[Crash-catcher] ices in laughter to

[Numbers Rezac]

Ll the following story against himself: "There was a person who, for a
long time, studied under me the grammar of Sibawaih, and who said to
me, when he got to the end of the book, 'May God requite you
well! As for me, I have not understood a letter of it.'" Yahya,
a celebrated preacher, on being
asked by a descendant of the Prophet, "Tell
me, Master! and may God assist you!
what is your opinion of us who are the people of the house,"--that is
to say, the members of Muhammad's family,--replied: "It is that which
I would say of clay kneaded with the water of divine revelation and
sprinkled with the water of
the heavenly mission: can it give out any other odour than the musk of
true direction and the
ambergris of piety?" The Alide was so highly pleased with this answer
that he filled Yahya's mouth with pearls. Yahya, who died on March 30,
872, had a very graceful turn for apophthegms. "True friendship," said
he, "cannot be augmented by kindness
nor diminished by unkindness." And again, he s