's recollection, is this, levelled at another mean
acquaintance; meanness, indeed, being one of the unpardonable
offences--especially in the eyes of poets who lived on patronage: _Be
careful not to lose the friendship of Abu 'l-Mukatil when you approach
to partake of his meal. Breaking his crumpet is for him as bad as
breaking one of his limbs. His guests fast against their will, and
without meaning to obtain the spiritual reward which is granted to
fasting._

Apropos of sarcasm, the Merwanide Omaiyide, who reigned in Spain,
received from Nizar, the sovereign of Egypt, an insulting and satirical
letter, to which he replied in these terms: "You satirize us because you
have heard of us. Had we ever heard of you, we should make you a
reply."

None of the sarcastic wits are more pointed than the blind mawla Abu
'l-Aina (806-96), whose tongue was venomously barbed, and who, like
other blind men, often used his malady as a protection when his satire
had been excessive. Viziers were his favourite butts. Being one day in
the society of one of them, the conversation turned on the history of
the Barmekides and their generosity, on which the vizier said to Abu
'l-Aina, who had just made a high eulogium of that family for their
liberality and bounty: "You have praised them and their qualities too
much; all this is a mere fabrication of book-makers and a fable imagined
by authors."

Abu 'l-Aina immediately replied: "And why then do book-makers not relate
such fables of you, O vizier?"

Again, having gone one day to the door of Said Ibn Makhlad and asked
permission to enter, Abu 'l-Aina was told that the vizier was engaged in
prayer. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "there is a pleasure in novelty."

"I am told," said a khalif to him, "that thou hast an evil tongue."

"Commander of the Faithful!" replied Abu 'l-Aina, "the Almighty himself
has spoken praise and satire," and he then quoted this poem: _If I
praise not the honest man and revile not the sordid, the despicable, and
the base, why should I have the power of saying, "That is good and this
is bad"? And why should God have opened men's ears and my mouth?_

Having one day a dispute with a descendant of the Prophet, his adversary
said to Abu 'l-Aina: "You attack me, and yet you say in your prayers:
'Almighty God! bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad.'"

"Yes," replied Abu 'l-Aina, "but I add--'who are virtuous and pure.'"

Here is one of the stories which Abu 'l-Aina used to te