This is the first part of a series on the Muslim identity crisis.

“They chased the dog out, lest it pollute the mosque. But they left these men inside, ignoring the filth hidden in their hearts. Who will clean the mosque now?”

I looked back and saw a strange man sitting on the steps of the shrine. He had a long flowing beard and was wearing spotless white trousers and a long shirt.

He did not look poor — yet he was doing a job only the poorest do. He looked after the shoes of the visitors who had to take them off before entering the shrine and the adjoining mosque. In return they threw a few coins before him.

Nobody knew his name. Everybody called him “jootaywala,” the shoe-man. He saw me looking at him and smiled. “Don’t believe what you see. Seek more,” he said. I ignored him and went inside.

Someone was singing a devotional song: “What will you get from this bowing and prostrating when your heart is still attracted to sins? Clean your heart first and then come to worship.”

Surrounded by a group of devotes, he was playing a simple tune on a harmonium while one of his companions played the tabla and others repeated the refrain with him.

“Tera dil tu hai sanam aashna, tujhay kya milay ga namaz mein,” they chanted. Some of the devotees got up and started dancing in ecstasy.

I sat under the banyan tree sheltering the shrine. Dozens of parrots were chattering above me. I watched the devotees quietly. Every now and then, one of the devotees would say “Allah” and the others would join the chant which was echoed back to them by the surrounding hills.

“Chase the dog out of your heart,” I heard the shoe-man say to a group of people gathered around him.

Then he started telling them the stories of Mullah Nasiruddin, a legendary character popular in the Muslim world.

“Mullah came to a wedding reception in his usual dress of coarse cloth and nobody took any notice of him. Nobody asked him to sit. Nobody served him food. He went back, put on his new silk coat and returned to the reception.Now he was taken to the best table and made to sit with the notables of the city. When the food came Mullah dipped his sleeve in the soup and said ‘eat, my coat, eat.”

“The host was surprised and asked Mullah why he was doing that,” the Shoe-man said.

“When I came in my usual dress, nobody welcomed me, but my new coat made all the difference. So I gather that the invitation was for the coat, not for me,” said Mullah Nasiruddin.

“Now tell me what do you want — do you want to be respected for your appearance or desire real honor?” asked the storyteller.

This reminded me of another story that I had read as a child. It was from Gulistan, a book by the famous Persian poet Sa’adi. For centuries people have read Gulistan to learn wisdom, faith and morality and also about the wicked ways of the world.

There was a poet who wrote a long eulogy for a robber and went to his den to recite it, expecting a great reward in return. The robber listened to the poem patiently and when he finished, he asked his companions to strip the poet and throw him out of the cave.

“But why? I praise you and you do this to me,” asked the poet.

“This will teach you not to praise robbers,” said the chief.

When he left the cave, dogs started chasing the naked poet. He looked around for stones to throw at the dogs but it was snowing and the snow had covered all the stones. He tried but could not retrieve one from under the snow.

“What strange people,” said the poet, “they have tied their stones but set their dogs free.”

When I read this I asked my teacher what relevance the story had for me, as I was neither a poet nor a robber. He asked me to be patient and read through the book. Later, while working as a journalist, I would remember the story again and again. Dozens of times I had to write homage for those who were not much different from the robber and dozens of time I was stripped of my ego and thrown out in the streets to suffer my nakedness. Many times their pet dogs bared their teeth at me and I had no stone to throw at them.

And yet I was among those who did not have the courage to say no to this hypocrisy. Often I wrote what I was expected to write and suffered humiliation that comes with surrender.

The story echoes again in a beautiful poem by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, “nisar main teri galeon pe ai watan kay jaha.” When talking about restrictions on freedom of expression in his country, Faiz recalls how the rulers had “tied the stones but let the dogs lose.”

These old stories were part of the knowledge of the Sufis. They used them to train their followers for the path. The stories are so powerful that they appeal to an intellectual like Faiz and an ordinary peasant alike.

Perhaps that’s why there is always a crowd at the shrines of the Sufi saints. They give knowledge without arrogance.