Note 123 — Chapter X · CAMPAIGN OF KHALID IN IRAC. A.H. XII. A.D. 633.

Showeil was an old dotard. When Kerâmat said to him, ‘What carest thou for an old creature like me?’ he replied, ‘I am not my mother’s son if I take less for thee than a thousand dirhems.’ She feigned to think it much, but paid it down. When she had gone, his companions laughed at him for asking such a trifling sum for so distinguished a captive. He went to Khâlid: ‘I meant,’ he said, ‘to ask the highest figure that there was; but now they tell me that numbers go beyond a thousand, and that I did not ask enough. Give me, therefore, a fitting ransom.’ Khâlid said: ‘Thou purposedst one thing, my friend, and the Lord purposed another. I judge by what appeareth, and leave thy purposes alone.’ I give the story as I find it, absurd as it appears, for the lady is said to have been fourscore years of age. The romance of early love, at any rate, was soon changed into a more sordid passion. The tale, though surrounded by marvels (e.g. Mahomet’s foretelling the conquest of Hîra), is, no doubt, founded on some slight substratum of fact. The lady’s age must be exaggerated as well as the simplicity of Showeil, since she was the daughter of Abd al Masîh who headed the deputation from the city.