Sublime

Charles Eliot Norton,

incommodious

Dīn al-Ayyubī had been rising in Egypt

this book is so crucial because it opens the door or the mouths of the dead.

Meanwhile, inside the sanctuary, an old man in a spotless white tunic shuffles between the wood and stone idols, lighting candles and rearranging the altars. This man is no priest; he is not even a Kahin. He is someone far more important. He is a Quraysh: a member of the powerful, fabulously wealthy tribe that had settled in Mecca centuries earlier

The Kahins were poets who functioned primarily as soothsayers and who, for a fee, would fall into a trance in which they would reveal divine messages through rhyming couplets.