To bind and to gird

√’zr (derived nouns izār and mi’zar),     
with an introduction on √’sr      

The root √’sr is used across the languages. Geʽez asara, Hebrew, Egyptian Aramaic, Old Aramaic, and Judeo-Aramaic asar, Syriac and Palestinian Christian Aramaic esar, Akkadian esēru, and Ugaritic asr and asīr all have the same meaning: "To bind and tie."
      In the Hebrew Bible, for example, we find asar in the absolute to mean "to tie, to restrain," and "to fix (the order of battle)," and metaphorically, "to bind oneself with a pledge," where that pledge is called issār. We also find the noun esūr "bonds," and consequently bēth hā-esūr "house of bonds," meaning "prison" (as at Jeremiah 37:15).
      Hebrew asīr is identical in form and meaning to Arabic asīr "prisoner." At Zechariah 9:12, this is metaphorical: asīrē hat-tiqwā are "prisoners of hope." And assīr is a dialectical variant with the same meaning.

       

The verb azar too occcurs throughout the Hebrew Bible, with the meaning "to gird (one's loins) with a loincloth," i.e., to secure the cloth around them, as an expression of self-preparation for some undertaking (Job 38:3, 40:7; Jeremiah 1:17). This is analogous to the Arabic phrase Shadda izārahu "He secured his loincloth," meaning that he tucked it around himself and made ready. The Hebrew verb appears in one place (Job 30:18) with the meaning "to constrict," meaning that his whole garment enwrapped him [as tightly] as a loincloth, and there is a metaphorical instance where they "gird themselves in might" (I Samuel 2:4), meaning that they arm themselves with power.
      The verb occurs additionally in its Niphal form (signifying one's passive girding by another); and its Piel form means to gird someone else with strength (in three places), joy (in one place), or, in the absolute, to support them and grant them victory (one place); its Hithpael form means to wrap the izār around oneself.
      Ezōr, the Hebrew equivalent of Arabic izār, is generally derived from the above verb, though de Lagarde traces both ezōr and izār to the root verb wazara. In fact these verbs are scarcely different in form and meaning, and for the etymology of "loincloth" in either language it is needless to resort to wazara, since azara is in common use while *wazara is unattested in Hebrew.
      Zimmern opines in the Gesenius-Buhl Handwörterbuch that Hebrew ezōr derived from esōr—an archaic reflex of the verb asar discussed above, in which /s/ has metathesized into /z/—and furthermore that the verb azar stems from it. This a strange theory, because azar is attested in so many forms and senses in Hebrew, and this is uncharacteristic of denomimal verbs.
      In support of Zimmern's claim that asar "to bind" came before azar "to gird," one word for "loincloth" in Syriac is esārā, and in the Old Babylonian Mari Tablets there occurs mīsarrum, and later on mēseru, which mean the same. But Syriac has two rare words for "loincloth" that do derive from √’zr: īzrā and mīzrā (the exact equivalent of Arabic mi’zar), and a third, mīzrānā, which is more common. These three nouns raise the possiblity that the verb *azar, which is unattested in Syriac, may at one time have been been present alongside asar, which is attested.

       

In summary. (1) Arabic and Hebrew both use azar(a) "to gird with a loincloth" in one sense or another, from which various nominal forms signifying "loincloth" are derived. For other forms of binding and tying, they use derivatives of √’sr.
      (2) In the Akkadian language, words for "loincloth" are derived from √’sr, which signifies binding and tying in general, and the root √’zr is not present.
      (3) In Syriac, the verb *azar is not used, although three nominal derivatives of √’zr are attested, indicating that *azar may have been in use at some early stage of the language. There are Syriac words for "loincloth" derived from √’sr as well.
      In Arabic and Hebrew, the terms are more specific than in Akkadian, where "to gird" and "to bind" are signified by the same verb. In Syriac, meanwhile, there is oscillation between the two roots.
      In another Semitic language, namely Ugaritic, "loincloth" is signified by mẻzrt or mỉzrt, which occurs several times in the Tale of Aqhat, and once in the Baal Cycle. Furthermore, the verb ủzr occurs numerous times in the Tale of Aqhat with the apparent meaning "to secure one's loincloth," although there is disagreement on this among scholars [....]
      In conclusion, we find cognates for Arabic azara in Hebrew and Ugaritic, and nominal forms deriving from this verb in Syriac, though not the verb itself. In Syriac and Akkadian, "to bind" and "to gird" are signified equally by forms of √’sr, which has a broader range of meanings than √’zr. While these roots are close in meaning and phonetic makeup, the root √’zr is dedicated in certain Semitic languages to the securing of a loincloth, which may yet be signified by √’sr, the root of binding and tying in general.

Al-Sayyid Ya‘qub Bakr, "Comparative Studies on the Arabic Lexicon
(1–30)." Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cairo
20:2 (1958), 305–9 (No. 8)

Two palms of Hulwan

I am informed by my uncle, on the authority of al-Hasan, who heard from Ahmad ibn Abi Tahir that ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Sa‘d was informed by Muhammad ibn al-Fadl al-Hashimi that Sallam al-Abrash said:

Harun al-Rashid set out for Tus, but when he got as far as Hulwan, he started having heart palpitations. His doctor ordered him to dine on heart of palm, and so he called upon the dehqan of the place and asked for some. The dehqan informed him that no palm trees grew in that area, but that along the mountain pass there stood two palms. "Give the order, and we'll cut one down for you." And it was done.
      The palm's heart was brought to al-Rashid, who felt better as soon as he ate it. But when he [resumed his journey, and] reached the mountain pass, he saw the palms, one chopped down and the other standing. And on the upright palm were written these lines (meter: khafīf):

      To my aid in bitter times I call
          the two palms of Hulwan to weep with me.
      I call on you and warn you
          of the evil fate to come and separate you.

This pained al-Rashid. "I am ashamed to be the instrument of that fate," he said. "If I had only heard this poem, I wouldn't have cut this palm. I would have died before letting this happen."

Al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali told me that al-Harithi ibn Abi Usamah said: I was told by Muhammad ibn Abi Muhammad al-Qaysi that Abu Sumayr ‘Abd Allah ibn Ayyub said:

When [al-Rashid's father, the Caliph] al-Mahdi traveled the pass of Hulwan, he was enchanted with the place, so he stopped for a picnic and called to Hasanah. "See how nice this is?" he said. "Sing my life away for me, while I drink a few tumblers of wine." Hasanah took the body brush she was holding and thumped it against a cushion as she sang (meter: ṭawīl):

      Two palms of Wadi Buwanah, I hail thee
          while the grove-keeper is careless of your enclosure!

"Brava!" he said. "I was thinking of having them cut down"—meaning the two palms of Hulwan—"but your song stays my hand."
     "God forbid!" cried Hasanah. "May God protect me from the Commander of the Faithful, if you are ever the instrument of their evil fate!"
     "What fate is that?" the Caliph asked, and she began to sing the verses of Muti‘ ibn Iyas. When she got to the verse:

      I call on you and warn you
          of the evil fate to come and separate you

he said, "Brava! By God, your words have put me on notice. I will never cut these two down. In fact, I'll appoint a keeper, to tend and water them both as long as I shall live." He gave the order for this on the spot, and for the rest of al-Mahdi's life the decree was carried out.

From the Book of Songs

If in Palo Alto

Utilities of the soul

You must know that no mortal craftsman can practice their craft without utilities or implements. They need to have at least one. Between utilities and implements, there is this difference: The former include the hand and fingers, the foot, the head, the eye and all members of the human body, while "implement" refers to externalities like the carpenter's axe, the smith's hammer, the tailor's needle, the writer's pen, the shoemaker's awl, the barber's razor, and all such things used in the technical trades.

You must also know that the implements and materials of all craftsmen vary according to their trade, and that their actions differ accordingly. Each performs their own characteristic movements and types of action. The carpenter is an example of this: With an axe he planes things in a downward motion; with a saw he saws them in a back-and-forth motion; and with an auger he drills them in an elliptical right-to-left motion while the auger goes round and round. In this way, the motions performed in the practice of any craft reduce to seven: one that is circular, and six that are linear. This was divinely ordained, for the heavenly bodies have also seven types of movement, as discussed in our Epistle on Heaven and Earth: one that is circular, as originally intended, and six that are accidental; and the movements of sublunar entities follow this pattern. The former are causes, and the latter are effects bearing the traces of those causes. This is how the sages say that secondary matters tell of primary ones, in quite the way that games played by children tell of the trades practiced by their fathers, mothers, and teachers.

Brother, you must also know that in order to practice a trade, every mortal craftsman needs at least one moving member, such as the hand, the foot, the back, the shoulder, or the knee. Generally speaking, a "member" is a part of the body with which the soul can perform one action or several actions in counterpoise to some other part of the body. The members of the body are utilities of the soul, and serve the soul as tools, as we have discussed in our other Epistles.

From the Epistle on the Practical Crafts by the Brethren of Purity

Coverings

The word mi’zar can signify a pair of trunks. This meaning is specified by Lane, who says that mīzar and mi’zar are currently used in Egypt to designate "a pair of drawers."
    In Maliki law, it is stated that "No man shall enter the bathhouse without a mi’zar" (thus in the Epistle of Ibn Abi Zayd). In al-Nuwayri's Ultimate Ambition we find that al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah forbade anyone to enter the bathhouse without one, and this is reported by al-Maqrizi as well. And in Ibn Iyas, we read in a report of the year 824 AH/1421 CE that "When they went to wash the corpse of al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad, they could not find [in the sultan's domicile] the smallest ewer to douse his body with, and no towel to dry his beard until one of the washers of his corpse gave up his own handkerchief. And there was no mi’zar to shield his privates until they took one off a neighborhood mourner—a coarse black wrap of Upper Egyptian make. Praise to the One who glorifies and brings low!"
     Freytag defines mi’zara only as [the brief cloak called in Latin] a pallium, but it also designates a cloth that covers one's private parts and lower body. In his Travels, Ibn Battuta tells of "a beautiful shrine at Burj Bureh [modern Brijpur?] inhabited by a handsome, clean-living holy man called Muhammad the Naked, because he goes dressed in nothing but a waistcloth covering his navel, with the rest of his body exposed. This man is a pupil of the righteous saint Muhammad the Naked who dwelt in the Qurafa cemetery of Cairo—one of God's saints who went robed in nothing but a mi’zara [appearing as tannūra "kilt" in most manuscripts of the Travels], which is a waistwrap that hangs down from the midriff."
     Mi’zar can signify a cloak as well. In Ibn Iyas, we read in a report of the year 822/1419 that "the Sultan [al-Mu’ayyad] wore a white woolen tunic. On his head was a small turban with trailing fringes, and he draped a mi’zar of white wool over his shoulders in the Sufi fashion." And in [the tale of Muhammad ibn ‘Ali the Jeweler, a.k.a. "The Strange Caliph" from] A Thousand and One Nights: "He threw a black mi’zar over them, and from beneath it they began to watch."
     Among the garments of the monks of St. Anthony "on the slopes of Mt. Colzim," Vanslep describes the mezerre: "a great cloak of black material lined with white, sometimes called melótēs in Coptic, and sometimes bírros. It is like the cloaks of the Jesuits, only it has no collar, and except when traveling, they seldom wear it." [As mentioned above,] mi’zara is defined as pallium in Freytag's Lexicon, and Vansleb may had this form in mind when writing mezerre; similar though these words are, mi’zar is not at this time used to name that garment in Egypt.
     Lastly, the mi’zar can be a covering for the head. In his Travels, Ibn Battuta describes a particular form of mourning observed at Idhaj after the crown prince's death: "I happened that day upon a strange scene. The place was packed on every side with judges, orators, and nobles seated with bowed heads along the walls of the royal gallery, some of them weeping and others merely pretending to. Over their clothes, they wore rough, sacklike robes of raw cotton turned inside out, and every man's head was covered with rag or a black mi’zar. To those who kept this up for forty days, the sultan gifted a new set of clothes."
     It is in this sense that mi’zar entered Spanish as almaizar, defined by Covarrubias [the same] in his Treaury of the Castillian or Spanish Language as "a mantle-like veil or toque worn by Moorish women. It is made of fine silk, with colorful borders and fringes at either end." He continues: "Diego de Urrea says this garment is called in Arabic an izār, explaining al- as the definite article, and ma- as the marker of the instrumental noun: al + ma + izar = almaizar 'covering,' which the Moors wrap around their heads, leaving the fringes to hang down over their shoulders." Throughout early Spanish literature, almaizar and almaizal refer equally to head coverings for women and men.
     Mi’zar has also entered Italian: large panels of printed cloth with which women wrap their heads are called in Genoa mezzari. As for mi’zār (with long alif), that's one form I don't believe I've ever come across in Arabic.

From A Detailed Dictionary of Terms for Arab Dress (Amsterdam, 1845)
by Reinhart Dozy

Deviation and aversion, cont'd

Abū ‘Ubayd: Aza’a, ka‘‘a, and kabana [an anagram of nakaba treated earlier] all signify a "turn away" from something. Ḍaba‘a ["stretch forth"] means to "prefer" and "incline towards" a thing, as when a group inclines toward peace, while qaraḍa ["cut"] means to "avoid" a place, as in the verse [by Dhu 'l-Rumma, meter: ṭawīl]:

     [My gaze followed] the women's caravan flanked by horsemen
          on the right, as they skirted the interior of Mushrif on their left.

And i‘tataba is to "recede" from something, as in the verse [from the Hāshimiyyāt of al-Kumayt, meter: ṭawīl]:

      That yearning has receded from my heart.
          To the subject of this poem it is now attracted.

     Ibn Durayd: Ḍāfa is to "lean" toward something. Abū ‘Ubayd: Aḍāfa is for when you lean one thing against another so to bolster it. As for ṣāfa, the author of Kitāb al-‘Ayn says it means to "turn away"; its verbal nouns are ṣayf, maṣīf, and ṣayfūfa.
      Abū ‘Ubayd: Ṣāra, verbal noun ṣawr, is to "cause a bend" in something, while ṣawira, verbal noun ṣawar, is to "bend" intransitively. Anything affected this way can be described as aṣwar. Ṣāra is also to "deflect" something—this was mentioned earlier—and the derived form aṣāra means the same.
      Ibn al-Sikkit: Ashamma is to "deviate" from the direction in which one is moving. I heard al-Kilābī say: Ashamma is to "veer" to the right and left of one's direction.
      Abū ‘Ubayd: One's ‘alaz is one's "inclination" and one's "goal," from the verb ‘aliza [whose better-attested meaning is "to writhe in pain"].
      Abū Zayd: Janaḥa, voweled as yajnaḥu and yajnuḥu in the present tense, means to "lean" toward something, as does the derived form ijtanaḥa; ajnaḥa means to cause something or someone else to lean.
      Abū ‘Ubayd: Jāra yajūru, verbal noun jawran, is to "deviate"; transitive form ajāra is to cause someone else to deviate. Abū Zayd: Jāra may be used of anyone that leans. The author of Kitāb al-‘Ayn: ‘Aṣafa is [to "deviate"] from a route, the same as jāra.
      Ibn Durayd: Nāta, verbal nouns nawt and nayt, means to "sag." ‘Anad is "disinclination" toward something, and so is ‘and; their root verb is ‘anada ya‘nudu. A path that is ‘ānid is a deviant one. A riding camel described as ‘unūd, pl. ‘unud and ‘und, is one that runs wide of the path, due to her strength and high spirits.
      The author of Kitāb al-‘Ayn: Laḥj is a "leaning." Iltaḥaja is to "lean" intransitively, and alḥaja is the causative form. Ru’ba [or his father al-‘Ajjāj] said (meter: rajaz):

     ...or tongues tilt against us when they speak

—meaning that they incline away from praise, and speak ill of him.
      Ibn Durayd: Arghala and arghana mean to "lean." Zāgha, verbal nouns zawgh, zaygh, and zayaghān, is to "deviate from the path." Tazāyagha [a reciprocal form meaning "to lean toward each other"] is more correct than tazāwagha.
      Abū Zayd: Rāgha is to "wheel" on someone, whether to confer with them or attack them; in Qur’ān, [it says that Abraham] "wheeled upon [the idols of his people] and smacked them with his right hand."
      Ibn Durayd: ‘Āja, verbal nouns ‘awj and ‘iyāja, and its derived forms in‘āja and i‘wajja are all synonymous with ‘aṭafa ["to turn toward or against"]. Al-Aṣma‘ī: Tajānafa is to "divagate" from something.
      Ibn Durayd: Khanfasa means to "have a strong aversion" to something and to "despise" it; an obnoxious character cast out from society is what you call a khunfus.

From the Mukhaṣṣaṣ of Ibn Sīdah

Wierd Horror (sic)

  

    Dry-point etching, 5" x 7"

No secrets left

                 Nothing remains in doubt after
                     my assay of every enigma,
                 from what Hermes said at the beginning
                     to what Heraclius said at the end,
                 to the riddles couched by Galen
                     in twisting dodges,
                 and the primordial traditions
                     upheld by sacred revelation,
                 and the encryptions of Jabir, who
                     practiced what the ancients did.
                 For all they held back, I vindicate them.
                     For all they put forth, I have commentary.
                 From all the materials I have gathered,
                     I have clarified and broadcast every secret
                 in my Keys, the book loaded with wisdom
                     that springs the lock jammed shut,
                 and its concomitant Lamps
                     of brilliant flame,
                 like nothing produced by anyone
                     before my time or after.
                 Nothing less than the epitome
                     of every long-studied science
                         is what my verses hold.

By Mu’ayyad al-Din al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali al-Tughra’i (meter: mutaqārib)

Ahmad of the Seventh Day II.2

[‘Abd Allah continued:]

"When I die," the laborer said, "wash for me the woolen robe and wrap that I have on, and sell my shovel. That'll be enough [for my burial clothes and the price of my interment]. But the robe has a pocket, and when you undo the seam you'll find a ring. Take the ring and await the day the caliph Harun al-Rashid rides by. On that day, you must make yourself conspicuous. Call out to him, and show him the ring, and surrender it to him when he bids you approach. But none of this until I'm dead and buried."

I agreed to his terms, and after he died I carried out all his instructions. Then I waited for the caliph to appear. When that day came, I staked out a place along his route, and as he rode by I shouted, "Commander of the Faithful! I am entrusted with something that belongs to you," and flashed the ring at him. At his command, I was seized and borne along to the palace, where he sent away every one of his guardians and retainers and asked my name. "‘Abd Allah ibn al-Faraj," I said.
      "Where did you get this ring?" he asked. I told him my story of the young man, and the caliph burst into tears that moved me to pity. I waited for him to take notice of me again, and then I asked, "What relation was he to the Commander of the Faithful?"
      "He was my son," the caliph said. I asked him, "How did he get into this condition?"
      "He was born to me before I became caliph," Harun said. "He grew up strong and healthy, and studied Qur'an and religious science, but when the Caliphate was thrust on me, he fled, taking with him no reminder of the world around me. He never lost reverence for his mother, though, and I pressed this ring on her, a ruby ring of great price, and told her: 'Give this to him, and ask him to keep it handy. Perhaps it will be of use in his hour of need.'
      "After that," he continued, "his mother died, and from that time to this I know nothing about him but what what you've told me." Then he said, "Take me to his grave after night falls."
      Night fell, and he came out alone with me from the palace, and walked until we were at the grave. The caliph sat down and wept strenuously until the dawn. When the sky began to lighten, we rose and returned to the palace, where he set a date with me to visit the grave again after a number of days. And I returned with him on the appointed night, and escorted him back to the palace afterward.

‘Abd Allah ibn al-Faraj said: I had no idea that he was Harun al-Rashid's son, until the caliph told me so himself.

       

So goes Ibn Abi 'l-Tayyib's version—a fine report, in my estimation, though the first version is better authenticated, with an unbroken chain of transmission by trustworthy narrators.
      Popular storytellers have lengthened this account into an episodic tale. In their version, Ahmad is Harun's son by Zubayda [rather than the secret marriage of Harun's youth. This is how they say Ahmad turned his back on palace life and became an ascetic:] He went out hunting, only to encounter Salih al-Murri and hear him preaching, and then Ahmad's horse stumbled, and fell to the ground... But all of that is drivel. I report only what has been authenticated, and God gets the final say.

From Characters of Integrity by Ibn al-Jawzi; cf. the Book of Strangers
of al-Ajurri

No art of memory

Memory is not an art, nor could it ever be. The arts are Memory's gift to us, but memory itself cannot be taught or attained by any art. It is an advantage that some receive from nature, or the luck of their immortal soul. Without it, humanity would have no connection to eternality, and nothing we learn could ever be taught, if Memory did not dwell within us.

Whether Memory should be called the Mother of Time or its Child, I leave to the poets, who can say what they want. But no one among the truly wise would be dumb enough to throw away their good standing by [claiming to train the memory through mystic arts, and] posing like a juggler in front of little kids—the kind of thing that gives actual pedagogy a bad name.

So how did the students of Dionysius of Miletus all have such prodigious memories? The answer is that his lectures were so enjoyable that his listeners craved to hear them again, and Dionysius, in awareness of his own charisma, was obliged to repeat them many times. They became stamped in the minds of his brightest students, who declaimed them to each other until all had memorized through practice what memory alone could not supply. This is how they came to be called the "Mnemonic School," and were credited with turning memory into an art. It's also why people say the declamations of Dionysius are a piecemeal corpus, augmented in different places by different individuals where Dionysius himself had been succint.

From Lives of the Sophists by Flavius Philostratus

Ahmad of the Seventh Day II.1

According to Abu Bakr ibn Abi 'l-Tayyib [as reported in the Book of Strangers of al-Ajurri], ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Faraj the ascetic told the story like this:

I needed a day laborer to do some work in my house, and went to market to look them over. At the end of the row was a sallow-faced youth dressed all in wool, with a big basket and a shovel in his hands. "Ready for work?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, and when I asked his fee he said, "A dirham and a daniq." "Let's get to work," I said.
     "On one condition," he said. "What's that?" I asked. "At the call to mid-day prayer, I'll perform my ablutions and go pray at the congregational mosque, and when it's time for afternoon prayer I'll do the same." "That's fine," I said.
      We went back to my house and came to terms on all that needed doing in each area, and he cinched up his waist and got to work. He didn't speak a word to me until the call to mid-day prayer, when he said, "O ‘Abd Allah, the muezzin calls." "You're free to go," I said. He went off to pray, then returned to his task, which he did expertly until the call to afternoon prayer, when he said again, "O ‘Abd Allah, the muezzin calls." "You're free," I said, and off he went to pray. He then came back and worked without stopping until the end of the day, when I counted out his wage and he went away.

Some days later, we needed more work done, and my wife said, "Seek out that young one, whose heart was in his work." So I went to market, where I didn't see him. When I asked around, they said: "You mean that sallow-faced unfortunate? We only see him on Saturdays. Always he sits at the very end of the row."
       I stayed away from the market until that Saturday, when I came upon him right away. "Ready to work?" I asked him. "You already know my wage and my conditions," he said.
     "And on God I rely for guidance, Exalted be He," I said.
      The man came and worked as he had before. When I counted out his wage, I added something extra, but he refused to accept, and when I pressed it on him he became irate and took off. I was pained at this, and followed after him, cajoling him until he accepted his stated wage and nothing more.

After a while, we needed work done again, and I went back on a Saturday but could not find him. "He's sick," they told me when I asked around. "He used to come on Saturdays and work for a dirham and a daniq. The rest of the week he lived on one daniq a day. But now he isn't well."
      I asked for his address, and was led to a room kept by an old woman. "Is this where the young day laborer lives?" I asked her. "He's sick," she said. "Has been for days."
      The state I found him in upset me. His head was resting on a brick of clay. I bid him peace, and asked if there was anything he needed. "Yes," he said, "if you accept my conditions."
     "If God wills," I said to him, "that's what I'll do. [Continued.]

From Characters of Integrity by Ibn al-Jawzi

Avant Abraham

"My opinion is that Adam never worshiped idols, but that he did worship planets, approximating through this form of devotion to what is higher than the planets and stronger than they." If you contemplate this statement by Yanbushad, you'll find that it excludes idolatry as a means of approaching the living, speaking gods. You'll also notice it's expressed as Yanbushad's opinion, and not a categorical declaration, even though he knew for a certainty that Adam was no idolater.

There is evidence for all I'm saying—to wit, that Yanbushad did not countenance idolatry, nor even perhaps the worship of the sun and moon—in his book On the seasons, where he says: "The earthly consequences of the seasons' rotation are not the work of a visible mover, but a Mover too subtle to be perceived with the senses." The passage ends in what seems like a barrage of digressions, deliberately interspersed with enigmas and double meanings, and this is how his beliefs are often stated, becoming clear only after diligent contemplation of the text.

[And sometimes his beliefs went unstated.] "Oh sage," Yanbushad was once asked, "why do you spend your life in waterless desert wastes, instead of attending the festivals of your people and observing their devotions?" He said, "If their form of worship were agreeable to me, I would not be averse to what they practice in their temples, and I would follow their path."
     "May your lord have mercy on you," the asker said. "Let us know exactly where their path goes wrong, and we will follow yours." Yanbushad remained silent, and gave no answer. The man repeated his question several times, at which Yanbushad fixed his gaze on him without speaking, until the asker turned away, crying, "Yanbushad is mad! Mad, I tell you!"

There is further evidence for Yanbushad's beliefs in his conformity with the Book of Agriculture of Anuha, whose views he upheld against those of Tamithra the Canaanite. Against Tamithra, who propagated the worship of idols, and ruled that abstainers should be imprisoned and flogged, Yanbushad was sharply critical, and wholly uncritical of Anuha, the famous rebel against the idolatry of his people who was subjected to corporal punishment and imprisoned for his beliefs. When Yanbushad told the story of Anuha's maltreatment by the people of his city, he took relish in narrating their destruction, and how their own god sent a rainstorm to their country and drowned the place, along with the territories of the numerous Greek and Chaldaean nations. Anuha alone was saved, and sought refuge in Egypt, and when the Egyptians drove him away they too were destroyed by a terrible famine.

From Nabataean Agriculture by Ibn Wahshiyya

Mercury of Babylon

Alchemy is the work through which gold and silver are produced without mining them. Its devotees say the first to speak of it was Hermes, the sage of Babel, and that when Babel's people were scattered he moved to Egypt and ruled it as a wise philosopher king. They credit him with a number of books on alchemical science, which he developed through theoretical research into the physical and spiritual properties of things. They also say he instituted the craft of making talismans, and credit him with a number of books on the subject, though the partisans of sempiternity date this craft and its origins to thousands of years before Hermes.

Abu Bakr al-Razi, who is Muhammad ibn Zakariya, says that no philosophical system is valid without a working theory of alchemy, and that no one ignorant of the science of alchemy can be called a philosopher. By this art, he says, the philosopher can do without other people, but they cannot do without the philosopher's scientific and practical insights. Some alchemists say their science was revealed by God, Magnified be His name, to a group of the work's devotees. Others say that God, be He Exalted, revealed it to Moses and Aaron the sons of ‘Imran, peace be upon them, and that they delegated the work to Korah, who enriched himself with gold and silver and waxed tyrannical. God, Blessed and Exalted be He, took note of this, and in answer to Moses's prayer, peace be upon him, He took the life of Korah amidst his treasures.

Al-Razi claims elsewhere that many philosophers were schooled in the work, including Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, and last of all Galen. Modern authorities have books and teachings on it, as did the ancients, and about these matters God knows best. In summarizing them here, I cannot be blamed, for I do not imitate either group.

On the Bablylonian Hermes. Accounts of him differ. Some say he was one of seven ministers appointed to protect the Seven Houses, with the house of ‘Uṭārid assigned to Hermes. Mercury in the Chaldaean language is named ‘Uṭārid, and by this name Hermes was called. For one reason or another they say he migrated to the land of Egypt, where he was the wisest man of the age, and that he ruled the place and fathered sons there named Ṭāṭ, Ṣā, Ushmun, Athrīb, and Qifṭ. After his death, he was interred at Egypt's capital in a construction called Abū Hirmis, now known as "The Two Pyramids." One pyramid houses Hermes's tomb, and the other his wife's—or, by another account, it is the tomb of the son who succeeded Hermes to Egypt's throne.

From the Fihrist of (Ibn) al-Nadim

Rebus erudire

When you ask the meaning of a word, whether from a native speaker or a scholar, the answer is sometimes in their actions and not their words.
      Al-Asma‘i said that ‘Isa ibn ‘Umar asked the poet Dhu 'l-Rumma about the meaning of naḍnāḍ. "All he did was flicker his tongue at me," ‘Isa said. Ibn Durayd reports this anecdote in Jamharat al-lugha, where he defines the verb naḍnaḍa as what a snake does with the tongue in its head, and says the snake is called al-naḍnāḍ for this reason.
      In his commentary on Adab al-kuttab, al-Zajjaji reports that when someone asked the poet Ru’ba about the word shanab [which is the dewy glow of a young person's teeth], he made them look at a pomegranate seed.
      Al-Qali reports in his Dictations that when al-Asma‘i was asked about the ‘awāriḍ of a man's beard [which cover his cheeks], he placed his hands on his cheeks above the ‘awāriḍ of his teeth [which are the bicuspids].

From Bringer of Light to the Language Sciences by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti