is no Majesty save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! Verily, we are Allah's and unto Him we are returning."[1] And As'ad em braced his brother, sobbing and repeating these couplets,
O Thou to whom sad trembling wights in fear complain! ○ O ever ready whatso cometh to sustain!
The sole resource for me is at Thy door to knock, ○ At whose door knock an Thou to open wilt not deign?
O Thou whose grace is treasured in the one word, Be![2] ○ Favour me, I beseech, in Thee all weals contain.
Now when Amjad heard his brother's weeping he wept also and pressing him to his bosom repeated these two couplets,
O Thou whose boons to me are more than one! ○ Whose gifts and favours have nor count nor bound!
No stroke of all Fate's strokes e'er fell on me, ○ But Thee to take me by the hand I found.
Then said Amjad to the treasurer, "I conjure thee by the One, Omnipotent, the Lord of Mercy, the Beneficent! slay me before my brother As'ad, so haply shall the fire be quencht in my heart's core and in this life burn no more." But As'ad wept and exclaimed, "Not so: I will die first;" whereupon quoth Amjad, "It were best that I embrace thee and thou embrace me, so the sword may fall upon us and slay us both at a single stroke." Thereupon they embraced, face to face and clung to each other straitly, whilst the treasurer tied up the twain and bound them fast with cords, weeping the while. Then he drew his blade and said to them, "By Allah, O my lords, it is indeed hard to me to slay you! But have ye no last wishes that I may fulfil or charges which I may carry out, or message which I may deliver?" Replied Amjad, "We have no wish; and my only charge to thee is that thou set my brother below and me above him, that the blow may fall on me first, and when thou hast killed us and returnest to the King and he asketh thee:—What heardest thou from them before their death?'; do thou
- ↑ i.e., unto Him we shall return, a sentence recurring in almost every longer chapter of the Koran.
- ↑ Arab. "Kun," the creative Word (which, by the by, proves the Koran to be an uncreated Logos); the full sentence being "Kun fa kána" = Be! and it became. The origin is evidently, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen. i. 3); a line grand in its simplicity and evidently borrowed from the Egyptians, even as Yahveh (Jehovah) from "Ankh"=He who lives (Brugsch Hist. ii. 34).
