Authorities.—Niebuhr, Travels in Arabia (Amsterdam, 1774); R. Manzoni, Il Yemen (Rome, 1884); D. Charnay and A. Deilers, Excursions au Yēmen. Tour du monde (Paris, No. 24, 1898). (R. A. W.)
SANĀ’Ī, the common name of Abulmajd Majdūd b. Ādam,
the earliest among the great Ṣūfic poets of Persia, was a native
of Ghazni (in Afghanistan). He flourished in the reigns of the
Ghaznevid sultāns Ibrāhīm (1059-1099, 451–492 A.H.), his son
Mas‛ūd (1099–1114), and his grandson Bahrām (1118–1152).
Persian authorities are greatly at variance as to the dates of the
poet's birth and death. At any rate, he must have been born
in the beginning of the second half of the 11th century and have
died between 1131 and 1150 (525 and 545 A.H.). He composed
chiefly qaṣīdas in honour of his sovereign Ibrāhīm and the great
men of the realm, but the ridicule of a half-mad jester is said to
have caused him to abandon the career of a court panegyrist
and to devote his poetical abilities to higher subjects. For forty
years he led a life of retirement and poverty, and, although
Bahrām offered him a high position at court and his own sister
in marriage, he remained faithful to his austere and solitary
life. But, partly to show his gratitude to the king, partly to
leave a lasting monument of his genius behind him, he began
to write his great double-rhymed poem on ethics and religious
life, which served as model to the masterpieces of Farīd-uddīn
‛Attār and Jelāl ud-dīn Rūmī, the Ḥadīqat ul-ḥaqīqat, or “Garden
of Truth” (also called Alkitāb alfakhrī), in ten cantos. This
poem deals with such topics as: the unity of the Godhead,
the divine word, the excellence of the prophet, reason, knowledge
and faith, love, the soul, worldly occupation and inattention to
higher duties, stars and spheres and their symbolic lore, friends
and foes, separation from the world. One of Sanā’ī’s earliest
disciples, Mahommed b. ‘Ali Raqqām, generally known as
Alī al-Raffā, who wrote a preface to this work, assigns to its
composition the date 1131 (525 A.H.), and states besides that the
poet died immediately after the completion of his task. Now,
Sanā’ī cannot possibly have died in 1131, as another of his
mathnawīs, the Ṭarīq-i-taḥqīq, or “Path to the Verification of
Truth,” was composed, according to a chronogram in its last
verses, in 1134 (528 A.H.), nor even in 1140, if he really wrote,
as the Ātashkada says, an elegy on the death of Amīr Mu‛izzī;
for this court-poet of Sultan Sinjar lived till 1147 or 1148 (542 A.H.).
It seems, therefore, that Taqī Kāshī is right in fixing
Sanā’ī's death in 1150 (545A.H.), the more so as ‛Alī al-Raffā
himself distinctly says in his preface that the poet breathed
his last on the 11th of Sha‛bān, “which was a Sunday,” and it
is only in 1150 that this day happened to be the first of the week.
Sanā’ī left, besides the Ḥadīqah and the Ṭarīq-i-taḥqīq, several
other Ṣūfic mathnawīs of similar purport: for instance, the
Sair ul‛ibād ilā’lma‛ād, or “Man's Journey towards the Other
World” (also called Kunūz-urrumūz, “The Treasures of
Mysteries”); the ‛Ishqnāma, or “Book of Love”; the ‛Aqlnāma
or “Book of Intellect”; the Kārnāma, or “Record of Stirring
Deeds,” &c.; and an extensive dīwān or collection of lyrical
poetry. His tomb, called the “Mecca” of Ghazni, is still
visited by numerous pilgrims.
See Abdullatif al-‛Abbāsi's commentary (completed 1632 and preserved in a somewhat abridged form in several copies of the India Office Library); on the poet's life and works, Ouseley, Biogr. Notices, 184-187; Rieu's and Flügel's Catalogues, &c.; E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia (1906), ii. 317-322; H. Ethé in W. Geiger's Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii. 282-284.
SAN ANTONIO, a city and the county-seat of Bexar county,
Texas, U.S.A., about 80 m. S.S.W. of Austin, on the San Antonio
river, at the mouth of the San Pedro. Pop. (1900) 53,321, of
whom 18,880 were of foreign parentage, 9348 were foreign-born
(including 3288 Mexicans and 3031 Germans) and 7538 were
negroes; (1910 census), 96,614. San Antonio is the largest
city of Texas. It is served by the Galveston, Harrisburg &
San Antonio, the International & Great Northern, the San Antonio
& Aransas Pass, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways.
The city lies at an elevation of 610-750 ft. above the sea. The
San Antonio river (which has a winding course of 13 m. within
the city limits) and its affluent, the San Pedro (which is 10 m.
long in its course through San Antonio), divide the city into
three main portions, and these water-courses and the Acequia
(7 m. long) are spanned by 17 large iron bridges and about
2500 smaller bridges and culverts. Among the public buildings
are the city hall in Military Plaza, the court-house on Main Plaza,
the Federal building on the N. side of Alamo Plaza, the Carnegie
library and the convention hall and market house on Milam
Square. The most interesting building is the historic Alamo
(named from the grove of cottonwood—alamo, the Populus
monilifera—in which it stands) on the E. side of the Alamo
Plaza, E. of the San Antonio river; it was begun probably in
1744 and was the chapel of the Mission San Antonio de Valero
(often called “the Alamo mission”); in 1883 it was bought by
the state and has since been maintained as a public monument.
The San Fernando Cathedral[1] on Main Plaza was built in 1734,
but there is very little of the original structure in the present
building, which really dates from 1868-1873; the former
governor's palace, built in 1749, is at No. 105 Military Plaza;
at 128 Soledad is the Veramendi Palace, the residence of Governor
Veramendi, father-in-law of Colonel James Bowie, and in this
palace Colonel B. R. Milam was killed on the 5th of December
1835 by a sharpshooter hidden in a cypress tree; there is a
monument to Colonel Milam in Milam Square. One mile N.
of the city on Government Hill is Fort Sam Houston (established
in 1865), headquarters of the Department of Texas, with an
army hospital (1885) and a tower 88 ft. high. There are several
old missions near the city, notably the Mission La Purisima
Concepción de Acuna (the “First Mission”), 2 m. S. of the city,
built here in 1731-1752, having formerly been in E. Texas;
the Mission San José de Aguayo (the “Second Mission”),
4 m. S. of San Antonio, built in 1720-1731; the Mission San
Juan de Capistrano (the “Third Mission”), 6 m. S. of the Main
Plaza built in 1731; and San Francisco de la Espada (the
“Fourth Mission,” also built in 1731 and also removed
here from E. Texas), which is 8 m. S. of the Main Plaza and
is now used for service by the local Mexicans. The city has 21
parks and plazas. Within the city limits in its N. central part
is Brackenridge Park (200 acres) along the San Antonio;
1 m. N.E. of the city is San Pedro Park (40 acres), the source
of the San Pedro river; in Travis Park is a Confederate
monument; and 3 m. S. of the city are the International Fair
Grounds, where in 1898 Colonel Theodore Roosevelt organized
his “Rough Riders,” and Riverside Park. The most notable
of the plazas are Military, Main and Alamo. The anniversary
of the Battle of San Jacinto, the 21st of April, is annually celebrated
by a “Battle of Flowers.” Annually in October an
International Fair is held, to which Mexico sends an exhibit
of Mexican products and manufactures. The climate is mild
with a mean summer temperature of 82° F. and a winter average
of 54°, and this and the dry purity of the air make it a health
resort; it is also the winter home of many Northerners. There
is good shooting (doves, quail, wild turkey and deer) in the
vicinity; there are fine golf links and there is a large ranch for
breeding and training polo ponies. In the southern suburbs two
artesian wells, 1800-2000 ft. deep, discharge 800,000 gallons
a day of strong sulphur water (temperature 103°-106° F.),
which is used for treating rheumatism and skin diseases.
Near one of these wells is the South-western (State) Hospital
for the Insane (1892). The city has a good public school system,
including, besides the usual departments, departments of manual
training and domestic science. In 1910 there were 30 schools—26
for whites and 4 for negroes. Among the educational
institutions in San Antonio are the San Antonio Female College
(Methodist Episcopal, South; 1894), the West Texas Military
Academy; Peacock Military School; St Mary's Hall (Roman
Catholic); St Louis College; and the Academy of Our Lady of
the Lake (under the Sisters of Divine Providence, who have a
convent here). The city is the see of Protestant Episcopal and
- ↑ The cathedral is the centre of the city according to the charter, which describes the city as including “six miles square, of which the sides shall be equi-distant from what is known as the cupola of the cathedral of San Fernando and three miles therefrom.”
