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the day and night, although it is visible in the day. So why emphasise
this point? What the poet, in reality, wishes to say is, that it is very difficult or impossible to stitch jaza' at night, but this difficulty is overcome when the moon is gibbous. A hemistich by an Arab poet, Ft laylat saba' nazim jaza' (the threader oi. jaza' on the seventh night) attests to this explanation. This would show that it would be easier to perform the threading when the power of light is greater. We have already narrated the story of the hare. 1 had a jaza' board
having a smooth surface and crooked stripes. It had the picture of a duck without legs and it looked as if it was either swimming or hatching its eggs. It was so clearly drawn that anyone who saw it could swear that it had been limned by an expert artist. One Khwarizmi artisan told me that he had a jaza' shell back-bone.
It had, he said, a white ground but all colours were to be found in it. The sculptor had the black stripes of the stone transformed into the hair of the head and the eyebrows. The red stripe was made into the lips and in this way all the parts of the body were delineated. I have only heard this and not seen it with my own eyes. It is not the art of the sculptor that amazes me but the fact that a shell should have all these attributes. The same thing is said about shabdiz, although I have not verified this. The jaza' stone in the Ka'aba is known as Habashi, although it is celebrated as Yamani. It is black with white stripes running through it.
Spherical, its diameter is one span long, it is studded, three spans above the floor, on the wall opposite the gate. This stone was acquired by a person by the name of Nu'man from the coast of an island which had several farsangs of a pasture having fields, dates, orchards and a vast hunting ground. In fact, it had all the qualities that such an island ought to have. When WalTd bin 'Abd al-Malik heard about this island, he despatched Nu'man there. Nu'man demanded a very high price for this Jaza' piece. It is said that its price was in excess of a thousand dinars. But
Nu'man did not agree to any price except that the island should be granted to him. Walid at last agreed to grant it to him and the jaza' was sent to the Ka'aba. This island remained in the possession of Nu'man and then of his descendants. Its port became known as Marsa Nu'man. It is said that Sa'id bin Hamid presented a dining set to Mamun alRashid on a Nawruz day. It had a gold bodkin the diameter of the stone.
The card accompanying the present stated: "I have presented your Majesty with a dining set which is mil with mil". Mamun took the purport to be the mil, i.e., one third of a farsang. But when he saw the dinner set, he was very pleased, and enjoyed the pun upon the word,
-j 96
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" '
mil.
A friend of mine has told me that he had seen the clasp of a knife
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