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2
580-629

  • The fancy of power and wealth before his eye is just as a hair in the eye, 580
  • Except, to be sure, (in the case of) the intoxicated (saint) who is filled with God: though you give (him) treasures (vast riches), he is free;
  • (For) when any one enjoys vision (of God), this world becomes carrion in his eyes.
  • But that Súfí was far removed from (spiritual) intoxication; consequently he was night-blind (purblind) in (his) greed.
  • The man dazed by greed may hear a hundred stories, (but) not a single point comes into the ear of greed.
  • How the criers of the Cadi advertised an insolvent round the town.
  • There was an insolvent person without house or home, who remained in prison and pitiless bondage. 585
  • He would unconscionably eat the rations of the prisoners; on account of (his) appetite he was (a burden) like Mount Qáf on the hearts of the people (in the gaol).
  • No one had the pluck to eat a mouthful of bread, because that snatcher of portions would carry off his entire meal.
  • Any one who is far from the feast of the Merciful (God) has the eye of a (low) beggar, though he be a sultan.
  • He (the insolvent) had trodden virtue underfoot; the prison had become a hell on account of that robber of bread.
  • If you flee in hope of some relief, on that side also a calamity comes to meet you. 590
  • No corner is without wild beasts; there is no rest but in the place where you are alone with God.
  • The corner (narrow cell) of this world's inevitable prison is not exempt from the charges for visitors and (the cost of) housewarming.
  • By God, if you go into a mouse-hole, you will be afflicted by some one who has the claws of a cat.
  • Man has fatness from (thrives on) fancy, if his fancies are beautiful;
  • And if his fancies show anything unlovely he melts away as wax (is melted) by a fire. 595
  • If amidst snakes and scorpions God keep you with the fancies of them that are (spiritually) fair,
  • The snakes and scorpions will be friendly to you, because that fancy is the elixir which transmutes your copper (into gold).
  • Patience is sweetened by fair fancy, since (in that case) the fancies of relief (from pain) have come before (the mind).
  • That relief comes into the heart from faith: weakness of faith is despair and torment.
  • Patience gains a crown from faith: where one hath no patience, he hath no faith. 600
  • The Prophet said, “God has not given faith to any one in whose nature there is no patience.”
  • That same one (who) in your eyes is like a snake is a picture (of beauty) in the eyes of another,
  • Because in your eyes is the fancy of his being an infidel, while in the eyes of his friend is the fancy of his being a (true) believer;
  • For both the effects (belief and unbelief) exist in this one person: now he is a fish and now a hook.
  • Half of him is believer, half of him infidel; half of him cupidity, half of him patience (and abstinence). 605
  • Your God has said, “(Some) of you (are) believing”; (and) again, “(Some) of you (are) unbelieving” (as) an old fire-worshipper.
  • (He is) like an ox, his left half black, the other half white as the moon.
  • Whoever sees the former half spurns (him); whoever sees the latter half seeks (after him).
  • Joseph was like a beast of burden in the eyes of his brethren; at the same time in the eyes of a Jacob he was like a houri.
  • Through evil fancy the (bodily) derivative eye and the original unseen eye (of the mind) regarded him (Joseph) as ugly. 610
  • Know that the outward eye is the shadow of that (inward) eye: whatever that (inward) eye may see, this (outward) eye turns to that (eye).
  • You are of where, (but) your origin is in Nowhere: shut up this shop and open that shop.
  • Do not flee to the (world of the) six directions, because in directions there is the shashdara, and the shashdara is mate, mate.
  • How the prisoners laid a complaint of the insolvent's high-handedness before the agent of the Cadi.
  • The prisoners came to complain to the Cadi's agent, (who was) possessed of discernment,
  • Saying, “Take now our salutations to the Cadi and relate (to him) the sufferings inflicted on us by this vile man; 615
  • For he has remained in this prison continuously, and he is an idle gad-about, a lickspittle, and a nuisance.
  • Like a fly, he impudently appears at every meal without invitation and without salaam.
  • To him the food of sixty persons is nothing; he feigns himself deaf if you say to him, ‘Enough!’
  • No morsel reaches the (ordinary) man in prison, or if by means of a hundred contrivances he discover some food,
  • That hell-throat at once comes forward (with) this (as) his argument, that God has said, ‘Eat ye.’ 620
  • Justice, justice against such a three years' famine! May the shadow of our lord endure for ever!
  • Either let this buffalo go from prison, or make him a regular allowance of food from a trust-fund.
  • O thou by whom both males and females are (made) happy, do justice! Thy help is invoked and besought.”
  • The courteous agent went to the Cadi and related the complaint to him point by point.
  • The Cadi called him (the insolvent) from the prison into his presence, and (then) inquired (about him) from his own officers. 625
  • All the complaints which that flock (of prisoners) had set forth were proved to the Cadi.
  • The Cadi said (to him), “Get up and depart from this prison: go to the house which is your inherited property.”
  • He replied, “My house and home consist in thy beneficence; as (in the case of) an infidel, thy prison is my Paradise.
  • If thou wilt drive me from the prison and turn me out, verily I shall die of destitution and beggary.”