Original content

English translation

One of the learned men says: Once I was holding an assembly and sowing the seed of devotion in the soil of the listeners' hearts. An old man was a constant attendant of the assembly and never failed in the duty of attendance, but he continually sighed and shed tears, and for not a single moment did his sighing and weeping cease.

One day in private I summoned him and asked him the reason for it. He said: I was a man who bought and sold male and female slaves and gathered my livelihood from that trade. One day a young slave-boy— With lips like pure sugar, a face like the bright moon; whose sweetness the nurse had not yet weaned from milk— I bought for three hundred dinars, and I endured much toil in raising him. When he learned the ways of charm and heart-winning and his face grew radiant with beauty and grace, I took him to the market like Joseph and enumerated his features and manners to the buyers.

Suddenly I saw that, in the garb of the pious, a graceful rider—rather, a beautiful figure in the saddle—arrived there and glanced at the slave from the corner of his eye, and cast himself down from his mount and settled beside him and asked: What is your name and from what land? What art do you know and what work can you do?

Then he turned to me and asked about his price. I said: Although in beauty and grace he is worth but one dinar, yet his price is a full thousand dinars of pure gold. He said nothing, and concealed it from those present; he took the slave's hand and placed something in it.

After he left, I weighed it—it was a hundred dinars. On the second and third day he acted in the same manner and conducted the same transaction, until the amount he had given the slave reached three hundred dinars.

I said to myself: He has paid the full capital of the slave; surely he has become attached to this slave and has no power to pay what I asked. And when he set off, I too hastened after him without his knowledge until I found his house. When night came, I rose and adorned the slave in precious garments and perfumed him with sweet scents and brought him to the door of that young man's house, and I knocked.

He opened the door and came out; when he saw us he was astonished and said, 'Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un' (Truly we belong to God, and to Him we return). Then he asked: What has brought you here, and who has guided you to me? I said: Some of the sons of kings sought to buy this slave, and our sale was not settled on any price; I feared that tonight they might make an attempt on this slave, so I entrust him to you, that tonight he may sleep safely under your protection.

He said: You too come in and stay with him. I said: I have a pressing matter before me, so I cannot stay here. I left the slave with him and returned. When I reached home I shut the door and sat at the head of my bed, pondering how the night would pass between them and how their companionship would turn out.

Suddenly I heard the sound of the door, and the slave came in behind the sound, trembling and weeping. I said: What has happened to you, and what has occurred in the love of that youth, that you come in this state? The slave said: That young man died and gave up his soul to the Beloved. I said: Glory be to God, how did that come to pass?

He said: When you left, he took me inside the house and brought me food; when I had eaten and washed my hands, he laid out a bed for me and sprinkled musk and rosewater upon me and put me to sleep. Then he came and placed his finger on my cheek and said: Glory be to God, how beautiful this is, how beloved and desirable; and how foul is that which my carnal soul desires and for which it pines. The punishment of God Most High is harsher than all, and the one ensnared by it is more wretched than all.

After that he said: 'Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un,' and once again placed his finger on my cheek and said: I bear witness that this is exceedingly beautiful and a proof of the utmost hopes and desires; but chastity and purity are more beautiful than it, and the promised reward for it is the most perfect of all in beauty. Then he fell down.

When I shook him, he was dead and had passed on to everlasting life. The old man said: All this weeping of mine is in remembrance of that youth, whose chastity, purity, grace, and refinement never leave my mind, and the beauty of his features and the gentleness of his aspect never vanish from my sight; and as long as I live I shall tread this path, and when I die I shall die in this state.

Since the beloved, who in goodness surpassed all the world, has gone, in his separation I shall weep more than all the world. Now the blood of my heart pours from my sallow cheek onto the dust; when I go into the dust, in this same manner I shall weep blood.