Capricious generosity marked many of these rulers. Thus it is told of Ibn Bakiya, the vizier, that in the space of twenty days he distributed twenty thousand robes of honour. "I saw him one night at a drinking party," says Abu Ishak As-Sabi, "and, during the festivity, he changed frequently his outer dress according to custom: every time he put on a new pelisse, he bestowed it on one or other of the persons present; so that he gave away, in that sitting, upwards of two hundred pelisses.
"A female musician then said to him: 'Lord of viziers! there must be wasps in these robes to prevent you from keeping them on your body!'
"He laughed at this conceit, and ordered her a present of a casket of jewels."
Another of the ladies whom Ibn Khallikan so seldom leaves his high road to notice is As-Saiyida Sukaina, who, however, could not well be excluded, since she was "the first among the women of her time [she died a.d. 735] by birth, beauty, wit, and virtue." Part of her fame rests upon her repartees to poets: a most desirable form of activity. Thus, Orwa had a brother called Abu Bakr, whose death he lamented in some extravagant verses of which these are the concluding lines: My sorrow is for Bakr, my brother! Bakr has departed from me! What life can now be pleasing after the loss of Bakr?
When Sukaina heard these verses, she asked who was Bakr? And on being informed, she exclaimed: "What! that little blackamoor who used to run past us? Why, everything is pleasing after the loss of Bakr, even the common necessaries of life—bread and oil!"
Another female intruder. It is told of Ibn As-Sammak, a pious sage and "professional relater of anecdotes," that having held a discourse one day in the hearing of his slave-girl, he asked her what she thought of it. She replied that it would have been good but for the repetitions.
"But," said he, "I employ repetitions in order to make those understand who do not."
"Yes," she replied, "and to make those understand who do not, you weary those who do."
One of the sayings of Ibn As-Sammak was: "Fear God as if you had never obeyed Him, and hope in Him as if you had never disobeyed Him."