Was it a dream? The next day I awoke on the divan where I had fainted the night before. All my companions had disappeared. There was a horrible smell in the air. The water ine the fountains no longer sang, and the flowers had withered away.

I went to the bathhouse, alone, to cleanse my body and soul. The masseur scrubbed me vigorously and I saw layers of dirt come off my skin. I laid on the burning floor for a long while. Sayidina ‘Isa had provided answers to all my questions. Now I no longer worried about following in my father’s footsteps, about becoming an arrogant yet servile courtier. If God were to assign me such a role, then of course I would accept it, but never would I seek such a future.

As I came out, I saw a shepherd. I gave him my expensive clothes and put on his worn clothes. “Take me to the place where the dead are at rest!” I demanded. He took my hand and led me to the outskirts of Seville. There, amongst the stones that marked the final resting places of men who had once been living flesh and blood, and of whom nothing remained but mouldering bones, there I gave thanks to God for His gifts. I thanked Him for sending His messenger, Seyyedina ‘Isa, to me. I remained lost in meditation for the rest of the day. At dusk I saw the ruin of a tomb, with crumbling walls. I decided to retreat into it. For forty days and forty nights, I remained prostrate in the cemetery. My only company was stray animals that wandered, by a yellow bitch who shared the bread I was given by the few visitors to the dead.

My parents were worried and they sent my cousin, Abdelaziz, to look for me. When he found me, covered in hair and wearing nothing but the shepherd’s rags, he thought I had gone mad. He shook me hard, “Muhyyuddin! What has happened to you? All this time, all thses evenings, while we were drinking wine with those golden glints that warm the heart, while we were with the most beautiful women, you, you were here, feeling sorry for yourself, on the other side of the river.”

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I took no notice of him, and continued with my dhikr, an invocation of Allah. Finally, he gave up. It was my mother who came to find me. Muna, my mother, spoke to me gently, “Come back, my son, come home to us!” I said a single word, Yahia, the name of her brother, she understood.

When my retreat was over, I entrusted all my belongings to my father, even those I inherited from my uncle, and decided that from then on I would own nothing. Nothing would belong to me, not even the djellaba on my back or the slippers on my feet.”

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Ibn Arabi, extract from On the path of Ibn al-Arabi The revelations in Fez and Marrakesh

I met him at the Udays Mosque in Seville, when he was only

Ten or eleven years old: a sad and melancholy boy

Prone to intense stupors and blackouts.

A short time before meeting him, I had received an “inkling”

On the Path, though no one knew about it, and

When I saw him, I wanted to compare myself to him. I looked at him;

He looked back at me and smiled. I signalled to him,

And he signalled back. By Allah! I felt

Like a fraud before him. He said to me :

“Be diligent! Happy is he who knows for what purpose he has been

Created”. He accomplished the afternoon prayer with me,

Then, taking his shoes, he waved and left me.

I wanted to follow him, to find out where he lived,

But found no trace of him. No one could tell me anything about him.

I was inconsolable. I have never seen him since nor I have heard

Anyone speak of him until today.

There are masters who are young, others who are old.

Ibn al-arabi, the Sufis of Andalusia