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Your messengers and prophets stood at this spot and prayed to you. There's a world of difference between my prayers and theirs.' He was pleading. 'I am no prophet to pray the way they do. I am an ordinary human being with very human failings. My desires and my aspirations are all very ordinary. No one must have stood here and wept for a woman—how lower can my position, my debasement be, that standing in this pristine and sacred place, I should beg and plead for a woman? But I have no control over my heart nor over my tears. It was not I who gave her a place in my emotions, in my heart—it was You who put her there. Why have You so filled my heart with love for her that even though I stand in Your presence, I miss her? Why have You made me so helpless that I have no power over my existence? I am that being who was created with all these failings. I am that being who has no guide but You. And that woman—she stands at every turn that my life takes, preventing me from making any move, going ahead. Either completely erase all thought of her from my heart, take away my love for her, or grant her to me. If I cannot have her, my entire life will be wasted mourning for her. If she should be mine then my tears will only be for You— grant that purity to my tears. Standing here, I beg you to grant me one of the pure and noble women—I ask for Imama Hashim. For my coming generations, I ask for that woman who cannot include anyone in her love and reverence for your Prophet (PBUH), who left all the ease and comforts of her life for the love of the Prophet. If ever I have done any good in my life,then in return I ask for Imama Hashim. If You wish, it is possible—even now. Please lift this misery from me! Make my life easy. Please release me from the anguish that has gripped me since the last eight years. O Allah, please have mercy on Salar Sikandar once again, for mercy is the highest of Your attributes.' Head bowed, he wept for a long time, standing at the very spot where he had seen himself in his dream—but Imama was not standing behind him now.
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