A Sufi who once lived wanted to ensure that after his death his students would find a suitable teacher of the Path. Therefore, in his will, after the legally obligatory division of property, he left his disciples seventeen camels with the following instructions: “Divide the camels between the eldest, the middle in age and the youngest of you as follows: let the eldest have half, the middle one a third, and the youngest one-ninth.”
When the Sufi died and the will was read, the disciples were initially amazed at such an inept distribution of the Master's property. Some suggested: “Let’s own camels together”; others sought advice and then said: “We were advised to divide in the manner closest to the one indicated”; to the third, the judge advised them to sell their camels and divide the money; and some also believed that the will had lost its legal force because its conditions could not be fulfilled.
After some time, the students came to the idea that there could be some hidden meaning in the Master’s will, and they began to ask everywhere about a person who could solve insoluble problems. Whoever they approached, no one could help them until they knocked on the door of Hazrat Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet. He said:
- Here's your solution. I will add one camel to these seventeen. Of the eighteen camels, you will take half - nine camels - for the senior student. The second student will take a third - that is, six camels. The third will receive one ninth - two camels. That's just seventeen. There is only one left - my camel, he will return to me.
This is how the students found their teacher.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru