Mureeds who knew him remember that Mohammed Ali Khan, the cousin-brother of Hazrat Inayat Khan, used to tell this story, which he himself witnessed, about a case of snakebite and a miraculous cure.

It happened in Baroda that on a certain street some building work was under way, and a piece of wood had been laid over a hole in the road. A cobra had hidden itself under this wood, and when a young man chanced to step on the wood, it disturbed the snake and the cobra bit him.

The young man was brought to a nearby healer, a Murshid*, who was also a wrestler. Mohammed Ali Khan was visiting the Murshid at the moment, and saw what occurred.

The Murshid began to speak to the cobra in the boy, saying, “Leave him!” And the cobra, speaking through the boy, said, “No!”

“Why not?” the healer demanded.

“He has hurt me,” the snake replied.

“But not on purpose. You must leave him,” the Murshid insisted.

But the snake refused to leave the boy, and so at last the Murshid said, “Then I warn youL you have wounded an innocent boy who did not want to hurt you. If you do not leave him, I will have to kill you.” And he had a length of rope brought.

Three times he warned the snake that he must leave or face death, but the snake continued to refuse to leave the boy. Finally, the Murshid took a knife and cut the rope in pieces.

“Now,” he told those standing there, “go and look under the piece of wood.”

Very cautiously they went and removed the piece of wood that covered the hole, and found to their astonishment that the snake now lay dead–cut in pieces. And from that moment, the boy began to recover his health.

*Mohammed Ali Khan himself had the ability of healing, which many mureeds in the west experienced for themselves, and he had also been a wrestler in his youth, so it is possible that this was the Murshid with whom he studied.