In Jami's Subhat al-Abrar (from the Haft Awrang), Section 144 narrates the tale of an Arab traveler in Rayy who buys a greasy intestine (charb-rood) from a cook. Lacking the vocabulary to name it, he carries it under his armpit but drops it in the crowded market. To find it, he holds up a worthless bead (kharzah) and asks if anyone has found anything like it.

Allegorical Meaning

This humorous story serves as a metaphor for spiritual ignorance:

• The Greasy Intestine: Represents a fleeting, worldly taste of spiritual ecstasy or divine grace that a seeker experiences without truly understanding its essence.
• The Worthless Bead: Represents the material concepts, outward rituals, or physical analogies used by the ignorant to describe or search for spiritual experiences.
• The Futile Search: Demonstrates the absurdity of trying to find or describe transcendental, spiritual realities using crude worldly forms that share no true resemblance with them.