the evil eye. Its name, kahruba, testifies to its characteristics, as it attracts straws towards itself and at times even the soil that is found in
them. But this can happen only if it is rubbed and warmed. It thus
attains the power of attraction like bijadlii. It is called al-qatruu and
adhmitus in Roman (Greek). It is known as daqna and hayanufra in
Syriac.
Hamzah says:
Amber is a kind of bead which floats in the Western Sea and in the
sea of Tabaristan. Its mine is unknown.
Hamzah and Siri have both written erroneously. Probably they did
not see grass, straws, mosquitoes and fleas in it, as we find in sandrus
which is the gum of kahruba. The only difference between the two is
that one is lighter than the other. From the view point of axis, the
weight of kahruba is 21 ■—. Sandarus and kahruba both are found in the
two seas — the sea of Zanj in the warm zone and the sea of Saqalibah in
the colder zone.
Besides, kahruba is not a bead, although beads, etc, are made from
it. The pieces are then the genus and the carved objects are the species.
Either it is left in its natural colour or else it is heated till it becomes red.
It is warmed to the boiling point by heating in a water-tub made of brass,
followed by heating in the aqua of sappan wood in a vessel made of
stone. Red and yellow pieces are obtained and thus we get different
species.
Kahruba pieces float in all the seas, in fact, in the rivers also. It is a
useless exercise on the part of Siri to distinguish between these two seas.
The most that could be said is that it is found in both seas. It is not
found in the Sea of Tabaristan. I should believe that the same is true of
the Western Sea, if by the Western Sea is implied the Atlantic or the Syrian Sea. Besides how can it have a mine since it is not a mineral, just as it
has no wings, not being a fowl.
Abu Zayd al-Arrajani says:
It is a kind of gum like sandarus. It is clear and scatters. Its colour
ranges between yellow and white, and it is dispersible. Occasionally
its whiteness does away with its transparency and makes it turbid.
The kind that is reddish is very red and transparent.
Its tastelessness, as mentioned by Abu Zayd, derives from its petrifaction and characteristic of being stone-like. No taste appears in it even
after trituration. Every petrified object is dry and breaks through shock
and stroke. But it is wrong to call it dispersible as a dispersible object is
one that scatters when touched by the fingers and the palm and not
through tools.
Al-Kindi says:
Kahruba is a gum-like sandarus which drips into the river from a tree
