282 THE NATIVE MANUSCRIPTS IV. d 3.
" Gezira Sennar " or " Gezirat el Huoi." The people of the Blue Nile region more often use "el Huoi" than "el Gezira." The word Huoi is often pro-
nounced almost as though it were Hog, and the fact is that there is no exact English equivalent to this final consonant, which is quite difTerent from the soft g of, e.g., Karkog, or the usual hard initial or medial g. The
same letter occurs in another word in this same biography, viz. " 'Aydai," as it is here written, or " 'Aydag" (maps " Eidag") as it is often pronounced (cp. sub No. 67). Other examples of this case are "Kagoi" in No. 132^ "Foga" (in western Kordofan), which is pronounced almost like "Foiya" by most natives, and "Fung" or "Funye" {q.v. in Westermann, p. lii). Cp. also notes to Nos. 108 and 200 for another case in point. Pere Jaussen's remarks on the pronunciation of "^/m" as ">'«'" among the Arabian tribes will be found on pp. 6, 7 of his book, and I may quote the following
editorial from Sudan Notes and Records (No. 2, 1918): "We believe that
r*- in the mouth of a Sudan Arab has a sound which is intermediate be-
tween hard ^ in ^0 and/ in^ust. The sound also exists in Nubian (Berberine) and has been recorded as occurring in other Arabic dialects (Landberg,
Etudes..., I, p. 539: 'Quelquefois et dans quelques contrees en Hadramaut ^ est prononce avec un son entre g (j) et g. Ce n'est ni I'un ni I'autre'). The sound in question is articulated in the 'front,' i.e. it is formed by the front part of the tongue and the hard palate ; it is therefore nearly related
to both d and y, and we agree. . .that it very nearly corresponds to </y."
^ Aydag is close to the north of Wad 'Ishayb. For Ibrahim el Buldd see para, vi and No. 17, supra, and note to No. 23, and AB, xcix.
In No. 121 there is a passing mention (omitted in the translation) to
"the fekir Muhammad Kandil ibn el feki Hammad ibn el Sheikh Ali walad 'Ishayb."
61. " His father was. . ." is Li^Jk»^.« ^f^-j '>$^^-
" Magdhub'' is a Sufi term (see note to para, vii, supra): it is explained by Hughes {q.v. pp. 116, 301, 310, 612) as meaning "abstracted" or "attracted," "one chosen of God for Himself": "rapt" in English also' suggests the meaning implied. For miracle-working by reciting the alpha-
bet cp. No. 26.
62. The statement that 'Ali "el Nil" was the successor of Tag el Din implies that he succeeded to the Sheikhship of the Kadiria tarika (vide sub No. 67). In No. 216 we have his brother Nur el Din swearing by Tag el Din. The story of the dclayb palms {q.v. sub No. 216) is given at length both in No. 62 and 216.
63. '' A follower of. . .," i.e. he embraced Sufiism as taught in the first instance by Dafa'alla el 'Araki. See No. 8, where we have 'All's son Dafa'alla el Shafa'i instructing Taha the son of that 'Omara whom we have here teaching 'Ali walad el Shafa'i.
" And if he heard. . . ." For the Arabic see Appendix 10. I understand the meaning to be that if any other aspiring poet after 'All's death recited, as his own composition, lines he had borrowed from 'AH, the spirit of the latter would be heard wailing and his wraith be seen in the air.
65. A Mahassi by race.