Masnavi i Ma'navi — trans. E. H. Whinfield (abridged) (1898)

• 1. Koran ii. 262.
• 2. Koran xv. 72.
• 3. Koran ix. 33.
• 4. Koran lxxiii. 20.
• 5. Koran xxxiii. 33.
• 6. Koran vii. 171.
• 7. "Islam is the baptism of God" (Koran ii. 132).
• 8. Koran xcii. 4.
• 9. Koran xxxii. 30. i.e., Wait thou for their punishment, as they wait for thy downfall (Rodwell).
• 10. Here we have another Platonic doctrine. "Some say the belief of the Sufis is the same as that of the Ishraqin (Platonists)." Dabistan i Muzahib, by Shea and Troyer, iii. 281.
• 11. I.e., I will recognize the nonentity of all this phenomenal being, and court self-annihilation.
• 12. The Bulaq translator renders An naward thus.
• 13. The "Indelible Tablet" (of God's decrees) is here applied to the Logos-the channel through whom God renews the "world of creation" day by day.
• 14. Koran xxxvi. 29.
• 15. Koran lxvii. 2.

STORY II. The Arab and his Dog.

The doctrine of the Mu'tazilites, 1 mentioned, that all men's intellects are alike and equal at birth, is again controverted, and the poet dwells on the essential differences which characterize the intellects akin to Universal Reason or the Logos, and those swayed by partial or carnal reason; the former, like the children of Israel, seeking exaltation through self-abasement; and the others, like Pharaoh, running after worldly rank and power, to their own destruction. In order to make probation of men, as already explained, God fills the world with deceptions, 2 making apparent blessings destructive to us, and apparent evils salutary. On the other hand, if men try to deceive God, they fail signally. Hypocritical weeping and wailing like that of Joseph's brethren is at once detected by God. Thus a certain Arab had a dog to which he was much attached; but one day the dog died of hunger. He at once began to weep and wail, and disturbed the whole neighborhood by his ostentatious grief One of the neighbors came and inquired into the matter, and on hearing that the dog had died of hunger, he asked the Arab why he had not fed him from the wallet of food which he had in his hand. The Arab said that he had collected this food to support himself, and made it a principle not to part with any of it to any one who could not pay for it; but that, as his tears cost him nothing, he was pouring them forth in token of the sorrow he felt for his dog's death. The neighbor, on hearing this, rebuked him for his hypocrisy, and went his way. Then follows a commentary on the text, "Almost would the infidels strike thee down with their very looks when they hear the reading of the Koran." 3

NOTES:

• 1. The Mu'tazilites were one of the principal unorthodox sects. See Sale, Prelim. Disc., p. 112.
• 2. "Of them who devise stratagems, God is beast" (Koran iii. 47).
• 3. Koran lxviii. 51.

STORY III. The Sage and the Peacock.