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It has also reached me, O King, among the tales of women’s wiles, that a woman was given a dirham by her husband to buy rice. She took the coin and went to the rice seller, who gave her the rice and began to flirt with her and wink at her, saying, “Rice is only good with sugar. If you would like some, come inside with me for an hour.” So the woman went into his shop with him, and the rice seller said to his slave, “Weigh out a dirham’s worth of sugar for her.” His master gave him a secret sign, and the slave took the woman’s kerchief, emptied out the rice, and put earth in its place, with a stone instead of the sugar. Then he tied up the kerchief and left it for her. When the woman came out, she took her bundle and went home, thinking that it held rice and sugar. On reaching home, she set the kerchief before her husband, who found earth and a stone inside. When she brought in the cooking pot, he said, “Did we tell you we had building work to do, that you have brought us earth and a stone?” When she saw what was there, she realized that the merchant’s slave had tricked her. Since she had come with the pot in her hand, she said to her husband, “My good man, I was so distracted that I went to fetch the sieve and brought the pot instead.” “And what has distracted you?” he asked. She replied, “My good man, the dirham I had with me fell from my hand in the market. I was ashamed to search for it in front of everyone, yet I could not bear to lose it. So I gathered up the earth from the spot where it fell, intending to sift it. I was going to fetch the sieve, but brought the pot instead.” Then she went and fetched the sieve, handed it to her husband, and said, “Sift it, for your eyesight is better than mine.” So the man sat sifting the earth until his face and beard were covered with dust, knowing nothing of her cunning or what she had done. This, O King, is one example of women’s wiles. Consider the words of God Most High: “Truly, your guile is great,” and His words, glorified and exalted be He: “Truly, Satan’s guile is weak.”

When the king heard the vizier’s words, which convinced and satisfied him and restrained his passions, and reflected on the verses of God that he had recited to him, the light of good counsel shone in the firmament of his mind and heart, and he abandoned his resolve to kill his son. On the fourth day, the slave girl came before the king, kissed the ground at his feet, and said, “O fortunate King, wise in judgment, I have plainly shown you the justice of my claim, yet you have wronged me and neglected to punish the man who wronged me, because he is your son and the darling of your heart. But God, glorified and exalted be He, will surely grant me victory over him, just as He granted the king’s son victory over his father’s vizier.” The king asked her, “And how was that?”