim” became a proverb for entering on 
deadly strife. That oaths so taken were counted of special force may be seen from the 
tale of “the Oath of the Perfumed ones,” hilf el-Mutayyabin, taken by the sons of 
‘Abd-Menaf and their partisans in or about 490 A. B. (see 0. de Perceval, Essai, i. 
254. Ibn-el-Athir, Kamil, i. pp. 329-30.) 
v. 22. Ma‘add was the forefather of all those Arabs (generally called musta l ribeh 
or insititious) who traced their descent from ‘Adnan, whose son he was. The name is 
thus used to denote the Central stocks, settled for the most part in Nejd and el-Hijaz, 
as opposed to the Arabs of el-Yemen or of Yemenic origin by whom they were bor¬ 
dered on the North and South. The name of Ma‘add’s son Nizar is also used in the 
same way. Nizar was the father of Mudar, RabPah, and Anmar; the last-named and 
his descendants joined themselves to the people of el-Yemen; and “Rabi‘ah and 
Mudar” is again a comprehensive term used to designate the tribes of Nejd and the 
Hijaz. 
v. 25. “ Slit-eared, of goodly breed” : min ’ifdlin muzennemi. There are two 
ways of taking this phrase : the first is that here adopted, whereby muzennem is ren¬ 
dered as an adjective attached to meaning “slit-eared.” Camels of good breed 
had a slit made in the ear, and the piece of skin thus detached (called zenemeh) left to 
hang down. The ordinary grammatical construction would require the feminine, 
muzennemeh, to agree with ’ ifdl; but the masculine is used by a poetic license. The 
other, resting on the authority of Abu ‘Obeydeh, reads ’ ifdli Muzennemi , “ young- 
camels (the offspring) of Muzennem” (or el-Muzennem) : Muzennem, he says, being the 
name of a famous stallion-camel whose breed was much renowned among the Arabs. 
