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Updated: June 17, 2025
Quoth the other, "Nor will I give her." Then Al-Rashid exclaimed, "Be Zubaydah triply divorced an thou shall not either sell or give her to me!" Then Ja'afar exclaimed, "Be my wife triply divorced an I either sell or give her to thee!" After awhile they recovered from their tipsiness and were aware of having fallen into a grave dilemma, but knew not by what device to extricate themselves.
Now some days before this, Ala al-Din had said to Ja'afar, "I complained to the Caliph of my grief and mourning for the loss of my wife Zubaydah and he gave me Kut al-Kulub;" and the Minister replied, "Except he loved thee, he had not given her to thee. Say hast thou gone in unto her, O Ala al-Din?" He rejoined, "No, by Allah! I know not her length from her breadth."
So when day departed with its light and in gloom came night, they lighted the wax candles and he said to her, "Rise, Zubaydah, make us music;" and behold, at this moment some one knocked at the door, and she said, "Go and look who is at the door." So he went down and opened it and seeing the Dervishes, said, "Oh, fair welcome to the liars! Come up."
So presently he carried him into his serraglio and calling a slave-girl named Kut al-Kulub, said to her, "Ala al-Din had a wife called Zubaydah, who used to sing to him and solace him of cark and care; but she is gone to the mercy of Almighty Allah, and now I would have thee play him an air upon the lute," And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
On 31st August, after praying "a two-bow prayer," he bade adieu to Shaykh Hamid, and with Nur and the boy Mohammed, joined the caravan bound for Mecca, the route taken being the celebrated road through the arid Nejd made by Zubaydah, wife of Harun al Rashid.
So he asked the cause of this and they gave him tidings of the death of Kut al-Kulub, whereon he fell a swooning. As soon as he came to himself, he asked for her tomb, and the Lady Zubaydah said to him, "Know, O Prince of the Faithful, that for especial honour I have buried her in my own palace."
So the old woman set about the business forthright and bade the carpenter make her the afore said image; and, as soon as it was finished, she brought it to the Lady Zubaydah, who shrouded it and buried it and built a sepulchre over it, wherein they lighted candles and lamps, and laid down carpets about the tomb.
"Nay, by Allah!" she answered "and long may her youth be saved from death! but I have heard the Lady Zubaydah say that she is in the house of a young merchant named Ghanim bin Ayyub of Damascus, highs the Distraught, the Thrall o' Love; and she hath been with him these four months, whilst our lord is weeping and watching by night at a tomb wherein is no corpse."
Then said the Caliph, "O Ala al-Din, why hast thou absented thyself from the Divan?" And he replied, "Because of my mourning for my wife, Zubaydah, O Commander of the Faithful." The Caliph rejoined, "Put away grief from thee: verily she is dead and gone to the mercy of Almighty Allah and mourning will avail thee nothing; no, nothing."
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