Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/230

On Weakness and Old Age

the folly of youth I one day shouted at my mother, who then sat down with a grieved heart in a corner and said, weeping: "Hast thou forgotten thy infancy that thou art harsh towards me? If thou hadst remembered the time of thy infancy, how helpless thou wast in my arms, thou wouldst this day not have been harsh, for thou art a lion-like man, and I an old woman."

son of a wealthy but avaricious old man, having fallen sick, his well-wishers advised him that it would be proper to get the whole Quran recited [for his recovery] or else to offer a sacrifice. He meditated a while and then said: "It is preferable to read the Qurân, because the flock is at a distance."

A holy man who had heard this afterwards remarked: "He selected the reading of the Qurân because it is at the tip of the tongue, but the money at the bottom of the heart. It is useful to bend the neck in prayers, if they are to be accompanied by almsgiving. For one dinâr he would remain sticking in mud like an ass, but if thou askest for Alhamdu he will recite it a hundred times."