Khoja and his tales

In the first tale a just king wants to buy the reward of the pilgrims, but an ascetic who has gone to the Kaaba on foot twenty times asks in exchange for the reward of one hour of the king’s justice and calls it greater than the worship of people and angels. In the second, Iskandar, unable to defeat Doro, the lord of Hamadan, tempts two close slaves of Doro with the promise of “a high place in the army”; after they kill Doro, Iskandar buries him with honour, has the slaves hanged and says this is the “high place”. In the third a fly complains to Solomon about the wind; when the wind is called the fly flees, and Solomon says justice requires the claimant and the accused to be heard together; then a ghazal urges rulers to be as just as Solomon. In the fourth, a man saved from a shipwreck is made king by the townspeople, and on the fourth day he sees a beautiful woman in the harem; she tells him they make a stranger king for one year and then send him to an island. He has a palace and city built on the island and sends his wealth ahead, and at year’s end lives there in comfort.