“Shall I release you?”
“I beg you—let me go.”
So he set me free. Yet my own soul coaxed me to attack again, and I cried, “Surrender—may your mother be bereaved of you!” He answered with these lines:
“In the Name of Allah, the All-Merciful, we were granted victory there;
by the Most Compassionate we overwhelmed our foe.
No valor of a hot-blooded warrior avails him
when, on the day of combat, we stride onto the field.”
Then he sprang at me with such force that I found myself pinned beneath him. “Shall I kill you, or set you free?” he asked. “Spare me,” I pleaded. He released me, and I retreated a short distance.
But I said to myself, “O ʿAmr! Will a man like that old fellow humble you? By Allah, death is better than such a life!” I returned and shouted, “Surrender—may your mother lose you!”
He leapt upon me again, reciting, “In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate,” and once more I lay flattened beneath him. “Shall I kill you or let you go?” he said. “Let me go,” I begged.
“Enough!” he cried. “Girl, bring the knife.” She brought it, and he shaved off my forelock. Among the Arabs, when they captured a man and cut his forelock, they enslaved him; so I remained with him, serving him for some time.
Later he said, “ʿAmr, I intend to cross the desert with you. I have no fear of you, for I place my trust in ‘In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.’ ”
We travelled until we came to a valley dense and tangled, dreadful and daunting. He called out at the top of his voice, “In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate!” Every bird flew from its nest. He repeated it, and every beast of prey fled its lair. When he cried out a third time, an Abyssinian, as tall as a lofty palm, emerged from the valley.
The old man said to me, “ʿAmr, when you see us grapple, say: ‘My companion has overcome him by In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.’ ”
When I saw them lock together, I shouted instead, “My companion has overcome him by al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā!” The old man achieved nothing. Returning to me, he said, “I knew you had gone against my instruction.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “and I will not repeat it.”
He said, “When you see us grapple, say: ‘My companion has overcome him by In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.’ ” I agreed. When they grappled once more, I cried, “He has overcome….”