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5
1940-1989

  • This arrogance is a product of the skin; hence power and riches are friends to that pride. 1940
  • What is this arrogance? (It consists in) being oblivious to the essential principle and frozen (insensible)—like the oblivion of ice to the sun.
  • When it (the ice) becomes conscious of the sun, the ice does not endure: it becomes soft and warm and moves on rapidly.
  • From seeing the kernel (essential principle) the whole body becomes (filled with) desire: it becomes miserable and passionately in love, for “Wretched is he who desires.”
  • When it does not see the kernel, it is content with the skin: (then) the bondage of “Glorious is he who is content” is its prison.
  • Here glory is infidelity, and wretchedness is (true) religion: until the stone became naughted, when did it become the gem set in a ring? 1945
  • (To remain) in the state of stoniness and then (to say) “I” (is absurd): ’tis time for thee to become lowly and naughted (dead to self).
  • Pride always seeks power and riches because the bath-furnace derives its perfection from dung;
  • For these two nurses increase (foster) the skin: they stuff it with fat and flesh and pride and arrogance.
  • They have not raised their eyes to the kernel of the kernel: on that account they have deemed the skin to be the kernel.
  • Iblís was the leader on this way, for he fell a prey to the net (temptation) of power (eminence). 1950
  • Riches are like a snake, and power is a dragon: the shadow (protection and guidance) of (holy) men is the emerald (which is fatal) to them both.
  • At (the sight of) that emerald the snake's eye jumps (out of its head): the snake is blinded and the traveller is delivered (from death).
  • When that Prince (Iblís) had laid thorns on this road, every one that was wounded (by them) cried, “Curse Iblís!”
  • Meaning to say, “This pain is (fallen) upon me through his treachery”: he (Iblís) who is taken as a model (by the wicked) was the first to tread the path of treason.
  • Truly, generation on generation came (into being) after him, and all set their feet on his way (followed his practice). 1955
  • Whosoever institutes an evil practice, O youth, in order that people may blindly fall in after him,
  • All their guilt is collected (and piled) on him, for he has been (as) a head (to them), while they are (like) the root of the tail.
  • But Adam brought forward (and kept in view) the rustic shoon and sheepskin jacket, saying, “I am of clay.”
  • By him, as by Ayáz, those shoon were (often) visited: consequently he was lauded in the end.
  • The Absolute Being is a worker in non-existence: what but non-existence is the workshop (working material) of the Maker of existence? 1960
  • Does one write anything on what is (already) written over, or plant a sapling in a place (already) planted?
  • (No); he seeks a sheet of paper that has not been written on and sows the seed in a place that has not been sown.
  • Be thou, O brother, a place unsown; be a white paper untouched by writing,
  • That thou mayst be ennobled by Nún wa ’l-Qalam, and that the Gracious One may sow seed within thee.
  • Assume, indeed, that thou hast never licked (tasted) this pálúda (honeycake); assume that thou hast never seen the kitchen which thou hast seen, 1965
  • Because from this pálúda intoxications arise, and the sheepskin jacket and the shoon depart from thy memory.
  • When the death-agony comes, thou wilt utter a (great) cry of lamentation: in that hour thou wilt remember thy ragged cloak and clumsy shoon;
  • (But) until thou art drowning in the waves of an evil plight in which there is no help (to be obtained) from any refuge,
  • Thou wilt never call to mind the right ship (for thy voyage): thou wilt never look at thy shoon and sheepskin jacket.
  • When thou art left helpless in the overwhelming waters of destruction, then thou wilt incessantly make (the words) we have done wrong thy litany; 1970
  • (But) the Devil will say, “Look ye at this half-baked (fool)! Cut off the head of this untimely bird (this cock that crows too late)!”
  • Far from the wisdom of Ayáz is this characteristic, (namely), that his prayer should be uttered without (being a real) prayer.
  • He has been the cock of Heaven from of old: all his crowings are (taking place) at their (proper) time.
  • On the meaning of this (Tradition), “Show unto us the things as they are (in reality)”; and on the meaning of this (saying), “If the covering were lifted, my certainty would not be increased”; and on his (the poet's) verse: “When thou regardest any one with a malign eye, thou art regarding him from the hoop (narrow circle) of thy (self-)existence.” (Hemistich): “The crooked ladder casts a crooked shadow.”
  • O cocks, learn crowing from him: he crows for God's sake, not for the sake of pence.
  • The false dawn comes and does not deceive him: the false dawn is the World with its good and evil. 1975
  • The worldly people had defective understandings, so that they deemed it to be the true dawn.
  • The false dawn has waylaid (many) caravans which have set out in hope of the daybreak.
  • May the false dawn not be the people's guide! for it gives many caravans to the wind (of destruction).
  • O thou who hast become captive to the false dawn, do not regard the true dawn also as false.
  • If thou (thyself) hast no protection (art not exempt) from hypocrisy and wickedness, wherefore shouldst thou impute the same (vices) to thy brother? 1980
  • The evil-doer is always thinking ill (of others): he reads his own book as referring to his neighbour.
  • The wretches who have remained (sunk) in (their own) unrighteous qualities have called the prophets magicians and unrighteous;
  • And those base Amírs, (who were) forgers of falsehood, conceived this evil thought about the chamber of Ayáz,
  • (Supposing) that he kept there a buried hoard and treasure. Do not look at others in the mirror of thyself!
  • The King, indeed, knew his innocence: (only) on their account was he making that investigation, 1985
  • Saying, “O Amír, open the door of the chamber at midnight, when he (Ayáz) will be unaware of it,
  • In order that his (secret) thoughts may come to light: afterwards it rests with me to punish him.
  • I bestow the gold and jewels upon you: of those riches I desire naught but the information (concerning them).”
  • Thus he spoke, while his heart was throbbing on account of the incomparable Ayáz,