Note 216 — TALE OF HARUN AL-RASHID AND THE SLAVE-GIRL AND THE IMAM ABU YUSUF.

A lawyer of the eighth century, one of the chief pupils of the Imam Abu Hanifah, and Kazi of Baghdad under the third, fourth and fifth Abbasides. The tale is told in the quasi-historical Persian work “Nigáristán” (The Picture-gallery), and is repeated by Richardson, Diss. 7, xiii. None seem to have remarked that the distinguished legist, Abu Yusuf, was on this occasion a law-breaker; the Kazi’s duty being to carry out the code, not to break it by the tricks of a cunning attorney. In Harun’s day, however, some regard was paid to justice; not under his successors, one of whom, Al-Muktadir bi’lláh (A.H. 295 = 907), made the damsel Yamika President of the Diwán al-Mazálim (Court of the Wronged), a tribunal which took cognizance of tyranny and oppression in high places.