IV.
Abu Wathila Iyas Al-Kadi was renowned for his excessive acuteness of mind, observation, and penetration. Many stories are told about him in connection with these qualities, which are really astonishing. It is related of him that he said: 'I was never worsted in penetration but by one man: I had taken my seat in the court of judgment at Busra, when a person came before me and gave testimony that a certain garden, of which he mentioned the boundaries, belonged to a man whom he named. As I had some doubts of his veracity, I asked him how many trees were in that garden, and he said to me, after a short silence: "How long is it since our lord the Kadi has been giving judgment in this hall?" I told him the time. "How many beams," said he, "are there in the roof?" On which I acknowledged that he was in the right, and I received his testimony.'
V.
It is a curious circumstance that Homer the Greek poet, Radaki the
Persian poet, and Bashshar bin Burd the Arabian poet, were all blind.
Here is a specimen of one of the verses of the last-named:
'Yes, my friends! my ear is charmed by a person in that tribe; for the ear is sometimes enamoured sooner than the eye. You say that I am led by one whom I never saw; know that the ear as well as the eye can inform the mind of facts.'
He composed also the following verse, which is the most gallant of any made by the poets of that epoch:
'Yes, by Allah! I love the magic of your eyes, and yet I dread the weapons by which so many lovers fell.'
VI.
Several sayings of Al-Hasan bin Sahl, the vizier to the Khalif Al-Mamun, have been preserved. Once he himself wrote at the end of a letter of recommendation, dictated to his secretary: 'I have been told that on the day of judgment a man will be questioned respecting the use he made of the influence given him by his rank in the world, in the same manner as he will be questioned respecting the use he made of the superfluity of his wealth.'
Again he said to his sons: 'My sons, learn the use of language; it is by it that man holds his preeminence over other animals; the higher the skill which you attain in the use of language, the nearer you approach to the ideal of human nature.'