O Ahnaf! It is as though I see him advancing with an army which has neither dust nor noise, nor rustling of reins, nor neighing of horses. They are trampling the ground with their feet as if they are the feet of ostriches.
As-Sayyid ar-Radi says: Amir al-mu'minin pointed to the Chief of the Negroes, (Sahibu'z-Zanj).1
Then Amir al -mu'minin said:
I 2 can see a people whose faces are like shields covered with rough-scraped skins. They dress themselves in silken and woollen clothes and hold dear excellent horses. Their killing and bloodshed shall take place freely till the wounded shall walk over the dead and the number of runners-away shall be less than those taken prisoner:
One of his companions said to him: O Amir al-mu'minin, you have been given knowledge of hidden things. Whereupon Amir al-mu'minin laughed and said to the man who belonged to the tribe of Banu Kalb:
Therefore, Allah alone knows what is there in the wombs, whether male or female, ugly or handsome, generous or miserly, mischievous or pious, and who will be the fuel for Hell and who will be in the company of the Prophets in Paradise. This is the knowledge of the hidden things which is not known to anyone save Allah. All else is that whose knowledge Allah passed on to His Prophet and he passed it on to me, and prayed for me that my bosom may retain it and my ribs may hold it.
(1) Al-Tabari, Ta'rikh, VI, 48;
(2) Ibn al-'Athir, al-Nihayah, (b.j.r);
(3) al-Saduq, al-'Amali;
(4) al-'Amidi, Ghurar, 329;
(6) al-Bayhaqi, al-Mahasin, 41;
(7) al-Jahiz, al-Hayawan, II, 90.