Muslim Saints and Mystics

Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Auliya’ ( Memorial of the Saints )

by Farid al-Din Attar
Translated by A. J. Arberry

Abu Yazid al-Bestami
Abu Yazid Taifur ibn ‘Isa ibn Sorushan al-Bestami
was born in Bestam in north-eastern Persia, the
grandson of a Zoroastrian; there he died in
261(874) or 264(877), and his mausoleum still
stands. The founder of the ecstatic (“drunken”)
school of Sufism, he is famous for the boldness of
his expression of the mystic’s complete absorp-
tion into the Godhead. In particular his descrip-
tion of a journey into Heaven (in imitation of the
Prophet Mohammad’s “ascension”), greatly elab-
orated by later writers, exercised a powerful
influence on the imagination of all who came
after him.
Abu Yazid-e Bestami: birth and early years
The grandfather of Abu Yazid-e Bestami was a
Zoroastrian; his father was one of the leading citizens
of Bestam. Abu Yazid’s extraordinary career began
from the time he was in his mother’s womb.
“Every time I put a doubtful morsel in my mouth,”
his mother would say, “you stirred in my womb and
would not keep still until I had put it out of my
mouth.”
This statement is confirmed by words spoken by
Abu Yazid himself “What is best for a man on this path?” he was asked.
“Congenital felicity,” he replied.
“And if that is missing?”
“A strong body.”
“And if that is lacking?”
“An attentive ear.”
“And without that?”
“A knowing heart.”
“And without that?”
“A seeing eye.”
“And without that?”
“Sudden death.”
In due course his mother sent him to school. He
learned the Koran, and one day his master was explain-
ing the meaning of the verse in the Sura of Loqman, Be
thankful to Me, and to thy parents. These words
moved the heart of Abu Yazid.
“Sir,” he said, laying down his tablet, “please give
me permission to go home and say something to my
mother.”
The master gave him leave, and Abu Yazid went
home.
“Why, Taifur,” cried his mother, “why have you
come home? Did they give you a present, or is it some
special occasion?”
“No,” Abu Yazid replied. “I reached the verse where
God commands me to serve Him and you. I cannot be manager in two houses at once. This verse stung me to
the quick. Either you ask for me from God, so that I
may be yours entirely, or apprentice me to God, so that
I may dwell wholly with Him.”
“My son, I resign you to God, and exempt you from
your duty to me,” said his mother. “Go and be God’s.”
“The task I supposed to be the hindmost of all tasks
proved to be the foremost,” Abu Yazid later recalled.
“That was to please my mother. In pleasing my moth-
er, I attained all that I sought in my many acts of self-
discipline and service. It fell out as follows. One night
my mother asked me for water. I went to fetch
her some, but there was none in the jug. I fetched the
pitcher, but none was in it either. So I went down
to the river and filled the pitcher with water. When
I returned to the house, my mother had fallen
asleep.
“The night was cold. I kept the jug in my hand.
When my mother awoke from sleep she drank some
water and blessed me. Then she noticed that the jug
was frozen to my hand. ‘Why did you not lay the jug
aside?’ she exclaimed. ‘I was afraid that you might
wake when I was not present,’ I answered. ‘Keep the
door half-open,’ my mother then said.
“I watched till near daybreak to make sure if the
door was properly half-open or not, and that I should
not have disregarded her command. At the hour of dawn, that which I had sought so many times entered
by the door.”
After his mother resigned him to God, Abu Yazid left
Bestam and for thirty years wandered from land to
land, disciplining himself with continuous vigil and
hunger. He attended one hundred and thirteen spiritu-
al preceptors and derived benefit from them all.
Amongst them was one called Sadiq. He was sitting at
his feet when the master suddenly said, “Abu Yazid,
fetch me that book from the window.”
“The window? Which window?” asked Abu Yazid.
“Why,” said the master, “you have been coming here
all this time, and you have not seen the window?”
“No,” replied Abu Yazid. “What have I to do with
the; window? When I am before you, I close my eyes
to everything else. I have not come to stare about.”
“Since that is so,” said the teacher, “go back to
Bestam. Your work is completed.”
It was hinted to Abu Yazid that in a certain place a
great teacher was to be found. He came from afar to
see him. As he approached, he saw the reputed teacher
spit in the direction of Mecca. He at once retraced his
steps.
“If he had achieved anything at all in the way,” he
remarked, “he would never have been guilty of trans-
gressing the Law.”‘
In this connection it is stated that his house was forty
paces from the mosque, and he never spat on the road
out of respect for the mosque.
It took Abu Yazid a full twelve years to reach the
Kaaba. This was because at every oratory he passed he
would throw down his prayer rug and perform two
rak’as.
“This is not the portico of an earthly king,” he
would say, “that one may run thither all at once.”
So at last he came to the Kaaba, but that year he did
not got to Medina.
“It would not be seemly to make that an appendage
of this visitation,” he explained. “I will put on pilgrim
robes for Medina separately.”
Next year he returned once more, donning the pil-
grim garb separately at the beginning of the desert. In
one town he passed through on the way a great throng
became his followers, and as he left a crowd went in his
wake.
“Who are those men?” he demanded, looking back.
“They wish to keep you company,” came the answer.
“Lord God!” Abu Yazid cried, “I beg of Thee, veil
not Thy creatures from Thee through me!”
Then, desiring to expel the love of him from their
hearts and to remove the obstacle of himself from their
path, having performed the dawn prayer he looked at them and said, “
Verily I am God; there is no god but I;
therefore serve Me.
“
“The man has become mad!” they cried. And they
left him and departed.
Abu Yazid went on his way. He found on the road a
skull on which was written,
Deaf, dumb, blind—they
do not understand.
Picking up the skull with a cry, he kissed it.
“This seems to be the head,” he murmured, “of a
Sufi annihilated in God—he has no ear to hear the eter-
nal voice, no eye to behold the eternal beauty, no
tongue to praise God’s greatness, no reason to under-
stand so much as a mote of the true knowledge of God.
This verse is about him.”
Once Abu Yazid was going along the road with a
camel on which he had slung his provisions and saddle.
“Poor little camel, what a heavy load it is carrying,”
someone cried. “It is really cruel.”
Abu Yazid, having heard him say these words over
and over, at last replied.
“Young man, it is not the little camel that lifts the
load.”
The man looked to see if the load was actually on the
camel’s back. He observed that it was a full span above
its back, and that the camel did not feel any weight at all.
“Glory be to God, a wondrous deed!” the man
exclaimed “If I conceal from you the true facts about myself,
you thrust out the tongue of reproach,” said Abu
Yazid. “If I disclose them to you, you cannot bear the
facts. What is one to do with you?”
After Abu Yazid had visited Medina, the order came
to him to return to care for his mother. He accordingly
set out for Bestam, accompanied by a throng. The news
ran through the city, and the people of Bestam came
out to welcome him a good way from the town. Abu
Yazid was likely to be so preoccupied with their atten-
tions that he would be detained from God. As they
approached him, he drew a loaf out of his sleeve. Now
it was Ramazan; yet he stood and ate the loaf. As soon
as the people of Bestam saw this, they turned away
from him.
“Did you not see?” Abu Yazid addressed his com-
panions “I obeyed an ordinance of the sacred Law, and
all the people rejected me.”
He waited patiently until nightfall. At midnight he
entered Bestam and, coming to his mother’s house, he
stood a while listening. He heard sounds of his mother
performing he ablutions and praying.
“Lord God, care well for our exile. Incline the hearts
of the shaikhs towards him, and vouchsafe him to do
all things well.’
Abu Yazid wept when he heard these words. Then he
knocked on the door.
“Who is there?” cried his mother.
“Your exile,” he replied.
Weeping, his mother opened the door. Her sight was
dimmed.
“Taifur,” she addressed her son, “do you know what
has dimmed my sight? It is because I have wept so
much being parted from you, and my back is bent dou-
ble from the load of grief I have endured.”
The Ascension of Abu Yazid
Abu Yazid related as follows.
I gazed upon God with the eye of certainty after that
He had advanced me to the degree of independence
from all creatures and illumined me with His light,
revealing to me the wonders of His secrets and mani-
festing to me the grandeur of His He-ness.
Then from God I gazed upon myself, and considered
well the secrets and attributes of my self. My light was
darkness beside the light of God; my grandeur shrank
to very meanness beside God’s grandeur; my glory
beside God’s glory became but vainglory. There all was
purity, here all was foulness.
When I looked again, I saw my being by God’s light.
I realized that my glory was of His grandeur and glory.
Whatsoever I did, I was able to do through His
omnipotence. Whatever the eye of my physical body
perceived, it perceived through Him. I gazed with the eye of justice and reality; all my worship proceeded
from God, not from me, and I had supposed that it was
I who worshipped Him.
I said, “Lord God, what is this?”
He said, “All that I am, and none other than I.”
Then He stitched up my eye, not to be the means of
seeing and so that I might not see, and He instructed
the gaze of my eye in the root of the matter, the He-ness
of Himself. He annihilated me from my own being, and
made me to be everlasting through His own everlast-
ingness, and He glorified me. He disclosed to me His
own Selfhood, unjostled by my own existence. So God,
the one Truth, increased in me reality. Through God I
gazed on God, and I beheld God in reality.
There I dwelt a while, and found repose. I stopped
up the ear of striving; I withdrew the tongue of yearn-
ing into the throat of disappointment. I abandoned
acquired knowledge, and removed the interference of
the soul that bids to evil. I remained still for a space,
without any instrument, and with the hand of God’s
grace I swept superfluities from the pathway of root
principles.
God had compassion on me. He granted me eternal
knowledge, and put into my throat a tongue of His
goodness. He created for me an eye out of His light,
and I saw all creatures through God. With the tongue
of His goodness I communed with God, and from the knowledge of God I acquired knowledge, and by His
light I gazed on Him.
He said, “O thou all without all with all, without
instrument with instrument!”
I said, “Lord God, let me not be deluded by this. Let
me not become self-satisfied with my own being, not to
yearn for Thee. Better it is that Thou shouldst be mine
without me, than that I should be my own without
Thee. Better it is that I should speak to Thee through
Thee, than that I should speak to myself without
Thee.”
He said, “Now give ear to the Law, and transgress
not My commands and forbiddings, that thy strivings
may earn Our thanks.”
I said, “Insomuch as I profess the faith and my heart
firmly believes, if Thou givest thanks, it is better that
Thou shouldst thank Thyself rather than Thy slave;
and if Thou blamest, Thou art pure of all fault.”
He said, “From whom didst thou learn?”
I said, “He who asks this question knows better than
he who is asked; for He is both the Desired and the
Desirer, the Answered and the Answerer.”
When He had perceived the purity of my inmost
soul, then my soul heard a shout of God’s satisfaction;
He sealed me with His good pleasure. He illumined me,
and delivered me out of the darkness of the carnal soul
“If I conceal from you the true facts about myself,
you thrust out the tongue of reproach,” said Abu
Yazid. “If I disclose them to you, you cannot bear the
facts. What is one to do with you?”
After Abu Yazid had visited Medina, the order came
to him to return to care for his mother. He accordingly
set out for Bestam, accompanied by a throng. The news
ran through the city, and the people of Bestam came
out to welcome him a good way from the town. Abu
Yazid was likely to be so preoccupied with their atten-
tions that he would be detained from God. As they
approached him, he drew a loaf out of his sleeve. Now
it was Ramazan; yet he stood and ate the loaf. As soon
as the people of Bestam saw this, they turned away
from him.
“Did you not see?” Abu Yazid addressed his com-
panions “I obeyed an ordinance of the sacred Law, and
all the people rejected me.”
He waited patiently until nightfall. At midnight he
entered Bestam and, coming to his mother’s house, he
stood a while listening. He heard sounds of his mother
performing he ablutions and praying.
“Lord God, care well for our exile. Incline the hearts
of the shaikhs towards him, and vouchsafe him to do
all things well.’
Abu Yazid wept when he heard these words. Then he
knocked on the door.
“Who is there?” cried his mother.
“Your exile,” he replied.
Weeping, his mother opened the door. Her sight was
dimmed.
“Taifur,” she addressed her son, “do you know what
has dimmed my sight? It is because I have wept so
much being parted from you, and my back is bent dou-
ble from the load of grief I have endured.”
The Ascension of Abu Yazid
Abu Yazid related as follows.
I gazed upon God with the eye of certainty after that
He had advanced me to the degree of independence
from all creatures and illumined me with His light,
revealing to me the wonders of His secrets and mani-
festing to me the grandeur of His He-ness.
Then from God I gazed upon myself, and considered
well the secrets and attributes of my self. My light was
darkness beside the light of God; my grandeur shrank
to very meanness beside God’s grandeur; my glory
beside God’s glory became but vainglory. There all was
purity, here all was foulness.
When I looked again, I saw my being by God’s light.
I realized that my glory was of His grandeur and glory.
Whatsoever I did, I was able to do through His
omnipotence. Whatever the eye of my physical body
perceived, it perceived through Him. I gazed with the
eye of justice and reality; all my worship proceeded
from God, not from me, and I had supposed that it was
I who worshipped Him.
I said, “Lord God, what is this?”
He said, “All that I am, and none other than I.”
Then He stitched up my eye, not to be the means of
seeing and so that I might not see, and He instructed
the gaze of my eye in the root of the matter, the He-ness
of Himself. He annihilated me from my own being, and
made me to be everlasting through His own everlast-
ingness, and He glorified me. He disclosed to me His
own Selfhood, unjostled by my own existence. So God,
the one Truth, increased in me reality. Through God I
gazed on God, and I beheld God in reality.
There I dwelt a while, and found repose. I stopped
up the ear of striving; I withdrew the tongue of yearn-
ing into the throat of disappointment. I abandoned
acquired knowledge, and removed the interference of
the soul that bids to evil. I remained still for a space,
without any instrument, and with the hand of God’s
grace I swept superfluities from the pathway of root
principles.
God had compassion on me. He granted me eternal
knowledge, and put into my throat a tongue of His
goodness. He created for me an eye out of His light,
and I saw all creatures through God. With the tongue
of His goodness I communed with God, and from the
knowledge of God I acquired knowledge, and by His
light I gazed on Him.
He said, “O thou all without all with all, without
instrument with instrument!”
I said, “Lord God, let me not be deluded by this. Let
me not become self-satisfied with my own being, not to
yearn for Thee. Better it is that Thou shouldst be mine
without me, than that I should be my own without
Thee. Better it is that I should speak to Thee through
Thee, than that I should speak to myself without
Thee.”
He said, “Now give ear to the Law, and transgress
not My commands and forbiddings, that thy strivings
may earn Our thanks.”
I said, “Insomuch as I profess the faith and my heart
firmly believes, if Thou givest thanks, it is better that
Thou shouldst thank Thyself rather than Thy slave;
and if Thou blamest, Thou art pure of all fault.”
He said, “From whom didst thou learn?”
I said, “He who asks this question knows better than
he who is asked; for He is both the Desired and the
Desirer, the Answered and the Answerer.”
When He had perceived the purity of my inmost
soul, then my soul heard a shout of God’s satisfaction;
He sealed me with His good pleasure. He illumined me,
and delivered me out of the darkness of the carnal soul
attributes, He bestowed on me a name of His own
presence and addressed me with His own Selfhood.
Singleness became manifest; duality vanished.
He said, “Our pleasure is that which is thy pleasure,
and thy pleasure is that which is Our pleasure. Thy
speech admits no defilement, and none takes thee to
task on account of thy I-ness.”
Then He made me to taste the stab of jealousy, and
revived me anew. I came forth pure from the furnace of
testing. Then He spoke.
“Whose is the Kingdom?”
I said, “Thine.”
He said, “Whose is the Command?”
I said, “Thine.”
He said, “Whose is the Choice?”
I said, “Thine.”
Since these words were the very same as He had
heard at the beginning of the transaction, He desired to
demonstrate to me that, had not His mercy preceded,
creation would never have found repose, and that but
for Love, Omnipotence would have wreaked destruc-
tion on all things. He gazed on me with the eye of
Overwhelming through the medium of Allcompelling,
and once more no trace of me was visible.
In my intoxication I flung myself into every valley. I
melted my body in every crucible in the fire of jealousy.
Thee. Array me in Thy Unity, that when Thy creatures
see me and gaze upon Thy handiwork, they will have
seen the Artificer, and I shall not be there at all.”
This desire He granted me; and He laid the crown of
munificence on my head, and caused me to surpass the
station of my fleshly nature.
Then He said, “Come before My creatures.”
I took one step out of the Presence. At the second
step I fell headlong. I heard a cry.
“Bring back My beloved, for he cannot be without
Me, neither knows he any path save to Me.”
Abu Yazid also related the following.
When I reached Unity—and that was the first
moment that I gazed upon Unity—for many years I ran
in that valley on the feet of understanding; till I became
a bird whose body was of Oneness, whose wings were
of Everlastingness. I kept flying in the firmament of
Unconditionedness. When I had vanished from the
things created, I spoke.
“I have reached the Creator.”
Then I lifted up my head from the valley of Lordship.
I quaffed a cup, the thirst for which I never slaked in all
eternity. Then for thirty thousand years I flew in the
expanse of His Unity, and for thirty thousand years
more I flew in Divinity, and for thirty thousand years
more I flew in Singularity. When ninety thousand years
had come to an end, I saw Abu Yazid, and all that I
saw, all was I.
Then I traversed four thousand wildernesses, and
reached the end. When I gazed, I saw myself at the
beginning of the degree of the prophets. Then for such
a while I went on in that infinity, that I said,
“No one has ever reached higher than this. Loftier
than this no station can be.”
When I looked well, I saw that my head was at the
sole of the foot of a prophet. Then I realized that the
end of the state of the saints is but the beginning of the
states of the prophets; to the end of the prophets there
is no term.
Then my spirit transcended the whole Dominion,
and Heaven and Hell were displayed to it; but it heed-
ed naught Whatever came before it, that it could not
suffer. To the soul of no prophet it reached, without it
gave greeting. When it reached the soul of God’s
Chosen One, upon him be peace, there it beheld a hun-
dred thousand seas of fire without end, and a thousand
veils of light. Had I so much as dipped my foot in the
first of those seas, I would have been consumed and
given myself over to destruction. Therefore I became so
bewildered with awe and confusion, that naught
remained of me. However I desired to be able to see but
the tent-peg of the pavilion of Mohammad, God’s
Messenger, I had not the boldness. Though I had
attained to God, I had not the boldness to attain to
Mohammad.
Then Abu Yazid said, “O God, whatsoever thing I
have seen, all has been I. There is no way for me to
Thee, so long as this ‘I’ remains; there is no transcend-
ing my selfhood for me What must I do?”
The command came, “To be delivered out of thy
thouness, follow after Our beloved, the Arab
Mohammad. Anoint thine eye with the dust of his foot,
and continue following after him.
Abu Yazid and Yahya-e Mo’adh
Yahya-e Mo’adh wrote a letter to Abu Yazid saying,
“What do you say of a man who has quaffed a cup of
wine, and become intoxicated from eternity to eterni-
ty?”
Abu Yazid replied, “That I know not. What I do
know is this, that here is a man who in a single night
and a day drains all the oceans of eternity to eternity
and then asks for more.”
Yahya-e Mo’adh wrote again, “I have a secret to tell
you, but our rendezvous is in Paradise. There under the
shadow of Tuba I will tell it you.” And he sent along
with the letter a loaf saying, “The shaikh must avail
himself of this, for I kneaded it with water from the
well of Zemzem.” A voice spoke within him.
“Abu Yazid, art thou not ashamed to apply My
name to a fruit?”
For forty days his heart was oblivious to the name of
God.
“I have taken an oath,” the shaikh declared, “that I
will never eat the fruit of Bestam so long as I live.”
“One day I was seated,” Abu Yazid recalled, “when
the thought entered my mind, ‘I am the shaikh of the
time, the saint of the age.’ As soon as this thought
occurred to me, I knew that I had been guilty of a great
error. I rose up and proceeded on the road to
Khorasan. I halted in a hospice and swore that I would
not leave it until God sent me someone who should
reveal me again to myself.
“Three days and three nights I remained there. On
the fourth day I saw a one-eyed man approaching on a
camel. Observing him closely, I saw in him the marks
of divine awareness. I signalled to the camel to halt,
and immediately it lowered its two forelegs to the
ground. The man gazed upon me.
“‘You bring me all this way,’ he said, ‘to open an eye
that was closed, to unlatch a door that was locked, and
to drown the people of Bestam along with Abu Yazid?’
“I swooned away. ‘Whence do you come?’ I asked.
‘Since the moment you swore that oath, I have come Not every unwashed of face is worthy to inhabit this
palace.’
“I made the resolve to pray for all creatures. Then
the thought came to me, ‘The station of intercession
belongs to Mohammad, upon him be peace.’ So I
observed my manners I heard a voice address me,
‘Because of this one observance of good manners I have
exalted your name, so that until the resurrection men
shall call you King of the Gnostics.'”
“The first time I entered the Holy House,” stated
Abu Yazid, “I saw the Holy House. The second time I
entered it, I saw the Lord of the House. The third time
I saw neither the House nor the Lord of the House.”
By this Abu Yazid meant, “I became lost in God, so
that I knew nothing. Had I seen at all, I would have
seen God.” Proof of this interpretation is given by the
following anecdote.
A man came to the door of Abu Yazid and called
out.
“Whom are you seeking?” asked Abu Yazid.
“Abu Yazid,” replied the man.
“Poor wretch!” said Abu Yazid. “I have been seek-
ing Abu Yazid for thirty years, and cannot find any
trace or token of him.”
This remark was reported to Dho ‘l-Nun. He com-
mented, “God have mercy on my brother Abu Yazid!

“Since Abu Yazid’s light has entered,” they said, “it
would be a pity for us to continue in our own dark-
ness.”
They became Muslims forthwith.
One night Abu Yazid could find no joy in worship.
“Look and see if there is anything of value in the
house,” he said.
His disciples looked, and discovered half a bunch of
grapes.
“Fetch them and give them away,” Abu Yazid com-
manded. “My house is not a fruiterer’s shop.”
And he rediscovered his composure.
One day a man reported to Abu Yazid, “In
Tabarestan a certain man had passed away. I saw you
there with Khezr, peace be upon him; he had laid his
hand on your neck, and your hand rested on his back.
When the mourners returned from the funeral, I saw
you soar into the air.”
“Yes,” said Abu Yazid. “What you say is perfectly
true.”
A man who did not believe in Abu Yazid came to
him one day to put him to the test.
“Reveal to me the answer to such-and-such a prob-
lem,” he said.
Abu Yazid perceived the unbelief within him.
“In a certain mountain there is a cave,” he told him.
“In that cave lives one of my friends. Ask him to reveal
the answer to you.”
The man hastily proceeded to the cave. There he saw
a huge and terrible dragon. As soon as his eyes fell
upon it he fainted away, and fouled his clothes. When
he recovered he flung himself out of that place, leaving
his shoes behind. So he returned to Abu Yazid. Falling
at his feet, he repented.
“Glory be to God!” Abu Yazid exclaimed. “You can-
not look after your shoes out of fear for a creature.
Being in awe of God, how can you look after the ‘rev-
elation’ which you came seeking in your disbelief?”
One day a man entered and questioned Abu Yazid
on the topic of shame. Abu Yazid answered him, and
the man turned to water. Another entered just then and
perceived a pool of pale water.
“Master, what is this?” he asked.
“A man entered and questioned me about shame,”
Abu Yazid replied. “I answered him. He could not
endure what I said, and so turned into water out of
shame.”
Hatem the Deaf said to his disciples, “Whosoever
of you on the day of resurrection does not intercede
for the inhabitants of Hell, he is not one of my disci-
ples.”
This statement was reported to Abu Yazid.
“I say,” declared Abu Yazid, “that he is my disciple
who stands on the brink of Hell and takes by the hand
every one being conveyed to Hell and dispatches him to
Heaven, and then enters Hell in his place.”
Once the army of Islam flagged in the war against
Byzantium, and was near to being defeated. Suddenly
they heard a shout, “Abu Yazid, give help!” At once a
he came from the direction of Khorasan, so that fear
fell upon the army of the infidels and the army of
Islam won the day.
Abu Yazid was asked, “How did you attain to this
degree and achieve this station?”
“One night when I was a child,” he answered, “I
came out from Bestam. The moon was shining, and
the world was at rest. I beheld a Presence, besides
which eighteen thousand worlds seemed but a mote.
A deep emotion possessed me and I was overmastered
by a mighty ecstasy. ‘Lord God,’ I cried, ‘so mighty a
palace, and so empty! Works so tremendous, and such
loneliness!’ A voice from heaven replied, ‘The palace
is not empty because none comes to it; it is empty
because We do not desire all and sundry to enter it.
Not every unwashed of face is worthy to inhabit this
palace.’
“I made the resolve to pray for all creatures. Then
the thought came to me, ‘The station of intercession
belongs to Mohammad, upon him be peace.’ So I
observed my manners I heard a voice address me,
‘Because of this one observance of good manners I have
exalted your name, so that until the resurrection men
shall call you King of the Gnostics.'”
“The first time I entered the Holy House,” stated
Abu Yazid, “I saw the Holy House. The second time I
entered it, I saw the Lord of the House. The third time
I saw neither the House nor the Lord of the House.”
By this Abu Yazid meant, “I became lost in God, so
that I knew nothing. Had I seen at all, I would have
seen God.” Proof of this interpretation is given by the
following anecdote.
A man came to the door of Abu Yazid and called
out.
“Whom are you seeking?” asked Abu Yazid.
“Abu Yazid,” replied the man.
“Poor wretch!” said Abu Yazid. “I have been seek-
ing Abu Yazid for thirty years, and cannot find any
trace or token of him.”
This remark was reported to Dho ‘l-Nun. He com-
mented, “God have mercy on my brother Abu Yazid!
He is lost with the company of those that are lost in
God.”
So complete was Abu Yazid’s absorption in God,
that every day when he was called by a disciple who
had been his inseparable companion for twenty years,
he would say, “My son, what is your name?”
“Master,” the disciple said one day, “you ate mock-
ing me. For twenty years now I have been serving you,
and every day you ask me my name.” “My son,”
replied Abu Yazid, “I do not deride you. But His name
has entered my heart, and has expelled all other names.
As soon as I learn a new name, I promptly forget it.”
“Almighty God,” said Abu Yazid, “admitted me to
His presence in two thousand stations, and in every sta-
tion He offered me a kingdom, but I declined it. God
said to me, ‘Abu Yazid, what do you desire?’ I replied,
‘I desire not to desire.'”
“You walk on the water!” they said.
“So does a piece of wood,” Abu Yazid replied.
“You fly in the air!”
“So does a bird.”
“You travel to the Kaaba in a single night!”
“Any conjurer travels from India to Demavand in a
single night.”
“Then what is the proper task of true men?” they
asked.
“The true man attaches his heart to none but God,”
he replied.
“I triply divorced the world,” said Abu Yazid, “and
alone proceeded to the Alone. I stood before the
Presence and cried, ‘Lord God, I desire none but Thee.
If I possess Thee, I possess all.’
“When God recognized my sincerity, the first grace
that He accorded me was that he removed the chaff of
the self from before me.”
“What is the Throne?” Abu Yazid was asked.
“It is I,” he replied.
“What is the Footstool?”
“I.”
“What is the Tablet and the Pen?”
“I.”
“God has servants the like of Abraham and Moses
and Jesus.”
“All are I.”
“God has servants the like of Gabriel and Michael
and Seraphiel.”
“All are I.”
The man was silent.
“Whoever has become effaced in God,” said Abu
Yazid, “and has attained the Reality of all that is, all is
God.”
It is related that Abu Yazid seventy times attained
propinquity to the presence of the Almighty. Each time
he returned, he bound a girdle about him and then
broke it.
When his life drew towards its close, he entered the
prayer niche and bound a girdle about him. He put on
upside down his fur jacket and his cap. Then he said,
“O God, I do not vaunt of the discipline of a whole life-
time. I do not parade my all night prayers. I do not
speak of my fasting all my life. I do not enumerate the
times I have recited the Koran. I do not tell of my spir-
itual occasions and litanies and proximities. Thou
knowest that I do not look back on anything, and that
this of which I give account by my tongue is not said in
boasting, or because I rely thereon. I give account of all
this, because I am ashamed of all that I have done.
Thou hast invested me with the grace of seeing myself
so. All that is nothing; count it as naught. I am an old
Torkoman of seventy years whose hair has grown
white in pagandom. Now I come from the desert cry-
ing Tangri Tangri. Only now I learn to say Allah Allah.
Only now I break my girdle. Only now I set foot in the
circle of Islam. Only now I make my tongue move with
the attestation of the Faith. All that Thou doest is with-
out cause; Thou acceptest not on account of obedience,
and Thou rejectest not on account of disobedience. All
that I have done I reckon as but dust. Whatsoever
Thou hast seen of me not pleasing to Thy presence, do
Thou draw the line of pardon through it. And wash the
dust of disobedience from me; for I have myself washed
away the dust of the presumption that I have obeyed
Thee.”

Source: Sufism.ir