Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded. Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī

أنّ الأسماء لا تُعَلَّلُ فلا نحتاج إلى هذه الأبحاث الفشرويّة وهذه الخرافات الهباليّة فاتّضح الجواب وبان الصواب

      If it be said, “The definition and, in some cases, the etymologies of the names maḥlabah and miḥlāb and the rest such as qisṭ, rubʿ, and kūz have been given, but what is the meaning of qarrūfih, and how did this strange word come to be applied to this vessel and what was the occasion for that?” we reply that this question may be answered from a number of perspectives. The first is that this vessel was made at the time of the qirr (with i after the q and no vowel after the r),¹⁵⁷ which means “extreme cold”; then they completed (wafaw) its firing in the summer, and so it was called qirrwafih, that is, the firing of this vessel was accomplished (wafiya) and it was finished; then they put a ū after the double r of qirr and made a name for it out of all these letters and said qarrūfih. In this case it would be composed of a noun and a verb.¹⁵⁸ The second is that, when it had just been invented and the milker put it between his legs and directed the milk into it, the milk started to rise and make a lot of froth, so the milkman became afraid that the milk would overflow the vessel and called out to the milk qarr fīh qarr fīh (“Stay in it! Stay in it!”), that is, “Remain in it and be settled!” Then they added a w to the word between the imperative verb and the prepositional phrase, omitted the ī because it was awkward to pronounce, realized the w as ū,¹⁵⁹ and said qarrūfih, and that became its name. The third perspective is that the clay of which it was made was originally taken from a place close to the Qarāfah (“cemetery”) of Cairo, so they started saying “a qarāfī vessel,”¹⁶⁰ then derived this name for it from that sense and said qarrūfih. The fourth is that it is derived from qirfah (“cinnamon”) (with i after the f), which is a spice with a delicious taste and smell that is used in fine dishes and sumptuous foods, for milk too, when fresh from the cow, has an appetizing smell and sweet taste—as the Almighty has said, «pure milk, palatable to the drinkers»;¹⁶¹ then they added a ū to it and made that its name. And fifthly, names cannot be etymologized, so there is no need for these fatuous investigations and inane fabulations. Thus the answer now’s clear, the truth made to appear.

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11.3.6

      (وأمّا) سبب تسمية ابن عمّ الناظم بهذا الاسم فعلى أقوال (أحدها) أنّ أمّه لمّا وضعته سمعت إنسانًا يقول لآخر هات المحلبة فسمّته بذلك تفاؤلًا بهذا اللفظ وصغّرته لكون الولد صغيرًا (الثاني) أنّ أمّه أتت بولد قبله وسمّته محلاب فمات ثمّ ولدته وكرهت أن تسمّيه باسم أخيه فأنّثت اللفظ وصغّرته وقالت محيلبه واشتهر بذلك (الثالث) أنّ أمّه لمّا ولدته زارها إنسان بمحلبة جديدة ساعةَ ولادتها فتفاءلت بذلك وقالت محيلبه فهذا ما ظهر لي من هذه المباحث الفشرويّة والخرافات الهباليّة وقوله

      Various accounts are given for how the poet’s paternal cousin came by this name. The first is that, when his mother gave birth to him, she heard one person say to another, “Fetch the milk crock!” so she named him thus, taking a good omen from the word and making it into a diminutive, seeing that the child was small. A second version has it that his mother had borne another boy before him and called him Miḥlāb, but he died. When she gave birth to this child, she did not want to call him by his brother’s name, so she made the word feminine¹⁶² and made it a diminutive and said muḥaylibah, and by this he was known. A third account has it that someone visited her with a new milk crock (maḥlabah) at the moment when she gave birth, so she took this as a good omen and said, “I shall call him Muḥaylibah.” This is the extent of what I have learnt from these fatuous investigations and inane fabulations.

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11.3.7

      (يوم) بالتنوين وخفض الميم لضرورة النظم واليوم اسم لبياض النهار المضيء المُشْرِق بسبب الشمس الّذي يُصام شرعًا كما لا يخفى وقوله

      yawmin (“on the day when”):in with following the m, for the meter.¹⁶³ Yawm (“day”) is a name for the whiteness of daylight that is illumined by the rays of the sun and during which one may undertake a legally meaningful fast, as is well known.¹⁶⁴

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11.3.8

      (تجي) من المجيء وهو الحضور

      tajī (“comes”): from the verbal noun majīʾ (“coming”), which means arriving at a place.

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11.3.9

      (الوجبه) ووقت مجيئها وحضورها بمجرَّد طلوع الشادّ أو الملتزم أو النصرانيّ إلى الكفر أو البلد فتوزعّ على الفلّاحين بحسب ما يخصّهم من الأرض من القراريط والفِدْن ونحو ذلك فمنهم من يكون عليه في الشهر يومًا ومنهم من يفعلها في كلّ جمعة مرّة ومنهم من يجعلها في كلّ ثلاثة أيّام وهكذا بحسب كثرة الفلّاحين وقلّتهم وحسب زيادة الأرض ونقصها فلا بدّ منها في كلّ يوم مدّة الإقامة فيقوم الرجل بكُلْفة الشادّ والنصرانيّ إن كان حاضرًا وجميع من يكون من طائفة الملتزم بأكلهم وشربهم وجميع ما يحتاجوا إليه من عليق دوابهم وما يتمنّوه عليه من المآكل من اللحم والدجاج ولو كان فقيرًا ألزموه بذلك قهرًا عليه وإلّا حبسه الشادّ وضربه ضربًا موجعًا وربّما هرب من قلّة شيء يضعه فيرسل إلى أولاده وزوجته ويهدّدهم ويطلب منهم فربّما رهنت المرأة شيئًا من مصاغها أو