The Deliverance of the Soul

(609) By his narration—may God brighten his face—from Sudayr ibn Hannan al-Sayrafi, who said: I was sitting one day in my mosque with a group of my brothers, and we were conversing until the sun set. We went out to prepare for prayer, and I returned to the mosque when a handsome youth entered upon us, wearing ragged but clean clothes, and in his hand were Arabic sandals. He offered peace and I returned it. He asked: "Is there among you one who would seize a reward? For I am hungry." I said: "O servant of God, sit and pray the Maghrib with us."

He sat, we prayed, and then I left the mosque with his hand in mine. I brought him to my house and we entered; I found the table set because I had been fasting that day. I ate—being very hungry—and was distracted from the man and from looking at him. The servant boy signaled to me, so I raised my head toward him, and he said: "The guest has not partaken of any food." Suddenly, he was as he had been presented; he had not partaken of anything. I contemplated the man, and suddenly he was in a form different from the one in which he had entered upon me in the mosque. I stood in awe of him, remembered the light of the Masters, and sought refuge in them within myself; then that awe departed from me.

I said: "O my lord, who are you?" He replied: "A man who recognized God, so He gave him possession of his soul and freed his neck. Strive, O Sudayr, for the deliverance of your soul and the freeing of your neck from these human shirts and these fleshly, bloody frames, so that you may be among those whom God—Mighty and Sublime—honored, saying in their right: {Indeed, those who have said, 'Our Lord is God' and then remained on a right course—there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve}¹. Its meaning: they recognized [the Truth], then occupied themselves with recognition and kindness to brothers, acting upon the Oneness of God inwardly and outwardly, and they disobeyed the Second and disavowed him and his partisans and followers.