(Masnavi Book 2: 31) Bayazid and the Shaykh who said, “I am the Ka’ba

How a certain Shaykh said to Báyazíd, “I am the Ka‘ba: perform a circumambulation round me.”

Báyazíd, the Shaykh of the community, was hurrying to Mecca for the greater pilgrimage (hajj) and the lesser (‘umra). In every city to which he went he would at first make search after the venerable (saints).

2220. He would roam about, asking, “Who is there in the city that is relying on (spiritual) insight?” God has said, “Whithersoever you goest in your travels, you must first seek after a (holy) man.”

Go in quest of a treasure, for (worldly) profit and loss come second: regard them as the branch (not as the root). Whoever sows is in quest of wheat; the chaff comes to him indeed, (but only) secondarily.

If you sow chaff, no wheat will come up: seek a man, seek a man, a man!

2225. When it is the season of pilgrimage, go in quest of the Ka‘ba; when you have gone (with that purpose), Mecca also will be seen.

In the Mi‘ráj (Ascension of the Prophet) the quest was (for) vision of the Beloved; it was but secondarily that the empyrean and the angels were also shown.