had not returned and nobody believed that he would do so, the Caliph, yielding to the dead man’s relatives, gave orders that Abu Dhûr should pay the forfeit. The hide was brought and Abu Dhûr, his hands tied behind him, knelt upon it amid the lamentations and tears of his numerous friends and relatives. Twice, in a voice that was heard above the noise of the assembly, had the executioner asked the ruler of Islam if it was indeed his will that the noble man should quit this world. Twice had the monarch grimly answered “yes”? when, just as the fatal question was to be put for the third and last time, some one cried out, “For Allah’s sake, stop! for here comes some one running!” At a sign from the Caliph the executioner remained silent, and, to every one’s astonishment, the man who three days previously had been condemned to die ran up out of breath and, with the words, “Praise be to Allah” sank exhausted to the ground. “Fool,” said the Caliph to him, “why didst thou return? Hadst thou stayed away, the surety would have died in thy stead and thou wouldst have been free.” “I returned,” replied the man, “in order to prove that not only the race of the virtuous has not yet died out but also that of the truthful.”[1] “Then why didst thou go away at all?” asked the monarch. “In order,” said the man, who was now kneeling with bound hands upon the hide from which Abu Dhûr had arisen, “in order to prove that the race of the trustworthy[2]
