Leg over Leg: Volumes One and Two

or Samadān,

another castle there, large

or al-Shakhab,

another castle there

or Tharabān,

another castle there

or Hirrān,

another castle there

or Shuwāḥiṭ,

another castle there

or al-Mawhabah,

another castle there

or al-Ẓafīr,

a castle east of Ṣanʿāʾ

or Lasīs,

“a castle in Yemen”

or al-Nujayr,

“a castle close to Haḍramawt”

or Ghumdān,

“a palace in Yemen built by Yashrukh, with four faces, one red, one white, one yellow, and one green, inside of which he built another palace with seven roofs, each roof forty cubits distant from the next”

he still wouldn’t stop yelling, “A woman! A woman! Who will get me a woman?” and “No life without a woman!” and if you set him down in

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Shiʿb Bawwān,

“one of the four paradises”

or Ṣanʿāʾ,

“a town in Yemen with many trees and much water resembling Damascus”

or al-Sughd,

“pleasure gardens and places filled with fruiting trees, in Samarqand”

or al-Shaʿrān,

“a mountain close to Mosul, one of the mountains most overflowing with fruits and birds”

or al-Wahṭ,

“an orchard, or a property belonging to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ,⁵⁷² three miles from Wajj,⁵⁷³ that took a million pieces of wood to trellis, each piece costing one dirham”

or Balansiyyah,

[Valencia] “A town in eastern al-Andalus, surrounded by gardens where all one can hear is water gushing and birds caroling”

or Mursiyyah,

[Murcia] “An Islamic town in the Maghreb, with many parks and orchards”

or Thamānīn,

[literally, “Eighty”] “A town built by Nūḥ, peace be upon him, when he left the ark with eighty souls”

or Jābalaṣ,

“a town in the Maghreb, beyond which nothing human lives”

or al-Rāhūn,

“a mountain in India, on which Adam, peace be upon him, fell”⁵⁷⁴

or al-Jūdī,

“a mountain in al-Jazīrah,⁵⁷⁵ on which the ark of Nūḥ came to rest”

or Qāf,

“a mountain that surrounds the earth, or one made of emeralds, a vein of which is present in every town and on which is an angel to whom God, should He wish to destroy a people, gives an order, which the angel carries out, causing them to be swallowed up by the earth”

or Qīq,

“a mountain that surrounds the world, also called Fīq”

or al-Sāhirah,

“a land that God will strip bare on the Day of Resurrection”

he wouldn’t stop yelling, “A woman! A woman! Who will get me a woman?” and “No life without a woman!” In fact, even if he ascended to

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al-Mishrīq,

“a gate for repentance, in Heaven”

or Ṭūbā,

“a tree in Heaven”

or ʿIlliyyīn,

“in the Seventh Heaven, to which the souls of the Believers ascend; plural of ʿIllī”

or al-Ḍurāḥ,

“the Prosperous House in the Seventh Heaven”

or Burquʿ,

“a name for the Seventh, Fourth, or First Heaven”

or al-Ḥāqūrah,

“a name for the Fourth Heaven”

or al-Ṣāqūrah,

“a name for the Third Heaven”

or al-Ghurfah,

“the Seventh Heaven, also called ʿArūbā; it contains the lote tree beyond which none may pass”⁵⁷⁶

or ʿIqyawn,

“a sea of wind beneath the Throne in which there are angels of wind with spears of wind gazing at the Throne whose Magnificat is ‘Glory to Our Lord Most High!’”

or the Aʿrāf,

“a wall between Paradise and the Fire”

he would set about yelling with all the force his throat could muster, “A woman! A woman! So long as I am human, I must have a woman!” and if you were to show him such wonders as

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the Sakīnah,

“a thing that had a head like a cat’s, made of chrysolite and ruby and with two wings”

or the Kilwādh,

“the Ark of the Torah”

or Māriyyah’s Earrings,

“she was Māriyyah, daughter of Arqam, or Ẓālim, who had two hundred dinars in her earrings, or jewels valued at forty thousand dinars, or two pearls like pigeon’s eggs the like of which had never been seen before, so she gave them to the Kaaba”

or the Bridge of Khurradhādh, the mother of Ardashīr,

“in Samarqand, between Aydaj and the fort, one of the wonders of the world, one thousand cubits in length and one hundred and fifty in height, mostly constructed of lead and iron”

the Sepulcher of Tāḥah,

“Tāḥah was the daughter of Dhī l-Shufr; Ibn Hishām⁵⁷⁷ says that a flash flood washed away the earth from a grave in Yemen in which was a woman around whose neck were seven ropes of pearls and on whose hands and feet were seven times seven bracelets, anklets, and armlets and on each of whose fingers was a precious stone and at whose head was a chest full of money and a tablet on which was written ‘In Your Name, O God, God of Ḥimyar!⁵⁷⁸ I am Tāḥah, daughter of Dhī Shufr [sic]. I sent our purveyor to Yūsuf, but he made no haste to help us, so I sent my trusted lady-in-waiting with a bushel of silver that she might bring us a bushel of flour, but she could find none, so I sent a bushel of gold, and still she could find none, so I sent a bushel of fine pearls, and still she could find none, so I ordered the pearls brought and had them ground up, but I benefited nothing and had no food to give out, so let any who hears my plight be merciful to me, and let no woman who dons one piece of my finery die any death other than mine.’”

or Dhū l-Faqār,

“the sword of Sayf ibn Munabbih who was killed at the battle of Badr;⁵⁷⁹ he was an unbeliever, so his sword became the property of the Prophet (peace and blessings upon him) and of ʿAlī”⁵⁸⁰

or the Kashūḥ,

“one of the seven swords that Bilqīs presented to Sulaymān, peace be upon him”

or the Ḥinn,

“a tribe of the jinn to which jet-black dogs belong, or the meanest and weakest of the jinn and their dogs, or creatures between men and jinn”

or Awram al-Jawz,

“a village near Aleppo in which is a wonder, to wit, that at night the neighboring villages see firelight there in a tabernacle, but when they go to it they find nothing”

or the Raʾiyy,

“a jinni who, once seen, is loved”

or Qāyin’s horse, called Hijdam,

“it is said that, when Adam’s son, the murderer, first mounted him, he charged his brother, but the horse held back, so he said, ‘Bestir thy blood! (hij al-dam),’ so it surged forward”