278 THE NATIVE MANUSCRIPTS iv.ds.

descendants are called Gabiria or Gawabra. He flourished about 980 a.h. (1572 A.D.), as can be gathered from para, vi, supra, which roughly fixes the date of his elder brother, and from a rather obscure remark in the biography

of Ibrahim ibn Um Rabi'a, one of his pupils (No. 140), mentioning "the year 982" apropos of a nisba written by one of the four brothers (" a*:.:^^

U-J Vj^' ^^ V^^' >''■«^ Or"! ^**JI"). ^•^- "And the fakir Ibn Gabir el Guhani wrote it as a 7tisba on the Arabs." Whether this nisba has any connection with the original of BA {q.v. para, ccxxiii and note) I

cannot say. Ibn Gabir is called "el Guhani" here because his ancestor GhulamuUa's wife was of Guhayna origin (see Tree to D i and Tree 10 of the Tabakdt).

'Abd el Rahman is mentioned in BA, ccv. "He was one of. . . ." The actual words of the Arabic are:

O-e-o-^-oJ'i >^'^'i)' f^ ^ljL«-aM ^yti\^ i^WjJl wJaiJI ^

i.e. literally, "He was the divine Kiilb the immortal Ghauth, the Sheikh of Islam and the Muslims." ''Kufb'' and "Ghauth" are both high titles of sanctity: the former (see Hughes, p. 531) means literally an axis, and the latter a mediator or sin-bearer of the faithful (see Hughes, p. 139; and, for both terms. Sell, p. 108).

For Ibrahim el Buldd see para, vi, supra, AB, Lxxxix et seq., and BA, ccv.

Muhammad el Banufari (for whom see also No. 157) is also mentioned in AB, xcvi.

"He taught. . .forty times'^ i.e. in Arabic ^J-^J.ft- iJ ajI-o-I*. CJtXf

SloZo^ ^J^fJ\, or, literally, "his sealings in Khalil reached forty sealings." For the explanation of this see note to AB, xcix; and for Khalil see AB,

LXXXix. "He" in this passage ought, I think, to be understood to mean not Abd el Rahman but Ibrahim his brother: see No. 23 and No. 60, and AB, xcix.

The DuFAR are Bedayria: see AB, note in.

"The four sons of Gdbir...." For the Arabic of this passage see Appendix 3. By a sHp the name of Abd el Rahman is repeated twice: that in one of the two cases, probably the second, the reading should be "Abd el Rahim" is clear from BA, ccv (q.v.), where the other brothers also are mentioned.

19. "He devoted. . .God" is aJJ! ^^1 ajaijl. 21. For IsmdHl and el Banufari see sub No. 17. This No. 21 is the head of the large Hammadtu family of Dongola. From ABC, lvi, it seems they are Zenarkha or Mashaikha by tribe.

22. Ibrdhhn walad Abu Maldh was one of the disciples of the Awlad Gabir (see No. 154).

In No. 157 is mentioned Abd el Rahman el Ag-huri as the teacher of el Banufari, and el Banufari taught No. 17 who in his turn taught Abd

el Rahman ibn Masikh, the great-uncle of this No. 22. The Ali el Ag-huri mentioned here (and in No. 66) was great-grandson of Abd el Rahman el Ag'huri (see note to BA, ccxii), and is known to have died in 1066 A.H.