Gourd Flower

What to be famous for? is a question only Chance and Fate get to answer. And if my name is remembered, it will be for the song "Gourd Flower," as recorded by my friend Julian Talamantez Brolaski, and appearing on xir new album It's Okay Honey.

The lyrics to this song first appeared on page 40 of Zeroes Were Hollow. Now, in a video jammed together from heart-breaking footage on archive dot org (thanks, Nick), they are the world's to sing along with. I await no higher credit to my name than this:

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‘Abd Allah said: I am informed by Muhammad ibn al-Husayn that Ruh ibn Salma [or ibn Maslama, or ibn Aslam] al-Warraq said: I was informed by Qutham al-‘Abid that

‘Abd al-Wahid ibn Zayd [known as Abu ‘Ubayda al-Basri] said:

I stopped one time in a valley, where I was startled by a monk who had confined himself in a cell. I said, "Is this a demon, or a man?"
      Weeping, the man said, "What is there to fear, other than God? A man degraded by sin, who flees to his Lord, in flight from his own sins—this man's no demon, but a mortal in distress."
      "How long have you been here?" I asked. "Twenty-four years," he said.
      "Who do you have for company?" I asked. "Wild animals," he said.
      "What do you eat?" I asked. "Fruits and vegetation of the earth," he said.
      "And you don't miss the company of other people?" I asked. "That's just what I'm fleeing," he said.
      "Do you follow Islam?" I asked. He said: "[Submission] is all I know."

Abu ‘Ubayd (sic) said: By God, I envied him his place!

‘Abd Allah said: I am informed by Muhammad ibn al-Husayn that Muhammad ibn Musa ibn ‘Amir al-‘Azdi told him:

I asked a monk about the iron pole he had [tied himself to?]: "What's the hardest thing about being out here by yourself?" "There's nothing hard about it," he said. "Solitude is sociability, for the seeker."

From The Book of Isolation and Seclusion of ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi 'l-Dunya