The Khān replied: “Last night I saw him in my dream. He went nigh choking me, and told me Qonya is his possession. Now, prince, thee I call my adoptive father; and I entirely forego my intention to devastate this city. Tell me; has that holy man any son or descendant alive here?”
The prince told him of Bahā Veled, now Sheykh of the city, and the peerless saint of God. Kīgātū expressed the wish to go and visit the Sheykh. The prince conducted him and his suite of nobles to Sultan Veled. They all declared themselves his disciples, and assumed the dervish turban. Bahā recounted to the Khān the history of his grandfather’s expulsion from Balkh, and of all that followed. The Khān offered him royal presents, and accompanied him on a visit of reverence to the shrine of the deceased saint.
CHAPTER IV.
Shemsu-’d-Dīn Tebrīzī, Muhammed son of ‘Alī son of Melik-dād.
1.
Shemsu-’d-Dīn of Tebrīz was surnamed the Sultan of Mendicants, the Mystery of God upon earth, the Perfect in word and deed. Some had styled him the Flier, because he travelled about so much; and others spoke of him as the Perfect One of Tebrīz.
He went about seeking for instruction, human and spiritual. He had visited many of the chief spiritual teachers of the world; but he had found none equal to himself. The teachers of all lands became, therefore, pupils and disciples to him.
He was always in quest of the beloved object of the soul (God). His corporeal frame he habited in coarsest felt, shrouding his eminent greatness from all eyes in what are really the jewelled robes of spirituality.
At Damascus it was, where he was then studying, that he first saw Jelālu-’d-Dīn by chance in a crowded market-place; but Jelāl, who was at that time a student also, avoided him.