AL-MALIK AL-NASIR AND THE THREE CHIEFS OF POLICE.
Once upon a time Al-Malik al-Násir[1] sent for the Wális or Chiefs of Police of Cairo, Bulak, and Fostat[2] and said to them, "I desire each of you to recount me the marvellousest thing that hath befallen him during his term of office."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
When it was the Three Hundred and Forty-third Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that quoth Al-Malik al-Nasir to the three Walis, "I desire each of you to recount me the marvellousest thing which hath befallen him during his term of office." So they answered, "We hear and we obey." Then said the Chief of the Police of Cairo, "Know thou, O our lord the Sultan, the most wonderful thing that befel me, during my term of office, was on this wise:" and he began
The Story of the Chief of Police of Cairo.
"There were in this city two men of good repute fit to bear witness[3] in matters of murder and wounds; but they were both secretly addicted to intrigues with low women and to wine- bibbing and to dissolute doings, nor could I succeed (do what I would) in bringing them to book, and I began to despair of success. So I charged the
- ↑ Lit. "The conquering King;" a dynastic title assumed by Saláh al-Dín (Saladin) and sundry of the Ayyúbi (Eyoubite) sovereigns of Egypt, whom I would call the "Soldans."
- ↑ "Káhirah" (i.e. City of Mars the Planet) is our Cairo: Bulak is the port suburb on the Nile, till 1858 wholly disjoined from the City; and Fostat is the outlier popularly called Old Cairo. The latter term is generally translated "town of leathern tents;" but in Arabic "fustát" is an abode of Sha'ar=hair, such as horse-hair, in fact any hair but "Wabar"=soft hair, as the camel's. See Lane, Lex.
- ↑ Arab. "Adl"=just: a legal-witness to whose character there is no tangible objection a prime consideration in Moslem law. Here "Adl" is evidently used ironically for a hypocritical-rascal
