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

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[The author then relates the well-known story of Hishám b. `Abd al-Malik’s encounter with `Alí b. Ḥusayn at Mecca—how the Caliph, who desired to kiss the Black Stone but was unable to reach it, saw the crowd immediately make way for `Alí and retire to a respectful distance; how a man of Syria asked the Caliph to tell him the name of this person who was held in so great veneration; how Hishám feigned ignorance, for fear that his partisans should be shaken in allegiance to himself; and how the poet Farazdaq stepped forward and recited the splendid encomium beginning—^[54]

“This is he whose footprint is known to the valley of Mecca,

He whom the Temple knows, and the unhallowed territory and the holy ground.

This is the son of the best of all the servants of God,

This is the pious, the elect, the pure, the eminent.”

Hishám was enraged and threw Farazdaq into prison. `Alí sent to him a purse containing 12,000 dirhems; but the poet returned it, with the message that he had uttered many lies in the panegyrics on princes and governors which he was accustomed to compose for money, and that he had addressed these verses to `Alí as a partial expiation for his sins in that respect, and as a proof of his affection towards the House of the Prophet. `Alí, however, begged to be excused from taking back what he had already given away; and Farazdaq at last consented to receive the money.]