Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/51

Rh spread so rapidly, that he was constantly sought for and summoned to the most distant parts of Maghreb, where he was accorded unfailing adoration for his gifts of prophecy and clairvoyance. The poor, whom he ever helped most willingly, called him Sidi Abu Median, or simply Bu Medin; but this did not stand in the way of his being considered not only a wali but a kutb, that is, the pole of the axis round which humanity revolves, and a ghawts, or a benefactor and savior.

In due course Sidi Abu Median made a holy pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and won the friendship of Sidi Abd el-Kader el-Jilani, the greatest Islamic scholar and saint of his time, who sent him as a missionary to Bagdad to teach the Koran there. Here Bu Medin made the acquaintance and gained the admiration of Buddhist priests coming from India, won them over to the Faith and through them spread a knowledge of the Koran through the Hindustani world. In his turn he profited from his acquaintance with the Buddhist priests by receiving from them initiation into a science, so far unknown in Maghreb but afterwards called there "Mujulo," which was a combination of mystic ecstasy and fana, or the union of human faculties with God's essence, that gives to man supernatural force and magical powers.

From Bagdad Abu Median finally returned to Seville and Cordova, where he became the most famous professor of theology of his time; but he turned away again from Andalusia and crossed once more to Algeria, opening here Koran universities, preaching to the people in the open squares of the cities and in the mosques, and gathering everywhere crowds of followers and disciples. When