Note 285 — Chapter XI · ALONG THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE NEAR EAST

Ibn Butlan, a noted Arabian physician, and a Christian, of Bagdad, who visited Aleppo in the middle of the eleventh century thus refers to this curious tradition: “In the lower part of the castle is a cave where he”—Abraham—“concealed his flocks. When he milked these, the people used to come for their milk crying ‘Halaba ya la’?—Milked yet or not?—asking thus one of the other, and hence the city came to be called Halab—Milked.” Cf. G. le Strange’s Palestine Under the Moslems, p. 363 (London, 1890).