dyed with saffron has its association with the pomegranate; and its wine
(jiryal) would be good only if it is pomegranate-coloured. As time passes
the wine assumes a bouquet of different kinds. Sometimes the jiryal is
regarded as a synonym for saffron, as in the following verse by Nabighah
Ja'dl: '
" ' '
I left the one with her clothes in such a state that it seemed as if her
attire had been drenched with the colour of saffron.
The word, jiryal, is also employed for rawuq (old wine). At times this
word is used to denote the colour and at others the bearer of the colour.
As'ha says metaphorically about wine:
And the old Babylonian wine in the jar had the incarnadine colour of
sacrificial blood, which I seized.
Kbafi! bin Ahmad says that bahrarnan is a variety of saffron, if this is
true, the bahramani variety would be the best, as it would be a worthy
attribute in the ruby. Sarri al-Raffa' in the Kitab al-Maslimum (The
Book of Per fumes) writes that the word, usfur, is a Himyarian word. On
the other hand, Hamzah holds 'usfur to be an Arabic variation of the
Persian word, haskfar, as the usfur plant is known as hask and the safflower seed is designated in Persian as haskdanah. Its aqua is regarded as
a calamity, that is, it is the dragon's blood. Its blossoms are known as
bahratn, the Arabic equivalents for which are baliram, bahrarnan, and
bahramij. It is this with which the clothes are dyed. I should imagine
that the planet Mars is called Bahram in Persian because of its red colour.
The saffron is called the kusumb in Hindiya. In the Kitab al-Mashahir
(The Book of the Celebrated) it has been mentioned that the forestwillow known as the ranf is the terrestrial bahramij which means that it
is the terrestrial saffron.
Abu Hanifah Dinawari has said in his Book of Plants that ranf is a
mountainous plant and is known as the khilafi-Balkhi. The foliage of
the terrestrial bahramij tends to fold up at night and open up in the day.
It is, in fact, a Persian word. One variety of its buds is very red and
slightly pendulous.
As for Abu Hanifah's statement that the leaves of this plant tend to
coalesce with each other at night, it might be stated here, that they do
not do so in the manner of the water-lily or mezereon. They are loose
but droop.
Khilafi-Balkhi is known as the sirishk in Balkh. Sirishk is the aqua
which is squeezed out of this plant. It is obtained by distillation when
the aqua comes out drop by drop. Its foliage is smaller than that of the
narcissus, although it bears resemblance to the latter in the sense that its
leaves cling to each other in two rows. When the sun dawns, they come
athwart each other, and when it sets they take up their previous position,
as if they have faded. This is true of all the heliotropic leaves which re-
