This transformation of a notional into a real belief has proved the crisis in the lives of many of the saints and mystics of Islam, without, as far as it appears, any contact on their part with Christianity. Thus, Ibn Khalliqan, in his great Biographical Dictionary, tells of Al-Fudail, a celebrated highwayman, who, one night, while he was on his way to an immoral assignation, was arrested by the voice of a Koran-reader chanting the verse, "Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of God?" On this he exclaimed, "O Lord! that time is come." He then went away from that place, and the approach of night induced him to repair for shelter to a ruined edifice. He there found a band of travellers, one of whom said to the others, "Let us set out"; but another answered, "Let us rather wait till daylight, for Al-Fudail is on the road, and will stop us." Al-Fudail then turned his heart to God, and assured them that they had nothing to fear. For the rest of his life he lived as an ascetic, and ranked among the greatest saints. One of his recorded sayings is, "If the world with all it contains were offered to me, even on the condition of my not being taken to account for it, I would shun it as you would shun a carrion, lest it should defile your clothes." Another striking "conversion" is that of Ibrahim Ben Adham, Prince of Khorassan. He was passionately addicted to the chase, and one day when so employed heard a voice behind him exclaiming, "O Ibrahim, thou wast not born for this." At first he took it for a delusion of Satan, but on hearing the same words pronounced more loudly exclaimed, "It is the Lord who speaks; His servant will obey." Immediately he desisted from his amusement, and, changing clothes with an attendant, bade adieu to Khorassan, took the road towards Syria, and from thenceforth devoted himself entirely to a life of piety and labour.