Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/267



Quoth she, "A needle." Q "What is the length and what the breadth of the bridge Al-Sirát?" "Its length is three thousand years' journey, a thousand in descent and a thousand in ascent and a thousand level: it is sharper than a sword and finer than a hair."--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Four Hundred and Sixtieth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the damsel had described to him Al-Sirat, the philosopher said, "Inform me how many intercessions with Allah hath the Prophet for each soul?" [FN#447] "Three." Q "Was Abu Bakr the first who embraced Al-Islam?" "Yes." Q "Yet Ali became a Moslem before him?" "Ali came to the Prophet, when he was a boy of seven years old, for Allah vouchsafed him knowledge of the way of salvation in his tender youth, so that he never prostrated himself to idols." Quoth he, "Tell me which is the more excellent, Ali or Abbás?" Now she knew that, in propounding this question, Ibrahim was laying a trap for her; for if she said, "Ali is more excellent than Abbas," she would lack excuse with the Caliph for undervaluing his ancestor; so she bowed her head awhile, now reddening, then paling, and lastly said, "Thou askest me of two excellent men, each having his own excellence. Let us return to what we were about." When the Caliph Harun al-Rashid heard her, he stood up and said, "Thou hast spoken well, by the Lord of the Ka'abah, O Tawaddud!" Then quoth Ibrahim the rhetorician, "What meaneth the poet when he saith,

'Slim-wasted one, whose taste is sweetest-sweet, * Likest a lance whereon no head we scan: And all the lieges find it work them weal, * Eaten of afternoon in Ramazan.'"

She answered, "The sugar-cane;" and he said, "Tell me of many