One thousand and one nights

She said: It has reached me, O happy king, that before the caliphate of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, there was a king in the city of Damascus called Omar al-Nu''man. He was one of the great tyrants who had conquered the kings of the Chosroes and the Caesars. No fire could warm him, and no one could compete with him in a racecourse. When he became angry, flames of fire would come out of his nostrils. H...