Sultan Veled had six children, a boy and two girls by his wife Fātima, daughter of Sheykh Ferīdūn the Goldbeater, and three boys, of whom two were twins, by two slave women. The daughters married well, and all his sons, or three of them, succeeded him as Abbot, one after the other. The eldest was Mīr ‘Ārif (Chelebī Emīr ‘Ārif), the second was named ‘Ābid, the third Zāhid, and the fourth Wāhid.
Chelebī Emīr ‘Ārif, the eldest, and Eflākī’s patron, had two sons and a daughter. His eldest son, Emīr ‘Ālim, surnamed Shāh-zāda, succeeded eventually to the primacy after his uncles. With him, Eflākī’s memoir is brought to a close.
Such was the natural line of this dynasty of eminent men. But Eflākī has also given the links of a spiritual series, through whom the mysteries of the dervish doctrines were handed down to and in the line of Jelālu-’d-Dīn.
In the anecdote No. 79, of chapter iii., the account is given of the manner in which the prophet Muhammed confided those mysteries to his cousin, son-in-law, and afterwards his fourth successor, as Caliph, ‘Ālī son of Abū-Tālib, the “Victorious Lion of God.”
‘Ālī communicated the mysteries to the Imām Hasan of Basra, who died in A.H. 110 (A.D. 728); Hasan taught them to Habīb the Persian,[36] who confided them to Dāwūd of the tribe of Tayyi’,—Et-Tā’ī (mentioned by D’Herbelot, without a date, as Davud Al Thai; he died A.H. 165, A.D. 781).
Dāwūd transmitted them to Ma’rūf of Kerkh (who died A.H. 200, A.D. 815); he to Sirrī the merchant of damaged goods (Es-Saqatī?; died A.H. 253, A.D. 867); and he to the great Juneyd (who died in about A.H. 297—A.D. 909). Juneyd’s spiritual pupil was Shiblī (died A.H. 334, A.D. 945); who taught Abū-‘Amr Muhammed, son of Ibrāhīm Zajjāj (the Glazier), of Nīshāpūr (who died in A.H. 348—A.D. 959); and his pupil was Abū-Bekr, son of ‘Abdu-’llāh, of Tūs, the Weaver, who taught Abū-Ahmed (Muhammed son of Muhammed, El-Gazālī (who died A.H. 504—A.D. 1110)), and he committed those mysteries to Ahmed el-Khatībī, Jelāl’s great-grandfather, who consigned them to the Imām Sarakhsī (who died in A.H. 571—A.D. 1175).
Sarakhsī was the spiritual teacher of Jelāl’s father Bahā Veled, who taught the Seyyid Burhānu-’d-Dīn Termīzī, the instructor of Jelāl. He again passed on the tradition to Shemsu-’d-Dīn of Tebrīz, the teacher of Jelāl’s son, Sultan Veled, who himself taught the Emīr ‘Ārif.
At the same time that the mysteries were thus being gradually transmitted to Jelālu-’d-Dīn and his successors by these links, they were also being diffused in thousands of other channels, and are at this day widely diffused over the world of Islām, which daily boasts of its living saints and their miracles. These latter are perhaps not less veracious than those continually blazoned forth by the Church of Rome, and by its Eastern sisters. We, too, have our spiritualists. Credulity will never forsake mankind and prodigies will never be lacking for the credulous to place faith in. There is much that is human in man, all the world over.