When the calenders
were seated, the ladies served them with meat; and Safie, being highly
pleased with them, did not let them want for wine.
[Footnote 11: This may probably be an allusion to the two great
divisions prevailing among the Mohammedans, the Soonnis and the
Shiites. The former upheld the legitimacy of the three first
successions of Mohammed; the latter maintained the right of his cousin
and son-in-law, Ali, and his descendants, called Fatemites or
Ismaelites. They both received the Koran, but the one added to it the
Sonna, or certain oral traditions attributed to Mohammed, which the
other rejected.]
When the calenders had finished their repast, they signified to the
ladies that they wished to entertain them with a concert of music, if
they had any instruments in the house, and would cause them to be
brought. The ladies willingly accepted the proposal, and Safie went to
fetch the instruments. Each man took the instrument he liked, and all
three together began to play a tune. The ladies, who knew the words of
a merry song that suited the air, joined the concert with their
voices; but the words of the song made them now and then stop, and
fall into excessive laughter. While their amusement was at its height,
there was a knock of unwonted loudness at their gate.
Now, it was the custom of the sultan Haroun al Raschid sometimes
during the night to go through the city in disguise, in order to
discover whether everything was quiet.
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