Thousand & One Nights: 122nd Night: The Young Baghdad Man & Lady Zubaida's Maid: Tale by Steward

O king of the age, last night I was invited to hear a recitation of Quran, where the doctors of law as well as a great many citizens of your city were assembled. After the recitation, the table was spread, and among the dishes set before us there was a ragout spiced with cumin. But when one of the guests saw the ragout, he held back and abstained from eating. We entreated him to eat of the ragout, but he swore that he would not, and we pressed him until he said, "Don't force me to eat, for I suffered enough from eating this dish." Then he repeated the following verses:

Shoulder your drum, my man, and

Leave your home

And use the kohl if 'tis the 

Kohl you like. 

We said to him, "Tell us the reason of your refusal to eat of the ragout," and as the host insisted saying, "I swear that you must eat of it," the guest replied, "There is no power and no strength, save in God. If I must eat, then I will first have to wash my hand forty times with soap, forty times with potash, and forty times with galingale.

The host ordered his servants to bring the guest water and all that required by him, and they were brought, and he washed his hands as he had said. Then he came reluctantly and sat down with us, as if in fear, and dipping his hand in the ragout, began to eat, but with repugnance, while we looked at him with surprise, for his hand and indeed his whole body were shaking, and we noticed that his thumb was cut off, and that he ate with four fingers only, so that the food kept slipping awkwardly from his hand. We asked him in amazement, "What happened to your thumb? Did God create you like this, or did you have an accident?"

He replied, "It is not only that this thumb that is missing, but also that of the other hand, and the great toe of each of my feet, as you will see." Then he bared his left hand, and his two feet, and we saw that the left hand was like the right and that each of his feet lacked the great toe. When we saw this, our amazement increased, and we said to him, "We are impatient to hear your story and the reason of coming off your thumbs and toes, and for washing your hands, one hundred and twenty times. He said:

My father was one of the most prominent merchants of Baghdad, in the days of the Caliph Harun al Rashid, but he was fond of wine and lute, so that when he died he left me nothing. I held a mourning ceremony for him, arranged recitations of the Quran, and continued to mourn for him for a long time. Then I opened the shop and found that he had left little substance and many debts. So I arranged with his creditors to pay them in installments, then I began to buy and sell and to pay the creditors week by week, until at last I paid off all his debts, and began to increase my capital. One day, as I was sitting in the shop, early in the morning, there came to the market a beautiful young lady, the like of which I had never seen before, richly dressed and bedecked with jewellery. She was riding a she-mule, with one black slave walking before and another  behind her. She dismounted and, leaving the she-mule by the entrance, entered the market.  No sooner had she done so, a well-groomed eunuch followed her, and said, "My lady, go in, but don't let anyone recognise you, or we will be in trouble." Then he stood guard before her, while she looked at the shops, and finding none opened, but mine, came up to my shop, followed by the eunuch, greeted me and sat down.

But morning overtook Shahrazad and she lapsed into silence. Dinarzad said, "What an entertaining story!"