Original content

English translation

And among them: the Shaykh of the shaykhs of Khorasan, and the rarity of the whole world, Abu Hafs Umar ibn Salim al-Nishaburi, may Allah be pleased with him, al-Haddad.

He was among the great and the masters of the group, praised by all the shaykhs. He was the companion of Abu Abdullah al-Abiwardi and the friend of Ahmad Khadruya. Shah Shuja' came from Kirman to visit him.

And he went to Baghdad to visit the shaykhs. He had no share in Arabic. When he came to Baghdad, the disciples said to one another: 'It would be a shame that the Shaykh of the shaykhs of Khorasan should need an interpreter for them to understand his words.' When he came to the mosque of Shuniziyya, all the shaykhs came, and Junayd was among them. He spoke eloquent Arabic with them, such that all were rendered helpless by his eloquence. They asked him: 'What is chivalry (futuwwa)?' He said: 'You begin and give a statement.' Junayd said: 'Chivalry, to me, is the abandonment of sight [of one's deeds] and the dropping of attribution. Chivalry, to me, is that you do not see your chivalry, and do not attribute what you have done to yourself, saying: this I am doing.' Abu Hafs said: 'How good is what the shaykh said, but chivalry, to me, is the rendering of fairness and the abandonment of demanding fairness. Good is what the shaykh said; but chivalry, to me, is to give fairness and to abandon seeking fairness.' Junayd said, may Allah have mercy on them: 'Arise, O our companions, for Abu Hafs has surpassed Adam and his descendants. Arise, O our companions, for Abu Hafs has brought increase over Adam and his descendants in chivalry.'

And it is said that the beginning of his state was that he became infatuated with a slave-girl. He was told: 'In the city of Nasa there is a Jew who is a sorcerer; the devices of this affair of yours are with him.' Abu Hafs came to him and told his state. The Jew said: 'For forty days and nights you must not perform prayer, nor remembrance of God, nor good deeds, nor good intention, so that I may work a device and your desire be fulfilled.' He did so. When forty days were complete, the Jew made a talisman, and that desire was not fulfilled. He said: 'Inevitably some good has passed from you. Think well and carefully.' Abu Hafs said: 'I know nothing of good deeds that passed from my outward or my inward, except that I was coming along the road and kicked a stone off the path with my foot, so that no one's foot should strike it.' The Jew said: 'Do not offend that God whose command you wasted for forty days; He did not waste this small trouble of yours.' He repented, and the Jew became a Muslim.

And he still practiced blacksmithing until he went to Baward and saw Abu Abdullah al-Bawardi and took the covenant of discipleship with him. And when he returned to Nishabur, one day in the bazaar a blind man was reciting the Quran. He was sitting in his shop; the listening (sama') to it overwhelmed him and he became absent from himself. He put his hand into the fire and brought out the heated iron without tongs. When his apprentice saw that, consciousness left them. When Abu Hafs returned to his state, he gave up his trade and never came to the shop again.

It is related from him that he said: 'I abandoned work, then I returned to it, then work abandoned me and I did not return to it.' I abandoned work, then returned to it. When work abandoned me, I did not return to it again; for whatever is abandoned by the servant's constraint and effort, its abandonment is more fitting than its doing, in the soundness of this principle: that all acquisition is a locus of afflictions, and value belongs to that meaning which enters from the unseen without effort; and in every locus where choice is exercised and the servant attaches himself to it, the subtlety of reality departs from it. So neither abandonment nor taking of anything is correct for the servant; because giving and removal are from the Lord, exalted and sanctified, and by His determination. When the giving came from the Truth, taking came; and when removal came, abandonment came; and when it is thus, value belongs to that which upholds taking and abandonment, not to the servant's being, by his striving, the attractor and repeller of it. So if the disciple, for a thousand years, calls for acceptance by the Truth, it is not as if in one moment the Truth calls for acceptance of him; for eternal favor is bound in the acceptance of pre-eternity, and everlasting joy in prior felicity; and the servant has no way, by his own sincerity, except through the purity of God's grace; and very precious is the servant from whose state the Causer repels the causes. And God knows best.