Má lí mariḍtu wa-lam ya`udní `á´id
Minkum wa-yamraḍu `abdukum fa-a`údu.
“How is it that when I fell ill none of you visited me,
Though I visit your slave when he falls ill?”
On hearing this the invalid left his bed and sat down, and the violence of his malady was diminished. He said: “Give me some more.” So the singer chanted—
Wa-ashaddu min maraḍí `alayya ṣudúdukum
Wa-ṣudúdu `abdikumú `alayya shadídu.
“Your neglect is more grievous to me than my sickness;
It would grieve me to neglect your slave.”
The young man’s sickness departed from him. His father permitted him to associate with `Amr and repented of the suspicion which he had harboured in his heart, and the youth became an eminent Ṣúfí.