When Riân Bin Valeed, who had, during the lifetime of the veracious one, made a profession of the religion of Islâm and of Monotheism, bade farewell to royalty and the time of his government came to an end, a wicked infidel of the sons of his uncles, Qabûs Bin Mâsab by name, ascended the throne of dominion in his stead, and ordered the customs of the Faraa’nites and of the A’mâlekites, which had during the equitable sway of Riân been blotted out from the pages of the times, to be revived. Though Yusuf —u. w. b., etc.—admonished him much, in consequence of divine inspiration, to abandon his wicked intentions, Qabûs refused, and would not believe in the prophetship of the veracious one; despite of this, however, with all his infidelity and blasphemy, he thought it incumbent upon himself to honour Yusuf, and considered the upholding of the latter’s dignity to be one of the buttresses of the castle of royalty. When Yusuf despaired of Qabûs’s accepting the religion of Islâm, and his vexation increased by the refusal of Qabûs, he became weary of the length of his own life, so that during a certain night, when the inhabitants of the world reposed in the tranquillity of sleep from their occupations and conversations about separation and meeting, he prayed to the Almighty, saying: ‘O beneficent granter of requests, and merciful protector of Thy servants, Thou hast translated me from the affliction of the well to the happiness of dignity, and hast promoted me from the baseness of servitude to the summit of magnificence; hast illuminated my mind with the light of interpretation of dreams, and hast deposited in the storehouse of my intellect the secrets of the treasure of prophecy and of inspired messengership; liberate now the bird of my soul, which has become weary of the cage of its body; send it to the rose-garden of paradise, and gather me to my fathers Ebrahim the friend, Esahâq, Esma’il, A’is, and Esrâil.’ After Yusuf had become certain that this request had been granted, he assembled his brothers around himself and took solemn leave of them. He appointed Yahuda, who was most distinguished by the light of his intellect, and the nobility of his disposition, to be the ruler and governor of the children of Esrâil and of the adherents of the family of the Friend, and ordered all of them to submit to his commands and prohibitions. The children of Ya’qûb accepted Yusuf’s injunctions, and asked: ‘After thy decease what will be the state of the affairs of those attached to the family of the prophets in good and in bad times, in strength and in weakness?’ Yusuf answered: ‘Remain ye steadfast in the religion of Ebrahim, and follow your ancestors; because the Almighty—w. n. b. e.—has predestined blessings for your seed, and He will bring your affairs to the desired termination. But after my decease a despot, oppressor, tyrant, and descendant of the A’mâlekites and Qabats [Copts?], will for a short time prevail over the kingdom of Egypt, and forgetting human nature will lay claim to be worshipped as divine. The Omnipotent and Glorious Lord will tolerate these tyrants for four hundred years, during which they will reduce all the children of Esrâil to the condition of slavery; and the sign of the commencement of that calamity will be that every white chanticleer that is in the houses of the children of Esrâil will become mute and silent, nor will his voice ever be heard by the good or the bad. When the reign of that accursed deceiver will be approaching its termination, a prophet of the name of Mûsa will arise from the tribe of my brother Lavi, and in consequence of his beneficent approach the white cocks will again begin to crow. That inspired prophet will, with plain words and evident signs, discomfit that heedless turncoat, and will by a miracle send that wretched oppressor, indulging in blasphemous aspirations, through water to the infernal regions. You must enjoin your descendants from generation to generation that when the said prophet makes his appearance, takes the census of your numbers, and leads you all out from Egypt, to request him to take up my coffin from the tomb, and to convey it along with himself to the sepulchre of my honoured ancestors, and to bury it there.’
Verses: This he said, and moistened his eyes with tears,
And departed to another land.
Though you all may dislike this journey,
All of us will have to perform it.