From “Just Like That”
A man came to Libnani, a sufi teacher, and this interchange took place. Man: I wish to learn. Will you teach me? Libnani: I do not feel that you know how to learn. Man: Can you teach me how to learn? Libnani: Can you learn how to let me teach you?
Bahauddin El-shah was sitting with a number of disciples when a number of followers came into the meeting hall. El-shah asked each of them, one by one, to say why he was there. The first said: You are the greatest man on earth. I gave him a potion when he was ill, so he thinks I am the greatest man on earth, said El-shah. The second said: My spiritual life has opened up since I have been allowed to visit you. He was uncertain and ill at ease and none would listen to him. I sat with him, and the resultant serenity is called by him his spiritual life, said El-shah. The third said: You understand me, and all I ask is that you allow me to hear your discourses for the good of my soul. He needs attention and wished to have notice paid to him even if it is criticism, said El-shah. This he calls the good of his soul. The fourth said: I went from one to another practicing what they taught. It was not until you gave me a wazifa exercise that I truly felt the illumination of contact with you. The exercise I gave this man was a concocted one not related to his spiritual life at all, said El-shah. I had to demonstrate his illusion of spirituality before I could arrive at the part of this man which is really spiritual, not sentimental.
Salih of Qazwin taught his disciples: Whoever knocks at the door continually, it will be opened to him. Rabiya, hearing him one day, said: How long will you say, it will be opened? The door has never been shut.
A man who was believed to have died and was being prepared for burial, revived. He sat up, but was so shocked at the scene surrounding him that he fainted. He was put in the coffin and the funeral party set off for the cemetery. Just as they arrived at the grave he regained consciousness, lifted the lid, and cried out for help. It is not possible that he has revived, said the mourners, because he has been certified dead by competent experts. But I am alive! Shouted the man. He appealed to a well known and impartial scientist and jurisprudent who was present. Just a moment, said the expert. He then turned to the mourners, counting them. Now we have heard what the alleged deceased has had to say. You fifty witnesses tell me what you regard as the truth. He is dead, said the witnesses. Bury him, said the expert. And so he was buried.
There was a man who lost his axe, and he suspected the boy next door. He watched the boy walking — he had stolen his axe. His expression, his talk, his behavior, his manner, everything about him betrayed that he had stolen the axe. Soon afterwards the man was digging in his garden and he found the axe. On another day he saw the boy next door again. Nothing in his behavior and manner suggested that he would steal an axe.
Saadi said: A man had an ugly daughter. He married her to a blind man because nobody else would have her. A doctor offered to restore the blind man’s sight. But the father would not allow him for fear that he would then divorce his daughter. Saadi concluded: The husband of an ugly woman is best blind.
There was a man living by the seashore who loved seagulls. Every morning he went down to the sea to roam with the seagulls. More birds came to him than could be counted in hundreds. His father said to him one day: I hear the seagulls all come roaming with you — bring me some to play with. Next day, when he went to the sea, the seagulls danced above him and would not come down.
Three men made their way to the circle of a sufi, seeking admission to his teachings. Almost at once one of them detached himself from the group, angered by the erratic behavior of the master. On the master’s instructions, the second was told by a disciple that the sage was a fraud. The third was allowed to stay, but he was offered no teaching for so long that he lost interest and left the circle. When they had all gone away the teacher instructed his circle thus: The first man was an illustration of the principle: do not judge fundamental things by sight. The second was an illustration of the injunction: do not judge things of deep importance by hearing. The third was an example of the dictum: never judge by speech, or the lack of it. When asked by a disciple why the applicants could not have been instructed in this matter, the sage retorted: I am here to give higher knowledge, not to teach what people pretend that they already know at their mother’s knees.
Shibli went to visit another great sage, Junnaid. The wife of Junnaid was about to conceal herself modestly behind a screen. Junnaid said: Stay where you are — Shibli is absent. At that moment Shibli began to weep. Junnaid said to his wife: You must now be absent, for Shibli has returned.
Uwais Al-qarni was offered some money. He said: I do not need it as I already have a coin. The other said: How long will that last you? — it is nothing. Uwais answered: Guarantee me that I shall live longer than this sum will suffice me and I will accept your gift.
Sufis The People of Path Vol 1
Uwais was asked, ‘How do you feel?’ He said, ‘Like one who has arisen in the morning and does not know whether he will be dead in the evening.’ The other man said, ‘But this is the situation of all men.’ Uwais said, ‘Yes, but how many of them feel it?’
Shah Firoz, who is remembered as the teacher of many very distinguished Sufis, was often asked why he did not teach them faster. He said, ‘Because even the most dedicated will, until a certain point of understanding, not be teachable at all. He is here in the flesh, but absent in every other way.’ He also recited this tale. There was once a king who wanted to become a Sufi. The Sufi whom he approached about the matter said, ‘Majesty, you cannot study with the elect until you can overcome heedlessness.’ ‘Heedlessness!’ said the king. ‘Am I not heedful of my religious obligations? Do I not look after the people? Whom can you find in all my realm who has a complaint against me on the grounds of heedlessness?’ ‘That is precisely the difficulty,’ said the Sufi. ‘Because heedfulness is so marked in some things, people imagine that it must be a part of their texture.’ ‘I cannot understand that sort of remark,’ said the king, ‘and perhaps you will regard me as unsuitable because I cannot fathom your riddles.’ ‘Not at all, ‘ said the Sufi, ‘but a would-be disciple cannot really have a debate with his prospective teacher. Sufis deal in knowledge, not in argument. But I will give you a demonstration of your heedlessness, if you will carry out a test and do what I ask in respect to it.’ The king agreed to take the test, and the Sufi told him to say ‘I believe you’ to everything which should be said to him in the ensuing few minutes. ‘If that is a test, it is easy enough to start becoming a Sufi,’ said the king. Now the Sufi started the test. He said: ‘I am a man from beyond the skies.’ ‘I believe you,’ said the king. The Sufi continued: ‘Ordinary people try to gain knowledge, Sufis have so much that they try not to use it.’ ‘I believe you,’ said the king. Then the Sufi said: ‘I am a liar.’ ‘I believe you,’ said the king. The Sufi went on: ‘I was present when you were born.’ ‘I believe you,’ said the king. ‘And your father was a peasant,’ said the Sufi. ‘That is a lie!’ shouted the king. The Sufi looked at him sorrowfully and said: ‘Since you are so heedless that you cannot for one minute remember to say “I believe you” without some prejudice coming into play, no Sufi would be able to teach you anything.’
A man came to Bahaudin shah and said, ‘First I followed this teacher and then that one. Next I studied these books, and then those. I feel that although I know nothing of you and your teachings, this experience has been slowly preparing me to learn from you.’ The shah answered, ‘Nothing you have learned in the past will help you here. If you are to stay with us, you will have to abandon all pride in the past. That is a form of self-congratulation.’ The man exclaimed, ‘This is, to me, the proof that you are the great, the real and true teacher! For none whom I had met in the past has dared to deny the value of what I had studied before!’ Bahaudin said, ‘This feeling is in itself unworthy. In accepting me so enthusiastically and without understanding, you are flattering yourself that you have perceptions which are in fact lacking in you.’
Najrani said, ‘If you say that you can “nearly understand”, you are talking nonsense.’ A theologian who liked this phrase asked, ‘Can you give us an equivalent of this in ordinary life?’ ‘Certainly,’ said Najrani. ‘It is equivalent to saying that something is “almost a circle”.’
Hasan came upon Rabia one day when she was sitting among a number of contemplators, and said, ‘I have the capacity of walking on water. Come, let us both go on to that water yonder, and sitting upon it carry out a spiritual discussion.’ Rabia said, ‘If you wish to separate yourself from this August company, why do you not come with me so that we may fly into the air and sit there talking?’ Hasan said, ‘I cannot do that, for the power that you mention is not one which I possess.’ Rabia said, ‘Your power of remaining still in the water is one which is possessed by fish. My capacity of flying in the air can be done by a fly. These abilities are no part of real truth — they may become the foundation of self-esteem and competitiveness, not spirituality.’
Hasan asked Ajami, ‘How did you reach your present heights of spiritual attainment?’ Ajami said, ‘Through making the heart white in meditation, not by making paper black with writing.’
Hasan of Basra relates: ‘I had convinced myself that I was a man of humility and less than humble in my thoughts and conduct to others. Then one day I was standing on the bank of the river when I saw a man sitting there. Beside him was a woman and before them was a wine-flask. I thought, “If only I could reform this man and make him like I am instead of the degenerate creature which he is.”’ ‘At that moment I saw a boat in the river beginning to sink. The other man at once threw himself into the water where seven people were struggling, and brought six of them safely to the bank. Then the man came up to me and said, “Hasan, if you are a better man than me, in the name of God save that other man, the last remaining one.” I found that I could not even save one man, and he was drowned. Now this man said to me, “This woman here is my mother. This wine-flask has only water in it. This is how you judge, and this is what you are like.” I threw myself at his feet and cried out, “As you have saved six out of these seven in peril, save me from drowning in pride disguised as merit!” The stranger said, “I pray that God may fulfil your aim.”’
A certain man who was fond of studying all kinds of systems of thought wrote to a dervish master, Abdul-Aziz of Mecca, asking whether he could talk to him in order to make comparisons. The dervish sent him a bottle with oil and water in it, and a piece of cotton wick. Enclosed in the package was this letter: Dear friend, if you place the wick in the oil, you will get light when fire is applied to it. If you pour out the oil and put the wick in the water, you will get no light. If you shake up the oil and water and then place the wick in them, you will get a spluttering and a going out. There is no need to carry out this experiment through words and visits when it can be done with such simple materials as these.
Sufis The People of Path Vol 2
There was once a woman who abandoned the religion in which she had been brought up. She left the ranks of the atheists too, and joined another faith. Then she became convinced of the truth of yet another. Each time she changed her beliefs, she imagined that she had gained something, but not quite enough. Each time she entered a new fold she was welcomed, and her recruitment was regarded as a good thing, and a sign of her sanity and enlightenment. Her inward state, however, was one of confusion. At length, she heard of a certain celebrated teacher, Imam Jafar Sadik, and she went to see him. After he had listened to her protestations and ideas, he said, ‘Return to your home, I shall send you my decision in a message.’ Soon afterwards the woman found a disciple of the sheik at the door. In his hand was a packet from the master. She opened it, and saw that it contained a glass bottle, half full with three layers of packed sand — black, red and white — held down by a wad of cotton. On the outside was written: ‘Remove the cotton and shake the bottle to see what you are like.’ She took the wadding out and shook the sand in the bottle. The different coloured grains of sand mixed together, and all that she was left with was a mass of greyish sand.
Imam Muhammed Baqir is said to have related this illustrative fable: ‘Finding I could speak the language of ants, I approached one and enquired, “What is God like? Does he resemble the ant?” He answered, “God! No, indeed — we have only a single sting, but God, he has two!”’
The Sufi master, Ajnabi said, ‘Write to Mulla Firoz and tell him that I have no time to engage him in correspondence, and therefore have nothing to say to his letter.’ The disciple, Amini, said, ‘Is it your intention to annoy him with this letter?’ Ajnabi said, ‘He has been annoyed by some of my writings. This annoyance has caused him to write to me. My purpose in writing the passage which angers him was to anger such as he.’ Amini said, ‘And this letter will anger him further?’ Ajnabi said, ‘Yes. When he was enraged at what I wrote, he did not observe his own anger, which was my intention. He thought that he was observing me, whereas he was only feeling angry. Now I write again, to arouse his anger, so that he will see that he is angry. The objective is for the man to realise that my work is a mirror in which he sees himself.’ Amini said, ‘The people of the ordinary world always regard those who cause anger as ill-intentioned.’ Ajnabi said, ‘The child may regard the adult who tries to remove a thorn from his hand as ill-intentioned. Is that a justification for trying to prevent the child from growing up?’ Amini said, ‘And if the child harbours a grudge against the adult who removes the thorn?’ Ajnabi said, ‘The child does not really harbour that grudge, because something in him knows the truth.’ Amini asked him, ‘But what happens if he never gets to know himself, and yet continues to imagine that others are motivated by personal feelings?’ Ajnabi said, ‘If he never gets to know himself, it makes no difference as to what he thinks of other people, because he can never have any appreciation of what others are really like.’ Amini asked, ‘Is it not possible, instead of arousing anger a second time, to explain that the original writing was composed for this purpose, and to invite Mulla to review his previous feelings?’ Ajnabi said, ‘It is possible to do this, but it will have no effect. Rather it will have an adverse effect. If you tell the man your reason he will imagine that you are excusing yourself, and this will arouse in him sentiments which are harmful only to him. Thus, by explaining, you are actually acting to his detriment.’ Amini said, ‘Are there no exceptions to this rule — that man must learn through realising his own state, and that his state cannot be explained to him?’ Ajnabi said, ‘There are exceptions. But if there were enough exceptions to make any difference to the world, we would not by now have any Mulla Firozes left.’
This interchange between the Sufi mystic, Simab, and a nobleman named Mulakab, is preserved in oral transmission as a dialogue often staged by wandering dervishes. Mulakab: ‘Tell me something of your philosophy so that I may understand.’ The mystic replied: ‘You cannot understand unless you have experience.’ Mulakab: ‘I do not have to understand a cake to know whether it is bad.’ Simab: ‘If you are looking at good fish and you think that it is a bad cake, you need to understand less, and to understand it better, more than you need anything else.’ Mulakab: ‘Then why do you not abandon books and lectures if the experience is the necessity?’ Simab: ‘Because the outward is the conductor to the inward. Books will teach you something of the outward aspects of the inward, and so will lectures. Without them you will make no progress.’ Mulakab: ‘But why should we not be able to do so without books?’ Simab: ‘For the same reason that you cannot think without words. You have been reared on books; your mind is so altered by books and lectures, by hearing and speaking, that the inward can only speak to you through the outward. Whatever you pretend you can perceive.’ Mulakab: ‘Does this apply to everyone?’ Simab: ‘It applies to whom it applies. It applies above all to those who think it does not apply to them!’
There was once a Sufi who wanted to make sure that his disciples would, after his death, find the right teacher of the way for them. He therefore, after the obligatory bequests laid down by law, left his disciples seventeen camels, with this order: ‘You will divide the camels among the three of you in the following proportions: the oldest shall have half, the middle in age one-third, and the youngest shall have one-ninth.’ As soon as he was dead and the will was read, the disciples were at first amazed at such an inefficient disposition of their master’s assets. Some said, ‘Let us own the camels communally.’ Others sought advice and then said, ‘We have been told to make the nearest possible division.’ Others were told by a judge to sell the camels and divide the money; and yet others held that the will was null and void because its provisions could not be executed. Then they fell to thinking that there might be some hidden wisdom in the master’s bequest, so they made enquiries as to who could solve insoluble problems. Everyone they tried failed, until they arrived at the door of the son-in-law of the prophet, Hazrat Ali. He said, ‘This is your solution. I will add one camel to the number. Out of the eighteen camels you will give half — nine camels — to the oldest disciple. The second shall have a third of the total, which is six camels. The last disciple may have one-ninth, which camel — is left over to be returned to me. This was how the disciples found the teacher for them.
The Sufi ancient, Junaid, taught by demonstration, through a method in which he actually lived the part which he was trying to illustrate. This is an example: Once he was found by a number of seekers, sitting surrounded by every imaginable luxury. These people left his presence and sought the house of a most austere and ascetic holy man, whose surroundings were so plain that he had nothing but a mat and a jug of water. The spokesman of the seekers said, ‘Your simple manners and austere environment are much more to our liking than the garish and shocking excesses of Junaid, who seems to have turned his back upon the path of truth.’ The ascetic heaved a great sigh and started to weep. ‘My dear friends, shallowly infected by the outward signs which beset man at every turn,’ he said, ‘know this, and cease to be unfortunates! The great Junaid is surrounded at this moment by luxury because he is impervious to luxury. And I am surrounded by simplicity because I am impervious to simplicity.’
A Sufi of the order of the Naqshbandis was asked, ‘Your order’s name means literally “the designers”. What do you design, and what use is it?’ He said, ‘We do a great deal of designing, and it is most useful. Here is a parable of one such form: Unjustly imprisoned, a tinsmith was allowed to receive a rug woven by his wife. He prostrated himself upon the rug day after day to say his prayers, and after some time he said to his jailers, “I am poor and without hope, and you are wretchedly paid. But I am a tinsmith. Bring me tin and tools and I shall make small artefacts which you can sell in the market, and we will both benefit.” The guards agreed to this, and presently they and the tinsmith were both making a profit, from which they bought food and comforts for themselves. Then, one day, when the guards went to the cell, the door was open, and he was gone. Many years later, when this man’s innocence had been established, the man who had imprisoned him asked him how he had escaped, what magic he had used. He said, ‘It is a matter of design, and design within design. My wife is a weaver. She found the man who had made the locks of the cell door, and got the design from him. This she wove into the carpet at the spot where my head touched in prayer five times a day. I am a metal-worker, and this design looked to me like the inside of a lock. I designed the plan of the artefacts to obtain the materials to make the key — and I escaped.’ ‘ ‘That,’ said the Naqshbandi Sufi, ‘Is one of the ways in which man may make his escape from the tyranny of his captivity.’
The Sufi sage, Abdulalim of Fez, refused to teach, but from time to time would advise people about the way to proceed on the path. One day a disciple, who was both incapable of learning and regularly driven abnormal by attending ‘mystical ceremonies’, visited him. He asked, ‘How can I best profit from the teachings of the sages?’ The Sufi said, ‘I am happy to be able to tell you that I have an infallible method which corresponds to your capacity.’ ‘And what is that, if I am allowed to hear it?’ ‘Simply stop up your ears and think about radishes.’ ‘Before, during or after the lectures and exercises?’ ‘Instead of attending any of them.’
Until You Die
There was a rich and generous man of Bokhara. Because he had a high rank in the invisible hierarchy, he was known as the president of the world. Every day he gave gold to one category of people — the sick, widows, and so on. But nothing was given to anyone who opened his mouth. Not all could keep silent. One day it was the turn of the lawyers to receive their share of the bounty. One of them could not restrain himself and he made the most complete appeal possible. Nothing was given to him. This, however, was not the end of his efforts. The following day invalids were being helped, so he pretended that his limbs had been broken. But the president knew him, and he obtained nothing. Again and again he tried, even disguising himself as a woman, but without result. Finally the lawyer found an undertaker and told him to wrap him in a shroud. ‘When the president passes by,’ said the lawyer, ‘he will perhaps assume that this a corpse, and he may throw some money towards my burial - and I will give you a share of it.’ This was done. A gold piece from the hand of the president fell upon the shroud. The lawyer seized it out of fear that the undertaker would get it first. Then he spoke to the benefactor: ‘You denied me your bounty — note how I have gained it!’ ‘Nothing can you have from me,’ replied the generous man, ‘until you die.’ This is the meaning of the cryptic phrase ‘man must die before he dies.’ The gift comes after this ‘death’ and not before. And even this ‘death’ is not possible without help.
A young man came to Dhun-nun and said that the Sufis were wrong, and many another thing besides. The Egyptian removed a ring from his finger and handed it to him. ‘Take this to the market stallholders over there and see whether you can get a gold piece for it,’ he said. Nobody among the market people offered more than a single silver piece for the ring. The young man brought the ring back. ‘Now,’ said Dhun-nun, ‘take the ring to the real jeweller and see what he will pay.’ The jeweller offered a thousand gold pieces for the gem. The youth was amazed. ‘Now,’ said Dhun-nun, ‘your knowledge of the Sufis is as great as the knowledge of the stallholders is of jewellery. If you wish to value gems, become a jeweller.’
A man once hurt his leg. He had to walk with a crutch. This crutch was very useful to him, both for walking, and many other things. He taught all his family to use crutches, and they became part of normal life. It was part of everyone’s ambition to have a crutch. Some were made of ivory, others adorned with gold. Schools were opened to train people in their use, university chairs endowed to deal with the higher aspects of this science. A few, a very few people, started to walk without crutches. This was considered scandalous, absurd. Besides, there were so many uses for crutches. Some replied, and were punished. They tried to show that a crutch would be used sometimes, when needed; or that many of the other uses to which a crutch was put could be supplied in other ways. Few listened. In order to overcome the prejudices, some of the people who could walk without support began to behave in a totally different way from established society. Still they remained few. When it was found that, having used crutches for so many generations, few people could in fact walk without crutches, the majority ‘proved’ that they were necessary. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘here is a man — try to make him walk without a crutch. See? — he cannot!’ ‘But we are walking without crutches,’ the ordinary walkers reminded them. ‘This is not true; merely a fancy of your own,’ said the cripples, because by that time they were becoming blind as well — blind because they would not see.
A man came to the great teacher Bahaudin and asked for help in his problems, and guidance on the path of the teaching. Bahaudin told him to abandon spiritual studies and leave his court at once. A kind-hearted visitor began to remonstrate with Bahaudin. ‘You shall have a demonstration,’ said the sage. At that moment a bird flew into the room, darting hither and thither, not knowing where to go in order to escape. The Sufi waited until the bird settled near the only open window of the chamber, and then suddenly clapped his hands. Alarmed, the bird flew straight through the opening of the window, to freedom. Then Bahaudin said: ‘To him that sound must have been something of a shock, even an affront, do you not agree?’
A man came to Bayazid and said that he had fasted and prayed for thirty years and yet had not come near to an understanding of God. Bayazid told him that even a hundred years would not be enough. The man asked why. ‘Because your selfishness is working as a barrier between yourself and the truth,’ said Bayazid.
El Mahdi Abbassi announced that it was verifiable that, whether people tried to help a man or not, something in the man could frustrate this aim. Certain people having objected to this theory, El Mahdi promised a demonstration. When everyone had forgotten the incident, El Mahdi ordered one man to lay a sack of gold in the middle of a bridge. Another man was asked to bring some unfortunate debtor to one end of the bridge and tell him to cross it. Abbassi and his witnesses stood at the other side of the bridge. When the man got to the other side, Abbassi asked him: ‘What did you see in the middle of the bridge?’ ‘Nothing,’ said the man. ‘How was that?’ asked Abbassi. The man replied: ‘As soon as I started to cross the bridge, the thought occurred to me that it might be amusing to cross with my eyes shut. And I did so….’
A man went to a doctor and told him that his wife was not bearing children. The physician saw the woman, took her pulse and said: ‘I cannot treat you for sterility because I have discovered that you will in any case die within forty days.’ When she heard this the woman was so worried that she could eat nothing during the ensuing forty days. But she did not die at the time predicted, so the husband took the matter up with the doctor, who said: ‘Yes, I knew that. Now she will be fertile.’ The husband asked how this came about. The doctor told him: ‘Your wife was too fat, and this was interfering with her fertility. I knew that the only thing that would put her off her food would be the fear of dying. She is now, therefore, cured.’ The question of knowledge is a very dangerous one.
A powerful king, ruler of many domains, was in a position of such magnificence that wise men were his mere employees. And yet one day he felt himself confused and called his sages to him. He said: ‘I do not know the cause, but something impels me to seek a certain ring, one that will enable me to stabilize my state. I must have such a ring, and this ring must be one which, when I am unhappy it will make me joyful, and at the same time, if I am happy and look upon it I must be made sad.’ The wise men consulted one another, and threw themselves into deep contemplation. Finally they came to a decision as to the character of this ring which would suit their king. The ring which they devised was one upon which was inscribed the legend: ‘This, too, will pass.’
Shibli was asked: ‘Who guided you in the path?’ Shibli said: ‘A dog. One day I saw him, almost dead with thirst, standing by the water’s edge. Every time he looked at his reflection in the water he was frightened and withdrew, because he thought it was another dog. Finally, such was his necessity, he cast away fear and leapt into the water; at which the reflection disappeared. The dog found that the obstacle, which was himself, the barrier between him and what he sought, melted away. In this same way, my own obstacle vanished when I knew that it was what I took to be my own self. And my way was first shown to me by the behaviour of — a dog.’
A disciple came to Maruf Karkhi and said: ‘I have been talking to people about you. Jews claim that you are a Jew; Christians revere you as one of their own saints; Muslims insist that you are the greatest of all Muslims.’ Maruf answered: ‘This is what humanity says in Baghdad. When I was in Jerusalem, Jews said that I was a christian, Muslims that I was a Jew, and Christians that I was a Muslim.’ ‘What must we think of you then?’ said the man. Maruf said: ‘Some do not understand me, and revere me. Others do not either, so they revile me. That is what I have come to say. You should think of me as one who has said this.’
The Wisdom of the Sands
A stream, from its source in far-off mountains, passing through every kind and description of countryside, at last reached the sands of the desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared. It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered, “The wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream.” The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed; that the wind could fly and this was why it could cross a desert. “By hurtling in your own accustomed way you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over to your destination.” “But how could this happen?” “By allowing yourself to be absorbed in the wind.” This idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality. And once having lost it, how was it to know that it could ever be regained? “The wind,” said the sand, “performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river.” “How can I know that this is true?” “It is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years; and it certainly is not the same as a stream.” “But can I not remain the same stream that I am today?” “You cannot in either case remain so,” the whisper said. “Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one.” When he heard this, certain echoes began to arise in the thoughts of the stream. Dimly, he remembered a state in which he — or some part of him, was it? — had been held in the arms of a wind. He also remembered — or did he? — that this was the real thing, not necessarily the obvious thing to do. And the stream raised his vapor into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upwards and along, letting it fall softly as soon as they reached the roof of a mountain, many, many miles away. And because he had had his doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in his mind the details of the experience. He reflected, “Yes, now I have learned my true identity.” The stream was learning. But the sands whispered, “We know, because we see it happen day after day: and because we, the sands, extend from the riverside all the way to the mountain.” And that is why it is said that the way in which the stream of life is to continue on its journey is written in the sands.
A wise man, the wonder of his age, taught his disciples from a seemingly inexhaustible store of wisdom. He attributed all his knowledge to a thick tome which was kept in a place of honor in his room. The sage would allow nobody to open the volume. When he died, those who had surrounded him, regarding themselves as his heirs, ran to open the book, anxious to possess what it contained. They were surprised, confused and disappointed when they found that there was writing on only one page. They became even more bewildered and then annoyed when they tried to penetrate the meaning of the phrase which met their eyes. It was: When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
There was once a violent, ignorant and idolatrous king. One day he swore that if his personal idol accorded him a certain advantage in life, he would capture the first three people who passed by his castle and force them to dedicate themselves to idol-worship. Sure enough, the king’s wishes were fulfilled, and he immediately sent soldiers on to the highway to bring in the first three people whom they could find. These three were, as it happened, a scholar, a sayed (descendant of Mohammed the Prophet) and a prostitute. Having them thrown down before his idol, the unbalanced king told them of his vow, and ordered them all to bow down in front of the image. The scholar said, “This situation undoubtedly comes within the doctrine of ‘force majeure’. There are numerous precedents allowing anyone to appear to conform with custom if compelled, without real or moral culpability being in any way involved.” So he made a deep obeisance to the idol. The sayed, when it was his turn, said, “As a specially protected person, having in my veins the blood of the holy prophet, my actions themselves purify anything which is done, and therefore there is no bar to my acting as this man demands.” And he bowed down before the idol. The prostitute said, “Alas, I have neither intellectual training nor special prerogatives, and so I am afraid that, whatever you do to me, I cannot worship this idol, even in appearance.” The mad king’s malady was immediately banished by this remark. As if by magic he saw the deceit of the two worshippers of the image. He at once had the scholar and the sayed decapitated, and set the prostitute free.
There was once a man named Mojud. He lived in a town where he had obtained a post as a small official, and it seemed likely that he would end his days as inspector of weights and measures. One day when he was walking through the gardens of an ancient building near his home, Khidr, the mysterious guide of the Sufis, appeared to him, dressed in shimmering green. Khidr said, "Man of bright prospects! Leave your work and meet me at the riverside in three days' time." Then he disappeared. Mojud went to his superior in trepidation and said that he had to leave. Everyone in the town soon heard of this and they said, "Poor Mojud! He has gone mad." But, as there were many candidates for his job, they soon forgot him. On the appointed day, Mojud met Khidr, who said to him, "Tear your clothes and throw yourself into the stream. Perhaps someone will save you." Mojud did so, even though he wondered if he were mad. Since he could swim, he did not drown, but drifted a long way before a fisherman hauled him into his boat, saying, "Foolish man! The current is strong. What are you trying to do?" Mojud said, "I don't really know." "You are mad," said the fisherman, "but I will take you into my reed-hut by the river yonder, and we shall see what can be done for you." When he discovered that Mojud was well-spoken, he learned from him how to read and write. In exchange, Mojud was given food and helped the fisherman with his work. After a few months, Khidr again appeared, this time at the foot of Mojud's bed, and said, "Get up now and leave this fisherman. You will be provided for." Mojud immediately quit the hut, dressed as a fisherman, and wandered about until he came to a highway. As dawn was breaking he saw a farmer on a donkey on his way to market. "Do you seek work?" asked the farmer, "because I need a man to help me bring back some purchases." Mojud followed him. He worked for the farmer for nearly two years, by which time he had learned a great deal about agriculture but little else. One afternoon when he was baling wool, Khidr appeared to him and said, "Leave that work, walk to the city of Mosul, and use your savings to become a skin-merchant." Mojud obeyed. In Mosul he became known as a skin-merchant, never seeing Khidr while he plied his trade for three years. He had saved quite a large sum of money, and was thinking of buying a house, when Khidr appeared and said, “Give me your money, walk out of this town as far as the distant Samarkand, and work for a grocer there.” Mojud did so. Presently he began to show undoubted signs of illumination. He healed the sick, served his fellow man in the shop during his spare time, and his knowledge of the mysteries became deeper and deeper. Clerics, philosophers and others visited him and asked, “Under whom did you study?” “It is difficult to say,” said Mojud. His disciples asked, “How did you start your career?” He said, “As a small official.” “And you gave it up to devote yourself to self-mortification?” “No, I just gave it up.” They did not understand him. People approached him to write the story of his life. “What have you been in your life?” they asked. “I jumped into a river, became a fisherman, then walked out of his reed-hut in the middle of the night. After that, I became a farmhand. While I was baling wool, I changed and went to Mosul, where I became a skin-merchant. I saved some money there, but gave it away. Then I walked to Samarkand where I worked for a grocer. And this is where I am now.” “But this inexplicable behavior throws no light upon your strange gifts and wonderful examples,” said the biographers. “That is so,” said Mojud. So the biographers constructed for Mojud a wonderful and exciting story: because all saints must have their story, and the story must be in accordance with the appetite of the listener, not with the realities of life. And nobody is allowed to speak of Khidr directly. That is why this story is not true. It is a representation of a life. This is the real life of one of the greatest Sufis.
There was once a very rich man who had a son. He said to him, “My son, here is a jewelled ring. Keep it as a sign that you are a successor of mine, and pass it down to your posterity. It is of value, of fine appearance, and it has the added capacity of opening a certain door to wealth.” Some years later he had another son. When he was old enough, the wise man gave him another ring, with the same advice. The same thing happened in the case of his third and last son. When the ancient had died and the sons grew up, one after the other, each claimed primacy for himself because of his possession of one of the rings. Nobody could tell for certain which was the most valuable. Each of his sons gained adherents, all claiming greater value or beauty for his own ring. But the curious thing was that the ‘door to wealth’ remained shut for the possessors of the keys, and even their closest supporters. They were all too preoccupied with the problem of precedence, the possession of the ring, its value and appearance. Only a few looked for the door to the treasury of the ancient. But the rings had a magical quality too. Although they were keys, they were not used directly in opening the door to the treasury. If was sufficient to look upon them without contention or too much attachment to one or the other of their qualities. When this had been done, the people who had looked were able to tell where the treasury was, and could open it merely by reproducing the outline of the ring. The treasures had another quality too: they were inexhaustibile. Meanwhile the partisans of the three rings repeated the tale of their ancestor about the merits of the rings, each in a slightly different way. The first community thought that they had already found the treasure. The second thought that it was allegorical. The third transferred the possibility of the opening of the door to a distant and remotely imagined future time.
There was once a king who was thirsty. He did not quite know what the difficulty was, but he said, “My throat is dry.” Lackeys at once ran swiftly to find something suitable to alleviate the condition. They came back with lubricating oil. When the king drank it, his throat did not feel dry any more, but he knew that something was not right. The oil produced a curious sensation in his mouth. He croaked, “My tongue feels awful, and there is a curious taste. It is slippery…” The doctor immediately prescribed pickles and vinegar — which the king ate. Soon he had stomach-ache and watering eyes to add to his sorrows. “I think I must be thirsty,” he mumbled, for his sufferings had made him do some thinking. “Thirst never made the eyes water,” said the courtiers to one another. But kings are often capricious, and they ran to fetch rosewater, and scented syrupy wines fit for a king. The king drank it all, but still felt no better — and his digestion was ruined. A wise man happened along in the middle of this crisis, and he said, “His Majesty needs ordinary water.” “A king could never drink common water,” shouted the court in unison. “Of course not,” said the king. “And, in fact, I feel quite insulted — both as a king being offered plain water, and also as a patient. After all, it must be impossible that such a dreadful and daily more complicated ailment as mine could have such a simple remedy. Such a concept is contrary to logic, a disgrace to its originator, and an affront to the sick.” That is how the wise man came to be renamed ‘the idiot’.
The Perfect Master
A certain man decided that he would seek the perfect master. He read many books, visited sage after sage, listened, discussed and practised, but he always found himself doubting or unsure. After twenty years he met a man whose every word and action corresponded with his idea of the totally realized man. The traveler lost no time. “You,” he said, “seem to me to be the perfect master. If you are, my journey is at an end.” “I am, indeed, described by that name,” said the master. “Then, I beg of you, accept me as a disciple.” “That,” said the master, “I cannot do for while you may desire the perfect master, he, in turn, requires only the perfect pupil.”
A wandering seeker saw a dervish in a rest-house and said to him, “I have been in a hundred climes and have heard the teachings of a multitude of mentors. I have learnt how to decide when a teacher is not a spiritual man. I cannot tell a genuine guide, or how to find one, but half the work completed is better than nothing.” The dervish rent his garments and said, “Miserable man! Becoming an expert on the useless is like being able to detect rotten apples without learning the characteristics of the sound ones. But there is a still worse possibility before you. Beware that you do not become like the doctor in the story. In order to test a physician’s knowledge, a certain king sent several healthy people to be examined by him. To each the doctor gave medicine. When the king summoned him and charged him with this deceit, the leech answered, ‘Great king! I had for so long seen nobody but the ailing that I had begun to imagine that everyone was ill and mistook the bright eyes of good health for the signs of fever!’ “
A Sufi teacher was visited by a number of people of various faiths who said to him, “Accept us as your disciples, for we see that there is no remaining truth in our religions, and we are certain that what you are teaching is the one true path.” The Sufi said, “Have you not heard of the Mongol Halaku Khan and his invasion of Syria? Let me tell you. The vizier Ahmad of the Caliph Mustasim of Baghdad invited the Mongol to invade his master’s domains. When Halaku had won the battle for Baghdad, Ahmad went out to meet him, to be rewarded. Halaku said, ‘Do you seek your recompense?’ and the vizier answered, ‘Yes.’ Halaku told him, ‘You have betrayed your own master to me, and yet you expect me to believe that you will be faithful to me.’ He ordered that Ahmad should be hanged. Before you ask anyone to accept you, ask yourself whether it is not simply because you have not followed the path of your own teacher. If you are satisfied about this, then come and ask to become disciples.”
It is related that a dervish once stopped a king in the street. The king said, “How dare you, a man of no account, interrupt the progress of your sovereign?” The dervish answered, “Can you be a sovereign if you cannot even fill my kashkul, the begging bowl?” He held out his bowl, and the king ordered it to be filled with gold. But, no sooner was the bowl seen to be full of coins than they disappeared, and the bowl seemed to be empty again. Sack after sack of gold was brought, and still the amazing bowl devoured coins. “Stop!” shouted the king, “For this trickster is emptying my treasury!” “To you I am emptying your treasury,” said the dervish, “but to others I am merely illustrating a truth.” “And the truth?” asked the king. “The truth is that the bowl is the desires of man, and the gold what man is given. There is no end to man’s capacity to devour, without being in any way changed. See, the bowl has eaten nearly all your wealth, but it is still a carved sea-coconut, and has not partaken of the nature of gold in any respect.” “If you care,” continued the dervish, “to step into this bowl, it will devour you, too. How can a king, then, hold himself as being of any account?”
Nawab Mohammed Khan, Jan-fishan, was out walking in Delhi one day when he came upon a number of people seemingly engaged in an altercation. He asked a bystander, “What is happening here?” The man said, “Sublime Highness, one of your disciples is objecting to the behavior of the people in this quarter.” Jan-fishan went into the crowd and said to his follower, “Explain yourself.” The man said, “These people have been hostile.” The people exclaimed, “That is not true: we were, on the contrary, doing him honour for your sake.” “What did they say?” asked the nawab. “They said, ‘Hail, great scholar!’ I was telling them that it is the ignorance of the scholars which is often responsible for the confusion and desperation of man.” Jan-fishan Khan said, “It is the conceit of scholars which is responsible, quite often, for the misery of man. And it is your conceit in claiming to be other than a scholar which is the cause of this tumult. Not to be a scholar, which involves detachment from the petty, is an accomplishment. Scholars are seldom wise, being only unaltered people stuffed with thoughts and books. These people were trying to honour you. If some people think that mud is gold, if it is there mud, respect it. You are not their teacher. Do you not realize that, in behaving in such a sensitive and self-willed manner, you are acting just like a scholar, and therefore deserve the name, even if it is an epithet? Guard yourself, my child. Too many slips from the path of supreme attainment — and you may become a scholar.”
Once upon a time there was a cow. In all the world there was no animal which so regularly gave so much milk of such high quality. People came from far and wide to see this wonder. The cow was extolled by all. Fathers told their children of its dedication to its appointed talks. Ministers of religion adjured their flocks to emulate it in their own way. Government officials referred to it as a paragon which right behaviour, planning and thinking could duplicate in the human community. Everyone was, in short, able to benefit from the existence of this wonderful animal. There was, however, one feature which most people, absorbed as they were by the obvious advantages of the cow, failed to observe. It has a little habit, you see. And this habit was that as soon as a pail had been filled with its admittedly unparalleled milk — it kicked it over.
A certain Sufi teacher was explaining how a false Sufi had been unmasked. “A real Sufi sent one of his disciples to serve him. The disciple waited on the imposter hand and foot, day and night. Presently everyone began to see how the fraud loved these attentions, and people deserted him until he was completely alone.” One of the listeners to this story said to himself, “What a marvellous idea! I shall go away and do just the same thing.” He went to where a bogus divine was to be found, and passionately desired to be enrolled as a disciple. After three years, such was his devotion that hundreds of devotees had collected. “This sage must indeed be a great man,” they said to one another, “to inspire such loyalty and self-sacrifice in his disciple.” So the man went back to the Sufi from whom he had heard the story and explained what had happened. “Your tales are not reliable,” he said “because when I tried to put one into practice, the reverse happened.” “Alas,” said the Sufi, “there was only one thing wrong with your attempt to apply Sufi methods. You were not a Sufi.”
A scholar said to a Sufi, “You Sufis often say that our logical questions are incomprehensible to you. Can you give me an example of what they seem like to you?” The Sufi said, “Here is such an example. I was once travelling by train and we went through seven tunnels. Opposite me was sitting a peasant who obviously had never been in a train before. After the seventh tunnel, the peasant tapped me on the knee and said, ‘This train is too complicated. On my donkey I can get to my village in only one day. But by train, which seems to be travelling faster than a donkey, we have not yet arrived at my home, though the sun has risen and set seven whole times.’”
At the time of king Mahmud, the conqueror of Ghazna, there lived a young man by the name of Haidar Ali Jan. His father, Iskandar Khan, decided to obtain for him the patronage of the emperor, and he sent him to study spiritual matters under the greatest sages of the time. Haidar Ali, when he had mastered the repetitions and the exercises, when he knew the recitals and the bodily postures of the Sufi schools, was taken by his father into the presence of the emperor. “Mighty Mahmud,” said Iskandar, “I have had this youth, my eldest and most intelligent son, specially trained in the ways of the Sufis, so that he might obtain a worthy position at Your Majesty’s court, knowing that you are the patron of learning of our epoch.” Mahmud did not look up, but he merely said, “Bring him back in a year.” Slightly disappointed, but nursing high hopes, Iskandar sent Ali to study the works of the great Sufis of the past, and to visit the shrines of the ancient masters in Baghdad, so that the intervening time would not be wasted. When he brought the youth back to the court, he said, “Peacock of the age! My son has carried out long and difficult journeys, and at the same time to his knowledge of exercises he has added a complete familiarity with the classics of the people of the path. Pray have him examined, so that it may be shown that he could be an adornment of Your Majesty’s court.” “Let him,” said Mahmud immediately, “return after another year.” During the next twelve months, Haidar Ali crossed the Oxus and visited Bokhara and Samarkand, Qasr-i-Arifin and Tashqand, Dushambe and the Turbats of the Sufi saints of Turkestan. When he returned to the court, Mahmud of Ghazna took one look at him and said, “He may care to come back after a further year.” Haidar Ali made the pilgrimage to Mecca in that year. He travelled to India; and in Persia he consulted rare books and never missed an opportunity of seeking out and paying his respects to thy treat dervishes of the time. When he returned to Ghazna, Mahmud said to him, “Now select a teacher, if he will have you, and come back in a year.” When that year was over and Iskandar Khan prepared to take his son to the court, Haidar Ali showed no interest at all in going there. He simply sat at the feet of his teacher in Herat, and nothing that his father could say would move him. “I have wasted my time, and my money, and this young man has failed the tests imposed by Mahmud the King,” he lamented, and he abandoned the whole affair. Meanwhile, the day when the youth was due to present himself came and went, and then Mahmud said to his courtiers, “Prepare yourselves for a visit to Herat; there is someone there whom I have to see.” As the emperor’s cavalcade was entering Herat to the flourish of trumpets, Haidar Ali’s teacher took him by the hand, led him to the gate of the tekkia, and there they waited. Shortly afterwards, Mahmud and his four tier ayaz, taking off their shoes, presented themselves at the sanctuary. “Here, Mahmud,” said the Sufi sheik, “is the man who was nothing while he was a visitor of kings, but who is now one who is visited by kings. Take him as your Sufi counsellor for he is ready.” This is the story of the studies of hiravi, Haidar Ali Jan, the sage of Herat.
It is related that the Sufi master, Ibrahim ben Adam, was sitting one day in a forest clearing when two wandering dervishes approached him. He made them welcome, and they talked of spiritual matters until it was dusk. As soon as night fell, Ibrahim invited the travellers to be his guests at a meal. Immediately they accepted, a table laid with the finest of foods appeared before their eyes. “How long have you been a dervish?” one of them asked Ibrahim. “Two years,” he said. “I have been following the Sufi path for nearly three decades and no such capacity as you have shown us has ever manifested itself to me,” said the man. Ibrahim said nothing. When the food was almost finished, a stranger in a green robe entered the glade. He sat down and shared some of the food. All realized by an inner sense that this was Khidr, the immortal guide of all the Sufis. They waited for him to impart some wisdom to them. When he stood up to leave, Khidr simply said, “You two dervishes wonder about Ibrahim. But what have you renounced to follow the dervish path? You gave up the expectations of security and an ordinary life. Ibrahim ben Adam was a mighty king, and threw away the sovereignty of the Sultanate of Balkh to become a Sufi. This is why he is far ahead of you. During your thirty years too, you have gained satisfactions through renunciation itself. This has been your payment. He has always abstained from claiming any payment for his sacrifice.” And the next moment Khidr was gone.
The Secret
A man came to Bahaudin Naqshband, and said, “I have traveled from one teacher to another, and I have studied many paths, all of which have given me great benefits and many advantages of all kinds. I now wish to be enrolled as one of your disciples, so that I may drink from the well of knowledge, and thus make myself more and more advanced in the tariqa, the mystic way.” Bahaudin, instead of answering the question directly, called for dinner to be served. When the dish of rice and meat stew was brought, he pressed plateful after plateful upon his guest. Then he gave him fruits and pastries, and then he called for more pilau, and more and more courses of food, vegetables, salads, confitures. At first the man was flattered, and as Bahaudin showed pleasure at every mouthful he swallowed, he ate as much as he could. When his eating slowed down, the Sufi sheikh seemed very annoyed, and to avoid his displeasure, the unfortunate man ate virtually another meal. When he could not swallow another grain of rice, and rolled in great discomfort upon a cushion, Bahaudin addressed him in his manner. “When you came to see me, you were as full of undigested teachings as you now are with meat, rice, and fruit. You felt discomfort, and, because you are unaccustomed to spiritual discomfort of this real kind, you interpreted this as a hunger for more knowledge. Indigestion was your real condition. I can teach you if you will now follow my instructions and stay here with me digesting by means of activities which will not seem to you to be initiatory, but which will be equal to the eating of something which will enable your meal to be digested and transformed into nutrition and, not weight.” The man agreed. He told his story many decades later, when he became famous as the great teacher Sufi Khalil Ashrafzada.
It is recorded that someone said to the great philosopher Saadi, “I wish for perception, so that I shall become wise.” Saadi said, “Perception without wisdom is worse than nothing at all.” He was asked, “How can that be?” Saadi said, “As in the case of the vulture and the kite. The vulture said to the kite, ‘I have far better eyesight than you. Why, I can see a grain of wheat down there on the ground, while you see nothing at all.’ The two birds plummeted down to find the wheat, which the vulture could see and the kite could not. When they were quite near the ground the kite saw the wheat. The vulture continued his dive and swallowed the wheat. And then he collapsed: for the wheat was poisoned.”
Bahaudin El-shah, great teacher of the Naqshbandi dervishes, one day met a confrere in the great square of Bokhara. The newcomer was a wandering kalendar of the Malamati, the “blameworthy”. Bahaudin was surrounded by disciples. “From where do you come?” he asked the traveler, in the usual Sufi phrase. “I have no idea,” said the other, grinning foolishly. Some of Bahaudin’s disciples murmured their disapproval of this disrespect. “Where are you going?” persisted Bahaudin. “I do not know,” shouted the dervish. “What is good?” by now a large crowd had gathered. “I do not know.” “What is evil?” “I have no idea.” “What is right?” “Whatever is good for me.” “What is wrong?” “Whatever is bad for me.” The crowd, irritated beyond its patience by this dervish, drove him away. He went off, striding purposefully in a direction which led nowhere, as far as anyone knew. “Fools” said Bahaudin Naqshband. “This man is acting the part of humanity. While you were despising him, he was deliberately demonstrating heedlessness as each of you does, all unaware, every day of your lives.”
A man who had spent many years trying to puzzle out meanings went to see a Sufi and told him about his search. The Sufi said, “Go away and ponder this — ihmn.” The man went away. When he came back, the Sufi was dead. “Now I shall never know the truth!” moaned the puzzler. At that the moment the Sufi’s chief disciple appeared. “If,” he said, “you are worrying about the secret meaning of ihmn, I will tell you. It is the initials of the Persian phrase ‘In huruf maani nadarand’ — which means, ‘these letters have no meaning.’” “But why should I have been given such a task?” said the puzzling man. “Because, when a donkey comes to you, you give him cabbages. That is his nutrition, no matter what he calls it. Donkeys probably think that they are doing something far more significant than eating cabbages.”
Bahaudin Shah once gave an address on the principles and practices of the Sufis. A certain man who thought that he was clever and could benefit from criticizing him, said, “If only this man would say something new! That is my only criticism.” Bahaudin heard of this, and invited the critic to dinner. “I hope that you will approve of my lamb stew,” he said. When he had taken the first mouthful, the guest jumped up, shouting, “You are trying to poison me — this isn’t lamb stew!” “But it is,” said Bahaudin, “though since you don’t like old recipes, I have tried something new. This contains lamb all right, but there is a good dash of mustard, honey and emetic in it as well.”
Once upon a time there was a fox who met a young rabbit in the woods. The rabbit said, “What are you?” The fox said, “I am a fox, and I could eat you up if I wanted to.” “How can you prove that you are a fox?” asked the rabbit. The fox didn’t know what to say, because in the past rabbits had always run from him without such inquiries. Then the rabbit said, “If you can show me written proof that you are a fox, I’ll believe you.” So the fox trotted off to the lion, who gave him a certificate that he was a fox. When he got back to where the rabbit was waiting, the fox started to read out the document. It so pleased him that he dwelt over the paragraphs with lingering delight. Meanwhile, getting the gist of the message from the first few lines, the rabbit ran down a burrow and was never seen again. The fox went back to the lion’s den, where he saw a deer talking to the lion. The deer was saying, “I want to see written proof that you are a lion….” The lion said, “When I am not hungry, I don’t need to bother. When I am hungry, you don’t need anything in writing.” The fox said to the lion, “Why didn’t you tell me to do that, when I asked for a certificate for the rabbit?” “My dear friend,” said the lion, “you should have said that it was requested by a rabbit. I thought that it must be for a stupid human being, from whom some of these idiotic animals have learned this pastime.”
They asked Firmani, “How did you know that such and such a man was vicious? You refused to converse deeply with him while he was here, although everyone said that he was a saint.” Firmani said, “If a stranger comes to ordinary men and says, ‘Light is made by weaving. I wove all the light there is and was,’ what do they realize?” They answered, “They realize that what he says is untrue.” Firmani said, “Similarly, when a vicious individual enters the company of a man of knowledge, it is not difficult to judge his condition, regardless of what people imagine or say.”
It is related that a man went to the assembly of the master Baqi-billah of Delhi and said, “I have been reading the famous verse of the master Hafez, ‘If your teacher bids you stain your prayer carpet with wine, obey him.’ But I have a difficulty.” Baqi-billah said, “Dwell apart from me for some time and I shall illustrate the matter for you.” After a considerable period of time, the disciple received a letter from the sage. It said, “Take all the money you have and give it to the gate-keeper of any brothel.” The disciple was shocked, and for a time thought that the master must be a fraud. After wrestling with himself for days, however, he went to the nearest house of ill fame and presented the man at the door with all the money which he had. “For such a sum of money”, said the doorman, “I shall allot you the choicest gem of our collection, an untouched woman.” As soon as he entered the room, the woman there said, “I have been tricked into being in this house, and am held here by force and threats. If your sense of justice is stronger than your reason for coming here, help me to escape.” Then the disciple knew the meaning of the poem of Hafez, “If your teacher bids you stain your prayer carpet with wine, obey him.”
There were two men of great renown as teachers of the right path. Ibn Halim relates that he went first to see one of them, whose name was pir Ardeshir of Qazwin. He said to pir Ardeshir, “Will you advise me as to what to do and what not to do?” The pir said, “Yes, but I will give you such instructions as you will find very hard to carry out, since they will go against your preferences, even if these preferences are sometimes for hardship.” Ibn Halim spent some months with pir Ardeshir, and found that the teaching was indeed hard for him. Although pir Ardeshir’s former disciples were now famed throughout the world as enlightened teachers, he could not stand the changes, the uncertainties and the disciplines placed upon him. At length he applied to the pir for permission to leave, and travel to the Tekkia of the second teacher, murshid Amali. He asked the murshid, “Would you place upon me burdens which I might find next to intolerable?” Amali replied, “I would not place upon you such burdens.” Ibn Halim asked, “Will you then accept me as a disciple?” The murshid answered, “Not until you have asked me why my training would not be so onerous as that of pir Ardeshir.” Ibn Halim asked, “Why would it not be so onerous?” The murshid told him, “Because I would not care for you and your real well-being like Ardeshir cared for you. Therefore you must not now ask me to accept you as a disciple.”
There was once a woman who had heard of the fruit of heaven. She coveted it. She asked a certain dervish, whom we shall call Sabar, “How can I find this fruit, so that I may attain to immediate knowledge?” “You would be best advised to study with me,” said the dervish. “But if you will not do so, you will have to travel resolutely and at times restlessly throughout the world.” She left him and sought another, arif the wise one, and then she found Hakim, the sage, and Majzub the Mad, then Alim the scientist, and many more… She passed thirty years in her search. Finally she came to a garden. There stood the tree of heaven, and from its branches hung the bright fruit of heaven. Standing beside the tree was Sabar, the first dervish. “Why did you not tell me when we first met that you were the custodian of the fruit of heaven?” she asked him. “Because you would not then have believed me. Besides, the tree produces fruit only once in thirty years and thirty days.”
Ayaz was the boon companion and slave of the great conqueror Mahmud, the idol breaker, monarch of Ghazna. He had first come to the court as a beggarly slave, and Mahmud had made him his adviser and friend. The other courtiers were jealous of Ayaz and observed his every movement, intending to denounce him for some shortcoming, thus encompassing his downfall. One day these jealous ones went to Mahmud and said, “Shadow of Allah upon earth! Know that, indefatigable as always in your service, we have been keeping your slave Ayaz under close scrutiny. We have come now to report that every day as soon as he leaves the court, Ayaz goes into a small room where nobody else is ever allowed. He spends some time there, and then goes to his own quarters. We fear that this habit of his may be connected with a guilty secret: perhaps he consorts with plotters, even, who have designs upon Your Majesty’s life.” For a long time Mahmud refused to hear anything against Ayaz. But the mystery of the locked room preyed upon his mind until he felt that he had to question Ayaz. One day, when Ayaz was coming out of his private chambar, Mahmud, surrounded by courtiers, appeared and demanded to be shown into the room. “No,” said Ayaz. “If you do not allow me to enter the room, all my confidence in you as trustworthy and loyal will have evaporated, and we can never thenceforward be on the same terms. Take your choice,” said the fierce conqueror. Ayaz wept, and then he threw open the door of the room and allowed Mahmud and his staff to enter. The room was empty of all furniture. All that it contained was a hook in the wall. On the hook hung a tattered and patched cloak, a staff, and a begging, bowl. The king and his court were unable to understand the significance of this discovery. When Mahmud demanded an explanation, Ayaz said, “Mahmud, for years I have been your slave, your friend, and counselor. I have tried never to forget my origins, and for this reason I have come here every day to remind myself of what I was. I belong to you, and all that belongs to me are my rags, my stick, my bowl, and my wandering over the face of the earth.”