The Dabistan

GO

s£ and admitted by you as true that, when one day a
" Muselman was selling garlic and onions upon the
4' passage of the prophet, that venerable personage
" told him: c If thou wouldst sit down in a corner,
" * retiring out of my way, it. would be well."
" The man made an excuse, and the prophet passed
" on. Shortly after carae Ali, who said to the man:
*4 * The prophet dislikes the smell of onions and
" * garlic, therefore move out of his way.' The man
" answered : ' 0 Ali, the prophet told me to rise,
" ' and I did not move/ Ali said: * At the pro-
66 ' phet's order thou didst not rise?' He drew
44 immediately his sword, and cut off the man's
" head. Such an action is reprobated by the law,
4 * as the lord of the prophetic asylum forbade killing
" even the hostile unbelievers, saying :

" * Do not exceed in shedding blood, even if thou be a conqueror.'

" And by historical accounts it is known that he
<£ has blamed Ibrahim for having driven an unbe-
" liever from his board. Nushirvan,l who was not
*' crowned with the diadem of the right faith, is cele-

to each other in a plain on the banks of the Euphrates, called by the
Greeks Barbelissos or Barabrissos, and by the Arabs Safin; and in ninety
engagements, which took place between them in a hundred and ten
days, on the side of Moaviah fell forty-five thousand, and on that of Ali
twenty-five thousand men. In the night which preceded the decisive day
of Safin, Ali is said to have killed with his own hand four hundred ene-
mies.— (Abulfeda, vol. I. pp. 305-313.)
1 See vol. 1. pp. 103-104, note 1.