This allegory from Jami's Haft Awrang (Silsilat al-Dhahab) tells the story of a villager who brings his old, lame, and injured donkey to the market to sell. When a broker begins to loudly advertise the animal as young, swift, and perfectly healthy, the naive villager is so swayed by the false praise that he believes the broker, regrets his decision to sell, and takes the donkey back home.

Spiritually and morally, the narrative serves as a warning against naive credulity, vanity, and the ease of self-deception. It demonstrates how easily humans can be influenced by external, superficial flattery or marketing, completely disregarding their own long-term, direct experience (as the villager had ridden the donkey for years). In Sufi teachings, the donkey often symbolizes the lower self (nafs) or worthless worldly attachments, while the broker's praise represents the illusions of the material world that paint the defective and decaying as desirable, tricking the spiritual seeker into...