Page 57 - The Book of Rumi

The Shaykh and the Tray of Sweets

here was once a famous shaykh who was revered by everyone in the small
Ttown where he lived, but he was always in debt. Renowned for his gen-

erosity and selflessness, he gave away to the poor everything that he was given
by the rich. With the last donation he had received from a wealthy patron,
he built a Sufi House, leaving himself with nothing to spare. He remained
untroubled, though, as his debts had always been paid through the grace of
God—until then! His life’s end was approaching, and he lay in bed content-
edly, melting away like a candle, while his creditors gathered around him, sour
faced and desperate, as they had no hope of collecting what was owed to them.
“Look at these untrusting fellows!” he thought as he watched them from
his sickbed. “How could they not trust that God will repay my measly debt?”
In a trice, he heard a child’s voice outside selling sweet halva. The shaykh
ordered his manservant to purchase the entire tray, hoping that perhaps when
the angry creditors ate something sweet they would not glare at him with
such bitterness and disdain. The servant bargained with the child and bought
the whole tray for half a dinar, setting it down before the men. The shaykh
graciously invited them to enjoy it. When the tray was polished clean, the boy
asked for his money.
“How do you expect me to pay you?” the shaykh retorted. “I’m on my
deathbed; go away, leave me in peace!”
Frustrated and overcome with grief at his loss, the boy hurled the empty
tray onto the floor, wailing uncontrollably. He cried out, wishing that his legs

had been broken or that instead he had gone to sell his sweets at the bathhouse
rather than at this wretched Sufi House with its freeloading mystics. A crowd
gathered around the boy as his sobs echoed throughout the neighborhood:
“Great shaykh, I assure you that my master will murder me on the spot if
I return empty-handed. How can your conscience permit this injustice?” he
pleaded with the shaykh as he stumbled up to his side.
“What are you conjuring?” protested the creditors at the dying shaykh.
“You’ve already usurped our wealth. How could you now bring such misfor-
tune upon this poor lad?”

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