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Ann: Hykayat (Stories) (10^th)

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Taken from: Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange; Malcolm C. Lyons

The story of Sa’id Son of Hatim al-Bahili and the Marvels He Encountered at Sea and with the Monk Simeon.

Page 324-325

He (the monk) then said: Affliction will come to the Yemenis, the Hijazis (1) and the people of al-Ta’if (2) from the Abyssinians, the Sudan and the various races of Zanj, the children of Ham. They will be governed by slaves thanks to what they did and thanks to their heresies and wickedness and their abandonment of the Holy War and the pilgrimage. The last of them reviled the first, and they found fault with the companions of God’s Prophet, may God bless him and his family and give him peace. They failed to do what He told them, that is to command the good and forbid what was evil, and God does not wrong His servants.

He told us: I see Abyssinians and Sudan standing on the walls of the Ka‘ba and removing stones so as to leave no trace of it. God, the Great and Glorious, gave them power over the people of Mecca, who had committed sinful excesses. It was because of what they had done that vengeance overtook them. I see the black Abyssinian drunken, with trailing robe and sleeves, singing in his own tongue and inciting his companions, Abyssinians, Sudan and Zanj, to tear down the Ka‘ba and destroy the stone set there by Abraham the Friend of God, upon whom be peace. He is removing the foundations of the Sacred House and passing the stones with his own hand to the man next to him, who passes it to another and so on to the last of them until they are thrown into the sea. He himself stays in his place, going neither forwards nor backwards and moving not an inch. What can you do with people whose ranks stretch from Mecca to the shores of the sea with their army drawn up from Mount Abu Qubais (3) to the shore of the Red Sea?