Story of the king, the monk and the boy

There was a king among those prior to you [the Muslims], and he had a magician. When he became aged, he said to the king: I have become aged; so send me a youth (ghulam) so that I can teach him magic. So he sent him a youth to teach him, and along the way, he passed a monk, sat down beside him, listened to his words and they amazed him. Whenever he came to the magician he would pass the monk, and sit with him, and when he got to the magician the latter would beat him, and say: “What took you [so long]?” And then when he returned to his family, he would sit with the monk listening to his words, and when he returned to his family they would beat him and say: “What took you [so long]?” He complained about that to the monk, and the latter said: If you fear the magician, say: “My family kept me”; and if you fear your family then say: “The magician kept me.”

While they were in this situation, one day a great beast passed by on the road, stopped the people and would not let them pass. The boy said: “Now I will know – is the magician more favorable to God or the monk?”