
A sinner died, and, as his coffin passed,
A man who practiced every prayer and fast
Turned ostentatiously aside — how could
He pray for one of whom he knew no good?
He saw the sinner in his dreams that night,
His face transfigured with celestial light.
“How did you enter heaven’s gates,” he said,
“A sinner stained with filth from foot to head?”
“God saw your merciless, disdainful pride,
And pitied my poor soul,” the man replied.
Farid al-Din ‘Attar (d. 1220), The Conference of the Birds