Prevod

It is told that a man once possessed great wealth, but lost it until he had nothing left. His wife advised him to seek help from one of his friends to mend his fortunes. He went to a friend and told him of his need, and the friend lent him five hundred dinars to trade with. He had originally been a jeweller, so he took the gold to the jewellers’ market and opened his shop to buy and sell. When he had settled himself in the shop, three men came to him and asked after his father. He told them that his father had died. “Did he leave any children?” they asked. “Only the servant who stands before you,” he replied. “Who can testify that you are his son?” they asked. “The people of the market,” he said. “Gather them, then, so that they may bear witness that you are his son.” He gathered them, and they testified to it. The three men then brought out a saddlebag containing some thirty thousand dinars, along with jewels and precious metals, and said, “Your father left this in our safekeeping.” Then they departed. A woman came to him and asked for some of those jewels, worth five hundred dinars. She offered him three thousand dinars for them, and he sold them to her. He then rose, took the five hundred dinars he had borrowed from his friend, and carried them to him. “Take the five hundred dinars I borrowed from you,” he said. “God has opened the way for me and eased my affairs.” His friend replied, “I gave you that money and relinquished all claim to it for God’s sake. Take it, and take this paper too. Do not read it until you are home, and act upon what it says.” He took the money and the paper and went home. When he unfolded it, he found these verses written upon it:

The men who first came to you were kin of mine: my father, my father’s brother, and my mother’s brother, Salih ibn Ali. The woman to whom you sold the jewels for cash was my mother; the wealth and gems were sent by me. I meant no slight to you in doing this, but only to spare you the embarrassment of accepting help from me.