In Cairo there were two brothers who held office together. The elder was Shams al-Din and the younger Nur al-Din. They had taken their father’s post between them and worked side by side.
One evening the two of them talked about what was to come. They would marry on the same day, they said, and have children in the same year. If the elder had a daughter and the younger a son, they would marry the two to each other.
When the talk had got that far, the younger brought up the marriage gift. His brother, he said, was the sort who would name a high price for a daughter. Over children who had not been born, the two of them quarrelled hard that night.