سلسلہ عالیہ نقشبندیہ سرداریہ

Aulia Allah

The friends of allah (Aulia allah)

The Story Of Aulia Allah

Wali, plural awliya, is an arabic word meaning friend. Awliya Allah, therefore, means Friends of Allah (swt).

Reference to the Friends of Allah (swt) is found in the Quran, Hadith Qudsi & Narrations of our Holy Prophet (saw).

We would, firstly, like to bring you to the attention of the following authentic hadith which has been narrated in Abu Daud that Our Holy Prophet (saw) said:

‘O people! Listen, understand and know it well. Allah has servants who are neither Prophets nor martyrs and whom the Prophets and martyrs yearn to be like, due to their seat and proximity in relation to Allah....

Our Holy Prophet (saw) then described these people and then read the following Ayah in which Allah (swt) says in the Qur'an:
 

"Behold! Verily on the Friends of Allah there is no fear nor shall they grieve"
Quran (Surah10: Verse 62)

Abu Huraira (r.a) also reports a Hadith Qudsi in which our Holy Prophet (saw) informs us that Allah (swt) said:

'Whosoever acts with enmity towards a Friend of Mine, I will indeed declare war against him"
[Hadith Qudsi: Bukhari]

We can therefore clearly conclude that the Friends of Allah (swt) are envied by, but are neither, Prophets or martyrs, who have no fear or grief and are loved & protected by Allah (swt).

In the sub menus to this topic we aim to describe their characteristics & purpose and provide you with enough information for you to be able to recognise a Friend of Allah (swt), visit him with correct discipline & understand some of the countless blessings entrusted to them.

Who knows, maybe one day, InshAllah, you too will have a desire to strive and become a Friend of Allah (swt)

Auliya Allah - Friends of Allah (Azzo Jal)

Ghaus Al-Azam Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani (R.A.)

Through the mists of legend surrounding the life of Shaikh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, it is possible to discern the outlines of the following biographical sketch:

In A.H. 488, at the age of eighteen, he left his native province to become a student in the great capital city of Baghdaad, the hub of political, commercial and cultural activity, and the center of religious learning in the world of Islaam.  After studying traditional sciences under such teachers as the prominent Hanbalii jurist [faqiih], Abuu Sa'd 'Alii al-Mukharrimii, he encountered a more spiritually oriented instructor in the saintly person of Abu'l-Khair Hammaad ad-Dabbaas.

Then, instead of embarking on his own professorial career, he abandoned the city and spent twenty-five years as a wanderer in the desert regions of 'Iraaq.  He was over fifty years old by the time he returned to Baghdaad, in A.H. 521/1127 C.E., and began to preach in public.  His hearers were profoundly affected by the style and content of his lectures, and his reputation grew and spread through all sections of society.  He moved into the school [madrasa] belonging to his old teacher al-Mukharrimii, but the premises eventually proved inadequate.

In A.H. 528, pious donations were applied to the construction of a residence and guesthouse [ribaat], capable of housing the Shaikh and his large family, as well as providing accommodation for his pupils and space for those who came from far and wide to attend his regular sessions [majaalis]. 

He lived to a ripe old age, and continued his work until his very last breath, as we know from the accounts of his final moments recorded in the Addendum to Revelations of the Unseen.

In the words of Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak Efendi:  "The venerable 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani passed on to the Realm of Divine Beauty in A.H. 561/1166 C.E., and his blessed mausoleum in Baghdaad is still a place of pious visitation.  He is noted for his extraordinary spiritual experiences and exploits, as well as his memorable sayings and wise teachings.  It is rightly said of him that 'he was born in love, grew in perfection, and met his Lord in the perfection of love.'  May the All-Glorious Lord bring us in contact with his lofty spiritual influence!"

Hadhrat Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Abdullah ibn al-Mobarak al-Hanzali al-Marwazi, born in 118 (736) of a Turkish father and a Persian mother, was a noted authority on Traditions and a famous ascetic. He studied under many teachers in Merv and elsewhere, and became erudite in many branches of learning, including grammar and literature. A wealthy merchant who distributed much in alms to the poor, he died at Hit on the Euphrates in 181 (797). He composed many works on Traditions, and one of these, on the theme of asceticism, has survived.

The conversion of Abdullah-e Mobarak

The circumstances of Abdullah-e Mobarak’s conversion were as follows. He became infatuated with a girl, so much so that he could not rest. One night during the winter he stood beneath

the wall of his beloved’s apartment until morning, waiting to catch a glimpse of her. All night it snowed. When the call to prayer sounded, he supposed that it was for the prayer before sleeping. Seeing the daybreak, he realized that he had been absorbed all night in his longing for his beloved.

“Shame on you, son of Mobarak!” he cried. “On such a blessed night you stood on your feet till morning because of your private passion, yet if the imam is over long in reciting a Sura during prayer you are quite frantic.”

Anguish gripped his heart forthwith, and he repented and devoted himself busily to worship. So complete was his devotion, that one day his mother, entering the garden, saw him sleeping under a rosebush whilst a snake with a narcissus in its mouth was driving flies away from him.

After that he set forth from Merv and stayed for a time in Baghdad, associating with the Sufi masters there. Then he proceeded to Makkah where he resided for a space, after which he returned to Merv. The people of Merv welcomed him back warmly, and set up classes and study-groups. At that time half of the people were followers of Traditions and half devoted themselves to jurisprudence. So today Abdullah is known as “the Approved of the Two Sects” because he was in accord with each, and both claimed him as their own. Abdullah founded two colleges in Merv, one for traditionists and the other for jurisprudents. He then left for Hejaz, and took up residence in Makkah again.

In alternate years he would perform the pilgrimage, and go out to the wars, and a third year he would engage in commerce. The profits of his trading he divided among his followers. He used to give dates to the poor, and count the date-stones; whoever ate more dates, he would offer a dirham for every stone.

So scrupulous was he in his piety, that on one occasion he had alighted at an inn. Now he had a valuable horse; he proceeded to prayer. Meanwhile his horse wandered into a field of wheat. He abandoned his horse there and proceeded on foot, saying, “He has devoured the crop of the authorities.” On another occasion he made the journey all the way from Merv to

Damascus to return a pen which he had borrowed and forgotten to give back.

One day as he was passing through a certain place they informed a blind man living there that Abdullah was coming. “Ask of him all that you require.”

“Stop, Abdullah,” the blind man called. Abdullah halted.

“Pray to God to restore my sight,” the man begged.

Abdullah lowered his head and prayed. At once the man saw again.

Abdullah-e Mobarak and Ali ibn al-Mowaffaq

Abdullah was living at Makkah. One year, having completed the rites of the pilgrimage, he fell asleep. In a dream he saw two angels descend from heaven.

“How many have come this year?” one asked the other.

“Six hundred thousand,” the other replied.

“How many have had their pilgrimage accepted?”

“Not one.”

“When I heard this,” Abdullah reports, “I was filled with trembling. ‘What?’ I cried. ‘All these people have come from afar out of the distant ends of the earth and with great pain and weariness from every deep ravine, traversing wide deserts, and all their labour is in vain?’ ‘There is a cobbler in Damascus called Ali ibn Mowaffaq,’ said the angel. ‘He has not come on the pilgrimage , but his pilgrimage is accepted and all his sins have been forgiven.’

“When I heard this,” Abdullah continued, “I awoke saying, ‘I must go to Damascus and visit that person.’ So I went to Damascus and looked for where he lived. I shouted, and someone came out. ‘What is your name?’ I asked. ‘Ali ibn Mowaffaq,’ he replied. ‘I wish to speak with you,’ I said. ‘Say on,’ he replied. ‘What work do you do?’ ‘I cobble.’ I then told him of my dream. ‘What is your name?’ he enquired when I had done. ‘Abdullah-e Mobarak,’ I replied. He uttered a cry and fell in a faint. When he recovered I said to him, ‘Tell me your story.’

“The man told me, ‘For thirty years now I have longed to make the pilgrimage. I had saved up three hundred and fifty dirhams from my cobbling. This year I had resolved to go to Makkah. One day the good lady within becoming pregnant, she smelt the smell of food coming from next door. “Go and fetch me a bit of that food,” she begged me. I went and knocked on the neighbour’s door and explained the situation. My neighbour burst into tears. “My children have eaten nothing for three days together,” she said. “Today I saw a donkey lying dead, so I hacked off a piece and cooked it. It would not be lawful food for you.” My heart burned within me when I heard her tale. I took out the three hundred and fifty dirhams and gave them to her. “Spend these on the children,” I said. “This is my pilgrimage.” ‘

“The angel spoke truly in my dream,” Abdullah declared, “and the Heavenly King was true in His judgment.”

Abdullah-e Mobarak and his slave

Abdullah had a slave. A man told him, “That slave of yours plunders the dead and gives you the proceeds.”

This information distressed Abdullah. One night he followed on his slave’s heels. He went to a cemetery and opened a grave. In the grave was a prayer-niche, where the slave stood at prayer. Abdullah, who had watched all this from a distance, crept nearer. He saw that the slave was clothed in sackcloth and had put a collar round his neck. Rubbing his face in the earth, he was wailing. Observing this, Abdullah crept away weeping and sat apart in a corner.

The slave remained in that place until dawn. Then he came up and covered over the grave, and proceeded to the mosque and said his morning prayers.

“My God,” he cried, “day has returned. My temporal lord will ask me for money. Thou art the riches of the bankrupt. Give Thou to me from whence Thou knowest.”

Immediately a light shone out of the sky, and a silver dirham dropped into the slave’s hand. Abdullah could not bear to watch any more. He rose up and took the head of the slave into his bosom and kissed him.

“A thousand lives be the ransom of such a slave!” he exclaimed. “You were the master, not I.”

“O God,” cried the slave, perceiving what had happened, “now that my veil has been stripped away and my secret is revealed, no more repose remains for me in this world. I implore Thee by Thy might and glory, suffer me not to be a cause of stumbling. Take away my soul.”

His head was still lying in Abdullah’s bosom when he expired. Abdullah laid him out and wrapped him in a winding-sheet, then he buried him in that same sackcloth in the selfsame grave.

That night Abdullah saw the Master of the World in a dream, and the Friend of God Abraham with him, each come down riding a heavenly horse.

“Abdullah,” they said, “why did you bury our friend in sackcloth?”

Hadhrat Abu Sa'id al-Kharraz
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Sa‘id Ahmad ibn ‘Isa al-Kharraz of Baghdad, a cobbler by trade, met Dho ‘l-Nun al-Misri 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 Misri 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 Umar. 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.

Hadhrat Abu Hafs al-Haddad
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Hafs ‘Amr ibn Salama al-Haddad, a blacksmith of Nishapur, visited Baghdad and met al-Junaid who admired his devotion; he also encountered al-Shibli 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 Junaid

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 Shaykh of Shaykhs of Khorasan should require an interpreter to understand their language.”

Junaid 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 Junaid, “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 Junaid.

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

“Rise up, our companions,” Junaid commanded when he heard this reply. “Abu Hafs exceeds in self-sacrifice 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,” Junaid 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.”

Junaid 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. Junaid 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,” Junaid 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 Makkah 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 Junaid’s companions went out to welcome him.

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

“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.’ “

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

Abu Hafs and Shibli

Shibli 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, “Shibli, when you come to Nishapur I will teach you true entertainment and generosity.”

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

“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 Shibli 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 Shibli.

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

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

“Shaykh, 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.”

Hadhrat Abu Abdullah ibn Khafif
rahmatullah alayhi

One of the great saints of Persia, Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad 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 Makkah 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 Junaid. 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 Abdullah 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.

“Abdullah,” 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. Junaid 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 Makkah. 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 Shaykh 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-disci-pline.”

Anecdotes of Ibn Khafif

Ibn Khafif had two disciples, one called Ahmad the Older and the other Ahmad the Younger. The Shaykh favoured Ahmad the Younger the more. His companions were jealous, arguing that Ahmad the Older had performed many tasks and endured much discipline. The Shaykh, 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 Shaykh 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 Shaykh 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.

Hadhrat Abu Bakr al-Kattani
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Bakr Mohammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Ja’far al-Kattani, a native of Baghdad, belonged to the circle of al-Junaid. He proceeded to Makkah 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 Makkah up to the day of his death. He used to pray all the night through and chant the entire Quran; 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 Umar. ‘Umar,’ I said. Then he pointed to Uthman. ‘Uthman,’ 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 Abdullah 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 Khizr.”

“Till then,” Khizr 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.

Hadhrat Abu Bakr al-Shibli
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Bakr Dolaf ibn Jahdar (Ja’far ibn Yunos) al-Shibli, 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-Junaid, 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 Shibli

Abu Bakr-e Shibli 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 Shibli’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 Junaid. So Shibli came before Junaid.

“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,” Junaid 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 Shibli.

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

Shibli did so. When the year was up, Junaid 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 Shibli wandered throughout Baghdad. No one gave him anything. He returned and reported to Junaid.

“Now realize your own worth, for you count for nothing in the eyes of your fellows,” said Junaid. “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.”

Shibli 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,” Shibli 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 Junaid.

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

“Every day I went begging,” Shibli 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 Junaid 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 Junaid, ‘your faith is whole.”’

By then Shibli 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,” Shibli cried. “This sickness is not such as will yield to healing by medicine.”

Anecdotes of Shibli

When Shibli 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 Shibli 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.”

Shibli 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 Shibli ceased hooing.

It is said that when Shibli first began his self-morti-fication, 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 Junaid 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,” Shibli answered. “I am pricking myself that haply He may grant me one glance.”

Shibli 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, Shibli began to preach, and proclaimed before the people the secret. Junaid 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,” Shibli replied. “In both worlds who is there but I? Nay rather, these are words proceeding from God to God, and Shibli is not there at all.”

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

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

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

Shibli 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 Shibli to the caliph’s palace. He, being still in the throes of ecstasy, walked along like one drunk. They accused him of murder,

“Shibli, 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,” Shibli 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 Shibli’s offence or crime in this?”

“Send Shibli 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 Shibli 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 Shibli.

‘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,” Shibli told the Christian.

“O God,” the Christian cried, laying his head on the threshold, “Shibli says he will not allow me into Thy House.”

“Shibli,” 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. Shibli, 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!” Shibli 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 Junaid and Shibli both fell sick. A Christian physician visited Shibli.

“What pains are you feeling?” he asked.

“None,” Shibli replied.

“What do you say?” the doctor repeated.

“I have no pain,” Shibli told him.

The physician then visited Junaid.

“What pains do you have?” he enquired.

Junaid 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?” Shibli asked.

“So that he might realize,” Junaid 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,” Shibli replied, “to complain to an enemy of the Friend!”

One day as Shibli 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,” Shibli commented shamefaced. “And all that pretension to be a divider over nothing!”

The death of Shibli

When the hour of his death drew near, Shibli’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 seal-ring of a jewel and puts it on his finger, it appears as a bead of glass.”

Thereafter Shibli 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 Shibli 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,” Shibli retorted.

Then one present raised his voice to prompt him.

“Here is a dead man come, to awaken the living!” Shibli exclaimed.

A little while passed. Then they said, “How are you?”

“I have rejoined the Beloved,” he answered. Then he expired

Hadhrat Ahmad ibn Harb
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Hamid Ahmad ibn Khazruya al-Balkhi, a prominent citizen of Balkh married to the pious daughter of the governor of that city, associated with Hatem al-Asamm and Baayazeed al-Bistaami. He visited Nishapur, and died in 240 (864) at the age of 95.

Ahmad-e Khazruya and his wife

Ahmad-e Khazruya had a thousand disciples, every one of whom walked on the water and flew in the air. Ahmad dressed himself in soldier’s uniform. Fatema, his wife, was a portent in the Sufi way. She was a daughter of the Prince of Balkh. Having repented, she sent a messenger to Ahmad.

“Ask my hand from my father.”

Ahmad did not respond. So she sent a second envoy.

“Ahmad, I thought you were manlier than this. Be a guide, not a highwayman!”

Ahmad then sent an emissary to ask her father for her hand. Her father, seeking God’s blessing thereby, gave her to Ahmad. Fatema bade farewell to worldly concerns and found repose dwelling in solitude with Ahmad.

So matters continued, until one day Ahmad resolved to visit Baayazeed. Fatema accompanied him, and when they entered Baayazeed’s presence she lifted her veil from her face and engaged Baayazeed in conversation. Ahmad was dismayed by this, jealousy overmastering his heart.

“Fatema, what boldness was this you showed with Baayazeed?” he cried.

“You are intimate with my natural self. Baayazeed is intimate with my spiritual way. You rouse my passion, but he brings me to God,” Fatema replied. “The proof of this is that he can dispense with my company, whereas you need me.”

Baayazeed was bold with Fatema, until one day his eyes fell upon her hands and he noticed that they were stained with henna.

“Fatema, why have you put on henna?” he asked.

“Baayazeed, until now you have never looked at my hands and noticed the henna,” Fatema replied. “Hitherto I have been at ease with you. Now that your eyes have fallen on my hands, it is unlawful for me to keep your company.”

“I have petitioned God,” said Baayazeed, “to make women in my eyes no more noticeable than a wall, and so He has made them in my sight.”

After that Ahmad and Fatema proceeded to Nishapur, where they were warmly received. When Yahya-e Mo’adh-e Razi passed through Nishapur on his way to Balkh, Ahmad wished to arrange a party for him. He consulted Fatema.

“What do we need for a party for Yahya?” he asked her.

“So many oxen and sheep,” she told him. “Accessories too—so many candles and so much attar of roses. Besides all this, we need several asses.”

“Why, what is the reason for killing asses?” asked Ahmad.

“When a nobleman comes to dine,” explained Fatema, “the dogs of the quarter must get a share of the feast.”

Such was the spirit of true chivalry that imbued Fatema that Baayazeed declared, “If any man desires to see a true man hidden in women’s clothes, let him look at Fatema.”

Ahmad-e Khazruya wrestles with his soul

Ahmad-e Khazruya related the following.

For a long time I had repressed my carnal soul. Then one day a party set out for the wars, and a great desire to accompany them arose within me. My soul reminded me of a number of Traditions concerning the rewards in Heaven for fighting in the cause of God. I was amazed.

“My soul is not always so eager to obey,” I said. “Perhaps this is because I always keep my soul fasting. My soul cannot endure hunger any longer, and wishes to break its fast.” So I said, “I do not break the fast on a journey.”

“I quite agree,” replied my soul.

“Perhaps my soul says that because I command it to pray by night. It wishes to go on this journey so as to sleep at night and find rest.” So I said, “I will keep you awake till dawn.”

“I quite agree,” said my soul.

I was still more amazed. Then I reflected that perhaps my soul said that because it wanted to mix with people, being weary of solitude and hoping to find solace in company. So I said, “Wherever I carry you, I will put you down in a place apart and will not sit with other men.”

“I quite agree,” my soul repeated.

Reduced to impotence, I had resort to humble petition to God, praying that He might disclose to me the cunning machinations of my soul, or make my soul confess. Then my soul spoke.

“Every day you slay me a hundred times by opposing my desires, and other men are not aware. There at least in the wars I shall be killed once and for all and get deliverance, and the report will be noised through all the world, ‘Bravo, Ahmad-e Khazruya! They killed him, and he achieved the martyr’s crown.’”

“Glory be to Him,” I cried, “who created a soul to be a hypocrite while alive, and a hypocrite still after death. It will never be a true Muslim, either in this world or the next. I thought that you were seeking to obey God. I did not realize that you were tying the girdle.”

Thereafter I redoubled my struggle against my soul.

Anecdotes of Ahmad-e Khazruya

A thief broke into Ahmad-e Khazruya’s house. He searched everywhere but could not find anything. He was about to leave disappointed when Ahmad called out to him.

“Young fellow, take the bucket and draw water from the well and purify yourself, then attend to your prayers. When something comes I will give it to you, so that you shall not leave my house empty-handed.”

The youth did as Ahmad bade him. When daylight returned, a gentleman brought a hundred dinars and gave them to the shaikh.

“Take this as a reward for your night of prayer,” he said to the thief.

The thief suddenly trembled all over. He burst into tears.

“I had mistaken the road,” he cried. “I worked for God just one night, and He has favoured me so.”

Repenting, he returned to God. He refused to take the gold, and became one of Ahmad’s disciples.

On one occasion Ahmad came to a Sufi hospice wearing ragged clothes. In Sufi fashion he devoted himself wholly to spiritual tasks. The brethren of that hospice inwardly doubted his sincerity.

“He does not belong to this hospice,” they whispered to their shaikh.

Then one day Ahmad went to the well and his bucket fell in. The other Sufis upbraided him. Ahmad came to the Superior.

“Recite the Fateba, that the bucket may come up from the well,” he begged.

“What kind of demand is this?” said the astounded shaikh.

“If you will not recite it,” said Ahmad, “then give me permission to do so.”

The shaikh gave him leave, and Ahmad recited the Fateba. The bucket immediately rose to the surface. When the Superior saw this, he put his cap off his head.

“Young man, who are you, that my threshing-floor is but chaff in comparison with your grain?” he asked.

“Tell your companions,” answered Ahmad, “to look on travellers with less disrespect.”

Once a man came to Ahmad-e Khazruya and said, “I am sick and poor. Teach me a way whereby I may be delivered out of this trial.”

“Write the name of each trade there is on a piece of paper,” replied Ahmad. “Put the papers in a pouch, and bring them to me.”

The man wrote down all the trades and brought the papers to Ahmad. Ahmad thrust his hand in the pouch and drew out one paper. The name “thief” was written on it.

“You must become a thief,” he told the man.

The man was astounded. For all that he rose up and betook himself to a gang of highway robbers.

“I have a fancy for this job,” he told them. “How do I do it?”

“There is one rule governing this work,” they told him. “Whatever we order you to do, you must do it.”

“I will do exactly as you order,” he assured the thieves.

He was with them for a number of days. Then one day a caravan arrived. The thieves waylaid the caravan, and brought to their new colleague one of the travellers who was a man of great wealth.

“Cut his throat,” they told him.

The man hesitated.

“This prince of the thieves has killed so many people. It is better,” he said to himself, “that I should slay him rather than this merchant.”

“If you have come to do a job, you must do as we order,” said the head of the gang. “Otherwise, go and find other work.”

“If I must carry out orders,” said the man, “I will carry out God’s orders, not this thief’s.”

Drawing his sword, he let the merchant go and struck off the head of the prince of the thieves. Seeing this, the other bandits fled. The goods remained intact, and the merchant escaped with his life. He gave the man much gold and silver, so that he became independent.

Once a dervish was received by Ahmad in hospitality. Ahmad lit seventy candles.

“This is not pleasing to me,” said the dervish. “Making a fuss bears no relation to Sufism.”

“Go then,” said Ahmad, “and extinguish every candle I have not lit for the sake of God.”

All that night the dervish was pouring water and earth, but could not extinguish even one of the candles.

“Why so surprised?” Ahmad addressed the dervish next morning. “Come with me, and you will see things really to wonder at.”

They went off and came to the door of a church. When the Christian deacons saw Ahmad and his companions, the archdeacon invited them to enter. He laid a table and bade Ahmad to eat.

“Friends do not eat with foes,” Ahmad observed.

“Offer us Islam,” said the archdeacon.

So Ahmad offered them Islam, and seventy of his retinue accepted conversion. That night Ahmad had a dream in which God spoke to him.

“Ahmad, you lit seventy candles for Me. I have lit for you seventy hearts with the light of the Faith.”

Hadhrat Amr ibn Uthman
rahmatullah alayhi
 

Hadhrat Baayazeed Bistaami
rahmatullah alayhi 

Hadhrat Beshr ibn al-Hareth
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Nasr Beshr ibn al-Hareth al-Hafi was born near Merv c. 150(767) and was converted from a life of dissipation, studied Traditions in Baghdad, then abandoned formal learning for the life of a mendicant, destitute, starving and barefoot. He died in Baghdad in 227 (841). He was admired by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and respected by the caliph al-Ma’mun.

The conversion of Beshr the Barefoot

Beshr the Barefoot was born in Merv and settled at Baghdad. The beginning of his conversion happened as follows. He had lived a life of dissipation, and one day as he was staggering along the road drunk he found a piece of paper on which was written, “In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” He bought some attar of roses and perfumed the paper with it, and deposited it reverently in his house. That night a certain holy man had a dream in which he was bidden to tell Beshr:

“Thou hast perfumed my Name, so I have perfumed thee. Thou hast exalted my Name, so I have exalted thee. Thou hast purified my Name, so I have purified thee. By my Majesty, I will surely perfume thy name in this world and the world to come.”

“He is a dissolute fellow,” thought the saint. “Perhaps I am seeing erroneously.”

So he made ablution, prayed and returned to sleep. He saw the selfsame dream a second and a third time. In the morning he arose and went in search of Beshr.

“He is at a wine-party,” he was told.

He went to the house where Beshr was.

“Was Beshr here?” he enquired.

“He was,” they said. “But he is drunk and incapable.”

“Tell him I have a message for him,” said the saint.

“A message from whom?” demanded Beshr when he was told.

“A message from God,” replied the saint.

“Alas!” cried Beshr, bursting into tears. “Is it a message of chiding or of chastisement? Wait, till I tell my friends. Friends,” he addressed his drinking-com-panions, “I have had a call. I am going. I bid you farewell. You will never see me again at this business.”

And from that day onward he lived so saintly, that none heard his name mentioned without heavenly peace invaded his heart. He took to the way of self-denial, and so overwhelmed was he by the vision of God that he never put shoes on his feet. For that reason he was called Beshr the Barefoot.

“Why do you not wear shoes?” he was asked.

“I was barefooted the day when I made my peace with God,” he said, “and ever since I am ashamed to wear shoes. Moreover God Almighty says, ‘I have made the earth a carpet for you.’ It is not seemly to tread with shoes on the carpet of kings.”

Ahmad-e Hanbal visited Beshr frequently, having a complete faith in him to such a point that his pupils protested.

“Today you are without rival as a scholar of Traditions, the law, theology and every manner of science, yet every moment you go after a dissolute fellow. Is that seemly?”

“Indeed, in all the sciences you have enumerated I have better knowledge than he,” Ahmad-e Hanbal replied. “But he knows God better than I.”

So he would pursue Beshr, saying, “Tell me about my Lord.”

Anecdotes of Beshr

“Tonight Beshr will be your guest.”

This conviction entered Beshr’s sister’s mind. She swept and watered her house, and waited expectantly for Beshr to arrive. Suddenly Beshr came like one distraught.

“Sister, I am going up to the roof,” he announced.

He planted his foot on the stairs and climbed several steps, then remained standing like that till the next day. When dawn broke, he descended. He went off to pray in the mosque.

“What was the reason you stood all night?” asked his sister when he returned.

“The thought entered my mind,” Beshr replied, “that in Baghdad there are so many people whose names are Beshr— one a Jew, one a Christian, one a Magian. My name too is Beshr, and I have attained the great felicity of being a Muslim.

What, I asked myself, did the others do to be excluded, and what did I do to attain such felicity? Bewildered by this thought, I remained rooted to the spot.”

Beshr possessed seven bookcases of volumes on Traditions. He buried them all in the ground, and did not transmit them.

“The reason I do not transmit Traditions,” he explained, “is that I perceive in myself a lust to do so. If I perceive in my heart a lust to keep silence, then I will transmit.”

For a space of forty years Beshr longed for roast meat but had not the money to buy any. For many years his heart yearned for beans, but he ate none. He never drank water from streams dug out by the authorities.

One of the Saints relates, “I was with Beshr once when the weather was extremely cold. I saw him naked and trembling. ‘Abu Nasr’I said, ‘in such weather people put on extra clothing. You have taken off your clothes.’ ‘Yes,’ Beshr replied, ‘I remembered the poor. I had no money with which to succour them, so I wanted to share with them physically.’”

Ahmad ibn Ibrahim tells the following story.

“Tell Ma’ruf,” Beshr said to me, “that I will call on him after I have said my prayer.”

I delivered the message, and we waited together. We performed the midday prayer, and Beshr did not come. We performed the afternoon prayer, and he did not come. We performed the prayer before sleeping.

“Glory be to God,” I said to myself, “does a man like Beshr break his word? This is extraordinary.”

I kept on the lookout, we being at the door of the mosque. Presently Beshr came along with his prayer rug under his arm. When he reached the Tigris he walked on the water and so came to us. He and Ma’ruf talked till dawn, then he returned walking on the water again. Flinging myself down from the roof, I hurried to him and kissed his hands and feet.

“Pray for me,” I implored him.

Beshr prayed. Then he said, “Reveal what you have seen to no man.”

So long as he was alive, I told no one.

A crowd was gathered around Beshr, and he was preaching on the theme of satisfaction. One of those present interrupted him.

“Abu Nasr, you accept nothing from any creature in order to attain prominence. If you are sincere in your self-denial and have truly turned your face from this world, then take offerings from other men so that you may lose your prominence in people’s eyes. Give to the poor what you receive, but give in secret; then be unwavering in trusting in God, and obtain your provision from the world unseen.”

These words made a powerful impression on Beshr’s followers. Beshr answered as follows.

“Attend now! The poor are divided into three classes. One class consists of those who never ask for anything, and if they are given anything they yet decline to accept it. These people are the spiritualists; for when they ask aught from God, God gives them whatever they desire, and if they adjure God their need is at once granted. The second class are those who do not ask, but if they are given anything they accept it. These are the middling folk; they are constant in their trust in God, and they are those who shall sit at the table of Paradise. The third class are those who sit with patience; as far as they can they observe their moment, and repel outward enticements.”

“I am satisfied with this statement,” the interrupter said. “May God be satisfied with you!”

A throng of people came to Beshr.

“We have come from Syria, and are going on the pilgrimage,” they said. “Do you feel inclined to accompany us?”

“On three conditions,” Beshr replied. “First, we will take nothing with us; second, we will not ask for anything; third, if we are given anything we will not accept it.”

“Not to ask for anything and not to take anything with us— that we are able to concede,” they answered. “But if an offering comes along, we cannot not take it.”

“You have put your faith not in God,” Beshr rebuked them, “but in your pilgrims’ provisions.”

A man once came to consult Beshr’s advice.

“I have two thousand dirhams lawfully acquired. I wish to go on the pilgrimage.”

“You want to walk for your own amusement,” Beshr replied. “If you are really intent on pleasing God, then go and pay someone’s debt, or give the money to an orphan, or someone in poor circumstances. The ease thus given to a Muslim’s heart is more acceptable to God than a hundred pilgrimages.”

“I put prior the desire to make the pilgrimage,” the man said.

“That is because you have obtained these moneys by means that are not good,” Beshr commented. “You will never find rest until you have spent them in improper ways.”

Beshr related as follows.

Once I saw the Prophet in a dream. He said to me, “Beshr, do you not know why God has chosen you from amongst your contemporaries and has raised you up to high rank?”

“No, Messenger of God,” I replied.

“It is because you have followed my Sunna, and reverenced the righteous, and given good counsel to your brethren, and loved me and the people of my household,” the Prophet told me. “For this reason God has advanced you to the station of the pious.”

Beshr also told the following story.

One night I saw Ali in a dream. I said, “Give me counsel.”

“How good a thing,” said Ali, “is the compassion shown by the rich to the poor for the sake of seeking the reward of the All-merciful. Better still is the disdain shown by the poor towards the rich relying upon the munificence of the Creator of the world.”

Beshr lay on his deathbed. A man entered and complained of the tight-fistedness of fate. Beshr gave him his shirt and put on a borrowed shirt, and in that shirt set out into the world beyond.

It is recorded that so long as Beshr was alive, no mule dropped its dung in the streets of Baghdad out of reverence for him, because he walked barefooted. One night a man with a mule observed his beast drop its dung in the road.

“Ah, Beshr the Barefoot is no more,” he exclaimed.

Enquiry was made, and so it proved. The man was asked how he knew.

“Because so long as he was alive, on all the streets of Baghdad no mule-dung was to be seen. I observed that the rule had been broken, and so knew that Beshr was no more.” 

Hadhrat Dawud al-Ta'i
rahmatullah alayhi

Hadhrat Fozail Ibn Iyaz
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu ‘Ali al-Fozail ibn ‘Iyaz al-Talaqani was born in Khorasan, and in the beginning of his career he is said to have been a highwayman. After conversion he went to Kufa and later to Makkah, where he resided for many years and died in 187 (803). He achieved considerable repute as an authority on Traditions, and his boldness in preaching before Harun al-Rashid is widely reported.

Fozail the highwayman and how he repented

At the beginning of his career, Fozail-e Iyaz pitched his tent in the heart of the desert between Merv and Bavard. He wore sackcloth and a woollen cap, and hung a rosary around his neck. He had many companions who were all of them thieves and highwaymen. Night and day they robbed and pillaged, and always brought the proceeds to Fozail since he was the senior’ of them. He would divide the loot among the bandits, keeping for himself what he fancied. He kept an inventory of everything, and never absented himself from the meetings of the gang. Any apprentice who failed to attend a meeting he expelled from the gang.

One day a great caravan was passing that way, and Fozail’s confederates were on the alert for it. A certain man was’ travelling in the convoy who had heard rumour of the brigands. Sighting them, he took counsel with himself how he might conceal his bag of gold.

“I will hide this bag,” he said to himself. “Then if they waylay the caravan, I will have this capital to fall back on.”

Going aside from the road, he saw Fozail’s tent and Fozail himself close by it, an ascetic by his looks and the clothes he wore. So he entrusted the bag of gold to him.

“Go and put it in the corner of the tent,” Fozail told him.

The man did as he was bidden, and returned to the caravan halt, to find that it had been pillaged. All the luggage had been carried out, and the travellers bound hand and foot. The man released them, and collecting the little that remained they took their departure. The man returned to Fozail to recover his bag of gold. He saw him squatting with the robbers, as they divided up the spoil.

“Ah, I gave my bag of gold to a thief!” the man exclaimed.

Seeing him afar off, Fozail hailed the man, who came to him.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Take it from where you deposited it,” Fozail bade him. “Then go.”

The man ran into the tent, picked up his bag, and departed.

“Why,” cried Fozail’s companions, “in the whole caravan we did not find so much as one dirham in cash, and you give back ten thousand dirhams!”

“The man had a good opinion of me, and I have always had a good opinion of God, that He will grant me repentance,” Fozail replied. “I justified his good opinion, so that God may justify my good opinion.”

One day later they waylaid another caravan and carried off the baggage. As they sat eating, a traveller from the caravan approached them.

“Who is your chief?” he asked.

“He is not with us,” the brigands replied. “He is the other side of the tree by the river bank, praying.”

“But it is not the hour of prayer,” the man exclaimed.

“He is performing a work of supererogation,” one of the thieves explained.

“And he is not eating with you,” the man went on.

“He is fasting,” the thief replied.

“But it is not Ramazan.”

“Supererogation again,” the thief retorted.

Greatly astonished, the traveller drew near Fozail who was praying with great humility. He waited until he had finished, then he remarked.

“Opposites do not mingle, they say. How can one fast and rob, pray and at the same time murder Muslims?”

“Do you know the Quran?” Fozail asked the man. “I know it,” the man replied. “Well then, does not Almighty God say And others have confessed their sins; they have mixed a righteous deed with another evil?”

The man was speechless with astonishment.

It is said that by nature he was chivalrous and high-minded, so that if a woman was travelling in a caravan he never took her goods; in the same way, he would not pillage the property of anyone with slender capital. He always left each victim with a due proportion of his belongings. All his inclination was towards right doing.

At the beginning of his exploits Fozail was passionately in love with a certain woman, and he always brought her the proceeds of his brigandage. In season and out of season he climbed walls in the infatuation of his passion for the woman, weeping all the while.

One night a caravan was passing, and in the midst of the caravan a man was recitting the Quran. The following verse reached Fozail’s ears: Is it not time that the hearts of those who believe should be humbled to the remembrance of God? It was as though an arrow pierced his soul, as though that verse had come out to challenge Fozail and say, “O Fozail, how long will you waylay travellers? The time has come when We shall waylay you!”

Fozail fell from the wall, crying, “It is high time indeed, and past high time!”

Bewildered and shamefaced, he fled headlong to a ruin. There a party of travellers was encamped. They said, “Let us go!” One of them interjected, “We cannot go. Fozail is on the road.”

“Good tidings!” Fozail cried. “He has repented.”

With that he set out and all day went on his way weeping, satisfying his adversaries. Finally there remained only a Jew in Bavard. He sought quittance of him, but the Jew would not be reconciled.

“Today we can make light of these Muhammadans,” he chuckled to his fellows.

“If you want me to grant you quittance,” he told Fozail, “clear this heap.”

He pointed to a mound of sand, to remove which would tax all the strength of a man except perhaps over a long period. The hapless Fozail shovelled away the sand little by little, but how should the task ever be completed? Then one morning, when Fozail was utterly exhausted, a wind sprang up and blew the heap clean away. When the Jew saw what had happened he was amazed.

“I have sworn,” he told Fozail, “that until you give me money I will not grant you quittance. Now put your hand under this rug and take up a fistful of gold and give it to me. My oath will then be fulfilled, and I will give you quittance.”

Fozail entered the Jew’s house. Now the Jew had put some earth under the rug. Fozail thrust his hand under, and brought forth a fistful of dinars which he gave to the Jew.

“Offer me Islam!” cried the latter.

Fozail offered him Islam, and the Jew became a Muslim.

“Do you know why I have become a Muslim?” he then said. “It is because until today I was not certain which was the true religion. Today it has become clear to me that Islam is the true 3 religion; for I have read in the Torah that if any man repents sincerely and then places his hand on earth, the earth turns to gold. I had put earth under the rug to prove you. When you laid your hand on the earth and it turned to gold, I knew for sure that your repentance was a reality and that your religion is true.”

“For God’s sake,” Fozail begged a man, “bind me hand and foot and bring me before the Sultan, that he may exercise judgment against me for the many crimes I have committed.”

The man did as he requested. When the Sultan beheld Fozail, he observed in him the marks of righteous folk.

“I cannot do this,” he said. And he ordered him to be returned to his apartment with honour. When he reached the door of the apartment he uttered a loud cry.

“Hark at him shouting!” people remarked. “Perchance he is being beaten.”

“Indeed, I have been sorely beaten,” Fozail replied.

“In what part?” they asked.

“In my soul,” he answered.

Then he went in to his wife.

“Wife,” he announced, ‘I would visit God’s House. If you wish, I will set you free.”

“I will never go apart from you,” his wife replied. “Wherever you may be, I will be with you.”

So they set out and in due time came to Makkah, Almighty God making the road easy for them. There he took up residence near the Kaaba, and met some of the Saints. He companioned Imam Abu Hanifa for a while, and many stories are told of his extreme discipline. In Makkah the gates of oratory were opened to him, and the Makkahns thronged to hear him preach. Soon all the world was talking about him, so that his family and kinsmen set forth from Bavard and came to look upon him. They knocked at his door, but he would not open it. They for their part would not depart, so Fozail mounted the roof of his house.

“What idlers you are!” he cried to them. “God give you employment!”

He spoke many such words, till they all wept and were beside themselves. Finally, despairing of enjoying his society, they went away. He still remained on the roof and did not open the door.

Fozail and Harun al-Rashid

One night Harun al-Rashid summoned Fazl the Barmecide, who was one of his favourite courtiers.

“Take me to a man this night who will reveal me to myself,” he bade him. “My heart is grown weary of pomp and pride.”

Fazl brought Harun to the door of the house of Sofyan-e Oyaina. They knocked at the door.

“Who is it?” Sofyan asked.

“The Commander of the Faithful,” Fazl replied.

“Why did he trouble himself so?” Sofyan said. “I ought to have been informed, then I could have come myself to him.”

“This is not the man I am seeking,” Harun commented “He fawns upon me like the rest.”

Hearing of what had happened, Sofyan said, “Fozail-e Iyaz is such a man as you are seeking. You must go to him.” And he recited this verse: Or do those who commit evil deeds think that We shall make them as those who believe and do righteous deeds?

“If I am seeking good counsel, this is sufficient,” remarked Harun.

They knocked at Fozail’s door.

“Who is it?” Fozail asked.

“The Commander of the Faithful,” Fazl replied.

“What business has he with me, and what have I to do with him?” Fozail demanded.

“Is it not a duty to obey those in authority?” countered Fazl.

“Do not disturb me,” cried Fozail.

“Shall I enter with an authority or a command?” said Fazl.

“There is no such thing as authority,” replied Fozail. “If you enter by force, you know what you are doing.”

Harun entered. As he approached Fozail, the latter blew out the lamp so as not to see his face. Harun stretched out his hand, and Fozail’s hand met it.

“How smooth and soft this palm is, if only it could escape from Hell-fire!” Fozail remarked.

So saying, he arose and stood in prayer. Harun was much affected and weeping overcame him.

“Say something to me,” he begged. Fozail saluted him and then spoke.

“Your ancestor, the Prophet’s uncle, once demanded of the Prophet, ‘Make me commander over some people.’ The Prophet replied, ‘Uncle, for one moment I have made you commander over yourself.’ By this he meant, ‘For you to obey God for one moment is better than a thousand years of people obeying you.’ The Prophet added, ‘Command shall be a cause of regretting on the Day of Resurrection.’ “

“Say more,” Harun pleaded.

“When Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz was appointed caliph,” Fozail related, “he summoned Salem ibn Abdullah, Raja’ ibn Hayat, and Muhammad ibn Ka’b. ‘I have been afflicted with this trial,’ he told them. ‘What am I to do? For I know this high office to be a trial, even though men count it for a blessing.’ One of the three said, ‘If you wish tomorrow to escape from God’s punishment, look upon aged Muslims as though each were your father, and regard youthful Muslims as your brothers, Muslim children as your own sons, treating them in all respects as one does one’s father, brother, and son.’ “

“Say more,” Harun repeated.

“The lands of Islam are as your own house, and their inhabitants your family,” Fozail said. “Visit your father, honour your brother, and be good to your son. I fear,” he added, “that your handsome face will be sorely tried by the fire of Hell. Fear God, and obey His command. And be watchful and prudent; for on the Resurrection Day God will question you concerning every single Muslim, and He will exact justice from you in respect of every one. If one night an old woman has gone to sleep in a house without provisions, she will pluck your skirt on that Day and will give evidence against you.”

Harun wept bitterly, so that his consciousness was like to fail.

“Enough! You have slain the Commander of the Faithful,” chided Fazl the vizier.

“Be silent, Haman,” cried Fozail. “It is you and your creatures who are destroying him, and then you tell me that I have killed him. Is this murder?”

At these words Harun wept even more copiously.

“He calls you Haman,” he said, turning to Fazl, “because he equates me with Pharaoh.” Then, addressing Fozail, he asked,

“Have you a debt outstanding?”

“Yes,” replied Fozail. “A debt of obedience to God. If He takes me to task over this, then woe is me!”

“I am speaking of debts owed to men, Fozail,” said Harun.

“Thanks be to God,” cried Fozail, “who has blessed me abundantly, so that I have no complaint to make to His servants.”

Then Harun placed a purse of a thousand dinars before him.

“This is lawful coin, of my mother’s inheritance,” he said.

“Commander of the Faithful,” said Fozail, “the counsels I have spoken to you have yielded no profit.

Even now you have recommenced wrongdoing and

resumed injustice.”

“What wrongdoing?” demanded Harun.

“I call you to salvation, and you cast me into temptation. This is wrongdoing indeed,” said Fozail. “I tell you, give back what you possess to its proper owner. You for your part give it to another to whom it should not be given. It is useless for me to speak.”

So saying, he rose up from the caliph’s presence and flung the gold out of the door.

“Ah, what a man he is!” exclaimed Harun, leaving Fozail’s house. “Fozail is in truth a king of men. His arrogance is extreme, and the world is very contemptible in his eyes.”

Anecdotes of Fozail

One day Fozail was holding in his lap a four-year-old child, and by chance placed his mouth on its cheek as is the wont of fathers.

“Father, do you love me?” asked the child.

“I do,” replied Fozail.

“Do you love God?”

“I do.”

“How many hearts do you have?” the child asked.

“One,” answered Fozail.

“Can you love two with one heart?” demanded the child.

Fozail at once realized that it was not the child speaking, but that in reality it was a Divine instruction. Jealous for God, he began to beat his head and repented. Severing his heart from the child, he gave it to God.

One day Fozail was standing at Arafat. All the pilgrims there were weeping and wailing, humbling themselves and making lowly petition.

“Glory be to God!” cried Fozail. “If so many men were to go to a man at one time and ask him for a silver penny, what do you say? Would that man disappoint so many?”

“No,” came the answer.

“Well,” said Fozail, “surely it is easier for Almighty God to forgive them all, than for that man to give a silver penny. For He is the most bountiful of the bountiful, so there is good hope that He will pardon all.”

Once Fozail’s son suffered an obstruction of urine. Fozail came and lifted up his hands.

“O Lord,” he prayed, “by my love for Thee deliver him out of this sickness.”

He had not yet risen from his knees when the boy was healed.

Fozail would often say in prayer: “Lord God, have mercy! For Thou knowest my repentance; and do not punish me, for Thou hast all power over me.” Then he would add, “O God, Thou keepest me hungry, and Thou keepest my children hungry. Thou keepest me naked, and Thou keepest my children naked. Thou givest not to me a lantern by night. All these things Thou doest to Thy friends. By what spiritual station has Fozail earned this felicity from Thee?”

For thirty years no man saw Fozail smile, except on the day when his son died. Then he smiled.

“Master, what time is this for smiling?” he was asked.

“I realized that God was pleased that my son should die,” he answered. “I smiled to accord with God’s good pleasure.”

Fozail had two daughters. When his end approached, he laid a last charge upon his wife.

“When I die, take these girls and go to Mount Bu Qobais. There lift your face to heaven and say, ‘Lord God, Fozail laid a charge upon me saying, “Whilst I was alive, I protected these helpless ones as best I could. When Thou madest me a prisoner in the fastness of the grave, I gave them back to Thee.’”

When Fozail was buried, his wife did as he had bidden her. She went out to the mountaintop and conveyed her daughters there. Then she prayed with much weeping and lamentation. At that very moment the Prince of Yemen passed by there with his two sons. Seeing them weeping and making moan, he enquired, “Whence are you come?”

Fozail’s wife explained the situation.

“I give these girls to these my sons,” the prince announced. “I give each of them as a dowry ten thousand dinars. Are you content with this?”

“I am,” their mother replied.

At once the prince furnished litters and carpets and brocades, and conveyed them to Yemen.

Hadhrat Habib al-Ajami
rahmatullah alayhi

Hadrat Sultan Bahu

Through the mists of legend surrounding the life of Shaikh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, it is possible to discern the outlines of the following biographical sketch:

In A.H. 488, at the age of eighteen, he left his native province to become a student in the great capital city of Baghdaad, the hub of political, commercial and cultural activity, and the center of religious learning in the world of Islaam.  After studying traditional sciences under such teachers as the prominent Hanbalii jurist [faqiih], Abuu Sa'd 'Alii al-Mukharrimii, he encountered a more spiritually oriented instructor in the saintly person of Abu'l-Khair Hammaad ad-Dabbaas.

Then, instead of embarking on his own professorial career, he abandoned the city and spent twenty-five years as a wanderer in the desert regions of 'Iraaq.  He was over fifty years old by the time he returned to Baghdaad, in A.H. 521/1127 C.E., and began to preach in public.  His hearers were profoundly affected by the style and content of his lectures, and his reputation grew and spread through all sections of society.  He moved into the school [madrasa] belonging to his old teacher al-Mukharrimii, but the premises eventually proved inadequate.

In A.H. 528, pious donations were applied to the construction of a residence and guesthouse [ribaat], capable of housing the Shaikh and his large family, as well as providing accommodation for his pupils and space for those who came from far and wide to attend his regular sessions [majaalis]. 

He lived to a ripe old age, and continued his work until his very last breath, as we know from the accounts of his final moments recorded in the Addendum to Revelations of the Unseen.

In the words of Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak Efendi:  "The venerable 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani passed on to the Realm of Divine Beauty in A.H. 561/1166 C.E., and his blessed mausoleum in Baghdaad is still a place of pious visitation.  He is noted for his extraordinary spiritual experiences and exploits, as well as his memorable sayings and wise teachings.  It is rightly said of him that 'he was born in love, grew in perfection, and met his Lord in the perfection of love.'  May the All-Glorious Lord bring us in contact with his lofty spiritual influence!"

Hadrat Sultan Bahu is one of the most renowned sufi saints of the later Mughal Period in the history of Indo Pakistan subcontinent. He is often called Sultanul Arifin ( the Sultan of gnostics) in the Sufi circles. His ancestors belonging to the tribe of Alvids called Awan and coming from Arabia via Hirat ( Afghanistan ) had settled in the soon Sakesar Valley of Khushab District in Punjab. His Father, Sultan Bazid, had served in the army of the Emperor Shah Jehan as a high ranking officer and so in recognition to his services he had been awarded a jagir in the shorkot area. The family migrated to the place and settled at Qalai Shorkot, a settlement at the bank of River Chenab ( now in District Jhang, Punjab). Hadrat Sultan Bahu was born there, probably in 1628 A.D.

    Even in the early childhood, it was perceived by all those around him that a strange light shone upon his face which compelled even the Hindus to utter Kalima Tayyiba  ( there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger) in his presence. His father died when he was just a child but his mother Bibi Rasti, remained alive till he was forty years old.

    His mother supervised his education but it must have been irregular because he was often found under the influence of ecstatic states. It seemed that his education remained informal to the end. Whatever he expressed or wrote after-words,  it was in the light of his own spiritual vision and Knowledge.

    His mother taught him the essential sufi exercises of dhikr ( invocation of Allah and His Names ) and he probably needed no more guidance after that. He was initiated to walk the path of Sufis intuitively. His spiritual experiences and vision enriched his mind and spirit with so much knowledge that he far excelled his contemporary Sufi masters and sufi poets in Tasawwuf ( Sufism ) and Suluk ( all about the Sufi Way and its stations and states). In a book he remarks: Though we have little of formal learning, / Yet the spirit has been blessed with holiness by esoteric knowledge. In fact he may be called a born saint.

    He got married in his early youth and twice or thrice afterwards and had sons and daughters but all this did not deter him from his dervish wanderings, to visit the sacred places and look for the spiritual company of his fellow sufis.
 
             At the age of thirty he had an extraordinary vision in which he saw Prophet Muhammad ( may peace be upon him ) through the spiritual recommendations and support of Hadrat Ali and Hadrat Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani. The prophet himself took his  bay'ah  and allowed him to pass on the Sufi teachings. He often mentions in his books about his presence in the spiritual meetings presided by the Prophet himself. However, in the treatise " Of the Spirit " he calls Hadrat Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani his Murshid ( spiritual director ). He is always lavish in the praise of Hadrat Shaikh and calls himself Qadiri. In his eyes the teachings of the Qadiriya order were most effective for the spiritual development of the disciples. But at the same time it is evidently clear that by the Qadriya order he means the one that he himself represented.

Hadhrat Hakim-e Tirmidhi
rahmatullah alayhi

Hadhrat Hasan Basri
rahmatullah alayhi

Hadhrat Hatem al-Asamm
rahmatullah alayhi

Hadhrat Abu 'l-Hussain al-Nuri
rahmatullah alayhi
 

Hadhrat Ibrahim ibn Adham
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Eshaq Ibrahim ibn Adham, born in Balkh of pure Arab descent, is described in Sufi legend as a prince who renounced his kingdom (somewhat after the fashion of the Buddha) and wandered westwards to live a life of complete asceticism, earning his bread in Syria by honest manual toil until his death in c. 165 (782). Some accounts state that he was killed on a naval expedition against Byzantium. The story of his conversion is a classic of Muslim hagiography.

The legend of Ibrahim ibn Adham

Ibrahim ibn Adham’s saintly career began in the following manner. He was king of Balkh, and a whole world was under his command; forty gold swords and forty gold maces were carried before and behind him. One night he was asleep on his royal couch. At midnight the roof of the apartment vibrated, as if someone was walking on the roof.

“Who is there?” he shouted.

“A friend,” came the reply. “I have lost a camel, and am searching for it on this roof.”

“Fool, do you look for the camel on the roof?” cried Ibrahim.

“Heedless one,” answered the voice, “do you seek for God in silken clothes, asleep on a golden couch?”

These words filled his heart with terror. A fire blazed within him, and he could not sleep any more. When day came he returned to the dais and sat on his throne, thoughtful, bewildered and full of care. The ministers of state stood each in his place; his slaves were drawn up in serried ranks. General audience was proclaimed.

Suddenly a man with aweful mien entered the chamber, so terrible to look upon that none of the royal retinue and servants dared ask him his name; the tongues of all clove to their throats. He advanced solemnly till he stood before the throne.

“What do you want?” demanded Ibrahim.

“I have just alighted at this caravanserai,” said the man. “This is not a caravanserai. This is my palace. You are mad,” shouted Ibrahim.

“Who owned this palace before you?” asked the man.

“My father,” Ibrahim replied.

“And before him?”

“My grandfather.”

“And before him?”

“So-and-so.”

“And before him?”

“The father of So-and-so.”

“Where have they all departed?” asked the man.

“They have gone. They are dead,” Ibrahim replied.

“Then is this not a caravanserai which one man enters and another leaves?”

With these words the stranger vanished. He was Khizr, upon whom be peace. The fire blazed more fiercely still in Ibrahim’s soul, and the anguish within him augmented momently. Visions by day followed the hearing of voices by night, equally mysterious and incomprehensible.

“Saddle my horse,” Ibrahim cried at last. “I will go to the hunt. I know not what this thing is that has come upon me today. Lord God, how will this affair end?”

His horse was saddled and he proceeded to the chase. Headlong he galloped across the desert; it was as if he knew not 9 what he was doing. In that state of bewilderment he became separated from his troops. On the way he suddenly heard a voice.

“Awake!”

He pretended not to have heard, and rode on. A second time the voice came, but he heeded it not. A third time he heard the same, and hurled himself farther away. Then the voice sounded a fourth time.

“Awake, before you are stricken awake!”

He now lost all self-control. At that instant a deer started up, and Ibrahim prepared to give chase. The deer spoke to him.

“I have been sent to hunt you. You cannot catch me. Was it for this that you were created, or is this what you were commanded?”

“Ah, what is this that has come upon me?” Ibrahim cried.

And he turned his face from the deer. He thereupon heard the same words issuing from the pommel of his saddle. Terror and fear possessed him. The revelation became clearer yet, for Almighty God willed to complete the transaction. A third time the selfsame voice proceeded from the collar of his cloak. The revelation was thus consummated, and the heavens were opened unto him.

Sure faith was now established in him. He dismounted; all his garments, and the horse itself, were dripping with his tears. He made true and sincere repentance. Turning aside from the road, he saw a shepherd wearing felt clothes and a hat of felt, driving his sheep before him. Looking closely, he saw that he was a slave of his. He bestowed on him his gold-embroidered cloak and bejewelled cap, together with the sheep, and took from him his clothes and hat of felt. These he donned himself. All the angelic hosts stood gazing on Ibrahim.

“What a kingdom has come to the son of Adham,” they cried. “He has cast away the filthy garments of the world, and has donned the glorious robes of poverty.”

Even so he proceeded on foot to wander over mountains and endless deserts, lamenting over his sins, until he came to Merv. There he saw a man who had fallen from the bridge and was about to perish, swept away by the river. Ibrahim shouted from afar.

“O God, preserve him!”

The man remained suspended in the air until helpers arrived and drew him up. They were astonished at Ibrahim.

“What man is this?” they cried.

Ibrahim departed from that place, and marched on to Nishapur. There he searched for a desolate corner where he might busy himself with obedience to God. In the end he hit upon the famous cave where he dwelt for nine years, three years in each apartment. Who knows what occupied him there through the nights and days? For it needed a mighty man of uncommon substance to be able to be there alone by night.

Every Thursday he would climb above the cavern and collect a bundle of firewood. Next morning he would set out, for Nishapur and there sell the brushwood. Having performed the Friday prayers, he would buy bread with the money he had gained, give half to a beggar and use half himself to break his fast. So he did every week.

One winter’s night he was in that apartment. It was extremely cold, and he had to break the ice to wash. All night he shivered, praying through till dawn. By dawn he was in danger of perishing from the cold. By chance the thought ` of a fire entered his mind. He saw a fur on the ground. Wrapping himself up in the fur, he fell asleep. When he awoke it was -broad daylight, and he had become warm. He looked, and saw that the fur was a dragon, its eyes saucers of blood. A mighty terror came upon him.

“Lord God,” he cried, “Thou didst send this thing unto me in a shape of gentleness. Now I see it in a dreadful form. I cannot endure it.”

Immediately the dragon moved away, twice or thrice rubbed its face in the ground before him, and vanished.

Ibrahim ibn Adham goes to Makkah

When the fame of Ibrahim ibn Adham’s doings spread abroad amongst men, he fled from the cave and set out towards Makkah. In the desert he encountered one of the great men of the Faith, who taught him the Greatest Name of God and then took his departure. Ibrahim called upon God by that Name, and immediately he beheld Khizr, upon whom be peace.

“Ibrahim,” said Khizr, “that was my brother David who taught you the Greatest Name.”

Then many words passed between Khizr and Ibrahim. Khizr was the first who drew Ibrahim out, by the leave of God. Ibrahim relates as follows concerning the next stage of his pilgrimage.

“On reaching Dhat al-‘Erq I saw seventy men wearing the patchwork frock lying dead there, the blood gushing out of their noses and ears. Circling them, I found one who still had a spark of life in him.

“‘Young man,’ I cried, ‘what has happened here?’

“‘Son of Adham,’ he answered me, ‘keep to the water and the prayer-niche. Go not far away, lest you be banished; and come not too near, lest you be anguished. Let no man be overbold in the presence of Sultan. Have a lively fear of the Friend who slays pilgrims as if they were Greek infidels, and wages war upon pilgrims. We were a Sufi community who had set out into the desert trusting in God, resolved not to utter one word, to think of naught but God, to move and be still only with God in view and to heed none but Him. When we had crossed the desert and were come to the place where pilgrims robe themselves in white, Khizr, upon whom be peace, came to us. We greeted him, and he returned our salute, and we were very happy, saying, “Praise be to God, the journey was blessed, the quester has reached his quest, for such a holy person came out to meet us.” Forthwith a voice cried within us, “You liars and pretenders, such were your words and covenant! You forgot Me, and busied yourselves with another. Depart! I will not make peace with you until I snatch away your souls in recompense and shed your blood with the sword of jealous wrath.” These brave men whom you see lying here are all victims of this retaliation. Beware, Ibrahim! You too have the same ambition. Halt, or depart far away!’

“‘Why did they spare you, then?’ I asked, deeply perplexed by his words.

“‘They told me, “They are ripe, you are still raw. Live on a few moments yet, and you too will be ripe. When you are ripe, you too will come in their wake.”’ So saying, he gave up the ghost.”

Ibrahim was fourteen years crossing the desert, praying and humbling himself all the way. When he drew near to Makkah, the elders of the Haram hearing of his approach came out to meet him. He thrust himself ahead of the caravan so that no one might recognize him. The servants preceded the elders, and they saw Ibrahim going ahead of the caravan; but not having seen him before, they did not recognize him. Coming up to him, they cried, “Ibrahim ibn Adham is near at hand. The elders of the Haram have come out to meet him.”

“What do you want of that heretic?” Ibrahim demanded.

Straightway they set upon him and beat him up.

“The elders of Makkah go out to meet him, and you call him a heretic?” they shouted.

‘I say he is a heretic,” Ibrahim repeated.

When they left him, Ibrahim turned to himself.

“Ha!” he cried. “You wanted the elders to come out to meet you. Well, you have collected a few punches. Praise be to God that I have seen you get your wish!”

Ibrahim then took up residence in Makkah. A circle of companions formed around him, and he earned his bread by the labour of his hands, working as a carpenter.

Ibrahim at Makkah is visited by his son

When Ibrahim ibn Adham quitted Balkh he left behind him a suckling child. The latter, by now grown up, asked his mother one day about his father.

“Your father is lost,” she replied.

The son thereupon made proclamation that all who desired to perform the pilgrimage should assemble. Four thousand presented themselves. He gave them all their expenses to cover provisions and camels and led the party Makkahwards, hoping that God might grant him sight of his father. Reaching Makkah, they encountered by the door of the Holy Mosque a party of patch-work-frocked Sufis.

“Do you know Ibrahim ibn Adham?” the son enquired.

“He is a friend of ours,” they told him. “He is entertaining us, and has gone to hunt for food.”

The son asked them to direct him, and he went in his track. The party emerging in the lower quarter of Makkah, he saw his father unshod and bareheaded coming along with a load of firewood. Tears sprang to his eyes, but he controlled himself and followed in his father’s wake to the market. There his father began to shout.

“Who will buy goodly things for goodly things?”

A baker called to him and took the firewood in exchange for bread. Ibrahim brought the bread and laid it before his companions.

“If I say who I am,” the son feared, “he will run away.”

So he went to take counsel with his mother as to the best way of recovering his father. His mother advised patience.

“Be patient until we make the pilgrimage.”

When the boy departed, Ibrahim sat down with his associates.

“Today there are women and children on this pilgrimage. Mind your eyes,” he charged them.

All accepted his counsel. When the pilgrims entered Makkah and made the circumambulation of the Kaaba, Ibrahim with his companions also circled the Holy House. A handsome boy approached him, and Ibrahim looked at him keenly. His friends noticed this and were astonished, but waited until they had finished the circumambulation.

“God have mercy on you!” they then said to Ibrahim. “You bade us not to glance at any woman or child, and then you yourself gazed at a handsome lad.”

“Did you see?” Ibrahim exclaimed.

“We saw,” they replied.

“When I left Balkh,” Ibrahim told them, “I abandoned there a suckling son. I know that the lad is that son.”

Next day one of the companions went out before Ibrahim to look for the caravan from Balkh. Coming upon it, he observed in the midst of the caravan a tent pitched all of brocade. In the tent a throne was set, and the boy was seated on the throne, reciting the Quran and weeping. Ibrahim’s friend asked if he might enter.

“Where do you come from?” he enquired.

“From Balkh,” the boy replied.

“Whose son are you?”

The boy put his hand to his face and began to weep.

“I have never seen my father, “he said, laying aside the Quran. “Not until yesterday—I do not know whether it was he or not. I am afraid that if I speak he will run away, as he ran away from us before. My father is Ibrahim-e Adham the King of Balkh.”

The man seized him to bring him to Ibrahim. His mother rose and went along with him. Ibrahim, as they approached him, was seated with his companions before the Yemeni Corner. He espied from afar his friend with the boy and his mother. As soon as the woman saw him she cried aloud and could control herself no longer.

“This is your father.”

An indescribable tumult arose. All the bystanders and friends of Ibrahim burst into tears. As soon as the boy recovered himself he saluted his father. Ibrahim returned his greeting and took him to his breast.

“What religion do you follow?” he asked.

“The religion of Islam,” answered his son.

“Praise be to God,” cried Ibrahim. “Do you know the Quran?”

“I do.”

“Praise be to God. Have you studied the faith?”

“I have.”

Then Ibrahim would have departed, but the boy would not let go of him. His mother wailed aloud. Turning his face to heaven, Ibrahim cried, “O God, succour me!”

The boy immediately expired in his embrace.

“What happened, Ibrahim?” his companions cried out.

`’When I took him to my breast,” Ibrahim explained, “love for him stirred in my heart. A voice spoke to me, ‘Ibrahim, you claim to love Me, and you love another along with Me. You charge your companions not to look upon any strange woman or child, and you have attached your heart to that woman and child.’ When I heard this call, I prayed, ‘Lord of Glory, come to my succour! He will so occupy my heart that I shall forget to love Thee. Either take away his life or mine.’ His death was the answer to my prayer.”

Anecdotes of Ibrahim ibn Adham

One day Ibrahim ibn Adham was asked, “What befell you, that you quit your kingdom?”

“I was seated on my throne one day,” he recalled. “A mirror was held up before me; I looked into that mirror and saw that my lodging was the tomb and therein was no familiar friend. I saw a long journey ahead of me, and I had no provision. I saw a just judge, and I had no defence. I became disgusted of my kingship.’,

“Why did you flee from Khorasan?” they asked.

“I heard much talk there of the true friend,” he replied.

“Why do you not seek a wife?” he was asked.

“Does any woman take a husband for him to keep her hungry and naked?” he countered.

“No,” they replied.

“That is why I do not marry,” he explained. “Any woman whom I married would remain hungry and naked. If I only could, I would divorce myself. How can I bind another to my saddle?”

Then turning to a beggar who was present, he asked him “Do you have a wife?”

“No,” the beggar replied.

“Do you have a child?”

`’No.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Ibrahim exclaimed.

“Why do you say that?” asked the beggar.

“The beggar who marries embarks on a ship. When the children come, he is drowned.”

One day Ibrahim saw a beggar bewailing his lot.

“I guess you bought beggary gratis,” he remarked.

“Why, is beggary for sale?” the beggar asked in astonishment.

“Certainly,” Ibrahim replied. “I bought it with the kingdom of Balkh. I got a bargain.”

A man once brought Ibrahim a thousand dinars.

“Take,” he said.

“I do not accept anything from beggars,” Ibrahim replied “But I am wealthy,” the man retorted.

“Do you want more than you own already?” Ibrahim asked

“Indeed,” the man exclaimed.

“Then take it back,” said Ibrahim. “You are the chief of the beggars. Indeed, this is not beggary. This is plain penury.”

Ibrahim was told of an ecstatic youth who had extraordinary experiences and disciplined himself severely.

“Bring me to him so that I may see him,” he said.

They took him to the youth.

“Be my guest for three days,” the youth invited him.

Ibrahim stayed there and observed the youth’s state attentively. It surpassed even what his friends had said. All night he was sleepless and restless, not reposing or slumbering for a single moment. Ibrahim felt a certain jealousy.

“I am so frigid, and he is sleepless and unresting the whole night through. Come, let us investigate his case,” he said to himself. “Let us discover if anything from Satan has invaded his state, or whether it is wholly pure and in all respects as it should be. I must examine the foundation of the matter. The foundation and root of the matter is what a man eats.”

So he investigated what the youth was eating, and discovered that it came from unhallowed sources.

“God is most great. It is Satanic,” Ibrahim exclaimed.

“I have been your guest for three days,” he said to the youth. “Now you come and be my guest for forty days.”

The youth accepted. Now the food Ibrahim ate was earned by the labour of his own hands. He took the youth to his home and gave him of his own food. Immediately his ecstasy vanished. All his ardour and passion disappeared. That restlessness and sleeplessness and weeping of his departed.

“What have you done to me?” he cried.

“Yes,” Ibrahim answered. “Your food was unhallowed. Satan was all the time going and coming in you. As soon as you swallowed lawful food, the manifestations he had been contriving in you became revealed for what they were, the Devil’s work.”

Sahl ibn Ibrahim tells the following story. `

I was making a journey with Ibrahim-e Adham, and on the way I fell sick. He sold all that he possessed and spent it on me. I begged him for something, and he sold his ass and spent the proceeds on me.

“Where is the ass?” I enquired when I recovered.

“I sold it,” he replied.

“What shall I sit on?” I demanded.

“Brother,” Ibrahim answered, “come, sit on my back.”

And he lifted me on his back and carried me for three stages.

Every day Ibrahim went out to work for hire and laboured till night. All his earnings he expended on behalf of his companions. But by the time he had performed the evening prayer and bought something and had returned to his friends the night was far gone.

One night his companions said, “He is late in coming. Come, let us eat some bread and go to sleep. That will be a hint for him to return earlier in future. He will not keep us waiting so long.”

So they did. When Ibrahim returned he saw that they were asleep. Supposing that they had not eaten anything and had gone to sleep hungry, he at once lit a fire. He had brought a little flour back with him, so he made dough to give them something to eat when they woke, then they would be able to keep fast next day. His companions awoke to see him with his beard on the floor, blowing on the fire; tears were streaming from his eyes, and he was surrounded by smoke.

“What are you doing?” they asked.

“I saw you were asleep,” Ibrahim replied. “I said to myself, perhaps you could not find anything and went to sleep hungry. So I am making something for you to eat when you awake.”

“See how he thought about us, and how we thought about him,” they exclaimed.

“Since you entered on this path, have you ever experienced happiness?” Ibrahim was asked.

“Several times,” he replied. “Once I was on board ship and the captain did not know me. I was wearing ragged clothes my hair was untrimmed, and I was in a spiritual ecstasy of which all on board were unaware. They laughed at me and ridiculed me. There was a joker on the ship, and every now and then he would come and grab me by the hair and pluck it out and slap me on the neck. In those moments I felt that I had attained my desire, and was very happy to be so humiliated.

“Suddenly a great wave arose, and all feared that they would perish. ‘We must throw one of these fellows overboard,’ cried the helmsman. ‘Then the ship will be lighter.’ They seized me to throw me into the sea. The wave subsided, and the ship resumed an even keel. That moment when they took me by the ear to throw me into the water, I felt that I had attained my desire, and was happy.

“On another occasion I went to a mosque to sleep there. They would not let me be, and I was so weak and exhausted that I could not get up. So they seized me by the foot and dragged me out. Now the mosque had three steps; my head struck against each step in turn, and the blood flowed forth. I felt that I had attained my desire. On each step that they dropped me, the mystery of a whole clime became revealed to me. I said, ‘Would that the mosque had more steps, to increase my felicity!’

“On another occasion I was rapt in a state of ecstasy. A joker came and urinated on me. Then too I was happy.

“On yet another occasion I was wrapped in a fur jacket infested by fleas which devoured me unmercifully. Suddenly I remembered the fine clothes which I had deposited in the treasury. My soul cried within me, ‘Why, what pain is this?’ Then too I felt that I had attained my desire.”

“Once,” Ibrahim related, “I was journeying in the desert putting my trust in God. For some days I found nothing to eat. I remembered a friend of mine, but I said to myself, ‘If I go to him, my trust in God will become void.’ I entered a mosque with the words on my lips, ‘I have put my trust in the Living One who dies not. There is no God but He.’ A voice out of heaven cried, ‘Glory be to that God who has emptied the face of the earth of those who trust in Him.’ I said, ‘Why these words?’ The voice replied, ‘How should that man be truly trusting in God who undertakes a long journey for the sake o a morsel that a profane friend may give him, and then declare “I have put my trust in the Living One who dies not”? You have given the name of trust in God to a lie!’”

“Once I bought a slave,” Ibrahim recalled. “‘What is your name?’ I asked. “‘What you call me,’ he answered. “‘What do you eat?’ “‘What you give me.’ “‘What do you wear?’ “‘What you clothe me withal.’ “‘What do you do?’ “‘What you command.’ “‘What do you desire?’ I asked. “‘What has a servant to do with desire?’ he replied. “‘Wretch that you are,’ I said to myself, ‘all your life

you have been a servant of God. Well, now learn what it means to be a servant!’ “And I wept so long that I swooned away.”

No one had ever seen Ibrahim sitting crosslegged. “Why do you not sit crosslegged?” he was asked. “I did sit that way one day,” he replied. “I heard a

voice from the air saying, ‘Son of Adham, do servants sit so in the presence of their lords?’ I at once sat upright and repented.

“Once I was travelling in the desert trusting in God, Ibrahim related. “For three days I found nothing to eat. The Devil came to me.

“‘Did you abandon your kingdom and so much luxury in order to go on the pilgrimage hungry?’ the Devil taunted me. ‘You can also make the pilgrimage in style and not suffer so.

“Hearing this speech of the Devil, I lifted my head on high.

“‘O God,’ I cried, ‘dost Thou appoint Thy enemy over Thy friend to torture me? Come to my succour! For I cannot cross this desert without Thy aid.’

“‘Ibrahim,’ a voice came to me, ‘cast out what thou hast in thy pocket, that We may bring forth that which is in the Unseen.’

“I put my hand in my pocket. Four silver pennies were there which I had forgotten. As soon as I flung them away the Devil fled from me, and aliment materialized out of the Unseen.”

“Once,” Ibrahim recalled, “I was appointed to look after an orchard. The owner of the orchard came and said to me, ‘Bring me some sweet pomegranates.’ I brought some, but they were sour.

“‘Bring me sweet ones,’ the owner repeated. I brought another dishful, but they were also sour.

“‘Glory be to God!’ the owner cried. ‘You have spent so long in an orchard, and you do not know ripe pomegranates?’

“‘I look after your orchard, but I do not know what pomegranates taste like because I have never sampled any,’ I replied

“‘With such self-denial, I suspect you are Ibrahim-e Adham,’ the owner said.

“When I heard these words, I departed from that place.”

“One night,” Ibrahim related, ‘I saw Gabriel in a dream come down to earth out of heaven with a scroll in his hand.

“‘What do you want?’ I asked.

“‘I am writing down the names of the friends of God,’ Gabriel replied.

“‘Write down my name,’ I said.

“‘You are not of them,’ Gabriel answered.

“‘I am a friend of the friends of God,’ I rejoined.

“Gabriel pondered for a while. Then he said,

“‘The command has come. Inscribe Ibrahim’s name the first of all. For on this Path hope materializes out of despair.’”

Ibrahim was travelling in the desert one day when he was accosted by a soldier.

“What are you?” the soldier asked.

“A servant,” replied Ibrahim.

“Which is the way to habitation?” asked the soldier.

Ibrahim pointed to the graveyard.

“You are making fun of me,” shouted the soldier, lashing out at Ibrahim’s head. His head was broken, and the blood gushed forth.

The soldier put a rope round Ibrahim’s neck and dragged him along. People from the nearby town coming that way stopped at the spectacle.

“Ignoramus, this is Ibrahim-e Adham, the friend of God,” they cried.

The soldier fell at Ibrahim’s feet and implored him to pardon him and acquit him of the wrong he had done him.

“You told me you were a servant,” he pleaded.

“Who is there who is not a servant?” Ibrahim replied.

“I broke your head, and you prayed for me,” said the soldier.

“I prayed that you might be blessed for the way you treated me,” was Ibrahim’s answer. “My reward for the way you treated me was Paradise, and I did not wish that your reward should be Hell.”

“Why did you direct me to the cemetery when I asked the way to habitation?” the soldier asked.

“Because every day the graveyard becomes more thronged, and the city more deserted,” answered Ibrahim.

Once Ibrahim passed by a drunkard. His mouth was foul, so he fetched water and washed the drunkard’s mouth.

“Do you leave foul the mouth that has mouthed the name of God? That is irreverence!” Ibrahim said to himself.

“The ascetic of Khorasan washed your mouth,” they told the man when he woke.

“I too now repent,” the man declared.

After that Ibrahim heard in a dream, “Thou didst wash a mouth for My sake. I have washed thy heart.”

I was once on shipboard with Ibrahim (relates Raja) when suddenly a wind sprang up and the world grew dark.

“Alas, the ship is sinking!” I cried.

“Fear not that the ship will sink,” came a voice from the air. “Ibrahim-e Adham is with you.”

Immediately the wind subsided, and the darkened world became bright.

Ibrahim wished to embark on a ship, but he had no money.

“Every one must pay a dinar,” came the announcement.

Ibrahim prayed two rak’as, and said, “O God, they are demanding money from me and I have none.”

Forthwith the whole sea was turned to gold. Ibrahim gathered a handful and gave it to them.

One day Ibrahim was seated on the bank of the Tigris stitching his threadbare robe. His needle fell into the river.

“You gave up such a mighty kingdom. What did you get in return?” someone asked him.

“Give back my needle,” cried Ibrahim, pointing to the river.

A thousand fishes put up their heads from the water, each with a golden needle in its mouth.

“I want my own needle,” said Ibrahim.

A feeble little fish held up Ibrahim’s needle in its mouth.

“This is the least thing I have gotten by abandoning the kingdom of Balkh,” said Ibrahim. “The rest you know nothing of.”

One day Ibrahim came to a well. He let down the bucket, and it came up full of gold. He emptied it and let it down again, and it came up full of pearls. In merry mood he emptied it once more.

“O God,” he cried, “Thou art offering me a treasury. I know that Thou art all-powerful, and Thou knowest that I shall not be deluded by this. Give me water, that I may make my ablution.”

Once Ibrahim was going on the pilgrimage in company.

“Not one of us has a camel or any provisions,” said his fellow-pilgrims.

“Rely on God to provide for you,” Ibrahim told them.

Then he added, “Look at those trees! If it is gold that you desire, they will be turned to gold.”

All the acacias had turned to gold by the Power of Almighty God.

One day Ibrahim was travelling with a party when they came to a fort. Before the fort was much brushwood.

“We will pass the night here,” they said. “There is plenty of brushwood, so we can make a fire.”

They kindled a fire and sat in the light of the flames. All ate dry bread, whilst Ibrahim stood in prayer.

“If only we had some hallowed meat to roast on this fire,” said one.

Ibrahim finished his prayer. Then he said, “God is certainly able to give you hallowed meat.”

Saying this, he stood once more in prayer. Immediately came the roar of a lion. They watched as a lion approached dragging a wild ass. They took the ass, roasted it and ate it, whilst the lion crouched there watching them.

Hadhrat Ibrahim al-Khauwas
rahmatullah alayhi

Imam-e-Rabbani
Shaykh Ahmad al-Farooqi Sirhindi
Hazrat Mujaddid Alif Saani(rah)

Shaykh Ahmad al-Farooqi Sirhindi son of Makhdoom Sheikh Abdul Ahad, scholar as well an activist of the Farouqi Chistia Order, decedent of Umar Farouqi, Second Caliph, with twenty eight links in the chain, was born on the day of 'Ashura, the 10th of Muharram in the year 971 H., in the village of Sirhind near the city of Lahore in present-day India. Sirhindi's shrine is located in Sirhind, India and is referred to as "Rauza Sharif".. It is said that the territory of Sirhind was a dense forest abound with lions so named as Sher-e-Hind which when mutilated became Sirhind.

He received his knowledge and education through his father and through many shaikhs in his time. He made progress in three tariqats: Suhrawardiyya, Qadiriyya, and Chistiyya. He was given permission to train followers in all three tariqats at the age of 17 years. He was busy in spreading the teachings of these tariqats and in guiding his followers, yet he felt that something was missing in himself and he was continuously searching for it. He felt an interest in the Naqshbandi Sufi Order, because he could see by means of the secrets of the other three tariqats that it was the best and highest. His spiritual progress eventually brought him to the presence of the Ghawth and Qutb of his time, ash-Shaikh Muhammad al-Baqi, who had been sent from Samarqand to India by the order of his shaikh, Muhammad al-Amkanaki. He took the Naqshbandi Order from the shaikh and stayed with him for two months and some days, until Sayyidina Muhammad al-Baqi opened to his heart the secret of this tariqat and gave him authorization to train his murids in the Order.
With the intention of proceeding on the Haj pilgrimage, he set out from Sirhind to Delhi and stayed with Maulana Hasan Kashmiri and from him heard of the virtues of Khawaja Baqi Billah. This aroused in him an intense wish to see him. When he saw, he was delighted, gave up the idea of the pilgrimage and engaged in spiritual training under the guidance of Khawaja Baqi Billah for three months. Hazrat Khawaja Baqi - Billah was so much impressed with the spiritual powers of the Mujaddid that he also awarded him the robe of his heir.
On his return from Delhi to Sirhind he drew a detailed and extensive programme for the moral and spiritual awakening of the people along with introduced teaching and sermonizing. Not much time had elapsed that he was again called to Delhi and received two letters one after the other at short intervals. He went there. Hazrat Khawaja made him guardian of his children. This was their last meeting. After this the Mujaddid returned to Sirhind. Hazrat Baqi-Billah passed away in the meantime. The Mujaddid was in Lahore. When news reached him, he set out to Delhi immediately, paid homage to him at his grave and stayed for a short period of time.

During the reign of Akbar, in the tenth century Hijri, Islam was passing through a lean period; was under seige of blasphemy, atheism, and irreligious. Akbar was providing state patronage to Deen-e-Ilahi and was practicing un-Islamic rites. Fire, trees, and water were worshipped. At this juncture. Islam needed a fearless believer to defend it against the onslaught. He did not permit the opportunist scholars and the misguided emperor to garner strength and kept the torch of truth burning in such trying times.

Sirhindi's World view

Sirhindi's worldview focused on the idea that ontologically, the prophethood is far greater than closeness with Allah. He believed that Sufi ideas which centered around spiritual growth beyond the material world, while exhibiting key concepts, fell short of encompassing Islam as a whole. Sirhindi, still accepting and using these ideas of walayat, or closeness with Allah, focused on a much more human understanding and reality by focusing on following the sunnah of Muhammad (SAWS) and his companions. His influence went so far as implementing jurisprudence in the Islamic world by emphasizing the Shariah and fiqh, integrating both into Indian Muslim government and society. This was accomplished through his 536 letters collectively entitled Collected Letters or Maktubat, to the Mughal rulers conveying his ideas.

Sayings

Abu Dawud related an authentic hadith that the Prophet, upon whom be Allah peace and blessings, said, 'Allah will send at the beginning of every century someone by whom the religion will be revived,' but there is a difference between the Reviver of the Century and the Reviver of the Millennium. It is like the difference between one hundred and one thousand." In a vision, the Prophet gave me good tidings: 'You are going to be a spiritual inheritor and Allah is going to give you the authority to intercede on behalf of hundreds of thousands on the Day of Judgment.' He bestowed on me with his holy hand the authority to guide people, and he said to me, 'Never before have I given that authority to guide people.' Allah unveiled to me the Secrets of the Unique Oneness and He poured into my heart all kinds of Spiritual Knowledge and its refinement. He unveiled to me the Secrets of the ayats of Qur'an so that I found beneath every letter of the Qur'an an ocean of knowledge all pointing to the High Essence of Allah Almighty and Exalted. If I were to reveal one word of the meaning of it they would cut off my head, as they did to Hallaj and to Ibn 'Arabi. This is the meaning of the hadith of the Prophet , in Bukhari, narrated by Abu Huraira (r), "The Prophet poured into my heart two kinds of knowledge, one of which I have revealed and another which if I were to reveal they would cut my throat.

Works

His works are his letters written to many of his contemporaries known as Maktubaat.
"Moving to Allah is a vertical movement from the lower stations to the higher stations; until the movement surpasses time and space and all the states dissolve into what is called the Necessary Knowledge (cilm ul-wajib) of Allah. This is also called Annihilation (fana').
"Moving in Allah is the stage in which the seeker moves from the station of Names and Attributes to a state which neither word nor sign can describe. This is the State of Existence in Allah called Baqa.
"Moving from Allah is the stage in which the seeker returns from the heavenly world to the world of cause and effect, descending from the highest station of knowledge to the lowest. Here he forgets Allah by Allah, and he knows Allah with Allah, and he returns from Allah to Allah. This is called the State of the Farthest and the Nearest.
"Moving in things is a movement within creation. This involves knowing intimately all elements and states in this world after having vanished in Annihilation. Here the seeker can achieve the State of Guidance, which is the state of the prophets and the people following the footsteps of the Prophet . It brings the Divine Knowledge into the world of creation in order to establish

Guidance.

Hazrat Mujaddid Alif Sa'ani was a great writer but his letter proved more popular than his books. These letters translated in Urdu, not only express his opinion on various issues but are also fine pieces of language and style. Besides them following are some of the titles of his books:
Mobada-o-Ma'ad.
Ma'arife-ladqiya.
Makashifaat-e-ghebia.
Sharah Rubaeyat-e-Hazrat Khawaja Baqi-Billah.
Risala-Telilia.
Risala Isbat-ul-Nabuwwat.
Risala Basilsila-e-Aha'dis.

One day a man told him that his relative was grievously ill and requested to pray for him. He hesitated a little and said it was not proper to pray for health to the deceased. Hearing this he went out crying and when he reached his village he found his relative dead and the people were crying.
He died on 9 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1079 Hijri.

Hadhrat Junaid Baghdadi
rahmatullah alayhi

Abo ‘l-Qasem al-Junaid ibn Muhammad 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 Junaid-e Baghdadi

From childhood Junaid 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 Junaid.

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

“Who is that?” came a voice.

“Junaid,” 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 Junaid.

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

“God was gracious to you,” Junaid 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 Junaid a special place in his heart.

Junaid 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 Shaykhs. Each Shaykh expounded his own view.

“You also say something,” Sari prompted Junaid.

“Thankfulness,” said Junaid, “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.”

Junaid wept when he heard his uncle say this.

“Where did you acquire this?” Sari demanded.

“From sitting with you,” Junaid replied.

Junaid 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.

Junaid put to the proof

For forty years Junaid 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. ‘Junaid,’ 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 Junaid committed?’ ‘Do you look for a more grievous sin than this,’ the voice replied, ‘that you exist?’ “

Junaid 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 Junaid 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 Junaid with a servant. The handmaiden came before Junaid and carried out her instructions to the letter and more. Involuntarily Junaid’s glance fell upon her. He remained silent and made no answer. She repeated her story. Junaid 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 Junaid.

“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,” Junaid 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 Junaid’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 Junaid by the tongue of Junaid, Junaid not being there at all, and men were not aware.”

Junaid preaches

When Junaid’s tongue was loosened to utter great words, Sari-e Saqati urged him that it was his duty to preach in public. Junaid 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 Junaid 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 Shaykhs 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,” Junaid 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 Junaid to preach from the pulpit.’ “

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

One day Junaid 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 Junaid was preaching in the cathedral. In the congregation there was a Christian lad, but no one knew that he was a Christian. He approached Junaid 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 Junaid, “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 Junaid 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 Junaid

Once Junaid’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, Junaid performed his ablutions and prayed, and then went to sleep. When he awoke, his eye was well again. He heard a voice saying, “Junaid 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,” Junaid 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 Junaid, “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, Junaid,” Iblis replied, “that I would prostrate to any but Him?”

Junaid 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, Junaid, 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 Junaid’s presence.

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

Whenever Junaid spoke on the Divine Unity, every time he began with a different expression which no one could understand. One day Shebli was in Junaid’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,” Junaid 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 Junaid.

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

“Yes, a lot,” the man replied.

“Do you need more?”

“Yes, I do.”

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

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

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

That night Junaid 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.

Junaid 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,” Junaid 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. ‘Junaid,’ 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,” Junaid recalled, and he told the following story.

Once when I was in Makkah, 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. Junaid 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 Junaid’s room. Finding nothing there but a shirt, he took that and fled. Next day Junaid 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 Junaid, stepping forward.

The man then bought the shirt.

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

“Be patient,” Junaid told her.

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

“Be patient,” Junaid 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 Junaid, “your son has returned. God says, He who answers the constrained, when he calls unto Him.”

Junaid 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 Junaid’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 Shaykh.

“Tonight when you are taken there,” Junaid 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 Shaykh 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 Junaid’s circle. He had learned that for a disciple to dwell alone is mortal poison.

A disciple of Junaid’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 Junaid,” 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 Junaid’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 Junaid 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 Junaid, turning back his companions, and following on the disciple’s heels.

Looking back, the disciple saw the Shaykh 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 Shaykh appeared on the scene.

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

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

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 Shaykh Junaid had a disciple whom he loved above all the others. The other disciples were moved to jealousy, a fact which the Shaykh 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.”

Junaid 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?” Junaid 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!” Junaid exclaimed. “Compare that with that of the others.”

All the other disciples begged God’s forgiveness.

Junaid 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 Junaid 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 Junaid, “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 Shaykh 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,” Junaid 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 Junaid.

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

“From Gilan,” he replied.

“Of whose sons are you?” asked Junaid.

“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 Junaid. “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 Junaid.

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

“Your breast is the private sanctuary of God,” said Junaid. “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 Junaid

When death was near at hand Junaid 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 Junaid more in need than now,” he replied.

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

“What, you recite the Quran?” 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.” Junaid continued, “A road has been laid before me, and I know not by which road I shall be taken.”

He completed the whole Quran, 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 Junaid’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.

Hadhrat Khair al-Nassaj
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu ‘1-Hasan Mohammad ibn Esma’il (Khair ibn ‘Abdullah) al-Nassaj of Samarra, a pupil of Sari al-Saqati and a member of al-Junaid’s circle, was taken as a slave in Basra but afterwards proceeded to Makkah. 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 Shibli and Ibrahim-e Khauwas | and was greatly admired by Junaid. 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 | 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 Makkah, where he attained such a high degree of saintliness that Junaid 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 fishes 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.

Hadhrat Malik ibn Dinar
rahmatullah alayhi

Malik ibn Dinar al-Sami was the son of a Persian slave from Sejestan (or Kabol) and became a disciple of Hasan of Basra. He is mentioned as a reliable traditionist, transmitting from such early authorities as Anas ibn Malik and Ibn Sirin. A noted early calligrapher of the Quran, he died c. 130 (748).

“Lord God,” he cried, “I had not eaten any dates, and Thou didst call me a Jew by the tongue of an innocent child. If I eat the dates, Thou wilt proclaim me an unbeliever. By Thy glory, if I ever eat any dates!”

Hadhrat Mansur al-Hallaj
rahmatullah alayhi

The most controversial figure in the history of Islamic mysticism, Abu ‘l-Moghith al-Hussain 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 Makkah, 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

Hussain-e Mansur, called Hallaj (“the Woolcarder”) first came to Tostar, where he served Sahl ibn Abdullah 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 Uthman, passing eighteen months in his company. Ya’qub-e Aqta’ gave him his daughter in marriage, after which Amr ibn Uthman became displeased with him. So he left Basra and came to Baghdad where he called on Junaid. Junaid prescribed for him silence and solitude. He endured Junaid’s company for a while, then he made for Hejaz. He took up residence in Makkah for one year, after which he returned to Baghdad. With a group of Sufis he attended on Junaid and put a number of questions to him to which Junaid gave no reply.

“The time will soon come,” Junaid 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, Junaid was wearing the Sufi robe and did not sign the warrant. The caliph said that Junaid’s signature was necessary. So Junaid 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 Junaid 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 Uthman 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 Makkah, 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 ‘Abdullah, 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 Makkah 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 Hussain that is lost. The Ocean does not vanish or grow less.”

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

“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 Makkah, 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.”

Shibli 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 Shibli.

“That you cannot reach,” Hallaj answered.

Then all the spectators began to throw stones. Shibli, 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.

Hadhrat Ma'ruf al Karkhi
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Mahfuz Ma‘ruf ibn Firuz al-Karkhi is said to have been born of Christian parents. A prominent mystic of the Baghdad school, he died in 200 (815).

How Ma‘ruf-e Karkhi chose Islam

Ma‘ruf-e Karkhi’s mother and father were both Christians. When they sent him to school, his master said to him, “Say, God is the third of three.”

“No,” answered Ma‘ruf. “On the contrary, He is God, the One.”

The teacher beat him, but to no avail. One day the schoolmaster beat him severely, and Ma‘ruf ran away and could not be found.

“If only he would come back,” his mother and father said. “Whichever religion he wished to follow, we would agree with him.”

Ma‘ruf came to an Imam and accepted Islam at his hands. Some time passed. Then one day he made his way home and knocked at the door of his father’s house.

“Who is there?” they asked.

“Ma‘ruf,” he replied.

“What faith have you adopted?”

“The religion of Muhammad, the Messenger of God.”

His mother and father immediately became Muslims.

After that Ma‘ruf fell in with Dawud-e Ta’i and underwent a severe discipline. He proved himself so devout and practised such austerities that the fame of his steadfastness was noised abroad.

Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Tusi relates that he encountered Ma‘ruf in Baghdad.

“I observed a scar on his face. I said to him, ‘I was with you yesterday and did not notice this mark then. What is it?’ ‘Do not ask about things that do not concern you,’ he replied. ‘Ask only about matters that are profitable to you.’ ‘By the right of Him we worship,’ I pleaded, ‘tell me.’

“Then he said, ‘Last night I was praying, and I wished that I might go to Makkah and circumambulate the Kaaba. I approached the well of Zemzem to take a drink of water. My foot slipped, and my face struck the well. That was how I got this scar.’”

Once Ma‘ruf went down to the Tigris to make his ablutions, leaving his Quran and prayer rug in the mosque. An old woman stole in and took them, and went off with them. Ma‘ruf ran after her. When he caught up with her he addressed her, lowering his head so that his eyes might not fall on her.

“Have you a son who can chant the Quran?”

“No,” she replied.

“Then give me back the Quran. You can have the prayer rug.”

The woman was amazed at his clemency, and set down both the Quran and the prayer rug.

“No, take the prayer rug,” repeated Ma‘ruf. “It is lawfully yours.”

The woman hastened away in shame and confusion.

Anecdotes of Ma‘ruf

One day Ma‘ruf was walking along with a group of his followers when a gang of youths came that way. They behaved outrageously all the way to the Tigris.

“Master,” Ma‘ruf’s companions entreated him, “pray to Almighty God to drown them all, that the world may be rid of their foul presence.”

“Lift up your hands,” Ma‘ruf bade them. Then he prayed.

“O God, as Thou hast given them a happy life in this world, even so grant them a happy life in the world to come.”

“Master, we know not the secret of this prayer,” said his companions in astonishment.

“He with whom I am speaking knows the secret,” Ma‘ruf replied. “Wait a moment. Even now this secret will be revealed.”

When the youths beheld the Shaykh, they broke their lutes and poured away the wine they were drinking. Trembling overcame them, and they fell before the Shaykh and repented.

“You see,” Ma‘ruf remarked to his companions. “Your desire has been fulfilled completely, without drowning and without anyone suffering.”

Sari-e Saqati relates the following story.

One festival day I saw Ma‘ruf picking date stones.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I saw this child weeping,” he told me. “I said, ‘Why are you crying?’ He told me, ‘I am an orphan. I have no father and no mother. The other children have new clothes, and I have none. They have nuts, and I have none.’ So I am gathering these stones to sell them and buy him nuts, then he may run along and play.”

“Let me attend to this and spare you the care,” I said.

Sari went on, “I took the child and clothed him, and bought him nuts, and made him happy. Immediately I saw a great light shine in my heart, and I was transformed.”

Ma‘ruf had an uncle who was governor of the city. One day he was passing some wasteland when he observed Ma‘ruf sitting there eating bread. Before him there was a dog, and Ma‘ruf was putting one morsel in his own mouth and then one in the dog’s.

“Are you not ashamed to eat bread with a dog?” cried his uncle.

“It is out of shame that I am giving bread to the poor,” replied Ma‘ruf.

Then he raised his head and called to a bird in the air. The bird flew down and perched on his hand, covering his head and eyes with his wings.

“Whosoever is ashamed before God,” said Ma‘ruf, “every thing is ashamed before him.”

At once his uncle was filled with confusion.

One day Ma‘ruf broke his ritual purity. Immediately he made ablution in sand.

“Why look,” they said to him. “Here is the Tigris. Why are you making ablution in the sand?”

“It can be,” he replied, “that I may be no more by the time I reach it.”

A crowd of Shi’ites were jostling one day at the door of Reza, and they broke Ma‘ruf-e Karkhi’s ribs, so that he fell seriously ill.

Sari-e Saqati said to him, “Give me your last testament.”

“When I die,” said Ma‘ruf, “take my shirt and give it in alms. I desire to go out of this world naked, even as I came naked from my mother’s womb.”

When he died, so great was the fame of his humanity and humility that men of all religions, Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, claimed him as one of them.

His servant reported that Ma‘ruf had said, “Whoever is able to lift my bier from the ground, I am of that people.”

The Christians were unable. The Jews were likewise unable to lift it. Then the Muslims came and lifted it. They prayed over him, and in that very place they committed him to the ground.

Sari reported the following.

After Ma‘ruf died I saw him in a dream. He was standing beneath the Throne with his eyes wide open, like one stupefied and distraught. A cry came from God to the angels.

“Who is this?”

“Lord God, Thou knowest best,” the angels answered.

“It is Ma‘ruf,” came the Command. “He has become dazzled and stupefied by reason of Our love. Only by seeing Us will he come to his senses. Only by meeting Us will he rediscover himself.”

Hadhrat Dhu 'I-Nun al-Misri
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu ‘l-Faiz Thauban ibn Ibrahim al-Misri, called Dho ‘l-Nun, was born at Ekhmim in Upper Egypt c. 180 (796), studied under various teachers and travelled extensively in Arabia and Syria. In 214 (829) he was arrested on a charge of heresy and sent to Baghdad to prison, but after examination he was released on the caliph’s orders to return to Cairo, where he died in 246 (861); his tombstone has been preserved. A legendary figure as alchemist and thaumaturge, he is supposed to have known the secret of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. A number of poems and short treatises are attributed to him, but these are for the most part apocryphal.

Dho ‘I-Nun the Egyptian and how he was converted

Dho ‘l-Nun the Egyptian told the following story of his conversion.

I was informed that in a certain place an ascetic was living. I set forth to visit him, and found him suspending himself from a tree.

“O body,” he was saying, “assist me to obey God, else I will keep you hanging like this until you die of hunger.”

A fit of weeping overcame me. The devotee heard me crying.

“Who is this,” he called, “who has compassion upon one whose shame is little and whose crimes are many?”

I approached him and gave him greeting.

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

“This body of mine gives me no peace to obey God,” he replied. “It wants to mingle with other men.”

I supposed that he must have shed a Muslim’s blood, or committed some other deadly sin.

“Did you not realize,” the ascetic said to me, “that once you mingle with other men, everything else follows?”

“What a tremendous ascetic you are!” I cried.

“Would you like to see someone more ascetic than I?” he said

“I would,” I said.

“Go into yonder mountain,” he said. “There you will see.’

I proceeded thither, and saw a young man squatting in a hermitage; one foot had been amputated and flung out of the cell, and the worms were devouring it. I approached him and saluted him, then I enquired after his circumstances.

“One day,” he told me, “I was seated in this hermitage when a woman happened to pass by. My heart inclined towards her and my body demanded of me to go after her. I put one foot out of the cell, then I heard a voice saying, “Are you not ashamed, after serving and obeying God for thirty years, an now you obey Satan and chase a loose woman?” So I cut off the foot that I had set outside the hermitage, and now I sit here waiting for what will transpire and what they will do with me. What business has brought you to such sinners? If you desire to see a man of God, proceed to the top of this mountain.”

The mountain was too high for me to reach the top, so I enquired about this man.

“Yes,” I was told. “It is a long time now that a man has been serving God in that cell. One day a man came along and disputed with him, saying that daily bread was meant for earning. The devotee vowed that he would eat nothing that involved the acquisition of material possessions. For many days he ate nothing. Then Almighty God sent a cloud of bees to hover around him and give him honey.”

The things I had seen and the words I had heard caused a mighty pain to clutch my heart. I realized that whoever puts his trust in God, God cares for him and suffers not his anguish to be in vain. As I went on my way, I saw a blind little bird perched in a tree. It fluttered down from the tree.

“Where will this helpless creature get food and water?” I cried.

The bird dug the earth with its beak and two saucers appeared, one of gold containing grain and the other of silver full of rosewater. The bird ate its fill, then it flew up into the tree and the saucers vanished.

Utterly dumbfounded, Dho ‘l-Nun thenceforward put his trust in God completely, and was truly converted. He pushed on several stages, and when night fell he came to a desert. In that desert he sighted a jar of gold and jewels, and on the top of the jar a tablet on which was written the name of God. His companions divided the gold and the jewels between them.

“Give me the tablet on which is written the name of my Friend,” Dho ‘l-Nun cried.

And he took the tablet. He kissed the tablet all through the day and night, till by the blessing of the tablet he so progressed that one night he dreamed a voice said to him, “All the rest chose the gold and jewels, for they are precious. You chose what was loftier than that, my Name. Therefore I have opened to you the door of knowledge and wisdom.”

Dho ‘l-Nun then returned to the city. His story continues.

I was walking one day when I reached the margin of a river. By the water I saw a pavilion. I proceeded to make my ablutions, and when I had finished my eye suddenly fell on the roof of the pavilion. On the balcony I saw a very beautiful girl standing. Wanting to prove her, I said, “Maiden, to whom do you belong?”

“Dho ‘l-Nun,” replied she, “when you appeared from afar I supposed you were a madman. When you came nearer, I supposed you were a scholar. When you came still nearer, I supposed you were a mystic. Now I see you are neither mad, nor a scholar, nor a mystic.”

“Why do you say that?” I demanded.

“If you had been a madman,” she replied, “you would not have made your ablutions. If you had been a scholar, you would not have gazed at that which is prohibited you. If you had been a mystic, your eye would have fallen upon naught but God. “

So saying, she vanished. I then realized that she was not a mortal creature, but had been sent as a warning. A fire invaded my soul, and I flung myself in the direction of the sea.

When I reached the seashore, I saw a company of men embarked in a ship. I also embarked in that ship. After some days had passed, by chance a jewel belonging to a merchant was lost on board. One by one the passengers were taken and searched. Finally they reached the unanimous conclusion that the jewel was on me. They set about belabouring me and treated me with great disrespect, whilst I remained silent. At last I could endure no more.

“O Creator, Thou knowest,” I cried.

Thousands of fishes thereupon put their heads out of the water, each with a jewel in its mouth.

Dho ‘l-Nun took one of the jewels and gave it to the merchant. All on board when they saw this fell at his feet and begged his pardon. So highly was he considered in the eyes of men. That was why he was called Dho ‘l-Nun (“The Man of the Fish”).

Dho ‘I-Nun is arrested and taken to Baghdad

When Dho ‘l-Nun had already attained a high degree, no one recognized his true greatness. The people of Egypt denounced him unanimously as a heretic, and informed the caliph Motawakkel of his activities. Motawakkel sent officers to convey him to Baghdad in fetters. When he entered the caliph’s court he declared, “This very hour I have learned true Islam from an old woman, and true chivalry from a water-carrier.”

“How is that?” he was asked.

“When I reached the caliph’s palace,” he replied, “and beheld that court in all its magnificence, with the chamberlains and attendants thronging its passages, I wished that some change might take place in my appearance. A woman with a stick in her hand came up and, looking straight at me, addressed me.

“‘Do not be afraid of the body before whom they are taking you, for he and you are both servants of one Almighty Lord. Unless God wills it, they can do nothing to His servant.’

“Then on the road I saw a water-carrier. He gave me a draught of pure water. I made a sign to one who was with me to give the man a dinar. He refused to take it.

“‘You are a prisoner and in bonds,’ he said. ‘It would not be true chivalry to take anything from such a prisoner, a stranger in bonds.’ “

After that it was ordered that he should be put in prison. Forty days and nights he remained in gaol, and every day the sister of Beshr the Barefoot brought him a loaf, the earnings of her spindle. The day when he came out of prison, the forty loaves remained intact, not one having been eaten. When Beshr’s sister heard of this, she became very sad.

“You know that those loaves were lawful food and unsolicited. Why did you not eat them?” she protested.

“Because the plate was not clean,” Dho ‘l-Nun replied, meaning that it had been handled by the gaoler.

As Dho ‘l-Nun came out of the prison he stumbled and cut his forehead. It is related that much blood flowed, but not one drop fell on his face, his hair or his clothes, and all the blood that fell on the ground vanished at once, by the command of Almighty God.

Then they brought him before the caliph, and he was ordered to answer the charges preferred against him.

He explained his doctrine in such a manner that Motawakkel burst into tears, and all his ministers stood in wonder at his eloquence. So the caliph became his disciple, and accorded him high honour.

Dho ‘I-Nan and the pious disciple

There was a disciple of Dho ‘l-Nun who had forty times observed the forty days’ seclusion, forty times he had stood at Arafat, and for forty years he had kept vigil by night. Forty long years he had sat sentinel over the chamber of his heart. One day he came to Dho ‘l-Nun.

‘`I have done all this,” he said. “For all that I have suffered, the Friend speaks not one word to me nor favours me with a single glance. He takes no account of me, and reveals nothing to me from the unseen world. All this I say not in order to praise myself. I am simply stating the facts. I have performed all that was in the power of me, poor wretch, to do. I make no complaint against God. I simply state the facts, that I devote my whole heart and soul to His service. But I am telling the story of the sadness of my evil luck, the tale of my misfortune. I do not say this because my heart has grown weary of obedience. Only I fear that if further life remains ahead of me, it will be the same. For a whole lifetime I have knocked in hope, but I have heard no response. Now it is grown hard for me to endure this any longer. Since you are the physician of the afflicted and the sovereign prescriber of the sages, minister now to my wretchedness.”

“Go and eat your fill tonight,” advised Dho ‘l-Nun. “Omit the prayer before sleep, and slumber the whole night through. So it may be that if the Friend will not show Himself kindly, He will at least show Himself reproachful; if He will not look on you with compassion, He will look on you with sternness.”

The dervish departed and ate his fill. His heart would not permit him to forgo the prayer before sleep, and so he prayed the prayer and fell asleep. That night he saw the Prophet in a dream.

“Your Friend greets you,” the Prophet said. “He says, ‘An effeminate wretch and no true man is he who comes to My court and is quickly sated. The root of the matter is uprightness of life, and no reproaches. God Almighty declares, I have given your heart its desire of forty years, and I grant you to attain all that you hope for, and fulfill all your desire. But convey My greetings to that bandit and pretender Dho ‘I-Nun. Say then to him, Pretender and liar, if I do not expose your shame before all the city, then I am not your Lord. See that you no more beguile the hapless lovers of My court and scare them not away from My court.’ “

The disciple awoke, and was overcome by weeping. He went and told Dho ‘l-Nun what he had seen and heard. When Dho ‘l-Nun heard the words, “God sends you greeting and declares you a pretender and a liar”, he rolled over and over with joy and wept ecstatically.

Anecdotes of Dho ‘l-Nan

Dho ‘l-Nun relates as follows.

I was wandering in the mountains when I observed a party of afflicted folk gathered together.

“What befell you?” I asked.

“There is a devotee living in a cell here,” they answered. “Once every year he comes out and breathes on these people and they are all healed. Then he returns to his cell, and does not emerge again until the following year.”

I waited patiently until he came out. I beheld a man pale of cheek, wasted and with sunken eyes. The awe of him caused me to tremble. He looked on the multitude with compassion. Then he raised his eyes to heaven, and breathed several times over the afflicted ones. All were healed.

As he was about to retire to his cell, I seized his skirt.

“For the love of God,” I cried. “You have healed the outward sickness; pray heal the inward sickness.”

“Dho ‘l-Nun,” he said, gazing at me, “take your hand from me. The Friend is watching from the zenith of might and majesty. If He sees you clutching at another than He, He will abandon you to that person, and that person to you, and you will perish each at the other’s hand.”

So saying, he withdrew into his cell.

One day Dho ‘l-Nun’s companions came to him and found him weeping.

“Why are you weeping?” they asked.

“Last night when I was prostrating in prayer,” he replied, “my eyes closed in sleep. I saw the Lord, and He said to me, ‘O Abu ‘l-Faiz, I created all creatures and they separated into ten parts. I offered the material world to them; nine of those ten parts turned their faces to the material world. One part remained over. That one part divided also into ten parts. I offered Paradise to them; nine parts turned their faces to Paradise. One part remained over. That one part split likewise into ten parts. I brought Hell before them; all fled and were scattered for fear of Hell. Only one part remained over, those who had not been lured by the material world, nor inclined after Paradise, neither were afraid of Hell. I said to them, “My servants, you looked not upon the material world, you inclined not after Paradise, you were not afraid of Hell. What do you seek?” All raised their heads and cried, “Thou knowest best what we desire.”

One day a boy approached Dho ‘l-Nun and said, “I have a hundred thousand dinars. I want to spend them in your service. I wish to use that gold on your dervishes.”

“Are you of age?” Dho ‘l-Nun asked him.

“No,” he replied.

“Then you are not entitled to expend,” Dho ‘l-Nun told him. “Wait with patience until you are of age.”

When the boy came of age he returned to Dho ‘l-Nun and repented at his hands. Then he gave all that gold to the dervishes, until nothing remained of the hundred thousand dinars.

One day an emergency arose, and nothing remained to the dervishes, for they had spent all the money.

“What a pity there is not another hundred thousand, so that I could spend it on these fine men,” said the benefactor.

When Dho ‘l-Nun heard him speak these words, he realized that he had not yet penetrated to the inner truth of the mystic life, for worldly things still seemed important to him. He summoned the young man.

“Go to the shop of such-and-such a druggist,” he instructed him. “Tell him from me to give you three dirhams’ worth of such-and-such a medicine.”

The youth went to the druggist’s, and presently returned.

“Put the stuff in the mortar and pound it up small,” Dho ‘l-Nun ordered him. “Then pour on top of it a little oil, until it becomes a paste. Make three pellets of it, and pierce each with a needle. Then bring them to me.”

The youth carried out these instructions, and brought the pellets. Dho ‘l-Nun rubbed them in his hands and breathed on them, and they turned into three rubies the like of which was never seen.

“Now take these to the market and have them valued,” ordered Dho ‘l-Nun. “But do not sell them.”

The youth took the rubies to the market and displayed them. Each one was priced at a thousand dinars. He returned and told Dho ‘l-Nun.

“Now put them in the mortar and pound them, and throw them into water,” the latter directed.

The youth did as instructed, and threw the powder into water.

“My child,” said Dho ‘l-Nun, “these dervishes are not hungry for lack of bread. This is their free choice.”

The youth repented, and his soul awoke. The world had no longer any worth in his eyes.

Dho ‘l-Nun related as follows.

For thirty years I called men to repent, but only one person came to the court of God in due obedience. The circumstances were these.

One day a prince with his retinue passed by me by the door of the mosque. I spoke these words.

“No one is more foolish than the weakling who tangles with the strong.”

“What words are these?” demanded the prince.

“Man is a weakling, yet he tangles with God who is strong,” I said.

The young prince grew pale. He arose and departed. Next day he returned.

“What is the way to God?” he asked.

“There is a little way, and there is a greater way,” I answered. “Which of the two do you want? If you desire the little way, abandon the world and the lusts of the flesh and give up sinning. If you want the great way, abandon everything but God, and empty your heart of all things.”

“By Allah, I will choose only the greater way,” said the prince.

The next day he put on the woollen robe, and entered the mystic way. In due course he became a saint.

The following story was told by Abu Ja’far the One-eyed.

I was with Dho ‘l-Nun when a group of his followers were present. They were telling stories of inanimate things obeying commands. Now there was a sofa in the room.

“An example,” said Dho ‘l-Nun, “of inanimate things obeying saints’ commands would be if I were to say to that sofa there, ‘Waltz around the house’ and it started to move.”

No sooner had Dho ‘l-Nun spoken these words than the sofa started to circle round the house, then it returned to its place. A youth present burst into tears at the sight, and gave up the ghost. They washed his body on that very sofa, and buried him.

Once a man came up to Dho ‘l-Nun and said, “I have a debt, and I have no means of paying it.”

Dho ‘l-Nun picked up a stone from the ground and gave it to him. The man took the stone to the bazaar. It had turned into an emerald. He sold it for four hundred dirhams and paid his debt.

A certain youth was always speaking against Sufis. One day Dho ‘l-Nun took the ring off his finger and handed it to him.

“Take this to market and pawn it for a dinar,” he said.

The young man took the ring to market, but they would not take it for more than one dirham. The youth returned with the news.

“Now take it to the jewellers, and see what they value it at,” Dho ‘l-Nun told him.

The jewellers priced the ring at a thousand dinars.

“You know as much about Sufis,” Dho ‘l-Nun said to the youth when he returned, “as those stallholders in the market know about this ring.”

The youth repented, and disbelieved in the Sufis no more.

Dho ‘l-Nun had been longing for sekbaj for ten years, but he never gratified that longing. Now it was the eve of festival, and his soul said within him, “How would it be if tomorrow you gave us a mouthful of sekbaj as a festival treat?”

“Soul,” answered Dho ‘l-Nun, “if you want me to do that, then consent with me tonight in chanting the whole Quran in the course of two rak’as.”

His soul consented. The next day Dho ‘l-Nun prepared sekbaj and set it before his soul. He washed his fingers and stood in prayer.

“What happened?” he was asked.

“Just now,” Dho ‘l-Nun replied, “my soul said to me, ‘At last after ten years I have attained my desire.’ ‘By God,’ I answered, ‘you shall not attain that desire.’ “

The relater of this story states that Dho ‘l-Nun had just spoken these words when a man entered and set a bowl of sekbaj before him.

“Master,” he said, “I did not come on my own. I was sent. Let me explain. I earn my living as a porter, and I have children. For some time now they have been asking for sekbaj, and I have been saving up. Last night I made this sekbaj for the festival. Today I saw in a dream the world-adorning beauty of the Messenger of God. ‘If you would see me on the morrow of uprising,’ said the Prophet, ‘take this to Dho ‘l-Nun and tell him that Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, the son of Abd al-Mottaleb, intercedes with him to make truce with his soul for one moment and swallow a few mouthfuls.’ “

“I obey,” said Dho ‘l-Nun, weeping.

As Dho ‘l-Nun lay on his deathbed his friends asked him, “What do you desire?”

“My desire,” he answered, “is that ere I die, even if it be for only one moment, I may know Him.”

He then spoke the following verses.

Fear wasted me,
Yearning consumed me,
Love beguiled me,
God revived me.

One day later he lost consciousness. On the night of his departure from this world, seventy persons saw the Prophet in a dream. All reported that the Prophet said, “The friend of God is coming. I have come out to welcome him.”

When he died, there was seen written in green on his brow, “This is the friend of God. He died in the love of God. This is the slain of God by the sword of God.”

When they lifted his coffin to carry him to the grave the sun was extremely hot. The birds of the air came and with wings flapping kept his bier shaded from his house to the graveside.

As he was being borne along the road, a muezzin chanted the call to prayer. When he reached the words of attestation, Dho ‘l-Nun lifted a finger out of the shroud.

“He is alive!” the shout went up.

They laid down the bier. His finger was pointing, but he was dead. For all that they tried, they could not straighten his finger. When the people of Egypt beheld this, they were all put to shame and repented of the wrongs they had done him. They did things over his dust that cannot be described in words.

Hadhrat Rabe'a al-Adawiya
rahmatullah alayhi

Hadhrat Sahl ibn Abdullah al Tostari
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Muhammad Sahl ibn ‘Abdullah al-Tostari was born at Tostar (Ahwaz) c. 200 (815), studied with Sofyan al-Thauri, and met Dho ‘l-Nun al-Misri. A quiet life was interrupted in 261 (874) when he was compelled to seek refuge in Basra, where he died in 282 (896). A short commentary on the Quran is attributed to him, and he made important contributions to the development of Sufi theory, being influential through his pupil Ibn Salem who founded the Salemiya school.

The early years of Sahl ibn Abdullah al-Tostari

Sahl ibn Abdullah al-Tostari gives the following account of himself.

I remember when God said, Am I not your Lord? and I said, Yes indeed. I also remember myself in my mother’s womb.

I was three years old when I began to pray all night. My uncle Muhammad ibn Sawwar wept to see me pray.

“Sahl, go to sleep. You make me anxious,” he said.

I kept watch on my uncle secretly and openly. Then matters reached the point that one day I said to him, “Uncle, I have a hard state to contend with. I seem to see my head prostrate before the Throne.”

“Keep this state secret, my boy, and tell no one,” he advised. Then he added, “Recollect when you are in your bedclothes rolling from side to side. As your tongue moves, say, ‘God is with me, God is watching over me, God is witnessing me.’ “

I used this formula, and informed my uncle so.

“Say the words seven times each night,” he counselled me.

I informed him that I had done so.

“Say them fifteen times.”

I did as my uncle directed, and a sweetness invaded my heart therefrom. A year passed. Then my uncle said, “Keep my instructions and continue that practice until you go to the grave. The fruits thereof will be yours in this world and the next.”

Years passed, and I used the same formula until the sweetness of it penetrated my most secret heart.

“Sahl,” said my uncle, “when God is with any man and God sees him, how can he disobey God? God watch over you, that you may not disobey.”

After that I went into seclusion. Then they sent me to school.

“I am afraid that my concentration may be scattered,” I said. “Make it a condition with the teacher that I remain with him for an hour and learn some lessons, then I am to return to my true occupation.”

On these terms I went to school and learned the Quran, being then seven years old. From that time I fasted continuously, my only food being barley bread. At twelve a problem occurred to me which no one was able to solve. I asked them to send me to Basra to propound that problem. I came to Basra and questioned the learned men of that city, but no one could answer me. From there I proceeded to Abbadan, to a man called Habib ibn Hamza. He answered my question. I remained with him for some time, and derived much benefit from his instruction.

Then I came to Tostar. By that time my diet had been reduced to the point that they would buy barley for me for a dirham, grind it and bake it into bread. Every night about dawn I would break my fast with an ounce of that bread, without relish or salt. In that way the dirham lasted me a year.

After that I resolved to break my fast once every three days, then once every five days, then once every seven days, and so on until I reached once every twenty days. (According to one report, Sahl claimed to have reached once every seventy days.) Sometimes I would eat just one almond every forty days.

I made trial for many years of satiety and hunger. In the beginning my weakness resulted from hunger and my strength came from satiety. After a time my strength derived from hunger and my weakness from satiety. Then I prayed, “O God, close Sahl’s eyes to both, that he may see satiety in hunger, and hunger in satiety, both proceed from Thee.”

One day Sahl said, “Repentance is a duty incumbent upon a man every moment, whether he be of the elect or the common folk, whether he be obedient to God or disobedient.”

There was a certain man in Tostar who laid claim to be learned and an ascetic. He protested against this statement of Sahl’s.

“He says that the disobedient must repent of his disobedience, and the obedient of his obedience.”

And he turned the people against Sahl, making him out to be a heretic and an infidel. All, commons and nobles alike, took up his charge. Sahl refrained from disputing with them to correct their misunderstanding. Fired by the pure flame of religion, he wrote down on paper a list of all his possessions, farms, houses, furniture, carpets, vessels, gold and silver. Then he gathered the people and scattered the pages over their heads. He gave to every man all that was inscribed on the page that he picked up, as a token of gratitude for their relieving him of his worldly goods. Having given everything away, he set out for Hejaz.

“My soul,” he addressed himself, “now I am bankrupt. Make no further demand on me, for you will not get anything.”

His soul agreed not to ask him for anything, until he reached Kufa.

“So far,” his soul then said, “I have not asked you for anything. Now I desire a piece of bread and a fish. Give me that much to eat, and I will not trouble you again all the way to Makkah.”

Entering Kufa, Sahl observed an ass-mill with a camel tied to it.

“How much do you give to hire this camel for a day?” he asked.

“Two dirhams,” they told him.

“Release the camel and tie me in its place, and give me one dirham for up to the evening prayer,” Sahl demanded.

They released the camel and tied Sahl to the ass-mill. At nightfall they gave him a dirham. He bought bread and a fish and laid it before him.

“Soul,” he addressed himself, “every time you want this, resolve with yourself that tomorrow till sunset you will do mule’s work to get what you want.”

Then Sahl proceeded to the Kaaba, where he met many Sufi masters. From there he returned to Tostar, to find Dho ‘l-Nun awaiting him.

Anecdotes of Sahl

Amr-e Laith fell sick, so that all the physicians were powerless to treat him.

“Is there anyone who can pray for a cure?” it was asked.

“Sahl is such a man whose prayers are answered,” came the reply.

His help was therefore invoked. Having in mind God’s command to “obey those in authority” he responded to the appeal.

“Prayer,” he stated when he was seated before Amr, “is effective only in the case of one who is penitent. In your prison there are men wrongfully detained.”

Amr released them all, and repented.

“Lord God,” prayed Sahl, “like as Thou hast shown to him the abasement due to his disobedience, so now display to him the glory gained by my obedience. Like as Thou hast clothed his inward parts with the garment of repentance, so now clothe his outward parts with the garment of health.”

As soon as Sahl had uttered this prayer, Amr-e Laith recovered his health completely. He offered Sahl much money, but this he declined, and left his presence.

“If you had accepted something,” objected one of his disciples, “so that we might have applied it to discharging the debt we have incurred, would that not have been better?”

“Do you need gold? Then look!” replied Sahl.

The disciple looked and behold, the whole plain and desert were filled with gold and rubies.

“Why,” said Sahl, “should one who enjoys such favour with God accept anything from one of God’s creatures?”

Whenever Sahl partook in a mystic audition he went into ecstasy and would continue rapt for five days, eating no food. If it was winter, the sweat would pour from him and drench his shirt.

When he was in that state, and the ulema questioned him, he would say, “Do not question me, for in this mystic moment you will get no benefit from me and my words.”

Sahl used to walk on the water without his feet being so much as moistened.

“People say,” someone observed, “that you walk on water.”

“Ask the muezzin of this mosque,” Sahl replied. “He is a truthful man.”

“I asked him,” the man said. “The muezzin told me, ‘I never saw that. But in these days he entered a pool to wash. He fell into the pool, and if I had not been on the spot he would have died there.’”

When Abu Ali-e Daqqaq heard this story, he commented, “He had many miraculous powers, but he wished to keep them hidden.”

One day Sahl was seated in the mosque when a pigeon dropped to the ground, exhausted by the heat.

“Shah-e Kermani has died,” remarked Sahl.

When they looked into the matter, it proved to be exactly as Sahl said.

Many lions and other wild beasts used to visit Sahl, and he would feed and tend them. Even today Sahl’s house in Tostar is called “the house of the wild beasts.”

After his long vigils and painful austerities Sahl lost his physical control, suffering from blennorrhoea, so much so that he had to go to the privy several times an hour. To ease matters, he always kept a jar handy because he could not govern himself. When the time for prayer came round, however, the flow ceased. He would then perform his ablutions and pray, and resume as before. Whenever he mounted the pulpit, his blennorrhoea ceased completely, and all his pain would vanish. As soon as he came down from the pulpit, his ailment would show itself again. In all this, he never failed to observe even a tittle of the sacred Law.

On the day when Sahl’s demise approached, his four hundred disciples were in attendance at his sickbed.

“Who will sit in your place, and who will preach from your pulpit?” they asked.

Now there was a certain Zoroastrian named Shadh-Del.

“Shadh-Del will sit in my place,” answered Sahl, opening his eyes.

“The Shaykh has lost his reason,” muttered the disciples.

Having four hundred disciples, all men of learning and religion, he appoints a Zoroastrian to his place!”

“Cease your clamour!” cried Sahl. “Go and bring Shadh-Del to me.”

The disciples fetched the Zoroastrian.

“When three days have elapsed after my death,” Sahl said when his eyes fell on him, “after the afternoon prayers go into my pulpit and sit in my place, and preach to the people.”

With these words Sahl died. Three days later, after the afternoon prayers, as many again assembled. Shadh-Del entered and mounted the pulpit, while the people stared.

“Whatever is this? A Zoroastrian, with the Magian hat on his head and a girdle tied about his waist!”

“Your leader,” said Shadh-Del, “has made me his messenger to you. He said to me, ‘Shadh-Del, has the time not come for you to cut the Magian girdle?’ Behold, now I cut it.”

And he took a knife and cut the girdle.

“He also said,” he went on, “ ‘Has the time not come for you to put off the Magian hat from your head?’ Behold I have put it off.”

Then Shadh-Del said, “I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” He went on, “The Shaykh said, say, ‘He who was your Shaykh and your master counselled you well, and it is a rule of discipleship to accept the master’s counsel. Behold, Shadh-Del has cut the outward girdle. If you wish to see me at the resurrection, I solemnly adjure you, every one of you, cut your inward girdles.’”

Great commotion arose in the congregation when Shadh-Del finished, and there followed amazing spiritual manifestations.

On the day when Sahl was borne to the grave, many people thronged the streets. Now there was a Jew of seventy years in Tostar; when he heard the noise and clamour, he ran out to see what was happening. As the procession reached him, he cried out, “Men, do you see what I see? Angels are descending from heaven and stroking his bier with their wings!” And immediately he uttered the attestation and became a Muslim.

One day Sahl was seated with his companions when a certain man passed by. “This man holds a secret,” Sahl said. By the time they looked, the man had gone. After Sahl’s death, one of his disciples was sitting by his grave when the same man passed by.

“Sir,” the disciple addressed him, “the Shaykh who lies in this tomb once said that you hold a secret. By that God who has vouchsafed this secret to you, make me a demonstration.”

The man pointed to Sahl’s grave. “Sahl, speak!” he said. A voice spoke loudly within the tomb. “There is no god but God alone, Who has no partner.”

“They say,” said the man, “that whosoever believes that there is no god but God, there is no darkness for him in the grave. Is that true or no?”

Sahl cried from the grave, “It is true!”

Hadhrat Sari al Saqati
rahmatullah alayhi

Abo ‘1-Hasan Sari ibn al-Moghalles al-Saqati, said to be a pupil of Ma’ruf al-Karkhi, uncle of al-Junaid, was a prominent figure in the Baghdad circle of Sufis and attracted the opposition of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. A dealer in secondhand goods, he died in 253 (867) at the age of 98.

The career of Sari-e Saqati

Sari-e Saqati was the first man to preach in Baghdad on the mystic truths and the Suh “unity”. Most of the Sufi shaikhs of Iraq were his disciples. He was the uncle of Junaid and the pupil of Ma’ruf-e Karkhi; he had also seen Habib-e Ra’i.

To begin with he lived in Baghdad, where he had a shop. Hanging a curtain over the door of his shop, he would go in and pray, performing several rak’as daily in this fashion.

One day a man came from Mount Lokam to visit him. Lifting aside the curtain, he greeted him.

“Shaikh So-and-so from Mount Lokam greets you,” he said.

“He dwells in the mountains,” commented Sari. “So his efforts amount to nothing. A man ought to be able to live in the midst of the market and be so preoccupied with God, that not for a single instant is he absent from God.”

It is said that in his transactions he never looked for a greater profit than five per cent. Once he bought almonds for sixty dinars. Almonds then became scarce. A broker called on him.

“Sell then,” said Sari. “For how much?” the broker asked. “Sixty-six dinars.” “But the price of almonds today is ninety dinars,”

the broker objected. “It is my rule not to take more than five per cent,” Sari replied. “I will not break my rule.” “I also do not think it right to sell your goods for less,” said the broker. So the broker did not sell, and Sari made no concession.

To start with Sari used to sell odds and ends. One day the bazaars of Baghdad caught fire. “The bazaars are on fire,” they told him. “Then I have also become free,” he remarked. Afterwards an inspection was made and it was found

that Sari’s shop had not been burned. When he saw that, he gave all that he possessed to the poor and took up the Sufi way.

“What was the beginning of your spiritual career?” he was asked.

“One day,” he said, “Habib-e Ra’i passed by my shop. I gave him something to give to the poor. ‘God be good to you,’ he replied. The day he intoned that prayer the world lost its attraction for me.

“The following day Ma’ruf-e Karkhi came along bringing an orphan child. ‘Clothe this child,’ he begged me. I clothed the child. ‘May God make the world hateful to your heart, and give you rest from this work,’ he cried. I gave up worldly things completely, thanks to the blessing of Ma’ruf’s prayer.”

Sari and the courtier

One day Sari was preaching. Now one of the caliph’s booncompanions called Ahmad-e Yazid the Scribe came along in all his finery, surrounded by a crowd of servants and slaves.

“Wait while I listen to this fellow’s sermon,” he said. “We have been to a good few places where we should not have gone. I have had my fill of them.”

He entered and sat down in Sari’s audience.

“In all eighteen thousand worlds,” Sari was saying, “there is nothing weaker than man. Yet of all the species that God has created, none is so disobedient to God’s command as man. If he is good, he is so good that the very angels envy his estate; if he is bad, he is so bad that the Devil himself is ashamed to associate with him. What a marvellous thing is man, so weak, yet he disobeys God who is so mighty!”

These words were as an arrow sped from Sari’s bow into Ahmad’s soul. He wept so bitterly that he fainted. Then weeping he arose and returned to his home. That night he ate nothing and uttered not a word.

The next day he came on foot to Sari’s assembly, anxious and pale of cheek. When the meeting ended, he went home. On the third day he came again, alone and on foot. At the close of the assembly he came up to Sari.

“Master,” he said, “your words have taken hold of me and made the world loathsome to my heart. I want to give up the world and retire from the society of men. Expound to me the way of the Travellers.”

“Which path do you want?” Sari asked him. “That of the Way, or that of the Law? That of the multitude, or that of the elect?”

“Expound both,” the courtier requested.

“The way of the multitude is this,” said Sari, “that you observe prayer five times daily behind the imam, and that you give alms—if it be in money, half a dinar out of every twenty. The way of the elect is this, that you thrust the world behind you altogether and do not concern yourself with any of its trappings; if you are offered it, you will not accept it. These are the two ways.”

The courtier went out and set his face towards the wilderness. Some days later an old woman with matted hair and scratches on her cheeks came to Sari.

“Imam of the Muslims, I had a son, young and fresh of countenance,” she said. “One day he came to your assembly laughing and strutting, and returned weeping and wailing. Now it is some days since he has vanished, and I do not know where he is. My heart is burning because he is parted from me. Please do something for me.”

Her desperate pleading moved Sari to compassion.

“Do not grieve,” he told her. “Only good will ensue. When he comes back, I will inform you. He has abandoned the world and turned his back on the worldlings. He has become a true penitent.”

After a space, one night Ahmad reappeared.

“Go, tell the old lady,” Sari bade his servant. Then he looked upon Ahmad. His cheeks were pale, he was wasted, the tall cypress of his stature was bent double.

“Kindly master,” he cried, “forasmuch as you have guided me to peace and delivered me out of darkness, now may God give you peace and bestow upon you joy in both worlds.”

They were thus conversing when Ahmad’s mother and his wife entered, bringing his little son. When his mother’s eyes fell upon Ahmad and she saw him in a state she had never seen before, she cast herself upon his breast. His wife too stood on one side of him wailing, whilst his son wept on the other. A hubbub went up from them all, and Sari too burst into tears. The child flung himself at his father’s feet. But despite all their efforts to persuade him to return home, it was all to no effect.

“Imam of the Muslims,” Ahmad protested, “why did you tell them? They will be my undoing.”

“Your mother entreated me over and over, so at last I consented to tell her,” Sari replied.

Ahmad prepared to return to the desert.

“While still alive, you have made me a widow and your child an orphan,” cried his wife. “When he asks for you, what am I to do? There is no other way. You must take the boy with you.”

“I will do that,” Akmad answered.

He stripped him of his fine clothes and flung a strip of goat’s wool over him. He put a wallet in his hand.

“Now be on your way,” he said.

“I cannot stand this,” cried his wife when she saw the child in that state. She snatched the boy to her.

“I give you charge of myself too,” said Ahmad. “If you so desire, set me free.”

Then Ahmad returned to the wilderness. Some years went by. Then one night, at the time of the prayer of sleeping, a man came to Sari’s hospice.

“Ahmad sent me,” he said, entering. “He says, ‘My affairs have come to a critical pass. Help me.’ “

Sari went out. He found Ahmad lying on the ground in a sepulchre, on the point of expiring. His tongue was still moving. Sari listened. Ahmad was saying, “For the like of this let the workers work.” Sari raised his head from the dust, wiped it, and laid it on his breast. Ahmad opened his eyes and saw the shaikh.

“Master, you have come in time,” he cried. “My affairs have come to a critical pass.”

Then he ceased to breathe. Weeping, Sari set out for the city to arrange his affairs. He saw a multitude coming forth from the city.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Do you not know?” they replied. “Last night a voice was heard from Heaven proclaiming, ‘Whoever desires to pray over an elect friend of God, say, Go to the cemetery of Shuniziya.’”

Anecdotes of Sari

Junaid reported the following.

One day when I visited Sari I found him in tears.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The thought occurred to me,” he replied, “that tonight I would hang out a jar for the water to cool. In a dream I saw a houri who told me, when I asked her who she belonged to, ‘I belong to the man who does not hang out a jar for the water to get cool.’ The houri then dashed my jar to the ground. See there!”

I saw the broken shards. For a long time the pieces still lay there.

The following was also reported by Junaid.

One night I had been sleeping peacefully, and when I awoke my secret soul insisted that I should go to the mosque of Shuniziya. I went there, and saw by the mosque a person of terrible mien. I was afraid.

“Junaid, are you afraid of me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“If you knew God as He should be known,” he said, “you would fear none but Him.”

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Iblis,” he answered.

“I wanted to see you,” I told him.

“The moment you thought of me, you forgot God without being aware of it,” he said. “What was your object in wanting to see me?”

“I wanted to ask whether you had any power over the poor,” I told him.

“No,” he answered.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“When I want to trap them with worldly things, they flee to the next world,” he said. “And when I want to trap them with the next world, they flee to the Lord, and there I cannot follow them.”

“If you cannot master them, then do you see them?” I enquired.

“I see them,” he answered. “When they are at concert and in ecstasy, I see the source of their lamentation.”

With that he vanished. I entered the mosque, to find Sari there with his head on his knees.

“He lies, that enemy of God,” he said, raising his head. “They are too precious for Him to show them to Iblis.”

Sari had a sister. She asked for permission to sweep his apartment, but he refused her.

“My life is not worthy of this,” he told her.

One day she entered and saw an old woman sweeping out his room.

“Brother, you did not give me permission to wait upon you. Now you have brought one not of your kindred.”

“Sister, let not your heart be troubled,” Sari replied. “This is this lower world. She fell in love with me, and was denied me. So now she asked permission of Almighty God to be a part of my life. She has been given the task of sweeping my chamber.”

Hadhrat Shafiq-e Balkhi
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu ‘Ali Shaqiq ibn Ibrahim al-Azdi of Balkh, a man of wide learning, began his career as a merchant but later turned to the ascetic way. He made the pilgrimage to Makkah, and was martyred in 194 (810).

The career of Shafiq-e Balkhi

Shaqiq-e Balkhi was a master of many sciences, and wrote many books. He taught Hatem the Deaf, whilst he learned the Way from Ibrahim-e Adham. He claimed to have studied under I,700 teachers, and to have acquired several camels’ loads of books. The circumstances of his conversion were as follows.

Shaqiq went to Torkestan on a trading expedition. On the way he paused to look at a temple, where he saw an idolater worshipping an idol and making humble obeisance.

“You have a Creator who is living and omnipotent and omniscient,” he told the man. “Worship Him. Have some shame; do not worship an idol from which neither good nor evil comes.”

‘If it is as you say,” the idolater replied, “is He not able to provide you with your daily bread in your own city? Must you then come all this way here?”

These words awakened Shaqiq to the truth, and he turned back towards Balkh. A Zoroastrian happened to travel along with him.

“What are you engaged upon?” asked the Zoroastrian.

“Trading,” Shaqiq replied.

“If you are going in search of sustenance that has not been preordained for you, you can travel till the resurrection and you will not attain it,” said the other. “And if you are going after sustenance that has been foreordained for you, do not trouble to go; it will come to you of itself.”

These words awakened Shaqiq still further, and his love for worldly things grew chill.

Finally Shaqiq returned to Balkh, where his friends gave him a warm welcome; for he was famous for his generosity. Now the Prince of Balkh at that time was Ali ibn Isa ibn Haman, and he kept hunting-dogs. It so happened that one of his dogs was missing.

“It is with Shaqiq’s neighbour,” they told him.

The man was arrested and accused of stealing the dog. They beat him about, and he turned to Shaqiq for protection. Shaqiq went to the Prince.

“Give me three days, and I will bring your dog back to you. Set my friend free,” he begged.

The Prince set Shaqiq’s neighbour free. Three days later by chance a man found and captured the dog.

“I must take this dog to Shaqiq,” he thought. “He is a generous man, and will give me something.”

So he brought the dog to Shaqiq. Shaqiq brought it to the Prince, and thus he was quit of his pledge. Thereupon he resolved to turn his back on the world entirely.

Later there was a great famine in Balkh, so that men were devouring one another. In the market Shaqiq saw a young slave laughing happily.

“Slave, what occasion for merriment is this?” Shaqiq demanded. “Do you not see how the people are suffering from hunger?”

“Why should I be worried?” the slave answered. “My master owns a whole village and has plenty of grain. He will never let me go hungry.”

Shaqiq lost all self-control on hearing this reply.

“O God,” he cried, “this slave is so happy in having a master who owns a stack of corn. Thou art the King of Kings, and hast undertaken to give us our daily bread. Why then should we be anxious?”

He thereupon abandoned all worldly occupation and made sincere repentance. He set forth on the path to God, in whom he put perfect trust. He used to say, “I am the pupil of a slave.”

Hatem the Deaf relates the following anecdote. I went with Shaqiq to the holy war. One day the

fighting was very fierce; the ranks were drawn up so closely that nothing could be seen but the tips of lances, and arrows were raining from the sky.

“Hatem,” Shaqiq called to me, “how are you enjoying yourself? May be you are thinking it is last night, when you were sleeping in your bedclothes with your wife!”

“Not at all,” I replied.

“In God’s name why not?” Shaqiq cried. “That is how I feel. I feel as you did last night in your bedclothes.”

Then night came on, and Shaqiq laid down and, wrapping himself in his gown, fell fast asleep. So completely did he rely upon God that in the midst of so many enemies he slept soundly.

One day Shaqiq was lecturing when news ran through the city that the infidels were at the gates. Shaqiq ran out and routed the unbelievers, then he returned. A disciple placed a handful of flowers near the Master’s prayer rug. He picked them up and smelt them.

An ignorant fellow saw this and shouted,

“An army at the gates, and the imam of the Muslims holds flowers to his nose!”

“The hypocrite sees the smelling of flowers all right, but he does not see the routing of the infidels,” Shaqiq commented.

Shaqiq-e Balkhi before Harun al-Rashid

When Shaqiq set out on the Makkah pilgrimage and reached Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid summoned him.

“Are you Shaqiq the Ascetic?” Harun demanded when he came into his presence.

“I am Shaqiq,” he replied, “but not the Ascetic.”

“Counsel me,” Harun commanded.

“Then attend,” Shaqiq proceeded. “Almighty God has set you in the place of Abu Bakr the Trusty, and requires trustiness from you as from him. He has set you in the place of Umar the Discriminator, and requires from you as from him discrimination between truth and falsehood. He has set you in the place of Uthman of the Two Lights, and requires from you as from him modesty and nobility. He has set you in the place of Ali the Well-approved, and requires from you as from him knowledge and justice.”

“Say more,” Harun cried.

“God has a lodging-place called Hell,” Shaqiq said. “He has appointed you its doorkeeper, and has equipped you with three things—wealth, sword and whip. ‘With these three things,’ He commands, ‘keep the people away from Hell. If any man comes to you in need, do not grudge him money. If any man opposes God’s commandment, school him with this whip. If any man slays another, lawfully exact retaliation on him with this sword.’ If you do not these things, you will be the leader of those that enter Hell.”

“Say more,” Harun repeated.

“You are the fountain, and your agents are the rivulets,” said Shaqiq. “If the fountain is bright, it is not impaired by the darkness of the rivulets. But if the fountain is dark, what hope is there that the rivulets will be bright?”

“Say more,” Harun said again.

“Suppose you are thirsting in the desert, so that you are about to perish,” Shaqiq went on. “If in that moment you come upon a draught of water, how much will you be willing to give for it?”

“As much as the man demands,” said Harun. “And if he will not sell save for half your kingdom?”

“I would give that,” Harun replied.

“And suppose you drink the water and then it will not come out of you, so that you are in danger of perishing,” Shaqiq pursued. “Then someone tells you, ‘I will cure you, but I demand half your kingdom.’ What would you do?”

“I would give it,” answered Harun.

“Then why do you vaunt yourself of a kingdom,” said Shaqiq, “the value of which is one draught of water which you drink, and then it comes out of you?”

Harun wept, and sent Shaqiq away with all honour.

Hadhrat Shah ibn Shoja
rahmatullah alayhi

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 Quran?”

“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 marriage-knot.”

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.”

Hadhrat Sufyan al-Thauri
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu ‘Abd Allah Sufyan ibn Sa’id al-Thauri was born in 97 (715) at Kufa and studied first under his father, and later with many learned men, attaining high proficiency in Traditions and theology. In 158 (775) he collided with the authorities and was compelled to go into hiding in Makkah; he died in 161 (778) at Basra. He founded a school of jurisprudence which survived for about two centuries; living a strictly ascetic life, he was claimed by the Sufis as a saint.

Sufyan-e Thauri and the caliphs

The scrupulousness of Sufyan-e Thauri manifested itself even before he was born. One day his mother was on the roof of her house and put in her mouth a few pickles from her neighbour’s roof. Sufyan gave such a violent kick against his mother’s womb that she thought she had lost him.

It is reported that the caliph of those days was praying before Sufyan, and whilst at prayer he twirled his moustache.

“This is not a proper kind of prayer,” Sufyan called out. “Tomorrow on the resurrection plain this prayer will be flung into your face like a dirty rag.”

“Speak a little more gently,” said the caliph.

“If I should hold my hand back from such a responsibility,” Sufyan answered, “my urine would turn to blood.”

The caliph was angered by these remarks, and ordered him to be put on the gallows.

“Then no one else will be so bold before me,” he said.

On the day when the gallows were erected, Sufyan was lying with his head in the bosom of a great saint and his feet in the lap of Sufyan ibn Oyaina, fast asleep. The two saints, learning that the gallows were being prepared, said to one another, “Let us not tell him.” At this point Sufyan awoke

“What is happening?” he asked.

They told him, exhibiting much distress.

“I am not so greatly attached to life,” Sufyan commented. “But one must discharge one’s duty so long as one is in this world.”

His eyes filling with tears, he prayed, “Lord God, seize them with a mighty seizing!”

The caliph at that moment was seated on his throne surrounded by the pillars of state. A thunderbolt struck the palace, and the caliph with his ministers was swallowed by the earth.

“What a well-received and quickly answered prayer!” exclaimed those two noble saints.

Another caliph sat on the throne who believed in Sufyan. It so happened that Sufyan fell ill. Now the caliph had a Christian physician, a great master and extremely clever. He sent him to Sufyan to treat him. When he examined his urine, he remarked,

“This is a man whose liver has turned to blood out of the fear of God. It is flowing little by little out of his bladder. The religion which such a man holds,” he added, “cannot be false.”

And he immediately turned Muslim.

“I thought I was sending the physician to the bed of a sick man,” the caliph commented. “In reality I sent the sick man to treat the physician.”

Anecdotes of Sufyan-e Thauri

One day Sufyan with a friend was passing the door of a notable. The friend gazed at the portico. Sufyan rebuked him.

“If you and your like did not gaze so at their palaces, they would not commit such extravagance,” he said. “By gazing you become partners in the sin of this extravagance.”

A neighbour of Sufyan’s died, and Sufyan went out to pray at his funeral. After that he heard people saying, “He was a good man.”

“If I had known that other men approved of him,” said Sufyan, “I would never have taken part in his funeral. Unless a man is a hypocrite, the others do not approve of him!”

One day Sufyan put on his clothes all awry. When this was pointed out to him, he was on the point of adjusting them, but then abstained.

“I put on this shirt for God’s sake,” he said. “I do not wish to change it for the sake of men.”

A youth missed the pilgrimage, and he sighed.

“I have performed forty pilgrimages,” Sufyan told him. “I bestow them all on you. Will you bestow this sigh on me?”

“I do,” said the youth.

That night Sufyan dreamed that a voice said to him, “You have made such a profit on the transaction that, if it were divided up amongst all the pilgrims at Arafat, they would be rich indeed.”

One day Sufyan was eating a piece of bread when a dog happened along. He gave the bread to the dog, bit by bit.

“Why did you not eat it with your wife and child?” he was asked.

“If I give bread to the dog,?’ he replied, “he keeps watch over me all through the night so that I can pray.

If I give it to my wife and child, they hold me back from my devotions.”

Once Sufyan was travelling to Makkah in a litter. A companion was with him, and Sufyan wept all the way.

“Do you weep out of fear for your sins?” asked his friend. Sufyan stretched out his hand and plucked some stubble.

“My sins are many,” he replied. “Yet though my sins are many, they mean no more to me than this handful of stubble. What makes me afraid is whether the faith I am offering is really faith or no.”

An illustration of the compassion Sufyan showed to all God’s creatures is provided by the following story. One day he saw in the market a bird in a cage, fluttering and making a pitiful sound. He bought it and set it free. Every night the bird would come to Sufyan’s home and watch all night while Sufyan prayed, perching on him from time to time.

When Sufyan died and was being borne to the grave, that bird insisted on joining the procession and wailed pitifully along with the rest of the mourners. When Sufyan was committed to the dust, the bird dashed itself to the ground. A voice issued from the tomb, “Almighty God has forgiven Sufyan for the compassion he showed to His creatures.” The bird died too, and joined Sufyan.

Hadhrat Abu Uthman al-Hiri
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu ‘Uthman 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-Junaid in Baghdad, and died at Nishapur in 298 (911).

The education of Abu Uthman-e Hiri

“My heart even in the days of my childhood was always seeking after something of reality,” said Abu Uthman-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 Uthman 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 Uthman 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 Uthman 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 Uthman 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 Uthman 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 Uthman. 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 Uthman 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 Uthman accompanied him, the saint wearing a short tunic. Abu Hafs came out to receive Shah-e Shoja’ and showered praises upon him.

Abu Uthman’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 Uthman 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 Uthman 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 Shaykh,” said Shah-e Shoja’, turning to Abu Uthman. With that Shah-e Shoja’ departed, and Abu Uthman remained, and saw what he saw.

“I was still a young man,” Abu Uthman 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 Shaykh ordered me. When the Shaykh 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 Uthman

“For forty years,” said Abu Uthman, “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 Uthman sent him an invitation. Abu Uthman 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 Uthman went home. He had gone only a little way when the man called out to him.

“Shaykh, come here!”

Abu Uthman returned.

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

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

“Eat stones, or go home!”

Abu Uthman went off once more. Thirty times the man summoned him and drove him away. Thirty times the Shaykh 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 Uthman 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 Uthman 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 Uthman 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 Uthman, he tucked his curls under his cap and drew the lute into his sleeve, thinking that he would denounce him to the authorities. Abu Uthman 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 Shaykh. Abu Uthman 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 Uthman himself was amazed.

At the time of the afternoon prayers, Abu Uthman-e Maghrebi arrived. Abu Uthman-e Hiri said to him, “Shaykh, 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.”

Hadhrat Yahya ibn Mu'adh
rahmatullah alayhi

Abu Zakariya’ Yahya ibn Mu'adh al-Razi, a disciple of Ibn Karram, left his native town of Rayy and lived for a time in Balkh, afterwards proceeding to Nishapur where he died in 258 (871). A certain number of poems are attributed to him.

Yahya-e Mu'adh-e Razi and his debt

Yahya-e Mu'adh had incurred a debt of a hundred thousand dirhams. He had borrowed all this money and expended it on gifts to holy warriors, pilgrims, poor men, scholars and Sufis. His creditors were pressing him for repayment, and his heart was much preoccupied thereby.

One night he dreamed that the Prophet spoke to him.

“Yahya, be not over-anxious, for I am pained on account of your anxiety. Arise, go to Khorasan. There a woman has set aside three hundred thousand dirhams to meet the hundred thousand you have borrowed.”

“Messenger of God,” cried Yahya, “which is that city, and who is that person?”

“Go from city to city and preach,” said the Prophet. “Your words bring healing to men’s hearts. Just as I have come to you in a dream, so now I will visit that person in a dream.”

So Yahya came to Nishapur. They set up a pulpit for him before the cupola.

“Men of Nishapur,” he cried, “I have come here at the direction of the Prophet, on him be peace. The Prophet declared, ‘One will discharge the debt you owe.’ I have a debt of a hundred thousand silver dirhams. Know that always my words possessed a beauty, but now this debt has come as a veil over that beauty.”

“I will give fifty thousand dirhams,” one man volunteered.

“I will give forty thousand,” offered another.

Yahya declined to accept their gifts.

“The Master, peace be upon him, indicated one person,” he said.

He then began to preach. On the first day seven corpses were removed from the gathering. Then, seeing that his debt was not discharged in Nishapur, Yahya set out for Balkh. There he was detained for a while to preach. He extolled riches over poverty. They gave him a hundred thousand dirhams. But his words did not please a certain shaikh living in those parts, seeing that he had preferred riches.

“May God not bless him!” he exclaimed.

When Yahya left Balkh he was set on by highwaymen and robbed of all the money.

“That is the result of that shaikh’s prayer,” they said.

So he proceeded to Herat, some say by way of Merv. There he related his dream. The daughter of the Prince of Herat was in the audience. She sent him a message.

“Imam, cease worrying about the debt. The night the Prophet spoke to you in a dream, he also spoke to me. I said, ‘Messenger of God, I will go to him.’ ‘No,’ the Prophet replied, ‘he will come to you.’ I have therefore been waiting for you. When my father gave me in marriage, the things others receive in copper and brass he made for me of silver and gold. The silver things are worth three hundred thousand dirhams. I bestow them on you. But I have one requirement, that you preach here for four days more.”

Yahya held forth for four days longer. On the first day ten corpses were taken up, on the second twenty-five, on the third forty, and on the fourth seventy. Then on the fifth day Yahya left Herat with seven camels’ loads of silver. When he reached Balham, being accompanied by his son, transporting all that wealth, his son demurred.

“When he enters the town, he must not give it all immediately to the creditors and the poor and leave me with nothing of it.”

At dawn Yahya was communing with God, his head bowed to the ground. Suddenly a rock fell on his head.

“Give the money to the creditors,” he cried. Then he expired.

The men of the Way lifted him on their shoulders and bore him to Nishapur, where they laid him in the grave.

Yahya-e Mu'adh-e Razi and his brother

Yahya-e Mu'adh had a brother who went to Makkah and took up residence near the Kaaba. From there he wrote a letter to Yahya.

“Three things I desired. Two have been realized. Now one remains. Pray to God that He may graciously grant that one desire as well. I desired that I might pass my last years in the noblest place on earth. Now I have come to the Sacred Territory, which is the noblest of all places. My second desire was to have a servant to wait on me and make ready my ablution water. God has given me a seemly servant-girl. My third desire is to see you before I die. Pray to God that he may vouchsafe this desire.”

Yahya replied to his brother as follows.

“As for your saying that you desired the best place on earth, be yourself the best of men, then live in whatever place you wish. A place is noble by reason of its inhabitants, not vice versa.

“Then as for your saying that you desired a servant and have now got one, if you were really a true and chivalrous man, you would never have made God’s servant your own servant, detaining her from serving God and diverting her to serve yourself. You should yourself be a servant. You desire to be a master, but mastership is an attribute of God. Servanthood is an attribute of man. God’s servant must be a servant. When God’s servant desires a station proper to God, he makes himself a Pharaoh.

“Finally, as to your saying that you desire to see me, if you were truly aware of God, you would never remember me. So associate with God, that no memory of your brother ever comes into your mind. There one must be ready to sacrifice one’s son; how much more a brother! If you have found Him, what am I to you? And if you have not found Him, what profit will you gain from me?”

Hadhrat Yusuf ibn al-Hussain
rahmatullah alayhi

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

The conversion of Yusuf ibn al-Hussain-e Razi

The spiritual career of Yusuf ibn al-Hussain-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, Yusuf 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 Yusuf ibn al-Hussain.”

Let Yusuf 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 Misri. He has been vouchsafed the Greatest Name of God. Go unto him.”

When Yusuf 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 Yusuf 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 Yusuf 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,” Yusuf replied.

For a further year Dho ‘l-Nun held his peace. Then he handed Yusuf 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.”

Yusuf 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. Yusuf 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!” Yusuf 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, Yusuf 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,” Yusuf 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 Yusuf.

“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 Yusuf.

“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 Yusuf.

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

“So I will do,” Yusuf 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. Yusuf 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, Yusuf began to preach. Thereafter he continued so for fifty years, whether anyone was present or no.

Yusuf ibn al-Hussain and Ibrahim-e Khauwas

Ibrahim-e Khauwas became a disciple of Yusuf ibn al-Hussain. 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 (Ibrahim said) I heard a voice which said to me, “Go and say to Yusuf-e Hussain, ‘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 Yusuf 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 Quran 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 Quran 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 Khizr, who addressed me.

“Yusuf-e Hussain 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.”

Yusuf ibn al-Hussain 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 ‘Uthman-e Hiri and explained his predicament to him. At first Abu ‘Uthman 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 ‘Uthman’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 Yusuf ibn al-Hussain,” Abu Hafs told him.

Abu ‘Uthman set out at once towards Iraq. When he reached Rayy he enquired where Yusuf-e Hussain 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 ‘Uthman regretted having come there and returned to Nishapur.

“Did you see Yusuf-e Hussain?” Abu Hafs asked him.

“No,” he replied.

“Why not?”

“I heard that he was such and such a man,” Abu ‘Uthman 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 ‘Uthman returned to Rayy and again asked for Yusuf’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 Yusuf’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 ‘Uthman entered and spoke the greeting and sat down. Shaikh Yusuf began to speak, and uttered such lofty words that Abu ‘Uthman 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,” Yusuf replied. “I am teaching him the Quran. 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 ‘Uthman repeated, “why do you act so that men say of you what they say?”

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

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

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