"Love of her is fixed in my heart as ink upon the surface of paper."
Er-Rasheed, being informed of his complaint, restored to him his mistress, and with her his peace of mind. This anecdote is given as a proof of strong love; but perhaps may not be thought much to the purpose. The following, from the same work, is more apt.
During the hottest hour of an excessively sultry day, the Khaleefeh Mo´áwiyeh the son of Aboo-Sufyán was sitting in a chamber which was open on each side to allow free passage to the air, when he beheld a barefooted Bedawee approaching him. Wondering what could induce this man to brave the scorching heat, he declared to his attendants that if he were come to demand of him any favour or aid or act of justice, his request should be granted. The Bedawee addressed him in verse with a pathetic appeal for justice against the tyranny of Marwán the son of El-Ḥakam (afterwards Khaleefeh, Mo´áwiyeh's fourth successor), by whom he had been forcibly deprived of his beloved wife Soạdà. The Khaleefeh requiring a more particular account of his case, he related the following facts. He had a wife, the daughter of his paternal uncle, excessively beloved by him, and possessed a number of camels, which enabled him to live in comfort; but a year of terrible drought deprived him of his property and reduced him to utter want: his friends deserted him, and his wife was taken away from him by her father. To seek redress he repaired to Marwán, the Governor of his district, at El-Medeeneh, who, having summoned the father of his wife, and herself, was so smitten by the beauty of the woman that he determined to obtain her for himself in marriage. To accomplish this, he threw the husband into prison, and offered the father of the woman a thousand deenárs and ten thousand dirhems for his consent to his marriage with her, promising to compel her actual husband to divorce her; and this latter object, having obtained the father's approval, he gained by severely torturing the unfortunate Bedawee. It would have been vain for the woman to attempt resistance; and so she became the wife of Marwán.
The oppressed Bedawee, having related these circumstances, fell down in a swoon, and lay on the floor senseless, coiled up like a dead snake. As soon as he recovered, the Khaleefeh wrote a poetical epistle to Marwán, severely reproaching him for his baseness, and commanding him, on pain of death, to divorce the woman and send her with his messenger. She was accordingly divorced and sent, with an answer composed in the same measure and rhyme, assuring the Khaleefeh that the sight of Soạdà would convince him that her charms were irresistible; and this proved too true. Mo´áwiyeh himself no sooner saw her than he coveted her, and offered to give the Bedawee, if he would resign her to him, three virgins from among his female slaves, together with a thousand deenárs and an ample annual pension. The Bedawee shrieked with dismay, as though he had received his death-blow, and indignantly rejected the offer. The Khaleefeh then said to him, "Thou confessest that thou hast divorced her, and Marwán has married her and acknowledged that he has divorced her: we will therefore give her her choice: if she desire any other than thee as her husband we will marry her to him, and if she prefer thee we will restore her to thee." She, however, had the merit to prefer the destitute Bedawee, and the Khaleefeh gave her up to him, with a present of ten thousand dirhems.