Chapter MUDDÁR to MUGG of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MUDDÁR to MUGG

MUDDÁR, s. Hind. madar, Skt. mandara ; Calotropis procera, R. Brown, N.O. Asclepiadaceae. One of the most common and widely diffused plants in uncultivated plains throughout India. In Sind the bark fibre is used for halters, &c., and experiment has shown it to be an excellent material worth £40 a ton in England, if it could be supplied at that rate ; but the cost of collection has stood in the way of its utilisation. The seeds are imbedded in a silky floss, used to stuff pillows. This also has been the subject of experiment for textile use, but as yet without practical success. The plant abounds with an acrid milky juice which the Rajputs are said to employ for infanticide. (Punjab Plants.) The plant is called AK in Sind and throughout N. India.

MUDDLE, s. (?) This word is only known to us from the clever—perhaps too clever—little book quoted below. The word does not seem to be known, and was probably a misapprehension of budlee. [Even Mr. Brandt and Mrs. Wyatt are unable to explain this word. The former does not remember hearing it. Both doubt its connection with budlee. Mrs. Wyatt suggests with hesitation Tamil muder, “boiled rice,” mudei-palli, “the cook-house.”]

1836–7.—“Besides all these acknowledged and ostensible attendants, each servant has a kind of muddle or double of his own, who does all the work that can be put off upon him without being found out by his master or mistress.”—Letters from Madras, 38.

„ “They always come accompanied by their Vakeels, a kind of Secretaries, or interpreters, or flappers,—their muddles in short ; everybody here has a muddle, high or low.”—Letters from Madras, 86.

MUFTY, s.

a. Ar. Mufti, an expounder of the Mahommedan Law, the utterer of the fatwa (see FUTWAH). Properly the Muftai is above the Kazai who carries out the judgment. In the 18th century, and including Regulation IX. of 1793, which gave the Company’s Courts in Bengal the reorganization which substantially endured till 1862, we have frequent mention of both Cauzies and Mufties as authorized expounders of the Maho mmedan Law ; but, though Kazis were nominally maintained in the Provincial Courts down to their abolition (1829–31), practically the duty of those known as Kazis became limited to quite different objects and the designation of the Law-officer who gave the futwa in our District Courts was Maulavi. The title Mufti has been long obsolete within the limits of British administration, and one might safely say that it is practically unknown to any surviving member of the Indian Civil Service, and never was heard in India as a living title by any Englishman now surviving. (See &Cc edil;AZEE, LAW-OFFICER, MOOLVEE).

b. A slang phrase in the army, for ‘plain clothes.’ No doubt it is taken in some way from a, but the transition is a little obscure. [It was perhaps originally applied to the attire of dressing - gown, smoking - cap, and slippers, which was like the Oriental dress of the Mufti who was familiar in Europe from his appearance in Moliere’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Compare the French en Pekin.]

a.—

1653.—“Pendant la tempeste vne femme Industani mourut sur notre bord ; vn Moufti Persan de la Secte des Schaï (see SHEEAH) assista à cette derniere extrémité, luy donnant esperance d’vne meilleure vie que celle-cy, et d’vn Paradis, où l’on auroit tout ce que l’on peut desirer…et la fit changer de Secte.…”—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 281.

1674.—“Resolve to make a present to the Governors of Changulaput and Pallaveram, old friends of the Company, and now about to go to Golcondah, for the marriage of the former with the daughter of the King’s Mufti or Churchman.”—Fort St. Geo. Consn., March 26. In Notes and Exts., No. i. 30.

1767.—“3d. You will not let the Cauzy or Mufty receive anything from the tenants unlawfully.”—Collectors’ Instructions, in Long, 511.

1777.—“The Cazi and Muftis now deliver in the following report, on the right of inheritance claimed by the widow and nephew of Shabaz Beg Khan.…”—Report on the Patna Cause, quoted in Stephen’s Nuncomar and Impey, ii. 167.

1793.—“§ XXXVI. The Cauzies and Muftis of the provincial Courts of Appeal, shall also be cauzies and mufties of the courts of circuit in the several divisions, and shall not be removable, except on proof to the satisfaction of the Governor-General in Council that they are incapable, or have been guilty of misconduct.…”—Reg. IX. of 1793.

[c. 1855.—

“Think’st thou I fear the dark vizier,
Or the mufti’s vengeful arm ?”

Bon Gaultier, The Cadi’s Daughter.]