IV. All. VII. NATIVE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE SUDAN 135

As regards the authorship, the Lisdn el ^Arab attributes the verses to Hashim's daughter, Ibn Ishak {ap. Ibn Hisham, p. 87) to "one of Kuraysh or one of the [other] Arabs," Ibn Hisham (on p. 113, when quoting the seven hnes mentioned) to Matrud ibn Ka'ab el Khuza'i, and the Tag el 'Arus to Ibn el Zaba'ara. Mas'udi gives no definite statement on the subject. Again, el Tabari quotes separately, in different places, two of the seven lines given in A 11.

The Kitdb el Amdli of Abu 'Ali el Kali (vol. i, p. 247) makes Abu Bukr quote five lines to the Prophet of which the first two are : >• »

»^U« jkAfi JU C*Jp 'ill dX^j J^a.,.o.)l ^J^J■)^ ^vd' L)

jUSt j,j-03 ^J^ 0-* «^>**-* ^ffV^^V^ CJj.J ^ ^^1 siXjULjA

and the rest quite different from An.

The third line of A 1 1 occurs in el Azraki's History of Mekka (ed. Wiistenfeld, p. 68) as follows:

oU^ JwasJ ly^aJl^ f'^^ C-JiXsui ^LoaJ L^ij-^ C^'l^

This author gives five lines, and, like the Tag el 'Arus, attributes them to Ibn el Zaba'ara: of these five the first is as quoted, the second and third different from anything in A 1 1 , the fourth something similar to the fifth line of A 1 1 , and the fifth reads thus :

Ola*^ O-i*^ — 0 ^^^ \y\^ ^o^"*^ JUj.iJI ^^h ^sti\ ^j-^

On the whole, however, the nearest parallel I have found is the follow-

ing from Ibn Wadih el Ya'akubi's History (ed. Houtsma, 1883), vol. i, p. 282:

^\j3\ jj>»63 p^f- O"* ^^tf'O ^^jlji.^ wJAa. 3J »2X.«I ^lIzLa

Ibn Wadih attributes the verses to "Matrud el Khuza'i," thus supporting Ibn Hisham {q.v. supra). I have to thank Professor Bevan for drawing

my attention to this passage. The expression .iX.*! ■^k^ (lit. "may thy mother be bereft of thee") is explained by Lane (Dictionary) as "an ex-

pression of vehement love." VII Cp. D 6, X, "They" presumably means the alleged Kurayshite an-

cestors of the Ga'aliin. Great numbers of Guhayna settled on the Nile and east of it in the

centuries following the Arab occupation of Egypt and it is not at all

improbable that the forefathers of the Ga'aliin of the present day ousted them from considerable areas between Haifa and Khartoum, and even south of that.