Of Nushirvan the Just (whom the Greeks called Chosroe), of the Sassanian dynasty of Persian kings—­sixth century—­Saadi relates that on one occasion, while at his hunting-seat, he was having some game dressed, and ordered a servant to procure some salt from a neighbouring village, at the same time charging him strictly to pay the full price for it, otherwise the exaction might become a custom.  His courtiers were surprised at this order, and asked the king what possible harm could ensue from such a trifle.  The good king replied:  “Oppression was brought into the world from small beginnings, which every new comer increased, until it has reached the present degree of enormity.”  Upon this Saadi remarks:  “If the monarch were to eat a single apple from the garden of a peasant, the servant would pull up the tree by the roots; and if the king order five eggs to be taken by force, his soldiers will spit a thousand fowls.  The iniquitous tyrant remaineth not, but the curses of mankind rest on him for ever.”

Only those who have experienced danger can rightly appreciate the advantages of safety, and according as a man has become acquainted with adversity does he recognise the value of prosperity—­a sentiment which Saadi illustrates by the story of a boy who was in a vessel at sea for the first time, in which were also the king and his officers of state.  The lad was in great fear of being drowned, and made a loud outcry, in spite of every effort of those around him to soothe him into tranquility.  As his lamentations annoyed the king, a sage who was of the company offered to quiet the terrified youth, with his majesty’s permission, which being granted, he caused the boy to be plunged several times in the sea and then drawn up into the ship, after which the youth retired to a corner and remained perfectly quiet.  The king inquired why the lad had been subjected to such roughness, to which the sage replied:  “At first he had never experienced the danger of being drowned, neither had he known the safety of a ship.”

One of our English moralists has remarked that the man who chiefly prides himself on his ancestry is like a potato-plant, whose best qualities are under ground.  Saadi tells us of an old Arab who said to his son:  “O my child, in the day of resurrection they will ask you what you have done in the world, and not from whom you are descended.”—­In the Akhlak-i-Jalaly, a work comprising the practical philosophy of the Muhammedans, written, in the 15th century, in the Persian language, by Fakir Jani Muhammed Asaad, and translated into English by W. F. Thompson, Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, is reported to have said: 

  My soul is my father, my title my worth;
  A Persian or Arab, there’s little between: 
  Give me him for a comrade, whatever his birth,
  Who shows what he is—­not what others have been.

An Arabian poet says: 

  Be the son of whom thou wilt, try to acquire literature,
  The acquisition of which may make pedigree unnecessary to thee;
  Since a man of worth is he who can say, “I am so and so,”
  Not he who can only say, “My father was so and so.”