HASAN BASRI[8]
(D 728 AD)
Hasan Basri was born in Arabia at Medina, where his mother had been
brought as a captive and sold to Omm Salma, one of the wives of the
Prophet. Arrived at man's estate, and having received his liberty, he
retired to Basra on the Persian gulf, a stronghold of the ascetic sect.
Here he lived undisturbed, though his open disavowal of the reigning
family of Ommeyah exposed him to some danger. The following incident,
illustrating his independence of character is narrated by Ibn Khalliqan.
When Omar ibn Hubaira was appointed to the government of Irak in the
reign of the Caliph Abd-al Malik (A.D. 721) he called for Hasan Basri,
Muhammad Ibn Sirin and as Shabi to whom he said, "Abd al Malik has
received my promise that I will hear and obey him; and he has now
appointed me to what you see, and I receive from him written orders.
Must I obey him in whatever orders he takes upon himself to give?" To
this Ibn Sirin and as Shabi gave a cautious reply, but Hasan Basri,
being asked his opinion, made this answer: "O Ibn Hubaira! God outweighs
Abd al Malik, and Abd al Malik cannot outweigh God; God can defend thee
from Abd al Malik, and Abd al Malik cannot defend thee from God. He
will soon send an angel to take thee from thy throne, and send thee from
the width of thy palace into the narrowness of the tomb. Then thy deeds
alone can save thee." Ibn Hubaira then rewarded them, but bestowed a
double reward on Hasan Basri, upon which as Shabi said to Ibn Sirin, "We
gave him a poor answer, and he gave us a poor reward."
Hasan Basri's adoption of the ascetic life was brought about in the
following way. When a young man he was a lapidary, and had gone to Roum
(Asia Minor) to practise his craft. He there lived on friendly terms
with the vizier of that country. One day the vizier said to him, "We are
going out of the city to a certain place; will you come with us?" Hasan
Basri assented, and went. "We came," he said afterwards, "to a plain
where there was a vast tent the ropes of which were of silk and its
stakes of gold. I saw a large number of soldiers marching round it; they
repeated some words which I could not hear, and then retired. Then came
about four hundred mullahs and learned men, who did the same. These were
followed by a similar number of old men. Then about four or five hundred
beautiful maidens, each holding in her hand a dish containing rubies,
pearls, turquoises, and other precious stones. They went in procession
round the tent in the same way. Finally the sultan and the vizier went
into the tent and came out again.
"As for me, I remained transfixed with astonishment. 'What does all this
mean?' I asked the vizier. 'The King,' he said, 'had an extremely
beautiful child of a happy disposition, who fell ill and died. His tomb
is within this tent, and they visit it once a year. First come the
soldiers, who circle round the tent and say, 'O son of the sultan, if we
could have ransomed thy life by the strokes of our swords, we would have
done it, even had it cost us our own; but God willed otherwise, and we
cannot change his decree.' Having so said, they go away. Then the
mullahs and learned men, coming in their turn, say, 'O son of the
sultan, if we could have ransomed thee by knowledge or by eloquence, we
would have done so; but all the knowledge and eloquence in the world
cannot arrest the decrees of Allah.' Then they depart. After them come
the old men, who cry, 'If we could have saved thee by groanings and
prayers, we would have done so; but our intercession is useless.'
Finally come the young maidens, who say, 'O son of the sultan, if we
could have ransomed thee at the price of beauty and wealth, we would
have done it; but the steps of fate turn aside for neither.' After them
the sultan and the vizier enter the tent. The sultan says, 'O my son, I
have done all that I could do. I have brought all these soldiers, these
mullahs, these learned men, these old men, these beautiful maidens
bearing treasures, and yet I cannot bring thee back. It depends not on
me, but on Him before Whom all power is powerless. May the mercy of the
Lord be multiplied upon thee for another year.' Having thus spoken, they
return by the way they came.'"
Hasan Basri, having heard this, felt stirred to the depths of his heart.
Leaving Roum, he retired to Basra, where he took an oath that he would
not smile again till he knew what his eternal destiny would be. He
practised the severest asceticism, and many came to hear him preach.
Hasan Basri had a disciple who was in the habit of casting himself on
the ground and uttering groans when he heard the Koran recited. "If thou
art able to restrain these groans," said he, "they will prove like a
destructive fire to thee; but if they are really beyond thy power to
control, I declare that I am six stages behind thee in the way of piety.
Such groanings," he added, "are generally the work of Satan."
One day Hasan Basri was preaching when Hejaj ben Yusuf, the bloodthirsty
and formidable governor of Irak, accompanied by a great number of his
retinue with drawn swords, entered the mosque. A person of distinction
in the audience said, "We must watch to-day whether Hasan will be
embarrassed by the presence of Hejaj." When the latter had taken his
place, Hasan Basri, without paying the least attention to him, so far
from shortening his discourse, prolonged it. When it was finished, the
person who was watching him exclaimed, "Bravo, Hasan!" When he came down
from the pulpit, Hejaj came forward, and, taking him by the hand, said,
addressing the people, "If you wish to see him whom the Lord has
distinguished among you, come and look on Hasan Basri."
Hasan had in his heart such a fear of the Lord that, like a man seated
near an executioner, he was always in a state of apprehension. Seeing
one day a man who wept, he asked him what was the matter. "To-day,"
answered the man, "I heard a preacher say that there were a great many
among the Moslems who, by reason of their sins would remain several
years in hell, and then be taken out." "May God grant," cried Hasan,
"that I be one of those who come out of hell at last; may I be even as
that man, who, as the prophet of God said, will come out eighty-four
years after all the rest."
One night he was overheard weeping and groaning in his house. "Why these
tears and laments?" he was asked. "I weep," he answered, "thinking that
perhaps to-day I have set my foot in an unlawful place, or allowed an
evil word to escape my lips which will cause me to be chased from before
the throne of the most high. 'Away!' it will be said to me; 'thou hast
no access here, thy works of piety are not accepted.' And what answer
shall I make? Behold the reason of my fear." One of his sayings was, "I
never saw a certainty of which there is no doubt bear a greater
resemblance to a doubtful thing of which there is no certainty than
death does."
Hasan Basri had a neighbour named Shamaun, who was an infidel and a
fire-worshipper. He fell ill, and his last hour approached. Some one
said to Hasan, "Shamaun is your neighbour, and his last hour is come;
why don't you go to see him?" Hasan having come to see him, saw that by
reason of his assiduous fire-worship, his hair and beard were quite
blackened by smoke. Hoping that he would become a Moslem, he said to
him, "Come, Shamaun, fear the punishment which the Lord prepares for
thee who hast passed thy life of seventy years in infidelity and
fire-worship." "As for me," answered Shamaun, "I see on the part of you
Moslems three characteristics which I cannot explain, and which hinder
me from becoming a Moslem:--(1) You never cease repeating that the world
is perishable and impure, and yet day and night, without interval or
repose, you heap up its treasures; (2) You say that death is certain and
inevitable, and yet you put the thought of it aside, and practise none
of the works which should fit you for another world; (3) You assert your
belief that in that world it will be possible to contemplate the face of
the Most High, and yet you commit acts which He abhors." "Thou speakest
like one of the initiated," said Hasan, "but although the faithful
commit sins, none the less they confess the unity and the existence of
the Most High, whilst thou hast spent thy life in worshipping the fire.
At the day of judgment, if they cast us both into hell, the fire will
carry thee away at once, but if the grace of the Lord is accorded to me,
it will not be able to scorch one of my eyebrows; this shows that it is
only a creature. And, moreover, you have worshipped it for seventy
years, and I have never worshipped it."
These words made such an impression on Shamaun that he made a profession
of the faith of Islam, dying soon afterwards. On the night of his death,
Hasan in a dream saw Shamaun wearing a crown of gold, clothed in raiment
of resplendent beauty, and walking in Paradise. "My God," he cried when
he awoke, "Thou hast had mercy on him who spent seventy years in
infidelity; is it strange that Thou shouldest show mercy to the
faithful?"
Hasan was a man of such humility of mind that he considered everyone
whom he saw his superior. One day when he was walking along the bank of
the river Tigris he saw a negro seated near a woman; before them was a
jar and a cup. Each of them in turn poured from the jar into the cup and
drank. Seeing this man, Hasan, according to his wont, said to himself,
"There is a man better than myself." At the same time he secretly
thought, "As regards the observance of the ceremonial law, it is
possible that he is not superior to me, for he is sitting near a woman
of doubtful character and drinking wine." While he was thus reflecting,
there appeared on the river a boat heavily laden, and containing seven
persons. Just as it was approaching the shore, it foundered. The negro,
casting himself into the water, drew out six persons in succession;
then, going to Hasan, he said to him, "Rise, if thou art better than I.
I have saved six, for my part; thou save one, for thine." Then he added,
"O true believers, this jar contains water, and this woman is my mother.
I have wished to tempt Hasan." Then, addressing the latter, he said,
"See, thou hast looked with the outer eye only, and hast not been
capable of looking with the inner eye." At these words, Hasan, falling
at his feet, kissed his hand, and understood that he was one of the
Lord's chosen servants. "Sir," he said, "as thou hast drawn these
drowning men from the water so save me from the abyss of self-worship."
The negro replied, "Go, thou art saved." From that time Hasan considered
no one smaller than himself, but everyone his superior.
On one occasion, Hasan Basri said, "I have been startled by the sayings
of four persons, (1) a drunkard, (2) a debauchee, (3) a child, (4) a
woman." "How was that?" he was asked. "One day," he said, "I saw a
drunkard staggering in the midst of the mire. I said to him, 'Try and
walk so as not to stumble.' 'O Hasan,' the drunkard replied, 'in spite
of all your efforts, do _you_ walk firmly in the way of God? Tell me,
yes or no. If I fall in the mire no great harm is done, I can get rid of
it by washing; but if you fall into the pit of self-conceit, you will
never emerge clean and your eternal welfare will be entirely ruined.'
These words pierced me to the heart. (2) Again, as I passed once close
to a man of infamous character, I drew my robes close about me lest they
should touch him. 'O Hasan,' he said, 'why draw thy robes away from
contact with me. Only the Most High knows what will be the end of each.'
(3) Another time I saw a child coming towards me holding a lighted torch
in his hand. 'Where have you brought this light from?' I asked him. He
immediately blew it out, and said to me, 'O Hasan, tell me where it is
gone, and I will tell you whence I fetched it.' (4) One day a beautiful
woman, with her face unveiled, came to me. She had just been quarrelling
with her husband, and no sooner had she met me than she began reporting
his words. 'O woman,' I said, 'first cover thy face and then speak.' 'O
Hasan,' she answered, 'In my excitement I lost reason, and I did not
even know that my face was uncovered. If you had not told me I should
have gone thus into the bazaar. But you who with so great zeal cultivate
the friendship of the Most High, ought you not to curb your eye, so as
not to see whether my face was uncovered or not?' Her words sank deeply
into my heart."
One day Hasan said to his friends, "You are like the companions of the
prophet, on whom be peace." They felt immensely gratified at this, but
he added, "I mean your faces and beards are like theirs, but nothing
else in you. If you had seen them, such was their absorption in divine
things, you would have thought them mad. Had they seen you, they would
not have regarded one of you as a real Moslem. They, in the practice of
the faith, were like horsemen mounted on swift steeds, or like the wind,
or like the bird which cleaves the air; while we progress like men
mounted on donkeys with sores on their backs."
An Arab visiting Hasan Basri asked him for a definition of patience.
Hasan answered, "There are two kinds of patience; one kind consists in
bearing afflictions and calamities bravely and in abstaining from what
the Lord has forbidden, the other kind consists in never lending an ear
to the suggestions of Satan." "As for me," said the Arab, "I have never
seen anyone more retiring from the world and more patient than thyself."
"Alas," answered Hasan, "my renouncement of the world and my patience
count as nothing." "Why dost thou say so?" exclaimed the Arab. "Because,
if I practise renouncement it is only from dread of hell-fire, and if I
keep patient it is only because I hope to enter Paradise. Now that man
alone deserves to be taken into account who, without self-regarding
motives practises patience for the sake of the Most High, and whose
renouncement of the world has not Paradise for its object, but only the
desire to please God. Such a way of acting is a manifest sign of
sincerity of heart."
Asked on another occasion what his spiritual state was like, Hasan
replied, "My state is like that of a man shipwrecked in the sea, who is
clinging to a solitary plank."
He never laughed. At the moment of death he smiled once, and called out
"What sin? What sin?" Someone saw him after his death in a dream, and
asked him, "O Hasan Basri, thou who never wert in the habit of smiling,
why, when dying, didst thou say with a smile, 'What sin? What sin?'"
Hasan answered, "When I was dying I heard a voice which said, 'O Azrael,
hold back his soul a little longer, it has still one sin,' and in my joy
I exclaimed, 'What sin?'"
The night of his death another of his friends had a dream, in which he
saw the gates of heaven open and heard a voice proclaim, "Hasan Basri
has come to his Lord, Who is satisfied with him."
[8] These and the following eight sketches are taken from Attar's
"Tazkirat-ul-Auliya."