anecdote of bayazid bastami.
One night Sheikh Bayazid went out of the town, and found reigning everywhere profound silence. The moon was shining at the full, making the night as clear as day. The sky was covered with constellations, each fulfilling its course. The Sheikh walked on for a long while without hearing the least sound, and without perceiving anyone. He was deeply moved, and said, "O Lord, my heart is pained. Why is such a sublime audience-hall as Thine without throngs of worshippers?" "Cease thy wonder," an inner voice replied to him. "The King does not accord access to His Court to everyone. When the sanctuary of Our splendour is displayed, the careless and the slumbering are without. Those who are to be admitted to this Court wait whole years, and then only one in a million enters."
In his latter years, Fariduddin Attar carried his asceticism to such a degree that he gave up composing poetry altogether. The story of his death illustrates in a striking way the indifference to external things cultivated by the Sufis. During the invasion of Persia by Jenghiz Khan (1229 a.d.) when Attar had reached the great age of 110, he was taken prisoner by the Mongols. One of them was about to kill him, when another said, "Let the old man live; I will give a thousand pieces of silver as his ransom." His captor was about to close with the bargain, but Attar said, "Don't sell me so cheaply; you will find someone willing to give more." Subsequently another man came up and offered a bag of straw for him. "Sell me to him," said Attar, "for that is all I am worth." The Mongol, irritated at the loss of the first offer, slew the saint, who thus found the death he desired.
[47] i.e.: The stages of the Sufi's progress to God.
[48] c.f. G. Meredith
"Out of hundreds who aspire, Eighties perish, nineties tire; Those who bear up in spite of wrecks and wracks, Were seasoned by celestial blows and thwacks."
[49] It should be remembered that the name Simurgh means "thirty birds."
[50] The niche in the mosque wall facing Mecca, towards which Muhammadans pray.
[51] Christians are regarded as idolators by Moslems.
[52] The Kaaba.
[53] Alluding to the Koran (Sura 18) where the angels are represented as worshipping Adam by the command of God.