Note 474 — THE CONCUBINE OF AL-MAAMUN.”[470]

There is no historical person who answers to these names, “The Secure, the Ruler by Commandment of Allah.” The cognomen applies to two soldans of Egypt, of whom the later Abu al-Abbas Ahmad the Abbaside (A.D. 1261–1301) has already been mentioned in The Nights (vol. v. 86). The tale suggests the earlier Al-Hakim (Abu Ali al-Mansúr, the Fatimite, A.D. 995–1021), the God of the Druze “persuasion;” and the tale-teller may have purposely blundered in changing Mansúr to Maamún for fear of offending a sect which has been most dangerous in the matter of assassination and which is capable of becoming so again.