He was a great Shaykh and was praised by all the Saints in his time. Shaykh Abú Sa`íd visited him, and they conversed with each other on every topic. When he was about to take leave he said to al-Khurqání: “I choose you to be my successor.” I have heard from Ḥasan Mu´addib, who was the servant of Abú Sa`íd, that when Abú Sa`íd came into the presence of al-Khurqání, he did not speak another word, but listened and only spoke by way of answering what was said by the latter. Ḥasan asked him why he had been so silent. He replied: “One interpreter is enough for one theme.” And I heard the Master, Abu ´l-Qásim Qushayrí, say: “When I came to Khurqán, my eloquence departed and I no longer had any power to express myself, on account of the veneration with which that spiritual director inspired me; and I thought that I had been deposed from my own saintship.”
It is related that he said: “There are two ways, one wrong and one right. The wrong way is Man’s way to God, and the right way is God’s way to Man. Whoever says he has attained to God has not attained; but when anyone says that he has been made to attain to God, know that he has really attained.” It is not a question of attaining or not attaining, and of salvation or non-salvation, but one of being caused to attain or not to attain, and of being given salvation or being not given salvation.
4. Abú `Abdalláh Muḥammad b. `Alí, generally known as al-Dástání.
He resided at Bisṭám. He was learned in various branches of science, and is the author of polished discourses and fine symbolical indications. He found an excellent successor in Shaykh Sahlagí, who was the Imám of those parts. I have heard from Sahlagí some of his spiritual utterances (anfás), which are very sublime and admirable. He says, for example: “Unification, coming from thee, is existent (mawjúd), but thou in unification art non-existent (mafqúd),” i.e. unification, when it proceeds from thee, is faultless (durust), but thou art faulty in unification, because thou dost not fulfil its requirements. The lowest degree in unification is the negation of thy personal control over anything that thou hast, and the affirmation of thy absolute submission to God in all thy affairs. Shaykh Sahlagí relates as follows: “Once the locusts came to Bisṭám in such numbers that every tree and field was black with them. The people cried aloud for help. The Shaykh asked me: ‘What is all this pother?’ I told him that the locusts had come and that the people were distressed in consequence. He rose and went up to the roof and looked towards heaven. The locusts immediately began to fly away. By the hour of the afternoon prayer not one was left, and nobody lost even a blade of grass.”
5. Abú Sa`íd Faḍlalláh b. Muḥammad al-Mayhaní.
He was the sultan of his age and the ornament of the Mystic Path. All his contemporaries were subject to him, some through their sound perception, and some through their excellent belief, and some through the strong influence of their spiritual feelings. He was versed in the different branches of science. He had a wonderful religious experience and an extraordinary power of reading men’s secret thoughts. Besides this he had many remarkable powers and evidences, of which the effects are manifest at the present day. In early life he left Mihna (Mayhana) and came to Sarakhs in order to study. He attached himself to Abú `Alí Záhir, from whom he learned in one day as much as is contained in three lectures, and he used to spend in devotion the three days that he had saved in this manner. The saint of Sarakhs at that time was Abu ´l-Faḍl Ḥasan. One day, when Abú Sa`íd was walking by the river of Sarakhs, Abu ´l-Faḍl met him and said: “Your way is not that which you are taking: take your own way.” The Shaykh did not attach himself to him, but returned to his native town and engaged in asceticism and austerities until God opened to him the door of guidance and raised him to the highest rank. I heard the following story from Shaykh Abú Muslim Fárisí: “I had always,” he said, “been on unfriendly terms with the Shaykh. Once I set out to pay him a visit. My patched frock was so dirty that it had become like leather. When I entered his presence, I found him sitting on a couch, dressed in a robe of Egyptian linen. I said to myself: ‘This man claims to be a dervish (faqír) with all these worldly encumbrances (`alá´iq), while I claim to be a dervish with all this detachment from the world (tajríd). How can I agree with this man?’ He read my thoughts, and raising his head cried: ‘O Abú Muslim, in what díwán have you found that the name of dervish is applied to anyone whose heart subsists in the contemplation of God?’ i.e. those who contemplate God are rich in God, whereas dervishes (fuqará) are occupied with self-mortification. I repented of my conceit and asked God to pardon me for such an unseemly thought.”
And it is related that he said: “Ṣúfiism is the subsistence of the heart with God without any mediation.” This alludes to contemplation (musháhadat), which is violence of love, and absorption of human attributes in realizing the vision of God, and their annihilation by the everlastingness of God. I will discuss the nature of contemplation in the chapter which treats of the Pilgrimage.
On one occasion Abú Sa`íd set out from Níshápúr towards Ṭús. While he was passing through a mountainous ravine his feet felt cold in his boots. A dervish who was then with him says: “I thought of tearing my waist-cloth (fúṭa) into two halves and wrapping them round his feet; but I could not bring myself to do it, as my fúṭa was a very fine one. When we arrived at Ṭús I attended his meeting and asked him to tell me the difference between suggestions of the Devil (waswás) and Divine inspiration (ilhám). He answered: ‘It was a Divine inspiration that urged you to tear your fúṭa into two pieces for the sake of warming my feet; and it was a diabolic suggestion that hindered you from doing so.’” He performed a whole series of miracles of this kind which are wrought by spiritual adepts.
6. Abu ´l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Khuttalí.
He is the teacher whom I follow in Ṣúfiism. He was versed in the science of Koranic exegesis and in traditions (riwáyát). In Ṣúfiism he held the doctrine of Junayd. He was a pupil of Ḥuṣrí[[100]] and a companion of Sírawání, and was contemporary with Abú `Amr Qazwíní and Abu ´l-Ḥasan b. Sáliba. He spent sixty years in sincere retirement from the world, for the most part on Mount Lukám. He displayed many signs and proofs (of saintship), but he did not wear the garb or adopt the external fashions of the Ṣúfís, and he used to treat formalists with severity. I never saw any man who inspired me with greater awe than he did. It is related that he said: “The world is but a single day, in which we are fasting,” i.e., we get nothing from it, and are not occupied with it, because we have perceived its corruption and its “veils” and have turned our backs upon it. Once I was pouring water on his hands in order that he might purify himself. The thought occurred to me: “Inasmuch as everything is predestined, why should free men make themselves the slaves of spiritual directors in the hope of having miracles vouchsafed to them?” The Shaykh said: “O my son, I know what you are thinking. Be assured that there is a cause for every decree of Providence. When God wishes to bestow a crown and a kingdom on a guardsman’s son (`awán-bacha), He gives him repentance and employs him in the service of one of His friends, in order that this service may be the means of his obtaining the gift of miracles.” Many such fine sayings he uttered to me every day. He died at Bayt al-Jinn, a village situated at the head of a mountain pass between Bániyás[[101]] and the river of Damascus. While he lay on his death-bed, his head resting on my bosom (and at that time I was feeling hurt, as men often do, by the behaviour of a friend of mine), he said to me: “O my son, I will tell thee one article of belief which, if thou holdest it firmly, will deliver thee from all troubles. Whatever good or evil God creates, do not in any place or circumstance quarrel with His action or be aggrieved in thy heart.” He gave no further injunction, but yielded up his soul.