Having some pressing occasion, a dervish stole a rug from the hut of a friend. The judge ordered that they should cut off his hand. The owner of the rug made intercession for him, saying, "I have forgiven him." The judge replied, "At your instance I cannot relax the extreme sentence of the law." He said: "In what you ordered you spoke justly. Nevertheless, whoever steals a portion of any property dedicated to alms must not suffer the forfeiture of his hand, for a religious mendicant is not the proprietor of anything; and whatever appertains to dervishes is devoted to the necessitous." The judge withdrew his hand from punishing him, and by way of reprimand asked, "Had the world become so circumscribed that you could not commit a theft but in the dwelling of such a friend?" He answered, "Have you not heard what they have said, 'Sweep everything away from the houses of your friends, but knock not at the doors of your enemies.' When overwhelmed with calamity let not thy body pine in misery. Strip thy foes of their skins, and thy friends of their jackets."
XIV
A king said to a holy man, "Are you ever thinking of me?" "Yes," replied he, "at such time as I am forgetting God Almighty! He will wander all around whom God shall drive from his gate; and he will not let him go to another door whom he shall direct into his own."
XV
One of the righteous in a dream saw a king in paradise, and a parsa, or holy man, in hell. He questioned himself, saying, "What is the cause of the exaltation of this, and the degradation of that, for we have fancied their converse?" A voice came from above, answering, "This king is in heaven because of his affection for the holy, and that parsa is in hell because of his connection with the kingly."—What can a coarse frock, rosary, and patched cloak avail? Abstain from such evil works as may defile thee. There is no occasion to put a felt cowl upon thy head. Be a dervish in thy actions, and wear a Tartarian coronet.
XVI
A pedestrian, naked from head to foot, left Cufah with the caravan of pilgrims for Hijaz, or Mecca, and came along with us. I looked at and saw him destitute of every necessary for the journey; yet he was cheerfully pushing on, and bravely remarking:—"I am neither mounted on a camel nor a mule under a burden. I am neither the lord of vassals nor the vassal of a lord. I think not of present sorrows or past vanities, but breathe the breath of ease and live the life of freedom!"
A gentleman mounted on a camel said to him, "O dervish, whither are you going? return, or you must perish miserably." He did not heed what he said, but entered the desert on foot and proceeded. On our reaching the palm plantation of Mahmud, fate overtook the rich man, and he died. The dervish went up to his bier and said, "I did not perish amidst hardship on foot, and you expired on a camel's back." A person sat all night weeping by the side of a sick friend. Next day he died, and the invalid recovered!—Yes! many a fleet horse perished by the way, and that lame ass reached the end of the journey. How many of the vigorous and hale did they put underground, and that wounded man recovered!
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