Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/161

ministration of the Emir Beha-ed-din Karakash, or Karakush, who lived during the latter part of the twelfth Christian century, and was a faithful lieutenant of the great Saladin who entrusted to him the construction of the new fortifications on the Jebel el Mokattam at Cairo. The rock-hewn trench protecting the citadel there is said to have been dug by his orders. He was also in chief command of the garrison at Acre when that town was taken by C̺œur de Leon, about 1192 a.d. He was therefore a historical personage, and the judicial eccentricities for which he is remembered, may have originated in lampoons circulated by his enemies. (Bohaeddin’s “Life of Saladin,” P.E.F., Col. Conder’s translation, p. 107, footnote, and also pp. 202, 209, 238, 260, 269.)

P. 122. “Hang the first short man you can find.” —In 1857, an American subject was murdered at Jaffa. The United States’ Government sent a man-of-war, the crime was investigated, and the supposed criminal hanged at the yard-arm of the vessel. However, to this day the tradition is current at Jaffa that the victim was not the real murderer, but a poor and almost imbecile negro bread-seller who was sacrificed in his stead.

P. 126. Mohammed's “night-journey” from Mecca to Jerusalem.—“From Jerusalem he is said to have been carried through the seven heavens into the presence of God, and brought back again to Mecca the same night.” “It is a matter of dispute amongst Mohammedan divines, whether their prophet’s night-journey was really performed by him corporally, or whether it was only a dream or vision. Some think the whole was no more than a vision and allege an express tradition of Moawiyeh, one of the khalifehs, to that effect. Others suppose that he was carried bodily to Jerusalem, but no further; and that he ascended thence to heaven in spirit only. But the received opinion is, that it was no vision, but that he was actually transported in the body to his journey’s end; and if any impossibility be objected, they think it a sufficient answer to say, that it might easily be effected by an omnipotent agent.” Sale’s foot-note to verse 1, of Koran Surah xvii. entitled “The Night-Journey” (Chandos Classics, pp. 206, 207).

P.127. A sultan dreamt that all his teeth fell out.—To dream that one has lost a single tooth is a fearful omen. Grown up people suffering with their teeth make vows, and