The caliph returned to his seat, and they brought water to soothe his face. "How did you come to know him?" he asked me.
I told him the whole story, and he went back to weeping. "That was my first-born son," he said. "My father al-Mahdi decreed my marriage to Zubayda, but my eye was caught and my heart was captured by a woman of another class. We married in secret, and when she bore me a son I settled them in Basra. And one of the things I gave her was this ring. I told her, 'Stay hidden until you hear that I've been made caliph, then come to me.'
"After I assumed the Caliphate, I inquired after my wife and son, and was told that both had died. I had no idea my son was still alive! Where," he asked me, "did you bury him?"
"I interred him in the Cemetery of ‘Abd Allah ibn Malik, O Commander of the Faithful," I said.
"I need your help," he said, "Wait for me after sundown outside the palace gate. I'll come down in disguise to visit his tomb." So I waited, and he came out in disguise with a crew of eunuchs. He put his hand in mine, and at a shout from him, the eunuchs retreated. I brought him to the tomb, where he wept away the night until the dawn, rubbing his head and beard against the slab and calling out, "My son! You have given guidance to your father!" And I wept with him, out of pity.
And then he heard a voice. "I think I hear people talking," he said. "Yes," I said. "Morning has broken, O Commander of the Faithful, and the dawn rises."
"I am giving the order that ten thousand dirhams be disbursed to you.," he said. "Inscribe your family members and loved ones among my own, as is your right for seeing to my son's burial. And when I die, I will tell my successor to keep up what's coming to you, as long as your progeny are alive."
He took my hand again, and up to a short distance from the palace we walked hand in hand, to where the eunuchs were waiting. As the company entered the palace, the caliph said to me, "See to all I have told you, and wait for me here at sunrise. When I see you, I'll summon you up to talk some more."
"If God wills," I said. And I never went back.
Another version of ‘Abd Allah's story is reported by a different chain of narrators, and it goes like this: [Continued.]
From Characters of Integrity by Ibn al-Jawzi; cf. The Lamp that Sheds Its Brightness on the Caliphate of al-Mustadi’ by the same author
