Читать книгу The Kashf al-mahjúb: The oldest Persian treatise on Súfiism онлайн

56 страница из 90

Others, again, do not trouble themselves about clothes at all. They wear either a religious habit (`abá) or an ordinary coat (qabá), whichever God may have given them; and if He keeps them naked, they remain in that state. I, who am `Alí b. `Uthmán al-Jullábí, approve of this doctrine, and I have practised it in my journeys. It is related that Aḥmad b. Khaḍrúya wore a coat when he visited Abú Yazíd, and that Sháh b. Shujá` wore a coat when he visited Abú Ḥafṣ. This was not their usual dress, for sometimes they wore a muraqqa`a and sometimes a woollen garment or a white shirt, as it might happen. The human soul is habituated to things, and fond of custom, and when anything has become habitual to the soul it soon grows natural, and when it has grown natural it becomes a veil. Hence the Apostle said: Khayr al-ṣiyám ṣawm akhí Dáwud `alayhi ´l-salám, “The best of fasts is that of my brother David.” They said: “O Apostle of God, what kind of fast is that?” He replied: “David used to keep his fast one day and break it on the next day,” in order that his soul should not become accustomed either to keeping the fast or to breaking it, for fear that he might be veiled thereby. And, as regards this matter, Abú Ḥámid Dústán^[46] of Merv was the most sound. His disciples used to put a garment on him, but those who wanted it used to seek him out when he was at leisure and alone, and divest him of it; and he would never say to the person who put it on him: “Why do you put it on?” nor to the person who took it off: “Why do you take it off?” Moreover, at the present day there is at Ghazna—may God protect it!—an old man with the sobriquet Mu´ayyad, who has no choice or discrimination with respect to his clothes; and he is sound in that degree.