HISTORY OF PRINCE HABIB AND WHAT BEFEL HIM WITH THE LADY DURRAT AL-GHAWWAS.
=Here we begin to indite the History of Sultan Habib and of what befel him with Durrat al-Ghawwas.=[379]
It is related (but Allah is All-knowing of His unknown and All-cognisant of what took place and forewent in the annals of folk!) that there was, in days of yore and in times and tides long gone before, a tribe of the tribes of the Arabs hight Banú Hilál[380] whose head men were the Emir Hilál and the Emir Salámah.[381] Now this Emir Salamah had well nigh told out his tale of days without having been blessed with boon of child; withal he was a ruler valiant, masterful, a fender of his foes and a noble knight of portly presence. He numbered by the thousand horsemen the notablest of cavaliers and he came to overrule three-score-and-six tribes of the Arabs. One chance night of the nights as he lay sleeping in the sweetness of slumber, a Voice addressed him saying, “Rise forthright and know thy wife, whereby she shall conceive under command of Allah Almighty.” Being thus disturbed of his rest the Emir sprang up and compressed his spouse Kamar al-Ashráf;[382] she became pregnant by that embrace and when her days came to an end she bare a boy as the full moon of the fulness-night who by his father’s hest was named Habíb.[383] And as time went on his sire rejoiced in him with joy exceeding and reared him with fairest rearing and bade them teach him Koran-reading together with the glorious names of Almighty Allah and instruct him in writing and in all the arts and sciences. After this he bestowed robes of honour and gifts of money and raiment upon the teachers who had made the Sultan[384] Habib, when he reached the age of seventeen, the most intelligent and penetrating and knowing amongst the sons of his time. And indeed men used to admire at the largeness of his understanding and were wont to say in themselves, “There is no help but that this youth shall rise to dignity (and what dignity!) whereof men of highmost intellect shall make loud mention. For he could write the seven caligraphs[385] and he could recite traditions and he could improvise poetry; and, on one occasion when his father bade him versify impromptu, that he might see what might come thereof, he intoned:—
