Page:A Moslem seeker after God - showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century (IA moslemseekeraft00zwem).pdf/71

 villages.

atmosphere of Tus. Christians were numerous and the Moslem Shiahs were almost as strong as the orthodox. Some of their most celebrated writers and scholars, for example Abu Ja far Muhammed, were born at Tus; and Ibn Abi Hatim, one of the earliest and most important critics of the science of Tradition, died at Tus in 939. In spite of its learned men, however, Tus did not have a high reputation, as we know from the following anecdote related of Ibn-Habbariyya. He was asked by an enemy of Nizam Al-Mulk to compose a satire on this ruler. " How can I attack a man to whose kindness I owe everything I see in my house?" asked the poet. However, on being pressed, he penned these lines:

" What wonder is it that Nizam Al-Mulk should rule, And that Fate should be on his side? Fortune is like the water-wheel Which raises water from the well None but oxen can turn it! "

When the vizier was informed of this attack upon him, he merely remarked that the poet had simply intended to allude to his origin he came from Tus in Khorasan, and, according to a popular saying, all the men of Tus were oxen (one would say asses, nowadays).

" The people of Khorasan," says Chenery, "were renowned for their stinginess, and it is not sur prising that the inhabitants of the