Chapter PEEÁDA. to PEER of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

265.

1854.—“Je ne puis passer sous silence deux beaux arbres…ce sont le peuplier d’Inde à larges feuilles, arbre reputé sacré. …”—Pallegoix, Siam, i. 140.

1861.—

“…Yonder crown of umbrage hoar
Shall shield her well; the Peepul whisper a dirge
And Caryota drop her tearlike store
Of beads; whilst over all slim Casuarine
Points upwards, with her branchlets ever green,
To that remaining Rest where Night and Tears are o'er.”

Barrackpore Park, 18th Nov. 1861.

PEER, s. Pers. pir, a Mahommedan Saint or Beatus. But the word is used elliptically for the tombs of such personages, the circumstance pertaining to them which chiefly creates notoriety or fame of sanctity; and it may be remarked that wali (or Wely as it is often written), Imamzada, Shaikh, and Marabout (see ADJUTANT), are often used in the same elliptical way in Syria, Persia, Egypt, and Barbary respectively. We may add that Nabi (Prophet) is used in the same fashion.

[1609.—See under NUGGURCOTE.

[1623.—“Within the Mesquita (see MOSQUE)…is a kind of little Pyramid of Marble, and this they call Pir, that is Old, which they say is equivalent to Holy; I imagine it the Sepulchre of some one of their Sect accounted such.”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 69.]

1665.—“On the other side was the Garden and the chambers of the Mullahs, who with great conveniency and delight spend their lives there under the shadow of the miraculous Sanctity of this Pire, which they are not wanting to celebrate: But as I am always very unhappy on such occasions, he did no Miracle that day upon any of the sick.”—Bernier, 133; [ed. Constable, 415].

1673.—“Hard by this is a Peor, or Burying place of one of the Prophets, being a goodly monument.”—Fryer, 240.

1869.—“Certains pirs sont tellement renommés, qu’ainsi qu’on le verra plus loin, le peuple a donné leurs noms aux mois lunaires où se trouvent placées les fêtes qu’on celèbre en leur honneur.”—Garcin de Tassy, Rel. Musulm. p. 18.

The following are examples of the parallel use of the words named:

Wali:

1841.—“The highest part (of Hermon) crowned by the Wely, is towards the western end.”—Robinson, Biblical Researches, iii. 173.

„ “In many of the villages of Syria the Traveller will observe small dome- covered buildings, with grated windows and surmounted by the crescent. These are the so-called Welis, mausolea of saints, or tombs of sheikhs.”—Baedeker’s Egypt, Eng. ed. Pt. i. 150.

Imamzada:

1864.—“We rode on for three farsakhs, or fourteen miles, more to another Imámzádah, called Kafsh- gírí.…”—Eastwick, Three Years’ Residence in Persia, ii. 46.

1883.—“The few villages…have numerous walled gardens, with rows of poplar and willow-trees and stunted mulberries, and the inevitable Imamzadehs.”—Col. Beresford Lovett’s Itinerary Notes of Route Surveys in N. Persia in 1881 and 1882, Proc. R.G.S. (N.S.) v. 73.

Shaikh:

1817.—“Near the ford (on Jordan), half a mile to the south, is a tomb called ‘Sheikh Daoud,’ standing on an apparent round hill like a barrow.”—Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt, &c., 304.


Nabi: 1856.—“Of all the points of interest about Jerusalem, none perhaps gains so much from an actual visit to Palestine as the lofty-peaked eminence which fills up the north-west corner of the table-land.…At present it bears the name of Nebi-Samuel, which is derived from the Mussulman tradition—now perpetuated by a mosque and tomb—that here lies buried the prophet Samuel.”—Stanley’s Palestine, 165.

So also Nabi-Yunus at Nineveh; and see Nebi-Mousa in De Saulcy, ii. 73.