One day, the mystic Shibli (d. 946) came across two boys quarrelling on a dusty road over a single walnut.
“It’s mine, you mangy dog!” yelled one, slapping it out of the other’s hand.
“I saw it first!”
“But I picked it up!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
The walnut bounced in the dirt as both boys dove after it, wrestling like enemies over something neither had earned.
Shibli, watching in silence, finally stepped in. With the tenderness of a teacher and the firmness of truth, he took the walnut and said:
“Why fight? Are you not friends? God has placed you together not to clash like foes but to walk beside one another in harmony. If you must, then share it—half each. Is that not better than this madness?”
The boys looked down, ashamed. “Be patient,” Shibli said. “I’ll divide it for you.”
He picked up a stone and cracked the shell…
Only to find it completely empty.
No nut. Nothing at all.
At that moment, a voice echoed deep within him:
“Go on—divide it. Divide the nothing. Are you not the great divider?”
Shibli fell to his knees, overcome with awe and sorrow.
“All this pride… all this fighting… over nothing. And all that pretension, all that self-importance, to be he divider of nothing.”
