• How it became manifest to the king that the physicians were unable to cure the handmaiden, and how he turned his face towards God and dreamed of a holy man.

55- When the king saw the powerlessness of those physicians, he ran bare-footed to the mosque.
56- He entered the mosque and advanced to pray, the prayer-carpet was bathed in the king's tears.
57- On coming to himself out of the flood of ecstasy he opened his lips in goodly praise and laud,
58- Saying, “O you whose least gift is the empire of the world, what shall I say, in as much as you know the hidden thing? You yourself know the secret of my heart,
59- O you with whom we always take refuge in our need, once again we have missed the way.
60- But you have said, ‘Albeit I know your secret, nevertheless declare it forthwith in your outward act.’”
61- When from the depths of his soul he raised a cry (of supplication), the sea of Bounty began to surge.
62- Slumber overtook him in the midst of weeping: he dreamed that an old man appeared.
63- And said, “Good tidings, Good News, O king! your prayers are granted. If tomorrow a stranger come for you, he is from me.
64- When he comes, he is the skilled physician: deem him veracious, for he is trusty and true.
65- In his remedy behold absolute magic, in his temperament behold the power of God!”
66- When the promised hour arrived and day broke and the sun rising from the east, began to burn the stars,
67- The king was in the summer house, expecting to see which had been shown mysteriously.
68- He saw a person excellent and worshipful, a sun amidst a shadow,
69- Coming from afar, like the new moon in slenderness and radiance; he was nonexistent, his real dignity was invisible from the eyes of populace, though he was existent in the form of phantasy.
70- In the spirit phantasy is as naught, because it is not visible, yet behold a world turning on a phantasy for the phantasy rules the entire of people and their imaginary, hopes and fears are their stimulus.
71- Their peace and their war turn on a phantasy, and their pride and their shame spring from a phantasy;
72- But those phantasies which ensnare the saints are the reflection of the fair ones of the garden of God.
73- In the countenance of the stranger-guest was appearing that phantasy which the king beheld in his dream.
74- The king himself, instead of the chamberlains, went forward to meet his guest from the Invisible.
75- Both were seamen who had learned to swim in the realm of the sea of the truth, the souls of both were knit together without sewing.
76- The king said, “You are my Beloved (in reality), not she; but in this world deed issues from deed.
77- O you are to me as (Mohammed) who was the prophet of Muslims while I am like unto (Umar) who was a close companion of the Islamic prophet Mohammed I will gird my loins to do your service.”