of honour (such as sword of the empire, helper of the empire,
etc.). Then the caliph gave, as a distinction, double titles and,
when these became too common, triple titles. ("In this way," says
al-Biruni, "the matter is opposed to sense and clumsy to the last
degree, so that a man who says the titles is fatigued when he has
scarcely started and he runs the risk of being late for prayer.")
. . . The patronymic was, of all of these, the most in favour. At
first it was assumed when the eldest son was born; when Bakr came
into the world his father took the name of Abu Bakr, and acquired
a new importance. This was not by any means peculiar to the
Arabs: "O Queen," says Das, a king of Indian folk-song, "O Queen,
the name of childless has departed from me." When the Arab had no
son, he used an honorific patronymic (such as Abu'l-Ala, father
of excellence, or Abu'l-Feda, father of redemption). At times
this manufactured patronymic was a thing of mockery, more or less
gentle (such as a companion of the Prophet who was fond of cats,
and was entitled "father of the cat"). The prevalence among the
Arabs of the patronymic is immediately noticed, (a camel is the
father of Job; a strongly built person is the father of the
locust; a licentious person is the father of the night; and there
are multitudes of such formations). . . . With regard to
surnames, it was not the custom always for them to denote that
so-and-so was the son of his father's family. "Who is your
father?" says an Arab to the mule, and he replies, "The horse is
my maternal uncle." So there are some people who, for shame,
prefer that we should think of them as members of their mother's
family. . . .

The following additional quatrains may be quoted: