A Sufi Folktale
There were once three Sufis, so observant and experienced in life that they were known as The Three Perspectives.
One day during their travels they encountered a camel-owner, who said: “Have you seen my camel? I have lost it.”
The Three Perspectives in reply started asking questions about the lost camel. They asked whether the camel has:
“Limp”
“Blindness”
“One Tooth Missing”
“Carrying honey on one side and a load of corn on the other”
“A pregnant woman mounted on it”
The camel-owner nodded and agreed and said, “Yes yes yes…it has all of these. Can you tell me where it is?”
The three Perspectives then told the man to go back along the way they had come, and that he might hope to find it. Thinking that the Sufis had seen the camel, the camel-owner hurried on the way shown by them.
But the man did not find his camel, and he hastened to catch up with the Perspectives, hoping that they would tell him what to do.
He found them that evening at a resting place and he told them that he did not find his camel.
The Three Perspectives said: “We do not know where it is. We have not seen it.”
The camel-owner was now furious and was convinced that the three Sufis must have stolen his camel. So he rushed to the court and lodged a complaint. Immediately, the Sufis were brought to the court.
When the Judge asked them about the camel, the three Sufis just kept quiet. It was already quite late so the Judge told the officers of the court to detain the three Sufis in custody on suspicion of theft.
The next afternoon the camel-owner found his camel wandering in some fields. So he realized that the Sufis didn’t steal his camel. He returned to the court and arranged for the release of the Sufis.
When they were released, the camel-owner asked the Perspectives, “How did you know so much about the camel when you had apparently not even seen the camel?”
So the three Perspectives replied:
“We thought the camel must have a limp because the footprints of a camel that we saw on the road, had one of the tracks faint.
Then it had stripped the bushes at only one side of the road, so it must have been blind in one eye.
And the leaves were shredded, which indicated the loss of a front-tooth.
Then we saw bees and ants swarming over honey and corn scattered on the road.
We also found long human hair. So we thought a woman might have been riding the camel.
Also where the person had sat down there were palm-prints, we thought from the use of the hands that the woman was probably very pregnant and had to stand up taking support in that manner.”
The camel owner was greatly surprised and asked: “Why did you keep silent in front of the Judge and did not say all these things in the court?”
“Because we thought you would anyway continue looking for your camel and probably find your camel soon,” said the first Perspective.
“We thought you would feel generous in releasing us through your own discovery,” said the second Perspective.
“If we would have spoken in front of the Judge, the court would have ordered an official enquiry and that would have interfered with your own search,” said the third Perspective.
“It is our experience that it is generally better for people to arrive at truth through what they take to be their own will,” said the first Perspective.
“It is always one’s own experience that brings true clarity. No matter how much guidance is received, the search has to be done alone and the truth will be revealed when the right time comes,” continued the second Perspective.
“It is time for us to move on, for there is work to be done,” said the third Perspective.
And the Sufi thinkers went on their way. They are still to be found at work on the highway of the Earth.
