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4
802-851

  • Its beauty is for others: its eyes and mouth are open in vain.
  • O you who have devoted yourself (to contending with others) in strife, you have not known (discriminated) others from your self.
  • You stop at every form that you come to, saying, “I am this.” By God, you are not that (form).
  • (If) you are left alone by people for a single moment, you remain (plunged) up to the throat in grief and anxiety. 805
  • How are you this (form)? You are that Unique One, for (in reality) you are fair and lovely and intoxicated with yourself.
  • You are your own bird your own prey, and your own snare; you are your own seat of honour, your own floor, and your own root.
  • The substance is that which subsists in itself; the accident is that which has become a derivative of it (of the substance).
  • If you are born of Adam, sit like him and behold all his progeny in yourself
  • What is in the jar that is not (also) in the river? What is in the house that is not (also) in the city? 810
  • This world is the jar, and the heart (spirit) is like the river; this world is the chamber, and the heart is the wonderful city.
  • How Solomon, on whom be peace, explained (to Bilqís), saying, "My labour in (bringing about) thy (conversion to the) Faith is purely for God’s sake: I have not one atom of self-interest, either as regards thy person or thy beauty or thy kingdom. Thou thyself wilt see (this) when the eye of thy spirit is opened by the light of God."
  • “Hark, come, for I am a Messenger (Prophet) sent to call (the people to God): like Death, I am the slayer of lust, I am not given to lust.
  • And if there be lust (in me), I am the ruler of (my) lust: lam not captive to lust for the face of an idol.
  • My deepest nature is a breaker of idols, like (Abraham) the Friend of God and all the prophets.
  • O slave, if I enter the idol-temple, the idol will prostrate itself, not I, in adoration.” 815
  • (Both) Ahmad (Mohammed) and Bú Jahl went into the idol- temple; (but) there is a great difference between this going and that going.
  • This one (Mohammed) enters, the idols lay down their heads before him; that one (Bú Jahl) enters and lays down his head (before the idols), like the peoples (of old).
  • This world, (which is) associated with lust, is an idol-temple: it is a nest (abode) for the prophets and the infidels (alike),
  • But lust is the slave of holy men: gold does not burn (in the fire), because it is sterling coin from the mine.
  • The infidels are alloy, while the holy men are as (pure) gold: both these (classes of) persons are within this crucible. 820
  • When the alloy came (into the crucible), it became black at once; (when) the gold came in, its goldenness was made manifest.
  • The gold gladly cast (itself with) hands and feet into the crucible: its vein (original nature) laughs in the face of the fire.
  • Our body is our veil in the world: we are like a sea hidden beneath this straw.
  • O fool, do not regard the king of the (true) Religion as clay; for the accursed Iblís took this view (of Adam).
  • How is it possible to daub this sun with a handful of earth? Pray, tell me (that)! 825
  • Though you pour earth and a hundred ashes over its light, it will come up above them.
  • Who (what) is straw that it should cover the face of the water? Who (what) is clay that it should cover the sun?
  • O Bilqís arise royally, like (Ibráhím son of) Adham: raise the smoke from (consume utterly) this kingdom of two or three days’ duration.
  • The remainder of the story of Ibráhím son of Adham, may God sanctify his spirit.
  • (Reclining) on a throne, that man of good name heard at night a noise of tramping and shrill cries from the roof.
  • (He heard) loud footsteps on the roof of the palace, and said to himself, “Who dares to do this?” 830
  • He shouted, at the palace-window, “Who is it? This is not a man, belike it is a genie.
  • A wondrous folk put their heads down (from the roof), (saying), “We are going round by night for the purpose of search.”
  • “Eh, what are ye seeking?” “Camels,” they replied. He said, “Take heed! who ever sought camel on a roof?”
  • Then they said to him, “How art thou seeking to meet with God on the throne of state?”
  • That was all. None saw him again: he vanished like a genie from (the sight of) man. 835
  • His reality (real self) was hidden, though he was in people’s presence: how should the people see aught but beard and frock (of the dervish)?
  • When he became far (disappeared) from his own and the people’s eyes, he became renowned in the world, like the ‘Anqá.
  • Whenever the soul of any (spiritual) bird has come to (Mount) Qáf, all the world boast and brag on account of it.
  • When this orient light (from Solomon) reached Sabá, a tumult arose in Bilqís and her people.
  • All the dead spirits took wing: the dead put forth their heads from the grave, (which is) the body. 840
  • They gave the good news to one another, saying, “Hark! Lo, a voice is coming from Heaven.”
  • At (the sound of) that voice (men’s) religions wax great; the leaves and boughs of the heart become green.
  • Like the blast of the trumpet (on Judgement-Day) that breath from Solomon delivered the dead from the tombs.
  • May (such) felicity be thine after this (epoch of Solomon)! This (epoch) is past. God best knoweth the certain truth.
  • The rest of the story of the people of Sabá, and of the admonition and guidance given by Solomon, on whom be peace, to the kinsfolk of Bilqís—to every one (the particular guidance) suitable to his religious and spiritual difficulties; and how he caught (decoyed) each sort of conceptional bird with the whistle and bait proper for that sort of bird.
  • I will tell the story of Sabá in lover’s style. When the Zephyr came towards the tulip-field, 845
  • The bodies met (experienced) the day of their union (with the spirits which dwell in them)’: the children turned again in the direction of their home.
  • Amongst the communities the community of secret Love is like a liberality surrounded by the meanness of (spiritual) distemper.
  • The baseness of spirits is (derived) from their bodies; the nobility of bodies is (derived) from their spirits.
  • O lovers, the draught (of Love) is given to you. Ye are the everlasting: everlastingness is bestowed on you.
  • O ye that are forgetful, arise and love! That is the wind of Joseph: smell (its perfume)! 850
  • Come, O (master of the) bird-speech of Solomon, sing the song of every bird that comes.