Amara the Faqih said:
I sat often with ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan in the shadow of the Kaʿba. One day he told me: “ʿAmara, if you live long enough, you will see people craning their necks toward me and people’s hopes aspiring to me. If this should happen, do not hesitate to make me the means to fulfill your needs and the target to realize your hopes. By God, if you do this, I shall fill your hands with joy and bestow a bountiful bliss upon you.”
Sometime after, ʿAbd al-Malik went to Damascus and became caliph. I went to visit him there, and, requesting entry to his court, was permitted to go in. After I had greeted him in proper fashion, he said: “Welcome to my brother.” Then he called one of his servants and told him: “Have a house prepared for this man to stay in, and see he has comfort and every means to enjoy his stay, and honor
him above all my other friends.”
So it was done, and I stayed twenty days, attending all his lunches and dinners. When I expressed the wish to leave and return to my family, he ordered I should be given twenty thousand dinars and two hundred thousand dirhams, and a hundred camels all with their tenders and garb. Then he asked me:
“Have I filled your hands with joy, ʿAmara?” “God be praised, Prince of the Faithful,” I replied. “You
still remember this?”
“Yes,” he said. “There is no good in a man who forgets what he promises and remembers only what he threatens. How long has this been, ʿAmara?” “It seems as though just yesterday,” I said. “Yet the time has been long, Prince of the Faithful.”
“This,” he said, “was not on account of any piece of news we learned, or any tradition we recorded or
chronicle we narrated. Rather, I have, since my first youth, acted in certain ways whereby I hoped to raise my status and spread my name.”
“And what might those be, Prince of the Faithful?” I asked.
“I never flattered anyone,” he answered, “and never quarreled with anyone. And I never revealed anyone’s secrets, never committed any unlawful deed forbidden by God, never envied anyone, or oppressed anyone. And I was always the central bead in a necklace [binding everything together] for my people. I would honor anyone sitting with me, even though he were not a good man, and raise the status of the man of letters, and honor those who were steadfast; and I was forbearing with those of evil tongue, and had mercy on the weak. By this means, God has raised my status. Make ready to leave now, ʿAmara, and go on your way filled with honor.”
From Burhan al-Din al-Kutubi, Ghurar al-Khasaʾis (The Finest Attributes); in Qisas al-ʿArab (Stories of the Arabs), vol. 1.
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