In the hour of pain and death thou turnest in that direction: how, when thy pain is gone, art thou ignorant?
وقت درد و مرگ آن سو می‌نمی ** چونک دردت رفت چونی اعجمی
At the time of tribulation thou hast called unto God, (but) when the tribulation is gone, thou sayest, “Where is the way?”
وقت محنت گشته‌ای الله گو ** چونک محنت رفت گویی راه کو
This is because (thou dost not know God): every one that knows God without uncertainty is constantly engaged in that (commemoration of Him),
این از آن آمد که حق را بی گمان ** هر که بشناسد بود دایم بر آن
While he that is veiled in intellect and uncertainty is sometimes covered (inaccessible to spiritual emotion) and sometimes with his collar torn (in a state of rapture).
وانک در عقل و گمان هستش حجاب ** گاه پوشیدست و گه بدریده جیب
The particular (discursive) intellect is sometimes dominant, sometimes overthrown; the Universal Intellect is secure from the mischances of Time.1145
Sell intellect and talent and buy bewilderment (in God): betake thyself to lowliness, O son, not to Bukhárá!
عقل بفروش و هنر حیرت بخر ** رو به خواری نه بخارا ای پسر
Why have I steeped myself in the discourse, so that from story-telling I have become a story?
ما چه خود را در سخن آغشته‌ایم ** کز حکایت ما حکایت گشته‌ایم
I become naught and (unsubstantial as) a fable in making moan (to God), in order that I may gain influence over (the hearts of) them that prostrate themselves in prayer.
من عدم و افسانه گردم در حنین ** تا تقلب یابم اندر ساجدین
This (story of Moses and Pharaoh) is not a story in the eyes of the man of experience: it is a description of an actual (spiritual) state, and it is (equivalent to) the presence of the Friend of the Cave.
این حکایت نیست پیش مرد کار ** وصف حالست و حضور یار غار
That (phrase) “stories of the ancients,” which the disobedient (infidels) applied to the words of the Qur’án, was a mark of (their) hypocrisy.1150
آن اساطیر اولین که گفت عاق ** حرف قرآن را بد آثار نفاق