‘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!
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
