"So when I was well-nigh grown up my father committed me to her
charge saying: 'Take him and educate him and teach him the rules of
our faith. Let him have the best instructions and cease not thy
fostering care of him.' So she took me and taught me the tenets of
Al-Islam with the divine ordinances of the wuzu ablution and the
five daily prayers and she made me learn the Koran by rote, often
repeating, 'Serve none save Allah Almighty!' When I had mastered
this much of knowledge, she said to me, 'O my son, keep this matter
concealed from thy sire and reveal naught to him, lest he slay
thee." So I hid it from him, and I abode on this wise for a term of
days, when the old woman died, and the people of the city redoubled in
their impiety and arrogance and the error of their ways.
"One day while they were as wont, behold, they heard a loud and
terrible sound and a crier crying out with a voice like roaring
thunder so every ear could hear, far and near: 'O folk of this city,
leave ye your fire-worshiping and adore Allah the All-compassionate
King!" At this, fear and terror fell upon the citizens and they
crowded to my father (he being King of the city) and asked him:
'What is this awesome voice we have heard; for it hath confounded us
with the excess of its terror?' And he answered: 'Let not a voice
fright you nor shake your steadfast sprite nor turn you back from
the faith which is right.
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