Obviously the purpose of the paragraph is to point out the wisdom of enjoying life in the time of youth while the physical powers are fresh and strong, and the impotency of old age has not yet crept in.
Sultan Abd-ulHamid, on the other hand, pursued a settled policy of reducing the fleet to impotency, owing to his fear that it might turn against him as it had turned against Abd-ul-Aziz.
Among the grounds for a divorce are adultery, impotency, extreme cruelty, conviction of a crime punishable in the state with imprisonment for more than a year and actual imprisonment under such conviction, treatment seriously injuring the health or endangering the reason, wilful desertion for three years, or joining a religious sect or society which professes to believe the relation of husband and wife unlawful, and conduct in accordance therewith for six months.
The causes for an absolute divorce are adultery; impotency; desertion for three years; a sentence to confinement in the penitentiary; a conviction of an infamous offence before marriage unknown to the other; or, if one of the parties is charged with an offence punishable with death or confinement in the penitentiary, and has been a fugitive from justice for two years; pregnancy of the wife before marriage unknown to the husband, or the wife's being a prostitute before marriage unknown to the husband.
There is,1 however, also shown, as a result of the Afghan intrusion and the impotency of the later Safawid kings, a long broad strip of country to the west, including Tabriz and Hamadan, marked conquests of the Turks, and the whole west shore of the Caspian from Astrakan to Mazandaran marked conquests of the czar of Muscovy; Makran, written Mecran, is designated a warlike independent nation.