Thousand & One Nights: 152nd Night: The Barber tells his story - 1

The barber raised his head and replied, "Fellows, I did it out of wisdom, good sense and humanity. Were it not for me, he would have perished, for none but I was responsible for his escape. It was good that he suffered in his leg, not in his life. I endured so much, just to favour one who does not deserve it.

Of all my six brothers -- I am the seventh -- there is none less talkative, less meddlesome, or wiser than I. I will tell you now about an incident that happened to me, in order to prove to you that, unlike all my brothers I am neither meddlesome nor talkative."

I was living in Baghdad in the days of al - Mustansir Billah son of al - Mutasi Billah. Baghdad at that time was where the Caliph resided. He loved the humble and the poor and associated with the learned and the pious. One day it happened that he was angry with a group of ten men and commanded the chief of the police of Baghdad to bring them before him on a feast day.

These men were a band of robbers who made the road unsafe for travelers and passers by.

The chief went out with his team and captured the robbers, and embarked them in a boat, waiting at the ferry, in which I also was to go. I thought and worried, that these people will be my companion and I will be their only companion. We crossed the river, and as soon as we landed on the opposite bank, the police officers and the guard came with chains, and put them around the necks of the robbers. Thinking that I was also one among them, they put it  around my neck also. Out of fear and reticence I remained silent. They dragged us and brought us before the commander of the Faithful, who bade the heads of ten robbers be struck off. The executioner came forward and, making us kneel before him on the leather mat of execution, drew his sword and struck off one head after another until all ten were beheaded and none was left but myself. The Caliph looked at me and said to the executioner, "You have struck off only nine heads." The executioner replied, "O Commander of the Faithful, God forbid that I should behead only nine when you bade me behead ten."

The Caliph said, "This is the tenth sitting before you." The executioner replied, "How can that be, how can that be! By your bounty, my Lord, I have killed ten." So they counted the heads and they found ten. Then the Caliph looked at me and said, "What made you remain silent at such a time, and how did you come to be in the company of these murderers? You are advanced in years but retarded in understanding."

I said, "O Commander of the Faithful, I am the silent one, and I have attained of science and philosophy, wisdom and refinement, eloquent speech and repartee who no one has ever attained. The gravity of my apprehension, the keenness of my comprehension, the precision of my method, the greatness of my humanity and commitment, and the extend of my taciturnity are boundless and hard to attain. Yesterday I saw these ten men heading for a boat and thinking that they were going to have a party joined them and embarked with them. As soon as we crossed the river and disembarked, they met their fate. All my life, I have dealt kindly with the people, but they repay me in the worst way."

The Caliph laughed, until he fell on his  back, realising that I am no meddler, but a man of great generosity and few words, contrary to what I have been accused of by this young man, who has repaid me so badly, after I saved him from horror. Then the Caliph asked me, "Silent one, are you six brothers like you?"

I replied, "May they perish and disappear if they are like me, act like me, or look like me. Each of my six brothers, O Commander of the Faithful, is afflicted with a bodily defect. One is one eyed, another paraplegic, a third hunchbacked, a fourth blind, a fifth cropped of the ears, and the sixth cropped of the lips. You must not think that I am a man of many words, but I would like to show you that I am a man of greater worth and fewer words than my brothers, each of whom has a tale of how he came by this defect.

"The eldest was a tailor......."

Morning overtook and Shahrazad lapsed into silence.

al - Mustansir Billah: Eighth Fatimid Caliph from 1036 to 1094.