Once upon a time there lived a merchant named Abdul Malik. Because of his generosity, people called him the Good Man of Khorasan. Abdul Malik constantly donated from his immense wealth to charitable causes and often organized feasts for the poor.
But then one day he began to think that he was giving away only a small part of his wealth and that the true price of his generosity was insignificant compared to the pleasure it gave him. And he immediately decided to give away every last penny for the benefit of people.
So Abdul Malik parted with all his wealth. He let go of everything he owned, waiting to meet what life had in store for him.
Once, during meditation, a strange vision appeared in front of him: right before his eyes, as if growing out of the floor, the figure of a mysterious dervish in patched clothes began to emerge.
“O Abdul Malik, good man from Khorasan,” intoned the dervish, “I am your real self, now almost tangible to you because you have shown true generosity, in comparison with which your reputation as a generous person is nothing.” And for this, and also for the fact that you were able to part with your wealth without thinking about your satisfaction, I reward you from a real source of rewards.
From this day on, I will appear before you every day in this form. You will hit me and I will turn into a golden statue. You can break off as much gold from the statue as you wish. And don’t let it bother you that by doing this you will bring me harm, for no matter how much you take, it will all be restored from the source of all gifts.
Having said this, he disappeared.
The next morning, Malik's friend Bai Akal came to visit him. As soon as they sat down, the ghost of a dervish appeared in front of them. Malik hit him with a stick, and the dervish, falling to the floor, turned into gold. Malik took some gold for himself and gave some to his guest. Returning to his home, Bai Akal, not knowing what had preceded all this, began to think about how he could perform a similar miracle. He heard a lot about the miraculous powers of dervishes and came to the following conclusion: to get gold, it is enough to beat the dervish. Bai Akal publicly announced that he was organizing a rich feast, to which all interested dervishes were invited.
On the appointed day, crowds of dervishes flocked to Bai Akal's house. Having seated everyone at the table, he began to treat them generously until they had eaten their fill. Then he grabbed an iron rod and began to beat them so that beaten and mutilated bodies fell to the right and left. Finally, several dervishes managed to capture the madman and brought him to the judge. The Dervishes brought charges against Bai Akal and presented their wounded brethren as evidence. Bai Akal began to make excuses and told everything that happened in Malik’s house.
Malik was summoned to court. But on the way, his golden self whispered to him what to say to the judge. Appearing before the court, he said:
- With your permission, I note that, in my opinion, this person has gone crazy or is trying to somehow justify his tendency to attack people for no reason. I really know him, but everything he says is completely untrue.
So, Bai Akal was placed in a madhouse, and there he stayed for some time until he calmed down. The Dervishes recovered almost immediately thanks to some science known to them. And no one believed that such an amazing event as the transformation of a man into a golden statue could ever happen.
And Malik, for the rest of his life, until he went to his ancestors, continued to break the statue that was himself and distribute the treasures of his “I” to those whom he could only help financially.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru