for the hearing of the case. ʿImārah then said, “Commander of the Faithful, if the estates truly belong to him, I shall not dispute them; and if they are mine, I have granted them to him outright. I have no desire to litigate, nor would I trade the seat of honour with which you have favoured me for any lands or anything else.”
The notables who were present were astonished at the loftiness of his ambition, the nobility of his spirit, and the chivalry of his character. Aspiration (himma) and craving (nihma) are of one kind, and every human being receives a portion of them: one person shows it through generosity and feeding others, another through knowledge; yet another through worship, contentment, renunciation of this world, and seeking the life to come, while a different sort manifests it in the constant pursuit of increase. When aspiration takes the form of liberality, spending wealth, and extending benefits, it ought to resemble what is told in the following account.
Story: It is related that one day Yaḥyā ibn Khālid left the palace of the caliph and rode toward his own residence. At his door he saw a man who, when Yaḥyā drew near, rose, greeted him, and said, “Abū Jaʿfar, I am in need of what is in your hand, and I have made Allah my means to reach you.” Yaḥyā ordered that a special lodging be set aside for the man in his house, that one thousand dirhams be delivered to him every day, and that his food be taken from Yaḥyā’s own table. This continued for a full month, by the end of which the man had received thirty thousand dirhams. He collected the money and departed. When someone mentioned the matter to Yaḥyā, he said, “By Allah, had he remained for the whole span of his life and the length of his days, I would never have withheld my gift from him or cut off my hospitality.”
Story: Jaʿfar ibn Mūsā al-Hādī owned a singing-girl, a skilled lute player known as Badr al-Kubrā. In her day no one surpassed her in beauty, nor equalled her mastery of song and stringed instruments. She was the epitome of perfection and the height of beauty. News of her reached Muḥammad ibn Zubayda al-Amīn, who asked Jaʿfar to sell her to him. Jaʿfar replied, “A man like me does not sell slave-girls or haggle over maidservants. Were she not the ornament of my household, I would have sent her to you and would not have begrudged her.”
Some days later Muḥammad ibn Zubayda came to Jaʿfar’s house. He arranged a drinking session and ordered Badr to sing and delight him. Muḥammad kept drinking and making merry, plying Jaʿfar with wine until he rendered him drunk; then he took the girl with him to his own residence. Out of the nobility of his soul and the loftiness of his ambition he did not lay a hand on her. The next morning he issued instructions