The Adventures of Amir Hamza
Chapter 1
The florid news writers, the sweet-lipped historians, revivers of old tales and renewers of past legends, relate that there ruled at Ctesiphon1 in Persia (image of Heaven!) Emperor Qubad Kamran, who cherished his subjects and was a succor to the impecunious in their distress. He was unsurpassed in dispensing justice, and so rigorous in this exercise that the best justice appeared an injustice compared to his decree. Prosperity and affluence thrived in his dominions while wrong and inequity slumbered in death, and, rara avis–like, mendicants and the destitute were extinct in his lands. The wealthy were at a loss to find an object for their charity. The weak and the powerful were equals, and the hawk and the sparrow roosted in the same nest. The young and the old sought one another’s pleasure, neither ever deeming himself the sole benefactor. The portals of houses remained open day and night like the eyes of the vigil, for if someone stole even the color of henna from the palm,2 he was ground in the mill of justice. The thief therefore did not even dream of thieving, and if perchance a wayfarer should come upon someone’s ...
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