Note 55 — Chapter II

Note 55. This passage deserves particular notice, as being one of those which assist us to form some opinion respecting the period when the present work, in the states in which it is known to us, was composed or compiled or remodelled. It is the same in all the copies of the original work that I have seen, and bears strong evidence of having been written subsequently to the commencement of the eighth century of the Flight, or fourteenth of our era, at which period, it appears, the Christians and Jews were first compelled to distinguish themselves by wearing, respectively, blue and yellow turbans, in accordance with an order issued by the Sultán of Egypt, Moḥammad Ibn-Kala-oon.174 Thus the white turban became peculiar to the Muslims.—An eminent German critic has been unfortunate in selecting the incident of the four fish as affording an argument in favour of his opinion that the Tales of a Thousand and One Nights are of Indian origin, on the mere ground that the same word (varna) is used in Sanscrit to signify both "colour" and "caste."