Another example of the benevolence of God (may He be exalted): when the king of the Romans encamped against Shayzar in the year 532 (1138), a group of infantrymen left Shayzar to join the battle. But the Romans intercepted them, killed some and took some others prisoner. Among the group of those whom they captured was an ascetic from the Banu Kurdus of the Salihiyya cohort, that is, one of the men born into the household of Mahmud ibn [93] Salih,162 the lord of Aleppo. When the Romans returned home, he went with them as a prisoner and arrived in Constantinople.163
He was there for a few days when what should happen but he met a man who asked him, ‘Are you Ibn Kurdus?’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Come with me’, the other man said, ‘and show me to your master.’
So he went on with him and pointed out his master to him. The man haggled with his master about his price until the man and the Roman settled upon a satisfactory amount.
The man paid out the price and gave Ibn Kurdus some money for expenses, saying, ‘Use this to go back to your family. Go, may God the Exalted keep you!’
And so he left Constantinople and travelled until he returned to Shayzar. All that was due to the granting by God (may He be exalted) of relief and His inscrutable benevolence. He never learned who it was that bought him and freed him.