Strona 922 z 1116

[FN#71] "Sulayman," when going out to ease himself, entrusted his

seal-ring upon which his kingdom depended to a concubine "Aminah"

(the "Faithful"), when Sakhr, transformed to the King's likeness,

came in and took it. The prophet was reduced to beggary, but

after forty days the demon fled throwing into the sea the ring

which was swallowed by a fish and eventually returned to

Sulayman. This Talmudic fable is hinted at in the Koran (chapt.

xxxviii.), and commentators have extensively embroidered it.

Asaf, son of Barkhiya, was Wazir to Sulayman and is supposed to

be the "one with whom was the knowledge of the Scriptures"

(Koran, chapt. xxxvii.), i.e. who knew the Ineffable Name of

Allah. See the manifest descendant of the Talmudic Koranic

fiction in the "Tale of the Emperor Jovinian" (No. lix.) of the

Gesta Romanorum, the most popular book of mediaeval Europe

composed in England (or Germany) about the end of the thirteenth

century.