The 13th c. Sufi Shams-i- Tabirizi was the inspiration of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi.

Someone was weeping: “The Tatars killed my brother. He was a man of knowledge.”

I said, “If you have knowledge, you know that with the stroke of that sword the Tatar gave him endless life. But what do the dead, or dead preachers, know about that life? They come up to the pulpit, and they begin a lamentation. I mean, the Prophet said, The world is the prison of the believer. Someone escapes from prison. Then you weep for him? ‘What a pity that he escaped from this prison!’ He escaped. He was transferred from one abode to another abode. Then you weep. ‘What a pity that they struck the wall of the prison with that arrow! Why did they strike that stone? Didn’t they regret that fine marble?’

Translation William C. Chittick