If the times are adverse, I am in pain; and if they are
prosperous, I am captivated with worldly enjoyments. There is no
calamity greater than worldly affairs, because they distress the heart
in prosperity as well as in adversity. If you want riches, seek only for
contentment, which is inestimable wealth. If the rich man would throw
money into your lap, consider not yourself obliged to him, for I have
often heard that the patience of the poor is preferable to the
liberality of the rich."
Muezzins, who call the faithful to prayer at the prescribed hours from
the minarets of the mosques, are generally blind men, as a man with his
eyesight might spy into the domestic privacy of the citizens, who sleep
on the flat roofs of their houses in the hot season, and are selected
for their sweetness of voice. Saadi, however, tells us of a man who
performed gratuitously the office of muezzin, and had such a voice as
disgusted all who heard it. The intendant of the mosque, a good, humane
man, being unwilling to offend him, said one day: "My friend, this
mosque has muezzins of long standing, each of whom has a monthly stipend
of ten dinars. Now I will give you ten dinars to go to another place."
The man agreed to this and went away. Some time after he came to the
intendant and said: "O, my lord, you injured me in sending me away from
this station for ten dinars; for where I went they will give me twenty
dinars to remove to another place, to which I have not consented.
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