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Luqman

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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or Lokman, the name of two, if not of three (cf. note to Terminal Essay in Sir Rd. Burton's translation of the Arabian Nights), persons famous in Arabian tradition. The one was of the family of 'Ad, and is said to have built the great dike of Marib and to have received the gift of life as long as that of seven vultures, each of which lived eighty years. The name of the seventh vulture - Lubad - occurs in proverbial literature. The name of the second Luqman, called "Luqman the Sage," occurs in the Koran (31, s s). Two accounts of him are current in Arabian literature. According to Mas`udi (i. s so) he was a Nubian freedman who lived in the time of David in the district of Elah and Midian. According to some commentators on the Koran (e.g., Baidawi) he was the son of Ba ` ura, one of the sons of Job's sister or maternal aunt. Derenbourg in his Fables de Loqmdn le sage (1850) identifies Ba`ura with Beoi, and believes the name Luqman to be a translation of Balaam. The grave of Luqman was shown on the east coast of the lake of Tiberias, also in Yemen (cf. Yaqut, vol. iii. p. 512).

The so-called Fables of Luqman are known to have existed in the 13th century, but are not mentioned by any Arabian writer. They were edited by Erpenius (Leiden, 1615) and have been reprinted many times. For the relation of these to similar literature in other lands, see J. Jacobs's edition of Caxton's Fables of Aesop, vol. i. (London, 1889). The name of Luqman also occurs in many old verses, anecdotes and proverbs; cf. G. Freytag's Arabum Proverbia (Bonn, 1838-1843) and such Arabian writers as Tabari, Mas`udi, Damiri and the Kitab al-Mu`ammarin (ed. by I. Goldziher, Leiden, 1899). (G. W. T.)