47 – Abu Jaʿfar al-Qurashi, the freedman of Banū Hāshim, narrated to me; he said: “In one of the books of wisdom it is related that a sage once said to a certain king:

‘O King, the people most entitled to critiquing the world and spurning it are those for whom it has been spread out and whose needs within it have been amply met; for such a person is ever wary of a calamity that might pounce upon his wealth and sweep it away, or upon his amassed fortune and disperse it, or strike at the very foundations of his authority and topple them, or insinuate itself into his body and make him ill, or snatch from him someone dear among his loved ones.

Hence the world truly deserves censure: it reclaims what it gives and retrieves what it bestows. While it may cause its possessor to laugh, it is at that very moment making others laugh at him; while it weeps for him, before long it will have others weeping over him. While it stretches out his hand in generosity, it is also stretching it out in need. Today it places a crown upon its owner’s head, and tomorrow it rubs that head in the dust. It cares not whether what has gone is gone or what remains remains; in that which endures it finds compensation for what has vanished, and it is content with every substitute for any loss.’