81.
There was once a wise monk in the monastery of Plato, who was on very friendly terms with Jelāl’s grandson ‘Ārif. He was very aged, and used to be visited by the dervishes of his neighbourhood, to whom he was very polite, and towards whom he exhibited great confidence; so much so that, one day, some of them inquired of him how he had found Jelāl, and what he had thought of him.
The monk replied to them: “What do you know of him, as to who or what he was? I have seen signs and miracles without number worked by him. I became his devoted servant. I had read in the gospel and in the prophets the lives and the works of the saints of old, and I saw that he compassed them all. I therefore had faith in the truth of his reality.
“One day he came here, conferring on me the honour of a visit. For forty days he shut himself up in ecstatic seclusion. When at length he came forth from his privacy, I laid hold of his skirt, and said to him: ‘God, in His holy scripture hath said (Qur’ān xix. 72): “And there is none of you but shall come to it (hell-fire).” Now, since it is incontestable that all shall come to the fire of hell, what preference is there in Islām over our faith?’
“For a little time he made no answer. At length, however, he made a sign towards the city, and went away in that direction. I followed after him leisurely. Near the city, we came to a bakehouse, the oven of which was being heated. He now took my black cassock, wrapped it in his own cloak, and threw the bundle into the oven. He then withdrew for a time into a corner, sunk in meditation.
“I saw a great smoke come out of the oven, such that no one had the power of utterance. After that, he said to me: ‘Behold!’ The baker withdrew the bundle from the oven, and assisted the saint to put on his cloak, which had become exquisitely clean; whereas my cassock was, as it were, branded and scorched, so as to fall in pieces. Then he said: ‘Thus shall we enter therein, and thus shall you enter!’
“That selfsame moment I made my bow to him and became his disciple.”
82.
The reason why the Mesnevī was written is related to have been the following:—
Husāmu-’d-Dīn learnt that several of the followers of Jelāl were fond of studying the Ilāhī-nāma of Sanā’ī, the Hakīm, and the Mantiqu-’t-Tayr of ‘Attār, as also the Nasīb-nāma of the latter.