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94' 't .FOURTH .DISCOURSE. (JN PHYSICIANS<br />
green-gracer opposite him, " if at any time'chis butcher should die,<br />
"<br />
inforrrv me of it before they lay him in his grave." Willingly,"<br />
,, replied the green-grocer. When five or six months had elapsdd,<br />
ope morning it was rumoured abroad thai: such-and-such a butcher<br />
had died suddenly without any premonitory illness. The green-<br />
grocer also went to offer his condolences./ He found a number of ,<br />
people tearing their garments, while others were consumed with<br />
grief, for the dead man was young, and had little children. Then he<br />
remembered the words of Khwaja Isma'il, and hastened to bear<br />
the intelligence to him. Said the c<br />
Khwaja, " He has been a long<br />
time in dying." Then he took his staff, went to the dead man's<br />
house, raised the sheet from the face of the corpse, [felt his<br />
pulse, and ordered some one to strike {he soles of hisfeet with the<br />
staff. After a while he said to him, "It is enough." Then he]<br />
began to apply the remedies for apoplexy, and on the third day<br />
the dead man a'rose. and, though he remained paralytic, 'he lived<br />
for many years, and men were astonished, because that great<br />
man had foreseen that the man would be stricken by apoplexy*<br />
ANECDOTE XL.<br />
The Shaykhu'l- Islam 'Abdu'llah Ansari 1<br />
(may God sanctify<br />
his spirit!) conceived a fanatical hatred of the above-mentioned<br />
man of science, (A) and several times attempted to do him an<br />
and burned his books. Now this fanatical dislike 'arose<br />
injury,<br />
from religious motives, for the people of Herat believed that he<br />
could restore the dead to life, and this belief was injurious to the<br />
2 common . people<br />
Now the Shaykh fell ill,' and in the course of his illness<br />
developed a hiccough for the cure of which all the methods of<br />
treatment tried by the physicians availed nothing. They were<br />
in despair, and finally sent a sample of his urine to the Khwaja<br />
under the name of another, and requested him "to prescribe.<br />
JVhen Khwaja Isma'il had inspected it, he )<br />
said, "This is 'the<br />
urine of so-and-so, who has developed a hiccough which they<br />
are unable to cure. Bid him tell them to pound together an<br />
istdr* of the skins of pistachio-kernels, and an istdr of the sugar<br />
called 'askari, and administer '[the mixture] to him, so that<br />
he may recover and ; give him also this message <<br />
' You should<br />
study science, and not burn books.'"<br />
r<br />
1<br />
Concerning this celebrated mystic see pp. foo A of the Persian notes, a'nd Note<br />
XXXI at the end. He was born in A.H. 396 (A.D. 1006) and died in A.H. ^I^'A.D.,<br />
1089). He was the author of numerous works, somjs of which are extant, including the<br />
well-known Persian quatrains in which he calls himself Pfr-i-Ansdr, fir-i-Hfri, and<br />
At&dri. Though a mystic, he was a fanatical Hanbali.<br />
2 Instead of \jj\^-, the reading adopted in the text, B. and L. have<br />
"to [his own] pretensions."<br />
3 A weight consisting of 4^ mithqdls.<br />
c