Note 51 — THE STORY OF THE THREE SHARPERS.[17]

“Káhirah.” I repeat my belief (Pilgrimage i. 171) that “Káhirah,” whence our “Cairo” through the Italian corruption, means not la victorieuse (Mediant al-Káhirah) as D’Herbelot has it; but City of Káhir or Mars the planet. It was so called because as Richardson informed the world (sub voce) it was founded in A.H. 358 (= A.D. 968) when the warlike planet was in the ascendant by the famous General Jauhar, a Dalmatian renegade (not a “Greek slave”), for the first of the Fatimite dynasty Al-Mu’izz li ’l-díni ’lláh.