At that time the
Minister sickened and, sending for Badr al-Din Hasan, said to him:
"Know, O my son, that the world of the present is but a house of
mortality, while that the future is a house of eternity. I wish,
before I die, to bequeath thee certain charges, and do thou take
heed of what I say and incline thy heart to my words." Then he gave
him his last instructions as to the properest way of dealing with
his neighbors and the due management of his affairs, after which he
called to mind his brother and his home and his native land and wept
over his separation from those he had first loved.
Then he wiped away his tears and, turning to his son, said to him:
"Before I proceed, O my son, to my last charges and injunctions,
know that I have a brother, and thou hast an uncle, Shams al-Din
hight, the Wazir of Cairo, with whom I parted, leaving him against his
will. Now take thee a sheet of paper and write upon it whatso I say to
thee." Badr al-Din took a fair leaf and set about doing his father's
bidding, and he wrote thereon a full account of what had happened to
his sire first and last: the dates of his arrival at Bassorah and of
his forgathering with the Wazir, of his marriage, of his going in to
the Minister's daughter, and of the birth of his son- brief, his life
of forty years from the day of his dispute with his brother, adding
the words: "And this is written at my dictation, and may Almighty
Allah be with him when I am gone!" Then he folded the paper and sealed
it and said: "O Hasan, O my son, keep this paper with all care, for it
will enable thee to establish thine origin and rank and lineage, and
if anything contrary befall thee, set out for Cairo and ask for
thine uncle and show him this paper, and say to him that I died a
stranger far from mine own people and full of yearning to see him
and them.
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