Gems of Islamic Wisdom

Sufi Wisdom

Jalaludin Rumi
The Naqshbandi Order
El-Ghazali
Omar Khayam
Ibn El-Arabi
Hakim Jami
The Chishti Order
Attar of Nishapur

Sufi Wisdom

JALALUDIN RUMI

 

First of all he came into the inert world. From minerality he developed,

into the realm of vegetation. For years he lived thus.

Then he passed into an animal state, yet bereft of any memory of his being vegetable--

except for his attraction to Spring and to blossoms.

This was something like the innate desire of an infant for its mother's breast.

Or like the affinity of disciples for an illustrious guide. When the shadow is no more,

they know the cause of their attachment to the teacher. . . .

 

From realm to realm man went, reaching his present reasoning,

knowledgeable, robust state; forgetting earlier forms of intelligence.

So too shall he pass beyond the current form of perception.

There are a thousand other forms of Mind. . . .

But he has fallen asleep. He will say: "I had forgotten my fulfillment,

ignorant that sleep and fancy were the cause of my sufferings."

He says: "My sleeping experiences do not matter."

Come, leave such asses to their meadow.

Because of necessity, man acquires organs.

So, necessitous one, increase your need.

 

Originally you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable.

From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man.

During these periods man did not know where he was going,

but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless.

And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.

 

I have again and again grown like grass;

I have experienced seven hundred and seventy molds.

I died from minerality and became vegetable;

And from vegetativeness I died and became animal.

I died from animality and became man.

Then why fear disappearance and death?

Next time I shall die

Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels:

After that soaring higher than angels--

What you cannot imagine. I shall be that.

 

Work is not what people think it is.

It is not just something which, when it is operating, you can see from outside.

 

How long shall we, in the Earth-world, like children

Fill our laps with dust and stones and scraps?

Let us leave earth and fly to the heavens,

Let us leave babyhood and go to the assembly of Man.

 

You have a duty to perform. Do anything else, do any number of things,

occupy your time fully, and yet, if you do not do this task,

all your time will have been wasted.

 

The people of Love are hidden within the populace;

Like a good man surrounded by the bad.

 

The hidden world has its clouds and rain, but of a different kind.

Its sky and sunshine are of a different kind.

This is made apparent only to the refined ones--

those not deceived by the seeming completeness of the ordinary world.

 

A man may be in an ecstatic state, and another man may try to rouse him.

It is considered good to do so. Yet this state may be bad for him, and

the awakening may be good for him. Rousing a sleeper is good or bad

according to who is doing it. If the rouser is of greater attainment,

this will elevate the state of the other person. If he is not, it will

deteriorate the consciousness of the other man.

 

THE NAQSHBANDI ORDER

It is related that the king of Bokara once sent for Bahaudin Naqshband to advise him on a certain matter.

 

His message said:

 

"An ambassador is coming, and I must have you with me when he is here, for consultations. Please come at once."

 

Bahaudin sent this reply:

 

"I cannot come, since I am at the moment dependent upon the air of Qasr-El-Arifin, and have no means of bringing it with me in storage jars."

 

The king was at first perplexed, and then annoyed. In spite of Bahaudin's great importance as a sage, he resolved to remonstrate with him for his lack of civility. In the meanwhile, the ambassador's visit was canceled, and so the king did not have to deal with him after all.

One day, months later, the king was sitting at court when an assassin leapt at him. Bahaudin Naqshband, who had entered the throne room at that moment, jumped upon the man and disarmed him. "In spite of your discourtesy, I am indebted to you, Hadrat El-Shah," said the king. "The courtesy of those who know is to be available when someone needs them, not to sit waiting for ambassadors who are not going to arrive," said Bahaudin.

 

 

Throughout the dervish literature you will find us saying repeatedly that we are not concerned with your religion or even with the lack of it. How can this be reconciled with the fact that believers consider themselves the elect? Man's refinement is the goal, and the inner teaching of all the faiths aims at this. In order to accomplish it, there is always a tradition handed down by a living chain of adepts, who select candidates to whom to impart this knowledge. Among men of all kinds this teaching has been handed down.

 

Because of our dedication to the essence, we have, in the Dervish Path, collected those people who are less concerned about externals, and thus kept pure, in secret, our capacity to continue the succession. In the dogmatic religions of the Jews, the Christians, the Zoroastrians, the Hindus and literalist Islam this precious thing has been lost. We return this vital principle to all these religions and this is why you will see so many Jews, Christians and others among my followers. The Jews say that we are the real Jews, the Christians, Christians.

 

It is only when you know the Higher Factor that you will know the true situation of the present religions and of unbelief itself. And unbelief itself is a religion with its own form of belief. Each perfected man is in a sense the same as each other one. This means that, correctly attuned through the energy of the School, a disciple can come into communication with all the Great Ones, just as they are in communication with each other, across time and place. We have renewed the substance of the tradition of the Ancients. Many among the dedicated dervishes have not done this, and we must leave them to what they want to practice. Do not engage in disputation with them. "You to your Way, and I to mine." The duties and practices of the School form one whole: the Truth, the manner of teaching and the participants form one hand, in which the ignorant may see only the dissimilarity of the fingers, not the combined action of the hand itself.

EL-GHAZALI

The Three Functions of the Perfected Man

 

The perfected man of the Sufis has three forms of relationship with people. These vary with the condition of the people. The three manners are exercised in accordance with (1) The form of belief which surrounds the Sufi; (2) The capacity of students, who are taught in accordance with their ability to understand; (3) A special circle of people who will share an understanding of the knowledge which is derived from direct inner experience.

 

Attraction of Celebrities

 

A man who is being delivered from the danger of a fierce lion does not object, whether this service is performed by an unknown or an illustrious individual. Why, therefore, do people seek knowledge from celebrities?

 

The Nature of Divine Knowledge

 

The question of divine knowledge is so deep that it is really known only to those who have it.

A child has no real knowledge of the attainments of an adult.

An ordinary adult cannot understand the attainment of a learned man.

In the same way, an educated man cannot yet understand the experiences of enlightened saints or Sufis.

 

OMAR KHAYAM

Seeds Like These

 

In cell and cloister, in monastery and synagogue:

Some fear hell and others dream of paradise.

But no man who really knows the secrets of his God

Has planted seeds like this within his heart.

The Enemy of Faith

 

I drink wine, and opponents from right and left say:

"Drink no drink for it is against faith."

Since I know that wine is against faith,

By God let me drink--the blood of the enemy is lawful to me.

Meditations

 

Though "wine" is forbidden, this is according to who drinks it,

As to how much, also with whom it is drunk.

When these three requirements are fulfilled; speak truly--

Then, if the Wise may not drink "wine", who should?

 

Those who try to be ostracized

And those who spend the night in prayer,

None is on dry land, all are at sea.

One is awake, and all the others are asleep.

 

I fell asleep, and Wisdom said to me:

"Sleeping, the rose of happiness never bloomed.

Why do you do a thing which is next to death?

Drink 'wine', for you will have long to sleep."

 

Friends, when you hold a meeting

You must much remember the Friend.

When you drink successfully together,

When my turn comes, "turn the glass upside down."

 

Those who have gone before us, Oh Cupbearer,

Are sleeping in the dust of self-pride.

Go, drink "wine," and hear from me the Truth:

What they have only said is in our hands, Oh Cupbearer.

I Am

 

Every clique has a theory about me--

I am mine; what I am, I am.

IBN EL-ARABI

Truth

 

She has confused all the learned of Islam,

Everyone who has studied the Psalms,

Every Jewish Rabbi,

Every Christian priest.

A Higher Love

 

The ordinary lover loves a secondary phenomenon.

I love the Real.

Attainments of a Teacher

 

People think that a Sheikh should show miracles and manifest illumination.

The requirement in a teacher, however, is only that he should possess

all that the disciple needs.

My Heart Can Take On Any Appearance

 

My heart can take on any appearance. The heart varies in accordance with variations

of the innermost consciousness. It may appear in form as a gazelle meadow,

a monkish cloister, an idol-temple, a pilgrim Kaaba, the tablets of the Torah for certain sciences,

the bequest of the leaves of the Koran.

 

My duty is the debt of Love. I accept freely and willingly whatever burden is placed upon me.

Love is as the love of lovers, except that instead of loving the phenomenon, I love the Essential.

That religion, that duty, is mine, and is my faith. A purpose of human love is to demonstrate

ultimate, real love. This is the love which is conscious. The other is that which makes man

unconscious of himself.

Three Forms of Knowledge

 

Ibn El-Arabi of Spain instructed his followers in this most ancient dictum:

 

There are three forms of knowledge. The first is intellectual knowledge, which is in fact only

information and the collection of facts, and the use of these to arrive at further intellectual concepts.

This is intellectualism.

 

Second comes the knowledge of states, which includes both emotional feeling and strange states of being

in which man thinks that he has perceived something supreme but cannot avail himself of it.

This is emotionalism.

 

Third comes real knowledge, which is called the Knowledge of Reality. In this form,

man can perceive what is right, what is true, beyond the boundaries of thought and sense.

Scholastics and scientists concentrate upon the first form of knowledge.

Emotionalists and experientalists use the second form. Others use the two combined,

or either one alternatively. But the people who attain to truth are those who know how to

connect themselves with the reality which lies beyond both these forms of knowledge.

These are the real Sufis, the Dervishes who have Attained

HAKIM JAMI

Luxuriant Growth

 

If the scissors are not used daily on the beard it will not be long

before the beard is, by its luxuriant growth, pretending to be the head.

Unity

Love becomes perfect only when it transcends itself--

Becoming one with its object;

Producing Unity of Being.

The Teacher

 

The ruler is a shepherd and his flock is the people.

He has to help them and save them, not to exploit and destroy them.

Is the shepherd there for the flock, or the flock for the shepherd?

Love

 

Ordinary human love is capable of raising man to the experience of real love.

The Poet and the Physician

 

A poet went to see a doctor. He said to him: "I have all kinds of terrible symptoms.

I am unhappy and uncomfortable, my hair and my arms and legs are as if tortured."

The doctor answered: "Is it not true that you have not yet given out your latest poetic composition?"

"That is true," said the poet. "Very well," said the physician, "be good enough to recite."

He did so, and, at the doctor's orders, said his lines again and again. Then the doctor said:

"Stand up, for you are now cured. What you had inside had affected your outside.

Now that it is released, you are well again."

The Beggar

 

A beggar went to a door, asking for something to be given to him.

The owner answered, and said: "I am sorry, but there is nobody in."

"I don't want anybody," said the beggar, "I want food."

Intellect

 

Stop boasting of intellect and learning; for here intellect is hampering,

and learning is stupidity.

 

 

THE CHISHTI ORDER

Cause and Effect

 

Abu-Ishak Shami Chishti said:

 

My teacher, Khaja Hubaira, took me for a walk through the town one day.

 

A man on a donkey would not make way for us in the narrow streets, and as we were slow in getting out of his path he cursed us roundly.

 

'May he be punished for that behavior,' people called out of their doorways.

The Khaja said to me:

 

'How simple-minded people are! Little do they realize how things really happen. They only see one kind of cause and effect, while sometimes the effect, as they would call it, appears before the cause.'

 

I was perplexed and asked him what he meant.

 

'Why,' he said, 'that man has already been punished for the behavior which he showed us just now. Last Thursday he applied to enter the circle of Sheikh Adami, and was refused. Only when he realizes the reason will he be able to enter the circle of the elect. Until then he will continue to behave thus.'

 

The Garden

 

Once upon a time, when the science and art of gardening was not yet well established among men, there was a master gardener.

 

In addition to knowing all the qualities of plants, their nutritious, medicinal and aesthetic values, he had been granted a knowledge of the Herb of Longevity, and he lived for many hundreds of years.

 

In successive generations, he visited gardens and cultivated places throughout the world. In one place he planted a wonderful garden, and instructed the people in its upkeep and even in the theory of gardening. But, becoming accustomed to seeing some of the plants come up and flower every year, they soon forgot that others had to have their seeds collected, that some were propagated from cuttings, that some needed extra watering, and so on. The result was that the garden eventually became wild, and people started to regard this as the best garden that there could be.

 

After giving these people many chances to learn, the gardener expelled them and recruited another whole band of workers. He warned them that if they did not keep the garden in order, and study his methods, they would suffer for it. They, in turn, forgot--and, since they were lazy, tended only those fruits and flowers which were easily reared and allowed the others to die. Some of the first trainees came back to them from time to time, saying: 'You should do this and that,' but they drove them away, shouting: 'You are the ones who are departing from truth in this matter.'

 

But the master-gardener persisted. He made other gardens, wherever he could, and yet none was ever perfect except the one which he himself tended with his chief assistants. As it became known that there were many gardens and even many methods of gardening, people from one garden would visit those of another, to approve, to criticize, or to argue. Books were written, assemblies of gardeners were held, gardeners arranged themselves in grades according to what they thought to be the right order of precedence.

 

As is the way of men the difficulty of the gardeners remains that they are too easily attracted by the superficial. They say: ' I like this flower,' and they want everyone else to like it as well. It may, in spite of its attraction or abundance, be a weed which is choking other plants which could provide medicines or food which the people and the garden need for their sustenance and permanency.

 

Among these gardeners are those who prefer plants of one single color. These they may describe as 'good'. There are others who will only tend the plants, while refusing to care about the paths or the gates, or even the fences.

 

When, at length, the ancient gardener died, he left as his endowment the whole knowledge of gardening, distributing it among the people who would understand in accordance with their capacities. So the science as well as the art of gardening remained as a scattered heritage in many gardens and also in some records of them.

 

People who are brought up in one garden or another generally have been so powerfully instructed as to the merits or demerits of how the inhabitants see things that they are almost incapable--though they make the effort--of realizing that they have to return to the concept of 'garden'. At the best, they generally only accept, reject, suspend judgment or look for what they imagine are the common factors.

 

From time to time true gardeners do arise. Such is the abundance of semi-gardens that when they hear of real ones people say: 'Oh, yes. You are talking about a garden such as we already have, or we imagine.' What they have and what they imagine are both defective.

The real experts, who cannot reason with the quasigardeners, associate for the most part among themselves, putting into this or that garden something from the total stock which will enable it to maintain its vitality to some extent.

 

They are often forced to masquerade, because the people who want to learn from them seldom know about the fact of gardening as an art or science underlying everything that they have heard before. So they ask questions like: ' How can I get a more beautiful flower on these onions?'

 

The real gardeners may work with them because true gardens can sometimes be brought into being, for the benefit of all mankind. They do not last long, but it is only through them that the knowledge can be truly learnt and people can come to see what a garden really is.

 

The Group of Sufis

 

A group of Sufis, sent by their preceptor to a certain district, settled themselves in a house.

 

In order to avoid undesirable attention, only the man in charge--the Chief Deputy--taught in public. The rest of the community assumed the supposed functions of the servants of his household.

 

When this teacher died, the community rearranged their functions, revealing themselves as advanced mystics.

 

But the inhabitants of the country not only shred them as imitators, but actually said: 'For shame! See how they have usurped and shared out the patrimony of the Great Teacher. Why, these miserable servants now even behave as if they were themselves Sufis!'

 

Ordinary people, only through lack of experience in reflection, are without the means to judge such situations as these. They therefore tend to accept mere imitators who step into the shoes of a teacher and reject those who are indeed carrying on his work.

 

When a teacher leaves a community, by dying or otherwise, it may be intended for his activity to be continued--or it may not. Such is the greed of ordinary people that they always assume that this continuity is desirable. Such is their relative stupidity that they cannot see the continuity if it takes a form other than the crudest possible one.

 

When Death is Not Death

 

A certain man was believed to have died, and was being prepared for burial, when he revived.

 

He sat up, but he was so shocked at the scene surrounding him that he fainted.

 

He was put in a coffin, and the funeral park set off for the cemetery.

 

Just as they arrived at the grave, he regained consciousness, lifted the coffin 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.

 

The Spare Room

 

A certain man needed money, and the only way he could get it was to sell his house. He did not, however, want to part with all of it.

 

So he agreed, by contract with the new owners, that he would have the complete and unrestricted use of one room, in which he could keep, at any time, any of his possessions.

 

At first the man kept small items in his room, and used to go to see them without giving any trouble to anyone. Then, when he changed his job from time to time, he would store the tools of his trade there. Still the new owners did not object.

 

Finally, he started to keep dead cats in his room, until the whole house was made uninhabitable by the effect of their decomposition.

 

The owners applied to the courts, but the judges held that the nuisance was compatible with the contract. Eventually they sold the house back to its first owner at a great loss to themselves.

 

The Seven Brothers

 

Once upon a time there was a wise father who had seven sons. While they were growing up, he taught them as much as he could, but before he could complete their education he perceived something which made their safety more important. He realized that a catastrophe was going to overwhelm their country. The young men were foolhardy and he could not confide completely in them. He knew that if he said: 'A catastrophe threatens,' they would say: 'We will stay here with you and face it.'

 

So he told each son that he must undertake a mission, and that he was to leave for that mission forthwith. He sent the first to the north, the second to the south, the third to the west and the fourth to the east. The three other sons he sent to unknown destinations.

As soon as they had gone, the father, using his special knowledge, made his way to a distant country to carry on some work which had been interrupted by the need to educate his sons.

 

When they had completed their missions, the first four sons returned to their country. The father had so timed the duration of their tasks that they would be safely and remotely engaged upon them until it was possible to return home.

 

In accordance with their instructions the sons went back to the place which they had known in their youth. But now they did not know one another. Each claimed that he was the son of his father, each one refused to believe the others. Time and climate, sorrow and indulgence, had done their work, and the appearance of the men was changed.

 

Because they were so bitterly opposed to one another and each determined to assess the other by his stature, his beard, the color of his skin, and his manner of speech--all of which had changed--no brother would for months allow another to open the letter from their common father which contained the answer to their problem and the remainder of their education.

 

The father had foreseen this, such was his wisdom. He knew that until they were able to understand that they had changed very much they would not be able to learn any more. The situation at the present is that two of the sons have recognized one another, but only tentatively. They have opened the letter. They are trying to adjust themselves to the fact that what they took to be fundamentals are really--in the form in which they use them--worthless externals; what they have for many years prized as the very roots of their importance may in reality be vain and now useless dreams.

 

The other two brothers, watching them, are not satisfied that they are being improved by their experience, and do not want to emulate them.

 

The three brothers who went in the other directions have not yet arrived at the rendezvous.

 

As to the four, it will be some time before they truly realize that the only means of their survival in their exiles--the superficials which they think important--are the very barriers to their understanding.

 

All are still far from knowledge.

 

Camel's-Eye View

 

A man once asked a camel whether he preferred going uphill or downhill.

 

The camel said: 'What is important to me is not the uphill or the downhill--it is the load!'

 

The Oath

 

A man who was troubled in mind once swore that if his problems were solved he would sell his house and give all the money gained from it to the poor.

 

The time came when he realized that he must redeem his oath. But he did not want to give away so much money. So he thought of a way out.

 

He put the house on sale at one silver piece. Included with the house, however, was a cat. The price asked for this animal was ten thousand pieces of silver.

 

Another man bought the house and cat. The first man gave the single piece of silver to the poor, and pocketed the ten thousand for himself.

 

Many people's minds work like this. They resolve to follow a teaching; but they interpret their relationship with it to their own advantage.

 

'The Sufi is a Liar'

 

The Sufi is in the position of a stranger in a country, of a guest in a house. Anyone in either capacity must think of the local mentality.

 

The real Sufi is a 'changed' man (abdal), change being an essential part of Sufism. The ordinary man is not changed; hence a need for dissimulation.

 

A man goes into a country where nakedness is honorable, and wearing clothes is considered dishonorable. In order to exist in that country, he must shed his clothes. If he says merely: 'Wearing clothes is best, nakedness is dishonorable,' he puts himself outside the range of the people of the country which he is visiting.

 

Therefore he will either quit the country or--if he has functions to perform there--he will accept or temporize. If the subject of the excellence or otherwise of wearing clothes comes up in discussion, he will probably have to dissimulate. There is a clash of habits here.

 

There is an even greater clash between habit thought and non-habit thought. The Sufi, because he has experienced, in common with others, so many things, knows a range of existence which he cannot justify by argument, even if only because all arguments have already been tried by someone at one time or another, and certain ones have prevailed and are considered 'good sense'.

 

His activity, like that of an artist, is reduced to that of illustration.

 

On Music

 

They know that we listen to music, and that we perceive certain secrets therein.

 

So they play music and cast themselves into 'states'.

 

Know that every learning must have all its requirements, not just music, thought, concentration.

 

Remember:

Useless is a wonderful milk-yield

From a cow which kicks the pail over.

Hadrat Muinudin Chishti

How Man Raises Himself Higher

 

There are two things: good and that which has to become good--reality and pseudo-reality. There is God and there is man.

 

If a man seeks Truth, he must be eligible for the reception of truth. He does not know this. Consequently, believing in the existence of Truth, he assumes that he is therefore able to perceive it. This is not in accordance with experience, but it continues to be believed.

 

After my time, as an example, people will continue to use parts of what has been carefully attuned as a means to contact truth, using it as a sort of spell or talisman, to open a gate. They will play and listen to music, will contemplate written figures, will collect together, simply because they have seen all these things done.

 

But the art is in the right combining of the elements which help to make man worthy of his connection with real Truth, not in a pale imitation of them.

 

Remember always that the science (ilm) to effect the bridge between the external and the inner is rare and passed down only to a few. Inevitably there will be many who prefer to convince themselves of the reality of a lesser experience rather than to find the purveyor of the essence.

 

Hadrat Muinudin Chishti

The Mystery of the Sufis

 

[This Urdu song is sung by followers of the nineteenth-century Chishti saint Sayed Mir Abdullah Shah, whose shrine is in Delhi. The intention is to show that Sufis are known by something which they all share, something not portrayed adequately by names, ritual or regalia; though all these things have some relevance to the mysterious interior unity of being.]

 

I see a free man sitting on the ground.

At his lips a reed-pipe, the robe is patched, the hands work-worn.

Can this be one of the Great Elect?

Yes, O my Friend, it is He!

 

Sheikh Saadi Baba, Sultan Arif Khan, Shah Waliullah el-Amir.

Three waves from one sea. Three kings in beggar's garb.

Can they be the High Elect?

Yes, O my Friend, all is He!

All is HE, all is HE, all is HE!

 

Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew and Sikh.

Brothers in a secret sense--yet who knows it internally? . . .

O Companions of the Cave!

Why the axe, the begging-bowl?

Why the sheepskin, horn and cap?

Why the stone upon the belt?

See: when in your blood flows wine.

All is He, my Friend, is He!

 

Do you go to mountain-tops?

Are you sitting in a shrine?

Seek him when a Teacher comes,

Seek the jewel within the mine!

All is He, my friends, companions, ALL is HE!

 

 

ATTAR OF NISHAPUR

Attar of Nishapur is considered to be one of the greatest of Sufi teachers, and was said to be an inspirer of Rumi.

An Answer of Jesus

 

Some Israelites reviled Jesus one day as he was walking through their part of the town.

 

But he answered by repeating prayers in their name.

 

Someone said to him:

 

'You prayed for these men, did you not feel incensed against them ?'

 

He answered:

 

'I could spend only of what I had in my purse.'

 

The Heart

 

Someone went up to a madman who was weeping in the bitterest possible way. He said: 'Why do you cry?'

 

The madman answered: 'I am crying to attract the pity of His heart.'

 

The other told him: 'Your words are nonsense, for He has no physical heart.'

 

The madman answered: 'It is you who are wrong, for He is the owner of all the hearts which exist. Through the heart you can make your connection with God.'

 

On Being Offered an Unacceptable Donation

 

What! Would you with a sum of money

Erase my name from the Register of Dervishes?

 

The Tale of Fazl-Rabbi

 

One day a penurious old man went to see Fazl-Rabbi to discuss some matter or other.

Because of weakness and nervousness, this ancient stuck the iron point of his walking-stick into Fazl-Rabbi's foot.

 

Listening courteously to what the old man had to say, Fazl-Rabbi said no word, although he went pale and then flushed, from the pain of the wound and the iron, as it stayed lodged in his foot.

 

Then, when the other had finished his business, he took a paper from him and put his signature to it.

 

When the old man had gone, delighted that he had been successful in his application, Fazl-Rabbi allowed himself to collapse.

 

One of the attendant nobles said:

 

'My lord, you sat there with blood pouring from your foot, with that old man in his dotage piercing it with his iron-tipped staff, and you said nothing, nothing at all.'

 

Fazl-Rabbi answered:

 

'I made no sign of pain because I feared that the old man's distress might cause him to withdraw in confusion, and that he might abandon his application for my help. Poor as he was, how could I add to his troubles in that manner?'

 

Be a real man: learn nobility of thought and action, like that of Fazl-Rabbi.

 

The Slave Without a Master

 

Wandering in a patchwork robe, his face blackened by the sun, a certain dervish arrived at Kufa, where he was seen by a merchant.

 

The merchant spoke to him, and decided that he must be a lost slave.

 

'Because of your mild manner, I will call you "Khair" (good) ,' he said. 'Are you not a slave?'

 

'That I am,' said Khair.

 

'I will take you home, and you can work for me until I find your master.'

 

'I would like that,' said Khair, 'for I have been seeking my master for such a long time.'

 

He worked for many years with this man, who taught him to be a weaver; hence his second name: 'Nassaj' (weaver).

 

After his long services, feeling guilty of his exploitation, the merchant said to him: ' I do not know who you are, but you are now free to go.'

 

Khair Nassaj, the great Master of the Way, traveled onward to Mecca, without regrets, for he had discovered how to continue his development in spite of having no name and being treated like a slave.

 

He was the teacher of Shibli, Ibrahim Khawwas and many more of the great Teachers of the Sufis. He died over a thousand years ago, at the age of one hundred and twenty.

 

The Magic Box

 

A man once wanted to sell a rough carpet, and he made a public offer of it in the street.

 

The first man to whom he showed it said:

 

'This is a coarse carpet, and very worn.'

 

And he bought it cheaply.

Then the buyer stood up and said to another who was walking along:

 

'Here is a carpet soft as silk, none is like it.'

 

A Sufi who was passing by had listened to the buying and the attempted selling of one and the same carpet with two different descriptions.

 

The Sufi said to the carpet-seller:

 

'Please, carpet-man, put me in your magic box, which can turn a rough carpet into a smooth one, perhaps a nothing into a jewel!'

The Moon

 

The Moon was asked:

 

'What is your strongest desire?'

 

It answered:

 

'That the Sun should vanish, and should remain veiled for ever in clouds.'

 

The Five Hundred Gold Pieces

 

One of Junaid's followers came to him with a purse containing five hundred gold pieces.

 

'Have you any more money than this?' asked the Sufi.

 

'Yes, I have.'

 

'Do you desire more?'

 

'Yes, I do.'

 

'Then you must keep it, for you are more in need than I; for I have nothing and desire nothing. You have a great deal and still want more.'

 

The Madman and the Muezzin

 

A muezzin in Isfahan had climbed to the top of a minaret and was giving the call to prayer.

 

Meanwhile, a madman was passing by, and someone asked him:

 

'What is he doing there, in that minaret? '

 

The madman said:

 

'That man up there is in fact shaking a nutshell which has nothing within it.'

 

When you speak the ninety-nine Names of God, you are, similarly, playing with a hollow nutshell. How can God be understood through names?

 

Since you cannot speak in words about the essence of God, best of all speak about nobody at all.

 

Kitab-Ilahi

The Religious Framework

 

One day when the Companion Omar was looking through a Jewish holy book, the Prophet Mohammed said to him:

 

'You are too casual with that book. If you want to gain any value from it, you will have to become a Jew. To be a perfect Jew is better than to be an incomplete Muslim; and dallying with the Jewish book is half-hearted and will give you no benefit one way or the other.

 

'Your mistake is that you are neither one thing nor another in behaving in this manner. You do not believe, neither do you disbelieve. What, then, is your condition, how can it be described?'

 

Kitab-Ilahi

A Story of Moses

 

Once Moses was asking God to show him one of God's friends, and a voice answered:

 

'Go to a certain valley and there you will find one who loves, one of the chosen, who treads the Path.'

 

Moses went and found this man, dressed in rags, plagued by every kind of insect and crawling thing.

 

He said: 'Can I do anything for you ?'

 

The man answered: 'Emissary of God, bring me a cup of water, for I am thirsty.'

 

When Moses returned with the water he found the man lying dead. He went away to look for a piece of cloth for a winding-sheet. When he came back he found that the body had been all but devoured by a desert lion.

 

Moses was distressed beyond measure, and cried out:

 

'All-Powerful and All-Knowing One, you convert mud into human beings. Some are carried to paradise, others driven through tortures; one is happy, another in misery. This is the paradox which none can understand.'

 

Then an inner voice spoke to Moses, saying:

 

'This man had relied upon Us for drink and then turned back from that trust. He relied upon Moses for his sustenance, trusting in an intermediary. His was the fault in asking for help from another after having been content with Us . . .'

 

Your heart attaches itself again and again to objects. You have to know how to keep the connection with your origins . . .

 

Ilahi-Nama

Souls Before the Creation of the Body

 

Know about the time when there were souls and no bodies.

 

This was a time of a few years, but each of those years was one of our millennia.

 

The souls were all arrayed in line. The world was presented to their sight. Nine out of ten of the souls ran towards it.

 

Then paradise was presented to the remaining souls. Out of these, nine out of ten ran towards it.

 

Then hell was shown to the remaining souls. Nine out of ten of them ran away from it in horror.

 

Then there were only a few souls, those who were affected by nothing at all. They had not been attracted by the earth or by paradise, nor had they feared hell.

 

The Celestial Voice spoke to these survivors, saying:

 

'Idiot souls, what is it that you want?'

 

The souls answered in unison:

 

'You who know all know that it is You whom we desire, and that we do not desire to leave Your Presence.'

 

The voice said to them:

 

'Desire of Us is perilous, causes hardship and innumerable perils.'

 

The souls answered him:

 

'We will gladly experience anything for the sake of being with You, and lose everything in order that we may gain everything.'

 

Ilahi-Nama

The Test

 

It is related of Shaqiq of Balkh that he once said to his disciples:

 

'I put my confidence in God and went through the wilderness with only a small coin in my pocket. I went on the Pilgrimage and came back, and the coin is still with me.'

 

One of the youths stood up and said to Shaqiq:

 

'If you had a coin in your pocket, how could you say that you relied upon anything higher?'

 

Shaqiq answered:

 

'There is nothing for me to say, for this young man is right. When you rely upon the invisible world there is no place for anything, however small, as a provision!'

 

Kitab-Ilahi

About Mohammed, Son of Isa

 

Mohammed, son of Isa, was one of the boon-companions of the Commander of the Faithful. Because of the agility of his thought he surpassed all others.

 

One day he was riding through the Baghdad streets, accompanied by a multitude of attendants. The people asked one another:

 

'Who is this man, so dazzlingly bedecked, so well mounted, so rich?'

 

And one old woman who was hobbling along answered them:

 

'That is a poor man, not a rich one. For, had Allah not denied him his favor, he would not have such vanity as this.'

 

Hearing this, Mohammed, son of Isa, dismounted at once from his gorgeously caparisoned horse, and admitted that this indeed was his condition. From that moment he abandoned all desire for outward show and wealth.

 

The Perception of the Madman

 

There was a certain madman who would not take part in congregational prayers. One Friday, after much difficulty, people induced him to attend.

 

But as soon as the leader of the prayer started to recite, the madman started to bellow like an ox.

 

The people, assuming that he was only reverting to madness, but at the same time desirous of helping him, challenged him afterwards:

 

'Have you no idea of God, that you should make a noise like an animal in the middle of a believing congregation?'

 

But the madman said:

 

'I was only doing what the prayer-leader was doing. When he intoned, he was buying an ox, and I spoke like an ox!'

 

When this strange remark was reported to the leader of the prayer, he confessed:

 

When I was saying GOD IS GREATEST OF ALL, I was in fact thinking about my farm. And when I got to the phrase PRAISE TO GOD, I thought that I would buy an ox. It was at that moment that I heard something bellowing.'

 

The Miser and the Angel of Death

 

A miser had accumulated, by effort, trade and lending, three hundred thousand dinars. He had lands and buildings, and all kinds of wealth.

 

He then decided that he would spend a year in enjoyment, living comfortably, and then decide as to what his future should be.

 

But, almost as soon as he had stopped amassing money, the Angel of Death appeared before him, to take his life away.

 

The miser tried, by every argument which he could muster, to dissuade the Angel, who seemed, however, adamant. Then the man said:

 

'Grant me but three more days, and I will give you one third of my possessions.'

 

The Angel refused, and pulled again at the miser's life, tugging to take it away.

 

Then the man said:

 

'If you will only allow me two more days on earth, I will give you two hundred thousand dinars from my store.'

 

But the Angel would not listen to him. And the Angel even refused to give the man a solitary extra day for all his three hundred thousand pieces.

 

Then the miser said:

 

'Please, then, give me just time enough to write one little thing down.'

 

This time the Angel allowed him this single concession, and the man wrote, with his own blood:

 

'Man, make use of your life. I could buy not one hour for three hundred thousand dinars. Make sure that you realize the value of your time.'

 

The Donkey's Head

 

An idiot saw a donkey's head on a stick in a garden. He asked: 'What is that doing there?' He was told: 'It has been put there to avert the evil eye!' The fool replied: 'You are the ones with asses' brains, and that's why you have set up an ass's head! When it was alive it could not prevent the blows of the stick from hitting it. Now, when dead how can it repel the evil eye?'

Absurdity and Ignorance

 

What seems to be absurdity and is not, is better than the ignorance of the man who thinks it is absurd.

 

Light

 

The true lover finds the light only if, like the candle, he is his own fuel, consuming himself.

 

Christians and Muslims

 

A Christian once became a Muslim. The very next day, however, he began to drink wine.

 

His mother, coming upon him in a drunken state, said:

 

'My son, what are you doing? In acting in this way you have spurned Jesus, and you have also failed to please Mohammed. Stay in the belief which is yours! Nobody can be a man and worship idols as well as holding to another faith.'

 

The Tree Unaware of its State

 

A man cut down a tree one day.

 

A Sufi who saw this taking place said:

 

'Look at this fresh branch which is full of sap, happy because it does not yet know that it has been cut off.

 

'Ignorant of the damage which it has suffered it may be--but it will know in due time.

 

'Meanwhile you cannot reason with it.'

 

This severance, this ignorance, these are the state of man.

 

The Arrow

 

When an arrow is loosed from the bow, it may go straight, or it may not, according to what the archer does.

 

How strange, therefore, that when the arrow speeds without deviation, it is due to the skill of the archer: but when it goes out of true, it is the arrow which receives the maledictions!

 

King Mahmud and the Beans

 

The mighty King Mahmud of Ghazna, out hunting one day, was separated from his party. He came upon the smoke of a small fire and rode to the spot, where he found an old woman with a pot.

 

Mahmud said:

 

'You have as guest today the monarch. What are you cooking on your fire ?'

 

The crone said:

 

'This is a bean stew.'

 

The emperor asked her:

 

'Old lady, will you not give me some?'

 

'I will not,' she said, 'for this is only for me. Your kingdom is not worth what these beans are worth. You may want my beans, but I don't want anything you have. My beans are worth a hundred times more than all you have. Look at your enemies, who challenge your possessions in every particular. I am free, and I have my own beans.'

 

The mighty Mahmud looked at the undisputed owner of the beans, thought of his disputed domains, and wept.

 

Unaware

 

You know nothing of yourself here and in this state.

 

You are like the wax in the honeycomb: what does it know of fire or guttering ?

 

When it gets to the stage of the waxen candle and when light is emitted, then it knows.

 

Similarly, you will know that when you were alive you were dead, and only thought yourself alive.

 

The Madman and the Wrestler

 

A tipsy madman called after the coffin-bearers of a funeral:

 

'Who was this man who has fallen into the claws of death?'

 

They answered: 'Madman, this is the body of a champion wrestler, a young man who was in the prime of his life.'

 

The madman said: ' He died through the power of a mighty adversary, not knowing that this would happen to him.'

 

The Two Rings

 

A man loved two women equally. They asked him to tell them which one was his favorite.

 

He asked them to wait for a time until his decision should be known.

 

Then he had two rings made, each exactly resembling the other.

 

To each of the women, separately, he gave one ring.

 

Then he called them together and said:

 

'The one whom I love best is she who has the ring.'

 

This, Too, Will Pass

 

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 the 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, will make me joyful. 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, and 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

The King Who Divined His Future

 

A king who was also an astrologer read in his stars that on a certain day and at a particular hour a calamity would overtake him.

 

He therefore built a house of solid rock and posted numerous guardians outside.

 

One day, when he was within, he realized that he could still see daylight. He found an opening which he filled up, to prevent misfortune entering. In blocking this door he made himself a prisoner with his own hands.

 

And because of this the king died.

 

This Space

 

On a wall within the tekkia arches of the meditation-hall of Attar, it is related, were written the words:

 

'Reserved for the Sage (Hakim) Tamtim.'

 

Sheikh Attar instructed his senior disciples to observe the behavior of all newcomers towards this inscription.

 

He predicted that all who reacted to it in a certain fashion would develop mystical powers correctly and rapidly; and that all who said or did certain other things would leave or have to be sent away.

 

He never asked the disciples which postulant reacted in which way. But they observed, over the years, that it turned out always as he predicted.

 

One day he was asked why he left this inscription there. He said:

 

'It is to show those without perceptions that apparently insignificant indications to certain experiences will betray the inner capacities or lack of them to one who knows how to make a test.'