There was once, of old time, a virtuous woman among the children of Israel, who was pious and devout and used every day to go out to the place of prayer, first entering a garden, which adjoined thereto, and there making the ablution. Now there were in this garden two old men, its keepers, who fell in love with her and sought her favours; but she refused, whereupon said they, 'Except thou yield thyself to us, we will bear witness against thee of fornication.' Quoth she, 'God will preserve me from your wickedness!' Then they opened the garden-gate and cried out, and the folk came to them from all sides, saying, 'What ails you?' Quoth they, 'We found this damsel in company with a youth, who was doing lewdness with her; but he escaped from our hands.'
Now it was the use of the people of those days to expose an adulteress to public ignominy for three days and after stone her. So they pilloried her three days, whilst the two old men came up to her daily and laying their hands on her head, said, 'Praised be God who hath sent down His vengeance on thee!'
On the fourth day, they carried her away, to stone her; but a lad of twelve years old, by name Daniel, followed them to the place of execution and said to them, 'Hasten not to stone her, till I judge between them.' So they set him a chair and he sat down and caused bring the old men before him separately. (Now he was the first that separated witnesses.) Then said he to the first, 'What sawest thou?' So he repeated to him his story, and Daniel said, 'In what part of the garden did this befall?' 'On the eastern side,' replied the elder, 'under a pear-tree.' Then he called the other old man and asked him the same question; and he replied, 'On the western side of the garden, under an apple-tree.' Meanwhile the damsel stood by, with her hands and eyes uplift to heaven, imploring God for deliverance. Then God the Most High sent down His vengeful thunder upon the two old men and consumed them and made manifest the innocence of the damsel.
This was the first of the miracles of the Prophet Daniel, on whom and on the Prophet be blessing and peace!
JAAFER THE BARMECIDE AND THE OLD BEDOUIN.
The Khalif Haroun er Reshid went out one day, with Abou Yousuf the minion and Jaafer the Barmecide and Abou Nuwas, into the desert, where they fell in with an old man, leant upon his ass. The Khalif bade Jaafer ask him whence he came; so he said to him, 'Whence comest thou?' 'From Bassora,' answered the Bedouin. 'And whither goest thou?' asked Jaafer. 'To Baghdad,' said the other. 'And what wilt thou do there?' asked Jaafer. 'I go to seek medicine for my eye,' replied the old man. Quoth the Khalif, 'O Jaafer, make us sport with him.' 'If I jest with him,' answered Jaafer, 'I shall hear what I shall not like.' But Er Reshid rejoined, 'I charge thee, on my authority, jest with him.'
So Jaafer said to the Bedouin, 'If I prescribe thee a remedy that shall profit thee, what wilt thou give me in return?' Quoth the other, 'God the Most High will requite thee for me with better than I can give thee.' 'Harkye, then,' said Jaafer, 'and I will give thee a prescription, which I have given to none but thee.' 'What is that?' asked the Bedouin; and Jaafer answered, 'Take three ounces of wind-wafts and the like of sunbeams and moonshine and lamp-light; mix them together and let them lie in the wind three months. Then bray them three months in a mortar without a bottom and laying them in a cleft platter, set it in the wind other three months; after which use three drachms every night in thy sleep, and (God willing) thou shalt be cured.'
When the Bedouin heard this, he stretched himself out on the ass's back and letting fly a terrible great crack of wind, said to Jaafer, 'Take this, in payment of thy prescription. When I have followed it, if God grant me recovery, I will give thee a slave-girl, who shall serve thee in thy lifetime a service, wherewith God shall cut short thy term; and when thou diest and God hurries thy soul to the fire, she shall blacken thy face with her ordure, of her mourning for thee, and lament and buffet her face, saying, "O frosty-beard, what a ninny thou wast!"'[FN#125] The Khalif laughed till he fell backward, and ordered the Bedouin three thousand dirhems.
THE KHALIF OMAR BEN KHETTAB AND THE YOUNG BEDOUIN.
The sheriff[FN#126] Hussein ben Reyyan relates that the Khalif Omar ben Khettab was sitting one day, attended by his chief counsellors, judging the folk and doing justice between his subjects, when there came up to him two handsome young men, haling by the collar a third youth, perfectly handsome and well dressed, whom they set before him. Omar looked at him and bade them loose him; then, calling him near to himself, said to them, 'What is your case with him?' 'O Commander of the Faithful,' answered they, 'we are two brothers by one mother and known as followers of the truth. We had a father, a very old man of good counsel, held in honour of the tribes, pure of basenesses and renowned for virtues, who reared us tenderly, whilst we were little, and loaded us with favours, when we grew up; in fine, a man abounding in noble and illustrious qualities, worthy of the poet's words: