The Folly of the Unworthy

A shameless beggar set his greed on a saintly man, but that day there was nothing to be gained. The holy man's belt and hands were empty and clean, for he had scattered his gold like dust before it. The brazen-faced beggar rushed out and began to slander him through the streets: 'Beware of these silent scorpions, these tearing leopards dressed in wool! Like cats they draw their knees up to their hearts in prayer, but if a prey falls near, they pounce like dogs. They have set up their shop of trickery near the mosque, since in a private house one finds less to catch. They rob the caravans of the true brave men, then dress themselves in other people's clothes. They stitch together patches of white and black, and by hypocrisy they secretly hoard gold. What sellers of barley who show wheat! Roaming the world at night as thieves, beggars at every harvest. Don't be fooled that in worship they seem old and feeble; in dancing and ecstasy they are young and nimble. Why must they pray sitting down, when in a dance they can leap so high? They are like the staff of Moses, deeply cheap, only in looks so yellow-faced and gaunt. They are neither pious nor learned; it is enough to say they devour the world in the name of religion. They put on a cloak like beggars, then with an Abyssinian's earnings buy a woman's fine dress. You will see no trace of the Prophet's way in them, except a morning nap and bread eaten before dawn. Their bellies are stuffed to the throat with tight morsels, like a beggar's basket of seventy colors. I won't say more than this in describing them, for to describe them is to describe my own character.' He rattled off things about them he had never seen, for the fault-finding eye sees no virtue. A man who has disgraced himself so many times, why should he worry about anyone else's honor? A disciple carried these words to the sheikh, and if you ask fairly, it was not a wise thing to do. 'Someone spoke ill of me behind my back and did a low thing; worse than him is the friend who brings the words and repeats them. One man shot an arrow that fell on the road; it did not touch my body nor cause me pain. But you picked it up and came to me, and now you are driving it into my side.' The good-natured, saintly man laughed and said, 'This is easy; tell me things far harder than this. What he said of my faults is still only a little; of all that I know, it is one in a hundred. These things he pinned on me from mere guessing, I know for certain about myself that they are true. He only met me this year; how could he know the faults of my seventy years? No one in the world knows my faults better than I do, except the One who knows all hidden things. I have never seen anyone with such kind assumptions, who imagined that this alone was the sum of my faults. If on the Day of Judgment he is the witness to my sin, I won't fear hell, for then my case is good. If my ill-wisher names my faults, tell him to come and take a full copy of them from me. There have been men on the path of God who served as the target for the arrows of affliction. Be humble when they tear your skin; the true saints bear the burden of insolent people. Even if from the dust of holy men they shape a jug, the blamers will smash it with a stone.'