Tadhkirat al-Auliya 2

Muslim Saints

and Mystics

Episodes from the
Tadhkirat al-Auliya’

(Memorial of the Saints)
by Farid al-Din Attar

Translated by A. J. Arberry

Shah ibn Shoja⁽

Abu ‘l-Fawares Shah ibn Shoja‘ al-Kermani, said to be of a princely family and author of works on Sufism which have not survived, died sometime after 270 (884).

Shah-e Shoja‘-e Kermani and his children

Shah-e Shoja‘-e Kermani had one son. On his breast he had written in green the word Allah. In due course the boy, overcome by the wayward impulses of youth, amused himself by strolling with lute in hand. He had a fine voice, and as he sauntered he would play the lute and sing tearful tunes.

One night, being drunk, he went out on to the streets playing his lute and singing songs. When he came to a certain quarter, a bride newly come there rose up from her husband’s side and came to look at him. The hus­band thereupon awoke and, missing his wife, also stared at the spectacle.

“Boy,” he called to him, “has not the time come to repent?”

These words struck the youth to the heart.

“It has come. It has come,” he cried.

Rending his robe and breaking his lute, he betook himself to his room and for forty days ate nothing. Then he emerged and took his way.

“What I was vouchsafed only after forty years, he has been granted after forty days,” remarked Shah-e Shoja‘.

Shah-e Shoja‘ also had a daughter. The kings of Kerman asked for her hand in marriage. He requested three days’ grace, and during those three days he went from mosque to mosque, till at last he caught sight of a dervish praying earnestly. Shah-e Shoja‘ waited patiently until he had finished his prayers, then he addressed him.

“Dervish, do you have any family?”

“No,” the dervish replied.

“Do you want a wife who can recite the Koran?”

“Who is there who will give such a wife to me?” said the dervish. “All I possess is three dirhams.”

“I will give you my daughter,” said Shah-e Shoja‘. “Of these three dirhams you possess, spend one on bread and one on attar of roses, then tie the marriage­knot.”

They agreed accordingly. That same night Shah-e Shoja‘ despatched his daughter to his house. Entering the dervish’s house, the girl saw some dry bread beside a jug of water.

“What is this bread?” she demanded.

“It remained over from yesterday. I kept it for tonight,” the dervish told her.

Thereupon the girl made to leave the house.

“I knew,” the dervish observed, “that the daughter of Shah-e Shoja‘ would never be able to live with me and put up with my poverty.”

“Sir, it is not on account of your lack of means that I am leaving you,” the girl replied. “I am leaving because of your lack of faith and trust, in that you set aside bread from yesterday, not relying on God’s provi­sion for the morrow. At the same time I am surprised at my father. For twenty years he has kept me at home, always saying ‘I will give you to a godfearing man.’ Now he has given me to a fellow who does not rely on God for his daily bread.”

“Is there any atonement for this sin?” the dervish asked.

“Yes,” said the girl. “The atonement is, that only one of the two remains in this house—myself, or the dry bread.”

Yusof ibn al-Hosain

Abu Ya’qub Yusof ibn al-Hosain al-Razi travelled extensively from his native Rayy, visiting Arabia and Egypt where he met and studied under Dho ‘l-Nun al-Mesri. He returned to preach in Rayy, dying there in 304 (9I6).

The conversion of Yusof ibn al-Hosain-e Razi The spiritual career of Yusof ibn al-Hosain-e Razi began in the following circumstances. He was travel­ling in Arabia with a company of his fellows when he arrived in the territory of a certain tribe. When the daughter of the Prince of the Arabs caught sight of him, she fell madly in love with him, for he was possessed of great beauty. Waiting her opportunity, the girl sudden­ly flung herself before him. Trembling, he left her and departed to a more distant tribe.

That night he was sleeping with his head on his knees, when he dreamed he was in a place the like of which he had never seen. One was seated on a throne there in kingly wise, surrounded by a company clad in green robes. Wishful to know who they might be, Yusof edged his way towards them. They made way for him, treating him with much respect.

“Who are you?” he enquired.

“We are angels,” they replied, “and he who is seated on the throne there is Joseph, upon whom be peace. He has come to pay a visit to Yusof ibn al-Hosain.”

Let Yusof tell the rest of the story in his own words.

Overcome with weeping, I cried, “Who am I, that God’s prophet should come to visit me?”

Thereupon Joseph, upon him be peace, descended from his throne, took me in his embrace, and seated me on the throne.

“Prophet of God,” I cried, “who am I that you should be so gracious to me?”

“In the hour,” Joseph answered, “when that lovely girl flung herself before you, and you committed your­self to God and sought His protection, God displayed you to me and the angels. God said, ‘See, Joseph! You are that Joseph who inclined after Zoleikha only to repel her. He is that Joseph who did not incline after the daughter of the King of the Arabs, and fled.’ God Himself sent me with these angels to visit you. He sends you the good tidings that you are of God’s elect.”

Then Joseph added, “In every age there is a portent. The portent in this age is Dho ‘l-Nun-e Mesri. He has been vouchsafed the Greatest Name of God. Go unto him.”

When Yusof awoke (the narrative continues) he was filled with a great ache. A powerful yearning overmas­tered him, and he turned his face towards Egypt, desirous to know the Great Name of God. Arriving at the mosque of Dho ‘l-Nun, he spoke the greeting and sat down. Dho ‘l-Nun returned his greeting. For a whole year Yusof sat in a remote corner of the mosque, not daring to question Dho ‘l-Nun.

After a year Dho ‘l-Nun asked, “Whence is this young man come?”

“From Rayy,” he replied.

For another year Dho ‘l-Nun said nothing, and Yusof continued to occupy the same corner.

At the end of the second year Dho ‘l-Nun asked, “On what errand has this young man come?”

“To visit you,” he replied.

For another year Dho ‘l-Nun was silent. Then he asked, “Does he require anything?”

“I have come that you may teach me the Greatest Name,” Yusof replied.

For a further year Dho ‘l-Nun held his peace. Then he handed Yusof a wooden vessel covered over.

“Cross the River Nile,” he told him. “In a certain place there is an elder. Give this bowl to him, and remember whatever he tells you.”

Yusof took the bowl and set forth. When he had gone a part of the way, a temptation assailed him.

“What is this moving about in this bowl?”

He uncovered the bowl. A mouse jumped out and ran away. Yusof was filled with bewilderment.

“Where am I to go? Shall I go to this elder, or return to Dho ‘l-Nun?”

Finally he proceeded to the elder, carrying the empty bowl. When the elder beheld him, he smiled.

“You asked him for God’s Great Name?” he asked.

“Yes!” Yusof replied.

“Dho ‘l-Nun saw your impatience, and gave you a mouse,” the elder said. “Glory be to God! You cannot look after a mouse. How then will you keep the Greatest Name?”

Put to shame, Yusof returned to the mosque of Dho ‘l-Nun.

“Yesterday I asked leave of God seven times to teach you the Greatest Name,” Dho ‘l-Nun told him. “God did not give permission, meaning that the time is not yet. Then God commanded me, ‘Make trial of him with a mouse.’ When I made trial of you, this is what happened. Now return to your own city, till the prop­er time comes.”

“Before I leave, give me a testament,” Yusof begged.

“I will give you three testaments,” said Dho ‘l-Nun, “one great, one middling, and one small. The great tes­tament is this, that you forget all that you have read, and wash away all that you have written, so that the veil may be lifted.”

“This I cannot do,” said Yusof.

“The middling testament is this, that you forget me and tell my name to no man,” said Dho ‘l-Nun. “To say that my monitor declared this or my shaikh ordered that is all self-praise.”

“This too I cannot do,” said Yusof.

“The small testament is this,” said Dho ‘l-Nun, “that you counsel men and call them to God.”

“This I can do, God willing,” said Yusof.

“On condition, however,” Dho ‘l-Nun added, “that in counselling men you do not have men in sight.”

“So I will do,” Yusof promised.

Then he proceeded to Rayy. Now he came from the nobility of Rayy, and the citizens came out to welcome him. When he began his preaching, he expounded the mystic realities. The people, accustomed to exoteric doctrine, rose up in anger against him, for in that time only formal learning was current. Yusof fell into disre­pute, to such an extent that no one came to his lec­tures.

One day he turned up to preach as usual, but seeing no one in the hall he was about to return home. At that moment an old woman called to him.

“Did you not promise Dho ‘l-Nun that in coun­selling men you would not have them in sight, and would speak only for God’s sake?”

Astonished at her words, Yusof began to preach. Thereafter he continued so for fifty years, whether any­one was present or no.

Yusof ibn al-Hosain and Ebrahim-e Khauwas Ebrahim-e Khauwas became a disciple of Yusof ibn al- Hosain. Through the blessing of his companionship he attained to such remarkable spiritual advancement that he would travel through the desert without provision and mount. It is to him that we owe the following story.

One night (Ebrahim said) I heard a voice which said to me, “Go and say to Yusof-e Hosain, ‘You are of the rejected’.” So grievous were these words for me to hear, that if a mountain had been flung on my head that would have been easier to bear than that I should repeat what I had heard to him.

Next night I heard in even more menacing tones, “Say to him, ‘You are of the rejected’.” Rising up, I washed and begged God’s forgiveness, and sat in med­itation till the third night, when the same voice came to me. “Say to him, ‘You are of the rejected’. If you do not deliver this message, you will receive such a blow that you will not rise again.”

So full of sorrow I rose up and went to the mosque, where I saw Yusof seated in the prayer-niche.

“Do you remember any verse?” he asked me when he saw me.

“I do,” I replied. I recollected a verse in Arabic which I recited to him. Delighted, he rose up and remained on his feet for a long while, tears as if flecked with blood streaming from his eyes. Then he turned to me.

“Since first light till now,” he said, “they have been reciting the Koran before me, and not one drop came to my eyes. Now through that single verse you spoke such a state has manifested —a veritable torrent has flowed from my eyes. Men are right when they say I am a heretic. The voice of the Divine Presence speaks truly, that I am of the rejected. A man who is so affected by a verse of poetry, while the Koran makes no impression whatever upon him—he is surely rejected.”

I was bewildered by what I saw and heard. My belief in him was shaken. Afraid, I rose up and set my face towards the desert. By chance I fell in with Khezr, who addressed me.

“Yusof-e Hosain has received a blow from God. But his place is in the topmost heights of Heaven. A man must stride so far and manfully upon the path of God, that even if the hand of rejection is struck against his forehead, yet his place is in the topmost heights of Heaven. If he falls on this path from kingship, yet he will not fall from the rank of minister.”

Yusof ibn al-Hosain and the handmaiden

A certain merchant in Nishapur bought a Turkish handmaiden for a thousand dinars. He had a creditor living in another town, and wanted to go in haste and recover his money from him. In Nishapur there was no one in whom he trusted sufficiently to commit the girl to his keeping. So he called on Abu ‘Othman-e Hiri and explained his predicament to him. At first Abu ‘Othman refused, but the merchant implored him earnestly.

“Admit her into your harem. I will return as soon as possible.”

So finally he consented, and the merchant departed. Involuntarily Abu ‘Othman’s glance fell upon the girl and he fell uncontrollably in love with her. Not know­ing what to do, he rose up and went to consult his teacher Abu Hafs-e Haddad.

“You must go to Rayy, to consult Yusof ibn al- Hosain,” Abu Hafs told him.

Abu ‘Othman set out at once towards Iraq. When he reached Rayy he enquired where Yusof-e Hosain was living.

“What have you to do with that damned heretic?” they asked him. “You look a religious man yourself. His society will be bad for you.”

They said many such things to him, so that Abu ‘Othman regretted having come there and returned to Nishapur.

“Did you see Yusof-e Hosain?” Abu Hafs asked him.

“No,” he replied.

“Why not?”

“I heard that he was such and such a man,” Abu ‘Othman related what the people of Rayy had told him. “So I did not go to him, but returned.”

“Go back and see him,” Abu Hafs urged.

Abu ‘Othman returned to Rayy and again asked for Yusof’s house. The people of Rayy told him a hundred times as much as before.

“But I have important business with him,” he explained.

So at last they indicated the way to him. When he reached Yusof’s house, he saw an old man seated there. A beardless and handsome boy was before him, laying before him a bowl and a goblet. Light streamed from his face. Abu ‘Othman entered and spoke the greeting and sat down. Shaikh Yusof began to speak, and uttered such lofty words that Abu ‘Othman was amazed.

“For God’s sake, master,” he cried, “with such words and such contemplating, what is this state that is on you? Wine, and a beardless boy?”

“This beardless boy is my son, and very few people know that he is my son,” Yusof replied. “I am teaching him the Koran. A bowl happened to be thrown into this dustbin. I picked it out and washed it and filled it with water, so that anyone who wished for water might drink, for I had no pitcher.”

“For God’s sake,” Abu ‘Othman repeated, “why do you act so that men say of you what they say?”

“I do it for this reason,” Yusof answered, “so that no one may send a Turkish handmaiden to my house as a confidant.”

When Abu ‘Othman heard these words he fell down at the shaikh’s feet. He realized that the man had attained a high degree.

Abu Hafs al-Haddad

Abu Hafs ‘Amr ibn Salama al-Haddad, a black­smith of Nishapur, visited Baghdad and met al- Jonaid who admired his devotion; he also encountered al-Shebli and other mystics of the Baghdad school. Returning to Nishapur, he resumed his trade and died there in 265 (879).

How Abu Hafs-e Haddad was converted

As a young man Abu Hafs-e Haddad fell in love with a serving wench so desperately that he could not com­pose himself.

“There is a Jewish magician living in the suburbs of Nishapur,” his friends told him. “He will prescribe for you.”

Abu Hafs went and described his situation to the Jew.

“You must not pray for forty days, or obey God in any way, or do any good deed,” the Jew advised him. “You should not mention God’s name on your tongue, or form any good intentions whatsoever. Then I may devise something by magic to procure you your goal.”

Abu Hafs conducted himself accordingly for forty days. Then the Jew composed the talisman, but with­out success.

“Without doubt some good has come into being through you,” the Jew said. “Otherwise I am certain that this object would have been achieved.”

“I have done nothing,” Abu Hafs assured him. “The only thing I can think of is that as I came here I kicked a stone out of the way so that no one might trip over it.”

“Do not vex the God,” said the Jew, “whose com­mand you gainsay for forty days, and who of His gen­erosity suffered not to go to waste even this little trou­ble you took.”

These words kindled a fire within Abu Hafs’s heart. So strong was it, that he was converted at the hands of the Jew.

He continued to practise his trade as a blacksmith, concealing the miracle that had happened to him. Every day he earned one dinar. At night he gave his earnings to the poor, and dropped money into wid­ows’ letter-boxes surreptitiously. Then at the time of the prayer of sleep he would go begging, and break his fast on that. Sometimes he would gather the remains of leeks or the like which people had washed in the public basin and make his meal of them.

So he continued for a time. Then one day a blind man passed through the market reciting this verse: “I take refuge with God from the accursed Satan. In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Yet there would appear to them from God that they never reckoned with.” This verse occupied his heart, and something came upon him so that he lost con­sciousness. In place of the tongs he put his hand in the furnace and pulled out the red-hot iron. He laid it on the anvil, and the apprentices set to hammering it. They then noticed he was turning the iron with his hand.

“Master, what ever is this?” they cried.

“Strike!” he shouted at the apprentices.

“Master, where shall we strike?” they asked. “The iron is clean.”

Thereupon Abu Hafs came to his senses. He saw the red-hot iron in his hand and heard the cry, “It is clean. Where shall we strike?” Flinging the iron from his hand, he abandoned his shop for any to pillage.

“I desired so long deliberately to give up this work, and failed, until this event came upon me and forcibly wrested me from myself. Though I kept trying to aban­don this work, all was to no purpose until the work abandoned me.”

And he applied himself to severe self-discipline, and took up the life of solitude and meditation.

Abu Hafs-e Haddad and Jonaid

Abu Hafs resolved to make the pilgrimage. Now he was an illiterate and did not understand Arabic. When he came to Baghdad, the Sufi disciples whispered together.

“It is a great disgrace that the Shaikh of Shaikhs of Khorasan should require an interpreter to understand their language.”

Jonaid sent his disciples out to welcome him. Abu Hafs knew what “our companions” were thinking, and at once he began to speak in Arabic so that the people of Baghdad were amazed at the purity of his speech. A number of the great scholars gathered before him and questioned him on self-sacrificing love.

“You are able to express yourselves. You say,” Abu Hafs replied.

“As I see it,” said Jonaid, “true self-sacrifice means that you should not regard yourself as self-sacrificing, and that you should not attribute to yourself whatever you may have done.”

“Excellent,” commented Abu Hafs. “But as I see it, self sacrifice means acting with justice towards others, and not seeking justice for oneself.”

“Act on that, our companions,” said Jonaid.

“To act rightly requires more than words,” retorted Abu Hafs.

“Rise up, our companions,” Jonaid commanded when he heard this reply. “Abu Hafs exceeds in self­sacrifice Adam and all his seed.”

Abu Hafs kept his companions in great awe and dis­cipline. No disciple dared to be seated before him or to cast his glance on him. They always stood before him, and would not sit without his command. He himself sat in their midst like a sultan.

“You have taught your companions the manners due to a sultan,” Jonaid observed.

“You can only see the superscription,” Abu Hafs replied. “But from the address it is possible to indicate what is in the letter.’’

Then Abu Hafs said, “Order them to make broth and halwa.”

Jonaid directed one of his disciples to make them. When he brought the dishes, Abu Hafs proceeded.

“Call a porter and put them on his head. Let him carry them until he is tired out. Then, whatever house he has reached, let him call out, and whoever comes to the door, let him give them to him.”

The porter obeyed these instructions. He went on until he felt tired and could go no farther. Setting the dishes down by the door of a house, he called out. The owner of the house, an elder, replied.

“If you have brought broth and halwa, I will open the door.”

“I have,” replied the porter.

“Bring them in,” said the elder, opening the door.

“I was amazed,” the porter related. “I asked the old man, ‘What is going on? How did you know that I had brought broth and halwa?’ The old man answered, ‘Last night when I was at my prayers, the thought came into my mind that my children had been begging me for them for a long time. I know that my prayer has not been in vain.’ “

There was a disciple who waited on Abu Hafs with great politeness. Jonaid gazed at him many times, for his conduct delighted him.

“How many years has he been in your service?” he asked Abu Hafs.

“Ten years,” Abu Hafs replied.

“He is perfect in his manners and wonderfully digni­fied. An admirable young man,” Jonaid observed.

“Yes,” Abu Hafs said. “Seventeen thousand dinars he has expended on our cause, and borrowed another seventeen thousand and spent them as well. And yet he dares not address one question to us.”

Abu Hafs then set out into the desert. He gave the following account of what happened to him there.

In the desert (he said) I saw Abu Torab. I had not eaten for sixteen days. I approached a pool to drink, and fell to meditating.

“What has halted you here?” asked Abu Torab.

“I was waiting to see as between knowledge and cer­tainty, which would prevail, that I might adopt the vic­tor,” I replied. “If the victory went to knowledge, I would drink; if certainty prevailed, I would continue on my way.”

“You are certainly advancing,” said Abu Torab.

When Abu Hafs arrived in Mecca he saw a throng of poor and destitute pilgrims there. He desired to bestow something on them, and became extremely agitated. He was so overcome by his feelings that he picked up a stone and cried,

“By Thy majesty, if Thou dost not give me something I will break all the lamps in the mosque.”

He then proceeded to circle the Kaaba. Immediately a man came up to him and gave him a purse of gold, which he spent on the poor.

Having completed the pilgrimage, he returned to Baghdad. There Jonaid’s companions went out to wel­come him.

“What present have you brought us from your jour­ney?” asked Jonaid.

“Perhaps one of ‘our companions’ is unable to live as he should,” replied Abu Hafs. “This that I have to say can be my offering. If you observe in a brother a lack of good manners, discover in yourself an excuse for him and excuse him to yourself accordingly. If the dust of misunderstanding does not rise as a result of that excuse, and you are in the right, discover some better excuse and excuse him to yourself again. If still the dust does not rise, go on inventing another excuse, even to forty times. If still the dust does not rise, and you are in the right, and those forty excuses do not measure up to the fault he has committed, then sit down and say to yourself, ‘What a stubborn and unenlightened soul you are! What an opinionated and unmannerly and boorish fellow you are! Your brother offers forty excuses for his offence, and you do not accept them and continue in the same course! I have washed my hands of you. You know what you want; do as you please.’ “

Jonaid marvelled at these words. “Who can have such strength?” he asked himself.

Abu Hafs and Shebli

Shebli gave hospitality to Abu Hafs for four months. Every day he produced a different kind of dish and sev­eral sorts of sweetmeat.

When Abu Hafs came to bid him farewell, he said, “Shebli, when you come to Nishapur I will teach you true entertainment and generosity.”

“Why, what have I done, Abu Hafs?” asked Shebli.

“You took too great pains. Extravagance is not the same as generosity,” said Abu Hafs. “One should treat a guest exactly as oneself. That way, his coming will not be a burden to you, and his departure will not be an occasion of gladness. When you go to extravagant lengths, his coming is burdensome to you and his departure a relief. No man who feels like that towards a guest is truly generous.”

When Shebli came to Nishapur he stayed with Abu Hafs. Forty persons were in the party, and at night Abu Hafs lit forty-one lamps.

“Did you not say one should not act extravagantly?” remarked Shebli.

“Then get up and put them out,” answered Abu Hafs.

Shebli got up, but for all his efforts he could not extinguish more than one lamp.

“Shaikh, how is this?” he asked.

“You were forty persons, emissaries of God. For the guest is an emissary of God. Naturally I lit a lamp in the name of each one, for the sake of God, and one for myself. Those forty which I lit for God you were unable to put out, but the one lit for myself you extin­guished. All that you did in Baghdad you did for my sake; I did what I did for God’s sake. So the former was extravagance, the latter not.”

Abo ⁽l-Qasem al-Jonaid

Abo ‘l-Qasem al-Jonaid ibn Mohammad al- Khazzaz al-Nehawandi, son of a glass-merchant and nephew of Sari al-Saqati, close associate of al-Mohasebi, was the greatest exponent of the ‘sober’ school of Sufism and elaborated a theo­sophical doctrine which determined the whole course of orthodox mysticism in Islam. He expounded his theories in his teachings, and in a series of letters written to various contemporaries which have survived. The head of a large and influential school, he died in Baghdad in 298 (910).

The early years of Jonaid-e Baghdadi

From childhood Jonaid was given to spiritual sorrow, and was an earnest seeker after God, well disciplined, thoughtful and quick of understanding and of a pene­trating intuition.

One day he returned home from school to find his father in tears.

“What happened?” he enquired.

“I took something by way of alms to your uncle Sari,” his father told him. “He would not accept it. I am weeping because I have given my whole life to save these five dirhams, and then this offering is not meet for one of the friends of God to receive.”

“Give me the money, and I will give it to him. That way he may take it,” said Jonaid.

His father gave him the dirhams, and Jonaid went off. Coming to his uncle’s house, he knocked at the door.

“Who is that?” came a voice.

“Jonaid,” answered the boy. “Open the door and take this due offering of alms.”

“I will not take it,” cried Sari.

“I beg you to take it, by the God who has dealt so graciously with you and so justly with my father,” cried Jonaid.

“Jonaid, how did God deal graciously with me and justly with him?” demanded Sari.

“God was gracious to you,” Jonaid replied, “in vouchsafing you poverty. To my father God was just in occupying him with worldly affairs. You are at liberty to accept or reject as you please. He, whether he likes it or not, must convey the due alms on his possessions to the one deserving of it.”

This answer pleased Sari.

“Child, before I accept these alms, I have accepted you.”

So saying, Sari opened the door and took the alms. He assigned to Jonaid a special place in his heart.

Jonaid was only seven years old when Sari took him on the pilgrimage. In the Mosque of the Sanctuary the question of thankfulness was being discussed by four hundred shaikhs. Each shaikh expounded his own view.

“You also say something,” Sari prompted Jonaid.

“Thankfulness,” said Jonaid, “means that you should not disobey God by means of the favour which He has bestowed on you, nor make of His favour a source of disobedience.”

“Well said, O consolation of true believers,” cried the four hundred. They were unanimous that a better definition could not be devised.

“Boy,” said Sari, “it will soon come to pass that your special gift from God will be your tongue.”

Jonaid wept when he heard his uncle say this.

“Where did you acquire this?” Sari demanded.

“From sitting with you,” Jonaid replied.

Jonaid then returned to Baghdad, and took up sell­ing glasses. Every day he would go to the shop and draw down the blind and perform four hundred rak’as. After a time he abandoned the shop and withdrew to a room in the porch of Sari’s house, where he busied him­self with the guardianship of his heart. He unrolled the prayer rug of meticulous watchfulness, that no thought of anything but God should pass through his mind.

Jonaid put to the proof

For forty years Jonaid persevered in his mystic course. For thirty years he would perform the prayer before sleeping, then stand on his feet repeating “Allah” until dawn, saying the dawn prayer with the ablution he had made the previous night.

“After forty years had gone by,” he said, “the con­ceit arose in me that I had attained my goal. Immediately a voice out of Heaven spoke to me. ‘Jonaid,’ the voice cried, ‘the time has come for Me to show you the loop of your Magian girdle.’ When I heard these words I exclaimed, ‘O God, what sin has Jonaid committed?’ ‘Do you look for a more grievous sin than this,’ the voice replied, ‘that you exist?’ “

Jonaid sighed and lowered his head.

“He who is not worthy of union,” he murmured, “all his good works are but sins.”

He continued to sit in his room, crying “Allah, Allah” all night. The long tongues of slander were shot out against him, and his conduct was reported to the caliph.

“He cannot be inhibited without any proof,” said the caliph.

“Many people are being seduced by his words,” they stated.

Now the caliph possessed a handmaiden of unri­valled beauty. He had purchased her for three thousand dinars, and loved her dearly. The caliph commanded that she should be arrayed in fine raiment and precious jewels.

“Go to such a place,” she was instructed. “Stand before Jonaid and unveil your face, and display your jewels and raiment to him. Say to him, ‘I am possessed of much wealth, and my heart has grown weary of worldly affairs. I have come so that you may propose to me, that in your society I may devote myself to the service of God. My heart finds repose in no one but you.’ Display yourself to him. Unveil, and strive your utmost to persuade him.”

She was despatched to Jonaid with a servant. The handmaiden came before Jonaid and carried out her instructions to the letter and more. Involuntarily Jonaid’s glance fell upon her. He remained silent and made no answer. She repeated her story. Jonaid hung his head; then he raised his head.

“Ah,” he exclaimed, and breathed on the girl. The girl immediately fell to the ground and expired.

The servant who had accompanied returned to the caliph and reported what had transpired. Fire fell upon the caliph’s soul, and he repented of what he had done.

“He who acts towards others as he should not, sees what he ought not to see,” he observed.

Rising up, he proceeded to call on Jonaid.

“Such a man one cannot summon to attend on one­self,” he commented. “O master, how did your heart allow it,” asked the caliph, “to consume so fair a form?”

“Prince of the Believers,” Jonaid replied, “your com­passion for the faithful was so great, that you desired to cast to the winds my forty years of discipline, of keeping vigil and self mortification. Yet who am I in all this? Do not, that you may not be done to!”

After that Jonaid’s affairs prospered. His fame reached to all parts of the world. However much he was persecuted, his repute increased a thousandfold. He began to preach. As he explained once, “I did not preach to the public until thirty of the great saints indi­cated to me that it was proper for me to call men to God.”

“For thirty years I sat watching over my heart,” he said. “Then for ten years my heart watched over me. Now it is twenty years that I know nothing of my heart and my heart knows nothing of me.”

“For thirty years,” he said again, “God has spoken with Jonaid by the tongue of Jonaid, Jonaid not being there at all, and men were not aware.”

Jonaid preaches

When Jonaid’s tongue was loosened to utter great words, Sari-e Saqati urged him that it was his duty to preach in public. Jonaid was hesitant, not desiring to do so.

“While the master is there, it is not seemly for the disciple to preach,” he demurred.

Then one night Jonaid saw the Prophet in a dream.

“Preach,” the Prophet said.

Next morning he arose to go and report to Sari, but he found Sari standing at the door.

“Hitherto,” Sari told him, “you were inhibited, wait­ing for others to tell you to preach. Now you must speak, because your words have been made the means of a whole world’s salvation. You would not speak when the disciples asked you to. You did not speak when the shaikhs of Baghdad interceded with you. You did not speak at my urging. Now that the Prophet has commanded you, you must speak.”

“God forgive me,” Jonaid replied. “How did you know that I saw the Prophet in a dream?”

“I saw God in a dream,” Sari explained. “God said, ‘I have sent the Messenger to tell Jonaid to preach from the pulpit.’ “

“I will preach then,” consented Jonaid. “Only on one condition, that it be to no more than forty persons.”

One day Jonaid was preaching, and forty persons were present. Of these eighteen expired, and twenty- two fell to the ground unconscious. They were lifted up and carried to their homes.

Another day Jonaid was preaching in the cathedral. In the congregation there was a Christian lad, but no one knew that he was a Christian. He approached Jonaid and said, “According to the Prophet’s saying, ‘Beware of the insight of the believer, for he sees by the light of God.’ “

“The pronouncement is,” replied Jonaid, “that you should become a Muslim and cut your Christian gir­dle, for this is the time of Muslimdom.”

The boy immediately became a Muslim.

After Jonaid had preached a number of times, the people cried out against him. He gave up preaching, and retired to his room. For all that he was urged to resume, he would not do so.

“I am content,” he replied. ‘I cannot contrive my own destruction.”

Some time later he mounted the pulpit and began to preach without any prompting.

“What was the inner wisdom in this?” he was asked.

“I came upon a Tradition,” he replied, “according to which the Prophet said, ‘In the last days the spokesman of the people will be he that is the worst of them. He will preach to them.’ I know that I am the worst of the people. I am preaching because of what the Prophet said, so that I may not oppose his words.”

Anecdotes of Jonaid

Once Jonaid’s eye pained him, and he sent for the doc­tor.

“If your eye is throbbing, do not let any water get to it,” the doctor advised.

When he had gone, Jonaid performed his ablutions and prayed, and then went to sleep. When he awoke, his eye was well again. He heard a voice saying, “Jonaid forsook his eye to gain Our good pleasure. If with the same intention he had begged of Us all the inhabitants of Hell, his petition would have been grant­ed.”

The physician called and saw that his eye was healed.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I performed the ablutions for prayer,” Jonaid answered.

Thereupon the physician, who was a Christian, declared his conversion.

“This is the Creator’s cure, not the creature’s,” he commented. ‘It was my eye that was sick, not yours. You were the physician, not I.”

“Once,” said Jonaid, “I desired to see Iblis. I was standing at the mosque door, when I espied an old man approaching from afar. As I looked at him, a horror rose within me.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Your desire,” he replied.

“Accursed one,” I cried, “what thing held you back from prostrating to Adam?”

“How do you imagine, Jonaid,” Iblis replied, “that I would prostrate to any but Him?”

Jonaid described his sense of bewilderment, hearing the Devil say these words.

“A voice addressed me in my secret heart,” he recalled. “The voice said, ‘Say, You are a liar. If you had been a true servant, you would have obeyed His com­mand. You would never have disregarded it and flirted with denial.’ “

When Iblis heard this speech, he uttered a loud cry. “By Allah, Jonaid, you have destroyed me!” And he vanished.

“In these days brothers in the faith have become few and far to find,” a man said in Jonaid’s presence.

“If you are looking for someone to bear your bur­den, such men are indeed few and far to find,” Jonaid countered. “But if you are seeking to carry somebody’s load, such brothers are to be found in plenty with me.”

Whenever Jonaid spoke on the Divine Unity, every time he began with a different expression which no one could understand. One day Shebli was in Jonaid’s audi­ence and uttered the word Allah.

If God is absent, to mention the absent One is a sign of absence, and absence is a thing proscribed,” Jonaid said. “If God is present, to mention His name while contemplating Him present is a mark of irreverence.”

A man brought five hundred dinars and offered them to Jonaid.

“Do you possess anything besides this?” Jonaid asked him.

“Yes, a lot,” the man replied.

“Do you need more?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then take it away,” Jonaid said. “You have a bet­ter right to it. I possess nothing, and I need nothing.”

A man rose up where Jonaid was preaching and began to beg.

“This man is perfectly healthy,” thought Jonaid. “He can earn his living. Why does he beg, and impose on himself this humiliation?”

That night Jonaid dreamed that a covered dish was set before him.

“Eat,” he was bidden.

When he lifted the lid, he saw the man who had begged lying dead on the dish.

“I do not eat the flesh of men,” he protested.

“Then why did you do so in mosque yesterday?” he was asked.

Jonaid realized that he had been guilty of slander in his heart, and that he was being taken to task for an evil thought.

“I woke in terror,” Jonaid recollected. “I purified myself and said two rak’as, then I went out to search for the beggar. I saw him on the bank of the Tigris, picking out of the water scraps of vegetables people had washed there and eating them. Raising his head, he saw me approaching and addressed me. ‘Jonaid,’ he said, ‘have you repented of the thoughts you had con­cerning me?’ ‘I have,’ I replied. ‘Then go. It is He Who accepts repentance from His servants. This time keep a watch over your thoughts.’”

“I learned sincere belief from a barber,” Jonaid recalled, and he told the following story.

Once when I was in Mecca, a barber was trimming a gentleman’s hair. I said to him, “For the sake of God, can you shave my hair?”

“I can,” he said. His eyes filling with tears, he left the gentleman still unfinished.

“Get up,” he said. “When God’s name is spoken, everything else must wait.”

He seated me and kissed my head, and shaved off my hair. Then he gave me a screw of paper with a few small coins in it.

“Spend this on your needs,” he said.

I thereupon resolved that the first present that came my way I would give him in charity. Not long after­wards a bag of gold arrived from Basra. I took it to the barber.

“What is this?” he asked.

“I made up my mind,” I explained, “that the first present that came my way I must give to you. This has just arrived.”

“Man,” he exclaimed, “have you no shame before God? You said to me, ‘For the sake of God, shave my hair.’ Then you give me a present. Have you ever known of anyone doing a deed for the sake of God and taking payment for it?”

A thief had been hanged in Baghdad. Jonaid went and kissed his feet.

“Why did you do that?” he was asked.

“A thousand compassions be upon him!” he replied. “He proved himself a true man at his trade. He did his work so perfectly, that he gave his life for it.”

One night a thief entered Jonaid’s room. Finding nothing there but a shirt, he took that and fled. Next day Jonaid was passing through the bazaars when he saw his shirt in the hands of a broker who was selling it to a customer.

“I require an acquaintance who will testify that it is your property, before I buy it,” the prospective pur­chaser said.

“I am ready to testify that it belongs to him,” said Jonaid, stepping forward.

The man then bought the shirt.

An old woman came to Jonaid and said, “My son is missing. Say a prayer that he may return.”

“Be patient,” Jonaid told her.

The woman waited patiently for several days. Then she returned.

“Be patient,” Jonaid repeated.

This happened several times. At last the old woman came and announced, “My patience is exhausted. Pray to God.”

“If you speak the truth,” said Jonaid, “your son has returned. God says, He who answers the constrained, when he calls unto Him.”

Jonaid then offered up a prayer. When the woman returned to her house, her son had come.

A disciple formed the notion that he had attained the degree of perfection.

“It is better for me to be alone,” he thought.

So he withdrew into a corner and sat there for a space. It so fell out that every night he was brought a camel and told, “We will convey you to Paradise.” He would sit on the camel and ride until he arrived at a pleasant and cheerful spot thronged with handsome folk and abounding in choice dishes and running water. There he would remain till dawn; then he would fall asleep, and awake to find himself in his cell. He now became proud and very conceited.

“Every night I am taken to Paradise,” he would boast.

His words came to Jonaid’s ears. He at once arose and proceeded to his cell, where he found him putting on the greatest airs. He asked him what had happened, and he told the whole story to the shaikh.

“Tonight when you are taken there,” Jonaid told him, “say thrice, ‘There is no strength nor power save with God, the Sublime, the Almighty.’ “

That night the disciple was transported as usual. He disbelieved in his heart what the shaikh had told him, nevertheless, when he reached that place he uttered as an experiment, “There is no strength nor power.” The company all screamed and fled, and he found himself on a dunghill with bones lying before him. Realizing his error, he repented and repaired to Jonaid’s circle. He had learned that for a disciple to dwell alone is mortal poison.

A disciple of Jonaid’s was dwelling in seclusion in Basra. One night a sinful thought entered his mind. He looked in a mirror and saw that his face had turned black. Stupefied, he tried every device he could think of, but in vain. He was so ashamed that he showed his face to no one. Three days went by, then the blackness gradually grew less.

Unexpectedly a knock came on his door.

“Who is it?” the disciple asked.

‘] have come with a letter from Jonaid,” said the caller.

The disciple read the letter.

“Why do you not conduct yourself becomingly in the presence of Glory? For three days and nights I have had to work as a fuller, to change your face from black to white.”

There was a certain disciple of Jonaid’s who was taken to task one day over a small matter. Shamefaced, he fled and came no more to the convent. Several days later Jonaid was passing through the market with his companions when he suddenly espied that disciple. The disciple in shame took to his heels.

“A bird of ours has flown from the snare,” said Jonaid, turning back his companions, and following on the disciple’s heels.

Looking back, the disciple saw the shaikh coming, so he quickened his pace. Presently he reached a place where there was no exit, and in shame he turned his face to the wall. Presently the shaikh appeared on the scene.

“Where are you making for, master?” the disciple asked.

“When a disciple is up against the wall, there the shaikh can be of use,” replied Jonaid.

He then led the disciple back to the convent. The dis­ciple fell at his feet and begged God’s forgiveness. Those who witnessed the spectacle were deeply moved, and many repented.

The shaikh Jonaid had a disciple whom he loved above all the others. The other disciples were moved to jealousy, a fact which the shaikh realized by his mystic intuition.

“He is superior to you in manners and understand­ing,” he told them. “That is what I had in view; let us make an experiment, so that you may also realize it.”

Jonaid commanded twenty birds to be brought to him.

“Each of you take one,” he told his disciples. “In a place where no one can see you kill it, then bring it back.”

All the disciples went off and killed and brought back the birds—all, that is, except that favourite disci­ple. He brought his bird back alive.

“Why did you not kill it?” Jonaid asked him.

“Because the master said it must be done in a place where no one can see,” the disciple answered. “Wherever I went, God saw.”

“You see the measure of his understanding!” Jonaid exclaimed. “Compare that with that of the others.”

All the other disciples begged God’s forgiveness.

Jonaid had eight special disciples who carried out his every thought. One day the notion occurred to them that they must go to the holy war. Next morning Jonaid ordered his servant to make all preparations for the wars. He then set out to fight together with those eight disciples.

When the lines of battle were drawn up, a champion stepped forth from the ranks of the infidels and mar­tyred all eight.

“I looked up to heaven,” said Jonaid, “and I saw nine litters standing by. As each of the eight was mar­tyred his spirit was lifted up on a litter, until one remained over empty. ‘That one must be meant for me,’ I thought, and I joined the battle-ranks once more. Then the champion who had slain my eight companions came up and addressed me. ‘Abo’l- Qasem, that ninth litter is for me. You return to Baghdad, and be the shaikh of the community. Offer me Islam.’

“So he became a Muslim. With the same sword with which he had slain the eight disciples, he slew a like number of infidels. Then he achieved martyrdom him­self. His soul,” Jonaid concluded, “was also placed in that litter, and all vanished.”

There was a sayyid called Naseri who was on the pil­grimage intent. When he reached Baghdad he went to visit Jonaid.

“Whence comes the sayyid?” Jonaid enquired when greetings had been said.

“From Gilan,” he replied.

“Of whose sons are you?” asked Jonaid.

“I am descended from Ali the Prince of the Believers, God be well pleased with him,” the man answered.

“Your forefather wielded two swords,” said Jonaid. “One against the unbelievers, the other against himself. Now, sayyid, you who are his son, which of these two do you employ?”

The sayyid wept bitterly when he heard these words and grovelled before Jonaid.

“Master, my pilgrimage is here,” he exclaimed. “Show me the way to God.”

“Your breast is the private sanctuary of God,” said Jonaid. “So far as you are able, admit naught unsanc­tified into the private sanctuary.”

“That is all I want to know,” said the sayyid.

The death of Jonaid

When death was near at hand Jonaid bade them to lay the table and to set out a meal.

“I wish to give up the ghost whilst my companions are eating a bowl of soup.”

The first agony assailed him.

“Give me the water of ablution,” he said.

By chance they forgot to let the water run between his fingers. At his behest this slip was made good, and he then proceeded to the prostration, weeping.

“Chief of the Order,” his disciples protested, “with all the service and obedience to God which you have sent ahead of you what time is this for prostration?”

“Never was Jonaid more in need than now,” he replied.

Straightway he began to recite the Koran, and went on reciting.

“What, you recite the Koran?” asked a disciple.

“Who has the better right to than I, seeing that this hour the scroll of my life will be rolled up, and I shall see my seventy years’ obedience and service suspended in the air by a single thread? Then a wind will come and swing it to and fro, so that I shall not know whether it is a wind bringing separation or union. On one side of me will stretch the causeway between Heaven and Hell and on the other side the Angel of Death. The Judge whose attribute is justice will be there awaiting me, unwavering in perfect equity.” Jonaid continued, “A road has been laid before me, and I know not by which road I shall be taken.”

He completed the whole Koran, then he recited sev­enty verses of the Sura of the Cow. The second agony seized him.

“Say Allah,” they prompted him.

“I have not forgotten,” he replied. He grasped the rosary until four of his fingers were crooked about it, and one let it go.

“In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” he cried.

And he closed his eyes and yielded up the ghost.

When the time for washing his body came, the one performing the rite wished to bathe his eyes in water. A voice cried from Heaven, “Withhold your hand from the eyes of My friend. His eyes were closed upon My Name, and shall not be opened save at the meeting with Me.” He then tried to open Jonaid’s fingers. The voice cried, “The finger that has been crooked upon My Name shall not be opened save by My command.”

When they lifted up his body on the bier, a white dove perched upon a corner of the bier. For all that they sought to drive it away, it would not go. At last the dove cried, “Trouble not yourselves and me. My claws have been fastened to the corner of the bier by the nail of Love. That is why I am perched here. Do not trou­ble yourselves; today his body passes to the care of the cherubim. Were it not for your clamour, his body would have flown with us in the sky like a white fal­con.

Amr ibn Othman

Abu ‘Abd Allah ‘Amr ibn ‘Othman al-Makki, a disciple of al-Jonaid, visited Esfahan and died in Baghdad in 291 (904) or 297 (9I0).

Amr ibn Othman-e Makki and the Book of the Treasure

It is said that one day Amr ibn Othman-e Makki had written down on a sheet of paper a translation of the Book of the Treasure. He had put it under his prayer rug and gone to purify himself. While he was at his ablutions report reached him, and he sent his servant to recover the script. When the servant turned up the prayer rug he could not find the paper. He told his mas­ter.

“They have taken it and gone,” said Amr ibn Othman. “The person who has taken that Book of the Treasure,” he added, “will soon have his hands and feet cut off. He will be put on the gibbet, and burned, and his ashes will be scattered to the winds. He ought to have arrived at the Treasure, whereas he has stolen the Book of the Treasure.”

Now these were the contents of the Book of the Treasure.

In the time when the spirit entered the bodily frame of Adam, God commanded all the angels to prostrate themselves. All lowered their heads to the ground. Iblis said, “I will not make prostration. I will gamble my life away, and I will see the secret, even though it may be that I shall be accursed and called rebel and sinner and hypocrite.”

Iblis did not make prostration. So he saw and knew the secret of Man. Consequently none but Iblis is apprised of Man’s secret, and none but Man knows the secret of Iblis. So Iblis became apprised of the secret of Man because he did not prostrate himself, so that he saw that he was preoccupied with beholding the secret. Iblis was rejected by all, for they had exposed the Treasure to his eyes.

“We committed a Treasure to the earth,” they said. “The condition attached to the Treasure is this, that one person will see it, but they will cut off his head so that he may not betray it.”

“In this grant me a respite,” cried Iblis. “Do not slay me. But I am the Man of the Treasure. They exposed the Treasure to my eyes, and these eyes will not escape.”

The Sword of I Care Not declared, “Thou art among the ones that are respited. We grant you respite, but We cause you to be held in suspicion. So if We do not destroy you, you will be suspect and a liar, and none will hold you to be a speaker of the truth. So they will say, He was one of the jinn, and committed ungodliness against his Lord’s command.”

He is Satan. How should he speak the truth? Therefore he is accursed and rejected and abandoned and ignored.

This was the translation of the Book of the Treasure by Amr ibn Othman.

Amr ibn ‘Othman on Love

Amr ibn ‘Othman stated the following in his Book of Love.

Almighty God created the hearts seven thousand years before the souls, and He kept them in the Garden of Intimacy. He created the Secrets seven thousand years before the hearts, and kept them in the Degree of Union.

Every day God caused the souls to receive three hun­dred and sixty glances of Grace and to hear three hun­dred and sixty words of Love. Every day He manifest­ed to the hearts three hundred and sixty delights of Intimacy. Every day He revealed Beauty three hundred and sixty times to the Secrets.

So they beheld every thing in the world of being, and saw none more precious than themselves. A vainglory and conceit manifested amongst them.

God therefore put them to the trial. He imprisoned the Secret in the soul. He confined the soul in the heart. He detained the heart in the body. Then He com­pounded in them reason.

God sent the Prophets with commandments. Then every one of them set about searching for his proper station. God commanded them to pray. So the body went into prayer; the heart attained Love; the soul achieved Propinquity; the Secret was at rest in Union.

Amr ibn Othman writes to Jonaid

When Amr ibn Othman was in Mecca, he wrote to Jonaid, Jorairi, and Shebli in Iraq. This was his letter.

“Know, you who are the great ones and elders of Iraq, say to every man who yearns after the land of Hejaz and the beauty of the Kaaba, You would never reach it, excepting with great distress of spirit. And say to every man who yearns after the Carpet of Propinquity and the Court of Glory, You would never reach it, excepting with great distress of soul.”

At the bottom of the letter Amr wrote: “This is a missive from Amr ibn Othman-e Makki and these elders of Hejaz who are all with Him and in Him and by Him. If there be any of you who entertains high aspiration, say to him, Come upon this road wherein are two thousand fiery mountains and two thousand stormy and perilous seas. If you are not of this rank, make no false pretension, for to false pretension noth­ing is given.”

When the letter reached Jonaid, he gathered the elders of Iraq together and read it to them. Then he said, “Come, say what he meant by these mountains.”

“By these mountains,” they replied, “he meant naughting. Until a man is naughted a thousand times and a thousand times revived, he does not attain the Court of Glory.”

“Of these two thousand fiery mountains,” Jonaid remarked, “I have crossed only one.”

“You are lucky to have crossed one,” said Jorairi.

“Up to now I have gone only three steps.”

Shebli burst into tears.

“You are fortunate, Jonaid, to have crossed one mountain,” he cried. “And you are fortunate, Jorairi, to have gone three steps. Up to now I have not even seen the dust from afar.”

Abu Sa⁽id al-Kharraz

Abu Sa‘id Ahmad ibn ‘Isa al-Kharraz of Baghdad, a cobbler by trade, met Dho ‘l-Nun al-Mesri and associated with Beshr al-Hafi and Sari al-Saqati. To him is attributed the formulation of the mysti­cal doctrine of passing-away (from human attri­butes) and continuance (in God). Author of sev­eral books including some which have survived, the date of his death is uncertain but probably occurred between Z79 (89z) and 286 (899).

The doctrine of Abu Sa‘id-e Kharraz

Abu Sa‘id-e Kharraz was called “the Tongue of Sufism”. They gave him this nickname because no one in this community possessed a tongue of mystic truth such as he. He composed four hundred books on the theme of disassociation and detachment, and was indeed a nonpareil.

Originally of Baghdad, Abu Sa‘id met Dho ‘l-Nun-e Mesri and associated with Beshr and Sari-e Saqati. He was the first to speak of the states of “passing-away” and “continuance” in the mystical sense, summing up his whole doctrine in these two terms. Certain of the theologians who followed the exoteric school disap­proved of the subtleties of his teaching, and condemned him of blasphemy on account of certain expressions which they found in his works. In particular they criti­cized his Book of the Secret, especially a passage occur­ring in it which they failed to understand properly. This is where Abu Sa‘id states, “A servant of God who has returned to God and attached himself to God and has come to dwell in propinquity to God, such a man has completely forgotten himself and all other than God, so that if you were to say to him, ‘Where are you from, and what do you seek?’ he would have no other answer but simply ‘God’.”

Another passage in Abu Sa‘id’s writings to which objection has been taken is where he says, “If a certain one of these mystics is asked, ‘What do you want?’ he replies ‘God’. If he is in such a state that all the parts of his body become vocal, they all say ‘God’. For his members and joints are fully bathed in the Light of God, so that he is drawn into God. So far has he reached in propinquity to God, that in his presence no one is able to say ‘God’; for whatever proceeds there proceeds from Reality unto Reality and from God to God. Since here, in the state of ordinary men, nothing has resulted from God, how can anyone say ‘God’? Here all reason of reasoning men ends in bewilder­ment.”

“All men,” Abu Sa‘id once said, “have been given the choice between remoteness and propinquity. I chose remoteness, because I could not support propinquity. Similarly Lokman said, ‘I was given the choice between wisdom and prophecy. I chose wisdom, because I could not support the burden of prophecy.’ “

Abu Sa‘id related the following dreams.

Once I dreamed that two angels came down from Heaven and said to me, “What is truthfulness?” I replied, “Fulfilling one’s covenants.” “You have spo­ken the truth,” they said, then they both departed to Heaven.

Again I dreamed that I saw the Prophet. He said to me, “Do you love me?” I replied, “Excuse me. My love for God has preoccupied me from loving you.” The Prophet said, “Whoso loves God loves me.”

On another occasion in a dream I saw Iblis. I took a stick to beat him. I heard a Heavenly voice say, “He is not afraid of a stick. He is afraid of the light which is in your heart.” Then I said to Iblis, “Come!” Iblis replied, “What can I do with you? You have cast out the thing whereby I beguile men.” “What is that?” I asked. “The world,” he answered. Then as he left me Iblis looked back and said, “There is a little thing in you men by which I attain my purpose.” “What is that?” I asked. “Sitting with boys,” Iblis replied.

When I was in Damascus I again saw the Prophet in a dream. He approached me leaning on Abu Bakr and Omar. I was reciting a verse of poetry, tapping my breast with my hunger. The Prophet said, “The evil of this is greater than its good.” He meant that one should not practise audition.

Abu Sa‘id-e Kharraz had two sons, one of whom predeceased him. One night he saw him in a dream.

“Son, what has God done with you?” Abu Sa‘id asked.

“He brought me close to Him and made much of me,” his son replied.

“Son, make me testament,” Abu Sa‘id begged.

“Father,” his son answered, “do not entertain dark thoughts of God.”

“Tell me more!”

“Father, if I speak, you will not be able to bear it.” “I ask God to assist me,” said Abu Sa‘id.

“Father,” said the son, “do not suffer a single shirt to come between yourself and God.”

It is said that in all the thirty years which Abu Sa‘id lived after this dream he never wore a shirt again.

Abu ⁽l-Hosain al-Nuri

Abu ‘l-Hosain Ahmad ibn Mohammad al-Nuri, a native of Baghdad of a family from Khorasan, was a pupil of Sari al-Saqati and a faithful com­panion of al-Jonaid. A leading figure of the Baghdad circle, he composed some fine mystical poetry. He died in 295 (908).

The self-discipline of Abu ‘l-Hosain-e Nuri

Abu ‘l-Hosain, who followed the same rules of conduct as Jonaid, was called Nuri (“the Man of Light”) because whenever he spoke and the night was dark, a light would issue from his mouth so that the whole house became bright. Another explanation of his nick­name is that he declared inmost secrets by the light of intuition. Yet a third version is that he had a retreat in the desert where he used to worship all the night through. People would go out to watch, and would see a light mounting from his cell and gleaming through the night.

When he first embarked on his mystical career, every morning early he would set out from his house for the shop, and pick up a few loaves. These he would dis­tribute as alms, afterwards proceeding to mosque where he worshipped till the noon prayers, only then going on to his shop. His household imagined that he had eaten something in the shop, whilst the people in the shop supposed that he had eaten at home. He con­tinued this practice for twenty years without anyone being aware of the true facts of his case.

Nuri gave the following account of himself.

For years I struggled, restraining myself in prison and turning my back on other men. Despite all my aus­terities, the way did not become open to me.

“I must do something to mend my affairs,” I said to myself. “Otherwise let me die and escape from this car­nal soul.”

“Body,” I then said, “for many years you have fol­lowed your own lust and desire, eating and seeing and hearing, going and taking, sleeping and enjoying your­self and gratifying your passion. All this has been most harmful to you. Now enter the chamber, that I may fet­ter you and put as a collar round your neck all your dues to God. If you remain steadfast so, you will attain felicity; if not, at least you will die on the path of God!”

So I acted on the path of God. Now I had heard that the hearts of the mystics were delicate organs, knowing the secret of whatever they saw and heard. Not finding this in myself, I said, “The pronouncements of the prophets and the saints are true. Perhaps I have played the hypocrite in my striving, and the defect is due to myself. Here there is no room for difference of opinion. Now,” I went on, “I will go around myself and see what it is.”

I gazed into myself, and the fault was this, that my carnal soul and my heart were united. When the carnal soul is one with the heart, that is disastrous; for what­ever shines upon the heart, the carnal soul seizes its portion of it. So I realized that this was the cause of my dilemma; all that entered my heart from the Court of God, my carnal soul seized its part of it.

Thenceforward, whatever gratified my carnal soul, that I went not about, but clutched something other. For instance, if prayer or fasting or almsgiving was agreeable to my carnal soul, or solitude or associating with my fellows, I proceeded to do the contrary, till I had cast out all those things and all gratification had been cut away. Then mystic secrets began to manifest in me.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am the pearl of the mine of undesire,” came the answer. “Now tell the disciples, My mine is the mine of undesire, and my pearl is the pearl of the mine of unpurpose.”

Then I walked down to the Tigris and stood between two skiffs.

“I will not go,” I said, “until a fish falls into my net.”

At last a fish fell into my net. When I drew it up I cried, “Praise be to God that my affairs have turned out well!”

I went to Jonaid and told him, “A grace has been vouchsafed to me!”

“Abu ‘l-Hosain,” Jonaid replied, “if it had been a snake and not a fish that fell into your net, that would truly have been a sign of grace. But since you yourself intervened, it is a deception, not a grace. For the mark of a grace is that you cease to be there at all.”

Nuri before the caliph

When Gholam Khalil declared hostilities against the Sufis, he went to the caliph and denounced them.

“A group have appeared on the scene,” he announced, “who sing songs and dance and utter blas­phemies. They parade about all day, and hide them­selves in catacombs, and preach. These men are heretics. If the Prince of the Believers will issue the command for them to be slain, the doctrine of heresy will be exterminated, for they are the chief of the heretics. If this thing is done by the hand of the Prince of the Believers, I guarantee him an ample reward.”

The caliph immediately ordered that they—Abu Hamza, Raqqam, Shebli, Nuri, and Jonaid—should be brought before him. This done, he commanded them to be slain. The executioner first made to slay Raqqam; Nuri sprang up and thrust himself forward fearlessly and took Raqqam’s place.

“First kill me, laughing for joy,” he cried.

“Sir, this is not your time yet,” the executioner said to him. “The sword is not a thing wielded in haste.”

“My way is based upon preference,” Nuri explained. “I prefer my comrades above myself. The most pre­cious thing in this world is life. I wish to devote these few remaining moments to serving my brethren, that I may have sacrificed life itself. This I do, albeit to my view one moment in this world is dearer than a thou­sand years in the next. For this world is an abode of service, and the other world is an abode of propinquity; and propinquity for me is in service.”

They reported these words of Nuri’s to the caliph, who marvelled at his sincerity and equitableness. He ordered the execution to be stayed and referred their case to the cadi to examine.

“They cannot be proscribed without proof,” said the cadi. Now he knew that Jonaid was supreme in many sciences and had heard Nuri speak. So he said, refer­ring to Shebli, “I will question this madman on a point of law which he will never be able to answer.”

“How much is to be paid in poor-tax on twenty dinars?” he asked.

“Twenty and a half dinars,” Shebli replied.

“Whoever instituted that kind of poor-tax?” demanded the cadi.

“Abu Bakr the Great,” Shebli answered. “He gave forty thousand dinars and kept nothing back.”

“Yes, but what is this half-dinar you spoke about?”

“That is a fine,” replied Shebli. “The man kept the twenty dinars to himself, so he must pay half a dinar in addition.”

The cadi then questioned Nuri on a point of law. Nuri replied instantly, and the cadi was reduced to con­fusion. Nuri then spoke.

“Cadi, you have asked all these questions, and you have asked nothing at all relevant. For God has ser­vants who stand through Him, and move and rest through Him, who live all through Him and abide in contemplation of Him. If for a single instant they held back from contemplating Him, their souls would go out of them. Through Him they sleep, through Him they eat, through Him they take, through Him they go, through Him they see, through Him they hear and through Him they are. This is the true science, not that on which you put questions.”

Bewildered, the cadi sent a message to the caliph.

“If these men are atheists and heretics, than I give judgment that on the whole face of the earth not one unitarian exists.”

The caliph summoned the prisoners.

“Is there anything you want?” he asked them.

“Yes,” they replied. “We want you to forget us. We want you neither to honour us with your approval nor to banish us with your rejection. For us your rejection is the same as your approval, your approval as your rejection.”

The caliph wept bitterly and dismissed them with all honour.

Anecdotes of Nuri

One day Nuri saw a man twirling his moustaches while at prayer.

“Take your hand away from the moustaches of God,” he cried.

These words were reported to the caliph. The lawyers declared unanimously that by uttering them Nuri had lapsed into infidelity. He was haled before the caliph.

“Did you speak those words?” the caliph demanded.

“Yes,” Nuri replied.

“Why did you say them?” asked the caliph.

“To whom does the servant of God belong?” coun­tered Nuri.

“To God,” answered the caliph.

“And to whom did the moustaches belong?” Nuri pursued.

“To Him to whom the servant belonged,” concluded the caliph. “Praise be to God, who preserved me from slaying him,” he afterwards added.

“I saw a light gleaming in the Unseen,” said Nuri. “I gazed at it continually, until the time came when I had wholly become that light.”

One day Jonaid went to visit Nuri. Nuri fell to the ground before Jonaid complaining of injustice.

“My battle has waxed fierce, and I have no more strength to fight,” he said. “For thirty years, whenever He has appeared I have vanished, and whenever I appear He is absent. His presence is in my absence. For all that I supplicate Him, His answer is ‘Either I am to be, or you.’ “

“Look upon a man,” said Jonaid to his companions, “who has been sorely tried and bewildered by God. Such must be the state of affairs,” he added, turning to Nuri, “that whether He is veiled by you or revealed through you, you shall no more be you, and all shall be He.”

A party of men went to Jonaid and said, “For a num­ber of days and nights now Nuri has been going around with a brick in his hand, saying ‘God, God.’ He eats nothing and drinks nothing and does not sleep. Yet he performs the prayers at the proper times and observes all the ritual of the prayers.”

“He is sober. He is not in a state of having passed away,” Jonaid’s companions said. “That is proved by the fact that he observes the times of prayer and knows to perform the ritual. That is a mark of conscious effort, not of passing away. One who has passed away is aware of nothing.”

“That is not the case,” replied Jonaid. “What you say is not true. Men in ecstasy are ‘preserved’; God watches over them, lest they be excluded from service at the time of service.”

Jonaid then went to call on Nuri.

“Abu ‘l-Hosain,” he addressed him, “if you know that shouting is of profit with Him, tell me and I will also shout. If you know that satisfaction with Him is better, then practise resignation, that your heart may be at rest.’

Nuri ceased his shouting forthwith.

“What an excellent teacher you are for us!” he exclaimed.

Shebli was preaching, and Nuri entered the hall and stood on one side.

“Peace be upon you, Abu Bakr,” he called out.

“And upon you be peace, Prince of the Hearts,” Shebli replied.

“Almighty God,” Nuri went on, “would not be well pleased with a man of learning imparting his learning when he does not put it into practice. If you practice what you preach, keep your high station. If not, then come down!”

Shebli considered, and finding himself not true to his preaching he came down. For four months he kept to his house and did not venture out. Then a crowd of men came and brought him out and put him in the pul­pit. Nuri heard of this and came to the hall.

“Abu Bakr,” he cried, “you concealed the truth from them, so of course they set you in the pulpit. I coun­selled them sincerely, and they drove me away with stones and flung me on the dunghill.”

“Prince of the Hearts, what was your good coun­selling, and what was my concealing?” asked Shebli.

“My good counselling,” Nuri replied, “was that I let men go to their God. Your concealing was that you became a veil between God and men. Who are you, to be an intermediary between God and men? In my view, you are irrelevant.”

Nuri and another were seated together, both weeping bitterly. When the other departed, Nuri turned to his companions.

“Did you know who that was?” he asked them.

“No,” they replied.

“That was Iblis,” he told them. “He was relating the services he had performed and was telling the tale of his life, bewailing the agony of separation. As you saw, he was weeping. I too was weeping.”

Ja’far-e Kholdi relates the following.

Nuri was praying in seclusion, and I was listening to what he would say.

“Lord God,” he said, “Thou punishest the denizens of Hell. They are all Thy creation, by virtue of Thy omniscience and omnipotence and pre-eternal will. If Thou wilt assuredly fill Hell with men, Thou hast the power to fill Hell with men and to transport them to Paradise.”

I was amazed at his words. Then I saw in a dream one who came to me and said, “God has said, Tell Abu ‘l-Hosain, I have honoured and had compassion on thee for that prayer.”

“One night,” Nuri recalled, “I found the area about the Kaaba empty and proceeded to circumambulate. Each time I reached the Black Stone I prayed and said, ‘O God, accord to me a state and an attribute from which I shall not change.’ One day I heard a voice pro­ceeding from the midst of the Kaaba and saying, ‘Abu ‘l-Hosain, you would make yourself equal to Me. I change not from My attribute, but I keep My servants turning about and changing. This I do, in order that Lordship may become clear from servanthood. It is I who continue in one attribute; man’s attribute changes.’”

Shebli reports: I visited Nuri and saw him seated in meditation, not a hair of his body moving.

“From whom did you learn such excellent medita­tion?” I asked.

“From a cat crouching over a mouse-hole,” he replied. “He was much stiller than I am.”

One night report was brought to the people of Qadesiya.

“A friend of God has confined himself in the Valley of Lions. Go and recover him.”

All the people went out to the Valley of Lions. There they found that Nuri had dug a grave and was sitting there, surrounded by crouching lions. They interceded with him, and conducted him back to Qadesiya, where they asked him his story.

“For a while I had eaten nothing,” he told them. “I was traversing this desert when I espied a date-tree. I had a longing for fresh dates. Then I said, ‘There is still room left for desire. I will go down into this valley, that the lions may rend you, my appetite, then you will no longer desire dates.’”

“One day,” Nuri recalled, “I was washing myself in a pool when a thief came and stole my clothes. I had not yet emerged from the water when he brought them back, and his hand had become withered. I cried, ‘O God, since he has brought back my clothes, give him back his hand!’ At once his hand was healed.”

Fire broke out in the Bazaar of Slavers in Baghdad, and many people were burnt to death. In one shop were two young Greek slaves, very handsome youths; the flames were lapping round them.

“Anyone who will fetch them out,” cried their owner, “I will give a thousand gold dinars.”

No one dared to attempt the rescue. All at once Nuri arrived on the scene. He saw the two young slaves, shouting for help.

“In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” So saying, he plunged in and brought them both to safety. The owner of the slaves offered Nuri the thousand gold dinars.

“Keep your gold,” Nuri told him. “And give thanks to God. For this dignity that has been conferred on me has been conferred because of not accepting gold, exchanging this world for the next.”

One day a blind man was crying, “God, God!” Nuri went up to him and said, “What do you know of Him? And if you know, yet you still live?”

So saying, he lost his senses, and was so filled with mystic yearning that he went out into the desert, to freshly-harvested reedbeds. The reeds pierced his feet and sides, and the blood gushed forth. Every drop that fell, the words “God, God” appeared.

Abu Nasr-e Sarraj states that when they brought him from that place to his home, they said to him, “Say, There is no god but God.”

“Why, I am on my way There,” he replied. And thereupon he died.

Abu Othman al-Hiri

Abu ‘Othman Sa’id ibn Esma’il al-Hiri al- Nisaburi came originally from Rayy, where he knew Yahya ibn Mo’adh al-Razi and Shah ibn Shoja’ al-Kermani. He moved to Nishapur where he came under the influence of Abu Hafs al- Haddad. He visited al-Jonaid in Baghdad, and died at Nishapur in 298 (911).

The education of Abu Othman-e Hiri

“My heart even in the days of my childhood was always seeking after something of reality,” said Abu Othman-e Hiri. “I had an aversion for the followers of formal religion, and I was always convinced that some­thing else existed apart from what the general mass of the people believed in, that the Islamic way of life held mysteries other than its external manifestations.”

One day Abu Othman was going to school accom­panied by four slaves, an Ethiop, a Greek, a Kashmiri, and a Turk. In his hand he carried a golden pen-case; he wore on his head a muslin turban, on his back a silk robe. Passing on his way an ancient caravanserai, he peeped in and saw there an ass with sores on its back, a raven was pecking at its wounds, and the beast had not the strength to drive it away. Abu Othman was filled with compassion.

“Why are you with me?” he addressed one of the slaves.

“To assist you in every thought that passes through your mind,” the slave replied.

Immediately Abu Othman took off his silken dress and covered the donkey with it, bandaging the beast with his muslin turban. With mute eloquence the ass at once communed with God Almighty. Before ever he reached home, Abu Othman was visited by a spiritual experience such as true men of God know.

Like one distraught, he found his way to the assem­bly of Yahya-e Mo’adh; his preaching opened a door in his heart. Breaking away from his mother and father, Abu Othman served Yahya for a while, learning the Sufi discipline. This continued until a party arrived from Shah-e Shoja’-e Kermani and told stories of that holy man. A great eagerness to see Shah-e Shoja’ invad­ed Abu Othman. Having obtained permission from his spiritual preceptor he proceeded to Kerman, to wait on the saint. Shah-e Shoja’ declined to receive him.

“You have become habituated to hope,” he told him. “Yahya’s station is hope. Spiritual advancement cannot be looked for in one brought up on hope. Blind attach­ment to hope generates idleness. With Yahya, hope is a real experience; with you it is blind imitation.”

Abu Othman entreated the saint with great humility, haunting his threshold for twenty days, till at last he was admitted. He remained in his society and derived much benefit from his instruction until the time came when Shah-e Shoja’ set out for Nishapur to visit Abu Hafs. Abu Othman accompanied him, the saint wear­ing a short tunic. Abu Hafs came out to receive Shah-e Shoja’ and showered praises upon him.

Abu Othman’s whole desire was to join the compa­ny of Abu Hafs, but his reverence for Shah-e Shoja’ prevented him from broaching the matter, for Shah-e Shoja’ was a jealous teacher. Abu Othman begged God to provide some means whereby he might remain with Abu Hafs without annoying Shah-e Shoja’; for he per­ceived that Abu Hafs was a man of great spiritual advancement.

When Shah-e Shoja’ determined that it was time to return to Kerman, Abu Othman busied himself with making ready provisions for the road. Then one day Abu Hafs said to Shah-e Shoja’ very affably, “Leave this young man here. I am delighted with him.”

“Obey the shaikh,” said Shah-e Shoja’, turning to Abu Othman. With that Shah-e Shoja’ departed, and Abu Othman remained, and saw what he saw.

“I was still a young man,” Abu Othman recalled, “when Abu Hafs dismissed me from his service. ‘I do not wish you to come near me any more,’ he told me. I said nothing, and my heart would not suffer me to turn my back on him. So I withdrew facing him as I was, weeping all the while, till I vanished from his sight. I made a place opposite him and cut out a hole through which I watched him. I firmly resolved never to leave that spot unless the shaikh ordered me. When the shaikh noticed me there and observed my sorry state, he called me out and promoted me to his favour, mar­rying his daughter to me.”

Anecdotes of Abu Othman

“For forty years,” said Abu Othman, “whatever state God has kept me in I have not resented, and to what­ever state He has transferred me I have not been angry.”

The following story bears out this assertion. A man who disbelieved in Abu Othman sent him an invitation. Abu Othman accepted, and got as far as the door of his house. The man then shouted at him.

“Glutton, there is nothing here for you. Go home!”

Abu Othman went home. He had gone only a little way when the man called out to him.

“Shaikh, come here!”

Abu Othman returned.

“You are very eager to eat,” the man taunted him. “There is still less. Be off with you!”

The shaikh departed. The man summoned him again, and he went back.

“Eat stones, or go home!”

Abu Othman went off once more. Thirty times the man summoned him and drove him away. Thirty times the shaikh came and went, without showing the least discomposure. Then the man fell at his feet and with tears repented, becoming his disciple.

“What a man you are!” he exclaimed. “Thirty times I drove you off with contumely, and you showed not the slightest discomposure.”

“This is an easy matter,” Abu Othman replied. “Dogs do the same. When you drive them away they go, and when you call them they come, without show­ing any discomposure. A thing in which dogs equal us cannot really be accounted anything. Men’s work is something quite other.”

One day Abu Othman was walking along the street when someone emptied a tray of ashes on his head from the roof. His companions, infuriated, were about to abuse the offender, but Abu Othman stopped them.

“One should give thanks a thousandfold,” he said, “that one who merited fire was let off with ashes!”

A dissolute young fellow was strolling along with a lute in his hand, completely drunk. Suddenly catching sight of Abu Othman, he tucked his curls under his cap and drew the lute into his sleeve, thinking that he would denounce him to the authorities. Abu Othman approached him in the kindliest manner.

“Do not be afraid. Brothers are all one,” he said.

When the young man saw that, he repented and became a disciple of the shaikh. Abu Othman instruct­ed him to be washed, invested him, and then raised his head to heaven.

“O God,” he cried, “I have done my part. The rest Thou must do.”

Immediately the youth was visited by such a mysti­cal experience that Abu Othman himself was amazed.

At the time of the afternoon prayers, Abu Othman-e Maghrebi arrived. Abu Othman-e Hiri said to him, “Shaikh, I am consumed with envy. All that I have yearned for in a long life has been poured freely on the head of this youth, from whose belly the odour of wine still proceeds. So you know that men propose, but God disposes.”

Ibn Ata

Abu ‘l-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mohammad ibn Sahl ibn ‘Ata’ al-Adami was a close companion of al- Jonaid. Author of mystical verses and a promi­nent member of the Baghdad circle, he was put to death in 309 (922).

Anecdotes of Ibn Ata

Ibn Ata was one of the leading disciples of Jonaid. One day a party of men entered his oratory to find the whole floor drenched.

“What is this state of affairs?” they asked.

“A mystical experience came to me,” he explained. “In shamefacedness I circled around the oratory, pour­ing tears from my eyes.”

“What was it?” they enquired.

“When I was a child,” he explained, “I took a dove belonging to someone. I remembered that. I gave a thousand silver dinars to compensate its owner, but my conscience could not rest. I am weeping, wondering what the consequence will be.”

“How much of the Koran do you recite daily?” Ibn Ata was asked.

“Formerly,” he replied, “I used to complete the whole Koran twice every twenty-four hours. Now I have been reciting the Koran for fourteen years, and today I have just reached the Sura of the Spoils.”

Ibn Ata had ten sons, all handsome boys. They were accompanying their father on a journey when thieves fell upon them and proceeded to strike off their heads one by one. Ibn Ata said nothing; as each son was killed, he turned his face to heaven and laughed. Nine of his sons were already executed, and the thieves were about to slay the tenth.

“A fine father you are!” the tenth son addressed him. “Nine of your sons are beheaded, and you say nothing but simply laugh.”

“Soul of your father,” Ibn Ata answered him, “He who is doing this, to Him one can say nothing. He knows, and He sees; He is able, if He wills, to save them all.”

The thief who was about to kill the tenth son was overcome by emotion when he heard Ibn Ata’s words.

“Old man,” he cried, “if you had said this before, none of your sons would have been killed.”

“How is it with you Sufis,” certain theologians asked Ibn Ata, “that you have invented terms which sound strange to those who hear them, abandoning ordinary language? It can only be one of two things.

Either you are practising dissimulation, and dissimula­tion is improper in relation to the truth, so that it is clear that your doctrine is not true; or else there is some evident flaw in your doctrine which you are concealing in your public utterances.”

“We do this because it is precious to us,” Ibn Ata replied. “What we practise is precious to us, and we desired that none but we Sufis should know of it. We did not wish to employ ordinary language, so we invented a special vocabulary.”

Why Ibn Ata cursed Ali ibn Isa

Ibn Ata was denounced as a heretic. Ali ibn Isa, who was then the caliph’s vizier, summoned him and spoke roughly to him. Ibn Ata replied in vigorous terms. This enraged the vizier, who ordered his servants to remove his shoes and beat his head with them until he died. In the midst of this Ibn Ata exclaimed, “May God cut off your hands and feet!”

Some while after the caliph was angered against Ali ibn Isa and ordered his hands and feet to be struck off

Certain of the Sufi masters have found fault with Ibn Ata on this account. “Why,” they say, “when your prayers could have effected the man’s reformation, did you curse him? You ought to have blessed him.” Others however have excused him, saying, “It may be that he cursed him because he was unjust to save other Muslims.”

Another explanation is that Ibn Ata, being a man of intuition, foresaw what would be done to the vizier. He simply agreed with what had been Divinely destined, so that God spoke His Will by his tongue, he being not involved at all.

My own opinion is that Ibn Ata in fact blessed him and did not curse him, so that he might attain the degree of martyrdom. He prayed that the vizier should suffer humiliation in this world and fall from his high rank and great wealth. Seen in this light, Ibn Ata wished nothing but good for Ali ibn Isa; for punish­ment in this world is light to bear, in comparison with that in the world to come.

Somnun

Abu ‘1-Hasan Somnun ibn ‘Abd Allah (Hamza) al-Khauwas, a companion of Sari al-Saqati, was called “the Lover” because of his discourses and poems on the theme of mystical love. Denounced by Gholam al-Khalil, he died c. 300 (913).

The story of Somnun the Lover

Somnun commonly called the Lover (he called himself Somnun the Liar) was a companion of Sari-e Saqati and a contemporary of Jonaid. He had a special doc­trine about love, which he promoted above gnosis, con­trary to the view of the majority of the Sufi masters.

When Somnun went to Hejaz the people of Faid invited him to preach. He entered the pulpit and began to hold forth, but found no one to listen to him. He therefore turned to the mosque-lamps and said, “I am going to speak to you about love.” Immediately the lamps dashed upon one another and broke into pieces.

One day when he was preaching on love a bird swooped down out of the air and perched first on his head, then on his hand, then on his breast. Then it dropped from his breast on to the ground and struck its beak so violently against the ground that the blood gushed forth from it. Then the bird collapsed and died.

It is related that towards the end of his life, to accord with the Prophet’s example, Somnun married and in due course had a daughter. When the child was three years old Somnun became very attached to her. That night he dreamed that the resurrection had come to pass. He saw that a standard had been set up for every community; one standard was so bright that its radi­ance filled the plains of Heaven.

“To whom does this standard belong?” Somnun enquired.

“To the people of whom God says, He loves them and they love Him,” came the answer (meaning that it was the standard of lovers).

Somnun ranged himself among those under that banner. One came along and drove him out of their midst.

“Why do you drive me out?” Somnun shouted.

“Because this is the standard of lovers,” came the reply. “You are not one of them.”

“Why not?” cried Somnun. “After all, they call me Somnun the Lover, and God knows what is in my heart.”

“Somnun, you were a lover,” came the answer. “But when your heart inclined towards that child, your name was expunged from the roll of lovers.”

Even as he dreamed Somnun made supplication.

“O God, if this child is to waylay me, remove her from my path.”

When he awoke the cry went up, “The little girl fell from the roof and died.”

It is further related that once Somnun was reciting this couplet.

I have no joy in aught but Thee;

So, as Thou wilt, make trial of me.

Immediately his urine was blocked. He went about from school to school saying to the children, “Pray for your liar of an uncle that God may heal him!”

Somnun and Gholam Khalil

Gholam Khalil had made himself known to the caliph as a Sufi, bartering away his eternal salvation for worldly advantage. He always maligned the Sufis before the caliph, his intention being to secure their banishment, so that none should enjoy the blessing of their presence, and to maintain himself in power and that he might not be disgraced.

When Somnun grew to full stature and his fame spread abroad, Gholam Khalil occasioned him much suffering, always watching for an opportunity of bring­ing about his disgrace. Then one day a wealthy woman offered herself to Somnun.

“Ask my hand in marriage,” she said.

Somnun refused. The woman then went to Jonaid and begged him to intercede for her and persuade Somnun to marry her, but Jonaid rebuked her and drove her away. The woman therefore repaired to Gholam Khalil and laid allegations against Somnun. Gholam Khalil was delighted, and turned the caliph against Somnun. Then the caliph ordered Somnun to be slain. The executioner having been summoned, the caliph was about to say, “Behead him”; but he was struck dumb and he could not speak, his tongue stick­ing in his throat. That night he dreamed that a voice said to him, “Your kingdom is bound up with Somnun’s life.” Next morning the caliph sent for Somnun and sent him away with all honour, treating him with the highest consideration.

Thereafter Gholam’s hostility towards Somnun increased still more. Towards the end of his life he was smitten with leprosy.

“Gholam Khalil has become a leper,” someone relat­ed to Somnun.

“It would seem,” Somnun replied, “that some imma­ture Sufi has formed designs against him and not done good. For he was an opponent of the masters, and from time to time impeded them by his actions. God grant him healing!”

These words were reported to Gholam Khalil. He repented of all his sins, and sent all that he possessed to the Sufis. They however refused to accept anything.

al-Termedhi

One of the outstanding creative thinkers of Islamic mysticism, Abu ‘Abd Allah Mohammad ibn ‘Ali ibn al-Hosain al-Hakim al-Termedhi was driven out of his native town of Termedh and took refuge in Nishapur, where he was preaching in 285 (898). His psychological writings influ­enced al-Ghazali, whilst his startling theory of sainthood was taken over and developed by Ibn ‘Arabi. A copious author, many of his books, including an autobiographical sketch, have been preserved and a number have been published.

The training of Hakim-e Termedhi

At the beginning of his career, Mohammad ibn Ali-e Termedhi arranged with two students to set out with them in quest of knowledge. When they were just ready to leave, his mother became very sorrowful.

“Soul of your mother,” she addressed her son, “I am a feeble woman, and have no one in the world. You look after my affairs. To whom will you leave me, alone and feeble as I am?”

Her words pained Termedhi, and he abandoned his journey while his two friends went off in quest of knowledge. Some time elapsed. Then one day he was sitting in the cemetery, weeping bitterly.

“Here am I left here, neglected and ignorant. My friends will come back, perfectly trained scholars.”

Suddenly there appeared a luminous elder who addressed him.

“My son, why do you weep?”

Termedhi told him his tale.

“Would you like me to teach you a lesson daily, so that you will soon outstrip them?” he asked.

“I would,” Termedhi replied.

“So,” Termedhi recalled, “every day he taught me a lesson, till three years had gone by. Then I realized that he was Khezr, and that I had attained this felicity because I pleased my mother.”

Every Sunday (so Abu Bakr-e Warraq reports) Khezr would visit Termedhi and they would converse on every matter. One day he said to me, “Today I will take you somewhere.”

“The master knows best,” I replied.

I set out with him, and within a little while I espied an arduous and harsh desert, in the midst of which a golden throne was set under a verdant tree by a spring of water. Someone apparelled in beautiful raiment was seated on the throne. The shaikh approached him, whereupon this person rose up and set Termedhi on the throne. In a little while a company gathered from all directions, until forty persons were assembled. They made a signal to heaven and food appeared, and they ate. The shaikh asked that person questions which he answered, but in such language that I did not under­stand a single word. After a time Termedhi begged leave to go, and took his departure.

“Go,” he said to me. “You have been blessed.”

In a while we were back in Termedh. I then ques­tioned the shaikh.

“What was all that? What place was it, and who was that man?”

“It was the wilderness of the Children of Israel,” Termedhi replied. “That man was the Pole.”

“How was it that we went and returned in such a short time?” I asked.

“O Abu Bakr,” he answered, “when He conveys, one is able to arrive! What business is it of yours to know the why and wherefore? To arrive is your task, not to ask!”

“However hard I strove to keep my carnal soul in subjection,” Termedhi related, “I could not prevail over it. In my despair I said, ‘Haply Almighty God has created this soul for Hell. Why nurture a creature doomed to Hell?’ Proceeding to the banks of the Oxus, I begged a man to bind me hand and foot. He left me thus, and I rolled over and flung myself into the water, hoping to drown myself. The impact of the water freed my hands; then a wave came and cast me up on the bank. Despairing of myself, I cried, ‘Glory be to Thee, O God, who hast created a soul that is not proper either for Heaven or Hell!’ In the very moment of my self-despair, by the blessing of that cry my secret heart was opened and I saw what was necessary for me. In that selfsame hour I vanished from myself. So long as I have lived, I have lived by the blessing of that hour.”

Abu Bakr-e Warraq also relates the following.

One day Termedhi handed over to me many volumes of his writings to cast into the Oxus. I examined them and found they were replete with mystic subtleties and truths. I could not bring myself to carry out his instruc­tions, and instead stored them in my room. I then told him that I had thrown them in.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“You did not throw them in,” he concluded. “Go and do so.”

“I see two problems,” I said to myself. “First, why does he want them flung into the water? And second, what visible proof will there be?”

However, I went back and threw the books into the Oxus. I saw the river open up, and an open chest appeared; the volumes fell into it, then the lid closed and the river subsided. I was astonished.

“Did you throw them in this time?” Termedhi ques­tioned me when I returned to him.

“Master, by God’s glory,” I cried, “tell me the secret behind this.”

“I had composed something on the science of the Sufis, the disclosing of the verification of which was difficult for human minds to grasp,” he replied. “My brother Khezr entreated me. The chest was brought by a fish at his bidding, and Almighty God commanded the waters to convey it to him.”

Anecdotes of Termedhi

In Termedhi’s time lived a great ascetic who was always criticizing him. Now in all the world Termedhi pos­sessed nothing but a cabin. When he returned from his journey to Hejaz, a dog had whelped in that cabin, which had no door. Termedhi did not wish to drive the dog out, and he went and came eighty times in the hope that the dog would have of its own free will carried its puppies out.

That same night the ascetic saw the Prophet in a dream.

“Sirrah, you put yourself up against a man who eighty times brought succour to a dog,” the Prophet said. “If you desire eternal happiness, go, bind up your loins and serve him.”

The ascetic, too ashamed to answer Termedhi’s greetings, thereafter spent the rest of his life in his ser­vice.

“When the master is angry with you, do you know?” someone asked Termedhi’s family.

“We know,” they replied. “Whenever he is vexed with us, that day he is even kinder to us than usual. He takes neither bread nor water, and weeps and suppli­cates, saying, ‘O God, in what did I vex Thee, that Thou hast provoked them against me? O God, I repent; restore them to rectitude.’ So we know, and repent, to deliver the master out of his affliction.”

For a while Termedhi did not see Khezr. Then one day a maidservant had washed the baby’s clothes, fill­ing a basin with the baby’s excreta. Meanwhile the shaikh, dressed in clean robes and with a spotless tur­ban, was proceeding to the mosque. The girl, flying into a rage over some trifle, emptied the basin over the shaikh’s head. Termedhi said nothing, and swallowed his anger. Immediately he rediscovered Khezr.

In his youth a certain lovely woman invited Termedhi to take her, but he refused. Then one day the woman, learning that he was in a garden, arrayed her­self and proceeded thither. As soon as the shaikh became aware of her approach, he fled. The woman ran after him, screaming that he was after her blood. Termedhi took no notice, but climbed a high wall and flung himself over.

One day in his old age Termedhi was reviewing his acts and sayings, and remembered that incident. The thought entered his mind, “What would it have mat­tered if I had gratified that woman’s need? After all, I was young, and I could afterwards have repented.” When he perceived this thought in his mind, he was filled with anguish.

“Foul and rebellious soul!” he exclaimed. “Forty years ago, in the first flush of youth, this thought did not occur to you. Now in old age, after so many strug­gles, whence has come this repining over a sin not com­mitted?”

Very sorrowful, for three days he sat in mourning for this thought. After three days he saw the Prophet in a dream.

“Mohammad, do not grieve,” said the Prophet to him. “What happened was not due to a lapse on your part. This thought occurred to you because forty years more had passed since my death. The period of my leaving the world had become that much longer, and I was withdrawn further away. It is no sin of yours, no shortcoming in your spiritual progress. What you experienced was due to the long extension of the peri­od of my departure from the world, not to any defi­ciency in your character.”

The following narrative is ascribed to Termedhi.

When Adam and Eve came together and their repen­tance was accepted, one day Adam went out on busi­ness. Then Iblis brought his child called Khannas to Eve.

“Something important has come up,” he told her. “Please look after my child till I return.”

Eve consented to do so, and Iblis went on his way.

“Who is this?” demanded Adam on his return.

“The child of Iblis,” Eve answered. “He left him in my charge.”

“Why did you consent?” Adam reproved her. In a fury he slew the child and cut him into pieces, and hung each piece from the branch of a tree. Then he went off. Presently Iblis returned.

“Where is my son?” he asked.

Eve reported to him what had happened.

“He cut him in pieces and hung each piece on the branch of a tree.”

Iblis called to his son. He reassembled and became alive and ran to his father.

“Take him,” Iblis begged Eve again. “I have another task to do.”

At first Eve would not agree, but Iblis pleaded and entreated her so earnestly that at last she consented. So Iblis took his departure, and Adam returned to find the child there again.

“What is this?” he demanded.

Eve explained what had happened. Adam beat her severely.

“I do not know what the mystery of this is,” he cried, “that you disobey me and obey that enemy of God, and are duped by his words.”

He slew the child and burned his body, then scat­tered his ashes, half in the water and half to the winds. So he departed.

Iblis came back again and asked for his son. Eve told him what had come to pass. Iblis shouted to his son, and the pieces reassembled and came to life, and sat before Iblis. Once more Iblis spoke to Eve, and she refused him.

“Adam will kill me.”

Iblis adjured her with many oaths, until she consent­ed. Iblis then departed, and Adam returned to discover the child with her once more.

“God knows what will happen now,” he cried out in anger. “You heed his words and not mine.”

Furious, he slew Khannas and cooked him. He ate one half himself, and the other half he gave to Eve. (They also say that on the final occasion Iblis had brought Khannas back in the form of a sheep.) Iblis returned and demanded his son. Eve recounted what had transpired.

“He cooked him. One half I ate, and one half Adam.”

“This was what I was after,” Iblis shouted. “I aimed to insinuate myself into Adam. Now that his breast has become my abode, my purpose is realized.”

Khair al-Nassaj

Abu ‘1-Hasan Mohammad ibn Esma’il (Khair ibn ‘Abd Allah) al-Nassaj of Samarra, a pupil of Sari al-Saqati and a member of al-Jonaid’s circle, was taken as a slave in Basra but afterwards proceed­ed to Mecca. He is said to have lived to the age of 120, dying in 322 (924).

The story of Khair-e Nassaj

Khair-e Nassaj was the chief master of his time. A pupil of I Sari-e Saqati, he influenced Shebli and Ebrahim-e Khauwas I and was greatly admired by Jonaid. The fol­lowing was the reason why he was called Khair-e Nassaj. Leaving his native I town Samarra bound for the pilgrimage, on the way he passed I through Kufa. He arrived at the gates of Kufa clad in a patchwork robe, he himself being black of complexion, so that all who beheld him would cry, “The man appears a fool!” There a certain man espied him.

“I will employ him for a few days,” he said to him­self. Then he approached him.

“Are you a slave?” he asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Have you run away from your master?”

“Yes.”

“I will take charge of you until I can restore you to your master,” the man said.

“That is what I am seeking myself,” said Khair. “All my life I have been longing to find someone who will restore me to my Master.”

The man took him to his home.

“Your name is Khair,” he said.

Khair did not gainsay him, believing firmly in the saying that “a believer does not lie”. He went along with him and served him. The man taught Khair the craft of weaving. For years he worked for the man. Whenever he called out, “Khair!” he would reply “Here am I!” At last the man repented, having seen his sincerity, perfect behaviour and intuitive powers, and having witnessed the constancy of his devotions.

“I made a mistake,” he announced. “You are not my slave. Go wherever you wish.”

Khair then departed for Mecca, where he attained such a high degree of saintliness that Jonaid himself declared, “Khair is the best of us.” He preferred people to call him Khair.

“It would not be right,” he would say, “for a broth­er Muslim to give me a name and for me to change it.”

From time to time he practised weaving. Sometimes he used to go down to the Tigris and the fishes would make advances to him and bring him various things. One day he was weaving muslin for an old woman. The old woman said, “If I bring a dirham and do not find you here, to whom shall I give it?”

“Throw it in the river,” Khair replied.

The old woman brought the dirham, and Khair not being there she threw it into the Tigris. When Khair returned to the bank the 1Sshes brought that dirham to him.

It is said that Khair lived to the age of I20. When his death drew near, it was the time of the evening prayer. Azrael cast his shadow, and Khair raised his head from the pillow.

“God preserve you!” he cried. “Wait a little. You are a slave under orders, and I am a slave under orders. You have been told to collect my soul. I have been told, ‘When the time for prayer comes, pray.’ That time has now come. You will have plenty of opportunity to carry out your orders. For me it is now or never. Please be patient until I have performed the evening prayer.”

Khair then washed himself and performed the prayer. Immediately afterwards he died.

Abu Bakr al-Kattani

Abu Bakr Mohammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Ja’far al- Kattani, a native of Baghdad, belonged to the cir­cle of al-Jonaid. He proceeded to Mecca on the pilgrimage, and took up residence there until his death in 322 (934).

The piety of Abu Bakr-e Kattani

Abu Bakr-e Kattani was called the Lamp of the Sanctuary. He was a resident in Mecca up to the day of his death. He used to pray all the night through and chant the entire Koran; in the course of circling the Kaaba he completed twelve thousand recitations in all. For thirty years he was seated in the sanctuary under the waterspout, and in all those thirty years one ritual washing every twenty-four hours sufficed him. Throughout the whole period he never slept.

At the beginning of his career he sought permission from his mother to go on the pilgrimage.

“When I was proceeding into the desert,” he recalled, “a state overtook me compelling me to wash for self-purification. I told myself that perhaps I had not set out under the proper auspices; so I turned back. I reached home to find my mother seated behind the door of the house, waiting for me. ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘did you not give me leave?’ ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘But without you I could not bear to look at the house. Since you departed I have been seated here. I resolved that I would not rise up until you came back again.’ It was not until my mother died that I ventured into the desert once more.”

Abu Bakr-e Kattani tells the following story.

I was deep in the desert when I caught sight of a dead man. He was smiling.

“What, are you dead and still smiling?” I cried.

“Such is the love of God,” he replied.

“I felt a little resentment in my heart towards the Prince of the Faithful, Ali,” Abu Bakr confessed. “That was for no other reason than because the Prophet had said, ‘There is no true knight but Ali.’ It was a part of that knightliness that, although Mo’awiya was in the wrong and he was in the right, nevertheless Ali abdi­cated in Mo’awiya’s favour in order that so much blood should not be spilled.

“Now I had a little house between Marwa and Safa,” he continued. “There I saw the Prophet in a dream, together with his blessed companions. He came up to me and, taking me into his embrace, pointed to Abu Bakr and said, ‘Who is he?’ ‘Abu Bakr,’ I replied. Then he pointed to Omar. ‘Omar,’ I said. Then he pointed to Othman. ‘Othman,’ I said. Lastly he point­ed to Ali. I felt ashamed because of the resentment I entertained. Then the Prophet gave me to Ali in broth­erhood and we embraced each other. After that they all departed, and only myself and Ali remained. ‘Come,’ said Ali to me, ‘let us go to Mount Abu Qobais.’ We climbed to the top of the mountain and looked down on the Kaaba. When I awoke, I found myself on Mount Abu Qobais. Not a trace of that resentment remained in my heart.

“I was once in the company of a certain man,” he also related, “and his society bore heavily on me. I made him a present, but still that heaviness did not go away. I took him to my house and said to him, ‘Put your foot on my face.’ He would not do so, but I insist­ed until finally he put his foot on my face and kept it there so long that the heaviness vanished and changed into love. Now I had received as a gift from a lawful source two hundred dirhams. I fetched them and placed them on the corner of his prayer rug. ‘Spend these on yourself,’ I told him. Looking at me out of the corner of his eye he said, ‘I have purchased this occa­sion at a cost of seventy thousand dinars. Do you want to delude me with this?’ Then he rose up, shook out his prayer rug and departed. I had never experienced any­thing like his dignity and my humiliation as when I was picking up those dirhams.”

Abu Bakr-e Kattani had a disciple who was in the agonies of death. He opened his eyes and gazed upon the Kaaba. A camel came along at the moment and kicked his face, gouging out his eye.

Immediately Abu Bakr heard a voice saying within him, “In this state when authentic revelations from the Unseen were coming to him, he gazed at the Kaaba. So he was punished. It is not right in the presence of the Lord of the House to gaze at the House.”

One day a luminous elder majestically wrapped in a cloak entered by the Gate of the Banu Shaiba and went up to Kattani, who was standing with head bowed.

“Why,” he asked after the exchange of greetings, “do you not go to the Station of Abraham? A great teacher has come and is relating noble traditions. Come and listen to him.”

“On whose authority is he relating, sir?” Kattani asked.

“On the authority of Abd Allah ibn Ma’mar, from Zohri, from Abu Horaira, from the Prophet,” the elder replied.

“Master, you have produced a long chain of author­ities,” Kattani remarked. “Whatever they are reporting there by authoritative chain of transmission, we are hearing here without any chain.”

“From whom are you hearing?” asked the elder.

“My heart reported to me direct from my Lord . . .” said Kattani.

“Do you have any proof of your assertion?” demanded the elder.

“My proof,” replied Kattani, “is that my heart is telling me that you are Khezr.”

“Till then,” Khezr remarked, “I had always thought that there was no friend of God whom I did not know. That was until I saw Abu Bakr-e Kattani. I did not know him, but he knew me. Then I realized that God has friends who know me but whom I do not know.”

Kattani also related as follows.

I saw in a dream an extremely handsome youth.

“Who are you?” I enquired.

“Piety,” he replied.

“Where do you dwell?” I asked.

“In the heart,” he answered, “of the sorrowful.”

Then I saw a most hideous, black woman.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Laughter and gaiety and enjoyment,” she answered.

“Where do you dwell?”

“In the hearts of the heedless and those who amuse themselves.”

When I awoke, I resolved that I would never laugh again, except when I could not help myself.

Ibn Khafif

One of the great saints of Persia, Abu ‘Abd Allah Mohammad ibn Khafif ibn Esfakshad was born in Shiraz in 270 (882), it is said of a princely fam­ily. After a broad education he travelled to Baghdad, and there met al-Hallaj and other Sufis of the capital. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca at least six times, and is reported also to have vis­ited Egypt, and Asia Minor. Author of a number of books, he died in his native city at a very advanced age in 371 (982).

The asceticism of Ibn Khafif

Ibn Khafif of Fars was of royal descent. He was so called because he carried a light burden, was light of spirit and will face a light reckoning. Every night his meal on breaking his fast consisted of seven raisins, no more. One night the servitor gave him eight. He did not realize, and ate them. Finding no pleasure in his devo­tions, contrary to his nightly experience, he summoned the servant and interrogated him.

“I gave you eight raisins tonight,” the servant admitted.

“Why?” demanded Ibn Khafif.

“I saw that you were enfeebled, and it hurt my heart,” said the servant. “I said to myself, if only you would get some strength.”

“So you were not my friend but my enemy,” Ibn Khafif cried. “If you had been my friend you would have given me six, not eight.”

And he dismissed him from his service and appoint­ed another servant.

Ibn Khafif recalled the following.

At the beginning of my career I wished to go on the pilgrimage. When I reached Baghdad, my head was filled with so much conceit that I did not go to see Jonaid. As I travelled deep in the desert, carrying a rope and a bucket, thirst overcame me. I espied a well from which a deer was drinking. Just as I reached the edge of the well the water vanished into its depths.

“God,” I cried, “is Abd Allah of less worth than this deer?”

“This deer did not have a bucket and a rope,” I heard a voice say. “His reliance was on Us.”

Full of joy, I flung away the bucket and rope and went on my way.

“Abd Allah,” I heard the voice again, “We were putting you to the test. Since you have shown fortitude, return and drink.”

I returned to find the water up to the brim of the well. I performed my ablutions and drank. Then I set out once more, and all the way to Medina I had no need of water again because of my ritual purity.

When I was back in Baghdad, on Friday I went to mosque. Jonaid there caught sight of me and addressed me.

“Had you been truly patient, the water would have gushed forth from beneath your feet.”

In my youth (Ibn Khafif also related) a certain dervish came to call on me. Observing in me the marks of hunger, he invited me to his house. Some meat had been cooking, and the smell of it pervaded the house so that I was repelled and could not eat. The dervish, noticing this disdain in me, was filled with shame. I too was overcome by confusion. So I left the table and set out with some companions.

After reaching Qadesiya we lost our way, and were out of provisions. We bore up for some days, till we came to the brink of destruction. Things were so bad that we bought a dog at a high price and roasted it. They gave me a morsel. I was about to eat it when I remembered the episode of the dervish and the food he had offered me.

“This,” I told myself, “is in punishment for that day when the dervish was put to shame before me.”

I repented, so that the way was shown to us. When I returned home, I begged that dervish’s pardon.

One day I heard of an elder and a youth in Egypt who were engaged in perpetual meditation. I went to Egypt, and there saw two persons with their faces turned to Mecca. I greeted them thrice, but they did not answer me.

“God save you,” I cried. '’Answer my greeting!”

“Ibn Khafif,” said the youth lifting up his head, “this world is a little thing, and of this little only a little remains. Of this little take a large portion, Ibn Khafif! Perhaps you have time to spare to trouble to greet us.”

So saying, he lowered his head. Though hungry and thirsty, I forgot my hunger, so completely did they entrance me. I waited, and performed the noon and afternoon prayers with them. Then I spoke.

“Give me counsel.”

“Ibn Khafif, we are men of affliction,” he replied. “We have not the tongue to offer advice. Another is needed to counsel the afflicted.”

I remained there three days without eating and sleep­ing.

“What can I say to adjure them to counsel me?” I asked myself.

The youth lifted his head.

“Seek the company of someone, the sight of whom will remind you of God and the awe of whom will move your heart, someone who will counsel you with the tongue of deeds, not words.”

One year I was staying in Byzantium. One day I went out into the desert. They brought along a monk wast­ed as a shadow, burned him, and smeared his ashes on the eyes of the blind. By the omnipotent power of God they recovered their sight. The sick also partook of his ashes and were healed. I marvelled how this could be, seeing that they were following a false faith. That night I saw the Prophet in a dream.

“Messenger of God, what are you doing there?” I asked.

“I have come for your sake,” the Prophet replied.

“Messenger of God, what was this miracle?” I asked.

“It was the result of sincerity and self-discipline in error,” the Prophet answered. “If it had been in truth, how then would it have been!”

Ibn Khafif and his wives

One midnight Ibn Khafif summoned his servant.

“Bring me a woman,” he said. “I want one.”

“Where shall I go in the middle of the night?” the servant replied. “But I have a daughter. If the master gives me permission, I will fetch her.”

“Fetch her,” Ibn Khafif ordered.

The servant brought his daughter, and Ibn Khafif married her on the spot. Seven months later a child was born, but it died.

“Tell your daughter to divorce me,” Ibn Khafif said to his servant. “Else if she wishes, she may stay on.”

“Master, what is the mystery in this?” the servant asked.

“The night of our marriage,” Ibn Khafif explained, “I dreamed that it was the resurrection. Many people were standing stupefied, up to their necks in sweat. All at once a child came along, took its mother and father by the hand and led them swift as the wind over the bridge between Hell and Heaven. I too desired to have a child. When that child came into the world and departed, my goal was attained.”

It is said that thereafter Ibn Khafif contracted four hundred marriages. For being of royal descent, when he repented and achieved perfect saintliness he received proposals from all sides. He married two or three at a time. One lady, the daughter of the vizier, was married to him for forty years.

His wives were once asked how Ibn Khafif behaved with them privately.

“We know nothing about his company,” they replied. “If anyone knows, it would be the vizier’s daughter.”

So they asked her.

“When I learned that the shaikh was coming that night to my apartment,” she said, “I would prepare delicious dishes and adorn myself. When he arrived and saw what I had done, he would send for me and look at me for a while. Then he would contemplate the food for a while. Then one night he took my hand and drew it into his sleeve and rubbed it over his belly. I felt fifteen knots from his breast to his navel. ‘Girl, ask me what these knots are,’ he said. ‘What are they?’ I asked. ‘All these,’ he replied, ‘are the violent flames of fortitude which I fastened knot by knot, to withstand your offering of such beauty and such deli­cious fare.’ He then left me. That was the only time I was bold with him, so extreme was his self-disci­pline.”

Anecdotes of Ibn Khafif

Ibn Khafif had two disciples, one called Ahmad the Older and the other Ahmad the Younger. The shaikh favoured Ahmad the Younger the more. His compan­ions were jealous, arguing that Ahmad the Older had performed many tasks and endured much discipline. The shaikh, learning of this, desired to demonstrate to them that Ahmad the Younger was the better of the two. Now a camel was sleeping at the door of the con­vent.

“Ahmad the Older!” Ibn Khafif cried out.

“Here am I,” Ahmad the Older responded.

“Carry that camel up to the roof of the convent,” Ibn Khafif ordered.

“Master,” Ahmad the Older protested, “how is it possible to carry a camel on to the roof?”

“That is enough,” Ibn Khafif said. “Ahmad the Younger!”

“Here am I,” replied Ahmad the Younger.

“Carry that camel on to the roof of the convent!”

Ahmad the Younger at once girded his loins, rolled up his sleeves and ran out of the convent. Putting his two hands under the camel, he tried with all his might but could not lift the beast.

“Well done! Now we know,” Ibn Khafif exclaimed. Then turning to his companions he added, “Ahmad the Younger did his duty. He obeyed my command and offered no objection. He had regard to my command, not to whether the task could be carried out or no. Ahmad the Older was only concerned to argue and dis­pute. From outward actions one can perceive the inner intention.”

A traveller came to visit Ibn Khafif wearing a black robe, a black shawl, black breeches and a black shirt. The shaikh felt inwardly a sense of jealousy. When the traveller had performed two rak’as and spoken a greet­ing, Ibn Khafif addressed him.

“Brother, why are you dressed in black?”

“Because my gods are dead.” (He meant the carnal soul and caprice.) “Hast thou seen him who has taken his caprice to be his god?”

“Put him out!” cried Ibn Khafif.

They drove him out with contumely.

“Now bring him back!”

They brought him back. Forty times the same treat­ment was repeated. Then Ibn Khafif arose and kissed his head and begged his pardon.

“You have every right to wear black,” he said. “In all the forty times they insulted you, you never lost your composure.”

Two Sufis came from a far distance to visit Ibn Khafif. Not finding him in the convent, they enquired where he might be.

“In the palace of Azod al-Daula,” came the answer.

“What business has the shaikh with the palace of princes?” they demanded. “Alas for our high opinion of him! “ Then they added, “Well, we will make a tour of the city.”

They proceeded to the bazaars, and made their way to a tailor’s shop to have a stitch put in the front of their gown. The tailor’s scissors were missing.

“You took the scissors!” the crowd shouted, and they handed them over to a policeman. The two Sufis were hustled to the palace.

“Strike off their hands!” ordered Azod al-Daula.

“Wait!” exclaimed Ibn Khafif who was present in the court. “This is not their doing.”

So the two were set free.

“Good sirs,” Ibn Khafif addressed them, “what you thought was perfectly just. But our resorting to the palace of princes is precisely for such purposes.”

The Sufis thereupon became his disciples.

Al-Hallaj

The most controversial figure in the history of Islamic mysticism, Abu ‘l-Moghith al-Hosain ibn Mansur al-Hallaj was born C. 244 (858) near al- Baiza’ in the province of Fars. He travelled very widely, first to Tostar and Baghdad, then to Mecca, and afterwards to Khuzestan, Khorasan, Transoxiana, Sistan, India and Turkestan. Eventually he returned to Baghdad, where his bold preaching of union with God caused him to be arrested on a charge of incarnationism. He was condemned to death and cruelly executed on 29 Dhu ‘l-Qa’da 309 (28 March 9I3). Author of a number of books and a considerable volume of poetry, he passed into Muslim legend as the pro­totype of the intoxicated lover of God.

The wanderings of Hallaj

Hosain-e Mansur, called Hallaj (“the Woolcarder”) first came to Tostar, where he served Sahl ibn Abd Allah for two years; then he set out for Baghdad. He made his first journey at the age of eighteen.

Thereafter he went to Basra and joined Amr ibn Othman, passing eighteen months in his company. Ya’qub-e Aqta’ gave him his daughter in marriage, after which Amr ibn Othman became displeased with him. So he left Basra and came to Baghdad where he called on Jonaid. Jonaid prescribed for him silence and solitude. He endured Jonaid’s company for a while, then he made for Hejaz. He took up residence in Mecca for one year, after which he returned to Baghdad. With a group of Sufis he attended on Jonaid and put a number of questions to him to which Jonaid gave no reply.

“The time will soon come,” Jonaid told him, “when you will incarnadine a piece of wood.”

“The day when I incarnadine that piece of wood,” Hallaj replied, “you will be wearing the garb of the for­malists.”

So it turned out. On the day when the leading schol­ars pronounced the verdict that Hallaj must be execut­ed, Jonaid was wearing the Sufi robe and did not sign the warrant. The caliph said that Jonaid’s signature was necessary. So Jonaid put on the academic turban and gown, went to the madrasa and endorsed the war­rant. “We judge according to externals,” he wrote. “As for the inward truth, that God alone knows.”

When Jonaid declined to answer his questions, Hallaj was vexed and without asking leave departed to Tostar. There he remained for a year, widely acclaimed. But because he attached no weight to the prevailing doctrine, the theologians turned envious against him. Meanwhile Amr ibn Othman wrote letters regarding him to the people of Khuzestan, blackening him in their eyes. He too had grown weary of that place. Casting aside the Sufi garb, he donned tunic and passed his time in the company of worldly folk. That made no dif­ference to him, however, and for five years he vanished. Part of that period he spent in Khorasan and Transoxiana, part in Sistan.

Hallaj then returned to Ahwaz, where his preaching won the approval of the elite and the public alike. He would speak of men’s secrets, so that he was dubbed “Hallaj of the Secrets”. After that he dressed himself in the ragged dervish robes and set out for the Sacred Territory, accompanied by many in like attire. When he reached Mecca, Ya’qub-e Nahrajuri denounced him as a magician. So he returned to Basra, then to Ahwaz.

“Now I am going to the lands of polytheism, to call men to God,” he announced.

So he went to India, then to Transoxiana, then to China, calling men to God and composing works for them. When he returned from the distant parts of the world, the peoples of those regions wrote him letters. The Indians addressed him as Abu ‘l-Moghith, the Chinese as Abo ‘l-Mo’in, the Khorasanians as Abu ‘l- Mohr, the Farsis as Abu ‘Abd Allah, the Khuzestanis as Hallaj of the Secrets. In Baghdad he was called Mostalem, in Basra Mokhabbar.

The passion of Hallaj

After that many tales about Hallaj began to circulate. So he set out for Mecca where he resided for two years. On his return, his circumstances were much changed. He was a different man, calling people to the “truth” in terms which no one understood. It is said that he was expelled from fifty cities.

In their bewilderment the people were divided con­cerning him. His detractors were countless, his sup­porters innumerable. They witnessed many wonders performed by him. Tongues wagged, and his words were carried to the caliph. Finally all were united in the view that he should be put to death because of his say­ing, “I am the Truth.”

“Say, He is the Truth,” they cried out to him.

“Yes. He is All,” he replied. “You say that He is lost. On the contrary, it is Hosain that is lost. The Ocean does not vanish or grow less.”

“These words which Hallaj speaks have an esoteric meaning,” they told Jonaid.

“Let him be killed,” he answered. “This is not the time for esoteric meanings.”

Then a group of the theologians made common cause against Hallaj and carried a garbled version of his words to Mo’tasem; they also turned his vizier Ali ibn ’Isa against him. The caliph ordered that he should be thrown into prison. There he was held for a year. But people would come and consult him on their prob­lems. So then they were prevented from visiting him, and for five months no one came near him, except Ibn ‘Ata once and Ibn Khafif once. On one occasion Ibn ‘Ata sent him a message.

“Master, ask pardon for the words you have spoken, that you may be set free.”

“Tell him who said this to ask pardon,” Hallaj replied.

Ibn ‘Ata wept when he heard this answer.

“We are not even a fraction of Hallaj,” he said.

It is said that on the first night of his imprisonment the gaolers came to his cell but could not find him in the prison. They searched through all the prison, but could not discover a soul. On the second night they found neither him nor the prison, for all their hunting. On the third night they discovered him in the prison.

“Where were you on the first night, and where were you and the prison on the second night?” they demand­ed. “Now you have both reappeared. What phenome­non is this?”

“On the first night,” he replied, “I was in the Presence, therefore I was not here. On the second night the Presence was here, so that both of us were absent. On the third night 1 was sent back, that the Law might be preserved. Come and do your work!”

When Hallaj was first confined there were three hun­dred souls in the prison. That night he addressed them.

“Prisoners, shall I set you free?”

“Why do you not free yourself?” they replied.

“I am God’s captive. I am the sentinel of salvation,” he answered. “If I so wish, with one signal I can loose all bonds.”

Hallaj made a sign with his finger, and all their bonds burst asunder.

“Now where are we to go?” the prisoners demand­ed. “The gate of the prison is locked.”

Hallaj signalled again, and cracks appeared in the walls.

“Now go on your way,” he cried.

“Are you not coming too?” they asked.

“No,” he replied. “I have a secret with Him which cannot be told save on the gallows.”

“Where have the prisoners gone?” the warders asked him next morning.

“I set them free,” Hallaj answered.

“Why did you not go?” they enquired.

“God has cause to chide me, so I did not go,” he replied.

This story was carried to the caliph.

“There will be a riot,” he cried. “Kill him, or beat him with sticks until he retracts.”

They beat him with sticks three hundred times. At every blow a clear voice was heard to say, “Fear not, son of Mansur! “

Then they led him out to be crucified.

Loaded with thirteen heavy chains, Hallaj strode out proudly along the way waving his arms like a very vagabond.

“Why do you strut so proudly?” they asked him.

“Because I am going to the slaughterhouse,” he replied. And he recited in clear tones,

My boon-companion’s not to be

Accused of mean inequity.

He made me drink like him the best, As does the generous host his guest;

And when the round was quite complete He called for sword and winding-sheet.

Such is his fate, who drinks past reason With Draco in the summer season.

When they brought him to the base of the gallows at Bab al-Taq, he kissed the wood and set his foot upon the ladder.

“How do you feel?” they taunted him.

“The ascension of true men is the top of the gal­lows,” he answered.

He was wearing a loincloth about his middle and a mantle on his shoulders. Turning towards Mecca, he lifted up his hands and communed with God.

“What He knows, no man knows,” he said. Then he climbed the gibbet.

“What do you say,” asked a group of his followers, “concerning us who are your disciples, and these who condemn you and would stone you?”

“They have a double reward, and you a single,” he answered. “You merely think well of me. They are moved by the strength of their belief in One God to maintain the rigour of the Law.”

Shebli came and stood facing him.

“Have we not forbidden thee all beings?” he cried. Then he asked, “What is Sufism, Hallaj?”

“The least part of it is this that you see,” Hallaj replied.

“What is the loftier part?” asked Shebli.

“That you cannot reach,” Hallaj answered.

Then all the spectators began to throw stones. Shebli, to conform, cast a clod. Hallaj sighed.

“You did not sigh when struck by all these stones. Why did you sigh because of a clod?” they asked.

“Because those who cast stones do not know what they are doing. They have an excuse. From him it comes hard to me, for he knows that he ought not to fling at me.”

Then they cut off his hands. He laughed.

“Why do you laugh?” they cried.

“It is an easy matter to strike off the hands of a man who is bound,” he answered. “He is a true man, who cuts off the hands of attributes which remove the crown of aspiration from the brow of the Throne.”

They hacked off his feet. He smiled.

“With these feet I made an earthly journey,” he said. “Other feet I have, which even now are journeying through both the worlds. If you are able, hack off those feet!”

Then he rubbed his bloody, amputated hands over his face, so that both his arms and his face were stained with blood.

“Why did you do that?” they enquired.

“Much blood has gone out of me,” he replied. “I realize that my face will have grown pale. You suppose that my pallor is because I am afraid. I rubbed blood over my face so that I might appear rose-cheeked in your eyes. The cosmetic of heroes is their blood.”

“Even if you bloodied your face, why did you stain your arms?”

“I was making ablution.”

“What ablution?”

“When one prays two rak’as in love,” Hallaj replied, “the ablution is not perfect unless performed with blood.”

Next they plucked out his eyes. A roar went up from the crowd. Some wept, some flung stones. Then they made to cut out his tongue.

“Be patient a little, give me time to speak one word,” he entreated. “O God,” he cried, lifting his face to heaven, “do not exclude them for the suffering they are bringing on me for Thy sake, neither deprive them of this felicity. Praise be to God, for that they have cut off my feet as I trod Thy way. And if they strike off my head from my body, they have raised me up to the head of the gallows, contemplating Thy majesty.”

Then they cut off his ears and nose. An old woman carrying a pitcher happened along. Seeing Hallaj, she cried, “Strike, and strike hard and true. What business has this pretty little Woolcarder to speak of God?”

The last words Hallaj spoke were these. “Love of the One is isolation of the One.” Then he chanted this verse: “Those that believe not therein seek to hasten it; but those who believe in it go in fear of it, knowing that it is the truth.”

This was his final utterance. They then cut out his tongue. It was the time of the evening prayer when they cut off his head. Even as they were cutting off his head, Hallaj smiled. Then he gave up the ghost.

A great cry went up from the people. Hallaj had car­ried the ball of destiny to the boundary of the field of resignation. From each one of his members came the declaration, “I am the Truth.”

Next day they declared, “This scandal will be even greater than while he was alive.” So they burned his limbs. From his ashes came the cry, “I am the Truth,” even as in the time of his slaying every drop of blood as it trickled formed the word Allah. Dumbfounded, they cast his ashes into the Tigris. As they floated on the sur­face of the water, they continued to cry, “I am the Truth.”

Now Hallaj had said, “When they cast my ashes into the Tigris, Baghdad will be in peril of drowning under the water. Lay my robe in front of the water, or Baghdad will be destroyed.” His servant, when he saw what had happened, brought the master’s robe and laid it on the bank of the Tigris. The waters subsided, and his ashes became silent. Then they gathered his ashes and buried them.

Ebrahim al-Khauwas

Abu Eshaq Ebrahim ibn Ahmad al-Khauwas of Samarra, a companion of al-Jonaid, is famous for his long journeys in the desert. He died at Rayy in 291 (904).

Ebrahim-e Khauwas in the desert

Ebrahim-e Khauwas, a contemporary of Jonaid and Nuri, was known as the Chief of the Trustful. So com­plete was his trust in God, that he would cross the desert on the scent of an apple. For all that he was unique in his trustfulness, he was never without a nee­dle, a thread, a flask and a pair of scissors. Asked why he carried these, he answered, “That much does not impair trust.” He told the following stories of the mar­vels he had seen on his journeys.

I was once travelling through the desert when I espied a maiden in the throes of ecstasy, wandering dis­traught with her head uncovered.

“Maiden, cover your head,” I cried.

“Khauwas, close your eyes!” she retorted.

“I am in love,” I said, “and the lover does not cover his eyes. But my eyes involuntarily fell upon you.”

“I am intoxicated,” she answered, “and the drunk­ard does not cover his head.”

“At which tavern did you become intoxicated?” I asked.

“Have a care, Khauwas,” she cried. “You are imped­ing me. Is there any in the two abodes but God?”

“Maiden, would you have my company?” I asked.

“You are callow, Khauwas,” she answered. “I am not the sort that is looking for a man!”

Once I beheld Khezr in the desert in the form of a fly­ing bird. When I espied him so, I lowered my head that my trust might not become void. Immediately he approached me and said, ‘If you had looked at me, I would not have descended on you.” I did not greet him, lest my trust should be impaired.

One day in the desert I came upon a tree where there was water. I beheld a huge lion making for me, and committed myself to God. When he came near I noticed that he was limping. He laid down before me and groaned. I looked and saw that his paw was swollen and gangrenous. So I look a stick and cut open the paw, till all the pus was drained; then I bandaged the paw with a rag. The lion arose and went away. Presently the lion returned bringing his cub. They cir­cled around me wagging their tails, and brought a round bread and laid it before me.

Once I had lost my way in the desert. I pushed on some distance, but could not find the way. For sev­eral days I went on like that, till at last I heard a cock crowing. I rejoiced, and hastened in that direc­tion. I sighted a person who promptly ran up and struck me on the neck. The blow hurt, and I cried out.

“O God, that is how they treat one who puts his trust in Thee!”

“So long as you put your trust in Me,” I heard a voice say, “you were precious in My sight. Now that you have put your trust in a cockcrow, you have been beaten in consequence.”

Still in pain, I continued on my way. Then I heard a voice which said, “Khauwas, that pained you. Now look yonder!”

I looked, and saw lying before me the head of the man who had struck me.

I had made a vow that I would cross the desert without provisions and mount. As I entered the desert a young man came after me and hailed me.

“Peace be upon you, O shaikh!”

I halted and answered his greeting. Then I saw that the youth was a Christian.

“Do you allow me to accompany you?” he asked.

“Where I am going you may not come, so what advantage will you gain in my company?” I replied.

“All the same I will come,” he answered. “It may bring a blessing.”

For a week we journeyed together. On the eighth day my companion said, “Good Hanifite ascetic, be bold with your God, for I am hungry. Ask for some­thing.”

“My God,” I prayed, “by the merits of Mohammad, peace be upon him, do not put me to shame before this stranger, but manifest something out of the Unseen.”

Immediately I beheld a dish appear filled with bread and roast fish and dates, and a jug of water. We both sat down and applied ourselves to the fare.

We pushed on for another week. Then on the eighth day I said to my companion, “Monk, now display your power too. I am hungry.”

Leaning on his staff, the young man moved his lips. Two tables appeared covered with halwa, fish and dates, and two jugs of water. I was amazed.

“Ascetic, eat!” the Christian cried.

I was too shamefaced to eat anything.

“Eat,” he repeated, “then I will give you some good news.”

“I will not eat until you tell me your good news,” I replied.

“The first piece of good news is this, that I am cut­ting my girdle.”

With that he cut his girdle.

“I testify that there is no god but God, and I testify that Mohammad is the Messenger of God,” he said. “The other piece of good news is this, that I said, ‘O God, by the merits of this elder who is of value in Thy sight and whose religion is true, send Thou food that I may not be put to shame before him.’ This too was by your blessing.”

So we ate, and proceeded on our way till we came to Mecca. There he resided in the Holy Territory till his term drew nigh.

I was passing one day through the parts of Syria when I espied some pomegranate-trees. My appetite was whetted, but I controlled myself and did not eat any because the pomegranates were sour, and I wanted sweet ones. Presently I entered a valley where I saw a man lying exhausted and helpless. The worms had fall­en on him, and hornets buzzed around him stinging him. My compassion was moved by his pitiful condi­tion.

“Would you like me to pray,” I said when I reached him, “that haply you may be delivered out of this affliction?”

“No,” he replied.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because healing is what I would choose, and afflic­tion is what He chooses,” he answered. “I do not pre­fer my choice above His choice.”

“At least let me drive these hornets away from you,” I said.

“Khauwas,” he answered, “drive away from your­self that hankering for sweet pomegranates. Why do you trouble me? Pray for your own heart’s healing. Why do you pray that my body may be made whole?”

“How did you know that I am Khauwas?” I asked.

“Whoever knows Him,” he replied, “from him noth­ing remains hidden.”

“How do you feel with these hornets?” I enquired.

“So long as these hornets sting me and the worms devour me,” he answered, “I am happy.”

Once I heard that in Byzantium there was a monk who had been living for seventy years in a monastery in the state of celibacy.

“Amazing!” I exclaimed. “Forty years is the qualifi­cation for being a monk.”

So I set forth to call on him. When I came near he opened a little wicket.

“Ebrahim, why have you come?” he enquired. “I am not seated here as a celibate. I have a dog which falls upon people. Now I am seated here keeping watch over the dog and preventing it from doing mischief to peo­ple. But for that, I am not what you supposed.”

“O God,” I exclaimed on hearing this answer, “Thou art able to guide Thy servant aright even when he is in very error!”

“Ebrahim,” the monk said to me, “how long will you search for men? Search for yourself, and when you have found yourself, sit in watch over yourself. For every day this wayward desire puts on three hundred and sixty various guises of divinity and invites a man to error.”

al-Shebli

Abu Bakr Dolaf ibn Jahdar (Ja’far ibn Yunos) al- Shebli, of Khorasan by origin but born in Baghdad or Samarra, son of a court official and himself promoted in the imperial service, as Governor of Demavend was summoned to Baghdad to be invested and there experienced conversion. Joining the circle of al-Jonaid, he became a leading figure in the stormy history of al-Hallaj, notorious for his eccentric behaviour which led to his committal to an asylum. He died in 334 (846) at the age of 87.

The calling of Shebli

Abu Bakr-e Shebli was originally Governor of Demavend. A dispatch came to him from Baghdad, and he set out with the Governor of Rayy and a retinue to present himself before the caliph. Having been invested by the caliph with robes of honour, they returned homewards. By chance the Governor of Rayy suddenly sneezed. He wiped his mouth and nose in his robe of honour. This being reported to the caliph, he commanded that he should be stripped of his robe, soundly cuffed and dismissed from his office of gover­nor. This opened Shebli’s eyes.

“One who uses as a handkerchief a robe conferred by a mortal being,” he mused, “is accounted deserving to be deposed and slighted. He forfeits his robe of office. What then of him who uses as a handkerchief the robe conferred by the King of the world—what will be done to him?”

At once he went to the caliph.

“Prince,” he addressed the caliph, “you, a mortal being, do not approve that the robe conferred by you should be treated disrespectfully, and it is well known what your robe is worth. The King of the world has given me a robe of honour, even the love and knowl­edge of Him. How shall He ever approve my using it as a handkerchief in the service of a mortal?”

And he left the court and proceeded to the assembly of Khair-e Nassaj. There a miracle happened to him, and Khair sent him to Jonaid. So Shebli came before Jonaid.

“You are recommended as an expert on pearls,” he said. “Either give me one, or sell one to me.”

“If I sell you one, you will not have the price of it, and if I give you one, having so easily come by it you will not realize its value,” Jonaid replied. “Do like me; plunge head first into this Sea, and if you wait patient­ly you will obtain your pearl.”

“Now what shall I do?” asked Shebli.

“Go and sell sulphur for a year,” said Jonaid.

Shebli did so. When the year was up, Jonaid gave him new instructions.

“This work brings notoriety and commerce. Go and beg for a year, so that you be not busied with aught else.”

For a whole year Shebli wandered throughout Baghdad. No one gave him anything. He returned and reported to Jonaid.

“Now realize your own worth, for you count for nothing in the eyes of your fellows,” said Jonaid. “Fasten not your heart on them, neither have any regard of them. For some days you were a chamberlain and for some days you acted as governor. Now repair to your former province and seek quittance of the inhabitants there.”

Shebli returned to Demavend and went from house to house, till only one victim of oppression remained. That man he could not trace.

“With him in mind,” Shebli recalled, “I distributed a hundred thousand dirhams, but still my heart did not find rest.”

Four years went by in this way. Then he returned to Jonaid.

“Some fragment of pomp and pride still lingers in you,” said Jonaid. “Beg for another year.”

“Every day I went begging,” Shebli recalled. ‘I brought him all I got, and he would give it to the poor. At night he kept me hungry. When a year had gone by, he said to me, ‘Now I admit you to my companionship, but on one condition, that you shall be the servant of my companions.’ So for a year I served the compan­ions. Then Jonaid said to me, ‘Abu Bakr, what is your view of yourself now?’ ‘I regard myself as the least of God’s creatures,’ I replied. ‘Now,’ remarked Jonaid, ‘your faith is whole.”’

By then Shebli had progressed to the point that he would fill his sleeve with sugar, and every boy he saw he would put a piece in his mouth.

“Say Allah!” he would say.

After that he filled his sleeve with dirhams and dinars.

“Every one who says Allah once, I will fill his mouth with gold.”

Thereafter the spirit of jealousy stirred in him, and he unsheathed a sword.

“Every one who mentions the name of Allah, I will strike off his head with this sword,” he cried.

“Hitherto,” they said, “you used to give sugar and gold. Now you will strike off heads?”

“Then I supposed that they pronounced His name out of true experience and knowledge,” he explained.

“Now I realize that they speak it unheeding and mere­ly out of habit. I cannot permit Him to be name'1 by an impure tongue.”

After that on every place he could find he inscribed the name of God. Suddenly a voice addressed him.

“How long will you go about the name? If you are truly a seeker, stride forth on the quest of the Named!”

These words affected him deeply. Peace and compo­sure altogether deserted him. So powerful was the love possessing him, so completely was he overwhelmed by mystical tumult, that he went and flung himself into the Tigris. The river surged and cast him up on the bank. Then he hurled himself into the fire, but the flames affected him not. He sought a place where hungry lions were gathered and cast himself before them; the lions all fled away from him. He threw himself down from the summit of a mountain; the wind picked him up and deposited him on the ground. His disquiet increased a thousandfold.

“Woe to him,” he cried, “whom neither water nor fire will accept, neither the wild beasts nor the moun­tains!”

“He who is accepted of God,” came a voice, “is accepted of no other.”

Then they loaded him with chains and fetters and carried him to the asylum.

“This man is mad,” some shouted.

“In your eyes I am mad and you are sane,” he replied. “May God augment my madness and your sanity, that by reason of that madness I may be admit­ted nearer and nearer, and because of that sanity you may be driven farther and farther!”

The caliph sent one to care for him. The attendants came and by force thrust the medicine in his throat.

“Do not put yourself to such pains,” Shebli cried. “This sickness is not such as will yield to healing by medicine.”

Anecdotes of Shebli

When Shebli was confined in chains a group of his companions one day went to visit him.

“Who are you?” he cried.

“Your friends,” they told him.

He at once began to throw stones at them, and they all fled.

“Liars!” he shouted. “Do friends run away from their friend because of a few stones? This proves that you are friends of yourselves, not of me!”

Once Shebli was observed running with a burning coal in his hand.

“Where are you going?” they asked.

“I am running to set fire to the Kaaba,” he answered, “so that men may henceforward care only for the Lord of the Kaaba.”

On another occasion he was holding in his hand a piece of wood alight at both ends.

“What are you going to do?” he was asked.

“I am going to set Hell on fire with one end and Paradise with the other,” he replied, “so that men may concern themselves only with God.”

Shebli danced once for several days and nights beneath a certain tree crying, “Hoo, Hoo.”

“What is all this?” his friends demanded.

“This ringdove in yonder tree is saying Coo Coo,” he explained. “I am accompanying it with Hoo Hoo.”

It is said that the ringdove did not stop cooing until Shebli ceased hooing.

It is said that when Shebli first began his self-morti­fication, for many long years he used to rub salt in his eyes so that he should not sleep. It is stated that he put seven maunds of salt in his eyes in this way.

“Almighty God is watching me,” he would say. “The man who sleeps is heedless,” he added, “and the heedless man is veiled.”

One day Jonaid visited him to find him pulling up the skin of his eyebrows with tweezers.

“Why are you doing that?” he asked.

“Truth has become manifest, and I cannot endure it,” Shebli answered. “I am pricking myself that haply He may grant me one glance.”

Shebli had a grotto where he used to go, carrying with him a bundle of sticks. Any time his heart was invaded by inattention he would beat himself with those sticks. Once it happened that he had broken all the sticks, so he beat his hands and feet against the wall.

Overpowered by mystic ecstasy, Shebli began to preach, and proclaimed before the people the secret. Jonaid reproached him.

“We utter these words in grottos,” he said. “Now you have come and declare them in the market-place.”

“I am speaking and I am listening,” Shebli replied. “In both worlds who is there but I? Nay rather, these are words proceeding from God to God, and Shebli is not there at all.”

“If that is the case, you have dispensation,” Jonaid said.

One day Shebli was repeatedly uttering the word God, God. An earnest young disciple addressed him.

“Why do you not say, There is no god but God?” Shebli sighed.

“I am afraid,” he explained, “that if I say ‘no god’ my breath may be stopped before I reach ‘but God’ and I shall be utterly desolated.”

These words made such an impression on the youth that he trembled and expired. His friends came and haled Shebli to the caliph’s palace. He, being still in the throes of ecstasy, walked along like one drunk. They accused him of murder,

“Shebli, what do you say?” demanded the caliph.

“It was a soul wholly consumed by the flame of the fire of love, in eager expectancy of confronting the majesty of God,” Shebli replied. “It was a soul severed from all connections, passed away from all carnal cor­ruption. It was a soul come to the end of its tether that could endure no longer, visited successively inwardly by the importunate envoys of the Presence Divine. A lightning-flash of the beauty of the contemplation of this visitation leaped upon the very core of his soul. His soul bird-like flew out of the cage of the body. What was Shebli’s offence or crime in this?”

“Send Shebli home immediately,” ordered the caliph. “His words have produced such a state in me inward­ly that there is danger that I may fall from this throne!”

Once Shebli was in Baghdad. He said, “We require a thousand dirhams, to buy shoes for the poor and despatch them on the pilgrimage.”

A Christian jumped up and said, “I will give them, only on one condition, that you take me with you.”

“Young sir, you are not qualified for the pilgrimage,” said

“There is no mule in your caravan,” the youth replied. “Take me along as your mule.”

The dervishes set out, the Christian along with them loins girded to the trail.

“How are you faring, young man?” asked Shebli.

‘I am so happy at the thought of accompanying you that I cannot sleep,” he replied.

On the road the Christian took a brush and at every halting place he swept the floor for the pilgrims and plucked out the thorns. When the time came for putting on the white robes, he saw what the rest were doing and followed their example. At last the party arrived at the Kaaba.

“With your girdle I cannot let you enter the Holy House,” Shebli told the Christian.

“O God,” the Christian cried, laying his head on the threshold, “Shebli says he will not allow me into Thy House.”

“Shebli,” came a voice out of heaven, “We have brought him here from Baghdad. Kindling the fire of love in his heart, We have dragged him to Our House with the chains of loving kindness. Shebli, get out of the way! You, friend, come in!”

The Christian entered the Holy House and per­formed the visitation. The rest of the party then entered and in due course emerged, but the youth still did not come out.

“Young man, come out!” Shebli called.

“He will not let me out,” the youth replied. “Every time I make for the door of the House I find it shut. What will become of me?”

Once Jonaid and Shebli both fell sick. A Christian physician visited Shebli.

“What pains are you feeling?” he asked.

“None,” Shebli replied.

“What do you say?” the doctor repeated.

“I have no pain,” Shebli told him.

The physician then visited Jonaid.

“What pains do you have?” he enquired.

Jonaid described his symptoms in detail, enumerat­ing each pain in turn. The Christian treated him, and departed. Later the two friends came together.

“Why did you expose all your pains to a Christian?” Shebli asked.

“So that he might realize,” Jonaid answered, “if His friend is treated so, what He will do to His foe! And you,” he added, “why did you not describe your pains?”

‘I was ashamed,” Shebli replied, “to complain to an enemy of the Friend!”

One day as Shebli was going along he encountered two boys quarrelling over a walnut they had found. He took the walnut from them.

‘Be patient, till I divide it between you!” he told them.

When he broke it open, the nut proved to be empty. A voice proclaimed, “Go on, divide it, if you are the Divider!”

“All that quarrelling over an empty nut,” Shebli commented shamefaced. “And all that pretension to be a divider over nothing!”

The death of Shebli

When the hour of his death drew near, Shebli’s eyes were shrouded in darkness. He asked for ashes and sprinkled them over his head, and was possessed of an indescribable restlessness.

“Why all this agitation?” his friends asked him.

“My soul is filled with envy and jealousy of Iblis,” he answered. “Here I sit athirst, and He gives of His own to another. Upon thee shall rest My curse till the Day of Doom. I cannot bear to see that attribution of the Divine curse to Iblis. I wish it to be mine; for even though it is a curse, yet is it not His, and is it not of His attribution? What does that accursed one know of its worth? Why did He not vouchsafe to the princes of the Community to set their feet on the crown of the Throne? The jeweller knows the value of the jewel. If a king sets a glass bead or a crystal on his hand, it appears as a jewel; but if a greengrocer makes a seal­ring of a jewel and puts it on his finger, it appears as a bead of glass.”

Thereafter Shebli was composed for a while. Then his agitation returned.

“What is it?” they asked.

“Two winds are blowing,” he answered. “One is the wind of loving kindness, the other the wind of wrath. Upon whomsoever the wind of loving kindness blows, he attains his goal; upon whomsoever the wind of wrath blows, he is imprisoned in the veil. Upon whom shall that wind alight? If the wind of loving kindness is to light on me, in that fond hope I can endure all this hardship and suffering. If the wind of wrath is to light on me, this my present suffering shall be naught in comparison with what will then befalI me. Nothing,” he added, “weighs more heavily on my heart than the one dirham of oppression I have been guilty of, though I have given a thousand dirhams in expiation thereof. My heart will not rest. Give me the water of purifica­tion.”

They brought him water, but forgot to let it run through his beard till he reminded them.

All that night Shebli recited these verses.

Whatever house Thou tak’st for thine No lamp is needed there to shine.

Upon the day that men shall bring

Their proofs before the Judge and King, Our proof shall be, in that dread place, The longed-for beauty of Thy face.

A company then gathered around him to say the funeral prayers. His end was come, and he realized what was passing.

“How marvellous!” he exclaimed. “A throng of dead men are come to pray over one living.”

“Say, There is no god but God,” they said.

“Since there is no other than He,” he replied, “how can I utter a negative?”

“There is no help. Say the words of attestation,” they urged him.

“The King of Love says, I will not accept a bribe,” Shebli retorted.

Then one present raised his voice to prompt him.

“Here is a dead man come, to awaken the living!” Shebli exclaimed.

A little while passed. Then they said, “How are you?”

“I have rejoined the Beloved,” he answered. Then he expired.

Bibliography

R. A. Nicholson, The Tadhkirat’l-Awliya of Shaykh Faridu’d-din ‘Attar. 2 vols. (London, 1905-07). Critical edition of text with remarks on the lan­guage and conspectus of parallel passages in the Resala of Abo ‘l-Qasem al-Qoshairi. Preface on the biography of Attar by Mirza Mohammad Qazwini.

Sa’id Nafisi, Jostoju dar ahwal u athar-e Farid al-Din Attar-e Nishaburi (Tehran, 1320 [1942] ).

Scholarly examination of the biography and writ­ings of Attar.

H. Ritter. Das Meer der Seele (Leiden, I955). Contains much valuable information on the life and works of Attar. See also the same scholar’s arti­cles “Philologika X” in Der Islam, XXVI (1942), and in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (new edition), I, 752-55.

F. Rouhani, Le Livre divin (Paris, 1961). This trans­lation of the Elahi-nama of Attar contains in the preface a critical study of the life and works of the poet.

Badi’ al-Zaman Foruzanfar, Sharh-i ahwal o naqd o tahlil-e athar-e Farid al-Din Mohammad-e ‘Attar-e Nishaburi (Tehran, I340 [I962)]). Erudite study of the life and works of Attar.

C. A. Storey, Persian Literature (London, I953). A very valuable bibliography, listing the manuscripts of the text, editions, translations and studies.

Other books helpful to the study of the text and to the persons mentioned in it are listed above under the several entries. The relevant entries on Attar in the standard histories of Persian literature should also be consulted.