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"What is to your
front?"
"The end."
"Woe to you!" exclaimed
Khalid. "Where do you stand?"
"On the earth."
"Woe to you! In what are you?"
"In my clothes."
Khalid was now losing his patience. But
he continued his questioning.
"Do you understand me?"
"Yes."
"I only want to ask a few questions."
"And I only want to give you the
answers."
Exasperated with this dialogue, Khalid muttered:
"The earth destroys its fools, but the intelligent destroy
the earth. I suppose your people know you better than I do."
"0 Commander," replied
Abdul Masih with humility, "it is the ant, not the camel,
that knows what is in its hole!"
It suddenly struck Khalid that he was face-to-face
with an unusual mind. Everything that the sage had said fell into
place; every answer had meaning and humour. His tone was more respectful
as he said, "Tell me something that you remember."
An absent look came into the eyes of Abdul
Masih. For a few moments he looked wistfully at the towers of the
citadels which rose above the rooftops of the city. Then he said,
"I remember a time when ships of China sailed behind these
citadels." He was mentally again in the golden age of Anushirwan.
The preamble was over. Khalid now came to
the point. "I call you to Allah and to Islam",
he said. "If you accept, you will be Muslims. You will gain
what we gain, and you will bear what we bear. If you refuse, then
the Jizya. And if you refuse to pay the Jizya, then I bring a people
who desire death more ardently than you desire life."
"We have no wish to fight you,"
replied Abdul Masih, "but we shall stick to our faith. We
shall pay the Jizya."
The talks were over. Agreement had been
reached. Khalid was about to dismiss the man when he noticed a small
pouch hanging from the belt of a servant who had accompanied the
sage and stood a few paces behind him. Khalid walked up to the servant,
snatched away the pouch and emptied its contents into the palm of
his hand. "What is this?" he asked the sage.
"This is a poison that works instantaneously."
"But why the poison?"
"I feared", replied Abdul
Masih, "that this meeting might turnout otherwise than it
has. I have reached my appointed time. I would prefer death to seeing
horrors befall my people and my land." 1
1. This dialogue has been taken from Balazuri:
(p. 244) and Tabari (Vol. 2, pp. 564-6).
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