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5
3063-3112

  • How are you placing (such) a reliance on this excuse and frequenting the neighbourhood of (such) a dragon?
  • By (making) an excuse like this, O ignoble simpleton, you sacrifice all—your life, your property, and your wife;
  • (For) afterwards every one will pluck your moustache and offer (the same) excuse and make himself out to be acting under compulsion. 3065
  • If ‘the decree of God’ seems to you a proper excuse, then instruct me and give me a canonical decision (on the point);
  • For I have a hundred desires and lusts, (but) my hand is tied by fear and awe (of God).
  • Do me a favour, then: teach me the excuse, untie the knots from my hands and feet!
  • You have chosen a handicraft, (thereby) saying (virtually), ‘I have a (certain) choice and a (certain) thought.’
  • Otherwise, how have you chosen that (particular) handicraft out of all the rest, O master of the house? 3070
  • When the hour comes for the flesh and the passions (to be indulged), there comes to you as great a power of choice as is possessed by twenty men;
  • When your friend deprives you of a farthing of profit, the power to pick a quarrel (with him) is (at once) developed in your soul;
  • (But) when the hour comes for thanksgiving on account of (God's) benefactions, you have no power of choice and are inferior to a stone.
  • Assuredly this will be the excuse of your Hell, (namely), ‘Consider me excused for this burning!’
  • Since no one holds you excusable on this plea, and (since) this (plea) does not keep you out of the hands of the executioner, 3075
  • (Clearly), then, the (present) world is arranged according to this rule, and the state of things in yonder world too is made known to you.
  • Another Story in answer to the Necessitarian, confirming (Man's) power of choice and the validity of the (Divine) commands and prohibitions, and showing that the Necessitarian's excuse is not accepted in any religious sect or in any religion and that it does not save him from being duly punished for the (sinful) actions which he has committed, just as the Necessitarian Iblís was not saved (from punishment) by saying (to God), ‘Because Thou hast made me to err.’ And the little indicates the much.
  • A certain man was climbing up a tree and vigorously scattering the fruit in the manner of thieves.
  • The owner of the orchard came along and said (to him), ‘O rascal, where is your reverence for God? What are you doing?’
  • He replied, ‘If a servant of God eat from God's orchard the dates which God has bestowed upon him as a gift,
  • Why do you vulgarly blame (him)? Stinginess at the table of the all-Rich Lord!’ 3080
  • ‘O Aybak,’ said he, ‘fetch that rope, that I may give my answer to Bu ’l-Hasan (to this fine fellow).’
  • Then at once he bound him tightly to the tree and thrashed him hard on the back and legs with a cudgel.
  • He (the thief) cried, ‘Pray, have some reverence for God! Thou art killing me miserably who am innocent.’
  • He answered, ‘With God's cudgel this servant of His is soundly beating the back of another servant.
  • ’Tis God's cudgel, and the back and sides belong to Him: I am (only) the slave and instrument of His command.’ 3085
  • He (the thief) said, ‘O cunning knave, I make a recantation of Necessitarianism: there is free-will, there is free-will, (there is) free-will!’
  • His (God's universal) power of choice brought (our individual) powers of choice into existence: His power of choice is like a rider (hidden) beneath the dust (which he raises).
  • His (God's) power of choice makes our power of choice; His command is based on (is exercised in virtue of) a power of choice (in us).
  • Every created being has it in his power to exercise authority over the form (that is) without free-will,
  • So that he (who is in possession of that power) drags (whither he pleases) the (lifeless) prey devoid of will, (or) so that having seized Zayd by the ear, he leads him away. 3090
  • But (it is) the action of the Lord (that), without (using) any instrument, makes his free-will a noose for him (to catch Zayd).
  • His (God's) free-will makes him a fetter for Zayd: God makes him (Zayd's captor) His prey without (the help of) dog or snare.
  • The carpenter has authority over a piece of wood, and the artist has authority over (the portrait of) a beauty;
  • The ironsmith is a superintendent of iron; the builder also is a ruler over his tools.
  • This (matter) is extraordinary; for all this (human) free-will is bowing low, like a slave, in (homage to) His (God's) free-will. 3095
  • When did the power forcibly exercised by you over inanimate objects deprive them of (their) inanimateness?
  • Similarly, His (God's) power over (our) acts of free-will does not deprive any act of free-will of that (quality).
  • Declare that His (God's) will is (exercised) in a complete manner, (but) without there being (involved in it) the attribution (to Him) of compulsion (jabr) and (responsibility for) error (disobedience to His commands).
  • Since you have said, ‘My unbelief is willed by Him,’ know that it is also willed by yourself;
  • For without your will your unbelief does not exist at all: involuntary unbelief is a self-contradiction. 3100
  • ’Tis abominable and blameworthy to lay a command on one incapable (of obeying it); and anger (on account of his disobedience) is worse, especially from the Merciful Lord.
  • An ox is beaten if he refuse the yoke: is an ox (ever) reduced to misery because he will not fly?
  • Since the ox is not excused for frowardness, wherefore is the owner of the ox (to be held) excusable and infirm?
  • Since you are not ill, don't bandage your head: you have freewill, don't laugh at your moustache.
  • Endeavour to gain freshness (spiritual grace) from God's cup (of love): then you will become selfless and volitionless. 3105
  • Then all volition will belong to that Wine, and you will be absolutely excusable, like a drunken man.
  • Whatsoever you beat will (then) be beaten by the Wine; whatsoever you sweep away will (then) be swept away by the Wine.
  • The drunken man who has quaffed wine from God's cup— how should he do aught but justice and right?
  • The magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘Stop! He that is drunken hath no care for his hands and feet.
  • The wine of the One (God) is our (real) hands and feet; the apparent hand is (but) a shadow and worthless.’ 3110
  • The meaning of ‘whatever God willed came to be,’ i.e. ‘the will is His will and pleasure. Seek His pleasure, be not distressed by the anger of others and the disapproval of others.’ Although the word ‘kána’ (came to be) denotes the past, yet there is no past or future in the action of God, for with God there is neither morn nor eve.
  • The saying of (God's) servant, ‘whatever God wills comes to pass’ does not signify ‘be lazy (inactive) in that (matter)’;
  • Nay, it is an incitement to entire self-devotion and exertion, meaning, ‘Make yourself exceedingly ready to perform that service.’