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6
383-407

  • When you keep watch (over your thoughts and actions) continually, you are always seeing the (Divine) justice and the (Divine) Judge, O misguided man;
  • And if you shut your eyes because you have veiled yourself (in heedlessness), (yet) how should the sun relinquish its work?
  • How the King (Mahmúd) revealed to the Amírs and those who were intriguing against Ayáz the reason of his superiority to them in rank and favour and salary, (explaining it) in such a manner that no argument or objection was left for them (to bring forward).
  • When the Amírs boiled over with envy (of Ayáz), at last they taunted their King, 385
  • Saying, “This Ayáz of thine has not thirty intellects: how should he consume the salary of thirty Amírs?”
  • The King, accompanied by the thirty Amírs, went out to hunt in the desert and mountain-land.
  • The monarch descried a caravan in the distance: he said to an Amír, “Go, man of weak judgement,
  • Go and ask that caravan at the custom-house from what city they are arriving.”
  • He went and asked and returned, saying, “From Rayy.” “Whither bound?” asked the King. He (the Amír) was unable (to reply). 390
  • (Then) he said to another (Amír), “Go, noble lord, and ask whither the caravan is bound.”
  • He went and returned and said, “For Yemen.” “Ha,” said the King, “what is their merchandise, O trusty one?”
  • He (the Amír) remained (silent) in perplexity. (Then) the King said to another Amír, “Go and inquire (what is) the merchandise of those people.”
  • He came back and said, “It is of every sort; the greater part consists of cups made in Rayy.”
  • He (the King) asked, “When did they set out from the city of Rayy?” The dull-witted Amír remained (silent) in perplexity. 395
  • So (it went on) till thirty Amírs and more (had been tested): (all were) feeble in judgement and deficient in (mental) power.
  • (Then) he said to the Amírs, “One day I put my Ayáz to the test separately,
  • Saying, ‘Inquire of the caravan (and find out) whence it comes.’ He went and asked all these questions (just) right.
  • Without instructions, without a hint (from me), he apprehended everything concerning them, point by point, without any uncertainty or doubt.”
  • Everything that was discovered by these thirty Amírs in thirty stages was completed by him (Ayáz) in one moment. 400
  • How the Amírs endeavoured to rebut that argument by the Necessitarian error and how the King answered them.
  • Then the Amírs said, “This is a branch (species) of His (God's) providential favours: it has nothing to do with (personal) effort.
  • The fair face of the moon is bestowed on it by God, the sweet scent of the rose is the gift of Fortune.”
  • “Nay,” said the Sultan, “that which proceeds from one's self is the product of (one's own) remissness and the income derived from (one's own) labour.
  • Otherwise, how should Adam have said unto God, ‘O our Lord, verily we have wronged ourselves’?
  • Surely he would have said, ‘This sin was from Fate: since it was destiny, what does our precaution avail?’ 405
  • Like Iblís, who said, ‘Thou hast led me astray: Thou hast broken the cup and art beating me.’”
  • Nay, (the Divine) destiny is a fact and the slave's (man's) exertion (of power) is a fact: beware, do not be blind of one eye, like the tatterdemalion Iblís.