Note 624 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

The character and life of the khalif, mentioned above and in the preceding note, exhibit a strange mixture of intelligence and folly, superstition and incredulity, simplicity and ostentation, abstemiousness and liberality, intolerance and forbearance, cruelty and mildness; all his good and bad actions were marked with something whimsical and fantastical: still more—he wanted to be God: thus he realized in himself the idea of a monstrous tyrant. To his honor be it said that he founded in Cairo the first university of the middle ages.—(See his Life, by Macrisi, in the Chrest. ar., tom, I. p. 93 et seq., and Gemäldesaal mosl., Herrsher, Band III. Seite 226, etc.)