The monumentally influential mystic Muhammed Ibn al Arabi (1165 – 1240 CE), known to Sufis as ‘the greatest Shaikh’, was born in Murcia, in south-eastern Spain, of an ancient Arabic family, and during the first half of his life travelled and studied throughout Andalusia. He recorded encounters with many evolved Sufis of the region, and the following recollection gives a glimpse of Abdallah Ashraf al-Rundi, a Shaikh born in the city of Ronda.
One of the things for which he was well known was his practice of sitting on a high mountain near Moron. One night a man was on the mountain and saw a shimmering pillar of light so bright he could not look at it. When he approached it he found that it was al-Rundi standing in prayer. The man went away and told people what he had seen.
He earned his living as a gatherer of chamomile in the mountains which he sold in the city.
I myself witnessed many wonders performed by him. Some brigands came upon him sitting by a spring and threatened him with death unless he stripped off his clothes. At this he wept and said, “I cannot bring myself to assist you in disobeying God, so if you want this you must do it yourselves.” Then he was seized by an intense fervour and looked at them with his well known look and they fled from him.
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It had long been my wish to introduce my companion al-Habashi to him, so when we came to Andalusia we stayed at Ronda. While we were there we attended a funeral service, during the course of which I noticed that al-Rundi was standing in front of me. Then I introduced my companion to him and we all went back to the place where I was staying. Al-Habashi expressed a wish to see some evidence of al-Rundi’s miraculous powers. Later, when we had performed the sunset prayer, the owner of the house was late in lighting the lamp and my friend called for light. Al-Rundi said that he would oblige him. Thereupon he took a handful of grass that was lying about in the house and as we watched, struck it with his forefinger saying, “This is fire!” Immediately the grass burst into flames and we lit the lamp. He would sometimes take some fire from the stove for some purpose or other and, although some of it would stick to hm, it caused him no pain or harm.
He was an illiterate man. One day I asked him about his weeping, to which he replied that he had sworn never again to evoke God’s curse against any man; he had done so once and the man had perished, which he had deeply regretted ever since. He was a mercy to the world. More than this I cannot tell at the present time.
Translation R. W. J. Austin