Concerning the Relative Excellence of Male and Female.

a certain man of learning, said, "I never saw amongst woman kind one wittier, and wiser, better read and by nature more generously bred; and in manners and morals more perfected than a preacher of the people of Baghdad, by name Sitt al-Mashá'ikh. It chanced that she came to Hamah city in the year of the Flight five hundred and sixty and one, and there delivered salutary exhortations to the folk from the professorial chair. Now there used to visit her house a number of students of divinity and persons of learning and polite letters, who would discuss with her questions of theology and dispute with her on controversial points. I went to her one day, with a friend of mine, a man of years and education; and when we had taken our seats, she set before us a dish of fruit and seated herself behind a curtain.

The Man's Dispute with the Learned Woman. 155

Now she had a brother, a handsome youth, who stood behind us, to serve us. And when we had eaten we fell to disputing upon points of divinity, and I propounded to her a theological question bearing upon a difference between the Imams the Founders of the Four Schools. She proceeded to speak in answer, whilst I listened; but all the while my friend fell to looking upon her brother's face and admiring his beauties with out paying any heed to what she discoursed. Now as she was watching him from behind the curtain; when she had made an end of her speech, she turned to him and said, 'I think you be of those who give men the preference over women!' He replied, 'Assuredly,' and she asked, 'And why so?'; whereto he answered, 'For that Allah has made the masculine worthier than the feminine,' "—

When it was the Four Hundred and Twenties night

When it was the Four Hundred and Twenty first night

When it was the Four Hundred and Twenty second night

When it was the Four Hundred and Twenty third night

And among the tales they tell is one of