Sabur

I sought the true essence of patience from a Rabbi of the Sahara and he told me the following tale:

"Sabur lived on the fringes of the Sahara desert and was remarked by his neighbourhood to be a pious and diligent man. He was a man who penury had taught the nobler lessons of life. He sought his livelihood by maintaining a garden and a stall where he sold the produce from the garden. The garden hardly bore him a good harvest as it adjoined a piece of craggy land.

After a while Sabur resolved to begin saving money from his trade so he could build himself a modest house. He began saving in earnest such that he quickly achieved the reputation of being an unrivalled miser in the Sahara.

It chanced that in the third year after he had begun saving, blight swept over his field damaging his entire crops. The blight made the field infertile for three growing seasons during which period he was frequently heard lamenting that the devil had walked through his field and reaped the souls of his entire crops. The blight depleted all his savings and he soon tottered towards extreme poverty. His prayers during this period focused on getting the devil to leave his field so crops could grow again.

By the fourth season after the blight attack his harvests improved and he resumed saving in order to achieve his determination to build a house. His harvests improved so well that by the seventh year after the blight he had amassed a remarkable saving and he prepared once more to commence the building of his house.

Thereafter it happened that on the eve of the day he was to commence the building while he was away from his stall to say his afternoon prayers, some miscreants who had observed his routine for a while ransacked his stall and made away with all his savings. When he came back and discovered his loss, he shrieked and rent his clothes such that all who saw him then shared his grief. ‘O!’ he wailed, ‘I have become a dry leaf that Providence like a whirlwind tosses about at it fancies.’

This disappointment nevertheless birthed a new resolve when the tempest had subsided for Sabur was of a very firm mental constitution. He made a decision to forgo one meal everyday hence; for he reasoned that every meal forgone will be a brick in his house.

By the fifth year after the loss of his savings to the miscreants, he had saved enough to begin the building of his house. He bought the plot adjoining his garden and set to building his house. It was at this time that he earned the sobriquet Sabur the mule, for he was always seen working on his project under scorching sun or heavy rain. And so Sabur built his house day and night until it was finished in a year.

On the evening when the house had been completed Sabur filled with gladness decided to throw a feast for the entire neighbourhood and went into his garden to harvest his best fruits for that purpose. He had not been in the garden for long when a gale, the like of which had never been seen in the entire neighbourhood came tearing down every object in its path. He watched through his sheltered eyes as the gale tore down his stall and newly built house.

A man whose diligence and patience contrives to bring him ill luck begins to doubt the goodness of Providence. Sabur wept with grief and sorrow that earned him genuine sympathy from mourners. Those who saw him then reported that he cast many doubtful glances towards the sky and remained for a lengthy period lying as a pile of desolation and despair beside his crumpled edifice.

The Imam in the neighbourhood fully aware of the Sabur’s tribulations made frequent visits during this period and tried to encourage him by praising the grand workings of Providence. The argument which finally roused Sabur’s weary heart was that Providence had saved his life by sparing him from being crushed under the weight of his collapsed house.

Sabur soon gained vigour and was assisted by the neighbours to put up his stall and establish his garden. His harvests improved and he commenced saving once more such that he was able to save as much as he needed in less than four years.

To rebuild his house, he reasoned that if he dug the foundations further south of the plot by the leeward side of the rock it will be protected from any evil gale. So he commenced digging the foundations but the site he choose this time had many rocks beneath so that his work was slow and his sinews badly strained from delivering blow after blow to unyielding rocks.

By the seventh day when he had dug a span of three feet a blow from his spade exposed a spot of gleaming rocks. These were the long sought after amethyst. Many men had found a stone or two of this precious rock but never had such a great store of them been found in all of the Sahara.

By the time the Rabbi finished his tale we approached a crowd of beggarly people sitting around a sultan. ‘There’ the Rabbi says to me ‘sits Sabur, now the great sultan of the Sahara and regions beyond, surrounded by beggarly people who come to be fed at his table everyday as he recounts his glorious tale of how patience brought him fortune and fame.’"

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