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

A holy man was passing by a wealthy personage's mansion, and saw him with a slave tied up by the hands and feet, and giving him chastisement. He said: "O my son! God Almighty has made a creature like yourself subject to your command, and has given you a superiority over him. Render thanksgiving to the Most High Judge, and deal not with him so savagely; lest hereafter, on the day of judgment, he may prove the more worthy of the two, and you be put to shame:—Be not so enraged with thy bondsman; torture not his body, nor harrow up his heart. Thou mightest buy him for ten dinars, but hadst not after all the power of creating him:—To what length will this authority, pride, and insolence hurry thee; there is a Master mightier than thou art. Yes, thou art a lord of slaves and vassals, but do not forget thine own Lord Paramount—namely, God!" There is a tradition of the prophet Mohammed, on whom be blessing, announcing:—On the day of resurrection, that will be the most mortifying event when the good slave will be taken up to heaven, and the wicked master sent down to hell:—"Upon the bondsman, who is subservient to thy command, wreak not thy rage and boundless displeasure. For it must be disgraceful on the day of reckoning to find the slave at liberty and the master in bondage."