51

no answer to give, and the author of this book saw
in the treatises of several of the modern learned, that
they have appropriated this answer to themselves.
The Shiah again said : " The godly AH was a very
" learned and most excellent man, and never pol-
" luted his lips with wine, nor pork, nor any thing
44 dressed by the infidels." To which the Sonnite
replied: " As with you the hand of an infidel is im-
'' pure, and the Koresh all drank wine and eat pork,
" the prophet, who associated with them, eat the
" same food in the house of his paternal uncles, and
" so did the lord, the godly Ali." The Shiah had
no suitable reply to make to this observation; he
continued however: 'c In the Malul and Nahel, it is
" stated that the pure Fatima1 declared, The palm-
" grove of Fedak* is my inheritance, as the lord of

1 According to Muhammed's sayings, no more than four women obtained
perfection, to wit: Asia, the wife of Pharaoh; Mary, the daughter of
Imran (the blessed Virgin); Khadija', the prophet's wife, and Fatima,
his daughter.

2 Fedah, according to Abulfeda (1.133. 273), is a castle near the town
ofKhaibar; this is a place fertile in palm-trees in the Arabian province
of Hejaz, four days' journey distant from Mecca. It was given to Mu-
hammed by the faithful, under the name of alms. After the prophet's
death, Fatima claimed it as a patrimony ; but Abubekr refused it to
her, setting forth the above mentioned saying of the prophet. Abulfeda,
whom I follow, gives it as follows:

L£*Xo aUS'yA* «^»j_y^ *U^^T J^lsw ^.csr3

The words vJL_>.J>^! are not in the quotation of the Dabistan, edit, of
Calcutta, nor in the manuscript of Oude. Thus was Fedak taken from