of that. So should the friend of man be extolled.

Emirs did not disdain to be poets. Majd Ad-Din Al-Mubarak Ibn Munkid,
although at once "The Sword of the Empire" and "The Glory of Religion,"
wrote poetry, and not always on the most exalted themes. Among his
poems, for example, is one on fleas, in which those insects, of which
Emirs should know nothing, are thus described: _A race whom man is
permitted to slay, and who profane the blood of the pilgrim, even in the
sanctuary. When my hand sheds their blood, it is not their own, but
mine, which is shed._ "It is thus," says Ibn Khallikan gravely, "that
these two verses were recited and given as his, by Izz Ad-Din Abu
'l-Kasim Abd Allah Ibn Abi Ali Al-Husain Ibn Abi Muhammad Abd Allah Ibn
Al-Husain Ibn Rawaha Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abd Allah Ibn Rawaha Ibn Obaid Ibn
Muhammad Ibn Abd Allah Ibn Rawaha Al-Ansari, a native of Hamat."

Ibn Khallikan's greed for poetry led him, as I have said, not only to
quote most things that he could remember of each poet, but to cite also
the poems of which those reminded him. Sometimes he quoted before he
was sure of the author; but it made no difference. Thus, of Al-Farra the
grammarian he says: "No verses have been handed down as his excepting
the following, which were given by Abu-Hanifa Ad-Dinauri on the
authority of Abu Bakr At-Tuwal: _Lord of a single acre of ground, you
have nine chamberlains! You sit in an old ruin and have door-keepers who
exclude visitors! Never did I hear of a door-keeper in a ruined
dwelling! Never shall the eyes of men see me at a door of yours; a man
like me is not made to support repulses from door-keepers._" Having got
his quotation safely into print, Ibn Khallikan adds: "I since discovered
that these verses are attributed to Ibn Musa 'l-Makfuf. God knows best!"
It is a charming way of writing biography. The grass does not grow upon
the weir more easily. With such a rectifying or excusatory phrase as
"God knows best" one can hazard all. And how difficult it is to be the
first to say anything!

Here is a poem by an Emir's vizier, Al-Wazi Al-Maghribi: _I shall relate
to you my adventure, and adventures are of various kinds. I one night
changed my bed and was abandoned by repose; tell me then how I shall be
on the first night which I pass in the grave?_

Another vizier, Ibn Al-Amid, the katib, who lived in the eleventh
century, wrote as follows: _Choose your friends among strangers, and
take not your near relations