Note 243 — Chapter XXI · STRANGE ARAB DEVICES FOR CATCHING THE PASSAGE SAKER

Salmān-i Fārsī was a Persian of Abyssinian extraction. He was one of the “Companions of the Prophet.” His tomb, on a bank of the Tigris, not far from Baghdad, is close to the old ruined palace of Kisra, called by the Arabs Tāq-Kisrạ “The arch of Cyrus.” Here, too, is the site of Madāʿin or “The cities,” the capital of Persia at the time of the Muslim conquest. Seven cities are said to have existed on this site, T̤aysafūn or Ctsesiphon being one of them. It was in the latter that the Tāq-Kisrạ existed, built, according to some accounts, by Nūshīravān the Just.