Note 406 — ABU AL-HUSN AND HIS SLAVE-GIRL TAWADDUD.[281]

Koran ii. 216. The word “Maysar” which I have rendered “gambling” or “gaming” (for such is the modern application of the word), originally meant what St. Jerome calls Βελομαντία and explains thereby the verse (Ezek. xxi. 22), “The King held in his hand the lot of Jerusalem” i.e. the arrow whereon the city-name was written. The Arabs use it for casting lots with ten azlam or headless arrows (for dice) three being blanks and the rest notched from one to seven. They were thrown by a “Zárib” or punter and the stake was generally a camel. Amongst so excitable a people as the Arabs, this game caused quarrels and bloodshed, hence its prohibition: and the theologians, who everywhere and at all times delight in burdening human nature, have extended the command, which is rather admonitory than prohibitive, to all games of chance. Tarafah is supposed to allude to this practice in his Mu’allakah.