this paltry, insignificant (1)(2) khamīs: they parade with clouds of incense (3) and strike tiny hand-bells for it. Some kings even have trumpets and kettledrums (4) sounded at the very times of the five prescribed prayers—exactly (5) what the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, disapproved of. Others beat them at the two ends of the day, claiming—so they say (6)—to be imitating Dhū al-Qarnayn, while consigning anything less than that to the frontier rulers.
When this imitation of the Jews and Christians, and of the foreign (7) Romans and Persians, became dominant among the kings of the East (8)—along with other such practices by which they abandoned the guidance of the Muslims and adopted what Allah and His Messenger detest—the promised (9) unbelieving Turks were loosed upon them.
(1) In MS (Aṭ) the word al-haqir ("the lowly") is absent.
(2) al-Khamis al-saghir (the Little Thursday) is a Christian feast that falls on the Thursday preceding the last Thursday of their fast. It is celebrated in anticipation of al-Khamis al-kabir (the Great Thursday), the final Thursday of the fast and the Feast of the Table. For further details see 1/531 ff. of this book.
(3) MS (A) reads yarquna al-bukhur, whereas the printed edition has yubakhkhiruna al-bukhur. The phrase yaziffuna al-bukhur means “they carry the incense and present it.”
(4) al-dabadib are drums and similar percussion instruments.
(5) MS (Ṭ) adds the phrase wa hiya (“and it is”).
(6) All the manuscripts read as above, while the printed edition has kama zaʿama (“as he claimed”), which gives a fuller meaning.
(7) The words wa li-l-ʿajam (“and for the non-Arabs”) are missing from MS (Ṭ).
(8) MSS (B, J, D) and the printed edition read muluk al-sharq (“the kings of the East”).
(9) The printed edition reads: Sallata Allahu ʿalayhim al-turk al-kafirin (“May Allah set upon them the infidel Turks”). The “infidel Turks” here are the Tatars who devastated Muslim territories in the seventh Islamic century. The author will later state that the Tatars are the nomadic branch of the Turks (1/418). Likewise, al-Qalqashandi notes in al-Qalaʾid fi al-Taʿrif bi-Qabaʾil ʿArab al-Zaman, p. 28 (ed. Ibrahim al-Anbari), that the Tatars are counted among the Turkic peoples.