The Shaykh’s Cat

During the morning meditation, the cat of a certain khanegah often caused quite some disturbance.

So shaykh Ahmad, the resident Sufi Pir, ordered that the cat always had to be tied up when that practice got performed.. 

After the death of shaykh Ahmad, the cat still got tied up during the morning meditation. When the cat died, another cat was bought in order to “properly” tie it up during the meditation.

Several elaborate Sufi handbooks were written in later ages by scholarly followers of shaykh Ahmad about the symbolical meaning of tying up a cat.