Page:EB1911 - Volume 24.djvu/140

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126
SANÄ’I—SAN ANTONIO

Authorities.—Niebuhr, Travels in Arabia (Amsterdam, 1774); R. Manzoni, Il Yemen (Rome, 1884); D. Charnay and A. Deilers, Excursions au Yēmen. Tour du monde (Paris, No. 24, 1898).  (R. A. W.) 


SANĀ’Ī, the common name of Abulmajd Majdūd b. Ādam, the earliest among the great Ṣūfic poets of Persia, was a native of Ghazni (in Afghanistan). He flourished in the reigns of the Ghaznevid sultāns Ibrāhīm (1059-1099, 451–492 A.H.), his son Mas‛ūd (1099–1114), and his grandson Bahrām (1118–1152). Persian authorities are greatly at variance as to the dates of the poet's birth and death. At any rate, he must have been born in the beginning of the second half of the 11th century and have died between 1131 and 1150 (525 and 545 A.H.). He composed chiefly qaṣīdas in honour of his sovereign Ibrāhīm and the great men of the realm, but the ridicule of a half-mad jester is said to have caused him to abandon the career of a court panegyrist and to devote his poetical abilities to higher subjects. For forty years he led a life of retirement and poverty, and, although Bahrām offered him a high position at court and his own sister in marriage, he remained faithful to his austere and solitary life. But, partly to show his gratitude to the king, partly to leave a lasting monument of his genius behind him, he began to write his great double-rhymed poem on ethics and religious life, which served as model to the masterpieces of Farīd-uddīn ‛Attār and Jelāl ud-dīn Rūmī, the Ḥadīqat ul-ḥaqīqat, or “Garden of Truth” (also called Alkitāb alfakhrī), in ten cantos. This poem deals with such topics as: the unity of the Godhead, the divine word, the excellence of the prophet, reason, knowledge and faith, love, the soul, worldly occupation and inattention to higher duties, stars and spheres and their symbolic lore, friends and foes, separation from the world. One of Sanā’ī’s earliest disciples, Mahommed b. ‘Ali Raqqām, generally known as Alī al-Raffā, who wrote a preface to this work, assigns to its composition the date 1131 (525 A.H.), and states besides that the poet died immediately after the completion of his task. Now, Sanā’ī cannot possibly have died in 1131, as another of his mathnawīs, the Ṭarīq-i-taḥqīq, or “Path to the Verification of Truth,” was composed, according to a chronogram in its last verses, in 1134 (528 A.H.), nor even in 1140, if he really wrote, as the Ātashkada says, an elegy on the death of Amīr Mu‛izzī; for this court-poet of Sultan Sinjar lived till 1147 or 1148 (542 A.H.). It seems, therefore, that Taqī Kāshī is right in fixing Sanā’ī's death in 1150 (545A.H.), the more so as ‛Alī al-Raffā himself distinctly says in his preface that the poet breathed his last on the 11th of Sha‛bān, “which was a Sunday,” and it is only in 1150 that this day happened to be the first of the week. Sanā’ī left, besides the Ḥadīqah and the Ṭarīq-i-taḥqīq, several other Ṣūfic mathnawīs of similar purport: for instance, the Sair ul‛ibād ilā’lma‛ād, or “Man's Journey towards the Other World” (also called Kunūz-urrumūz, “The Treasures of Mysteries”); the ‛Ishqnāma, or “Book of Love”; the ‛Aqlnāma or “Book of Intellect”; the Kārnāma, or “Record of Stirring Deeds,” &c.; and an extensive dīwān or collection of lyrical poetry. His tomb, called the “Mecca” of Ghazni, is still visited by numerous pilgrims.

See Abdullatif al-‛Abbāsi's commentary (completed 1632 and preserved in a somewhat abridged form in several copies of the India Office Library); on the poet's life and works, Ouseley, Biogr. Notices, 184-187; Rieu's and Flügel's Catalogues, &c.; E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia (1906), ii. 317-322; H. Ethé in W. Geiger's Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii. 282-284.


SAN ANTONIO, a city and the county-seat of Bexar county, Texas, U.S.A., about 80 m. S.S.W. of Austin, on the San Antonio river, at the mouth of the San Pedro. Pop. (1900) 53,321, of whom 18,880 were of foreign parentage, 9348 were foreign-born (including 3288 Mexicans and 3031 Germans) and 7538 were negroes; (1910 census), 96,614. San Antonio is the largest city of Texas. It is served by the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio, the International & Great Northern, the San Antonio & Aransas Pass, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. The city lies at an elevation of 610-750 ft. above the sea. The San Antonio river (which has a winding course of 13 m. within the city limits) and its affluent, the San Pedro (which is 10 m. long in its course through San Antonio), divide the city into three main portions, and these water-courses and the Acequia (7 m. long) are spanned by 17 large iron bridges and about 2500 smaller bridges and culverts. Among the public buildings are the city hall in Military Plaza, the court-house on Main Plaza, the Federal building on the N. side of Alamo Plaza, the Carnegie library and the convention hall and market house on Milam Square. The most interesting building is the historic Alamo (named from the grove of cottonwood—alamo, the Populus monilifera—in which it stands) on the E. side of the Alamo Plaza, E. of the San Antonio river; it was begun probably in 1744 and was the chapel of the Mission San Antonio de Valero (often called “the Alamo mission”); in 1883 it was bought by the state and has since been maintained as a public monument. The San Fernando Cathedral[1] on Main Plaza was built in 1734, but there is very little of the original structure in the present building, which really dates from 1868-1873; the former governor's palace, built in 1749, is at No. 105 Military Plaza; at 128 Soledad is the Veramendi Palace, the residence of Governor Veramendi, father-in-law of Colonel James Bowie, and in this palace Colonel B. R. Milam was killed on the 5th of December 1835 by a sharpshooter hidden in a cypress tree; there is a monument to Colonel Milam in Milam Square. One mile N. of the city on Government Hill is Fort Sam Houston (established in 1865), headquarters of the Department of Texas, with an army hospital (1885) and a tower 88 ft. high. There are several old missions near the city, notably the Mission La Purisima Concepción de Acuna (the “First Mission”), 2 m. S. of the city, built here in 1731-1752, having formerly been in E. Texas; the Mission San José de Aguayo (the “Second Mission”), 4 m. S. of San Antonio, built in 1720-1731; the Mission San Juan de Capistrano (the “Third Mission”), 6 m. S. of the Main Plaza built in 1731; and San Francisco de la Espada (the “Fourth Mission,” also built in 1731 and also removed here from E. Texas), which is 8 m. S. of the Main Plaza and is now used for service by the local Mexicans. The city has 21 parks and plazas. Within the city limits in its N. central part is Brackenridge Park (200 acres) along the San Antonio; 1 m. N.E. of the city is San Pedro Park (40 acres), the source of the San Pedro river; in Travis Park is a Confederate monument; and 3 m. S. of the city are the International Fair Grounds, where in 1898 Colonel Theodore Roosevelt organized his “Rough Riders,” and Riverside Park. The most notable of the plazas are Military, Main and Alamo. The anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, the 21st of April, is annually celebrated by a “Battle of Flowers.” Annually in October an International Fair is held, to which Mexico sends an exhibit of Mexican products and manufactures. The climate is mild with a mean summer temperature of 82° F. and a winter average of 54°, and this and the dry purity of the air make it a health resort; it is also the winter home of many Northerners. There is good shooting (doves, quail, wild turkey and deer) in the vicinity; there are fine golf links and there is a large ranch for breeding and training polo ponies. In the southern suburbs two artesian wells, 1800-2000 ft. deep, discharge 800,000 gallons a day of strong sulphur water (temperature 103°-106° F.), which is used for treating rheumatism and skin diseases. Near one of these wells is the South-western (State) Hospital for the Insane (1892). The city has a good public school system, including, besides the usual departments, departments of manual training and domestic science. In 1910 there were 30 schools—26 for whites and 4 for negroes. Among the educational institutions in San Antonio are the San Antonio Female College (Methodist Episcopal, South; 1894), the West Texas Military Academy; Peacock Military School; St Mary's Hall (Roman Catholic); St Louis College; and the Academy of Our Lady of the Lake (under the Sisters of Divine Providence, who have a convent here). The city is the see of Protestant Episcopal and

  1. The cathedral is the centre of the city according to the charter, which describes the city as including “six miles square, of which the sides shall be equi-distant from what is known as the cupola of the cathedral of San Fernando and three miles therefrom.”