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Updated: June 27, 2025
"Mustapha," said the pacha, "I feel as the caliph Haroun Alraschid, in the tale of Yussuf, related by Menouni, full of care; my soul is weary my heart is burnt as roast meat." Mustapha, who had wit enough to perceive that he was to act the part of Giaffar, the vizier, immediately replied, "O pacha! great and manifold are the cares of state.
Passing the great baths, he was accosted by one of the attendants with whom he was intimate, who inquired, why he was so depressed in spirits? "That cold-blooded caliph of ours, Haroun Alraschid, has put an end to my earnings for three days, by threatening to hang any water-carrier who shall carry his load to the bazaar.
'The king of the Indies, before whom march a hundred elephants, who lives in a palace that shines with a hundred thousand rubies, and who has in his treasury twenty thousand crowns enriched with diamonds, to Caliph Haroun Alraschid: 'Though the present we send you be inconsiderable, receive it as a brother and a friend, in consideration of the hearty friendship which we bear to you, and of which we are willing to give you proof.
As they waited with trained docility for the usual sign from the Caliph to draw tight the silken cord and despatch their victim, a great shout was heard, and outside the palace acclamations filled the air, and cries of "Haroun Alraschid returns! Welcome, Prince of the Faithful!"
After them Almansoor, Hairoun Alraschid, and their successors, who patronised the Nestorian Christians, obtained from them translations of the philosophic, medical, and astronomical Greek works; while the last of the Omniades, Abdalrahman, had introduced the same literary taste into Spain, where, in the thirteenth century, Averroes and Maimonides rivalled the fame of Avicenna, who had flourished at Bagdad a century before.
The dreams of childhood, with those veracious Arabian stories and pictures, were constantly before the mind's eye, in all their extravagant absurdities, stimulating the imagination to leap from fancy to fancy as it achieved grotesque impossibilities, and peopled the present scene as in the days of Haroun Alraschid.
After Schemseddin's return to his house, having prepared a noble feast, he sat down at the table with his family, and all his household passed the day in social conviviality. The vizier Giafar having made an end of the story of Bedreddin Hassan, told the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, that this was what he had to relate to his majesty.
In the reign of the caliph Haroun Alraschid, there was at Bagdad a druggist, called Aboulhassen Ebn Thaher, a very rich and handsome man. He had more wit and politeness than those of his profession generally have. His integrity, sincerity, and jovial humour, made him to be loved and sought after by all sorts of people.
When the Grand Vizier announced to the Caliph that the Emir Bargash ibn Beynin was a prisoner, and awaited under guard the commands of his Majesty, Haroun Alraschid, looking round the audience-chamber with a stern expression of countenance, said, "Let the Emir be conducted into our presence."
The cultivators of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and general literature abounded in the court of Almansor, who invited all philosophers, offering them his protection, whatever their religious opinions might be. His successor, Alraschid, is said never to have travelled without a retinue of a hundred learned men.
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