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son of Adam, how heedless art thou of that which is before thee! Verily, thy years and months and days have diverted thee therefrom. Knowest thou not that the cup of death is filled for thee and that ere long thou must drain it to the dregs? Look to thyself before thou enter thy grave. Where be they who held the dominion over the lands and abased God’s servants and led armies? By Allah, the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies and the Devastator of inhabited houses came down upon them and transported them from their spacious palaces to the narrow room of the grave.’
And at the foot of the tablet were written the following verses:
Where be the kings and where be they the earth who peopled? Where? That which they built thereon they left and to the grave did fare.
There, after death had razed them out, corruption they became, Pledged to the tomb to answer that they did and wrought whilere.
Where be the armies that they raised, the wealth they garnered up? Nothing they served to ward off death or bribe him to forbear.
The Lord of the Ninth Heaven’s decree fell down on them in haste: Strongholds and treasures thereagainst all unavailing were.
When the Amir heard this, he cried out and the tears ran down his cheeks and he exclaimed, ‘By Allah, it is surest and most fitting to abstain from the world!’ And he called for inkhorn and paper and wrote down what was graven on the tablet.
Then he drew near the second tablet and found these words graven thereon: ‘O son of Adam, what hath seduced thee [from the service of] the Ancient of Days and made thee forget that thou must one day pay the debt of death? Knowest thou not, thou that takest thought unto the world and cleavest fast thereto, that it is a perishing dwelling, wherein there is abiding for none? Where be the kings who peopled Irak and possessed the four quarters of the world? Where be they who peopled Ispahan and
