Ebrahim ibn Adham

by Farid al-Din Attar

Anecdotes of Ebrahim ibn Adham

One day Ebrahim ibn Adham was asked, “What befell

you, that you quit your kingdom?”

“I was seated on my throne one day,” he recalled. “A

mirror was held up before me; I looked into that mirror and saw that my lodging was the tomb and therein

was no familiar friend. I saw a long journey ahead of

me, and I had no provision. I saw a just judge, and I

had no defence. I became disgusted of my kingship.’,

“Why did you flee from Khorasan?” they asked.

“I heard much talk there of the true friend,” he

replied.

“Why do you not seek a wife?” he was asked.

“Does any woman take a husband for him to keep

her hungry and naked?” he countered.

“No,” they replied.

“That is why I do not marry,” he explained. “Any

woman whom I married would remain hungry and

naked. If I only could, I would divorce myself. How

can I bind another to my saddle?”

Then turning to a beggar who was present, he asked

him “Do you have a wife?”

“No,” the beggar replied.

“Do you have a child?”

”No.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Ebrahim exclaimed.

“Why do you say that?” asked the beggar.

“The beggar who marries embarks on a ship. When

the children come, he is drowned.”

One day Ebrahim saw a beggar bewailing his lot.

“I guess you bought beggary gratis,” he remarked.

“Why, is beggary for sale?” the beggar asked in

astonishment.

“Certainly,” Ebrahim replied. “I bought it with the

kingdom of Balkh. I got a bargain.”

A man once brought Ebrahim a thousand dinars.

“Take,” he said.

“I do not accept anything from beggars,” Ebrahim

replied “But I am wealthy,” the man retorted.

“Do you want more than you own already?”

Ebrahim asked “Indeed,” the man exclaimed.

“Then take it back,” said Ebrahim. “You are the

chief of the beggars. Indeed, this is not beggary. This is

plain penury.”

Ebrahim was told of an ecstatic youth who had

extraordinary experiences and disciplined himself

severely.

“Bring me to him so that I may see him,” he said.

They took him to the youth.

“Be my guest for three days,” the youth invited him.

Ebrahim stayed there and observed the youth’s state

attentively. It surpassed even what his friends had said.

All night he was sleepless and restless, not reposing or

slumbering for a single moment. Ebrahim felt a certain

jealousy.

“I am so frigid, and he is sleepless and unresting the

whole night through. Come, let us investigate his case,”

he said to himself. “Let us discover if anything from

Satan has invaded his state, or whether it is wholly

pure and in all respects as it should be. I must examine

the foundation of the matter. The foundation and root

of the matter is what a man eats.”

So he investigated what the youth was eating, and

discovered that it came from unhallowed sources.

“God is most great. It is Satanic,” Ebrahim

exclaimed.

“I have been your guest for three days,” he said to

the youth. “Now you come and be my guest for forty

days.”

The youth accepted. Now the food Ebrahim ate was

earned by the labour of his own hands. He took the

youth to his home and gave him of his own food.

Immediately his ecstasy vanished. All his ardour and

passion disappeared. That restlessness and sleeplessness and weeping of his departed.

“What have you done to me?” he cried.

“Yes,” Ebrahim answered. “Your food was unhallowed. Satan was all the time going and coming in you.

As soon as you swallowed lawful food, the manifestations he had been contriving in you became revealed

for what they were, the Devil’s work.”

Sahl ibn Ebrahim tells the following story. ‘

I was making a journey with Ebrahim-e Adham, and

on the way I fell sick. He sold all that he possessed and

spent it on me. I begged him for something, and he sold

his ass and spent the proceeds on me.

“Where is the ass?” I enquired when I recovered.

“I sold it,” he replied.

“What shall I sit on?” I demanded.

“Brother,” Ebrahim answered, “come, sit on my

back.”

And he lifted me on his back and carried me for three

stages.

Every day Ebrahim went out to work for hire and

laboured till night. All his earnings he expended on

behalf of his companions. But by the time he had performed the evening prayer and bought something and

had returned to his friends the night was far gone.

One night his companions said, “He is late in coming. Come, let us eat some bread and go to sleep. That

will be a hint for him to return earlier in future. He will

not keep us waiting so long.”

So they did. When Ebrahim returned he saw that

they were asleep. Supposing that they had not eaten

anything and had gone to sleep hungry, he at once lit a

fire. He had brought a little flour back with him, so he

made dough to give them something to eat when they

woke, then they would be able to keep fast next day.

His companions awoke to see him with his beard on

the floor, blowing on the fire; tears were streaming

from his eyes, and he was surrounded by smoke.

“What are you doing?” they asked.

“I saw you were asleep,” Ebrahim replied. “I said to

myself, perhaps you could not find anything and went

to sleep hungry. So I am making something for you to

eat when you awake.”

“See how he thought about us, and how we thought

about him,” they exclaimed.

“Since you entered on this path, have you ever experienced happiness?” Ebrahim was asked.

“Several times,” he replied. “Once I was on board

ship and the captain did not know me. I was wearing

ragged clothes my hair was untrimmed, and I was in a

spiritual ecstasy of which all on board were unaware.

They laughed at me and ridiculed me. There was a

joker on the ship, and every now and then he would

come and grab me by the hair and pluck it out and slap

me on the neck. In those moments I felt that I had

attained my desire, and was very happy to be so humiliated.

“Suddenly a great wave arose, and all feared that

they would perish. ‘We must throw one of these fellows

overboard,’ cried the helmsman. ‘Then the ship will be

lighter.’ They seized me to throw me into the sea. The

wave subsided, and the ship resumed an even keel.

That moment when they took me by the ear to throw

me into the water, I felt that I had attained my desire,

and was happy.

“On another occasion I went to a mosque to sleep

there. They would not let me be, and I was so weak and

exhausted that I could not get up. So they seized me by

the foot and dragged me out. Now the mosque had three steps; my head struck against each step in turn,

and the blood flowed forth. I felt that I had attained my

desire. On each step that they dropped me, the mystery

of a whole clime became revealed to me. I said, ‘Would

that the mosque had more steps, to increase my felicity!’

“On another occasion I was rapt in a state of ecstasy. A joker came and urinated on me. Then too I was

happy.

“On yet another occasion I was wrapped in a fur

jacket infested by fleas which devoured me unmercifully. Suddenly I remembered the fine clothes which I had

deposited in the treasury. My soul cried within me,

‘Why, what pain is this?’ Then too I felt that I had

attained my desire.”

“Once,” Ebrahim related, “I was journeying in the

desert putting my trust in God. For some days I found

nothing to eat. I remembered a friend of mine, but I

said to myself, ‘If I go to him, my trust in God will

become void.’ I entered a mosque with the words on

my lips, ‘I have put my trust in the Living One who dies

not. There is no God but He.’ A voice out of heaven

cried, ‘Glory be to that God who has emptied the face

of the earth of those who trust in Him.’ I said, ‘Why

these words?’ The voice replied, ‘How should that man

be truly trusting in God who undertakes a long journey for the sake o a morsel that a profane friend may give

him, and then declare “I have put my trust in the Living

One who dies not”? You have given the name of trust

in God to a lie!'”

“Once I bought a slave,” Ebrahim recalled.

“‘What is your name?’ I asked.

“‘What you call me,’ he answered.

“‘What do you eat?’

“‘What you give me.’

“‘What do you wear?’

“‘What you clothe me withal.’

“‘What do you do?’

“‘What you command.’

“‘What do you desire?’ I asked.

“‘What has a servant to do with desire?’ he replied.

“‘Wretch that you are,’ I said to myself, ‘all your life

you have been a servant of God. Well, now learn what

it means to be a servant!’

“And I wept so long that I swooned away.”

No one had ever seen Ebrahim sitting crosslegged.

“Why do you not sit crosslegged?” he was asked.

“I did sit that way one day,” he replied. “I heard a

voice from the air saying, ‘Son of Adham, do servants

sit so in the presence of their lords?’ I at once sat

upright and repented.

“Once I was travelling in the desert trusting in

God, Ebrahim related. “For three days I found nothing to eat. The Devil came to me.

“‘Did you abandon your kingdom and so much

luxury in order to go on the pilgrimage hungry?’ the

Devil taunted me. ‘You can also make the pilgrimage

in style and not suffer so.

“Hearing this speech of the Devil, I lifted my head

on high.

“‘O God,’ I cried, ‘dost Thou appoint Thy enemy

over Thy friend to torture me? Come to my succour! For I cannot cross this desert without Thy

aid.’

“‘Ebrahim,’ a voice came to me, ‘cast out what

thou hast in thy pocket, that We may bring forth that

which is in the Unseen.’

“I put my hand in my pocket. Four silver pennies

were there which I had forgotten. As soon as I flung

them away the Devil fled from me, and aliment materialized out of the Unseen.”

“Once,” Ebrahim recalled, “I was appointed to look

after an orchard. The owner of the orchard came and

said to me, ‘Bring me some sweet pomegranates.’ I

brought some, but they were sour.

“‘Bring me sweet ones,’ the owner repeated. I

brought another dishful, but they were also sour.

“‘Glory be to God!’ the owner cried. ‘You have spent

so long in an orchard, and you do not know ripe pomegranates?’

“‘I look after your orchard, but I do not know what

pomegranates taste like because I have never sampled

any,’ I replied

“‘With such self-denial, I suspect you are Ebrahim-e

Adham,’ the owner said.

“When I heard these words, I departed from that

place.”

“One night,” Ebrahim related, ‘I saw Gabriel in a

dream come down to earth out of heaven with a scroll

in his hand.

“‘What do you want?’ I asked.

“‘I am writing down the names of the friends of

God,’ Gabriel replied.

“‘Write down my name,’ I said.

“‘You are not of them,’ Gabriel answered.

“‘I am a friend of the friends of God,’ I rejoined.

“Gabriel pondered for a while. Then he said,

“‘The command has come. Inscribe Ebrahim’s name

the first of all. For on this Path hope materializes out of

despair.'”

Ebrahim was travelling in the desert one day when

he was accosted by a soldier.

“What are you?” the soldier asked.

“A servant,” replied Ebrahim.

“Which is the way to habitation?” asked the soldier.

Ebrahim pointed to the graveyard.

“You are making fun of me,” shouted the soldier,

lashing out at Ebrahim’s head. His head was broken,

and the blood gushed forth.

The soldier put a rope round Ebrahim’s neck and

dragged him along. People from the nearby town coming that way stopped at the spectacle.

“Ignoramus, this is Ebrahim-e Adham, the friend of

God,” they cried.

The soldier fell at Ebrahim’s feet and implored him

to pardon him and acquit him of the wrong he had

done him.

“You told me you were a servant,” he pleaded.

“Who is there who is not a servant?” Ebrahim

replied.

“I broke your head, and you prayed for me,” said

the soldier.

“I prayed that you might be blessed for the way you

treated me,” was Ebrahim’s answer. “My reward for

the way you treated me was Paradise, and I did not

wish that your reward should be Hell.”

“Why did you direct me to the cemetery when I

asked the way to habitation?” the soldier asked.

“Because every day the graveyard becomes more

thronged, and the city more deserted,” answered

Ebrahim.

Once Ebrahim passed by a drunkard. His mouth was

foul, so he fetched water and washed the drunkard’s

mouth.

“Do you leave foul the mouth that has mouthed the

name of God? That is irreverence!” Ebrahim said to

himself.

“The ascetic of Khorasan washed your mouth,” they

told the man when he woke.

“I too now repent,” the man declared.

After that Ebrahim heard in a dream, “Thou didst

wash a mouth for My sake. I have washed thy heart.”

I was once on shipboard with Ebrahim (relates Raja)

when suddenly a wind sprang up and the world grew

dark.

“Alas, the ship is sinking!” I cried.

“Fear not that the ship will sink,” came a voice from

the air. “Ebrahim-e Adham is with you.”

Immediately the wind subsided, and the darkened

world became bright.

Ebrahim wished to embark on a ship, but he had no

money.

“Every one must pay a dinar,” came the announcement.

Ebrahim prayed two rak’as, and said, “O God, they

are demanding money from me and I have none.”

Forthwith the whole sea was turned to gold.

Ebrahim gathered a handful and gave it to them.

One day Ebrahim was seated on the bank of the

Tigris stitching his threadbare robe. His needle fell into

the river.

“You gave up such a mighty kingdom. What did you

get in return?” someone asked him.

“Give back my needle,” cried Ebrahim, pointing to

the river.

A thousand fishes put up their heads from the water,

each with a golden needle in its mouth.

“I want my own needle,” said Ebrahim.

A feeble little fish held up Ebrahim’s needle in its

mouth.

“This is the least thing I have gotten by abandoning

the kingdom of Balkh,” said Ebrahim. “The rest you

know nothing of.”

One day Ebrahim came to a well. He let down the

bucket, and it came up full of gold. He emptied it and

let it down again, and it came up full of pearls. In

merry mood he emptied it once more.

“O God,” he cried, “Thou art offering me a treasury.

I know that Thou art all-powerful, and Thou knowest

that I shall not be deluded by this. Give me water, that

I may make my ablution.”

Once Ebrahim was going on the pilgrimage in company.

“Not one of us has a camel or any provisions,” said

his fellow-pilgrims.

“Rely on God to provide for you,” Ebrahim told

them.

Then he added, “Look at those trees! If it is gold that

you desire, they will be turned to gold.”

All the acacias had turned to gold by the Power of

Almighty God.

One day Ebrahim was travelling with a party when

they came to a fort. Before the fort was much brushwood.

“We will pass the night here,” they said. “There is

plenty of brushwood, so we can make a fire.”

They kindled a fire and sat in the light of the flames.

All ate dry bread, whilst Ebrahim stood in prayer.

“If only we had some hallowed meat to roast on this

fire,” said one.

Ebrahim finished his prayer. Then he said, “God is

certainly able to give you hallowed meat.”

Saying this, he stood once more in prayer.

Immediately came the roar of a lion. They watched as

a lion approached dragging a wild ass. They took the

ass, roasted it and ate it, whilst the lion crouched there

watching them.

Source : Sufism.ir