Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER XXIII

The Soofies.--Opin­ion of the Mus­sul­mauns con­cern­ing Solomon.--The Ood-​ood.--De­scrip­tion of the Soofies and their sect.--Re­gard­ed with great rev­er­ence.--Their pro­tract­ed fasts.--Their opin­ion es­teemed by the Na­tives.--In­stance of the truth of their pre­dic­tions.--The Saa­lik and Ma­joob Soofies.--The po­ets Haafiz and Saadie.--Char­ac­ter and at­tain­ments of Saadie.--His 'Goolis­taun'.--Anec­dotes de­scrip­tive of the ori­gin of that work.--Far­ther re­marks on the char­ac­ter and his­to­ry of Saadie.--In­ter­est­ing anec­dotes il­lus­tra­tive of his virtues and the dis­tin­guish­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Soofies.

The life of King Solomon, with all his acts, is the sub­ject of many an au­thor's pen, both in the Ara­bic and Per­sian lan­guages; con­se­quent­ly the learned Mus­sul­mauns of Hin­doost­aun are in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with his virtues, his tal­ent, and the favour with which he was vis­it­ed by the great good­ness of the Almighty. In the course of my so­journ amongst them, I have heard many re­mark­able and some in­ter­est­ing anec­dotes re­lat­ing to Solomon, which the learned men as­sure me are drawn from sources of un­ques­tion­able au­thor­ity.

They af­firm that the wis­dom of Solomon not on­ly en­abled him to search in­to the most hid­den thoughts of men, and to hold con­verse with them in their re­spec­tive lan­guages, but that the gift ex­tend­ed even to the whole brute cre­ation; by which means he could hold un­lim­it­ed con­verse, not on­ly with the an­imate, as birds, beasts, and fish, but with inan­imate ob­jects, as shrubs, trees, and, in­deed, the whole tribe of veg­etable na­ture; and, fur­ther, that he was per­mit­ted to dis­cern and con­trol aeri­al spir­its, as demons, genii, &c.

The pret­ty bird, known in In­dia by the name of Ood-​ood,[1] is much re­gard­ed by the Mus­sul­mauns, as by their tra­di­tion this bird was the hurkaarah of King Solomon; and en­trust­ed with his most im­por­tant com­mis­sions when­ev­er he re­quired in­tel­li­gence to be con­veyed to or from a far dis­tant place, be­cause he could place greater con­fi­dence in the ve­rac­ity of this bird, and re­ly on more cer­tain dis­patch, than when en­trust­ing his com­mands to the most wor­thy of his men ser­vants.

The ood-​ood is beau­ti­ful­ly formed, has a var­ie­gat­ed plumage of black, yel­low, and white, with a high tuft of feath­ers on its head, through which is a spear of long feath­ers pro­trud­ing di­rect­ly across the head for sev­er­al inch­es, and is of the wood­peck­er species. The princes, Nuwaubs, and no­bil­ity of Hin­doost­aun, keep hurkaarahs for the pur­pose of con­vey­ing and ob­tain­ing in­tel­li­gence, who are dis­tin­guished by a short spear, with a tuft of silk or worsted about the mid­dle of the han­dle, and the tail of the ood-​ood in the front of their tur­ban, to re­mind them of this bird, which they are ex­pect­ed to im­itate both in dis­patch and fi­deli­ty. I am told, these men (from their ear­ly train­ing) are en­abled to run from fifty to six­ty miles bare-​foot­ed, and re­turn the same dis­tance with­out halt­ing on the same day.

The re­li­gious devo­tees of the Mus­sul­maun per­sua­sion, who are de­nom­inat­ed Soofies,[1] are con­jec­tured, by many, to have a sim­ilar gift with Solomon of un­der­stand­ing the thoughts of oth­er men. By some it is imag­ined that Solomon was the first Soofie; by oth­ers, that Ali, the hus­band of Fa­ti­ma, im­part­ed the knowl­edge of that mys­tery which con­sti­tutes the re­al Soofie. I am ac­quaint­ed with some Na­tives who des­ig­nate the Soofies 'Freema­sons' but I imag­ine this to be rather on ac­count of both pos­sess­ing a se­cret, than for any sim­ilar­ity in oth­er re­spects, be­tween the two or­ders of peo­ple.

My busi­ness, how­ev­er, is to de­scribe. The Soofies then are, as far as I can com­pre­hend, strict­ly re­li­gious men, who have for­sak­en en­tire­ly all at­tach­ment to earth­ly things, in their ado­ra­tion of the one supreme God. They are some­times found dwelling in the midst of a pop­ulous city, yet, even there they are whol­ly de­tached from the world, in heart, soul, and mind, ex­er­cis­ing them­selves in con­stant ado­ra­tion of, and ap­pli­ca­tion to God; oc­ca­sion­al­ly shut­ting them­selves up for sev­er­al weeks to­geth­er in a hut of mud, thatched with coarse grass, with scarce suf­fi­cient pro­vi­sion to sup­port the small­est liv­ing an­imal, and wa­ter bare­ly enough to moist­en their parched lips dur­ing the weeks thus de­vot­ed to soli­tary re­tire­ment and prayer.

When these reclus­es can no longer sup­port their self-​in­flict­ed pri­va­tion, they open the door of their hut, a sig­nal anx­ious­ly watched for by such per­sons as have a de­sire to meet the eye of the holy man, of whom they would in­quire on some (to them) in­ter­est­ing mat­ter; prob­ably re­gard­ing their fu­ture prospects in the world, the cause of the ill-​health and prospects of re­cov­ery of a dis­eased mem­ber of their fam­ily, or any like sub­ject of in­ter­est to the in­quir­er.

The Soofie, I am told, does not ap­prove of be­ing thus teased by the im­por­tu­ni­ties of the throng­ing crowd, who be­set his thresh­old the in­stant his door is heard to open. Be­ing weak in body, af­ter the fa­tigue of a pro­tract­ed fast of weeks to­geth­er, his replies to the ques­tions (pre­ferred al­ways with re­mark­able hu­mil­ity) are brief and prompt; and the Na­tives as­sure me de­pen­dence may al­ways be placed on the good Soofie's re­ply be­ing strict­ly the words of truth. On this ac­count, even if the or­acle's re­ply dis­ap­point the hopes of the ques­tion­er, he re­tires with­out a mur­mur, for then he knows the worst of his calami­ty, and if God or­ders it so, he must not com­plain, be­cause In­fi­nite Wis­dom can­not err, and the holy man will as­sured­ly speak the truth.

The prac­tice so long pre­vail­ing in Eu­rope of vis­it­ing the cun­ning man, to have the hid­den mys­ter­ies of fate solved, oc­curred to my rec­ol­lec­tion when I first heard of this cus­tom in In­dia.

'Will my son re­turn from his trav­els dur­ing my life­time?'--was the in­quiry of a tru­ly re­li­gious man, whom I knew very in­ti­mate­ly, to one of the pro­fessed Soofie class, on his emerg­ing from his hut. The re­ply was as fol­lows:--'Go home!--be hap­py;--com­fort your heart;--he is com­ing!' By a sin­gu­lar co­in­ci­dence it hap­pened, that the fol­low­ing day's daak pro­duced a let­ter, an­nounc­ing to him that his son was on his way re­turn­ing to his home and his fa­ther, who had for some years de­spaired of ev­er again see­ing his son in this life.

It is need­less to say, that the ven­er­ation shown to this Soofie was much in­creased by the sin­gu­lar co­in­ci­dence, be­cause the per­son who con­sult­ed him was a man of re­mark­able pro­bity, and not giv­en to in­dulge in idle con­ver­sa­tions with the world­ly-​mind­ed of that city.

There are many men in this coun­try, I am told, who make Soofieism their pro­fes­sion, but who are in re­al­ity hyp­ocrites to the world, and their Mak­er: ac­tu­at­ed some­times by the love of ap­plause from the mul­ti­tude, but of­ten­er, I am as­sured, by mer­ce­nary mo­tives. A Soofie en­joy­ing pub­lic favour may, if he choose, com­mand any man's wealth who gives cred­it to his sup­posed pow­er. All men pay a marked def­er­ence to his holy char­ac­ter, and few would have the temer­ity to with­hold the de­sired sum, how­ev­er in­con­ve­nient to be­stow, should the de­mand be made by one pro­fess­ing to be a Soofie.

The re­al Soofie is, how­ev­er, a very dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter, and an ob­ject of de­served ven­er­ation, if on­ly for the virtue of per­fect con­tent with which his hum­ble mind is en­dued: re­spect can­not be with­held by the re­flect­ing part of the world, when con­tem­plat­ing a fel­low-​crea­ture (even of a dif­fer­ent faith) whose life is passed in sin­cere de­vo­tion to God, and strict­ly con­form­ing to the faith he has em­braced. My Na­tive friends in­form me,--and many repro­bate the no­tion,--that the Soofies be­lieve they re­solve in­to the Di­vine essence when their souls are pu­ri­fied from the an­imal propen­si­ties of this life by se­vere pri­va­tions, fer­vent and con­tin­ual prayer, watch­ings, re­sist­ing temp­ta­tions, and pro­found med­ita­tion in soli­tude. When they have ac­quired the per­fec­tion they aim at, and are re­al­ly and tru­ly the per­fect Soofie, they rarely quit the hut they have first se­lect­ed for their re­tire­ment, and in­to which no one ev­er at­tempts to in­trude, with­out the Soofie com­mands it. He en­joys the uni­ver­sal re­spect and ven­er­ation of all class­es of peo­ple; he has no world­ly re­wards to be­stow, yet there are ser­vants al­ways ready to do him any kind­ness, amongst the num­ber of his ad­mir­ers who flock to catch but a glimpse of the holy man, and fan­cy them­selves bet­ter when but the light of his coun­te­nance has beamed up­on them. Proud­ly pre-​em­inent, in his own eyes, is the one amongst the mul­ti­tude who may be so far hon­oured as to be al­lowed to place a plat­ter of food be­fore the Soofie, when the im­per­ative de­mands of Na­ture pre­vail over his self-​in­flict­ed ab­sti­nence.

Some Soofies shut them­selves in their hut for a few days, and oth­ers for weeks to­geth­er, with­out see­ing or be­ing seen by a hu­man be­ing. Their gen­er­al cloth­ing is sim­ply a wrap­per of cal­ico, and their on­ly fur­ni­ture a coarse mat. They are said to be alike in­sen­si­ble to heat or cold, so en­tire­ly are their hearts weaned from the in­dul­gence of earth­ly com­forts.

I must ex­plain, how­ev­er, that there are two class­es of the pro­fess­ed­ly de­vout Soofies, viz. the Saa­lik, and the Ma­joob.[3] The true Saa­lik Soofies are those who give up the world and its al­lure­ments, ab­stain from all sen­su­al en­joy­ments, rarely as­so­ciate with their fel­low-​men, de­vote them­selves en­tire­ly to their Cre­ator, and are in­sen­si­ble to any oth­er en­joy­ments but such as they de­rive from their de­vo­tion­al ex­er­cis­es.

The Ma­joob Soofies have no es­tab­lished home nor earth­ly pos­ses­sions; they drink wine and spir­its freely, when they can ob­tain them. Many peo­ple sup­pose this class have lost the pos­ses­sion of their rea­son, and make ex­cuse for their de­par­ture from the law on that score. Both class­es are nev­er­the­less in great re­spect, be­cause the lat­ter are not deemed guilty of break­ing the law, since they are sup­posed to be in­sen­si­ble of their ac­tions whilst in­dulging in the for­bid­den juice of the grape.

Haafiz,[4] the cel­ebrat­ed po­et of Per­sia, it is re­lat­ed, was a Soofie of the Ma­joob class, he lived with­out a thought of pro­vid­ing for fu­ture ex­igen­cies, ac­cept­ed the of­fer­ings of food from his neigh­bour, drank wine freely when of­fered to him, and slept un­der any shed or hov­el he met with, as con­tent­ed as if he was in the palace of a king.

Saadie,[5] the Per­sian po­et, was, dur­ing the lat­ter years of his life, a Saa­lik Soofie of the most per­fect kind. Many of the in­spi­ra­tions of his pen, how­ev­er, were writ­ten in that part of his life which was de­vot­ed to the world and its en­joy­ments; yet most of these in­di­cate pu­ri­ty of thought in a re­mark­able de­gree. Saadie's life was sub­ject to the most ex­traor­di­nary vi­cis­si­tudes; he pos­sessed an in­de­pen­dent mind, scorn­ing ev­ery al­lure­ment of wealth which might tend to shack­le his prin­ci­ples. He is said to have re­peat­ed­ly re­ject­ed of­fers of pa­tron­age and pe­cu­niary as­sis­tance from many no­ble­men, whilst he still loved the world's en­tice­ments, declar­ing he nev­er could sub­mit to con­fine him­self to at­ten­dance on an earth­ly mas­ter for any length­ened pe­ri­od. His wit, pleas­ing de­port­ment, and po­lite man­ners, to­geth­er with the ami­able qual­ities of his heart, ren­dered him a gen­er­al favourite, and they who could boast most in­ti­ma­cy with Saadie were the most hon­oured by the world; for, though but the poor Saadie, he shed a lus­tre over the as­sem­blies of the great and no­ble in birth or sta­tion, by his bril­liant mind.

The 'Goolis­taun'[6] of Saadie has been so of­ten eu­lo­gized, as to ren­der it un­nec­es­sary for me to add a sin­gle word in com­men­da­tion of its style and moral­ity; but I will here take leave to in­sert an anec­dote trans­lat­ed for me by my hus­band, in al­lu­sion to the in­ci­dent which prompt­ed Saadie to write that work, un­der the ti­tle of 'Goolis­taun' (Gar­den of Ros­es). I will al­so here re­mark, that in the prin­ci­pal cities of Per­sia, the Mus­sul­mauns of that age were not equal­ly rigid in their ob­ser­vance of the law in­ter­dict­ing the use of fer­ment­ed liquors, as are those of the present day in Hin­doost­aun. Many young men among the high­er or­ders in­dulged freely in the 'life-​in­spir­ing draught', as they were wont to call the juice of the grape.

'Shi­raaz was the abode and the pre­sump­tive birth-​place of Saadie. In his ear­ly years he was led by a love of so­ci­ety to de­part from the rigid cus­toms of his fore­fa­thers, and with the wild youth of his ac­quain­tance to in­dulge freely in night­ly pota­tions of the for­bid­den juice of the grape. He had long de­light­ed his friends and favourites by shar­ing in their noc­tur­nal rev­els, and adding by his wit and pleas­antry to the mirth­ful mo­ments as they flew by un­heed­ed.

'At a par­tic­ular sea­son of the year, a con­vivial par­ty were ac­cus­tomed to as­sem­ble in a gar­den of ros­es, from mid­night to the ris­ing sun, to in­dulge in the lux­ury of wine dur­ing that re­fresh­ing sea­son; as to re­ceive the first scent from the open­ing ros­es as they ex­pand with the dawn of the morn­ing, con­sti­tut­ed a de­light, prover­bial­ly in­tox­icat­ing, amongst the sons of Per­sia. Saadie com­posed many airs for the oc­ca­sion, and gift­ed by Na­ture with a voice equalled on­ly by his wit, he sang them with a melody so sweet as to ren­der him al­most the idol of his com­pan­ions.

'At one of these sea­sons of en­joy­ment, the fes­ti­val was pre­pared by his cir­cle of friends as usu­al, but Saadie de­layed his vis­it. The whole par­ty were lost in sur­prise and re­gret at an ab­sence as un­ex­pect­ed as de­plored. Some time was passed in fruit­less con­jec­ture on the cause of his de­lay, and at last it was agreed that a dep­uta­tion from his well-​beloved as­so­ciates should go in quest of their favourite. They ac­cord­ing­ly went, and knocked at the door of his room, which they found was se­cure­ly fas­tened with­in. The po­et in­quired “Who is it that dis­turbs my re­pose, at this hour, when all good sub­jects of the King should be at rest?”--“Why, Saadie, Saadie!” they replied, “it is your friends and as­so­ciates, your favourites!--have you for­got­ten our en­joy­ments and this sea­son of bliss? Come, come, open the door, Saadie! away with us! our rev­els await your pres­ence. Noth­ing gives en­joy­ment to our par­ty un­til you add your smiles to our mirth.”

'“Let me alone,” replied Saadie; “en­joy your pas­time, if such it be to ye; but for me, I am hearti­ly ashamed of my late wan­ton pur­suits. I have re­solved on mend­ing my ways, whilst yet I have time; and be ye al­so wise, my friends; fol­low Saadie's ex­am­ple. Go home to your beds, and for­sake the sin­ful habits of the world!”

'“Why Saadie, what aileth thee! art thou mad?--or has the study of phi­los­ophy drawn thee from thy for­mer self, whilst yet thine hairs are jet with youth? These re­flec­tions of thine will suit us till far bet­ter when time hath frost­ed our beards. Come, come, Saadie, away with us! let not the pre­cious mo­ments es­cape in this un­prof­itable con­verse. You must come, Saadie; our hearts will break with­out you!”

'“Nay, nay,” re­spond­ed Saadie, “my con­science smites me that I have erred too long. It suits not my present tem­per to join in your mirth.”--“Open the door to us at any rate,” sound­ed from the many voic­es with­out; “speak to us face to face, our dear and well-​beloved friend! let us have ad­mis­sion, and we will ar­gue the sub­ject cool­ly.”--Saadie's good-​na­ture could not re­sist the ap­peal, the door was un­barred, and the young men en­tered in a body.

'“We have all wicked­ly bro­ken the law of the faith­ful,” said Saadie to his guests; and he tried to rea­son with his un­rea­son­able favourites, who, on their part, used raillery, ban­ter­ing, ar­gu­ment, and ev­ery pow­er of speech, to turn Saadie from his steady pur­pose of now ful­fill­ing the law he had wil­ful­ly vi­olat­ed. They ef­fect­ed noth­ing in mov­ing him from his pur­pose, un­til one of the young men, to whom Saadie was much at­tached, spoke ten­der­ly to him of the af­fec­tion both him­self and friends en­ter­tained for him, adding, “It is writ­ten in our law, that if a Mus­sul­maun be guilty of any sin, how­ev­er great, (and all kinds of sin are there­in enu­mer­at­ed), and he af­ter­wards sin­cere­ly re­pents be­fore God, with fast­ing and prayer, his sins shall be for­giv­en. Now you, Saadie, who are deeply versed in the way of wis­dom, and bet­ter ac­quaint­ed with the words of the Kho­raun than any oth­er man on earth, tell me, is there in that holy book a promise made of for­give­ness for that man who breaks the hearts of his fel­low-​crea­tures? With us there are many hearts so de­vot­ed­ly at­tached to you, that must as­sured­ly burst the bonds of life by your com­plete and sud­den de­ser­tion of them, so that not one sin but many shall be hurled by their deaths on your con­science, to be atoned for how you may.”

'Saadie loved them all too dear­ly to re­sist their per­se­ver­ing proofs of af­fec­tion, and he suf­fered him­self, af­ter a lit­tle more ar­gu­ment, to be led forth to the scene of their rev­els, where, how­ev­er, he ar­gued strong­ly on the im­pro­pri­ety of their habits and re­fused to be tempt­ed by the al­lur­ing wine. He then promised to pre­pare for them a nev­er-​fad­ing gar­den of ros­es which should last with the world; ev­ery leaf of which, if plucked with at­ten­tion, should cre­ate a greater and more last­ing bliss about their hearts than the best wine of Shi­raaz, or the most re­fined aro­mat­ic had hith­er­to con­veyed to their sen­su­al ap­petites.'

Af­ter the evening in ques­tion, Saadie ab­stained from all par­tic­ipa­tion in the rev­els of his friends, and de­vot­ed his hours to re­tire­ment that he might ac­com­plish the 'Goolis­taun' he had pledged him­self to cul­ti­vate for their more sub­stan­tial ben­efit and per­pet­ual en­joy­ment. The sim­plic­ity, el­egance, pu­ri­ty of style, and moral pre­cepts con­veyed in this work, prove the au­thor to have been wor­thy the re­spect with which his name has been rev­er­enced through all ages, and to this day, by the vir­tu­ous­ly dis­posed his work is read with un­abat­ed in­ter­est.

Saadie did not re­main very long at Shi­raaz af­ter his con­ver­sion, nor did he set­tle any where for any long pe­ri­od. The Per­sian writ­ers as­sert that he dis­liked the im­por­tu­ni­ties of the world, which, sen­si­ble of his mer­its as a po­et and com­pan­ion, con­stant­ly urged him to as­so­ciate with them. He, there­fore, lived a wan­der­ing life for many years, care­ful­ly con­ceal­ing his name, which had then be­come so cel­ebrat­ed by his writ­ings, that even be­yond the bound­aries of Per­sia his fame was known.

As his man­ner of life was sim­ple, his wants were few; he de­pend­ed sole­ly on the care of Di­vine Prov­idence for his dai­ly meal, avoid­ing ev­ery thing like lay­ing by from to-​day's pro­duce for the mor­row's sus­te­nance. He con­sid­ered that pro­vi­sion alone ac­cept­able, which the boun­ty of Di­vine Prov­idence dai­ly pro­vid­ed for his need, by dis­pos­ing the hearts of oth­ers to ten­der a suit­able sup­ply. In fact, he is said to have been of opin­ion that the store laid up by men for fu­ture ex­igen­cies less­ened the de­light­ful feel­ing of de­pen­dance on the boun­ty of God, who faileth not, day by day, to pro­vide for the birds and beasts of the for­est with equal care as for the prince on his throne; he would say, 'I shall be tempt­ed to for­get from whom my bread is re­ceived, if I have coins in my purse to pur­chase from the vender. Sweet is the dai­ly bread grant­ed to my prayers and de­pen­dance on the sole Giv­er of all good!'

To il­lus­trate the ne­ces­si­ty of per­fect con­tent, he re­lates, in his writ­ings, the fol­low­ing in­ter­est­ing anec­dote:--'I was once trav­el­ling on foot, where the roads were rugged, my shoes worn out, and my feet cut by the stones. I was de­sirous of pur­su­ing my jour­ney quick­ly, and se­cret­ly mourned that my feet pained me, and that my shoes were now ren­dered use­less; of­ten wish­ing, as I stepped with cau­tion, that I pos­sessed the means of re­plen­ish­ing these ar­ti­cles so use­ful to a trav­eller.

'With these feel­ings of dis­sat­is­fac­tion, I ap­proached the spot where a poor beg­gar was seat­ed, who, by some calami­ty, had been de­prived of both his feet. I viewed this sad ob­ject with much com­mis­er­ation, for he was de­pen­dant on the kind­ness of his fel­low-​beg­gars to con­vey him dai­ly to that pub­lic spot, where the pass­ing trav­eller, see­ing his mis­ery, might be in­duced to be­stow up­on him a few coins to pro­vide for his sub­sis­tence. “Alas! alas!” said I, “how have I suf­fered my mind to be dis­turbed be­cause my feet pained me, and were shoe­less. Un­grate­ful be­ing that I am! rather ought I to re­joice with an hum­ble heart, that my gra­cious Bene­fac­tor hath grant­ed me the bless­ing of feet, and sound health. Nev­er let me again mur­mur or re­pine for the ab­sence of a lux­ury, whilst my re­al wants are am­ply sup­plied.”'

One of my ob­jects in de­tail­ing the anec­dotes of Saadie in this place, is to give a more cor­rect idea of the Soofie char­ac­ter of that par­tic­ular class called Saa­lik, to which he ul­ti­mate­ly be­longed.

The next trans­la­tion from the life of Saadie will show how beau­ti­ful­ly his well-​tem­pered spir­it soared above those dif­fi­cul­ties which the com­mon mind would have sunk un­der. His fame, his su­pe­ri­or man­ners, were of that rare kind, that dis­tance from his birth-​place could be no ob­sta­cle to his mak­ing friends, if he chose to dis­close his name in any city of Asia.

I have no dates to guide me in plac­ing the sev­er­al anec­dotes in their prop­er or­der; this, how­ev­er, will be ex­cused, as I do not pre­tend to give his his­to­ry.

'On one oc­ca­sion, Saadie was jour­ney­ing on foot, and be­ing over­tak­en by the Arabs, (who, or a par­ty of, it may be pre­sumed, were at war with Per­sia), he was tak­en pris­on­er, and con­veyed by them, with many oth­ers, to Alep­po. The pris­on­ers, as they ar­rived, were all de­vot­ed to the pub­lic works (for­ti­fy­ing the city), and obliged to labour ac­cord­ing to their abil­ity.

'Saadie, un­used to any branch of me­chan­ical labour, could on­ly be em­ployed in con­vey­ing mor­tar to the more sci­en­tif­ic work­men. For many months he laboured in this way, de­grad­ing as the em­ploy­ment was, with­out a mur­mur, or a de­sire that his fate had been oth­er­ways or­dained. Hun­dreds of men then liv­ing in Alep­po would have been proud of the hon­our and the good name they must have ac­quired from the world, by de­liv­er­ing the Po­et from his thral­dom, had they known he was amongst them, a slave to the Arabs; for Saadie was revered as a saint by those who had ei­ther read his works, or heard of his name, ex­tolled as it was for his virtues. But Saadie placed his trust in God alone, and his con­fi­dence nev­er for an in­stant for­sook him; he kept his name con­cealed from all around him, laboured as com­mand­ed, and was con­tent­ed.

'Many months of de­grad­ing servi­tude had passed by, when one day, it so hap­pened that a rich Jew mer­chant, who had for­mer­ly lived at Shi­raaz, and there had been hon­oured by the re­gard of the idol­ized Saadie, vis­it­ed Alep­po, on his mer­can­tile con­cerns. Cu­rios­ity led him to sur­vey the im­prove­ments go­ing on in the city; and pass­ing the spot where Saadie was then pre­sent­ing his load of mor­tar to the ma­son, he thought he rec­og­nized the Po­et, yet deemed it im­pos­si­ble that he should be en­gaged in so de­grad­ing an em­ploy­ment, who was the ob­ject of uni­ver­sal ven­er­ation in Per­sia. Still the like­ness to his for­mer friend was so strik­ing, that he felt no tri­fling de­gree of plea­sure, whilst con­tem­plat­ing those fea­tures whose re­sem­blance re­called the im­age of that holy man who was so dear to him, and brought back to his rec­ol­lec­tion many de­light­ful hours of friend­ly con­verse, which at Shi­raaz had cheat­ed time of its weight, and left im­pres­sions on his heart to prof­it by dur­ing life.

'“I will talk with this man,” thought the Jew; “sure­ly he must be re­lat­ed to my friend; the face, the form, the grace­ful man­ner, and even in that rude garb and oc­cu­pa­tion, he so strong­ly re­sem­bles my friend, that I can­not doubt he must be of the same kin­dred.”

'Draw­ing near to Saadie, the Jew ac­cost­ed him with, “Who are you, friend,--and whence do you come?” Saadie's voice dis­pelled ev­ery doubt of the Jew, their eyes met, and in a few sec­onds they were clasped in each oth­er's warm em­brace, the Jew lament­ing, in terms of warm sym­pa­thy, the degra­da­tion of the im­mor­tal­ized po­et, and saint­ed man; whilst he in turn checked his friend's mur­mur­ings, by ex­press­ing his con­vic­tion that the wis­dom of God knew best how to lead his con­fid­ing ser­vants to him­self, declar­ing his present oc­cu­pa­tion did not ren­der him dis­con­tent­ed.

'The Jew went with­out de­lay to the su­per­in­ten­dant of the pub­lic works, and in­quired the sum he would be will­ing to re­ceive in lieu of the labour­er whom he de­sired to pur­chase, care­ful­ly avoid­ing the name of Saadie lest the ran­som should be pro­por­tioned to the re­al val­ue of such a slave. The man agreed to take one hun­dred and ten pieces of sil­ver (each in val­ue half a dol­lar). The sum was prompt­ly paid, and the Jew re­ceived an or­der to take away his pur­chase when and wher­ev­er he pleased. He lost no time in pos­sess­ing him­self of his trea­sured friend, con­veyed him to the city, where he clothed him in ap­par­el bet­ter suit­ed to his friend, and on the same day Saadie ac­com­pa­nied the benev­olent Is­raelite to his coun­try res­idence, some miles dis­tant from the city of Alep­po.

'Ar­rived here, Saadie en­joyed un­in­ter­rupt­ed peace of mind for a long sea­son, his heart bound­ing with grat­itude to God, who had, he felt as­sured, worked out his de­liv­er­ance from slav­ery and its con­se­quences; and as may be sup­posed from such a heart, Saadie was tru­ly sen­si­ble of the benev­olent Jew's kind­ness, with whom he was con­strained to re­main a con­sid­er­able time, for the Jew in­deed loved him as a broth­er, and al­ways grieved at the bare prob­abil­ity that they might ev­er again be sep­arat­ed; and de­sir­ing to se­cure his con­tin­uance with him dur­ing their joint lives, he pro­posed that Saadie should ac­cept his on­ly daugh­ter in mar­riage with a hand­some dowry.

'Saadie re­sist­ed his friend's of­fer for some time, us­ing ar­gu­ments which, in­stead of al­ter­ing his friend's pur­pose, on­ly strength­ened the de­sire to se­cure this ami­able man as the hus­band of his daugh­ter. Saadie as­sured him he was sen­si­ble of the of­fence his friend might give to the opin­ions of his peo­ple, by the pro­pos­al of unit­ing his daugh­ter to a man of an­oth­er faith, and that their prej­udices would bring in­nu­mer­able evils on his good name by such an al­liance. “No,” said Saadie, “I can­not con­sent to such a mea­sure. I have al­ready been a great trou­ble to you, if not a bur­den; let me de­part, for I can­not con­sent to draw down on the head of my friend the cen­sures of his tribe, and, per­haps, in af­ter-​time, dis­ap­point­ments. I have, in­deed, no de­sire to mar­ry; my heart and mind are oth­er­ways en­gaged.”

'The friends of­ten dis­cussed the sub­ject ere Saadie gave way to the earnest so­lic­ita­tions of the Jew, to whose hap­pi­ness the grate­ful heart of Saadie was about to be sac­ri­ficed when he re­luc­tant­ly con­sent­ed to be­come the hus­band of the young Jew­ess. The mar­riage cer­emo­ny was per­formed ac­cord­ing to the Jew­ish rites, when Saadie was over­pow­ered with the ca­ress­es and mu­nif­icence of his friend and fa­ther-​in-​law.

'A very short sea­son of do­mes­tic peace re­sult­ed to him from the al­liance. The young la­dy had been spoiled by the over-​in­dul­gence of her doat­ing par­ent, her er­rors of tem­per and mind hav­ing nev­er been cor­rect­ed. Proud, vin­dic­tive, and ar­ro­gant, she played the part of tyrant to her meek and fault­less hus­band. She strove to rouse his tem­per by taunts, re­vil­ings, and in­dig­ni­ties that re­quired more than mor­tal na­ture to with­stand re­ply­ing to, or bear with com­po­sure.

'Still Saadie went on suf­fer­ing in si­lence; al­though the tri­als he had to en­dure un­der­mined his health, he nev­er al­lowed her fa­ther to know the mis­ery he had en­tailed on him­self by this com­pli­ance with his well-​meant wish­es; nor was the se­cret cause of his al­tered ap­pear­ance sus­pect­ed by the kind-​heart­ed Jew, un­til by com­mon re­port his daugh­ter's base be­haviour was dis­closed to the wretched fa­ther, who grieved for the mis­for­tunes he had in­no­cent­ly pre­pared for the friend of his heart.

'Saadie, it is said, en­treat­ed the good Jew to al­low of a di­vorce from the Jew­ess, which, how­ev­er, was not agreed to; and when his suf­fer­ings had so in­creased that his tran­quil­li­ty was de­stroyed, fear­ing the loss of rea­son would fol­low, he fled from Alep­po in dis­guise and re­traced his steps to Shi­raaz, where in soli­tude his peace of mind was again re­stored, for there he could con­verse with his mer­ci­ful Cre­ator and Pro­tec­tor un­in­ter­rupt­ed by the strife of tongues.'

[1] _Hud­hud_, the lap­wing, hoopoe. In the Ko­ran (xxvii. 20, with Sale's note) the bird is de­scribed as car­ry­ing a let­ter from Solomon to the Queen of She­ba. On an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, when Solomon was lost in the desert, he sent it to pro­cure for him wa­ter for ablu­tion.

[2] The term _su­fi_, de­rived from _suf_, 'wool', in al­lu­sion to the gar­ments worn by them, was ap­plied in the sec­ond cen­tu­ry of Is­lam to men or wom­en who adopt­ed the as­cetic or qui­etis­tic way of life. See Hugh­es, _Dic­tio­nary of Is­lam_, 608 ff.: D.B. Mac­don­ald, _The De­vel­op­ment of Mus­lim The­ol­ogy_, 1903: E.G. Browne, _A Year Amongst the Per­sians_, 1893.

[3] If a Su­fi be­comes, by de­vo­tion, at­tract­ed to God, he is called _Sa­lik-​i-​ma­jzub_, 'an at­tract­ed devo­tee': if he prac­tis­es com­plete de­vo­tion, but is not in­flu­enced by the spe­cial at­trac­tion of God, he is called _Sa­lik_, 'a devo­tee' (Hugh­es, _Dic­tio­nary of Is­lam_, 612: Jaf­fur Shur­reef, _Qanoon-​e-​Is­lam_, 197).

[4] See p. 255.

[5] See p. 255.

[6] Gulis­tan.