A certain flute-player named Hamza, much beloved by Jelāl, happened to die. Jelāl sent some of his disciples to array the defunct in his grave-clothes. He himself followed them to the house of the deceased.
On entering the room, Jelāl addresses the dead body: “My dear friend Hamza, arise!” Instantly, the deceased arose, saying: “Lo, here I am!” He then took his flute, and for three whole days and nights a religious festival was kept up in his house.
Above a hundred Roman misbelievers were thereby converted to the faith of Islām. When Jelāl left the house, life departed from the corpse also.
Among the disciples there was a hunchback, a devout man, and a player on the tambourine, whom Jelāl loved.
On the occasion of a festival, this poor man beat his tambourine and shouted in ecstasy to an unusual degree. Jelāl was also greatly moved in the spirit with the holy dance.
Approaching the hunchback, he said to him: “Why erectest thou not thyself like the rest?” The infirmity of the hunch was pleaded. Jelāl then patted him on the back, and stroked him down. The poor man immediately arose, erect and graceful as a cypress.
When he went home, his wife refused him admittance, denying that he was her husband. His companions came, and bare witness to her of what had happened. Then she was convinced, let him in, and the couple lived together for many years afterwards.
It was once remarked to Jelāl, with respect to the burial service for the dead, that, from the earliest times, it had been usual for certain prayers and Qur’ānic recitations to be said at the grave and round the corpse; but, that people could not understand why he had introduced into the ceremony the practice of singing hymns during the procession towards the place of burial, which canonists had pronounced to be a mischievous innovation.
Jelāl replied: “The ordinary reciters, by their services, bear witness that the deceased lived a Muslim. My singers, however, testify that he was a Muslim, a believer and a lover of God.”
He added also: “Besides that; when the human spirit, after years of imprisonment in the cage and dungeon of the body, is at length set free, and wings its flight to the source whence it came, is not this an occasion for rejoicings, thanks, and dancings? The soul, in ecstasy, soars to the presence of the Eternal; and stirs up others to make proof of courage and self-sacrifice. If a prisoner be released from a dungeon and be clothed with honour, who would doubt that rejoicings are proper? So, too, the death of a saint is an exactly parallel case.”