A Hedgehog once took up his abode by the side of a date palm, on which roosted a wood pigeon and his wife that had built their nest there and lived a life of ease and enjoyment. So he said to himself, "This pigeon pair eats of the fruit of the date tree and I have no means of getting at it; but needs must I find some fashion of tricking them." Upon this he dug a hole at the foot of the palm tree and took up his lodging there, he and his wife; moreover, he built an oratory beside the hole and went into retreat there and made a show of devotion and edification and renunciation of the world. The male pigeon saw him praying and worshipping, and his heart was softened towards him for his excess of devoutness; so he said to him, "How many years have you been thus?" The hedgehog replied, "During the last thirty years." "What is your food?" "That which falls from the palmtree." "And what is your clothing?" "Prickles! And I profit by their roughness." "And why have you chosen this for place rather than another?" "I chose it and preferred it to all others that I might guide the erring into the right way and teach the ignorant!" "I had fancied your case," the wood pigeon said, "other than this, but now I yearn for that which is with you." the hedgehog said, "I fear lest your deed contradict your word and you be even as the husbandman who, when the seed season came, neglected to sow, saying, 'truly I dread lest the days bring me not to my desire, and by making haste to sow I shall only waste my substance!'

When harvest time came and he saw the folk earing their crops, he repented him of what he had lost by his tardiness and he died of chagrin and vexation." Asked the wood pigeon, "What then shall I do that I may be freed from the bonds of the world and cut myself loose from all things save the service of my Lord?" The hedgehog answered, "Betake you to preparing for the next world and content yourself with a pittance of provision." the pigeon said, "How can I do this, I that am a bird and unable to go beyond the date tree on which is my daily bread? And even could I do so, I know of no other place in which I may wone." the hedgehog said, "You can shake down of the fruit of the date tree what shall suffice you and your wife for a year's provisions; then do you take up your abode in a nest under the trunk, that you may prayerfully seek to be guided in the right way, and then turn you to what you have shaken down and transport it all to your home and store it up against what time the dates fail; and when the fruits are spent and the delay is longsome upon you, address yourself to total abstinence."

Exclaimed the pigeon, "Allah requite you with good for the righteous intention wherewith you have reminded me of the world to come and have directed me into the right way!" Then he and his wife worked hard at knocking down the dates, till nothing was left on the palm tree, whilst the hedgehog, finding whereof to eat, rejoiced and filled his den with the fruit, storing it up for his subsistence and saying in his mind, "When the pigeon and his wife have need of their provision, they will seek it of me and covet what I have, relying upon your devoutness and abstinence; and, from what they have heard of my counsels and admonitions, they will draw near unto me. Then will I make them my prey and eat them, after which I shall have the place and all that drops from the date tree to suffice me." Presently, having shaken down the fruits, the pigeon and his wife descended from the tree top and finding that the hedgehog had removed all the dates to his own place, said to him, "O hedgehog! You pious preacher and of good counsel, we can find no sign of the dates and know not on what else we shall feed."

The hedgehog replied, "Probably the winds have carried them away; but the turning from the provisions to the Provider is of the essence of salvation, and He who the mouth corners cleft, the mouth without victual has never left." And he gave not over improving the occasion to them in this way, and making a show of piety and cozening them with fine words and false till they put faith in him and accepted him and entered his den and had no suspicion of his deceit. There upon he sprang to the door and gnashed his teeth, and the wood pigeon, seeing his perfidy manifested, said to him, "What has tonight to do with yester night? Know you not that there is a Helper for the oppressed? Beware of craft and treachery, lest that mishap befall you which befell the sharpers who plotted against the merchant." "What was that?" asked the hedgehog. Answered the pigeon:—I have heard tell this tale of