A profound love for God took hold of the schaikh of Nasrâbâd, and forty times he made the pilgrimage to Mecca on foot. When his hair had grown white with age, his wasted body was seen clad only in the izâr; yet the fire burned in his spirit
and in his heart. He had girded himself with the zunnar and held out his open hand. Then, without pretension or boastfulness, he circled the fire-temple of the Guebers. They said to him: “O great man of the age! Are you not ashamed to act thus? After making so many pilgrimages and doing so many excellent things, would all this end in infidelity? Such an act springs from your inexperience; but because of you the spiritual men will have a bad name. ‘What schaikh is this,’ they will say, ‘who is beside this path?’ Do you not know that this is a fire-temple?”
and in his heart. He had girded himself with the zunnar and held out his open hand. Then, without pretension or boastfulness, he circled the fire-temple of the Guebers. They said to him: “O great man of the age! Are you not ashamed to act thus? After making so many pilgrimages and doing so many excellent things, would all this end in infidelity? Such an act springs from your inexperience; but because of you the spiritual men will have a bad name. ‘What schaikh is this,’ they will say, ‘who is beside this path?’ Do you not know that this is a fire-temple?”
“My situation,” replied the schaïkh, “has become difficult. The fire is in my house, and my furniture is lost. This fire has given my harvest to the wind; it has given my name and honour to the wind of destruction. I have become mad with it; I know not what stratagem to employ now. When such a fire reaches my soul, how can my body and my honour withstand it? And so long as I am absorbed in such thoughts, I shall likewise be disgusted with the pyrée and the caaba. If spiritual astonishment takes hold of thee even a little, a hundred afflictions will assail thee, as they assail me myself.”