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English translation

When a dervish chooses residence without travel, the condition of his etiquette is that when a traveler reaches him, out of reverence he should come toward him with joy and receive him with honor, considering him to be one of the guests of Abraham the Friend of God, peace be upon him. Out of generosity he should do with him as Abraham did, peace be upon him, who without ceremony brought forth whatever was at hand; as God, Almighty and Glorious, said: 'So he brought a fatted calf' (Quran 51:26). And for the sake of etiquette he should not ask, 'From which direction have you come?' or 'Where are you going?' or 'What is your name?' He should see their coming as from God and their going as toward God, and know their name to be 'the servant of God.' Then he should observe whether the guest's comfort lies in solitude or in company; if the guest prefers solitude, he should make an empty place for him, and if he prefers company, he should take pains to keep him company out of intimacy and fellowship. And when at night the guest lays his head on the pillow, the resident should place a hand upon his feet; and if the guest does not permit it and says, 'I am not accustomed to it,' he should not insist, so that the guest not be burdened. And the next day he should offer him the bathhouse and take him to the cleanest one, and guard his garment from the bath-wrappers, and not allow a stranger servant to attend him; rather one of his own kind should serve him with sincere belief, so that by cleansing him that person may be purified of all afflictions. And he should scratch his back and rub his knees and the soles of his feet and his hands, and no more than this is required. And if it is easy for this resident to make him a new garment, he should not fall short; and if he cannot, he should not force it, but should make the guest's own patched cloak clean and fit so that when he comes out of the bath he may put it on. And when he returns from the bath to the lodging and another day comes, if there is an elder in that town or a group of the imams of Islam, he should say to him, 'If it be proper, let us go to visit them.' If the guest agrees, well and good; and if he says, 'I have no inclination or heart for it,' he should not reproach him; because there are times when the seekers of God do not even have possession of their own hearts. Have you not seen that when they said to Ibrahim al-Khawwas, may God have mercy on him, 'Tell us something of the wonders of your travels,' he said: 'The most wondrous thing was that Khidr the prophet, peace be upon him, asked to accompany me, but I did not incline my heart to him, and in that moment I did not wish, apart from God, that anyone should hold such importance and value near my heart that I would have to attend to him.' And it is by no means permissible for the resident to take the traveler to greet the worldly people, or to their mournings and their sick-visits. And any resident who harbors this greed toward travelers—that he would make them a tool of his own begging and carry them from this house to that house—his not serving them is better than laying that humiliation upon their bodies and bringing pain to their hearts. And for me, who am Ali ibn Uthman al-Jullabi, in my travels there was no hardship or difficulty more severe than that ignorant servants and reckless residents would sometimes take me up and carry me from the house of this notable to the house of that landowner, while inwardly I reproached them and outwardly showed forbearance. And what the residents did to me out of their lack of the Path's conduct made me vow that if ever I should become a resident, I would not do this to travelers; and the benefit of the company of the ill-mannered is no more than this: that whatever you dislike in their treatment, you yourself do not do it. And again, if a traveling dervish becomes expansive and for a few days displays companionship and worldly needs, the resident has no choice but to attend to him according to his needs. And if this traveler is a pretender without high aspiration, the resident should not make himself base and follow him in his impossible demands; for this is the path of those who have cut themselves off. When a need arises, one must go to the market to buy and sell, or to a sultan's court for officialdom. What business does such a one have with the company of the world-renouncers? And it is said that Junayd, may God be pleased with him, was sitting with his companions in a state of spiritual discipline. A traveler came in. They took pains for his portion and brought forth food. He said, 'Besides this, I need such-and-such thing.' Junayd said, 'You must go to the market, for you are a man of the marketplaces, not of the mosques and cloisters.' Once I, with two dervishes, set out from Damascus to visit Ibn al-Ala, who was in the village of Ramla. On the way we said to one another: 'Let each of us hold in mind a matter he has within himself, so that this elder may tell us of it from the unseen and our matter be realized as true.' I said to myself, 'I want from him the verses and prayers of Husayn ibn Mansur.' The other said, 'I want a prayer so that my spleen may be cured.' And the other said, 'I want soap-halva.' When we reached him, he had ordered that a booklet be written of the verses and prayers of Husayn ibn Mansur; he placed it before me, and he rubbed his hand on the belly of that dervish and his spleen ailment departed from him, and he said to the other, 'Soap-halva is the food of officials, and you wear the garb of the friends of God. The garb of the saints does not go together with the demands of officials—choose one of the two.' And in sum, the resident is obliged to attend only to the one who is occupied with attending to God and who forsakes his own portion. And when someone persists in his own pleasures, another should oppose him; and when he again takes to abandoning his own pleasure, the other should uphold his portion for him—so that in both states he may be a guide of the way, not a highwayman. And it is well known in the traditions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that he made Salman and Abu Dharr al-Ghifari brothers, and both were among the chiefs of the People of the Bench and among the leaders and masters of the inner state. One day Salman came to the house of Abu Dharr on a visit. Abu Dharr's wife complained to Salman about him, saying, 'Your brother eats nothing by day and does not sleep by night.' Salman said, 'Bring something to eat.' When she brought it, he said to Abu Dharr, 'O brother, you must comply with me, for this fasting is not obligatory upon you.' Abu Dharr complied. When night came, he said, 'O brother, you must comply with me in sleeping.' The tradition says: 'Indeed your body has a right upon you, and your wife has a right upon you, and your Lord has a right upon you.' When the next day came, Abu Dharr came to the Prophet, peace be upon him. He said, 'I say the same, O Abu Dharr, as Salman said last night: Indeed your body has a right upon you.' Since Abu Dharr had renounced his own pleasures, Salman upheld his portions and set aside his own litany. On this principle, whatever you do comes out sound and firm. Once, in the land of Iraq, I was recklessly pursuing the world and its perishing, and many debts had accumulated, and the common folk, everyone with a need, had turned to me, and I remained in the toil of fulfilling their desires. A master among the masters of the age wrote me a letter: 'Beware, O son, that you do not distract your heart from God, Almighty and Glorious, by attending to a heart that is occupied with caprice. So if you find a heart dearer than your own, it may be permissible for you to occupy yourself with attending to that heart; otherwise, withdraw your hand from that affair; for God, Almighty and Glorious, is sufficient for His servants.' At that moment, by these words, a relief came over me. These are the rulings of residents in the companionship of travelers, in brief. And success is from God.