Aslam

(3) The following story has been narrated by Habban-b- Abdullah. While travelling in a certain place with one Solaiman, Caliph Harun Rashid said : You have got a beautiful singing female slave. Tell her to sing before me. When she came the Caliph told him to bring musical instrument. When he was taking it to the Caliph , he met a hermit on the way. The hermit took the instrument and broke it into pieces. The man complained about it to the Caliph who called the hermit out of anger. When the hermit entered the Caliph's darbar with a bag of small pebbles, the Caliph asked him why he had broken the musical instrument. The hermit said : I heard your father and his predecessors to recite this verse on the pulpit : God orders you to do justice, to show kindness, to give charity to the near relatives and prohibits you from evils and rebellion, I saw evil and broke the musical instrument to pieces. The Caliph remained silent and allowed the hermit to go. When the hermit went away out of the Caliph's darbar, the latter gave a purse of money to a man and said : Follow this hermit. If you hear him say : I have told the Caliph such and such, don't give it to him. If you find him silent,

188 Enjoining good and forbidding evil Vol-II

give it to him. When the hermit went out, he went to the place of .
date-stones and remained silent. The man gave the purse to him. .
The hermit said to the man : Tell the Commander of the faithful to return the money wherefrom he took it. Then he began to pick up date-stones and recite the following poems :-

'I see the worldly addicted engrossed in anxieties, Along with the increase of their wealth, sorrows increase The world gives to the honourable troubles and disgrace, It gives him who submits to it an honourable place, Give up what is useless to you and unnecessary, And take to what is to you absolutely necessary.

(4) The sage Suf iyan Saori said : Caliph Mehdi once went on a pilgrimage in 166 Hijri. I found him at Jamrah Aqabah to throw stones and then the people were pushed back on all sides by sticks. I waited there for sometime and said to the Caliph : O man having beautiful face , I heard the narrator say this Hadis : I saw the Messenger of God on the Day of sacrifice to throw stones here in which there was no beating no driving out of the people, no assault by sticks and in which it was not said : Go back all around " . But ypu are driving the people from left, right and front. The Caliph asked : Who is the man ? He was told that he was Sufiyan Saori : The Caliph said : O Sufiyan, had there been Caliph Mansur, you would not have dared to say this . He said : If you has seen the disasters that fell on Caliph Mansure, the condition wherein you are now would have been less.