Volume 6 — ARABIC LITERATURE (continued 2)

"Sire," answered Abu'l Atahiyah, "I am not the author of that verse, but of these:

Al Mahdi sat silent for some time, looking at the ground, which he tapped with his staff; then he lifted his head and continued: "You have also said:

"How do you know what she conceals beneath her veil?" the Caliph asked. Abu'l Atahiyah replied in the same flattering style:

But as the Caliph continued to ply him with questions Abu'l Atahiyah became embarrassed in his answers, and was condemned to expiate his temerity by a flogging. He had just undergone his punishment when Otbah met him in this piteous plight. The poet reproached her thus: "Praise be to thee, Otbah! It is because of thee that the Caliph has shed the blood of a man already dying of love." Tears started to Otbah's eyes; she ran sobbing to her mistress, Khayzuran, and there met the Caliph. He asked why she wept, and hearing she had seen the poet after his flagellation, consoled her; then he caused a sum of fifty thousand dirhems to be given to the former.

Abu'l Atahiyah distributed them to all those whom he met in the palace. Al Mahdi, being informed of his generosity, asked him why he had thus disposed of the money he had just received from the Caliph. The poet answered: "I did not wish to profit by what my love had won." Al Mahdi sent him fifty thousand more dirhems, making him swear not to employ them in fresh benefactions.

Another historian relates that Abu'l Atahiyah, on a certain New Year's Day, presented Al Mahdi with a Chinese vase containing perfumes. On the vase were engraved these verses:

The Caliph thought of giving him Otbah, when she said to him. "Prince of the believers! would you, in spite of my privileges, my rights, and my services, bestow me upon a pottery merchant—a man who makes money out of his poetry?" Al Mahdi then sent a message to the poet: "As to Otbah, you will never obtain her, but I have ordered the vase you sent to be filled with money."

Soon afterward Otbah, passing by, found the poet disputing with the clerks of the treasury, and maintaining that by "money" the Caliph meant gold dinars, while they alleged that he only intended silver dirhems. "If you really loved Otbah," she said to him, "you would not think of the difference between gold and silver."

Death of Al Mahdi

Tabari, the historian, describes the death of Al Mahdi as taking place in the following tragic manner: Among his wives there were two for whom he seems to have entertained an equal degree of affection; but as one of them seemed to the other to have the preference in his heart, the latter, whose name was Hassanna, conceived a bitter jealousy against her rival, and determined to be avenged on her. In order to accomplish her purpose, she prepared a dish of confectionery, in which she mixed a malignant poison, and sent it as an offering to her rival.

As the damsel who was dispatched upon the errand happened to pass beneath one of the balconies of the palace, Al Mahdi, who was watching the sunset, saw her. The confectionery, which was uncovered, attracting his notice, he asked the messenger whither she was bound. She having informed him, he took and ate heartily of it, saying: "Hassanna will, I am sure, be better pleased that I should partake of her sweets than any one else." In a few hours he was a corpse.

THE CALIPH HAROUN AL RASHID

Haroun al Rashid became Caliph in the year A.D. 786, and he ranks among the Caliphs who have been most distinguished by eloquence, learning, and generosity. During the whole of his reign he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca or carried on war with the unbelievers nearly every year. His daily prayers exceeded the number fixed by the law,7 and he used to perform the pilgrimage on foot, an act which no previous Caliph had done. When he went on pilgrimage he took with him a hundred learned men and their sons, and when he did not perform it himself he sent three hundred substitutes, whom he appareled richly, and whose expenses he defrayed with generosity.

His conduct generally resembled that of the Caliph Mansur, but he did not imitate the parsimony of the latter. He always repaid services done to him, and that without much delay. He was fond of poetry and poets, and patronized literary and learned men. Religious controversies were hateful to him. Eulogy he relished highly, especially eulogy by gifted poets, whom he richly rewarded.

The historian Asmai relates the following anecdote: One day the Caliph gave a feast in a magnificently decorated hall. During the feast he sent for the poet Abu'l Atahiyah, and commanded him to depict in verse the gorgeous scene.

The poet began: "Live, O Caliph, in the fulfilment of all thy desire, in the shelter of thy lofty palace!"

"Very good!" exclaimed Rashid. "Let us hear the rest."

The poet continued: "Each morn and eve be all thy servitors swift to execute thy behests!"

"Excellent!" said the Caliph. "Go on!"

The poet replied: "But when the death-rattle chokes thy breath thou wilt learn, alas! that all thy delights were a shadow."

Rashid burst into tears. Fadhl, the son of Yahya (Haroun's Vizier), seeing this, said to the poet: "The Caliph sent for you to divert him, and you have plunged him into melancholy." "Let him be," said Rashid; "he saw us in a state of blindness, and tried to open our eyes."

This Prince treated learned men with great regard. Abou Moawia, one of the most learned men of his time, related that when he was sitting one day at food with the Caliph, the latter poured water on his hands after the meal, and said to him: "Abou Moawia, do you know who has just washed your hands?" He answered: "No." Rashid informed him that it was himself. Abou Moawia replied: "Prince, you doubtless act in this manner in order to do homage to learning." "You speak truth," answered Rashid.

Ibrahim Mouseli relates the following story: "Rashid one day summoned all his musicians. I and Meskin of Medina were among the performers. Rashid had partaken freely of wine, and wished to hear performed an air which had suddenly occurred to his mind. The officer stationed before the curtain which concealed the Caliph told Ibn Jami to sing this piece. The latter obeyed, but did not succeed in pleasing the Caliph. Each of the singers present attempted it, but were no more successful than Ibn Jami. Then the officer, addressing Meskin, said: 'The Commander of the Faithful orders you to sing this air if you can do it properly.'

"Meskin commenced at once to sing, to the great surprise of the audience, who could not understand how a musician like him had the courage to attempt, before us, an air which none of us had been able to render to the satisfaction of the Caliph. As soon as he had finished I heard Rashid raise his voice and ask to hear it a second time. Meskin recommenced with a skill and spirit which won him everybody's applause. The Caliph congratulated and praised him to the skies; then he had the curtain behind which he had been sitting drawn aside.

"'Prince of the believers,' then said Meskin to him, 'a strange story attaches to this piece'; and at the invitation of the Caliph he narrated it in these words: 'I was formerly a slave of a member of the family of Zobeir, and carried on the trade of a tailor. My master claimed from me a tax of two dirhems daily, after paying which I was free to do what I liked. I was passionately fond of singing. One day a descendant of Ali, for whom I had just completed a tunic, paid me two dirhems for it, kept me to eat with him, and made me drink generously. As I left him I met a negress carrying her pitcher on her shoulder, and singing the song you have just heard. I was so delighted at it that, forgetting everything else, I said to her: "By the Prophet, I adjure thee to teach me that air." "By the Prophet," she answered, "I will not teach it unless you pay me two dirhems."

"'Then, Prince of believers, I took out the two dirhems, with which I had intended to pay my daily tax, and gave them to the negress. She, setting her pitcher down, sat on the ground and, keeping time with her fingers on the pitcher, sang the piece, and repeated it till it was well impressed on my memory.

"'I then proceeded to my master. As soon as he saw me he demanded his two dirhems, and I related my adventure to him. "Scoundrel!" he said. "Have I not warned you that I will take no excuse, even if a farthing is missing?" Saying this, he laid me on the ground and, with the utmost vigor of his arm, gave me fifty strokes of a rod, and, as an additional disgrace, caused my head and chin to be shaved. Verily, O Prince, I passed a melancholy night. The severe punishment I had undergone made me forget the piece I had learned, and this was the saddest of all. In the morning, wrapping my head in a cloak, I hid my large tailor's scissors in my sleeve, and directed my steps to the spot where I had met the negress. I waited there in perplexity, not knowing her name nor her abode. All at once I saw her coming; the sight of her dispersed all my cares. I approached her, and she said to me: "By the Lord of the Kaaba, you have forgotten the song!" "Yes, I have," I answered. I told her how my head and chin had been shaved, and offered her a reward if she would sing her song again. "By the Prophet," she answered, "I will not for less than two dirhems."

"'I took out my scissors and ran and pawned them for two dirhems, which I gave her. She put down her pitcher, and began to sing as she had done the evening before; but as soon as she began, I said: "Give me back the two dirhems; I don't need your song." "By Allah," she said, "you shall not see them again; don't think it." Then she added: "I am certain that the four dirhems you have spent will be worth to you four thousand dinars from the hand of the Caliph." Then she resumed her song, accompanying herself, as before, on her pitcher, and did not cease repeating it till I had got it by heart.

"'We separated. I returned to my master, but in a state of great apprehension. When he saw me he demanded his daily due, while I stammered out excuses. "Beast!" he shouted, "was not yesterday's lesson enough for you?" "I wish to speak to you frankly and without falsehood," I answered. "Yesterday's and to-day's dirhems went in payment for a song"; and I began to sing it to him. "What!" he exclaimed, "you have known an air like that for two days and told me nothing of it? May my wife be divorced if it is not true that I would have let you go yesterday if you had sung it to me! Your head and chin have been shaved—I can not help that—but I let you off your tax till your hair grows again."'

"Hearing this recital, Rashid laughed heartily, and said to the musician: 'I don't know which is better, your song or your story; I will see in my turn that the forecast of the negress is verified.' So Meskin went out from the Caliph's presence richer by four thousand dinars."

The Barmecides, Viziers of Haroun al Rashid

On attaining the Caliphate, Rashid conferred the Viziership on Yahya, son of Khaled, son of Barmek. Yahya had served him as secretary before his accession to the throne, and this was the foundation of the magnificence of the family of the Barmecides, whose commencement and whose tragic fall we are about to narrate.

The family of the Barmecides had originally been Zoroastrians in religion, but from the time of their embracing Islam they continued to be good Mussulmen. They were the crown and ornament of their age. Their generosity passed into a proverb; adherents thronged to their court from every side, and multitudes centered their hopes on them. Fortune showered upon them a prodigality of favors. Yahya and his sons were like brilliant stars, vast oceans, impetuous torrents, beneficent showers. Every kind of talent and learning was represented in their court, and men of worth received a hearty welcome there. The world was revived under their administration, and the empire reached its culminating point of splendor. They were a refuge for the afflicted and a haven for the distressed. The poet Abou-Nowas said of them:

"Since the world has lost you, O sons of Barmek, we no longer see the ways crowded with travelers at sunrise and sunset."

We have an example of the generosity of the Barmecides in the following story, related by Salih bin Muhran, one of the intimate attendants of Haroun al Rashid:

"One day Haroun sent for me, and when I arrived in his presence I saw that he was vexed and perplexed, and full of thought, and very much enraged. When I stood still awhile he lifted up his head, and said: 'Go this moment to Mansur Bin Ziyad, and before night thou must have from him ten thousand thousand dirhems, and, if not, cut off his head and bring it to me; and if thou fail in this, I swear by the soul of Mahdi I will command thy head to be severed from thy body.' I said: 'May the life of the Commander of the Faithful be prolonged! If he gives a part to-day, and sends somewhat more to-morrow on the condition that he gives me a pledge for the payment of the whole-—-' He replied: 'No! If he does not give thee to-day ten thousand thousand dirhems in coined money, bring me his head. What concern hast thou in this matter?' When he said this I knew he was aiming at the life of Mansur, and I went out from him in great perplexity and distress, saying, 'O Lord, what has come to me? It will be needful to slay Mansur, and he is one of the most worthy and best-known men of Bagdad, and has a numerous following.'

"At length I went to the house of Mansur, and, taking him on one side, told him the whole story as it had happened, and what my commands were. When he heard he wept aloud, and fell at my feet, saying: 'In truth the Commander of the Faithful seeks my life; for his courtiers and many others know there is no such sum in my house. Nor could I in my whole life bring together so much; how, then, can I do it in one day? But do thou show me one favor, for God's sake-. take me to my house, that I may bid farewell to my children and followers and clansmen, and ask forgiveness of my offenses from my companions and acquaintances.'

"I took him to his house, as he desired, and when his family and chief friends heard what had happened there was an outcry among them. They wept and bewailed so that jinns and men, and wild beasts and birds, were sorrowful for them, and my heart burned to see them. At last he brought out what money and valuables he had, amounting to two million dirhems, and gave it to me, saying: 'In days past, before Haroun al Rashid was Caliph, I often vexed Yahya the Barmecide, and during this present reign also he suffered much annoyance and persecution from me. But on a certain occasion he treated me with kindness, and put my hand in his, and I knew that he had forgiven my fault, and that there was no feeling of revenge remaining in his heart; and afterward he did me many kindnesses with the Caliph. If thou wilt deal kindly with me—his house is at the head of the way—take me there. It may be his heart will be touched for me; for all the members of his house are men of liberality, and they desire that even their enemy and ill-wisher may take refuge with them, that they may help him in his distress and misery.'

"I said: 'Thou speakest truly, and it will be a delight to myself to take thee there. Come, let us go. By Allah the Most High, it must needs be they will cause thee to rejoice.' When we arrived at the house of Yahya, he had just finished the afternoon prayer, and was repeating the Tesbih.8 When he saw Mansur, and he had explained to him his distress and misery, Yahya came up to me and inquired of me the state of the case, which I revealed to him. He comforted Mansur, and bade him keep up his heart; 'For,' said he, 'I will not be wanting in doing all that is in my power to help thee.' At the same time he called his treasurer, and said to him: 'Bring me all that is in the treasury.' The treasurer brought all that he had of coined money and jewels, and the amount was two hundred thousand dirhems.

"Then he wrote a letter to his eldest son, Fadhl, bidding him send what money he had, for that an unfortunate man was waiting for it. When Fadhl had read the note, he immediately sent two hundred thousand dirhems. Then he wrote a note to Jafar, his younger son, bidding him send immediately all the money he had. He also sent three hundred thousand dirhems. Then he said to me: 'Take this money to the Commander of the Faithful, and represent to him that I will send to-morrow three million dirhems more into his treasury.' I replied: 'This is not in my orders. To-day, by the hour of evening prayer, I must be in the presence of the Caliph with the gold or the head.'

"When Yahya heard this he sent for his slave Otbah, and bade her go to Fatima, the sister of the Commander of the Faithful, and to explain the case to her. When Otbah had told Fatima how the matter stood, that lady, who was a woman of much generosity, took off a collar set with jewels which she had received from the Caliph, of which the value was estimated at two hundred thousand dinars of gold, and sent it to Yahya, asking besides a thousand pardons that she could do no more.

"When at last the ten million of dirhems was raised, Yahya delivered it all to porters, and sent it by me to the Caliph. It was near the setting of the sun when I brought the money to Haroun al Rashid. When he saw me, he cried: 'Hast thou brought Mansur?' I told him all that had passed, whereupon he bade me send the money to the treasury and go for Yahya. When I had placed the money in the treasury, I went to Yahya and told him that the Caliph had accepted the money, and wished to see him. He broke out into exclamations of gladness when he heard this, and, calling for Mansur, he said: 'Take courage, for thou art saved from destruction. The Commander of the Faithful has just asked for me, and I will so contrive as to render him again favorably disposed toward thee.'

"Then Mansur's soul again returned to his body, and he thanked Yahya fervently. When Yahya arrived in the presence of the Caliph and saw his face averted, he was afraid; for he thought: 'Perchance he will reprove me for my want of respect in releasing Mansur.' So, after some time, he prayed for pardon of his offense, and conciliated the Caliph. Afterward he said: 'Wilt thou tell me what was the crime of which Mansur was guilty?' The Caliph replied: 'His crime was his enmity against you and his evil-speaking concerning you. For this reason I have long wished to strike off his head. To-day I was so incensed that I commanded either that he should pay this money or that his head should be cut off. But thou hast done as the generous always do.' Yahya said: 'May the life of the Commander of the Faithful be long! For if the Commander of the Faithful had said, "The wealth of Yahya and his sons is of my gift, and this necklace, too, of my sister's is a gift of mine. What has any one to do in this matter? Go and cut off Mansur's head," what could he have done and what could I have done?'

"This speech pleased Haroun al Rashid, but he blamed Yahya because he had asked for his sister's necklace, and sent it to the treasury to meet the demand on Mansur. He also blamed his sister for giving away the necklace. She replied: 'It would have been shame if I had not answered the request of one who was in the place of a father to me.' This reply pleased the Caliph, and he restored to Fatima the jeweled collar, and Yahya and Mansur were again glad at heart."

The Fall of the Barmecides

Haroun al Rashid had such an extraordinary affection to Jafar the Barmecide that he could not bear to be one hour apart from him. Rashid loved his own sister Abbasah also with an extreme affection, and could not bear to be long absent from her. She was a woman of extraordinary beauty, and exceeded all in science and knowledge. Zobeidah, who was the chief favorite of the Caliph, and all her dependents were opposed to Abbasah.

One day Rashid said to Jafar: "Thou knowest how great is my affection to thee, and also how greatly I love my sister Abbasah, and that I can not live without the company of either of you. I have thought of an expedient whereby you may both accompany me in the same assembly—that a marriage take place between you. That will legalize your meeting and authorize your beholding one another. But all this is on condition that you never meet except I am a third in the party."

When Jafar heard this, the world on all sides grew black with darkness to his eyes. Distressed and confounded, he fell at the feet of Rashid, and said: "Commander of the Faithful, wilt thou slay me? From the time of Adam to our day no servant has been admitted to such confidence as that he should marry with the family of his lords and benefactors; or if any one hath treacherously imagined such a thing, very shortly he hath been reduced to nothingness, and all men have counted him a bread-and-salt traitor. And what sin hath thy slave committed, O Commander of the Faithful, that thou shouldest seek after his blood? Is this the reward of all my services and devotion? And, besides, how should I, the son of a Persian Guebre (fire-worshiper), be allied to the family of Hashem and the nephews of the Prophet—may the mercy of God be upon him and his family!—and by what right can I aspire to such a distinction? If my father and mother heard of this, they would mourn for me, and my enemies would rejoice."

Some days passed, and he neither ate nor drank, but all was of no avail. He could not oppose the decrees of heaven and the ordainment of God by remedy or contrivance. Unable to help himself, he submitted and consented to a marriage on the terms before mentioned. When Yahya, the father of Jafar and Fadhl, and his other brothers heard of this, they were full of sorrow, and looked for the reversal of their fortune and the downfall of their power.

These forebodings were soon justified. The cruel commands of Rashid to his favorite and his sister were disregarded, and Abbasah became a mother. The birth of the child, concealed for a time, was revealed to Rashid by a revengeful slave-girl whom Abbasah had struck. The Caliph was intensely wroth, but concealed his indignation for a time, though betraying it at unguarded moments.

Ahmed Bin Muhammad Wasil, who was one of his confidential attendants, relates as follows: "One day I was standing before Rashid in his private apartment when no one besides was there. Perfumes were burning, and the place was filled with sweet odors. Haroun al Rashid lay down to rest, and wrapped his head in the skirt of his garment to keep his eyes cool, when Jafar the Barmecide came in and told his business to the Caliph, receiving in return a gracious answer, and retiring. In those days the story of Abbasah and her union with Jafar was talked of currently among the people.

"When Jafar was gone Rashid lifted his head out of his skirt, and from his mouth came these words: 'O God, do thou so favor Jafar the Barmecide that he may kill me, or make me quickly powerful over him that I may cut off his head from his body; for with anger and jealousy against him I am near to destruction.' These words he spoke to himself, but they reached my ears, and I trembled within and without, and I said to myself: 'If the Commander of the Faithful knows that I have heard this, he will not leave me alive.'

"Suddenly Haroun al Rashid lifted up his head from its covering, and said to me: 'Hast thou heard that which I said to myself just now?' I said: 'I have not heard it.' The Commander of the Faithful said: 'There is no one but thyself here, and so truly as the censer is in thy hand, thou hast heard all. If thou care for thy life, keep this secret concealed; and if not, I will strike off thy head.' I replied: 'May the life of the Commander of the Faithful be long! I have not heard any of these words.' And with this the Caliph was satisfied."

It was not long after this that the blow fell on the Barmecides. On his return from one of his pilgrimages to Mecca, Rashid came by water from Hira to Anbar, on the River Euphrates. Here he invited the three brothers Fadhl, Jafar, and Mousa, to his presence, and, having caressed them with extraordinary cordiality, dismissed them once more to their quarters, with rich khelats, the customary robe of honor. The Caliph withdrew to his apartments, and betook himself to his usual indulgence in wine. In a little time he sent one of his domestics to inquire if Jafar was employed in the same way. Finding that such was not the case, Rashid sent his attendant again to Jafar, urging him by the life of his master to imitate his example without further delay, for that his wine seemed deprived of all its zest until he knew that his faithful Jafar partook of the same enjoyment.

Jafar felt, however, unaccountably alarmed and averse to such a gratification, and, reluctantly withdrawing to his chamber, called for the wine. It happened that he was attended by a favorite blind minstrel named Abou Zaccar, to whom, after a few goblets, he could not forbear from communicating his apprehensions. The minstrel treated them as merely imaginary, urged his master to banish them from his thoughts, and to resume his usual cheerfulness. But Jafar declared that he found it impossible to dispel the uneasiness which seemed to haunt him. About the hour of evening prayer another messenger arrived from Rashid with a present of nuts and sweetmeats for Jafar, as a relish to his wine, from his own table.

When midnight came, Rashid called for Mesrour, his favorite domestic, and directed him to bring Jafar and strike off his head. Mesrour proceeded accordingly, and entering Jafar's apartment while Abou Zaccar was singing some Arabic verses, stood suddenly at the head of Jafar, who started involuntarily at his appearance. Mesrour told him that he was summoned to attend the Caliph. Jafar entreated that he might be permitted to withdraw for a moment, to speak to the women of his family. This last indulgence was withheld, Mesrour observing that any instructions which he had to communicate might as well be delivered where he was. This he was accordingly obliged to do, after which he accompanied Mesrour to his tent, on entering which the latter immediately drew his sword. Jafar asked that the Caliph's instructions might be explained to him, and when he heard them, cautioned Mesrour to beware how he carried into execution an order which had evidently been given under the influence of wine, lest, when their sovereign should be restored to himself, it might be followed by unavailing repentance and remorse. He further adjured Mesrour by the memory of their past friendship that he would return to the Caliph's presence, and require his final commands.

Mesrour yielded to these entreaties, and appeared before Rashid, whom he found expecting his return. "Is this the head of Jafar?" demanded the Caliph. "Jafar is at the door, my lord," replied Mesrour, with some trepidation. "I wanted not Jafar," said the Caliph sternly; "I wanted his head." This sealed the fate of the unhappy favorite. Mesrour immediately withdrew, decapitated Jafar in the antechamber, and returned with his head, which he laid at the Caliph's feet. He was then directed by Rashid to keep that head by him till he should receive further orders.

In the meantime he was enjoined to proceed without delay and apprehend Yahya, his three sons, Fadhl, Muhammad, and Mousa, and his brother Muhammad. These commands were immediately carried into execution. The head of Jafar was dispatched the next day, to be suspended to a gibbet on the bridge of Bagdad, after which the Caliph continued his journey to Rakkah.

Stripped of all their wealth and honors, Yahya, his three sons, and his brother Muhammad, languished in confinement, until the former perished in prison. At first they were allowed some liberty, but subsequently they experienced alternatives of rigor and relaxation, according to the reports which reached Rashid concerning them. He then confiscated the property of every member of the family. It is said that Mesrour was sent by him to the prison, and that he told the jailor to bring Fadhl before him. When he was brought out, Mesrour addressed him thus: "The Commander of the Faithful sends me to say that he ordered thee to make a true statement of thy property, and that thou didst pretend to do so; but he is assured that thou hast still great wealth in reserve, and his orders to me are that, if thou dost not inform me where the money is, I am to give thee two hundred strokes of a whip. I should therefore advise thee not to prefer thy riches to thyself."

On this Fadhl looked up at him and said: "By Allah, I made no false statements; and were the choice offered to me of being sent out of the world or of receiving a single stroke of a whip, I should prefer the former alternative—that the Commander of the Faithful well knoweth, and thou also knowest full well that we maintained our reputation at the expense of our wealth. How, then, could we now shield our wealth at the expense of our bodies? If thou hast really got any orders, let them be executed."

On this Mesrour produced some whips, which he brought with him rolled up in a napkin, and ordered his servants to inflict on Al Fadhl two hundred stripes. They struck him with all their force, using no moderation in their blows, so that they nearly killed him. There was in that place a man skilled in treating wounds, who was called in to attend Al Fadhl. When he saw him he observed that fifty strokes had been inflicted on him; and when the others declared that two hundred had been given, he asserted that his back bore the traces of fifty, and not more. He then told Al Fadhl that he must lie down on his back on a reed-mat, so that they might tread on his breast. Al Fadhl shuddered at the proposal, but, having at length given his consent, they placed him on his back. The operator then trod on him, after which he took him by the arms and dragged him along the mat, by which means a great quantity of flesh was torn off the back. He then proceeded to dress the wounds, and continued his services regularly, till one day, when, on examining them, he immediately prostrated himself in thanksgiving to God. They asked him what was the matter, and he replied that the patient was saved, because new flesh was forming. He then said: "Did I not say that he had received fifty strokes? Well, by Allah! one thousand strokes could not have left worse marks; but I merely said so that he might take courage, and thus aid my efforts to cure him."

Al Fadhl, on his recovery, borrowed ten thousand dirhems from a friend, and sent them to the doctor, who returned them. Thinking that he had offered too little, he borrowed ten thousand more; but the man refused them, and said: "I can not accept a fee for curing the greatest among the generous. Were it even twenty thousand dinars, I should refuse them." When this was told to Al Fadhl, he declared that such an act of generosity surpassed all that he himself had done during the whole course of his life.

When Rashid had overthrown the family of the Barmecides, he endeavored to obliterate even their very name. He forbade the poets to compose elegies on their fall, and commanded that those who did so should be punished. One day one of the soldiers of the guard, passing near some ruined and abandoned buildings, perceived a man standing upright with a paper in his hand. It contained a lament for the ruin of the Barmecides, which he was reciting with tears.

The soldier arrested him, and conducted him to the palace of Rashid. He related the whole matter to the Caliph, who caused the accused to be brought before him. When he was convinced by the man's own confession of the truth of the accusation, he said to him: "Did you not know that I have forbidden the utterance of any lament for the family of the Barmecides? Assuredly I will treat thee according to thy deserts." "Prince," the accused answered, "if thou wilt allow, I will relate my history. Afterward deal with me as thou pleasest."

Rashid having allowed him to speak, he went on: "I was one of the petty officials in the court of Yahya. One day he said to me: 'I must dine at your house.' 'My lord,' I said to him, 'I am far too mean for such an honor, and my house is not fit to receive you.' 'No,' replied Yahya, 'I must come to you.' 'In that case,' I said, 'will you allow me some time to make the proper arrangements and put my house in order?—and afterward do as you like.'

"He then wished to know how much time I wanted. At first I asked for a year. This appeared to him too much; I therefore asked for some months. He consented, and I immediately began to prepare everything necessary for his reception. When all the preparations were complete I sent to inform Yahya, who said he would come on the morrow. On the next day, accordingly, he came, with his two sons Jafar and Fadhl and a few of his most intimate friends. Scarcely had he dismounted than he addressed me by name, and said: 'Make haste and get me something to eat, for I am hungry.' Fadhl told me that his father was especially fond of roast fowl; accordingly I brought some, and when Yahya had eaten he rose and began to walk about the house, and asked me to show him all over it. 'My lord,' I said, 'you have just been over it: there is no more.' 'Certainly there is more,' he replied.

"It was in vain that I assured him, in the name of God, that that was all I had: he had a mason sent for, and told him to make a hole in the wall. The mason began to do so. I said to Yahya: 'My Lord, is it permissible to make a hole into one's neighbor's house when God has commanded us to respect our neighbors' rights?' 'Never mind,' said he. And when the mason had made a sufficiently wide entrance, he went through, with his sons.

"I followed them, and we came into a delicious garden, well planted and watered by fountains. In this garden were pavilions and halls adorned with all kinds of marbles and tapestry; on all sides were numbers of beautiful slaves of both sexes. Yahya then said to me: This house and all that you see is yours.' I hastened to kiss his hands and to pray God to bless him, and then I learned that from the very day he had told me that he was coming to my house he had bought the ground adjacent to it, and caused a beautiful mansion to be constructed, furnished, and adorned, without my knowing anything of it. I saw indeed that building was going on, but I thought it was some work being carried on by one of my neighbors.

"Yahya then, addressing his son Jafar, said to him: 'Well, here is a house, with attendants, but how is he to keep it up?' 'I will make over to him such and such a farm, with its revenues,' answered Jafar, 'and sign a contract with him to that effect.' 'Very good,' said Yahya, turning to his other son, Fadhl; 'but till he receives those revenues, how is he to meet current expenses?' 'I will give him ten thousand pieces of gold,' answered Fadhl, 'and have them conveyed to his house.' 'Be quick, then,' said Yahya, 'and fulfil your promises without delay.' This they both did, so that I found myself rich of a sudden and living a life of ease. Thus, O Commander of the Faithful, I have never failed on all fitting occasions to rehearse their praises and to pray for them, in order to discharge my debt of gratitude, but never shall I be able to do so completely. If thou choosest, slay me for doing that."

Rashid was moved at this recital, and let him go. He also gave a general permission to the poets to bewail the tragic end of the Barmecides. A pathetic anecdote relating to their fall is recorded by Muhammad, son of Abdur Bahman the Hashimite.

"Having gone to visit my mother on the day of the Feast of Sacrifice, I found her talking with an old woman of venerable appearance, but meanly clad. My mother asked if I knew her, and I answered, 'No.' She replied: 'It is Abbadab, the mother of Jafar Bin Yahya.' I turned to her and saluted her with respect. After some time I said to her: 'Madam, what is the strangest thing you have seen?' 'My friend,' she replied, 'there was once a time when this same festival saw me escorted by four hundred slaves, and still I thought that my son was not sufficiently grateful to me. To-day the feast has returned, and all I wish for is two sheepskins—one to lie down on and one to cover me.'

"I gave her," adds the narrator, "five hundred dirhems, and she nearly died of joy. She did not cease her visits till the day death separated us."

After the destruction of this family, the affairs of Rashid fell into irretrievable confusion. Treason, revolt, and rebellion assailed him in different parts of the empire. He himself became a prey to disease, and was tortured by unavailing remorse. If any one blamed the Barmecides in his presence he would say: "Cease to blame them or fill the void." So great was the disaffection aroused by his treatment of them that he removed the seat of government from Bagdad to Rakkah, on the Euphrates.

Yahya, the father of Jafar and Fadhl, died in prison, A.D. 805. On his body was found a paper containing these words: "The accuser has gone on before to the tribunal, and the accused shall follow soon. The Cadi will be that just Judge who never errs and who needs no witnesses." This, being reported to Rashid, deepened his gloom, which began to wear the appearance of madness. One morning his physician, finding him greatly discomposed, inquired the reason. Rashid replied: "I will describe to thee what presented itself to my imagination. Methought I saw an arm suddenly extend itself from beneath my pillow, holding in the palm of the hand a quantity of red earth, while a voice addressed me in the following words: 'Haroun, behold this handful of earth; it is that in which they are about to bury thee.' I demanded to know where I was about to find my grave, and the voice replied: 'At Tus.' The arm disappeared and I awoke."

Shortly after this Rashid, though suffering from the disease which was to end his life, set out to put down a rebellion in Transoxiana. When one of the captured rebel leaders was brought into his presence, he ordered him to be cut to pieces limb by limb on the spot.

When the execution was over Rashid fell into a swoon, and, on recovering himself, asked his physician if he did not recollect the dream which had occurred to him at Rakkah, for they were now in the neighborhood of Tus. He also desired his chamberlain Mesrour to bring him a sample of the native earth of the country. When Mesrour returned with his naked arm extended, Rashid immediately exclaimed: "Behold the arm and the earth, precisely as they appeared in my dream!"

The Caliph died at midnight the following Saturday, March 23, A.D. 809.

THE CALIPH AL MAMOUN

When Haroun al Rashid died he left the empire to his sons Emin and Mamoun, giving the former Irak and Syria, and the latter Khorassan and Persia. Emin had the title of Caliph, to which Mamoun was to succeed. War broke out between the brothers; Emin fled from Bagdad, but was captured and slain, and his head sent to Mamoun in Khorassan, who wept at the sight of it. He had, however, previously, when his general Tahir sent to him requesting to know what to do with Emin in case he caught him, sent to the general a shirt with no opening in it for the head. By this Tahir knew that he wished Emin to be put to death, and acted accordingly.

The Caliph, however, bore a grudge against Tahir for the death of his brother, as was shown by the following circumstance: Tahir went one day to ask some favor from Al Mamoun; the latter granted it, and then wept till his eyes were bathed in tears. "Commander of the Faithful," said Tahir, "why do you weep? May God never cause you to shed a tear! The universe obeys you, and you have obtained your utmost wishes." "I weep not," replied the Caliph, "from any humiliation which may have befallen me, neither do I weep from grief, but my mind is never free from cares."

These words gave great uneasiness to Tahir, and, on retiring, he said to Husain, the eunuch who waited at the door of the Caliph's private apartment: "I wish you to ask the Commander of the Faithful why he wept on seeing me." On reaching home Tahir sent Husain one hundred thousand dirhems. Some time afterward, when Al Mamoun was alone and in a good humor, Husain said to him: "Why did you weep when Tahir came to see you?" "What is that to you?" replied the Prince. "It made me sad to see you weep," answered the eunuch. "I shall tell you the reason," the Caliph said; "but if you ever allow it to pass your lips, I shall have your head taken off." "O my master," the eunuch replied, "did I ever disclose any of your secrets?" "I was thinking of my brother Emin," said the Caliph, "and of the misfortune which befell him, so that I was nearly choked with weeping; but Tahir shall not escape me! I shall make him feel what he will not like."

Husain related this to Tahir, who immediately rode off to the Vizier Abi Khalid, and said to him: "I am not parsimonious in my gratitude, and a service rendered to me is never lost; contrive to have me removed away from Al Mamoun." "I shall," replied Abi Khalid. "Come to me to-morrow morning." He then rode off to Al Mamoun, and said: "I was not able to sleep last night." "Why so?" asked the Caliph. "Because you have entrusted Ghassan with the government of Khorassan, and his friends are very few, and I fear that ruin awaits him." "And whom do you think a proper person for it?" said Al Mamoun. "Tahir," replied Abi Khalid. "He is ambitious," observed the Caliph. "I will answer for his conduct," said the other.

Al Mamoun then sent for Tahir, and named him governor of Khorassan on the spot; he made him also a present of an eunuch, to whom he had just given orders to poison his new master if he remarked anything suspicious in his conduct. When Tahir was solidly established in his government he ceased mentioning Al Mamoun's name in the public prayers as the reigning Caliph. A dispatch was immediately sent off by express to inform Al Mamoun of the circumstance, and the next morning Tahir was found dead in his bed. It is said that the eunuch administered the poison to him in some sauce.

Al Mamoun placed his two sons under the tuition of Al Farra, so that they might be instructed in grammar. One day Al Farra rose to leave the house, and the two young princes hastened to bring his shoes. They struggled between themselves for the honor of offering them to him, and they finally agreed that each of them should present him with one slipper. As Al Mamoun had secret agents who informed him of everything that passed, he learned what had taken place, and caused Al Farra to be brought before him.

When he entered, the Caliph said to him: "Who is the most honored of men?" Al Farra answered: "I know not any one more honored than the Commander of the Faithful." "Nay," replied Al Mamoun, "it is he who arose to go out, and the two designated successors of the Commander of the Faithful contended for the honor of presenting him his slippers, and at length agreed that each of them should offer him one."

Al Farra answered: "Commander of the Faithful, I should have prevented them from doing so had I not been apprehensive of discouraging their minds in the pursuit of that excellence to which they ardently aspire. We know by tradition that Ibn Abbas held the stirrups of Hasan and Husain, when they were getting on horseback after paying him a visit. One of those who were present said to him: 'How is it that you hold the stirrups of these striplings, you who are their elder?' To which he replied: 'Ignorant man! No one can appreciate the merit of people of merit except a man of merit.'"

Al Mamoun then said to him: "Had you prevented them, I should have declared you in fault. That which they have done is no debasement of their dignity; on the contrary, it exalts their merit. No man, though great in rank, can be dispensed from three obligations: he must respect his sovereign, venerate his father, and honor his preceptor. As a reward for their conduct, I bestow upon them twenty thousand dinars ($50,000), and on you for the good education you give them, ten thousand dirhems" ($2,500).

When Al Mamoun was still in Khorassan, a revolt was raised against him in Bagdad by his uncle, Ibrahim, the son of Mahdi. This prince had great talent as a singer, and was a skilful performer on musical instruments. Being of a dark complexion, which he inherited from his mother, Shikla, who was a negress, and of a large frame of body, he received the name of At-Tinnin (the Dragon). He was proclaimed Caliph at Bagdad during the absence of Al Mamoun. The cause which led the people to renounce Al Mamoun and choose Ibrahim was that the former had chosen as his successor one of the descendants of Ali, and in doing so had ordered the public to cease wearing black, which was the distinctive color of the Abbassides, the reigning family, and to put on green, the color of the family of Ali and their partizans.

On Mamoun's entry into Bagdad, Ibrahim fled disguised as a woman. He was, however, detected and arrested by one of the negro police. When he was before Al Mamoun, who addressed him in ironic terms, he replied: "Prince of the believers, my crime gives you the right of retaliation, but 'forgiveness is near neighbor to piety.'9 God has placed you above all those who are generous, as he has placed me above all criminals in the magnitude of my crime. If you punish me you will be just; if you pardon me you will be great." "Then I pardon you," said Mamoun, and prostrated himself in prayer.

He commanded, however, that Ibrahim should continue to wear the burqa, or long female veil in which he had fled, so that people might see in what disguise he had been arrested; he ordered also that he should be exposed to view in the palace courtyard; then he committed him to police supervision, and finally, after some days of detention, set him free.

The following anecdote was related by Ibrahim regarding the time when he was in hiding with a price set on his head: "I went out one day at the hour of noon without knowing whither I was going. I found myself in a narrow street, which ended in a cul-de-sac, and noticed a negro standing in front of the door of a house. I went straight to him, and asked if he could afford me shelter for a short time. He consented, and bade me enter. The hall was adorned with mats and leather cushions. Then he left me alone, closed the door, and departed. A suspicion flashed across my mind; this man knew that a price was set on my head, and had gone to denounce me.

"While I was revolving these gloomy thoughts, he returned with a servant bearing a tray loaded with victuals. 'May my life be a sacrifice for you,' he said. 'I am a barber, and therefore I have not touched any of these things with my hand; do me the honor to partake of them.' Hunger pressed me; I rose and obeyed. 'What about some wine?' he asked. 'I do not detest it,' I replied. He brought some, and then said again: 'May my life be your ransom! Will you allow me to sit near you and drink to your health?' I consented. After having emptied three cups, he opened a cupboard and took out a lute. 'Sir,' he said, 'it does not behoove a man of my low degree to beg you to sing, but your kindness prompts me to do so; if you deign to consent it will be a great honor for your slave.'

"'How do you know that I am a good singer?' I asked him. 'By Allah!' he answered, with an air of astonishment, 'your reputation is too great for me not to know it: you are Ibrahim, the son of Mahdi, and a reward of a hundred thousand dirhems is promised by Al Mamoun to the man who will find you.' At these words I took the lute, and was about to commence, when he added: 'Sir, would you be so kind as first to sing the piece which I shall choose?' When I consented he chose three airs in which I had no rival. Then I said to him: 'You know me, I admit; but where did you learn to know these three airs?' 'I have been,' he answered, 'in the service of Ishak, son of Ibrahim Mausili,10 and I have often heard him speak of the great singers and the airs in which they excelled; but who could have guessed that I would hear you myself and in my own house?'

"I sang to him accordingly, and remained some time in his company, charmed with his agreeable manners. At nightfall I took leave of him. I had brought with me a purse full of gold pieces; I offered it to him, promising him a greater reward some day. This is strange,' he said; 'it is rather I who should offer you all I possess, and implore you to do me the honor to accept it. Only respect has restrained me from doing so.' He refused, accordingly, to receive anything from me; but he went out with me and put me on the road to the place whither I wished to go. Then he went off, and I have never seen him since."

Al Mamoun and Ibrahim, the Son of Mahdi

One day ten inhabitants of Basra were denounced to Al Mamoun as heretics who held the doctrine of Manes (Manichæans) and the two principles of light and darkness. He ordered them to be brought into his presence. A parasite, who saw them being taken, said to himself: "Here are folk who are going off for a jollification." He slipped in among them, and accompanied them without perceiving who they were till they reached the boat in which their guards made them embark. "Doubtless this is a pleasure party!" he exclaimed, and went on board with them. Soon, however, the guards brought chains and fettered the whole band, including the parasite, who said to himself: "My greediness has ended by making me a prisoner." Then he addressed the seniors of the band: "Pardon me," he said; "may I ask who you are?" "Tell us, rather, who you are," they answered, "and whether we may reckon you among our brothers." "God knows I scarcely know you," he replied. "As for me, to tell the truth, I am a professional parasite. When I left my home this morning I happened to fall in with you. Struck with your agreeable appearance and good manners, I said to myself: 'Here are some well-to-do people going to enjoy themselves.' Consequently I joined your company, and took my place beside you as though I were one of you. When we reached the boat, which was provided with carpets and cushions, and I saw all these bags and well-filled baskets, I thought: 'They are going for an outing in some park or pleasure-ground; this is a lucky day for me.'

"I was still congratulating myself when the guards came and fettered you, and me with you. I now feel quite bewildered; tell me, therefore, what it is all about." These words amused the prisoners, and made them smile. They replied: "Now that you are on the list of the suspected, and are chained, know that we are Manichæans who have been denounced to Mamoun, and are being taken to him. He will ask us who we are, will question us concerning our belief, and will exhort us to repent and to abjure our religion, proposing various tests to us; he will, for example, show us an image of Manes, commanding us to spit upon it and to renounce him; he will command us to sacrifice a pheasant. Whoever will do so will save his life; whoever refuses will be put to death. When you are called and put to the test you will say who you are and what your belief is, according as you feel prompted. But did you not say you were a parasite? Now, such people have an ample store of anecdotes and stories; shorten our journey, then, by recounting some."

As soon as they arrived at Bagdad the prisoners were conducted into the presence of Mamoun. He called each in turn as his name was on the list; he asked each concerning his sect, and urged them to renounce Manes, showing them his image, and commanding them to spit on it. As they refused, he had them handed over one by one to the executioner.

At last the parasite's turn came. But as the ten prisoners had been done with and the list was exhausted, Mamoun asked the guards who he was. "Truly, we know nothing about him," they answered. "We found him among them and brought him hither." "Who are you?" the Caliph asked him. "Prince of the believers," he said, "may my wife be divorced if I understand what they are talking about! I am only a poor parasite." And he told him his whole story from beginning to end.

The Caliph was much amused, and ordered the image of Manes to be presented to him; the parasite cursed and renounced the heretic heartily. Al Mamoun, however, was about to punish him for his temerity and impudence, when Ibrahim, the son of Mahdi, who was present, said: "Sire, let this man off, and I will relate to you a kind of Bohemian adventure, of which I was the hero." The Caliph assented, and Ibrahim continued:

"Prince of the believers, I had gone out one day, and was roving at random through the streets of Bagdad, when I came to the porch of a lofty mansion, whence issued a delicious odor of spices and dressed meats, by which I was strongly attracted. I addressed a passer-by, and asked to whom the house belonged. 'To a linen-merchant,' he answered. 'What is his name?' I asked. 'Such a one, son of such a one,' was his reply. I lifted my eyes to the house. Through the lattice-work which covered one of the windows I saw appear such a beautiful hand and wrist as I had never seen before. The charm of this apparition made me forget the enticing odors, and I stood there troubled and perplexed. Finally, I asked the man, who had remained standing near, if the master of the house ever gave entertainments. 'Yes, I think he is giving one to-day,' he answered; 'but his guests are merchants, staid and sober people like himself.'

"We were thus engaged in talk when two persons of well-to-do appearance came down the street toward us. 'There are his two guests,' the man said to me. 'What are their names and their fathers' names?' I asked. He informed me, and I accosted them immediately, saying: 'May my life be your sacrifice; your host is waiting impatiently for you.' I escorted them to the door as if I belonged to the house; they went in, and I followed. The master of the house perceived me, and, supposing that I had been brought by his friends, received me graciously, and placed me in the seat of honor. Then the meal was brought; it was well served, and we did honor to the dishes, whose savor excelled their odor. When the food had been removed and we had washed our hands, our host led us into another hall richly adorned. He redoubled his politeness toward me, and specially addressed his conversation to me. The two guests believed me to be an intimate friend of his, while the host treated me in this fashion because he believed I had been brought by his two friends.

"We had already emptied several cups when a young female slave came forward, as graceful as a willow-branch, and saluted us without timidity. She was offered a cushion to sit upon, and a lute was brought to her, which she tuned with a skill which struck me. She then sang an air in a most enchanting fashion; so great was the skill and art with which she sang that I could not suppress a feeling of jealousy. 'Young girl,' I said to her, 'you have still a good deal to learn.' These words irritated her; she threw down the lute, and exclaimed to the host: 'Since when do you admit to your intimacy such vexatious guests?'

"I repented of my remark when I saw the others look at me askance. 'Is there a lute here?' I asked. 'Yes,' was the reply. They brought me one, which I tuned to my liking, and then sang. I had hardly finished when the young slave cast herself at my feet, and, embracing them, said: 'Sir, pardon me in the name of heaven; I have never heard that air sung so exquisitely.' Her master and those present followed her example in praising me; cheerfulness was restored, and the cups circulated rapidly. I sang again, and the enthusiasm of my hearers was roused to such a pitch that I thought they would take leave of their senses. I waited awhile to let them recover themselves; then, taking my lute again, I sang for the third time. 'By Allah!' cried the slave, 'that is what deserves to be called singing!'

"The others, however, were beginning to feel the effects of the wine; the master of the house, who had a stronger head than his guests, entrusted them to the care of his own servants and of theirs, and had them conveyed home. I remained alone with him. After we had emptied some more cups, he said to me: 'Truly, sir, I consider the past days of my life, in which I did not know you, wasted. Kindly inform me who you are.' He pressed me so much that at last I told him my name. Immediately he rose, kissed my hand, and said: 'I should have been surprised, sir, had any one of a rank inferior to your own possessed such skill. To think one of the royal house was with me all the time, and I knew it not!' Being pressed by him to tell my story and what had attracted me to his house, I told him how I had stopped when I smelt the odor of the food, and described the hand and wrist I had seen at the window.

"He straightway called one of his female slaves and said: 'Go and tell So-and-so to come down.' He had all the slaves in succession brought before me. After having examined their hands, I said: 'No! the possessor of the hand I saw is not among them.' 'By Allah!' said my host, 'there are only my mother and my sister left! I will send for them.' Such generosity and kindness of heart surprised me. I said to him: 'May my life be your sacrifice! Before calling your mother, call your sister; it is probably she of whom I am in search.' 'Very well,' he said, and sent for her.

"As soon as I set eyes on her hand and wrist I cried: 'It is she, my dear host, it is she!' Without losing a moment, he ordered his servants to bring together ten respectable elderly men from the neighborhood. They came; he then sent for a sum of twenty thousand dirhems in two bags, and, addressing the ten men, said: 'I take you to witness that I give my sister here in marriage to Ibrahim, son of Mahdi, and that I bestow upon her a dowry of twenty thousand dirhems.' His sister and I both gave our agreement to the marriage, after which I gave one of the bags of money to my young wife, and distributed the other among the witnesses, saying: 'Excuse me, but this is all I have by me at present.' They accepted my present and retired.

"My host then proposed to prepare in his own house an apartment for us. Such generosity and kindness made me feel quite embarrassed. I said that I only desired a litter to convey my wife. He readily agreed, and sent along with it so magnificent a trousseau that it entirely fills one of my houses."

Mamoun was astonished at the generosity of the merchant. He granted his freedom and a rich present to the parasite, and ordered Ibrahim to present his father-in-law at court. The latter became one of the most intimate courtiers and companions of the Caliph.

The Death of Al Mamoun

During Al Mamoun's last campaign against the Greek Emperor he arrived at the River Qushairah, and encamped on its banks. Charmed by the clearness and purity of its waters, and by the beauty and fertility of the surrounding country, he had a kind of arbor constructed by the banks of the stream, intending to rest there some days. So clear was the water that the inscription on a coin lying at the bottom could be clearly read; but it was so cold that it was impossible for any one to bathe in it.

All at once a fish, about a fathom in length and flashing like an ingot of silver, appeared in the water. The Caliph promised a reward to any one who would capture it; an attendant went down, caught the fish and regained the shore, but as he approached the spot where Al Mamoun was sitting, the fish slipped from his grasp, fell into the water, and sank like a stone to the bottom. Some of the water was splashed on the Caliph's neck, chest, and arms, and wetted his clothes. The attendant went down again, recaptured the fish, and placed it, wriggling, in a napkin before the Caliph. Just as he had ordered it to be fried, Al Mamoun felt a sudden shiver, and could not move from the place. In vain he was covered with rugs and skins; he trembled like a leaf, and exclaimed: "I am cold! I am cold!" He was carried into his tent, covered with clothes, and a fire was lit, but he continued to complain of cold. When the fish had been cooked it was brought to him, but he could neither taste nor touch it, so great was his suffering.

As he grew rapidly worse, his brother Mutasim questioned Bakhteshou and Ibn Masouyieh, his physicians, on his condition, and whether they could do him any good. Ibn Masouyieh took one of the patient's hands and Bakhteshou the other, and felt his pulse together; the irregular pulsations heralded his dissolution. Just then Al Mamoun awoke out of his stupor; he opened his eyes, and caused some of the natives of the place to be sent for, and questioned them regarding the stream and the locality. When asked regarding the meaning of the name "Qushairah" they replied that it signified "Stretch out thy feet" (i.e., "die"). Al Mamoun then inquired the Arabic name of the country, and was told "Rakkah." Now, the horoscope drawn at the moment of his birth announced that he would die in a place of that name; therefore he had always avoided residing in the city of Rakkah, fearing to die there. When he heard the answer given by these people, he felt sure that this was the place predicted by his horoscope. Feeling himself becoming worse, he commanded that he should be carried outside his tent in order to survey his camp and his army once more. It was now night-time. As his gaze wandered over the long lines of the camp and the lights twinkling into the distance, he cried: "O thou whose reign will never end, have mercy on him whose reign is now ending." He was then carried back to his bed. Mutasim, seeing that he was sinking, commanded some one to whisper in his ear the confession of the Mohammedan faith ("There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the Apostle of God"). As the attendant was about to speak, in order that Al Mamoun might repeat the words after him, Ibn Masouyieh said to him: "Do not speak, for truly he could not now distinguish between God and Manes." The dying man opened his eyes—they seemed extraordinarily large, and shone with a wonderful luster; his hands clutched at the doctor; he tried to speak to him, but could not; then his eyes turned toward heaven and filled with tears; finally his tongue was loosened, and he spoke: "O thou who diest not, have mercy on him who dies," and he expired immediately. His body was carried to Tarsus and buried there.

ON MEDICINE (BY AVICENNA)

Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health. The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.

Material causes, on which health and sickness depend, are—the affected member, which is the immediate subject, and the humors; and in these are the elements. And these two are subjects that, according to their mixing together, alter. In the composition and alteration of the substance which is thus composed, a certain unity is attained.

Efficient causes are the causes changing and preserving the conditions of the human body; as airs, and what are united with them; and evacuation and retention; and districts and cities, and habitable places, and what are united with them; and changes in age and diversities in it, and in races and arts and manners, and bodily and animate movings and restings, and sleepings and wakings on account of them; and in things which befall the human body when they touch it, and are either in accordance or at variance with nature.

Formal causes are physical constitutions, and combinations and virtues which result from them.

Pinal causes are operations. And in the science of operations lies the science of virtues, as we have set forth. These are the subjects of the doctrine of medicine; whence one inquires concerning the disease and curing of the human body. One ought to attain perfection in this research; namely, how health may be preserved and sickness cured. And the causes of this kind are rules in eating and drinking, and the choice of air, and the measure of exercise and rest; and doctoring with medicines and doctoring with the hands. All this with physicians is according to three species: the well, the sick, and the medium of whom we have spoken.

THE EXISTING MONUMENTS OR "CHRONOLOGY" OF AL BIRUNI

IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL

Praise be to God who is high above all things, and blessings be on Mohammed, the elected, the best of all created beings, and on his family, the guides of righteousness and truth.

One of the exquisite plans in God's management of the affairs of his creation, one of the glorious benefits which he has bestowed upon the entirety of his creatures, is that categorical decree of his, not to leave in his world any period without a just guide, whom he constitutes as a protector for his creatures, with whom to take refuge in unfortunate and sorrowful cases and accidents, and upon whom to devolve their affairs, when they seem indissolubly perplexed, so that the order of the world should rest upon—and its existence be supported by—his genius. And this decree (that the affairs of mankind should be governed by a prophet) has been settled upon them as a religious duty, and has been linked together with the obedience toward God, and the obedience toward his prophet, through which alone a reward in future life may be obtained—in accordance with the word of him, who is truth and justice—and his word is judgment and decree, "O ye believers, obey God, and obey the prophets, and those among yourselves who are invested with the command."

Era of the Creation.—The first and most famous of the beginnings of antiquity is the fact of the creation of mankind. But among those who have a book of divine revelation, such as the Jews, Christians, Magians, and their various sects, there exists such a difference of opinion as to the nature of this fact, and as to the question how to date from it, the like of which is not allowable for eras. Everything, the knowledge of which is connected with creation and with the history of bygone generations, is mixed up with falsifications and myths, because it belongs to a far remote age; because a long interval separates us therefrom, and because the student is incapable of keeping it in memory, and of fixing it (so as to preserve it from confusion). God says: "Have they not got the stories about those who were before them gone but God knows them." (Surah ix, 71.) Therefore it is becoming not to admit any account of a similar subject, if it is not attested by a book, the correctness of which is relied upon, or by a tradition, for which the conditions of authenticity, according to the prevalent opinion, furnish grounds of proof.

If we now first consider this era, we find a considerable divergence of opinion regarding it among these nations. For the Persians and Magians think that the duration of the world is 12,000 years, corresponding to the number of signs in the zodiac and of the months; and that Zoroaster, the founder of their law, thought that of those there had passed, till the time of his appearance, 3,000 years, intercalated with the day-quarters, for he himself had made their computation, and had taken into account that defect, which had accrued to them on account of the day-quarters, till the time when they were intercalated and made to agree with real time. From his appearance to the beginning of the Aera Alexandri, they count 258 years; therefore they count from the beginning of the world to Alexander 3,258 years. However, if we compute the years from the creation of Gayomarth, whom they hold to be the first man, and sum up the years of the reign of each of his successors—for the rule of Iran remained with his descendants without interruption—this number is, for the time till Alexander, the sum total of 3,354 years. So the specification of the single items of the addition does not agree with the sum total.

A section of the Persians is of the opinion that those past 3,000 years which we have mentioned are to be counted from the creation of Gayomarth; because, before that, already six thousand years had elapsed—a time during which the celestial globe stood motionless, the natures (of created beings) did not interchange, the elements did not mix—during which there was no growth, and no decay, and the earth was not cultivated. Thereupon, when the celestial globe was set a-going, the first man came into existence on the equator, so that part of him in longitudinal direction was on the north, and part south of the line. The animals were reproduced, and mankind commenced to reproduce their own species and to multiply; the atoms of the elements mixed, so as to give rise to growth and decay; the earth was cultivated, and the world was arranged in conformity with fixed forms.

The Jews and Christians differ widely on this subject; for, according to the doctrine of the Jews, the time between Adam and Alexander is 3,448 years, whilst, according to the Christian doctrine it is 5,180 years. The Christians reproach the Jews with having diminished the number of years with the view of making the appearance of Jesus fall into the fourth millennium in the middle of the seven millennia, which are, according to their view, the time of the duration of the world, so as not to coincide with that time at which, as the prophets after Moses had prophesied, the birth of Jesus from a pure virgin at the end of time, was to take place.

Era of the Deluge.—The next following era is the era of the great deluge, in which everything perished at the time of Noah. Here, too, there is such a difference of opinions, and such a confusion, that you have no chance of deciding as to the correctness of the matter, and do not even feel inclined to investigate thoroughly its historical truth. The reason is, in the first instance, the difference regarding the period between the Aera Adami and the Deluge, which we have mentioned already; and secondly, that difference, which we shall have to mention, regarding the period between the Deluge and the Aera Alexandri. For the Jews derive from the Torah, and the following books, for this latter period 1,792 years, whilst the Christians derive from their Torah for the same period 2,938 years.

The Persians, and the great mass of the Magians, deny the Deluge altogether; they believe that the rule of the world has remained with them without any interruption ever since Gayomarth Gilshah, who was, according to them, the first man. In denying the Deluge, the Indians, Chinese, and the various nations of the East, concur with them. Some, however, of the Persians admit the fact of the Deluge, but they describe it in a different way from what it is described in the books of the prophets. They say, a partial deluge occurred in Syria and the West at the time of Tahmurath, but it did not extend over the whole of the then civilized world, and only a few nations were drowned in it; it did not extend beyond the peak of Hulwan, and did not reach the empires of the East. Further, they relate, that the inhabitants of the West, when they were warned by their sages, constructed buildings of the kind of the two pyramids that have been built in Egypt, saying: "If the disaster comes from heaven, we shall go into them; if it comes from the earth, we shall ascend above them." People are of opinion that the traces of the water of the Deluge, and the efforts of the waves, are still visible on these two pyramids half-way up, above which the water did not rise. Another report says, that Joseph had made them a magazine where he deposited the bread and victuals for the years of drought.

It is related that Tahmurath on receiving the warning of the Deluge—231 years before the Deluge—ordered his people to select a place of good air and soil in his realm. Now they did not find a place that answered better to this description than Ispahan. Thereupon, he ordered all scientific books to be preserved for posterity and to be buried in a part of that place least exposed to obnoxious influences. In favor of this report we may state that in our time in Jay, the city of Ispahan, there have been discovered hills, which, on being excavated, disclosed houses, filled with many loads of that tree-bark with which arrows and shields are covered, and which is called Tuz, bearing inscriptions, of which no one was able to say what they are and what they mean.

These discrepancies in their reports inspire doubts in the student, and make him inclined to believe what is related in some books, that Gayomarth was not the first man, but that he was Gomer ben Yaphet ben Noah, that he was a prince to whom a long life was given, that he settled on the Mount Dumbawand, where he founded an empire, and that finally his power became very great, whilst mankind was still living in elementary conditions, similar to those at the time of creation and of the first stage of the development of the world. Then he, and some of his children, took control of the guidance of the world. Toward the end of his life, he became tyrannical, and called himself Adam, saying: "If anybody calls me by another name than this, I shall cut off his head."

ARABIC LITERATURE

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

AL GHAZALI'S "RESCUER FROM ERROR"

"If all the other books of Islam were destroyed, the loss would be small if but Al Ghazali's work were preserved."

MOHAMMEDAN PROVERB.

"The variety of doctrines and sects which divide men are like a deep ocean strewed with shipwrecks, from which very few escape."

AL GHAZALI IN "THE RESCUER FROM ERROR."

"Al Ghazali is the greatest, certainly the most sympathetic, figure in the history of Islam."

PROF. D. B. MACDONALD

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

(INTRODUCTION)

When we move with Al Ghazali or Zamakhshari through the deeply searching paths of Arab philosophy, we feel that we are following the guidance of men whom modern thought has in no way outgrown. They lacked much of our scientific knowledge, but none of our reasoning powers. Al Ghazali has sounded all philosophy's profundities of thought, and Zamakhshari has soared to theology's highest peak of adoration.

Al Ghazali (1049-1111), as we have already said, is often ranked next to Mohammed as a teacher and uplifter of his Arab brethren. He was a native of Khorassan, named Abu Hamid Mohammed. Arab custom, however, seldom designates a noted man by his birth-name. He is most often honored with the distinctive prefix "Al," which means "The," much as we use the word as a superlative. Thus just as Holy Writ speaks of The Nazarine, so Al Ghazali probably means "The Man of Ghazali," the village of his birth, though the name may also be derived from his father's trade in gazzel (thread), and so may mean "The Thread Merchant." As a youth Al Ghazali studied much and traveled widely; and his wanderings led, as did those of most men in his day, to Bagdad. Here he became famed as the foremost philosophic teacher of the age. But his own philosophy did not satisfy him. Withdrawing from his official position on the ground of ill-health, he wandered over the world for eleven years, seeking true wisdom. He felt at last that he had found it in the ecstasy of religious faith; and then, resuming his public teaching, he led an earnest reform in Mohammedanism, bringing his people to look more deeply and nobly upon their faith. So convincing were his appeals and explanations that his people called him "The Decisive Argument for the Faith."

Al Ghazali's own search for truth is told in his remarkable little book here given in full, "The Rescuer from Error," in which the Rescuer is Mohammed with his Koran. Al Ghazali wrote many other works, religious and philosophical, but none which have so profoundly touched modern readers as this simple, earnest account of himself. It is a "confession" worthy to rank with the "Confessions of Saint Augustine," or any greatest work of its own type. Al Ghazali soon afterward withdrew from public life, hoping to teach men more by his books than by spoken words, and he died in seclusion in his native home.

Great as was the influence of Al Ghazali, he was scarcely a typical Mohammedan teacher. He was, as his book will show, an independent thinker who reached his firm religious faith only after seeking through all systems of philosophy. He had tasted of the emptiness of materialism, and had faced the black shadows of despair. Of far other type was Zamakhshari, the most renowned of commentators on the Koran. He seems never to have doubted the divinity of the holy book. He spent years in studying it, and while he used keen intelligence in weighing its every word, and even shocked his narrower coreligionists by the freedom of his criticism, yet it was always criticism based on the assumption that of course the Koran was right, and that the only danger lay in that men might blunder in interpreting its meaning. He therefore called his celebrated commentary the "Kashshaf," or "Discoverer of Truth."

We give here the noted opening of this work. The main attack upon the author by the orthodox Mohammedans of a later age was because the commentary began with the words, "Praise be to God who created the Koran," whereas the orthodox regarded the book as always existent with God, so that instead of "created" they would have had the writer say that God "revealed" the Koran.

Zamakhshari (1070-1143) was born and died in Khiva in Turkestan. He was, however, another of the many youths eager for knowledge who took advantage of the wide-spread dominion of the Arab caliphs to travel far through the East. He journeyed indeed through such hardships that he lost a leg, frozen in a snowstorm; and he dwelt so long in Mecca, the holy city, that he was called the "neighbor of God." It was from such earnest men as Zamakhshari and Al Ghazali, the "neighbor of God" and the "Decisive Argument," that the Mohammedan religion learned its final form, and the reader will be ignoring the real and manifest energy and intellect of these great men if he dismisses their religion lightly as a teaching easily to be disproved or childishly defective.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

THE RESCUER FROM ERROR

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD

Quoth the Imam Ghazali:

Glory be to God, whose praise should precede every writing and every speech! May the blessings of God rest on Mohammed, his Prophet and his Apostle, on his family and companions, by whose guidance error is escaped!

You have asked me, O brother in the faith, to expound the aim and the mysteries of religious sciences, the boundaries and depths of theological doctrines. You wish to know my experiences while disentangling truth lost in the medley of sects and divergencies of thought, and how I have dared to climb from the low levels of traditional belief to the topmost summit of assurance. You desire to learn what I have borrowed, first of all from scholastic theology; and secondly from the method of the Ta'limites, who, in seeking truth, rest upon the authority of a leader; and why, thirdly, I have been led to reject philosophic systems; and finally, what I have accepted of the doctrine of the Sufis, and the sum total of truth which I have gathered in studying every variety of opinion. You ask me why, after resigning at Bagdad a teaching post which attracted a number of hearers, I have, long afterward, accepted a similar one at Nishapur. Convinced as I am of the sincerity which prompts your inquiries, I proceed to answer them, invoking the help and protection of God.

Know then, my brothers (may God direct you in the right way), that the diversity in beliefs and religions, and the variety of doctrines and sects which divide men, are like a deep ocean strewn with shipwrecks, from which very few escape safe and sound. Each sect, it is true, believes itself in possession of the truth and of salvation, "each party," as the Koran saith, "rejoices in its own creed"; but as the chief of the apostles, whose word is always truthful, has told us, "My people will be divided into more than seventy sects, of whom only one will be saved." This prediction, like all others of the Prophet, must be fulfilled.

From the period of adolescence, that is to say, previous to reaching my twentieth year to the present time when I have passed my fiftieth, I have ventured into this vast ocean; I have fearlessly sounded its depths, and like a resolute diver, I have penetrated its darkness and dared its dangers and abysses. I have interrogated the beliefs of each sect and scrutinized the mysteries of each doctrine, in order to disentangle truth from error and orthodoxy from heresy. I have never met one who maintained the hidden meaning of the Koran without investigating the nature of his belief, nor a partizan of its exterior sense without inquiring into the results of his doctrine. There is no philosopher whose system I have not fathomed, nor theologian the intricacies of whose doctrine I have not followed out.

Sufism has no secrets into which I have not penetrated; the devout adorer of Deity has revealed to me the aim of his austerities; the atheist has not been able to conceal from me the real reason of his unbelief. The thirst for knowledge was innate in me from an early age; it was like a second nature implanted by God, without any will on my part. No sooner had I emerged from boyhood than I had already broken the fetters of tradition and freed myself from hereditary beliefs.

Having noticed how easily the children of Christians become Christians, and the children of Moslems embrace Islam, and remembering also the traditional saying ascribed to the Prophet, "Every child has in him the germ of Islam, then his parents make him Jew, Christian, or Zoroastrian," I was moved by a keen desire to learn what was this innate disposition in the child, the nature of the accidental beliefs imposed on him by the authority of his parents and his masters, and finally the unreasoned convictions which he derives from their instructions.

Struck with the contradictions which I encountered in endeavoring to disentangle the truth and falsehood of these opinions, I was led to make the following reflection: "The search after truth being the aim which I propose to myself, I ought in the first place to ascertain what are the bases of certitude." In the next place I recognized that certitude is the clear and complete knowledge of things, such knowledge as leaves no room for doubt nor possibility of error and conjecture, so that there remains no room in the mind for error to find an entrance. In such a case it is necessary that the mind, fortified against all possibility of going astray, should embrace such a strong conviction that, if, for example, any one possessing the power of changing a stone into gold, or a stick into a serpent, should seek to shake the bases of this certitude, it would remain firm and immovable. Suppose, for instance, a man should come and say to me, who am firmly convinced that ten is more than three, "No; on the contrary, three is more than ten, and, to prove it, I change this rod into a serpent," and supposing that he actually did so, I should remain none the less convinced of the falsity of his assertion, and although his miracle might arouse my astonishment, it would not instil any doubt into my belief.

I then understood that all forms of knowledge which do not unite these conditions (imperviousness to doubt, etc.) do not deserve any confidence, because they are not beyond the reach of doubt, and what is not impregnable to doubt can not constitute certitude.

The Subterfuges of the Sophists

I then examined what knowledge I possessed, and discovered that in none of it, with the exception of sense-perceptions and necessary principles, did I enjoy that degree of certitude which I have just described. I then sadly reflected as follows: "We can not hope to find truth except in matters which carry their evidence in themselves—that is to say, in sense-perceptions and necessary principles; we must therefore establish these on a firm basis. Is my absolute confidence in sense-perceptions and on the infallibility of necessary principles analogous to the confidence which I formerly possessed in matters believed on the authority of others? Is it only analogous to the reliance most people place on their organs of vision, or is it rigorously true without admixture of illusion or doubt?"

I then set myself earnestly to examine the notions we derive from the evidence of the senses and from sight in order to see if they could be called in question. The result of a careful examination was that my confidence in them was shaken. Our sight, for instance, perhaps the best practised of all our senses, observes a shadow, and finding it apparently stationary pronounces it devoid of movement. Observation and experience, however, show subsequently that a shadow moves not suddenly, it is true, but gradually and imperceptibly, so that it is never really motionless.

Again, the eye sees a star and believes it as large as a piece of gold, but mathematical calculations prove, on the contrary, that it is larger than the earth. These notions, and all others which the senses declare true, are subsequently contradicted and convicted of falsity in an irrefragable manner by the verdict of reason.

Then I reflected in myself: "Since I can not trust to the evidence of my senses, I must rely only on intellectual notions based on fundamental principles, such as the following axioms: 'Ten is more than three. Affirmation and negation can not coexist together. A thing can not both be created and also existent from eternity, living and annihilated simultaneously, at once necessary and impossible.'" To this the notions I derived from my senses made the following objections: "Who can guarantee you that you can trust to the evidence of reason more than to that of the senses? You believed in our testimony till it was contradicted by the verdict of reason, otherwise you would have continued to believe it to this day. Well, perhaps, there is above reason another judge who, if he appeared, would convict reason of falsehood, just as reason has confuted us. And if such a third arbiter is not yet apparent, it does not follow that he does not exist."

To this argument I remained some time without reply; a reflection drawn from the phenomena of sleep deepened my doubt. "Do you not see," I reflected, "that while asleep you assume your dreams to be indisputably real? Once awake, you recognize them for what they are—baseless chimeras. Who can assure you, then, of the reliability of notions which, when awake, you derive from the senses and from reason? In relation to your present state they may be real; but it is possible also that you may enter upon another state of being which will bear the same relation to your present state as this does to your condition when asleep. In that new sphere you will recognize that the conclusions of reason are only chimeras."