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yards and don sackcloth; whereupon this verse was revealed.
But El Cutadeh[FN295] says that it was revealed on account of
sundry Companions of the Apostle of God, Ali ibn Abi Talib and
Othman ben Musaab and others, who said,  We will dock ourselves
and don hair [cloth] and make us monks.  (Q.)  What sayst thou
of the words of the Most High,  And God took Abraham to
friend ? [FN296] (A.)  The friend [of God] is the needy, the
poor, and (according to another saying) he is the lover, he who
is absorbed in the love of God the Most High and in whose
exclusive devotion there is no falling away.
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When the professor saw her pass on in speech with the passing
of the clouds[FN297] and that she stayed not in answering, he
rose to his feet and said,  I take God to witness, O Commander
of the Faithful, that this damsel is more learned than I in
Koranic exegesis and what pertains thereto. Then said she,  I
will ask thee one question, which if thou answer, it is well:
but if thou answer not, I will strip off thy clothes.  Ask
on, quoth the Khalif; and she said,  Which verse of the
Koran has in it three-and-twenty Kafs,[FN298] which sixteen
Mims,[FN299] which a hundred and forty Ains,[FN300] and which
section[FN301] lacks the formula,  To whom [God] belong might
and majesty ? He could not answer, and she said to him,  Put
off thy clothes. So he doffed them, and she said,  O Commander
of the Faithful, the verse of the sixteen Mims is in the
chapter Houd and is the saying of the Most High,  It was
said,  O Noah, go down in peace from us, and blessing upon
thee!  [FN302]; that of the three-and-twenty Kafs is the verse
called of the Faith, in the chapter of the Cow; that of the
hundred and forty Ains is in the chapter of El Aaraf,[FN303]
 And Moses chose seventy men of his tribe to [attend] our
appointed time;[FN304] to each man a pair of eyes. [FN305]
And the set portion which lacks the formula,  To whom [God]
belong might and majesty, is that which comprises the chapters
 The Hour draweth nigh and the Moon is cloven in twain,  The
Compassionate and  The Event.  [FN306] And the professor
departed in confusion.
Then came forward the skilled physician and said to her,  We
have done with theology and come now to physiology. Tell me,
therefore, how is man made, how many veins, bones and vertebræ
are there in his body, which is the chief vein and why Adam was
named Adam?  Adam was called Adam, answered she,  because of
the udmeh, to wit, the tawny colour of his complexion and also
(it is said) because he was created of the adim of the earth,
that is to say, of the soil of its surface. His breast was made
of the earth of the Kaabeh, his head of earth from the East and
his legs of earth from the West. There were created for him
seven doors [or openings] in his head, to wit, the eyes, the
ears, the nostrils and the mouth, and two passages, the urethra
and the anus. The eyes were made the seat of the sense of
sight, the ears of that of hearing, the nostrils of that of
smell, the mouth of that of taste and the tongue to speak forth
what is in the innermost heart of man. Adam was originally
created of four elements combined, water, earth, fire and air.
The yellow bile is the humour of fire, being hot and dry, the
black bile that of earth, being cold and dry, the phlegm that
of water, being cold and moist, and the blood that of air,
being hot and moist. There are in man three hundred and
threescore veins, two hundred and forty bones and three souls
[or natures], the animal, the rational and the essential or
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[natural], to each of which is allotted a separate function.
Moreover, God made him a heart and spleen and lungs and six
guts and a liver and two kidneys and marrow [or brain] and
buttocks and bones and skin and five senses, hearing, seeing,
smell, taste and touch. The heart He set on the left side of
the breast and made the stomach the exemplar [or governor]
thereof. He appointed the lungs for a ventilator to the heart
and set the liver on the right side, opposite thereto. Moreover,
He made, besides this, the midriff and the intestines and set
up the bones of the breast and ribbed them with the ribs.
(Q.)  How many ventricles are there in a man s head? (A.)  Three,
which contain five faculties, styled the intrinsic senses, i.e.
common sense, fancy, thought, apperception and memory. (Q.)
 Describe to me the scheme of the bones. (A.)  It consists of
two hundred and forty bones, which are divided into three parts,
the head, the trunk and the extremities. The head is divided
into skull and face. The skull is constructed of eight bones,
and to it are attached the teeth, two-and- thirty in number,
and the hyoïd bone, one. The trunk is divided into spinal column,
breast and basin. The spinal column is made up of four-and-twenty
bones, called vertebræ, the breast of the breastbone and the ribs,
which are four-and-twenty in number, twelve on each side, and
the basin of the hips, the sacrum and the coccyx. The extremities
are divided into arms and legs. The arms are again divided into
shoulder, comprising shoulder-blades and collar-bone, the upper-
arm, one bone, the fore-arm, composed of two bones, the radius and
the ulna, and the hand, consisting of the wrist, the metacarpus
and the fingers. The wrist is composed of eight bones, ranked in
two rows, each comprising four bones; the metacarpus of five
and the fingers, which are five in number, of three bones each,
called the phalanges, except the thumb, which has but two.
The lower extremities are divided into thigh, one bone, leg,
composed of three bones, the tibia, the fibula and the kneepan,
and the foot, divided like the hand, with the exception of the
wrist,[FN307] which is composed of seven bones, ranged in two
rows, two in one and five in the other. (Q.)  Which is the
root of the veins? (A.)  The aorta from which they ramify, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]