umber, asked him
from whom he drew his descent.

To this question Al-Moizz replied: "We shall hold a sitting to which all
of you shall be convened, and there we shall expose to you the entire
chain of our genealogy."

Being at length established in the castle of Cairo, he gave a public
audience, as he had promised, and having taken his seat, he asked if any
of their chiefs were still alive?

"No," replied they, "not one of any consequence survives."

He then drew his sword half-way out of the scabbard and exclaimed: "This
is my genealogy! And here," said he, scattering a great quantity of gold
among them, "are proofs of my nobility!"

On this they all acknowledged him for their lord and master.

XIV.--THE ASCETICS

Of Bishr Ibn Al-Harith Al-Hafi, one of Baghdad's holiest ascetics, it is
told that his choice of the life of saintliness thus came about.
Happening to find on the road a leaf of paper with the name of God
written on it, which had been trampled underfoot, he bought ghalia with
some dirhems which he had about him, and, having perfumed the leaf with
it, deposited it in a hole in a wall.

Afterwards he had a dream, in which a voice seemed to say to him: "O
Bishr! thou hast perfumed my name, and I shall surely cause thine to be
a sweet odour both in this world and the next."

When he awoke, he gave up the world, and turned to God.

Bishr being once asked with what sauce he ate his bread, replied: "I
think on good health, and I take that as my sauce."

One of his prayers was this: "O, my God! deprive me of notoriety, if
thou hast given it to me in this world for the purpose of putting me to
shame in the next."

It was a true saying of another famous ascetic, Al-Fudail, that, when
God loves a man, He increases his afflictions, and when He hates a man,
He increases his worldly prosperity.

Asceticism, however, had not robbed him of human sympathy or warped his
nature, for he said at another time: "For a man to be polite to his
company and make himself agreeable to them is better than to pass nights
in prayer and days in fasting."

Abu Ali Ar-Razi said: "I kept company with Al-Fudail during thirty
years, and I never saw him laugh or smile but on one occasion, and that
was the death of his son. On my asking him the reason, he replied:
'Whatever is pleasing to God is pleasing to me.'"

Maruf Al-Karkhi, another celebrated saint, who died in Baghdad in 805,
had a sensible elasticity. Passing, one day,