the hajj of Sufi Master Bayazid Bistami...

[myislamislove]

It is related that one year the Sufi Master Bayazid set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj. A few days later he came back. When asked about his sudden return, he gave the following account.

“I was three days walking in the desert when an old man encountered me on the road,” Bayazid recalled.

“‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.

“‘On the pilgrimage,’ I replied.

“‘How much money did you bring for your journey?’

“‘Two hundred dirhams.’

“‘Come, give them to me,’ the man said. ‘I am

a poor man with a family. Circle round me seven times. That

is your pilgrimage.’

“And so I did, and returned home.”