hand ink-case and paper, wrote the following reply, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionating, the Compassionate! [1] Thy letter hath reached me, O my lady, and hath given ease to a sprite worn out with passion and love-longing, and hath brought healing to a wounded heart cankered with languishment and sickness; for indeed I am become even as saith the poet,
'Straitened bosom; reveries dispread; * Slumberless eyelids; body wearied; Patience cut short; disunion longsomest; * Reason deranged and heart whose life is fled!'
And know that complaining is unavailing; but it easeth him whom love-longing disordereth and separation destroyeth and, with repeating, 'Union,' I keep myself comforted and how fine is the saying of the poet who said,
'Did not in love-plight joys and sorrows meet, * How would the message or the writ be sweet?'"
When he had made an end of this letter, he handed it to Abu al-Hasan, saying, "Read it and give it to the damsel." So he took it and read it and its words stirred his soul and its meaning wounded his vitals. Then he committed it to the girl, and when she took it Ali bin Bakkar said to her, "Salute thy lady for me and acquaint her with my love and longing and how passion is blended with my flesh and my bones; and say to her that in very deed I need a woman who shall snatch me from the sea of destruction and save me from this dilemma; for of a truth Fortune oppresseth me with her vicissitudes; and is there any helper to free me from her turpitudes?"
- ↑ Arab. "Bi'smi 'lláhi' r-Rahmáni'r-Rahím." This auspicatory formula was borrowed by Al-Islam not from the Jews but from the Guebre "Ba nám-i-Yezdán bakhsháishgar-i-dádár!" (in the name of Yezdan-God--All-generous, All-just!). The Jews have, "In the name of the Great God;" and the Christians, "In the name of the Father, etc." The so-called Sir John Mandeville begins his book, In the name of God, Glorious and Almighty. The sentence forms the first of the Koran and heads every chapter except only the ninth, an exception for which recondite reasons are adduced. Hence even in the present day it begins all books, letters and writings in general; and it would be a sign of Infidelity (i.e. non-Islamism) to omit it. The difference between "Rahmán" and "Rahím" is that the former represents an accidental (compassionating), the latter a constant quality (compassionate). Sale therefore renders it very imperfectly by "In the name of the most merciful God;" the Latinists better, "In nomine Dei misericordis, clementissimi" (Gottwaldt in Hamza Ispahanensis); Mr. Badger much better, "In the name of God, the Pitiful, the Compassionate"--whose only fault is not preserving the assonance: and Maracci best, "In nomine Dei miseratoris misericordis."
