Al Ḥârith, being at Rayy, in Persia, finds the people flocking to hear a preacher of great eloquence and sanctity, and following them to the place of assembling, listens to a discourse from an aged man in ecclesiastical costume. When the sermon is over, a suppliant, who cannot prevail on the Governor to listen to his complaint against an official who had wronged him, calls upon the preacher to aid him by his admonitions, on which the preacher at once indites another discourse in reproof of the Governor. The latter is moved to repentance, hastens to do justice, rewards the preacher, and solicits acquaintance with him. The preacher, who is no other than Abû Zayd, goes off rejoicing in the success of his day’s work, having previously given Ḥârith some moral counsel.

Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: Ever since I perfected my forethought and knew right from wrong, I gave care to incline to admonishings and eschew angering words,—That I might be adorned with graces of disposition, and be free from what brands with shamelessness;—And I ceased not to keep myself to this discipline, and to allay by it the coals of wrath, until habituation in it became nature, and application to it a desire willingly obeyed.—Now when I de­scended at Rayy (and I had now loosed the loops of error, and knew good from evil), I saw there one morning crowd on the track of crowd;—And they were spreading with the spread of locusts, and running with the running of steeds,—And describing one to another a preacher to whom they were tending, and they set Ibn Sam‘ûn below him.—Then it hindered me not from hearkening to the preachings, and making trial of the preacher, that I must endure the clamorous and bear the pushing;—So I followed as follow the obedient, and slipped into the thread of the throng,— Until we came to a meeting-place, which had united the ruler and the ruled, and gathered the eminent and the obscure;—And in the midst of its halo, and among its full moons, was an old man, bowed and with a breast-hunch, and he wore the cap and the cloak;— And he was breaking forth into a sermon to heal breasts and to soften rocks; and I heard him say, and men’s minds were charmed by it:

Son of man, how thou cleavest to that which deceives thee, and clingest to that which harms thee!—How thou art given to that which seduces thee; how thou art gladdened at him who flatters thee!—Thou art troubled about that which wearies thee, but art careless of that which concerns thee.—Thou drawest wide the bow of thy transgression; thou robest thyself with covetousness which will destroy thee!—Thou art not content with what is enough; thou abstainest not from the forbidden!—Thou hearkenest not to admonishings; thou art not deterred by threatening!—It is thy habit to veer with desires; thou stumblest with the stumbling of the purblind beast!—It is thy care to labour in making gain, and to gather an inheritance for thine heirs! —It pleases thee to increase what belongs to thee, but thou rememberest not what is before thee!—Thou art ever intent on thy two caves; thou carest not whether the account shall be in thy favour or against thee!— Dost thou think that thou shalt be left at large, or that thou shalt not be reckoned with to-morrow?—Or dost thou count that Death will take bribes; that he will distinguish between the lion and the fawn?—No, by Allah, nor wealth nor children shall ward off death; and nought profits the people of the tombs save the accepted work.—Then blessing to him who hears and retains and makes good what he claims; and with­holds his soul from desire, and knows that he who turns from evil is a gainer;—And that man shall have nought save his own work; and that this work surely it shall be shown.—Then he recited as one who is fearful, but with a high-pitched voice:

By thy life! mansions and wealth will not avail when the rich man dwells in the ground and abides in it;

So be liberal with thy wealth in things pleasing to God, content with what thou gainest of His hire and reward;

And anticipate by it the change of Time, for he seizes with his crooked talon and his tooth;

And trust not treacherous fortune and its deceit, for how many a lowly one has it marred, how many a noble!

But resist the desire of the soul, which no erring one ever obeyed but he fell from his high places.

And keep to the fear of God, and the dread of Him, that thou mayest escape from his punishment which is to be feared.

Neglect not to call to mind thy sin, but weep for it with tears that shall be like the rain-flood at its pouring;

And figure to thy mind Death and his stroke, and the terror of his meeting, and the taste of his wormwood cup!

For the end of the dwelling of the living is a pit, to which he shall descend, brought down from his towers.

Then well-done! the servant whom the evil of his deed grieves, and who shows amendment before the shutting of his gate.

Said Al Ḥârith: Then the assembly remained amid tears that they shed, and repentance that they showed; until the sun declined, and the day’s duties pressed upon us.—Now when the voices were low, and silence had gathered, and the tears and the preachings had gone to rest,—One crying for help cried to the Prince who was present, and began to wail to him of his tyrannous agent.—But the Prince leaned to the adversary, and was careless of discovering his wrong.—And when the suppliant despaired of redress from him, he called up the preacher to admonish him;—Who rose as rises the prompt, and recited, referring to the Prince:

Wonderful! a man hoping to attain to rule; and then when he attains to his desire he wrongs;

He weaves warp and woof in tyrannies; now lapping at their well, now bidding others to lap.

Nor cares he, when he is following his desires in them, whether he maintains his religion or destroys it:

Oh woe to him! if he knew well that there is no state but changes, surely he would not transgress;

Or if he saw clearly what is the repentance of him who inclines his hearing to the lie of informers, he would not incline it.

But obey thou him in whose hand is the leading-cord; cast down thine eye if he neglect observance or speak vainly:

And graze on bitter pasture when he calls thee to the grazing on it, and water at the salt well when he forbids thee the sweet.

And bear his injury even though its touch afflicts thee, and pours out the flow of thy tears, nay exhausts it;

For fortune shall give thee the laugh of him when it departs from him, and kindles for the ambush against him the fire of war.

And it shall bring down on him exultation, when he appears vacant of his office, emptied of it;

And thou shalt be pitiful to him when his cheek lies soiled on the dust of shame.

This is his fate: and then surely he shall one day stand in the place where even the master of eloquence shall be found a lisper:

And he shall be gathered to judgment viler than the toad-stool of the plain; he shall be reckoned with for his shortcoming and excess:

And he shall be chastised for that which he has committed, and for him whom he has chosen; he shall be demanded of for what he sipped and what he supped.

And he shall be reckoned exactly with concerning small things, as he was wont to do with mankind, but more thoroughly.

So that he shall bite his hand at his governing, and wish that he had not sought from it what he sought.

Then he said: O thou who art belted with authority, and trained to rule!—Put away wantonness at thy dominion, and vain trusting in thy might:—For dominion is a breeze that changes and power is a lightning that deceives.—And truly the happiest of rulers is he whose people are happy in him, and the most wretched in both worlds is he whose ruling is ill.—Then be thou not as one who neglects the life to come and disregards it, who loves the fleeting life and seeks it, who wrongs the people and afflicts them, and who, when he bears rule, walks in the earth to do violence in it.—For, by Allah, the Judge shall not be unregarding; thou shalt not be left at large, O man: but the balance shall be set for thee, and as thou rewardest thou shalt be rewarded.— Said Al Ḥârith: Then the Governor was sullen at what he heard, and his colour changed and changed:—And he began to groan concerning his rule, and to follow sigh with sigh.—Then he attended to the complainer, and rid him of his complaint, and to him that was complained of, and rebuked him.—And he was courteous to the preacher, and gave him gifts, and urged him to visit him. —And the wronged man departed victorious, and the wronger checked.—Then the preacher went forth swag­gering among his comrades, glorying in the success of his bargain.—But I followed him up, and stepped crouching, and showed him a sharp glance.—And when he discerned what I hid from him, and was aware of the turning of my face to him, he said, “The better of two guides is he who leads aright.”—Then he came near me, and recited:

I am he whom thou knowest, Ḥârith,

The talker with kings, the wit, the intimate.

I charm as charm not the triple-twisted strings,

At times a brother of earnest, at times a jester.

Events have not changed me since I met thee,

Nor has vexing calamity peeled my branch;

Nor has any splitting edge cloven my tooth;

But my claw is fixed in every prey:

On each herd that roams my wolf is ravaging;

So that it is as though I were the heir of all mankind,

Their Shem, their Ham, and their Japhet.

Said Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm: Then I said, “By Allah, now thou art surely Abû Zayd; yet thou hast been godly beyond ‘Amr Ibn ‘Obayd.”—Then he was cheerful with the cheerfulness of the hospitable when he is visited, and said: Listen, my brother:

Keep to truth, although it scorch thee with the fire of threatening:

And seek to please God; for the most foolish of mankind is he who angers the master and pleases the slave.

Then he took leave of his fellows and departed, trailing his sleeves.—And we searched for him after­wards in Rayy, and sought to get news of him by the rolls of folding.—But there was none of us who knew of his abode, or could learn what locust had gone off with him.