ABSTRACT
I was engaged in a dispute with some learned men in the principal mosque of Damascus. Suddenly a young man entered the door, and said, “Is there any one among you who knows the Persian language?” They pointed to me. I said, “Is all well?” 250 He replied, “An old man, of a hundred and fifty years of age, is in the agonies of death, and says something to me in Persian, which is not intelligible to me. If thou wouldest be so kind as to trouble thyself so far as to step with me thou wilt be rewarded. 251 It may be that he wants to make his will.” When I reached his pillow, he said this,
