Puissant and honoured and conjoined with those that loved him
dear, To live alone and seeing none, unfriended, he was
fain.
That which the days conceal shall yet be manifest to us: Not
one of us by death, indeed, unsmitten may remain.
O absent one, the Lord of all decreed thy strangerhood, And
thou left'st far behind the love that was betwixt us
twain!
Though death, my son, forbid me hope to see thee in this life,
Tomorrow, on the Reckoning-Day, we two shall meet again.
Quoth I, "O Commander of the Faithful, was he indeed thy son?"
"Yes," answered he; "and indeed, before I succeeded to this
office, he was wont to visit the learned and company with the
devout; but, when I became Khalif, he grew estranged from me
and withdrew himself apart. Then said I to his mother, 'This
thy son is absorbed in God the Most High, and it may be that
tribulations shall befall him and he be smitten with stress of
evil chance; wherefore, do thou give him this ruby, that it may
be to him a resource in the hour of need.' So she gave it him,
conjuring him to take it, and he obeyed her. Then he left the
things of our world to us and removed himself from us; nor did
he cease to be absent from us, till he went to the presence of
God (to whom belong might and majesty) with a holy and pure
mind.
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