Calif Omar, with his venerable teacher, Abou-Zeid, walked forth
in the darkness of the night, far from his palace gate, where
he saw a feeble fire burning. He sought it and found a poor
woman trying to bring a caldron to the boiling-point while two
wretched children clung to her, piteously moaning. “Peace unto
thee, O woman! What dost thou here alone in the night and the
cold?” said the calif. “I am trying to make this water boil
that my children may drink, who perish of hunger and cold;
but for the misery we have to bear, Allah will surely one day
ask reckoning of Omar, the calif.” “But,” said the disguised
calif, “dost thou think, O woman, that Omar can know of thy
wretchedness?” She answered: “Wherefore, then, is Omar, the
calif, if he be unaware of the misery of his people and of each
one of his subjects?” The calif was silent. “Let us go hence,”
he said to Abou-Zeid. He hastened to the storehouses of his
kitchen, and drew forth a sack of flour and a jar of sheep’s
fat. “O Abou-Zeid, help thou me to charge these on my back,”
said the calif. “Not so,” replied the attendant; “suffer that I
carry them on my back, O Commander of the Faithful.” Omar said
calmly: “Wilt thou also, O Abou-Zeid, bear the weight of my sins
on the day of resurrection?” And Abou-Zeid was obliged to lay
the jar of fat and the sack of flour on the back of the calif,
who hastened to the woman by the fire, and with his own hands
did put the flour and the fat into the caldron over the fire,
which fire he quickened with his breath, and the smoke whereof
filled his beard. When the food was prepared, with his own
breath did he cool it that the children might eat. Then he left
the sack and the jar and went his way saying: “O Abou-Zeid, the
light from the fire that I have beheld to-day has enlightened me
also.”--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”
(844)
See FAITHFULNESS.
=Dying Like Ladies=--See PRIDE.