Jawamiʿ al-hikayat wa lawamiʿ al-riwayat 31: Anecdote of Sultdn Ibrahim. · II. XXII. 6.

31

One day when Sultan Razi Ibrahim (God's mercy on him!) was in Ghaznin, he saw a labourer carrying a heavy stone on his head to some building which was then in course of erection, and that he staggered under the load. The Sultan, observing his suffering, ordered him to put down the stone. The labourer obeyed his orders, and after that time the stone remained on that identical spot. One day, some of the royal attendants represented to the king that the stone was still lying in the plain, that it frightened the horses and prevented them passing on quietly, and that it would be well if the king gave the order to have it removed. The king said, I have once ordered it to be placed where it is, and there would be an incongruity in my now ordering it to be removed. So the stone remained lying in the plain of Ghaznin, and in order to maintain the words of the Sultan, his sons also would not, any of them, suffer it to be taken away.