Sabur, and he was counted among its nobles. The king’s son was a close friend and companion of his, and the two of them would ride out together to hunt.
While they were hunting, they noticed a small tent made of coarse wool. They went up to it and found a man seated with a written codex (muṣḥaf) in front of him; he was reading from it and weeping.
They asked him, “What is this?”
He replied, “Whoever wants to understand this does not remain where you are—dismount.”
So they dismounted. He then said, “This is a book that has come from Allah. In it He commands obedience to Him and forbids disobedience. It says: do not commit fornication, do not steal, and do not wrongfully consume people’s wealth.” He went on to detail what was in it—it was the Gospel—and the two of them followed him and became Muslims.
He added, “The meat slaughtered by your own people is forbidden to you.” They continued learning from him until the king’s festival arrived. The king prepared food, assembled the common folk and the nobles, and sent for his son to join the feast. The prince refused, saying, “I am occupied with something else.”
When the king pressed him, the prince explained that he would not eat their food.
The king asked, “Who told you this?”
He mentioned the monk, so the king summoned the monk and questioned him. The monk said, “Your son has spoken the truth.”
The king retorted, “Were it not that shedding blood is a grave matter, I would kill you. Leave our land.”
He gave him a time-limit. We rose up weeping for him, and he said, “If you two are sincere, I am in a monastery (bayʿa) in Mosul with sixty men worshipping Allah; come to us.”
He departed, leaving Salmān and the king’s son behind. Salmān kept saying to the prince, “Let us go,” and the prince kept replying, “Yes.”
But the prince busied himself selling his belongings to outfit himself, and he dragged his feet. Salmān therefore set out on his own until he reached them. He stayed with his acquaintance, the head of the monastery.
Salmān remained with him, striving diligently in worship. The shaykh said to him, “You are a young man (1), and I fear you may grow weary; be gentle with yourself.”
Salmān replied, “Leave me alone.”
Later the master of the monastery called him and said, “You know that this monastery belongs to me, and if I wished I could…"