(2) The Shaikh San'an was a saintly man in his day, and had perfected himself to a high degree. For fifty years he had remained in his retreat with four hundred disciples, who worked on themselves day and night. He had great knowIr-dge, and benefited by outer and inner revelation. Much of his life had been spent in making pilgrimages to Mecca. His prayers and fasts were without number and he omitted none of the practices of the Sunnites. He could work miracles, and his breath healed the sick and depressed.

One night he dreamed that he went from Mecca to Greece and there worshipped an idol; and waking grief-stricken from this oppressive dream he said to his disciples: 'I must set out at once for Greece to see if I can discover the meaning of this dream.'

With his four hundred disciples he left the Ka'aba and in time arrived in Greece. They travelled from end to end of that country, and one day by chance came to where a young girl was sitting on a balcony. This girl was a Christian, and the expression of her face showed that she possessed the faculty of pondering on the things of God. Her beauty was like the sun in splendour, and her dignity as the Signs of the Zodiac. From jealousy of her radiance the morning star loitered above her house. Who caught his heart in her hair put on the belt of a Christian; whose desire lighted on the ruby of her lips lost his head. The morn took on a darker tint because of her black hair, the land of Greece wrinkled up because of the beauty of her freckles. Her two eyes were a lure for lovers; her arched brows formed tender sickles over twin moons. When power lighted the pupils of her eyes a hundred hearts became her prey. Her face sparkled like a living flame, and the moist rubies of her lips could make a whole world thirst. Her languorous lashes were a hundred daggers, and her mouth was so small that even words could not pass. Her waist, slender as a hair, was

squeezed through her zunnar; and the silver dimple of her chin was as vivifying as the discourses of Jesus.

When she lifted a corner of her veil the heart of the shaikh took fire; and a single hair bound his loins with a hundred zunnars. He could not take his eyes from this young Christian, and such was his love that his will slipped from his hands. Unbelief from her hair strewed itself on his faith. He cried out: "Oh, how terrible is this love that I have for her. When religion leaves you, of what good is the heart!'

When his companions understood what had happened, and saw the state he was in, they held their heads in their hands. Some began to reason with him, but he refused to listen. He could only stand day and night, his eyes fixed on the balcony and his mouth open. The stars that glowed like lamps borrowed heat from this holy man whose heart was on fire. His love grew until he was beside himself. "O Lord,' he prayed, 'in my life I have fasted and suffered, but never have I suffered like this; I am in torment. The night is as long and as black as her hair. Where is the lamp of Heaven? Have my sighs extinguished it or has it hidden itself from jealousy? Where is my good fortune? Why does it not help me to get the love of this girl? Where is my reason to make use of my knowledge? Where is my hand to put dust on my head? Where is my foot to walk to my beloved, and my eye to see her face? Where is my beloved to give me her heart? What is this love, this grief, this pain?'

The friends of the shaikh came again to him. One said: 'O worthy shaikh, lift yourself up and drive away this temptation. Take hold of yourself and perform the ordained ablutions.' He replied: 'Do you not know that this night I have made a hundred ablutions, and with my heart's blood?' Another said: 'Where is your chaplet? How can you pray without it?' He replied: 'I have thrown away my chaplet so that I may girdle myself with a Christian zunnar.' Another

said: 'O saintly old man, if you have sinned repent without delay.' 'I repent now,' he replied, 'of having followed the true law, and I only wish to give up that absurdity.' Another said: 'Leave this place and go and worship God.' He replied: 'If my idol were here it would become me to bow down before her.' Another said: 'Then, you will not even try to repent! Are you no longer a follower of Islam?' The shaikh replied: 'No one repents more than I that I was not in love until now.' Another said: 'The infernal regions are waiting for you if you continue on this path; but watch yourself, and you will avoid them.' He replied: 'If heU is there it is only from my sighs, which would feed seven hells.'

Seeing that their words produced no effect on the shaikh, although they pleaded with him all night, his friends went away. Meanwhile the Turk of the Morning, with sabre and golden buckler, cut off the head of Black Night, so that the world of illusion was bathed in the radiance of the Sun. The shaikh, plaything of his love, wandered with the dogs, and for a month sat in the street hoping to see her face. The dust was his bed and her doorstep his pillow.

Then the beautiful Christian, seeing that he was hopelessly in love, veiled herself, and went out and said to him: 'O shaikh, how is it that you, an ascetic, are so drunk with the wine of polytheism, and sit in a Christian street in such a state? If you adore me like this you will go mad.' The shaikh replied: 'It is because you have stolen my heart. Either give it back or accept my love. If you wish I will lay down my life for you, but you may restore that life by a touch of your lips. Because of you my heart is on fire. I have shed tears like rain and my eyes have lost their sight. Where my heart was there is only blood. If I were united to you my life would be restored. You are the sun, I the shadow. I am a lost man, but if you will incline to me I will take under my wing the seven cupolas of the world. Do not leave me, I implore you 1 '

'O you old driveller!' she said, 'aren't you ashamed to use camphor for your winding sheet? You should blush for suggesting intimacy with me with your cold breath! You had better wrap yourself in a shroud than spend your time on me. You cannot inspire love. Go away!'

The shaikh replied: ' Say what you will, I still love you. What does it matter whether one is young or old, love affects all hearts.'

She said: 'Very well, if you are not to be denied, listen to me. You must wash your hands of Islam; for love which is not identified with its beloved is only colour and perfume.'

He said: 'I will do all that you wish. I will undertake all that you command, you, whose body is like silver. I am your slave. Put a lock of your hair on my neck to remind me of my slavery.'

'If you are a man of action,' said the young Christian, 'you must do four things: prostrate yourself before the idols, burn the Koran, drink wine, and shut your eyes to your religion.'

He said: ' I will drink wine to your beauty but the other three things I cannot do,' 'Very well,' she said, 'come and drink wine with me, then you will soon accept the other conditions.'

She led him to a temple of magicians, where he saw a very strange gathering. They sat down to a banquet at which the hostess was distinguished by her beauty. His beloved handed him a cup of wine, and when he took it and looked at the smiling rubies of her lips, like two lids of a casket, the fire blazed in his heart and a stream of blood rushed to his eyes. He tried to recall the sacred books he had read and written on religion, and the Koran that he knew so well; but when the wine passed from the cup into his stomach he forgot them all; his spiritual knowledge was washed away. He lost his free will and let slip his heart from his hand. When he tried to put his hand on her neck, she said: 'You only pretend to love. You do not understand the mystery

of love. If you are sure of your love you may find the way to my curled locks. Lose yourself in unbelief by the way of my tangled ringlets; follow the locks of my hair, and you may put your hand on my neck. But if you do not wish to follow my way, get up and go; and take the cloak and staff of a faquir.'

At this, the amorous shaikh was crestfallen; and now he yielded without more ado to his destiny. The wine he had drunk made his head as uncertain as a compass. The wine was old and his love was young. How could he have been otherwise than drunk and in love?

'O Splendour of the Moon,' he said, 'tell me what you wish. If I was not an idolater before I lost my wits, now that I am drunk I will burn the Koran before the idol.'

The young beauty said: 'You are now really my man. You are worthy of me. Till now you were uncooked in love, but having acquired experience you are roasted. Good!'

When the Christians heard that the shaikh had embraced their faith they carried him, still drunk, into the church and told him to girdle himself with a zunnar. He did this and threw his dervdsh mantle into the fire, forsook the Faith, and delivered himself up to the practices of the Christian religion.

He said to the girl: 'O charming lady, no one has ever done as much for a woman as I have done. I have worshipped your idols, I have drunk wine, and I have given up the true Faith. All this I have done for love of you, and that I may have you.'

Again she said to him: 'Old driveller, slave of love, how can a woman such as I be united to a faquir? I need silver and gold, and since you have none, take your head and go.'

The shaikh said: 'O lovely woman, your body is a cypress and your breasts are silver. If you repulse me you will drive me to despair. The thought of possessing you has thrown me into a turmoil. On account of you my friends have

become my enemies. As you are, so are they; what shall I do? O my beloved, I had rather be in hell with you than in paradise without you.'

At last she relented, and the shaikh became her man, and she too began to feel the flame of love. But to try him further she said: 'Now, for my dowry, O imperfect man, go and look after my herd of pigs for the space of a year, and then we shall pass our lives together in joy or sadness!' Without a protest, this shaikh of the Ka'aba, this saint, resigned himself to becoming a hog-ward.

In the nature of each of us there are a hundred pigs. O you, who are non-entities, you are thinking only of the danger that the shaikh was in 1 The danger is to be found in each one of us, and it raises its head from the moment we start out on the path of self-knowledge. If you do not know your own pigs then you do not know the Path. But if you do set out you will meet a thousand pigs - a thousand idols. Drive away these pigs, burn these idols on the plain of love; or else be like the shaikh, dishonoured by love.

Well, then, when the news spread that the shaikh had become a Christian, his companions were in great distress and all but one went away, who said to him: 'Tell us the secret of this matter so that we may become Christians with you. We do not wish you to remain an apostate alone, so we will take the Christian zunnar. If you do not agree we shall return to the Ka'aba and spend our time in prayer in order not to see that which we* see now.'

The shaikh said: 'My soul is full of sadness. Go where your wishes carry you. As for me, the church is my place, and the young Christian my destiny. Do you know why you are free? It is because you are not in my position. If you were, I should have a companion in my unhappy love. Return then, dear friend, to the Ka'aba, for no one can share my present state. If they should ask about me say: "His eyes are full of blood, his mouth full of poison; he remains

(4 °)

in the jaws of the dragons of violence. No infidel wQuld consent to do what this proud Musulman has done by the effect of destiny. A young Christian has caught his neck in a noose of her hair." If they reproach me, say that many fall by the way on this road which has neither beginning nor end, but some by chknce will be safe from descent and danger.' With this he turned his face from his friend and went back to the herd.

His followers, who had been watching from a distance, wept bitterly. Finally, they journeyed back to the Ka'aba, and ashamed and bewildered hid themselves in a corner.

Now in the Ka'aba there was a friend of the shaikh who was a seer, and who was on the true path. No one knew the shaikh better than he, though he had not accompanied him to Greece. When this man asked for news the disciples related all that had happened to the shaikh, and they asked what ugly branch of a tree had pierced his breast, and whether this had happened by the will of fate. They said that a young infidel had bound him with a single hair and barred him from the hundred ways of Islam. "He dallies with her ringlets and freckles, and has burnt his khirka. He has forsaken his religion and now girdled with a zunnar he looks after a herd of pigs. But though he has staked his very soul we feel there is still hope.'

Hearing this, the disciple's face turned the colour of gold, and he began to lament bitterly. Then he said: 'Companions in misfortune, in religion there is neither man nor woman. When an unfortunate friend needs help it sometimes happens that only a single person in a thousand can be of use.' He then reproached them for leaving the shaikh and said that they should even have become Christians for his sake. He added: 'A friend must remain a friend. It is in misfortune that you discover on whom you can rely; for in good fortune you will have a thousand friends. Now that the shaikh has fallen into the crocodile's jaws everyone stays

away from him in order to keep their reputation. If you shun him because of this strange happening you will have been tried and found wanting.'

'We offered to stay with him/ they said, 'and even agreed to become idolaters. But he is an experienced and learned man, and we trust him, so when he told us to go, we returned here.'

The faithful disciple replied: 'If you really wish to act you must knock on the door of God; then, by prayer, you will be admitted to his presence. You should have been pleading with God for your shaikh, each reciting a different prayer; and God, seeing your bewildered state, would have given him back to you. Why have you refrained from knocking at the door of God?'

At this they were ashamed to raise their heads. But he said: 'This is no time for regrets. Let us go now to the court of God. Let us lie in the dust, and cover ourselves with the garment of supplication that we may recover our leader! '

The disciples at once set out for Greece, and having arrived there remained near the shaikh. For forty days and forty nights they prayed. During these forty days and forty nights they neither ate nor slept; they tasted neither bread nor water. At last the power of the prayers of these sincere men made itself felt in Heaven. Angels and archangels and all the Saints robed in green oii the heights and in the valleys, now arrayed themselves in the garments of mourning. The arrow of prayer had reached its mark. When morning came, a musk-laden zephyr blew softly upon the faithful disciple at prayer in his cell, and the world was unveiled to his spirit. He saw the Prophet Muhammad approaching, radiant as the morn, two locks of hair falling upon his breast; the shadow of God was the sun of his countenance, the desire of a hundred worlds was attached to each of his hairs. His gracious smile drew all men to him. The disciple rose up and said: 'O messenger of God, the guide of all creatures, help

D

me! Our shaikh has strayed. Show him the way, I implore you in the name of the Most High I '

Muhammad said: 'O you who see things with the inner eye, because of your efforts your pure desires shall be gratified. Between the shaikh and God there has been for a long time a black speck; but I have poured out the dew of supplication and have scattered it on the dust of his existence. He has repented and his sin is wiped away. The faults of a hundred worlds can disappear in the vapour of a moment of repentance. When the ocean of good-will is moved its waves wash out the sins of men and women.'

The disciple uttered a cry that moved all heaven. He ran and told his companions the good news, then weeping for joy hastened to where the shaikh was keeping the pigs. But the shaikh was as a fire, as one illumined. He had cast off the Christian belt, thrown away the girdle, torn the bonnet of drunkenness from his head and renounced Christianity. He saw himself as he was and shedding tears of remorse lifted his hands to heaven; all that he had forsaken - the Koran, the mysteries and prophecies, came back to him, and he was delivered from his misery and folly. They said to him: 'Now is the hour of gratitude and thankfulness. The Prophet has interceded for you. Thanks be to God that he has lifted you out of an ocean of pitch and placed your foot on the way of the Sun.'

The shaikh thereupon resumed his khirka, performed his ablutions, and set out for the Hejaz.

While this was happening the Christian girl saw in a dream the sun descending to her, and heard these words: 'Follow your shaikh, embrace his faith, be his dust. You who are soiled, be pure as he is now. You led him in your way, enter now in his.'

She woke; a light broke on her spirit, and she longed to set out on her quest. Her hand seized her heart, and her heart fell from her hand. But when she realized that she was

alone, and had no idea of the way, her joy was changed to weeping and she ran out to throw dust on her head. Then she started out in pursuit of the shaikh and his disciples; but growing wear}' and distraught, covered with sweat, she threw herself on the ground and cried out: 'May God the Creator forgive me! I am a woman, disgusted with life. Do not strike me down, for I struck you in ignorance and through ignorance committed many faults. Forget the ill I have done. I accept the true Faith.'

An inner voice apprised the shaikh of this. He 'stopped, and said: 'That young girl is no longer an infidel. Light has come to her and she has entered our Way. Let us go back. One can now be intimately bound to one's idol without sin.'

But his companions said: 'Now what is the use of all your repentance and remorse! Are you going back to your love?' He told them of the voice he had heard, and reminded them that he had renounced his former ways. So they went back until they came to where the girl lay. Her face had gone the colour of yellow gold, her feet were bare, her dress torn. As the shaikh bent down to her she swooned away. When she came to herself her tears fell like dew from roses, and she said: 'I am consumed with shame because of you. Lift the veil of the secret and instruct me in Islam so that I may walk in the Way.'

When this fair idol was at last numbered among the faithful, the companions shed tears of joy. But her heart was impatient to be delivered from sorrow. 'O shaikh,' she said, 'my strength is gone. I wish to leave this dusty deafening world. Farewell, Shaikh San'an. I confess my faults. Pardon me, and let me go.'

So this moon of beauty who had had no more than half a life, shook it from her hand. The sun hid itself behind the clouds while her sweet soul separated itself from her body. She, a drop in the ocean of illusion, had returned to the true ocean.

We all leave as the wind; she is gone and we also shall go. Such things often happen in the way of love. There is despair and mercy, illusion and security. Though the body of desire cannot understand the secrets, adversity cannot knock away the polo ball of good fortune. One must hear with the ear of the mind and the heart, not with that of the body. The struggle of the spirit with the body of desire is unending. Lament! For there is cause to mourn.

(3) Sultan Mahmud once took prisoner an old rajah, who, experiencing the love of God, became a Musulman and renounced the two worlds. Sitting alone in his tent he becamequite absorbed by this, weeping bitter tears and heaving sighs of longing - in the day more than in the night, and in the night more than in the day. At last Mahmud heard of this and summoned him: ' Do not weep and lament,' he said, 'you are a Rajah and I will give you a hundred kingdoms for the one you have lost.' 'O Padishah,' replied the Hindu, 'I do not weep for my lost kingdom or my dignity. I weep, because on the day of resurrection, God, the possessor of glory, will say to me: "O disloyal man, you have sown against me the grain of insult. Before Mahmud attacked you, you never thought of me. Only when you had to bring your army against him and lost everything did you remember me. Do you think this is just?" O, young king, it is because I am ashamed that I weep in my old age.'

Listen to the words of justice and faith; listen to the teaching in the Diwan of the Sacred Books. If you have faith, then undertake the journey to which I invite you.

But shall he who is not in the index of fidelity be found in the chapter of generosity!

(4) A Muslim and a Christian were fighting, and the moment arrived for the Muslim to say his appointed prayers, so he proudly demanded a respite from the Christian. The crusader agreed, so the Muslim went aside and said his prayers. When he returned they resumed the combat with renewed vigour. A little later the crusader in his turn asked for a truce to say his prayers. This being granted he withdrew himself, and choosing a suitable spot, bowed in the dust before his idol. When the Musulman saw his adversary with his head bowed he said to himself: 'Now is my chance to gain the victory,' thinking to strike him down by treachery. But an inner voice said: 'O faithless man to betray your pledge, is this how you keep your word? The unbeliever did not draw his sword against you when you asked for a truce. Do you not remember the words of the Koran: "Keep your promises faithfully." Since an unbeliever has been generous to you, be not wanting in regard to him. He has done well, you wish to do ill. Do to him as he has done to you. Are you, a Musulman, not to be worthy of trust?' At this, the Musulmto halted. Remorse overcame him and he was bathed in tears from head to foot. When the crusader noticed this he asked the reason. 'A heavenly voice,' said the Musulman, ' reproached me for not keeping faith with you. You see me in this state because I have been vanquished by your generosity.' At this the Christian gave a great cry, and said: 'Since God can show favour to me, his guilty enemy, and rebuke his friend for being faithless, how can I abide in infidelity? Expound to

me the principles of Islam so that I may accept the true faith and casting polytheism behind me adopt the rites of the law. Oh, how I regret the blindness that has hindered me until now from acknowledging such a Master.'

O you who have neglected to seek the true object of your desires, and are grossly lacking in the faith which is his due! I think the time will come when in your presence heaven will recall all your acts one by one.

(3) One night, Mahmud, being in a state of dejection, went in disguise to the hammam. A young attendant welcomed him and made the necessary arrangements for him to sweat comfortably over the hot coals. Afterwards he gave the Sultan some dry bread, which he ate. Then The Sultan said to himself: 'If this attendant had excused himself from receiving me I would have had his head cut off.' At last the Sultan told the young man that he wished to return to his palace. The young man said: 'You have eaten my food, you have known my bed, and you have been my guest. I shall always be glad to receive you. Though in reality we are made of the same substance, how, in regard to outer things, can you be compared to one in my lowly position?' The Sultan was so pleased with this answer that he went seven times more as the guest of the attendant. On the last occasion he told him to make a request. 'If I, a beggar, should make a request,' the attendant said, 'the Sultan will not grant it.' 'Ask what you will,' said the Sultan, 'even if it be to leave the hammam and become a king.' 'My only request,' said he, 'is that the Sultan shall continue to be my guest. To be a bath attendant sitting near you in a hot room is better than to be a king in a garden without you. Since good fortune has come to me because of the hot-room, it would be ungrateful of me to leave it. Your presence has lighted up this place; what can I ask for better than yourself? ' If you love God seek also to be loved by him. But while one man seeks this love, ever old and ever new, another desires two obols of silver from the treasure of the world; he seeks a drop of water when he might have the ocean.

(4) One day, Mahmud called his favourite to him and gave him his crown and made him sit on his throne, and said to him: 'Ayaz, I give you my kingdom and my army. Reign, for this country is yours; and I now wish you to take my place and throw your ear-ring of slavery to the Moon and the Fish.'

When the officers and courtiers heard about it their eves went black from jealousy and they said: 'Never in the world has a king given so much honour to a slave/ But Ay' wept, and they said to him: 'Have you lost your senses? You are no longer a slave but of the royalty. Why do you weep? Be contented!' Ay' replied: 'You do not see things as they are, you do not understand that the Sultan of this great countty has exiled me from his presence. He wishes me to rule his kingdom, but I do not wish to be separated from him. I wish to obey him but not to leave him. What have I to do with government and royalty? My happiness is in seeing his face.'

Learn from Ayaz how to sere God, you who remain idle day and night, occupied with cheap and 'ulgar pleasures. Ay' descends from the summit of power, but you do not stir from where you are, neither have you any wish to change yourself. To whom will you at last be able to tell your sorrows? So long as you depend on paradise and hell, how will you be able to understand the secret which I wish to reveal to you; but when you no longer depend on those to the dawn of the mystety will lift itself from the night. The garden of paradise moreover is not for the indifferent; and the empyrean is only for the men of heart.

(23) This may be illustrated by the following anecdote: A certain scavenger went into the perfume sellers' bazaar, and, smelling the sweet scents, fell down unconscious. People came round him and sprinkled rose-water upon him and held musk to his nose, but he only became worse. At last one came who had been a scavenger himself; he held a little filth under the man's nose and he revived instantly, exclaiming, with a sigh of satisfaction, "Ah! this is perfume indeed!" Thus in the next life a worlding will no longer find the filthy lucre and the filthy pleasures of the world; the spiritual joys of that world will be altogether alien to him and but increase his wretchedness. For the next world is a world of Spirit and of the manifestation of the Beauty of God; happy is that man who has aimed at and acquired affinity with it. All austerities, devotions, studies have the acquirement of that affinity for their aim, and that affinity is love. This is the meaning of that saying of the Koran, "He who has purified his soul is happy." Sins and lusts directly oppose the attainment of this affinity; therefore the Koran goes on to say, "and he who has corrupted his soul is miserable." Those who are gifted with spiritual insight have really grasped this truth as a fact of experience, and not a merely traditional maxim. Their clear perception of it leads them to the conviction that he by whom it was spoken was a prophet indeed, just as a man who has studied medicine knows when he is listening to a physician. This is a kind of certainty which requires no support from miracles such as the conversion of a rod into a snake, the credit of which may be shaken by apparently equally extraordinary miracles performed by magicians.

(2) Khorassan was in a state of prosperity because of the wise rule of Prince Amid. He was attended by a hundred Turkish slaves whose countenances shone like the full moon, their bodies were slender cypresses, their legs as silver, and their breath was musk. They wore ear-rings of pearl whose reflection lighted up the night and made it seem as day; their turbans were of the finest brocade, and round their necks were collars of gold; their breasts were covered with silver cloth, and their belts enriched with precious stones. All were mounted on white horses. Whoever looked at one of them lost his heart at once. By chance, a Sufi, clothed in rags and baiefoot, saw this body of young men in the distance, and asked: 'What is this cavalcade of houris?' He was told, 'These young men are the pages of Amid, the prince of this city.' WTen the idiot of God heard this, the vapour of folly went to his head and he cried: 'O God, the possessor of the glorious canopy, teach Amid to take care of his servants.'

If you are like this idiot, have also his boldness; lift yourself up like a slender tree; but if you have no leaves do not be daring and do not jest. The daring of the fools of God is a good thing. They cannot tell if the way is good or bad, they only know how to act.

(3) One night, when the Angel Gabriel was in the Sidrah he heard God pronounce the words of consent, and he said to himself: 'A servant of God at this moment invokes the Eternal, but who can he be? I only know that he must be of great merit, that his body of desire is dead and that his spirit is living.' And at once he set off to find this happy mortal. But though he searched the earth and the islands, the mountains and the plains, he could not find him. So he returned to God, and again heard a favourable response to the prayer.

Once more he flew over earth and sea, but at last he had to ask: 'O God, which way will lead me to }Our servant?' God said: 'Go to the country of Rum, and in a certain Christian monastery you will find him.' Gabriel flew off to the monastery" and there he saw the object of celestial favours bowing before an idol. 'O master of the world,' said Gabriel, ' draw aside the veil from this mystery. How can you answer the prayer of an idolworshipper in a monastery?' God said: 'His heart is darkened. He is unaware that he has lost his

way. Since he strays through ignorance my loving-kindness pardons him and I have opened the way for him to a high estate.' Then the Most High unloosed the man's tongue so that he could pronounce the name of God.

One must not neglect the smallest thing. Renunciation is not bought in a shop; neither can you reach the court of the Most High by paying a small sum.