bib, whatever treatment Hejjaj deals out to you, you
will have richly deserved it. Why did you lie to us?" "I tell you," said
Habib, "Hasan is within this dwelling; if you don't see him, what can I
do?" They again made a search, but not succeeding in finding Hasan,
departed. Hasan then came out of his hiding-place, and said, "O Habib,
is this the way thou repayest thy debt to thy master, by betraying
him?" "Master," answered Habib, "it is thanks to my truthfulness that
thou hast escaped. If I had told a lie we should have both been caught."
Hasan then said, "What words didst thou recite as a safeguard?" "I
repeated ten times," said Habib, "the 'Verse of the throne,'[33] ten
times 'Believe in the Apostle,'[34] six times 'Say, there is one God,'
and in addition I said, 'Lord, I entrust Hasan to Thee; take care of
him.'"

Hasan then asked Habib how he had arrived at such a high degree of
sanctity. "I spend my time," he said, "in purifying my heart, while you
spend yours in blackening paper" (Hasan having written many theological
works). "Alas!" said Hasan. "Must then my knowledge benefit others, only
while I have nothing but the outward show of it?"

"We must not suppose," says Fariduddin Attar in narrating the above
incident, "that Habib had really attained a higher degree of piety than
Hasan; for in the eyes of the Lord nothing is higher than knowledge. The
doctors of Islam have said truly, 'In the spiritual path the gift of
performing miracles is the fourteenth stage, while knowledge is the
eighteenth. The gift of miracles is the reward of many works of piety,
while the knowledge of mysteries is revealed only to profound
meditation. Consider the case of Solomon, upon whom be peace! He
understood the language of birds, and yet, though arrived at such a high
degree of knowledge, he submitted to the Law given by Moses, and acted
according to its instructions.'"

Every time that he heard the Koran read, Habib used to weep bitterly.
Some one said to him, "You are a barbarian (the literal meaning of the
word 'Ajami'). The Koran is in Arabic, and you don't understand it; why
then do you weep?" "It is true," he said "my tongue is barbarian, but my
heart is Arab."

[32] "Praise to God."

[33] Koran c. 2, v. 256.

[34] Koran c. 4, v. 135.

CHAPTER X

AVICENNA (IBN SINA)
(AD 980-1037)

Avicenna, now best known as a philosopher, was perhaps better known in
the middle ages as a kind of magician owing to