'What an astonishing sight!' cried a dervish. In a desert place he had
come across a fox that had no feet or legs.
'How can it possibly live?' he wondered, 'for it looks healthy enough.'
Then he jumped behind a rock in terror. A lion had come upon the scene.
The lion had killed a jackal. It dropped the carcase near the fox, ate its fill,
and then went off, leaving bits of the meat behind. Quickly the fox ate the lot.
'Even more astonishing!' gasped the dervish. He couldn't believe what he had seen
so next day he came out into the desert and again hid behind the rock. The same thing
happened. The lion appeared with a freshly killed jackal, ate what it wanted, leaving
portions of the meat for the fox to finish.
'It's a sign from God!' the dervish said. 'From now on I, too, will rely, like the fox,
upon the generosity of the Creator. He found himself a dark corner against a wall
and settled to wait.
'God will provide,' he said to himself.
He sat there for several days and neither friend nor stranger went near him. More days
passed. He grew thinner and thinner until his veins and skin were stretched like harp strings
on his bony frame.
At length, when he was almost too weak to move, a holy man stood before him and
enquired what was the matter.
The dervish poured out his story. 'Now tell me,' he said when he had finished, 'surely that
was a sin from God?'
'Of course it was,' replied the holy man, 'but how could you be such an idiot?
Why didn't you see that you were supposed to imitate not the fox but the lion?'
SA'ADI
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