Dhu'l-Nun and the pious disciple

There was a disciple of Shaykh Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri Rahmatullahi alaih who had forty times observed the forty days' seclusion, forty times he had stood at Arafat, and for forty years he had kept vigil by night. Forty long years he had sat sentinel over the chamber of his heart. One day he came to Dhu'l-Nun Rahmatullahi alaih.
"I have done all this," he said. "For all that I have suffered, the Friend speaks not one word to me nor favours me with a single glance. He takes no account of me, and reveals nothing to me from the unseen world. All this I say not in order to praise myself. I am simply stating the facts. I have performed all that was in the power of me, poor wretch, to do. I make no complaint against God. I simply state the facts, that I devote my whole heart and soul to His service. But I am telling the story of the sadness of my evil luck, the tale of my misfortune. I do not say this because my heart has grown weary of obedience. Only I fear that if further life remains ahead of me, it will be the same. For a whole lifetime I have knocked in hope, but I have heard no response. Now it is grown hard for me to endure this any longer. Since you are the physician of the afflicted and the sovereign prescriber of the sages, minister now to my wretchedness."

"Go and eat your fill tonight," advised Dhu'l-Nun. "Omit the prayer before sleep, and slumber the whole night through. So it may be that if the Friend will not show Himself kindly, He will at least show Himself reproachful; if He will not look on you with compassion, He will look on you with sternness."

The dervish departed and ate his fill. His heart would not permit him to forgo the prayer before sleep, and so he prayed the prayer and fell asleep. That night he saw the Beloved Prophet Salla Allahu Ta'ala 'alayhi wa Sallam in a dream.

"Your Friend greets you," the Prophet Salla Allahu Ta'ala 'alayhi wa Sallam said. "He says, 'An effeminate wretch and no true man is he who comes to My court and is quickly sated. The root of the matter is uprightness of life, and no reproaches. God Almighty declares, I have given your heart its desire of forty years, and I grant you to attain all that you hope for, and fulfill all your desire. But convey My greetings to that bandit and pretender Dhu'l-Nun. Say then to him, Pretender and liar, if I do not expose your shame before all the city, then I am not your Lord. See that you no more beguile the hapless lovers of My court and scare them not away from My court.' "

The disciple awoke, and was overcome by weeping. He went and told Dhu'l-Nun what he had seen and heard. When Dhu'l-Nun heard the words, "God sends you greeting and declares you a pretender and a liar", he rolled over and over with joy and wept ecstatically.