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Bedreddin Hassan the mention of a cannon[1] (midfaa), by way of metaphor, warrants us in drawing a like conclusion as to the age of this latter story. On the other hand, the absence from the stories of the original work of all mention of coffee (which, according to Abdulcadir el Ansari, was first drunk in Arabia early in the fifteenth century and the use of which spread all over the East within the next hundred years[2]) would prove that it must have been composed before A.D. 1500, at latest. Again (except in the story of Bedreddin Hassan, where, as before mentioned, the passage in question is not improbably apocryphal), firearms are nowhere named or alluded to in the original work, although cannon are several times referred to in the later stories of the collection. Cannon were first used in Europe at the battle of Crecy in 1346, but the researches of modern scholars have proved that their use was known to the Arabs nearly a century and a half earlier and was perhaps learnt from them by the Crusaders.[3] Gunpowder is believed to have
- ↑ This mention of cannon does not, however, occur in three out of the five texts upon which my remarks are founded, and may, therefore, very possibly be the interpolation of a later copyist, but the general style of the story of Bedreddin prohibits us from ascribing to it an earlier origin than that of the rest of the original work. See post as to the date of introduction of firearms into the East.
- ↑ According to a Turkish writer (the author of the Jihan Numa or World-demonstrator) coffee was discovered in A.H. 656 (A.D. 1258) by a holy man of Mocha and used as a remedy for the itch.
- ↑ Edward III. is said to have adopted the use of cannon on the report of the Earls of Derby and Salisbury, who were present at the siege of Algesiras in 1342, when the Arabs repelled the beleaguering army of Alfonso XI. by means of cannon, which wrought immense havoc among the besiegers.
