The Persian Literature, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The...

When he reduced the kingdom of Misr, or Egypt, to obedience, Harun-al-Rashid said, "In contempt of that impious rebel (Pharaoh), who, in his pride of the sovereignty of Egypt, boasted a divinity, I will bestow its government only on the vilest of my slaves." He had a negro bondsman, called Khosayib, preciously stupid, and him he appointed to rule over Egypt. They tell us that his judgment and understanding were such, that when a body of farmers complained to him, saying, "We had planted some cotton shrubs on the banks of the Nile, and the rains came unseasonably, and swept them all away;"—he replied, "You ought to sow wool, that it might not be swept away!" A good and holy man heard this, and said: "Were our fortune to be increased in proportion to our knowledge, none could be scantier than the share of the fool; but fortune will bestow such wealth upon the ignorant as shall astonish a hundred of the learned. Power and fortune depend not on knowledge, they are obtained only through the aid of heaven; for it has often happened in this world that the illiterate are honored, and the wise held in scorn. The fool in his idleness found a treasure under a ruin; the chemist, or projector, fell the victim of disappointment and chagrin."