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

This is followed by an anecdote of a lover who recounted to his mistress all the services he had done, and all the toils he had undergone for her sake, and inquired if there was anything else he could do to testify the sincerity of his love. His mistress replied, "All these things you have done are but the branches of love; you have not yet attained to the root, which is to give up life itself for the sake of your beloved." The lover accordingly gave up his life, and enjoyed eternal fruition of his love, according to the text, "O thou soul which art at rest, return to thy Lord, pleased, and pleasing Him." 6 This is followed by a statement of the doctrine of the jurist Abu hanifa, to whose school the poet belonged, that weeping, even aloud, during prayer does not render the prayers void, provided that the weeping be caused by thoughts of the world to come, and not by thoughts of this present world. 7 And, apparently in allusion to the name Abu Hanifa, the poet recalls the text, "They followed the faith of Abraham, the orthodox" (Hanifun). 8

NOTES:

• 1. Koran iii. 22.
• 2. Koran xcvi. 9.
• 3. Koran xvi. 70.
• 4. Koran ci. 5.
• 5. Koran xv. 17. The sin of Iblis was his envy of Adam.
• 6. Koran lxxxix. 27
• 7. Mishkat ul Masabih, i. p. 209, note.
• 8. Koran iv. 124.

STORY VI. The Disciple who blindly imitated his Shaikh.

An ignorant youth entered an assembly of pious persons who were being addressed by a holy Shaikh. He saw the Shaikh weeping copiously, and in mere blind and senseless imitation he copied the Shaikh's behavior, and wept as copiously himself, though he understood not a word of the discourse. In fact, he behaved just like a deaf man who sees those around him laughing, and laughs himself out of compliment to them, though he knows not the subject of their merriment, and is obliged to have it explained to him before he can laugh again with real perception of the joke. After he had wept in this ignorant way for some time he made due obeisance to the Shaikh, and took his departure. But one of the Shaikh's true disciples, being jealous for the honor of his master, followed him, and thus addressed him, "I adjure you by Allah that you go not and say, 'I saw the Shaikh weeping, and I too wept like him.' Your ignorant and mere imitative weeping is totally unlike the weeping of that holy saint. Such weeping as his is only possible to one who has, like him, waged the spiritual war for thirty years. His weeping is not caused by worldly grieves, but by the deep concerns of the spirit. You cannot perceive by reason or sense the spiritual mysteries that are open and plain to his enlightened vision, any more than the darkness can behold the light. His breathings are as those of 'Isa, and not like mere human sighs raised by worldly sorrows. His tears and his smiles and his speeches are not his own, but proceed from Allah. Fools like you are ignorant of the motive and design of saints' actions, and therefore only harm themselves if they try to imitate them, without understanding their meaning." To illustrate this a curious story is told of a foolish lady who copied a trick of her clever slave-girl, without understanding the modus operandi, and by so doing caused her own death. In like manner parrots are taught to speak without understanding the words. The method is to place a mirror between the parrot and the trainer. The trainer, hidden by the mirror, utters the words, and the parrot, seeing his own reflection in the mirror, fancies another parrot is speaking, and imitates all that is said by the trainer behind the mirror. So God uses prophets and saints as mirrors whereby to instruct men, being Himself all the time hidden behind these mirrors, viz., the bodies of these saints and prophets; and men, when they hear the words proceeding from these mirrors, are utterly ignorant that they are really being spoken by "Universal Reason" or the "Word of God" behind the mirrors of the saints.

The worthlessness of mere blind imitation (taqlid) of religious exercises. When a friend tells a joke to his friend, The deaf man who listens laughs twice over; The first time from imitation and foolishness, Because he sees all the party laughing; Yet, though he laughs like the others, He is then ignorant of the subject of their laughter; Then he inquires what the laughter was about, And, on hearing it, proceeds to laugh a second time. Wherefore the blind imitator is like a deaf man, In regard to the joy he feigns to feel. The light is the Shaikh's, the fountain the Shaikh's, And the outpouring of joy is also the Shaikh's, not his. 'Tis like water in a vessel, or light through a glass; If they think they come from themselves, they are wrong. When the vessel leaves the fountain, it sees its error; It sees the water in it comes from the fountain. The glass also learns, when the moon sets, That its light proceeded from the shining of the moon. When his eyes are opened by the command, "Arise!" 1 Then that disciple smiles a second time, like the dawn. He laughs also at his own previous laughter, Which overtook him out of mere blind imitation. When he returns from his long and distant wanderings He says, "Lo! this was the truth, this the secret! With what blindness and misconception did I pretend. To experience joy in that distant valley? What a delusion I was under! what a mistake! My feeble wit conjured up vain imaginations." How can an infant on the road know the thoughts of men? How far its fancies are removed from true knowledge! The thoughts of infants run on the nurse and milk, Or on raisins or nuts, or on crying and wailing. The blind imitator is like a feeble infant, Even though he possesses fine arguments and proofs.