Hasan

“Another story is told by the historian Ibn Al-Athir about the commander 'Imad Ad-Din Zangi. He entered the town of Jazirat Ibn 'Umar during the winter. He stayed at the fortress, while the army camped in tents. One of his more prominent officers was 'Izz Ad-Din Abu Bakr Ad-Dabisi, whose opinion he valued. This officer commandeered the home a Jewish man for his own lodging. The Jewish man sought out 'Imad Ad-Din, and called out to him while he was riding by. 'Imad Ad-Din asked him what the matter was, and listened to the story while Ad-Dabaisi stood next to him. When 'Imad had heard the whole story, he said nothing, but gazed wrathfully at Ad-Dabisi, who backed away, returned to town, and ordered his tents to be set up outside town, even though the ground was full of mud from the rain and the army passing over it. This was done in justice to the Jewish man whose home had been wrongfully commandeered.”
― Saleh Hussain Al-Aayed, The Rights Of Non-Muslims In The Islamic World

“Human beings are curious, and especially curious about other human beings.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“There is something deeply attractive, at least to quite a lot of people, about squalor, misery, and vice. They are regarded as more authentic, and certainly more exciting, than cleanliness, happiness, and virtue.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“Mosul, the native city of the historian Ibn al-Athir, was the capital of Jazira, or Mesopotamia, the fertile plain watered by the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates. It was a political, cultural, and economic centre of prime importance. The Arabs boasted of its succulent fruit: its apples, pears, grapes, and pomegranates. The fine cloth it exported - called 'muslin', a word derived from the city's name - was known throughout the world. At the time of the arrival of the Franj, the people of the emir Karbuqa's realm were already exploiting another natural resource, which the traveller Ibn Jubayr was to describe with amazement a few dozen years later: deposits of naphtha. This precious dark liquid, which would one day make the fortune of this part of the world, already offered travellers an unforgettable spectacle.”
― Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes