We last met him on the road to Kufa: he of the radiant visage and dignified bearing.
At that time we accompanied him and his fellow traveler for the better part of a bright sunny day and learnt, by his deed and precept, something valuable about human comportment.
Now we see him in the middle of the night, literally burning the midnight oil, hard at work in his office in the city of Kufa itself.
The nascent realm, of which he is the Caliph, is expanded from the city state that it once was a few years ago. The inevitable swarm of bureaucrats has not mushroomed as yet to direct and control its affairs. Therefore, the still scant number of office bearers have multifarious duties and much responsibility and toil to fulfill them.
Even though primus inter pares, he drives himself harder than the others. Perforce he must. He is the chief executive, administrator, law giver, bursar, auditor, comptroller and much else, rolled into one. His reports, which are submitted to the Council of Elders and through it to the community at large for scrutiny, comment and approbation, have to be impeccable. Above all they have to be defensible from the standpoint of all the diverse, sometimes opposing, though not necessarily inimical, roles that are embodied in his office.
Experience has taught him that work demanding integrity of facts and figures as well as subtlety of analysis and clarity of judgment is best executed when the mind is free of routine distractions and the push, pull and jostle of the ordinary. By nature a nocturnal person, he functions optimally in the peace and quiet of the night.
His late presence in the office is known to the citizenry. And it often takes advantage of that habit.
So he is not surprised when a visitor announces himself thus:
“With your indulgence, O! Benign One, might I impose on your precious time?”
This evokes the customary large-hearted reply:
“Enter by all means and be seated. And when you have caught your breath, do state the manner and means with which I may be of help”.
To this the visitor responds:
“My noble Lord, I have come to seek your sagacious counsel”.
“Pray tell whether the matter on which you seek advice lies in the public domain or is it something particular to your person”, asks he of the majestic bearing.
“Gracious Sir, it is the latter”, replies the petitioner.
“In that event, I will snuff out the candle that sits between you and me”, declares he to whom all have pledged fealty and troth as their Caliph.
The visitor is perplexed indeed but not enough to have lost his sense of humor. He chuckles softly and avers:
“The perturbation that impels me to you, O! Noble One, is personal, wicked and bothersome in the extreme but not ignoble in any shape or form. There is no need to cloak my conjectured shame in the protective cover of darkness”.
The Honorable One offers the following assurance:
“Nay, dear Sir, I had not presumed to prejudge the nature of your revelation. Had I done so, I would not have attributed anything base or dishonorable to it. I am moved to extinguish the light by the sense of what is right and wrong, what is permissible and what is forbidden”.
Continuing he, of much generosity and patience, further explains thus:
“This candle is paid from the state exchequer. Its use is therefore predetermined and is consequently specifically consecrated to affairs of public relevance.
But now that you and I are going to discuss matters private and personal, I do not as a trustee and custodian have the right to expend on those a state-owned resource, no matter in how infinitesimal an amount. Clearly, that resource does not belong to me nor to you.
I beg you, therefore, to narrate what ails you in the now prevailing darkness even if you find it somewhat incommodious”.
“Blessed are we that one such as you walks amongst us, O! Trustworthy One”, muttered the visitor to himself.
Thereafter he launched into the narration of his personal problem.
Here the author pauses to ask himself: How often, in his long career as a civil servant, did he exercise such meticulous honesty and care in spending resources vouchsafed to him?
