How many graces come on heels of stresses, ✿ And fill the burning heart with jubilee:
How many a sorrow in the morn appears, ✿ And turns at night-tide into gladdest gree:
If things go hard with thee some day, yet trust ✿ Th’ Eterne, th’ Almighty God of Unity:
And pray the Prophet that he intercede; ✿ Through intercession every wish shalt see.
And she left not the service of her Lord, cleaving unto His House, till death came to her. And a tale is also told, by Málik bin Dínár[[467]] (Allah have mercy on him!) of
[467]. A theologian of Bassorah (eighth century): surnamed Abú Yahyá. The prayer for mercy denotes that he was dead when the tale was written.
THE PIOUS BLACK SLAVE.
We were once afflicted with drought at Bassorah and went forth sundry times to pray for rain, but saw no sign of our prayers being accepted. So I went, I and ‘Itaa al-Salamí and Sábit al-Banáni and Naja al-Bakáa and Mohammed bin Wási’a and Ayyúb al-Sukhtiyáni and Habíb al-Farsi and Hassán bin Abi Sinán and ‘Otbah al-Ghulám and Sálih al-Muzani,[[468]] till we reached the oratory,[[469]] when the boys came out of the schools and we prayed for rain, but saw no sign of acceptance. So about midday the people went away and I and Sabit al-Banani tarried in the place of prayer till nightfall, when we saw a black of comely face, slender of shank[[470]] and big of belly, approach us, clad in a pair of woollen drawers; if all he wore had been priced, it would not have fetched a couple of dirhams. He brought water and made the minor ablution, then, going up to the prayer-niche, prayed two inclinations deftly, his standing and bowing and prostration being exactly similar in both. Then he raised his glance heavenwards, and said, “O my God and my Lord and Master, how long wilt Thou reject Thy servants in that which offereth no hurt to Thy sovereignty? Is that which is with Thee wasted or are the treasuries of Thy Kingdom annihilated? I conjure Thee, by Thy love to me forthwith to pour out upon us Thy rain-clouds of grace!” He spake and hardly had he made an end of speaking, when the heavens clouded over and there came a rain, as if the mouths of waterskins had been opened; and when we left the oratory, we were knee-deep in water,——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Four Hundred and Sixty-eighth Night,