How the prisoners laid a complaint of the insolvent's high-handedness before the agent of the Cadi.
The prisoners came to complain to the Cadi's agent, (who was) possessed of discernment,
Saying, “Take now our salutations to the Cadi and relate (to him) the sufferings inflicted on us by this vile man;
For he has remained in this prison continuously, and he is an idle gad-about, a lickspittle, and a nuisance.
Like a fly, he impudently appears at every meal without invitation and without salaam.
To him the food of sixty persons is nothing; he feigns himself deaf if you say to him, ‘Enough!’
No morsel reaches the (ordinary) man in prison, or if by means of a hundred contrivances he discover some food,
That hell-throat at once comes forward (with) this (as) his argument, that God has said, ‘Eat ye.’
Justice, justice against such a three years' famine! May the shadow of our lord endure for ever!
Either let this buffalo go from prison, or make him a regular allowance of food from a trust-fund.
O thou by whom both males and females are (made) happy, do justice! Thy help is invoked and besought.”
The courteous agent went to the Cadi and related the complaint to him point by point.
The Cadi called him (the insolvent) from the prison into his presence, and (then) inquired (about him) from his own officers.
All the complaints which that flock (of prisoners) had set forth were proved to the Cadi.
The Cadi said (to him), “Get up and depart from this prison: go to the house which is your inherited property.”
He replied, “My house and home consist in thy beneficence; as (in the case of) an infidel, thy prison is my Paradise.
If thou wilt drive me from the prison and turn me out, verily I shall die of destitution and beggary.”
(He pleaded) like the Devil, who was saying, “O Preserver, O my Lord, grant me a respite till the day of Resurrection;
For I am happy (to be) in the prison of this world, in order that I may be slaying the children of mine enemy,
(And), if any one have some food of faith and a single loaf as provision for the journey (to the life hereafter),
I may seize it, now by plot and now by guile, so that in repentance they may raise an outcry (of lamentation);
(And in order that) sometimes I may threaten them with poverty, sometimes bind their eyes with (the spell of) tress and mole.”
In this prison (the world) the food of faith is scarce, and that which exists is in (danger of being caught in) the noose (of destruction) through the attack of this cur.
(If) from prayer and fasting and a hundred helplessnesses (utter self-abnegations) the food of spiritual feeling come (to any one), he (the Devil) at once carries it off.
I seek refuge with God from His Satan: we have perished, alas, through his overweening disobedience.
He is (but) one cur, and he goes into thousands (of people): into whomsoever he goes, he (that person) becomes he (Satan).
Whoever makes you cold (damps your spiritual ardour) know that he (Satan) is in him: the Devil has become hidden beneath his skin.
When he finds no (bodily) form, he comes into (your) fancy, in order that that fancy may lead you into woe:
Now the fancy of recreation, now of the shop; now the fancy of knowledge, and now of house and home.
Beware! say at once “God help me!” again and again, not with tongue alone but from your very soul.
