’When I was a very young man, my mind was bent on inquiring into the truth of the generally believed opinion, that some righteous men of our faith had power granted to them to remove evil spirits from their victims.  I took the advice of a certain venerable person, who was willing to impart his knowledge to me.  Preparatory to my own practice, I was instructed to forsake the haunts of man, and give myself wholly to prayer.  Accordingly I absented myself from my home, family, and friends, and led the life you would call a hermit’s; my food was simply herbs and fruits, and occasionally an unleavened cake of my own preparing, whilst the nearest tank of water supplied me with the only beverage I required; my clothing a single wrapper of calico; my house a solitary chupha (a thatch of coarse grass tied over a frame of bamboo), and this placed on the margin of a wood, where seldom the feet of man strayed to interfere with, or disturb my devotion.  My days and nights were given to earnest prayer; seeking God and offering praises with my mouth to Him, constituted my business and my delight for nearly two whole years, during which time my friends had sought me in vain, and many a tear I fear was shed at the uncertain fate of one they loved so well in my father’s house.’

’The simplicity of my mode of life, added to the veneration and respect always paid to the Durweish’s character, raised me in the opinion of the few who from time to time had intruded on my privacy, to ask some boon within my limits to give as a taawise[6] (talisman), which is in fact a prayer, or else one of the names or attributes of God, in such a character as best suited the service they required; for you must be told, in the Mussulmaun faith, we count ninety-nine different names or titles to the great merciful Creator and only true God.  In many cases the taawise I had so given, had been supposed by the party receiving them, to have been instrumental in drawing down upon them the favour of God, and thus having their difficulties removed; this induced others influenced by their report, to apply to me, and at last my retirement was no longer the hermit’s cell, but thronged as the courtyard of a king’s palace.  My own family in this way discovered my retreat, they urged and prevailed on me to return amongst them, and by degrees to give up my abstemious course of life.

’The fame of my devotion, however, was soon conveyed to the world; it was a task to shake off the entreaties of my poor fellow-mortals who gave me more credit for holiness of life than I felt myself deserving of.  Yet sympathy prevailed on me to comfort when I could, although I never dared to think myself deserving the implicit confidence they placed in me.

’On one occasion I was induced, at the urgent entreaties of an old and valued friend, to try the effects of my acquired knowledge in favour of a respectable female, whose family, and her husband in particular, were in great distress at the violence of her sufferings.  They fancied she was troubled by a demon, who visited her regularly every eighth day; her ravings when so possessed endangered her health, and destroyed the domestic harmony of the house.