There lived once in the city of Cufa[FN#1] a man called Al-Rab�‘a bin H�tim, who was one of the chief men of the town, a wealthy and a healthy, and Heaven had vouchsafed him a son, whom he named Ni’amah Allah.[FN#2] One day, being in the slave-brokers’ mart, he saw a woman exposed for sale with a 
little maid of wonderful beauty and grace on her arm. So he beckoned to the broker and asked him, “How much for this woman and her daughter?” He answered “Fifty dinars.”