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that the king might covet, they feared lest he be brought to release him, by the incidence of the vizier’s [good] counsel upon the king’s heart, and he return to his former case, so should their plots be marred and their ranks degraded, for that they knew that the king would have need of that which he had known from that man nor would forget that wherewith he was familiar in him. Now it befell that a certain man of corrupt purpose[1] found a way to the perversion of the truth and a means of glozing over falsehood and adorning it with a semblance of fair-seeming and there proceeded from him that wherewith the hearts of the folk were occupied, and their minds were corrupted by his lying tales; for that he made use of Indian subtleties and forged them into a proof for the denial of the Maker, the Creator, extolled be His might and exalted be He! Indeed, God is exalted and magnified above the speech of the deniers. He avouched that it is the planets[2] that order the affairs of all creatures and he set down twelve mansions to twelve signs [of the Zodiac] and made each sign thirty degrees, after the number of the days of the month, so that in twelve mansions there are three hundred and threescore [degrees], after the number of the days of the year; and he wrought a scheme, wherein he lied and was an infidel and denied [God]. Then he got possession of the king’s mind and the enviers and haters aided him against the vizier and insinuated themselves into his favour and corrupted
