“This trading makes you well known. Become a dervish and occupy yourself solely with begging.”
During a whole year Shiblī wandered through the streets of Baghdād, begging of the passers-by, but no one heeded him. Then he returned to Junayd, who exclaimed:
“See now! You are nothing in people’s eyes. Never set your mind on them or take any account of them at all. For some time” (he continued) “you were a chamberlain and acted as governor of a province. Go to that country and ask pardon of all those whom you have wronged.”
Shiblī obeyed and spent four years in going from door to door, until he had obtained an acquittance from every person except one, whom he failed to trace. On his return, Junayd said to him:
“You still have some regard to reputation. Go and be a beggar for one year more.”
Every day Shiblī used to bring the alms that were given him to Junayd, who bestowed them on the poor and kept Shiblī without food until the next morning. When a year had passed in this way, Junayd accepted him as one of his disciples on condition that he should perform the duties of a servant to the others. After a year’s service, Junayd asked him:
“What think you of yourself now?” Shiblī replied: “I deem myself the meanest of God’s creatures.” “Now,” said the master, “your faith is firm.”
I need not dwell on the details of this training—the fasts and vigils, the vows of silence, the long days and nights of solitary meditation, all the weapons and tactics, in short, of that battle against one’s self which the Prophet declared to be more painful and meritorious than the Holy War. On the other hand, my readers will expect me to describe in a general way the characteristic theories and practices for which the ‘Path’ is a convenient designation. These may be treated under the following heads: Poverty, Mortification, Trust in God, and Recollection. Whereas poverty is negative in nature, involving detachment from all that is worldly and unreal, the three remaining terms denote the positive counterpart of that process, namely, the ethical discipline by which the soul is brought into harmonious relations with Reality.
Poverty.
The fatalistic spirit which brooded darkly over the childhood of Islam—the feeling that all human actions are determined by an unseen Power, and in themselves are worthless and vain—caused renunciation to become the watchword of early Moslem asceticism. Every true believer is bound to abstain from unlawful pleasures, but the ascetic acquires merit by abstaining from those which are lawful. At first, renunciation was understood almost exclusively in a material sense. To have as few worldly goods as possible seemed the surest means of gaining salvation. Dāwud al-Tāʾī owned nothing except a mat of rushes, a brick which he used as a pillow, and a leathern vessel which served him for drinking and washing. A certain man dreamed that he saw Mālik ibn Dīnār and Mohammed ibn Wāsiʿ being led into Paradise, and that Mālik was admitted before his companion. He cried out in astonishment, for he thought Mohammed ibn Wāsiʿ had a superior claim to the honour. “Yes,” came the answer, “but Mohammed ibn Wāsiʿ possessed two shirts, and Mālik only one. That is the reason why Mālik is preferred.”