Letter Twelve
The ego is a wondrous thing, for it is the creation complete. It is a copy of it, and everything found in the creation can be found therein, and vice-versa. Whoever takes hold of it will doubtless take hold of creation itself; and whoever lets it take hold of him will be taken hold of by the whole of creation.
Once there was no harvest in the region of Tafillelt, so when they went to perform the rites of pilgrimage, they decided to search for someone related to the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, to ask him to grant them one of his children. When they found him, he agreed to do so. He called one of his sons to come and join them and asked him: 'If someone is good to you, how do you respond?' The son said: 'I would be good to him as he was to me.' Then, he asked him: 'What about if someone treated you badly?' The son replied: 'We treat him just as he treated us.' The father told him he could go. Then he called his sons one after the other and they responded with the same answer until they came to his youngest. When he was asked the second question he replied: 'We treat him well.' The father inquired: 'How is it you treat him well after he has been bad to you?' The boy responded: 'He is as he is, and I am as I am, until my good treatment of him gets the better of him.' The father gave his son over to the men and prayed for them all. Out of their love for the boy their crops yielded produce from then on.
The moral of the story is to love the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, because his love will rectify anything. Be good to whoever treats you badly, until you overcome him. This is honour and this is high moral character. God produced from his descent many a scholar and righteous man who were the like of the Companions themselves.
These people embodied modesty, generosity, high aspiration, and high moral character, may Allah grant us their love, Amin. Peace.
Idris
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