'Why,' said my mother, 'did you not
put it down?' 'Because I feared,' I answered, 'not to be ready when you
asked for it.' That same night the Lord revealed to me all that I wanted
to know."

Bayazid used to tell the following story. "A man came to see me, and
asked where I was going. 'I am going to Mecca,' I said, 'to make the
circuit of the Kaaba.'[16] 'How much money hast thou?' he asked. 'Two
hundred pieces of gold,' I answered. 'Very well,' he said, 'give them me
and walk seven times round me. By this act of charity thou wilt deserve
a greater recompense than thou wouldest obtain at the Kaaba.'[17] I did
as he asked, and that year I did not make the pilgrimage."

One day the thought crossed Bayazid's mind that he was the greatest Sufi
of the age. But no sooner had it done so, than he understood it was an
aberration on his part. "I rose immediately," he said, "and went some
way into the desert of Khorassan, where I sat down. I took then the
resolution of not moving from the spot where I was seated till the Lord
should send me someone who would make me see myself as I really was. I
waited thus for three days and three nights. On the fourth night a rider
on a camel approached. I perceived on his countenance the marks of a
penetrating mind. He halted, and, fixing his eyes on me, said, 'Thou
desirest doubtless, that in the twinkling of an eye I should cause to be
swallowed up the village of Bastam and all its population, together with
its riches, and Bayazid himself.' At these words I was seized with an
indescribable fear, and asked him, 'Whence comest thou?' 'O Bayazid,' he
answered, 'while thou hast been seated here I have travelled three
thousand miles. Take care, O Bayazid, to place a curb on thy heart, and
not to forget the road; else shalt thou infallibly perish.' Then he
turned his back and departed."

One night Bayazid, having gone out of his house, went to the
burial-ground to perform his devotions. There he found a young man
playing a guitar, who came towards him. Bayazid, considering music
unlawful, exclaimed, "There is no might or power except in God."[18] The
young man, irritated, struck the head of Bayazid with his guitar,
breaking it, and wounding him. Bayazid returned home. The next morning
very early he placed some sweetmeats and some pieces of gold in a dish
and sent it to the young man, charging the messenger to say from him,
"Last night you broke your guitar by striking my head with it; take,
the