التاريخ اليميني 19.9

19.9

Nāṣir al-Dīn flew into the utmost rage, and the pride of power urged him to hasten to the land of Sijistān to quench his burning thirst and cure the inward malady. But his secretary Abū al-Fatḥ [ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad] al-Bustī turned him from what he intended with gentle words and counsel aided by success, sprinkling the water of tact upon that blaze. He showed him that some of the reports were false, and that the one who accepts them, like the one who utters them, is held to account and burdened with guilt for them; that the hearts of men are shy wild beasts and birds swimming in the seas of the air, which can be caught only by employing stratagems in setting snares, loosing hunting animals, shooting pellets and scattering grain and food, and yet nothing is easier than for them to slip from the hunter's net and escape the fowler's snare; likewise hearts are caught only with the snares of benefactions and kindnesses, led only by the reins of favours and bounties, and won only by lavishing inherited and newly acquired wealth. Then [111a] a harsh word stirs up what is tranquil among them, scares off what has alighted, and muddies their watering-places for them. And he recited to him the words of God Most High: "O you who believe, if an evildoer brings you news, verify it, lest you harm a people in ignorance and then come to regret what you have done." Then he explained it, until [Sebüktigin] dismounted from the back of haste onto the ground of deliberation.