Salmān al-Fārisī: A Persian Search for the Truth

The next example is a long one: it is the story of Salmān al-Fārisī (may Allah be pleased with him). Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with him) went to Salmān al-Fārisī when he was old, in his old age, and he requested Salmān to tell him his story. So Salmān is narrating his story to Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with him). He says: I was a Persian man from Iṣfahān — Iṣfahān is in current-day Iran — from a village called Ghī, and my father was the headman of the town, or the village. And I was striving and taking pains in the religion of al-Majūsiyyah — Majūsiyyah is usually translated as Magian. It is a religion in which they believe in good and evil, and they worship fire; they believe that there are two forces fighting, good and evil. It is a form of shirk, considered to be wathaniyyah; it is not part of ahl al-kitāb. So Salmān al-Fārisī says: I took pains to be a good Magian. And he grew in the religion until he became the keeper of the fire — he was the one who would light the fire and never let it go off. They had this fire in every village; they would keep it in the temple of fire, and the fire needed to be kept by a certain person to ensure that it was always burning. And that was supposed to be a high position in the religion, to be the keeper of the fire, the one who was entrusted with the fire.

He said: my father owned a large farm. One day he was busy constructing a building of his, and he wanted me to go out and take care of some business on the farm. My father loved me so much that he kept me closeted in his house and would never let me leave. So Salmān says: on that particular day my father was busy with this building of his, and he wanted me to go and take care of some business on his farm, but then he told me, "O my son, you know how dear you are to me — if you are late, I would be so concerned about you, and you are more important to me than the farm or my building, so please come early." In the Arabic he literally said, "I was kept in his house like a slave girl" — he would not allow me to go anywhere.

So Salmān al-Fārisī left on that day to go and do this business for his father. He said: I passed by a Christian church, and I heard them praying, so I wanted to go in and investigate — I didn't know much about people because I had never left home. He said: so this was something new to me, and I came to realise that there was another religion, and some people were praying in a different fashion, so I decided to go in and investigate. He said: I went into the church, and I was quite impressed by their method of prayer. I ended up staying with them until sunset, and I neglected my father's work.

He said my father was so worried that he started sending out people to find me. I came back late, and my father said, "O my son, didn't I tell you not to be late? What happened?" Salmān said, "I passed by a church of the Christians, and I went in to see their prayer, and I forgot to do the job you asked me to." His father told him, "O my son, their religion is no good, and your religion and the religion of your forefathers is better." Salmān responded to his father and said, "No, their religion is better than ours." So now the father of Salmān was extremely worried. He ended up chaining his son and imprisoning him at home — he put chains on his legs. He was so terrified and afraid that his son might change his religion that he ended up locking him up at home.

When Salmān was at the church, he asked the church members: where is the centre of your religion? Where does this religion originate from? They said: from the Holy Land, from Palestine, from al-Shām. Now, when his father put him in shackles, he managed to send out a message to the church, telling them that if they ever received word of a caravan in town from al-Shām, to let him know. A caravan did come in, and they sent him word. Salmān was able to release himself and run away, and he went with this caravan all the way to the Holy Land in search of the truth.