ABSTRACT
Though Iblis spoke many words of trickery and treachery the caliph did not heed him i he continued tenaciously to wrestle with him. At last Iblis declared most reluctantly, 'Fellow, you may as well know that the reason I awakened you was that you might join the congregation in prayer, following the Prophet of lofty estate. If the time of prayer had passed with you still sleeping, the world would have become dark for you and without radiance. Out of vexation and grief tears would have poured from your eyes like water from a water-bag i for every man tastes joy in an act of devotion, and therefore cannot endure to miss it even for a moment. That vexation and grief would have been the equivalent of a hundred prayers i what is ritual prayer compared with the glow of such supplication? Noble prince, I must expose my trickery before you. If at that time you had missed the prayer, many sighs and laments you would have uttered out of your aching heart, and that regret and lamenting and supplication would have surpassed two hundred recollections and ritual prayers. I awakened you fearing that such a sigh would bum the veil i so that such a sigh should not be yours, and that you should have no way to uttering it. I am envious, and out of envy I acted thus i I am the enemy, and my work is trickery and hatred.'
