Brewer's: Alasnam

Alas′nam

Alasnam's lady.

In the Arabian Nights' Tales Alasnam has eight diamond statues, but had to go in quest of a ninth more precious still, to fill the vacant pedestal. The prize was found in the lady who became his wife, at once the most beautiful and the most perfect of her race.

“There is wanting one pure and perfect model, and that one, wherever it is to be found, is like Alasnam's lady, worth them all.”

—Sir Walter Scott.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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