Apropos of sarcasm, the Merwanide Omaiyide, who reigned in Spain, received from Nizar, the sovereign of Egypt, an insulting and satirical letter, to which he replied in these terms: "You satirize us because you have heard of us. Had we ever heard of you, we should make you a reply." None of the sarcastic wits are more pointed than the blind mawla Abu 'l-Aina (806-96), whose tongue was venomously barbed, and who, like other blind men, often used his malady as a protection when his satire had been excessive. Viziers were his favourite butts. Being one day in the society of one of them, the conversation turned on the history of the Barmekides and their generosity, on which the vizier said to Abu 'l-Aina, who had just made a high eulogium of that family for their liberality and bounty: "You have praised them and their qualities too much; all this is a mere fabrication of book-makers and a fable imagined by authors." Abu 'l-Aina immediately replied: "And why then do book-makers not relate such fables of you, O vizier?" Again, having gone one day to the door of Said Ibn Makhlad and asked permission to enter, Abu 'l-Aina was told that the vizier was engaged in prayer. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "there is a pleasure in novelty." "I am told," said a khalif to him, "that thou hast an evil tongue." "Commander of the Faithful!" replied Abu 'l-Aina, "the Almighty himself has spoken praise and satire," and he then quoted this poem: _If I praise not the honest man and revile not the sordid, the despicable, and the base, why should I have the power of saying, "That is good and this is bad"? And why should God have opened men's ears and my mouth?_ Having one day a dispute with a descendant of the Prophet, his adversary said to Abu 'l-Aina: "You attack me, and yet you say in your prayers: 'Almighty God! bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad.'" "Yes," replied Abu 'l-Aina, "but I add--'who are virtuous and pure.'" Here is one of the stories which Abu 'l-Aina used to tell. "I was one day sitting with Abu 'l-Jahm, when a man came in and said to him: 'You made me a promise, and it depends on your kindness to fulfil it.' "Abu 'l-Jahm answered that he did not recollect it, and the other replied: 'If you do not recollect it, 'tis because the persons like me to whom you make promises are numerous; and if I remember it, 'tis because the persons like you to whom I may confidently address a request are few.' "'Well said! Blessings on your father!' exclaimed Abu 'l-Jahm, and the promise was immediately fulfilled." That blind men should be self-protective is of course, natural, and the East has always been rich in them. "The learned Muwaffak Ad-Din Muzaffar, the blind poet of Egypt, having gone to visit Al-Kadi As-Said Ibn Sana Al-Mulk, the latter said to him: 'Learned scholar! I have composed the first hemistich of a verse, but cannot finish it, although it has occupied my mind for some days.'