Once, in a country where
all people were like kings and queens, there lived a family, who were in every
way content, and whose surroundings were such that the human tongue cannot
describe them in terms of anything that is known today.
This country of Sharq
seemed satisfactory to the young prince Dhat and his sister princess
Fatima. Until one day, their
parents told them: “Dearest children of ours, it is the necessary custom of our
land, that each prince and princess go forth on a trial. This is to fit yourselves
to be the king and queen you are meant to be.
This trial will enable you
to achieve—by watchfulness and effort—an inner and outer strength impossible
without it.
Thus it has been ordained
in the beginning and thus it will always be. “
The Prince and Princess
were prepared for the journey.
They were given a special
food that would nourish them, which was of small compass but illimitable
quantity.
They were given certain
resources, which it is not possible to mention, to guard them, if properly used.
They had to travel to a
certain country, Misr, and they had to go in disguise. They left behind their
royal clothes, and took those of the new land. They were given guides for the
journey and a sacred task: to bring back a certain jewels, guarded by a
fearsome monster.
Their guides took them to
the new land, to Misr, and left them there. They had been instructed to part,
so they did, soon finding others who were on the same mission as companions.
But, because of the air
and food of the country, all forgot their mission, and went into an ongoing
sleep. This lasted many years, as Dhat and Fatima went about humble vocations,
unaware of what had happened to them.
By means familiar to them
but unknown to other people, the inhabitants of Sharq felt the situation of
Dhat and Fatima, and sent them messages by a strange means, the inner content
of which was:
“Awake. You are the
daughter and son of kings and queens. You have a mission. It is time to stop
your sleep.”
The message awoke the
pair, who found each other at the monster’s lair, and by means of special
sounds, they put the monster to sleep and retrieved the Jewels.
The Sounds now guided them
back to Sharq, and almost at once they were again in their royal attire, and at
one with their real home.
This time, though, through
their experiences, they were able to see that what they had taken for granted
was of far greater splendor than they could have imagined, and that it was the
place commemorated vaguely by the people of Misr as Salamat, which the people
of Misr took to be the word for Submission, but which Dhat and Fatima now
realized, meant …. peace.
My rendition of the last
teaching story, usually called the King’s Son, in The Tales of the Dervishes by Idries Shah, from a dervish’s
transcription of a recital supposed given by Amir Sultan, Sheik of Bokhara, who
taught in Istanbul and died in 1429.
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