“I shall have you hanged,” said a cruel and ignorant king to Nasrudin, “if you do not prove that you have deep perceptions such as have been attributed to you.” The Mulla at once said that he could see a golden bird in the sky and demons within the earth. “But how can you do this?” the king asked. “Fear,” said Nasrudin, “is all you need.”

From Idries Shah’s The Sufis, London: Jonathan Cape, 1969 (first published in 1964), p. 65.