Crossword-Solution: SARH 4 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 7

The strong-smelling Ferula looked like a bush, and the Sarh grew into a tree: the Ar'ar,[EN#23] a homely hawthorn (hawthorn-leaved Rhus), whose appearance was a surprise, equalled the Crat£gus of Syria; and the upper heights must have been a forest of fine junipers (HabĒbah = Juniperus Ph£nicea), with trunks thick as a man's body.

Before his birth, his father, the Emeer Rizk (who was the son of Náïl, a paternal uncle of Sarhán, the king of the Benee-Hilál), had married ten wives, from whom, to his great grief, he had obtained but two children, both of them daughters, named Sheehah and ’Ateemeh, until one of his wives, the Emeereh Gellás, increased his distress by bearing him a son without arms or legs.

Meanwhile, it happened that the Emeereh Khadra, walking with the Emeereh Shemmeh, a wife of King Sarhán, and a number of other females, saw a black bird attack and kill a numerous flock of birds of various kinds and hues, and, astonished at the sight, earnestly prayed God to give her a son like this bird, even though he should be black.

Under these circumstances, the greater number of them were induced, with their king Sarhán, to go to the country of the tribe of Ez-Zahlán, for sustenance; but the Ga’áfireh, and some minor tribes of the Benee-Hilál, joined, and remained with, the Emeer Rizk, who had formerly been their commander.

They however cherished an inveterate hatred to the tribe of Ez-Zahlán, who had before paid them tribute; and Sarhán was persuaded to send a messenger to the Emeer Rizk, begging him to come and endeavour to deliver them from their humiliating state.