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The widow of Jelāl, Kirā (or Girā) Khātūn, a model of virtue, the Mary of her age, is related to have seen, through a chink in the door of the room where he and Shems were closeted in spiritual communion, that the wall suddenly opened, and six men of majestic mien entered by the cleft.

These strangers, who were of the occult saints, saluted, bowed, and laid a nosegay at the feet of Jelāl, although it was then in the depth of the midwinter season. They remained until near the hour of dawn worship, when they motioned to Shemsu-’d-Dīn to act as leader on the occasion of the service. He excused himself, and Jelāl performed the office. The service of worship over, the six strangers took leave, and passed out by the same cleft in the wall.

Jelāl now came forth from the chamber, bringing the nosegay in his hand. Seeing his wife in the passage, he gave her the nosegay, saying that the strangers had brought it as an offering to her.

The next day, she sent her servant, with a few leaves from her nosegay, to the perfumers’ mart of the city, to inquire what might be the flowers composing it, as she had never seen their like before. The merchants were all equally astonished; no one had ever seen such leaves. At length, however, a spice merchant from India, who was then sojourning in Qonya, saw those leaves, and knew them to be the petals of a flower that grows in the south of India, in the neighbourhood of Ceylon.