This long and elaborate composition has a very slight foundation. The author, desirous to amuse his readers with a very ordinary legal puzzle, imagines a long adventure to introduce it. Ḥârith is passing a sleepless night, and strongly desires a companion to con­verse with, when a wanderer knocks at the door. He opens, and when the light is brought he discovers the visitor to be Abû Zayd. Rejoicing at so pleasant an encounter he offers him food, but finds that Abû Zayd will eat nothing. He is offended; but Abû Zayd proceeds to explain his want of appetite by relating the adventures of the day. He had been as usual in destitution, and his hunger had been further excited by the sight of the dates and milk that were exposed in the market. At last, when almost exhausted, he had seen a man weeping. He had inquired the cause and found that the stranger was deploring the decay of learning, inasmuch as no one was able to solve for him a puzzle which had come into his posses­sion. This was to explain how a man, dying childless, could leave a brother perfectly competent to inherit, and yet that his property should go to his wife’s brother. Abû Zayd at once perceives the answer, but demands a supper before revealing it. The stranger takes him home and treats him to dates and cream, which he eats greedily, and then explains that the deceased man in the puzzle had had a son by a former wife, who had married the mother of his, the father’s, second wife and then died, leaving a son who would be the brother of the second wife, and the grandson of the deceased whose property was in question. This child would therefore inherit in preference to the deceased’s brother. Abû Zayd relates that when he had given the stranger the solution of the puzzle, he had been turned out in the rain, and had wandered from house to house seeking shelter, until chance had taken him to Hârith. They spend the night in conversation, and Ḥârith parts with him in the morning with regret. Sherîshi, in his commentary, remarks with justice on the inordinate length of this Assembly, and gives one by Al Hamadâni, of only a few lines, as a contrast to it, observing that if Ḥarîri’s had been shorter and Badî‘ az Zemân’s longer, both would have been better. “Abû Moḥammed,” he says, “is so long as to weary the hearer.”

Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: I was wakeful in a certain night, that was black of robe, lowering a massive cloud, beyond the wakefulness of the lover who is driven from the door, who is tried by the aversion of mistresses.—And thoughts ceased not to rouse my sadness, and make my imagination roam among fantasies. —Until I formed a wish, through the unease of what I suffered, that I might be granted a talk-fellow from among the estimable, who should shorten the tedium of my night-dark night.—Now my wish was not ended, and I had not closed my eye, when a knocker knocked at the door, one with an humble voice.—And I said within myself, “Perchance the plant of wishing has now borne fruit, and the night of luck is moonlit.”—And I rose up to him in haste, and said, “Who is it that now walks by night?”—He said, “A stranger, whom the night has veiled in darkness, whom the rain-flood has caught;—And he desires a sheltering, nothing else; and when it dawns he will advance his journey.”—Said Al Ḥârith: Now when his rays indicated his sun, and his title disclosed the secret of his page,—I knew that night-talking with him would be a prize, and watching with him a pleasure. —So I opened the door with smiling, and said, “Enter ye into them with peace.”—And there entered a person whose lance time had bent, and the rain had wet through his mantle.—And he greeted with a glib tongue, and a sweet eloquence.—Then he thanked me for responding to his voice, and excused himself for night-walking out of season.—But I put near to him the kindled lantern, and contemplated him as one that examines money.— And I found that he was our Shaykh Abû Zayd, without question, without the guess of doubt.—So I received him as one who had possessed me of my utmost desire, and transported me from the vexing of sorrow to the quiet of joy.—Then he took to complaining of weariness, and I took to How? and Where?—He said, “Let me swallow down my spittle, for my road has wearied me.”—And I thought that he had hunger in his belly, and was slug­gish from this cause.—So I set before him what is set before the guest who comes sudden in the dark night.— But he shrank as shrinks the abashed, and declined as declines the overeaten.—And I was evil in thought at his refraining, and the change of his nature angered me:—Until I was near to be rough to him in speech, and to sting him with the venom of blame.—Then he discerned from the glances of my eye what pervaded my mind:—And he said, “O weak of confidence in them that love thee! turn from that which thou makest to stir thy heart and listen to me, O thou base-born!”—I said, “Go on, brother of empty talk.”—Then he said, Know that I passed yesternight an ally of want, a communer with fantasy.—And when the night had ful­filled its vow, and the morn had sunk its stars, I went forth at the time of sunrise to one of the markets,—To assay against any prey that might pass by, any generous man who might show bounty.—And I caught sight of dates whose ordering in rows was made comely, whose place of summering had been favourable.—And they united in proof of their goodness the purity of choice wine, and the ruddiness of cornelian.—And opposite them was milk that showed forth like the yellow gold, and disclosed a saffron hue,—Which praised him who cooked it with the tongue of its perfection, and justified the judgment of the buyer, even though he had paid down his heart’s core for it.—Then appetite bound me with its cords, and thirst brought me under its dominion.—And I remained more bewildered than a lizard, more distracted than a lover;—Having no means to bring me to the reaching of my wish, and the delight of swallowing.— And now my foot obeyed me not for departure through the ardour of my inflaming.—But greediness and its violence chid me on, and hunger and its heat, to forage every land, to be content with a driblet from my water­ing.—And I ceased not all the length of that day to let down my bucket into rivers;—But it came not back even with a wetting, and drew not up a quenching for my thirst;—Until the sun bent to the setting, and my soul was weak with weariness.—Then at eve I went home­ward with burning stomach: I returned irresolute, ad­vancing one foot, drawing back the other.—And while I thus sped or stayed, while my breeze thus rose or fell, behold, there met me a Shaykh, who was lamenting with the lamentation of the bereaved, and his eyes were flow­ing.—Then not even the Wolf’s Disease that I was under, and the emptiness that melted me, engaged me from the attempt to become intimate with him, and from the desire after deceiving him.—So I said to him, “O stranger, in thy weeping there is surely a secret, and behind thy passion an ill:—So shew me thy disorder and take me among thy counsellors:—For thou wilt find in me a physician to cure or a helper to impart.”—Then he said, “By Allah! my lamenting is not after livelihood that is gone, or fortune that is insolent;—But for the perishing of science and its blotting out, for the going down of its moons and its suns.”—I said, “And what mishap has appeared? what question is obscure? so as to excite in thee grief for the loss of those who are gone.”—Then he drew forth a scrap of paper from his sleeve, and swore by his father and mother,—That he had already laid it before the chiefs of the schools, but they could not distinguish its worn-out way-marks,—And had bidden the doctors of the ink-flasks to speak on it, but they were dumb beyond the dumbness of the tenants of the tombs.—I said to him, “Let me see it; for perhaps I shall suffice for it.”—He said, “Thou art not extreme in thy request, and oft a shot is without a shooter.”— Then he handed it to me, and lo! there was written on it:

Ho the learned, the lawyer, who surpassest in acuteness, and there is none like thee!

Give me a decision on a case which every judge shuns, at which every lawyer is bewildered:

A man died, leaving a brother, both by father and mother, who was a Moslem, free, pious;

And the deceased had a wife who had, O Doctor, a brother, really her own, without equivocation;

She got her legal share, and her brother took what was left of the inheritance instead of the deceased’s brother.

Now relieve us by thy answer to what we ask; this is an ordinance of law, no fault can be found in it.

Now when I had read the verses on the paper and per­ceived their secret, I said to him, “Thou hast fallen on one who is knowing in it, thou hast alighted near one who is at home in it:—But yet I am burning in the entrails and have need of a supper; so grant me to sojourn with thee, then listen to my decision.”—He said, “Thou art just in thy stipulating and hast shrunk from excess;— So go with me to my dwelling, that thou mayest get what thou desirest and come off as is fitting.”—Said Abû Zayd: Then I accompanied him to his habitation as God hath commanded.—And he brought me into a house nar­rower than the ark of Moses, weaker than a spider’s web. —But not the less did he mend the straitness of his dwelling by the largeness of his bestowal:—For he gave me my choice of the entertainment and of all the delicacies that are bought.—And I said, “I wish for the proud rider on the desired steed, and for the wholesome companion with the hurtful one that is companied with.” —So he thought a long time, and then he said, “Perchance thou meanest the daughter of the palm-tree with the first milk that follows the kid.”—I said to him, “Just these two I meant, and for their sake I trouble myself.” —And he rose cheerful, then sat down angry: and said, “God prosper thee! Know that truth is nobility, but lying a pest;—Nor let hunger, which is the gar­ment of the prophets and the ornament of the saints, carry thee to join thyself to him who lies, or to put on the nature of him who swerves from faith-keeping.—For the free-born woman hungers, but will not eat by her breasts; and she holds back from baseness even though urged to it by need.—Besides, I am no simpleton for thee, nor one to wink at a dupe’s bargain;—So come! I warn thee before the veil be rent, and the feud estab­lished between us;—And neglect not attention to my warning, and beware false speaking with me, beware!” —I said to him, “Now, by Him who has forbidden the eating of usury, but allowed the eating of milk, I have not spoken with falsehood, I have not shown thee deceitfully.—Thou shalt prove the truth of the business, and approve the giving of the milk and dates.”—Then he was cheerful with the cheerfulness of one who is dealt with truly, and went off hastening to the market. —And nothing could be speedier than his return, bend­ing under them; and his face was frowning, and he set them before me as one who would upbraid me;—And said, “Press host on host; so enjoy the delight of life.” —Said Abû Zayd, Then I bared a glutton’s arm, and charged as charges the voracious elephant;—But he, he glanced at me as glances the spiteful, and in his rage he would that I had choked.—Now when I had gulped down either kind, and left them a trace after the sub­stance, I was speechless through perplexity at the coming on of night-time, and through thinking on the answer to the verses.—And he delayed not to rise and set before me the ink-flask and pens.—And he said, “Thou hast filled thy wallet, now dictate the answer.— Otherwise, prepare, if thou shirk, to own the debt for what thou hast eaten.”—I said to him, There is nothing but earnest with me, so write (and the prospering be from God):