Little Tales

Al-Mansur declared a man's blood forfeit for a great offense he had committed.

The Caliph's men set about hunting him in earnest, wanting him alive or dead, until they seized him in one of the quarters.

The man was seized with violent terror, knowing that he was headed for destruction... And while the soldiers were marching him along, he heard the beat of horses' hooves. He turned — and there was Ma'n ibn Za'ida. So he cried:

"O Abu al-Walid, grant me your protection — may God protect you!"

Ma'n halted, and said to the man who clung to him: "What is your business?"

He said: "I am the man the Commander of the Faithful seeks, whose blood he has declared forfeit, offering to whoever points him out or brings him in a hundred thousand dirhams."

Ma'n said: "Let him go, boy! Dismount from your beast, and set the man upon it."

Then the man cried out to the people, saying:

"Is anyone to come between me and one whom the Commander of the Faithful seeks?"

Ma'n said to him:

"Go to him, and tell him that the man is with me."

So the man went off to al-Mansur's gate and told him.

Al-Mansur ordered Ma'n to be brought. When the messenger came to Ma'n, he summoned the people of his household and his retainers, and said to them:

"I charge you solemnly: let no harm reach this man while a single eye among you can still blink."

Then he went to al-Mansur, entered his presence, and greeted him; but the Caliph did not return his greeting, and said:

"Ma'n! Do you dare defy me?"

Ma'n said:

"Yes, O Commander of the Faithful."

Al-Mansur said:

"'Yes,' indeed?!" — and his anger grew fierce.

Ma'n said:

"O Commander of the Faithful, many days have passed in which you have come to know my good service to you. Have you found me worthy of no more than this — that one single man should flee to me, seeking my protection before all the people, and judging that, in the eyes of the Commander of the Faithful, I am one of his slaves? And so I am. Command whatever you will: here I stand before you."

Al-Mansur bowed his head for a while; then he raised it, the anger in him stilled, and said:

"We grant protection to whomever you have protected, Ma'n."

Ma'n said:

Then if the Commander of the Faithful sees fit to join the two favors together, let him order the man a bounty; thus he will have both given him life and made him rich.

Al-Mansur said:

"We have ordered him fifty thousand dirhams."

Ma'n said:

"O Commander of the Faithful, the gifts of Caliphs are measured by the offenses of their subjects; and this man's offense is great — so make his gift generous."

Al-Mansur said:

"We have ordered him a hundred thousand dirhams."

Ma'n said:

"Then hasten it, O Commander of the Faithful, for the best of kindness is the swiftest."

And Ma'n went off with the money to the man, and said to him:

"Take your gift, and rejoin your family — and beware of crossing the Caliphs of God in their affairs."

○ One man related the following:

Shurayh the judge heard me complaining of my circumstances to a friend of mine. He took me by the hand and said:

Nephew, beware of complaining to any but God Almighty. The friend it grieves, and the enemy it gladdens. Look at this eye of mine — and he pointed to one of his eyes — by God, I have not seen a person or a road with it for fifteen years, and I have told no one of it until this moment, except you!!

When death came upon Alexander the Macedonian, he wrote to his mother: "Prepare a feast to which the people shall come; then charge them that no one who has known grief may eat of it." She did so. And no one stretched out a hand to it. So she said: "Why do you not eat?" They said: "You charged us that no one who has known grief should eat of it, and there is not one among us who has not been bereaved of some dear one or kinsman."

She said: "By God, my son is dead — and he left me this charge only to console me by it!"

A man from al-Yamama came to stay with Abu Hafsa the poet. He vacated the house for him — and then fled, for fear that he would be bound to entertain him that night. The guest went out and bought what he needed, then came back and wrote to him:

O you who go out from your own house,
fleeing in the extremity of fear —

your guest has come bringing his own provisions,
so come back, and be a guest of the guest!