Note 24 — Chapter III

Note 24.—On the Ḳalenderees. In the old translation, these three strangers are called "Calenders;" that is, "Ḳalenderees:" but in the Calcutta edition of the first two hundred nights, and the edition of Breslau, they are designated as "Ḳarendelees," "miserable or ridiculous beggars;" and in that of Cairo, the term applied to them is "ṣa'áleek," or, simply, "paupers," or "mendicants." Some may suppose the right reading to be "Ḳalenderees;" for it was a custom of this order of Darweeshes to shave their beards: they were forbidden to do so in the year of the Flight 761,254 by the Sulṭán of Egypt (El-Melik en-Náṣir El-Ḥasan); but whether they afterwards reverted to this habit, I do not know. The order of the Ḳalenderees, however, was not founded until about the commencement of the fifth century of the Flight,255 a period long posterior to that to which the tale relates.