Story 15

I saw a Bedouin in the circle of Basra's jewelers, telling this tale: 'Once I lost my way in a desert. Nothing was left of my provisions, and I had given my heart up to death, when suddenly I found a pouch full of pearls. I will never forget that joy and delight when I thought it was roasted wheat, nor the bitterness and despair when I realized it was pearls!' In a dry desert of shifting sand, to a thirsty man, what does it matter, a pearl or an empty shell? For the man with no supplies, collapsed from exhaustion, what hangs at his belt, gold or a shard of clay, means nothing.