and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.”
I said, “He claims that he loves you.”
He replied, “May Allah love him.”
We talked for a while and then asked, “O Abu ʿAbd Allah, would you not tell us about your background?”
He said, “As for my origin, I am from the people of Ramhurmuz. We were Magians. A Christian man from al-Jazirah, whose mother was one of us, came and settled among us and built a monastery. I was one of the Persian scribes.
“There was always a lad who studied with me in the writing class; he would come beaten and crying because his parents had struck him. One day I asked him, ‘What makes you weep?’ He said, ‘My parents beat me.’ I asked, ‘Why do they beat you?’ He replied, ‘I visit the master of that monastery, and when they find out they beat me. If you were to visit him, you would hear amazing things from him.’
“I said, ‘Take me to him.’ So we went to him, and he told us about the beginning of creation, about Paradise and Hellfire—truly astonishing accounts. I continued to go to him with the boy, and other lads from the school noticed us and started coming along.
“When the townspeople saw this, they came to the monk and said, ‘O man, you have lived among us and experienced nothing but good from our neighborhood. Yet we see our boys visiting you, and we fear you will corrupt them. Leave our area.’ He answered, ‘Very well.’ Then he said to the boy who used to visit him, ‘Come away with me.’ The boy replied, ‘I cannot.’ I said, ‘I will go with you,’ for I was an orphan without a father.
“I left with him. We took to the hills of Ramhurmuz, walking in reliance upon Allah and eating the fruit of the trees. When we reached Nisibis, my companion said, ‘O Salman, here are a people who are the greatest worshippers on earth; I would like to meet them.’
“We found them on a Sunday when they had gathered. My companion greeted them with peace, and they returned the greeting, welcomed him warmly, and asked, ‘Where have you been?’ After we talked, he said, ‘Stand up, Salman.’ I replied, ‘No, leave me with these people.’ He said, ‘You will not be able to endure what they endure: they fast from one Sunday to the next and do not sleep during the night.’
“Among them was a man of royal lineage who had abandoned his kingdom and taken up worship. I stayed with them until evening, and they began to leave one by one for the caves where each of them lived. When night fell, that man of royal descent said, ‘Do not neglect this lad; let someone take him…’