Merlin's ultimate end (since "death" isn't quite accurate) and the descent of poor Abu Kasim seem to be strongly interrelated. The main differing element between the two stories is that Kasim's unfortunate circumstances committed unto him by his shoes, or seemingly as a result of Kasim's own actions are, unlike Merlin's demise, not a direct willing result on Kasim's part, but rather an incidental set of actions who, liberally manipulated through chance, and Kasim's unwillingness to part with his tattered footwear. Merlin chooses to allow Niniane to overwhelm him, by the power of his own magics, willingly and knowingly letting himself be captive by what he represented at his essence: powerful and infallible magic. The root of Merlin's power and the strongest characteristic which best describes him is his immense knowledge and abilities of magic. Zimmer says that Merlin had to be bested by his own powers, there being no other way Merlin could be defeated, not simply because it was the only force strong enough, but that Merlin's existence and the ultimate archetype of the power of magic, thus also the powers of faerie and nature, preordained Merlin to eventually succumb to nature itself. Merlin was made, birthed, by the inherent might of nature, so he may never die, only return that borrowed energy back to the wilds. True, Merlin's unfaltering love towards Niniane helped him abandon his resolve to protect the world of men, ultimately returning to not death, but trapped in this tower, Niniane's own creation. Merlin can not cease to be, only cease to influence our world. His end was his own doing, a willing enslavement, not to his lover, but rather to his own undying addiction to magic; Merlin recognized the only way to return to nature was to be conquered by the pinnacle of nature which was his own knowledge of magic.
While Merlin's sacrifice was to love, and also to prevent the powers he wielded to be forever out of man's reach, Abu Kasim's end was brought about through his own inability to disconnect himself from that which most defined him: not his slippers, but his covetous nature. Being a rich (and therefor skilled) miser, his ability to determine the values of possessions and his propensity for bargaining led him to be unable to let go of so simple an item. He didn't value the shoes themselves for their sentimentality but for the way that his voracious approach to consumerism and bargaining was his best asset, the facet of himself that most defined who he was. Following the story of Abu Kasim's slippers Zimmer talks of the inevitable obsession of man, their actions being a result of subconscious impulse. He describes the vice or virtue that pervades the individual through it's spellbinding nature. Merlin, too, fell to this device. It was Merlin's mastery of magic that defined him, so it had to be his inclination (though in Merlin's case, it was clearly conscious) to be entrapped by his own obsession with magic, ultimately becoming literally consumed by it. So, too can we see Abu become driven to his own undoing by firstly being unable to part with his useless remnants, but eventually his inability to stop his attempts to cut himself off from his shoes.
Here we see the culmination of the sacred stages of life, as Zimmer describes; Merlin and Kasim living the hermit stage, Kasim having thrown out all his worldly goods and being deprived of his fortune has lost all. Merlin, conversely, chose his life of seclusion to somewhat protect the world of man from his secrets. It is here that they both turned inward, focusing on themselves, experiencing the hermit stage. Merlin enters the stage of the pilgrim by freeing himself of all obligation and connection to the world by physically removing himself from it, whereas Kasim has lost his wealth and material goods through his own series of actions, though he less willingly attains the pilgrim stage. This repeated function of man's demise being their own doing, whether conscious or unconscious, through each person's most definable attribute, their own element of being, their worst or best function, paints a world where tragic figures exist to be their own undoing, doomed not from their own obsessions, per se, but from their inability to change or abandon their obsession, despite their lifelong initiation through the four sacred stages of life. They are given all the tools to react to themselves, and forsake obsession, but at long last, they are bound to destruction for their previous unwillingness to abandon it, regardless of who they become, the obsession that they used to not only posses, but let define them, can not be expected to allow them to exist.
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