The case of the misplaced dot
Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2019 1:02 pm
There is a well-known anecdote that is often repeated in the chronicles, about Caliph Sulayman, who ordered his governor in Medina to ahsi or calculate the number of transsexuals in the city, after he had been informed that the best singers were the transsexuals of Medina. For some reason, in the message to the governor a dot had been added to the letter ha, to become kha, readable as akhsi, meaning to castrate; as a result of this unfortunate error, nine transsexuals were castrated.
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El-Azhari, Taef. (2019). Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 6611257. Edinburgh: University Press, p. 71.
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El-Azhari, Taef. (2019). Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 6611257. Edinburgh: University Press, p. 71.