Note 181 — Chapter XII
David Shea translation
Bastam is a town of Khorassan, the native place of Abu Yezid Taifer ben Issa, one of the most celebrated Súfis of Persia. He had inherited the frock of another mystical personage, called Habib Ajemi. Bastami attained the supreme degree of spirituality—perfect union with God. He occasionally branched out into all the enthusiasm imaginable, saying that God was with him and near him, nay in the sleeve of his garment; and then again he came at times into the regular order of piety and devotion, hoping that God would forgive him his sins, and let his latter end be that of the righteous. It is said of him (see the third Majalis, “conference,” of Sâdi) that, having once called out to God for union with the supreme Being, he heard the voice from above: “Abu Yezid, thy thou is still with thee; if thou wilt come to me, abandon thyself and come.” He died in the year of the Hejira 261 (A. D. 874).—(See Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. I. p. 100; Malcolm’s Hist. of Persia, p. 395; Pend nameh, edit. and transl. by Silvestre de Sacy, p. 231.)