* * * * *
Replies to Minor Queries.
_Tobacco in the East_ (vol. ii., pp. 155. 231.).--M. D. asks for "chapter
and verse" of A. C. M.'s reference to Sale's _Koran_ respecting tobacco.
Had A. C. M. recollected that tobacco (_Nicotiana_) is an American plant,
he would hardly have asked whether "_tobacco_ is the word in the original"
of the tradition mentioned by Sale in his _Preliminary Discourse_, § 5. p.
123. (4to. ed. 1734.) Happily Reland, whom Sale quotes (_Dissert.
Miscell._, vol. ii. p. 280.), gives his authority, the learned orientalist,
Dr. Sike, who received the Hadéth at Leghorn from Ibn Sáleh, a young
Muselman. It says, in good Arabic, that in the latter days Moslims,
undeserving of the name, shall drink hashish (hemp), and call it tabák; the
last words, "_yukál lehn tabáku_," are no doubt a modern addition by those
who had heard of _tambákó_ (the Romaic [Greek: tanpakon]). As the use of
hashish or _hashishah_ (the herb), more completely _hashishata fukara_,
i.e. Monk's Wort, a technical term for _hemp_, chewed as a narcotic by
fakirs (monks), was not known till A.H. 608 (A.D. 1211), it could not be
mentioned in the Koran unless Mohammed were, as Sale observes, "a prophet
indeed." _Tabakak_, a plate, dish, or shelf, is now sometimes used by
ignorant persons in the East for _tambákó_, of which a complete account is
given in the _Karábádén_, or great treatise of Materia Medica in Persian.
Of that work, there is a beautifully written copy, made, probably, for the
late Mr. Colebrooke, by whom it was presented to the library of the Royal
Asiatic Society. I shall conclude by another Query: What is the Greek word
transformed by Asiatic scribes into _Karábádén_?