Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

the im&ms and diminished the prosperity of their capital,
but Cruttenden in 1836 still estimated the population at
40,000, or, with the three neighbouring towns of Rauda,
Jirhf, and Whdy Dahr, at not less than 70,000. In 1870,
when the imamate had been extinct for twenty years, and
the town was governed by an elected sheikh and had lost
its provinces, Halevy found it much decayed, with many of
the palaces and public buildings demolished or used as
quarries, but still presenting a comely aspect, with good
streets, houses, and mosques. In 1872, having been hard
pressed by the Bedouins for several years, Sanaa opened
its gates to the Turks, who were then engaged in the
reconquest of Yemen. In the following year Millingen
estimated the population at only 20,000.
The climate is good, though the extreme dryness of the
air is trying. Rain usually falls in January and June,
and more copiously in the end of July; the markets are
well supplied with grain and fruit; vineyards were
formerly numerous, but were largely given up after an
attack of vine disease some thirty years ago.
Arabic writers give many discordant and fabulous traditions
about the oldest history of Sanaa and its connexion with the
ancient kingdom of Himyar. But most agree that its oldest name
was Azal, which seems to be the same word with Uzal in Gen. x.
27. A Himyarite nation of Auzalites occurs in a Syriac writer of
the 6th century. The better-informed Arab writers knew also that
the later name is due to the Abyssinian conquerors of Yemen,
and that it meant in their language “ fortified ” (Bakri, p. 606 ;
Noldeke, Gesch. d. Pers. u. Arab., p. 187). Sanaa became the
capital of the Abyssinian Abraha (c. 530 A.n.) who built here the
famous church {Kalis), of whose splendour the Arabs give exag¬
gerated pictures, 'and which was destroyed two centuries later by
order of the caliph Mansur (Azraki, p. 91).
SANA’! Abulmajd Majdiid b. Adam, commonly known
as the. hakim or philosopher Sand’l, the earliest among the
great Sufic poets of Persia, was a native of Ghazna or
Ghaznln (in the present Afghanistan), and flourished in
the reigns of the Ghaznawid sultdns Ibrahim (1059-
1099, 451-492 a.h.), his son Mas'ud (1099-1114), and his
grandson Bahrdmshdh, who, after some years of desperate
struggle among members of his own family, ascended the
throne in 1118 (512 a.h.) and died after a long and
prosperous reign in 1152 (547 a.h.). The exact dates
of the poet’s birth and death are uncertain, Persian autho¬
rities giving the most conflicting statements. At any
rate, he must have been born in the beginning of the
second half of the 11th century and have died between
1131 and 1150 (525 and 545 a.h.). He gained already
at an early age the reputation of a very learned and pious
man and of an accomplished minstrel. Like his con¬
temporaries Mas'ud b. Sa'd b. Salmon (died 1131), Hasan
of Ghazna (died 1179), and Uthmdn Mukhtdrf (died 1149
or 1159), who was his master in the poetical art, he com¬
posed chiefly kasfdas in honour of his sovereign and the
great men of the realm, but a peculiar incident made him
for ever abandon the highly remunerative although often
perilous career of a court-panegyrist, and turn his
poetical aspirations to higher and less worldly aims. One
day, when he was proceeding to the royal palace to pre¬
sent an encomiastic song to SulUn Ibrdhfm, he was taunted
by a half-mad but witty jester, who proposed a toast to
the poet’s blindness, because with all his learning and
piety he had as yet only succeeded in flattering kings and
princes, who were mere mortals like himself, and entirely
misinterpreted God’s motive in creating him. Sand’f
was so struck with the appropriateness of this satirical
remark that he forthwith gave up all the luxuries of
court-life, retired from the world, and devoted himself
after the due performance of the pilgrimage exclusively
to devotional exercises, pious meditations, and the com¬
position of Sufic poetry in praise of the Godhead and the
divine unity. For forty years he led a life of retirement
and poverty, and, although SuMn Bahnimshah offered
him not only a high position at court, but also his own
sister in marriage, he remained faithful to the austere
and solitary life he had chosen. But, partly to show his
gratitude to the king, partly to leave a lasting monu¬
ment of his genius behind him, that might act as a
stimulus to all disciples of the pantheistic creed, he began
to write his great double-rhymed poem on ethics and
religious life, which has served as model to Farfd-uddfn
'AttAr’s qnd Jalal-uddfn Rumf’s Sufic masterpieces, the
Hadihat-ulhahikat, or “ Garden of Truth ” (also called
Alhitdb alfakiir'i), in ten cantos, dealing with the following
topics:—unity of the Godhead, the divine word, the
excellence of the prophet, reason, knowledge and faith,
love, the soul, worldly occupation and inattention to higher
duties, stars and spheres and their symbolic lore, friends
and foes, separation from the world, &c. One of SanA’f’s
earliest disciples, who wrote a preface to this work, 'All
al-RaffA, alias Muhammed b. 'All RakkAm, assigns to its
composition the date 1131 (525 a.h.), which in a consider¬
able number of copies appears as 1140 (535 a.h.), and
states besides that the poet died immediately after the
completion of his task. Now, SanA’l cannot possibly
have died in 1131, as another of his mathnawfs, the
Tarih-i-tahhik, or “ Path to the Verification of Truth,” was
composed, according to a chronogram in its last verses, in
1134 (528 a.h.), nor even in 1140, if he really wrote,
as the A.tashkada says, an elegy on the death of Amfr
Mu'izzl; for this court-poet of SultAn Sanjar lived till
1147 or 1148 (542 a.h.). It seems, therefore, that Takl
KAshf, the most accurate among Persian biographers, is
right after all in fixing SanA’fs death in 1150 (545 a.h.),
the more so as 'All al-RaffA himself distinctly says in his
preface that the poet breathed his last on the 11th of
Sha'bAn, ‘4 which was a Sunday,” and it is only in 1150
that this day happened to be the first of the week.
SanA’f left, besides the Hadikah and the Tank i-tahkik,
several other Shfic mathnawfs of similar purport:—for
instance, the Sair uVibdd ilddmadd, or “ Man’s Journey
towards the Other-World” (also called Kunuz-urrumuz,
“ The Treasures of Mysteries ”); the 'Ishkndma, or “ Book
of Love; ” the 'Aklndma, or “ Book of Intellect; ” the
Kdrndma, or “Record of Stirring Deeds,” &c.; and an
extensive dlwAn or collection of lyrical poetry. His tomb,
called the “ Mecca ” of Ghazna, is still visited by numerous
pilgrims.
Sanai’s Hadikah still lacks a critical edition, for which ’Abd-
ullatif al-'Abbasi’s commentax-y (completed 1632 and preserved in a
somewhat abridged form in several copies of the India Office
Library) would form an excellent basis. See, on the poet’s life and
works, Ouseley, Biogr. Notices, pp. 184-187 ; Rieu’s and Fliigel’s
Catalogues, &c.
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and 20,550 (3036) in 1880. Newspapers are published
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