I passed by a perfumer and bought some scents and herbs, then a copyist so that I could check to see if he had on his shelves any texts with which I was not familiar. All of a sudden I felt a hand grasping my shoulder gently. Turning around, I discovered that the person in question was none other than the man who had been reciting at the assembly, along with his drum, his green coat, and his ruddy-cheeked complexion. He had a thick beard flecked with grey, and his body was slender and trim.
"I spotted you at my circle, Sir," he said in a mellow tone. "You look very like a person whom I have long admired in God Almighty, even though I have only seen him in dreams, someone I've longed to meet. Are you indeed the noble Sufi mystic, Abd al-Haqq ibn Sabin?"
I nodded my head and confirmed that he was indeed Abu al-Hasan alShushtari. We embraced each other warmly, while he shed tears of happiness and welcome. He asked the amazed copyist to bring us some figs and yoghourt and introduced him to me, concluding with words of censure: "If you had any idea of the prestige of the person who is doing you the honor of visiting your establishment," he said, "you would be sacrificing a lamb and giving alms to the poor." The poor copyist was clearly embarrassed and offered me a basket of figs, saying that they were all he had. I took one with thanks, while Abu al-Hasan suggested to the copyist that he bring to his shop texts containing useful learning so that he might hope for a visit from me at some point in the future. With that he invited me to accompany him to his home in a nearby quarter. Saying farewell to the copyist, who vowed that I should take the basket of figs as a gift, we left the shop.
As we made our way through a number of markets, hands were extended toward my companion, offering him gifts of various kinds, all of which he declined. Here and there people kept asking him to entertain them, and he would respond by singing, "Let me be, let me be; for now I am enraptured by one whose very company delights me." With the market and its hubbub behind us, we made our way through a series of winding alleys and then a long, straight one that led to a desolate open space full of wild plants, thorn-bushes, and self-planted trees. Once across it, we reached the door of a modest abode built of grey stone that seemed to have come from the mountain that overlooked it. As my colleague proceeded to open the door without a key, I likened it to a fearsome cavern, suitable for worship and seclusion, but no place to live or spend the night. The simile I had invoked was confirmed when I glimpsed the room inside, which was totally bare of furniture or coverings of any kind; there were just a few scraps of cloth, books, candles on a table, and a water jar.
Abu al-Hasan's expression was one of serene contentment mingled with a certain pleasure and pride.
"Master," he told me, "this cavern is my refuge from both heat and cold, and I have other places like it, caves and houses, where I can invoke God in order to counter the whisperings of the devil and the instinct to sin."
I was unable to conceal my amazement and admiration. After a few confidential thoughts of my own, I launched into a paean of praise. "Praise be to the One who can transform conditions! This is a form of seclusion the like of which I have never encountered before, not least because the person involved is the scion of a prestigious and wealthy family. My brother, there's absolutely no doubt that you fully deserve the title of `leader of the recluses."'
He closed his eyes for a moment. "0 you Ka`ba of all that is good," he went on happily, "all this is a boon from God Almighty and from you as well. You are my mainstay and my support."
I was utterly astonished at what he was saying and asked God for forgiveness. Without further ado, he invited me to complete my ablutions and perform the sunset prayers with him. That is precisely what we did. When it was done, we sat down on a mat with the basket of figs close by. Abu al-Hasan immediately took it upon himself to dispel the signs of amazement and anxiety that showed on my face.
"Master," he began gently, "for a while now I have been receiving news of your activities and perusing such pearls of your written works as I have been able to acquire. My source has been those of your followers who have moved from the cities of the Maghrib eastward and toward the holy cities of Arabia. The most recent was someone whom I met in Tripoli, named Khalid from Tangier. God reward him well, he loaned me the notes that some of your students have taken from your lessons and epistles. I spent three whole days making a copy of them so that I could return them to him before he moved on. Once I had finished making the copy, I hung a notice on my door to say that I was in seclusion. I then proceeded to study them carefully, memorizing parts and contemplating their meaning. By God, they managed to grab hold of the inner workings of my heart and to exercise my mind in ways that I had only previously appreciated at random. And then, while I was in Meknes al-Zaytun, I had a dream in which, as a condition for joining your mystical sect, you demanded that I give up all pomp and authority and rid myself of the world's trappings. Instead I was to wear a Sufi robe, take a drum, and wander around the market-places singing the praises of the Beloved."
Wonder upon wonder!
This man al-Shushtari was indeed one of God's authentic saints! Wisdom had come to him from gates that opened up to the heavenly spheres of inspirational vision and intuitional knowledge.
"God bless you, my brother!" I replied, wishing to learn more detail about his circumstances, "and I beseech God Almighty to let me stay in your own good graces. But what you heard me say in that dream is not the same as one person awake talking to another."
"My dear Pinnacle of the Faith," he replied immediately as he finished eating a fig, "does the process of being awake involve anything other than precisely those things you have written about and set down? Are not you the one who calls on people to rid themselves of the illusions prompted by various appendages and accretions and the general hubbub of others and opposites? All of that is part of the quest for the principal perfections, assuming the qualities of the beautiful names of God, the only ones that are genuine, through a linkage of the possible existent with the Necessary Existent and its absolute-namely God alone and no other entity! That at least is a small part of what I've been thrilled to comprehend from the realms of some of your epistles. I've learned such things in the way that I've described to you and memorized them as though they come directly from you to me or else have been revealed to me. Praise be to God then who has guided me to them and through them. And many thanks to you also and a fulsome reward."
I failed to find words with which to lessen the role that I seemed to have played in this man's decision to deny the world and seek something loftier, but I made up my mind to try.
"Abu al-Hasan," I said in as modest a tone as I could muster, "you are most generous in what you say. You ascribe to me a prominence that I don't deserve. Through God's aid you've indeed managed to rid yourself of worldly things in which you were steeped and have subjected the routine of your life and your personal preoccupations to a process of severance and abandonment, all with a view to concentrating on what needs to remain and reflects your real essence. However, if it were not for your previous proclivities and your desire to undertake the burdensome task of seclusion and aspiration to the lofty heights of truth, would the advice that I offered in your dream have been of any use?"
The person to whom I had addressed this question now handed me a fig, and I ate it. I took a second and then a third.