XII

I saw on the sea-shore a holy man who had been torn by a tiger, and
could get no salve to heal his wound. For a length of time he suffered
much pain, and was all along offering thanks to the Most High. They
asked him, saying, "Why are you so grateful?" He answered, "God be
praised that I am overtaken with misfortune and not with sin! Were that
beloved friend, God, to give me over to death, take heed, and think not
that I should be solicitous about life. I would ask, What hast thou seen
amiss in thy poor servant that thy heart should take offence at me? for
that could alone give me a moment's uneasiness."


XIII

Having some pressing occasion, a dervish stole a rug from the hut of a
friend. The judge ordered that they should cut off his hand. The owner
of the rug made intercession for him, saying, "I have forgiven him." The
judge replied, "At your instance I cannot relax the extreme sentence of
the law." He said: "In what you ordered you spoke justly. Nevertheless,
whoever steals a portion of any property dedicated to alms must not
suffer the forfeiture of his hand, for a _religious mendicant is not the
proprietor of anything_; and whatever appertains to dervishes is devoted
to the necessitous." The judge withdrew his hand from punishing him, and
by way of reprimand asked, "Had the world become so circumscribed that
you could not commit a theft but in the dwelling of such a friend?" He
answered, "Have you not heard what they have said, 'Sweep everything
away from the houses of your friends, but knock not at the doors of your
enemies.' When overwhelmed with calamity let not thy body pine in
misery. Strip thy foes of their skins, and thy friends of their