80 
C. J. Lyall— The Mo l allaqctli of Lebid, with the [No. 1, 
be impossible with oJUJ at the end of the verse; and &L/o means “ he contracted a 
loathing of him, he became tired of his society” : never, as assumed, “ he grieved for 
him, shewed him sympathy.” In the next two verses De Sacy takes the subject to be 
Tufeyl’s mother, while it appears to me to be the tribe of Ja‘far. Now it is to be re¬ 
membered that the story is told as a case of Lebid’s boasting of his former state after he 
had become a Muslim. Ja‘far was Lebid’s own family : it is therefore improbable that 
the verses should be to the discredit of Ja‘far ; and the whole tenor of the tale and its 
sequel shews that Tufeyl must be praising Ja‘far for some good deeds done him which 
seemed to the young man of Ghani, who was accustomed to the orderly administration 
and public charity which existed under el-Islam, to be a very trifling thing. It appears 
to me conclusive that, after reciting the verses, the Ghanawi says oaJ 
f | iJj&j o Had the tale been against the house 
of Ja‘far, the phrase would have run ^jJLc 1 Jjiu At the same time I 
should add that it is not impossible that lines 5 to 8 may refer to Tufeyl’s mother ; 
a collective family name like Ja'far is frequently construed with a feminine 
singular : but just before, by a constructio ad sensum , it has been construed 
with a masculine plural, it may seem unlikely that from the natural constructio 
ad sensum the phrase should revert to the grammatical regimen of the feminine singular, 
though instances are not wanting. If this be so, then, taking lines 5 to 8 as praise of 
Tufeyl’s mother, reading in line 6 her for their, and in line 7 she for they, the result of 
the passage will be that while the hospitality of Tufeyl’s mother is related, that of the 
Ja‘faris is declared to be still more excellent. 
21 “ Eighteen years.” Tarafeh is said to have been six and twenty when he was 
killed : this earlier age may perhaps refer to the time when he attained distinction as 
a poet. 
22 El-Mughireh son of Sho'beh : he was of the tribe of Thaqif, and nephew of the 
martyr ‘Orweh ibn Mes‘ud; he was a distinguished warrior, and was present at the 
battles of el-Yemameh (when Museylimeh “the Liar” was slain), el-Yarmuk (in A. H. 
13, when he lost an eye), el-Q,adisiyyeh (A. H. 15), Meysan, and Nuhawend (where he led 
the right wing), besides many others. According to Ibn Quteybeh (Ma‘arif, p. 150) he 
was made governor of el-Basrah, not el-Kufeh, by ‘Omar ; and Ibn Khaliikan (De 
Slane’s translation, Yol. IY, pp. 255-258) tells a tale, equally discreditable to ‘Omar and 
el-Mughireh, of the manner in which the former screened the latter from the punish¬ 
ment due to him on account of a true charge of adultery brought against him during 
his rule at el-Basrah. It seems therefore doubtful whether this anecdote, which makes 
him governor of el-Kufeh during ‘Omar’s reign, can be genuine. I find however that 
in the index to Frey tag’s edition of el-Meydani’s proverbs he is said to have been 
made governor of el-Kufeh first by ‘Omar and afterwards by Mo‘awiyeh ; of the latter 
fact there is no doubt; he died at el-Kufeh in A. II. 50 of the plague. Ibn Quteybeh 
mentions (Ma‘arif, p. 276) that he was the first Muslim who took bribes. This story is 
twice told in the Aghdni: it recurs in Yol. XVIII, p. 164, in the notice of el-Aghleb. 
This poet, who belonged to the tribe of ‘Ijl, a sub-tribe of Bekr ibn Wa’il, was called 
“ the Bdjiz ,” or reciter of verses in the rejez metre, because he was the first who used 
that metre for qasidehs , or long odes; “before his time” (saysIbn Habib, quoted by 
el-Isfahanx) “ the Arabs used the rejez only in war, in driving camels, in boasting one 
against another, and on other like occasions, and each poem consisted only of a few 
couplets. El-Aghleb was the first who used it for a qasideli, and after him other men 
followed in the way he had shewn them.” El-Aghleb, like Lebid, was very old when 
