The Strange Hospitality

This story is reported from Imam Muhammad Ibn Idrîs Ash-Shâfiʿî.

In this account, the imam himself tells an astonishing experience that happened to him during a journey to Yemen.

One day, I set out for Yemen with a very specific goal.

Let us listen to his story:

I wanted to search for certain ancient books in which their authors had gathered observations about men, about certain visible signs, and about the behaviors they thought they could associate with them.

That is to say, children, that in these books, authors observed certain visible details in people, for example the eyes, the forehead, the face, the beard, or other physical characteristics, and then they noted the behaviors they thought they could associate with them.

I wanted to know what these books contained.

So I searched for them, I copied them, and I gathered them, until I had collected what I had come for.

Then, when my work was finished, I took the road again with these books.

I had devoted time to searching for them and studying them, and I now thought I knew what their authors had observed.

But on the way back, an encounter would seriously make me doubt all of that.

I passed by a man sitting in front of his house and, observing him, I noticed several characteristics that matched one of the most unfavorable descriptions I had studied in these books.

According to what I had just learned, I could therefore expect to meet a man with unpleasant behavior.

Yet, I did not know him yet.

I simply asked him:

— Is there a place to stay?

He replied:

— Yes.

Then he welcomed me into his home.

And very quickly, something began not to match at all what I had studied.

This man did not just leave me a place to spend the night.

He had food brought to me, then perfume.

He also had food brought for my mount, and he put at my disposal a bed as well as a blanket.

The more time passed, the more his welcome surprised me.

I had asked for almost nothing, and yet he took care of my meal, my mount, and my rest with great generosity.

Now, before even speaking to him, what I had studied in my books had led me to expect something entirely different from him.

So I began to think seriously about what I had just learned during my journey.

I had searched for these books.

I had copied them.

I had gathered them.

And now, a man who matched one of their most unfavorable descriptions behaved with me in a completely opposite way.

When it was time to sleep, I lay down.

But this matter continued to occupy me.

“I spent the entire night tossing and turning, wondering what I was going to do with these books.”

I did not want to ignore what I was seeing simply because it did not match what I had studied.

The facts were before me.

This man had welcomed me.

He had fed me.

He had taken care of my mount.

He had prepared a bed for me.

He had given me a blanket.

And his behavior seemed to contradict everything I had thought I understood by observing him.

Then an idea finally came to me:

“I am going to throw these books away.”