After the union of Ya’qûb with Yusuf had lasted for seventeen, and according to others twenty-four years, the commissioner of death suddenly knocked at the door-ring of Ya’qûb’s prosperous mansion by the decree of fate, and the chains of the fatal moment jingled at the entrance to his private apartment. Esrâil, being perfectly aware of his inability to elude the grasp of A’zrayil either by rest or by flight, assembled his children, made his last will, appointed Yusuf to be his executor and successor, and said: ‘When I depart from this perishable to the everlasting abode, I desire to be transferred by you to the holy city of the society of Ebrahim and Esahâq, and to become a companion of the pious and of the righteous.’ He had not yet finished these words, when the high-soaring Homâi of his pure spirit flew, in the company of the Cherubim of the sublime mansion, to the propinquity of the mercy of the Most Gracious One, and this unstable world was denuded and deprived of his excellent virtues and noble qualities. ‘We belong to Allah, and unto him we return.’*