Gifted musicians were a great rarity in the old days, but it was during the reign of the famous Caliph Omar that a certain competent harp player earned himself a fine reputation. Spectators loved his voice, the melodious sound of his instrument, and his entertaining presence, and thus they paid him handsomely every time he played.
The years passed quickly; the musician aged, and his voice lost its sweet timbre. People no longer appreciated him, and the more he tried to sing, the more his voice sounded like the braying of a donkey. People would shoo him away, and by the time he turned seventy, he was impoverished and unemployable. Eventually he came to the end of his tether and at long last turned to God:
“My Allah, You’ve granted me a long life, but I’ve been guilty! I never appreciated your kindness, yet You never turned Your back on me and always provided me with my daily bread. But now, I’m old and feeble and no longer have a beautiful voice. In fact, my singing revolts people when not so long ago they couldn’t get enough of it. I promise You that as of today I will only play and sing for You, my Beloved, and nobody else!” He sighed and, wishing for a little privacy, began to walk toward the town cemetery.
He found the graveyard empty as he walked silently, swerving between gravestones, until he finally chose a spot to sit down. Making himself as comfortable as possible, he began to play his harp to his heart’s content until he was utterly exhausted and eventually fell asleep. He dreamed that he was in a lush meadow and that his soul’s wings fully opened, carrying him lightly toward the Sun. He wished from the bottom of his heart that he could stay floating in the air forever; but fate would not have it, as his time on Earth was not yet up. At that very same moment, Caliph Omar, who was in his palace, uncharacteristically fell asleep in the middle of the day and had a dream in which God instructed him as follows:
“Omar, it’s time to tend to my special subject ! You can find him asleep among the gravestones. Take seven hundred dinars from the public funds that you collect on my behalf and take them to him as his wages. Tell him to come back to you for more after he’s spent it.”
Omar woke up with trepidation, grasping the urgency of his dream. He quickly ran to the graveyard and searched but could only find an old man asleep by a grave with an ancient harp by his side. At first, he wasn’t convinced that this could be God’s special subject, so he searched further but to no avail. At last he concluded that the harp player must be the man he was sent to find. Unwilling to disturb the old man, as he looked so peaceful, Omar quietly sat down beside him but then suddenly sneezed. The old man woke up with a fright and noticed the regal person sitting next to him. His heart in his mouth, he began to beg God to save him from what he thought was the Angel of Death.
Amused, Omar told him gently: “No need to fear me, dear one, I’ve brought you good tidings. In fact, Allah has greatly praised you and has asked me to pass on His blessings. He’s also sent you seven hundred dinars for your overdue wages! When you’ve spent it, you’re to come back to me for more.”
The old musician could not believe his ears and became even more distraught than before. Agitated, he let out a heart-wrenching cry, tore off his tattered shirt, and, greatly addled, bit into his own hand. “One and only Allah, You’ve shamed me into nothingness!” he sobbed as he stood up and rambled aimlessly through the graveyard.
In due time, he stumbled back to find Omar and his harp still in the same spot as before. He picked up his precious instrument and, in one quick strike, shattered it against a nearby gravestone, destroying his only source of livelihood. “You’ve been the veil between God and me,” he blamed the harp.
“You are responsible for leading me astray from His altar. For almost seventy years, you’ve sucked my blood and made me shamefaced before my Creator,” he said as he bashed the harp again and again, reducing it to insignificant slivers of wood.
“I beg your forgiveness my God,” he continued. “I’ve sinned throughout this long life that You’ve gifted me. I’ve spent it singing and playing music, forgetting the pain of being separated from You, and I and no one else am the cause of my guilt and shame,” he confessed. “Please save me from myself, for my enemy is within me, closer to me than my own pathetic soul!”
Omar comforted the agitated man, telling him that he must let go of his past as well as his future, for he was still entangled between them; and that meant that he was not yet one with God and had not yet put his full trust in the Creator. As he listened to Omar’s wise words, the old musician felt a purer light rising in his heart, enveloping his body and soul. Astounded, he felt that he was letting go of the world he had known until then and found himself positioned in a different space, untouched by superficiality; a world that required an alternative understanding where no words were left to speak, where solitude and silence were the order of the day.
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