The knowers’ intellects are held in restraint,
purified of every created thing that they might approve.
They are honoured in His presence, while among creatures
their states are unknown and concealed.
He said to me, “So-and-so, I did what you saw only for the sake of this denier”—pointing to my companion who denied the breaking of customary patterns and was sitting in the mosque’s courtyard looking at him—“so that he may know that God does whatever He wills with whomever He wills.” I turned my face to the denier and asked, “What do you say?” He replied, “After direct sight, there is nothing to say.”
Then I returned to my companion, who was waiting for me at the mosque’s door. I spoke with him for a while and asked, “Who is this man who prayed in the air?” I did not mention what had previously happened between him and me. He said, “This is Khidr.” I fell silent. The group departed, and we left for Rutah, a place sought out by righteous recluses near Bashkanṣar, on the coast of the Ocean.
This is what happened to us with this Peg. May God benefit us through seeing him. He possesses knowledge bestowed directly by God and mercy toward the world befitting one of his rank. God has praised him.
(Investiture with the Cloak, Companionship, and Courtesy)
One of our shaykhs met him: Ali ibn Abd Allah ibn Jamiʿ, a companion of Ali al-Mutawakkil and Abu Abd Allah Qaḍīb al-Bān.
Notes
Translator’s note TN746-1: The source calls both the denier in the courtyard and the man waiting at the door “my companion”; the change of referent is retained. The place-names Rutah and Bashkanṣar reproduce the supplied forms without asserting modern identifications. “Their intellects are held in restraint” preserves the wordplay between ʿuqūl, intellects, and maʿqūlah, bound or restrained.
