Abu l-Khayr al-Daylami said: I was sitting with Khayr the Weaver when a woman came up and said, "I'm here for the kerchief I left with you." "Okay," he said, and gave it to her.
"What do I owe you?" she asked. "Two dirhams," he said.
"I don't have it on me right now," the woman said. "I'll bring it to you tomorrow, if God wills. But more than once I've passed by here and not found you."
Khayr said to her, "If you bring it by and can't find me, just throw it in the Tigris River, and I'll pick it up when I get back."
"Pick it up from the Tigris?" the woman asked. "How?"
"Your curiosity goes too far," he said. "Just do as I've instructed."
"If God wills," she said, and went away.
Abu l-Khayr said: I went back the next day, and Khayr was absent. Then along came the same woman, with two dirhams wrapped in a rag. Finding him gone, she sat down and waited for an hour, then stood up and flung the rag into the Tigris—where along came a crab, grabbed hold of the rag, and dove with it below the water's surface.
An hour later, Khayr came back and opened the door to his shop, then crouched by the river's edge to wash his feet. And the crab emerged from the water and came toward him with the rag upon its back! And brought it close enough for Khayr to pick it up.
I spoke. "I just saw...." He said, "I'd rather you not tell people about this while I'm alive," and I answered, "Okay."
From The Ornament of God's Friends by Abu Nu‘aym al-Isbahani
