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

What sort of man dost thou think him who sports as a boy,
But who has no comprehension of these chief matters?
o thou who hast seen the delight of my connnandments,
And risked thy life to perform them faithfully,
Hear a tale of the sweetness of my commandments,
That the meaning of this sweetness may be made plain.

The story which follows is one in which Ayaz is himself the chief actor, and hence it may perhaps be inferred that this part of the poem had not received its final revision when the poet died. The king showed to all his courtiers in turn a valuable jewel, and asked them its value. Each declared it to be priceless. He thereupon ordered each of them to break it to pieces, but they refused, one after the other; on which he praised them highly and gave them presents. Finally the jewel came into the hands of Ayaz, and he, not being a mere imitator like the rest, nor being tempted by the rewards given to the rest, decided that the king's command ought to be obeyed at all costs, and therefore broke the jewel to pieces. Blind imitation of current fashions and ruling "public opinion" is the way of the world, but its worthlessness is at once manifested when it is put to the test. True faith is a reasonable faith, not one adopted and held in mechanical and parrot-like fashion. The king then commanded that those courtiers whose faith had been shown to be mere "taqlid" or imitation, and not vital and intelligent, should be put to death; but Ayaz interceded for them, saying, "O Lord, punish them not if they forget or fall into sin;"13 although their plea that they sinned through forgetfulness is of no more weight than the plea of having sinned through drunkenness, seeing that both forgetfulness and drunkenness are willfully incurred. Those who die in amity with God have no cause to fear death, "It cannot harm them, for to their Lord will they return;"14 but those who die at enmity with God are in a very different position, and have therefore a very strong claim for mercy. The Egyptian magicians, when threatened by Pharaoh with death for believing in Moses, recognized the truth that death in such a cause would unite them with God, and that extinction of the phenomenal self, on which Pharaoh prided himself, would bring them to the real Self from whom they had been estranged by life on earth. Like Habib, the carpenter of Antioch, who was martyred for taking the part of 'Isa's two apostles in that city, they said, "O that my people knew how gracious God hath been to me, and that He hath made me one of His honored ones!" 15 A man can only say "I" with truth when he has mortified self and unlearnt to say "I" in the sense in which Pharaoh said it. Fakhru-'d-Din Razi 16 discoursed learnedly on this point, saying much of "incarnation" and "union" as the modes in which the real "I" of the Deity indwells in the human soul; but as he lacked the true mystic unction, his words only serve to darken counsel. 17 But here Ayaz breaks off; saying, "Who am I that I should say to the Almighty, 'Grant pardon to these offenders'?" The Omniscient God needs not to be informed of their case, for He knows all; nor to be reminded of it, for He forgets nothing; nor to be urged to act mercifully, for He created men "for their own benefit, and not to derive benefit from them." Such intercession, therefore, implies ignorance of God, and "such only of His servants as are possessed of knowledge of God truly fear God." 18 God is at once center and circumference of the universe, and the only true wisdom consists in absolute self-surrender to His will, and this surrender of self will bring with it its own exceeding great reward.

NOTES:

• 1. Alluding to Story vii. Book II.
• 2. Koran xxvii. 19.
• 3. Koran xxxiii. 23.
• 4. i.e., are based on hearsay.
• 5. "When God manifested Himself to the mount He turned it to dust, and Moses fell in a swoon" (Koran vii. 139). As the bat cannot endure the sight of the sun, men cannot at once endure the full blaze of the beatific vision.
• 6. A proverb which is not given by Freytag.
• 7. Ideas and types lead men on to actual sight when they are strong enough to bear it. Job xlii. 5.
• 8. Koran xlv. 23.
• 9. Place of refuge, i.e., heavenly visions; a foretaste of the world to come (Gulshan i Raz, I. 679).
• 10. Koran cix. 6.
• 11. Koran xliii. 31.
• 12. Cp. Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, vol ii. p. 165.
• 13. Koran ii. 286.
• 14. Koran xxvi. 50.
• 15. Koran xxxvi. 25.
• 16. A great theologian of Khorasan who lived from A.D. 1150 to 1210. De Slane's Ibn Khallikan, ii. 652.
• 17. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 453, note.
• 18. Koran xxxv. 25.

PROLOGUE.