Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.18.4

42.18.4

This letter was drawn up in a very humble style, and sent by an able speaker, who had orders to spare no submission and no supplication that could sooth the Emperor's mind. And, in fact, he spared nothing in his power, but could not prevail on the innate malignity of the Emperor's heart. He answered, that his reply would be delivered to Abul-hassen by a sword and a spear; and forgetting that himself had kept in prison his own father, his own respectful children; that he had put his brothers to death, (brothers become his prisoners of war; brothers reduced to a state of the highest distress), and had served in the same manner a poor friar, a Fakyr, for no other reason than that he seemed too much affected by his friend, the prisoner Prince's death; unmindful that he had covered all those crimes, and all the artifices of a continual double dealing with the cloak of religious zeal (a cloak become now a public object of banter and detestation); unmindful of his having verified in his person the sentence of the Holy Book: You recommend virtue to others, and neglect it yourself; he published a manifesto, setting forth what he called Abul-hassen's crimes. The purport was, "That although the life of that wretched was one continual scene of shocking shameful actions, nevertheless it became proper to mention one in a hundred, and to shew a sample out of a heap.