Muslim Saints of South Asia: The eleventh to ... - blog blog blog

THE HERMIT OF LAHORE
condemned them as a temptation and manifestation of vanity. On this
particular occasion al-Hujwiri thought of obtaining the manuscript
of verses and munājāt (hymns and supplications addressed to God) of
Mansur al-Hallaj; one of his fellow-travellers wished to be healed of
the disease of the spleen from which he was suffering, and the other
dervish, apparently for fun, wished for a particular kind of sweetmeat
‘of different colours’. 8 And indeed we should not be surprised to learn
that on arrival at the old man’s place Hallaj’s manuscripts seemed to
be just waiting for al-Hujwiri, and the fellow-traveller afflicted with
disease made a recovery. However, the wish of the second dervish
was deemed by Ibn al-Mu‘alla to be incompatible with the status
of a mystic and he refused to fulfil it with the words: ‘Parti-coloured
sweetmeat is eaten by soldiers; you are dressed as a saint, and the
dress of a saint does not accord with the appetite of a soldier. Choose
one or the other’ (al-Hujwiri 1992: 344).
Life spent all the time on the journey springs its own surprises upon
al-Hujwiri in the form of amazing and unexpected incidents. A causal
intellect would have seen in the various odd occurrences a coincidence,
a trick or a deception, but a mystic’s gaze discerns a miracle. The joyful
unsuspecting willingness with which al-Hijwiri meets everything
unusual halfway is a remarkable and long-lost virtue of a man of the
Middle Ages. Arriving in Tus to visit the celebrated Abul Qasim al-
Gurgani, he finds this saint in a mosque, explaining to a column the
answer to that very question which he himself was intending to
ask the saint. It turns out that the question has not yet been asked,
but the answer has already been obtained. ‘O Shaykh,’ I cried, ‘to
whom art thou saying this?’ He replied: ‘O son, God just now caused
this pillar to speak and ask me this question’ (al-Hujwiri 1992: 234).
Al-Hujwiri sees in it neither a trick nor a coincidence, and interprets
this entire episode in favour of the saint’s clairvoyance.
In the already mentioned Bab ‘Umar’s house the guest was served
‘a dish of new grapes, although it was not the season for them, and
some fresh ripe dates, which cannot possibly be procured in Farghana’
(al-Hujwiri 1992: 235). The commonplace rational explanation that
the fruits might have been brought from far away appears not to
cross al-Hujwiri’s mind, and he once again pays homage to the
Shaikh’s miraculous power. On the way to Damascus al-Hujwiri and
his mentor Abul ‘Abbas al-Ashqani are caught in a downpour. The
disciple was soaked and was splashed all over with mud, whereas
the murshid’s clothes and footwear were clean and dry. This is of
course amazing, although it is possible to find some logical reason for
the situation in question. For al-Hujwiri the sole reason lies in the
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