The prince and the beggars
Here are some stories about a Muslim whose name was Ibrahim ibn Adham. Like the man who became the Buddha, he was a prince in a small Kingdom in Persia. Ibrahim was very pious and spent many hours a day at prayer. He said his prayers in a beautiful gem-studded chapel of his palace. One day while praying he heard a terrible noise above him on the roof. It sounded like the clattering of horses' hooves! Rushing out, he looked up to the roof and, sure enough, there was his palace guard -- twenty men on horseback. (In such countries the roofs usually are flat.)
"What in the world are you doing up there?" Ibrahim shouted.
"Your Majesty," yelled the captain of the guard, "we are searching for our camels that have wandered away."
"But why, O fools, are you searching camels on the palace roof?" asked the prince. "We are only following the example of Your Majesty, who seeks for God while living in all the luxuries and power of a royal palace," came the reply.
The prince also had a charitable nature. He arranged a place where wandering beggars and holy men could come and receive free food and drink, on one of the porches of the palace. This facility closed, however, at nightfall and no one was allowed inside the palace after dark.
One day a tall strong man of radiant appearance arrived just at sunset and asked for food. When he had eaten his fill he told the guard that as he had nowhere else to stay he wished to spend the night in the screened porch. The guard told him it was against the rule and asked him to leave at once.
"I demand to see the master of this rest-house and I will not leave until I do," said the stranger.
"This is not a rest-house, and His Majesty is saying his prayers," the guard replied. So the argument went on until finally the servant went to the door of his master's chapel and knocked.
"There is a beggar on the porch, sire, who calls the palace a rest-house and refuses to leave. He insists on speaking to Your Majesty."
The prince was astonished. "Let me just go and hear this madman," said he, and went out to the end of the porch.
They met, the prince and the beggar. "You have heard the rule of this place," said the former, "why have you not left as others do?"
"This is a rest-house," the wanderer replied. "The night is chill, and I wish to spend it here under Your Majesty's protection."
"What do you mean, a 'rest-house'," said Ibrahim. "Do you not see that it is a palace?"
"Did you build the palace?"
"Certainly not. I have inherited it."
"Did your father build it, then?"
"Not even he. His father's father built it, long ago."
"And each of these has come and gone, passed through this palace and out of it again?"
"Of course," said the prince, impatiently.
"And you too will do the same. Yet you say it is not a rest-house!"
The eyes of Ibrahim's understanding were opened. He brought the wise man into the palace and the two talked long into the night.
When Prince Ibrahim one day looked from his palace window he saw near the brook a beggar dressed in rags, weary and hungry, pulling from his knapsack a chunk of stale bread. The man dipped this in the water, sprinkled some salt on it, and hungrily devoured it. Then he lay down on the hard ground and fell asleep. After some time Ibrahim sent a messenger to ask the man to come and meet him at the palace gate. The beggar, in wonder, stumbled to the gate. The prince asked him if he had eaten to his satisfaction. "Praise Allah, sir, I did." Then he was asked if he had slept peacefully on the ground. "Indeed, I did, sir, for I have no worries, thanks be to God."
It is said that Ibrahim, comparing the wanderer's life with his own, so full of anxiety, thought deeply about his own unhappiness with life. That very night he changed his royal robes for castoff rags and leaving his family and palace, went out to a life of poverty and wandering.
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