Check out the very interesting history of Sufi thought here, including a fascinating writeup on Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi:
"As the story goes, the Seljuk ruler of Konya in Anatolia gave him a house. When a beggar called one day for alms, al-Arabi gave away the house because ‘that was all he had to give.’"
and
"The Sufi poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-73 CE) and his father crossed paths with al-Arabi on one journey. Rumi was quite young at the time but the father-son duo made a favorable impression on al-Arabi for he said, ‘There goes a sea followed by an ocean.’"
"An old Turkish anecdote relates that a Sufi dervish one day went to the house of a rich man to ask for alms. The latter, to test the dervish’s piety, asked him to enumerate the five pillars of Islam. The dervish recited the declaration of faith (no God but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah) and went silent. ‘What about the rest, the other four?’ the rich man asked. To this the dervish replied, ‘You rich men have abandoned pilgrimage and charity, and we poor dervishes have abandoned prayer and fasting, so what remains but the unity of God and the apostolate of Muhammad?’"
2 comments:
Check out the very interesting history of Sufi thought here, including a fascinating writeup on Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi:
"As the story goes, the Seljuk ruler of Konya in Anatolia gave him a house. When a beggar called one day for alms, al-Arabi gave away the house because ‘that was all he had to give.’"
and
"The Sufi poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-73 CE) and his father crossed paths with al-Arabi on one journey. Rumi was quite young at the time but the father-son duo made a favorable impression on al-Arabi for he said, ‘There goes a sea followed by an ocean.’"
Read the whole thing:
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/12/part-4-the-mystic-tide.html
Oh, and this one last bit:
"An old Turkish anecdote relates that a Sufi dervish one day went to the house of a rich man to ask for alms. The latter, to test the dervish’s piety, asked him to enumerate the five pillars of Islam. The dervish recited the declaration of faith (no God but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah) and went silent. ‘What about the rest, the other four?’ the rich man asked. To this the dervish replied, ‘You rich men have abandoned pilgrimage and charity, and we poor dervishes have abandoned prayer and fasting, so what remains but the unity of God and the apostolate of Muhammad?’"
What a precious contribution... Many thanks :)
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