'In The Market...' Poem by HOWLIN' DERVISH

'In the market, in the cloister - only the Real I saw.
In the valley and on the mountain - only the Real I saw.
Truth I have seen beside me oft in tribulation;
In favour and in fortune - only the Real I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation,
In the Truth of the Prophet Jesus - only the Real I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance,
Qualities nor causes-only the Real I saw.
I oped mine eyes and by the light of Truth’s face around me
In all the eye discovered - only the Real I saw.
Like a candle I was melting in Truth’s fire:
Amidst the flames outflashing - only the Real I saw.
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly,
But when I looked with Truth’s eyes - only the Real I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished,
And lo, I was the All-living - only the Real I saw.'

(Part of a Persian ode by the dervish mystic, Baba Kuhi of Shiraz *.)
* Baba Kuhi is an Iranian Sufi poet-saint. He spent many years in retreat and prayer in a mountain cave just north of Shiraz.

He died in 1050 A.D., and was buried just outside of Shiraz, on a hill called 'the green old man' (Pir-i-sabz) . It is said that just before Baba Kuhi died, he made a famous promise that if anyone could stay awake for forty consecutive nights at his tomb that person would be granted the gift of poetry, immortality, and his heart's desire.
There is no doubt that 'Sufism' is an Islamic term, but it is now strongly held that the term, which derives from the Arabic noun suf ('wool') , has a Christian origin. History tells us that during the second and third centuries, Christians fled the persecution of the Roman Empire and inhabited the mountains in Iraq and Lebanon. The monks, and especially the hermits, chose the high mountain caves as places of refuge and of contemplation and worship of God. They were the earliest Christian ascetics and mystics ever. To those hermits, the natural beauty and solemnity of those mountains, especially in Lebanon, represented the divine wisdom and beauty of God. Those early hermits were called sufi'yün because they wore suf garments as a sign of humility and to protect themselves from the year-round cool mountain climate. Those Christian mystics (Ahl-e Haqq, ‘People of Truth’, founded by Jesus) are frequently mentioned in Sufi stories and poetry and in pre-Islamic literature, which abounds with allusions to the light or illumination coming forth from their caves. Moreover, if as the Sufi believe that the first Muslim mystic was the Prophet, then contacts between Christian mystics and Muslim ones started as early as the Prophet Muhammad and continued throughout the course of development of Sufism. There is no doubt that the kinship between Christian mysticism and Sufism is a historic fact.