تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.114

English (machine translation) 13.114

Language: English

13.114.1

On the day I came in to the shaykh I saw that he was wearing a farajiyya of goat's-hair wool. I liked it and said to myself:

"If only the shaykh would give it to me!" When I came in to him to take leave, he went to the side of the cave, took off the farajiyya and put it on me, together with a skullcap from his head, and put on a patched robe. The faqīrs told me that it was not the shaykh's custom to wear that farajiyya, and that he had put it on only at my arrival, and that he had said to them: "The Maghribī will ask for this farajiyya; an infidel sultan will take it from him and give it to our brother Burhān al-Dīn al-Ṣāgharjī; it is his and was made for him." When

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the faqīrs told me this, I said to them: "I have obtained the shaykh's blessing in that he has clothed me in his garment, and I will not go in to any sultan, infidel or Muslim, wearing this farajiyya." And I departed from the shaykh.

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A long time afterwards it happened that I entered China and reached the city of al-Khansā. My companions became separated from me because of the great crowds, and I was wearing the farajiyya. While I was in one of the streets, there was the vizier in a great procession; his eye fell on me and he summoned me, took my hand, asked me about my arrival and did not leave me until I had reached the sultan's palace with him. I wanted to take my leave, but he prevented me and brought me in to the sultan, who asked me about the sultans of Islam, and I answered him. He looked at the farajiyya and admired it, and the vizier said to me: "Take it off!" I could not do otherwise, so he took it and ordered for me ten robes of honour, an equipped horse and money for expenses. I was upset by this; then I remembered the shaykh's words, that an infidel sultan would take it, and I was greatly astonished at this. The following year I entered the palace of the king of China at Khān Bāliq and went to the hospice of Shaykh Burhān al-Dīn al-Ṣāgharjī. I found him reading, wearing that very farajiyya. I was astonished at this and turned it over in my hand. He said to me: "Why do you turn it over when you know it?" I said to him: "Yes, it is the one the sultan of al-Khansā took from me." He said to me: "This farajiyya was made for me by my brother Jalāl al-Dīn, and he wrote to me that the farajiyya would reach me by the hand of so-and-so." Then he brought out the letter for me; I read it and marvelled at the certainty of the shaykh's knowledge, and I told him the beginning of the story. He said to me: "My brother Jalāl al-Dīn is greater than all that; he has power to act in the created world, and he has passed into God's mercy." Then he said to me: "I have heard that he used to pray the dawn prayer every day in Mecca and that he made the pilgrimage every year, because he would vanish from people on the two days of ʿArafa and the Feast, and no one knew where he went."

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When I had taken leave of Shaykh Jalāl al-Dīn, I travelled to the city of Ḥabanq (its name is spelled with a over the undotted ḥ and the single-dotted b, n without vowel, and q). It is one of the largest and finest cities. It is divided by the river that comes down from the mountains of Kāmarū, called the Blue River, by which one travels to Banjāla and the land of al-Laknawtī. Along it are waterwheels, gardens and villages on the right and left, as along the Nile of Egypt. Its people are infidels under protection (dhimma); half of what they cultivate is taken from them, along with other dues besides.

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We travelled on this river for fifteen days between villages and gardens, as though we were walking through a market. On it are ships beyond counting, and on each of these ships is a drum; when

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two ships meet, each beats its drum and they greet one another. The aforementioned Sultan Fakhr al-Dīn ordered that no fare be taken from faqīrs on that river, that provisions be given to those of them who have none, and that when a faqīr reaches a city he be given half a dinar.

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Fifteen days after we had set out on the river, as we have related, we reached the city of Sunurkāwān (Sunur is spelt with u after the unpointed s and the n, and with r unvowelled). This is the city whose people seized the faqīr Shaydā when he took refuge there. When we reached it we found there a junk intending to sail to the land of the Jāwa, a journey of forty days between them, and we embarked on it. After fifteen days we reached the land of the Barahnakār, whose mouths are like the mouths of dogs (the name is spelt with a after the single-dotted b, the r, the n and the k, and with h unvowelled). This tribe are savages who follow neither the religion of the Hindus nor any other. They live in reed huts roofed with grass on the seashore, and they have many banana, areca-nut and betel trees.

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Their men are shaped like us, except that their mouths are like the mouths of dogs! Their women, however, are not so, and they are of outstanding beauty. Their men go naked and do not cover themselves, except that each of them puts his penis and testicles in a decorated reed sheath hung from his belly; their women cover themselves with the leaves of trees. Living among them is a group of Muslims from the people of Banjāla and the Jāwa, who dwell in a separate quarter. They told us that these people couple like beasts without concealing it, and that a man among them has thirty wives, more or less, and that they do not commit adultery. If one of them commits adultery, the punishment for the man is to be crucified until he dies, unless his friend or his slave comes and is crucified in his place, and he is set free. The punishment for the woman is that the sultan orders all his servants to have intercourse with her one after another in his presence until she dies, and then they throw her into the sea! For this reason they do not allow anyone

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from the ships to come ashore among them, unless he is one of those residing with them. They buy and sell with people only on the shore, and they bring water to them on elephants, since it is far from the shore, and do not let them draw it themselves, fearing for their women, because these are attracted to handsome men! Elephants are plentiful among them, and no one but their sultan sells them; they are bought from him in exchange for cloth. They have a strange language which no one understands except those who have lived among them and visited them often. When we reached their shore they came out to us in small boats, each boat made of a single hollowed-out log, and brought bananas, betel, areca nuts and fish.

Linked texts (1)

تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic