to claim his bride. Unwilling to disappoint him, the Patriarch, by invoking the name of Allah, turned a she-ass into a girl resembling his daughter, and gave her to the expectant bridegroom. Soon after the pair had left, the first suitor appeared demanding his bride. Noah then turned his bitch into a girl and married her to the laggard. Since then there have been three sorts of women in the world. Firstly, the God-fearing, who are true help-meets to their husbands; secondly, stupid and indolent slatterns, who want driving with a stick; and thirdly, shrews, who, scorning both admonition and discipline, continually snarl and snap at their owners.
IV
JOB AND HIS FAMILY
Ayûb, on whom be Peace, was a very rich man with a large family. In order to prove the sincerity of his professed piety, Allah deprived him, not only of all his worldly possessions and his children, but of his health as well. He was afflicted with a skin disease so loathsome that, on account of the smell from his ulcers, nobody but his wife would come within fifty yards of him. In spite of these misfortunes the Patriarch continued to serve Allah and to give Him thanks as in the day of prosperity. His patience, though great, did not equal that of his wife, who was a daughter of Ephraim the son of Joseph, or else of Manasseh. She not only nursed
