57. Abú Bakr b. Dulaf b. Jaḥdar al-Shiblí.
He was a great and celebrated Shaykh. He had a blameless spiritual life and enjoyed perfect communion with God. He was subtle in the use of symbolism, wherefore one of the moderns says: “The wonders of the world are three: the symbolical utterances (ishárát) of Shiblí, and the mystical sayings (nukat) of Murta`ish, and the anecdotes (ḥikáyát) of Ja`far.“[[97]] At first he was chief chamberlain to the Caliph, but he was converted in the assembly-room (majlis) of Khayr al-Nassáj and became a disciple of Junayd. He made the acquaintance of a large number of Shaykhs. It is related that he explained the verse ”Tell the believers to refrain their eyes” (Kor. xxiv, 30) as follows: “O Muḥammad, tell the believers to refrain their bodily eyes from what is unlawful, and to refrain their spiritual eyes from everything except God,” i.e. not to look at lust and to have no thought except the vision of God. It is a mark of heedlessness to follow one’s lusts and to regard unlawful things, and the greatest calamity that befalls the heedless is that they are ignorant of their own faults; for anyone who is ignorant here shall also be ignorant hereafter: “Those who are blind in this world shall be blind in the next world” (Kor. xvii, 74). In truth, until God clears the desire of lust out of a man’s heart the bodily eye is not safe from its hidden dangers, and until God establishes the desire of Himself in a man’s heart the spiritual eye is not safe from looking at other than Him.
It is related that one day when Shiblí came into the bazaar, the people said, “This is a madman.” He replied: “You think I am mad, and I think you are sensible: may God increase my madness and your sense!” i.e., inasmuch as my madness is the result of intense love of God, while your sense is the result of great heedlessness, may God increase my madness in order that I may become nearer and nearer to Him, and may He increase your sense in order that you may become farther and farther from Him. This he said from jealousy (ghayrat) that anyone should be so beside one’s self as not to separate love of God from madness and not to distinguish between them in this world or the next.