"Where is thy youth, and thy beauty, and pride?"
"Gone, since I parted from thee," she replied.
"Where is the light of thine eye?" said he.
"Drowned in blood-tears for the loss of thee."
"Why is that cypress tree bowed and bent?"
"By absence from thee and my long lament."
"Where is thy pearl, and thy silver and gold,
And the diadem bright on thy head of old?"...
—Quotation from Yusuf-ou-Zalikha (J'Ami).
Translation of R.T. Griffith.

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CHISELLED SILVER BOWL, DECORATED IN FILIGREE AND POLYCHROME ENAMEL. PERSIAN WORK OF THE XVITH CENTURY, PROBABLY EXECUTED IN ASIA MINOR FOR A PRINCELY OTTOMAN PATRON

and professed unqualified allegiance. A powerful political unity came into existence and continued for a period of six centuries uninterrupted. The nations of this united kingdom of Islam were thus merged into one unit, under the stimulus of one formal religion, freely transmigrating local ideas. Arts and culture were transformed, but the evolution thus caused by the Religion was essentially political in nature.