Thousand & One Nights: Tenth Night: The Story of Fisherman contd.

The fisherman asked the demon, "What are you saying? It has been more than one thousand and eight hundred years since the prophet Solomon died, and we are now ages later. What is your story, and how you trapped in this jar?"

"Be glad that you will soon be put to death," said the Demon.

The fisherman said, "why do you wish to kill me. Indeed I had released you from this jar."

The demon: "Make a wish."

The Fisherman: "What shall I wish of you?"

Demon: "Tell me how you wish to die. What manner of death you wish me  to choose?"

The Fisherman: "What is my crime? Is this your reward to me for saving you from the depths of the sea?"

The demon: "Listen my story, carefully."

The Fisherman: "Make it short. I am at my rope's end."

The demon: You should know that I am one of the renegade, rebellious demons. I, together with the Giant Sakhr rebelled against the prophet Solomon, the son of David, who sent against me Asif ibn-Barkhiya, who took me by force and bade me be led in defeat and humiliation before the prophet Solomon. When the prophet saw me, he invoked God to protect him from me and my looks and asked me to submit to him. I refused.

So he called for this glass jar, confined me inside, and sealed it with a lead seal on which he imprinted the word God, then he commanded his demons to carry me and throw me in the middle of the sea. I stayed there for two hundred years, saying to myself, 'whoever sets me free during these two hundred years, I will make him rich.' But the two hundred years went by and were followed by another two hundred years, and no one set me free. Then I vowed to myself, 'whoever sets me free, I will open for him all the treasures on the earth,' but four hundred years went by, and no one set me free. I vowed to myself, 'whoever delivers me, during these hundred years I will make him a king, make myself his servant, and fulfill every day three of his wishes.' But that hundred years went too, plus all the intervening years went by, and no one set me free.  I raged and raved and growled and snorted and said to myself, 'whoever delivers me from now on, I will either put him to the worst of deaths, or let him choose for himself the manner of death.' Soon you came by and set me free. Tell me how you wish to die."

When the fisherman heard what the demon said, he replied, "To God we belong and to Him we return.  After all these years, with my bad luck I had to set you free now.  Forgive me, and God will grant you forgiveness.  Destroy me, and God will inflict on you one who will destroy you." The demon replied, "It must be. Tell me how you wish to die." When the fisherman was certain that he was going to die, he mourned and wept, saying, "O my children, may God not deprive us of each other." Again he turned to the demon and said, "For God's sake, release me as a reward for releasing you and delivering you from this jar." The demon replied, "Your death is your reward for releasing me and letting me escape." The fisherman said, "I did you a good turn, and you are about to repay me with a bad one. How true is the sentiment of the following lines:

Our kindness they repay 

With ugly Deeds. Upon my life,

The deeds of men depraved. 

He who the undeserving aids

Will meet the fate of him 

Who the hyena saved.

The demon said: "Be brief for as I have said, I must kill you."  The fisherman thought to himself, "He is only a demon, while I am a human being, whom God has endowed with reason, and thereby superior to him.  He may use demonic wiles on me, but I will use my reason to deal with him.  He asked the demon: 

"Must you kill me?"

Demon: "I must."

Fisherman: By the name of God engraved on the ring of Solomon the son of David, will you answer me truthfully if I ask you about something."

The demon was upset and said with a shudder: Ask, but be brief.

There came a cock's crow from a distance, Dinarzad stopped, and the team of story tellers began to withdraw.

End of the Section 

Notes:-

1. Solomon in Islamic tradition is regarded as a prophet and wise king. In Hebrew Bible Solomon is portrayed as a king who received wisdom and guidance from God, but he is not explicitly referred to as prophet.

2. Giant Sakhr: The reference may be of Jeroboam, a servant of the king Solomon. He was the overseer of Solomon's forced labour camps. He belonged to Ephraim tribe. He led the rebellion after the death of Solomon, and ceded the northern parts of Israel and founded the kingdom of Judah.

According to Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) it was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Ephraim tribe along with Manasseh tribe ( both were considered lost tribes) together with Joseph tribe were called House of Joseph 

We see the integration of tribes into larger societies and the establishment of monarchy.  King Solomon's reign, and that of his father king David marked the beginning of Israel's monarchic period. Ancient Israelites practised a form of subsistence farming that involved slash and burn techniques