To prove that man lives through God’s will alone, and not by blood, Jelāl one day, in the presence of a crowd of physicians and philosophers, had the veins of both his arms opened, and allowed them to bleed until they ceased to flow. He then ordered incisions to be made in various parts of his body; but not one drop of moisture was anywhere obtainable. He now went to a hot bath, washed, performed an ablution, and then commenced the exercise of the sacred dance.
12.
One of Jelāl’s disciples died, and there was a consultation among his friends as to whether he should be buried in a coffin or without one.
Another disciple, after Jelāl had been consulted, and had told them to do as they pleased, made the observation that it would be better to bury their relative without a coffin. On being asked why, he answered: “A mother can better nurse her child, than can her child’s brother. The earth is the mother of the human race, and the wood of a coffin is also the earth’s child; therefore, the coffin is the man’s brother. Man’s corpse should be committed, then, not to a coffin, but to mother earth, his loving, affectionate parent.”
Jelāl expressed his admiration for this apposite and sublime doctrine, which, he said, was not to be found written in any then extant book.
The name of the disciple who made this beautiful remark was Kerīmu-’d-Dīn, son of Begh-Tīmūr.
13.
Many of the chief disciples of Jelāl have related that he himself explained to them, as his reasons for instituting the musical service of his order, with their dancing, the following reflections:—
“God has a great regard for the Roman people. In answer to a prayer of the first Caliph, Abū-Bekr, God made the Romans a chief receptacle of His mercy; and the land of the Romans (Asia Minor) is the most beautiful on the face of the earth. But the people of the land were utterly void of all idea of the riches of a love towards God, and of the remotest shade of a taste for the delights of the inner, spiritual life. The great Causer of all causes caused a source of affection to arise, and out of the wilderness of causelessness raised a means by which I was attracted away from the land of Khurāsān to the country of the Romans. That country He made a home for my children and posterity, in order that, with the elixir of His grace, the copper of their existences might be transmuted into gold and into philosopher-stone, they themselves being received into the communion of saints. When I perceived that they had no inclination for the practice of religious austerities, and no knowledge of the divine mysteries, I imagined to arrange metrical exhortations and musical services, as being captivating for men’s minds, and more especially so for the Romans, who are naturally of a lively disposition, and fond of incisive expositions. Even as a sick child is coaxed into taking a salutary, though nauseous medicine, so, in like manner, were the Romans led by art to acquire a taste for spiritual truth.”