Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.18.1

42.18.1

By one of those chances for which no human conjecture can account, this very day happened to be one of those in which Abul-hassen used to converse with learned men and divines, and mention was made of the Emperor's zeal for religion, and of the regard he always shewed to learned religious men. This observation was glanced at by the learned men then present, who observed, "That his ordering his people to cut the throats of so many fine horses sent him by the Emperor of Iran, and their flesh to be distributed to the poor, might be reckoned as a token of his hatred to heresy, but was no great proof of that zeal for religion, which so strongly recommends to repress and keep under controul the passions of the heart and the effusions of anger; and they added, that had the value of those horses, or the horses themselves, been distributed to the poor, they would have been the better for it, and the intent of liberality had been better fulfilled." Luckily for the Emperor that Saadet-qhan was present. This officer, equally ingenious and brave, undertook to answer for his master's behaviour on that occasion; and he did it in a manner equally subtle and rational. "He acknowledged that in the manner in which that action of his had been misreported, it must of course have fallen under the animadversion of men of sense and good nature, but that the fact had in reality happened in the following manner;