Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.21.4

42.21.4

And although it was in the decrees of Providence that the place should be taken at last, the siege lasted some time longer, as if to afford time to religious zeal, military talents, heroical valour, and unshaken fidelity, and to many other noble qualifications of both parties, to be put to the test, and to be weighed in the scales of discernment. So that the quantity and quality of merit in every Commander and every man present, came to be ascertained beyond a doubt. The thoughtless exertions of the Imperial Generals were also properly ranked; and a proper value set upon the Emperor's sewing a bag with his own hands, after having purified and washed himself according to law, and pronounced the office of the dead upon his ownself. The public rated properly that obstinacy which he manifested in digging trenches and filling ditches at an immense expense, and in sacrificing an infinity of innocent or meritorious lives to gain the possession of a heap of stones. Yet all that as well as all those assaults, intermixed with stratagems, availed nothing; and the place was at last taken without the intervention of either sword or spear, and barely by debauching, one after another, Abul-hassen's best Commanders and friends, and by giving in the face of the universe public and continual approbations to perfidy, ingratitude, and perjury.