Note 70 — ALAEDDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP.

In classical Arabic the word is “Maghribi,” the local form of the root Gharaba = he went far away, (the sun) set, etc., whence “Maghribi” = a dweller in the Sunset-land. The vulgar, however, prefer “Maghrab” and “Maghrabi,” of which foreigners made “Mogrebin.” For other information see vols. vi. 220; ix. 50. The “Moormen” are famed as magicians; so we find a Maghrabi Sahhár = wizard, who by the by takes part in a transformation scene like that of the Second Kalandar (vol. i. p. 134, The Nights), in p. 10 of Spitta Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes,” etc. I may note that “Sihr,” according to Jauhari and Firozábádi = anything one can hold by a thin or subtle place, i.e., easy to handle. Hence it was applied to all sciences, “Sahhár” being = to ’Álim (or sage): and the older Arabs called poetry “Sihr al-halál”—lawful magic.