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    "slug": "rumi-masnavi",
    "name": "Masnavi-i-Manavi (Rumi)"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 3,
    "slug": "03-the-masnavi-book-iii",
    "title": "The Masnavi Book III",
    "of": 6,
    "words": 18752,
    "text": "## The Masnavi Book III\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRITUAL COUPLETS\nOF\nMAULANA JALALU-'D-DlN MUHAMMAD RUMI\n\nBook III.\n\nSTORY I.\nThe Travelers who ate the Young Elephant.\n\nA PARTY of travelers lost their way in a wilderness, and were well nigh famished with hunger. While they were considering what to do, a sage came up and condoled with them on their unfortunate plight. He told them that there were many young elephants in the adjacent woods, one of which would furnish them an ample meal, but at the same time he warned them that if they killed one, its parents would in all probability track them out and be revenged on them for killing their offspring. Shortly after the travelers saw a plump young elephant, and could not resist killing and eating it. One alone refrained. Then they lay down to rest; but no sooner were they fast asleep than a huge elephant made his appearance and proceeded to smell the breath of each one of the sleepers in turn. Those whom he perceived to have eaten of the young elephant's flesh he slew without mercy, sparing only the one who had been prudent enough to abstain.\nGod's care for His children.\nO son, the pious are God's children,\nAbsent or present He is informed of their state.\nDeem Him not absent when they are endangered,\nFor He is jealous for their lives.\nHe saith, \"These saints are my children,\nThough remote and alone and away from their Lord.\nFor their trial they are orphans and wretched,\nYet in love I am ever holding communion with them.\nThou art backed by all my protection;\nMy children are, as it were, parts of me.\nVerily these Darveshes of mine\nAre thousands on thousands, and yet no more than One;\nFor if not, how did Moses with one magic staff\nTurn the realm of Pharaoh upside down?\nAnd if it were not so, how did Noah with one curse\nMake East and West alike drowned in his flood?\nNor could one prayer of eloquent Lot\nHave razed their strong city against their will,\nTheir mighty city, like to Paradise,\nBecame as a Tigris of black water; go, see its vestige!\nTowards Syria is this vestige and memorial,\nThou seest it in passing on the way to Jerusalem.\nThousands of God-fearing prophets\nIn every age hold divine chastisements in hand.\nShould I tell of them my limits would be exceeded,\nAnd not hearts only but very hills would bleed.\"\nEvil deeds give men's prayers an ill savour in Gods nostrils.\nThou art asleep, and the smell of that forbidden fruit\nAscends to the azure skies,\nAscends along with thy foul breath,\nTill it overpowers heaven with stench;\nStench of pride, stench of lust, stench of greed.\nAll these stink like onions when a man speaks.\nThough thou swearest, saying, \"When have I eaten?\nHave I not abstained from onions and garlic?\"\nThe very breath of that oath tells tales,\nAs it strikes the nostrils of them that sit with thee.\nSo too prayers are made invalid by such stenches, 1\nThat crooked heart is betrayed by its speech.\nThe answer to that prayer is, \"Be ye driven into hell,\" 2\nThe staff of repulsion is the reward of all deceit.\nBut, if thy speech be crooked and thy meaning straight,\nThy crookedness of words will be accepted of God.\nThat faithful Bilal, when he called to prayer,\nWould devoutly cry, \"Come hither, come hither!\"\nAt last men said, \"O Prophet, this call is not right,\nThis is wrong; now, what is thy intention?\nO Prophet, and O ambassador of the Almighty,\nProvide another Mu'azzin of better talent.\n'Tis an error at the beginning of our divine worship\nTo utter the words, 'Come to the asylum!'\" 3\nThe wrath of the Prophet boiled up, and he said\n(Uttering one or two secrets from the fount of grace),\n\"O base ones, in God's sight the 'Ho!' of Bilal\nIs better than a hundred 'Come hithers' and ejaculations.\nAh! excite not a tumult, lest I tell forth openly\nYour secret thoughts from first to last.\nIf ye keep not your breath sweet in prayer,\nGo, desire a prayer from the Brethren of Purity!\"\nFor this cause spake God to Moses,\nAt the time he was asking aid in prayer,\n\"O Moses! desire protection of me\nWith a mouth that thou hast not sinned withal.\"\nMoses answered, \"I possess not such a mouth.\"\nGod said, \"Call upon me with another mouth!\nAct so that all thy mouths\nBy night and by day may be raising prayers.\nWhen thou hast sinned with one mouth,\nWith thy other mouth cry, 'O Allah!'\nOr else cleanse thy own mouth,\nAnd make thy spirit alert and quick.\nCalling on God is pure, and when purity approaches,\nImpurity arises and takes its departure.\nContraries flee away from contraries;\nWhen day dawns night takes flight.\nWhen the pure name (of God) enters the mouth,\nNeither does impurity nor that impure mouth remain!\"\nThe man whose calling \"O Allah\" was equivalent\nto God's answering him, \"Here am I\" 4.\n\nThat person one night was crying, \"O Allah!\"\nThat his mouth might be sweetened thereby,\nAnd Satan said to him, \"Be quiet, O austere one!\nHow long wilt thou babble, O man of many words?\nNo answer comes to thee from nigh the throne,\nHow long wilt thou cry 'Allah' with harsh face?\"\nThat person was sad at heart and hung his head,\nAnd then beheld Khizr present before him in a vision,\nWho said to him, \"Ah! thou hast ceased to call on God,\nWherefore repentest thou of calling upon Him?\"\nThe man said, \"The answer 'Here am I' came not,\nWherefore I fear that I am repulsed from the door.\"\nKhizr replied to him, \"God has given me this command;\nGo to him and say, 'O much-tried one,\nDid not I engage thee to do my service?\nDid not I engage thee to call upon me?\nThat calling 'Allah' of thine was my 'Here am I,'\nAnd that pain and longing and ardour of thine my messenger;\nThy struggles and strivings for assistance\nWere my attractions, and originated thy prayer.\nThy fear and thy love are the cove,rt of my mercy,\nEach 'O Lord!' of thine contains many 'Here am I's.\"\nThe soul of fools is alien from this calling on God,\nBecause it is not their wont to cry, 'O Lord!'\nOn their mouths and hearts are locks and bonds, 5\nThat they may not cry to God in time of distress.\nGod gave Pharaoh abundance of riches and wealth,\nSo that he boasted that he was 'Lord Supreme.'\nIn the whole of his life he suffered no headache,\nSo that he never cried to God, wretch that he was.\nGod granted him the absolute dominion of the world,\nBut withheld from him pain and sorrow and cares;\nBecause pain and sorrow and loads of cares\nAre the lot of God's friends in the world.\nPain is better than the dominion of the world,\nSo that thou mayest call on God in secret.\nThe cries of those free from pain are dull and cold,\nThe cries of the sorrowful come from the burning hearts.\"\n*NOTES:\n1. \"Whoever eats garlic or onions must keep away from me or from the Masjid.\" (Mishkat ut Masabih, ii. 321).\n2. Koran xxiii. 110: \"He will say 'Be ye driven down into it, and address me not.'\"\n3. Rules for the call to prayer are given in Mishkat ul Masabih i. 141.\n4. Or, \"What dost thou require of me?\"\n5. Koran ii. 6.\n\nSTORY II.\nThe Villager who invited the Townsman to visit him.\n\nA certain villager paid a visit to the town, and there received hospitality from one of the townsmen. At his departure the villager was profuse of thanks, and pressed the townsman to come and see him in his village, and bring his family with him. The townsman hesitated long before accepting his invitation, having doubts as to his sincerity, and remembering the Hadis, \"Caution consists in suspecting others.\" 1 But after ten years' solicitation he at length yielded, and set off with his family to the village. On his arrival the villager shut the door in his face, saying that he did not know him, and the townsman had to pass five nights in the cold and rain. At last, exhausted with suffering, he implored the villager to give him shelter, promising to render service in return. The villager granted it on condition that he would protect his garden from the wolves. The townsman accepted this condition, and taking bow and arrows, proceeded to patrol the garden, but, owing to the rain and the darkness, and his own fears, ended by shooting the villager's pet ass in mistake for a wolf. The villager abused him roundly, saying that he himself would not have taken an ass for a wolf, even on the darkest night. The townsman replied, \"If that be so, you are self-convicted of inhumanity, for you must have recognized me, your friend of ten years' standing, the moment I knocked at your door. As for me, I am ignorant of all but Allah, and, moreover, was unable to see in the darkness; and God has said, 'No criminality is imputed to the blind.'2 But your blindness in refusing to recognize me was willful, and your claims to humanity are thus proved to be false by the test to which you have been submitted.\"\nJesus healing the sick.\nThe house of 'Isa was the banquet of men of heart,\nHo! afflicted one, quit not this door!\nFrom all sides the people ever thronged,\nMany blind and lame, and halt and afflicted,\nTo the door of the house of 'Isa at dawn,\nThat with his breath he might heal their ailments.\nAs soon as he had finished his orisons,\nThat holy one would come forth at the third hour;\nHe viewed those impotent folk, troop by troop,\nSitting at his door in hope and expectation;\nHe spoke to them, saying, \"O stricken ones!\nThe desires of all of you have been granted by God;\nArise, walk without pain or affliction,\nAcknowledge the mercy and beneficence of God!\"\nThen all, as camels whose feet are shackled,\nWhen you loose their feet in the road,\nStraightway rush in joy and delight to the halting-place,\nSo did they run upon their feet at his command.\nHow many afflictions caused by thyself to thyself\nHast thou escaped through these princes of the faith?\nHow long that lameness of thine was thy steed!\nHow seldom was thy soul void of sorrow and grief!\nO careless straggler, bind a rope upon thy feet,\nLest thou lose even thine own self!\nBut thy ingratitude and unthankfulness\nForget the honey draught thou hast sipped.\nThat road was perforce closed to thee\nWhen thou didst wound the hearts of the men of heart.\nQuick! clasp them and ask pardon of them;\nLike the clouds, shed tears of lamentation,\nSo that their rose-garden may bloom for thee,\nAnd their ripe fruits burst open of themselves.\nPress around that door, be not viler than a dog,\nIf thou wouldest rival the Seven Sleepers' dog.\nGod's claims to our gratitude.\nWhereas want of fidelity is shameful even in dogs,\nHow can it be right in men?\nGod Almighty Himself makes boast of fidelity,\nSaying, \"Who more faithful to his promise than We?\" 3\nKnow, infidelity is fidelity to God's adversary,\nNo one has pre-eminence over the rights of God.\nThe claims of a mother are less than God's, for He,\nThat bounteous One, made her debtor for thy embryo.\nHe gave thee a form whilst thou wast in her womb,\nIn her womb He gave thee needful rest and nurture.\nHe viewed her as a part united to thee,\nThen His wisdom separated that united part.\nGod devised a thousand plans and arts,\nTo make thy mother lavish affection upon thee.\nWherefore the claims of God predominate over the mother's,\nWhoso acknowledges not God's claims is a fool.\nHe who made mother and breast and milk\nUnited mother to father also, despise Him not!\nO Lord, O Ancient of days, Thy mercies,\nWhether known to us or unknown, are all from Thee!\nThou hast commanded, saying, \"Remember thy God,\"\nBecause God's claims are never exhausted!\nSince thou hast been led astray by faithless men,\nTurn now from thy evil doubts to the opposite mind.\nI am free from error and all faithlessness;\nThou must come to me and rescind evil doubts.\nCut off these evil doubts and cast them away,\nFor in the presence of such thou becomest double.\nTherefore thou hast chosen harsh friends and companions;\nIf I ask where they are thou sayest they are gone.\nThe good friend goes up to highest heaven,\nEvil friends sink beneath the bottom of the earth,\nWhilst thou art left alone in the midst, forlorn,\nEven as the fires left by the departed caravan.\"\nO brave friend, grasp His skirt,\nWho is removed alike from the world above and below;\nWho neither, like. Jesus, ascends to heaven,\nNor, like Korah, sinks into the earth;\nWho will abide with thee in the house and abroad\nWhen thou lackest house and home.\nHe will bring forth peace out of perturbations,\nAnd when thou art afllicted will keep His promise.\nHow false pretensions to sanctity are\ndistinguished from true sanctity.\nO son, a hundred thousand tests await thee,\nWhoever thou art who sayest \"I am a prince of the gate,\"\nIf the vulgar detect not such an one by tests,\nYet the skilled wayfarers seek of him a sign.\nWhen a man makes pretension to be a tailor,\nThe master places before him a piece of silk,\nSaying, \"Cut out a large head-dress,\"\nAnd failure in the test leads him to the pillory.\nIf all the evil men were not tested,\nEvery catamite would through fraud pass for a Rustam.\nSuppose he wears the semblance of one clad in mail,\nYet when wounded he is at once taken captive.\nThe God-intoxicated are not sobered by old age,\nThey remain beside themselves till the last trump.\nThe wine of God is true, and not false,\nBut thou hast drunk only sour whey.\nThou makest thyself out to be a Junaid or a Bayazid;\nGo! for do I not know a hatchet from a ploughshare?\nO plotter, how canst thou conceal by fraud\nBaseness, sloth, covetousness, and lust?\nThou holdest thyself out as a lover of God,\nBut thou hast coquetted with the evil demon.\nThe lover and the beloved on the last day\nWill be joined together and raised in sight of all.\nHow foolish and silly thou hast made thyself!\nThou hast drunk blood of grapes, nay, my blood!\nGo! for I know thee not. Get away!\nI am a lover beside himself, whose words are wild.\nThou fanciest thyself near to God,\nSaying, \"The maker of the dish is not far from the dish.\"\nKnowest thou not that the nearness of saints to God\nInvolves the power to do mighty works and signs?\nIron was as wax in the hands of David,\nWax in thy hands is as iron.\nGod's nearness and His beneficence are common to all,\nBut only eminent saints enjoy inspired love.\nNearness is of various kinds, O son,\nThe sun shines alike on rocks and on gold.\nYet the sun possesses a nearness to gold,\nWhereof the common willow has no cognizance.\nThe dry branch and the green are alike near the sun,\nDoes the sun veil himself from either?\nYet what is the nearness of that green branch,\nWherefrom thou eatest ripe fruits?\nBut as for the dry branch) from its nearness to the sun,\nWhat does it but more quickly grow dry and sapless?\nBe not intoxicated after the manner of this branch,\nWhich, when it becomes sober, has cause for repentance,\nBut, like those drunkards who, when they drink wine,\nBear ripe fruits of wisdom of penitence.\n*NOTES:\n1. Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, i. p. 370, ascribes this saying to the poet, Aqzam bin zaid.\n2. Koran xxiv. 60.\n3. Koran. ix. 112.\n\nSTORY III.\nThe Jackal who pretended to be a Peacock.\nA jackal fell into a dye-pit, and his skin was dyed of various colors. Proud of his splendid appearance, he returned to his companions, and desired them to address him as a peacock. But they proceeded to test his pretensions, saying, \"Dost thou scream like a peacock, or strut about gardens as peacocks are wont to do?\" And he was forced to admit that he did not, whereupon they rejected his pretensions. Another story, also on the subject of false pretenders, follows. A proud man who lacked food procured a skin full of fat, greased his beard and lips with it, and called on his friends to observe how luxuriously he had dined. But his belly was vexed at this, because it was hungry, and he was destroying his chance of being invited to dinner by his friends. So the belly cried to God, and a cat came and carried off the skin of fat, and so the man's false pretences were exposed. The poet takes occasion to point out that Pharaoh's pretensions to divinity exactly resembled the pretensions of this jackal, and adds that all such false pretenders may be detected by the mark noted in the Koran, \"Ye shall know them by the strangeness of their speech.\" 1 This recalls the story of Harut and Marut, two angels who were very severe on the frailties of mankind, and whom God sent down upon the earth to be tempted, with the result that they both succumbed to the charms of the daughters of men.2\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran xlvii. 32.\n2. Koran ii. 96.\n\nSTORY IV.\nMoses and Pharaoh.\nThen follows a long account of the birth of Moses, of Pharaoh's devices to kill him in his infancy, of his education in Pharaoh's house, of his desiring Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go, and of his contest with the magicians of Egypt, and his victory over them. In the course of the story the following anecdote is narrated:\nA snake-catcher, who was following his occupation in the mountains, discovered a large snake frozen by the cold, and, imagining it to be dead, he tied it up and took it to Baghdad. There all the idlers of the city flocked together to see it, and the snake, thawed by the warmth of the sun, recovered life, and immediately destroyed the spectators.\nComparison of fleshly lust to the snake.\n\nLust is that snake; How say you it is dead?\nIt is only frozen by the pangs of hunger.\nIf it obtains the state of Pharaoh,\nSo as to command the (frozen) rivers to flow,\nStraightway it is led to pride like Pharaoh's,\nAnd it plunders the goods of many a Moses and Aaron.\nThrough pressure of want this snake is as a fly,\nIt becomes a gnat through wealth and rank and luxury.\nBeware, keep that snake in the frost of humiliation,\nDraw it not forth into the sunshine of 'Iraq!\nSo long as that snake is frozen, it is well;\nWhen it finds release from frost you become its prey.\nConquer it and save yourself from being conquered,\nPity it not, it is not one who bears affection.\nFor that warmth of the sun kindles its lust,\nAnd that bat of vileness flaps its wings.\nSlay it in sacred war and combat,\nLike a valiant man will God requite you with union.\nWhen that man cherished that snake,\nThat stubborn brute was happy in the luxury of warmth;\nAnd of necessity worked destruction, O friend;\nYea, many more mischiefs than I have told.\nIf you wish to keep that snake tied up\nWithout trouble, be faithful, be faithful!\nBut how can base men attain this wish?\nIt requires a Moses to slay serpents;\nAnd a hundred thousand men were slain by his serpent,\nIn dire confusion, according to his purpose.\n\nSTORY V.\nThe Elephant in a Dark Room.\nSome Hindoos were exhibiting an elephant in a dark room, and many people collected to see it. But as the place was too dark to permit them to see the elephant, they all felt it with their hands, to gain an idea of what it was like. One felt its trunk, and declared that the beast resembled a water-pipe; another felt its ear, and said it must be a large fan; another its leg, and thought it must be a pillar; another felt its back, and declared the beast must be like a great throne. According to the part which each felt, he gave a different description of the animal. One, as it were, called it \"Dal\" and another \"Alif.\"\nComparison of the sensual eye to the\nhand of one that felt the elephant.\nThe eye of outward sense is as the palm of a hand,\nThe whole of the object is not grasped in the palm.\nThe sea itself is one thing, the foam another;\nNeglect the foam, and regard the sea with your eyes.\nWaves of foam rise from the sea night and day,\nYou look at the foam ripples and not the mighty sea.\nWe, like boats, are tossed hither and thither,\nWe are blind though we are on the bright ocean.\nAh! you who are asleep in the boat of the body,\nYou see the water; behold the Water of waters!\nUnder the water you see there is another Water moving it,\nWithin the spirit is a Spirit that calls it.\nWhere were Moses and Jesus when that Sun\nShowered down water on the fields sown with corn?\nWhere were Adam and Eve what time\nGod Almighty fitted the string to His bow?\nThe one form of speech is evil and defective;\nThe other form, which is not defective, is perfect.\nIf I speak thereof your feet stumble,\nYet if I speak not of it, woe be to you!\nAnd if I speak in terms of outward form,\nYou stick fast in that same form, O son.\nYou are footbound like the grass in the ground,\nAnd your head is shaken by the wind uncertainly.\nYour foot stands not firmly till you move it,\nNay) till you pluck it not up from the mire.\nWhen you pluck up your foot you escape from the mire,\nThe way to this salvation is very difficult.\nWhen you obtain salvation at God's hands, O wanderer,\nYou are free from the mire, and go your way.\nWhen the suckling is weaned from its nurse,\nIt eats strong meats and leaves the nurse.\nYou are bound to the bosom of earth like seeds,\nStrive to be weaned through nutriment of the heart.\nEat the words of wisdom, for veiled light\nIs not accepted in preference to unveiled light.\nWhen you have accepted the light, O beloved,\nWhen you behold what is veiled without a veil,\nLike a star you will walk upon the heavens;\nNay, though not in heaven, you will walk on high.\nKeep silence, that you may hear Him speaking\nWords unutterable by tongue in speech.\nKeep silence, that you may hear from that Sun\nThings inexpressible in books and discourses.\nKeep silence, that the Spirit may speak to you;\nGive up swimming and enter the ark of Noah;\nNot like Canaan when he was swimming,\nWho said, \"I desire not to enter the ark of Noah passing by.\"\nNoah and his unbelieving son Canaan.\nNoah cried, \"Ho! child, come into the ark and rest,\nThat you be not drowned in the flood, O weak one.\" 1\nCanaan said, \"Nay! I have learned to swim,\nI have lit a torch of my own apart from thy torch.\"\nNoah replied, \"Make not light of it, for 'tis the flood of destruction,\nSwimming with hands and feet avails naught today.\nThe wind of wrath and the storm blow out torches;\nExcept the torch of God, all are extinguished.\"\nHe answered \"Nay! I am going to that high mountain,\nFor that will save me from all harm.\"\nNoah cried, \"Beware, do not so, mountains are now as grass;\nExcept the Friend none can save thee.\"\nHe answered, \"Why should I listen to thy advice?\nFor thou desirest to make me one of thy flock.\nThy speech is by no means pleasing to me,\nI am free from thee in this world and the next.\"\nThus the more good advice Noah gave him,\nThe more stubborn refusals he returned.\nNeither was his father tired of advising Canaan,\nNor did his advice make any impression on Canaan;\nWhile they were yet talking a violent wave\nSmote Canaan's head, and he was overwhelmed.\nReconciliatian of the two traditions, \"Acquiescence in infidelity is infidelity\" and \"Whoso acquiesces not in God's ordinance desires another Lord besides me\".\nYesterday an inquirer questioned me,\nSince he was interested in the foregoing narrative,\nSaying, \"The Prophet, whose words are as a seal,\nSaid, 'Acquiescence in infidelity is infidelity.'\nAnd again, 'Acquiescence in God's ordinance\nIs incumbent on all true believers.'\nInfidelity and hypocrisy are not ordained of God;\nIf I acquiesce in them I am at variance with God.\nAnd yet, if I acquiesce not, that again is wrong;\nWhat way of escape is there from this dilemma? \"\nI said to him, \"This infidelity is ordained, not ordinance, 2\nThough this infidelity is the work of the ordinance.\nTherefore distinguish the ordinance from the ordained,\nThat thy difficulty may be at once removed.\nI acquiesce in infidelity so far as it is God's ordinance,\nNot so far as it is our evil and foul passions.\nInfidelity qua ordinance is not infidelity,\nCall not God an infidel. Set not foot in this place.\nInfidelity is folly, ordained infidelity wisdom,\nHow can mercy and vengeance be the same?\nUgliness of the picture is not ugliness of the painter,\nNot so, for he erases ugly pictures.\nThe ability of the painter is shown in this,\nThat he can paint both ugly and beautiful pictures.\nIf I should pursue this argument properly,\nSo that questions and answers should be prolonged,\nThe unction of the mystery of love would escape me,\nThe picture of obedience would become another picture.\"\nBewilderment from intense love of God puts\nan end to all thinking and argument 3.\nA certain man whose hair was half gray came in haste\nTo a barber who was a friend of his,\nSaying, \"Pluck out the white hairs from my beard,\nFor I have selected a young bride, O my son.\nThe barber cut off his beard and laid it before him,\nSaying, \"Do you part them, the task is beyond me.\"\nQuestions are white and answers black; do you choose,\nFor the man of faith knows not how to choose.\nThus, one smote Zaid a blow,\nAnd Zaid attacked him for his treachery.\nThe striker said, \"Let me first ask you a question,\nGive me an answer to it and then strike me;\nI struck your back and a bruise appeared,\nNow I ask you a question in all kindliness,\nDid this bruise proceed from my hand,\nOr from the smitten part of your back, O complainer?\"\nZaid replied, \"Through pain I am not in a condition\nTo enter upon thought and consideration of this.\nYou, who are free from pain, think this out;\nSuch trifling thoughts occur not to a man in pain.\"\nMen in pain have no time for other thoughts,\nWhether you enter mosque or Christian church.\nYour carelessness and injustice suggest thoughts\nAnd unprecedented difficulties to your imagination.\nThe man in pain cares only for the faith,\nHe is aware only of man and his work.\nHe set's God's command upon his head and face,\nAnd for thinking, he puts it aside. 4\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran xi. 44.\n2. Or \"decreed, not decree\" (maqzi nai qaza). I confess I do not understand the distinction.\n3. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 287.\n4. The four last couplets are omitted in the Bulaq edition.\n\nSTORY VI.\nThe Lover who read Sonnets to his Mistress.\n\nA lover was once admitted to the presence of his mistress, but, instead of embracing her, he pulled out a paper of sonnets and read them to her, describing her perfections and charms and his own love towards her at length. His mistress said to him, \"You are now in my presence, and these lover's sighs and invocations are a waste of time. It is not the part of a true lover to waste his time in this way. It shows that I am not the real object of your affection, but that what you really love is your own effusions and ecstatic raptures. I see, as it were, the water which I have longed for before me, and yet you withhold it. I am, as it were, in Bulgaria, and the object of your love is in Cathay. One who is really loved is the single object of her lover, the Alpha and Omega of his desires. As for you, you are wrapped up in your own amorous raptures, depending on the varying states of your own feelings, instead of being wrapped up in me.\"\nThe true mystic must not stop at mere subjective religious emotions, but seek absolute union with God. 1\nWhoso is restricted to religious raptures is but a man;\nSometimes his rapture is excessive, sometimes deficient.\nThe Sufi is, as it were, the \"son of the season,\"\nBut the pure (Safi) is exalted above season and state.\nReligious raptures depend on feelings and will,\nBut the pure one is regenerated by the breath of Jesus.\nYou are a lover of your own raptures, not of me;\nYou turn to me only in hope of experiencing raptures.\nWhoso is now defective, now perfect,\nIs not adored by Abraham; he is \"one that sets.\"\nBecause the stars set, and are now up, now down,\nHe loved them not; \"I love not them that set.\" 2\nWhoso is now pleasing and now unpleasing\nIs at one time water, at another fire.\nHe may be the house of the moon, but not the true moon;\nOr as the picture of a mistress, but not the living one.\nThe mere Sufi is the \" child of the season;\"\nHe clings to seasons as to a father,\nBut the pure one is drowned in overwhelming love.\nA child of any one is never free from season and state.\nThe pure one is drowned in the light cc that is not begotten,\"\n\"What begets not and is not begotten\" is God. 3\nGo I seek such love as this, if you are alive;\nIf not, you are enslaved by varying seasons.\nGaze not on your own pictures, fair or ugly,\nGaze on your love and the object of your desire.\nGaze not at the sight of your own weakness or vileness,\nGaze at object of your desire, O exalted one.\n*NOTES:\n1. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 850.\n2. Koran vi. 77.\n3. Koran cxii. 3.\n\nSTORY VII.\nThe Man who prayed earnestly to be fed without work.\nIn the time of the prophet David there was a man who used to pray day and night, saying, \"Thou hast created me weak and helpless; give me my daily bread without obliging me to work for it.\" The people derided him for making such a foolish petition, but he still persisted, and at last a cow ran into his house of its own accord, and he killed and ate it. This illustrates the saying of the Prophet that God loves earnest petitioners, because He regards the sincerity of the prayer more than the nature of the thing prayed for. All things praise God, but the praises of inanimate things are different from the praises of men, and those of a Sunni different from those of a Compulsionist (Jabri). Each says the other is in the way of error, but none but the truly spiritual man knows the truth.\nKnowledge or conviction, opposed to opinion.\nLittle is known by any one but the spiritual man,\nWho has in his heart a touchstone of vital truth.\nThe others, hovering between two opinions,\nFly towards their nest on a single wing.\nKnowledge has two wings, opinion only one wing;\nOpinion is weak and lopsided in its flight.\nThe bird having but one wing quickly drops down,\nAnd again flies on two steps or more.\nThis bird of opinion goes on rising and falling\nOn one wing, in hope to reach his nest.\nWhen he escapes from opinion and knowledge is seen,\nThis bird gains two wings and spreads both of them.\nAfterwards he \"goes upright on a straight path,\nNot grovelling on his face or creeping.\" l\nHe flies up on two wings even as the angel Gabriel,\nFree of opinion, of duplicity, and of vain talk.\nThough the whole world say to him,\n\"Thou art firm in the road of God's faith,\"\nHe is not made more ardent by their saying this,\nNor is his lofty soul inclined from its course.\nAnd though all say to him, \"Thou art in the wrong way\nThou thinkest thyself a rock who art but a blade of grass,\"\nHe relapses not into opinion at their rebukes,\nNor is he vexed at their malevolence.\nNay, even if sea and mountains should cry out,\nSaying, \"Thou art mated with error,\"\nHe would not relapse one jot into vain imaginations,\nNor would he be grieved by the reproaches of his foes.\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran lxvii, 22.\n\nSTORY VIII.\nThe Boys and their Teacher.\nTo illustrate the force of imagination or opinion, a story is told of a trick played by boys upon their master. The boys wished to obtain a holiday, and the sharpest of them suggested that when the master came into the school each boy should condole with him on his alleged sickly appearance. Accordingly, when he entered, one said, \"O master, how pale you are looking!\" and another said, \"You are looking very ill today,\" and so on. The master at first answered that there was nothing the matter with him, but as one boy after another continued assuring him that he looked very ill, he was at length deluded into imagining that he must really be ill. So he returned to his house, making the boys follow him there, and told his wife that he was not well, bidding her mark how pale he was. His wife assured him he was not looking pale, and offered to convince him by bringing a mirror; but he refused to look at it, and took to his bed. He then ordered the boys to begin their lessons; but they assured him that the noise made his head ache, and he believed them, and dismissed them to their homes, to the annoyance of their mothers. Apropos of the sharpness of the boy who devised this trick, the poet takes occasion to controvert the opinion of the Mu'tazalites, that all m en are born with equal ability, and to express his agreement with the doctrine of the Sunnis, that the innate capacities of men vary very greatly.\n\nSTORY IX.\nThe Darvesh who Broke his Vow.\nThere was once a Darvesh who took up his abode in the mountains, in order to enjoy perfect solitude. In that place were many fruit-trees, and the Darvesh made a vow that he would never pluck any of the fruit, but eat only what was shaken down by the wind. For a long time he kept his vow; but a time came when there was no wind, and consequently no fruit was shaken down. The Darvesh was true to his vow for five days, but ho could then endure the pangs of hunger no longer, and he stretched out his hand and plucked some of the fruit from the branches. The reason of this lapse on his part was that he had omitted to say \"If God will\" when making his vow; and as nothing can be accomplished without God's aid, ho could not possibly keep his vow. Shortly afterwards the chief of the police visited the mountains in pursuit of a band of robbers, and arrested the Darvesh along with them, and cut off his hand. When he discovered his mistake he apologized very earnestly; but the Darvesh reassured him, saying that men were not to blame, as God had evidently designed to punish him for breaking his vow 'by depriving him of the hand which had sinned in plucking the fruit. 1\nAll things dependent upon the will of God.\n\nTherefore hath God commanded, \"Make an exception,\nCouple the words 'If God will' with your vows. 2\nBecause the governance of actions is in my hands,\nThe wills of all are subject to my will.\nEvery moment I impart a fresh bias to the heart,\nEvery instant I set a fresh mark on the heart;\nEach day I am engaged in a fresh work, 3\nThere is naught that swerves from my purpose.\"\nThere is a tradition, \"The heart is like a feather\nIn the desert, which is borne captive by the winds; 4\nThe wind drives it everywhere at random,\nNow to right and now to left in opposite directions.\"\nAccording to another tradition, know the heart is like\nTo water in a kettle boiling on the fire.\nSo every moment a fresh purpose occurs to the heart,\nNot proceeding from itself, but from its situation.\nWhy, then, are you confident about the heart's purposes?\nWhy make you vows only to be covered with shame?\nAll these changes proceed from the effect of God's will;\nAlthough you see the pit, you cannot avoid it.\nThe strange thing is, not that winged fowl\nFall into the deadly snare without seeing it,\nBut that they see the snare and the limed twig,\nAnd yet fall into it, whether they will or no;\nTheir eyes and ears are open and the snare is in front,\nYet they fly into the snare with their own wings!\nComparison of the divine decrees to something\nthat is hidden, yet whose effects are seen.\nBehold that king's son clad in rags,\nWith bare head and fallen into distress;\nConsumed by lusts and riotous living,\nHaving sold all his clothes and substance;\nHaving lost house and home, utterly disgraced,\nFulfilling the desire of his enemies by his disgrace.\nIf he sees a pious man he cries, \"O sir,\nAid me, for the love of God;\nFor I have fallen into this dire disgrace;\nI have squandered goods and gold and wealth.\nAid me so that perchance I may escape hence,\nAnd extricate myself from this deep slough.\"\nHe repeats this prayer to high and low,\n\" Release me, release me, release me!\"\nHis eyes and ears are open, and he is free from bonds,\nNo jailer watches him, no chain binds him;\nWhat, then, is the bond from which he asks release?\nWhat is the prison from which ho seeks an exit?\n'Tis the bond of God's purpose and hidden decrees;\nAh! none but the pure in sight can see that bond;\nThough not visible, that bond exists in concealment;\n'Tis more stringent than prison or chains of iron,\nFor the mason can pull down prison walls,\nAnd blacksmiths can break asunder iron chains;\nBut, strange to say, this ponderous hidden bond,\nBlacksmiths are impotent to break this asunder!\nAhmad alone could see that bond on Omm Jahil's back, 5\nAnd the rope of palm fiber bound upon her neck;\nYea, he saw wood on the back of the wife of Bu Lahab,\nAnd she, the bearer of the firewood, said it was heavy.\nNo eye but his saw that rope and that firewood,\nFor to him things unseen were visible.\nThe others explained it, saying\nThat Ahmad was beside himself, and they in their senses.\nNevertheless from the weight of the load her back bent,\nAnd she complained of its weight before him,\nSaying, \"Aid me to escape from this load,\nAnd to shake off this grievous burden.\"\nHe who sees clearly these indications,\nDoes he not know also the doomed from the elect?\nYea, he knows them, yet conceals it by command of God,\nSince God permits him not to reveal it.\n*NOTES:\n1. cp. Cranmer.\n2. Koran xviii. 23.\n3. Koran lv. 29; cp. John v. 17.\n4. Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, vol. iii. p. 490.\n5. See Koran cxi.: Abu Labab, at the instigation of his wife, Omm Jahil, rejected Muhammad's claim to the prophetic office and Muhammad declared that they should be burned in the fiery flame,\" and the wife \"laden with firewood, and on her neck a rope of palm fiber.\"\n\nSTORY X.\nThe Old Man who made no Lamentation at the Death of his Sons.\n\nAfter short anecdotes of Pharaoh's magicians, of the mule who complained to the camel that he was always stumbling, and of the prophet Ezra, comes the story of the old man who wept not for the death of his sons.\nAn old man who was noted for sanctity, and who realized the saying of the Prophet, \"The 'ulama of the faith are as the prophets of Israel,\" lost all his sons, but showed no grief or regret. His wife therefore rebuked him for his want of feeling, whereupon he replied to her as follows:\nHe turned to his wife and said, \"O dame,\nThe harvest of December is not as that of July;\nThough they be dead or though they be living,\nAre they not equally visible to the eyes of the heart?\nI behold them clearly before me,\nWherefore should I disfigure my countenance like you?\nThough they have gone forth by revolution of fortune,\nThey are with me still, playing round me.\nThe cause of lamentation is separation or parting,\nBut I am still with my dear ones, and embrace them.\nOrdinary people may see them in dreams,\nBut I see them clearly, though wide awake.\nI conceal myself a while from this world,\nI shake down the leaves of outward sense from the tree.\nKnow, O wife, outward sense is captive to reason,\nAnd reason, again, is captive to spirit.\nSpirit unlooses the chained hands of reason;\nYea, it opens all things that are closed.\nSensations and thoughts resemble weeds\nWhich occupy the surface of pure water.\nThe hand of reason puts these weeds aside,\nAnd the pure water is then visible to the wise.\nWeeds in plenty cover the stream like bubbles;\nWhen they are swept aside, the water is seen;\nBut when God unlooses not the hands of reason,\nThe weeds on our water grow thick through carnal lust;\nYea, they cover up your water more and more,\nWhile your lust is smiling and your reason weeping.\nWhen fear of God binds the hands of lust,\nThen God unlooses the two hands of reason.\nThen the powerful senses are subdued by you,\nWhen you submit to reason as your commander\nThen your sleepless sense is lulled into sleep,\nThat mysteries may appear to the soul.\nYou behold visions when broad awake,\nAnd the gates of heaven are open before you.\"\n\nSTORY XI.\nBahlol and the Darvesh.\nThe foregoing story is followed by anecdotes of a blind saint who was miraculously enabled to read the Koran, of Luqman and David, and a description of the saints who, mindful of the saying, \"Patience is the key of happiness, resign themselves to the dispensations of Providence, and never pray to have them altered. The story of Bahlol and the Darvesh is then given as an example of this resignation to the will of God. Bahlol once paid a visit to a saintly Darvesh, and asked him how he fared. The Darvesh replied, \"I fare like a man who directs the course of the world as he wills, to whom death and life are subservient, and whom tho stars themselves obey.\" Bahlol then pressed him to explain his meaning more clearly, and the Darvesh replied as follows:\nHe said, \"This at least is notorious to all men,\nThat the world obeys the command of God.\nNot a leaf falls from a tree\nWithout the decree and command of that Lord of lords;\nNot a morsel goes from the mouth down the throat\nTill God says to it, 'Go down.'\nDesire and appetite, which are the reins of mankind,\nAre themselves subservient to the rule of God.\nHear this much, that, whereas the totality of actions\nIs not effected without God's direction,\nWhen the decree of God becomes the pleasure of man,\nThen man desires the fulfillment of God's decrees;\nAnd this too spontaneously, not in hope of reward,\nBut because his very nature is congruous therewith.\nHe desires not even his own life for himself,\nNor is he relying on the hope of sweets of life to come.\nWhatever path is taken by the eternal decree,\nWhether it be life or death, 'tis all one to him.\nHe lives for the sake of God, not for wealth;\nHe dies for the sake of God, not in fear and grief.\nHis faith is based on his desire to do God's will,\nNot on hope to gain paradise with its groves and founts.\nHis avoidance of infidelity is also for God's sake,\nIt proceeds not from fear of falling into the fire.\nThus this temper of his arises from his very nature,\nNot from any discipline and endeavor of his own.\nAt times he laughs when he contemplates God's pleasure,\nGod's decrees are to him as sweetmeats of sugar.\nI ask, does not the world march agreeably to the will\nAnd commands of a man rejoicing in this disposition?\nWhy, then, should such a one make prayers and petitions,\nSaying, 'O God, change such and such a decree?'\nHis own death and his children's deaths\nFor God's sake seem to him as sweets in the mouth.\nIn the view of that faithful one his children's deaths\nAre as sweetmeats to a starving beggar.\nWhy, therefore, should he make prayers\nUnless he pray for what is pleasing to God?\nThese prayers and petitions, not those of self-pity\nMake that man to be endued with salvation.\nHe utterly burned up all his self-pity,\nAt the time when he lit the lamp of love to God.\nHis love was the hell that burned up his inclinations;\nYea, ho burned up his own inclinations one by one.\"\n\nSTORY XII.\nThe Visions seen by the Saint Daquqi.\nTo illustrate the exalted state of identification of the will with the Divine will just described, the poet tells the story of the visions and mighty works of the holy Daquqi. Daquqi was journeying in pious fervor, and in hope to see the splendour of \"The Friend\" in human shape, the Ocean in a drop of water, and the Sun in an atom, when late one evening he arrived at the seashore. Turning his eyes to heaven, he saw seven great lights never before seen of men, for \"God directs whom He will.\" 1 Overwhelmed with awe, he watched these lights, and while he still watched them they united into one light. Still more amazed, he watched on, and the single light shortly assumed the likeness of seven men. Afterwards these seven men changed into seven trees; but, strange to say, although crowds of people were passing by, none of them could see these trees, so that Daquqi shared the feelings of the apostles \"who lost all hope\" (of convincing the world), \"and deemed that, they were reckoned as liars.\" 2 Possessing his soul in patience, Daquqi still watched on, and saw the seven trees bowing down in prayer, and was reminded of the text, \"Plants and trees bend in adoration.\" 3 Presently the seven trees again changed into seven men, and Daquqi was appointed to conduct their devotions. While he was yet acting as Imam in front of them, and they were following the prayers he recited, a ship was seen in great distress and all but lost. At Daquqi's earnest prayer the crew were saved, but straightway vanished from sight; and this led his followers to doubt the reality of the miracle which had just been performed before their eyes.\nDescription of a saint whose will was identified with God's will.\nThat Daquqi possessed a sweet aspect,\nAs a lover of God and a worker of miracles.\nHe resembled the moon of heaven come down on earth,\nHe was as a light to them that walked in darkness.\nHe rarely tarried in one place,\nAnd seldom stayed two days in one village.\nHe said, \"If I tarry in one house two days,\nAttachment to that house becomes a passion with me.\nI guard myself from being deceived into loving a home;\nUp! Soul, and travel in search of eternal wealth.\nMy heart's inclination is not satisfied by houses,\nSo that they should be places of temptation for me.\"\nThus by day he traveled, and by night prayed,\nHis eyes were always gazing on the King as a falcon's;\nCut off from mankind, though not for any fault,\nSevered from men and women, though not for baseness;\nHaving compassion on mankind, and wholesome as water,\nA kind intercessor, and one whose prayers were heard.\nBenevolent to the good and the bad, and a firm ally,\nBetter than a mother, and kinder than a father.\nThe Prophet said, \"To you, O blessed ones,\nI am as a father, affectionate and indulgent;\nFor this cause, that you are all portions of me.\"\nWherefore should you tear away the parts from the whole?\nIf the part be severed from its whole it is useless;\nIf a limb be rent from the body it dies.\nTill it is again joined to its whole,\n'Tis a dead thing, and a stranger to life.\nThus Daquqi, in devotions and praises and prayers,\nWas ever seeking the particular favorites of God.\nThroughout his long journeys his object was this,\nTo interchange a word with the favorites of God.\nHe cried continually as he went his way,\n\"O Lord, let me draw near to Thy chosen ones!\"\nSo Daquqi (the mercy of God be upon him!)\nSaid, \"I journeyed long time to East and to West,\nI journeyed years and months for love of that Moon,\nHeedless of the way, absorbed in God.\nWith bare feet I trod upon thorns and flints,\nSeeing I was bewildered, and beside myself, and senseless.\nThink not my feet touched the earth,\nFor the lover verily travels with the heart.\nWhat knows the heart of road and stages?\nWhat of distant and near, while it is drunk with love?\nDistance and nearness are attributes of bodies,\nThe journeys of spirits are after another sort.\nYou journeyed from the embryo state to rationality\nWithout footsteps or stages or change of place,\nThe journey of the soul involves not time and place.\nAnd my body learnt from the soul its mode of journeying,\nNow my body has renounced the bodily mode of journeying;\nIt journeys secretly and without form, though under a form.\"\nHe added, \"One day I was thus filled with longing\nTo behold in human form the splendours of 'The Friend,'\nTo witness the Ocean gathered up into a drop,\nThe Sun compressed into a single atom;\nAnd when I drew near to the shore of the sea\nThe day was drawing to a close.\"\nAll religions are in substance one and the same.\nIn the adorations and benedictions of righteous men\nThe praises of all the prophets are kneaded together.\nAll their praises are mingled into one stream,\nAll the vessels are emptied into one ewer.\nBecause He that is praised is, in fact, only One,\nIn this respect all religions are only one religion.\nBecause all praises are directed towards God's light,\nTheir various forms and figures are borrowed from it.\nMen never address praises but to One deemed worthy,\nThey err only through mistaken opinions of Him.\nSo, when a light falls upon a wall,\nThat wall is a connecting-link between all its beams;\nYet when it casts that reflection back to its source,\nIt wrongly shows great as small, and halts in its praises.\nOr if the moon be reflected in a well,\nAnd one looks down the well, and mistakenly praises it,\nIn reality he is intending to praise the moon,\nAlthough, through ignorance, he is looking down the well.\nThe object of his praises is the moon, not its reflection;\nHis infidelity arises from mistake of the circumstances.\nThat well-meaning man goes wrong through his mistake;\nThe moon is in heaven, and he fancies it in the well.\nBy these false idols mankind are perplexed,\nAnd driven by vain lusts to their sorrow.\nThe Man in the time of the Prophet David who prayed\nto be fed without having to work for his food.\n\nAfter the petitioner had slain and eaten the cow, the owner of the cow came up and accused him of theft, and seizing him by the collar, dragged him before the judgment-seat of the prophet David. When he had stated his case, David ordered the accused to make restitution, telling him that he must not break the law. At this order the accused redoubled his cries, telling David that he was siding with an oppressor. David was staggered at the man's assurance, and finally resolved to take further time for consideration before deciding the case. After private meditation he re-versed his former sentence, and directed the plaintiff to relinquish his claim. On the plaintiff refusing to do this, and stoutly protesting against David's injustice. David further ordered that all the plaintiff's goods should be given to the accused. The reason for this decision was, that David discovered the plaintiff had formerly slain the grandfather of the accused, and stolen all his goods. David then led all the Mosalmans to a tree in the desert where the murder had been perpetrated, and there put the murderer to death.\nThe hands and feet of criminals betray\ntheir crimes even in this world.\nHe of himself lifted the veil that hid his crime;\nHad he not done so, God would have kept it hidden.\nCriminals and sinners, even in the course of sinning,\nThemselves rend the coverings of their crimes.\nTheir sins are veiled among the heart's secrets,\nYet the criminal himself exposes them to view,\nSaying, \"Behold me wearing a pair of horns,\nA cow of hell in sight of all men.\"\nThus, even here, in the midst of thy sin, thy hand and foot\nBear witness of the secrets of thy heart.\nThy secret thought is as a governor who says to thee,\n\"Tell forth thy convictions, withhold them not;\"\nEspecially in seasons of passion and angry talk\nIt betrays thy secrets one by one.\nThy secret sins and crimes govern hand and foot,\nSaying, \"Disclose us to men, O hand and foot!\"\nAnd since these witnesses take the bit in their mouths,\nEspecially in times of passion and wrath and revenge,\nTherefore the same God who appointed this governor\nTo blazen forth thy secret sins to the world\nIs also able to create many more governors\nTo divulge thy secret sins on the day of judgment. 4\nO man whose only handiwork is crime and sin;\nThy secret sins are manifest; no divulging is needed.\nThere is no need to proclaim thy sins,\nAll men are cognizant of thy sin-burnt heart.\nThy soul every moment casts up sparks of fire,\nWhich say, \"See me a man destined to the fire;\nI am a part of the fire, and go to join my whole;\nNot a light, so that I should join the Source of light.\"\nComparison of lust to the murderer in the story.\nKill thine own lust and give life to the world;\nIt has killed its lord, reduce it to servitude.\nThat claimant of the cow is thy lust; Beware!\nIt has made itself lord and master.\nThat slayer of the cow is thy reason; Go!\nBe not obdurate to the prayers of him that kills the cow.\nReason is a poor captive, and ever cries to God\nFor meat on its dish without laboring and toiling.\nOn what depends its getting meat without toiling?\nOn its killing the cow of the body, the source of evil.\nLust says, \"Why hast thou killed my cow?\"\nIt says, \"Because lust's cow is the form of the body.\" 5\nReason, the Lord's child, has become a pauper,\nLust, the murderer, has become a lord and chief.\nKnow'st thou what is meat untoiled for?\n'Tis the food of spirits and the aliment of the Prophet.\nBut it is attainable only by slaying the cow;\nTreasure is gained by digging, O digger of treasure!\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran lv. 5.\n2. Koran xii. 110.\n3. Koran ii. 136.\n4. \"On that day shall their hands speak unto us, and their feet shall bear witness of that which they have done\" (Koran xxxvi. 65).\n5. Bahau-'d-Din Amili, in his Nan wa Halwa, chap. iv., compares lust to a cow, referring to Koran ii. 63.\n\nSTORY XIII.\nThe People of Saba.\nAfter an anecdote of 'Isa being obliged to ascend a mountain to get away from the fools comes the story of the men of Saba. \"A sign there was to Saba in their dwelling-places two gardens, the one on the right hand and the other on the left; 'Eat ye of your Lord's supplies, and give thanks to Him; goodly is the country and gracious is the Lord.' But they turned aside, so we sent upon them the flood of lram. Such was our retribution on them for their ingratitude.\" 1 The men of Saba were all fools, and brought destruction on themselves by their ingratitude to God. One was far-sighted, and yet blind; another sharp of hearing, and yet deaf; and a third naked, and yet wearing a long robe. Avarice is blind to its own faults, but sees those of others; the sharp-eared deaf man hears death approaching others, but not himself, and the long-robed naked man is he who fears robbers, though he has nothing to lose. In fact, all these men of Saba were afflicted with follies and self-delusions of this kind, and gave no thanks to God for the blessings which they enjoyed. Accordingly thirteen prophets were sent to admonish them, but their admonitions were not listened to, the men of Saba questioning their divine mission and demanding a miracle as a sign. They also told the prophets a parable of a clever hare, who, wishing to frighten an elephant away from a fountain, went to the elephant, pretending to be an ambassador from the moon.2 The prophets were naturally indignant at the effrontery of the men of Saba in misapplying parables to discredit their divine mission, and reminded them that wicked men had flouted the prophet Noah in the same way when he was warning them of the flood. And they demonstrated at length how the men of Saba had misapplied the parable of the hare and the elephant, and again adjured them to believe. But the men of Saba continued refractory, and would not, accept the Prophets' counsels. They plied the prophets with the arguments of the Compulsionists (Jabriyan), and refused to be convinced of the fallacy of their reasoning. So at last the prophets despaired of them, and left them to their doom.\nNot every one can properly use similitudes and parables in divine matters.\nThe faculty of using similitudes is peculiar to a saint\nWho is signally marked by knowledge of hidden mysteries.\nWhat know you of the mystery hid in aught, that you\nIn your folly should use similitudes of curl and cheek?\nMoses took his staff to be a stick, though it was not;\nIt was a serpent, and its mystery was revealed.\nIf a saint such as he knew not the mystery of a stick,\nWhat know you of the mystery of the snare and grains?\nWhen the eye of a Moses erred as to a similitude,\nHow can a presumptuous mouse understand one?\nThose similitudes of yours are changed into serpents\nTo tear you into pieces with their jaws.\nSuch a parable did cursed Iblis use,\nSo that he became cursed of God till the day of doom.\nSuch a parable did Korah use in his argument,\nSo that he was swallowed up in the earth with his wealth.\nSuch parables know to be as crows and owls,\nWhereby a hundred households are annihilated.\nWhen Noah was building the ark in the desert,\nA hundred parable-mongers attacked him with irony,\nSaying, \"In the desert, where is no water or well,\nHe builds a boat! What ignorant folly is this!\"\nThe arguments of the Jabriyan, i.e., the Fatalists or Compulsionists.\nThe men of Saba said, \"O preachers, enough!\nWhat you say is enough, if there are any wise here.\nGod has placed a 'lock upon our hearts,' 3\nAnd no man can overcome the Creator.\nThat great Painter has painted us thus;\nHis painting cannot be altered by argument.\nKeep telling forever a stone to become a ruby,\nKeep telling forever the old to become young!\nTell earth to assume the quality of water,\nBid water to become honey or milk!\nGod is the creator of heaven and them that dwell therein;\nAlso of water and of earth, and them that dwell therein;\nTo heaven He gave its revolutions and its purity,\nTo the earth its dark look and appearance.\nCan the heaven will to become as dregs?\nCan earth will to assume the clearness of pure wine?\nThat Person has assigned 'to each its lot,\nCan mountain by endeavor become as grass?\"\nThe prophets answered, \"Verily God has created\nSome qualities in you which you cannot alter;\nBut He has created other accidental qualities,\nWhich, being objectionable, may be made good.\nBid stone become gold that is impossible;\nBid copper become gold that is possible.\nBid sand bloom as a rose it cannot;\nBid dust turn to mud that is within its capacity.\nGod has sent some pains for which there is no cure,\nSuch, for instance, as lameness, loss of nose, and blindness.\nGod has sent other pains for which there are cures,\nTo wit, crooked mouth and headache.\nGod has ordained these remedies of His mercy;\nThe use of these in pain and anguish is not in vain.\nNay, the majority of pains may be cured;\nWhen you seek those cures earnestly you find them.\"\nThe men of Saba replied, \"O men, these pains of ours\nAre not of the sort 'that admit of cure.\nLong time ye utter these presages and warnings,\nBut our bonds are made thereby heavier every moment.\nIf our sickness admitted of a cure,\nIt would certainly have been lessened by your spells.\nWhen the body is obstructed water reaches not the liver,\nThough one drinks the ocean, it passes elsewhere.\nThen of course the hands and feet become dropsical,\nAnd. yet that draught does not quench his thirst.\"\nThe prophets replied, \"To despair is wrong,\nThe mercy and grace of God are boundless.\nOne must not despair of the grace of such a Benefactor,\nOne must cling to the stirrup-straps of God.\nAh! many are the conditions which at first are hard,\nBut, are afterwards relieved and lose their harshless.\nOftentimes hope succeeds to hopelessness,\nMany times does sunlight succeed to darkness.\nWe admit that ye are weighted as with stones,\n_And that ye have locks upon your ears and your hearts. 4\nNo condition of ours is altogether as we wish,\nOur business is to be resigned and to obey.\nGod has enjoined this servitude upon us;\nWe say not this merely on our own authority.\nWe enjoy life on condition of doing His will;\nIf He bids us, we sow our seed upon the sand.\nThe soul of the prophet cares for naught but God,\nIt has naught to do with approving or disapproving His works.\"\nThe men of Saba replied, \"If ye yourselves are happy,\nYe make us miserable and annoy and disturb us.\nOur souls were void of all anxieties,\nAnd ye have plunged us into cares and anxieties.\nThe comfort and harmony which we enjoyed heretofore\nHave been rent in pieces by your evil presages.\nWe used to be as parrots munching sugar,\nYe have made us as fowls brooding on death.\nOn every side stories inspiring anxiety,\nOn every side sounds exciting fears:\nOn every side in the world an evil presage,\nOn every side evil portents threatening punishment:\nThis is the burden of your parables and presages,\nThis the purport of your awe-inspiring stories.\"\nThe prophets replied, \"Our evil presages\nAre corroborated by the state of your souls.\nSuppose you are sleeping in a place of danger,\nAnd serpents are drawing near to bite your heads,\nA kind friend will inform you of your danger,\nSaying, 'Jump up, lest the serpent devour you.'\nYou reply, 'Why do you utter evil presages?'\nHe answers, 'What presage? Up, and see for yourself!\nBy means of this evil presage I rouse you,\nAnd release you from danger and lead you to your home.'\nLike a prophet he warns you of hidden danger,\nFor a prophet sees what worldlings cannot see.\"\nMercy inclines the good to devotion, but vengeance the bad.\nIf you do a kindness to a generous man, 'tis fitting,\nFor each kindness he will return seven hundredfold.\nWhen you treat a base man with scorn and contumely,\nHe will become your slave in all sincerity.\nInfidels when enjoying prosperity do wrong,\nWhen they are in hell they cry, \"O our Lord!\"\nFor base men are purified when they suffer evil,\nAnd when they enjoy prosperity they do evil.\nWherefore the mosque of their devotion is hell,\nAs the snare is the fetter of wild fowl.\nThe prison is the hermitage of the wicked thief,\nFor when he is there he is ever crying to God.\nWhereas the object of man's being is to worship God,\nHell is ordained as a place of worship for the proud; 5\nMan has the power to engage in any actions soever,\nBut worship of God is the main object of his existence.\nRead the text, 6 \"I have not created Jinns and men but to worship me.\"\nThe only object of the world is to worship God.\nThough the object of a book is to teach an art,\nIf you make a pillow of it, it serves that purpose too.\nYet its main object is not to serve as a pillow,\nBut to impart knowledge and useful instruction.\nIf you use a sword for a tent-peg,\nYou prefer the worse use of it to the better.\nThough the object of all men's being is wisdom,\nYet each man has a different place of worship.\nThe place of worship of the noble is nobility,\nThe place of worship of the base is degradation.\nSmite the base to make them bow the head.\nGive to the noble to make them repay liberally.\nInasmuch as the base are evil and arrogant,\nHell and humbling are the \"small gate\" for them.\nVerily God has created two places of adoration,\nHell for the base and increased bliss for the noble.\nEven so Moses made a small gate in Jerusalem, 7\nTo make the Israelites bow the head in entering it.\nThe discussion is continued and illustrated by anecdotes of the Sufi who preferred a table with no food upon it, because he ever sought \"not-being,\" of Jacob's vision of Joseph, and of a devout slave who obtained leave of his master to say his prayers in a mosque, but tarried there so long that the doors were shut, and he could not get out, nor his master in. The prophets at last despaired of making any impression upon the unbelievers, but called to mind the text \"When at last the Apostles lost all hope, and deemed that they were reckoned as liars, our aid reached them, and we delivered whom we would, but our vengeance was not averted from the wicked.\" 8\nThe despair of the prophets.\nThe prophets said, \"How long, in our benevolence,\nShall we give to this and that one good advice?\nHow long shall we hammer cold iron in vain?\nHow long waste breath in blowing into a lattice?\nMen are moved by God's decree and fixed ordinance, 9\nAs sharp-set teeth are caused by heat of belly.\n'Tis Primal Soul that dominates the Second Soul,10\nFish begins to stink at the head, not the tail.\nYet be advised and keep your steed straight as an arrow,\nWhen God says 'Proclaim' we must obey. 11\nO men, ye know not to which party ye belong, 12\nExert yourselves then, till ye see which ye are.\nWhen you place goods upon a ship,\nYou do it in trust that the voyage will be prosperous;\nYou know not which of the two events will befall you,\nWhether you will be drowned or come safe to land.\nIf you say, 'Till I know which will be my fate\nI will not set foot upon the ship;\nShall I be drowned on the voyage or a survivor?\nReveal to me in which class I shall be.\nI shall not undertake the voyage on the chance\nOn the bare hope of reaching land, as the rest do.'\nIn that case no trade at all will be undertaken by you,\nAs the secret of these two events is always hidden.\nThe lamp of the heart, that is a timid trader,\nAcquires neither loss nor gain by its ventures.13\nNay, it acquires loss, for it is precluded from gain;\n'Tis the lamp that takes fire that acquires light.\nSince all things are dependent on probability,\nReligion is so first of all, for thereby you find release.\nIn this world no knocking at the door is possible\nSave hope, and God knows what is best.\"\nProbability the guide of life in religion as well as in common matters. \"Religion dependent an hope and fear.\" 14\nThe final cause of trading is hope or probability,\nWhen traders work themselves lean as spindles. 15\nWhen the merchant goes to his shop in the morning,\nHe does so in hope and probability of gaining bread.\nIf you have no hope of getting bread, why go?\nThere is the fear of loss, since you are not strong.\nBut does not this fear of utter loss in your trade\nBecome weakened in the course of your exertions?\nYou say, \"Although the fear of loss is before me,\nYet I feel greater fear in remaining idle.\nI have a better hope through exerting myself;\nMy fear is increased by remaining idle.\"\nWhy then, O faint-hearted one, in the matter of religion\nAre you paralysed by the fear of loss?\nSee you not how the traders in this market of ours\nMake large profits, both apostles and saints?\nWhat a mine of wealth awaits them on leaving it,\nSeeing they make such profits while still here!\nFire is soft to them as cotton raiment,\nThe ocean bears them gently like a porter;\nIron in their hands is soft as wax,\nThe winds are their obedient slaves.\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran xxxiv. 14.\n2. Anvar i Suhaili, chap. iv. Story IV.\n3. Koran xxxvi. 6.\n4. Koran lxi. 5: \"God led their hearts astray.\"\n5. God said, \"Come ye either in obedience, or in spite of your wishes\" (Koran xli. 10).\n6. Koran li. 56.\n7. See Koran ii. 55, with Sale's note.\n8. Koran xii. 11.\n9. \"All things have we created after a fixed decree, every action great and small is written.\" Koran liv. 49.\n10. The Logos or first Emanation produced the second or \"Universal Soul.\"\n11. \"O Apostle! proclaim all that hath been sent down\" (Koran v. 71).\n12. \"Which party,\" i.e., those doomed to be saved or those doomed to destruction.\n13. \"Nothing shall be reckoned to a man save that for which he hath made effort\" (Koran liii. 40).\n14. So Sa'di Bostan Book I. Cp. Butler's Analogy, Conclusion.\n15. i.e., exert themselves much.\n\nSTORY XIV.\nMiracles performed by the Prophet Muhammad.\n\nIt is related that the Prophet was once present at a banquet, and after he had eaten and drunk, his servant Anas threw the napkin which he had used into the fire, and the napkin was not burnt, 'but only purified by the fire. On another occasion a caravan of Arabs was traveling in the desert, and was in sore distress through lack of water, whereupon the Prophet miraculously increased the water in a single water-skin, so that it sufficed to supply the needs of all the travelers. Moreover, the negro who carried the water-skin was rendered as white and fair as Joseph. Again, a heathen woman came to the Prophet carrying her infant, aged only two months, and the infant saluted the Prophet as the veritable apostle of God. Again, when the prophet was about to put on his sandals, an eagle swooped down upon one of them and carried it off, when a viper was seen to drop from the sandal. The Prophet was at first inclined to grumble at this stroke of ill-luck; but when he saw the viper his discontent was turned into thankfulness to God, who had thus miraculously saved him from being bitten by the viper.\nIn difficulties there is provided a way of salvation 1.\nIn this tale there is a warning for thee, O Soul,\nThat thou mayest acquiesce in God's ordinances,\nAnd be wary and not doubt God's benevolence,\nWhen sudden misfortunes befall thee.\nLet others grow pale from fear of ill fortune,\nDo thou smile like the rose at loss and gain;\nFor the rose, though its petals be torn asunder,\nStill smiles on, and it is never cast down.\nIt says, \"Why should I fall into grief in disgrace?\nI gather beauty even from the thorn of disgrace.\"\nWhatsoever is lost to thee through God's decree\nKnow of a surety is so much gained from misfortune.\nWhat is Sufiism? 'Tis to find joy in the heart\nWhensoever distress and care assail it.\nKnow troubles to be that eagle of the Prophet's\nWhich carried off the sandal of that holy one,\nIn order to save his foot from the bite of the viper\nO excellent device! to preserve him from harm.\n'Tis said, \"Mourn not for your slaughtered cattle\nIf a wolf has harried your flocks;\"\nFor that calamity may avert a greater calamity,\nAnd that loss may ward off a more grievous loss.\n*NOTES:\n1. Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, vol. iii. p. 334.\n\nSTORY XV.\nThe Man who asked Moses to teach him the language of animals.\nA certain man came to Moses and desired to be taught the language of animals, for, he said, men used their language only to get food and for purposes of deception, and possibly a knowledge of animals' languages might stimulate his faith. Moses was very unwilling to comply with his request, as he knew such knowledge would prove destructive to him, but, on his persisting, took counsel of God, and finally taught him the language of fowls and dogs. Next morning the man went amongst the fowls, and heard a discussion between the cock and the dog. The dog was abusing the cock for picking up the morsels of bread which fell from their master's table, because the cock could find plenty of grains of corn to eat, whereas the dog could only eat bread. The cock, to appease him, said that on the morrow the master's horse would die, and then the dog would have enough and to spare. The master, hearing this, at once sold his horse, and the dog, being disappointed of his meal, again attacked the cock. The cock then told him the mule would die, whereupon the master sold the mule. Then the cock foretold the death of a slave, and the master again sold the slave. At this the dog, losing patience, upbraided the cock as the chief of deceivers, and the cock excused himself by showing that all three deaths had taken place just as he had predicted, but the master had sold the horse, mule, and slave, and had thrown the loss on others. He added that, to punish him for his fraudulent dealing, the master would himself die on the morrow, and there would be plenty for the dog to eat at the funeral feast. Hearing this, the master went to Moses in great distress, and prayed to be saved. Moses besought the Lord for him, and gained permission that he should die in the peace of God.\nWhy freewill is good for man.\nGod said, \"Do thou grant his earnest request,\nEnlarge his faculty according to his freewill.\nFreewill is as the salt to piety,\nOtherwise heaven itself were matter of compulsion.\nIn its revolutions reward and punishment were needless,\nFor 'tis freewill that has merit at the great reckoning.\nIf the whole world were framed to praise God,\nThere would be no merit in praising God.\nPlace a sword in his hand and remove his impotence,\nTo see if he turns out a warrior or a robber.\nBecause freewill is that wherewith 'we honor Adam,' 1\nHalf the swarm become bees and half wasps.\nThe faithful yield honeycombs like bees,\nThe infidels yield store of poison like wasps.\nFor the faithful feed on choice herbs,\nSo that, like bees, their chyle yields life-giving food,\nWhilst infidels feed on filth and garbage,\nAnd generate poison according to their food.\"\nMen inspired of God are the fountain of life;\nMen of delusions are a synonym for death.\nIn the world the praise \"Well done faithful servant!\"\nIs given to freewill which is used with prudence.\nIf all dissolute men were shut up in prison,\nThey would all be temperate and devout and pious.\nWhen power of choice is absent actions are worthless;\nBut beware lest death snatch away your capital!\nYour power of choice is a capital yielding profit,\nRemember well the day of final account!\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran xvii. 72.\n\nSTORY XVI.\nThe Woman who lost all her infants.\nA woman bore many children in succession, but none of them lived beyond the age of three or four months. In great distress she cried to God, and then beheld in a vision the beautiful gardens of Paradise, and many fair mansions therein, and upon one of these mansions she read her own name inscribed. And a voice from heaven informed her that God would accept the sorrows she had endured in lieu of her blood shed in holy war, as, owing to her sex, she was unable to go out to battle like the men. On looking again, the woman beheld in Paradise all the children she had lost, and she cried, \"O Lord ! they were lost to me, but were safe with Thee!\"\nThis story is followed by anecdotos of Hamza going out to battle without his coat-of-mail, of the Prophet advising a man who complained of being cheated in his bargains to take time before completing them, and of the death of Bilal, Muhammad's crier, and by illustrations of the illusive nature of the world, of the difference between things self-evident and mere matters of inference, and between knowing a thing through illustrations and on the authority of others and knowing it as it really is in its essence.\nThe difference between knowing a thing merely by similitudes and on the authority of others, and knowing the very essence thereof.\nGod's mercy is known through the fruits thereof,\nBut who save God knows His essence? 1\nNo one knows the very essence of God's attributes\nBut only in their effects and by similitudes.\nA child knows naught of the nature of sexual intercourse,\nExcept what you tell him, that it is like sweetmeats.\nYet how far does the pleasure of sexual intercourse\nReally resemble that derived from sweetmeats?\nNevertheless the fiction produces a relation\nBetween you, with your perfect knowledge, and the child;\nSo that the child knows the matter by a similitude,\nThough he knows not its essence or actual nature.\nHence if he says, \"I know it,\" 'tis not far wrong\nAnd if he says, \"I know it not,\" 'tis not wrong.\nShould one say, \"Do you know Noah,\nThat prophet of God and luminary of the Spirit?\"\nIf you say, \"Do I not know him, for that moon\nIs more famed than the sun and moon of heaven?\nLittle children in their schools,\nAnd elders in their mosques,\nAll read his name prominently in the Koran,\nAnd preachers tell his story from times of yore;\"\nYou say true, for you know him by report,\nThough the real nature of Noah is not revealed to you.\nOn the other hand, if you say, \"What know I of Noah\nAs his contemporaries knew him?\nI am a poor ant what can I know of the elephant?\nWhat knows a fly of the motions of the elephant?\"\nThis statement also is true, O brother,\nSeeing that you know not his real nature.\nBut this impotence to perceive real essence,\nThough common to ordinary men, is not universal;\nBecause essence and its deepest secrets\nAre open and manifest to the eyes of the perfect.\nNegation and affirmation of one proposition are lawful;\nWhen the aspects differ the relation is double.\n\"Thou castest not when thou castest\" 2 shows such relation,\nHere negation and affirmation are both correct.\nThou castest it, since it is in thy hand,\nThou castest not, since 'tis God who affords the strength.\nThe might of the sons of Adam is limited,\nHow can a handful of sand shatter an army?\nThe sand was in man's hands, the casting was God's.\nOwing to the two relations negation and affirmation are both true.\nThe infidels know the prophets,\nAs well as they doubtless know their own children;\nYea, the infidels know them as well as their own sons,\nBy a hundred tokens and a hundred evidences,\nBut from envy and malice conceal their knowledge,\nAnd incline themselves to say, \"We know them not.\"\nSo when God says in one place \"knows them,\"\nIn another He says, \"None knows them beside me.\"\nFor in truth they are hid under God's overshadowing, 3\nAnd none but God knows them by actual experience.\nTherefore take this declaration with its context,\nRemembering how you know and do not know Noah.\n*NOTES:\n1. There is a Hadis, \"Think on God's mercies, and not on His essence.\"\n2. Koran viii. 17. Said of the sand cast into the eyes of the men of Mecca at Beder.\n3. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 354, where the commentator says the allusion is to Moses at Mount Sinai. Koran vii. 139.\n\nSTORY XVII.\nThe Vakil of the Prince of Bokhara.\nThe Prince of Bokhara had a Vakil who, through fear of punishment for an offence he had committed, ran away and remained concealed in Kuhistan and the desert for the space of ten years. At the end of that time, being unable to endure absence from his lord and his home any longer, he determined to return to Bokhara and throw himself at his lord's feet, and endure whatever punishment his lord might be pleased to inflict upon him. His friends did all they could to dissuade him, assuring him that the Prince's wrath was still hot against him, and that if he appeared at Bokhara he would be put to death, or at least imprisoned for the rest of his life. He replied, \"O advisers, be silent, for the force of the love which is drawing me to Bokhara is stronger than the force of prudent counsels. When love pulls one way all the wisdom of Abu Hanifa and Ash-Shafi'i is impotent to withstand it. If it shall please my lord to slay me, I will yield up my life without reluctance, for this life of estrangement from him which I am now leading is the same as death, and release from it will be eternal happiness. I will return to Bokhara and throw myself at my lord's feet, and say to him, 'Deal with me as thou wilt, for I can no longer bear absence from thee, and life or death at thy hands is all the same to me!'\" Accordingly, he journeyed back to Bokhara, counting the very toils and discomforts of the road sweet and delightful, because they were steps in his homeward course. When he reached Bokhara his friends and relations all warned him not to show himself, as the Prince was still mindful of his offence and bent on punishing him; but he replied to them as to his other advisers, that he was utterly regardless of his life, and was resolved to commit himself to his lord's good pleasure. He then went to the court and threw himself at his lord's feet and swooned away. The Prince, seeing the strong affection borne to him by his repentant servant, conceived a similar affection towards him, and descended from his throne and graciously raised him from the ground, and pardoned his offence. Thus it is that eternal life is gained by utter abandonment of one's own life. When God appears to His ardent lover the lover is absorbed in Him, and not so much as a hair of the lover remains. True lovers are as shadows, and when the sun shines in glory the shadows vanish away. He is a true lover of God to whom God says, \"I am thine, and thou art mine!\"\nIn the course of this story, which is narrated at great length, are introduced anecdotes of a lover and his mistress, of the Virgin Mary being visited by the \"Blessed Spirit\" or Angel Gabriel, 1 of the fatal mosque, of Galen's devotion to carnal learning, of Satan's treachery to the men of Mecca at the battle of Bedr, 2 and of Solomon and the gnat. There also occur comments on various texts, and a curious comparison of the trials and wholesome afflictions of the righteous to the boiling of potherbs in a saucepan by the cook.\nThe reply of the lover when asked by his mistress which city of all those he had seen was most pleasing in his sight.\n\nA damsel said to her lover, \"O fond youth,\nYou have visited many cities in your travels;\nWhich of those cities seems most delightful to you?\"\nHe made answer, \"The city wherein my love dwells.\nIn whatever nook my queen alights,\nThough it be as the eye of a needle, 'tis a wide plain;\nWherever her Yusuf-like face shines as a moon,\nThough it be the bottom of a well, 'tis Paradise.\nWith thee, my love, hell itself were heaven,\nWith thee a prison would be a rose-garden.\nWith thee hell would be a mansion of delight,\nWithout thee lilies and roses would be as flames of fire!\"\nThe answer of the Vakil to those who advised him not to court death by yielding himself up to his lord.\nHe said, \"I am a drawer of water; water attracts me,\nEven though I know water may be my death.\nNo drawer of water flees from water,\nEven though it may cause him a hundred deaths.\nThough it may make my hand and belly dropsical,\nMy love for water will never be lessened.\nI should say, when they asked me about my belly,\n'Would that the ocean might flow into it!'\nThough the bottle of my belly were burst with water,\nAnd though I should die, my death would be acceptable.\nWheresoever I see one seeking water, I envy him,\nAnd cry, 'Would I were in his place!'\nMy hand is a tabor and my belly a drum,\nLike the rose I beat the drum of love of water.\nLike the earth or like a fetus I devour blood,\nSince I became a lover this is my occupation.\nIf that 'Faithful Spirit' should shed my blood,\nI would drink it up drop by drop like the earth.\nAt night I boil on the fire like a cooking-pot,\nFrom morn till eve I drink blood like the sand.\nIt repents me that I planned a stratagem,\nAnd that I fled from before his wrath.\nTell him to sate his wrath on my poor life,\nHe is the 'Feast of Sacrifice,' and I his loving cow. 3\nThe cow, whether it eats or sleeps,\nThinks of naught but sacrificing itself.\nKnow me to be that cow of Moses which gave its life,\nEach part of me gives life to the righteous.\nThat cow of Moses was made a sacrifice,\nAnd its least part became a source of life.\nThat murdered man leapt up from his deadness\nAt the words, ' Strike the corpse with part of her.' 4\nO pious ones, slay the cow (of lust),\nIf ye desire true life of soul and spirit!\nI died as inanimate matter and arose a plant,\nI died as a plant and rose again an animal. 5\nI died as an animal and arose a man.\nWhy then should I fear to become less by dying?\nI shall die once again as a man\nTo rise an angel perfect from head to foot!\nAgain when I suffer dissolution as an angel,\nI shall become what passes the conception of man!\nLet me then become non-existent, for non-existence\nSings to me in organ tones, 'To him shall we return.' 6\nKnow death to be the gathering together of the people.\nThe water of life is hidden in the land of darkness.\nLike a water-lily seek life there!\nYea, like that drawer of water, at the risk of life,\nWater will be his death, yet he still seeks water,\nAnd still drinks on, and God knows what is right.\nO lover, cold-hearted and void of loyalty,\nWho from fear for your life shun the beloved!\nO base one, behold a hundred thousand souls\nDancing towards the deadly sword of his love:\nBehold water in a pitcher; pour it out;\nWill that water run away from the stream?\nWhen that water joins the water of the stream\nIt is lost therein, and becomes itself the stream.\nIts individuality is lost, but its essence remains,\nAnd hereby it becomes not less nor inferior.\nI will hang myself upon my lord's palm-tree\nIn excuse for having fled away from him!\"\nEven as a ball rolling along on head and face,\nHe fell at the feet of the Prince with streaming eyes.\nThe people were all on the alert, expecting\nThat the Prince would burn him or hang him,\nSaying, \"Moth-like he has seen the blaze of the light,\nAnd fool-like has plunged therein and lost his life.\"\nBut the torch of love is not like that torch,\n'Tis light, light in the midst of light,\n'Tis the reverse of torches of fire,\nIt appears to be fire, but is all sweetness.\nLove generates love. \"If ye love God, God will love you\" 7\nThat. Bokharian then cast himself into the flame,\nBut his love made the pain endurable;\nAnd as his burning sighs ascended to heaven,\nThe love of the Prince was kindled towards him.\nThe heart of man is like the root of a tree,\nTherefrom grow the leaves on firm branches. 8\nCorresponding to that root grow up branches\nAs well on the tree as on souls and intellects.\nThe tops of the perfect trees reach the heavens,\nThe roots firm, and the branches in the sky.\nSince then the tree of love has grown up to heaven,\nHow shall it not also grow in the heart of the Prince?\nA wave washes away the remembrance of the sin from his heart,\nFor from each heart is a window to other hearts.\nSince in each heart there is a window to other hearts,\nThey are not, separated and shut off like two bodies.\nThus, even though two lamp-dishes be not joined,\nYet their light is united in a single ray.\nNo lover ever seeks union with his beloved,\nBut his beloved is also seeking union with him.\nBut the lover's love makes his body lean,\nWhile the beloved's love makes hers fair and lusty.\nWhen in this heart the lightning spark of love arises,\nBe sure this love is reciprocated in that heart.\nWhen the love of God arises in thy heart,\nWithout doubt God also feels love for thee.\nThe noise of clapping of hands is never heard\nFrom one of thy hands unaided by the other hand\nThe man athirst cries, \"Where is delicious water?\"\nWater too cries, \"Where is the water-drinker?\"\nThis thirst in my soul is the attraction of the water;\nI am the water's and the water is mine.\nGod's wisdom in His eternal foreknowledge and decree\nMade us to be lovers one of the other.\nNay more, all the parts of the world by this decree\nAre arranged in pairs, and each loves its mate.\nEvery part of the world desires its mate,\nJust as amber attracts blades of straw.\nHeaven says to earth, \"All hail to thee!\nWe are related to one another as iron and magnet.\"\nHeaven is man and earth woman in character;\nWhatever heaven sends it, earth cherishes.\nWhen earth lacks heat, heaven sends heat;\nWhen it lacks moisture and dew, heaven sends them.\nThe earthy sign 9 succours the terrestrial earth,\nThe watery sign (Aquarius) sends moisture to it;\nThe windy sign sends the clouds to it,\nTo draw off unwholesome exhalations.\nThe fiery sign (Leo) sends forth the heat of the sun,\nLike a dish heated red-hot in front and behind.\nThe heaven is busily toiling through ages,\nJust as men labor to provide food for women.\nAnd the earth does the woman's work, and toils\nIn bearing offspring and suckling them.\nKnow then earth and heaven are endued with sense,\nSince they act like persons endued with sense.\nIf these two lovers did not suck nutriment from each other,\nWhy should they creep together like man and wife?\nWithout the earth how could roses and saffron grow?\nFor naught can grow from the sole heat and rain of heaven.\nThis is the cause of the female seeking the male,\nThat the work of each may be accomplished.\nGod has instilled mutual love into man and woman,\nThat the world may be perpetuated by their union.\nEarth says to the earth of the body, \"Come away,\nQuit the soul and come to me as dust.\nThou art of my genus, and wilt be better with me,\n'Thou had'st better quit the soul and fly to me!\"\nBody replies \"True, but my feet are fast bound,\nThough like thee I suffer from separation.\"\nWater calls out to the moisture of the body,\n\"O moisture, return to me from your foreign abode!\"\nFire also calls out to the heat of the body,\n\"Thou art of fire; return to thy root!\"\nIn the body there are seventy-and-two diseases;\nIt is ill compacted owing to the struggle of its elements.\nDisease comes to rend the body asunder,\nAnd to drag apart its constituent elements.\nThe four elements are as birds tied together by the feet;\nDeath, sickness and disease loose their feet asunder.\nThe moment their feet are loosed from the others,\n'The bird of each element flies off by itself.\nThe repulsion of each of these principles and causes\nInflicts every moment a fresh pang on our bodies.\nThat it may dissolve these composite bodies of ours,\nThe bird of each part tries to fly away to its origin;\nBut the wisdom of God prevents this speedy end,\nAnd preserves their union till the appointed day.\nHe says, \"O parts, the appointed time is not yet;\nIt is useless for you to take wing before that day.\"\nBut as each part desires reunion with its original,\nHow is it with the soul who is a stranger in exile?\nIt says, \"O parts of my habitation here below,\nMy absence is sadder than yours, as I am heaven-born.\nThe body loves green pastures and running water,\nFor this cause that its origin is from them.\nThe love of the soul is for life and the living one,\nBecause its origin is the Soul not bound to place.\nThe love of the soul is for wisdom and knowledge,\nThat of the body for houses, gardens, and vineyards;\nThe love of the soul is for things exalted on high,\nThat of the body for acquisition of goods and food.\nThe love too of Him on high is directed to the soul:\nKnow this for 'He loves them that love Him.'\" 10\nThe sum is this, that whoso seeks another,\nThe soul of that other who is sought inclines to him.\nLet us quit the subject. Love for that soul athirst\nWas kindled in the breast of the Prince of Bokhara.\nThe smoke of that love and the grief of that burning heart\nAscended to his master and excited his compassion.\nThe praises addressed to the Prince by the Vakil.\n\nHe said, \"O phoenix of God and goal of the spirit\nI thank thee that thou hast come back from Mount Qaf!\nO Israfil of the resurrection-day of love,\nO love, love, and heart's desire of love!\nLet thy first boon to me be this,\nTo lend thine ear to my orisons.\nThough thou knowest my condition clearly,\nO protector of slaves, listen to my speech.\nA thousand times, O prince incomparable,\nHas my reason taken flight in desire to see thee,\nAnd to hear thee and to listen to thy words,\nAnd to behold thy life-giving smiles.\nThy inclining thine ear to my supplications\nIs as a caress to my misguided soul.\nThe baseness of my heart's coin is known to thee,\nBut thou hast accepted it as genuine coin.\nThou art proud towards the arrogant and proud;\nAll clemencies are as naught to thy clemency.\nFirst hear this, that while I remained in absence,\nFirst and last alike escaped me.\nSecondly, hear this. O prince beloved,\nThat I searched much, but found no second to thee.\nThirdly, that when I had departed outside thee,\nI said it was like the Christian Trinity. 11\nFourthly, when my harvest was burned up,\nI knew not the fourth from the fifth.\nWheresoever thou findest blood on the roads,\nTrace it, and 'tis tears of blood from my eyes.\nMy words are thunder, and these sighs and tears\nAre drawn by it as rain from the clouds.\nI am distracted between speaking and weeping.\nShall I weep, or shall I speak, or what shall I do?\nIf I speak, my weeping ceases;\nIf I weep, I cease to praise and magnify thee.\"\nHe spoke thus, and then fell to weeping,\nSo that high and low wept with him.\nSo many \"Ahs\" and \"Alases\" proceeded from his heart,\nThat the people of Bokhara formed a circle round him.\nTalking sadly, weeping sadly, smiling sadly,\nMen and women, small and great, were all assembled.\nThe whole city wept in concert with him;\nMen and women mingled together as on the last day.\nThen Heaven said to Earth,\n\"If you never saw a resurrection-day, see it here!\"\nReason was amazed, saying, \"What love, what ecstasy!\nIs his separation more wondrous, or his reunion?\"\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran xix. 18.\n2. Koran viii. 10.\n3. The Id ul Azha, or the Feast of Sacrifices, held on the tenth day of the month Zul Hijja. It is also called \"The Cow Festival.\"\n4. This refers to Koran ii. 63. The cow was to be sacrificed in order that a murderer might be discovered by striking the corpse with a piece of her flesh.\n5. i.e., Earth losing its own form becomes vegetable, vegetable again perishes to feed and be transmuted into animal, , and in like manner animal becomes man. See the passage of Milton quoted below, and Gulshan i Raz, I. 490 and note.\n6. Koran ii. 153: \"Verily we are God's, and to Him shall we return.\"\n7. Koran iii. 29.\n8. \"Seest thou not to what God likeneth a good word? To a good tree, its root firmly fixed, and its branches in the heaven\" (Koran xiv. 29).\n9. i.e., of the zodiac.\n10. Koran v. 59.\n11. \"They surely are infidels who say, 'God is the third of three,' for there is no God but one God\" (Koran v. 77).\n\nSTORY XVIII.\nThe Deadly Mosque.\n\nIn the suburbs of a certain city there was a mosque in which none could sleep a night and live. Some said it was haunted by malevolent fairies; others, that it was under the baneful influence of a magic spell; some proposed to put up a notice warning people not to sleep there, and others advised that the door should be kept locked. At last a stranger came to that city and desired to sleep in the mosque, saying that he did not fear to risk his life, as the life of the body was naught, and God has said, \"Wish for death if you are sincere.\" 1 The men of the city warned him again and again of the danger, and rebuked him for his foolhardiness, reminding him that not improbably Satan was tempting him to his own destruction, as he tempted the men of Mecca at the battle of Bedr. 2 The stranger, however, would not be dissuaded, but persisted in his purpose of sleeping in the mosque. He said that he was as one of the devoted agents of the Ismailians, who were always ready to sacrifice their lives at the bidding of their chiefs, and that the terrors of death did not appal him any more than the noise of a little drum beaten by a boy to scare away birds could appal the great drum-bearing camel that used to march at the head of King Mahmud's army. Accordingly, he slept in the mosque, and at midnight he was awakened by a terrible voice, as of one about to attack him. But instead of being dismayed, he bethought himself of the text \"Assault them with thy horsemen and thy footmen,\" 3 and confronted his unseen foe, challenging him to show himself and stand to his arms. At these words the spell was dissipated, and showers of gold fell on all sides, which the brave hero proceeded to appropriate.\nThe \"knowledge of certainty\" and the \"eye of certainty\".\nOur body and substance are snow, doomed to perish,\nGod is He who buys them, for \"God hath bought them.\" 4\nYou prefer this perishing snow to God's price\nBecause you are in doubt and have not certainty;\nAnd, strange to say, opinion abides in you, O weak one,\nAnd never flies away to the garden of certainty.\nEvery opinion is aiming at certainty, O son,\nAnd more and more moves its wings towards certainty.\nWhen it reaches knowledge it stands erect,\nAnd its knowledge again hastes on towards certainty,\nBecause in the approved road of the faith\nKnowledge is lower than certainty, but above opinion.\nKnow knowledge aspires to certainty,\nAnd certainty again to sight and ocular evidence.\nIn the chapter, \"Desire of riches occupieth you,\" 5\nAfter \"Nay,\" read \"Would that ye knew!\"\nKnowledge conducts you to sight, O knower!\n\"If ye are certain, ye shall see hell-fire.\"\nSight follows on certainty with no interval,\nJust as reasoned knowledge is born of opinion.\nSee the account of this in the chapter cited,\nHow knowledge of certainty becomes the eye of certainty.\nAs for me, I am above both opinion and certainty;\nMy head is not affected by your cavils.\nSince my mouth has eaten of His sweetmeats,\nI am become clear-sighted, and see him face to face!\nThe righteous are exposed to trials for their improvement, as potherbs are boiled to make them fit for food.\n\nBehold these potherbs boiling in the pot,\nHow they jump and toss about in the heat of the fire.\nWhilst they are boiling, they keep leaping up,\nEven to the top of the pot, and utter cries,\nSaying to the housewife, \"Why do you set us on the fire?\nNow you have bought us, why should you afflict us?\"\nThe housewife pushes them down with her spoon, saying,\n\"Be still, and boil well, and leap not off the fire.\nI do not boil you because I dislike you,\nBut that you may acquire a good savor and taste.\nWhen you become food you will be mingled with life;\nThis trial is not imposed on you to distress you.\nIn the garden you drank water soft and fresh;\nThat water-fed one was reserved for this fire.\nMercy was first shown to it before vengeance,\nThat mercy might train it to be proof against trial;\nMercy was shown to it previously to vengeance,\nThat it might acquire its substance of being.\nBecause flesh and skin grow not without tender care,\nHow should they not grow when warmed by the Friend's love.\nIf vengeance follows as a necessary consequence,\nThat you may make an offering of that substance,\nMercy follows again to compensate for it,\nThat you may be purified and raised above your nature.\nI am Abraham, and you his son under the knife.\nLay down your head! 'I have seen I must sacrifice you.' 6\nYield your head to vengeance, your heart to constancy,\nThat I may cut your throat like an Ismailian's.\nI cut off your head, but that head is such\nThat it is restored to life by being cut off!\"\nMy main object herein is to inculcate resignation,\nO Mosalman! it behoves you to seek resignation. 7\nO potherbs, you boil in trials and sufferings\nThat neither existence nor self may remain in you.\nThough you once smiled in that earthly garden,\nYou are really roses of the garden of life and sight.\nIf you are torn away from the garden of earth,\nYou become sweet food to revive man's life;\nYea, become his food and strength and thought! 8\nYou were only milk, you become a lion of the forest!\nYou issue from God's attributes at first;\nReturn again back to those attributes with all speed!\nYou come from the clouds and sunshine and sky,\nThen assume moral qualities and ascend the sky.\nYou come in the form of rain and sunshine,\nYou depart endued with excellent attributes.\nYou begin as a part of the sun, clouds, and stars,\nYou rise to be breath, act, word, and thought!\nThe life of animals comes from the death of plants.\nTrue is the saying, 'Kill me, O faithful ones!'\nSince such exaltation awaits us after death.\nTrue it is that 'In our death is life.'\nActs, words, and faith are the food of the King,\nSo that in this ascent one attains to heaven.\nThus, as potherbs become the food of men,\nThey rise above the grade of minerals to that of animals.\nObjections of fools to the Masnavi.\nA certain goose pops his head out of his coop,\nAnd displays himself as a critic of the Masnavi,\nSaying, \"This poem, the Masnavi, is childish;\n'Tis but a story of the prophets, and so on.\n'Tis not an account of the arguments and deep mysteries,\nWhereto holy men direct their attention;\nConcerning asceticism, and so on to self-annihilation,\nStep by step, up to communion with God;\nAn explanation and definition of each several state,\nWhereto the men of heart ascend in their flight.\"\nWhereas the Book of God resembles the Masnavi in this,\nThe infidels abused it, in the same manner,\nSaying, 'It contains old tales and stories; 9\nThere is no deep analysis or lofty investigation therein.\nLittle boys can understand it;\nIt only contains commands and prohibitions,\nAccounts of Yusuf and his curled locks,\nAccounts of Jacob, of Zulaikha and her love,\nAccounts of Adam, of the wheat, and of the serpent Iblis,\nAccounts of Hud, of Noah, of Abraham, and the, fire.\"\nKnow the words of the Koran are simple,\nBut within the outward sense is an inner secret one. 10\nBeneath that secret meaning is a third,\nWhereat the highest wit is dumbfoundered.\nThe fourth meaning has been seen by none\nSave God, the Incomparable and All-sufficient.\nThus they go on, even to seven meanings, one by one,\nAccording to the saying of the Prophet, without doubt.\nDo thou, O son, confine not thy view to the outward meaning,\nEven as the demons saw in Adam only clay. 11\nThe outward meaning of the Koran is like Adam's body,\nFor its semblance is visible, but its soul is hidden.\nO reviling dog! thou makest a clamour,\nThou makest thy abuse of the Koran thy destruction. 12\nThis is not a lion, wherefrom thou canst save thy life,\nOr canst secure thyself from his talons!\nThe Koran cries out even to the last day,\n\"O people, given up as a prey to ignorance,\nIf ye have imagined me to be only empty fables,\nYe have sown the seed of reviling and infidelity.\nYe yourselves who abuse me will see yourselves\nAnnihilated, and made like a tale that is told!\"\nSolomon and the gnat.\nA gnat came in from the garden and fields,\nAnd called on Solomon for justice,\nSaying, \"O Solomon, you extend your equity\nOver demons and the sons of Adam and fairies.\nFish and fowl dwell under the shelter of your justice;\nWhere is the oppressed one whom your mercy has not sought?\nGrant me redress, for I am much afflicted,\nBeing cut off from my garden and meadow haunts.\"\nThen Solomon replied, \"O seeker of redress,\nTell me from whom do you desire redress?\nWho is the oppressor, who, puffed up with arrogance\nHas oppressed you and smitten your face?\"\nThe gnat replied, \"He from whom I seek redress is the Wind,\n'Tis he who has emitted the smoke of oppression at me;\nThrough his oppression I am in a grievous strait,\nThrough him I drink blood with parched lip!\"\nSolomon replied to him, \"O sweet voiced one,\nYou must hear the command of God with all your heart.\nGod has commanded me saying, 'O dispenser of justice,\nNever hear one party without the other!'\nTill both parties come into the presence,\nThe truth is never made plain to the judge.\"\nWhen the Wind heard the summons, it came swiftly,\nAnd the gnat instantly took flight.\nIn like manner the seekers of God's presence-seat,\nWhen God appears, those seekers vanish.\nThough that union is life eternal,\nYet at first that life is annihilation.\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran ii. 88.\n2. Koran viii. 50\n3. Koran xvii. 66.\n4. \"Verily of the faithful hath God bought their persons and their substance, on condition of Paradise for them in return\" (Koran ix. 112).\n5. \"The desire of riches occupieth you till ye come to the grave. Nay! but in the end ye shall know. Nay! would that ye knew it with knowledge of certainty. Surely ye shall see hell-fire. Ye shall surely see it with the eye of certainty\" (Koran cii.)\n6. Koran xxxvii. 101.\n7. According to its etymology. Islam means self-surrender to God as well as safety, peace, and obedience to divine laws.\n8. Cp. Milton, Paradise Lost, v. 482:\n\"Flow'rs and their fruit,\nMan's nourishment, by gradual scale sublim'd,\nTo vital spirits aspire, to animal,\nTo intellectual.\"\n9. Koran xxvii. 7.\n10. There is a Hadis to the effect that each word of the Koran has seven meanings. See Koran iii. 5.\n11. Koran xvii. 63.\n12. The Lucknow commentator says that Faizi (brother of Abul Fazl Akbar's minister) once spoke disrespectfully of the Koran and the Masnavi, and on the leaves being turned over, this passage presented itself.\nThe book ends with the beginning of a story which is finished in the fourth book.",
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