3.8.3 - Crossing back to Andalusia - (Algeciras, 595/1198)

Then in al-Durrah al-Fakhirah the Shaykh explains that al-Qalfat came from Tarifa in Spain. He once told me that he had been in Mecca at the Kabah and met a certain non-Arab there. This man had seized him by the hand and inquired where he had come from. The Shaykh had told him that he was from a peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean. He then asked him if he knew what had brought them together in that place, at which the Shaykh asked him to say what it was. The man then replied, Heedlessness, my brother! and then he wept.

When I went to visit him, I crossed the sea by night from Qasr Mashmudah in the direction of Tarifa. When morning came we were at a place called al-Safihah. Then we sailed along the coast until we came to our destination. There we found this Shaykh standing on the shore with his followers asking about one who was coming to see him. He was told that he had just arrived in the boat. I got out of the boat and greeted him. He took me to his house and gave me the very food I had wished for while on the boat. When I asked him why he had prepared that food rather than any other, he told me that he had been informed inwardly that I was coming by sea to visit him and that I had a particular liking for that food, and that, accordingly, he had had it prepared for my coming.