Once, when his father was
talking with his ministers and officers, the boy came up to them wearing
only two pieces of cloth, one round his waist and the other on his
head. The men looked at him. They did not like to see a prince dressed
this way. They thought it was not right for a king's son to dress in such
a poor manner. "This boy is very bad, he upsets his father. He should
dress properly so that the king may be proud of him when other kings come to
see him", they said. When the king asked his son to dress in rich
clothes the boy did not answer but decided to show them a miracle, something
he was able to do because of his intense love for Allah. He looked around
and seeing a bird a long way off, he called it to his side. The bird
flew onto the child's hand. He then told the bird to fly away and it
did so.

Having shown everyone what he was able to do because he loved Allah more than
anything else, he turned to his father and told him that he wore shabby clothes
because, if he loved Allah, such earthly things were not important and that
he was sad because his father seemed to love the world more than Allah.

Soon, the boy knew it was time to leave his father's court and serve Allah
Alone. He took with him a copy of the glorious Qur'aan and a precious ring,
which his mother gave him to make use of if he ever needed any money.

When the prince reached
Basrah, he worked as a labourer for one day in the week and took only
enough money to last him a week. At this time, Aboo 'Amar Basri (a learned
man and a mystic of repute) was looking for a builder to mend a wall
which had fallen down. Suddenly, he saw a handsome youth busy reciting
words from the glorious Qur'aan. He asked the boy if he would do the job.
The boy said, "I will do the job but I want only a small sum of money to last
a week and I must stop working at the times of Salaah". Aboo 'Amar
agreed to this and the youth started to work. By the end of the day Aboo
'Amar noticed that the boy had done the work of ten men. He paid him
his wages (minimal, as requested by the boy). To his surprise, the boy
did not come the next day. As he was so pleased with his work, Aboo 'Amar
set out to look for him but could not find him until the next week at
the same time and in the same place that he had seen him before. The
boy again asked for the same small sum of money and time off for Salaah,
and carried on building the wall.

At the end of the day, Aboo
'Amar gave the boy more money than he had asked for, but the boy would
not take more than what would last him a week. Aboo 'Amar waited until
the next week for the youth to come for work. He did not come and was
nowhere to be found. Aboo 'Amar looked all over for him. He told his
story in the following words: "I
asked all and sundry. At last a man told me that the boy had been ill
and lay unconscious in the forest. I paid a man to take me to him. When
I reached the place, the boy was lying on the ground, resting his head
on a stone. I spoke to him but he did not answer. I greeted him again and
this time he opened his eyes. He recognised me at once. I lifted his head
and put it in my lap. He raised his head and spoke some verses reminding
everyone about death and warned against people who were greedy for worldly
goods. He asked me to bathe him and bury him in one of his garments, to
give the other piece of cloth and his wudhoo cup to the man who would dig
his grave, to take the glorious Qur'aan and the ring to Haaroon Rasheed
personally and to tell him, 'These are your things. They belonged to your
son. Make sure you do as Allah wishes.' with that, the boy died. Only then
did I realise that the boy was the prince. I buried him there as he had
asked and took the ring to the King in Baghdad.

I stood on a high mound
near the palace and saw a troop of horsemen riding out from the palace.
Nine more battalions followed. The king himself rode with the tenth troop.
When I saw him, I shouted at the top of my voice. The king stopped and
I showed him the things that his son had left. He recognised them and
so I was able to tell him all I could about his son. Tears rolled down
his cheeks as I spoke. He ordered one of his guards to look after me until
he returned from his royal visit. When I saw the king again he was very
sad indeed. He asked me how I came to know his son. He was very shocked
to hear that his son, a prince, should wish to work as a labourer and
for enough money to last him only a week. I said that I had not known that
he was the king's son, and a Sayyid, the descendant of the Prophet Muhammad

The king asked me if I had
bathed his son with my own hands. I told him that I had and he took
my hands and pressed them to his heart as he said some couplets, which
showed his great sadness. He also visited the grave and recited more couplets,
which told of the fact that death must come to everyone."

Later, Aboo 'Amar Basri dreamt of the departed soul of this boy which told
him of his great joy in Paradise where he found happiness beyond the realms
of human thought or knowledge.