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6
1315-1364

  • The potency that is concealed within it is clearly seen and made manifest when it comes into action. 1315
  • Since all these things are revealed to you by means of effects, how is not God revealed to you by the production of effects?
  • Causes and effects, (both) kernel and husk—are not the whole (of them), when you investigate, effects produced by Him?
  • You make friends with things because of the effect (which they produce): why, then, are you ignorant of Him who produces (all) effects?
  • You make friends with people on the ground of a phantasy: why do not you make friends with the King of west and east?
  • This topic hath no end. O (spiritual) emperor, may there be no end to our desire for this (mystic knowledge)! 1320
  • Returning to the Story of the sick man.
  • Return (from the digression) and tell the story of the sick man and the wise physician whose nature was to palliate.
  • He felt his pulse and ascertained his state (of health): (he saw) that it was absurd to hope for his recovery.
  • He said, “Do whatever your heart desires, in order that this old malady may quit your body.
  • Do not withhold anything that your inclination craves, lest your self-restraint and abstinence turn to gripes.
  • Know that self-restraint and abstinence are injurious to this disease: proffer to your heart whatever it may desire. 1325
  • O uncle, (it was) in reference to a sick man like this (that) God most High said, ‘Do what ye will.”
  • He (the sick man) said, “(Now) go; look you, my dear nephew, I am going for a walk on the bank of the river.”
  • He was strolling beside the water, as his heart desired, in order that he might find the door to health opened to him.
  • On the river-bank a Súfí was seated, washing his hands and face and cleansing himself more and more.
  • He saw the nape of his (the Súfí's) neck and, like a crazy man, felt a longing to give it a slap; 1330
  • (So) he raised his hand to inflict a blow on the nape of the pottage-worshipping Súfí,
  • Saying (to himself), “The physician told me it would make me ill if I would not let my desire have its way.
  • I will give him a slap in quarrel, for (God hath said), ‘Do not cast yourselves with your own hands into destruction.’
  • O such-and-such, this self-restraint and abstinence is (thy) destruction: give him a good blow, do not keep quiet like the others.”
  • When he slapped him, there was the sound of a crack: the Súfí cried, “Hey, hey, O rascally pimp!” 1335
  • The Súfí was about to give him two or three blows with his fist and tear out his moustache and beard piecemeal (but refrained from doing so).
  • Mankind are (like) sufferers from phthisis and without a remedy (for their disease), and through the Devil's deception they are passionately addicted to slapping (each other).
  • All (of them) are eager to injure the innocent and are seeking (to find) fault behind each others' backs.
  • O you who strike the napes of the guiltless, don't you see the retribution (that is coming) behind you?
  • O you who fancy that (indulgence of) desire is your (right) medicine and inflict slaps on the weak, 1340
  • He who told you that this is the cure (for your disease) mocked at you: ’tis he that guided Adam to the wheat,
  • Saying, “O ye twain who implore help, eat this grain as a remedy that ye may abide (in Paradise) for ever.”
  • He caused him (Adam) to stumble and gave him a slap on the nape: that slap recoiled and became a (penal) retribution for him (the Devil).
  • He caused him (Adam) to stumble terribly in backsliding, but God was his (Adam's) support and helper.
  • Adam was (like) a mountain: (even) if he was filled with serpents (of sin), he is a mine of the antidote (to snake-poison) and was unhurt. 1345
  • You, who do not possess an atom of the antidote, why are you deluded by your (hope of) deliverance?
  • Where, in your case, is trust in God like (the trust of) Khalíl (Abraham), and whence will you get the (Divine) grace like (that bestowed upon) Kalím (Moses),
  • So that your knife should not cut (the throat of) Ismá‘íl (Ishmael) and that you should make the depths of the Nile a (dry) highway?
  • If a blessed one fell from the minaret (and) was saved by the wind filling his raiment,
  • Why have you, O good man, committed yourself to the wind when you are not sure of that (same) fortune? 1350
  • From this minaret hundreds of thousands (of peoples) like ‘Ád fell down and gave to the wind (lost) their lives and souls.
  • Behold those who have fallen headlong from this minaret, hundreds of thousands on thousands!
  • (If) you have no sure skill in rope-dancing, give thanks for your feet and walk on the ground.
  • Don't make wings of paper and fly from the (top of a) mountain, for many a head has gone (to destruction) in this craze.
  • Although the Súfí was afire with anger, yet he cast his eye on the consequence. 1355
  • The highest success belongs permanently to him who does not take the bait and sees (the danger of) imprisonment in the trap.
  • How excellent are two noble end-discerning eyes that preserve the body from corruption!
  • That (foresight) was (derived) from the vision of the end that was seen by Ahmad (Mohammed), who even here (in the present life) saw Hell, hair by hair,
  • And saw the Throne (of God) and the Footstool and the Gardens (of Paradise), so that he rent the veil of (our) forgetfulnesses.
  • If you desire to be safe from harm, close your eye to the beginning and contemplate the end, 1360
  • That you may regard all (apparent) nonentities as (really) existent and look upon (all) entities, (so far as they are) perceived by the senses, as of low degree.
  • At least consider this, that every one who possesses reason is daily and nightly in quest of the (relatively) non-existent.
  • In begging, he seeks a munificence that is not in being; in the shops he seeks a profit that is not in being.
  • In the cornfields he seeks an income (crop) that is not in being; in the plantations he seeks a date-palm that is not in being.