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Updated: June 24, 2025
She asked me as to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, whom she understood I had seen, inquiring as to the estimate I had formed of his character. Lastly, with a laugh, she dwelt upon the strange vicissitudes of life. "Look at me," she said. "I began my days as the daughter of a Greek gentleman, with no dower save my wit and beauty.
Moreover, he loaded me with rich gifts, and when I went to take leave of him he intrusted me with a royal present and a letter to the Commander of the Faithful, our sovereign lord, saying, "I pray you give these to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, and assure him of my friendship." I accepted the charge respectfully, and soon embarked upon the vessel which the King himself had chosen for me.
It is interesting to note, however, that the two degrees were found of unequal lengths, suggesting that the earth is not a perfect sphere a suggestion the validity of which was not to be put to the test of conclusive measurements until about the close of the eighteenth century. The Arab measurement was made in the time of Caliph Abdallah al-Mamun, the son of the famous Harun-al-Rashid.
The King's letter was written in blue characters upon a rare and precious skin of yellowish color, and these were the words of it: "The King of the Indies, before whom walk a thousand elephants, who lives in a palace, of which the roof blazes with a hundred thousand rubies, and whose treasure-house contains twenty thousand diamond crowns, to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid sends greeting.
"Sir, my answer is that I, a poor Christian prisoner, a victim of war and fate, thank the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid for the honours and the benefits he would shower on me, and with humility decline them." "So be it, Lady. The Caliph is not a man who would wish to force your inclination.
Arabian teachers first introduced into Western Europe both algebra and the figures which we use in arithmetic. It is for this reason that we call these figures the "Arabic numerals." Harun-al-Rashid gave great encouragement to learning.
These will add field to field, but unless some stronger stream of immigration is led into the land, it will take many generations to recover its ancient prosperity; for in the ninth century A.D. Northern Mesopotamia paid Harun-al-Rashid as great a revenue as Egypt, and its cotton commanded the market of the world .
For all of Madame Riano's sharpness, she had not recognized the clothes as belonging to Gaston. Jacques Haret, however, replied with a grin: "I borrowed them, Madame, when I was last in Brabant from your old friend, the Bishop of Louvain. The old gentleman kept this costume for occasions when he goes to Brussels incog. and plays Harun-al-Rashid."
He sat daily on the judgment seat to dispense justice to all who chose to appeal to him, and, like the famous Harun-al-Rashid, he would at times put on disguises and wander unattended among the people, to keep himself informed of their real condition and to check the malpractices of his officials.
In all instances, there is also an overwhelming conviction of the transitory character of the external world, and the emptiness of all man-bestowed honors and riches. A story is told of the Mohammedan saint Fudail Ibn Tyad, which well illustrates this. The Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, learning of the extreme simplicity and asceticism of his life exclaimed, "O, Saint, how great is thy self-abnegation."
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