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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.85

English (machine translation) 13.85

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English

13.85.1

Trustworthy people among the inhabitants, such as the jurist ʿĪsā al-Yamanī, the jurist and teacher ʿAlī, the qāḍī ʿAbd Allāh and a number of others, told me that the people of these islands were infidels, and that every month there appeared to them an ʿifrīt of the jinn who came from the direction of the sea looking like a ship filled with lamps. Their custom, when they saw him, was to take a virgin girl, adorn her and bring her into the budkhāna, that is, the idol-house, which was built on the seashore and had a window through which he could be seen. They would leave her there for the night, then come in the morning and find her deflowered and dead! Every month they would cast lots among themselves, and whoever the lot fell upon gave up his daughter! Then there came to them a Maghribī named Abū al-Barakāt the Berber, who knew the mighty Qurʾān by heart. He lodged in the house of an old woman of theirs on the island of al-Mahal. One day he came in on her and found she had gathered her family, and the women were weeping as though at a funeral. He asked them what the matter was, but they did not understand him, so an interpreter came and told him that the lot had fallen on the old woman, and that she had only one daughter, whom the ʿifrīt would kill. Abū al-Barakāt said to her: 'I will go in place of your daughter tonight.' He was beardless, having no beard. So they carried him off that night and brought him into the budkhāna, having performed his ablutions, and he stayed there reciting the Qurʾān. Then the ʿifrīt appeared to him at the window, but he kept on reciting, and when [the ʿifrīt] came close enough to hear the recitation, he plunged into the sea. In the morning the Maghribī was still reciting as before. The old woman, her family and the people of the island came to take out the girl, as was their custom, and burn her, and they found the Maghribī reciting. So they took him to their king, who was called Shanūrāza — with a on the shīn with the dot, u on the nūn, then wāw, rāʾ, alif, zāy and hāʾ — and told him his story. The king marvelled at him, and the Maghribī offered him Islam and urged him to accept it. The king said to him: 'Stay with us until next month; if you do as you have done and escape the ʿifrīt, I will become a Muslim!' So he stayed with them, and God opened the king's heart to Islam, and he became a Muslim before the month was out, as did his family, his children and the people of his court. Then, when the month began, the Maghribī was carried to the budkhāna, and the ʿifrīt did not come; he went on reciting until morning. The sultan came with the people and found him still reciting, so they broke the idols and demolished the budkhāna, and the people of the island became Muslims,

13.85.2

and they sent word to the rest of the islands, and their people became Muslims. The Maghribī remained among them, held in great honour, and they adopted his school, the school of the Imām Mālik, may God be pleased with him. To this day they honour Maghribīs on his account. He built a mosque which is known by his name, and I read, carved in the wood of the maqṣūra of the congregational mosque: 'Sultan Aḥmad Shanūrāza embraced Islam at the hands of Abū al-Barakāt the Berber, the Maghribī.'

13.85.3

That sultan assigned a third of the revenues of the islands as alms for wayfarers, since his conversion had come about through them, and it is so named to this day. Because of this ʿifrīt many of these islands were laid waste before Islam. When we came there I knew nothing of this matter. One night, while I was about some business of mine, I heard the people loudly proclaiming 'There is no god but God' and 'God is greatest', and I saw the children with copies of the Qurʾān on their heads and the women [beating] on basins and copper vessels. I was astonished at what they were doing and said: 'What is the matter with you?' They said: 'Do you not see the sea?'

13.85.4

I looked, and there was something like a large ship, as though filled with lamps and torches. They said: 'That is the ʿifrīt. It is his habit to appear once a month, and when we do what you have seen, he turns away from us and does us no harm!'

13.85.5

The tomb of Abū al-Barakāt the Berber in the capital of the Maldives: Malé

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