PERSONAL DESCRIPTION OF AIÛB, HIS QUALITIES, LAW, MIRACLES, DURATION OF HIS TRIALS, OF HIS LIFE, AND OF HIS MISSION.

He was tall, had black eyes, curly hair, a short neck, and a big head. He had heavy arms and legs, and his com­plexion was brownish.

He was just, pious, compassionate to the poor, to orphans and to widows, hospitable to strangers, and equally thankful to God in health and in sickness, in prosperity and in affliction.

His law was like that of Ebrahim; he worked numerous miracles, one of which was that he transmuted all the wine in a company of voluptuaries into pure water.

According to the tradition of Ka’b-ullâkhbâr his trials lasted seven, and according to that of Wuhub three, but according to Anûs Bin Mâlik ten years. It is related that for seven years he remained on a dunghill, where nobody took notice of him, until at last his spouse Rahmat constructed an arbour, from the wages of her daily labour, and trans­ferred him to it.

Some assert that his blessed life lasted ninety-three years, others only ninety; whereas the author of the ‘E’qd-ul-joâhir’ gives him two hundred and the ‘Muntahab-ul-ma’arif’ four hundred years.

His mission lasted twenty-seven years; this assertion is, however, contradictory to the tradition, according to which he is said, after his deliverance from his afflictions, to have lived yet seventy years, during which time he was engaged in calling the people to the religion of Ebrahim, and the Most High says with reference to him: ‘Verily we found him a patient person; how excellent a servant [was he].’*