A real story

While Amin sheikho was still a young officer, an incident occurred that changed the whole course of his life. Two of his soldiers reported that they had been assaulted by a civilian and one of them had been wounded. In time of mobilization, such a crime was punishable with death. He had the man arrested, court -martialed and condemned to death. After the verdict was announced , a deputation from the town came and begged for the life of this man who was, they said, much respected and a great benefactor of the town. He sent the petition to the higher command; the man was reprieved and, soon after, released. After the release, Amin was invited to meet the former prisoner and learned that he was enormously rich and owned great properties which, as being the only son, he had inherited from his father. The two men became friends and Amin often visited his house, where he lived in the greatest luxury. Islam allows a man four wives, but this man used to marry girls of seventeen or eighteen , and when they reached twenty one, he divorced them and took others . No padishah could live in greater luxury, for he had none of the anxieties of power, and all the advantages of wealth.

So it continued for one or two years, When Amin received the news that his friend had died. He had been walking in his garden when he reached up to pluck a ripe cherry from a tree, felt a pain in his heart, and one or two hours later had died . Amin was present for his burial. 

The next day, the police received an anonymous letter to say that he had been killed by one of his wives whom he was threatening to divorce, so a post-mortem was ordered. As he had no male relations, Amin was asked to witness the exhumation on behalf of the family.

When the grave was opened there came a most abominable stench from the corpse and Amin almost fainted on seeing it. The face was distorted out of recognition, the abdomen and legs swollen and the skins black and blotched. Worst of all, his body was covered with white maggots. This experience made a terrible impression on Amin. He had seen death on the battlefield, but he had never seen a corpse decompose so rapidly and so horribly. As a result of this, he turned his thoughts to the meaning of life and death. He left the army and began to study, but could find no assurance. He could not accept the routine explanations given by the hodjas and others he had interrogated.

Then two years later, a second event occurred. One of his workmen had died and that they wanted to bury him beside his father, but when they opened the grave they had found something so extraordinary that they wanted his advice. He went to the graveyard and saw to his amazement that the corpse was perfectly preserved. He learned that the man`s father had died forty-seven years previously.

He was so astonished by this that he himself climbed into the grave and examined the body unblemished. When he smelled his hands, he perceived a most beautiful order. He took pains to verify beyond any doubt that this was indeed the body of a man who had died forty-seven years previously. Then the son was buried beside him and the grave again closed.

This time, Amin was overwhelmed. He decided first of all to find out whatever he could about this man`s life. He established that he had been a man of no great worldly importance but had been noted for his uprightness and generosity. It was remembered of him that he had never harmed any person or any animal in his life.

Here were two facts that he had witnessed with his own eyes and senses. They could not be doubted and yet they were inexplicable. Nothing in the religious teaching of Islam would account for such strange occurrences, nor did they make sense according to the scientific and medical ideas he had learned.

He decided to search for an explanation. For one and a half years, he found nothing. Then he was advised by someone to seek out a certain dervish called Sheikh Amin Keftarou. When he found him and told him the story, the dervish listened attentively, and when he had finished said, "If you have a room and always keep it closed, how will it be after a time?"

"Dark and smelly"

"But if you open the room to the air and sun"

"It will keep sweet"

"So it is," replied the dervish, "with the human body. It is like a room in which we live. It does not open to the visible sun, but to the sun of Allah. So we must learn to give air and sun to this room in which we live.

" the first man kept his inner room in darkness, so it became foul and stinking. He was given by Allah great gifts, which he should have shared with those who needed them. He did not do this, but he did worse; he lived only for the satisfaction of his body and thereby closed it to the air and light that come from Allah. His spirit (nefs) lived in darkness. Therefore, when he died, his spirit could not free itself from his body until it was destroyed in the horrible way you describe. But with the second man, it was quite otherwise. His spirit had turned toward Allah and left his body without difficulty. His body had been in his lifetime filled with air and light; therefore, it remained clean, and being clean it did not decompose."

Amin said to the dervish Keftarou, "for one and a half years only one thought has obsessed me; how to die like the second man and not like the first. Can you teach me this."

The dervish answered, "it is quite simple. Three things are needed. First you must believe that Allah exists. You must believe this not with your mind only and you must not say it with our lips only. It must be really true for the whole of your being. Unless you believe that Allah exists, you can do nothing.

" The second requirement is that you should hear and now make a vow to Allah that so long as you live you will never willingly do harm to man or beast or any of His creatures. You cannot ask Allah to help you if you are not ready to help all His creatures.

" thirdly, you must every day without fail give a certain amount of time during which you will do nothing whatever except call on the name of Allah and pray for his help.

" If you can do these three things, I promise you that the air and the light of Allah will enter your body and you will die as you wish to die."

Amin was so completely convinced by what the dervish told him that he decided from then onward to devote himself entirely to fulfilling these three requirements. He was accepted by Keftarou as his pupil, and remained with him until he died.