"Among her acts of conjugal piety and submission was this, that she used to buy for her husband beautiful slave girls, with her own wealth, and deck them with ornaments and apparel, and so present them to him, confidently looking to the reward and recompense which she should receive [in Paradise] for such conduct. He took, in addition to her, many other wives from among free women, and bought female slaves; but she did not in consequence conceive any of that jealousy which commonly affects women. Among other strange events which happened was the following. When the subject of this memoir [the author's father] performed the pilgrimage in the year 1156 [A.D. 1743-44], he became acquainted at Mekkeh with the sheykh ´Omar El-Ḥalabee who commissioned him to purchase for him a white female slave, having such and such qualifications. So when he returned from the pilgrimage, he searched for female slaves among the slave-dealers, to choose from them such a one as was wanted, and ceased not until he found the object of his desire, and bought her. He brought her to his wife, to remain with her until he should send her with a person to whom he was commissioned to entrust her for the journey; and when the period at which she was to depart arrived, he informed his wife of it, that she might prepare the provisions for the way, and other necessaries. But she said to him, 'I have conceived a great love for this maid, and I cannot endure separation from her: I have no children, and I have taken her as a daughter.' The girl Zeleekhá also wept, and said, 'I will not part from my mistress, nor ever leave her.' 'Then what is to be done?' he asked. She answered, 'I will pay her price from my own property, and do thou buy another.' He did so. She then emancipated the girl, gave her to him by a marriage-contract, prepared her paraphernalia, and furnished for her a separate apartment; and he took her as his wife in the year 1165. The former wife could not bear to be separated from her even for an hour, although she had become her fellow-wife, and borne him children. In the year 1182, the [emancipated] slave fell sick, and she [the first wife] fell sick on account of her [friend's] sickness. The illness increased upon both of them; and in the morning the slave arose, and looked at her mistress when she seemed about to die, and wept, and said, 'O my God and my Lord, if Thou hast decreed the death of my mistress, make my day to be before her day.' Then she lay down, and her disease increased, and she died the next night; and they wrapped her up by the side of her mistress. And her mistress awoke at the close of the night, and felt her with her hand, and began to say, 'Zeleekhá! Zeleekhá!' They said to her, 'She is asleep.' But she replied, 'My heart telleth me that she is dead: and I saw in my sleep what indicated this event.' They then said to her, 'May thy life be prolonged!'[282] And when she had thus