Page [45]. “Let him not be precipitate in putting me to death.”—The text goes on to say: “For precipitation in the end leads only to repentance. Through impatience a man falls from sovereignty, but whoever practises patience obtains it, and is free from calamity. If the King would permit, just as his servant has described [the career of] the Impatient Bihzād, he would also, at the service of the King, make known Abū Saber’s patience, and thus shed light on the illumined mind of the King, [showing] how by patience extensive dominion accrues to a human being.” The King said: “Abū Saber, who was he? And practising what degree of patience, and in what manner, did he acquire dominion and sovereignty? Relate.”
Page [46]. Abū Saber (Sabr), literally, “Father of Patience.”—This story offers a striking example of the practice of patience, a virtue enjoined by the Kur’ān (ii, 148): “O true believers, beg assistance with patience (bi-’s-sabri) and prayer, for God is with the patient (inna-’llāha ma`a-’s-sabirīn).”—Travellers in the East are daily reminded of this text: you engage camels; at the time appointed, they are not ready; you seek, and find the owner smoking in a coffee-shop; to your remonstrances he replies: “Have patience, Efendī—inna-’llāha ma`a-’s-sabirīn.” An Egyptian friend visits you while you are still agitated, and his only words are: Sabr kun—inna-’llāha ma`a-’s-sabirīn: Have patience—God is with the patient. In a flutter of indignation you bring your complaint before my Lord Judge (Māvlāna Kazī), who summons and expostulates with the offender, and then, with a smile, assures you, inna-’llāha ma`a-’s-sabirīn!—Persian authors are profuse in their praise of patience. Sa`dī (Gulistān, i, 27) illustrates the double meaning of Sabr, which signifies the “aloe” as well as “patience:”
Rest not sour because of the turns of Fortune, for Patience [or the Aloe],
Although it is bitter, bringeth forth sweet fruit.
And in the same excellent work (iii, 1) he says: “The treasure chosen by Lukmān was patience; without patience there is no such thing as wisdom.”
Page [46]. “A tax-gatherer”—`Amil—is inferior to an Amīn, who regulates the revenues of a district, and to a Zamin-dār, a landed proprietor.
Page [46]. “Extorted (Kharāj) tribute from the poor peasants.”—Kharāj-guzār, “a tribute-paying subject,” differs from dhimī (zimmiy), who pays an annual tribute, and is entitled to the protection of the Muslims and to most of the civil rights which they enjoy; but he has also—in Egypt, at least—to pay the income-tax in common with Muslims. (See Lane’s Modern Egyptians.)
Page [46]. “With cruelty and injustice,” &c.—“Most of the governors of provinces and districts,” says Lane (Modern Egypt.), “carry their oppression far beyond the limits to which they are authorised to proceed by the Pasha; and even the Shaikh of a village, in executing the commands of his superiors, abuses his lawful power: bribes and the ties of relationship and marriage influence him and them; and by lessening the oppression of some, who are more able to bear it, greatly increase that of others.” The peasants of Egypt only pay taxes after a severe bastinading: “the more easily the peasant pays, the more he is made to pay;” they are “proud of the stripes they receive for withholding their contributions; and are often heard to boast of the number of blows which were inflicted upon them before they would give up their money.... It may be hardly necessary to add, that few of them engage with assiduity in the labours of agriculture, unless compelled to do so by their superiors.”
Page [47]. “He replied, that patience was his only remedy.”—The lithographed text thus proceeds:
The peasants retired void of hope, and remained [quiet] in the village until the day when the King of the territory came in that direction for the chase. The peasants hastened out of the village, and raised a cry [of lamentation], saying: “We are peasants, the tributaries and well-wishers of his Majesty. At the time when the collector, entering this village, executed his duties cruelly towards us, and had no mercy upon us poor people, a party of evil-doers slew the tax-gatherer and fled. This news reaching the ears of the King, he commanded the village to be laid waste, and we, the guiltless, were set aside. After this we were in misery and affliction, and could do but little seed-sowing and harvest. Three years afterwards a lion formed his lair in the neighbouring district of the village, and he killed many children and camels; and from dread of the lion we were unable to go out of doors, and were reduced to