The Speech of the Birds: Concerning Migration to the Real, the Manṭiqu'ṭ-ṭair 0946621691, 9780946621699

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The Speech of the Birds

Paridu'd-Din Attar

The Speech of the Birds Concerning Migration to the Real The Mantiqu't-Tair

Presented in English by Pe Wenv ERY

PrteebAMIC

TEXTS SOCIETY

English language translation © Peter Avery 1998 This edition published 1998 by The Islamic Texts Society 22a Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge CB2 2DQ, UK

ISBN 0 946621 69 1 cloth ISBN 0 946621 70 5 paper British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from The British Library

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior permission of the publishers. All rights reserved. The right of Peter Avery to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Cover illustration

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1963.

(63.210.11) Photograph (c) 1982 The Metropolitan Museum of Art Printed and bound in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to acknowledge the help and constant encouragement I have received from my friend DrJalal Morawej who prevented me from failing to grasp many of the idiomatic expressions in the Persian text of the work. My warmest thanks are also due to the Islamic Texts Society and its able and conscientious director for the care that has been exercised in the preparation of this work for printing, and in _ particular for the provision of excellent proof-readers; I single out for special gratitude Farhana Mayer. Peter Avery |

King’s College, Cambridge October 1997

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7

CONTENTS Acknowledgement Preface Introduction

Part One: Prologue Part Two: The Book Notes Part One Notes Part Two

Appendix I Appendix II

545 551

PREFACE A Note on the Translation and Transliteration

This translation results from several drafts. They were rejected because they smacked too much of a cardinal defect in translation: the intrusion of the translator’s presence and preconceived ideas. The translator’s notions of what the text might most conveniently be saying must be suppressed. Thus the original can, so far as in another language is possible, speak for itself. A model is the Book of Psalms in the Authorised Version of the Bible: prose translation of Hebrew poetry rendered verse by verse. The two translations mentioned in the Introduction are that in verse, of the main text without the Prologue, by Darbandi and

Davis, and the nineteenth century prose version in French by Garcin de Tassy. It has been a privilege to refer to them both. As the present translator is not a poet, he has not attempted versification. Moreover, reproduction of Persian couplets in a form obedient to the rules of an alien prosody entails the risk of the English reader being even more curtained from the original than the language difference makes him. This is not to say that the spirit of the original might not be retained in English verse. That it can, the “Omar Khayyam” quatrains of Edward Fitzgerald prove. But there is — although in this Fitzgerald does not err — always the danger of the starkness of expression characteristic of great Persian poetry being obscured or softened. The aim has been to provide as literal a translation as the idiom of the English language will bear, but as far as possible retaining echoes of the original’s cadences. This in itself necessitates a degree of literalness, not least in the positioning of words. In this translator’s experience, it has become evident that, though at first sight a verse’s meaning may seem elusive, once it is boldly tackled au pied de la lettre, the mist begins to clear.

For references to the Holy Koran, the text printed by Gustavus Fluegel and his Concordance have been used (Leipsig, 1881 and 1852 respectively), and the English translation by Richard Bell (Edinburgh 1937 and 1960) principally referred

Xii

The Speech of the Birds

to, but other translations published in English have been consulted. To spare readers undue distraction from the familiar forms of the English alphabet, rigorous following of the rules of transliteration has been sacrificed. Prolongation of vowels has been indicated by an acute accent over them. A dot under the consonants h, s, t, signi-

fies the letters

( vu? b . The letters

) 3 4

wu are indicated

by the letter z in keeping with Persian pronunciation. The letter © (“ain), is marked by the sign, ‘. ( and u” have been rendered by their English equivalents, “kh” and “sh”, not, as in strict adherence to transliteration conventions they would be, as kh and sh.

Words that have entered the English language, or have received such English suffixes as ism, are not given any markings. Examples are “sufism’”, 29

66

“sultan”, instead of “‘sifism’’, 29>

66

“sultan”.

Peter Avery

King’s College, Cambridge October 1997

INTRODUCTION ma non eran da cio le proprie penne;. se non che la mia mente fu percossa da un fulgore, in che sua voglia venne.' ‘But not for this were my own wings, If it had not been that my mind was struck by a flash Wherein to it came its longing’.

Voila ce qui c’est que la foi: Dieu sensible au coeur, non 4 la raison.” This is what faith is: God perceptible to the heart but not to reason.

It is not intended to give this translation a long Introduction on the meaning and urgency of a work which, in so far as cor ad cor loquitur, can be left to speak for itself: For the mystic, it is one of the landmarks on the path to Reality. It was composed in an age of turmoil and uncertainty, which might be compared with the present. Muhammad Abt Hamid Faridu'd-Din ‘Attar’s date of birth is now

generally accepted as 540 AH/1145—46 ab, slightly more than a decade before the death in 1157 of the last paramount Saljtiq Sultan, Sanjar. That the Empire was proving difficult to defend against invasion from Central Asia is shown by Sanjar’s making Khorasan his seat of government, while shortly before his death he suffered captivity at the hands of Ghuzz Turkish tribesmen. In 1154 ap they so ravaged Nishaptr, near which in the village of Kadkan ‘Attar

was born, that the city only revived in one of its suburbs, Shadiakh. There ‘Attar and his father prescribed and diagnosed as apothecaries in their pharmacy. In addition to the threat of invasion from outside, as often in troubled times haunted by presages of doom, urban environments within the state were riven by religious and political sectarianism and factionalism.

XIV

The Speech of the Birds

Doom came with the arrival of Chingiz Khan and his Mongols in 1220. The next year they revisited Nishapur on a punitive expedition. The horrors of the Mongol invasion had been anticipated under the capricious and cruel régime of the Saljiigs’ successors, the Khwairazmshihs. Their tyranny forced the people to seek recourse at the feet of Safi leaders. The latters’ influence became sufficiently significant to arouse the ire of the Khwarazmshahs’ officers. It did not escape the notice of Chingiz Khan, either: he sought intelligence about the Sifis. It now seems clear that in the destruction of Nish4pir in 1221 Shaikh Faridu'd-Din ‘Attar perished in the general massacre. His mausoleum in Shadiakh still stands; as does

that of This sudden below)

his father at Kadkan, where it is still visited by devotees. fact makes it seem most likely that the story of ‘Attar’s conversion to Sufism (see Part Two, Notes 341 and 342 is apocryphal; although that, in a sudden flash of insight

when a dervish surrendered his life outside ‘Attar’s shop, “Attar had

an extraordinary revelation is not improbable. Nevertheless, it appears that he had been reared in Sufism. This background of piety and learning can also be considered in connection with “Attar’s not

seeming to have had attachment to any particular Order or silsila, chain of Sufis taking descent from a notable Pir. As in the case of the poet Hafiz (d. 1389) it is difficult to ascribe to “Attar any definite affliliation with a particular silsila. His praises of the reclusive Pir, Ibn Rabib, have given rise to the suggestion’? that this Ibn Rabib might have been “Attar’s guide; but the expression of homage for him is enshrined in the Khusrau Nameh, a work of which ‘Attar’s

authorship is open to doubt.* Dr. Zarrinktb’s discussion of ‘Attar’s Safi afiliations is illuminating:> he traces them back through Abt Sa‘id ibn Abi'l-Khair to Mansar al-Hallaj and the other notable ecstatic of Baghdad, Shibli; both these exemplars of the Way are mentioned more than once in the Mantiqu't- Tair. This poem, of which a translation has here been attempted, and ‘Attar’s prose-work, the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, “Memorials of the Saints”, manifest well-informed interest in and reverence for a

number of eminent Pirs, details of whose spiritual exhortations and experiences ‘Attar obviously believed should be absorbed by anyone in search of grace. In this, he was following a tradition that

prescribed study of the lives of the holy if only because they were

The Speech of the Birds

XV

the lives of the great mystics returned to the world whence they had escaped, and in which, having been blessed by achievement of the highest degree of spirituality, they would live “as centres of transcendental energy, the creators of spiritual families . . .”° Many of the incidents given as anecdotes in the Mantiqu't- Tair also

occur in prose versions in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, and in the verses of other of ‘Attar’s masnavis. The general opinion of scholars appears to be that the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya was preceded by the Mantiqu'tTair. However this might be, pace the late Professor Firdzanfar, that

the poem belonged to ‘Attar’s later years seems evident from his references to old age and a lifetime of struggle on the Safi Path. This allegory of the birds of the world’s decision to seek a king, and their setting out in quest of such in the Simurgh, is elegantly discussed in Chapter VI of Islamic Art and Spirituality by Sayyid Hossein Nasr.’ The idea of a concourse of birds might be related to the Koran

XXI,

79 and XXXVIII,

18, concerning

God’s

granting David command over the birds and their resorting to him “in flocks”. Psalms 104, verse 12, and 148:10 might also be recalled.

The title Mantiqu't- Tair the poet himself supplemented by (see Part Two, verse 4457 below) a second title, Magamatu't-Tuytr. The first

title is a phrase from the Koran (XXVII, 16): “And Solomon was heir to David and he said, ‘O people, we have been taught the speech of the birds’”, mantiqu't-tair. Thus “The Speech of the Birds” has been chosen as the title of this translation, but, especially having regard to the word mantiq in its meaning of “logic”, “The Birds’ Argument” might have done. Other translations that have been used are “Colloquy”, and “Conference”. Garcin de Tassy, in his translation of 1863, used the title Le Langage des Oiseaux. It would be inappropriate to adopt Chaucer’s The Parlement of Foules as the title of ‘Attar’s work. Implied is the language of the ascending soul and the exhortatory words with which the soul is encouraged and guided: not those words which, in making themselves substitutes for the phenomena they describe, anchor people among dogmas and become idols capable of obstructing progress to realisation of The Word. On the yearning for this realisation rests the hoopoe’s “argument” as, in the capacity of the birds’ chosen leader, the hoopoe, Solomon’s

intimate, explains, as would a Sdfi Pir

(elder, guide), the perils, but also the necessity of the way from the

XVi

The Speech of the Birds

phenomenal to the Real. For the journey to be accomplished seven stations, maqamdt, have to be traversed, hence the second title,

Magqdémétu't-Tuyur, “The Stations of the Birds”: the steps in the ordeal of losing the chains of the flesh.* In choosing to make his speakers birds, and to intersperse their dialogues

with

illustrative

anecdotes,

‘Attar was

evincing

the

tenacity of certain genres in Persian Literature. For, in addition to examples near his own time, and to be mentioned below, didactic

tales of wisdom, told in the scenes and verbal exchanges of nonhuman paradigms, dated at least from the great Kalila wa Dimna, “The Tales of Bidpai”. These stories originated in India, probably in the fourth century AD. They set a pattern for moral fables in the speech of birds and beasts that has survived to, among other works,

the poem of La Fontaine and Uncle Remus’s stories, to say nothing of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. They came into Iran in a Pahlavi translation in the time of the Sasanian Khusrau Antshirvan, who

reigned from 531 to 579 ap. When the Sasanians were replaced by Arab rulers, who also needed deftly reminding of the prudence and virtues with which rulers should be adorned, a Persian, Ibnu'l-

Mugaffa' (died 730 Ab), translated the Pahlavi version, made by Khusrau I’s physician, Burzée, into the tongue of the Caliphs. In the age of ‘Attar, Nasru'llah ibn Muhammad

the Munshi

translated the Arabic into exquisite Persian. He was the scribe, munshi, to the Ghaznavid Bahram Shah. The latter’s reign ended in 1152 ap. Hence

this version of Kalila wa Dimna,

must have

appeared and been known in ‘Attar’s lifetime; some authorities date it to after the year 1144 ap. Since 1963-4, it has been available in Mujtaba Minovi’s excellent edition. But in any event, so popular a work would no doubt be known to ‘Att4r in its Arabic version.

Birds figure prominently in its numerous

moral tales. In one

episode, the sea-fowl called Titawi needed counsel and allies and had recourse to all his species. When the resolve was reached to refer the problem to their sovereign, the Simurgh (or ‘Anq4), an assemblage of“the whole feathered race” occurs like that described in the Mantiqu't-Tair.? There are, moreover, in spite of differences

in the burden of the two works, images and other situations in the Kalila wa Dimna reminiscent of some in ‘Attar’s poem; they might

have been, if only subconsciously,

present in his mind.

It is

The Speech of the Birds

XVil

impossible to doubt the influence of the Kalila wa Dimna on ‘Attar,

as On sO many poets and story-tellers of so many climes. Of bird allegories two precendents must be mentioned in the context of ‘Attar’s: Ibn Sina’s Risdlatu't- Tair, “The Birds’ Treatise’, and the Persian text with an Arabic version, both entitled the

Risalatu't-Tuyur, now securely attributable to Ahmad Ghazali (died 1126 ap) rather than to his brother, Ab

Hamid

Muhammad

(died 1111 ap), although it appears that the latter also influenced ‘Attar (see Part II below, Notes 223 and 303). Ahmad Ghazili’s

allegory of the birds’ endeavours to reach the court of the Simurgh is as beautiful as it is brief. It seems to have been so much ‘Attar’s

model that his poem gives the impression of being a wonderful expansion of Ahmad Ghazali’s little masterpiece; but also of the latter’s extensive Bahr al-Hagiga, “Ocean

of Reality”, in which

the psychology of Sufism is expounded with details which ‘Attar echoes."° ‘Attar’s poem differes markedly from Ibn Sina’s allegory, which is grounded on a philosophical concept of the quest for liberation from human imperfection in the full attainment of rationality. Hence, of its nature, his imaginary flight does not transcend consciousness’s intellectual level; the level passing beyond which is the major concern of ‘Attar. Ibn Sina’s birds escape the fowler’s

snare, yet from their talons dangle some of its threads: he was the advocate of the triumph of reason, but within the framework of the body. ‘Attar spoke in incantative verse and his intention was

the wresting of the spirit from the embrace of practical reason. That ‘Attar should be indebted to Muhammad al-Ghazali, not least for the story of the Shaikh of San’4n or, as ‘Attar has it, Sam’an, comes as less of a surprise when it is remembered that ‘Attar shared with

his great Khorasanian “philosophers”’. Meanwhile,

compatriot

‘Attar’s work

remains

the same one

attitude

towards

of the world’s major

testaments to the possibility of the fulfilment, or, in a term used by mystics, the fruition of the human spirit — it is above all, as is Sufism

as a whole, of an intensely humanistic nature. Not “humanistic” in the sense sometimes given to this word nowadays, but in the sense of mysticism being an intensely personal matter. It is not a theory or philosophy. In both of these the self must figure. In Sufism, on

XViil

The Speech of the Birds

the contrary, the first step towards fulfilment is the complete elimination of the sensual self and its preoccupations. As the French seventeenth century pére Jean-Joseph Surin said: Love’s work is to ravage, to destroy, to abolish, and then to make new, to set up again, to resuscitate. It is marvellously terrible and marvellously sweet; and the more terrible, the more desirable, the more attractive. To this Love we must

resolutely give ourselves. I shall not be happy until I have seen it triumph over you, fo the point of consuming and annihilating you." This indeed is the language of the homilies of “Attar’s hoopoe to the timid and reluctant birds, but it would be presumptuous to suggest that in these words Father Surin S.J. epitomised ‘Attar’s poem, although, some four centuries later, he came close to doing so; as a Christian

saint has said, “All mystics

speak the same

language, for they come from the same country”’. So much is this true that startling parallels between the utterances of western and eastern mystics seem to make, certainly at least in this context, the epithets oriental and occidental superfluous. To take one example out of many, the story of Antoinette Bourignan’s difficulty over possessing a single penny inevitably brings to mind ‘Attar’s anecdote (Part Two, verses 2123—2126 below) about Rabi‘a

concerning carrying a few coins which she had earned; and there is also the Islamic legend of Jesus’s ascent to the Empyrean ceasing before the end because a broken pot and a needle were found on his person. In reply to her questions about how she might please God, Antoinette heard a voice which told her to espouse self-denial and leave home and family. All earthly things were to be forsaken. But her struggle between the inner and outer life was protracted; she again appealed for guidance in how to become wholly God’s. The answer came, “When thou shalt no longer possess anything, and shalt die to thyself”. To accomplish this she was to go out into the desert. Before dawn one day she left her home, but took with her one penny. The voice said, “Where is thy Faith? In a Penny?” She threw it away and was delivered “from the heavy burden of

Cares and Good Things of the World”.!?

The Speech of the Birds

XIX

The words of a variety of mystics are not as varied as are they. These utterances help in the elucidation of the mystics’ shared theme. For example, ‘Att4r’s insistence on readiness to sacrifice life,

to gamble life away can, so to speak, be glossed by the words of Thomas a Kempis: “Who hinders thee more than the unmortified affections of your own heart? . . . if we were perfectly closed to ourselves, and not entangled within our own breasts, then should we be able to taste Divine things, and to have some experience of heavenly contemplation”’.'? It is to die in order to inherit Eternal Life: to die to the lower self in order to free the transcendental self. Dionysus the Areopagite said that Divine Love “draws those whom it seizes beyond themselves: and this so greatly that they belong no longer to themselves, but wholly to the Object loved”. The carnal self overcome, the voyager rises above the world of illusion to enter what has been called the deified life. This achieved, the nature of the battle won is succinctly revealed in the words of the fifteenth century Jacopone da Todi: La guerra é terminata de le virtu battaglia, de la mente travaglia cosa nulla contendo. The war is ended: In the battle of virtue, The travail of mind, There is no more strife.'* These are words which throw light on ‘Attar’s allusions to how belief and unbelief, virtue and vice, good and evil, are left behind.

For, as they belong to contingent selves, once those selves are overcome and the “supra-sensible” realised, good and evil, religion and irreligion, obviously no longer have any significance. They are codes only applicable to mundane sense-fed lives. It is interesting that Christian mystics’ works can be usefully referred to in the context of ‘Attar’s poem, and vice versa.

But comparison between Islamic Sufi and Christian mystics should not be allowed to obscure an extremely important feature

Xx

The Speech of the Birds

of Islam: that for the Muslim the Prophet is the Perfect Man, Insdnu'l-Kamil, that is to say, the Supreme Attainer and Exemplar

of perfection in the Via Spiritualis. Thus is the Prophet seen in ‘Attar’s Tawhtd, the opening of his book and the key to it. A most

instructive compendium of the development and spirituality of Islam, this Prologue kindles sympathy for and immensely deepens understanding of what, for someone like ‘Attar, Islam is truly about.

Through the Prologue, light is thrown on Muslim belief in Islam’s superiority over Judaism and Christianity: the Prophet was the Seal of Prophethood because, not the incarnate God of Christian belief, nor the servitor of Yahweh, Muhammad, more than did Moses,

represented Man as God’s chosen instrument for the accomplishment of His desire to be known — and loved. According to a hadith, a dictum ascribed to the Prophet and handed down to posterity by one or more of his Companions,'? God says: I was a hidden treasure and | was fain to be known, so that I

created creation in order that I should be known. On his miraculous Nocturnal Ascent, the Mi‘raj, the Prophet saw God (as Moses did not). Hence for the Sufi, the mi‘aj, Muhammad’s

climbing of the ladder from earth to heaven, is of

crucial significance. One of the two translations into European tongues to which it has been a pleasure to refer is The Conference of the Birds, translated

by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis, but without the Prologue.'® The other is the pioneering Mantic Uttair ou Le Langage des Oiseaux, published by Garcin de Tassy in 1863"

after, in 1857, he had

published a text of the poem, which was mainly edited on the basis of a manuscript copied in 1495—6 ab, supplemented by another of 1460-61. The lateness of these manuscripts placed M. de Tassy at a disadvantage. The present translation is of the text established by the late Dr. Goharin which is based on the two, so far as is known, oldest manu-

scripts extant.'* They were found in Turkey some four decades ago by the late Mujtaba Minovi. One of these texts is dated 1243-4 ap, hardly more than a score of years after the probable date of the poet’s death. The other also belongs to the century in which he died. These manuscripts obviate many of the difficulties de Tassy encountered due to copyists’ errors and “improvements”; often

The Speech of the Birds

sk

errors attributable to later copyists’ inability to understand the text. At a venture, it might be said that the older the manuscript copy, the greater the closeness to what the poet actually said. It is fitting to mention the very beautiful facsimile of a manuscript dated 857 AH/1453 AD which has recently been produced in Tehran under the supervision of Nasrullah Pourjavady, and published by The Centre for University Publications in co-operation with the Cultural Centre of the Embassy of Italy in Iran. This translator is also indebted to Dr. Pourjavady for having apprised him of the work of Dr. ‘Ali Ravagi on words and idioms used in the Mantiqu't-Tair and of which the meaning is often elusive. Dr. Ravaqi’s endeavour is the more welcome since, as is known to this translator, Dr. Goharin’s own very extensive notes,

explanations and definitions were, for reasons of space, drastically curtailed when his work was printed. Dr. Ravaqi is particularly interesting when he cites usages that are still current in Khorasan, ‘Attar’s own region. Unfortunately what appears to be Dr. Ravaqi’s first published article on his findings only reached this translator a short a time before this text went to the printer, so that it has not been possible adequately to apply Dr. Ravaqi’s valuable suggestions. They will, of course, be borne in mind for the future. Notes 1

Dante Alighieri, The Paradiso, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1958, Canto XXXIII,

2

139. Pensées de Pascal edited by Ernest Havet, Paris, 1881, p 420.

3

See Firtzanfar, Ahval-i wa Naqd wa Tahlil-i Asrar-i ‘Attar, Tehran, 1339-40

S 6

/ 1959-60, pp. 34 ff. See Dr Zarrinktb’s Justoj dar Tasavvuf-i Iran, 1357 / 1977-8, p. 265, also p. 258. Abid. pp..269-71, Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s

7 8

Ipswich, 1987, pp. 98-113. Remembered might be Emily Bronté’s stanza:

4

Spiritual Consciousness, London, 1911, reprinted 1967, p. 140.

O dreadful is the check — intense When the ear begins to hear and When the pulse begins to throb, The soul to feel the flesh and the

the agony the eye begins to see; the brain to think again; flesh to feel the chain! .

.

5a

The Speech of the Birds From “The Prisoner’, in The Complete Poems of Emily Bronté, Folio Society, London, 1951, p. 241. See Minovi’s edition, Tehran 1343/1963-4, p. 113. Cf. Zarrinkub, op. cit., pp. 264-5, where he says that it is as if “Attar were

a Ghazali “who has turned poet”. For Ahmad Ghazali’s treatise and his authorship of both its Arabic and Persian versions see the valuable Majmu’eye-ye asar-i Farsi-ye Ahmad-i Ghazzali (sic), edited by Ahmad Mujahid, Tehran University Publications, 1870 / 1990, pp. 75-92. Dr. Pourjavady has edited the Bahr al-Hagiqa, Tehran, 1977. A translation of Ahmad Ghazali’s Risdlatu't-Tuyur is offered below as Appendix II. 11 Quoted in Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun, London, 1953, p. 327. (Italics added). WZ, Antoinette Bourignan, 1616-1680, was the Franco-Flemish foundress of a quietist sect. This story comes in the anonymous An Apology for Mrs. Antonia Bourignan, London, 1689, pp. 269-70. Cf. MacEwan: Antoinette Bourignan, Quietist, London, 1910.

13 Imitatione Christi, 1. Chapters III and XI. Cf. Leo Sherley-Price, The Imitation of Christ. 14 Cited in Evelyn Underhill, op. cit., p. 219, Penguin Books, pp. 3 and 38. 15 See E. J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, London, 1900 and 1958,

Vol. I, p. 17.

16 Penguin Books, 1984. 17 Paris, Imprimerie Impériale. 18 Tehran, 1342/1962-3, fifth printing, 1366/1986—7. But see below for reference to Dr. ‘Ali Ravaqi’s article in the journal Gulcharkh,

Second Year,

Number VII, pp. 14-19, critical of some of the readings in this edition.

PART

ONE

PROBOGUE CONCERNING CREATOR

THE UNITY OF GOD THE

OF ALL, AND

PROPHET, MUHAMMAD,

THE LIGHT OF HIS AND THE PIETY OF

THE PROPHET’S PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSORS

IN PROPHETHOOD

BIND TEE CALIPHATE

estesa ace pee

Fu CiWieaA ae a be esi ef

CONCERNING THE PROFESSION OF THE ONENESS OF GOD MOST HIGH AND GLORIFIED

In The Name Of God The Merciful And Compassionate, Praise to life’s Perfect Creator,

He who gave the dust soul and faith; He founded the Throne! on water, For the creatures of dust, life on wind.

He held the heavens above;?

Earth he kept in utmost lowliness. On one He conferred unstilled motion.

To the other he gave perpetual repose. The heavens He pitched like a tent, Raised without pillars, but he made earth their floor.* In six days he made the Seven Stars appear, And with two letters made visible the Nine Spheres.*

He fashioned the gilded dice of the stars: Nightly He played cup and ball with the firmament. To the snare of the body He gave shifting states: Put dust on the tail of the bird of the soul.

He poised the ocean in submission to Himself; In fear of Him He petrified the mountains.

Ocean’s lip He parched with thirst; Rock He made rubies and turned blood to musk.°

10

4

The Speech of the Birds

He revealed the spirit in pure form.

11

All these manifestations, through a handful of dust He revealed. Headstrong intellect He overthrew with the Divine Law.° The body He quickened with the soul and the soul with faith.

12

He gave to the mountains both blades and belts, So that they should raise their heads under His generalship.

13

Once He garnished fire with a nosegay.’ Once He stretched a bridge across the sea.

14

He appointed a minute gnat in the enemy’s head. He kept it in his head four hundred years.®

is

In His wisdom He gave a spider a web: Through it He granted safety to the Lord of the World.’

16

He tightened the waist of an ant like a hair-tip. He made it Solomon’s bosom friend.’

17

He conferred on it the black robe of ‘Abbas’s offspring."! 18 He gave it Ta-Sin without the misery of the trap these letters spell.’ Exemplars who came observant of the Way, In and out of season followed after this.

19

They found their souls centres of bewilderment, They found impotence and dismay their souls’ escorts.

20

Look first what He did to Adam: How he cast him into lifetimes of that mourning.’®

21

Then see Noah, floater on the all-immersing flood, What he had borne a thousand years from the unbelievers."

De

The Speech of the Birds And behold Abraham, heart enraptured,

5 23

The catapult and the fire his station.'® And Ishmael see, the grieving, For he’d become the lamb for the slaughter in the Way of the Friend.’®

24

Have regard for sorrow-stricken Jacob, Questioning the fate of a son.

25

Look at Joseph in the judgement seat, Servitude, the pit and prison passed.'”

26

Regard Job the long tried,'® Left among worms, and wolves before him.

ps|

See Jonah, his way lost, Fallen from the moon to the fish for a while.’

28

And see Moses at the beginning of his time, A Pharaonic nurse, a coffin having become a cradle.”°

2?

Look upon David the maker of chain-mail, Iron melted to wax by his heart’s passion.”!

30

See too how from Solomon, Supreme Ruler,

a

The Jinn, when he snatched, robbed dominion.”

See also him whose heart brimmed over. He fell silent before the sword touched his head.”

32

And John, his head, as if a candle

33

On a dish, cruelly paraded before the company.” Look upon Jesus, how from the gallows’ foot He more than once became a fugitive from the Jews.”

34

6

The Speech of the Birds

And now see what oppressions and pains

BS

The Seal of Prophets endured from unbelievers.”° Do you suppose that this is easy? Possession is the smallest thing: this is to give up the soul.

36

How much more, when no speech is left me, can I say?

ae

When no flower that blossomed on the stem remains?

Awe kills me completely: I know no remedy but helplessness.

38

In Your Path, sense is a suckling babe, In searching for You an old man’s reason is lost.

39

How then might I reach into such an Essence; In my fallibility, how attain the Purely Infallible?

40

Neither learning nor vision encompass You. Yours is no loss or profit from profit and loss:

41

No Moses could add to Your profit, Nor a Pharaoh be to Your loss.

42

Who, O God, besides You is infinite?

43

What like You is without bounds and endless?

There is, for sure, nothing else without termination;

44

Were there anything, how could The One remain? Ah, but there is a world of creation left in bewilderment,

45

You staying hidden behind the veil. Yet lift it and burn not my soul; Hidden behind the veil burn me not more than this.

46

The Speech of the Birds

7

I have suddenly been plunged into an ocean of confusion. Rescue me from being at my wit’s end.

47

I am stuck in the midst of swirling sea, and left outside the veil’s interior. Lift Your servant from this unhallowed surge;

48

It was You Who threw me in. You get me out.

49

My carnal self’s enwrapped me from head to foot.” If you do not save me, woe is me.

50

My soul is sullied by vanity. I cannot bear the sullying.

51

Either cleanse me of this corruption, Or cease to bloody me, but make me dust.

52

People fear You. I fear myself.

53

For from You I’ve experienced good; From myself, evil.

54

I am a corpse crawling in the dust. Quicken my soul, O pure Giver of Life!

55

The faithful and the infidel are steeped in dejection, All either distracted or they have turned back.

56

If You call, this is bewilderment;

57

But if you dismiss, that is the turning back. O King, my heart’s drenched in sorrow’s blood. From head to foot, like the firmament I’m in a spin.

58

8

The Speech of the Birds

My discourse is with You night and day. Not for one moment be You heedless of the desiring.

ag

For it is thus that we are each other’s neighbour,”

60

You like the sun and I, the moon, shadowing each other.” What, O Provider, of those without substance,

61

If You withhold the neighbour’s due?

It is with a stricken heart and anguished soul

62

That, in longing for You, I rain tears like a cloud.

Were I to tell you my grief, I would be diverted, so how could I be seeking You?

63

You be my guide for I have lost the way; Grant me fortune, although I untimely come.

64

Whoever in Your Path has been mated with luck,

65

Has been lost in You and disdained the self.

I am not without hope, but I am distracted.

66

Let it be that out of a hundred thousand He might snatch one.

SLORY. A robber came up with some unlucky fellow.*° Tying his hands, he had him at his mercy.

67

He went off to fetch a sword to cut off his head. It was then that his wife gave the captive a crust of bread.

68

When the man came back with the sword,

69

Then he saw that the poor wretch had 4 piece of bread in his hand.

The Speech of the Birds

9

He asked, “Who gave you, you friendless one, bread?” The man answered, “None but your own gave it.”

70

When the man heard this complete answer, He said, “Killing you has become forbidden to me, .

71

Because any man who’s broken our bread, The sword may not be turned against him.

72

To one who’s eaten our bread there’s no begrudging life. How might I spill his blood with the sword?”

73

O Creator, I have brought myself onto the Path: All the bread I have eaten is from Your table.

74

When someone breaks the bread of another,

75

He puts that other under obligation. Since You possess the ocean of a thousand-fold bounty, Of Your bread I have eaten much. Acknowledge the due.

76

O Lord of the Worlds, I have floundered,

TP

Drowned in tears of blood, my ship’s driven ashore. Rescue me and come to my aid. How long must I wave my hands about my head like a fly?

78

O Pardoner of sin and my Exemplar of forgiveness, I have burned in every way. Why should You want my burning?

79

In inadequacy’s shame on Your account, my blood’s come to the boil. I have committed many an ungallantry. Overlook them.

80

10

The Speech of the Birds

Through negligence, I have perpetrated a multitude of sins. You in return have granted a hundred manifestations of compassion.

81

O King look upon wretched me. If you have witnessed evil from me, it is passed. See this.

82

Because I did not know, I committed error. Forgive. Forgive my pain-filled heart and soul.

83

Though You see my eyes clear, The hidden soul is sorely weeping in longing for You.

84

O Creator, if I have committed good or ill,

85

Whatever I have done I have done with my own body. Forgive my mean endeavours. Blot-out my irreverences.

86

When He saw a needle attached to Jesus, Inevitably He exposed the shame.*!

87

He blotched the tulip’s blades with blood. He made the azure garden out of smoke.”

88

He seethed particles of pounded dust in blood, To bring out from it the ruby and carnelian.

89

In adoration of Him day and night the sun and moon Lay their brows onto the dust of the way.**

90

There is their scar from this prostration; Whence without the worshipping posture would the scar have existence?*

91

With His wide cheer He lights up the bright day; Night He dampens with His withholding.*>

92

The Speech of the Birds

11

He has fashioned the parrot a necklace of gold. He makes the hoopoe courier for the Path;*°

os

His Path in which the birds of the air flap their wings, While with their beaks they tap on His door.

94

He endows the wheel of the heavens with the rotation of day and night: It is He Who steals away the night and brings the day to give our daily bread.

os

When He breathes a breath into clay, He makes Adam,

96

And out of vapour and smoke He makes the whole world.*’

Sometimes He might grant a dog audience. Sometimes He makes the road revealed by a cat.**

a7

As he brought the dog so close to Man, Arrogant Man He makes akin to the dog.

98

He placed, for a rudder to the firmament,

99

He placed the round loaf of the sun on the table of the firmament. There was a time when He gave a Solomon a staff.” There was a time when He gave the ant knowledge of speech.*°

100

He brought forth a serpent from a rod,*!

101

And He made the Deluge issue from an oven.” As He makes the firmament an unbroken colt,

102

With His crescent moon shoeing it, He brings it to heel. He brought the camel out of a rock,” He brought the golden calf into portentous lowing.**

103

12

The Speech.of the Birds

In winter He causes silver to be scattered.

104

He sprays gold in autumn from the branches. Though He pierces someone with pangs of hidden anguish, He lends blood’s redness to spears from buds.

105

While He places on the jasmine a four-cornered Turkish cap, He crowns the tulip with a cap of gore.

106

He plants on the narcissus’s head a golden diadem; At times He bejewels its crown with dew.

107

Reason’s ceasing to be effective, the soul in despair, As too are the rolling Heavens and the halted earth.

108

When the mountains by His decree were turned to stone, Ocean became watery at His signal.

109

While earth has stayed with dust on its head on account of Him, The firmament is as the door-knocker on His door.

110

The Eight Heavens are simply a vestibule to Him, The Seven Hells are simply a single spark.*

111

All is immersed in His Oneness;

112

What is immersed when they are all just make-believe? Yet from the back of the Fish to the Moon

185

All the atoms bear witness to His Essence;*

Dust’s lowliness and the loftiness of the firmament

114

Are no more than two witnesses to the Oneness of the One.

He brings wind, dust, fire and blood. ;

He brings out His secret through all.

1t5

The Speech of the Birds

13

He made our dust into clay in forty dawns.” After this He gave the soul a resting place in it.

116

When the soul entered the body, the body was quickened by it. He gave it intelligence that it might be discerning of Him.

117

When He looked upon it, intelligence was seized of sight;

118

He conferred knowledge on it so that it might grasp perception. When it became perceptive, the Covenant was granted to intelligence;* The intellect was drowned in confusion and set the body working.

119

Whether foe is envisaged here or friend, All have necks bowed beneath His burden.

120

His wisdom places the burden upon all. But how wonderful that He Himself sustains all!

124

He made the mountains the pins of the earth from the beginning. Then the earth’s face He washed with the sea.”

122

Since earth rests firmly on the back of the Cow,

123

And the Cow on the Fish and the Fish on Air,

So what is it all on? On nothing. Nothing being nothing, all of this is nothing but nothing.

124

Think upon the craft of this King Who supports all this on nothing;

125

Since all is upon nothing because of One,

126

All this, then, should undoubtedly be nothing.

14

The Speech of the Birds

The parts and the whole are proof of his unadulterated Essence: The Throne and the carpet are merely ephemeral lease-holds from His estate. The Throne is on water and the world is on air.

= 127

128

Forget water and air; all is God. Throne and the cosmos are no more than talismans.*”

129

He alone exists. All this is no more than a name.

Look how this world and that world are He,

130

Not other than Him, and were there other, that also would be He.

All is of one Essence but in varied categories: All one language but of differing idiom.

131

Man must be the acknowledger of the King,*! Although he sees the Shah in a hundred guises.

132

Be not in error: He knows who He 1s. Since all is He, why should there be any mistaking?

133

It is those who cannot see straight who fall into error: This is the sightedness of the man who denies God attributes.*”

134

Ah the pity! Nobody possesses the power: Eyes blind and the world filled with sunlight!

135

If you do not see this, you mislay understanding. See all He and lose yourself.

136

Strange, how everyone’s girded for the quest, But far from all and yet sitting with Him,°?

137

And You, for all Your apparentness so very unapparent, All the universe You, but nobody in sight.

138

The Speech of the Birds The soul is hidden in the body and You hidden in the soul,

15 139

O Hidden within the hidden, O life of the soul! You, more than all and before all,

140

Seeing all through Yourself, and Yourself through all, Your roof crowded with sentinels, Your door very full of

141

watchmen,

How might anyone find the way to You?

Neither reason nor soul knows the way to encompass Your being; No-one is cognizant of Your qualities.

142

Although in the soul You’re indeed the Hidden Treasure, Yet You are manifest through the body and the soul, too.

143

The whole concourse of souls lacks a sign of Your true nature, The Prophets in the dust of Your road sacrificing life.

144

Reason might apprehend existence for You, But can it ever find the way to Your kind?

145

As You are the Eternal in all being, You have made all else wholly contingent.

146

O, inwards, soul, outwards, life, are You,

147

Whatever I might say that You are not, yet that also You are. Ah, sense is confounded in Your Court.

148

Reason’s thread is lost in Your Way. I see all the world visible because of You,

149

Yet of You in the world I see no sign. Everyone displays a sign on Your account. There is no sign of You Yourself, O Knower of the Secret.

150

16

The Speech of the Birds

Although so many eyes the vault of heaven’s opened, Yet it hasn’t seen one speck of the dust of Your Path.

151

Neither has earth ever seen Your dust,

152

Although it’s put dust on its head in yearning for You.” The sun in passionate desire for You is at its wits’ end; Each night it rubs its face with its ears.

130

The moon too is melting on Your account, Each month in despair throwing away its shield.

154

Ocean tides in passion for You are flooding; A skirt wet, lips dry, they ebb.

155

For the mountains many a steep pass is impeding; Feet stuck in clay up to the waist, they’re halted.

156

Fire out of ardour for You has become fiery,

157

Restive like a cat on hot bricks.

The wind for want of You at random blusters;

158

Empty handed, the wind aimlessly wanders. The waters have quite run out of drops, Their water in longing for You brimming over.

15S

Dust in Your street hovers on the threshold,

160

Humbled into dust it’s left with dust on its head.*°

How much more must I say, You eluding description?

161

What can I do since I lack the inner apprehension? When you, O searching heart, take to the road, Look before and behind, and then aware proceed.

162

The Speech of the Birds The wayfarers see, coming to the gate,

17 163

All one after another road-companions coming.

There is with every atom a different gate: So through every atom to Him another road.

164

How should you know by which road to go? And by which road to proceed to that portal?

165

The moment you seek Him in the open, He’s hidden. And that moment you seek Him hidden, He’s in the open.

166

If you seek Him in the open, then He’ll be hidden. And if you seek Him hidden, then He’ll be in the open.

167

And if you seek Him both ways, since He has no palpability Then He’ll be absent from both.

168

You’ve not lost anything. Seek nothing. Whatever you say He is not that. Say nothing.

169

That which you say and that which you know, they are you. Know yourself: you are a hundred times you.*’

170

Know you Him through Him, not through the self; The Way to Him arises from Him, not from the senses.

171

Describers are not up to His description. He’s not amenable to every brave and weakling.

172

Thus impotence becomes a foster sister to spiritual insight, For He is encompassed by no description or definition.

173

The part the creature has of Him is no more than a fantasy: Giving news of Him is none other than an impossibility.**

174

18

The Speech of the Birds

If they have said He is utmost good, or if they have said, bad, Whatever they said about Him they have said about themselves.

175

Higher than acquired learning and outside of sight is He, For in His Holiness He is without sign.

176

Of Him only signlessness has anybody found; The abandoning of life the only remedy anybody has found.

177

Nobody in consciousness or unconsciousness Has any portion of Him save those who [fulfill the duties of the Fatny.

178

Atom upon atom in both worlds are your illusion. Whatever you know is not God. It is your delusion.”

179

He is not that person there that He is. How should the soul of anyone reach there where He 1s?

180

A thousand times is the Mount of Sinai higher than the soul; Whatever I may say, He is higher than that.

181

Reason in despair of Him remains baffled. The soul in helplessness bites its finger.

182

Reason has no chance of the boon of union with Him.

183

The pure soul, let it be said, has no being in that place. What is the soul distracted by the affair of Him? The heart gnawing its liver, steeped in blood?

184

Do not go on making so many comparisons, O recogniser

185

of God,

For the business of the howless brooks no analogy. In His sublimity reason and soul are decrepit: Reason’s confused and the soul left aghast.

186

The Speech of the Birds Since there was not for the Prophets and Apostles,

12 187

For anyone, a morsel of the Whole of the Whole,

All helplessly fell face to the dust: Crying out, “We know You not”, they came.®!

188

Who might I be that I should boast of knowing? He becomes knowing who consorts only with Him.

189

Since apart from Him in both worlds there is no-one, With whom might He consort? This is the torment and the longing.

190

There is a sea beating waves for the sake of the pearl. You do not know this dicey issue.

1

Whoever has not found the pearl and the sea,

192

Has become Not, and has not discovered that “There is none

other but God’. Whatever this description matches, how can it be? To me, how can speaking thus of you be easy?

193

Say it not, because it does. not come within the scope of

194

your intimations. Keep silent: He is not to be encompassed in your locutions.

He accepts no allusion nor explanation, Since of Him nobody has understanding or sign.

195

Be not at all: this only is the Perfection: Become you the “not” of you: this alone is union.®

196

Be lost in Him. This is the infusion.” Whatever is not this, that would be superfluity.

197

20

The Speech. of the Birds

Go for oneness and stand aside from duality: Be of one heart and one direction of worship® and one aim.

198

O you, the offspring of the Deputy who lack inward

199

awareness,”

With the Father, you, having the same grace, the same way enter into inward awareness. Whatever God brought from oblivion into existence,

200

All fell before Him in worship. When at last His creative act came to Adam,

201

From behind a hundred veils He brought him in jealous guardianship. He said, “O Adam be you the ocean of bounty. All these are worshippers. Be you the worshipped”.

202

That one who turned his head away from worshipping him,

203

Became a monster and accursed, and did not share the secret.°’ When he was shamed, he cried, “O You who know no

204

dependence, Permit not my destruction and attend to my plight”. Almighty God answered, “O you of the accursed conduct, Adam is both vicegerant and Padshah too.

205

Be you today his charm against evil.

206

After its morrow be you his wild-rue burner”. The soul became a part of the whole when it descended into the body. Nobody might fashion a talisman more marvellous than this!

207

The soul has exaltation, the body the lowness of dust. Together were consorted lowly dust and the pure soul.

208

The Speech of the Birds

21

When the high and the low were mated together, A mortal man became the most wondrous of mysteries.

209

But nobody has been informed of His mysteries: Not the business of every beggar is His business.

210

We neither know nor do we recognise: Not a moment have we yet cleared the heart.

21

How much should I say? Silence alone is the way, Because nobody has the gall for so much as a single sigh.

212

Aware of the face of this ocean are many, But no-one’s informed of its depths.

213

The Treasure is in the depths, the world like a talisman. ®

214

He in the end might smash the talisman and the fetters of the body.

You'll find the Treasure when the talisman’s no longer there. The soul will be discovered when the body’s no longer there.

eatts,

After this, your soul’s another talisman.

216

To the Invisible your soul’s another body.”°

Thus proceed; about its end do not ask. In such an agony, about its remedy do not ask.

207

In the bottom of this so boundless ocean They’ve drowned and there’s no news of anyone.”’

218

In such an ocean, which is a vast ocean,

219

A world is a drop and a drop is a world. This ocean has a bubble, know you: the world. An atom, too, is a bubble. Know this as well.

220

22

The Speech of the Birds

When it is He who displays both the world and a single atom, How might that ocean be at a loss for two bubbles?

izat

How can anyone know whether in this deep sea A splinter of rock has worth, or the agate?

222

Reason and life and faith and heart I have staked That I might comprehend the perfection of an atom!

pp Se

Seal the lips concerning the Throne and about the Dais do not ask.” Though all you asked were one small particle, ask not.

224

Since your reason’s burnt up over a trifle, Your lips should refrain from enquiring.

225

No-one knows the whole core of an atom;

226

How much longer will you speak and question? Hold your peace! What is this inverted ever-shifting sphere, Continuously unsettled in a single mode?

Bar

In His way you’ve lost your footing and your head; Veil after veil after veil.

228

The untying and the knotting (controlling) of such a Sultanate, How should they be achieved by a head distracted?

229

The spinning firmament wants to plumb this mystery. It with its head in a whirl, when might it accomplish this?

230

What’s the firmament but a dizzy head and lost? How should it comprehend what’s behind the veil?

2a

It, which so many years has turned on itself,

252

Without head or tail has turned into the dust of this door.

_ The Speech of the Birds It knows not the secret behind the veil;

23 233

When for the likes of you might this veil be lifted? The Cosmos’s business is weeping and is sighing. Confusion and confusion and confusion is it.

234

All the time is this road without end for you. The creature is every moment the more dismayed.

235

Do you know at all how the wayfarer sees the Way? Whoever goes forward sees the road stretching further.

236

You’ve had unending toil and labour: You’ve had innumerable reckonings and countings.

27

A workshop full of surprises have I seen.

238

The whole from me concealed have I seen. | To the core of Himself no-one has access. Atom of atom is uninformed.

239

It’s a topsy turvy affair, no top nor bottom: Face the wall and gnaw your hand.”

240

Suffering from myself and despairing of You am I. If Iam bad or good, still of You am I.

241

I’d be a split part without You. Have regard for me. I'd become whole if You looked upon me.

242

One glance cast in the way of my blood-drenched heart, And from the midst of all this bring me out.

243

Were You to summon my ignoble self a moment, Nobody with me could catch up.

244

24

The Speech of the Birds

Who am I to be someone to You? This is sufficient for me if I’m nobody to You.

245

How should I say, “I’m Your slave”? The slave of the soil of the dogs of Your street am I.

246

A slave’s life have I ready to sacrifice for You. A brand like the Abyssinian I wear for You.

247

If I’m not Your slave, how have I been blessed?

248

As soon as I became Your slave, I became as happy as a sand-boy.”* A slave having the brand, sell You not! Ring the slave by his ear-lobe, You!

249

O You of Whose bounty no-one has been disappointed, I’m Your ringed and branded one for ever solely.

250

Whoever lacks a happy heart in pain for You,” May he not be happy: He’s not Your man.

251

A drop of pain afford me, O my Cure! Because without Your pain my soul will die.

252

Unbelief for the unbeliever and Faith for the faithful;

Prey)

A tincture of the pain of You for the heart of ‘Attar!”°

O Lord be cognizant of my “O Lords”; Be present in my nocturnal mourning.

>

254

My mourning exceeds all bounds. Send joy! I’m in the midst of darkness. Send light!

255

My help in this sorrowing be You. I’ve no-one to help me. You be the one.

256

The Speech of the Birds

25

The delight of the Light of Muslims grant me:7 Grant me annihilation of my dark, carnal self.

257

I’m a mote become naught in shadow: I’ve no substance from existing.

258

I’m the petitioner of that sun-like Majesty. Would that from that radiance a single ray of light might

259

reach me,

So that perhaps like a mote whirling I Might dance and clap my hands” in my ray.

260

Then would I come out through this window that there is;

261

I might assume a world of the light that there is.” Until this life that was reaches expiry on my lips, I’ve borne still a person of the sort that was.

262

When life expires, I'll have no-one but You. Be You the companion of my soul at the last breath.

263

When of me empty is left my stead,

264

If You werxe not with me, woe is me.

Hope is dared that You’ll accompany me: You could do if You wished to.

IN PRAISE

OF THE

265

PROPHET

Master of the World and the Faith, Treasury of Faithfulness,

266

Lord and Most Perfect of both Worlds, The Chosen One,*” Sun of the Divine Law and Ocean of Certitude, Light of the World, a Mercy for the Worlds,®!

267

26

The Speech of the Birds

The Souls of the Pure Ones, the dust of his Pure Soul,*?

268

The Freer of the soul of Creation his dust,

Lord of Creation and Sultan over all,

269

The Sun of the soul and the Belief of all,

Encompasser of the Miraculous Ascent** and Leader of Created Beings,

270

The Shadow of God, Master of the Sun of the Essence; The two worlds are tied to his saddle-strap,

20k

The Throne and the Dais have made his dust their prayers’ focus; The exemplar of this world and that world, The pilot into the visible and the invisible;

atm

Greatest and best of Prophets,

273

Guide of the chaste and saints,

The Rightly Guided of Islam and the pioneer of the Path, Pronouncer on the Invisible’s behalf and Exemplar of the parts and the whole.

274

A Master who than whatever I say is more; In all things he has precedence over all.

2/5

Himself “The Master of the Spaces” he called.** “Verily I am the mercy of the wide spaces” he said.®°

276

Both worlds through his existence found a name. The Throne too through his name was established.*°

ait

Like dew-drops they came out of the Ocean of Munificence: The creatures of the cosmos in his wake came into being.®’

278

The purpose of his Light was created beings.* It was the origin of inexistences and existences.

Die)

The Speech of the Birds

ze

God when He saw that Absolute Light in His presence, He created from its light a hundred oceans of light.

280

For Himself that Pure Soul He created. For it the creaturely world He created.

281

Creation has no purpose but him. Purer than he there is no being.

282

That which first appeared from the Invisible of the Invisible Was his Pure Light without doubt.®?

283

After that this Light exalted its banners aloft. It turned into the Throne and the Dais and the Tablet and

284

the Pen:*” One unfurling of his Pure Light is the world; One unfurling is the seed and is Adam.”!

285

When that Majestic Light became apparent, Prostrate it fell before the Creator.

286

Centuries in prostration was it fallen; Life-times with head bowed was it in the standing position standing.”

287

Years were they (the bannners of light) occupied with the 288 standing position.” In making the profession of Faith there was also a whole lifetime.”

From the orisons of the Light of that Ocean of Mystery, Obligatory for the whole Community prayer became.”

289

God held that Light, shining like the sun and the moon,

290

Breast to breast undifferentiated for ages long.

28

The Speech of the Birds

Then to the Ocean of Reality suddenly He opened for that Light a clear way.

291

When that Light saw the surface of the Sea of Mysteries, Agitation upon it fell because of the Power and the Glory.

202

Casting about, it turned on itself seven times;

293

The seven circumferences of the firmament became visible.

Every glance that from God reached towards it, Became a star and the galaxies were revealed.

294

After this the Pure Light found repose.

293

The Throne was exalted and the Dais discovered a name.

The Throne and the Dais the reflection of his Essence arose.

296

Then the Angels out of its attributes arose.”°

From his breaths lights became manifest, And from his thought-filled heart the mysteries appeared.

297

The secret of the spirit is from the World of Thought alone: Only ‘Did I breathe a breath from my spirit into him’.%”

298

When those breaths and those mysteries were conjoined, For this reason souls became a multitudinous body.

299

Since the hangers-on of his Light the people came, The Apostle to all because of this he inevitably became.”

300

He became the Deputy until the Day of Reckoning For the sake of all the creatures of time.

301

When he invited Satan to his Call,

302

His own Satan turned Muslim on this account.??

The Speech of the Birds He made the call likewise, with the consent of the Creator,

29 303

Clear to the Jinns on the Night of the Jinns.'!°° The Angels with the Apostle He seated too.

304

All, one night, he invited too.'*!

The call of living creatures when he revealed, His witnesses the calf and the lizard were.’

305

The Summoner to God for the idols of the world was he,

306

too.'% Head over heels they tumbled before him.’ The Summoner of the atoms was this pure essence: In the palm of his hand for this, God’s praises pebbles would celebrate.’

307

Of the Prophet, who this embellishment and power found? The summoning of all the peoples, who ever found?!

308

His light since it was the origin of existences, His essence since it was the bestower of every essence,

309

Incumbent upon him became the Call to both worlds,

310

The Call to atoms visible and invisible was his. The parts and the whole when his people became, Gleaners of the grains of his grace they came.

at

The Day of Resurrection, for the sake of a handful with no

& £0

works to show,

“My people”, he’li say and much apart from this.'°’ God for the soul a candle rightly guiding Sends, a model for His people.

a

30

The Speech of the Birds

In all things since he is the Master,

314

Him whom achievement befalls, it is of his doing. Although he never might spare anything a glance, For everything it is requisite for him to weep:

als

Under his protection is any being that is, And by his being satisfied is any reaching of the goal that is.

316

The world’s Guide’ is he in every rite; Whatever goes beyond him is slave to a faction.

317

That which is the speciality of him alone, How should anyone else see it in dreams?!”

a6

He perceived himself the whole and perceived the whole himself. In such ways did he see behind as he saw in front.''°

aMie

God sealed Prophethood with him."" Miracles and morality and chivalry He reposed in him."

320

He proclaimed his summons for the sake of the high and the low.'” He has brought His bounty to completion in him.''*

321

He has granted unbelievers a stay of punishment, Not having sent in his time chastisement.

322

At night making him on the Miraculous Ascent ride,'"®

ke

The Secret of the Whole to him in secret He confided;

He being in honour and dignity Lord of the Two Summits,'!® His shadowless shadow covering both horizons.!'”

324

Also from God he found the Best of Books: He encompassed the whole of an unreckonable whole.

325

The Speech of the Birds

at

The mothers of the believers his spouses.!!® The reverence of their apostles, his Miraculous Ascent.'!”

326

The prophets were coming behind; he going in front.'”° Of his Community the learned were like prophets. '?!

a2

Almighty God out of perfect respect Mentioned in the Torah and Gospels the name.!”

328

A stone on his account discovered status and reverence,

329

Then by the grace of Allah gained a robe of honour.'”° His land became the Qibla because of his sanctity.'*4

330

The false were abolished in his nation;!*

His mission the overturning of idols: His people the best of peoples.'”°

331

A dry well in a drought year A drop of his saliva filled with sweet water.’

332

The moon by his finger split.’ The sun at his command turned back.'”

323

Between his shoulders he like a sun Carried the seal of Prophethood visibly.

334

He became in the best of lands the Guide,

335

And he, “The best of mortals in the best of centuries”.

The Ka‘ba on his account the honour of the House of God has found.'*° Has been saved whoever into it access has found.

336

Gabriel at his hands became the wearer of the cloak of sanctity, Thus in the guise of Dahiya did he appear."

337

4

The Speech of the Birds

He in his dispensation found earth a more potent thing: He found a floor for prayer and also a cleansing agent.”

338

Since the secret of each and every atom was revealed to him,'*?

339

Unlettered he came: for him it was, “Study not in a book”;'**

Since the tongue of God is his tongue then,’” The best age is his time then.'°

340

On the Day of Tumult silenced entirely Except for his tongue other tongues will be.'*”

341

Till the last breath, when his state was going back, Passionate yearning petitioned the Exalted Majesty.'**

342

As his heart was losing itself in the Ocean of the Mystery, His fervour was longingly moving into prayer;

343

Since his heart was the mighty sea, In a great agitation did the deep sea beat.

344

At the going he was saying, “Release us, O Bilal, That I might come through, out of the constriction of illusion”.

345

Again, on his becoming again distressed,

346

“Speak to me O Humaira”, he said.'4°

Of this going and coming how might reason think? I do not know whether He'll take up one soul out of a hundred.

347

The intellect has no access to Seclusion with Him."*! Acquired knowledge of His Time has no information. !*”

348

When in Seclusion He makes celebration with His bosom

349

friend,'*

Though he burn, Gabriel is not included.'*4

The Speech of the Birds When the Simurgh, His soul, becomes evident,

33 350

Moses in amazement becomes as a ring-dove.'* Went Moses into the space of that side,

O51

“Remove shoes” to him came from God the word.'*6

When near Him he came, shoes left afar,

352

He became in the Holy Valley'*” drowned in light. Yet on the Miraculous Ascent, the Candle of Glory Could hear the patter of the sandals of Bilal.'**

359

Moses the son of ‘Imran, although he was a king,

354

There was no access for him to that place wearing shoes. This favour see, that, for the sake of his eminence,

355

God granted to the servant at His gate.'*” His servant He made the man of his own precinct. He gave him in sandals a way unto Himself.

356

Moses the son of ‘Imran when he that status saw,

357

His servant such proximity enjoying he saw, He cried, “O God, of his people make me; The hanger-on of his holy aspiration”.2? 150

358

Although Moses begged unceasingly for the granting of this

359

need,

Jesus found this exalted station." Surely when he leaves that seclusion (with him), He (Jesus) will summon mortals to his (Muhammad’s) religion.’

360

He to the earth will come from the Fourth Heaven.

361

His face in his (Muhammad’s) dust he’ll lay, his soul ready to be proffered.

34

The Speech of the Birds

He has become his bondsman, the famous Messiah.

362

Because of this, the bearer of good tidings the Creator named ham. '? If anyone says someone is needed

363

Who, once he has gone, will return from that world,

That he might solve our difficulties one by one,

/

364

So that in our hearts no doubt is left, No-one has come back, of the visible and the concealed,

365

In both worlds, save Muhammad, from that world.

What he there attained through perception, A mere prophet came to through received wisdom.'™

366

When the crown of “by your life” came over his head,’”

367

The mountain at once became as a vault over his threshold.

He’s Sultan and following in his wake are all: He forever Shah and all, his troopers.

368

When the world from his tresses full of fragrance became, To Ocean with thirst for it dry lipped became;

369

Who is there not thirsty for the sight of him?

370

So sticks and stones are immersed in his Mission.!°°

When to the pulpit (minbar) went that Sea of Light, The moaning of the pillar-tree was going far and wide.'°”

YN

The pillar-less heavens'** became filled with light, But that pillar because of separation from him became pained.

372

The description of him, how might it fall to me,

373

When sweat in shame bleeding comes upon me?

The Speech of the Birds He the Eloquence of the Cosmos and I, his mute,

35 374

How can I render an account of his condition? Describing him, how does it befit this nobody? His delineator the Creator of the World is and none other.

375

O with your rank, the world is your dust; A hundred worlds of souls, the dust of your perfect spirit;

376

Prophets in describing you have been lost in wonderment; Famous people too have had their heads sent spinning.

377

You, on whose smile depends the sun,

378

Your weeping calls the clouds to action. Both worlds are dust raised by your footfall. You slept in a rug. What a place for you!’*”

379 .

Lift your head from your rug, O generous one,'” Then trample down a rug’s worth.'*!

380

Abrogated has been the Law (shar‘) of all by your Law: The root of them all has become less than a branch of yours.'™

381

For eternity, your Law and your judgements are: For in the Name of God is your name.

382

Whoever there might be of Prophets and Apostles, All to your faith come from their rites,'®

383

Since before you, came not in front of you a single one, After you must be the coming, without doubt.

384

Both in the rear and the van of the Cosmos are you: The precursor and the last in precedence are you.'™

385

36

The Speech of the Birds

Nobody might ever catch up with you. To nobody has so much been accorded either;

386

Lordship over both worlds for eternity Did He make Ahmad’s endowment, the unique Apostle.

387

O, Apostle of God, I have faltered much:

388

Empty-handed and with dust on my head am I left. For those who have no-one, you are the one at every moment. In both worlds I have nobody but you.

389

A glance towards me, the sorrowful, spare;

390

A remedy for the condition of me, the cureless, concoct.

Although I have wasted a life-time through sin, I have repented. Seek my pardon from God.

391

If from the phrase, “Don’t feel safe” is my fear,'® There is “Don’t despair” as a lesson for me.'®°

392

Day and night I’m seated amid a hundred mournfulnesses, Until you the intercessor be for one moment mine.

393

From your door should a simple intercession arise, On sinfulness the seal of obedience would be stamped.

394

O interceder, for a handful of those of darkened fortune

395

Be kind. Kindle the candle of intercession,”

That like the moth, in the midst of your congregation We might come, flapping wings before your candle.

396

Whoever your candle sees clear, Life in the way of the heart he will give, moth-like.

397

The Speech of the Birds

37

For the eye of the soul, meeting with you is sufficient. For the two worlds, your approval is sufficient.

398

Physic for my heart’s pain is your love; The light of my soul is the sun of your countenance.

39?

At your door I hold my heart at the ready. The temper of the blade of my tongue see!

400

Every pearl that I have let drop from the tongue, In your path from the soul’s depth have I cast.

401

Thus have I become for the sake of the soul a pearl-scatterer, That from you the ocean of my soul might possess a sign;

402

As soon as a sign my soul finds of you, Sign-less would become my sign on account of you.

403

My need is this,

404

O Exalted Pearl,

That as an act of grace you spare me a glance.

By that glance keep you me in signlessness; Keep me in the signlessness everlasting.

405

From all this supposition and running after false gods and vanities

406

Make me clean, O Pure Essence.

Do not make me mortified on account of sin;'®

407

Also, grant the due to a namesake!’®

An infant of your way am I plunged in water, Round me the dark waters have closed in.

408

38

The Speech of the Birds STORY

AND EXEMPLIFICATION

A mother’s infant tumbled into a stream.

409

The mother’s spirit fell into panic and turbulence. In terror the child thrashed its arms and legs about. The stream carried him towards the deep mill-race.

410

He was nearly there. The mother, when she realised, Rushed down to the sluice. Hastily she raised the gate.

411

The waters behind drained away and that precious child, Riding them went on too.

412

His mother leapt forward. She grabbed him. She gave him milk straight away and hugged him close.

413

O you out of compassion granting mothers’ love, This drowning man is faced with a terrible mill-stream.

414

Since we’ve fallen into this whirlpool of confusion, Come up against the sluice of affliction,

415

Left swirling round, like that babe in the water Hands and feet are we flailing in distraction.

416

This moment, O Compassionate in the way of infants, Out of kindness on this Your own drowned cast a glance.

417

Show some pity for our desolated heart. Out of kindliness lift our sluice’s gate.

418

Milk give to us from the teats of munificence. Remove not from before us the bountiful feast.

419

You, beyond description and fathoming are you become, Of the attributes of the portrayers clear are you become;

420

The Speech of the Birds

39

The grasp of no-one has reached as far as your saddle-strap; Perforce are we the dust of your dust. Your dust your unblemished companions became: The people of the world dust of your dust became.'”°

421

mni422

Whoever’s not a speck of dust to friends of yours, The enemy is he of your comrades;

423

The first, AbG@ Bakr,'”! and the last, Murtaza,'”?

424

The four pillars of the Ka‘ba of sincerity!”> and sanctity;

That one in trueness'”* the confidence-sharing vazir, And this other in Justice the shining sun;'”°

425

That one, an ocean of modesty and decorum,'”°

426

This other was sovereign in learning and liberality.”

CONCERNING THE VIRTUE OF THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL, ABU BAKR, MAY GOD BE PLEASED IN HIM The first Master, who was his first supporter,'”®

427

The second of the two of them in the cave was he,'”?

Pioneer Leader of the Faith, Mightiest Siddiq,’* Pole of the Truth,'*! In all things before all he took the lead.

428

All that God from the Court of Exalted Power

429

Poured into the noble breast of His Chosen One,'®

All that into the breast of Siddiq He poured, Certainly that there may be from him affirmation poured.'**

430

Once both worlds with one word he had erased,

431

He sealed the lips with pebbles and breathed in the rarer air:'**

40

The Speech of the Birds

He would keep the head bowed all night until day; The night half spent, he’d draw a sigh in ardour.

432

His sigh went as far as China, bearing musk; Musky it made the blood of the gazelle of Tartary.°

433

For this reason said the Sun of the Law and the Faith,

434

“Knowledge must be sought from here to China”.'*° Stones were for this with wisdom in his mouth,

435

That with gravity and knowledge “He”, hu , he might say with his tongue; 187 Nay, pebbles round his tongue closed other utterances’ way, So that he could utter no name at all but “Allaha”’.

436

Stones are needed so that might appear reverence. When are people without gravitas of any use?

437

Since ‘Umar perceived a hair’s tip of his worth,

438

He said, ““Would that I were a hair on his chest’’.!®*

As You him as the “Second of the Two” have accepted, So the “Second of the Two” was he after the Apostle.'®?

439

CONCERNING THE VIRTUE OF THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL, ‘UMAR, MAY GOD BE PLEASED IN HIM Master of the Law, Son of the Congregation of the Faith,

440

Shadow of God, the great Discriminator,'”° Religion’s Candle. The seal was put by his Justice and Equity on the Truth: In percipience by his inspired revelations he could be ahead.!”!

441

He it was over whom God recited Té Hé at the start,

442

So that he became purified for the Ta Ha, and correct.!%

The Speech of the Birds

41

The ha of Ta Ha is for the hubbub in his heart;

443

Happy is he who from a ho! and an ah! is in the h of Hu. He who'll over the Bridge of Sirat the first passage have

d4-

Is he, in the word of the Messenger, ‘Umar:!**

He who first the doorknocker of the Abode of Peace Might seize; what an exalted station!

445

Since first God places his hand in His,'” At the last him with Himself He will take there where He is.

446

The rules of the Faith by his justice found completion: The flood of tumult, the quaking of disruption found repose.

447

He was the candle of Paradise and in no congregation For not any one at all was there shade from the candle;'”°

448

The candle, since it had no shade from its light,

449

How did the devil escape afar from its shade? Since the Truth was wont to speak by his tongue, Through his heart-contained insight, God became manifest.’

450

Sometimes through the agony of passion his soul would burn. Sometimes by the enunciation of the Truth his tongue would burn.

451

When the Prophet saw him as he was sorely burning,

452

He said: “The candle of Paradise is this brave man’’.'”8

CONCERNING THE VIRTUE OF THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL, ‘UTHMAN, MAY GOD BE PLEASED IN HIM Master of the Sunna'® which is the Absolute Light, But he is the Lord of the Two Lights,” full of the Truth,

453

42

The Speech of the Birds

He who immersed in holiness and spiritual knowledge became,

454

The Commander of the Faith, ‘Uthm4n son of ‘Affan became.

The high standing which the standard of the Faith gained, Through the Commander of the Faithful, ‘Uthman, it gained.

455

The lustre that the arenas of the two worlds discovered,

456

Through the light-filled heart of the Lord of the Two Lights they discovered, The second Joseph, in the word of Mustafa,”

457

Ocean of piety and modesty,”” and a mine of fidelity. The affairs of his kinsmen forfeiting his soul he settled: His life in their business he lost.”°

458

They cut off his head as he was sitting, So the Everlasting Compassion he joined.

459

Both through guiding the world and his virtuous learning,” The Community of Him in his time became more.”

460

The Lord of lords*°® was wont to say, “In the firmament The Angels bashfulness always have before ‘Uthman”.?°”

461

Also, the Prophet promised that in the revealed and the concealed,

462

God will not on “Uthman place any blame.?% Since he was not present to accept the oath of allegiance, In place of his hand was the hand of the Apostle.?”

463

Those present said, “We’d have been on the blacklist

464

If, like the Lord of the Two Lights, we’d been absent”.

The Speech of the Birds

43

CONCERNING THE VIRTUE OF THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL, ‘ALI, MAY GOD BE PLEASED IN HIM Master of the Truth, Exemplar to the righteous, Mountain of Clemency, the Gateway to Wisdom," the Pole of Religion,

465

The dispenser of Kawthar,?"' the guiding Im4m,

466

Son of the uncle of Mustafa,?!? the Lion of God.

The Approved of the Elect,”’* Mate of the Virgin,?!* Husband of the Innocent,”'° Son-in-law of the Prophet.

467

In elucidation a guide he came, The Master of Mysteries, “The Ask of Me” he became.?’°

468

The indubitably pre-eminent in claims’ assessments is he: The unquestionable expounder of the Law in all respects is he.”

469

Since ‘Ali with hidden matters is one,

470

How should reason have any doubt of his perspicuity? Moreover, by the dictum “The best in judgement”, “Ali is the soul aware:?'8 ‘Ali is touched by the Essence of God.?"”

471

From a breath of Jesus’s if someone arose alive, He with a saliva drop or two the severed hand made whole.*”°

472

Became in the Ka‘ba, this possessor of approval, The idol-breaker on the shoulders of the Apostle.”

473

In his mind lay hidden the secrets of the Invisible. Hence he would draw the white hand from his pocket.”

474

44

The Speech of the Birds 475

If he had not the white hand evidently possessed,

How would Dhii’l-Faqar have been gripped there.” 476

At times agitated he became because of his rdle: At times he’d whisper low into a well his secrets.”

OF PARTISANSHIP HE WOULD

SAY

“O captive to factionalism, Forever in hate and bigotry left,

477

If you boast of reason and understanding, Then why a word do you utter in partisanship?

478

In the Caliphate, there is no favouritism, you ignoramus!

479

When would favouritism issue from Abt Bakr and ‘Umar?

Had any bias been in those two exemplars,

480

Both of them would have made a son leader.

Of the two of them, although they were the truth of the Truth, Prohibiting would have been incumbent on the others;

481

Forbidding had it not been publicly expressed, Dereliction of duty would have been condoned.

482

If no-one comes to proscribe any particular Companion,” Either the whole lot deny,” or affirm!

483

If you deny the Companions of the Apostle, The message of the Messenger you’ve not accepted.

484

He said: ‘Each of my Companions is a shining star; The best of eras is my era.?7

485

The best of creatures my friends are: Blessings with my friends are.’

486

—

The Speech of the Birds

45

If the best for you is the worst, How might you be called ‘Possessor of Insight’? How can you ever hold it allowable that the Companions of the Prophet Might to an unworthy man themselves commit? Or seat him in the place of Mustafa?

487

°

488

489

To the Companions this folly would not be permissible.

Acceptance” of them all if it is not correct, Acceptance of the collating of the Koran is error.”

490

Know, whatever the Companions of the Messenger may do, They rightly do and as befits men of God.

491

As soon as you dismiss a single one from functioning, You are denying thirty-three thousand.”

492

That who other than for God has not a moment striven,

493

Did no more than ‘hobble the camel’.*! Since so much does he cling to duty, Who is to deprive the exemplary of his due? Think no ill.

494

Had favouritism to Siddiq been allowable,

495

How could, ‘Depose me’ have ever been said by him.””

In “Umar had there been a particle of preference, How could he have thrashed his son to death by the blows of

496

a scourge?”*? Always Siddiq was a man of the Path:

497

Free of all, he was the devoted attendant at the Gate.?*

Riches-and a daughter he offered for the sake of the soul. No tyranny performs such an act as this. Shame on you!

498

46

The Speech of the Birds

Clear of the superficialities of varying readings was he, For inside the miracle of cognition was he;”*°

499

He who on the minbar observed etiquette: He did not sit in the place that had been the Master’s.”°

500

As this man sees everything of the before and after, False how could anyone call him?

501

Then the Discriminator whose business was justice,

502

At times he’d make bricks and at times root out thorns.?*”

With gall and wormwood the city he’d arouse: He’d stride into the city and demand a way.

503

Daily was he in the curbing of appetite:

504

Seven morsels of bread his nourishment, no more.

Vinegar was with salt on his table. Not from the Community’s Treasury was his bread.?°*

505

The sand was, when he would sleep, his bed;

506

The scourge was a pillow beneath his head. He’d snatch up like a water-carrier a water skin: To the widow-woman would he carry water at the time

507

of sleep.” 39

At night he would go, having no regard for the self: The whole night he would keep ward over the army.

508

He said to Hudhaifa,?”°

509

‘O Possessor of Insight, do you see any hypocrisy in ‘Umar? Where’s the person who'll of my faults to my face,

Showing no favour, make me a gift most rare?’**!

510

The Speech of the Birds

47

If the Caliphate wrongly had he, A ton’s weight of patched habit why did he wear???

511

Since neither woolen garment nor woven blanket came his way, Patch upon patch he sowed, ten pieces of goat-hide.?

512

He who in this manner would act Shah of a host,

51s

it is not possible that he would indulge in partiality for anyone: He who sometimes carried bricks and sometimes extracted clay, Would not all this hardship endure in vain.

514

Had he the office of Caliph out of ambition performed, He would have set himself up in a Sultanate.”

515

Infidel cities by his sword Were emptied of unbelief in his days.*”

516

If you play at partisanship on this account, It would not be to do justice. Die in punishment for this!

517

Did he not die because of anger?**° But you, because of his anger, How many times will you die if you do not share sorrow for him?

518

Do not see, O ignorant unacknowledger of what is due,

519

With the Caliphate any comparison with your brand of lordship! For you, when this lordship comes to an end,

520

Grieving over it you’ll be harrowed by a hundred fires.

If anyone had seized the Caliphate from them, The burden of a hundred kinds of bane they’d have seized.

521

It is not easy, so long as there is life in the body, Bearing responsibility for a people round your neck.”

522

48

The Speech of the Birds STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

When ‘Umar to Uvais’*’ came raging, He said “I’ve put the Caliphate up for sale.

523

If this Caliphate has a purchaser, Pl sell it for a dinar.”

524

When Uvais heard these words from ‘Umar,

525

He said, “Drop it you and go free. Throw it away. To whomever it’s necessary, from the highway He'll pick it up: he’ll come forward.”

526

When the Caliphate the Amir wanted to throw away, At once up went a cry from the Companions;

527

All said to him, “Don’t, O Leader,

528

Make the people confused, for God’s sake. A responsibility upon your neck Siddiq imposed. Out of sagacity, not on the blind did he this impose.

PAS |

If you deviate from his decree, Straight away on your account his soul will be troubled.”

530

When this strong plea “Umar heard, Through this argument on him the task became more binding.

534

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When that ill-starred one finally, by fate’s decree,

532

Suddenly on Murtaza that wound inflicted,” For Murtaza a potion was prepared. Murtaza asked, “Where is my assassin?

535

The Speech of the Birds

49

Give him the potion first, then me, For he will be accompanying me”.

534

The cordial to him they brought. He shouted: “See Haidar’s*”? revenge! Now he would slay me with poison!”

Do5

Murtaza said, “By the Truth of the Creator,

536

If this criminal were to drink my drink, I would not, without him in tow,

537

Before God in the garden of refuge set foot.” When that wretched man slew Murtaz4,

538

Murtaza without him was not going to enter Paradise. For the enemy, since his compassion was so great, For the likes of Siddiq would rancour ever be his?

539

He who so strongly for a foe felt grief, For ‘Atiq”° how could hostility be thought of in him?

540

The world without bounds cannot produce Such as ‘Ali a single devoted friend to Siddiq.

541

How long are you going to repeat, ““Ali was wronged, And excluded from exercising the powers of the Caliphate?’’”*’

542

Since ‘Ali is the Lion of God and the crown of the Esoteric,””

543

Wrong cannot be done to a lion, my lad!

STORY Mustafa halted at a place on the march.

544

He asked for water to be fetched for the army from a well. A man. went. He came back post-haste. He said, “The well’s full of blood. There’s no water.”

545

50

The Speech of the Birds

The Prophet replied, “Think you it’s out of sorrow for

546

some business of its own?

Murtaza’s to the well confided his secrets.

When the well heard them, it could not bear it.

547

Inevitably when you arrived, it had no water”.”°° He who in his soul so much fervour was,

548

In his heart how could there be the least rancour?

Out of partisanship your soul’s boiling: Murtaza had no such soul as this. Quiet!?°*

549

Murtaza do not with yourself compare, For in God was he engrossed, that man of God.

550

Thus was he so immersed in His work,

551

He had no time for your vain chimeras. Had, like you, Murtaza been full of hate,

552

He would have sought battle with the Mustafa-ite host.

He than you more manly was by far. Then why no war did he make against anyone?

553

If Siddiq were un-entitled, ah, the surprise of it!

554

He, since he was entitled, would have sought his due.

Before Haidar, the army of the Mother of the Faithful,?>°

305

When, not in the way of the Faith, sought hostility,?°°

Unavoidably, when he saw such a battle array and insurrection, Haidar mounted a defence against those people in strength;

556

But he who could war against the daughter,

SOF

He would know that he was moving against the father.?°”

The Speech of the Birds

51

Lad, you lacking any clue about ‘Ali: The ‘A and the I and the L you know of ‘Ali!?5®

558

You, on account of love for your own life anxious,

559

But he stayed that he might offer up a hundred lives. ~ Of the Companions if anyone were killed,

560

Haidar the Impetuous would have been consumed with grief,”

So that he’d have cried, “How is it that I have not been slain

561

as well? Wretched has become in my eyes life so dear”. The Master would have replied, ““What is the matter, “Ali?

562

Your life is preserved, O “Ali.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION HOW FAITH OVERCOMES AFFLICTION Suffered in a certain place one day Bilal On delicate flesh a hundred blows and lashes.”*”

563

Blood flowed from him because of innumerable stick-blows,

564

But still he kept on saying “The One!”, “The One!”?°! If a thorn suddenly penetrated your foot, Neither love nor hate for anyone would be left in your mind.

565

He who on account of a thorn is afflicted,

566

By him control of such a people would be wrong. While such as Bilal were they (the Caliphs) you are such as this;7°7 How long will you survive, you as distracted as you are?

567

52

The Speech of the Birds

On account of your pretensions, idol-worshippers have been

568

saved,

But on account of your tongue the Companions have been wounded.

In meddling you blacken the record; You’d have carried off the ball if you’d held your tongue.

569

Were it ‘Ali or were it Siddiq, The souls of each were submerged in the quest for truth.

570

When to the cave came Mustafa,

578

Slept that night in his covering Murtaza. Offered his own life did Haidar,

572

That the life might remain of the greatest Leader.*® Already the Companion in the Cave, The World’s True Witness (Siddiq), Also for his life had risked his own.

573

Both were gamblers with their lives for his sake; Life-sacrificing for the protection of him were they.

574

You taking sides when they, with manliness,

Sia

Both the two of them, sacrifice life for the beloved?

Whether you are this one’s man or that one’s, Where in you is the compassion of this one or the godly longing of the other?

576

Like them sacrificing life make you your practice, Or be silent and abandon these suspicions.

SF7

You know ‘Ali and Aba Bakr, my lad,

578

Yet of possessing intelligence and a soul you are ignorant.

The Speech of the Birds Leave as a chapter closed this slandering: Be a man of God day and night like R4bi‘a.? She was no woman. She was a hundred men,”

53 579

580

From head to foot compounded of the yearning was she.” She’d become continuously immersed in the light of God: Freed from interventions, she’d become utterly drowned.

581

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION RABI‘A AND THE THORN Someone asked of her, saying, “O Possessor of the Acceptance, What do you have to say about the Companions of the Apostle?”

582

She replied, “I never come to an end with God: How should I be able to talk about the Companions?

583

Were not my heart and soul devoted to God, I might have a moment to notice people.

584

Am I not the one who, wrapped in adoration one time, A thorn broke in my eye in some way?®”

585

Over the ground from my eye flowed the blood. Of my blood I was completely unaware.

586

He who has had yearning such as this, How might he be mindful of the affairs of men and women?

587

Since there was no me, that I should be self-knowing, How should I know any other by self-comparison?”

588

You, in this Way neither God nor Apostle, Restrain yourself from this refusing and accepting.

589

54

The Speech of the Birds

You’re a handful of dust in the ect Dust become!

590

Of picking and choosing be rid! Since you’re a fistful of dust, speak from the dust: Know you them all to be pure, and speak decently.

59%

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION HOW GOD EXEMPTED MUHAMMAD FROM RESPONSIBILTY The Lord of the World asked of the Creator,

592

“Leave the affairs of my people to me, That nobody might discover any information On the iniquity of my people at any instant”.

593

God Almighty said to him: “Great Leader, Were you to see those sins without number,

594

You could not bear it: you’d be amazed. You’d be mortified and hide yourself from view.

595

‘Ayesha, who was as a soul-mate to you,

596

Disgusted with her became the heart, at a single false rumour,

in you.”

You listened to the clamour of profane people, Then you sent her back to her own place,”®

597

When you turned from someone most dear.

598

Full of sin in the Community there are many;

You haven’t the power to stand so many sins. Leave your people to Allah.

599

If you desire that nobody in the world Of your Community’s misdemeanours‘has any inkling,

600

The Speech of the Birds I likewise desire, O Exalted Jewel,

5D 601

That of their crimes you too should have no knowledge. Step you out from the midst. Withdraw aside. Leave the affairs of the Community by day and by night to me”.

602

Since the Community’s affairs are not the business of Mustafa,

603

How might this business be righted by your authority? Leave off passing judgement and hold your tongue. Be without prejudice and make the Path your purpose.

604

That which they did, learn that. Go in peace. See to your own ways;

605

Either step out in sincerity in the manner of Siddigq, Or go forth like Faruq: make justice your choice;

606

Or, like “Uthman, be full of modesty and forebearing; Or, like Haidar, an ocean of magnanimity and learning be.

607

Or say not a word. Take my advice: Go! Move on and mind your own business. Go!

608

What man are you of sincerity and Haidarite knowledge? You’re a man of appetites. Every moment you’re more an

609

infidel.

Slay the doubting self: Be of the Faith. When you’ve killed the carnal soul, be saved.

610

Stop this meddling in partisanship. Do not arrogate to yourself apostleship.

611

There’s no argument about the Law: acceptance alone. Why do you argue over the Companions of the Apostle?

612

56

The Speech of the Birds

There is not in me this presumption. O God, From taking sides forever keep me.

613

Cleanse of party-spirit my soul. Say, let there not be this thing in my books.

614

PART

TWO

LH EeBOGK

v]

THE BEGINNING

OF THE BOOK

Greetings, Hoopoe, the guide become, In truth the courier of every valley become,'

615

You, to the Sabaean frontier your journey a success, To Solomon your bird-talk? a joy,

616

You became the master of Solomon’s secret. Of boasting of being crown-adorned you became.

617

Restrain the devil in fetters and in prison, That Solomon’s confidant you might be:

618

The devil when you in prison put, Accompanying Solomon you might attempt the great carpet.*

619

Bravo, well-done O Dove of the quality of Moses! Arise cooing away in knowledge of the Divine,*

620

Turned for the soul’s sake man recognitive of music: The musical notes, the Creation’s thanksgiving,”

621

Like Moses seeing the fire from afar, Inevitably, the Ring-Dove on the mountain of Sinai,

622

Be distant from the brutish Pharaoh:

623

Come to the trysting place® and be the bird of the Blessed Mountain.

Then the tongue-less language and the noiseless

624

Comprehend without reason’s intervention; listen, but not with the ear.

Welcome, O Rose-ringed Parakeet Tuiba-tree’ perching, Attired in a verdant robe, a fiery collar.

625

60

The Speech of the Birds

The collar of fire is on account of the hell-bound;

626

The robe is for the heaven-bound and generous. Like Khalil,* the one who escapes from Nimrod Can happily nest in fire.

627

Slit the head Nimrod has, like a pen-tip: Like the Friend of God, step into the fire.

628

Once you've been rid of the terror of Nimrod, Don your satin robe — what fear of your fiery collar?

629

Hail, O Partridge proudly strutting! A happy bird are you, treading over the Mount of ‘Irfan.’

630

Cluck away chuckling in the mode of the Path;'° Strike the knocker on the iron of the door of Allah.

631

Your own mountain melt with dervishism,

632

That from your mountain a she-camel might emerge." When a young she-camel secure you discover, You will see the streams of milk and honey flowing.”

633

Drive forward the she-camel when she’s amenable to you;

634

Salih himself will come forward to greet you!

Welcome O Goshawk slim, predatory-eyed, How long will you be of a fury swift and unrelenting?

635

Make the scroll of the love eternal-without-beginning your talons’ jess; Do not for eternity-without-end loosen that scroll’s thongs.

636

The inborn intelligence for the heart exchange, That you might perceive as one, eternity-without-end and eternity-without-beginning.'*

637

The Speech of the Birds

61

The frame of nature’s mew smash boldly: In the Cave of Unity make your perch."

638

Once within the Cave the perch will be for you attained, The Lord of the World will become for you the Companion of the Cave.

639

Hail, O Francolin of the “Miraculous Ascent” of the

640

Covenant — You’ve seen on the crown of the head of “Yes”, the

Crown of the Covenant.'® When the “Am I not?” [alastu?] of love you heard with the

641

soul,

At the “Yes” the carnal spirit’s filled with revulsion. If your concupiscent soul’s “Yes” is a whirlpool of calamity, How might your affair become right in the whirlpool?’°

642

The carnal soul like Jesus’s ass burn, Then like Jesus become soul and set the soul afire.'”

643

Burn the ass and release the bird of the soul,

644

That God’s Spirit'® will come forward to welcome you. Welcome, O nightingale of the Garden of Love! Go on sweetly sweetly sobbing from love’s pain and searing.

645

In melancholic melody, of the heart’s sorrow gently sing

646

David-like,

That lives by the hundred may be offered up to you at each breath.”

A David-throat with spiritual meaning open; For creation by the harmony of your kind a guide.

647

62

The Speech of the Birds

How long will you knit chain-mail over fleshly impulse vile? Like David your own iron make as wax.”°

648

Were this iron of yours to become soft as wax, You’d become in love as warm as David.

649

Greetings, O Peacock of the eight-doored garden!” You’ve burned with the strike of the seven-headed serpent!

650

Associating with this serpent cast you into grief, And from the Paradise of Eden cast you out.

651

It took you away from the Lote tree and Tuba: It made your heart ashamed of your form’s defect.

652

So long as you do not encompass this snake’s slaughter, How can you be worthy of these mysteries?

653

If you gain freedom from this ugly snake,

654

Adam, with the Elect, will take you into Paradise.

Welcome, O graceful Pheasant far-sighted! Seer of the heart’s spring drowned in the Ocean of Light!

655

O left imprisoned in the pit of darkness,

656

Afflicted in the dungeon of misery left, Yourself from this pit of shadows wrest. Your head lift towards the pinnacle of the Throne Divine:

657

Like Joseph go beyond the prison and the pit, To become in the Egypt of glory king.

658

Were such sovereignty to be secured for you, Joseph the Truthful would be your companion.”

659

The Speech of the Birds

63

Greetings, O Turtle Dove coming plaintively cooing;”* Gone out joyful, returned despondent.

660

Despondent of heart because you’ve been left standing in blood:** In the constraint of the Lord of the Fish’s prison left.”

661

O your head turned by the fish of the carnal soul, How long must you experience the malevolence of the carnal self?

662

Cut off the head of this invidious fish,

663

That you might be able to stroke the top of the head of the moon!*° If you had release from the fish of the carnal soul, You'd be the intimate of Jonah in the Ocean of the Elect.

664

Welcome, Ring Dove, strum out your note,

665

That pearls over you the Seven Heavens might scatter.”’

As the collar of fidelity is round your neck, It would be unbecoming for you to commit infidelity.

666

Of your existence so long as a hair remains in place, I'll dub you unfaithful from head to foot.

667

If you come in and come out of the self, The way towards the inner meaning you'll find through wisdom.

668

When wisdom conducts you towards spiritual meaning, Khizr will bring you the water of life!*

669

Hail O Falcon swooping: Ascending head aloft, coming down head in reverse.

670

64

The Speech of the Birds

Raise not your head since you stay nose-diving: Surrender the body, since you’re steeped in blood;

671

You’ve become addicted to the carrion of the world;

672

Of necessity you’ve become cut-off from the Meaning True. Pass beyond both this world and the hereafter. Then remove the hood from over your head and look!

673

Once diverted from the two worlds is your gaze, The wrist of Dhia’l-Qarnain will become your perch.”

674

Welcome, O Golden Eagle! Be welcomed.

675

Be warm to the task and enter like fire.

Whatever you encounter, in ardour burn. Against creation the eye of the soul sew completely up.

676

When you burn whatever you chance upon, Dainty titbits of the True every moment will be offered to you.

677

When your heart’s become informed of God’s mysteries, Consecrate yourself to God’s work.

678

When you become in God’s affair the Perfect Bird, No ‘you’ will remain. God remains. Farewell!

679

THE BIRDS’ RESOLUTION An assembly the birds of the world formed,

680

Those in sight and those out of sight. All of them said, “‘At the present time in the cycle of events,

No state’s lacking a Prince.

;

681

The Speech of the Birds

65

How should it be that our clime has no Shah? Further than this without there being a Shah there is no progress.

682

It is fitting we should help each other: That we should fulfil the task of seeking for a Padshah;

683

Because when a country is lacking a Padsh4h, No order or discipline is left in the army.”

684

Then all on one place converged: All committed to the quest for a King.

685

LHE HOOPOE'S

LEAD

The hoopoe agitated, full of expectation, Entered into the midst of the assembly impatient.

686

A gown there was on his shoulders, betokening the Path. A crown there was of the Truth upon his head.*°

687

Swift of perception was he, having entered the Way: Having of good and of evil become aware.

688

He said, “O birds I am without doubt

689

Both the messenger of the Presence and courier of the Invisible.*! I have both become informed of every Majesty, And through perception become Master of Mysteries.

690

He who has borne ‘In the Name of God’ (Bismillah) in his beak’ —* It’s not unlikely he should have discovered many secrets!

691

I pass my days minding my own business: Nobody has anything to do with me.*

692

66

The Speech of the Birds

Since I am free of creatures, necessarily Creatures have no truck with me either.

693

Since I am preoccupied with pangs for the Padshah, Never for me is there any concern for the crowd.

694

I reveal water through my divining power. Many secrets do I know other than this one.

695

With Solomon have I come forward in conversing: Consequently to his troops I have become superior.

696

Whoever goes missing from his realm, ah the wonder that any should! He does not inquire after nor search for.

697

I, when I was missed by him on one occasion,

698

He started up a search far and wide. Because he cannot do without me a single moment,

699

For eternity without end the hoopoe enjoys this dignity. I took his letter and came back:

700

With him behind the curtain I became the sharer of the secret.

Whoever’s sought after by a prophet, It is befitting for him if there’s a crown on his head.

701

Whosoever’s divinely remembered for goodness, When might any other bird whatsoever catch up with him?

702

Years on land and sea have I been wandering: Keeping my feet on the Path have I travelled to the end.

703

I have traversed valleys and mountains and deserts. A world have I overflown in the time of the Deluge.

704

The Speech of the Birds

67

With Solomon on journeys have I been. Many a time the surface of the world have I criss-crossed.

705

My own king have I known; How might I proceed alone when I’m not able to?*

706

But if with me you become companions on the march, You'll become the confidant of that King and that Court.

707

You'll escape from the shame of your own self-regard; Why further the ignominy of your lack of faith?

708

Whoever for Him stakes his life is liberated from the self: In the Path of the Beloved, liberated from good and evil.

709

Sacrifice life and step out onto the road. Feet dancing head for that Portal!

710

There is for us a King indisputable, Behind a mountain that is the Mount of Qaf.*®

7At

His name is Simurgh, Sultan of Birds; He to us close but we from Him distant far.*”

712

In the Sanctuary of Glory is His nest. Not within the compass of every tongue is His name.

713

Hundreds of thousands of veils He has and more,

714

Both of light and of darkness in front of Him.”

In both worlds nobody has the gall To be able to find any part of Him.

715

Always He is the Absolute Sovereign. In the perfection of His Majesty is He immersed.

716

68

The Speech of the Birds

He does not reveal Himself there where He is;

FVZ

How might learning and sense reach that place He is? There is no road to Him, no patience on His account: Hundreds of creatures maddened on His account.

718

His description since it eludes the pure soul, Reason has no reserve of the capital for comprehending;

719

Of necessity both reason and soul stay abashed, For His attributes, their two eyes are left unavailing.

720

No man of learning has perceived His perfection. No sight has beheld His beauty.

jas

To His perfection creation finds no access. Knowledge falters and sight does not find the way.

72z

The portion of created beings, of this perfection and this beauty, Is, if you put them together, a fistful of illusions.

723g

In fantasy how should this road be traversed? How can you with the fish the moon enfold?

724

There a hundred thousand heads would be like polo balls: Ha Ha’s and Hu’s are there!

72a

Vastnesses that are dry, vastnesses that are seas are along the way, Lest you should suppose that it’s a short way.

726

A lion-man is needed for this road, mighty,

Ps)

Because it’s a long road and the sea deep, deep. It is to be expected that we should proceed amazed: In His way that we should proceed laughing and crying.

728

The Speech of the Birds

69

If we find a sign of Him, that would be something! And if not, living without Him would be destitution.

72.)

When might life without the Beloved be of any use? If you’re a man, bear not life without the Beloved!

730

Completion of this road needs a man: Forfeiting life this Gate needs.

731

Hands must be washed of life manly-wise, That it might be said, “You’re a man of purpose’.

Toa

Since life without the Beloved is worth nothing at all, Like good troopers throw precious life away.

136

If you, like a brave, sacrifice life,

734

Life abundant the Beloved will make your reward!”’*

THE STORY OF THE SIMURGH The beginning of the affair of the Simurgh,* ah the wonder! In all His glory He flew over China one midnight;

Fao.

Into the middle of China from Him a feather fell;

736

As a result every province was filled with tumult. Everyone limned a tracing of this feather. All who saw that drawing were much affected.

737

The feather is now in China’s Art Gallery; “Seek knowledge even as far as China’’*! is because of this.

738

Had the image of His plume not come to light, None of this agitation would have existed in the world.”

Wo)

70

The Speech of the Birds

All these effects of creative power are through His lustrous grace: All, manifestations of the impression of His plume.

740

Since His attributes have neither visible head nor tail,

741

Saying more than this would not be fitting. Whoever now of you is a man for the road, Set out upon it putting the best foot forward.

742

All the birds came to that be ddemvGns.

743

Excited by the glory of that Padshah. Yearning for Him in their souls took effect: It made each one mightily impatient.

744

They determined to set out and pressed forward: Adorers of Him, enemies of themselves they became.

745

But, since the road was very long and distant, Everyone was apprehensive of embarking on it.

746

Although for the journey each was prepared, Each a different excuse expressed.

747

THE NIGHTINGALE’S

STORY

The love-sick nightingale entered quite beside itself

748

And, because of passion complete, neither here nor there.

A spiritual meaning in all thousand notes has he.*? Beneath every meaning, a world of mystery has he.

749

He’s become of the mysteries of inner meaning the proclaimer. He’s made the birds tongue-tied in utterance.

750

The Speech of the Birds

71

He declared: “In me have been sealed the secrets of love: The whole night through I the formula of love do repeat.

751

Is there no-one like David giving up the task,*° That I might the psalms of love plaintively chant?

T32

The wailing in the reed is due to my song.” The low note of the lute is from my plaintive sound.

ToS

Gardens are filled with lamentation by me; In the hearts of lovers, the brimming-over is because of me.

754

I repeat every moment a fresh mystery, In my mouth every moment a different note;

#55

Love my soul when it invades, Like the ocean my soul is brought into tumult.

756

Whoever’s my lament known has lost his senses: Though sober enough they came, intoxicated they went away.

757

When I find none to share the secret, the live-long year I keep quiet: to no-one at all I divulge any secret.*’

758

When my beloved in Spring The musk of her fragrance scatters over the world,

759

I fully to her devote the heart: I resolve by her appearance my problem.

760

Again, when my beloved goes out of sight, The nightingale dejected becomes of scant speech.

761

For my secret’s not for everyone: The nightingale’s secret the rose knows without any doubt.

762

72

The Speech of the Birds

I’m so in love of the rose plunged, That of my own existence I’m utterly oblivious.

763

In my head, because of love of the rose there’s naught but longing, Because my desired one is the delicate rose alone.

764

Being strong enough for the Simurgh is not for a nightingale. For a nightingale, sufficient is love of a rose.

765

When I enjoy the hundred petals of my darling, How should self-denial be a duty for me?**

766

The rose the instant she blossoms, as a ravisher of the heart

767

She of all to my face merrily makes mockery. When from behind the veil the rose comes out,

768

Her laughter to my face becomes manifest. How might the nightingale be a single night Void of passion for such laughing lips?”

769

The hoopoe replied, “O enraptured by form, More than this in passion for a delicate thing do not preen

770

yourself!

Love for the face of the rose has pierced you with many a thorn, Has festered in you and become your obsession.

tid

The rose, although it’s sufficiently the possessor of loveliness, Its beauty in one week goes off.

Tie

Love of something that makes decay apparent, To the Perfect Ones spells disgust.

TIS

The laughter of the rose, although it turns you on, Night and day into plaintive wailing drags you.

774

The Speech of the Birds Pass beyond the rose: the rose every spring Will be laughing at you, not rejoicing in you. Shame on you!’”?

73 775

STORY A prince had a daughter resembling the moon: A world full of lovers and the seduced she held.

776

Infatuation had unending arousal, Because her sultry eyes were wanton.

Tid

Cheeks of camphor and tresses of musk she had;

778

Rubies of the purest water on account of her lips, parched lips had.

If her beauty the smallest portion showed, Reason by unreason would be disgraced.

779

Had sugar the taste of her lips known,

780

Out of shame it would have lost its virtue and melted.

By chance there was passing a dervish in bondage. His eye alighted upon that lustrous moon.

781

He had a bit of stale bread in his hand, that destitute one;

782

Fresh bread the while with the baker was left.

When his eye fell upon the cheek of that moon, The bread slipped from his hand and fell on the road.

783

The girl swept past him like fire. She gaily laughed at him. Merrily, unconcerned she passed.

784

That mendicant then, her laughter when he saw,

785

Himself in the dust drowned in tears he found. Half a loaf he had, that beggar, and half'a soul.

Of those two halves he was rid at one fell swoop.

786

74

The Speech of the Birds

He had no repose, neither night nor day. He made no utterance because of weeping and because of burning, too.

787

He would recall the laughter of that princess;

788

Weeping overcame him like a weeping cloud. Seven years, in short, so much deranged was he,

789

With the dogs of the girl’s quarter lying was he.

The servants of the princess and attendants,

790

All became, ah the wonder!, aware of this.

They determined, those wreakers of cruelty, together That they should cut off the head of that beggar as a candle’s snuffed.

791

In secret the princess summoned the beggar and said: “The likes of you and the likes of me, how should they be mated?

792

They’re after your life. Take flight and go. Stay not at my door. Get out and go!”

793

That beggar replied, “I that day my hands Washed of life when I was intoxicated by you.

794

A hundred thousand lives like distracted me

Ris,

Be, for your face, every moment the sacrifice! Since me they will kill without justice, To one question of mine out of kindness give answer.

796

Since you would cut off my head without compunction, For what reason did you smile upon me that time?”

i9F

The Speech of the Birds

75

She answered, “When I saw you, ah you, lacking wisdom, I was laughing at you; that’s all, you fool!

798

At your head and face laughing’s permissible, But to rejoice in you is not.”

799

This she said and went from before him like smoke. All that had been there originally, all that was nothing.

800

STORY, OF, THE PARROT In came the parrot with a mouth full of sugar,” In a garb pistachio-green with a collar of gold:

801

A gnat would be with a Shah had it these adornments — Everywhere green sprouting from his plumage.

802

Speaking words, sugar-cracking it entered, Gnawing sugar, a riser at dawn it entered.

803

It croaked: “Every one hard of heart and every nobody For the likes of me a cage of iron makes.

804

I, in this iron prison left encased, Am from desire for the Water of Khizr pining.

805

I’m the birds’ Green Man. Hence I’m green-clad. Would that I were able the Water of Life to drink!

806

I can’t muster strength for the Simurgh’s sake: Sufficient for me would be a drop of water from Khizr’s spring.

807

I’d be setting out like a crazy one: Going all over the place like a vagabond;

808

If a sign I were to find of the Water of Life, In slavery sovereignty would be mine.”

809

76

The Speech of the Birds

The hoopoe said: ““O of fortune without a sign!

810

A man he’s not whoever is not sacrificing life!

For this life is of use to you,

811

That a moment’s enjoyment of the Friend might be visited upon you.

You desire the Water of Life and you’re a clinger on to life.

812

Go, for you’ve no substance. You’re just a husk.

Why will you sacrifice life for darlings?

813

In the way of the Darling, offer your life like the brave.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was this madman of exalted position.°!

814

Khizr addressed him, ““O Perfect Man

Are you looking to this, that you might be my comrade?”

815

He answered, “With you my affair wouldn’t benefit:

You’ve drunk the Water of Life habitually,

816

That your life might be forever prolonged.

My aim is that I might be rid of life,

817

For without the Beloved I cannot bear it.

While you’re halted in life’s preservation,

818

I’m everyday poised to sacrifice it.

Better it were that, like birds eluding a snare, We far from each other be, so Farewell!”

819

The Speech of the Birds

77

THE: PEAGOGES:LALE After this, the gold-laced peacock entered,*?

820

The colouring of its feathers a hundred, no, a hundred

thousand hues. Like a bride it has decked itself out for show. Every plume of it has emitted a scintillation.

821

It said, “As soon as the Artist in the Invisible designed my pattern, For the Chinese, fingers to brushes rushed.

822

Although I’m the Gabriel of birds, yet By fate’s decree something was amiss with me:

823

I, once and once only, befriended the vile serpent,” So, ignominiously out of paradise did I tumble.

824

When my role of being an intimate was changed, My platform feet became my ball-and-chain.

825

I have the resolve to escape from this dark vale; Let there be a guide to lead me to the highest Heaven!

826

I’m not the man to reach as far as the Sultan. It would be enough for me to get as far as the doorman.

827

How should the Simurgh take any notice of me? It would be sufficient were high Heaven my home.

828

I in the world have no purpose other than That the way to Paradise be again opened to me.”

829

The hoopoe answered him: “O you seduced by yourself,

830

Whomever a dwelling desires of the King,

78

The Speech of the Birds

Tell, closeness to Him is better than this:

831

Dwelling in the Sultan’s presence is best. The house of the carnal soul is a heaven full of capricious desire. The house of the heart is sincerity’s only destination.

832

The Majesty of God is a vast ocean. The Garden of Felicity is only a tiny drop.”

833

Whosoever has the ocean has the drop. Whatever’s other than the ocean is misery.

834

When to the ocean you are able to find the way, Why chase after a drop of dew?

835

Whoever can exchange secrets with the sun,

836

How can he be held up by a mote? Whoever’s become all, what business has the part with him?

837

And he who has become soul, what business has a limb with him?

If you’re a whole man,*° look to the whole.

838

Seek the whole. Be the whole. Become the whole. Choose the whole”’.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION PARADISE IS NOT ENOUGH A pupil inquired of the Master, “Why did Adam fall from Paradise?”

839

The teacher replied, ““Adam was indeed the highest jewel.

840

When to Paradise he lowered his head,

The Speech of the Birds A voice from the Unseen a loud call raised,

79 841

Saying, “O entrapped in Paradise by a hundred kinds of bond, Whoever in either world, outside of Us

842

Submits to something inferior to Us, We'll bring deprivation of whatever there is, Because it’s impossible to embrace other than the Friend.’

843

With the Beloved are a hundred thousand abodes.*© Of what use is an abode without the Beloved?

844

Whosoever except by the Beloved would live by something else,

845

Even were he Adam, he would be cast out.

For the people of Paradise in this wise has a Tradition come: That the first thing given there is liver.>’

846

The people of Paradise, if they are not in the secret, Will go on preoccupied with that liver-eating.”

847

THE PALE OFTHE

DUCK

The Duck,* fastidiously clean, emerged from the water Into the midst of the assembly, in its immaculate garb.

848

It said, “In neither of the two worlds is anyone heard of Of a perfect purity cleaner than mine?

849

I have every moment performed the ablutions as prescribed, Then I have thrown the prayer-mat down on the waters!”

850

Like me when does anyone stand on water? No doubt at all is left concerning my wondrous powers.”

851

The ascetic of the birds am I, of pure intent. Always are both my clothes and my habitation clean.

852

80

The Speech of the Birds

I find in the world no profit without water: My sustenance and being are in it.

853

Though in my heart a world of sorrow I might have, I wash the heart clean of it, for water is my boon companion.

854

With water, I’m in luck’s way here all the time;*

855

How on dry land should I find satistfaction? Since for me with water my lot has fallen, How might I from water’s midst take to the shore?

856

Whatever lives, always lives by water.®

857

Such as this cannot wash the hands of water!

Through the valleys how am I able to make my way? Because of this to the Simurgh I cannot fly.

858

He for whom the surface of water is all,

859

How should he find satisfaction through the Simurgh?” The hoopoe answered: “You made happy by a puddle, Round your life water has become like fire.

860

In the midst of water you’ve gently been rocked to sleep: A drop of water came and washed away your honour.

861

Water exists for the unwashed face;

862

If you are so dishonourably visaged, seek it.°° How long will you, like water, enjoy lustre, Seeing every unwashed face in front of you?”

863

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION He asked of a love-crazed man,

“What are these two worlds with so nfany fantasies?”

864

The Speech of the Birds

81

The man replied, “These two worlds, the upper and the nether, Are a drop of water, neither here nor there.

865

From the beginning a water-drop became manifest; A drop of water with so many reflections.

866

All reflections that are shimmering on water, Though all might be of iron, still they’d be shattered.

867

Nothing is harder than iron;

868

It too is founded on water, remember!

Whatever has its foundations on a drop of water, Though it were all fire, it would only be a dream.

869

Nobody has ever seen water stable: How might on water foundations be firm?”

870

THE PARTRIDGE

STALE

Then the Partridge® full of glee came gingerly stepping in; Haughty and swaying drunkenly from a digging it came.

871

Red of bill in russet, vinous plumage it came,°° It’s blood bursting out of its eyes in excitement.

872

Sometimes it traverses the mountain girths avoiding the peaks; Sometimes it makes its harvest among the peaks.

873

It said: “I’ve always haunted quarries: After gems have I a great deal rummaged.

874

I’ve always been the man for peaks and the middle of

875

mountains,

So that I might be the ‘Colonel in Charge of The Jewels

2167

82

The Speech of the Birds

Passion for gems has kindled a fire in my heart. Enough for me would be the fire of my elegant finds.

876

The raging of this fire, when it leaps up, The splintered stones in my belly kills;

877

You’ve seen how, when a fire takes effect,

878

It outdoes the stone and leaves it lustreless.

I’m stuck between the stone and the fire:

879

Left deprived and also confused am I. Splinters of stone am IJ breaking in heat and ardour,

880

The heart inflamed with the fire, on the rock I’d drowse.®

Open your eyes, O my companions! See, now, what in the end is my nutriment and is my dormitory.

881

He who sleeps on a rock and breaks stones, Against such a one why must hostility be mounted?

882

The heart in this hardness with a hundred pangs is wounded, Because love of gems has fettered me to the crags.

883

Whoever anything besides jewels prefers, Possession of that other thing is transitory:

884

The ‘Lord of Jewels’ order everlasting® maintains, His life forever to the mountains bound.

885

I’m the mountain-rover”’ and the man for precious stones: I’m never a moment without the summits and mountain waists.

886

Since there are in the peaks always jewels, For those jewels among the peaks I’m always scrabbling.

887

The Speech of the Birds

83

I no essence like a gem have discovered, Nor any gem more precious than a jewel have I discovered.

888

While the way to the Simurgh is a difficult way, As I’m weighed down by stones, my feet are stuck in mud.

889

The Simurgh how can I bravely reach?

890

Hands on the head, feet in clay, how could I arrive?

Like fire, does not the brilliance of a gem glow for me? I either die or in my talons scratch up gems.

891

My virtue must become evident;

892

A man with nothing of worth, what use is he?”’”! The hoopoe answered him: “O like a gem, all colour! How long will you be limping, how long bringing me lame excuses?

893

Your beak and legs full of liver’s blood,”

894

You, held back by a piece of stone, worthless wretch!

The element of a gem is what? A coloured stone; You so hard of heart out of passion for a bit of rock,

895

If its colour were not to remain, a mere bit of rock would it be.

896

He who is deluded by colour has no worth. Whoever’s got the scent doesn’t go after colour, Because no man worth his salt wants a stone.”

897

STORY No gem has enjoyed that mightiness Which Solomon had in a ring.”

898

84

The Speech of the Birds

From this signet-ring was all the fame and reputation. But that bezel was but a stone half a carat’s weight.

899

When Solomon made this gem into a seal,

900

Beneath his dominion came all the face of the earth. When Solomon his realm so vast beheld,

901

The furthest horizons all subjected he beheld,

Although he had a splendid carpet forty parasangs,”* Yet it depended on a half-carat stone.

902

He said, “Since this realm and this pomp and majesty By this amount of stone are forever held in place,

903

I do not wish that in either the world or religion

904

Any one should be hindered by a sovereignty such as this.

O King, have I not with due regard Seen clearly the catastrophe of this regality?

905

It is, in comparison with the life to come, trivial.

906

Henceforward never give anyone another such! I have no truck with armies and dominion:

907

I’d choose basket-weaving.” Although by means of that gem Solomon became Shah, That gem was for him what was the obstacle in the Way.

908

For this, five hundred years after the Prophets

909

Did he become acquainted with the Paradise of Eden.”® If that gem does this to Solomon, How the likes of errant you might it empower?

910

The Speech of the Birds

85

Since a gem is a stone, do not quarry so much: Harrow your soul only for the sight of the face of the Beloved.

914

The heart from gems turn away, O gem-seeker. Be forever in quest of the Jeweller.”°

912

THE TALE OF THE HUMA To the assembly came the shadow-casting Humé,” His shadow, luck-bestowing on kings.

913

By this the Huma has become a bird of great good fortune, That he has exceeded all in devotional zeal.

914

He said, “O birds of the sea and the land,

915

I’m not a bird like other birds:

My lofty pious aspiration has been engaged; My seclusion from the crowd has become noticeable.

916

The vile dog of the carnal soul I hold in contempt. Glory through me did Feridtin and Jamshid find.

917

Emperors are the nurselings of my shadow. Hence beggarly nature is no man for me.

918

For the dog of the carnal soul I throw a bone; To the spirit I grant protection from this hound.

O19

Since I have continuously fed the carnal soul bones, Through this has my soul found this exalted station.

920

He because of whose wings kings arise, How might he ignore his regal aura?

921

All must under his wing settle, In order that of his shadow a portion might be gained.

p22

86

The Speech of the Birds

How should the unsubmissive Simurgh become my comrade? King-making’s commerce enough for me.”

923

The hoopoe said, ““O you ensnared by pride, Fold up that shadow: more than this rejoice not in the self!

924

This time there’s no king-making for you: Like a dog with a bone are you now.

925

Would that you did not put kings on their thrones! Free yourself of bones!

926

I myself grant that the emperors of the world All in time’s way arise because of your shadow,

G27

But tomorrow in grief the live-long life Each and every shah will find himself stuck.

928

If aprince were not to notice your shadow, How would he be halted in dismay on the Day of Reckoning?”

922

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION BORROWED ROYALTY’S BANE There was a clear-sighted man on the righteous road;

930

One night in a dream he beheld Mahmud.” He said, “O sultan of good fortune,

931

How do you fare in ‘the permanent dwelling’?”’” Mahmid replied: “Be quiet. Harrow not my soul. Speak not. What abode of a sultan is it? Get up.

932

My sultanship was fantasy and deception. How might sultanship be made becoming through a handful of dirt? 3

953

The Speech of the Birds God, Who’s the world-sustaining Sultan,

87 934

Sultanship’s fitting for Him. When I perceived my helplessness and bewilderment, I was ashamed of my sultanate.

935

If you must call me something, Call me nothing but “The distracted one’.

936

He is my Sultan. Call you not me sultan.

937

Sultanship is His and I would have been one who profited, If in the world I had been a beggar.

938

Would that there had been a hundred pits, no rank: That I had been a rubbish sweeper and not Shah.

939

There is now no getting out for me: One by one the offences are subject to investigation.

940

May the wing and plumes of that Huma be withered, For he beneath his shadow granted me a place.”

941

THE FALCON’S TALE Into the conclave the proud falcon came; The hood from the secrets of the eminent he removed.*°

942

It was preening itself on its command; Boasting of wearing the cap.

943

It said, “I in passion for the prince’s wnist Have hooded the eye from mortal creatures.*!

944

For this have I concealed the eye beneath a hood, That my talons might attain to the hand of the Padshah.

945

88

The Speech of the Birds

In etiquette I have been well trained: Like the approved ascetics I have practised discipline,

946

So that if one day I’m carried to the Shah, They’ll take me in the conventions of service versed.

947

How should I so much as dream of the Simurgh? How should I rashly be in a rush towards him?

948

Feed for me from the hand of the king is enough. In the world, this standing is enough for me.

949

Since I do not presume to take to the road,

950

I take pride in being on the arm of the king. I, if |become worthy of the sultan,

951

It is better than going through endless valleys. I’m all set in the presence of the Shah

952

To pass my life happily in this place. Sometimes anxiously do I watch out for the king; Sometimes out of zeal for him do I make a killing swoop.”

953

The hoopoe answered him: “O left enmeshed in the externals, From the essential far and infatuated by form,

954

The Shah, if in dominion he had an equal,

955

How would sovereignty seem attractive to him? No-one has a sultanate such as the Simurgh, Because He alone is without in kingship any equal.

956

No king is he who in every land Exercises rule for himself and brainlessly:

957

The Speech of the Birds

89

King is he who has no peer: Who has only faithfulness and civility.

958

The worldly Shah, though he might show constancy,

959

At times, on the other hand, makes difficulties.®”

Whoever’s closest to him,

960

Assuredly his affair is most precarious: Always he has of the Shah to be full of wariness;

961

His life is perpetually in danger.** The Shah of the world can be likened to fire. Keep your distance from him: distance from him is sweet.

962

Because the cry, ‘Out of the Way’ precedes Shahs,** How can one be close to them? Keep away!”

963

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION THE DANGER OF A KING’S AFFECTION There was a king of an exceedingly noble disposition. He fell in love with a silver-breasted youth.

964

He became so in love that without that idol not a moment Would he sit nor a moment take repose.

965

Over all his slaves the youth had higher rank. Continually did the king keep him in his sight.

966

The king, when in the palace he was practising archery, That youth used to melt with fear of him,

967

Because he would always make an apple the target, And would place the apple on the crown of the youth’s head.

968

90

The Speech of the Birds

He would thereupon straight away split the apple with an arrow, But that youth out of fear would turn the colour of yellow dye.

969

Now of him some silly ass inquired, “For what reason has the rose colour of your face become pale as gold?

970

All this respect you enjoy with the king — Explain why this pallor has mounted your cheeks.”

971

The youth replied, “He puts an apple on my head. Were injury from his arrow to befall me,

972

He’d say, ‘I take it he’s not a slave of mine: In my army there’s no one so maladroit as this!’

o73

But if it were such that the arrow flew true,

974

All would applaud him, saying it was the royal luck. I between these two hurts am writhing. For what is my life full of danger? For nothing whatsoever.”®°

THEeHERON'S

975

TALE

Then entered in haste the “Father of Sorrow’’®®

976

He said, “O birds, I and my worry!

My favourite nesting place is on the edge of the sea. Nobody has ever heard my voice.

977

Due to my harmlessness never for a moment Has anyone in the world known harm from me.

978

At the water’s edge I sit mournfully, Forever melancholy and full of lamentation:

979

The Speech of the Birds

91

In craving for water I keep my heart burdened with sorrow. Since for it pity comes, I do not disturb it; how could I?

980

Since I myself am not a sea-creature, how marvellous, That I on the water’s edge should be dying dry-lipped!

981

Although the waters surge in a multiplicity of forms, I can’t drink from them so much as a drop.

982

Were from the sea one drop of water to be lost, In the fire of jealous concern my heart would be broiled.

983

Since for me passion for the waters is enough, In my head this manner of grieving is enough.

984

At this time I want only sorrowing for the sea: I wouldn’t have the strength for the Simurgh. Have pity on me!

985

He for whom a drop of water’s the principle, How should he be able to find union through the Simurgh?”

986

The hoopoe replied, “O of the sea ignorant, The sea is filled with crocodiles and fierce creatures.

987

The water it has is sometimes bitter, sometimes salty.

988

Sometimes its water is calm, sometimes violent.

It is a thing variable, unstable too. Sometimes it ebbs and sometimes it floods.

989

Many great ones’ ships has it smashed; Many are those who’ve fallen into its swirling waters and perished.

990

Whoever like the pearl-diver plunges into it, For fear of his life holds his breath in it.

991

92

The Speech of the Birds

But if in the sea’s depths he draws breath,

992

A corpse from the deep to the surface he’ll nse as flotsam. From such an entity, that has no constancy,

993

Nobody’s entertained hope of lovingness. If you fail to come from the sea to the beach,

994

It'll drown you in the end. In passion for the Friend it whips itself up: At one moment it is tossing waves, and at times roaring.

995

As it does not find its heart’s desire for itself,

996

You'll not find heart’s ease from it.

The sea is a small spring on the way to Him,*’ Why then have you been content without His countenance?”

997

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION THE MOURNING OF THE SEA A visionary came down to the sea. He said, “O sea, why are you dark blue in conan

998

Mourning clothes why have you donned? There is no fire: why have you boiling surged?”

999

The sea rendered that good-hearted man answer That, “Because of separation from the Friend I am in agitation:

1000

Because on account of cowardice I’m not the man for Him,

1001

I have put on clothes of blue, in regret for Him. Dry-lipped I have resigned myself, I, confounded. From the fire of love my waters have become wave-tossing.

1002

The Speech of the Birds

93

If I were to find a single drop from His Kawthar,®° Life eternal would be mine at His door.

1003

Otherwise, I’ll be as the hundred thousand thirsty-lipped, Dying in the way to Him day and night.”

1004

THE OWL’S TALE The owl”? came forward like someone crazed.

1005

It announced, “I have selected a ruined place.

I’m feeble. In ruins was I born. Into ruins do I go, but without wine!?!

1006

Although many a full inhabited place I’ve found, Both repugnant and confused have I found them.

1007

Whoever wishes to settle in tranquility, Into a ruin he must go, like the toper.

1008

In ruins I make my melancholy nest, Because ruins might the sites of treasure be.

1009

Love of treasure has led me into ruined places. Apart from ruined spots I would have no access to treasure.

1010

Far from everyone have I taken my morbid lust: Would that I might my treasure find without any talisman.”

1011

Were my foot to slip down into a treasure trove, Liberated would be this self-regarding heart of mine.

1012

Love for the Simurgh is nothing but fable, Because His love does not pertain to every man.

1013

I in love for Him am not a brave. Love of treasure is my need, and a ruin.”

1014

94

The Speech of the Birds

The hoopoe answered him, “O, drunk with the love of treasure, I have taken it that a thousand treasure-troves might become yours:

1015

Over this treasure, you take it that you’re dead: Grant that life has come to an end, nothing gained.”

1016

Love of treasure and passion for gold are of unbelief. Whoever of gold makes an idol, he’s Azar.%*

1017

Worshipping gold was of paganism part:

1018

Are you not, then, of Samiri’s tribe?”

Every heart which by love of gold becomes defective,

1019

At the Resurrection, its form will suffer alteration.”

HOW

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION THE MISER WAS TURNED INTO A MOUSE

A man lacking cognizance had a crock of gold. When he died he left that crock of gold behind him.

1020

After a year, his son saw him in a dream,

1021

His form like a mouse, his two eyes full of tears. So that at that spot where he had deposited the gold, A mouse was hastily scurrying about.

His son reported that he had questioned it, Asking, “Why have you come here? Explain.”

1022

e

|:

It replied, “I put some gold away in this place. I do not know whether anybody’s found access to it”.

1024

The other asked, “But what’s the mouse body for?”

1025

He answered, “Every heart that’s not clear of love of gold,

The Speech of the Birds

95

This is its form. Look at me now. Take my advice and cast gold away, oh son!”

1026

THE TALE OF THE GOLDFINCH The goldfinch arrived feeble of heart and weak of body,”° From head to foot restless as fire.

1027

It said, “I’ve become confused and worn-out;

1028

Faint-hearted, lacking strength and nutriment have I come. I haven’t the force and power of a Moses; Rather, because of weakness I haven’t the strength of an ant.

1029

I have neither wings nor talons nor anything else. How should I reach close to the splendid Simurgh?

1030

To Him how might this helpless bird attain? The finch, how could it ever reach the Simurgh’s door?

1031

In the world He has plenty of servitors. Union with Him, how should it befit anyone like me?

1032

Into union with Him since I cannot proceed,

1033

For something impossible I can’t follow the route. If I were to set out for His Court,

1034

I’d either die or burn on the way to it. Since I’m no man for Him, here

1035

Will I seek my Joseph in water-holes; I have lost a Joseph down a well. In time I might at last recover him.

1036

1037

If I do recover my own Joseph from the well, I will fly, I with him, from the Fish to the Moon.’

>

96

The Speech of the Birds

The hoopoe answered, “O with what charm and twittering nonchalance Have you in being fallen given yourself so many airs!

1038

All your deceits, how can I buy them? This hypocrisy of yours does not beguile me.

1039

Take to the road. Stop chirping. Seal your lips. As all these burn, you burn too!

1040

Though you make yourself the analogue of a Jacob, No Joseph will be given. Try tricks the less.

1041

The fire of jealousy is burning all the time: Love for Joseph is to the mortal world forbidden.”

1042

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION JACOB’S DESPAIR When Joseph was torn from his father, Because of losing him Jacob lost his sight.

1043

An ocean of tears was tossing waves in his eyes. The name “Joseph” was all the time on his tongue.

1044

Gabriel came saying, “If ever again you Cause your tongue to utter the name ‘Joseph’,

1045

We'll erase your name henceforth

From the midst of the Prophets and Apostles.” When this order reached him from God,

1046

' 1047

Cleared from his tongue was the name, ‘Joseph’,

But the name of Joseph remained his intimate: His name retained its habitation in his soul.

1048

The Speech of the Birds

v7

One night he saw Joseph present in a dream. He was about to call him to himself:

1049

He remembered what God had commanded: He immediately stayed his voice, that harrowed bereaved,

1050

Except that through weakness, from his pure soul He heaved a sigh in the extremity of sorrow.

1051

When from that sweet sleep he arose, Gabriel returned saying, “God avers that

1052

Though you uttered not Joseph’s name with your tongue, Nevertheless, at that moment you fetched a sigh.

1053

I know whom it was your sigh held within it: In fact you’ve spoilt your repentance. What use is that 2”

1054

He torments the mind after this fashion;

1055

See the coquetry He subjects us to!

After this all the other birds Plied excuses — a non-comprehending lot!

1056

Out of ignorance each uttered his own excuse; Not uttered from the breast: from the outer vestibule it came.

1057

Were I to relate to you the pretext of each, one after the other, Forgive me, because it would be too prolix.

1058

Everyone had an excuse, barren and lame: Folk of this sort, when might their talons the ‘Anqa gain?

1059

Whoever with the soul truly seeks the ‘Anqg4 Should withdraw his grip on life like the valiant.

1060

98

The Speech of the Birds

Whoever’s not got thirty grains in the nest, It is fitting he should not be crazy about the Simurgh:

1061

Since you have no guts for the cropping of a single grain, How can you with the Simurgh share the forty-day abstention?”

1062

Since you’re bowled over by one sip, champion! A loving-cup how will you share with the Champion?

1063

Since you’ve no store or capacity for a single mote, How can you seek treasure from the Sun?

1064

Since you’ve become nothing and drowned in a single drop, How can you go from the bottom of the ocean to the summit?

1065

For that is itself: it is not a rumour, that;

1066

It is not the affair of every unwashed face, that. All the birds, when they heard the situation,

1067

The whole company enquired of the hoopoe, Saying, “O you, having taken precedence over us in guiding, Have set the seal on goodness and greatness,

1068

We’re all a handful of the feeble and unavailing, Without plumes and without wings, without body or ability.

1069

How can we reach the Simurgh sublime? Were a single one of us to make it, it would be a marvel!

1070

What affinity have we with Him, explain, Because probing mysteries cannot be for the blind.

1071

If between Him and us there were any connection, Everyone would be filled with longing for Him.

1072

The Speech of the Birds

99

He’s Solomon, we, ants begging. See the difference between Him and us!

1073

An ant imprisoned in a hole, How might it catch up with the lofty Simurgh?

1074

When was beggary a royal concern? When might this be in the compass of such strength as ours?”

1075

The hoopoe thereupon replied, “O bootless ones, How in the faint-hearted should love ever flourish?

1076

O beggars all, how much more of this unachievement? Being a lover and being a coward do not match.

1077

Everyone who in the field of love has had his eyes opened, Would come with dancing feet and life wagered.

1078

Know you that the moment the Simurgh from behind the veil

1079

Revealed the sun-like cheek,

A hundred thousand shadows He cast on the earth. Then on the Pure Shadow He cast His gaze.”

1080

He His own shadow spread over the world; Thence many flights of birds at every moment appeared:

1081

The forms of birds all the world over Are His shadows. Know you this, you ignorant ones.

1082

Understand this. If this you have first mastered, Relationship with that Majesty you will have directly established.

1083

You'll have acknowledged God. See, then be! When you have come to know, this mystery do not divulge.

1084

100

The Speech of the Birds

Whoever by means of fruitful practice is totally drowned, God forbid that you should say, ‘He’s God’!””

1085

If you have become what I have said, you’re not God,

1086

But in God are you forever immersed.

How should the man so immersed be an incarnationist?

1087

This observation, how can it be superfluous? Once you’ve realised whose shadow you are, Whether you’re dead or alive will be a matter of indifference

1088

to you.

If the Simurgh had not ever become manifest, The Simurgh would never have been the caster of shadows.

1089

If again the Simurgh were to be. hidden, Not a single shadow would ever in the world remain.

1090

All that here as a shadow becomes visible,

1091

First, that thing becomes manifest there. If you had not a Simurgh-seeing eye, A heart shining mirror-like you’d not have.

1092

As people lack the eye for that beauty, And of His beauty no endurance is possible,

1093

To the beauty of Him, love cannot be proffered:'° But out of the perfection of His grace, a mirror has He made.

1094

The heart comprises the mirror. Look into the heart, That you might see His face in the heart. Look!”

1095

The Speech of the Birds

101

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION THE KING AND THE MIRROR There was a king, the possessor of great beauty,

1096

For all the world a fairness without equal and analogy,

The sacred text of his mysteries, the world’s wide realm,

1097

His eyes a miraculous verse in goodness.'! I know no-one possessed of the gall To have been enabled to discover any part of his beauty.

1098

The face of the world became full of uproar on his account. In people, passion for him exceeded all bounds.

1099

At times he would ride a charger out into the street, A scarlet veil he would let down over his face.

1100

Whoever at that veil stole a glance, Would have their heads cut off, innocent though they were.

1101

And he who might his name pronounce, His tongue in no time would be cut out.

1102

And if anyone were to contemplate associating with him, He would for the impossible be throwing reason and life

1103

to the winds.

There would be a day when out of love for him a thousand Would be dying — such is love and such, its effect.

1104

If anyone were to see his beauty manifest, He would render up the soul and die lamenting —

1105

To die for love of the cheeks of that player with hearts Is to be preferred to a hundred lives long.

1106

102

The Speech of the Birds

No-one could tolerate a moment of waiting for him; No-one could endure

1107

a moment with him, either.

People were forever seeking because of him; No patience to endure him, or to be without him. Ah the

1108

wonder!

If someone sometime had the strength, The Shah would show his face unveiled.

1109

But since no-one had the strength for seeing him, No delight did they have but hearing him.'°

1110

Since no creature came forward the man for him,

1111

All died with their hearts filled with yearning. A mirror then the Padshah ordered,

1112

Into which mirror looking were possible. In the mirror his face he would reflect: Everyone of his face might gain some inkling.

1213

If you love the beauty of the Friend,

1114

Know the heart, for it is the mirror of His countenance.

Grasp the heart and His beauty see. Make the soul a mirror, see His glory.

1135

Your Padshah is in the palace of glory; The palace is lit by the sun of that beauty.

1116

Your king in the heart behold:

1dy

His soul see in an atom of the sum-total.

Every guise which has come to earthly plains, The shadow of the Simurgh beautiful has it come.

1118

The Speech of the Birds

103

If the Simurgh shows to you beauty, The shadow of the Simurgh you will unchimerically perceive.

1119

If all were forty birds, or thirty (si-murgh) birds, Whatever you saw, the shadow of the Simurgh would be.

1120

Since from the shadow the Simurgh is not separate, If you speak of any separateness, that is error.

1121

Both, since they are together, together seek. Get past the shadow. Then find the secret.

1122

If you have become so lost in shadows, When from the Simurgh might the substance be shown you?

1123

If a single opening of the gate is vouchsafed you, Within the shadow you will see the sun.

1124

You will see the shadow lost forever in the sun: See yourself all sun. Go in peace.

1125

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION ALEXANDER INCOGNITO He said, ““When Alexander, that winner of good fortune,

1126

Used to want to send an envoy somewhere,

Like an envoy forsooth himself that King of the World Would dress and himself go, disguised.

V127

Then he would say things nobody had heard: He would say, ‘Alexander has ordered such and such’.

1128

In all the world no-one would know,

1129

For was it not Alexander’s envoy there, and none other?

104

The Speech of the Birds

No-one, since Alexander they did not expect,

1130

Even if he declared he was Alexander, would have credited it.

The King has a way into every heart,’ But no way has the heart that’s lost its way.

1131

If outside the chamber were a stranger to come, Don’t worry: goodly food is within, and a home too.”

1132

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION SECRET WAYS BETWEEN LOVERS When Ayaz, through the Evil Eye was ailing,’ Well-being from the Sultan’s sight was removed.

1133

He’d fallen helpless on affliction’s bed,

1134

In trouble, pain and sickness had he fallen.

When, concerning Ayas,'” 105 news reached Mahmud,

1135

A servant did the dutiful Shah summon.

He said, “Keep going until close to Ayaz. Then to him say: ‘O from the Shah fallen away,

1136

Do not let it occur to you I’m keeping my distance from you Because, discommoded by your illness, I’m offended by you.

1137

So long as you suffer, for you am I solicitous, So whether you suffer or I, I cannot tell.

1138

Though my body’s removed from the intimate companion, My longing soul is to him and none other close.

1439

I’m left a yearning soul because ofyou, I: Not a moment am I absent from you, I:

1140

The Speech of the Birds

105

The eye of evil’s done a most evil thing: A youth as sweet as you it’s made ill’.”

1141

Thus he spoke and added, “Go fast on the way. Be like fire and like smoke go.

1142

Beware lest on the way you make any pause. Like water from a dam rush you along, lightning-style.

1143

If you loiter one moment on the way, For you will I make both this world and that dire.”

1144

The bewildered servant started on the journey, Until like the wind he got to Ayaz.

1145

He saw the Sultan seated with him. His canny mind was seized with panic.

1146

The servant’s limbs to trembling succumbed. It was as if a perpetual palsy had seized him.

1147

He murmured, “How can one argue with kings? Now will my blood be shed.”

1148

He swore many oaths that, “On the way nowhere Did I stop nor desist from running.

1149

Not an iota of a notion do I have as to how the king Before me reached this place.

1150

Whether the Shah believes me or not,

1151

If in this I’ve fallen short, I’m an infidel.”

The king answered him, saying, ““You’re not privy to this: How, my servant, for you might there be access to this?

SZ

106

The Speech of the Birds

I have a secret way to him.

1059

Because I cannot endure a moment without his face,

At all times by that way I come to him secretly, So that no-one in the world is aware.

1154

The concealed way between us is enough: Secrets there are enough in the interior of our souls;

Li55

Although from the outside news I might crave of him, Within the folds of the veil, I’m fully informed of him.

1156

Though I hide the secret from those outside,

1157

Within is my soul united with him.”

When all the birds had heard this speech, Well did they comprehend ancient mysteries.

1158

They all perceived the connection with the Simurgh, Therefore, eagerness for the journey came to them.

1159

Because of this speech, all together they trooped onto the

1160

road,

All comrades in suffering, and of one voice did they come. Of him they asked, ““O Master of experience, How might we after all do justice to this road?

1161

For never into such an exalted station

1162

By weaklings was the going accomplished.”

At this point the hoopoe guide answered thus: “He who’s fallen in love doesn’t worry about life.

1163

Since a lover abandons life,

1164

You might be either an ascetic or a libertine.

The Speech of the Birds

107

When your heart has become the enemy of life, Throw life away; the road has come to an end.

1165

Life’s the obstruction in the Way. Dispense with life. Then give up sight and see!

1166

If you are told, ‘Leave the Faith’,

1167

And if word comes to you, ‘Renounce life’,

Who are you? Renounce that and this. Grasp abandoning religion and be nid of life.

1168

A blasphemer might say that this is rank apostasy. Say, ‘Love is above belief and unbelief’.

1169

What has love to do with unbelief and belief?

1170

What minimum of time have lovers for life? The lover puts the match to the whole harvest; The saw to the crown of his head applied, he utters not a word.'°°

1171

Suffering and heart’s blood love requires: The tale of love has to be hard.

11/2

O cup-bearer, the blood of the liver into the bowl pour! If you haven’t any, borrow the dregs from us!

Loc

Love needs an agony burning veils; Sometimes ravishing the soul, sometimes sewing up the veil.

1174

A jot of love is better than the world’s furthest expanses; An atom of the pain is better than all the lovers.

1A7S

Love, the core of created beings has forever become. But love is never perfect without the pangs.

1176

108

The Speech of the Birds

It is for the angels to have love but not the pain;

1177

Pain is only within the compass of a human."°’ Whoever’s footing in love is sure Has passed beyond unbelief and Islam, too.

1178

Love opens to you the door of renunciation;'” Holy poverty shows you the way to impiousness.'®”

1179

Then the fierce fortitude the Way will ask Is yours, and you are worthy of our task.

1180

When you no longer have either this lack of faith or this being faithful, This body of yours will have gone and this soul no longer be:

1181

After this you will become the man for this business: A man is needed for mysteries such as these.

1182

Put your feet forward like men and be not afraid: Go beyond belief and unbelief and be not afraid.

1183

How long will you hesitate? Refrain from puerility. Go forward like lion-hearts to the task.

1184

Though a hundred impediments suddenly confront you,

1185

Let there be no dread, because, on this road, they do.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION FAITH LOST THROUGH LOVE IS TO GAIN ALL THE STORY OF SHAIKH-i SAM’AN Shaikh Sam’an was the Pir of his Age. In perfection, of all that I might say he was more.

1186

Shaikh he was in the Meccan Sanctuary fifty years, With four-hundred followers in perfection’s way;

1187

The Speech of the Birds Each novice who was of his, wonderful to relate,

109 1188

Never rested from mortification''® of the self day or night. He kept knowledge and practice mated;'"! He had explicit unveilings, and inward mysteries as well.!!”

1189

He had performed some fifty major Pilgrimages; It was a lifetime that the lesser he had been making.'!*

1190

He prayers and fasts innumerable kept; He let nothing slip of the Prophet’s Practice.'*

1198

Exemplary exponents of love,

1192

Before him amazed, were beside themselves.

A man of the inner Truth, he was able to split hairs: A man strong in acts of grace'’® and stages accomplished,''®

1193

Whoever came upon sickness and infirmity, By means of his breath recovered health.

1194

For the people, in short, in joy and sorrow He was an exemplar: in the world, a sign.

1195

Although he saw himself the model to his companions, Several nights running, he dreamed in this wise,

1196

That from the Sacred Precinct residence in Byzantium

1197

befell him;

He was continually praying to an idol!

When the Vigilant of the World saw this dream, He thereupon exclaimed, “O the horror!” and “O the pity!,

1198

Joseph the divinely gratified has fallen into the pit; A horrendous setback’s come in the Way.

1199

110

The Speech of the Birds

I know not whether from this dolour I might save the soul. I would forfeit life if 1 might keep the Faith.”

1200

There’s nobody on the face of the earth Who does not meet on the Way such a strait.

1201

If he cuts through it here and now,

1202

The Way becomes clear to him as far as the Court. But if he’s held up the nether side of that obstacle, In torment the road will be without end for him.'””

1203

At last without further ado this accomplished Pir Said to the novitiate pupils, “A matter of urgency has

1204

befallen me.

It is necessary to go to Ram 118 speedily, Without delay to see what is to be done.”

1205

Four hundred worthy disciples Thereupon set out on the journey with him.

1206

They were heading from the Ka‘ba to the Byzantine borders.' They were circumambulating every nook and cranny of

1207

Rim.

By Fate’s decree there was a belvedere, In that gazebo a girl sitting;

1208

A Christian maiden of a pure disposition, In the Way of her Rahullah,’”° of many spiritual insights,

1209

In the sphere of goodness, in the zodiacal house of Beauty

1210

A sun was she, but with no decline,

The Speech of the Birds

14d

The sun out of envy of her face’s reflection, In her vicinity more pallid than the love-sick.

1211

Whoever had the heart enchained in that heart-holder’s tresses, From the image of her locks plaited the pagan’s girdle. !”!

1212

Whoever fixed his soul to that heart-snatcher’s ruby lips, No foot put forward on the path, he having lost his head.

1213

When the morning breeze turned musky from her locks, Greece because of those dark tresses was wrinkled up.'””

1214

Her two eyes were lovers’ calamitous incitement; Her two eyebrows the vaulted niches of beauty.

1215

When she cast a glance in the faces of adorers,

1216

The soul enthralled by the look went through the roof. Her eyebrows had fashioned a halo round the moon: In the halo the pupils of her eyes were seated.

1217

When the pupils bravura tried, Their prey they made the souls of men by the hundred.

1218

Her face beneath the curling locks Was a flame most lustrous.

1219

Her moist ruby lips kept a world thirsting; Her langorous eyes bore a thousand daggers.’

1220

Since speech through her mouth had no passage,'** Of her mouth any who spoke had no information.

1221

Like the eye of a needle, the form of her mouth.

1222

She’d tied a zonnar like her tresses round her waist.

112

The Speech of the Birds

A silver dimple in the chin had she. Like Jesus in words, something special it had:

1223

A hundred thousand hearts, like Joseph drowned in blood,

1224

Fell head first into that well of hers.

She wore a jewel like the sun in her hair. She kept a veil of black hair over her face.

1225

The Christian maiden when she lifted the veil,

1226

The joints of the Shaikh’s limbs fire seized. When she showed from beneath the burka her face,

1227

She wound a hundred of her girdles from a single one of her hairs.

Although the Shaikh that moment stared straight ahead, The love of the idol-face did its work —

1228

He completely lost control and fell at her feet; It was the moment of fire and at once he fell.

1229

Whatever his existence, totally non-existent became;

1230

From the fire of longing his heart like smoke became.

Love for the girl ravaged his soul; Infidelity from those locks poured to melt his faith.

1231

The Shaikh surrendered the Faith and bought Christianity:

1232

Sold blessedness, purchased shame.

Passion the conqueror of his heart and soul became, So that of heart hopeless and of soul sickened he became.

12338

He cried, “Faith gone, what use the heart?

1234

Passion for a Christian-born is a hard business.”

The Speech of the Birds

135

When his disciples saw him thus afflicted, All understood: the prediction had come about.

£235

Entirely at what had happened to him were they amazed. Head abased and stupified were they.

1236

Much counsel did they urge upon him, to no avail;

1237

What has to be, when it is, there can be no cure.

Whoever gave him counsel, he paid no heed: His pain brooked no remedy.

1238

The distracted lover, when does he obey? The pain that burns up the cure, when will the cure

1239

alleviate it?

Thus was he the long day till night, Eyes glued to the lookout, his mouth agape.

1240

When dark night behind black locks

1241

Became hidden, like apostasy beneath sin,

Every lamp which that night the stars assumed, From the heart of that stricken Pir was fuelled.

1242

His love that night grew a hundred fold; Inevitably all at one fell swoop of self he was bereft,

1243

The heart from both the self and the world he tore.

1244

Dust on the head he smeared and to mourning took.

Not one moment did he know sleep or calm: He was trembling with passion and in agony wailing.

1245

He cried, “O Lord, has this night no day? Or is it that the candle of the firmament lacks kindling?

1246

114

The Speech of the Birds

I have kept the mortification of the self night after night: But no one has such a night as this to show.

1247

Like a candle, from burning no sleep is left to me. In my vitals except for the heart’s bleeding no humours

1248

remain in me.

As with the candle, melting and burning are eliminating me: All night they burn and at daybreak I’m snuffed out.

1249

The whole night as I have stayed steeped in the heart’s blood, From head to foot drowned in the blood of grief I’ve stayed.

1250

Every moment of the night a hundred night raids assail me; I know not how the day might fare with me.

1254

Whoever’s lot one such night as this might be, Day and night his business is the vitals’ harrowing.

1252

I have been many a day and many a night in torment; With my portion this night have I been;

1253

The day when my destiny was being allocated, In readiness for this night was it being fashioned for me.

1254

O Lord, will this night have no day? The candle of the heavens never any flame?

1255

O Lord, are these the signs of this night?

1256

Or is this night, then, the Day of Resurrection?

Or has the candle of the spheres by my sighs been blown out?

1257

Or, out of shame on account of my sweetheart, veiled itself?

The night is like her hair long and black. Were it not so, a hundred times would I, lacking her face, have gallantly died.

1258

The Speech of the Birds

115

Tonight I’m burning with love’s longing: I have no stamina for the tempestuousness of love.

1259

Where is the lifetime for me to describe the agony? Or, to my own satisfaction, make lamentation?

1260

Where the firmness that I might leave off errancy, Or like the brave, drain the heady cup?

1261

Where is luck that it might smile, Or in my love for her grant aid?

1262

Where is reason that learning I might employ, Or with reason’s stratagems achieve the more?

1263

Where the hand that I might strew the dust of the road on my head? Or from beneath the soil and the blood lift up my head?

1264

Where the feet that I might set out on the way to the Beloved? Where the eyes for me again to see the face of the Beloved?

1265

Where the Beloved, to comfort me in a single one of my SOITOWS? Where the hand to salvage me for a single moment?

1266

Where the strength that I might cry out my lament and grief? Where sense that I might pretend to sobriety?

1267

Reason’s gone, patience has gone, and the Beloved, too. What a love is this? What torture is this? What is this?”

1268

All his comrades in sympathy for him Communed together that night, because of his affliction.

1269

116

The Speech of the Birds

An associate said to him, ““O Shaikh of renown,

1270

Arise. Perform ablutions against this satanic prompting.” The Shaikh answered him, “This night with the blood of my vitals Have I a hundred times performed ablutions, O you who do not know.”

1271

Another rejoined, “Where are your prayer-beads?’”° How without the praising of God can your affair be nghted?”

1272

He replied, “I threw them from my hand,

1273

To be able to tie the unbelievers’ belt round my waist.” Another asked, ““O Venerable Elder,

1274

If a sin has been committed by you, make repentance.’’!”° The Shaikh replied, “I have repented, of chastity’”” and the

1274

grace-granted state:'”® I am repentant, of shaikhliness, and states, and what cannot be.”’!?? Another said, “O Knower of the Secret,

1276

Stand up and reconcile yourself with God through prayer.”’!*° He answered, “Where is the mihrab of the face of that idol,

1277

That I might have no occupation other than prayer?’’!! Another asked, “How much more of this talk?

Arise, in seclusion'’

132

1278

prostrate yourself before God.”

He replied, ““Were my idol-face here, Prostration before her face would be becoming.”

1279

Another one asked, “Have you no regret? Not a moment have you of longing for Islam?”

1280

The Speech of the Birds

117

He replied, ““No one’s been more remorseful than I because of this: Why was I not a lover before this?”

1281

Another told him, “A devil has waylaid you: The arrow of a setback has suddenly struck your heart.”

1282

He replied, “If it’s a devil that ambuscades me, Say, ‘Strike!’, because its strike is swift and lovely.”

1283

Another cried, “Whoever comes to know,

1284

Will murmur, ‘Such a Pir gone so far astray?’”’ He answered, “I’m quite careless of fame and notoriety. I’ve smashed the glass of hypocrisy with a rock.”

1285

Another protested that, “Old associates Are distressed on your account and left with hearts split in two.”

1286

He replied, “If that Christian child is happy of heart, The heart is unconcerned for this one’s or that one’s distress.”

1287

Another pleaded, “Make it up with comrades, For us tonight to go back to the Ka‘ba.”

1288

He said, “If there is no Ka‘ba, there is the monastery:'”

1289

Sober in the Ka‘ba, I’m drunk in the chapel.”!* Another said, “Take at once to the road:

1290

In the Sanctuary kneel and seek forgiveness for me.” He answered, “My head on the threshold of that idol,

1291

I will crave forgiveness. Leave me alone.” Yet another said, “This way looms Hell: No candidate for Hell is anyone who is vigilant.”

1292

118

The Speech of the Birds

He answered, “Were Hell to be the accompaniment of my way, The Seven Hells would be burnt out by one sigh of mine.”

1293

Another spoke to him, “Hope for Heaven: Turn back and make your repentance of this vile affair. ”!*°

1294

He replied, “Since the beloved is of a face celestial,

1295

If it were Paradise I must have, there is this street!” Another said, ““Have shame before God:

1296

For God the Almighty keep reverence as gratefully due.” He answered, “Since God has cast this fire into me,

1297

Of my own volition I cannot be rid of what’s imposed.” Another counselled him, “Go and be at rest.

1298

Regain the Faith and a believer be.”

He replied, “Of bewildered me nothing but unbelief expect: Whoever has become an apostate, demand not faith from such!”

1299

When urging had no effect on him, They in the end fell silent over that grievous woe:

1300

The curtain of their hearts billowed from the surge of the blood of sorrow As to what might emerge from this change of tune.

1301

The Turk day at last, with the golden shield,

1302

With flashing sword lopped off the head of Hindu night; Another morrow, when this deceit-filled world

Became like an ocean drowned in light from the spring of the sun.

*

1303

The Speech of the Birds The Shaikh, seclusion-seeking, to the street of the beloved

119 1304

repaired, Fending off the dogs of her alley. A beadsman he sat in the dust of her lane.

1305

Thin as a hair he became, because of her moon-like face.

Nearly a month day and night in her street He waited for the sun of her face.

1306

In the end he fell ill for lack of the heart-snatcher. Not at all did he raise the head from that threshold.

1307

The dust of that idol’s cul-de-sac was his bed. His pillow was the step of that door.

1308

Since for him there was no quitting her street, The girl became aware of his being a lover.

1309

She made herself as one uncomprehending, did that idol:

1310

She stammered, “O Shaikh, why have you become so

disturbed? How can, O by the wine of polytheism, drunk be made

1311

Muslim ascetics seated in the passageways of Christians?

If the Shaikh gets a fixation on my locks, Every breath of his spells madness.”

1312

The Shaikh said to her, ““As you have seen me debased,

1313

Clearly, craftily you must have stolen my heart.

Either give my heart back or put up with me: Have regard for my need. Do not string me along so much.

1314

Leave coquetry and proud disdain behind:

1315

Look at me, a lover, an old man and a stranger.

120

The Speech of the Birds

Since my love’s no light matter, O my beauty, Either cut off my head or surrender.

1316

I would give my life for you if you gave the command; If you wanted, with your lips you could return it to me.

15TF

O you in whose lips and tresses lie my loss and my gain, Your face and proximity, my aim and revival,

1318

Do not one time with tangled tresses put me on heat,

1319

Nor another time with langourous eyes make me drowsy. Heart like fire, eyes like rain-clouds on your account am I. Without anyone and friendless and impatient because of you am I.

1320

Wanting you I’ve sold the world for my soul; See what egregious designs I’ve entertained from loving you!'*®

1321

Like rain clouds rain I open from my eyes, Because lacking you, this I expect of eyes.

1322

The heart through the eyes has been in mourning left; The eyes saw your face: in affliction clouded were they left.

1323

That which I with my eyes have seen nobody has seen; And what I in my heart have suffered no-one has experienced.

1324

From my heart no harvest is left but grievous bleeding; How long might I consume blood of the sorry heart when no heart remains?

1325

More than this assail not the soul of this wretch.

1326

Strike fewer kicks in conquering’” it. My time has passed in expectation;!* If a union there is to be, luck might come.

1327

The Speech of the Birds

121

Every night for the soul I am preparing an ambush. At the end of your street I am gambling my life away.

1328

Face in the dust of your door, I give up the ghost: Life at the going rate of dust I give cheaply away.

1629

How long am I to lament at your door? Open the door. For even one instant make me an intimate of yourself.

1330

You are the sun. How can I be removed from you? I am the shadow. How without you might I endure?

1331

Although in tentativeness I’m like a shadow, I'd leap into your window like the sun.

1932

I'd bring the Seven Spheres under my wing, Were you to bow your head to this turned head.

11365

I sink to the earth, life burnt out.

1334

By the fire of my soul, a world burnt out, Feet through love of you mired in the clay, Hands in longing for you held over the heart,'*”

1530

Life ebbs away from me out of desire for you. How much longer than this will you be hidden from me?”

1336

The girl upbraided him, “O dotard of the day, Prepare camphor'* and a shroud. Have shame!

1337

Since your breath is cold, cease begging for intimacy: You’ve grown old. Stop dicing with the heart.

1338

Now to be bent on preparing the winding-sheet is for you; It strikes me as preferable to your being bent on me!

1332

122

The Speech of the Birds

How can you be capable of exercising sovereign mastery, When you will not find bread enough to fill you?”

1340

The Shaikh answered her, “Were you to rebuke a hundred thousand times, No other preoccupation would I have but pining of love for you.

1341

Be a lover young or be he an old man, When it’s struck, love affects every heart.”

1342

The girl said, “If you mean business, Four undertakings must be chosen by you:

1343

Worship an idol and burn the Koran, Drink wine and sew up the eye of the Faith.

1344 >

1345

The Shaikh answered, “I have chosen wine.

I have nothing to do with the other three. To your loveliness indeed would I know how to drink wine, But those other three I cannot perform, not I.”

1346

The girl answered, “If for this affair you’re fit,

1347

Of Islam your hands must be washed clean.

Whoever is not of his beloved’s complexion, His love is no more than tint and scent.” The Shaikh answered her, “Whatever you say, that I’ll do And what you command, upon my life I’ll obey. Your ring in my ear-lobe, your slave am I, O you of the silver body! Collar my neck with a torque of your tresses.”

1348

>

1349

1350

The Speech of the Birds

123

She said, “Get up and come and drink wine. When you drink wine, you'll be roaring.”

1351

They carried off the Shaikh to the unbelievers’! cloister.'* The followers came there in a clamour.

1352

The Shaikh for sure a novel enough concourse saw; Infinite beauty he saw in the hostess.

1353

The fire of passion put paid to the respectability of his profession: The locks of a Christian ruined his life.

1354

Not an iota of reason was left him, nor of sense;

1355

In that place wordlessly he breathed.

He was taking the cup at his mistress’s hands. He drank and severed the heart from his proper business.

1356

When together came wine and love for the friend,

1357

Love for that moon was augmented a hundred thousand fold. When a partner, the lustre of her teeth unconcealed, the

1358

Shaikh saw,

When her ruby lips cupped in laughter the Shaikh saw, A fire of longing fell upon his soul; A torrent of blood rushed up to his eyelashes.

1359

He demanded wine again and drank. He made a ring of her locks his slave’s earring.

1360

He had memorised some hundred religious texts. He had the Koran by heart, a complete master in it.

1361

When the wine from the bowl reached into his belly, His pretensions went and his braggadocio arrived.

1362

124

The Speech of the Birds

Whatever he’d learnt disappeared from his memory: Wine come in, his intelligence like the wind was blown away.

1363

Wine every truth that had been his from the start Washed clean from the tablet of his mind.

1364

Love of that sweetheart stayed for him in its fierceness; Whatever else there had been, all went clean away.

1365

The Shaikh when drunk he became, his passion flared. Like the sea it made his soul full of tumult.

1366

He saw that idol, wine in her hand and tipsy. At that instant the Shaikh entirely lost control.

1367

He lost his mind through wine-drinking, and his hand Suddenly he wanted to reach out to her neck.

1368

The girl said to him, “Hey, you’re not a man for action: In love you’re a pretender: no keeper of its true reality are you.

1369

If you would in love a firm footing have,

1370

You would keep the rite of these crinkled locks. Like my tresses step you into unbelief: Love is no light matter.

137}

Being safe and sound does not go with love. Remember, infidelity suits a lover!

1372

If you would take my infidelity as an example, With me this moment you could touch my neck.

13773

But if you will not now take the example, Get up, go. Here are your stick and gown!”

1374

The Speech of the Birds The love-sick Shaikh had fallen low;

125 1375

The heart through heedlessness'*? he had consigned to chance.'** The time when his head was unclouded by drink, Not a moment did he have any head for being;

1376

Now, when the Shaikh in love had become intoxicated,

1377

He was tumbled off his feet. All self-command went. He did not come to, but a scandal he became.

1378

He could not be abashed by anyone: Christian he became. It was wine sufficiently old. Of him it took its toll. It made the befuddled Shaikh like a compass twirl.

1379

For the old man, old wine and young love, His sweetheart present, what chance self-restraint?

1380

Ruined was that Elder, and turned beside himself, and drunk.

1381

Drunk and in love as he was, he passed beyond control. He cried, “I can bear it no longer, O moon-face! Of heart-lost me what do you want? Tell!

1382

Though in sobriety have I not become idol-worshipping, Drunk let me burn the Book before an idol, drunkenly.”'*®

1383

The girl answered him: “Now you’re my man! May sweet sleep be yours, because you’re proper for me.

1384

Before this, in loving you were as raw as could be. Enjoy life, for you’re done to a turn.”

1385

When news reached the Christians,

1386

That such a Shaikh as this had preferred their nte,

126

The Speech of the Birds

They carried the Shaikh to the cloister drunk.

1387

After this they directed that he should tie on the belt. When the Shaikh entered within the zonnar’s ring, He flung his dervish cloak into the fire and began business:

1388

His heart from his own religion he freed;

1389

He remembered neither the Ka‘ba nor shaikhliness.

After so many years of the right belief, Such a novelty as this washed his face afresh.

1390

He said, “This dervish has fallen victim to grace’s

1391

abandonment:'** Love for the Christian-born has made its mark. Whatever she says henceforth, I'll obey;

1392

Than this which I have committed what is worse that I might do?

In the day of sobriety no idol-worshipper was I. | became a worshipper of an idol the time I got hopelessly drunk.”

1393

O many a one because of wine has forsaken the Faith! Without doubt, the Mother of Evil Things does this!!*

1394

The Shaikh went on: “O heart-robbing girl, what’s left? All that you said has been done. What’s left?

1395

I’ve drunk the wine. I’ve bowed before an idol in fullness

1396

of adoration:

Let nobody undergo what, because of love, I’ve experienced! A person like me become mad by being in love; Such a Shaikh as this, become so scandalous!

1397

The Speech of the Birds

127

Nearly fifty years the Way was open to me. In my heart the Sea of Mystery was breaking waves.

1398

A spark of love leapt swiftly out of the ambush; It took us back to the space for the heading on Page One.

1399

:

Love has done a lot of this and does — Made the religious gown into the heathen’s belt. It still does.

1400

On the slate of the Ka‘ba love guides the alphabet-learner’s

1401

hand;

The knower of the secret of the Invisible, vagabond-love. All this self has gone. Expound a little As to when you will become one with me.

1402

Since on the founding of union with you the cause rested, All that I have done was on hope of union based.

1403

To be united do I desire, and to discover a sign of recognition; How long must I burn in the discovering of separation?”

1404

The girl replied: “O captive Elder, I’m of a costly bride-price, and you, exceedingly poor.

1405

Silver and gold are required for me, witless man. How without silver and gold might your suit succeed?

1406

Since you haven’t any, take to your heels and be off. Take a packed-lunch off me, boy, and go!

1407

Like the fast-vanishing sun, go down. Be single. Gallantly be patient, and be a man!”

1408

The Shaikh responded, ““O Cypress-form, silver-breasted,

1409

You fulfil your promises well, for sure!

128

The Speech of the Birds

I have nobody but you, O beautiful idol! At least refrain from this kind of banter.

1410

Every moment with another wile you throw me off;

1411

You flirt with and flout me. Of blood in pining for you, you absent, I’ve consumed all there is. In trafficking with you, I have done all there 1s.

1412

In the way of adoration of you all that was mine has gone. Unbelief and Islam, and loss and gain have gone.

1413

How long will you keep me tossing and turning in expectation? No such deal as this is the one you’ve to keep with me.

1414

All my comrades have withdrawn. Enemies of my life they’re about to become.

1415

You such as this and they such as that, what am I to do? Neither heart nor soul is left to me. What can I do?

1416

I would prefer, O form sublime! Hell with you to Heaven without you.”

1417

In the end, because the Shaikh had become her man,

1418

The heart of that moon-faced because of his agony burned. She called out, “For the bride-price now, you imperfect man, Herd my pigs for a year without intermission,

1419

So that when a year has passed, both of us together Might life pass, ‘for better, for worse’.”

1420

The Shaikh from the command of the beloved did not flinch:

1421

He who rebels against the beloved doe§ not prevail.

The Speech of the Birds

12)

The Elder of the Ka‘ba, the most mighty of Shaikhs, went: He chose a year herding swine.

1422

Within the nature of everyone there are a hundred pigs. There have to be pigs burnt or zonnars knotted.

1423

Do you, O you nobody, suppose thus, That this danger befell that Pir and no-one else?

1424

In the inside of everyone this danger lurks. Its head it raises when the Journey is begun.

1425

You, of your own particular swine if you’re unaware, You’re quite excused, because no man of the Way are you.

1426

If you step out onto the road like the man of purpose, Both idols and swine you'll see, a hundred thousand.

1427

Kill the swine, burn the idols in love’s way. Or else become like the Shaikh, love’s disgrace.

1428

His companions were left such That from being let down, in despair were they left.

1429

When they saw that captivity of his, They avoided associating with him.

1430

All of them from his inauspiciousness took to flight. In grieving for him they strewed dust on their heads.

1431

There was one friend in the midst of the crowd, bold.

1432

He rushed to the Shaikh saying, ““O you the backslider,

Let us this very day go back to the Ka‘ba. What is your command? It must be a secret told.

1433

130

The Speech of the Birds

Do we like you all practise Christianity: Make ourselves the cynosure of ignominy?

1434

Of such isolation as this of yours we do not approve;

1435

Should we, like you, ourselves tie on girdles?

Or, since we cannot see you thus,

1436

Should we flee this land without you? Should we sit dedicated in prayer in the Ka‘ba? Should we keep ourselves unpolluted by your existence?”’'*®

1437

The Shaikh responded: “My soul has been full of pain; Wherever you wish, the going must be quick.

1438

So long as I have life, the Christian cell is enough for me. The Christian girl my only soul enhancer.

1439

Excellent though you are, you do not understand, Because in this instance you’re hagglers!

1440

If for one moment the affair were to hit you, In sympathy you’d be my fellow-sufferers in sorrow.'*?

1441

Go back, O my dear friends! I still do not know what will transpire.

1442

If they ask about me, just tell the truth

1443

As to how this fallen distracted one is,

Eyes full of blood and mouth left full of the bile of the liver, In the jaws of the dragons of Fate left.!°°

1444

Not even any unbeliever in the world might consent To that which this Pir of Islam did through Fate’s decree.

1445

The Speech of the Birds

131

He was shown a Christian’s tresses from afar. He became of reason, religion and shaikhliness intolerant.

1446

Her locks when she threw them round his throat,

1447

She threw him open to the wagging tongues of all mankind. If anyone takes me in reproach, Say, ‘In this road such as this often happens’:

1448

On a road such as this, that has no head nor tail,

1449

Let no-one bank on safety from guile and peril.” This he said and from the comrades turned his face away. For swine-herding to the pigs he hastened away.

1450

How much did the friends weep over his distress! At times over his suffering dying, at times living.

1451

In the end back to the Ka‘ba they went, Souls left burning, bodies in anguish,

1452

Their Shaikh left alone in Rim;

1453

Left having surrendered the faith to the way of the Christian.

At that time they became demented with shame; Each in a corner hid.

1454

The Shaikh in the Ka‘ba had one firm friend. In discipleship'*! he had hands washed clean of all.

1455

He was exceedingly perceptive and a trusty guide for the Way. No-one was better informed of the Shaikh than he.

1456

When the Shaikh from the Ka‘ba went on the journey, It chanced that he was not at that time present.

1457

132

The Speech of the Birds

When the Shaikh’s disciple came back home,

1458

Devoid of his Shaikh was the retreat cell.

He asked of the novices the Shaikh’s condition. To him they explained all the Shaikh’s vicissitudes:

1459

How by the ordaining of chance what a burden had come upon him, And by Divine Will’? what had happened to him.

1460

“The hairs of a Christian ensnared him in a single strand; Blocked in a hundred directions the road based on right belief.

1461

He was now playing at being in love with tresses and beauty-spots; His dervish-cloak torn to shreds, his state the negative.

1462

He has entirely withdrawn himself from the obedience. He’s at this very moment working as a swine-herd.

1463

At this time that master of many a mortification Bears round his waist the zonnar. He’s committed four profanities.

1464

Our Shaikh, although he made so many conquests in the

1465

Faith,

From an inveterate Gabar it is impossible to distinguish him." When the disciple heard this tale, in astonishment He paled to the colour of gold and began lamenting.

1466

To the followers he said, “O you unclean scoundrels, In loyalty neither men nor women,

1467

Experienced friends are needed by the thousand. The friend only becomes useful in such a time as this.

1468

The Speech of the Birds

153

If you were comrades of your own Shaikh, Why did you not put comradeship into practice?

1469

May you be ashamed! Now was this comradeship? Was this the repayment of dues and loyalty?

1470

When that Shaikh put his hand out to the zonnér, Tying on the zonnar was incumbent upon all.

1471

There should have been no wilful desertion of him: Chnistianity ought to have been for all.

1472

This was no comradeship nor being consistent, Because what you have done is from being hypocrites.

1473

Whoever’s the friend of his comrade,

1474

Must be the friend even though he turns pagan.

The time of adversity, the friend can be known: They’re there by the hundred thousand in prosperity.

1475

When the Shaikh fell into the jaws of the crocodile, Everyone fled from him, fearful for reputation and of disgrace.

1476

Love has its foundations in ill-repute! Whoever shies away from this mystery is of the raw.”

1477

They all replied, “What you have said more than it Many times said we to him before this.

1478

We resolved on this that together with him We would be of one accord in joy and in sorrow.

1479

We would sell asceticism and purchase reprobation; Throw off the Faith and purchase Christianity,

1480

134

The Speech of the Birds

But the dexterous Shaikh favoured this that From him one by one we should turn about.

1481

Since the Shaikh from our assistance saw no gain, He sent us back, did the Shaikh, without delay.

1482

We all returned on his orders. That’s the long and short of it and we’ve kept nothing back.”

1483

After this, that disciple said to the companions,

1484

“Were ever-waxing zeal in your profession yours,

Other than God’s portal no abode would be yours. You in the Presence would entirely dedicated be,

1485

In holding to seeking redress before God, Each vying with the other,

1486

So that when God saw you afflicted, He would give the Shaikh back without waiting.

1487

Although you have shunned your very own Shaikh, From the door of God why do you turn?”

1488

When they heard these words, on account of their failure They, every single one, were incapable of raising their heads.

1489

The man said, ““What profit now this shame! Since business has befallen us, let us get going fast.

1490

It is necessary that we, yes, we, be at the Court of God:

1491

That in redress-seeking we be humbly scattering dust.

Let us all don a petitioner’s shirt of paper.'™4 Let us again arrive where the Shaikh is.”

1492

The Speech of the Birds

135

Bound for Rim, they all moved out of Arabia. Absorbed in private praying they became, day and night:

1493

At God’s gate each one had a hundred thousand missions, Sometimes of intercession, sometimes crying for help.

1494

In this manner, until forty nights and days were accomplished, Not a head was turned from the one position.'°

1495

All for forty nights had neither food nor sleep; As with the nights, forty days, neither bread nor water.

1496

Through the humble supplicating of that pure folk,

1497

In the firmament a frightful hubbub arose; The green-clad angels, on the heights and in the places

1498

below,

All, on account of that grieving, donned the garb of mourning blue. In the end he who was foremost in the ranks,

1499

His shaft of prayer quivered on the target. After the forty nights, that faithful-dealing disciple Had in the seclusion quite the self quitted.

1500

At daybreak a wind blew up, musk-laden. The world unveiled in the heart became clear.

1501

Mustafa'®* he beheld. He was coming like the moon,

1502

On his chest the two black braids fallen,'*’

The shadow of God, the sun of his face,

A hundred worlds of soul the adornment of a single tip of his hair.

1503

136

The Speech of the Birds

He was approaching with measured tread and beaming a smile. Whoever might see him, in him would be lost.

1504

That disciple, when he saw what he saw, leapt from his place,

1505

“O Prophet of Allah, help me by your hand. You are the guidance of creation. For God’s sake, Our Shaikh has lost the way: show him the way!”

1506

Mustafa replied: “O you of the so lofty devotion, Go, for your Shaikh I have released from bondage.

1507

Your high degree of concentrated devotion has done its work: It never faltered till it brought out the Shaikh.

1508

Between the Shaikh and the Truth for a long time There was a dust and mistiness very black.

1509

That obscurity from his path I have cleared:

1510

In that darkness I have not left him. I, for intercession’s sake, a nocturnal dew

Sy

Sprinkled broadcast over his diurnal condition. That dust-cloud has now been laid;

I bed

Repentance retrieved, sins have been absolved.'** Know you for sure that a hundred worlds of sin By the spittle of one act of repentance are cleared from theron,

Toto

When the Ocean of Goodness comes in wave-tossing, It drowns out the sins of men and women.”

1514

The man, with joy for this, was overwhelmed;

‘51S

He let out a cry, so that the rafters of heaven shook.

The Speech of the Birds

137

He spread the news to all the companions: Passed on the glad tidings and made for the road.

1516

He went, with the friends, weeping and at the double,

1517

Until he arrived at the place of the swine-herding Shaikh. The Shaikh was found like fire become;

1518

In the midst of confusion, wholesome become.

He had cast off Magian chiming bells, And nipped the zonnar from his waist, too.

1519

He’d thrown away the Gabar’s cap, And of Christianity a mind he’d purged.

1520

The Shaikh, when from afar he espied the flock,

1521

Perceived himself the one in the midst deprived of the light. Out of shame he both rent the clothes on his body, And on account of wretchedness put dust on his head.

1522

Sometimes, like the clouds, tears of blood he would rain;

1523

Sometimes from the soul sweet life he would tear. Sometimes by his sigh the curtain of the heavens was singed; Sometimes from grief the blood in his body burned.

1524

The wisdom of the Koran’s inner-meaning and the Traditions Had been clean washed out of his conscience.

1525

All at once, all came back to his memory: He was redeemed from pagan ignorance and outcast misery.

1526

When he looked into the state he was in,

L527

Into prostration he fell.and fell to weeping.

138

The Speech of the Birds

Like the red rose his eyes, steeped in gore;

1528

And because of shame he was laved in sweat.

When his companions found him thus, Left overwhelmed by sorrow and joy,

1529

They went up to him, all in trepidation, In the way of gratitude all life-offering.

1530

To the Shaikh they called, “O Fathomer of Mysteries, The cloud has from your sun vanished away;

153)

Infidelity’s lifted from the Path and faith descended; The idolator of Ram has become the worshipper of God.

1532

Suddenly the Ocean of Acceptance waves beat; The Apostle became the pleader of your cause.

1533

This moment gratitude is for the world’s learned in divinity; Give thanks to God. What occasion for sorrow is there now?

1534

To God is obligation owed, Who through a sea of pitch Has opened a path as clear as the sun.

1535

He who can make light black, Repentance knows how to grant, for even so great a sin.

1536

When the fire of repentance He enkindles, All that must be, He burns completely up.”

1537

ll make the story short. Thereupon, To put it briefly, their intention was to take the road without delay.

1538

The Shaikh made ablutions and resumed the dervish cloak.

1539

He set out with his people for the Hijaz.

The Speech of the Birds

139

After this the Christian girl saw in a dream, That into her arms the sun had fallen.

1540

The sun then loosened its tongue To say, “Go at once after your Shaikh.

1541

Adopt his religion and be his dust; O you who made him sullied, be cleanly his.

1542

Since he unfeignedly came into your rite, You in truthfulness take up his.

1543

You stole him from his way. Enter you the way of him. Since he has come to the Way, make yourself his

1544

companion.

You were his highwayman long enough. Be his highway sharer. How much longer than this will you stay ignorant?'®° Become informed!”

1545

When the Christian maid came out of the dreaming state, Light was glowing from her heart like the sun.

1546

In her heart a strange painfulness became apparent. This pain made her restless for the quest.

1547

A fire in her reeling spirit flared. On her heart she struck her hand. Her heart fell beyond her reach.

1548

She knew not what the impatient soul Within her, what seed it had brought to fruition.

1549

Something had happened, but she had none with whom

1550

to confide. She found herself in a world of wonders;

140

The Speech of the Birds

A world in which there were no signposts. Dumbness there had to be: the tongue had no function.

1551

This moment all that flirting and gaiety

1552

Poured off from her like rain. Ah, behold!

She uttered a scream. Tearing her garment she ran outside.

1553

In contrition, in the midst of tears of blood she ran.

With a heart full of pain and person frail, In pursuit of the Shaikh and the disciples running she began.

1554

Like a cloud, drowned in gorey tears she was running; Her feet beyond control in pursuit she ran.

TS53

She did not know, in the deserts and plains,

1556

Which direction must be followed.

Feeble and in despair she wailed long and loud; Rubbed her face in the dust in despair.

Ta5F

Groaning she was crying out, “O skilled master, I’m a woman, too weak to be capable of anything.

1558

A man of the Way such as you are did I waylay. Do not beat me. I knew not what I did.

1559

Cause the ocean of your anger to calm down; I did not know. I have committed an error. Forgive!

1560

Do not put on wretched me all that I have done; I have accepted the Faith. Grant me help.

1561

I am dying in the effort to cleanse myself without anyone to help me. My mite of respect is naught but abasement.”

1562

The Speech of the Birds

141

To the Shaikh it was announced from within That “The girl has come away from Christianity:

1563

She has found acknowledgement at Our Court; Her duty has now fallen in with Our Way.

1564

Return and once again be with that idol; With your idol be in sympathy and an intimate.”

1565

The Shaikh at once turned in his tracks, swift as wind.

1566

Again agitation fell among his followers.

They all asked, “What was the purpose of your coming back? What was your repentance and so much palaver about?

1567

Once again are you playing at being in love? You would render the repentance totally invalid.”

1568

The girl’s condition, the Shaikh related to them. All who heard renounced their lives.

1569

The Shaikh and his companions retraced their steps, Till they came there where the player upon hearts was.

1570

They found her, her face yellow as gold,

1571

Her tresses lost in the dust of the road, Barefoot, her clothes all torn apart,

1S72

In the guise of a corpse, upon the ground. When that moon saw her Shaikh,

1573

It brought a swoon to that heart-sore idol. When unconsciousness had borne off that moon in a faint,

The Shaikh on her face dropped tears from his eyes.

1574

142

The Speech of the Birds

When that idol looked up at the Shaikh, She shed tears like the clouds of April.

1575

She threw her eyes upon his firm fidelity;

1576

She threw herself into his hands and at his feet. She said, “In remorse over you my soul burned.

1577

More than this I cannot burn outside the veil;

Throw open for me the way of repentance, that I might learn. Expound Islam that I might find the Way.”

1578

The Shaikh for her made Islam explicit. A clamour upon all the companions fell;

1579

When that idol-faced became of the Elect,

1580

Much raining of tears and surging of fervour came into the midst. At the end of the matter, that idol, when she found the Way,

1581

Of the taste for piety’s sweetness in the heart she found herself aware.

Her heart from taste for the faith impatient became: The yearning encased her that knows no palliative.’

1582

She cried, “O Shaikh, my endurance has run out:

1583

No more can I bear the separation;

I am leaving this pain-wracked mansion.

1584

Farewell, O Shaikh! Farewell to the world!

Since speech for me will be curtailed, I am helpless, forgive me and do not revile.”

1585

This she said, that moon, and relinquished her hold on life;

1586

She had half a life she sacrificed for the Darling.

The Speech of the Birds Her sun was hidden behind a cloud;

143 1587

Her sweet soul was separated from her. Ah the pity! She had been a drop in this sea of fantasy; She went back to.the sea of Reality.

1588

All like a breeze we go from the world. She went and all of us will go too.

1589

Of this kind of commerce there is a lot on the Way of Love;

1590

This that person knows who is informed of love. Whatever might be said, in the Way is possible: It is compassion and despair, guile and safety.

1591

The carnal spirit is unable to hear these mysteries; It lacks what it takes to be able to hook this particular ball.

1592

This intuitive certainty through faith must be heard by the

1593

heart and soul;

Not by the spirit compounded of water and clay should it be heard.

The battle between the heart and the carnal spirit has every

1594

instant been tough;

Raise the mourning keening, because the sorrow’s deep. When all the birds heard this recital,

1595

They all thereupon offered their lives. The Simurgh had robbed their hearts of repose: Love in the soul of each became a hundred thousand fold.

1596

They intended to take to the road, an intention most correct; In committal to the road themselves they nimbly braced.

1597

144

The Speech of the Birds 1598

All averred, “Now, for cash down, for us

Is needed a leader in loosing and tying, That he should in the Way guidance give to us, Because it can’t be managed by self-conceit.'

1599

In such a road, an arbiter profound is required; Maybe from this bottomless sea it is possible to be saved.

1600

‘My Commander with my life let me obey, Good and bad, whatever he says, perform,

1601

That the outcome might be that, from this field of boasting, Our ball haply falls as far distant as the Mount of Qaf.

1602

A mote in the sun sublime would fall:

1603

The shadow of the Simurgh would upon us fall’.

2) 32

Finally they said, “Nobody is competent. Lots must be drawn. This is the only way.”

1604

To whomever the lot fell, he would be leader.

1605

Among the less he would be the superior. When to this act they came, twittering ebullience died down:

1606

All the birds at this moment fell silent;

When their business was consigned to drawing lots, Stillness prevailed over that fluttering.

1607

The lot was cast. Nicely did it come out: Their lot to the passionate hoopoe fell.

1608

They all constituted him their guide; If he ordered it, their lives they’d risk.

1609

The Speech of the Birds

145

They all then affirmed that he was in charge, In this expedition, both leader and guide.

1610

Decision was in his power; orders, too. There was no begrudging him the soul, or the body either.

1611

The guiding hoopoe when he turned out the winner, A crown upon the crown of his head then was placed.

1612

A hundred thousand birds came onto the road,

1613

Shadow-casting over the Fish and the Moon came they.

When the opening into an abyss in the road became visible, Up went shrill fluting from that band, as far as the moon.

1614

An awe of this road fell upon souls: A fire fell upon their lives;

1615

They crowded back, all that crowd, upon each other;

1616

What feathers! What wings! And what talons!

All of them washed their hands of life altogether — Their burden great and the road long.

1617

It was a road devoid of any feature, ah, the wonder! Not a speck of evil nor of good, ah, the wonder!

1618

A silence and a stillness were in it,

1619

Neither augmentation was there nor diminution in it.

A salik asked him, “Why’s the road empty?” The hoopoe answered, “It’s because of your clamouring.”

1620

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Bay4zid'® went one night outside the city. Of the roar of the people freed, the moon he saw.

1621

146

The Speech of the Birds

The sky was full of stars bespangled, Each shining out in its own way.

1622

However long the Shaikh wandered about the plain, No-one stirred in all its wide expanse.

1623

Confusion violently took hold of him.

1624

He called out, “O Lord, terror has ruined my heart.

At such a Court as that which in sublimity You have, Why is there such a lack of eager seekers?”

1625

A Voice answered him: “O baffled by the Way, Not to everyone does the Padshah grant access.

1626

The honour of this gate has thus laid down the requirement, That from Our door the whining of assorted beggars be kept remote.

1627

Since the sanctuary of Our glory is light-radiating, The heedless taken in sleep it casts far off.

1628

People for years have been anxiously waiting, That out of a hundred thousand one might gain audience.”

1629

All the birds, in horror and terror at the road,

1630

Wings and feathers covered in blood to the moon they lifted. They were seeing a road with no end in sight: They were seeing suffering with no remedy in sight;

1631

The wind of the Divine Self-sufficiency'’™ so strongly blew

1632

across it,

That the heavens’ back was breaking in it.

In a desert where the peacock of the firmament!® Without any doubt carries no weight in it,

1633

The Speech of the Birds

147

How might another bird in the world Endurance of that road ever at any time have?!

1634

Since those birds were terrified by the road, They all gathered together in one fell swoop.

1635

To the hoopoe they flew, because beside themselves; All become his pupils and come to their senses.

1636

Then did they say: “O knower of the Way, Unversed in etiquette’s conventions one cannot go into the presence of the Shah.

1637

You a great deal with Solomon have been; Over the breadth of the realm of Solomon you have been.

1638

You have mastered all the procedures of being in waiting; You have learnt the danger spots and the safe.

1639

You’ve seen the ups and downs of this road. You’ve also many times wheeled over the world.

1640

Our view is that this moment, for cash down,

1641

As you are for us preceptor of the loosening and the knotting,

You betake yourself up the pulpit’s stair at once, Then equip this tribe of yours with what the road requires:

1642

The description give, of the customs and etiquette for kings; For there is no embarking on this Path in ignorance.

1643

Each has in the heart a problem. The Way requires hearts free of care.

1644

The difficulties in our hearts first solve,

1645

That thereafter we may act purposefully with the nght intention.

148

The Speech. of the Birds

When we ask of you about our dilemmas,

1646

We would purge these doubts from our hearts, For we know that this long road In the midst of doubts would no light give.

1647

Once the heart is emptied, the body we’ll give up to the Way; Minus heart and body, we’ll head for that Court.”

1648

After this the hoopoe prepared himself for the homily.

1649

He ascended the chair and effected the preliminaries.

When the hoopoe with his crown on approached the throne, All who saw his countenance high good fortune knew.

1650

In front of the hoopoe a hundred thousand or more Arranged themselves in ranks of the whole army of birds.

1651

The nightingale and dove came forward together, To perform, these two, the bidding recitation in chorus.'®”

1652

They both breathed out the measured chant then. The melodious recitation from them echoed through the world.

1653

To whomever’s ear their notes reached,

1654

A stirring came. Nay, they would be nonplussed. In each a special state became manifest: Nobody seemed either conscious or unconscious of the self.

1655

Then the hoopoe opened his address:

1656

Drew aside the curtain from the face of the substantial Truth. A questioner asked him: “‘O taker of precedence,

Because of what have you before us proceeded to the Truth?

1657

The Speech of the Birds

149

Since you are a seeker and we, seekers equally, Between us on what account has a distinction arisen?

1658

What sin has been witnessed from our bodies and souls,

1659

Your share, the clear, but ours the dregs?’

The hoopoe answered: “Ah questioner, Solomon’s Eye one moment upon me fell;

1660

Not for silver did I this find, nor for gold: This grace of power I have is from that one glance.

1661

When by means of worship might anyone have gained this? For the devil performed acts of worship plenty.’

1662

However, should anyone say that no act of worship is needed, Let curses rain upon him all the time!

1663

Omit you prayer not one moment; But when you’ve enacted piety, put no price upon it.

1664

Be you in worshipping, be you the whole life through, That Solomon might on you cast a glance.

1665

Once you have been by Solomon accepted, You will have become than of whatever I might say, the more.”

1666

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION He said: “One day Shah Mas‘td'”® by chance Had become separated from the army.

1667

Swift as the wind he spurred on his horse, all on his

1668

own alone. He saw seated by the sea an infant child;

150

The Speech of the Birds

He had cast the hook into the watery depths. The Shah greeted him and sat down beside him.

1669

The child was sitting in deepest melancholy, Both his heart was torn and his soul wounded.

1670

He hailed him saying, “Child, why oh so grief stricken? I’ve never seen like you one sorrow struck.”

1671

The child answered him: “O Amir full of virtue,

1672

We are seven babes, now without a father.

1673

A mother we have, stuck at home;

She’s extremely poor and left alone. 1674

For the sake of fish, every day I the trap Do lay. Till nightfall I keep station:'7! If I catch a fish, with a hundred trying plays, That’s our sustenance till next night, O Prince

1675 1”?

The Shah replied: “Do you wish, O child disconsolate, That I act with you your fellow player at this game?”

1676

The child was happy and a partner he became. The king became an angler in that ocean’s waters.

1677

The boy’s hook assumed the regal luck. Yes, that day it hooked a hundred fish.

1678

All those fishes, when the child saw them landed,

1679

He said, “I of myself gnjoy this marvellous luck; You've a stroke of the uttermost good fortune, boy,

That all these fish have tumbled into your net!”

1680

The Speech of the Birds

5o)

The Shah said: “You, my boy, would be confounded If of your fisherman a clue were you to find.

1681

This time on my account you are the more lucky. For your fisherman the Padshah became.”

1682

This he said and remounted his steed. The boy said, “Make your own share clear.”

1683

He replied, “I'll forgo it today. I’ll not divide it out.

1684

What tomorrow is netted, that will be mine.

Our catch tomorrow will be only you: It goes without saying, my catch [ll not give to anyone.”

1685

The next day, when he got back to the palace, The king remembered his partner.

1686

An officer went and summoned the child. The Shah his comrade to the dais raised.

1687

Everyone protested, “O Shah, he’s a beggar boy!” The Shah replied, “Whatever he is, he is my partner.

1688

Since I have accepted him, he cannot be rejected.” This he said and made him a Sultan like himself.

1689

Of that infant an inquisitive person asked a question Saying, “Now whence have you gained this perfect state?”

1690

He answered: “Joy came and wretchedness passed, For a lord of blessed fortune by me passed.”

1691

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A murderer was hung drawn and quartered by a king. That Safi chanced to see him in a dream.'”

1692

152

The Speech of the Birds

He was promenading in Eden laughing. Sometimes in glee and sometimes proudly strutting he was doing the rounds.

1693

The Sufi accosted him saying, ““A murderer were you! Perpetually debased were you!

1694

How has this rank come to be yours? On account of what you did, you could not attain it.”

1695

He answered, “When my blood flowed to the ground,

1696

There was passing, that moment, Habib A’jami.'” Secretly, from the corner of his eye, that Pir of the Way Cast upon me in a wink a glance.

1697

All this honour, and a hundred-fold more,

1698

I have found through the power of that one look.” On whomever a lucky eye has fallen, His soul in a single instant has overleapt a hundred paths.

1699

As long as upon you the look ofa right man does not fall, Of your own being how might you find awareness?

1700

Were you to sit in solitude a very great deal, You would not be able to traverse the road companionless.

1701

The Pir is necessary. Do not travel the road alone. O out of blindness plunge not into this sea!

1702

Our Pir essential for the Way has come to you; In every circumstance, become a refuge for you.

1703

Since you’ll never know pavement from pitfall, Without a stick how can you take the road?

1704

The Speech of the Birds

153

You've no eyes, nor is the way short. The Pir is, on your route, the finder of the way.

1705

Who has come beneath the shadow of the possessor of the power of grace, Will never on the Way have any embarrassment.

1706

Whoever has become joined to fortune gracious, Thorns in his hands all turn into nosegays.

1707

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION On the spur of the moment, Mahmid went out hunting. He fell apart from the army.

1708

An old thorn-gathering man was goading on his ass.'”* The thorns fell off. He scratched his head.

1709

Mahmtd observed him so greatly vexed, His thorns fallen off and the ass left standing.

1710

Up came Mahmid and said “O sorry fellow, Do you want a helping hand.” He replied, “Yes, knight, I do.

1711

If you were to help me, what would it matter? I’d benefit and you’d bear no loss.

1742

In your fine countenance, good fortune do I see; Grace to those of good countenance is no stranger.”

1743

Out of kindness did that prince dismount. Straight away he put out his rose-like hand towards the thorns.

1714

His load he put on the donkey’s back, did that great man. He rode his charger back to his entourage.

1715

154

The Speech of the Birds

He informed the attendants that, ““An old thorn-collector

1716

With a donkey’s coming, from thorn gathering. Line the way on both sides of him,

1717

So that he’ll see my face opposite him.” His troops positioned themselves on the old man’s route: No alternative was left him but that passage straight to the Shah.

1718

The old man said to himself, “With a half-starved donkey How might I follow the track? Verily this is military oppressiveness!”

iv?

Although he was afraid, he saw the Shah’s parasol, And he saw the road going to the Shah;

1720

He drove that wretched donkey till close to the Shah.

1723

When he saw him, embarrassed became the old man on

the road.

Beneath the parasol he beheld a known face. Into anxiety he fell and distress.

1722

He cried, “O Lord, to whom can I tell my predicament? I have made Mahmud my porter!”

1723

The Shah said to him, “My poor man, What is your business? Tell me all.”

1724

He replied: “You know my business. Play straight! Don’t make yourself out not to be knowing.

1725

I’m an old man, destitute and a bearer of loads.

1726

Day and night I’m in the plains collecting thorns,

The Speech of the Birds

155

That I might sell them, to buy a scrap of bread. Now you could give me a whole loaf.”

1727

The prince replied to him, “O venerable old man, Name a price that I might give gold: how much, your thorns?”

1728

He answered, “O Shah, this from me do not buy cheap;

1729

I will not sell for less than ten bags of gold.” His troops shouted, “Shut up you fool. This is worth two barley grains. What impudence! Sell cheap.”

1730

The old man replied: “This is worth two barley grains, but This is a rare occurence: he’s a lucky purchaser to have.

1731

When one who’s been accepted has placed his hand on my thorns, My thorns into a hundred flower-garden hues he has changed for me.

1732

Whoever feels he must such a load of thorns buy, Every thorn-bundle he should buy for a dinar a time.

1733

Disappointment pricked me with many a thorn, Until one like him touched my thorns with his hand.

1734

Although they’re thorns, these, that are worth little,

1735

Since they’re from his hand, these are worth lives by the hundred.” Another bird said to him: “O back-bone of the army, I’m incapable. How should I take to the road.

1736

I have no strength and am extremely weak. Such a road as this would never be within my reach.

1757

156

The Speech of the Birds

Its valleys are remote and the going is hard: I’d die on the very first stage of it.

1738

Burning mountains!” in the way are many, And such an ordeal as this isn’t for everyone.

1799

A hundred thousand heads on this road have become polo-balls; Great is the bleeding that on this quest has deluged streams.

1740

A hundred thousand intelligences have been nullified,

1741

And those not baffled, it has beaten down.

In such a road where men without hypocrisy Make to pull a cowl over their heads out of shame,

1742

From the likes of poor me what’ll arise but dust? If I were to set out at all, I’d die most grievously.”

1743

The hoopoe said: “O faint-heart, how much more of this?

1744

How much longer will you be keeping the heart ensnared over this?

Since in this you have so little will, Whether you move forward or not amounts to the same thing.

1745

The world being like a mire of ordure, Creatures die in it, vagrants knocking at many a door.

1746

A hundred thousand of them like the yellow worm Die miserably in the world, in dread.

1747

We, if in the end in this enterprise we are wretchedly to die,

1748

It would be better than in suppurating filth, desolately floundering.

The Speech of the Birds

157

This quest, if on your account and on mine it were wrong, If we die this moment out of distress, it would be right. Since mistakes there are many in the world,

1749

.

1750

Take one error more as one of the same.

If someone’s ill-fame is love,

1751

It’s better than dung-sweeping or cupping blood. I take it this gloom is less than a wisp of hair; You regard it as less! It is the least of my worries!

1752

If because of this ocean you put the heart in turmoil, If you bring vision, you will barter all.

1753

If someone says, “This aspiration’s presumption: How can you get there, you, when nobody ever has?’,

1754

In the presumption of this desire were I to lose life, It were better than if I put my heart on keeping a house and a shop.

1755

We have seen all this, and we’ve heard.

1756

Not for an instant have we from the self been diverted.

Our duty, because of worldlings, has for us long been deferred. How much longer, begging without need'’° from this handful of creatures?

rer

Until to the self and to creatures you totally die, Our souls will never break completely free.

1758

Whoever is not to the creature absolutely dead,

1959

It is he who dies, because not conversant with this veil.

158

The Speech of the Birds

Those admitted behind this veil are souls aware.

1760

Those living for the creature are not the men for the Way. Show a leg if you’re a man of purpose. Make a final break with old wives’ tales.

1761

Know for sure that this quest, whether blasphemy or not, Is real work. No light matter 1s it.

1762

The fruit of the tree of love is fruit without leaves.!”

1763

Whoever’s leaf-encumbered, tell to go away. When love has in a breast taken up its abode, The life of that person out of existence the heart has taken.

1764

This severance plunges the man in blood: He’s thrown head first beyond the veil;

1765

Not a moment is he released to the self;

1766

It slays him, and then demands the blood money!

If love gives him a sip of water, it won’t be free of dysentery. And if it supplies him bread, the dough will be kneaded

1767

with blood.'”8 If he be from weakness more frail than the ant,

1768

Still will love heap upon him every moment violence more. A man, when he’s fallen into the ocean of danger,

1769

How ever again might he eat a morsel heedlessly?”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Shaikh Nauqani'”? came to Nishapar. The travail of the road had hit him. He was in sore distress.

1.770

The Speech of the Birds

159

A week in rags in a corner Hungry he had fallen, without provisions.

1771

When the week ended, he cried, “O Allah

1772

A loaf of bread put in my way.” A Voice said to him, “This very moment go, The main square of Nishapir is all dust;

1773

When you sweep the dust of the main square from endto end, You'll find half a carat of gold. Buy you bread. Eat!”

1774

He answered, “If I owned a broom and sieve,

1775

What would my problem over a bit of bread be? As I am utterly destitute, Without making it hard for me, grant a crust. Torment me not.”

1776

The Voice responded: “It should be easy for you: Get down to sweeping if bread you must have.”

777

The old Pir went and raised much clamour,

1778

Until he obtained from someone a brush and sifter. He brushed away the dust as he ran hither and thither. The last sifting, that gold coin he found.

1779

Overjoyed was his spirit when he saw that piece of gold. He went to the baker and purchased bread.

1780

The moment the baker handed him the bread,

1781

To his memory back came the broom and sieve!

Fire fell upon the old man’s spirit; He stopped in his tracks and from him a shout arose.

1782

160

The Speech of the Birds

He cried, “As I am now, there is no-one so distracted.

1783

Money I do not have. How now can I render compensation?” In the end he was shuffling about like one mad. He threw himself into some waste ground.

1784

When into that ruined lot he came, cast down and sad,

1785

He beheld alongside his broom and the sifter too. Joyous was the Pir, but then he asked: “O God, Why did You do this? Make the world black for me?

1786

You made fresh bread poison to my spirit. Say, ‘Go, regain life. This is my bread’.”

1787

A Voice answered him: “O man of the unhappy disposition, No bread is tasty without something to go with it.

1788

When you pressed bread alone to your breast, I added the relish. Be grateful!”

1789

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A mad-hearted man emerged. He was going along naked, but the people were decently clad.

1790

He cried, “O Lord, raiment fine make mine:

1792

Like other folk make me bloom.”

A Voice called out to him and said: “Look you, I have provided warm sunshine. Sit in it!”

L7og

He called back: “O Lord how long will you torment me? Have you no garment better than sunshine?”

1793

Came the reply: “Go. Wait ten days more Till I give you a cloak, without any argument.”

1794

The Speech of the Birds

161

When for ten days the man had been scorched, A cloak was brought, all sewn together:

1795

A hundred thousand and more patches it bore, For that donor was exceedingly poor.

1796

The love-crazed man cried, “O Knower of Mysteries,

1797

Were You sewing rags together from that day on? In Your wardrobe, had all the clothes been burnt,

1798

That all these pieces had to be sewn? You’ve sewn a hundred thousand remnants together. From where did you learn such sewing as this?”

1799

It’s no easy affair at His Court. One has to become dust in the Way to Him.

1800

Many a wight has reached this Court from afar, Sometimes scorched and sometimes set ablaze by fire and light.

1801

When after a life-time he has arrived at a destination,

1802

The epitome of unsatisfied yearning he’s become, yet not seen the road’s end.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION R4bi‘a,'®° on the way to the Ka‘ba seven years Rolled on her sides. Ah! the Crown of Men!

1803

When near the Sanctuary she got, gratified, She said, “At last I have accomplished a perfect Pilgrimage.”

1804

She aimed for the Ka‘ba the day of the Pilgrim rites. Manifest came upon her that which debars women.

1805

162

The Speech of the Birds

She returned by the road and said, “O Lord of Glory,

1806

I have rolled along this road seven years. When I had undergone days in mortification such as this, He dropped in my path a thorn such as this!

1807

Either give me, in my home, peace,

1808

Or otherwise admit me to Thine.”

So long as there is no lover like Rabi‘a, Who might experience the Power of the Master of the Event?

1809

As soon as you become the meddler in this ocean, Waves will rise, pushing you back and gathering you forward

1810

in their embrace.

Sometimes they'll repulse you from the Ka‘ba’s front; Sometimes within the temple of the infidel secrets to you divulge.

1811

If from this whirlpool you can lift yourself out, Every moment you will increase in collectedness.'*!

1812

But if in this maelstrom you stay caught, Your head’ll be revolving as fast as a millstone.

1813

You'll find no hint for a moment of concentration’s

1814

composure;

Your time’

182

will be, by even a single fly, distracted.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was miserably in a ‘corner one crazed. To him came that revered one of fame.

1815

The Speech of the Birds

163

He said: “I see you have a certain aptitude. Is there, within the compass of your adeptness, any composure?”

1816

He answered: “How should I find peace from persons When I can’t be free of fleas and flies?

1817

All day flies torment me. All night sleep’s denied me by fleas.

1818

A mite of a gnat, when it entered Nimrod,’ That deviant’s heart became befogged.

1819

Am I the Nimrod of this age that from the Beloved, Fleas and gnats and flies must be my fate?”

1820

Another confessed to the hoopoe that, “I have many a sin. In sin how might the road there anyone travel?'**

1821

As a fly is without dispute unclean, How might it reach the Simurgh in the Mount of Qaf?

1822

When from the Way a man full of sin has turned away, When might he ever find proximity to the Padshah?”

1823

He replied, “O negligent, do not despair'®? of Him, Ask grace’® and the everlasting magnanimity'®’ from Him.

1824

If readily you do not throw down the shield, The matter will turn out difficult for you; you the ignorant!

1825

If the contrite had no acceptance,'** Where would be every night an alighting place for Him?

1826

If you have sinned, the door of repentance is open. Repent, because this door will not be closed.

1827

164

The Speech of the Birds

If in sincerity'®? you come into this road a moment, A hundred openings'”’ will accrue to you.

1828

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Many sins had that man committed. Out of shame he made repentance: he came back onto the Way.

1829

Again the flesh came bouncing back; Repentance he broke and a prey to lust became;

1830

A second time he had fallen from the Path. Into every kind of wickedness had he fallen.

1831

After a while a pang entered his heart, And through shame, how to conduct himself became his problem.

1832

When other than nothing at all no gain he had, He wanted to repent. No courage he had.

1833

Day and night, like a grain of corn in a frying-pan, He had a sizzling heart steeped in tears of blood;

1834

If any dust adhered to his path, By water from his eyes it would be washed away.

1835

At the time of dawn a voice called to him;

1836

Took him in hand. Sorted out his problem. It said, “Says the Lord of the World,

1837

Since at first you made your repentance, So-and-so, I have forgiven. I have accepted repentance from you. I could have, but have not taxed you.

1838

The Speech of the Birds

165

Again, though you clearly reneged on your repentance, I have granted you a reprieve and desisted from anger.

1839

Now if it is thus, that this time, oh witless fellow,

1840

Your desire is to come back once more,

Come back then, for We have the door opened. You making amends, I stand and wait.”

1841

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One night Ruhu’l-Amin”! was in the Lote Tree.'”

1842

The call, “I am with you’”,’” from the Presence he

was hearing. “A devotee”, he said, “At this time must be calling on Him

1843

I don’t know whether anyone knows who it is. What I do know is that it is an exalted servitor;

1844

His carnal spirit dead, he is of a living heart.” He thereupon wanted to know who it was.

1845

Of him no news was traced in all the Seven Heavens.

To earth he returned, and scoured the seas.

1846

Still round the world he wandered,

Never that devoted slave to see. He said, “O God,

1847

Please, now, guide me to him.”

God Almighty answered: “Set off for Ram. Go into an unbelievers’ cloister. Recognise him.”

1848

Gabriel went and saw him, plain, Who at that very moment to an icon was he praying, weeping grievously.

1849

166

The Speech of the Birds

Gabriel was profoundly moved at this. Back to the Presence crying out he came.

1850

Gabriel gave tongue. He said, “O the Self-sufficient,

1851

Unveil for me this mystery. Him I saw in a monastery, for he invokes the idols. Is it out of Your kindness that You respond to him?”

1852

Almighty God replied: “He is of a heart darkened: He does not know. Because of this he has mistaken the way.

1853

If unwittingly he mistook the road, that error I, since I am not unwitting, have not taken the wrong way.

1854

Even now, do I grant him access to the Court: My benevolence will be visited upon him, the pardon-seeker.”

1855

This He said and opened the way for his spirit; To utter the word “Lord” his tongue He loosed,

1856

That you might know that this is the Community: That what goes on here is unharmful.

1857

Though you have for this Court nothing to offer, Nothing’s fallen by the wayside. Don’t worry;

1858

Not every pious ascetic act exempted is bought; Nothingness, too, at His Court may be bought.”

1859

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Sufi was hastening into Baghdad.

1860

On the way he heard a call,

It said, “I’ve a glut of honey. I’m selling it for a song, Where is everybody?”

1861

The Speech of the Birds The Sufi Shaikh said, ““O patient man,

167 1862

You're giving away nothing for nothing?” “Get off”, he replied, “Are you a madman, oh you father of greed? When did anyone give anything to anyone for nothing?”

1863

A Voice called to him saying, ““O Stfi, come away:

1864

A shop superior to this where you are visit, So that for nothing We might give you everything, And if you want more, plenty more We'll give you.”

1865

Compassion is a shining sun. Every mote is picked out.

1866

Behold His compassion Who to a prophet In rebuking came for the sake of a single infidel.

1867

Almighty God said: “Qartin’ pleading piteously,

1868

Called out to you,

O Moses, seventy times.

You accorded him no response at all in return. Had he in distress only once called out to Me,

1869

I would have uprooted idolatry from his soul; The honourable mantle of the Faith over his head I would have thrown.

1870

You, O Moses, caused him in agony to perish; Him, cowering in the dust of dishonour, you consigned to the dust.

1871

Had you brought him into existence, In punishing him you would have relented.

1872

168

The Speech of the Birds

He who gives mercy to those who show it not, People of compassion He makes lords!”° of beneficence.

1873

There is in His Ocean of Grace no begrudging;

1874

In its bosom, one tear is the solvent of sins.

He Who possesses such forgiveness, How should He on account of a single stain change?

1875

Whoever lays blame on sinners, Makes himself of the gang of avengers.

1876

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When in sin that corrupt man died, The hoopoe said his bier was being borne along the road;

1877

When a religious ascetic saw it, he took care to distance

1878

himself,

So that he would not have to pray for a malefactor. But in the night, that ascetic saw him in a dream,

1879

In paradise and as radiant as the sun. The man of abstinence said: “Now, my lad,

1880

From where did you gain this exalted station? You were, so long as you were, forever in sin. From head to foot were you completely defiled.”

1881

The sinner answered: “Because of your lack of it, the Creator Exercised compassion on me, the erring.”

1882

See the love-play that the Wisdom indulges in!

1883

He does this, yet He brings compassion to bear:

The Speech of the Birds His Wisdom, on a night black as a crow’s feathers,

169 1884

Sends out an infant with a lamp. Then after this, He a brisk wind sends,

1885

Saying, “Blow his lamp out. Arise and go!” Then He takes hold of the infant as he’s passing along the road, And says, “Why did you put out the lamp, you silly boy?”

1886

For this does He take the child, that in bringing him to book He might in chiding a hundred acts of kindness extend to him.

1887

If everyone were none other than prayerful people, His Wisdom would have no love-sport at all.

1888

The work of the Wisdom other than in this wise would not be complete. Consequently, it thus displays itself all the time.

1889

In His Way are a hundred thousand wisdoms: A single drop is a portion of an ocean of compassion.

1890

Day and night these Seven Revolving Heavens, child,

1891

Are, child, for you at work!

The Angels’ prayers are for the sake of you: Heaven and Hell are the reflection of your grace and disgrace.

1892

The Holy Angels have all prostrated themselves to you; The part and the whole of existence yours have they made.'”°

1893

In contempt do not so much regard yourself, Because there is no-one possible greater than you.

1894

Your body is the part, but your soul, the whole of the whole. Yourself do not demean with the eye of disparagement.

1895

170

The Speech of the Birds

Your whole shown forth: your part became manifest; Your soul quickened: your limbs became manifest.

1896

The body is not separate from the soul. It is a part of it. The soul is not separate from the whole. It is a limb of it.

1897

If there is no number in the road of the One,

1898

Part and whole, you could say, cannot ever be. A hundred thousand clouds of compassion above you Rain down, to augment your desire.'””

1899

When comes the time of the nobilities of the Whole,

1900

For your sake are the robes of honour of the Whole. All that which so greatly the Angels have done, For your sake have they totalled up.

1901

All their prayers, the Creator

1902

Over you will eternally scatter.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFIGATION Said ‘Abbaseh'’’, “On the Day of Resurrection, When in terror the people will rush into flight,

1903

Of the sinners and the heedless,? because of sin

1904

The faces will at once turn black with shame,

People with nothing to show being left stupified, Each in one way or another left confounded.

1905

God the Great from earth to the Nine Heavens A hundred thousand years of worshipful obedience from the Angels

1906

The Speech of the Birds

iyi

Perfect has garnered. All, out of pure grace, Now He scatters upon the heads of this handful of dust.

1907

From the Angels goes up the cry, ‘Hey, Allah! Why should these creatures be highwaymen to rob us?’

1908

God Almighty will answer, ‘Hey you Angels, While for you in this there is neither loss nor gain,

1909

For the creatures of dust, the affair is coming to a conclusion; Bread for the hungry must at no time be withheld.’”

1910

Another bird pleaded with the hoopoe that, “I’m the effeminate sort. All the time I flit from branch to branch.

seaN

Sometimes I’m a libertine, sometimes an ascetic, sometimes

1912

drunk; Sometimes there is He and there is He is not, and sometimes

He is not, yet He 1s.

Sometimes the carnal self drags me into taverns. Sometimes the soul forces me into ejaculating prayers.

Ons

Between the two, I’m left confused.

1914

What should I do? I’m stuck in the pit and the prison.” He replied, “At times this is in everybody, Because a man is rarely of a single complexion.

1945

If everyone were pure from the start, How for the prophets would their mission have been appropriate?

1916

If you in worship have the heart fast bound, To righteousness you will come, however tardily.

1917

172

The Speech of the Birds

So long as the colt of

life is not given its head,

1918

It will not be broken in, to calm and contentment.

O you whose place is in the steam-rooms of indolence, You what you fancy have made your be-all and end-all.

1919

Tears red as cinnabar are the secrets of the heart.

1920

What is eating your fill? The rusting of the heart.” Since you continually pamper the dog of the carnal spirit, It turns out no less than of an effeminate disposition.”

1921

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION From Baghdad Shibli?°’ disappeared for a while, Such that no-one could find the way to him.

1922

They searched high and low for him a long time.

19235

Someone found him in a house of transvestites.

In the midst of that unchaste band He was sitting, wet-eyed and parched-lipped.

1924

A questioner enquired, “O you of the hue of a searcher

1925

of the mysteries, What place for you is this? Speak now.” He replied, “This folk, because they are sullied,

1926

In the way of the world are neither a man nor a woman. I am like them, but in the way of the Faith,

1927

Neither a woman in religion nor a man. What’s the point of this? I am lost in my own womanliness; Ashamed am I of this ‘manliness’ of mine.”

1928

The Speech of the Birds Whoever has made his soul aware,

173 ) 1929

Has made his manly beard the napkin for picnicking on the road. Like men of the heart, he has chosen wisdom;

1930

He has scattered honour in the path of the Masters. If you loom more than a hair’s breadth in sight, You'll be for yourself worse than an idol.

1931

If praise and blame make any difference to you, Watch out! You might be he who fashions idols.

1932

If you’re the servant of God, then make no idols. And if you’re a godly man, do not be an Azar.?™

1933

Not possible, between the high and the low, Is any status superior to the status of servitude.

1934

Practise slavery. Go no longer after pretensions. Be a man of God: seek no honour from “Uzza.*”

1935

Since you have a hundred idols under the dervish cloak,

1936

How can you parade yourself a Safi in front of people? O effeminate one, wear not the garb of men. Keep yourself no more flitting between this and that.

1937

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION In hostility and contention came Two wearers of the patched gown*” to the Judge’s court.

1938

The Judge took them into a corner. He said, “It is unbecoming in the Safi to wage conflict.

1939

174

The Speech of the Birds

You have donned the garb of submission. Why have you raised this altercation?

1940

If you are the people of conflict and vengeance-seeking,

1941

These clothes cast off your shoulders, now, without further ado.

But if you’ve become worthy of this dress, Into enmity because of foolishness you have rushed.

1942

I, who am a judge, not a man of the spiritual verities, Blush to the roots of my hair because of these particular patched cloaks.

1943

Both of you covering your heads with the linen coif of a woman Would be preferable to wearing dervish patches in this fashion.

1944

Since you’re neither men nor women in the duties of love, How can you ever solve the mysteries of love?”

1945

If the secrets of the Path of Love are an affliction to you, Cast off your breast-armour for affliction’s sake:

1946

If, in this battlefield, you are claiming to be resolute,

1947

Cast yourself, you, to the winds and abandon life. No more than this flaunt yourself in specious pretensions, Lest to dishonour you will be left exposed.

1948

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was in Egypt a famous king. A penniless man fell terribly in love with the Shah.

1949

When news of his love reached the Shah,

1950

He at once summoned the lover so deluded.

The Speech of the Birds

175

He said: “Since you’ve become the lover of a prince, Of two conditions choose you now one.

1951

Either leave the city and this land,

1952

Or, if you don’t, for love of me lose your head.

I have told you in a word your duty;

1953

Is it decapitation you want, or to be a wanderer far away?”

As that man in love was not a man of purpose, Leaving the city he made his choice.

1954

When that bankrupt who’d stepped out of bounds went away, The Shah ordered, “Sever his head from his body!”

1955

A court chamberlain demurred saying, “He’s surely without sin. Why his being executed has the Shah ordered?”

1956

The Shah retorted: “Because of this that no lover was he. In the path of love of me, he was not sincere.

1957

Had he been such that he was a man who meant business,

1958

To have his head cut off he would at this juncture have chosen. For whomever the head is better than the beloved,

1959

Practising love in him is a crime. If of mé he had asked for execution,

1960

The prince would have arisen from his realm:

He would have assumed his sash round the waist in his service: The Emperor of the Cosmos would have become his dervish.

1961

176

The Speech of the Birds

But, since in being in love he was a false claimant,

1962

Cutting off his head has been fitting, and summarily, too. Whoever in separation from me would intend keeping

1963

his head,

Is a pretender: such keeps himself impure.

I have said this so that all without the light Will desist from falsely boasting of loving Us.”

1964

Another told him: “My carnal self’s the enemy. How could I take the road when the waylayer is the escort?

1965

The dog of the carnal spirit has never for me come to heel. I do not know how I might tear the soul from his paws.

1966

Obedient to me the wolf of the plains might become;””” But not obedient to me this sleek hound.

1967

I am left in wonderment at this faithless one,

1968

As to what it might concede acknowledgement.” The hoopoe answered: “O how well the dog leads you a dance! Like a patch of dust how nicely it tramples you with its paws!

1969

Your lower self *°* is both wall-eyed and squinting: Both a dog and slothful, and infidel to boot.

1970

If someone praises you, it is a lie: Because of a lie a shining coat your carnal spirit acquires.

1974

There is no likelihood that this dog might become worthy, When, basking in false flattery, such as he only become more beefy.

1972

The Speech of the Birds

|

At first all is without any harvest: Only puerility and pusillanimity and insousciance.

1OvS

In the middle all is alienation: “Youth is a kind of madness’.

1974

At the end, when old age takes its toll, There’s left a soul in its dotage and a body turned to skin and bone.

1975

With a life such as this, decked out in the error of folly,

1976

How will this dog of a spirit be cut down? Since from start to finish there is heedlessness,?°”

1977

It goes without saying that our harvest is nil. Slaves has this dog many in the world: In the end there are those who worship it.

1978

To abide with the self is nasty, For your carnal spirit is a hell full of fire.

1979

Sometimes in hell it is in the consuming blaze*"® of lust;

1980

Sometimes in it is the iciness*"’ of arrogance. Hell for sure gets on fine and is attractive because of this,

1981

That it is of a dual essence: it is fire and frost;

A hundred thousand hearts continually of grief do die, But this infidel cur never for a moment dies!”

1982

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A grave-digger was blessed with a long life. A questioner said to him, “Tell me something,

1983

178

The Speech of the Birds

Since for a life-time you’ve been digging graves in the ground, What marvels have you seen beneath the sod?”

1984

He replied: “This have I observed in the way of wonders, That this dog of my carnality seventy years through

1985

Watched the digging of graves, but never died; Nor for one moment obeyed a single command of mine!”

1986

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One night ‘Abbaseh?” said: “O congregation,

1987

Were all these to become full of unbelievers,

And then all the Turkmans full of violence In a wave of sincerity to accept the Faith,

1988

This could be; yet have come Prophets to the tune of one hundred thousand and twenty plus,

1989

That this infidel spirit in all good time might become Either Muslim or a corpse in our midst;

1990

But they were unable to accomplish anything with it. It still marches on. Why has so great a difference arisen among us?

199%

We are all under the sentence of the infidel self: Within ourselves we are worshipping the unbeliever.

1992,

An unbeliever is this spirit so uncommandable That killing it might never be all that easy.

1993

Since this carnal spirit obtains help in two ways, It would be most surprising were it to perish.

1994

The Speech of the Birds The heart, the constant knight of the realm might become;

179 1995

Day and night this dog of the self it has as bosom companion.

However much the knight his horse spurs on, Out-distancing him the hound is running on the scent of the prey.

996

Whoever’s withdrawn the heart from the presence of

1997

the Beloved,

The carnal spirit from the heart has also grabbed an equal amount. Whoever this dog manfully has got on the leash,

1998

Has in both worlds a lion in his lasso hooked.

Whoever’s made this dog his captive, No man to the dust his boots raise might attain.

T999

Whoever on this dog places a heavy chain, His dust is better than others’ blood.”

2000

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Dressed in rags, that Elder of the Way was proceeding. Suddenly that Padshah noticed him.

2001

He said, “Am I better or you, aye, you ragamuffin?” The old man replied, “O you without the news, shut your mouth, be quiet!

2002

Although it is not permitted us ourselves to praise, Because he who himself might praise is the unenlightened,

2003

Nevertheless, since it has been forced upon me, the likes of

2004

one of me Is better, without a doubt, than a hundred thousand like you.

180

The Speech of the Birds

For your soul has not recognised the lineaments of the Faith; Your lower self has made an ass of you.

2005

Then, oh Amir, it has mounted you:

2006

You’ve become a captive under its weight. Night and day it keeps a halter over your head; You’ve descended to awaiting its commands.

2007

Whatever it orders you to do, oh Mister Nobody,

2008

Whether you like it or not, that alone can you perform. But, when I became acquainted with the secrets of Faith,

2009

I made the dog-spirit my donkey.

When the carnal spirit became my ass, I sat astride it: The dog of the carnal spirit rides you. I nde it.

2010

Since what is my ass becomes the rider of you, Any the like of me is better than the likes of you a hundred thousand times.”

2011

O you so thoroughly taken with the dog of your carnal spirit, In you it casts a fire of lust.

2012

Your honour the tinsel of lust has robbed. From your heart and from your body and from your soul it has robbed the strength.

2013

Blockage of sight and deafness of the ears, Old age, and loss of reason, and impairment of sense,

2014

These and a hundred more are the army and the troops, The whole lot the servants of the Prince of Death.

2015

Night and day continually do these troops come massing in; That is to say they are trooping in after our prince.

2016

The Speech of the Birds

181

When from every side the army has gathered, Both you and your lower spirit will be annihilated.

2017

You have made sweet accord with the dog-spirit; You have contrived joyous revels together with it.

2018

You have become the prisoner of its pleasures. You have fallen under its powerful spell.

2019

When clustering round you the King and the crowd?" come, You'll be separated from the dog, and the dog from you, too.

2020

When on this occasion you will be separated, Then surely suffering will hit you hard;

2021

Don’t worry if on this occasion you can’t get together, Because in Hell you will most pleasurably together consort.

2022

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Those two foxes, when they became companions together, Thereafter in pleasure they became each other’s mates.

2023

A Chosroes into the plain arrived with cheetah and falcon. Those two foxes he cast asunder.

2024

The vixen asked the dog, “How will you find an earth, Where we can get together? Tell me now.”

2025

He answered: “If there’s anything left of us, It will be on the furrier’s stall in the city!”

2026

Another said to him, “Iblis with vanity 2027 Waylays me on the road the moment of being present with Him.*" I, since by force I cannot overcome him,

In my heart, through being cheated of it,” a tumult arises.

2028

182

The Speech of the Birds

What can I do in order to be saved from him? 2029 And in order that the wine of the Eternal Verity might for life be mine?”

He answered: “So long as with you is this dog of the lower

2030

self,

From your breast Iblis will not hasten to flee. Iblis’s beguilement arises from your own self-deception: In your self, each and every desire is your Iblis.

2031

If you one of your desires gratify, In you a hundred Satans are born, and that’s it!

2032

The world is a stoke-hole. When it has become a prison,*’® The fief of the Devil it has become.

2033

Deny yourself its presence, So that nobody has any claims on you.”

2034

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A heedless one went to a man practised in the forty-day abstinences. He of Iblis made many a complaint.

2035

He said: “Iblis has, by means of deception, waylaid me. He has, by sleight of hand, destroyed the Faith in me.”

2036

The man replied to him: “O dear good fellow,

|

2037

Iblis has also been here, before this.

He was complaining of you and much offended; Because of your tyranny he has put dust on his head.

2038

He said, “The world is all my domain.

2039

He who is inimical to the world is not the man for me.

The Speech of the Birds

183

Tell him to get out onto the road: To refrain from meddling in my world.

2040

I on his faith will make furious assaults,

2041

Because he on my world has laid a powerful grip. Whoever has completely departed from my preserve, With him I have nothing whatever to do.’ That’s all!”

2042

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION To Malik Dinar?" that dear one*’® said: “I have no cognition of my own state; how are you in this respect?”

2043

Malik replied: “At God’s table do I eat bread, Then every behest of Satan do I carry out.”

2044

The Devil has diverted you from the Way and you are powerless.??” Of your being a Muslim, for that there is only your word.

2045

You’ve become captive to the misery of the world; Let there be dust on your head: you’ve become a corpse!

2046

Though I have told you to drop the world, Now I am telling you to hold tight;

2047

Since you have given it all the power there is, How might you with ease give it up?

2048

O you drowned through heedlessness in an ocean of greed, You do not know why you are held back?

2049

Both worlds, in the clothes of mourning for the dead,

2050

Rain tears, yet you remain in refractoriness.

184

The Speech of the Birds

Love of the world has robbed you of the taste for the Faith; Desires and cupidity from you have stolen your soul.

2051

What is the world? The nest of avarice and lust,

2052

A Pharaoh’s and a Nimrod’s left-overs.

Time was when Qartn””® vomiting was expiring: Time was when Shaddad””' was holding fast to it.

2053

God Almighty having apostrophised the world as a nothing,” Yet you have by your life become suspended in its snare.

2054

The toil of this base world till when will be yours? A corpse on account of this nothing, of being nothing yours?

2055

You have been left day and night reeling in confusion

2056

and drunk,

So that perhaps one atom of this nothing might lend a hand. Whoever becomes lost for one speck of the nothingness, How might it be possible for him to be a man?

2057

Whomever a moment of time has diverted to this nothingness, He himself must be a hundred times less than nothingness.

2058

What is labouring for the world? All labour for nothing. What is labour for nothing? All being held in thrall.

2059

The world is a blazing fire;

2060

All the time it consumes another creature.

When this fire becomes a violent burning, He’s a lion-hearted man if he can find a way to escape from it.

2061

Like lions, seal your eyes against this fire, And if you do not, then like the moth be burnt by it.

2062

The Speech of the Birds

185

Whoever like the moth becomes the worshipper of fire, Burning begets this deluded drunkard.

2063

All this fire you have all round you: It is impossible for you not every instant to burn.

2064

See then, that there is a home available to you,

2065

Where such a fire as this does not burn your soul away.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A man of substance was pleading at prayer time, “O God, have mercy and make my affairs prosper!”

2066

These words of his one of the enraptured heard. He said: “Compassion from Him you would quickly smother.

2067

You because of your pride cannot be contained in the world; In haughtiness you are continually strutting about.

2068

A lodge to the heights of the heavens you have raised, Its four walls being decorated with gold,

2069

Ten slave-boys and ten girls in attendance; How might compassion with all this be in the nght mode?

2070

Look you at your self, to see, with all these trappings, Whether you’ve room for compassion. Now you’ve room for shame!

2071

If, like me, a single crust were your lot,

2072

Then room for compassion would you have. So long as you do not divert yourself from power and property, Not a moment will mercy show its face to you.

2073

186

The Speech of the Birds

Turn your face at once from all,

2074

To become, like the brave, free of all.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One of pure faith observed: “A handful of connivers in

2075

the false,

Of the dead man, in the last death struggle, turned the face.” Before this, of this ever non-responder to the call Ought the face to have been directed aright without intermission.

2076

What is the point of planting the branch at the fall of the leaf? What is the point when now you turn the face the nght way?

2077

Whoever’s face at this moment is turned,

2078

He will still die defiled. Look you not for any purity in him.” Another told him: “I love gold. For me love of gold like the kernel in the shell has become.

2079

So long as I have no rose-like gold in my hand, I cannot, like the rose, laughingly settle myself.

2080

Love of the world, and the world’s gold Have made me full of pretension, but deprived of the inner meaning.”

2081

The hoopoe said: “O by form become distracted, From your heart the dawning of the substantial stays hidden.

2082

Day and night you’ve stayed hemeralopic: The captive of outward form, like an ant you’ve stayed.

2083

The Speech of the Birds

187

Be a man of the inward verity and do not be bamboozled by forms. What is the inward reality? The principle. What the outward form? Nothing.

2084

Rock having assumed the colour of gold in external appearance,

2085

You, like children, have by a colour been seduced.

Gold, if it diverts you from the Creator, Is an idol. Throw it to the ground. Be on your guard!?4

2086

Gold, although in some places it is most acceptable, Is also used for the lock on the genitals of a mule.

2087

Nobody has any benefit from your gold.

2088

Nor do you, either, have any gratification.

If you give a mite of gold to a poor man, Either you resent him or yourself, and he, you.

2089

You on the strength of gold are ‘the people’s friend’; The brand on your flank is owed to it, too.

2090

Come the new moon, the profit on your shop is required by you. What a shop! That profit demands your soul;

2091

Your sweet soul has gone, and precious life, That from your shop a single halfpenny might come in.

2092

All that Wealth you have given up, for nothing in return, Yet such a desire as this over all have you set.

2093

But I can wait until, from beneath the gibbet,

2094

The ladder from under you is pulled by Fate.

188

The Speech of the Birds

In the world whatever you get hooked on, Each will be a hundred scorching flames for you.

2095

Drowning in the world also exacts your Faith: The Faith will never aid, my dear, the worldly drowned.

2096

You will seek respite at the time of the Tumult. When you do not find any, what a howling will befall you!

2097

Disburse the riches you have, in all directions:

2098

‘You'll not attain to righteousness, until you’ve disbursed

that which you hold dear’.””° Whatever there is must be abandoned.

2099

Were it life even, it must be abandoned.

When for you life cannot be held on to, Money, goods, and this and that cannot be held on to.

2100

If acoarse rug has become your bed, That rug of yours has become a barrier in your way;

2101

Willingly, oh acknowledger of God, burn that rug of yours! How much more with deception God will you try to cheat?

2102

If out of chariness you don’t burn now the rough rug, How will you escape tomorrow the all-enfolding fine one!

2103

Whoever has become a prey to the ‘e’ in his own ego, the "eof He Is lost to his he-ness from top to bottom;

2104

‘E’ came into the word, ‘h’ and ‘e’, boy.

2105

Both might you see in ‘Hell’ for ever.

The Speech of the Birds See the ‘e-’ bearing ‘he’ in the middle fixed of the word

189 2106

‘hell’, Then see, too, the ‘e’ in the depths of wretched ‘earth’.?”°

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A novice had a small stock of gold. He of course hid the gold from his Shaikh.

2107

The Shaikh knew. He said nothing. And so the pupil went on keeping the gold hidden from him.

2108

That beginner on the Path and the guiding Pir Were both going together on a journey.

2109

A valley most awesome loomed up before them, And in that dark vale two roads appeared.

2110

The man raised the question, because he had the gold — Gold very quickly shows a man up —

au

When the two alternative routes appeared; his Shaikh

2112

he asked,

“By which road do we go hence?” The Master answered, “Get rid of your coin, because that is wrong. Then by any road you will go, it will be right.”

2119

If anyone chooses for a mate his silver, The Devil would run away like mad in fear of him.

2114

In settling for one grain of forbidden gold, Such a one would split hairs with a horse-coper anyday.

Zi PS

Now in the Faith like a lame ass he comes,

2116

The arm weighed down, still he comes without any weight.

190

The Speech of the Birds

When he gets into cheating, a sultan is he. When he comes to practising faith, he’s all at sea.

Ze

Whomever gold has waylaid remains lost, Their feet caught in the depths of the well they remain.

2118

My Joseph, be on your guard against this bottomless pit.

PAS!

Draw not a breath, because this well has fetid exhalations.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Went the Shaikh of Basra”*’ to Rabi‘a.

2120

He said, “Oh in love the Companion of Many Set-backs, Not a point have you heard from anyone else, Nor have you read before anyone, nor seen:

2121

It has of itself become a light to you. Tell me how, because my life has expired in longing.”

2122

Rabi‘a replied to him, “O Shaikh of the Age, I had spun a few bits of thread.

2125

I took them and sold them. My heart was relieved: Two pieces of real silver were my gain.

2124

However, I did not take both in one hand;

#3Ws

This piece I took in this hand, and that in the other,

Because I feared that, if silver were joined together, It would become the waylayer on the Way, not to be gainsaid.”

2126

The worldling puts heart and soul into jeopardy; A hundred thousand different sorts of snares he lays,

2127

The Speech of the Birds

Ji |

To gain one groat of gold by illegal means. When he’s got it, he dies and it’s “goodbye”.

2128

His heir has that gold as of right: He’s left in the misery of acquiring the evil result of sin.

2129

O you, selling the Simurgh for gold, Your love of gold has lit the heart like a burning candle.

2130

As, in this Way not a hair might be contained, Nobody has any room for storing and the hope of gold.

2131

If you step out onto the road, oh you puny as the ant, Like a trifle you will be snatched away by force;

Pe V4

Since there is not the slightest sign of favouritism in the offing, Nobody has the courage for this narrow way.

2133

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A devotee who from God enjoyed bliss

2134

Had, did he, four hundred years of devotion.

He had from the midst of folk absented himself;

2135

He had exchanged secrets behind the veil with God. His companion was God, and He is companion enough: If he and breath there were not, God would still be enough.

2136

The devotee had a yard, a tree in the centre. On his tree a bird made its nest.

2157

The bird was a merry singer and sweet of voice. Beneath one note of its were a hundred secrets.

2138

The devotee, because of its happy song, found,

2139

To a small extent, a certain affection for his friend.

192

The Speech of the Birds

God to the Prophet thereupon

2140

Turned and said; “To that man of faithful works

Must be said, ‘Well now, how marvellous,

2141

All this obedience have you shown, days and nights, For years out of yearning concentration on Me have you been burning, Only in the end for a bird Me to sell!

2142

Though you were in perfection a clever bird, A bird’s chirping finally caught you in its snare.

2143

I bought and instructed you. You in your unworthiness Me have sold.

2144

I your purchaser, you have sold Me: From you, fidelity have We learnt!

2145

Do you not in this be a seller so cheap: We are your Friend. Be you not without the Friend’.”

2146

Another said to him: “My heart is full of fire, Because my appurtenances and accessories make a lovely home.

2147

It is in fact a palace picked out with gold and heart-enrapturing, People at the sight of it are soul-enhanced.

2148

A world of joy is my gain from it. How can I tear my heart away from it?

2149

I am a king of birds in that lofty palace.” How then might I endure this ruinous waste?

2150

The Speech of the Birds

193

How should I give up all the trappings of royalty? How might I, without such a palace, find a perching-place? No reasonable man goes away from the garden of Iram, In order to experience in travel scorching and pain.”

DASA

so

252

The hoopoe answered: “O mean spirited, you no man are, Nor a dog are you lurking in the stoke-hole. What would you doe -

2155

A bath-house boiler room the whole of this base world is.

2154

Now, your palace the same as this stoke-hole is;

If your palace were the garden of Elysium, At the hour of death it would seem a dungeon of torment.

ZiSS

If death had no power over mortal beings, Perching in this lodging might have turned out well.”

2156

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A prince constructed a gold-adorned palace. A hundred thousand dinars were spent on it.

2157

When this paradisial palace was completed, Then the arrangement was achieved, of carpets and decoration.

2158

Everybody was coming from every land; The royal attendant had trays of bounty to be scattered.

2159

The Shah his sages and chosen friends summoned. He brought them into his presence and arranged them on thrones.

2160

Said he, “Has this palace of mine in any way Anything to be desired, of beauty and perfection?”

2161

194

The Speech of the Birds 2162

Everyone replied, “On the face of the earth, No-one has seen and will see such as this.”

An ascetic leapt up. He cried, ““O you of happy fortune, A chink in the wall has been overlooked and a grave fault it is.

2163

Were the palace not to have this fatal flaw, The Palace of Paradise’s Gardens a novel gift would it

2164

have made, from the Invisible.”

The Shah replied, “I’ve seen no crack And you, you ignoramus, are exciting dissent.”

2165

The ascetic answered him, “Oh in kingship haughty, There is a breach. It is open for Azrael.”

2166

Would that you might that crack make good! But if not, what good is your palace, and what use crown and throne?

2167

Although this palace is as delightful as Paradise, Death to your eyes will make it ugly.

2168

Nothing is immortal. There is a life here, now;

2169

But it is not forever. What are these pretences about?

Of your mansion and castle do not boast so much. On the steed of pride and arrogance do not cavort so much.

2170

If Someone, on account of your high status and rank

2171

Were to tell your defects to you, alas for you

ihad

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Made that misled merchant

Out of vanity a gilded mansion.

2472

The Speech of the Birds

195

At last when his saray was finished, He arranged a party to include everybody.

2173

He inveigled a host of people, with a hundred wheezes

2174

and merriments, To see his abode. Ah, the wonder!

The day of the reception, the fellow was running round beside himself. By Fate’s decree, one of the love-crazed saw him.

2175

He said, “I’d like so much to come in fast at this very moment, On your palace to shit, you callow parvenu.

2176

But I have other things to do. Please accept my apologies.”

2177

This he said and the other replied, “Oh, no trouble at all!”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Have you seen that spider scuttling? In scheming he spends his time.

2178

He plies a fancy far-reaching: Across his particular corner he stretches an abode;

2179

The father of the marvellous, he spins a net, spurred on by appetite, So that perhaps into his snare a fly might tumble.

2180

When the fly falls headfirst into his trap, He sucks from that bewildered creature’s veins its blood.

2181

Then he dries it out where it fell: He makes it his nourishment for many a day.

2182

Suddenly it comes about that the master of the house, A stick in his hand, is standing on tip-toe:

2183

196

The Speech of the Birds

He the house of that spider, and that fly,

2184

All in a trice annihilates.

There’s the world for you, and he who contrives his

2185

nourishment in it,

Is like the fly in that spider’s web. Though all the world might seem securely yours, It vanishes in the twinkling of an eye.

2186

If in kingship you would preen yourself, You're too infantile for the Way. You are indulging in shadow-play.

2187

Unless you’ve assumed the brains of an ass, seek not

2188

dominon;

Territory’s awarded for the grazing of oxen, you fool. Whoever because of the drum and flag is not a dervish,

2189

Has died, because that hollow sound is no more than wind. There is wind for the flags, for the drum, noise;

2190

The strumming of the wind is of less than a half a groat’s value.

Idiot, cut less of a caper: Be less frisky in the conceit of lordship.

aca,

The leopard gets skinned in the end; You in the end they will flay just as fast.

2192

Since showing-off has become absurd, Getting lost is better, or coming in humility, keeping down the head.

2195

It is not possible for you to hold the héad high; keep it down. For how long will this playing about be yours?

2194

The Speech of the Birds Either keep it down — act the leader no more, Or no more court the risk which goods and chattels bring.

O you, your mansion and gardens your prison, Alas for your soul and the remissness of your life! Get out of this dustbin full of false pride.

197 2195

im2hO6

2197

How long will you, oh restless one, make the

world your stomping-ground? Open the eyes of holy aspiration and on the road; Then step along it and behold the Court.

2198

When you have brought the soul to that Court, Because of the Glory, there will be no holding you in the world.

2199

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION In a mighty hurry a doleful man was running In a desert. He encountered a dervish.

2200

He asked: “O dervish how do you fare?” The dervish said: ““Would you, then, ask? Shame on you!

2201

I’ve got stuck in the narrow valley of this world:

2202

A narrow strait is this world to me, under Time.”

The man answered him: “This which you have said is not correct. In the desert wide does claustrophobia afflict you?”

2203

He replied: “If this place were not confined, How would you ever have fallen in with me?”

2204

If you’re offered sweet trysts by the hundred, You’re being given so many signs of the blaze beyond.

2205

198

The Speech of the Birds

What is your blaze? The world. Go away: Like lions are, be wary of fire.

2206

When you have gone away, your heart will come into its own. Then attainment of the mansion of contentment will come to you.

2207

A fire in front and a road exceedingly long;

2208

Body weak, the heart captive, and the soul timid;

You, of all things free and purged, In the midst of such an enterprise as this will be properly girded.

2209

If you’ve seen enough of the world, give life up, For from the world you'll have neither renown nor sign.

2210

If you look hard, nothing at all will you see. How much more should I say than this? Don’t dodge the issue so much!

2204

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Behind the bier the mourner was coming In perturbation, and then mournfully crying:

b4

“Oh mine, the one who saw not the world, how could

2213

you depart? Not having the world experienced, you leave it.” One whose heart had found its home, when he heard this and saw what was afoot,

Said: “Make yourself suppose that he had a hundred times the world seen.

2214

The Speech of the Birds If you want to take the world with you, Then with the world not seen will you die:

199 2215

While you on the world are fixing your gaze, M2216 Life will have ebbed. When will you ever alleviate the torment? So long as you do not rid yourself of this sordid lower spint, In unclean squalor that precious soul will be lost.”

2217

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Aloes wood that heedless one was burning lavishly. A shout someone was raising at the joy of it.

2218

To him that celebrated dear one of God said,

2219

“While you cry “Bravo!’, this aloes wood has been cruelly burnt up.” Another said to him, “O exalted bird,

2220

Love for a winner of hearts has enslaved me. Love for her came to take me by storm. It has robbed me of reason and done what only it can do.

2221

The image of her face became a highway robber for me, And set fire to all that I had garnered and gleaned.

pI

Not a moment without her do I find bearable: To me to practise patience respecting that beauty heathenism would seem.

2223

Since my heart would in desolation be behind,

2224

How might I, the so distracted, advance on the Way? In front, a gully must be breasted; A hundred trials must and more be encountered.

2225

200

The Speech of the Birds

A while without the cheeks of that moon-face,

2226

How could I ever be able to tackle the road?

My sickness has passed beyond medicine and healing. My affair has passed beyond being an unbeliever or believer.

2227

My unbelief and belief are reposed in love of her. There is a fire in my soul because of love of her.

2228

Though in this misery I am on my own, In loving her, misery is companion enough.

2f20

Love for her has thrown me into the dust and agony. Her tresses have thrown me outside the veil.

2230

I, since in infatuation with her I’ve forfeited strength to

2231

endure,

Not an instant can I bear without the sight of her. I’m dust on the road, drowned in blood. What can I do?

2232

This is my state. What then should I do?” The hoopoe answered, “O left in slavery to an outward appearance, From head to foot in mud are you left.

2233

Love of a form is not love of knowledge divine, It is naught but a play of lust, oh animals’ kind!

2234

For every beauty that is set to decline, Love is a man’s undoing.

2295

Any Beauty that in itself epitomizes imperishability, To treat that Beauty as nothing would be blasphemy.

2236

A form of bile, blood and phlegm compounded, A moon with no waning has been called?

2237

The Speech of the Birds Were it of those humours and that blood to be bereft,

201 2238

Nothing in this world would be more grotesque than it. She whose beauty is of bile and blood composed, You know what in the end the like of that fairness is.

2239

However much you haunt external forms, you’re on the quest of imperfection. Beauty is in the Unseen. Seek you beauty from the Unseen.

2240

If the veil were to fall from before the outworks,

2241

Neither the present world nor its inhabitants would be left: The forms of every worldly horizon would be obliterated; Pomp and power would all be turned into degradation.

2242

Fondness for a trivial form Turns into the enmity of all against each other;

2243

But he who entertains a love of the Unseen,

2244

This love is the one which to the Faultless is due. As long as this love does not have to you access, A terrible retribution that will be which of a sudden gets you.

2245

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One stricken by grief was weeping before Shibli.*”” The Shaikh asked him what this weeping was for.

2246

He replied, “O Shaikh there was a friend of mine. By his beauty my soul was constantly refreshed.

2247

Yesterday he died and I have died of grief for him. The world has been blackened for me through his death.”

2248

202

The Speech. of the Birds

The Shaikh said: “How can your heart be beside itself for this? What sorrowing is this? You deserve more than this.

2249

Choose, oh comrade, choose you another friend

2250

Who does not die, so that you do not die sorrowing.” The friend who through death occasions loss, His friendship brings sorrow to the soul.

2251

Whoever has become afflicted with infatuation for a form,

2252

Because of that form will also fall into a hundred trials.

Soon will that form slip away from his grasp,

2253

And he, by this confounded, be left in sorrow.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A merchant had plenty of wealth and property. A slave-girl with lips like candy he had.

2254

On impulse he sold her so that she went from one home to another. Then he became remorseful and very pitiful did he become.

2290

He repaired to her owner in great agitation. He would repurchase her for a thousand times more.

2256

In desire for her his loins were ready to burn. Her master was not ready to sell her back. The man was forever pacing the street,

;

225%

2258

Forever throwing the dust on his head. He was wailing, “This searing severance for me is too much, But such a branding as this befits the person

2299

The Speech of the Birds

203

Who’s acted in stupidity, sewn up reason’s eye, His sweetheart for a dinar sold.”

2260

The day of such a trafficking as this dawning, Against defrauding yourself there’ll be revulsion.

2261

Every breath of your life’s breaths is a jewel. Every new atom is a guide to God.

2262

From head to foot are His benisons. Count over to yourself the favours of the Friend,

2263

So that you might know That from which you have so

2264

far fallen;

Fallen into a separation so complacently borne!

God has nurtured you with a hundred excellences and tendernesses. You, out of ignorance, have stayed attached to another.

2265

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Chosroes was coursing in the hunting-field. He ordered, “Huntsmen, bring a greyhound.”

2266

The Chosroes possessed a well-trained hound. Its pelt of satin and sleeky velvet might have been woven.

2267

A collar gem-encrusted Conferred honour to its neck.

2268

On its hind- and fore-paws were ankle-rings of gold; A silk-threaded lead was attached to the collar.

2269

The Shah that hound a hound of sense acknowledged;

2270

The leash of that hound in his own hand he took.

204

The Speech of the Birds

The Shah was on the move, the hound running to heel. In its path there was a piece of bone.

2271

The hound ceased running where that bone had fallen. The king looked back. The dog was standing stock-still.

2272

The fire of jealousy so struck the Shah, That it was vented on the hound.

ante

He said: “What is this, waiting on such as me, the king,

2274

Can there be any glance spared for another?” He broke the lead and ordered the handler, “Now

PSbe

Let this uncourtly brute loose in the world.” Had that hound swallowed needles a hundred thousand,

2276

No worse would have been its plight than lacking that leash. The kennel-keeper protested, “The hound is all decked-out:

2277

The whole of its body is covered with treasure. Although this dog deserves the wastes and the deserts, Does it want our satin tassles and gold and jewels?”

2278

The Shah said: “Leave it as it is and go.

2219

Think no more about its silver and gold, and go,

So that if later it comes to its senses,

2280

It will see itself thus adorned:

It will recall that it had found friendship, But from such as me, a king, it had found separation too.” O you, at first with friendship endowed,

Yet in the end, through heedlessness, separation endured,

2281

2282

The Speech of the Birds

205

Embark on unfeigned love exclusively; Drain with dragons manfully the bowl.

2283

For in this it is the dragon’s move; Severing of the head is the blood-price lovers pay.

2284

What makes the souls of the brave daunted,

2285

Makes a mere dragon seem like an ant;

His lovers, whether they are one or a hundred, In His Way thirsting are for their own blood.

2286

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When that Hallaj reached the gallows, that time Nothing but “I am God” issued from his tongue.”*

2287

Since they did not know his language, They lopped off his two hands and his two feet.

2288

He went pale as the blood copiously from him flowed; How might anyone stay red in this case?

2289

Quickly that sun and moon rubbed The bleeding arm stumps on his moon-like face;

2290

He said, “Since the rouge for the faces of the brave is blood,

2291

I have now put the rosiness back into my face, Not to be pale in the eyes of anyone, Let me have at this moment a face as rosy as can be.

PPi ed

In the sight of whomever I appear pale, Would they not suspect that at this time I have been struck

2295

with fear?

206

The Speech of the Birds

Since I have not a single iota of fear, There is nothing for it but this red cosmetic.

2294

When a man of blood squarely directs himself towards the gallows, His lion-hearted manliness comes then into action.

2295

Since for me the world was a penman’s blob,”” How is this occasion one for my having any fear?

2296

Anyone who has fallen in with a seven-headed dragon In the heat of summer continually to eat and drink,

aaah

Of such sport as this plenty befalls him; For him the least of things the gibbet seems.”

2298

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The pioneer of religion, Junaid,” that ocean deep, One night in Baghdad homiletic words was uttering —

2299

Words at which, because of their exaltation, the high heavens,

2300

Their hearts athirst for more, lowered their heads to his threshold.

He had a son passing fair, did Junaid the Guide, Like the sun to him, a single boy most beautiful.

2301

Cruelly without compunction this child was decapitated, His severed head was then vilely thrown into the congregation’s midst.

2302

When he saw it, Junaid the saintly Did not flinch: he continued that congregation to hearten.

2303

He said, “This pot that tonight so huge I have put on to cook, ancient mysteries

2304

The Speech of the Birds

207

In such a pot as this must be as hot as this; Even more so than this. Less is not to be expected than this.” Another one said to him, “I am afraid of death;

2305

Wen

2Z306

The steep ways are protracted and I, lacking provisions and means. )

So much does my heart tremble at the thought of death, That I would give up the ghost at the very first staging-post.

2307

Were I a most glorious Amir with all his pomp and gear, When the Angel of Death comes, still would I lamenting cruelly die.

2308

Whoever he is who would raise his sword arm against death, Both the sword would be broken and the arm that bore it smashed.

2309

Ah the pity, that from a world of sword arms and blades,

2310

There’s nothing but the one great sorrow; ah the pity!” The hoopoe answered him: “O incapable weakling, How long can a handful of bones last?

2341

You are a few bones linked together, Their marrow melting in the bone.

2312

Do you not know that, give or take a little, your lifespan Has a duration of two moments? How long then this dejection?

2313

Do you not know that all who are born die:

2314

Turn to dust and all their being passes on the wind? Yes, you for the sake of being are nursed,

But you are also brought on in order to be borne off.

2315

208

The Speech of the Birds

There is the sky, like an inverted bowl,

2316

But in the sunset’s rosy glow, drowned every night in blood. The dagger-wielding sun, 1n its rotation, All these heads into the sky’s bowl lops off.

2517

You, whether defiled you came or pure, Are a drop of water that comes with a little dust.*”

2318

A water-drop, painfully quivering from head to foot, How should it ever be able to do battle with the sea?

2519

Though you a lifetime might in the world exercise command, Still you burn and still with a groan the soul surrender.”

2520

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There is the Qaqnus,”* a peerless bird, heart-enrapturing; This bird’s abode in Hindustan.

Agel

It has a strong beak of astonishing length, Like a reed-pipe, in it many apertures;

2am

There are about a hundred holes in its beak. It has no mate: it functions entirely virginally.

Da2S

There is in every stop a different note, Beneath every note of its, a different mystery.

2324

When on all the stops it moans its plaintive song, On its account birds and fishes are filled with ecstasy.

ZIeo

All the birds fall mute;

2326

In rapture at its lament, senseless do they fall. There was a philosopher, he took to its,harmonies: The art of music from its singing he took.

2oa0

The Speech of the Birds

209

The years of its life were about a thousand. It clearly knew the time of its death.

2328

When, the time of dying, it divorced its heart from itself,

2329

Round itselfitcollected ten or more loads of brushwood bundles. In the midst of all this kindling it set up a great commotion;

2330

It emitted a hundred notes, its own mournful dirge;

Then from each of those stops, for its pure soul Another keening wail, filled with awful grief, it uttered.

2331

While from every hole, like the paid mourner,

2332

It made a different lament in another key,

In the middle of the dirge for the sorrow of death, All the time it was seized with trembling like a leaf.

2333

At its shrieking all the birds of the air, And at its piping all the beasts of the field

2334

Came towards it as the onlookers. Their hearts all at once divorced from the world:

2335

Because of its grieving that day in its agony, A multitude of living creatures with it would die.

2336

All at its laments into confusion fell. Some through lack of strength did expire.

2337

It was a most amazing day, that day of its; Tears of blood dripped at its soul-searing wail.

2338

Then, when its life reached the final breath,

2339

Its wings and flight feathers would it flap backwards and forwards.

210

The Speech of the Birds

A fire sprang out from under its pinions. Then this fire changed the phoenix’s state:

2340

The fire quickly falling into the kindling faggots, So that it flares up, completely to set the firewood alight.

2341

The bird and the wood both turn to embers.

2342

After the embers come the ashes too.

When no live embers are left to be seen,

2343

A phoenix rises from the ashes to be seen.

Once the fire reduces that kindling to cinders,

2344

From the midst rises up a baby Qaqnus. To no-one in the world has this happened,

2345

That, after dying, it is reborn of itself.

Even if, like the Qaqnus, on you many lives are bestowed,

2346

Still would you die, and much suffering be bestowed on you, too.

For years was it in dolorous lamenting and in pain, With no offspring, with no mate, all entirely on its own.

2347

In all the furthest horizons it had no kindred:

2348

None of the burden of a wife and children did it have.

At the end of its affair, as has been related, death

2349

Came and scattered its ashes to the winds,

That you might know that from the claws of death

Nobody will ever retrieve life, so why the wiles?

2350

The Speech of the Birds To the furthest reaches of the world there is no-one death

Pei 2351

does not face; But behold the wondrousness of them all, that no-one is

equipped to meet it. Death, although it is so brutal and tyrannical,

2352

Meekly to submit to it has to be —

Although many a trial has befallen us, Of all of them has this the hardest fallen.

2353

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Before the father’s bier the son was marching. He was raining tears and saying, “O father,

2354

A day such as this, that has hurt me to the quick, Never in my life before has befallen me.”

2355

A Safi called, “To him who was your father,

2356

To him too this day had never come to pass!”

It is a trifle that that son befell: The really tough ordeal the father befell.

2357

O you who have entered the world helpless and confused, You have with dust on your head wind-gathering come.

2358

Though it might be your will to occupy the kingdom’s highest seat, Still as you came you will go, with naught but an empty hand to show.”®

2059

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION As death hovered over a certain lieutenant-governor, Someone asked him, “O you in the eye of the mystery,

2360

ot

The Speech of the Birds

What is your condition these moments of twisting and turning?” He replied, “Not at all is my condition to be told.

2361

I’ve measured nothing than wind more substantial all my life through. Now I am in the end returned to dust. Farewell to you.”

2362

Death has no assuagement but the death of desire: Sorrowfully shedding trappings and hopes it entails.

2363

All of us have been born in order to die. The soul will not tarry and we have pledged the heart.

2364

He who once held the world beneath his signet nng, Has now turned to an oxidized powder beneath the sod.

2365

And he who under the sphere’s reeling destiny used to be blood-letting, Has in interment’s dust soon to nothing turned.

2366

All crowded beneath the ground have been laid to rest. No, not rest. All these are sorely troubled.

2367

Look upon death, to see how hard a road it is,

2368

For in this road, the grave is but the first stage. If you had news of the bitterness of death,

2369

Your sweet soul would be turned upside down.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Jesus drank some water from a stream of water pure. The water’s taste was more pleasant than rose-water.

2370

Another with that water filled a jar and went. Jesus too from the jar drank a drop and went.

2374.

The Speech of the Birds

213

From the jar’s water his mouth turned sour. He returned and his wonder at this persisted.

2372.

He called, “O Lord, this jug and the water of the stream

2373

Are both the same water. Tell the secret of this,

As to why the water from the jar is as bitter as this, And that other is sweeter than honey.”

2374

To Jesus that jar began to speak. It said, “O Jesus, I am a used-up man.

2373

Under this nine-sheathed bowl I a thousand times On the wheel have been turned, now a jug, now a pitcher, sometimes an earthen bowl.

2376

Were they to make me a pitcher a thousand times more, Still would I only of the bitterness of death the finger-mark bear.

2377

Forever am I thus because of the bitterness of death;

2378

It is because of this that water from me is as bitter as this.’ Now heedless one, from the jar the secret hear. No more than this in heedlessness make an ass of yourself.

Dore

You have lost yourself, oh seeker of the secret. Before your life expires, the secret find.

2380

If you do not while living refind yourself, When you die, how will you know the mystery?*”°

2381

Not while conscious do you of yourself have a clue. Nor in dying will you have of your being any trace.

2382

ae

The Speech of the Birds

Alive, you have failed to comprehend. Dead, you

2383

have disappeared. Born, you have died, but never been a man. That dervish has a hundred thousand veils,

2384

So how might he himself rediscover?

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The hoopoe said that when Socrates into the throes of

2385

death fell,

There was a pupil of his. He asked, ““O Master How should we prepare the shroud, wash your body clean? In which place should we consign you to earth?”

2386

Socrates answered, “If you can find me, boy, Bury me wherever you wish and farewell!

2387

I, since living, in a long life myself Did not discover. How will you do it now I am dead?

2388

I have so proceeded that, at the time of passing, Not a single hair-tip of knowledge of myself is mine”.

2389

Another said to him, “O you of right belief, Never a single moment has any desire borne fruit for me.

2390

All my life how sorely have I lived, Have I been craving in the passage-way of the world!

208

On my blood-soaked heart so much sorrow there is, That in grieving every bit of me is in mourning.

272

I have all the time been confused and helpless: A cheat am I if I were ever happy.

2393

The Speech of the Birds

215

I have stayed, on account of all this grief, in myself. How with composure should I take the road before me?

2394

If there were not such a weight of the coin of sorrow, About this journey my heart would be a most joyful one.

2395

But, since the heart is so full of grief, what am I to do?

2396

I have told you all. Now what can I do?” The hoopoe answered: “O conceited one turned mad, Become drowned from head to foot in morbid craving,

2597

Wishes of this world unattained and those gratified, As soon as you get a move on will vanish in a trice.

2398

Whatever passes in one moment, So life will pass without a pause.

2399

As the world passes, you pass, too:

2400

Abandon it, and look not to it more,

Because everything that is impermanent, Whoever’s heart is in thrall to it, that heart is not living.”

2401

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION An observer of the Way, one of noble aspiration, Never drank the sherbet anyone might offer.

2402

A questioner asked, “O you who enjoy affinity with

2403

the Divine,

How is it you never have any longing for sherbet?” He replied, “I see a man standing over me, To be the one who would grab the sherbet the sooner.

2404

216

The Speech of the Birds 2405

With such a man as this appointed over my head, It would be my poison were I to drink the sherbet. With that guardian, how might I have sweet sherbet? This can be no rose-water beverage: it would be fire

2406 p22

Whatever has the lasting-power of one moment, Would be worth half a barley-grain though it were a hundred worlds.

2407

For the sake of one moment when there is no reunion,

2408

How might I lay foundations where there is no reality? Ifyou are euphoric on account of a single gratification, Of a momentary satisfaction do not so much boast;

2409

And if you have fallen out of sorts in the absence of gratification, Since it’s a disappointment of a fleeting moment, do not lament.

2410

If torment afflicts you, though you grievously bewail it, It is for your beatitude, not demeanment.

2411

For all that of adversity the prophets underwent, None displays the cicatrice of Karbala.?*’

2412

That which in appearance seems to you an affliction, In essence to the seer appears a boon.

2413

A hundred acts of Providence reach you every instant: There is for you a world of His favours and beneficence.

2414

The recital of His acts of grace is not possible. Can you not put up with the least of troubles from those of Him?

2415

The Speech of the Birds How might this be the mark of friendship? Oh crooked brain, from head to foot you’re simply skin-deep!

217 2416

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a king, well-disposed. To a servant one day he presented a fruit.?**

2417

His fruit that slave was eagerly eating up — You’d say he had never tasted anything sweeter than it.

2418

Because of the relish with which that slave of his was

2419

consuming it, It aroused the desire of the Padshah.

He said, “Boy, give me a half, Because this delicious fare you’re bolting down too fast.”

2420

He gave the Shah the fruit, but when the Shah tasted it,

2421

It was sour. He pulled a face and frowned. He said: “Boy, how has this ever come about,

2422

And that which is of a sourness such as this, who made it as sweet as that?”

That slave-lad to the Shah replied: “O Prince, Since at your hands rare gifts a hundred thousand have

2423

I known,

Though from your hand a bitter fruit came, I knew no way by which I might give it back.

2424

Since from your hand a boon every moment comes to me, How for one bitterness should vexation come to me?

2425

Since under severe trials I have become your humble servant, How can one sourness take me from your possession?”

2426

218

The Speech of the Birds

Though you in this road have many a trial, Know you for sure that it is a manifold treasure.

2427

Duty to Him has plenty of ups and downs; What are you to do since it is established thus?

2428

The ripe ones, once they have started on the Way, How without suffering should they a single morsel gain?

2429

As soon as they have sat down to bread and salt,

2430

No dry bread without heart-break have they broken.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION To a Safi said a famous man,

2431

“Oh brother, how do you pass the time?” He replied, “I’m stuck in a stoke-hole;

2432

Left parched lipped, ’'m covered with dirt. In my ash-pit I have scarcely broken a crust,

2433

Before, at that very moment, my neck’s been broken.”

If in the world you would seek 2 moment of happiness, You're either asleep or aimlessly chattering.

2434

If there you seek joy, be cautious, That bravely you might reach the other side of Sirat.?°

2435

Happiness of heart in the world is not on offer: There is not the slightest trace of it.

2436

Here there is the carnal spirit, like a fire blazing.

2437

Under time, how is a heart to be happy?

If like a compass you were to swivel round the world, Of a contented heart at no point will anyone show a sign.

2438

The Speech of the Birds

219

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Said that old woman to the Shaikh of Maihana,?“°

2439

“Give me a prayer for contentment of the heart. Up till now I have been enduring unrequitedness. I cannot bear it any longer.

2440

If me a prayer for a happy heart you teach, Assuredly my daily litany it will become.”

2441

The Shaikh answered her: “A long time has passed During which I have walled myself in behind the knees.”*!

2442

This that you desire, I have long chased after. Not one whit have I seen or discovered.”

2443

So long as no remedy for this anguish appears, How can the heart’s contentment come about?

2444

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A questioner sat in the presence of Junaid.7” He said, “O God’s prey, without any entrammelment,

2445

When might a happy heart in a man ever be garnered?” He replied: ““The moment He is in the heart.”

2446

So long as union with the King does not come about, Disappointment will be your spur.

2447

For the mote, twisting about I see as proper, Because it hasn’t the strength to endure the sun.

2448

Even if a mote were a hundred times over to be drowned

2449

in blood,

How from this twisting and turning might it break free?

220

The Speech of the Birds

The mote, so long as a mote it is, a mote will be: Whoever claims it isn’t will be deceiving himself.

2450

If it were to be altered, still it would not be He:

2451

It is a mote: it is not the source of the radiance.

Whoever from an atom arises initially, His origin is clearly also an atom.

2452

If he were entirely to be lost in the sun, Still he would be forever and ever a single atom.

2453

Whether an atom be passing good or passing bad, Though a lifetime it might be darting about, it’ll still be in itself.

2454

You proceed, oh atom, like someone rotten drunk;

2455

So long as you are turning, you’ll be dependant on the sun. I can be patient, oh you, mote-like twisting, Until your helplessness you plainly perceive.

2456

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One night the bat screeched: “How is it that In no way for a single instant have I sight for the sun?

2457

I go a lifetime with a hundred turnings and twistings, In order that just once in it I might be lost.

2458

Eyes shut I am travelling through the years and the months.

2459

In the end, at last, I might reach there.”

One sharp of eye called back: ““O deluded drunkard, The road for you to there is of a thousand years’ duration.

2460

The Speech of the Birds

221

For a giddy one such as you, how may this journey be accomplished? When does an ant in a hole ever reach the moon?”

2461

The bat replied: “Never fear. I will keep flying Till what’s in store for me becomes evident.”

2462

It kept on for years, drunken and unenlightened, Until neither strength nor the wings of flight remained to it.

2463

In the end, its soul seared, its body melted away,

2464

Wings and rudder gone, helpless was it left.

Since still no inkling of the sun was reaching it, It said: “Perhaps I have passed the sun.”

2465

A man of sense called out to it, “O you who’ve too long slept, You cannot see the Way. How could you have advanced so much as a step?”

2466

But then you assert that, “I have passed beyond it! It’s because of this that I have become denuded of a coat and wings.”

2467

At this riposte the bat utter nothingness became.

2468

Even that which was left of it, that too went.

Out of helplessness, the sun It straight away addressed in the language of the soul.

2469

It said, “You have found a flying creature of exceeding sharpness of vision; You had better distance yourself more, a trifle further off!”

2470

Another asked him: “O guide, How would it be if I were to carry out the command?

2471

222

The Speech of the Birds

Acceptance and refusal are none of my business: It is His command I await.

2472

Whatever He might command, with life I will obey.

2473

If I deviate from obedience, I will make amends.”

The hoopoe answered: “You, my bird, have posed this question well. No man can have more excellence than this.

2474

Whoever obeys, has escaped Grace’s abandonment:** From every difficulty,*** with ease he has been freed.

2475

An act of obedience to the Command in one instant of yours Is better for you than a lifetime of supererogatory acts of devotion.

2476

All who lack direction suffer many a hardship; Dogs are they in this Person’s street, not people.

2477

A dog undergoes many hardships, but to what profit? When there is no act of obedience nothing but loss accrues.

2478

But he who under obedience for a moment bears adversity, To him a world full of rewards will come.

2479

The duty is one of obedience. In obedience take refuge. You are a slave. Do not presume to exercise power.”

2480

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

A Chosroes was returning to his capital.**°

2481

The people were decking out the city. Everyone something that he had of his-own, For its adornment all did hang out.

2482

The Speech of the Birds

223

The occupants of the prison had nothing of any kind, Even nothing at all save fetters and chains.

2483

Also, a few severed heads they had;

2484

Some lacerated hearts they had, too. They could throw in a few hands and feet as well.

2485

Of all these they fashioned decorations. When into his capital came the Prince, He saw the city of elegance and beauty a sight to see.

2486

When there where the jail was the Shah arrived, Onto his feet from his horse the Shah rapidly jumped.

2487

When with himself he granted the people of the prison

2488

audience,

He reduced their time and much silver and gold disbursed. The Shah had a companion, a prober of secrets.

2489

He said, “O Shah, of this tell me the secret.

You have seen a hundred thousand and more decorations. You have seen the town in brocaded silks and satins.

2490

Gold and silver on the ground have been strewn. Musk and ambergris in the air have been suffused.

2491

All this have you seen, but spurned; To that, not on a single item did you spare a second glance.

2492

At the door of the prison why did you choose to halt? To view severed heads? That would be odd!

2493

There’s nothing at all pleasing to the heart here: There are only cut-off heads and hands and feet.

2494

224

The Speech of the Birds

Murderers’ are all these amputated limbs. Why must among them any halting be?”

2495

The Shah replied: “Those others’ embellishments Are like the toys of people at play.

2496

Every person, in his own style and manner, What was his own was parading before you.

2497

All those folks have rendered what it was in their power to do. These prisoners have shown me my power’s effects.

2498

If my command did not here in judgement pass, How could heads be separate from bodies, bodies from heads?

2499

Here I have found my wnit running; Consequently, it was here I had to draw rein.

2500

All those were lost in their own showing-off; In their own conceit did they repose.

2501

The prisoners to dire distress have been reduced: Under my authority and rule have they been confounded;

2502

At times heads they have forfeited, At times the good with the bad they have tasted.

2503

They sit and wait, no action theirs nor baggage: Waiting until, from the pit and the jail, to the gallows they are marched.

2504

And so, this prison a garden of roses has become for me. I as much theirs as they are mine.”

2505

The business of observers of the Way is to go in obedience, As visiting the prison must be the Shah’s.

2506

The Speech of the Birds

225

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Master of the seed of the Akkaf,?*°

2507

A pole*”’ of the world was he, and of pure attributes,

Said, “In the night in a dream I suddenly beheld Bayazid and Tirmizi on a road.74*

2508

Both of these in going before them to me gave the lead: Before both of them I acted the guide.

2509

After this, I subjected this dream to a full interpretation, As to why those two Shaikhs precedence had accorded me.

2510

The interpretation was this that, at the time of dawn, I, lost to myself, an involuntary sigh from my heart went up.

2511

My sigh was going on until it opened the Way to me: It banged the knocker on the door until the door was opened.

PreyWO

When that opening of the door became manifest to me, Tonguelessly to me it was being proclaimed that:

2083

‘All those Pirs and those many Murids Made requests of Us, with the exception of Bayazid.

2514

Bay4zid from amongst all those the man emerged, Because he wanted Us: he asked nothing of Us.’

2515

Bay4zid said, ‘When that night these words I heard proclaimed,

2516

I said, these and those for me cannot be suitable.

How should I ask of you,” and you not be pained, Or how should I make demand of you, yet you not be the leader?

2517

226

The Speech of the Birds

It is what you command that is my request: My affair is adjusted in accordance with the command.

2518

To go crooked and going straight are not in my gift: Who am I that making demands should be mine?

2519

That which you command suffices me. Proceeding under orders is sufficient for the slave.’

2520

This purport made those two respected Shaikhs Giving me precedence inevitable for them.”

2524

When the slave proceeds, sticking close to orders, With his lord and master communication in the soul proceeds.

Pio OI:

He is no slave who by way of exaggeration Makes of servitude continually his boast.

PhaWi.

The slave becomes known at the time of testing. Take the test so that the brand might become apparent.

2524

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The last moment when life was about to expire,

2525

Shaikh-i Kharaqani spoke thus: ““Ah the wonder!” Would that my soul might be split open, My broiled heart opened up,

2526

Then that my heart were shown the people of the world, The description given of in what my problem lay,

2527

For them to understand that for the knower of the Mystery, Idolatory never comes out right. Play not false.”

2528

This is proper service, the other lust: Service is utter submission, oh you nobody!

2529

The Speech of the Birds

227

You neither perform as master nor as slave: How should you ever have submission?

2530

Both overthrow the self and then be the slave. Slave and submitted become. Long may you live!

2531

Once you have become a slave, be respectful too. In the way of respect be pious as well.

2002

If there were to come into the Way a slave lacking reverence, Soon him from his array would the Padshah dismiss.

25.29

The Sanctuary is, for a man lacking reverence, forbidden. If you are reverential, all is favour complete.

2534

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION To a slave a robe of honour granted the Shah. The slave, wearing the robe, came out into the street.

2535

The dust of the street had settled on his face. He soon, with the robe of honour’s sleeve, wiped it off.

2536

A slanderer said to the Shah: “O king, He has with your robe of honour cleaned off that dust of the street!”

25 ou

The Shah over this lack of respect expressed grave disapproval. He at once had that scatter-brain garrotted,

2538

That you should know that he who 1s without respect, In the Court of the Shah is of no worth.”

2539

Another asked: “In the Way of God, How might playing fair and risking all’** be, oh You of Pure Judgement?

2540

228

The Speech of the Birds

Preoccupying the heart is to me unlawful: All that I have, I persistently throw away.

2541

All that comes to my hand is lost to me, Because in my hand it becomes like a scorpion.

2542

I keep myself in thrall to nothing, So much have I cast all away, no holds barred.

2543

Indeed, in His Path I practise the gambling of all away. Would that I might in perfection behold His Face!”

2544

The hoopoe answered: “This road is not the way of everyone. Reckless staking of all is provender enough for this passage.

2545

Whoever is he who’s played his all completely to lose it, Gone forth in purity, has alighted pure.

2546

Eyes glued to that Door, do not darn what is torn. Whatever you possess, burn to the last hair-tip.

2547

When you burn all, with a burning sigh Gather its ashes together. Sit in them.

2548

When you have acted thus, you will be free of all. Otherwise, drink blood so long as by it all your existence abides.

2549

Until you’ve cut yourself off from your possessions one by one, How in this vestibule will you ever place a foot?

2550

Since languishing long in this prison is not possible, Withdraw yourself from everything there is.

2504

The Speech of the Birds

229

For at the time of dying, one after the other your properties, How will they ever leave go of holding on to your wings?

2552

First leave go of yourself. After that, then set out on the Way!

2553

Until at the outset yours is not staking all, To complete this journey will be no prayer of yours.”

2554

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

The Pir of Turkestan’ of himself gave report:

2555

He said: “I love two things the most; One 1s a horse, piebald and high-stepping, And the other is none other than my child.

2556

If word of this son’s death I were to hear,

2557

I would sacrifice the horse in thanks for this information. For I perceive how these two things are Like two idols in the eye of the precious soul.”

2558

So long as you do not burn, and flaunt flame like a candle, In the assembly speak not a word about gambling all.

2559

Whoever about risking his all talks,

2560

His duty, in the twinkling of an eye, he invalidates;

The ascetic who swallows a crust in greed, At that same moment cheats himself of duty’s goal.

2561

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Shaikh-i Khar(a)qani, whose porch was the Throne of Heaven,

One day had a craving for aubergine.

2562

230

The Speech of the Birds

His mother, dismayed by the Shaikh’s brusque importunity, In the end felt compelled to supply him half of one.

2563

When he ate that half aubergine he had gained, The very same instant his son’s head was cut off.?°4

2564

When night fell, the head of that well-born boy Some miscreant placed on the Shaikh’s door-step.

2565

The Shaikh exclaimed: “Have not I, who am now undone,

2566

Told you a thousand times That this beggar, were he to eat any aubergine at all, As soon as he got up, a blow to the soul would suffer?

2567

Since at all times He burns my soul like this, Not with Him is my affair all that easy.”

2568

Whomever He draws into dealing with Him, Is not a moment capable of drawing a single breath without his Friend.

2569

It is a tough business that has befallen us; Greater has befallen than making war or suing for peace.

2570

For no-one of knowledge any knowledge or any rest can have: With every humiliation has the business come about;

2571

Every moment a guest arrives — Another testing caravan comes in.

2572

Although there are upon the precious,soul a hundred griefs, Still they'll come, as ever it will be.

L500

The Speech of the Birds Whoever has from out of the veiling of not-being become

254 2574

visible,

Will they not be shedding blood all the time in woe? A hundred thousand lovers of the eye-lashes of the Beloved Scatter away lives at one boodletting of His.”°°

2515

All lives for this have come to function,

2576

That in grievous agony souls blood should shed.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION. Said Dha’l-Nin:?* “TI went into the desert,

ve)

Trusting in God with neither a stick nor provisions. On the road I saw forty dervishes, people of the patched cloak, Souls all offered to one and the same goal.

2578

Upon my distracted mind an agitation fell; Upon my darting soul fire fell.

2572

I cried, ‘What then is this,

2580

O God?

How many leading exemplars have You overthrown?’” A Voice from the Unseen replied: “Of this We are aware. We do indeed kill, but Ourselves pay the weregild.”

2581

He asked, “Well then, how much more will You cruelly slay?” The Voice answered: “So long as I can pay blood-price.*”” This is how it goes.

2582

In My treasury so long as compensation for blood remains, I will kill, in mourning over the dead to remain.

2583

I will kill him and then drag him through blood: Round and round the world I'll drag him upside down.

2584

232

The Speech of the Birds

After this, when his limbs are totally obliterated,

2585

His head and feet lost from head to foot of him,

I to him will display the Sun-Countenance, And for him of My own Beauty a robe of honour weave.

2586

I will his blood make the rosy colouring of his face. I will the anchorite of this precinct make him.

2587

I will turn him into a shadow on My Path. Then will I reveal the sun of My Face.

2588

When the sun of My Face has shone forth, How can any shadow in My street remain?

2589

Once a shadow in sunlight has become nothing,

2590

What is left? But, ‘God knows best what is toward’.” Whoever in Him has been effaced, from himself has been

245

freed,

Because any other besides Him with Him is not possible. Become effaced, and of being effaced talk less;

2592

Dispense with life and say less about it: I know no fortune greater, do I, than this,

2593

For the man whose self has been lost.

ANECDOTE I do not know anyone in existence who found The good fortune that the magicians of Pharaoh found,?*®

2594

What luck it was that they discovered, The moment when those people the Faith discovered!

2595

The Speech of the Birds

233

That instant the soul was separated from them; Never does anyone experience this good fortune.

2596

One foot they into the way of religion then put, Thereupon outside the world they stepped.

2597.

No-one has seen any better than this arrival and this departure; On no branch a better fruit than this have they seen.

2598

Another inquired: “O Possessor of Vision, Does pious zeal of this inner meaning hold knowledge?

2599

Although in appearance I am weak enough, In fact I possess a noble zeal.

2600

Although I don’t have a lot to show in the way of devotions, Would a lofty aspiration be of any help to me?”

2601

The hoopoe answered: “The magnet for lovers of the Primal Covenant?” Is a lofty commitment, revelation and whatever really is.

2602

To whomever the highest-reaching piety has come, 2603 Whatever they have sought, that object has at once become clear. Those whom a single particle of zeal has helped, Have made the sun subservient to that mote.

2604

Holy aspiration is seminal in dominion over worlds; The plumes and pinions of the bird of souls is holy aspiration.”

2605

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION He said: “When they were auctioning Joseph, The Egyptians in desire for him were burning.

2606

234

The Speech of the Birds

Since so many bidders bobbed up, They asked ten times his weight in musk.

2607

Among them there was an old woman, steeped in

2608

sorrow’s blood,

She had spun together some strands of thread. Into the midst of the crowd she came uttering a shout:

2609

She cried, ‘O Canaanite-selling broker,

I’ve gone crazy in desire for this boy. I’ve spun together ten hanks of thread for him.

2610

Take these from me and with me complete the deal. Let’s shake hands over him without haggling.’

2611

The dealer was reduced to laughter. He said, “You old simpleton, This perfect pearl is not within your reach.

2612

There are a hundred treasures in the crowd for him the price: Neither you, old girl, nor your thread are needed.’

2613

The old woman replied: ‘I knew for sure That nobody would sell this lad for this,

2614

But it is enough for me that, whether by friend or foe, It might be said, “This old hag made a bid for him’.”

2615

Every heart high aspiration has not found, The unlimited dominion has not clearly found.

2616

That was out of holy inspiration that the exalted king?® Set fire to sovereignty.

2617

The Chosroes, when he looked upon s0 great a loss, A hundred thousand kingships more did he perceive.

2618

The Speech of the Birds

235

When in purity his aspiration took effect, Of all this polluted kingship he was filled with disgust.

2619

When the eye of pious-mindedness becomes sun-seeing, How should it ever be the consort of a mote?

2620

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION I know of that one who, in his folly, Was complaining of his poverty.”*

2621

Ibrahim-i Adham said to him: “Hey my boy, Presumably you bought poverty cheaply?”

2622

The man said: “This question makes no sense. Does anyone buy poverty then? Shame on you!”

2623

Ibrahim answered, “Time was when, having preferred

2624

the soul,

I bought it for the price of sovereignty of the world. I would buy one moment of it for a hundred worlds still, For the reason that every moment it is still worth more to me.

2625

Since I value it more, I have sought this commodity: I bade farewell absolutely to sovereignty.

2626

So I appreciate the value, but you do not. I exercise myself in giving thanks, but not you!”

2627

People of zeal have staked heart and soul; Have put up with years of burning.

2628

The bird of their aspiration has become close to the Presence. It has flown beyond both the world and religion.

2629

236

The Speech of the Birds

If you are not the man of such aspiration as this, Keep your distance, for you are not of the Lord of Beneficence’s kind.

2630

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The Shaikh-i Ghiri,?* he gone entirely to the All, Went with a band of crazy men under a bridge.

2631

By chance Sanjar with his panoply was crossing over it. He asked: “Under the bridge, what tribe is this gang?”

2632

The Shaikh called back to him: “Headless and footless all,

2633

Of two the souls of us all are not outside.

If you would forever have us as friends, Soon we would forever pull you out of the world.

2634

But were you an enemy, no friend, to us,

2635

We would soon excommunicate you from the Faith. This is the long and short of it. See our amity and our enmity: Put out a foot and see yourself in ignominy humbled,

2636

If you step down beneath the bridge a moment, And escape from this pomp and circumstance, and this greed.”

2637

Sanjar answered him: “I am not your man: Love of me and loathing are not of your choosing.

2638

I am neither your friend nor your foe: I’m off at once, before my harvest gets burned!

2639

No honour and no shame of mine is owed to you: With your good and your evil I have nothing to do.”

2640

The Speech of the Birds

237

Aspiration flies like a swift-winged bird, All the time heading faster on its way.

2641

As it is flying, how can it be other than observant? How can it be contained within creation?

2642

Its passage is higher than the horizons of the world, For it is above sobriety and inebriety.?°

2643

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION At midnight an ecstatic was weeping copiously.

2644

He said: “This world, tell me please, what is it?

A cup placed nm downwards, we inside it Are cooking in our ignorance, black bile within it.”

2645

When doom seizes hold of this cup, Whoever has wings flies away to eternity,

2646

But those who are lacking wings, in a hundred agonies In the centre of the cup afflicted stay.”

2647

Grant the bird of aspiration wings to the spiritual reality; Give heart to the intelligence and to the spirit, feeling.

2648

Before the rim of the cup 1s lifted up, Become the bird on the Path and flap wings and pinions,

2649

Or no! Burn feathers and wings, and yourself too, So that you too might be ahead of all.

2650

Another asked him: “Justice and fidelity, How are they in the presence of that Padshah?

2651

Almighty God has with ample justice endowed me. I have, moreover, not to anyone acted unfaithfully.

2692

238

The Speech of the Birds

When in an individual these qualities are conjoined, How does he rank in gnosis?”*®

2653

The hoopoe answered: “Justice is salvation’s Sultan. Whoever is just is free of all that is sham.

2654

If by you equity comes into being, Better this would be than a lifetime of prayer-postures and prostrations.

2655

Chivalry itself in both worlds is not Higher than granting justice covertly.

2656

But he who does justice in the open, Seldom turns out exempt from hypocrisy. Remember this.

2657

The brave of the Way exact from nobody justice; But for sure they themselves render it enough.”

2658

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Ahmad-i Hanbal*® was the Imam of the Age.

2659

A description of his excellence would be beyond encompassing.

When he wished to be void of cogitation and the science of theology,

2660

He would hasten to Bishr-i Hafi.?°”

When anyone used to find him with Bishr, They would hasten to reproach him.

2661

They would say: “But you are a learned Imam: Than you no man arises more knowledgeable.

2662

Anyone who utters an opinion you do not heed; You rush to this bare-headed bare-foot.”

2663

The Speech of the Birds Ahmad-i Hanbal replied thus: “I have

239 2664

Scored well in the Traditions and the Sunna. The religious sciences than him I know better than he does, most perfectly. He God knows better than me, though.”

2665

O you of your own lack of justice unaware, For one instance look upon the justice of observers of the Way.

2666

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The Indians had an aged Padshah. He happened to fall captive to the army of Mahmid.

2667

When the troops brought him to Mahmid, In the end that Padshah became Muslim.

2668

Moreover, he discovered the mark of Divine Recognition, And from both worlds he also found detachment.

2669

After this he alone in a tent sat; His heart awakened on account of Him, by devotion distracted he sat.

2670

Days and nights in weeping and burning was he; Days and nights, the night worse than the day.

2671

When so intense his dire wailings became, News of his agony reached Mahmud.

2672

Mahmtd summoned him to himself.

2673

He said: “I will give you a hundred kingdoms and more than those.

240

The Speech of the Birds

You are a king. Do not mourn over this. Must you weep more? Weep no more than this.”

2674

The Hindu Emperor replied, “Oh Padshah,

2675

I am not weeping for the sake of a kingdom and high rank.

For this am I weeping, that tomorrow the Lord of Glory Might at the Resurrection question me;

2676

Might say, ‘Oh disloyal man of bad faith, You have sown with such as Me the seed of iniquity:

2677

Until Mahmtd caught up with you, With a world filled with proud knights,

2678

Of Me you had no recollection. How was this? At any rate, it was outside the line of fidelity.

2679

The assembling of a host was necessary For the sake of you, you yourself devoted to another.

2680

Without troops’ arrival, of Me no thought occurred to you. Tell Me, am I to call you friend or enemy?

2681

How long, from Me, fidelity, from you, rejection?

2682

In being loyal, such as this is not allowable.’ If from Almighty God this remonstrance were to come, How for this lapse of loyalty might I answer?

2683

How can I extirpate this shame and degradation? This is what, young man, this old man’s weeping is about.”

2684

Hear the word, and justice and fidelity heed: The lessons and compendia of instances of righteousness heed.

2685

The Speech of the Birds

241

If you are faithful, set out on the Path. Otherwise, stick to your perch. Refrain from this endeavour.

2686

Whoever has come off the register of good faith, Is not admissible at the door of chivalry.

2687

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A warrior for the Faith, of an exceedingly proud infidel Asked for a respite so that he might perform the prayer.

2688

When the warrior had gone, had performed the prayer,

2689

He came back, the combat of the braves to continue

the more. The infidel had prayers of his own. He asked for a respite. He too quitted the field.

2690

A corner the infidel selected, the more clean,

2691

Then he placed his head on the ground in the direction of his idol. The warrior, when he saw him, his head on the dust of

2692

the ground, Said: “Now this time victory is mine!” He was about to strike the other unawares with a blow of the sword.

2693

A voice from the heavens called out to him,

Saying: “O you, entirely bad faith from your head to your feet, You, fidelity and your covenant how well do you keep!

2694

He did not strike you with his sword when he first granted a respite.

2695

You, if you strike him down, it will, you heathen, be heathenism

1?

242

The Speech of the Birds

(That is to say, he had not read “Fulfil the Covenant”?® that youth; He had gone crooked. He had not kept his word.)

2696

“Since the infidel initially acted aright, Do not you act unbecomingly any longer than this.

2697

He did good, but you do evil: ‘Do unto others that you would have them do unto you’.

2698

From the unbeliever you have loyalty and covenant-keeping. Where is your fidelity, though you’re a believer?

2699

O Muslim, you have turned out no Muslim! In trustworthiness less than an unbeliever have you become.”

2700

By these words the warrior was shocked to the core;

2701

He found himself drowned in sweat from head to foot.

When the infidel saw him standing weeping,

2702

His sword in his hand, he was left amazed.

He asked, “Why the weeping?” The other answered straight, “Just this moment I have been put to the question.

2703

I was called unfaithful on your account. Such weeping as this is on account of your wrath.”

2704

When the unbeliever heard this tale starkly told, He let out a cry. Then in sorrow he wept.

2705

He said, “An Almighty who His Own beloved,

2706

For the sake of a guilty enemy, On the score of loyalty so severely rebukes, How can I to Him be disloyal without being brought to book?

2707

The Speech of the Birds

243

Explain Islam, that I might bring the Faith to bear: Burn polytheism; the rules of the Divine Law accept.

2708

Ah, the sorrow that my heart bears chains such as these,

2709

I unaware of a Lord such as He.”

Enough, you without the desire to seek, to Him Who is the sought You have acted unfaithfully, you discourteous fellow!

2710

But I shall have patience till the bowl of the firmament Recites it all to your face, item by item.

27h

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The ten brothers, famine having made them flee,”

2712

Came to Joseph after a journey long.

Of their plight they gave a full explanation. In their straightened circumstances they asked for help.

e119

Joseph’s face was hidden behind a veil. In front of Joseph there was at that time a bowl.

2714

Joseph resoundingly struck the bowl with his hand. The bow] plaintively reverberated with a doleful moan.

DELS

At once Joseph, the knower of wisdom, said: “Have you any understanding of this voice of the bowl?”

2716

The ten brothers then loosened At Joseph the tongue of non-comprehension.

2eey

They all replied, “Ah God-knowing precious man,

2718

Who is there who knows with what intent noise issues from a bowl?”

244

The Speech of the Birds

Joseph then said, “I know perfectly What it is saying to you, all you wretched lot.”

2719

He said, “It is saying that before this you Had one brother, his beauty greater than any.

2720

He, who was of you, bore the name Joseph. In goodness and comeliness, he bore off the polo-ball from you.”

Zien

He once again struck his hand on the bowl. He said, “In this utterance now it says

2722

All of you threw Joseph into a pit. Then you fetched the innocent wolf.

2723

Then through its blood his shirt you dragged, So that the heart of Jacob because of that blood turned to blood.”

2724

He struck his hand on the bow] another time:

ata

Again he made the bow! vibrate. He said, “It says you seared the father; Joseph the moon-faced you sold.

2726

Who, you ingrates, to a brother would do this? You persons present, let there be shame on you before God!”

Zhen

At these words that group was astonished. They, having come for bread, turned to water.

2728

Although Joseph they had sold that way, That moment for themselves they had forfeited the world.

2729

When they had contrived casting him into the well, They consigned themselves forever into the well of calamity.

2730

The Speech of the Birds

245

He would be blind in the eyes who this tale He heard, not to recognise any portion of it applicable to himself;

2731

Do not into this tale look so hard,

2732

You fool. It is all your history! That which of faithlessness you have committed, You did not commit by the light of friendship.

2039

If a person a lifetime were to slap his hand on the bowl, Still the account of your impropriety would be more.

2734

Stay until you are awakened from sleep; Until you are seized with your own conscience.

2935

Stay until on that morrow your iniquities, Your ungrateful acts of faithlessness, your errors

2736

Before your face are all paraded, - All one-by-one counted over to you; When so much the sound of the bowl would hit the ear,

PEY |

2738

I do not know whether intellect and sense might stand up to it. Oh you, like an ant lamely have you come to the enterprise; In the bottom of the ant-trap bowl have you been caught.

2739

How long upside-down will you be scuttling round the upturned basin?

2740

_ Get out of it, for it is a basin steeped in blood.

You in the middle of the bowl remain afflicted. Every moment a fresh call comes to you.

2741

Lift a wing and, oh acknowledger of God, press on. But if you do not, by the voice of the bowl you'll be exposed.

2742

246

The Speech of the Birds

Another enquired of the hoopoe, “Oh Guide,

2743

Is audacity in that Presence allowable?

If anyone were to assume a mighty boldness, After that would in consequence any fear visit him?

2744

How does being rude fare there? Tell: Scatter pearls of truth and solve the mystery.”

2745

He replied: “Whoever has the proper experience, Is privy to the mystery of the Hidden,

2746

If he displays audacity, for him it is permissible,

2747

Because he forever is the Padshah’s confidant.

[But a man who knows confidences and keeps secrets, When would he show insolence like the uncivil?]

2748

Since civility and respect are to his left and nght, In him a moment of audacity is allowed.

2749

The muleteer who is on the periphery, How can he be a confidant for the King?

2750

If he were to act impertinently, like one initiated in the secret,

2754

He would still remain eluded by religion and the soul. How could some good-for-nothing in the ranks of the army have The gall to show impudence in the presence of the Shah?

2752

If he is come into the Path, but inarticulately perplexed, Boldness in him is attributable to the joy of a fresh recruit.

2753

He knows all as the Lord, and makes no distinction between

2754

Lord and syrup; If he acts out of turn, it is out of sheer enthusiasm.

The Speech of the Birds He, since he is mad with the tumult of love,

247 2755

Would walk on water on account of the force of love.

Happy is his audacity. Happy is it Because this crazy neophyte is like fire.

2756

In the way of fire how can there be safety? How is a madman to be blamed?

2757

When madness takes you over, Whatever you might say can, from you, bear hearing.”

2758

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION In Khorasan good prosperity was waxing high, Because for Khorasan a fine governor had appeared.’”°

Pipes

He had a hundred slaves, moon-faced Turks,

2760

Of cypress form, silver-limbed, musk-scented,

- Each with a night-illuming pearl in the ear, Night becoming in those pearls’ reflection like day,

2761

Each ringlet-crowned, and having collars of gold, Silver breast-plated and with shields of gold,

2762

With jewelled belts round their waists, Each a silver-grey steed beneath his thighs.

2109

Whoever saw the face of a single one of this troop,

2764

Would at once the heart and the soul surrender, for one.

By chance a mad devotee, greatly hungry, Clad in rags, head and feet bare,

2765

Saw this troop of slaves from afar. He asked: “Who are this squadron of houris?”

2766

248

The Speech of the Birds

The whole city directly replied to him, “These are the slaves of our governor.”

2767

When that madman this account so promptly heard, Into the crazed one’s head a pang of anguish leapt:

2768

He cried: “Oh holder of Heaven’s Exalted Throne,

2769

Looking after the slave from this chief learn!”?”! If on His account you’re mad, be unmannerly;

2770

If you bear the leaves, be the attendant of that branch.

But if you do not wear this lofty branch’s livery, Then no impertinence commit, nor allow yourself to smile.

arid

Good is boldness in the love-crazed:

2772

They, like moths, on burning themselves are set. Not at all can this tribe in the Way discriminate, Because whether bad and whether good is only from yonder.

2773

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The hoopoe said: “That naked madman Was going along the road hungry.

2774

Rain and cold were intense. That distracted lover was soaked by snow and rain.

2775

He had neither a shelter nor a home.

2776

In the end he was making for a ruin. When, coming off the road, he set foot in that ruin,

2777

Down upon his head a tile from the roof fell. It gashed his head. Blood began to flow in streams. The man raised his face upwards to the heavens.

2778

The Speech of the Birds He called: “How much more, beating the drum of sultanship? Can’t You cast tiles more neatly than this?”

249 2779

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a penurious man in a water conduit. He borrowed a donkey from a neighbour.

2780

He went to the mill, but fell fast asleep. When this man sleep overcame, the donkey made off.

2781

A wolf tore the donkey to pieces and gobbled it up. The next day its owner demanded compensation.

2182

Both men came running in haste Into the presence of the water-conduit controller then.?”

2783

They recounted their story directly to the official. Of him they asked, “Who is liable?”

2784

The controller said: “Whoever a wolf on its own

2785

Lets loose hungry into the open plain, Without question this indemnity correctly rests with him: Both men must undertake seeking compensation from him.”

2786

Oh Lord, how nicely will He render this recompense! Whatever He might do, there is no compensation.

2787

Since on the ladies of Egypt such agitation fell,

2788

Because a single created mortal by them passed,”” What is the wonder that, on one crazed with zeal,

Agitation should burning fall from the palace of the King?

2789

250

The Speech of the Birds

As soon as he in that state becomes lost to the self,

2790

He has no regard for anything from behind or in front of him.

All from Him he utters. To Him all he tells. All from Him he seeks. Through Him all he finds.

ZIOt

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Suddenly there was famine in Egypt. The people were dying and crying, “Bread”.

2792

All of the creaturely kind were together perishing. The half-living had been eating the dead.

PADie

By chance an ecstatic, when this he saw — People dying and no bread being available —

2794

Said, “Oh Keeper of the World and the Faith,

2795

If you have no daily bread to offer, create fewer mouths.”?” Whoever of this Court becomes the unmannerly, Might in turn ask pardon once he becomes aware.

2796

If he speaks contrarily at this Court and not correctly, He may know forgiveness for it, through graciousness, not demand.

2797

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was that love-crazed, dripping blood from the heart, Because children had thrown stones at him.

Finally, he entered a nook in the stoke-hole of a public bath.

>

2798

2799

There was a window in a corner of the stoke-hole.

Through that opening hail-stones penetrated; On the head of the zeal-struck they came falling.

2800

The Speech of the Birds Since he was not able to distinguish between hail and stones,

251 2801

He loosed his tongue in obscenities: The madman many vile curses let fly, Saying: “Why should I be pelted with rocks and brickbats?”

2802

The shelter was murky. The suspicion had come to him That this might perhaps be the children still,

2803

Until the wind blew up and caused a door to open: The stoke-hole with light was filled.

2804

Then he could distinguish between hail and bits of rock. His heart was ashamed at his having uttered curses.

2805

He said: “Oh Lord, this stoke-hole was dark.

2806

I made a mistake. Whatever I said was my fault.” If a mad one commits excesses this way. Do not you, out of self-conceit, take up the cudgels:

2807

He who this time was the senseless drunk

2808

Was distracted, with no one to turn to, and forlorn.

He was going through life with nothing gained, His every moment, a fresh discomfort.

2809

You refrain from speaking ill of his manners: The lover and the mad consider forgiven.

2810

Were you to see into the mystery of those without

2811

illumination,

All of them without any doubt you would absolve from sin.

252

The Speech of the Birds STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

Wasiti?”> was going along distracted,

2812

And, because bemused, with no particular intent nor aim.

His eye fell on the cemetery of the Jews.

2813

Then from there his perception to its leaders turned;

“These Jews”, he said, “are properly pardoned, Yet this cannot be told to anyone.”

2814

A judge’s tipstaff heard these words he uttered. He angrily dragged him to the judge.

2815

The judge finding what Wasiti had said unacceptable, He condemned it and was displeased:

2816

Wasiti replied to him, “This erring people, If they are not of the exempt under your sentence,

2817

Nevertheless, by the decree of the Lord of Heaven All of them even now are of the forgiven.”

2818

Another said to him, “So long as I am alive,

2819

Through love for Him I am decent and comely. From all do I keep myself cut off. I am bragging oflove for Him all the time.

2820

Since I have all the creatures of the world seen,

2821

To whom should I attach myself who am so detached? For me being lovelorn in loving Him is work enough, And cruel passion such as this is not within the grasp of everyone.

2822

The Speech of the Birds

253

I have laboured with my very soul in love of the Friend. It seems as if my soul does not serve the purpose:

2823

The time has come for me to draw a line through the soul;

2824

The wine-bowl to drain in obedience to the Beloved;

In His beauty, to fill the eye and the spirit with light;

2825

For union, to stretch out the hand to His neck.”

The hoopoe answered: “By vaunts and boasting, Companionship cannot be with the Simurgh on the Mountain of Qaf.

2826

Do not with your every hoot’”® brag of love for Him, For He is not to be cheated by anybody at all.

2827

If the breeze of lucky fortune were to spring up, It might blow the curtain away from the face of the matter.

2828

_ Then would He with ease draw you into His Path: Seat you alone in His own inner private sanctum.””’ If in that place claims you were to have, Your claims would be invested with the truth of inward

2829

2830

meaning.

Your professions of love were an affliction; His love for you is something else.”

2831

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

When Bayazid?” went from the world’s abode,

2832

In a dream a disciple chanced that night to see him. Then he asked, “Oh Worthy Pir,

How have you fared with Munkar and Nakir?”?”

2833

254

The Speech of the Birds

The Shaikh answered: “When those two famous interrogators Questioned poor me concerning the Creator,

2834

I replied to them, ‘From this question there will, Both for you and for me, never be any conclusion,

2835

Because if I were simply to say, ‘My God is He’, Saying this would be desire on my part,

2836

But if, ‘Hence to the proximity of the Lord of Glory

2837

Go back and of Him ask what the position is,

If He calls me slave, now that would mean something:

2838

I would be distinguished as the slave of God;

But if me among His slaves He does not count, He leaves me chained in the fetters of my own self.

2839

Since for no-one has attachment to Him been easy,

2840

I, if I call Him Lord, what would be the point?

If I am not the slave and a captive of His, How might I make a boast of His being my Lord?

2841

To the Lordship of Him I have bowed my head, But it is He who must call me slave’.”

2842

If from His side love comes forth,

2843

You are of His love worthy in the highest degree,

But a love that is from your side, Know to be of your own choosing.

2844

If He superbly falls in with you, Out of joy you could become burning fire.

2845

The Speech of the Birds The business is that way round, not this, you who are unaware! How might whoever is lacking the art obtain awareness of Him?

255

2846

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a dervish in the extremity of passion grievous

2847

And, on account of love, as restless as fire,

Both from the heat of passion his soul scorched, And from the burning of the soul, his tongue burnt.

2848

Fire from the soul had fallen into his heart.

2849

A problem of great difficulty had befallen him. In the middle of the Way he was proceeding in agitation. He was weeping and calling with this plaintive cry:

2850

“Heart and soul are burnt by the fire of my consuming yearning. How long must I cry when every tear of mine is scalding?”

2851

A voice said to him: “No more make a boast of this. Why should you contend so extravagantly with Him?”

2852

He answered: ““When have I contended with anyone? What is not to be doubted is that it’s He who’s contended with me.

2853

How might such as me have the guts and the hide, To be able such as Him to love?

2854

What have I done? Whatever has been done, He alone did.

2855

The heart, if it turns to blood, the blood of the heart He alone drinks.”

256

The Speech of the Birds

When He contends with you, but grants you audience, Do not you seek refuge in your own self.

2856

Who are you that, in that great struggle, For a single instance you might give yourself an inch?

2857

With you, if He should love’s game play, oh lad, He always plays love most artfully;

2858

You are very much nothing, and up to nothing.

2859

Become obliterated, and the art leave to the Artist.

If you make yourself manifest on the scene, You will desert religion, and also the soul.

2860

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One night Mahmitd in his heart sorely afflicted became. The guest of a wily lay-about in a stoke-hole”®’ to the baths he went.

2861

The rogue sat him down among the cinders. He went on happily shovelling bits of coal into the boiler.

2862

He lost no time in bringing the Sultan a lump of dry bread. The Shah reached for it and as soon devoured it.

2863

Finally the stoker to himself said, “This night of me He ought to ask pardon. I might cut off his head!”

2864

When at last the Shah made to leave,

2865

The stoker said to him, “You have seen this place. You have seen how I eat and sleep, and my doorway you know. You came uninvited, of your own accord my guest.

2866

The Speech of the Birds

25]

If another time the mood takes you, do not be slow in following it. Place your foot on the road then, and, as speedily, your head as well.

2867

But if you do not fancy me, don’t worry: Tell a stoker contentedly to go on shovelling coal cobs!

2868

I am neither your superior, nor to you do I come an inferior. Who am I that I should come face to face with you at all?”

2869

Happy at his words was the king of the world.

2870

He became his guest seven times more. The last time the Shah said to the stoker,

2871

“Would you not finally of the Shah of the World desire something?” He thought, “Were this beggar to express a need, The Shah would make it lawful to him.”

2872

The Shah said to him: “Tell me your need: Act a king. Get yourself out of this stoke-hole.”

2873

The man answered, “It is this that I am in need of, that

2874

the Shah Continue to come as my guest from time to time.

His countenance is kingship enough for me. The dust of his feet, crown enough for my head.

2875

In your power over many a land there is sovereignty: No stoker would have the strength for this.

2876

A stoker sitting with you in the ash-pit Is better than being a radiant Padshah without you.

2a17

258

The Speech of the Birds

Since through this stoke-hole good fortune visited me, My departure hence would be infidelity.

2878

In this place, if I might find a way to union with you, How should I relinquish it for two worlds’ dominion?

2879

Because of you this stoke-hole of mine has become splendidly illuminated. What is there better than you that I should ask of you?

2880

May there be death to this errant heart, If ever it were to prefer anything to you!

2881

I neither desire kingship nor to be an Emperor.

2882

That which I desire, so far as I am concerned, of you is

simply you. It is enough that you be king. Don’t make me a king. Come a guest to me from time to time.”

2883

This man’s love is what you need. This is how it should be. That of yours is grief to Him, and this would be a burden.

2884

If it is love you have, there is asking on His side too. At the same time never let go the hem of that garment;

2885

He will without doubt tire of that which is His. 2886 He possesses the ocean, yet from one individual would ask a drop.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Although this water-seller was coming along with water

2887

on hand,

He saw another of its vendors canvassing the ranks. Straight away that one, water to offer still on hand,

Went up to the second one and asked him for water.

2888

The Speech of the Birds

259

The man said: “O you who make no sense at all, Since you too have water, be content to drink that.”

2889

The first replied: “Do please give me a drop, oh you who have sense, Because disgust at my own has taken hold of me.”

2890

Adam had a heart satiated with what had been tried and tasted. For the sake of novelty he made bold to try the grain of wheat.”*!

2891

Tried things all for one grain of wheat did he sell: All that he had for a single grain he burnt.

2892

He became ashamed.” A pang shot up from the heart to the head: Love entered. It rapped the knocker on his door.

2893

When in the light of love he turned into nothing,

2894

Both the tried and the novel went, and he went as well.

Since nothing remained to him, with nothingness he made do. Everything that gave him gratification, he staked for being naught.

2895

Abandoning the self, and sufficiently to die,

2896

Is not granted us and not the achievement of everyone.” Another one said: “I suppose I have Got in all the harvest of my personal perfection.

2897

I have both garnered that perfection which is mine, And have also accomplished severe ascetic disciplines.

2898

260

The Speech of the Birds

Since in this very place my achievement is harvested, For me to go hence would be difficult.

2899

Have you seen anyone who flies away from treasure; Runs into mountains and the desert, to court hardship?”

2900

The hoopoe said: “Oh of satanic nature swollen with pride, Lost in your ego and disdainful of my intention,

2901

You have in your conceit become arrogant; From the arena of gnosis, become far removed.

2902

The carnal soul has gained power over you. The devil in your brain has found a place to perch.

2903

If you have a light shining in the Path, it is your own

2904

infernal fire;

And if it is the feeling for mystical perception*** that you have, it will be your own imagination. Your ecstasy and asceticism are no more than illusion. Whatever you relate as having achieved is nothing more than absurdity.

2905

Do not be deluded by the chimerical light in the Way — Your carnal self is with you. Only be vigilant, nothing else.7®°

2906

With such an enemy as this, with no sword at the ready How can anyone sit complacently as if safe?

2907

If a light from the carnal self became manifest, It would be the sting of a scorpion from the celery bed.

2908

Do not you be deceived by that defiled and false light. Since you are not the Sun, be nothing more than a mote.

2909

The Speech of the Birds Do not, because of the darkness of the way,

261 2910

Despair; nor on account of its light level yourself with the Sun. So long as you, oh dear one, are locked in your own suppositions, Reciting and urging on yourself are not worth a halfpenny.

2911

When you come out of the phantasy of being, It will be round you that the compass of existence revolves.

2912

But if you entertain the illusion of being, there will be nothing: You will gain from the state of being nothing whatever.

2915

If you have the slightest appetite for being, What you will have will be unbelief and idolatry.

2914

If for a moment you expose yourself to being, A shower of arrows will rain on you from before and abaft.

2915

So long as you are, submit to the soul’s being tormented. A hundred blows on the back of the neck you will suffer the whole time.

2916

If yourself you emerge visibly into existence, Fate will have a hundred slaps in store for you.”

2917

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Shaikh Aba Bakr of Nishapur set out With his pupils from the dervishes’ hostel.

2918

The Shaikh alone on a donkey was riding. Suddenly, as chance would have it, the donkey broke wind.

2919

At this the Shaikh became beside himself. He let out a shout and rent his gown.

2920

262

The Speech of the Birds

Neither the disciples nor anyone who saw this from him, In short, nobody could find it agreeable in him.

2921

After this, a certain one questioned him, saying:

2922

“After all, whom here, Oh Shaikh, did this affect?”

He answered: “As far as I could see The road had been taken over by my companions.”*°

2925

There were, in front and in the rear, the disciples. I whispered to myself, “By Jove, I am not less than Bayazid!

2924

As thus today I am arrayed With disciples of my own, unable to contain their enthusiasm,

2925

Tomorrow without doubt confident in dignity and consequence Will I enter the arena of the Last Judgement, my head held high.”

2926

He continued: “In this wise did I thoughts entertain. By chance at this very moment the ass farted.

2927

In other words, he who in this manner makes his boast,

2928

The donkey gives him his answer. So much for exaggerated boasts! Because of this, when the fire of shame occupied my soul,

2929

It was the occasion for my being in a state: my delusions collapsed.” So long as you are left in self-conceit”*’ and self-delusion, Far from the Truth, far far away you are left.

2930

Smash up self-conceit, burn up your vanities; You are present on account of your carnal self. Burn up your “presence”.

2931

The Speech of the Birds O you who every moment are changing the complexion

263 29352

into another hue,

Another Pharaoh at the root of every hair, So long as a single atom of you is remaining in place, Because of you, branded by some fresh hypocrisy it remains.

2933

In the ego if you have any trust, Enmity will you have with both worlds.

2934

If for one day you were to embark upon annihilation of the body, If every dark night you pass into a night of light,

2999

Utter not the word “I”, you whom in egotism a hundred

2936

troubles overtake,

That you might not be afflicted by an Iblis.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION God Almighty instructed Moses in secret To go forth and of Iblis ask a riddle.

2951

When Moses saw Iblis in the offing, He applied himself to desiring of Iblis an adage.

2938

The latter responded with: “Always bear this one maxim in mind: Do not say ‘I’ lest you become like me.”

2959

If by a hair’s breadth life is yours, What you will have is not service but atheism.

2940

The course is run in knowing no gratification. The repute of the courageous is in ill-repute,*°

2941

264

The Speech of the Birds

Because, if there were gratification in this road,

2942

A hundred “I’s” would in a trice thrust out their heads.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A man of pure faith remarked: “It is better For the neophyte that he should be in darkness,

2943

Until he is completely obliterated in the Ocean of Kindness,

2944

When no consciousness of existence will continue for him,

Because, if anything presents itself to his sight, He might be beguiled and then, he would be an unbeliever.”

2945

That which is in you, of your covetousness and disputatiousness, The eyes of others see, not the eyes of you.

2946

There is in you an ash-pit full of dragons.

2947

You in heedlessness have let them loose,

Remaining day and night looking after them, The trouble of their eating and sleeping remaining;

2948

Your substance has become nothing but dust and blood,

2949

And, oh the wonder, both are ranked as taboo!

Blood, which closest to you has become,

2950

Has become both your defilement and chief accessory. Whatever inhibits the heart from the sense of singleness Without doubt ends up both taboo and polluting.

2951

If you see the pollution within, How can you rest as unconcerned as this?

2952

The Speech of the Birds

265

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION On the chest of a Shaikh an unclean dog was wont to lie.”®° The Shaikh made no attempt to avoid it.

2953

An inquirer said: “O great one of the righteous conduct, How comes it then that you have not spurned this dog?”

2954

The Shaikh replied: “This hound shows on the outside its uncleanness. That which there is inside me is not visible.

2955

What he has clear to see,

2956

This other has concealed within him. Since my inside is like the dog’s outside, How should I evade him when he’s my running mate?”

2957

And if the inner corruption is only a little, A hundred times more defiled are you because this little is

2958

all the same;

If the slightest distraction bars the Path against you, What is the difference if it’s a mountain or a straw that holds you back?

2959

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a devotee in the days of Moses.” Day and night he was addressing himself to prayer.

2960

Not a hint of the spiritual taste?’ or any opening was he finding. From the Sun no heat did his breast enflame.

2961

He had a very fine beard did that good man.

2962

From time to time he took a comb to it.

266

The Speech of the Birds

This worshipful man saw Moses from afar. He hastened up to him saying, “Oh Supreme Commander

2963

of Sinai,

For God’s sake, please ask God As to why neither spiritual inspiration nor ecstasy is mine.”

2964

When Moses next ascended the Mount Sinai,

2965

He enquired about this matter. God distantly answered: “Say, whichever dervish to union with Us is unable to reach,

2966

Is one who continually preoccupied with his beard remains.” Moses came and related how it was. The man was tearing out his beard and was in tears.

2967

Gabriel came running to Moses. He said: “He may be busy still with a beard:

2968

If he trims the beard, he will be in sore trouble;

2969

But if he pulls it out completely, then will he be a dervish.” To fetch one breath without Him is error,

2970

Whether you veer crookedly from Him, whether you go straight.

If, oh from your beard not escaped, Drowned in this ocean of anguish not become,

2971

Only when first from your beard you have been freed, Will you be properly intent upon this sea,

2972

And then if you were with this beard into the ocean to fall, Even so would you cease to be concerned with it.

2973

The Speech of the Birds

267

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The fool had a very full beard. Suddenly he was immersed in the waters of the sea.

2974

A man unalloyed chanced to see him from the shore. He called, “Get rid of that nose-bag from round your head.”

2975

The idiot replied, “It’s not a nose-bag. It is my beard.

2976

Moreover, it is not merely a beard. It is my distraction.”

The other replied: “Good for you! Here’s the beard and this is what it does for you! You have cherished it and you it will cruelly slay!”

2977

O you, resembling a goat, of your beard are you not ashamed? By a beard captivated, have you no sense of degradation?”

2978

So long as you are possessed of a carnal spirit and a devil, In you there are a Pharaoh and a Haman.””?

2979

Rout, as Moses did, the depraved.

2980

Then take this Pharaoh by the beard.

Seize the beard of this Pharaoh and hold on hard. Fight beard grasping beard manfully.

2981

Step forward. Abandon that beard of yours. Till when must you put up with this beard? Take the road ahead.

2982

Although because of your beard there is nothing but concern, You’ve not a moment to spare for tending it.

2983

In the Way of Faith he is a wise man

2984

Who carries no comb for his beard.

268

The Speech of the Birds

He makes himself wary of his beard: He makes the beard the napkin spread for the feast of the Way.

2985

He finds no liquid but the blood of tears; He finds of the heart nothing but a piece of broiled meat.

2986

If he were a fuller, no sun would he see,

2987

And if he were a farmer, no cloud would bring rain.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Stfi, when from time to time he was washing clothes,

2988

Clouds would make the whole world dark.

Since his frock had at one time become soiled,

2989

Although because of the clouds he was beset by a hundred worries,

He went to the grocer’s after some detergent. Clouds appeared and that blackness descended.

2990

The man cried: “Aye, cloud, now you’ve arrived, Go away! It is currants I need to purchase.

293!

I am buying currants from the grocer on the quiet. Why have you turned up? I am not buying bleach.

2992

Because of you how much of it must I waste? I’ve used it to wash my hands clean of you.”

2993

Another said to him: “Say, O Celebrated One,

2994

With what might I be of joyous heart on my travels??*4 If you tell me, my being of two minds will be dispelled; There might be some hint for my conduct in proceeding.

2995

The Speech of the Birds

269

A man needs direction for a lengthy march, So that, of the way and the trekking, he does not get scared.

2996

So long as I lack, do I, the acceptance and the guidance of the

2997

Invisible,

I spurn people’s as being flawed.” The hoopoe said, “So long as you are, be joyous in Him, And of all preachers be free.

2998

Since in Him your soul can be glad, Make the sorrowful soul soon glad in Him.

2999

In both worlds, the joy of mortals is in Him. The life of the revolving dome is through Him.

3000

Therefore, you also through rejoicing in Him be alive. Like the firmament, in longing for Him be revolving.”

3001

Say, Mister Nobody, than Him what is better, That you might just for one instant be happy with it?”

3002

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a strange madman in a mountainous place,

3003

Lying down night and day with leopards.

From time to time over him a state of ecstasy would prevail; Anyone who entered it would to himself be completely lost.

3004

He would retain this state a length of twenty days;

3005

His state was of another kind —

Twenty days, from morning until eventide, He would be dancing and saying all the time,

3006

270

The Speech of the Birds

“We’re both alone and there’s no-one else,

O, all joy with no sorrow at all

3007

1?

If one dies, all his heart will he have with Him.

3008

Grant Him the heart: the Friend loves hearts.?”°

Whoever’s heart by His being has been made joyous,

3009

Has from existence been cancelled out and become free.

Make joy everlasting through your Friend, So that no depression might be contained within your hide.

3010

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A certain dear one said: “Seventy years have passed That I, in joyousness and quiet bliss, have found ecstasy,

3011

That such a beautiful Master as This is mine;

3012

To the lordship of Him is my attachment.” Since you are busy rooting out faults, How can you rejoice in the beauty of the Unseen?

3013

Seeker of blemishes, you of the opprobrious eye, When can you ever be the perceiver of the Unseen?

3014

First, with people’s defects become you unconcerned. Then, in love of the Absolute Invisible become joyful.

3015

You split hairs over the faults of others, But if I ask about your faults, to them you’re blind.

3016

If you are concerned about your own shortcomings, Although you are so flawed, you will be acceptable.”

3017

The Speech of the Birds

271

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was an excessively stupid drunkard. Rotten drunk, His life’s lustre unbridled drinking had completely borne away.

3018

The clear and the dregs so much had he together imbibed, In ruinous inebriation legs and head he had lost.

3019

Anxiety over him seized a sober man. He therefore stuffed that drunkard into a sack.

3020

He lifted it up to carry him to his own abode.?” On the way another drunk appeared.

3021

This second drunkard all the time used to go up to people And in a most obscene manner drunkenly behave.

3022

The first inebriate, he who was in the sack,

3023

When he saw that other in so oblivious a state,

Called out: “Hey, you ill-assorted wretch, you ought to have drunk a couple less, So that you might walk like me, and freely, on your own.”

3024

This one was seeing him, but not himself.

3025

Here is the condition of us all, no other than this.

You observe faults because of this, that you are no lover. Obviously for the ways of lovers you are not fit.

3026

Were you to see the least of love’s effects, The faults of all, virtues would you see.

3027

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A lion-hearted vanquisher of foes Was for five years the lover of a certain woman.

3028

212

The Speech of the Birds

That idyllic lady had in the eye | A glaucoma of the cornea clear to see, but small as the end of a finger nail.

3029

The man was unaware of this white spot, Although he gazed on her so often —

3030

A man in love, when he’s head over heels in love,

3031

How would he notice any fault in the eye of the beloved? After this, love in that man cooled:

3032

Some medicine for that sickness had appeared. Love for that woman grew less in his heart; Over him self-control gained an easy mastery.

3033

Then it was that the man noticed the blemish in

3034

the beloved’s eye. He asked, “That white spot, when did it appear?”

She replied: “The moment that your love was lessened;

3035

It was then that my eye also became defective. When in you love appeared to fail, Like it a want of perfection in my eye appeared.”

3036

You with morbid suspicions have made the heart full of perturbation.

3037

But, blind heart, see at least one of your own faults!

How long must you go on seeking out the faults of others? Sometime notice those of yourself peeping out of your collar.

3038

As soon as your faults come to weigh upon you, You will not have any time for those of others.

3039

The Speech of the Birds

273

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The Muhtasib’”* was giving that man a violent thrashing.

3040

The drunkard said, “O Muhtasib, make you less of a commotion,

Because now, in the name of prohibition,

3041

It is you who have drunkenly behaved and stepped out of line.” You have been more drunk than me by far,

3042

But this drunkeness nobody sees. Don’t viciously go on bullying me anymore; Justice against yourself hurry to seize.”

3043

Another said to him: “Oh Captain of the Road,

3044

What, if I should reach as far as there, should I ask of Him?

If because of Him for me the world were filled with light, I would not know for what I should make my request of Him.

3045

Of the best thing were I to be apprised,

3046

When I have arrived, I as far as Him, that is what I

would desire.”

The hoopoe said: “Oh heathen with no awareness of God,

3047

Who is it that asks anything of Him? Of Him ask for Him!

It is better that a man should know what he wants, For He than anything you might want is better.

3048

If you are acquainted with Him, in all the world Than Him what better do you know that you should ask Him for it?

3049

274

The Speech of the Birds

Whoever into the innermost chamber of His mansion goes, The created infinitesimal mote becomes the swimmer in His light.*°°

3050

Whoever has caught the fragrance of the dust of His door, What simony’s lure would ever make him from His door turn back?”

3051

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION At the time of dying, Ba “Ali of Radbar*” Said: “My spirit to my lips has come in eager expectation.

3052

All the doors to Heaven have been opened. In Paradise a throne has been set up for me.

3053

Angels sweetly singing like nightingales

3054

Have for their chorus, ‘Oh lover enter, come in.

Give thanks, then with joy stride forward, For never has anyone this distinction known!’

3055

Although there are these favours and this God-sent grace, Yet my soul does not refrain from the quest for the Truth,

3056

For it says, ‘What have these to do with You? You have kept me expectant a whole life long;

3057

It is not my intention, like carnally wanton folk To bow my head for a bit of a bribe.’ Your love was kneaded together with my soul.

-

3058

3059

At this time I know neither Hell nor Heaven.

Were You to burn me to ashes,

.

Still, nobody would find any other but You in me.

3060

The Speech of the Birds

21D

It is You I acknowledge, not religion, not irreligion. I will not shift from this, though You might shift.

3061

It is You I desire, You I acknowledge, You!

3062

You are the soul for me and my soul is for You.

You are all I need in all the world: You are both this world and that world for me.

3063

You who have become this heart’s need, reveal a single hair: For a single instant with me breathe an ejaculation of the word He.*

3064

Were my soul to draw out a single hair-tip from You, Take the soul. A sigh from me is the aspirate of ‘He’ for “You’.”

3065

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION God the Almighty said: “O David the Pure, To My slaves say, “Oh fistful of dust,

3066

Were I not to have either Hell or a Paradise,

3067

Would not serving me be disagreeable? And if there were neither any light nor any fire, Would you not have anything to do with Me?

3068

Because I have the greatest entitlement to it, Do not offer Me worship just because of hope and fear.

3069

Yet if you were not motivated by hope and fear,*” Then how should you have any thing to do with Me?

3070

It is fitting, because I am the Lord Everlasting, That you should worship Me perpetually from the depths of the soul.’

3071

276

The Speech of the Birds

To the slave say: ‘Leave go of everything other. Then as is due worship Us.

3072

Everything that is other than Us completely throw out. When thus you have rejected it, smash it to pieces.

3073

When you have smashed it up, burn it clean away.

3074

Then one day collect its ashes. 3075

Then all these ashes scatter,

That in the Wind of Glory they might vanish without trace. When thus you have acted, to you now will come What you are seeking, out from among the cinders

3076 42:22

If He has made you preoccupied with Paradise Eternal

3077

and the Houris,

Know you for a certainty that you far from Himself He has sent.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The hoopoe said: “Mahmud called his special favourite, Ayaz.

3078

He made him wearer of the crown and seated him on the throne.

He told him, ‘I have given you sovereignty. The army is yours. Exercise monarchy because this realm is yours.

3079

This do I wish, that you should act as king;

3080

Make the moon and the fish slaves, your tag in their ears.’

Whoever in the squadrons and platoons heard this, All of them had eyes by jealousy clouded.

3081

Everybody was saying, ‘No king to a slave Has ever in the world shown this respect.’

3082

The Speech of the Birds

a |

But at that moment, the sensible Ay4z Was weeping bitterly for what the Shah had done.

3083

Everyone said to him, ‘You’re mad. Don’t you understand? Are you a stranger to sense?

3084

Since you have acceded to Sultanship, oh slave,

3085

What is all this weeping for? Sit down in joyful satisfaction.’ Ayaz gave that crowd an answer straight away. He said, ‘How far off the mark you are!

3086

Are you not aware that the king of the host Is casting me out, far from himself?

3087

He is giving me an employment so that I from the Shah Will be kept at a distance, busy with the army.

3088

Even if he were to put the kingdom of the world under my orders, I would not be absent from him for a single instant.

3089

Whatever he says, that I can do and no more. But not for a moment would I seek distance from him.

3090

How will I exercise his kingship and functions? My kingdom is solely the sight of him.’

3091

If you are a student of the Divine and an acknowledger of

3092

God,

From Ayaz take a lesson in being the slave.

Oh you who day and night have idle remained, Likewise at the first step been stuck,

3093

Every night for your sake, you fiddling father of meddling, Descent is made from the Almighty’s highest peak.

3094

278

The Speech of the Birds

You from your perch, like a man with no manners, Never stir, neither day nor night.*”*

3095

A welcoming escort, they have come from the pinnacle of glory. You have made yourself scarce and avoided them.

3096

Ah the pity: you are not the man for this.

3097

To whom after all can be told the sorrow of this?”

So long as Paradise and the Inferno stand in your way, How can your soul of that Mystery be informed?

3098

When from both of them you become completely clear, The dawn of glorious blessing will break out for you from the night.

3099

The flower-beds of the Elysian Gardens are not for these companions, Because it is the highest mansions that are for the possessors of hegre"

3100

You, like men of the Way, give this to this one and that to that one: Go you beyond; to This give your heart, not to that.

3101

Once you have seceded from both, you will be on your

3102

own unencumbered;

Even were you a woman, you would be a man!

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Rabi‘a used to say: “Oh Knower of the Mystery,

3103

Fix the business of the world for the enemies;

Grant the friends the hereafter for eternity; But I myself am forever free of this business.

3104

The Speech of the Birds

272.

If I were to be bereft of this world and the next,

3105 It would be small grief for me if a moment I might be Your intimate.

That deprivation would be sufficient for me from You, Because for ever are You from You enough for me.

3106

Were I to look in the direction of the two worlds,

3107

Or desire aught but You, I would be an infidel.” Whoever has Him, has all.

3108

The Seven Seas*’® would be under his bridge. Whatever there was or there is or there will be, too,

3109

Has a similitude except for the Lord most Precious. For whatever other than Him you seek, you will find an equal. He is eternally without equal and of being necessary.

3110

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The Creator of the Cosmos from behind the veil

S111

Spoke to David the Prophet. He said: “Everything that there is in the world,

3112

Good and bad, visible or invisible,

For all you may some substitute discover. For Us neither substitute nor equal will you find.

3113

Since I have no substitute, do not be without Me.

3114

I am the sufficiency of your soul. Be you not soul-harrowing. I am your necessity. This door-knocker seize: Not one moment, oh you with no escape, be heedless;

3115

280

The Speech of the Birds

Not for an instant without Me the soul’s immortality crave. Everything but Me becomes naught. Desire not this.”

3116

5197 Oh you become the quester after things of the world, Day and night into the bane of this entanglement you have come. He is, in both worlds, your destination. If by way of testing, your Adored

3118

Should to you sell the kaleidoscopic world of twists and shifts, In the world do not you sell Him, for nothing in return.

3119

All that you might prefer to Him would be an idol; If you prefer life to Him, you are an infidel.

3120

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The hoopoe said: “They found that idol known as Lat,

StZt

Did the soldiers of Mahmid at Somnat.°*°” The Hindus on account of the idol arose;

alee

They would ransom it for ten times its weight in gold. In no wise was the Shah going to bargain for it: He arranged a pyre and forthwith set fire to it.

ahzs

A cavalier bold argued with him, saying: ‘It ought not to be burned. Gold’s better than an idol. It ought to have been sold!’

3124

The Sultan answered: “I feared that on the Day of Reckoning, To that assembled multitude the Creator might say:

3125

About Azar? and Mahmiid hear you,

3126

-

How that one was an idol-carver and this, an idol-vendor.’”

The Speech of the Birds

281

The hoopoe reported that when Mahmid put the torch to the pyre, And that idol of the fire-worshippers*” burnt,

gL2y

From the middle of the idol twenty maunds of gems issued:

3128

The value of the offer became in the event Mahmtd’s for

nothing in return. The Shah said: “Fitting for Lat was that, And from my God the reward was this.”

3129

Smash those idols that you have, sparing none, So that like an idol you in your turn may not come crashing down.

3130

Burn the idol-like carnal self out of longing for the Biiond:

B34

That it might gems enough pour out from beneath the skin. As with the ear of the soul you have heard the call,

3132

“Am I note’ °”

Do not be restrained in answering, “Yes”. You concluded the Covenant of Alast in the beginning. On the affirmation renege you no more than this.

3135

Since with Him you completed the valid agreement, How might making denial of it be correct?

3134

Oh you who originally to the question, “Am I not your

3135

Lord?” made affirmation,

In the end, then, have you its disavowal made.

Since in the beginning you concluded the bond, How in the end can you be unfaithful?

3136

You cannot evade Him, so with Him make your peace. All that you undertook fulfil. Do not play false.

boy

282

The Speech of the Birds STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

He said, ““When Mahmid, the Shah of Caesars,

3138

Left Ghaznain for war against the Indians, He saw the Indians had a multitude of troops. Because of that great concourse he found himself perturbed.

3139

That day he made a vow to the King of Godly Power. He promised that, ‘If I over this army might victory gain,

3140

All the spoils that in the event fall to me Will I entirely make over to the dervishes of the godly Path.’

3141

In the end, when the prince victory had found,

3142

Booty vast was collected, beyond computation; One portion of it in measurement Was beyond a hundred of the minds of skilled quantifiers.

3143

When unbounded the spoils were discovered to be, And those black faces put to the rout,

3144

The Shah straight away said to one of his people, ‘This booty to the dervishes convey,

3145

For I made a vow to God at the outset,

3146

That I should this Covenant fulfil.’

Everyone cried: ‘So much wealth and gold How can it be given a handful of fools?

3147

Either give it to the army that endures the assaults, Or command that it be to the treasury brought.’

3148

The Shah in consideration of this was left in two minds,

3149

Left but perplexed between this and that.

The Speech of the Birds There was a certain Abi’l-Husaini much learned,

283 3150

But, his heart resigned, a man of holy madness. He was passing through the midst of that host When from afar the Padshah caught sight of him.

5151

He said: ‘Let me command that madman;

3152

From him will I seek the answer. Whatever he says, that I’ll do.

Since he is free of the Shah and the army, He will speak disinterestedly and as is right.’

3153

That lunatic the king of the world did summon. Then he laid bare for him that problem.

3154

The mad enraptured one replied, ‘Oh Padshah What has now become your problem is about two groats.

3155

If you do not want to have any truck with Him again, Don’t, my dear, worry about Him over two groats.

3156

But if further you would have dealings with Him, Then in that case do not offer two groats short. Have shame!

3157

God, since He has granted victory and made your business » come out right, Has played His part. Where’s yours?’

3158

So at last Mahmtd dispersed that gold.

3159

In the end that Prince earned his name, Mahmid, “The

Praiseworthy’.” Another said, “Oh you with access to the Presence, What merchandise is current there?

3160

284

The Speech of the Birds

If you can say, since in this our profit lies,

3161

That which is most vendible there will we take.

For kings gifts have to be precious. People without rare gifts can only be mean.”

3162

The hoopoe replied; “Oh questioner, if you practise obedience, That which is not found there will you be taking.

3163

Whatever you from here take, that is there,

3164

How can carrying such as that be becoming in you? Learning there is in that place, and there are mysteries. There is ample worship from the Angels.

3165

The burning soul and agony of the heart take in plenty, Because nobody there has these to show.”

3166

If out of a spasm of yearning a single sigh is fetched, It carries the smell of a burnt heart to that Court.

3167

The special habitation is the kernel of your soul. The shell of your soul is the rebellious flesh.

3168

The sigh, if it issues from the special habitation, To the man at once release comes.

3169

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Since Zulaikha was possessed of an entourage and high

3170

regard,

She went and confined Joseph in the prison. To a slave she said, “On the instant hold him down,

Then with a stick beat him unmercifully with fifty blows.

S171

The Speech of the Birds

285

On Joseph’s body so wield the arm That at that moment his sighs I might hear from far away.”

3172

The servant came. He did not do much to him. He saw the face of Joseph. No heart could he have for the task.

S173

He noticed a coat of hide, the lucky man. He laid about the coat with might and main.

3174

Every time the man was firmly applying the stick, Joseph let out a poignant groan of agony.

S175

When Zulaikha was hearing the noise from far off,

3176

She was shouting, “Hit harder now, you man of restraint.”°"'

The man said, “O Joseph of the aura of the sun, If Zulaikha throws a glance at you, How will she not fail to see not a single bruise on you? _ She will for sure have me thrown on the rack.

al gt

3178

Bare your shoulders. Be of stout heart. Then stand firm for a mighty whack.

OL 79

Although this blow will be to your hurt, When she sees you, you will be bearing a mark.”

3180

Joseph thereupon bared his body. A murmuring stirred in all the Seven Heavens.

3181

The man at once lifted his arm aloft. He delivered a hard blow which knocked Joseph to the ground.

3182

When, this time, from him Zulaikha heard the sigh,

3183

She cried, “Hold, for this sigh comes from the real place.

286

The Speech of the Birds

Before this, those sighs were nothing.

3184

Let a sigh be this. This one, moreover, issued from the

right place.” Though there might at a mourning be a hundred professional

3185

keeners,

The sigh of the bereaved is the one that takes effect. If there were in a ring a hundred sorrow-stricken, The bezel that the ring would have would be the one bereft.

3186

So long as you have not become a sufferer of pain, In the rank of the brave you will not be included.

3187

Whoever bears love’s affliction, and the burning too,

3188

How should the night bring peace, or the day, too?

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Zanzibari slave-dealer had a nimble slave.

3189

He had of the world’s affairs clean washed his hands.

Every night that dedicated youth Till dawn-break was engaged in prayer.

3190

The master said to him: “Oh dutiful lad,

oT94

At night when you rise wake me, That I may make the ablutions, to pray with you.” The slave gave him an answer bold:

3192

He said, “That woman, whose time draws near,

3193

If someone wakes her or does not, it is all the same —

If you were in pain, you’d be awake! In labour neither day nor night would you have any respite.

3194

The Speech of the Birds

287

When somebody has to wake you up, Someone else is needed, to perform your duty for you.”

3195

Whoever lacks this passion and this painful yearning, Dust be on his head, because this person’s not a man.

3196

Whomever this pain of the heart has convulsed, Both heaven and hell for him have been cancelled out.

3197

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Ba ‘Ali of Tus,*'* who was the Pir of the Age,

3198

A traveller through the vales of earnestness and hard trial, Such a rank as he through grace and strength attained, I know no other ever to have gained.

3199

He said: “Tomorrow the people in Hell, painfully and with regret, Will ask the people in Paradise directly,

3200

Of the joys of Paradise and the taste of union To describe their condition to them.

3201

The people in Paradise will then all say, ‘The delight of Paradise has quite departed hence,

S202

Because to us in Heaven full of perfection, The Sun of that beauty has revealed the Face.

3203

When His Beauty to us came near, The eight degrees of Paradise turned black in shame because of it.

3204

In the brilliance of that soul-scattering Beauty, Paradise has neither a name nor a sign.’

3205

288

The Speech of the Birds

When the denizens of Paradise tell their state,

3206

Those of Hell will come forward to reply: ‘Oh all the brilliance from Paradise and the Elysian Gardens,

3207

Whatever you say is like this and as this,

Because we who are companions in a hideous abode Are plunged from head to foot in the blaze.

3208

When to us He made His Face clearly visible, In the Face of the Friend there were regret and disappointment.

3209

It was then that we became aware that we had fallen,

3210

And from a countenance such as that into separation fallen; Because of the fire of remorse in our unhappy hearts, ‘The blaze of the Inferno was from our memory removed.

KePot

Wherever that fire comes into effect,

Sole

How can the fire of Hell remain noticeable?’”’

For whomever the Path’s distress has become worthy of

3293

notice,

Little can he manifest of the lovers’ jealous exclusiveness.*" Distress and sighs and surgery are necessary for you. Under surgery relishing*"* and resignation are necessary for you.

3214

If at this staging post wounded you come, You are the initiated of the private sanctuary of the Spirit.

3215

If you are wounded, hark not back to the world: Apply the cauterizing branding rod to your wound and say not a word.

3216

The Speech of the Birds

289

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Of the Prophet a man full of need asked To be allowed onto a prayer-mat.

PAW

The Master did not grant him compliance in this: He said: “The sand and the earth are hot just now.

3218

Lay the face on the hot earth and the dust of the road, Because every wounded one bears on the face the mark of the brand.”

a2A9

Since you experience the gashing of the soul, The brand-mark will be most appropriate on the wounded.

3220

Until you bring a branded heart to this place, When can a glance be cast in your direction?

3221

Bring the scarred heart, that in the arena of suffering The people of the heart*’® might from the scar recognise a fellow-veteran.

3222

Another one said to the hoopoe, “O Guardian of the Road,

3223

Our eyes in this vale would become obscured. Full of torment seems this task. How many parasangs, fellow voyager, is this road?”

3224

He answered, “We have seven wadis*'’ on the route.

3225

When you have gone through these seven valleys, there is the Portal.

As from this journey nobody in the world has returned Nobody is informed of the number of its parasangs.

3226

Since nobody has returned from this lengthy trail, How might you, oh impatient one, be given any information?

3227

290

The Speech of the Birds

Since they become utterly lost there, Who might return news to you from no news?

3228

There is the vale of seeking*"* at the start of the enterprise.

V5)

After this there is the vale of love, that has no limits.

Third after this is the vale of gnosis. Then the fourth, the vale of what admits of no qualification.*”

3230

The fifth is the vale of the Absolute Unification.*”°

3231

Then the sixth is the vale of dire amazement.*”!

The seventh vale is poverty and nothingness.*”” After this no power to proceed can be yours:

azoe

You will have succumbed to being pulled, self-volition lost to you; If a single drop there be, for you it will become an ocean.”

A295

EXPLANATION

OF THE VALE OF SEEKING

When you alight in the Vale of Seeking, Continually before you a hundred setbacks will appear.

3234

A hundred calamities are every moment here. The parrot of the revolving dome is here a fly.

3209

Assiduity and effort you will need here for years,

3236

Because here matters are turned inside out.

Power here you must jettison: Possessions here you must wager.

3237

The going for you must be through a tide of blood, And from all, moving outside must be for you.

3238

The Speech of the Birds

291

When not a single coin is left in your hand, The heart must be cleansed of all that there is.

3239

When your heart is free of qualifying features, The Light of True Being®” will begin to shine forth from the Presence.

3240

When this light for the heart becomes unrefracted, In your heart one quest will become a thousand.

3241

If fire breaks out on the quester’s road, And if a hundred horrid passages loom up,

3242

Himself out of longing for Him madly

3243

Will he throw into the fire, moth-like.

In his eagerness he will be devoted to seeking; Will crave a draught of wine from his own Wine-boy.

3244

Once a draught of that liquor becomes his tipple, Both the two worlds will be completely forgotten.

3245

He’ll be left for drowned in the ocean, lips parched. The secret of the Beloved will he be seeking through the soul.

3246

Because of the desire to know the secret he No fear knows, does he, of life-snatching monsters of the deep.

3247

Were unbelief and malediction together upon him to come, He would take them in, that a door He might open to him;

3248

If He has opened the door to him, what difference belief and

3249

unbelief? For on the other side there can be neither that nor this.

292

The Speech of the Birds

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The hoopoe said: “When God was breathing this quintessential spirit

3250

Into the body of Adam, which was water and earth,**

He wished that all the host of the Angels Should no knowledge discover of the soul, nor any trace.

O25)

He commanded:

S252

‘Oh Hallowed Ones of Heaven,

At this time before Adam make prostration.’ All of them bowed their heads to the ground; Consequently not one saw that holy secret.

3253

Then Iblis came and instantly whispered,

3254

‘No-one will see any prostration on my part.

Were my head from my body to be riven,

3208

It would not matter when I have this neck!

Iam quite aware that Adam is not of dust; I would lose my head without any fear, to discover the secret.’

3256

Since Iblis had not his head on the ground, He witnessed the mystery, for he was hiding furtively.

3257

God the Almighty to him called: ‘Oh wandering spy, You are in there for seeing the secret.

3258

Now you have seen the treasure that I have hidden here,°”> I will kill you, lest you spread it about the world.

3259

For is not, outside of the guards, hidden Any place where the Padshah deposits a treasure?

3260

The Speech of the Birds

293

Assuredly, anyone in whose sight he puts it away, He should kill: draw a line through his life.

3261

You are a man for treasure: you choose a corner to lurk in. Your choice ought to be the cutting off of your head,

3262

And if I do not cut it off from your trunk this very moment, You could be spreading this matter all over the world.’

3263

Iblis answered: ‘Oh God, a reprieve grant this slave. Make some remedy for this betrayer of duty.’

3264

Almighty God answered: ‘Sparing you rests with Me. The torque of accursedness I have rested round your neck.

3265

Your name, that of The Deceiver do I register,

3266

So that you till the Resurrection stay the accursed.’ After this, Iblis said: ‘That Holy Treasure

3267

Since to me it has been revealed, how should a curse be feared?

The curse belongs to You. Forgiveness belongs to You. The slave belongs to You. Destiny’s disposal belongs to You.

3268

If the curse be my destiny, there is no fear: Poison there has to be too: not everything is the antidote.

3269

Since I have seen the creature’s seeking execration,

3270

I have with impropriety filched your curse already.’

This is how the seeking has to be, if a seeker you are. You are no seeker in the sense of overcoming;

3271

If you fail to find Him in all your nights and days, That will not be His loss. The deficiency will lie in the seeking.”

3272

294

The Speech of the Birds STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

At the time of dying, Shibli was restless: Eyes obscured, a heart filled with expectation.*”°

BS

Round the waist the zonnar of consternation®™”’ he had tied.

3274

In ashes he had seated himself.

Sometimes with the ashes he would be mingling tears. Sometimes the ashes he would be smearing on his head.

4275

An enquirer asked him: “At such a time as this, Have you seen anyone girdling themselves with the belt of pagans?”

3276

Shibli replied: “I am burning. How can I put up with it? What can I do? Since out of jealousy** I am melting, how should I act?

Jaikch

My soul, that has sealed the eye against both the two worlds, Now out of jealousy of Iblis is enflamed.

3278

Since he alone was visited by malediction, My distress is because the award goes to someone else:

3279

Shibli’s left with a melting and thirsty heart. He to someone else gives something extra.”

3280

If for you there difference appears at the hands of the Shah Between the stone and the gem, you are not the man for the Way.

3281

If you are enhanced by a gem, demeaned by a stone, Then this has nothing in this instance to do with the king.

he a

Be neither foe nor friend on account of stones and jewels: Have regard to this, that they are from His hand.

3283

The Speech of the Birds

295

If the beloved were drunkenly to strike you with a stone, It were better than if you gained a gem from another!

3284

A brave man is needed who, in seeking with expectancy, At every moment gives up his life on the road.

3285

Not for a moment from seeking does he desist. Not for an instant does rest for him become possible.

3286

If one time he falters in the quest, In this Way he would be a brawling apostate.

3287

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A dear one saw Majnin sorrow-stricken.*” In the middle of the highway he was sifting dust.

3288

He said: “Aye Majnin, what in a manner such as this are you looking for?” Majnin answered: “I am looking for Laila, of course.”

3289

The other responded: “How will you find Laila in the dust? How might a pearl of the first water be in the highway’s dust?”

3290

He replied: “I am looking for her any place that there 1s. It might be that somewhere, sometime, I find her.”

Jag

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Yusuf-i Hamadin,*”° Im4m of the Time,

3292

Lord of the world’s mysteries, discriminator of conduct, Said: “For all that is above and below,

3293

The discerning eye will see in all that there is, That each and every atom is another Jacob: Joseph lost, he is seeking news.”

3294

296

The Speech of the Birds

Pain is inevitable in His Path, and expectancy, Until, on this Way, of both the time will pass.

O2u5

And if in both the pain and the waiting you see no outcome, Do not give up. Through these mysteries refuge awaits.

3296

A man must have patience in the quest. How should the suffering patience have?

3297

Be mighty patient, whether you wish or whether you do not. It may be, some place, the Way you will find by some agency.

3298

Like the babe that is in the womb,

3299

So you likewise keep rolled up in yourself and contained. From within yourself one moment go not out.

3300

If it’s bread you need, for once make do with blood.**' That infant’s nourishment in the womb is blood alone,

3301

And all this melancholy is due only to external causes. Dnink the blood of pain and, manly brave, in patience abide, Until through duty done your goal will come.

3302

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The Shaikh of Maihana*? was in a severe depression.°*? He went out into the wilderness, his eyes full of blood, his heart riven in twain.

3208

He saw an old country man in the distance. He was tethering an ox, but light was pouring out of him.

3304

The Shaikh went up to him and greeted him. He described his state of contraction of the heart completely to him.

3305

The Speech of the Birds The old man, when he heard, said: “Oh Abt Sa‘id,

297 3306

From the carpet spread below as far as the Glorious Throne above,

Were they to make the whole fully abounding with

3307

millet seed, Not once, but a hundred times over,

And if a bird there were which succeeded in getting into its maw A single grain of the millet after a thousand years,

3308

If, after that the bird, in the same number of years,

3309

Were a hundred times further to fly the world, Still from His door would the soul no single fragrance have discovered: Oh Abt Sa‘id, how far away that still is!”

3310

Seekers must have a great deal of patience. To be a patient seeker does not fall to everyone.

S311

So long as the quest does not appear within the inside, The musk from the gall-bladder will not come clear of the blood.

3312

From within when the search goes outside, Though there were the whole firmament, the quester would be ready to eliminate it.

3313

Whoever lacks the quest, he is a corpse.

3314

He is not alive. He is an image on a wall.

Whoever lacks the quest is its reject:

God forbid! He is a puppet with no soul.

3315

298

The Speech of the Birds

If into your hand a treasure trove of pearls were to come, In the quest you should be all the hotter.

3316

He who has felt blessed by a clutch of gems, Has also fallen in bondage to that store of precious stones.

S17

Whoever on the Way by some riches is held back,

3318

Those riches become his idol: the idol that halts him;*** If you have become weak minded and lost heart,

3319

Well, those who are drunk with wine are turned senseless.

Do not end up being senselessly drunk on just one sip: Go on seeking, because there is no limit yet.

3320

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One night Mahmid was going out with no escort.

3328

He saw a dust-sifter, his head bent down to the dust of the road.

He had been piling up mounds of dust all over the place, in great number.

BeVP

When the Shah saw this, his bracelet

He threw onto the man’s mounds of dust.

3323

Then he spurred his horse into the speed of wind.

The next night the prince came back. He saw him, as before, plying his task.

3324

He said to him, “But that which you got last night, Tenfold the revenues of the world you gained easily.

3325

Surely that was enough, but you go on sifting dust. You ought to act the king, now you have passed beyond want.”

3326

The Speech of the Birds

299

The dustman answered, “By this I found it: Such a hidden treasure by this sieving I gained.

3327

So since through this the door to luck was shown me, So long as life remains this will be my job.”

3328

Be a man of this sort, so that He will open to you; Do not turn from the road until He appears to you.

3029

Your eyes have been forever closed.

3330

Seek, because that door is never closed.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One lost to himself said before God: “Oh God, open at last a door for me.”

Joo1

Rabi‘a chanced to be sitting there. She said: “Aye heedless one, when was that door ever shut?”

ife Ps

EXPLANATION

OF THE VALE OF LOVE

Next the vale of love*® appears. Anybody who has got this far is enveloped in fire.

5390

May nobody be other than fire in this stretch,

3334

And may the life of him who is not on fire not be blessed.

The lover is he who is like fire. He is the hot pursuer, burning and audacious.

3005

He never once minds the consequences; He eagerly with zest drags a hundred worlds onto the fire.

3336

Not for an instant does he know belief or unbelief;

3337

Not a shred of either doubt or certainty does he recognise.

300

The Speech of the Birds

Good and evil in his way are the same:

3338

He himself, when love has come, is neither. Oh heathen, this homily is not relevant to you:

3339

You are an apostate: this matter is not your meat.

Whatever a lover owns he gambles clean away in cash. For the sake of union with the Friend, he shows complete independence of coin.

3340

Others accept the promise of tomorrow,

3341

But he has the cash in hand now. *°°

Until he burns himself entirely, How can he be released from the sorrow of contemptibility?

3342

Until the cord of your own existence has been burnt,

3343

How in joy can the heart be set on fire? It palpitates forever between being scorched and melting, Till all of a sudden it alights where it belongs.

3344

The fish thrown out of the sea onto the shore

3345

Throbs with longing to fall back into the sea. Love is the fire here, but reason is the smoke.**”

3346

When love has arrived, reason quickly takes to flight. Reason in the madness of love is no expert: Love is not the business of native wit.

3347

If of the Invisible direct sight were granted,

3348

You would here trace love’s source to where it is.

Each and every leaf exists because of loye’s existence, Hanging down their heads to the breast because of love’s intoxication.

3349

The Speech of the Birds If an eye for the Unseen were opened to you, With you the atoms of the world would become sharers of

301 3350

the secret,

But if you with the eye of reason open your gaze, Love you will never see, from its feet to its head.

3351

The tried veteran is necessary for love: People nobly free are necessary for love.

3352

You are neither an experienced brave nor a lover: You are a cadaver. How might you be a match for love?

xie boX)

The living heart is needed a hundred thousand times over

3354

on this road,

To squander every moment a hundred lives.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One well-to-do became destitute of house and property, Became past saving, on account of a pot-boy.

3355

In excess of love for him he went mad. For him he became every gossip’s scandal.

3356

All the goods and chattels he had, He kept selling, to buy beer from him.

3357

When he had nothing left, was utterly impoverished, That lost heart’s love increased a hundred percent.

3358

Although he was given a sufficiency of bread, He was hungry, but in the soul continually satiated,

3959

Because, whatever the amount of bread he got, He got rid of it all and bought beer:

3360

302

The Speech of the Birds

He was staying hungry all the time, In order for a moment a hundred-fold contentment to buy.

3361

Someone asked him, “Oh desolated man,

3362

What is love? Make this mystery clear.”

He replied: “It is this, that a hundred worlds’ merchandise You would sell for one single beer!”

3363

Till such an affair as this befalls a man,

3364

What does he know of love, and of the pain?

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Laila’s people to Majntn not at any time Gave access to their tribe.

3365

A certain shepherd in that desert kept his abode. A sheepskin the infatuated Majnin took from him.

3366

He bent his head and threw the skin over it. He made himself seem like a sheep.

3367

He said to that shepherd: “Now for the sake of God, Place me among the sheep.

3368

Drive the flock towards Laila, I in the midst,

3369

For me to smell her scent

a moment,

So that, hidden from the friend, under the skin I might

3370

Snatch a moment of joy from my friend.” If for one instant you have an agony such as this, To the root of your every hair you are a man.

3371

Ah the pity! The pain of the stalwart is not for you: The day of the brave is not the field for you.

3StZ

The Speech of the Birds

303

At last Majnan, when he was beneath the hide,

3373

Hidden among the flock, reached the quarter of the friend. At first, the tide welled up of his fervour because of her.

3374

Then in the end because of her sense was lost to him.

3375

When love came in, tears brimmed over.

That shepherd caught him and carried him into the desert.

He dashed water onto that helplessly inebriated’s face, To dowse for a little that fire with the water.

3376

After this, one day the intoxicated Majnin by chance With another tribe in the desert pitched his tent.

oi

Someone from the tribe he’d chosen spoke up to Majnun, “You stay bare-headed, oh of the head held high!

3378

Clothing that pleases you the most and none other If you say, I at once will provide.”

33/9

He replied: “Not all clothing is worthy of the friend: No garment is better for me than the wool-skin.**

3380

I need a woolen covering of that of the sheep; Against the eye of evil, too, will I burn rue.*”

3381

The silk and satin of a Majntn is a sheepskin: The wool coat anyone who is Laila’s friend requires.

3382

In a coat of wool I have smelt the scent of my friend: How might I reach for any covering but a skin?

3383

3384

The heart by means of a skin gained news of a friend; Since I lack the kernel, there’s at least the shell of skin.’

>

304

The Speech of the Birds

Love must drag you beyond understanding, Then your attributes will it change in you.

3385

The least of things for you, the erasing of personal characteristics; It is redemption of the soul and abandonment of the trivial.

3386

Put out a foot if you are as bold as this, Because it is no sport, life-risking such as this.

3387

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION That destitute one in love with Ayaz: This affair was the talk of every assembly.

3388

When Ayaz would ride out onto the road, That God-acknowledging mendicant would run in pursuit.

3389

When to the polo-ground that musky-haired would come, The rogue would on nothing but the ball fix his eye.

3390

This matter to Mahmud was reported back,

3391

That this beggar man’s become the lover of Ayaz. The next day, when the slave-boy to the polo-field came, That vagabond in utter devotion running came.

3392

He had on the polo-ball of Ayaz set his eye: You might say, like a ball he had been struck.

Fe fs

Secretly the Sultan towards him turned his gaze. He saw his soul like a barley-grain and his face like straw.

3394

A back like a polo-stick and head spinning like the ball, Like the ball he was running all over the field.

3395

Mahmud summoned him and to him said: “Aye, beggar, Were you for drinking the same cup as the Padshah?”

3396

The Speech of the Birds

305

The ragamuffin answered him, saying: “Though a beggar you might call me, I’m not inferior to you in the game of love.

3397

Love and destitution go together: It is the investment for capital-gaining.

3398

Love from destitution derives its savour.

3399

Love, without a doubt, befits the destitute.

You are the World Conqueror. You are glossy-hearted.

3400

Love exacts the burnt-hearted such as me.

That which you possess is the professing of union, nothing more. Be patient a while in the soreness of separation.

3401

With so much “union”, why do you take on so? If you are the man for love, stand firm in separation.”

3402

The Shah answered him: “Oh to existence oblivious,

3403

You see everything as if it were a polo-ball.”

He replied: “For the reason that the ball is in a spin like me. I like it, and it like me, we have both been gashed.

3404

My worth it knows, and I know its.

3405

Both of us are the same ball in his stick’s crook.

We have both fallen into a whirl;

3406

With neither head nor trunk we hold on to life.

It has awareness of me, I also of it;

3407

We exchange with each other a fistful of yearning for him. It has better luck than me, a ball on the side-lines, Because it kisses the horse’s shoe from time to time.

3408

306

The Speech of the Birds

Although like a ball I am without head and feet,

3409

Yet I am the greater endurer of misery.

A ball suffers blows on its body from the stick, But this heart-lost beggar takes them on the soul.

3410

The ball, though it receives blows beyond counting, Still Ay4z keeps chasing it.

3411

I, although I have wounds more than it,

3412

Pursuit of me lacks him, although I am in front of him.

The ball from time to time into being present with him

3413

has fallen,

While this beggar has forever fallen far away. In the end, when it attains some proximity, In the wake of union with him joyousness it attains.

3414

I cannot a single hint of union with him obtain.

3415

The ball has found union, and took the ball from me.”

The prince replied to him: “Oh my dervish, The claim to utter impoverishment you have laid before me.

3416

If, Mister Destitute, you are not telling a lie, Have you proof of your poverty?”

3417

He replied: “So long as my life remains, destitute I am not. I am a false claimant: I am not of this party.>*°

3418

But if for love I were life’s sacrificer to become,

3419

Sacrificing life would indeed be the sign of destitution. In you, oh Mahmid, where is the true meaning of love?

Give up life, otherwise make no boast of love.”

3420

The Speech of the Birds This he said and his was one soul less in the world:

307 3421

He all at once surrendered life for the face of the beloved.3#!

When that ready fellow laid down life on the dust of the toad; For Mahmid the world turned black at the grief of this.

3422

If in your quarter to gamble life seems insignificant, Come close, see for yourself how he won the wager.

3423

If one time they say to you “Come in”,

3424

Then, on this road, you might hear the call, “Come in”,

When thus you become forever headless and footless, Because what you possess you entirely wager, nothing kept back:

3425

When you fall in, so that you might have awareness, The roles of reason and soul will be reversed.

3426

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION In Persia a man of the Arabs happened to chance. He was left astounded by the Persian ways.

3427

This unwary voyager was proceeding goggle-eyed. It came out that his way fell in with calenders.*”

3428

He found a handful of shameless rascals, utterly uninhibited, Having gambled both worlds without a single qualm.

3429

All dice-fixers, clean-breasted thieves;

3430

In foulness each purer than another!

All carried in their hands a robber’s spear; Without having drained any dregs, all drunk.

3431

308

The Speech of the Birds

When the Arab saw this gang, enthusiasm came upon him: His reason and his soul flushed out on the highway.

3432

When the calenders found him thus,

3433

Water was brought and they penetrated to his reason and soul. All of them said to him: “Oh Mister Nobody, come in”.

3434

He went in, and that was all.

A rogue made him drunk on one draft of lees of wine. To himself he was lost and his self-control gone.

3435

He had plenty of goods, possessions, silver and gold. In one move somebody robbed him straight away.

3436

Another of the ragamuffins came and gave him more of the bitter dregs,

3437

And from the calanderie naked turned him loose.

He proceeded thus until back with the Arabs, Naked as he was, penniless, his soul athirst and lips parched.

3438

One of his people said: “What a state you’re in! Where are your silver and gold? Where have you lain?

3439

The silver and gold have disappeared. Confusion has overcome you. This going into Persia was not your lucky move.

3440

Robbers waylaid you? Where has your wealth gone? Explain, for me to understand your condition.”

3441

He answered: “I was going unconcernedly along the road. Suddenly I came across a nest of calenders.

3442

Nothing further do I know, including myself. Silver, gold went, and I became nothing.”

3443

The Speech of the Birds

309

His interlocutor said: “Describe to me these calenders.” He replied: “There is no description further than this: the words, ‘Come in’”

3444

The Arab man had been left one annihilated: Of all this the words, ““Come you in”, were what was left.

3445

Step out, or follow your own way.

3446

Bear life, or, if not, yield to the Beloved.

If through the soul you would accept the secrets of love, Manifest sacrificing life in the duty of love.

3447

Abandon life and stay naked; You will still have the call, “Come in”. Step forward!

3448

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a man of high aspiration, a lord of perfection. He fell in love with one beauty-graced.

3449

By fate’s decree the beloved of that heart-surrenderer Became like a reed-cane, thin and yellow.

3450

Broad daylight turned into darkness in her heart. Death approached her from far off and drew close.

3451

To the suitor in love with her news of this was brought. A knife in the hand, running he came.

3452

He cried: “I’m on the point of slaying my beloved immediately, So that by a natural death that image of beauty should not die.”

3453

People said: “You are deeply disturbed. What wisdom in this killing have you perceived?

3454

310

The Speech of the Birds 3455

Shed no blood and from this murder refrain,

For she herself in a moment will sadly die.

Since killing the dead serves no purpose, Only a fool would cut off the head of one dead.”

3456

He replied: “If by my hand the beloved were to be killed, In retaliation for her I most cruelly would be killed.

3457

Then, when the Resurrection rises up, before the

3458

assembled multitude, For her sake will I be burnt like a candle.

While today on her account I am killed by desire, Being burnt for her tomorrow, would not this be enough for me?

3459

Then there would be here and also there my gratification; My name would be “The burnt or the slain for her’.

3460

Lovers ready to gamble lives came this way, And from both worlds their grasp withheld have they come.

3461

The importunity of life they have banished from the midst: The heart entirely from the world they have lifted.

3462

The soul when it has arisen from the midst, without a life of

3463

>

99

their own

They have enjoyed being alone*™ with their Beloved.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When Khalilu’llah** collapsed in the throes of death, He was not ready resignedly to yield the soul to ‘Izra’il.*4°

3464

He said: “Go back. Tell the Padshah

3465

From His own friend not at the end to demand the soul.”

The Speech of the Birds

311

God Almighty replied: “If indeed you are the friend, To your Friend your soul piously bequeath.**’

3466

Must the soul be snatched from you by the sword? For his Friend, who begrudges life?”

3467

Someone present asked Abraham: “Oh Light of the World, Why do you not grant ‘Izra’il your soul?

3468

Lovers are the life-riskers of the Way. Why then do you hold onto it?”

3469

Abraham answered: “How, after all, can I relinquish life When there is ‘Izra’il in between?

3470

When over the fire*** Gabriel approached,

3471

He said, ‘Of me ask a boon, oh Khalil’,

At that moment I spared him not a glance, Because he came a barrier in the Way, other than Allah.

3472

Since I averted my head from Gabriel, How might I surrender my soul to ‘Izra’il?

3473

It is because of this I cannot readily yield the soul, So long as from Him I do not hear Him say, ‘Bring the soul!’

3474

Once the order to surrender the soul reaches me,

3475

For me a world of souls wouldn’t be worth a barley-corn. In the two worlds how should I render my soul to anyone Until He gives the word? This is what this is all about.”

EXPLANATION

3476

OF THE VALLEY OF GNOSIS

After this, let be brought into your view The valley of gnosis, a valley without beginning or end.*”

3477

312

The Speech of the Birds

In the context of this valley there is nobody who Would disagree about the length of its passage.

3478

In it there is no choice of direction either: it is different;

3479

The temporal wayfarer, the spiritual traveller, are different. Again body and soul, by depletion and repletion, Are forever in progression or regression.*”°

3480

Hence when a long stretch of road appears ahead, Everyone according to his own limits gets shown up.

3481

On this Abrahamic route who can progress? The entangled spider with the elephantine stride compete?

3482

The progress of everyone is as far as their accomplishment

3483

permits; Everyone’s degree of proximity will be in accordance with their state.*>!

Were a gnat to fly as far as ever is, How might it gain the force of the violent wind???

3484

Inevitably, since the going turns out various, The same progress never befalls any particular bird.

3485

In this way has gnosis uncovered differences:

3486

This individual has found the mihrab;>>> that one the idol.

When the sun of gnosis shines

3487

From the heavens, of this direction of the exalted kind

Each will become perceptive according to his measure:°** Will rediscover his rank in Reality.

3488

The secret of the atoms will entirely become clear to him; The ash-pit of the world will turn into a flower-garden for him.

3489

The Speech of the Birds

B16

The kernel he might see from inside, not the shell. Of himself not the slightest trace will he see; only his Friend.

3490

Whatever he sees, always His face will he see. Atom after atom, always he’ll see his Goal.

3491

A hundred thousand mysteries from behind the veil The day will reveal to you clear as the sun.

3492

A hundred thousand men will forever go astray Before one becomes the complete mystery-seer.

3493

A Perfect Man*® needs in him a robust spirit,

3494

In order to dive into this bottomless ocean.

If for the secrets a taste appears in you,

3495

Every moment in you renewed yearning will appear:

In this is the thirst for perfection;

3496

In this a hundred thousand sacrifices are sanctified.

Though you might reach as far as the Glorious Throne, Make no boast one instant, because of the “Are there any miase? 77°F

3497

Drown yourself in the ocean of gnosis.

3498

Otherwise, the dust of the street, then, put on your head.

If you are not, you sluggard, one of the felicitated, Then why do you not condole with yourself?’

3499

If you do not have the joy of union with the Friend, Address yourself to keeping mourning over the separation.

3500

If you do not perceive the beauty of the Friend, Get up! Be not seated. Seek you the mysteries.

3501

314

The Speech of the Birds

Though you do not know, seek. Have shame: How long must you be like an ass unbridled?

3502

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a man turned to stone in the mountain of China.

3503

He rains tears from his eyes onto the ground. On the ground when so dolefully tears he pours,

3504

To stones turn the tears of that remarkable man.

If of these a pebble were to fall into the possession of a cloud,

3505

Till the Resurrection nothing would rain from it but regret. Knowledge*® is this man pure and veracious; Though to China it is necessary to go, to seek him.*°?

3506

Because knowledge out of grief for those without holy aspiration Turned to stone, how long must there be the ungrateful’ for beneficence?

3507

All dark is this abode of affliction. Knowledge in it is like a lode-star to show the way;

3508

Your soul’s guide in this dark place Is the shining jewel of learning, and learning, the enlarger of the soul.

3509

You, in this darkness confused,

3510

Like Iskandar left without any guide, If you gain enough from this gem, You will discover yourself a most remorseful person.

3571

The Speech of the Birds

O15

But should not this gem be a necessity to you, oh Mister Nobody, How much more filled with remorse will you become!

3512

If you have or if you do not have this jewel, I will continually find you the more penitent.

3518

This world and that world in the soul are both lost. The body by the soul, and the soul by the body veiled

3514

are both lost,

When you have moved beyond this errancy in being lost.

Godhe

It is there, the special abode of a human;

If you from here reach back to the home of the elect,

3516

You will comprehend in one breath secrets of a hundred kinds. But if in this Path you falter, alas for you: You will disappear completely in lamentation.

3517

At night do not sleep, and in the day do not eat either: Perchance this quest will in you become apparent.

3518

Seek you, so that the effort might become effortless: Eating in the day and sleep at night absent from you.

3519

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A lover by excess of love was agitated. He on top of dust had lain down frustrated.

3520

His beloved went up to his pillow And found him sleeping and oblivious to himself.

ga2)

A note she wrote, to the point and as he deserved. She pinned it onto the sleeve of her suitor.

3522

316

The Speech of the Birds

The lover, when from sleep he awoke,

35235

Read the note and on him sorrow a grievous burden became. She had written this: “O sleeping man Arise if you are a merchant listening out for silver,*®!

3524

But if you are a man of asceticism, at night be vigilant: Make your devotions until the dawn of day and be the slave.

3525

And if you are indeed a lover, shame on you, What business has sleep with a lover’s eyes?

3526

ije af| Does the lover indulge in trivialities* during the day? At night is it because of ardour that he indulges in futile pursuits?

Since you are neither this nor that, oh you unenlightened one, Make no lying boast about love for us.’*°

3528

If, other than in a shroud, a lover sleeps,

3929

I might call him a lover, but of himself. Since you have approached out of ignorance, May your sleep be happy, since you unworthy have become.

3530

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a watchman. He had fallen deeply in love. Day and night he had neither sleep nor repose.

iFo

An intimate to the sleepless lover said: “After all, you without sleep, at night do sleep a little.”

3952

He answered, “With being a night watchman love has become allied. How should sleep visit anyone with these two employments?

3535

The Speech of the Birds

617

How might sleeping suit the watchman? Especially a watchman become a lover!

3534

Once such a life-risking as this took possession of me, Being the latter was bound up with being the former.

3535

How should I snatch a little sleep? There is no one I could borrow this sleep from.

3536

Every night love is testing me: It keeps watch over the watchman.”

3537

Sometimes he would go his rounds and sound the watchman’s rattle. Sometimes out of longing, he would chafe his face and head.

3538

Had he slept a single moment, that sleepless, fasting man, Love would have seen him then indeed one dead.

3539

The whole night through, the people he did not allow To go to sleep: he was raising cries of anguish.

3540

A friend said to him: “Oh you in heat and light The whole night through, don’t you have a single moment’s sleep?”

3541

He replied: “The watchman has no sleep. The face of the lover has naught but running tears.

3542

A night-watchman has a sleepless task; Lovers have lustre-less faces.*”

3543

When from the abode of eye-closing sleep, water issues, How might sleep issue too?

3544

A lover and a watchman have joined forces. From their eyes sleep has been borne away on an ocean.’

3545 >

318

The Speech of the Birds

Being a lover became agreeable to the watchman; The business of keeping awake took over his essence.

3546

Sleep not my man if you are a seeker. Sleep be for you pleasant, if you are a babbler.

3547

Keep watch well in the Way of the heart,

3548

Because robbers lurk near the heart. The road, robbers of the heart have beset;

3549

Guard the jewel of the heart*® from. the thieves. When this watchmanship has become an attribute of yours,

3550

Love will soon appear, and gnosis. To the man in this sea of blood, doubtless

3551

Gnosis will come as a result of vigilance. Whoever has endured sleeplessness in plenty, When he has come into the Presence, will have brought an awakened heart.

3552

Since through sleeplessness is the waking of the heart, Cut sleep down. Keep the heart in fidelity.

3553

How much more must I say when your being stays drowned? Calling out at him cannot save the drowning man.

3554

Lovers go on until ahead of all; It is drunk with love that they have lain down in sleep.

3555

Reproach yourself, because those manly men Have imbibed that which ought to be imbibed.

3556

All those to whom the taste for love of Him has been revealed,

3557,

Soon discover the key to both worlds.

The Speech of the Birds If he be a woman, a strong man he becomes,> And if he is a man, a mighty ocean he becomes.

319 3558

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION To someone ‘“Abbaseh*” said: “Oh man of love,

3559

In whomever a particle of the pain of love shines, Though he were a man, a woman is born of him,

3560

And if it be a woman, ah, many a brave will issue from her!

You have not seen the woman who from Adam was born? You have not heard who of Mary was born??®

3561

So long as that which is needed does not shine properly, The matter will never once and for all be opened to you.

3562

When it does shine, your harvest will be the kingdom; All that is in your heart will be realised.

3563

Know this as wealth too, and count this luck.

3564

An atom of this consider a world of faith. If you are content with this world’s realm, Until eternity will you remain forever lost.

3565

There is an everlasting sultanate in gnosis. Strive to reap the benefit of this attribute.

3566

Whoever is intoxicated by the world of spiritual knowing,

3567

Above all the people of the world will be Sultan. The realm of the world to Him is a mere fief;

3568

The nine spheres on His ocean are a skiff. If the kings of the time were to know The taste of one draught from the boundless sea,

3569

320

The Speech of the Birds

All would sit in affliction from anguish. Because of embarrassment they would not look at each other’s faces.”

3570

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Mahmid chanced upon a ruin.

3571

He found there an ecstatic heart-surrendered,

His head bowed with the grief that he had,

3572

His back bent beneath the burden of the mountain he bore.

When he saw the Shah, he told him to keep his distance,

D079

“Otherwise, upon your life I will smack a hundred interdictions. You’re no Shah, because you are of low aspiration: To your Lord you are a blasphemer against beneficence.’*

3574

Mahmdd replied: “I am Mahmud. Do not call me a blasphemer.

3575

Tell me one thing and shut up.”

The man answered: “Did you but know, you the unaware, Whence you have so far fallen in the excess of confusion,

3576

Dust and ashes would not be all: You would be continually pouring blazing fires on your head.”

S577

EXPLANATION OF THE VALLEY OF SELF-SUFFICIENT CONTENTMENT After this there is the valley of self-sufficiency;>” In it there is no laying of claims and no significations.

3578

There arises from the state of self-sufficiency a tornado; In an instant it ravages whole countries.

BioTp!)

The Speech of the Birds

521

Here the seven seas are a puddle. The seven planets in this place are a single spark.

3580

The eight pleasances of Paradise are here also defunct; The seven degrees of Hell, frozen as ice.

3581

An ant here, moreover, ah the wonder,

3582

Might have the rations of a hundred elephants without crop-sickness; For the maw of a crow to be filled,

3583

Nobody would be left living out of a hundred caravans. A hundred-thousand of the green-clad*’! in envy burned As soon as He lit a lamp for Adam.

3584

A hundred-thousand bodies were emptied of spirit Until in that Majesty’s Presence Noah turned carpenter.

3585

A hundred-thousand gnats formed an army,*”

3586

As soon as Abraham took the lead.

A hundred-thousand infants were decapitated,

3587

That Moses, converser with God, should become the seer of the Lord.*”

A hundred-thousand people became wearers of the zonnar The moment when Jesus was admitted to the Divine Mysteries.

3588

A hundred-thousand hearts and souls suffered the sack,

3589

Until Muhammad one night was granted his Miraculous Ascent.?”*

Neither the new nor the old has any power here Whether here you act, whether you do nothing.

3590

322

The Speech of the Birds

If you have seen a world a roasted heart, Thus I would know that you a dream had seen.

3591

Though into this sea a thousand souls might tumble, A dew-drop in the limitless ocean would have tumbled.

3592

Though a hundred-thousand heads in sleep have drooped, In the rays of the sun they would be a shadow of a single mote.

3593

If the firmament and the stars were to be scattered in pieces, Consider this less in the cosmos than a leaf falling from a tree.

3594

Were non-existence to prevail from the Fish to the Moon, It would be the leg of a lame ant in the depths of a pit.

3595

If both the two.worlds were all at once obliterated,

3596

Suppose it the obliteration of a grain of sand on the ground. If no trace were left of devils and men,

3597

Linger not on account of a single drop of rain. If all these bodies crumbled to dust, If not a single animal hair existed, what would it matter?

3598

If here the part and the whole were entirely to perish,

3599

Less would there be, on the surface of the earth, one wisp of

straw.

If altogether these nine dishes of the spheres were lost, A single drop in the eight oceans would have disappeared.

3600

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION In our village a youth as lovely as the moon Fell, did that Joseph-like moon, into the well.

3601

The Speech of the Birds

323

On top of him fell a quantity of soil. In the end, somebody extricated him from there.

3602

Soil had overwhelmed him, and fate;

3603

In two instants they had brought him matter to ponder. This good character was named Muhammad. From him to that world there was but one step.

3604

When his father saw him so, he said: “Oh son,

3605

Oh lamp of the eye and oh, the darling of a father, Oh Muhammad, to your father one kindness show:

3606

Say something”. The boy replied, “What is there left to say? Where is Muhammad? Where the son? Where is anyone?” This he said and his soul surrendered. This was it and no more.

3607

Look, oh wayfarer, possessor of sight,

3608

To see where Muhammad is, and where Adam.

Where, then, is Adam? And where the atoms?

3609

The names of the parts and the wholes, where? Where the earth? Where the mountains and the seas? Where the firmament? Where the fairies? Where the divs and man? Where the angels?

3610

Where now, those hundred-thousand bodies of dust?

3611

Where now, those hundred-thousand pure souls?

Where, at the moment of giving up life, twisting and turning, Where, then, is there anybody? Where body and soul? Where the twisting and turning?

3612

324

The Speech of the Birds

Both the two worlds, and a hundred more the same,

3613

Were you to come and sift that which there is, Like a labyrinthine mansion would they seem to you, Then, through the sieve nothing would accrue to you.

3614

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Yusuf-i Hamadin,°*” who had an eye for the Way,

3615

Had a pure breast and a vigilant heart, 3616

Said: “Be lifetimes above the Throne, Then come down before it, beneath the Dais,

All that there was and is and will be, too,

3617

With no difference between the good and the bad, each

and every.atom of anything, A drop are all these from a sea; If offspring there were, were not, what would be the gain?

3618

This valley is not so easy as this, oh simpleton. You consider it easy because of ignorance, you silly man.

3619

If the road were to become an ocean with the blood of

3620

your heart, Still no more than one stage’s progress would have befallen you.”

Were you a world of the road every moment to encompass, When you looked, it would be your first step.

3621

No sdlik has seen an end to the road;

3622

No-one has found any remedy for this travail. If you halt, like a rock you are frozen;

.

Sometimes you cannot move®”® one way or the other, and sometimes you are a corpse.

3623

The Speech of the Birds

325

But if you are in a hurry and running all the time, Until eternity without end you will not hear the ‘Come in’.

3624

There is no hope in either moving or your standing still; None for you, in either dying or being born.

3625

Oh what a difficult business has come upon you, to what purpose? This is a tough undertaking, what avails you the teacher?

3626

Strive not, yet, oh silent man, strive:

3627

Abandon this task, yet eagerly in the task strive.>”” Both practise leaving off and working at the task: Practise doing less of your own business, then achieve much,

3628

So that if performance be the remedy of labour, There will be effort for you to show at the affair’s end.

3629

But if labour is nobody’s remedy, For you of the lack of it there will be there plenty!

3630

Leave off what you were doing initially; Doing and not doing, this will come out nght.

3631

How are you to know what is to be done? How can you discriminate? Would that you could, and could manage the task.

3632

Behold self-sufficiency and look at needlessness;*”*

3633

At times be the minstrel, and at times the grinder of dirges;

The lightning-flash of self-sufficiency so flashes here

3634

That in its fire a hundred worlds are then burned up. A hundred worlds does it reduce to dust;

If there were no world, in this valley what would it matter?

3635

326

The Speech of the Birds

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION You may have observed how that senseless charlatan*” Sets up a tray of sand in front of himself.

3636

Then he fills the board with images and patterns: He makes manifest the fixed and the moving;*”°

3637

He indicates both the firmament and the earth. Sometimes he makes a prognostication about this or that. Sometimes

3638

He calls forth both the stars and the houses of the zodiac.

3639

He reveals both the risings and the settings. Both evil and auspicious portents he draws out; He deduces the houses of death and of birth.

3640

When he has calculated ill omens and good by means of it, After all this he grabs a corner of the tray.

3641

He shakes it out. You would say that it all had never been: All those images and signs had never existed.

3642

The outward aspect of this complex kaleidoscopic world Is just like the forms on that tray, nothing.

3643

You cannot stomach this? Choose a corner:

3644

Round this, stop loitering and sit in a corner. All men here have become women. On account of the two worlds here they have become insignificant.

3645

Since you lack the strength for this Path, Though you were a whole mountain, you would not weigh

3646

a straw.

The Speech of the Birds

O27]

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION He said: “For a brave man of the cognoscenti of the mystery The curtain was drawn back from the world of secrets.

3647

At once a voice said, ‘Oh Pir, quickly Ask and as quickly take all that you desire.’

3648

The Pir replied, ‘I have seen that the Prophets Were always plagued by calamity.

3649

Wherever pains and adversities were the most,

3650

All of them were the challenge of the Prophets. Since for the Prophets trials were their lot, How should comfort befall this obscure Pir?

3651

I neither desire respect nor wish to be humiliated. Would that You would leave me in my own infirmity!

3652

Since the portion of the great is pain and suffering, How can the less have the treasure?

3653

The Prophets took in their stride the turmoil of the task. I have not the strength. Leave me alone.’”

3654

Whatever I from within have said, of what avail is it?

3655

So long as on you no effect has been visited, of what profit is it?

Although into an ocean of danger you have fallen, You are like a partridge deprived of feathers and wings.

3656

Since you are informed of the monsters and the fathoms,

3657

How should you want to journey on such a way as this?

First you hesitate, in trepidation at the thought: If you fall in, how might you bring the soul to the shore?

3658

328

The Speech of the Birds STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

This fly was going in search of food.

3659

It saw a comb of honey in a corner. It was overcome with longing for that honey. It began loudly buzzing, “Where’s a noble fellow

3660

Who’ll take from humble me a groat, To introduce me into the honeycomb?

3661

The branch of union if thus it might bear fruit for me, The most appropriate of bees will in the honey be!”

3662

Someone did it for him: “Come up outside”; To the inside he gave him access, and took his halfpenny.

3663

When getting to work on the honey was vouchsafed the fly, His feet and arms got firmly stuck in it.

3664

In beating about, his joints grew weak, And through such wallowing as this he was the more tightly held.

3665

He cried out, “A judgement has slain us! And honey more cruelly than poison slays!

3666

Had I a groat, two I would now give; Would that from this impasse I might jump free!”

3667

Let no-one a moment be carefree in this valley. Let the man for this valley be no other than mature.

3668

It is a while, oh distracted heart,

3669

Since in heedlessness you have been passing the time.

The Speech of the Birds

329

You have brought life to an end with no purpose gained. Where now another lifetime for gain?

3670

Arise and cut your way through this hard vale. Spread your wings and cut yourself off from heart and soul,

3671

Because so long as you carry a soul and a heart, You are a polytheist, but more heedless than polytheists.

3672

Sacrifice the soul and dispose of the heart, Otherwise they will divert concentration from contentment.

3673

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a Shaikh gowned in the khirgah and famous. The daughter of a kennel-keeper bereft him of tranquility.

3674

In love for this low-born maid he was so captivated That from his heart he was shedding tears of blood like waves of the sea.

3675

In the hope that he might catch a glimpse of her face, At night he lay down with the dogs of her street.

3676

The girl’s mother became aware of this.

3677

She said: “O Shaikh, since your heart has lost its way,

Although the Pir this desire has in its grip, Our calling is trading in dogs and nothing more;

3678

Assume our condition and be a hound-seller. After a year get married and have a fiesta.”

3679

Since that Shaikh was no laggard in loving, He threw off his gown and quickly went to work.

3680

330

The Speech of the Birds

A dog in hand, to the market-place he went. Nearly a year he followed this trade.

3681

Another Safi who was of his circle,

3682

When he saw him thus, said: “Oh Mister Nobody,

A period of thirty years you were a brave exemplar to men.

3683

Why have you done this and who has ever acted thus?”

The Shaikh answered: “Oh heedless one do not lengthily pontificate, Because if you remove the curtain from before this matter,

3684

God Almighty these mysteries understands;

3685

He might to you this trading of hounds assign:

When He observes your unremitting jibes of contempt, He might transfer the dog out of my hand into yours.”

3686

What more can I say? This heart of mine from the journey’s toil To bleeding has come, yet not a moment has a man for the Way emerged.

3687

Speaking much for me has been futile,

3688

And of you, not a single one has become a seeker of the mysteries.

If you would a knower of the mysteries be, take to the road, Then of what I am saying will you become informed.

3689

If more than this concerning the road I were much to preach, You would all fall asleep. Where is someone to give the lead?

3690

The Speech of the Birds

501

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION That novice said to the Shaikh: “About the Presence**!

3691

Relate some subtlety.” The Shaikh answered, “Be off.” Were you for this occasion to wash faces clean, Then might I some subtle point communicate;

3692

In your musk-scented corruption, what use would it be? What use reciting subtle points to drunken men?

3693

EXPLANATION

OF THE VALLEY OF ONENESS

After this the valley of Tawhid confronts you:*” The stage of abstraction and detachment from both worlds.**°

3694

Faces, when into this valley they are caused to enter, All their heads from one collar are raised.

3695

If you are a large number, if a few, In this stage of the Way you will be in uniting one.

3696

When many are one, in One forever,

3697

That one in One will be unity complete. That one which to you appears single is not From that unity which is appearing to you in numbers;

3698

Since that is outside of being single and this, of being

3699

numerous, Cease considering eternity without beginning and eternity without end;

Once eternity without beginning has disappeared, and eternity without end, too, How might anything remain of either of them in the midst?

3700

332

The Speech of the Birds

Since all is a nothing, all this is nothing. How might two sources be other than the distortion of all this?

3701

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One of the dear ones said to that enraptured one, “What is the world? Explain the substance of this thing.”

3702

The mad one replied: “This world full of fame and shame is,

3703

Like a model of a palm tree, of a hundred hues of colour. If someone rubs this palm tree in his hand, Undoubtedly it will all desolve into a single lump of wax.

3704

Since it is all wax and nothing more, Go, because so many colours are no other than one thing;

3705

Since all is one there are no two;

3706

Neither does an I arise here, nor a You.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION An old woman went up to Abt ‘Ali.***

3707

She bore a draft for gold. She said, “Take this from me.”

The Shaikh answered her: “I have a covenant that no more

3708

Except from God will I take anything at all.” The old woman at once asked: “O Abd ‘Ali,

3709

Whence then have you acquired double-vision?

You in this Way, Abt ‘Ali, are not the man for binding

and loosening.**° How much longer will you, if you are not squint-eyed, see another?”

3710

The Speech of the Birds In this place a man has no other in sight,*°°

333 aa tt

Because in it there is neither Ka‘ba nor temple. Both from Him hear the words plain,°*’ And with Him his being remains permanent.

o7i2

None but He at any time does the person see, None but He knows the person eternally.

3713

He is both in Him, from Him, and with Him;

3714

Also, beyond all these three it were good to be. Whoever has not in the Ocean of Unity become lost, Though he were Adam himself, he would not be of mankind.

3715

Everyone of the people of virtue and the people of infamy, Has a sun within the invisible Invisible.

3716

Ultimately there will be a day when this sun Will take them to itself, throwing down the veil.

ST

Whoever to his own sun has attained,

3718

Know you for certain that the good and the bad has reached. So long as you exist, good and bad are here. When you have disappeared, all will be gain.

3719

But if you continue to remain in your own being, You will experience plenty of good and ill, and a long road.

3720

As soon as from nothingness you became apparent, In the grip of the self you became ensnared.

iat

Would that now you were as at first, That is to say, that of being you were void.**

Si2Z

334

The Speech of the Birds

Cleanse yourself entirely of the attributes of evil. After this, empty of all, turn to dust.

BI2ZD

How do you know in your body what Corruption you carry, what an ash-pit you have?

3724

Snakes and scorpions are under the curtain in you. They are asleep and have not found themselves.

3729

Were you to pull out a hair-tip of theirs Each of them you would arouse like a hundred dragons.

3726

Everyone has an inferno full of serpents. So long as you are self-preoccupied, it is Hell’s business.

Stee

If you come out cleansed of each in their turn,

3728

Then you will enter a sweet sleep beneath the sod. But if not, under the ground what scorpions, what snakes

3729

Will be biting you hard until the Day of Reckoning!

Every one who is unaware of this cleansing, Whomever you take is a worm in the earth.

3730

How much more, oh ‘Attar, must there be of this

3734

metaphorical language? Come back to the question of the mysteries of Oneness.

The wayfaring man, when he reaches this valley, The space in which the man stands will rise from the Way;

BY 7

He will vanish, because He becomes apparent. He will be struck dumb, because He becomes the speaker.

JTSo

The part is changed: it becomes the whole. Neither whole nor part,

3734

A form it will be, neither soul nor limb the attribute.

The Speech of the Birds

335

All the four elements will go beyond all the four: A hundred thousand they’ll become; more than a hundred thousand.

3735

In the schools of this wondrous mystery, See a hundred thousand intellects parched-lipped.

3736

What is reason here? Fallen at the door It is like the new-born babe born deaf.

SIDT

An atom of this mystery on whomever it has shone, He has averted his head from both worlds’ realm.

3738

Since himself this person is not a hair in the midst,

3739

How should he not twist, as if it were a hair, his head

from the world? Although this person is not, yet all this is this person; Whether being he is or not-being, still this person is.**

3740

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Said Luqman of Sarakhs,*”° “O God I am old and distracted and have lost the way.

3741

The slave that becomes old is made a fuss of,

3742

Then his manumition is given to him and he is set free. I now, oh P4dsh4h, in servitude

3743

Have made the black hairs like flakes of snow. I am an exceedingly pain-staking slave. Grant me some happiness. I have grown old. Grant me my freedom.”

3744

336

The Speech of the Birds

A Voice answered: “O special intimate of the private sanctuary, Whoever desires release from slavery,

3745

Reason and the obligation to serve depart from him together. Abandon both these two and embark upon the Way.”

3746

He replied: “O God, there it is, You will I forever be desiring: Reason and duty I shall not need. Farewell!”

3747

Then from reason and the obligation to serve he came away. He stamped dancing-feet and clapped hands in ecstasy.

3748

Said he: ““Now I do not know who I am.

3749

A slave for once I am not, so what am I?

Slavery has beén obliterated; no freedom is left;

3750

Not an iota of grief and joy in the heart remains; I have become without attributes. Without attributes I have

3751

not become.

I am a knower of the gnosis, but gnosis I have not. I do not know, are You me or am I You?

A152

I have vanished in You and two-ness has become no more.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION By chance a beloved fell into the water. Her lover made all haste to dive in.

J19D

When the two of them came together,

3754

That one enquired of this one, ““O witless,

Though I have fallen into the flowing stream, Why do you throw yourself into it?”

S755

The Speech of the Birds He replied, “I have thrown myself into the water,

357 3756

Because myself I did not distinguish from you. It has been a while since, for sure, has become

3957

Your you-ness one with my one-ness.

Are you me, or am I you? How long, two-ness? Iam with you: I am you, or you are you;

3758

Since you are as if I, and I forever you,

3759

Both two bodies are we one body, and that’s it.” So long as a you is present, polytheism is found. When two-ness is lifted, monotheism shines out on you.

3760

Lose yourself in Him; this is monotheism;

3761

Yet leave losing yourself; this is self-abeyance.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION The hoopoe said it was a splendid and auspicious day: It was the day of the parade of Mahmud’s troops 1n review.

31 G2

Into the plain came elephants innumerable, and soldiers. There was a raised platform. Onto it went the Shah.

B/0S

Both Ayaz and Hasan*”’ went with him; All the three were reviewing the host.

3764

The face of the world by elephants and sipahis was As if by ants and locusts covered.

3765

The eye of the cosmos such a host had not seen. More than that army nobody had seen another.

3766

Then the mighty Shah made to speak. To Ayaz, his favourite, he said: “Aye boy,

3767

338

The Speech of the Birds

All these elephants and troops belong to me. I entirely belong to you. You are my Sultan.”

3768

Although a celebrated Shah these words said,

3769

Ayaz was markedly unmoved and remained calm. He neither made a bow to the Shah at this moment,

3770

Nor said to himself, ““Was it me the Shah was addressing this to?”

Hasan was put out and said, “Aye, slave-boy, The Shah shows so much deference to you,

3771

While you hold yourself as if you had no respect; You do not bend your back and you make no bow.

DF4zZ

Why do you not observe etiquette? No gratitude was this in the Shah’s presence.”

SIFD

When Ayaz caught this reproach’s drift, He replied: “There are two answers apt for this.

3774

One answer is this, that this faceless and traceless one,

3775

Were he to kneel in front of the Padshah,

Would either be grovelling humbly in the dust before him, Or saying something through his tears to him.

3776

To become more than the king, or to be his inferior,

Byeas

Would in both instances be to confront him.

Who am I that I should embark on this performance? That I between us should make myself manifest?

3778

The slave belongs to him. Honouring belongs to him. Who am I? All commanding is his command.

Ono

The Speech of the Birds

339

That which everyday the victorious monarch has achieved, And this munificence that today he has granted to Aya4z,

3780

If both worlds were to speak the praises of his essence, I do not know whether they might measure up to his deserts.

D181

How in this concourse should I make myself conspicuous? Who might I be, or why should I be noticeable?

3782

I neither make obeisance nor seek to attract his attention. Who am I that I should confront him?”

3783

When Hasan had heard this speech from Ayaz, He said: “Bravo for Ayaz the grateful!

3784

I testify that in the days of the Shah You every moment are worthy of the favours of the Shah.”

3785

Then Hasan asked him where the second answer was.

3786

Ayaz replied: “Telling that to you would not be proper.

If I and the Shah were to be both together, This matter would be exceedingly confidential.

3787

But to you, since you are not in the secret of it, How might I tell it since you are not the Sultan?”

3788

Then the Shah promptly sent Hasan away. Hasan was also expunged from the Army List.

3789

Since in that private intimacy there were neither a we noranI, If Hasan were so much as to show a hair, it would not be good.

3790

The Shah said: “Privacy has come. Tell the secret: That special answer tell to me.”

o79)

340

The Speech of the Birds

Ayaz replied: “Whenever out of the Shah’s perfection of grace He bestows on wretched me.a glance,

3792

In the radiance of the ray of that one look, My being becomes utterly extinguished.

3793

Out of shame at the sun of the aura®*” of the Shah

3794

At that moment I lift myself clear of the way. Since of me the name of existence does not remain,

3795

How should I in obeisance before you fall prostrate? Were you then to see anyone

3796

It would not be I. It too would be the Shah of the World.

If you perform one kindness and if you perform a hundred, By your lordship you perform them for yourself.

3TSy

A shadow that becomes lost in the light of the sun, From it how might obeisance in any circumstance be offered?

3798

Your Ayaz is a shadow in your vicinity, Lost in the sun-light of your face.

D799

Since the slave has from the self vanished, no he remains.

3800

Do whatever you will, you know that he is no more.”

EXPLANATION

OF THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT

After this the valley of amazement’? meets you; The business of constant pain and regret meets you.

3801

Every sigh here is like a sword-blade to you. Every breath here is a sigh out of your anguish.

3802

Groaning there is, pain there is, burning also Day and night there is. There is neither night nor day either.

3803

The Speech of the Birds From the root of every hair of these people, but not from

341 3804

sword-cuts,

Blood is dripping. It spells out, “Ah the pity!”

A fire is freezing men in this; Ice burning hard is of the torments of this.

3805

The baffled when he reaches here,

3806

Is left flabbergasted and has lost the way.

Of whomsoever Oneness has imprinted the seal on the soul, He becomes entirely lost, and lost to himself as well.

3807

If they were to say to him, “Are you drunk or are you not?

3808

Do you exist? Say where you are or are not.

Are you in the midst, or are you outside it?

3809

Are you on the edge, or hidden, or visible?

Are you perishable or everlasting, or both? Or are you neither? Are you you or are you not?”

3810

He would answer: “I simply do not know anything at all, And that I know not, nor do I know myself.

3811

I am in love, but I do not know with whom I am.

3812

I am neither Muslim nor unbeliever, so what am I?

But of my loving I have no knowledge;

3813

I have both a heart full of love, also, empty.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a Chosroes under whose rule were the furthest horizons. There was a daughter like the moon in his palace.

3814

342

The Speech of the Birds

In loveliness was she the envy of fairies: Joseph and the well, and the dimpled chin, all were present.

3815

Her curls kept a hundred hearts wounded. Each of her tresses held a jugular vein in spirited animation.

3816

The moon of her face showed like paradisal gardens, But then, by her eyebrows two bows were shaped.

3817

When from her bows arrows came flying, The interval between the bows’ ends and middle twanged blessings.°”*

3818

Her drunken eyes with eye-lash thorns Many a sober man toppled onto the road.

3819

The face of this ‘Azra-like®” sun-cheeked Had stolen seventeen unbored pearls from the sphere of the moon.”

3820

Of her two ruby-lips, that were food for the soul, The Archangel Gabriel was forever in awe.

3821

When her lips were in laughter spread, the Water of Life Would thirsty perish and of her lips seek alms.

3822

Whoever would steal a glance at her dimpled chin, Would fall headfirst into the well’s depths.>?”

3823

Whoever fell a prey to her moon-like face,

3824

Would fall into her pit at once, with no rope to catch him.°” To be brief, there was coming to the Padshah,

3825

In pursuit of service, a slave-boy like the moon. What a boy! One who by his beauty eave To the sun and moon both their rising and their setting!

3826

The Speech of the Birds

343

In the whole world’s extent no equal did he have: None of the likes of him in beauty became the talk of the town.

3827

A hundred-thousand folk in the market-place and in the streets Were left dumbfounded at that sun-countenance.

3828

One day by chance the girl looked; She saw the face of the slave of the Padshah.

3829

Her heart was lost and into grievous distress she fell. Her reason outside the veil fell.”

3830

Reason departed and love gained power over her. Her Shirin-spirit*° in bitterness into agitation was tossed.

3831

For a time she kept her thoughts to herself. In the end she made the state of trepidation her practice.

3832

She was melting with desire and at the separation burning, In the melting and the burning, the heart full of craving.

3833

She had ten minstrel maidens,

3834

In singing, of exceedingly lofty attainment,

All instrumentalists, nightingale-singing, Their Davidian melodies soul enlarging.

3835

Her state to them she straight away told:

3836

She cast fame and modesty, and the soul, too, away. In whomever love of a beloved has become obvious,

3837

How can the soul in such a situation be of any account?

She said: “If to the boy I tell my love, Because he is not mature, he might into error fall.

3838

344

The Speech of the Birds

My own status also would be ruinously impaired;

3839

When might to a slave anyone like me stoop? But were I not to bring my story out into the open, Behind the veil I would die piteously of frustration.

3840

I have recited to myself a hundred texts about patience;

3841

What am I to do? Patience I lack, but I am exhausted.

This I desire, that of that erect cypress I might obtain a share. He must not know.

3842

If thus my aim is accomplished, The affair of my life to my heart’s desire will conform.”

3843

When the sweet-voiced heard this matter,

3844

They all said to her: “Harrow not the heart. We at night will bring him to you secretly, In such a way that he will have no inkling of it.”

3845

In secret a girl went to the boy. She told him there and then to fetch wine and a cup.

3846

A sense-dispelling drug into the wine she sprinkled. Consequently into him she cast oblivion.

3847

When he drank that wine, unconscious became the boy. That pretty maiden’s work proceeded well.

3848

The day until nightfall that silver-breasted youth

3849

Was intoxicated and conscious of neither of the two worlds.

When night came, those girls arrived,

Slowly and stealthily to him they came.

3850

The Speech of the Birds

345

Then at that moment upon a bed they laid him. Furtively to the princess they carried him.

3851

Swiftly he was seated on a golden throne. Jewels were scattered on his head.

3852

At midnight, when that boy half drunkenly Opened up his narcissus-like eyes,

3853

A palace-like paradise did that beauty behold, Golden sofas from one side of it to the other.

3854

Two ambergris candles had been lit.

3855

Aloes wood was burning, too, as fire-wood.

Those idols in unison harmonies intoned,

3856

Reason to the soul bidding farewell, and the soul to the body. There was that night wine in the midst of the company, Like a sun in the light of the candles.

3857

In the midst of all that joyousness and gratification, The boy had become lost in the cheeks of the princess.

3858

He was left dazed. Neither reason remained nor soul. In truth he was left neither in this world nor in that.

3859

His breast was full of love and his tongue mute, His soul by the taste of the relish of it into ecstasy came.

3860

His eyes on the cheeks of the heart-holder he kept; His ears to the sound of the pipes he held.

3861

His sense of smell discovering the fragrance of ambergnis, His mouth was also finding liquid fire;

3862

346

The Speech of the Birds

The princess at once plied him with the wine-bowI,

3863

The dessert-fruits with the wine, kisses after each draught she gave. His eyes stayed upon the darling’s face; He remained in wonderment at the girl’s cheeks.

3864

As the tongue of no use to him had become, He rained tears and was scratching his head.

3865

All the time that girl like a picture, Was sprinkling on his face a hundred thousand tears.

3866

Sometimes on his lips she’d confer kisses like sugar. Sometimes she’d salt the kisses adventurously.

3867

Sometimes she would ruffle his unruly curls. Sometimes he’d be lost in those two bewitching eyes.

3868

And that drunken youth before the caresser of hearts

3869

Had remained conscious, no, unconscious, his eyes open wide,

So of this the onlooker was that boy, Until from the east morning had fully arisen.

3870

When morning came and the morning breeze got up, In extreme drunkeness the youth that moment passed out.

3871

When the proud lad slept, They quickly bore him back to his own stead.

3872

After this, when that silver-breasted boy

3873

Finally found some awareness of himself,

Agitation he displayed, and he knew not what there had been — What was to be, since it had been, what avails anguish over it?

3874

The Speech of the Birds

347

Although he was bereft of all, Tears from him brimmed over the top of his head.

3875

He thrust in his hands, and his clothes with his hands tore to shreds.

3876

He tore out hair in hanks and laid his head on the dust.

This candle of Taraz**! was asked for his story. He said: “I am unable to unravel this tale.

3877

That which I, drunk and besotted, clearly saw

3878

Nobody in a dream would see. That which only over bewildered me passed, I know of no-one over whom it has passed.

3879

That which I saw I cannot relate.

3880

Than this no mystery more strange appears.” Everyone said to him: “Now a little Pull yourself together and relate one percent.”

3881

He replied: “I am left as if someone else. Was it I who have seen it all or someone other?

3882

I heard nothing when I heard all. I did not see although I saw all.”

3883

One heedless said to him: “Have you seen a dream That you are as crazy and unhinged as this?”

3884

He answered: “I am not clear. You may think That sleep was mine, or wakefulness.

3885

I do not know whether I saw this in drunkeness;

3886

Or whether in sobriety I have heard it’s description.

348

The Speech of the Birds

No state has been more weird than this in the world;

3887

A state neither manifest nor hidden.*” Not a moment is she effaced from the soul,

3888

Nor of her do I find the slightest trace.

I have beheld the possessor of a beauty from the Perfect. No person in any state has possessed it.

3889

What before her face is the sun?

3890

A mote, ‘But God knows what is right.’

Since I do not know, what more than this can I say,

3891

Although before this have I seen her? I, since I have seen or have not seen her,

3892

Am perplexed between this and that.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A mother was weeping over her daughter’s dust. An observer of the Way looked at that woman.

3893

He said: “This woman has taken precedence over men,

3894

Because she is not like us, but knows for sure

From whom lost she has been left separated, 3895 And on whose account in this manner she has become impatient. Fortunately she, because she knows what the condition is,

3896

She knows for whom she must weep. This grief-stricken one’s story is not so simple: Day and night struck down by mourning have I sat.

3897

In the business of affliction it is not clear to me

3898

Over whom copiously in sorrow I am weeping like rain.

The Speech of the Birds

349

I, such weeping as this coming, am unaware Of from whom I have become bewildered, have fallen away.

3899

This woman from thousands like me has stolen the ball,

3900

For the reason that of her lost one she has picked up the scent. I the scent have failed to catch, but this sorrow my Blood has poured out and in confusion slain me.

3901

In such a way-station as this, where the heart has disappeared, Rather, the stopping place has disappeared as well,

3902

The end of the thread of reason has been lost.

3903

The door to the abode of perception has been lost. Whoever this stage reaches loses his head; He loses the door to the four boundaries of his being.*”

3904

But if anyone here has discovered a way,

3905

The secret of the whole in an instant he has discovered.”

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Safi was going along. He heard a voice. It was saying: “I’ve lost the key.

3906

Has anyone found a key in this place,

3907

Because the door is locked and this fellow in the dust of the street?

If my door stays shut, what can I do? The entrance kept blocked, how should I act?”

3908

The Siafi said: “Who told you to be so upset?

3909

As you know the door, go and say, ‘Stay shut’.

350

The Speech of the Birds

At a closed door if you sit enough, There is no doubt that some one will open it.

3910

Your affair is easy, but mine is difficult,

3911

Because in bewilderment my soul is burning. My affair has neither head nor tail: I have neither the key nor even any door.”

3912

Would that this Safi might hasten fast:

I9TS

Might, open or shut, discover the door.

No portion do men have but illusions. Nobody at all knows what a state of ecstasy is.

3914

Whoever says: “What should I doe”, tell, “What not do?

S915

What you have done up till now, now do not do.” Whoever’s fallen into the valley of amazement, Every moment has fallen into sorrows without number.

3916

How long must I be in confusion and wandering of the brain? Since the footing has been lost, how can I proceed?

Ke

I do not know. Would that I might know Whether, if I knew, I would still be perplexed!

3918

For me, here, complaining grateful acknowledgement

3919

has become; Infidel ingratitude into faith has turned, but faith has

become being infidel.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Shaikh-i Nasrabad pain seized;* He, — ah, this was a man! — forty nilennesiie made trusting in God.

3920

The Speech of the Birds After this, white-haired and body emaciated,

351 3921

Someone saw him naked but for a covering round the waist. In his heart a fire and in his soul a flame,

o922

He knotted the pagans’ girdle and held out his hands, Having come, not because of pretension or exhibitionism, Around a Guebre*” fire-temple in the tawaf.*°

3923

Someone said: “Aye Great One of the Age, What is this action of yours? Be ashamed at least.

3924

You have made so many times the Pilgrimage and are

S220

sO eminent,

Has of all this the harvest become apostasy? Such conduct as this is due to unfaithful mindedness;

3926

People of the heart*” are because of you in ill-repute.

Which Shaikh acted thus? Whose nite is this? Do you not know whose fire-temple this is?”

3927

The Shaikh replied: “My answer has turned out hard, A fire has beset my house and goods,

3928

Through this fire my harvest has been blown away on

ee Pa)

the wind;

It has entirely consigned my name and fame to the wind. My business has turned awry. I more than this no stratagem know.

3930

When a fire such as this enters the soul,

oe fo

How should my name and honour then have any role? As soon as I was caught in such a situation as this,

With temples and the Ka‘ba disgusted I became;

3932

352

The Speech of the Birds

If a speck of the amazement becomes manifest to you, Like me, upon you a hundred sorrows will be visited.”

2055

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A fresh novice there was, a heart like the sun.

3934

He saw his Pir one night in a dream. He said: “Because of bewilderment my heart is seated in blood. Relate your situation, as to how it is in that place.

3935

In being separated from you, I have lit the candle of the heart; As soon as you departed, I burned because of confusion.

3936

Due to being confused here, I have become a seeker of

3937

the secret;

How is it with you there? Please tell.” The Pir answered him: “I have remained confused and drunk;

3938

I am forever biting the back of my hand with my teeth. We are so much in the depths of this prison and pit, Than you we are more confounded in this place.

39759

A speck of bewilderment in the last moments for me

3940

Is for me more than a hundred mountains in the world.”

EXPLANATION

OF THE VALLEY OF POVERTY AND ANNIHILATION

After this there is the vale of poverty and self-annihilation.* How should any speaking here be appropriate?

3941

The essence of this valley is oblivion; Is lameness and drunkenness and deprivation of sense.

3942

The Speech of the Birds

353

A hundred thousand of your “everlasting” shadows You see lost, because of your Single Sun.

3943

When the ocean of the All-One has purposed to toss, How might the images on the ocean stay in place?

3944

Both the two worlds are on that sea a pattern and no more; Whoever says they are not is simply mad.

3945

Whoever in the sea of the Whole has become obliterated,

3946

Forever at rest one lost has become: The heart in this sea is full of calm;

3947

It finds nothing but being in oblivion. If from this state of being lost it is returned to itself,

3948

It will be turned into an observer of the Creator’s craft,

holding many a secret.*” Mature wayfarers and the men of manliness, When they have descended into the arena of pain,

3949

Becoming lost the first step, what can be after this? Inevitably a second is not for any.

3950

Since all in the initial step have been lost,

3951

Consider them inanimate, though they came as men;

Aloes and fire-wood when they are kindled,

3952

Both in the same fashion turn to ashes,

Both of these in form are to you of the same kind; In attributes there is an abundance of variety for you.

B958

If something polluted in the ocean of the Whole is lost,

3954

It will sink still in its own attributes, in baseness.

354

The Speech of the Birds

But were something pure to be in this sea, Though there will be no it, in the midst beautiful will it be.

3255

It is not, but it is. How can this be?

3956

Of reason’s conceiving, outside is this.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One night Ma‘shigq of Tus,*’® that ocean of mysteries, Said to a novice: “Melt always

3957

So that, when in love you melt completely, Then will you become through debility forever like a wisp of hair.

3958

When your person becomes as slender as a hair, There will be room for you among the locks of the Friend.”

3959

Whoever becomes like a hair in His lane,

3960

He will assuredly become one hair among those of Him.

If you are to be an observer of the Way and perspicacious, Look to see the hair-fine subtlety of such as this.

3961

If not a hair-tip of your selfness remains, The seven degrees of Hell will overlook your badness.

3962

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One day it chanced a lover was weeping tears of blood. Someone asked him: “What’s this weeping for?”

3963

He replied: “They say tomorrow the Creator, When He does the honour of making Himself visible,

3964

Forty thousand years He will all the time be giving, To the elect of His proximity, general audience.

3965

The Speech of the Birds

355

Then one time, from there to themselves they’ll return: They'll fall into supplication, having become accustomed to grace.

3966

For this am I weeping, that I'll be given back to myself; Some instant, I’ll be set up in my own sight.

3967

What could I do at that moment with my own self? Can killing of myself be possible by this sorrow?

3968

So long as you see myself, you see my badness. With God am I when you see me self-less.

3969

That moment when from the self release is mine,

3970

Minus myself, the source divine will be mine.” Whoever goes from the midst, this is annihilation;

3971

When he has been annihilated by fand, that is subsistence, baqa.*"' If, oh heart, you have ups and downs,

3972

Over the Sirat*!* and the blazing fire pass. Be not distressed if fire, from the oil in the lamp,

3973

Produces a smoke like a crow’s wings;

When the oil passes into that fire, It emerges from the viscous being of oil;

3974

Although it fills the duct with blazing flame,*”*

mo Es)

It makes itself the subtile mould of the Koran.*"

If you want to this place to reach, You will to this stage come with no “other” at all:

3976

First the self from yourself make selfless;

3977

Then a Burdg out of nullity press forward.*””

356

The Speech of the Birds

Don the garb of not-being.

3978

The bow! filled with self-annihilation drain.

Then your head make you humble, thrust into the chest. The cowl of “it is not” over your head throw.

3979

In the stirrup of obliteration, of external rationality and egotism make nothing at all. The steed of no-thing press on to that place which is nothingness.

3980

Round a waist in no excess or carelessness,

3981

Of no-thing tie the belt where no waist is.

Erase the attributes of the body and hasten to open it; After this, round the eyes paint the salve of not-being.

3982

Be lost, but to this, too, at once be lost.

3983

Then from this second portion also be lost.

In this wise calmly proceed in this, Until you reach the world of annihilation.

3984

If of this world a hair’s trace is yours, Not yours of that world will there be a hair’s breadth of news.

3985

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION One night moths gathered together: Bent on seeking out a candle they came.

3986

They all said: “Someone’s needed Who will bring of the desired a bit of news.”

3987

One moth flew as far as a distant palaces It so happened, the palace was lit by candle-light.

3988

The Speech of the Birds

DD7

He came back and opened his note-book; He began the description of it after the measure of his understanding.

3989

A tester of measures*!® who had eminence in the assembly Observed that he had no knowledge of candles.

3990

Another went. He passed through the light. From a distance he threw himself against the candle.

3991

He became wing-fluttering in the radiance of the desired. The candle became the conqueror and he, the conquered.

3992

He nevertheless made his return and told something of the mystery: He related a description of being united with the candle.

3993

The tester told him: “This is no testimony, oh dear one; Like that one, how might you ever bear the brand?”

3994

Another got up. He was flying ecstatically drunk; Feet dancing, on top of the candle he perched.

3995

Both his feet touched the flame:

3996

He lost himself, joyously mingled with it. When the blaze enveloped him from head to foot,

3997

His limbs becoming as red as fire, Their examiner, when he saw him from afar,

3998

Taking the candle to himself, and his light that of its light, Said: “This moth alone has achieved the purpose. Who else understands? This is the only one with the news.”

3999

He who has become with no report, and has left no trace In the midst of all, it is he who has the news.

4000

358

The Speech of the Birds

Until you have not become oblivious to body and soul,

4001

How can you ever find any news of the Beloved? Whoever brings you back the sign of a single hair, A hundred “notes’*"” for the bloodying of the soul imposes on you.

4002

In this place there is no access for a person’s carnal self; This place for persons has no room at all.

4003

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Safi was going along like someone with no objective. A stony-hearted one struck him on the back of the neck.

4004

With a heart sore distressed he turned about. He said: “That one who has suffered a blow from you,

4005

It is nearly thirty years since he died and departed; The world of being to an end he brought and went.”

4006

His assailant answered him and said: “O all pretension and no performance, Whenever does a dead man speak? Shame on you

4007

So long as you utter a word, you are not of the Word-less: So long as of you has remained a hair, you are not an intimate.

4008

So long as there is a single hair surplus in the midst, There are a hundred worlds’ distance between.

4009

If you wish to arrive as far as this stage, So long as a hair of you is left, with difficulty will you progress.

4010

What you possess, light a fire; Even to your trousers burn all on the fire.

4011

{??

The Speech of the Birds

659

When nothing is left you, take no thought for a shroud: Naked throw yourself on the fire.

4012

When you and your effects have turned to ashes, The smallest thought of you will become even smaller.

4013

But if, as with Jesus, a needle remains,*"®

4014

Know that in your way remain a hundred waylayers. Although Jesus chattels strewed on the path, A needle nonetheless exposed him to shame.

4015

Since existence in this place becomes a veil, A kingdom and possessions and honour and rank are not tolerable.

4016

Whatever you have, item by item strip from yourself. Then with yourself take to a silent retreat;

4017

When in pursuit of selflessness your interior has become

4018

concentrated,

Outwardly you will rise above good and evil.

When to you goodness and badness no longer remain, You become a lover. Then you become fit for annihilation in love.

4019

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A moon-like Padshah, with the aura of the sun,

4020

Had one son as beautiful as Joseph. Nobody ever had a son of his beauty. No creature possessed that dignity and splendour.

4021

To his dust all were heart-enthralled;

4022

All masters, slaves of his countenance.

360

The Speech of the Birds

If at night from behind the curtain he had appeared, A newly-risen sun would have gilded the plain.

4023

There is no way to describe his face, For the moon is nothing in comparison with it.

4024

Were you to plait a rope of those tresses, A hundred thousand hearts would go down into the well.*”

4025

The world-burning locks of that candle of Taraz*”? Encompassed the whole universe in length.*”!

4026

The description of the ensnaring net of this Joseph-beauty’s tresses Could not completely be told in fifty years.

4027

Eyes like the narcissus, if he blinked

4028

He would set alight the whole cosmos. When his laughter scattered lumps of candy, A hundred thousand roses blossomed without any Spring.

4029

Of his mouth nothing might be known, Because of the non-existent nothing can be said.*”

4030

When he used to step out from behind the pavilion’s flaps, Every one of his hair-tips came with a hundred dealings of despair.

4031

The temptation of the spirit and of the world was that boy. Of whatever I say, that boy was more than it.

4032

When he rode a horse to the hippodrome,

4033

Bared were swords in front of and behind him.

Whoever stole a glance at that lad, Was at once snatched away from the path.

4034

The Speech of the Birds

361

There was a poor beggar, unaware: He had become head over heels in love with that boy.

4035

Apart from helplessness and distraction, from him he had

4036

no portion.

His life was ebbing. He had no courage to speak.

Since he found that agony his constant companion, Love and torment in heart and soul were killing him.

4037

Day and night in the boy’s street he was sitting; His eyes were tight shut against the creatures of the world.

4038

Nobody in the world was his confidant. Thus did he become lost-hearted in yearning.

4039

Day and night, a face like pale gold, tears like silver, Expectant was he sitting, his heart torn in two.

4040

Living because of this was the impatient mendicant, That occasionally the boy might pass by in the distance.

4041

The prince, when from far off he would appear, All the market-place became full of clamour.

4042

In the world would arise a hundred Resurrections;

4043

The people would suddenly all take to flight. The beadles were coming from before and behind: All the time they were marching through a hundred people’s blood.

4044

The cry, “Clear the way!” ascended to the moon. The army was covering nearly a parasang.

4045

When that beggar heard the shouts of the escort, His head was in a whirl and he collapsed.

4046

362

The Speech of the Birds

He fainted and was left lying in blood;

4047

But of his own existence he was left outside.

In that instant he needed a. hundred thousand eyes, So that for him he might weep blood, grievously unrequited.

4048

Sometimes like a Nile that helpless man was becoming. Sometimes the blood from beneath would be flowing.

4049

Sometimes from his sigh tears for him would freeze. Sometimes his tears were scalding out of jealousy for him.

4050

Half killed, half dead, half alive,

4051

And because of poverty, not half a crust did he have. Such a person as this, sunk so low,

4052

Such a prince as that how might he gain? Half a mote in shadow was this witless man.

4053

He wanted to enfold the sun to his breast!

Coming along one day was that king’s son with the troops, When that beggar uttered a wail.

4054

From him issued this wail and he fell unconscious.

4055

He cried: “My soul’s burned away, and reason went before.

How much shall my soul burn for this? All my patience and strength are no more because of this.”

4056

These words that distracted man was saying, All the time beating his head on the stones because of the anguish.

4057

When he said this, it was then his senses failed him.

4058

Then did flow from his eyes and ears his blood.

The Speech of the Birds

363

The escort of the prince became aware of him. Intending to do him harm, the guard went to the Shah.

4059

He said: “For the Shah’s son, oh King, A rootless libertine has conceived a passion.”

4060

Out of jealous wrath the Shah was so incensed, That from the heat of the heart his brain was filled with boiling.

4061

He ordered; “Go and hang him up. His feet chained together, hang him upside down.”

4062

At once the guards of the Padshah went. They made a ring around that beggar.

4063

Then they moved forward dragging him towards the gibbet. About him thronged a blood-letting mob.

4064

No-one took any notice of his suffering, Nor was anyone an interceder on his behalf.

4065

When the vazir had had him brought to the foot of the gallows, Out of the fire of yearning a shriek came from him.

4066

He cried: “A stay of execution for the Creator’s sake grant me, So that I might make under the gibbet for a moment a

4067

prostration.” A stay did grant him that contumacious vazir,

4068

So that he laid his face on the face of the dust. Then in the midst of the prostration he cried out, “Oh God,

4069

Since the Shah is about to kill innocent me,

Before this that I relinquish life, ignorant as I am, Make my portion the beauty of that boy,

4070

364

The Speech of the Birds

That I might see once more his face; Might also to his face life sacrifice.

4071

When I happily the face of that prince do behold, A hundred thousand lives happily could I surrender.

4072

O Padshah, the slave is petitioning a boon of you. He is a lover and the slain of the Way to you,

4073

I am still with all my soul the slave of this door; If I have become a lover, no longer an infidel can I be.

4074

As you a hundred thousand needs do satisfy, Make my request permissible and grant me achievement of the goal.”

4075

When that petitioner on the Path submitted this need, Indeed his sorrow hit the mark.

4076

When the vazir heard his hidden secret,

4077

His heart grieved for the grief of the fagir. To the Padshah he went and was weeping; He stated the condition of that enraptured man as it was.

4078

He related the pressing urgency of his secret orisons.*”° He told of his cry of need in the midst of his prostration.

4079

In the Shah, on account of the dervish’s sorrow, the heart

4080

was moved with sadness.

He was sweetened and set his heart on granting forgiveness. The Shah straight away said to that king’s son, “Spurn not this fallen man.

4081

At once get up and to the foot of the gallows go. With that love-sick man a drinker of suffering’s blood be.

4082

The Speech of the Birds

365

Speak to the one afflicted for you; He is your heart-lost. Give him back his heart.

4083

Act kindly to him who has suffered your wrath. Share the cup with him who has tasted your venom.

4084

Take him off the pavement and bring him to a garden of roses. When you come, bring him with you to me.”

4085

The prince of the beauty of Joseph went,

4086

To consort in union with a beggar.

That sun of the fiery face went, To sit in intimate communion with a mote.

4087

That sea full of exquisite pearls went, To touch hands with a water-drop.

4088

Now is the time to clutch the brow in surprise; To stamp the feet in dancing; to clap the hands together.

4089

Well, that prince came to the gallows’ foot,

4090

A tumult arose like Resurrection Day. He saw the beggar-man into the throes of death fallen.

4091

His head bent askew, fallen to the dust he found him.

The dust from the blood of his two eyes to mud had turned.** A world full of his sighs had been reaped.

4092

He had been obliterated, been lost, become nothing.

4093

Tears came into that prince’s eyes.

He wished to keep the tears hidden from the army. Are not tears unfitting in kings?

4094

366

The Speech of the Birds

Tears flowed like rain on this occasion; A hundred worlds of sorrow now were garnered:

4095

Whoever in love has been true,

4096

In the end the beloved becomes his lover, too.

If in sincerity love becomes yours, Your lover your beloved will for you become.

4097

In the end, the sun-like son of kings, Out of kindness to that beggar gently called.

4098

The beggar had not heard his voice, Though so often from a distance he had seen him.

4099

When the beggar lifted his head from the roadway’s dust,

4100

He saw the king’s face face-to-face;*”

The burning fire with the ocean of water,*”° Though he is burning he does not flinch;

4101

That heart-lost dervish was afire;

4102

Proximity with the sea came fittingly to him. He was about to expire. He said: “O prince, Since I am in a state as weak as this, you could kill me easily:

4103

There was no need for this vast array of troops!” This he said, and you could say he had never been;

4104

He uttered a shout, yielded up the soul, and died. Like a candle, he gave a last splutter of laughter and went out.

4105

Once union with the sweetheart became for him a certainty, He was absolutely extinguished and non-existent became.

4106

The Speech of the Birds

367

Travellers in the field of love know What before love’s annihilation it can do to men.

4107

Oh you whose existence is mingled with non-existence,

4108

Your relish with want savoured,

Until you experience a period of ups and downs, How can you have any knowledge of repose?

4109

How bravely have you shot up like a lightning flash, But, for a parcel of rubbish, ended up stuck in mud and sand!

4110

What is this you are doing? Come out like men bold. Incinerate reason. Come out mad.

4111

If you do not wish to ply this alchemy,*’ At least come along and have a look for a moment.

4112

How long will you stay thinking. Become like me minus the self. 4113 For once, concerning yourself, show foresight, That in the end you may attain to dervishism; In the plenitude of unalloyed relish, to selflessness attain.

4114

I, who have not remained I, nor other than I,

4115

My good and evil are above reason.

I have to myself become completely oblivious; My only remedy is nothing but being remediless.

4116

When the sun of poverty upon me shone, Both the two worlds twirled in a single window’s shaft of light.*

4117

I, when I saw the shaft of the sun,

4118

I was no more. A water-drop had passed into the main stream.

368

The Speech of the Birds 4119

All that I had sometimes won and sometimes lost, All into the black waters I threw.

I was cancelled out. I was lost, nothing of me remained. I remained a shadow: my swirling mote did not remain.

4120

I was a drop, I was lost in the Ocean of Mystery. I do not now that drop rediscover.

4121

Although to disappear is not for everyone, Yet I in fana did vanish, and there are many like me.

4122

Who is there in the world, from the Fish to the Moon,

4123

Who would not desire to become lost here?

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A man of pure faith asked a question of Nuri;*”?

4124

He said: ““How might one from us rise to the Unione”

The Shaikh replied: “For both of us seas of fire and light Must be passed; a long, long, road.

4125

When you are putting these Seven Seas behind, All at once a fish will allure you.

4126

A fish that when through the chest it has breathed in a breath The first and the last it draws in.

It is a fish so big, neither its head nor its tail is visible.

>

4127

4128

Its home, in the middle of the ocean of needlessness. When, crocodile-like, both worlds it snaps up,

4129

The creation in one moment it entirely swallows.” At these speeches every single one of the birds in the valley Hung its head in tribulation.

4130

The Speech of the Birds

369

All of them realised that a bow of this kind Is not for a handful of weaklings’ arms.

4131

At these homilies their spirits were in turmoil. In that staging-post many even died, their weakness exposed.

4132

But all the birds left there,

4133

Driven by remorse, braced themselves for the onward march. Years did they traverse deserts and high ascents. A whole long life was spent in their travels.

4134

That which in this Way confronted them, How might any description of it answer?

4135

If you also one day to the Way descend, One after another its difficult passes you will experience.

4136

You will re-experience what they accomplished. Clear to you will become the agony they suffered.

4137

In the end, of all that host

4138

One in every thousand of them arrived at the destination. Meanwhile, some were drowned in the sea.

4139

Again, some were eliminated and disappeared.

And some on lofty mountain-tops Thirsting gave up the ghost, overcome by heat and hurts.

4140

Again for some, from the burning of the sun, Wings were scorched and hearts broiled.

4141

And some, the lions and tigers on the route In a trice caused to penish horribly.

4142

370

The Speech of the Birds

Again there were those who remained unaccounted for,

4143

Left pulverised between the strangling claws of ravenous beasts. Yet others, in deserts, lips parched, Thirsty in the heat died of exhaustion.

4144

And some out of lust for a grain,**”°

4145

Killed their fellows like madmen.

Some were sorely stricken, They lagged behind and were cut off.

4146

Yet again, some at marvels on the way Stayed halted at the site.

4147

And others to the enjoyment of siren songs Yielded their bodies, neglectful of the quest.

4148

Eventually, out of hundreds of thousands, than one in

4149

each thousand No more arrived at that place; a very few.

A world full of birds had been taking to the road; No more than thirty made it to the end.

4150

Thirty bodies without wings and feathers, sore and feeble,

4151

Broken-hearted, souls surrendered, bodies mutilated,

Beheld a Majesty undefineable and beyond description, Beyond reason’s comprehension, and also intuitive insights.

«4152

The lightning of utter self-sufficiency was flashing; A hundred worlds in a single moment’s flash it burned away.

4153

A hundred thousand formidable suns,

4154

,

A hundred thousand moons and stars the more,

The Speech of the Birds

371

All in crowds they were seeing. Struck with amazement, Like motes they were put in a dancing whirl.

4155

All exclaimed: “What a marvel, when the sun

4156

A perishable mote must be in this reckoning, How should we in this place make any showing? Ah the waste, our sufferings on the road!

4157

We have removed our hearts entirely from ourselves;

4158

This is not the return that we expected.”

All these birds, when they gawped disappointedly, Like fowls with throats about to be cut were left.**!

4159

They were extinguished and lost, become no-thing at all, Awaiting, still, what stroke of fortune might come.

4160

In the end to those before the Exalted Portal A herald of the Glory suddenly stepped forth.

4161

He saw thirty infirmly doting birds waiting,

4162

Lacking wing and feather, at the end of their tether,

bodies melting. From head to foot in amazement they were stayed, Neither emptiness was left them nor repletion.

4163

He said: “Well now, this people, whence do they come? In such a halting place as this for what do they come?

4164

What, you good-for-nothings, is your name? Or where has been your hunting ground?

4165

Or what does anyone call you in the world?

4166

On what business does such a handful of the useless arrive?”

Se,

The Speech of the Birds

Together they all responded: “We have come here So that the Simurgh should be Padshah over us.

4167

We are mad for this Court: We are the heart-and repose-surrenderers of the Way.

4168

A long time has elapsed while we have been travelling this

4169

road;

Out of thousands, we thirty have reached the Gate. In hope have we come from a long journey, That we might audience have of this Presence.

4170

How might of our sufferings that Padshah deign to approve? But at least out of kindness He may spare us a glance.”

4171

The herald replied: “Oh demented,

4172

Like those soaked in the blood of hearts,

Whether you exist in the world or whether you do not, He remains eternally Absolute Sovereign.

4173

A hundred thousand worlds filled with troops Are but a single ant at the door of this Padshah.

4174

After all, what arises from you but blood and pus? So go back on your tracks, oh contemptible flock.”

4175

At this speech each was so deprived of hope That straight away each was like one forever dead.

4176

They all asked: “Is it that this great Padshah Throws us ignominiously out on the road?”

4177

From Him no one ever suffered ignominy,

4178

And if their’s was revilement from Him, would it not

count as honour?

The Speech of the Birds

373.

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Majnun said: “If all on the face of the earth Were all the time to pour on me praises,

4179

I would not desire the praise of anyone: Let Laila’s disparagement be eulogy enough for me.

4180

One word of dispraise from her is better than a hundred _ plaudits. Better than kingship of both the two worlds is her name.”

4181

My religion I have told you, oh dear one, If it were revilement, what would it matter anyway?

4182

The herald said: “The lightning flash of the Glory becomes manifest. It annihilates every soul;

4183

As the soul with a hundred lamentations burns, What’s its use?

4184

At that moment, what use are honour and degradation?” That love-scorched group replied: “Our souls and the blazing fire!

4185

When does any moth flee from a flame, Since it in the flame finds the Presence?*”

4186

Although for us union with the Beloved is not to be, At least the burning will be ours. So be it.

4187

If there is to be no access to that Beloved, There is nothing here but just to ask the way.”

4188

374

The Speech of the Birds

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION All the birds of the time Brought the story of the moth into the open.

4189

They all said to the moth: “Oh weakling, Until when will you be risking this precious soul?

4190

Since you will not be brought by the candle into union, Do not surrender life in error. How much longer, pursuit of the unattainable?”

4191

At these words the moth went beserk like a drunk. He at once provided those simpletons with their answer.

4192

He said: “This is enough for me, that I forever heart-lost be. Though I gain no access to it, in it perfection I might reach.”

4193

When all stalwarts entered into love of Him,

4194

From head to foot were they drowned in pain. Although needlessness was outside computation, His grace ever had a fresh countenance;

4195

Grace’s herald came and opened the door. Every moment he opened yet another veil.

4196

A world without him on guard became manifest: Irradiated them in perpetuity by the Light of Lights.

"2

eqgory

He seated all of them on the throne of proximity: Seated them on the couch of honour and respect.

4198

He placed a script in front of them all. He said: “Read it right through to the end.”

4199

The Speech of the Birds The record of that group, by way of allegory Will make known this embarrassing condition.*4

375 4200

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Joseph for whom the stars burnt wild rue,**

4201

When his ten brothers sold him,

Malik Du’r**® bought him from them. As he was buying him cheaply, he demanded their receipt.

4202

From that party a receipt he obtained on the spot. He thus held those ten brothers witnesses.

4203

When the great man of Egypt purchased Joseph, That treachery-filled testimony came to Joseph.

4204

Eventually, Joseph having himself become ruler, The ten brothers came thither.

4205

Joseph’s face they did not recollect. Before him they threw themselves down:

4206

They desired the means of life for themselves. Honour they made hostage while they wanted bread.

4207

The truthful Joseph said: “O men, I have a document in the Hebrew tongue.

4208

Nobody in my entourage is able to read it. If you read it, bread I will give in plenty.”

4209

All were in Hebrew versed and most excellently. Delightedly they said: “O King, bring the paper.

4210

376

The Speech of the Birds

— May his heart be blind who this visitation from the

4211

Presence

He does not hear as his own story. How far, self-conceit? —

Their receipt to them Joseph handed.

4212

Trembling fell upon their limbs.

Not a line of this writing could they read, Nor any of its purport did they know how to deliver.

4213

All of them out of grief in distress were left; Left afflicted by what had been done to Joseph.

4214

At once the tongues of all of them became limp. By the seriousness of the business all became dispirited.

4215

Joseph spoke: “One might say you’ve lost consciousness. At the time of reading the document, why did you grow silent?” They all answered him: “For us keeping silent Is better than reading this paper aloud and having necks

4217

severed.”’*”

When those thirty bedraggled birds looked At the writing on that esteemed document,

4218

All that all of them had done Had been indited to the last jot.

4219

All this of itself there was and this was hard, but,

4220

When those captives looked properly, They saw how they had gone and followed their own devices: Their own Josephs had they thrown into a well;

4221

The Speech of the Birds

OTT

The soul of Joseph ignominiously burned, But then conspired to sell him.

4222

Do you not know, you beggarly nobody, You sell a Joseph at every breath?

4223

Joseph, when he will become Padshah,

4224

Will become the eminence of the Court,

You in the end, a mendicant and hungry, To him will turn in your nakedness.

4225

Since by him your business will be burnished, For what reason must he be sold cheap?

4226

The souls of those birds, out of shame and mortification,

4227

Unfeigned repentance assumed, and their souls turned to

tutty. When purified entirely of all they all became, They were all inspirited by the light of Majesty:

4228

Again from the beginning, slaves fresh in spirit they became. Again in another way amazed did they become.

4229

Their commissions and omissions of old Were erased and their breasts were rid of them.

4230

The Sun of Proximity*®* shone before them. The lives of all by Its rays were cauterized.

4231

Then by reflection, the faces of the thirty birds of the world The face of the Simurgh*”’ found, from the world.

4232

When these thirty birds looked hard,

4233

No doubt about it, these thirty birds were that “Thirty-Birds”.

378

The Speech of the Birds

In amazement all of them were startled;

4234

Again, in another way did they become amazed. Themselves the complete Simurgh they saw; The Simurgh Himself was ali the time the si murgh !

4235

When upon the Simurgh they looked, These si murgh were He, that One in that place;

4236

But if upon themselves they looked,

4237

These thirty birds, they were that Other.

And if they looked at both together, Both were the one Simurgh in every way;

4238

These were that One, and that One was these;

4239

In all the world:nobody has heard this! All those were left consumed by astonishment: They were bereft of the faculty of thought, and could not work it out.

4240

Since they, from a state of nothingness, nothing understood, Wordlessly that Majesty they dumbly questioned.

4241

They asked for the unveiling of this mighty secret; They asked for the solution of You being us and being You.

4242

Wordlessly from that Majesty came the reply, That, “A mirror is this sun-like Majesty.

4243

Whoever comes to it sees himself;

4244

Body and soul, soul and body he sees in it. As you came here thirty birds, Thirty in this mirror have you appeared.

4245

The Speech of the Birds

379

Were you to come back forty or fifty birds, Still from yourselves would the veil be lifted.

4246

Although numerous you have arrived, You see yourself and it is yourself you have seen:

4247

How might the eye of anyone reach to Us; The eye of an ant the Pleiades reach?

4248

Have you seen an ant that could lift an anvil? A gnat that could take an elephant between its teeth?

4249

What you knew, when you saw it, it was not that,

4250

And what you said and heard, it was not that.

All these valleys which you have put behind you, And all this manliness that each of you has performed,

4251

All in Our effecting have you been, You have lain in the vale of the Essence of the Attributes.

4252

Since you have remained thirty birds amazed,

4253

Been left without hearts and without patience, and

without spirit,

We are infinitely better than any thirty birds, Because We are the quintessential Thirty Birds.

4254

You are obliterated in Us in a hundred glories and graces That through Us you might again discover yourselves.**”

4255

You have finally been obliterated in Us:

4256

The shadow has become lost in the Sun, and Peace be

upon you.”

380

The Speech ofthe Birds

So long as they were on the march, this had been the burden of the hoopoe’s exhortations. Now they had arrived, neither was beginning nor ending left;

4257

So here the exhortations were drawing to a close: No voyager and no guide was left, and the journey was accomplished.

4258

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION He said: “When in the fire he was set alight, That Hallaj**' completely burned away.

4259

A lover chanced to come by, a stick in his hand. He sat down over that tray of ashes.

4260

Then he loosed his tongue as if it were a tongue of flame. Then he was rummaging among the ashes diligently.

4261

At the same time he was saying: “Tell it straight, Where is he now who so confidently averred, Ana’l-Haqq?’*”

4262

All that you have uttered, all that you have heard, And all that you knew, and that which you have seen,

4263

All of it from the beginning is nothing but fable. Make your self scarce: your abode is not this ruined place.

4264

The principle is needed: the pure root that is independent of want. If there are branches and if there are not, what does it signify?*

4265

There is forever the sun of Reality; Tell the mote to shimmer no longer, nor the shadow, and peace be upon you!”

4266

The Speech of the Birds When more than a hundred thousand centuries had elapsed,

381 4267

Centuries without past and without future time,

After this, by an act of grace to those vanished birds,

4268

The state of annihilation withdrawn, to themselves they were entirely restored. When all the unselfed to self returned,

4269

Into subsistence (baqa) out of annihilation (fana) they came; No-one, young or old, ever has,

4270

Concerning that _fana and this baqa, anything to say. Just as they are far, far away from the scope of perceiving, Definition of these eludes Commentaries and Report.

4271

But by means of an analogical allegory our coevals Have sought explanation of subsistence following annihilation.

4272

How can this be addressed here? For it, compiling a fresh book would be necessary,

4273

Because the mysteries of al-baga and al-fana He knows who 1s fit for them.

4274

So long as you are in being and in not-being, How can you ever set foot in this halting-place?

4275

When neither the former nor the latter remain in your path, How can dreams, you idiot, visit themselves upon you?

4276

Look, to see what the beginning and the end are. If in the end you comprehend this end, where’s the profit?

4277

A drop of sperm was tended with a hundred fondnesses and

4278

favours,

Until it became both intelligent and active.

382

The Speech of the Birds

He has made it aware of His mysteries: Granted it gnosis in His business.

4279

After this, He has obliterated it, a complete effacement,

4280

Down from all that respect throwing it into degradation, Returning it to the state of dust on the road. Then several times again annihilating it;

4281

Then, in the midst of this annihilation, a hundred kinds of

4282

secret

Telling to its absence, yet speaking to it openly. After this, He would grant to it Absolute Eternal Subsistence,

4283

Upon it, the essence of degradation, conferring the highest honour.°

What do you know of what lies before you? Come at last to yourself. Allow yourself reflection.

4284

So long as your soul remains unrejected by the Shah, How might you become the accepted of the Shah in that place?

4285

So long as in annihilation you do not find abasement, In Eternal Subsistence you will never see truthfully.

4286

First He throws you in abasement out into the Way, Then again He suddenly snatches you up in glory.

4287

Become nothing, so that you might be suffused with Being: So long as you are, how can Being enter into you?

4288

Until you vanish in the abasement of annihilation, How might arrive the affirmation of the glory of subsistence?

4289

The Speech of the Birds

383

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION There was a king to whom belonged the world: The Seven Climes were all under his command.

4290

In dominion he was an Alexander,

4291

From Qaf to Qaf of the world were his troops. His rank check-mated the moon;

4292

The moon had placed its two faces in the path of that dignity. That Chosroes had an eminent Vazir,

4293

In great affairs a weigher of subtleties and an astute critic. This most virtuous minister had a son,

4294

All the beauty of the world, the endowment of his face.

Nobody had ever seen one with his beauty, Also, no beauty with so much dignity had ever been seen.

4295

Because of the fairness of face that was this heart-kindler’s,

4296

In daytime he could never come out. If that moon had appeared during the day, A hundred Resurrection Days would have come about!

4297

None in the world of novel freshness arises Till Eternity without End more loved than he.

4298

Cheeks this boy had resembling the sun: Curls too, the colour and scent of pure musk,

4299

That dark muskiness the canopy over his sun; The Water of Life’s lips dry from lacking his.

4300

In the middle of his heart-robbing sun

4301

There was also, of a form like a mote, his mouth.

384

The Speech of the Birds

Its tininess was an incitement to the people. Within it a hundred stars were hid.

4302

As stars show the way in the world, How can thirty be concealed in one atom?

4303

His tresses on his shoulder unruly, In their pride cascaded down his back.

4304

Every fold in the curls of that silver-bodied,

4305

A hundred worlds of soul, in one breath a hundred frustrations:

His tresses on his cheeks had a rich appropriateness; In the tip of every hair they held a hundred marvels.

4306

His eyebrows were in the shape of bows. How might indeed any arm manage those bows?

4307

His enchanting narcissus-eyes in the stealing of hearts Performed by every single eyelash a hundred sorceries.

4308

His ruby lips, source of the Water of Life,

4309

Sweet as sugar, and in freshness new-blown verdure;

The newly sprouting green of beard, the red of his beauty’s visage, The mottled parrot, source of perfection’s furthest limit.**

4310

It would be silliness to talk about his teeth,

4311

Because those gems in their glory spell enslavement. His black mole is the point on the j of the word jamal, beauty. ' The past tense and the future by him are converted to the present.

4312

The Speech of the Birds

385

The description of the loveliness of this boy, Up to the reality of him cannot measure.

4313

To be bnef, because of him the Shah became utterly

4314

infatuated,

And in the calamity of his love was beside himself. Although that Shah was a man of mighty, lofty size, Through longing for that full moon he became a crescent moon.**°

4315

He became so immersed in love of the boy, That of his own existence there was nothing to show.

4316

If the boy were not a moment in his presence, The heart no longer his would be raining tears of blood.

4317

He had no rest a moment without him. Because of this desire, not a minute’s patience did he have.

4318

Day and night not for an instant did he rest without him: His boon companion was he, night and day.

4319

Until nightfall he would seat him the live-long day. Secrets would he be telling him, the possessor of the moon-cheeks.

4320

When the dark night appeared, No sleep or repose had the Shah,

4321

And that boy used in front of him to be overcome by sleep. The Shah would dote upon his face.

4322

In the radiance and light of the heart-snatcher’s candle, The whole night the Shah would be lying impatient.

4323

386

The Speech of the Birds

The Shah on the moon-faced would weep; Every night a hundred hues of tears of blood he would shed,

4324

Sometimes roses on his face scattering, Sometimes dust from the boy’s hair dispelling,*””

4325

Sometimes for the pain of love, like rain from a cloud On the boy’s face he would be splashing the tears of pining.

4326

Sometimes he would carouse over that moon:

4327

Sometimes raising the cup to celebrate his face. Not one instant did he let him out of his presence: So long as he existed, the Shah considered him a necessity.

4328

How could that boy be forever ensconced?

4329

But in fear of the Chosroes he was tied.

If he were ever one moment to leave the royal entourage, Out of jealousy** the Shah would have cut off his head from his body.

4330

Also were desirous both his father and mother Of for a moment themselves seeing the son’s face.

4331

But, because of fear of the Shah, they lacked the courage

4332

For a long time, to bring this matter out into the open. There was in the purlieus of the prince A girl sun-faced like a picture.

4333

The lad fell in love with the sight of her:

4334

For her he turned as ardent as fire.

One night he contrived a rendezvous with her. He embarked upon a tryst as delightful as his own face.

4335

The Speech of the Birds Secretly, in the absence of the Shah, he consorted with her;

387 4336

That night, as it happened, the Shah was drunk. At midnight, when the Padshah half-inebriated, A dagger in his hand, leapt up from his bed,

4337

He searched for the boy, of whom no sign did he find. In the end, there where the boy was, on this place he stumbled.

4338

He saw a girl seated with the boy. He saw both the two of them had hearts wrapped together.

4339

When he saw this situation, the celebrated Shah,

4340

The blazing of jealousy penetrated him to the quick. Drunkenness and love, and then a great Sultan —

4341

How could it be, his beloved with another? _ The Shah said to himself: “To such as I, a Shah,

4342

How have you preferred another? This surely is folly. What I have so lavishly done for you, That nobody has ever done for anyone.

4343

As recompense for me now you do this. Tear the face. The truth is, you’re playing hard to get.”

4344

The key of the treasuries in your hands, And the proud ones of the world inferior to you,

4345

Also my confidant, my perpetual companion, too, Both my torment and the unending cure of it,

4346

You consort in secret with a beggar? I’ll rid the place of you this very moment.”

4347

388

The Speech of the Birds

This he said and, did that puissant prince give the order That the boy be manacled in heavy irons.

4348

His unalloyed silver in the midst of the dust of the street, Tanning by the Shah’s sticks made like indigo.

4349

After this happened, the Shah commanded that gallows be raised for him: That he should be impaled in the middle of the scaffold.

4350

First, the Shah decreed, he should be flayed,

4351

Then he was to be hanged upside down,

So that no-one who, as he had, had been the Padshah’s

4352

companion

Should after this look at anyone else. The boy they meanly and cruelly seized, To hang his deluded head from the gibbet.

4353

The vazir was informed about his son’s adversity. Dust on his head he cried: “O darling of your father,

4354

What abandonment by grace*”® was this that’s come your way? What fate was this, that the Shah became your foe?”

4355

Two of the Padshah’s slaves were there,

4356

Setting about putting an end to the boy.

The vazir arrived, a heart filled with grief and anguish. To each he presented a night-illuming pearl.

4357

He said: “Tonight this Padshah is drunk, And this boy has not committed so great a sin.

4358

When the illustrious Shah sobers up, He will be both remorseful and also impetuous:

4359

The Speech of the Birds

389

Whoever might the boy have killed, without a doubt The Shah will spare him not one out of a hundred lives.”

4360

Upon this both those slaves said:

4361

“If the Shah were to come and find no victim,

He would straight away from us a stream of pure blood pour. Then he would string us up head down.”

4362

The vazir fetched a murderer from the prison. Then he had the skin peeled off his body like a garlic clove.

4363

He made him dangle from the gallows upside down; He made the earth with his blood rose-coloured clay,

4364

And that boy he hid behind a curtain, Against what might be born from behind the veil of fortune.

4365

The Shah when next day he became sober,

4366

Still with his wrath was his heart burning.

Those servants that Padshah summoned. He asked: “To that dog what in the way of cruelty have you done?”’.

4367

They both answered him: “We have truly In the midst of the scaffold hung, drawn and quartered him.

4368

We skinned him from one end to the other. Now he is on the gallows upside down.”

4369

When he heard this answer through, the Shah Was glad at this account from the two ghuldms.

4370

To each he presented a precious robe of honour; Both gained office and promotion.

4371

390

The Speech of the Birds

The Shah ordered: “Thus for a long time Leave him degraded, on the gibbet rotting,

4372

So that from what has been done to this vile wretch The people of the age might take a warning.”

4373

When the folk of his city heard this tale,

4374

Their hearts sorrowing, grief they felt for the boy’s sake. A multitude came to the place to look. All of them were unable to recognise him.

4375

A lump of meat hacked to pieces and covered in blood,

4376

Its skin torn off it, its head down turned,

Those who, great and small, saw him thus,

4377

In secret as if it were rain wept tears of blood. Mourning for that moon continued all day till night. The city was full of sorrow and regret and sighing.

4378

After some days without that holder of his heart, The Shah became remorseful over what he had done.

4379

His anger subsided. His love waxed strong. Love made this lion-hearted Shah an ant.

4380

A Padshah with such a Joseph-like one as this, Day and night sitting in joyful privacy,

4381

Intoxicated all the time with the wine of union,

4382

In the hangover’s craving for union, how could he rest? In the end not for a moment could he stand it any more. His occupation was continual pining and nothing more.

4383

The Speech of the Birds

B91

From the torment of separation his soul was burning. In longing he lost all patience and tranquillity.

4384

Into repentance the Padshah descended. He filled the eyes with tears of blood and on the highway’s dust laid his head.

4385

He donned a mourning garb of blue and shut himself away. He sat in the midst of blood and ashes.

4386

After this he ate no food nor took any wine. Sleep fled from his blood-pouring eyes.

4387

When night fell, the prince emerged. He caused the gallows’ foot to be emptied of others.

4388

He went alone beneath that boy’s hanging-rope. He recalled to memory what had been done to him.

4389

As one after the other all that had happened to him to his memory came, From the root of every hair of his there arose a lament.

4390

In his heart the grief exceeded all measure. At every moment mourning was renewed afresh.

4391

Over that one slain he was wailing piteously. His blood copiously he was rubbing on his face.

4392

He was throwing himself to the ground. With his fingers he was digging the backs of his hand.

4393

Had anyone reckoned up his tears, They would have been much in excess of a hundred rains.*”!

4394

All night through was he alone till day, Like a candle all tears and burning.

4395

go2

The Speech of the Birds

When the dawn breeze got up, To his quarters the prince would go.

4396

Into the midst of dust and ashes he would go. All the time misery would be his companion.

4397

When forty days and nights* had entirely passed, Like a hair wisp had the highly stationed Shah become.

4398

He kept his door shut and, the boy’s gallows haunting him, He so grief-stricken for him became that over him he fell ill.

4399

No-one had the courage during the forty days and nights To unloose the lips in converse with the Shah.

4400

After forty nights, no bread or water taken,

4401

That boy he saw glancingly in a dream; His moon-like face drowned in tears,

4402

He was sitting in blood from the top of his head to his feet. The Shah to him said: “O kindly, delicate Enlarger of the

4403

Soul,*

Why from head to foot are you drowned in blood?” He answered: “Because of acquaintance with you I am

4404

in blood,

And because of your lack of constancy I am like this. You have had skin peeled off an innocent. Would this have been fidelity, oh Padshah?

4405

After all, do friends do this to their friends?

4406

I’m an infidel if any infidel were to do this! What had I done that you should have fie garotted? You should sever my head and hang me upside down?

4407

The Speech of the Birds

393

I have now withdrawn countenance from you, Till at the Resurrection I might exact justice from you.

4408

When the tribunal of The Supreme Judge is opened, Justice for me from you will the Creator take.”

4409

When the Shah heard from that moon this reply, Immediately the blood-soaked heart leapt from sleep.

4410

The tumult of inauspiciousness his heart and soul overcame. Harder every moment his difficulty became.

4411

He went quite insane and was beside himself; Weakening was added and the sorrow continued.

4412

He opened the gate of the abode of madness. He started a heart-rending mourning wail.

4413

He cried: “O my heart and soul! I am left with nothing Since in sorrow for you my heart and soul have gone.

4414

Oh you become so distracted on my account, Then cruelly one of the slain of mine,

4415

Who like me has ever smashed his own jewel? This that I have with my own hand done, who has ever done?

4416

It were fitting if I were the one steeped in blood, For why have I killed my own beloved?

4417

At last look where you are, oh child: Do not cancel friendship out, oh child.

4418

Do you no evil, although I have enacted evil,

4419

For all this badness to myself I have done.

394

The Speech of the Birds

I am so baffled and grief-ridden because of you; Dust is on my head and my head in the dust because of you.

4420

Where might I seek you, oh my life? Spare some pity for my baffled heart.

4421

Though from unfaithful me cruelty have you seen, You are the faithful one: do not be cruel to me.

4422

Though if through ignorance I have shed the blood from your body, How long, oh child, must you shed my life’s blood?

4423

I was drunk when this sin came upon me. What was this self when by fate’s decree this came over me?

4424

Were you of a sudden from before me to go, How without you might I in the world stay alive?

4425

Without you, since not for an instant might I remain myself, Life not for more than one or two moments remains to me.

4426

The soul to expiry’s lips has this prince brought, In order in blood to dispense your blood-money.

4427

I am not afraid of my own death; But of my own cruelty I am afraid.

4428

Were eternally my soul to be craving pardon, Still it could not find pardon for this crime.

4429

Would that you were my throat to cut, And from my heart to banish this grief and remorse!

4430

Oh Creator, my soul in this uncertainty has burned: From head to foot in affliction am I burned.

4431

The Speech of the Birds

B95

I have not the strength and endurance for separation. How long must my soul burn in longing?

4432

Take my soul, oh Judge, out of favour,

4433

For no endurance is any longer mine.” In this wise was he speaking until silent he fell. In the silence’s midst without consciousness he fell.

4434

Eventually the messenger of favour entered: The granting of grace after the plaintive plea came.

4435

When the pain of the Padshah exceeded all bounds, That vazir was in hiding in that very place.

4436

He went. In concealment he decked out that boy. Then he sent him to the Shah of the world.

4437

He emerged from behind the curtain like the moon from a cloud. To the Chosroes he went, carrying shroud and sword.**

4438

On the ground he fell before the prince. Like rain he was copiously raining his tears.

4439

When the king of the world saw that moon, At this juncture words fail this story-teller.

4440

The king into the dust and the boy into blood together fell. What might anyone know of how these marvels befell?

4441

_ Whatever after this I say were better left unsaid. The pearl when it is in the depths is not for stringing.*”°

4442

_ The Shah when from separation from him he found release, Both happy, to the private pavilion they repaired.

4443

396

The Speech of the Birds

After this, nobody is informed of the mysteries, Because in this there is no place for others.

4444

That which that one said and this one heard,

4445

Blind eyes have seen that state and deaf ears have heard. Who am I that I should give the description of this? And were I to do so, my life would be forfeit.

4446

Not having arrived, how might I this description give? I should hold my tongue, because I am left far behind.

4447

Were sanction mine from precursors, Soon would they render the description of this to me.

4448

Since here is not a single hair-tip, Here there is no way apart from silence.

4449

Impossible is this, that at any time, might discover Anything but silence the temper of the tongue’s blade.

4450

Although a lily ten-tongued came forward, Enraptured in its own silence would it come.

4451

This time for once I have completed what I have to say. 4452 Doing is needed. How much longer must I talk? Depart in peace.

CONCERNING

HIS OWN

CONDITION

Oh ‘Attar*® you have over the world been scattering The musk-bladder of mysteries,

4453

a hundred thousand every moment!

Because of you the world’s horizons are perfume-filled, And by you the world’s lovers are aroused.

4454

Sometimes press the sighs of love on created beings:

4455

Sometimes strum the notes of the Lover’s Mode:**”

The Speech of the Birds Your poem for lovers has provided the vade-mecum in

ao7 4456

mysteries.

On lovers it has bestowed forever this leavening of substance. The recital by you, as is light by the sun, has been made complete: “The Language of the Birds”, and “The Stages of the Birds”.***

4457

Expecting suffering into this arena enter: Painfully resign the soul and into this Court*®? enter.

4458

In such an arena once the soul has vanished,

4459

Rather, once the arena too has vanished,

If you do not enter with earnest longing imbued, Not a speck of dust from it will appear to you.

4460

In eternity with no beginning, when your yearning has got

4461

on the march,

If you place a step, place it with nght intention. So long as unattainment does not become your sustenance, When might your confused heart come alive?

4462

Reap suffering, because the cure for you is the suffering. In both worlds, the soul’s physic is your suffering.

4463

Do not, oh man of the Way, in my book

4464

Expecting poesy and fancy conceits look. - With a mind for pain my composition scan, In order that you might believe one percent of my anguish.

The ball he hits as far as the goal, Who prompted by desire’s affliction looks into this.

4465

4466

398

The Speech of the Birds

Leave asceticism and simplicity aside: It is pain that is needed: suffering and experience.

4467

Whoever has affliction, let him have no remedy; Whoever seeks a remedy, let him have no soul.

4468

A man requires thirst and fasting and vigils; A thirsty man who for eternity without end might no water reach.

4469

Whoever in this way has not plumbed the painful discourse, Has not seen a speck of the dust of the Lovers’ Path.

4470

Whoever has read this, fit for accomplishing the task has

4471

become,

And he who has comprehended it, felicitated has become. Those of external forms are engrossed by my words. Those of the inner substance are the men for the Mysteries.

4472

This book is the ornament of the ages,*° Providing something for both high and low.

4473

If one as frozen as ice saw this book,

4474

An excellent answer for him would emerge from behind the veil.

My verse has a wonderful property:

4475

Every moment it affords additional boons;

If reading it is vouchsafed you often, There is no doubt each time it will be more agreeable to you.

4476

From this bride, concealed in cadens coyness,

4477

Only gradually will the curtains fall open.

The Speech of the Birds Until the Resurrection, too, no ecstatic such as me

399 4478

Will in composition put pen to paper.

I indeed am, from the Ocean of Truth, scattering pearls: By me speech has been brought to completion, as this book shows.

4479

If I speak praises of myself too much, How might anyone of such praise of myself approve?

4480

Yet the just will indeed acknowledge my worth, For the light of my full moon is not hidden.

4481

Of my esoteric state I have a little related; The versed in discourse will assuredly concede justice.

4482

With what I have scattered upon people’s heads, Though I myself will not remain, until the Resurrection I shall continue:

4483

Until the Day of Reckoning, on people’s tongues I shall be a byword. This is memorial enough.

4484

Were these Nine Spheres to fall apart, Not a single point of this memoir would be lost.

4485

_ If this volume shows even to one person the Way, _ Then in front of him the veil will be cast aside.

4486

- If he attains comfort from this memorial,

4487

_ Tell him to remember in his prayers the composer. I have been scattering roses from this garden; Keep the memory of me fresh among you, oh friends!

4488

400

The Speech of the Birds

Every one in whatever manner there may be, Has in his own special way shown himself a little and quickly passed on.

4489

Therefore I also, like those gone,

4490

Have shown those asleep the bird of the soul. Though you were asleep to this discourse a whole life long, For one moment hearts it might have awakened to the secret.

4491

Undoubtedly my intention will be realised. My care and anxiety will rest allayed.

4492

Much is it that, like a lamp, I have burned myself

4493

In order to illuminate, like a candle, a world.

Like a lamp’s niche my brain has been blackened by smoke; What is lamp-smoke to the Candle of Eternity?

4494

By day my eating was set aside. By night no sleep was mine. By the fire of the heart of all destitute was I left.

4495

To my heart I said: “O you great talker, you, How much more will you say? Shut up and seek the mysteries!”

4496

It replied: “I am consumed in fire, do not blame me.

4497

I would burn away were I not to give utterance.

The ocean of my spirit tosses up a hundred kinds of wave. How can I for a minute be silent?”

4498

I do not boast any superiority in this over anyone; It is myself that I keep preoccupied with religion.

4499

Although the heart is not void of the pain of it, How might I say more, since I am not the man enough for it?

4500

The Speech of the Birds

401

All this is an incantation of futility: Real men’s task is the syphoning-off of I-ness.

4501

The heart that has busied itself with that futility, From it what can come once that tale’s worn thin?

4502

With life a clean break must be made:

4503

For all these vanities, atonement must be made.

How long will the ocean of the soul be in turmoil? Soul-sacrificing is needed, and it will be calmed.

4504

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When that learned theologian into the throes of death fell, He cried: “Had I known before this

4505

How much listening has over talking, How should I have wasted a lifetime preaching?

4506

Were speech through eloquence fine as gold, Those words unspoken are more golden.

4507

Practising has become the lot of manly braves. Our position has turned out to be sermonising. This is the trouble.”

4508

If, like the genuine, the pricking of faith were yours, That which I am uttering would for you be the

4509

Absolute Certainty.**' Because of friendship for the self, the heart is a stranger;

4510

Whatever I say, to you it is a fable. Sleep you then without any care like one undutiful, While I spin you a good yarn!

4511

402

The Speech of the Birds

If ‘Attar were to sing you a pleasant, sweet lullaby, A more agreeable sleep might come over you and you would sleep well.

4512

What a lot of oil have we poured out on the sand! What a lot of pearls have we hung from the throats of swine!

4513

What a number of times have we set up this festive board! How many times have we risen from this feast hungry!

4514

For all that we tutored the carnal spirit, it has not obeyed.

©4515

Much medicine has it swallowed, but to no medicine did it take.

As by me nothing will be accomplished, Of myself I have washed my hands and withdrawn.

4516

The pull of God must be sought from them,*” For never in my hands will this come out right.

4517

The carnal spirit waxes fatter every moment, There is no expectation that it will be better than this.

4518

It hears nothing through which it does not grow fatter! It hears all this; not an instant does it improve.

4519

Until I die, I with a hundred griefs of torment,

4520

It will take no advice. Oh God be my refuge!

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When Alexander, in the way of faith,*® died,

4521

Aristotle said: “O King of the Faith, As long as you lived, unceasingly you gave counsel. For the people today this counsel has become perfected.”

4522

The Speech of the Birds Take advice oh heart, because there is a maelstrom of

403 4523

calamity.*** Be living-hearted,*® because death lurks behind your neck. I the whole speech and oratory of the birds To you have related. Exercise understanding, you without the knowledge.

4524

Among lovers the birds are included, Because before death’s summons they fly the cage.

4525

Each has a different definition and explanation, Because birds have a different tongue.

4526

Before the Simurgh that person has perfected the elixir Who has known the language of all those birds.**°

4527

How might you learn the good fortune of the spiritual In the midst of the philosophy of the Greeks.**”

4528

So long as from this philosophy you fail to isolate yourself, When will you ever, yes, you, become a man fit for spiritual wisdom?

4529

Whoever in the Path of Love mentions that other Is not, in the book of religion, an understander of love.

4530

The “p” of “polytheism” in this, with the truth of intuitive knowledge, Would I prefer to the “ph” of “philosophy”,

4531

Because if the curtain is torn from unbelief,

4532

You can give impiety a wide berth,

But that slippery learning when it waylays, Mostly men of intuitive knowledge it plunders.

4533

404

The Speech of the Birds

If by that sophistry you would enlighten hearts,

4534

How will you, like “Umar the Discriminator, ever burn?*®

When the Candle of Faith has burnt up the “wisdom”

4535

of the Greeks,

The candle of the heart cannot be bartered for that learning.

The wisdom of Yathrib*® is significant enough, oh man of Faith! Spread dust over the Greeks in ardour for the Faith.

4536

Till when, oh ‘Attar, will you go on speaking?

4537

You are not the man for this colossal task.

From your own existence step purely out:

4538

Become the dust of non-existence on the face of the earth.

So long as you are you, the trampled on of all the base, There is for you no becoming the crown on the head of all.

4539

Be annihilated, so that all the birds of the Way,

4540

Might grant you access to Subsistence in the Court. Your utterance is your best guide, Because this composition is the Pir of the Way for everyone.

4541

Though to the birds of the Way I am nobody, I have memorialised them.*” Is this not enough for me?

4542

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION That aged Pir said to a Safi, “How long will you be discoursing on Men of God?”

4543

The Safi answered: “Always agreeable to women Are they who are forever talking about men!’’*”!

4544

The Speech of the Birds Although I am not of them, on them I have discoursed. I am joyous-hearted because this tale have I narrated

405 4545

concerning the soul. Though the only share I have of sweetness*” is my name, This is far better than having a mouth holding poison.

4546

The whole of my work is madness:*” Being alien is rationality’s part in this preaching.

4547

The spirit will not be cleansed of alienation So long as it does not breathe the fragrance of this lunacy.

4548

I do not know what I should say. Ah the wonder! How should I be looking for what has not been lost? Ah the wonder!

4549

Out of stupidity, good fortune have I abandoned: I have recited the lessons of the heedless unengaged.

4550

If to me they were to say: “O you who lost the way, Of you yourself forgiveness seek for the ego’s sins”,

4551

I would not know how this matter might be nghted, Or how forgiveness for these hundred lives might be sought.

4552

If for a moment I was on His Way engaged, How would I be so taken up as this with poetry?

4553

If I had a station on the Way to Him, The “p” in “poetry” would for always be for the “p” in “being perverse’.

4554

Composing poetry is a proof of unfruitfulness: Making the self visible is idolatry.

4555

406

The Speech of the Birds

Since I have in the world found no-one to share secrets,

4556

So here I have uttered my verses quite sotto voce. If you are a mystery-seeking man, go on seeking; Life scatter away and let blood, and you are a seeker of the mystery;

4557

Because I have poured out tears of blood While I have pushed forward words of such blood-letting as this.

4558

If you have the nose for my ocean profound,*”* You will sniff the scent of blood from my words.

4559

Whoever falls sick because of the “poison” of innovation,*” Sufficient were these lofty words for his antidote.

4560

Although I am an “attar and dispenser of antidotes,

4561

I have a heart burnt as black as dealers in adulterated musk.

There is a people with no salt and mightily ignorant; Consequently, because of this, I pine in solitude.

4562

When I lay before me my meal of dry bread, I moisten it from my own eyes with the salty liquid of the lost.

4563

With my heart for this table I make a roast; From time to time Gabriel I make my guest.

4564

Since the Archangel I have as a mess-mate, * How can I the bread of every and any luckless character break?

4565

I do not want the bread of any of unsound disposition; 4566 This bread is enough for me, especially with that accompaniment. The agony of the heart has become my spirit’s enlarger. The True Reality*”® has become my unannihilatable treasure.*”’

4567

The Speech of the Birds

407

Any man rich with a treasure such as this, How should he become under obligation to worthless wretches?

4568

Thanks be to God that I am no courtier: I am unattached to any of the unworthy.

4569

How should I on my heart bondage impose, Make the name of any riff-raff “lordship”?

4570

I have not eaten the victuals of any tyrant, Nor have I devised a patron’s name for my book:*”

4571

My lofty aspiration is for my Object of Praise only; 479 It is nourishment enough for the body and support enough for my spirit.

4572

The precursors have taken me to themselves,

4573

So what to me are any of these self-regarders? As soon as I became free of the affairs of men,

4574

In the midst of a hundred woes joyous I became. I am beautifully free of this malevolent crowd, Whether you call me bad or whether commendable.

4575

I have so been left in my own anguish That at all the world I have snapped my fingers.

4576

If you were to hear my sorrows and torments, You would be more surprised than I am.

4577

Body and soul have gone and, of my body and soul, The only share I have left is the pain and the sighs.

4578

408

The Speech of the Birds STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION

A watcher of the Way in the throes of death

4579

Said: “As for the road I have no means or provision,

In the sweat of shame I have shaped a handful of clay. Then from it I have made a brick.

4580

I have a glass full of tears, do I. For a shroud, I have found some rags.

4581

Were you first to offer from those tears a drop of blood,

4582

Then to place that brick beneath my head, And that shroud which I have soaked in the water from

4583

my eyes,

Ah the pity, made entirely into paste; That shroud when you cover all my body with, Thereupon, quickly, surrender me to the dust.

4584

When this you have performed, until the Day of Tumult, from the clouds Upon my dust may nothing but sorrow rain.”

4585

Do you know what so much grief as this was for? No gnat can ride a gale.

4586

The shadow is seeking union with the sun. It finds it not. This is the folly of love, and the absurdity.

4587

Although this impossibility itself is plain to see, Apart from contemplating the impossible it has no other business.

4588

Whoever commits himself to this contemplation, What better than this might he contemplate besides?

4589

The Speech of the Birds

409

I find harder every moment my problem. How can I nd my heart of this difficulty?

4590

Who like me has remained solitary and companionless? Remained dry-lipped drowned in the water of the sea?*®°

4591

I have no-one at all for a confidant and soul-mate.

4592

I have no-one who is either a fellow-sufferer or in the secret.

I gain no regard because of zeal for the Praised; Nor against the darkness, any spiritual intimacy;

4593

Nor the heart of anyone, nor even my own heart either; Nor a mind for goodness, nor a mind for evil either.

4594

I have no longing for the left-overs of the Sultan’s table, Nor do I have the punches on the back from his doorman.

4595

Not an instant do I in solitude muster any patience; Nor for a moment, in a heart remote from people.

4596

My states are all up and down, Like what that Pir said about himself.

4597

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Yes, a man of pure faith observed: “For all of thirty years I have outside of myself continuously lived my life.

4598

Like Ishmael**! in himself not visible

4599

That moment when his father was cutting off his head,

So is that person who has passed a life Like that single moment Ishmael had.”

4600

What does anyone know how in this toilsome prison I pass my life by day and by night?

4601

410

The Speech of the Birds

Sometimes like a candle in expectancy I burn. Sometimes like an April cloud I am weeping.

4602

You happily see the candle’s bright flame.

4603

You do not see the fire in its head.

He who looks at the body from outside, How might he ever have access to inside the breast?

4604

Like a ball in a hockey stick’s crook, never Do I know my foot from my head, my head from my foot.

4605

I have derived no profit whatsoever from my existence, Because that which I did and that which I said were nothing whatsoever.

4606

Ah, alas, I have no comradeship from anyone; My life has been lost in unachievement.

4607

When I was able, I was unwitting. What was the use of that? When I became aware, I no longer had the power to act.

4608

Today, apart from impotence and apart from helplessness, I have no means whatsoever.

4609

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When Shibli had gone from this desolate place, Some gallant fellow saw him in a dream.

4610

He asked: “How has God treated you, oh lucky one?” Shibli answered: “When my reckoning turned out tricky,

4611

Since He saw myself so much my own enemy, Saw my weakness and despair and incapacity,

4612

The Speech of the Birds

411

He was moved by compassion for my helplessness. Then out of kindness He entirely forgave.”

4613

O Creator, to You I am a helpless wayfarer; To You am I like an ant stuck in a pit.

4614

I do not know what I am fit for,

4615

Or where I am or what or who I am. Bodyless, luckless, profitless,

4616

Destitute, distracted, lacking heart,

A life in the blood of anguish melted, Life’s requittal unpaid,

4617

Whatever has been done, the fine is being exacted; Upon my lips life is reaching the end.

4618

The heart having eluded me, the Faith having been lost,

4619

My form is passing away, the meaning lost. I am neither an unbeliever nor a Muslim do I remain,

4620

Staying bewildered between the two. Neither believer nor infidel, what should I do?

4621

Left bemused and without resolution, how should I act?

I am caught in the narrow gate, The face turned to the wall of phantasy.

4622

For me, unable to help myself, open wide this door, And to this one fallen by the wayside show the way.

4623

Although the slave has no provision at all for the road,

4624

Yet he never rests at all from tears and sighs.

412

The Speech of the Birds

You could with the sighs burn his sin away,

4625

And with his tears, wash clean the Black Book. To whomsoever has for harvest his oceans of tears,

4626

Say “Come”, because he is worthy of this dwelling place.

But to him the burden of whose eyes is not tears of blood, Say, “Go”, for he has nothing to do with us.

4627

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION A Way-Pioneering Pir was wending his way along a road. He chanced to see a party of the spiritual ones.

4628

There was some cash of fine minted coin in the midst.

4629

The spiritual ones were snatching it from each other. The Pir at once put that people to the question. He said: “What is this cash? Tell me now.”

4630

A spiritual bird answered him: “O Pir of the Way, One afflicted was passing away in this place.

4631

He heaved a sigh from a pure heart and went. He shed hot tears on the dust and went.

4632

We are now those warm tears and the cold sigh

4633

Taking from each other on the Way of Pain.” Oh Lord, I have tears and sighs enough. If nothing else I have, this load I have.

4634

If the tears of the Way are legal tender there, The slave has these goods to render there.

4635

With sighs blow clear the arena of my soul, Then wash with my tears my record.

4636

The Speech of the Birds

413

I am going the wrong way, not having found the Way; Not having found anything but a heart, black like the record.

4637

Be my Guide and wash my record clean; Of both the two worlds wash the slate of my soul clean.

4638

Because of You unending is the grief I have.

4639

If I have life, for Your sake I am ashamed.

I have borne life to its end in sorrow on Your account.

4640

Would that I might have a hundred lives more, That I might pass in longing for You; Suffer all the time pains afresh.

4641

I have been left at my own hands in a hundred convulsions. My hand, oh my Hand-Taker, take.

4642

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Abt Sa‘id of Maihana**” with men of the Way Was one day in the midst of the khangah.

4643

A lurching drunk pouring tears arrived At the hospice door like someone demented.

4644

He lifted the veil of dissentience: He continued his crying and obscene drunkenness.

4645

The Shaikh, when he saw him, went up to him.

4646

Moved by pity he stood over his head.

He said: “Now, you drunkard, no spoiling for a fight here! For what are you? Give me your hand and get up.”

4647

414

The Speech of the Birds

The drunkard replied: “O you whose Beloved is Almighty God, Taking the hand, oh Shaikh, is no business of yours.

4648

You take your own way and go like a man. Leave me, my head brought low, to Him.

4649

If it were for just anyone to offer a helping hand, The ant would have occupied a princely throne.

4650

Extending the hand of help is not for you to do. Go! I am nothing in your reckoning. Go!”

4651

The Shaikh into the dust fell in sadness because of him.

4652

He blushed red on account of the tears on that one’s

yellow face.

O You the All, be You indispensible to me. I have fallen. You be the taker of my hand.

4653

I have got stuck in the prison-pit,** feet fettered. In such a pit as this who but You might take my hand?

4654

Both my jail-sore body has rotted, And my affliction-torn heart withered.

4655

Although I have come in from the road so stained, Forgive, because it is from prison and from the pit that I come.

4656

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION That dear one said: ‘““Tomorrow, if the:Lord of Glory

Were on the Plain of the Resurrection to question me,

4657

The Speech of the Birds

415

Saying: ‘Oh back-slider, what track-record have you brought?’ I would answer: “What, oh God, does anyone bring with them from prison?’

4658

Drowned in adversity, coming out of prison,

4659

Headless and footless, coming in confusion,

Empty-handed I am dust at Your door. The slave and prisoner in Your service

4660

Expects that You will not sell me; That out of grace You will clothe me in a robe of honour;**

4661

That You of all these stains will cleanse me;

4662

Bury me beneath the ground as a Muslim.

When my body is concealed under soil and brick, Overlook all that I have done, good and ill.

4663

Since my creation free of charge was permissible, If gratis You were to pardon me, it would be appropriate.”

4664

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When Nizamu’l]-Mulk**® fell into the throes of death,

4665

He cried: “Oh God, where the wind listeth I am going. O Creator, O Lord, in consideration of this that I,

4666

Whomever I saw who of You preached the word, In every manner did I become his client:

4667

I helped him and became his friend; I was schooled in the purchasing of You; Never a single day did I sell You for another;

4668

416

The Speech of the Birds

Since I so assiduously did practise the purchasing of You, Like everyone else, I was never for selling you,**°

4669

At the last breath, be the purchaser of me. The Friend not needing friends are You. Me befriend.

4670

O Lord, that moment, grant me friendship

4671

a moment,

Because at that breath apart from You there will be no-one. Eyes full of tears of blood, my pure friends, When they relinquish my dust to the dust,

4672

You then offer a firm supporting hand, That the hem of Your Grace I might swiftly grasp.”

4673

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION When Solomon in all his glory made Of a lame ant inquiry out of helplessness,**”

4674

He said: “Tell, oh you than I the more enmired,

4675

Which is the clay most deeply mixed with grief?” Then did the limping ant give him answer: He said, “The final brick’s in the narrow grave.”

4676

When a last brick is fixed into the earth,

4677

All hopes are entirely dashed. When for me beneath the sod, O Pure Essence,

4678

Hope is cut off from created existences,

Then the final brick has covered up my face, Turn You not from my direction the Countenance of Grace.

4679

When to the earth distracted I lower my face, Do not of any badness throw anything into my face.

4680

The Speech of the Birds

417

Let there be hope that of these many sins None, O Allah, will you cast into my face.

4681

You are the Absolutely Kind, O Creator! Forgive all that has passed, and overlook it.

4682

STORY AND EXEMPLIFICATION Aba Sa‘id of Maihana was in the hammam.

4683

A masseur came to him, but he was a man lacking maturity.‘

He scrubbed off the Shaikh’s dirt as far as his fingertips. He collected it all up before the Shaikh’s face.

4684

He said to the Shaikh, “Say, oh you of the pure soul, With generosity what in the world can compare?’’*®?

4685

The Shaikh replied: “It is the hiding of scrapings of dirt, Not throwing them into people’s eyes.”

4686

This was an answer well above the masseur’s head. He fell at once at the Shaikh’s feet.

4687

When he confessed his ignorance, The Shaikh was pleased and asked his pardon.

4688

O Creator, Preserver, Granter of Bounty,

4689

O Padshah, Accomplisher, the Generous,

Since the generosity of the creatures of the world Is to the ocean of Your Grace a dew-drop,

4690

You are the Absolute Stay,*”° but in Essence: Out of generosity may You emerge in the Attributes.*”’

4691

Overlook our impertinence*” and lack of decorum: Do not throw the parings of our dirt before our eyes.

4692

418

The Speech of the Birds

“The end of the Book known as the Stations ofthe Birds, on twenty-eighth Shawwal, six hundred and... A.H.,*” by the hand of the weak slave Ibrahim ibn Avaz al-Maraghi, may Allah forgive his father and the Community of Muslims.”

NOTES

PART ONE: PROLOGUE See Koran XI, 9. Cf. Genesis I, 2. e& NO

See Koran XIII, 2; XXXI, 9; L, 6, 7; LVI, 4. For the earth’s “being kept in perpetual repose” in verse 4 below, see Koran XXVII, verse 62:

jaala’l-arda gararan. See Koran XXXI, 9: “He created the heavens without pillars (that one can See hiamie See Koran LVII, 4. The letters are kaf and min, of the Arabic alphabet, to spell kun, “Be”: Koran II, 111; XXVII, 62; XXXII, 82; XL, 70. On the

“Seven Stars” and “Nine Spheres”, Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology postulated the sun, moon, and five known planets as the seven which revolved round earth against a background of fixed stars. For these, in addition to the seven moving planets’ separate spheres, an eighth sphere was envisaged. In a later development, a ninth sphere was introduced as the source of the impulse for the movements of the others, including the eighth in which the fixed stars were embedded. As, however, Koran II, 27, mentions how God, after He had created the creatures of the world, addressed Himself to the heavens and there founded seven heavens, the addi-

tion of an eighth and ninth sphere presented theologians with a problem. They solved it by making the eighth sphere that of the kursi, dais or seat, and the ninth that of the ‘arsh, throne (see Note 72 below). ‘Attar, then, accepted

the fixed Aristotelian-Ptolemaic Cosmos: God made earth motionless, and below. Yet, ‘Attar has the universe’s rigid fixity shaken by the beauty of Joseph when he was stripped to be beaten (see Part II, verse 3181), and it is stirred by the witnessing of divine intercession: over three centuries before Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, before the notion of solid spheres was overthrown, ‘Attar has a concept of a universe of which the rigid order is susceptible to disturbance. A universe which love and beauty could ruffle. God has the power of creating good and evil and of converting these into their opposites: foul blood might become fragrant musk. Divine Law, the Shar‘, the basis of which God revealed in His Koran.

See Koran XXI, 61 and 64; XXXVII, 83-100. Nimrod and his people resented Abraham’s calling them to the True Faith. Abraham was catapulted into a fire which God transformed into a rose-bed; see Koran XXI, verse

69, and Abia Ishaq Ibrahim of Nishapuir, Qisasu’l-Anbtya Prophets”), Habib Yaghma’i (ed.), Tehran, 1961, page Incidentally, Iranians use the idiom that a fire has produced fire has been fanned to burn brightly. For the escape of

(“Tales of the 52 and passim. “roses” when a Moses and the

Israelites across the Red Sea, Koranic references include XXVIII, 39; XX,

71-80, This refers to the legend of divine punishment on Nimrod for his opposition

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422

to Abraham, when God caused an insect to enter Nimrod’s head through

his nose and live in his brain for, as one account has it, forty years, until Nimrod relented. ‘Attar extends the time; but see Qisasu’l-Anbtyd, op. cit.,

pages 58-60. Reference to the Prophet Muhammad’s escape from his Meccan enemies when he hid himself in the cave of Thaur, which his pursuers did not investigate because a spider had spun its web across the entrance and doves made their nest in it, so that recent penetration appeared improbable and the Prophet was saved. 10 See Koran XXVII, ‘The Chapter of the Ant’, verses 16-19: Solomon and his host reached the valley of the ants whose leader ordered the ants to go into their holes lest they be trampled on. Solomon halted and thanked God for His favours. The ants are honoured by a chapter of the Revelation in their name. 11 The mantle and standard of the family of ‘Abbas. Hence the ‘Abbasid Caliphs, who reigned in Baghdad from 750 to 1258 ap, had a black banner. 12 The narrative of the Chapter of the Ant (see Note 10 above) is headed by the mysterious letters of the Arabic alphabet, Ta and Sin, which also spell the word fds, meaning a bowl or hollow in the ground in which ant-catchers trap ants. The ant might be saved the misery of the tas by having a chapter in the Koran named after him, and headed with those two portentous letters. ‘Attar creates difficulties for the translator by his love of plays of this kind on letters of an alphabet which cannot easily be reflected in English (see for example, Note 258 on verse 558 below).

i) Legend has it that after expulsion from the Garden, Adam alighted on a mountain in Ceylon (Serendib) where for long ages he bewailed his sin until

God eventually accepted his repentence. For the expulsion from the Garden see Koran II, 34.

14 Noah, in Koran VII, 59 to 64; XI, 25 to 49, and elsewhere, is depicted as the warner of his unrighteous people, whom in legend he is said to have warned for a thousand years. 15 See Note 7 above. 16 Koran XXXVII, beginning at verse 101, gives the story of Abraham’s dream in which God seems to command him to sacrifice his son, who consents to this, but God, satisfied with Abraham’s fidelity, intervenes and permits a more usual form of ritual sacrifice instead of that of Isaac, or Ishmael,

Abraham’s son by Hagar. For this Koranic account of the sacrifice, the name of the son is not given, though Isaac is mentioned five verses later. It seems, however,

that in Koranic

chapters associated with later periods of the

Revelation, Ishmael takes precedence over Isaac and certainly the story of the sacrifice is commonly linked with the former, not, as in Genesis XXII,

with Isaac. The reference to God as “The Friend” may also be taken as an allusion to the designation of Abraham in Koran IV, 124 as one whom God took “as a friend”; Khalilu’llah, ‘Friend of God’, became a common desig-

The Speech of the Birds

423

nation for Abraham. The Sifi connotation of “The Friend” should also be

remembered. A? The story of Joseph, Genesis

XX XVII, 37, 39-50, is told in Chapter XII of

the Koran, where it is evident Jacob had not believed his son was dead, vide verses 17 and 19 of the Koranic text, and for “Servitude” etc., see verses

2553: 18 See Koran XXXVIII, 40-44; XXI, 83, 84. 19 See Note 46 below. The moon and fish image signifies plunging from the apogee to the nadir. 20 In Koran XXVIII, 5-10, in a moving account of Moses’ adoption by the Pharaoh’s wife it is the latter who takes a liking to the baby Moses. Moses’ mother was employed to nurse him. Cf. Koran, XII, 21, and Exodus II, 6-9.

ya| A reference to Koran XXI, 80, where David’s favours from God included the skill to make coats of mail, and, XXXIV, 10, iron became malleable in his hands. (Cf. The Koran, translated by George Sale, London, 1825, Vol. II,

page 173, fn. c). 22 Solomon’s power resided in a magical signet ring which one of the Genii stole, so that Solomon was temporarily rendered powerless. For further details, see Part Two, Note 3.

23 In Islamic tradition, Zachariah, or Zacharias, he of Saint Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 1, was falsely charged by the Jews with having committed adultery with the Virgin Mary, of whom according to the Koran he was made protector during her pregnancy. The legend is that fleeing from his calumniators he hid in a tree that opened for him and closed when he had entered. The Devil managed to catch part of his clothing and gave away his whereabouts. As the Qisasu’l-Anbiya, (“Tales of the Prophets”), op. cit., pages 312-13 has it, when his pursuers started to saw the tree in half, he cried to

God for help. God told him that if he continued crying, he would be

24

excluded from the list of the Prophets. Hence, before the teeth of the saw touched his head, he fell silent. In The Apocrypha, Esdras I, vii, 3, Zacharias is mentioned as a Prophet. The Islamic version of what happened to John the Baptist differs in details but to all intents and purposes this allusion reads like a reference to the account in Matthew XIV, 3—11. For John’s status as a prophet, see Koran III, 34: his light as such is alluded to; “as if acandle”.

25 Several books, in Arabic and Persian, of legends about the Prophets describe the Jews’ persecution of Jesus in terms not in accord with the Gospels. The Qisasu’l-Anbtyd, op. cit., contains three accounts which together amount to

the accepted Islamic version, that the real Jesus did not die: a substitute was killed in his place. The Jews, intent upon killing him, pursued Jesus, who took refuge in a house; some sources say that his disciples were with him and that he gave them his last instructions. One of the pursuers got into the house. God sent down the Angel Gabriel to lift Jesus, some say from the roof to which he had fled, up to heaven, while God made his pursuer in the house

424

The Speech of the Birds resemble Jesus so that when he emerged without the intended victim, the

Jews slew him instead. In one version, the Jews realised their mistake as soon as they perceived that, after they entered the house, their compatriot was not to be found. In another, the Jews fell into doubting whether the man they had killed was the real Jesus or not, and this doubt has remained with them. The Qisas referred to were compiled in the eleventh century: they would predate ‘Attar’s composition. Their author, Abt Ishaq, belonged to ‘Attar’s own home-town, Nish4ptr; but a sufficient number of “Tales of

The Prophets” were in circulation for the poet to have several sources, apart, of course, from shared folk-memory and orally transmitted legends, upon which to draw. 26 A reference to the persecution the Prophet Muhammad suffered in Mecca before his escape to Yathrib, later Medina.

27 The carnal self is called the nafs. For the Safi, nafs is the lower soul, carnal spirit or “‘surface self”, to be overcome for jan, the Divine Spirit in Man, to be freed for complete commerce with its source. This process of conquest of the lower self is, it goes without saying, a main theme in this book. See Abbé Bremond, Priére et Poesié, Paris, 1926 (English translation, Thorold, Prayer and Poetry, London, 1927), Chapter XII, on “Animus and Anima’,

where animus is the equivalent of nafs; “Animus is silent in order to let Anima sing”; animus is the “surface self”, anima, the “deep self”, le moi profond. Animus is “rational knowledge”’, anima, “mystical . . . knowledge” (page 114,

translation, page 109). The Flemish mystic, John of Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), called anima the “most hidden and intimate home, the extreme point and summit of the heart, the marrow of the soul’. Verse 47 above,

“plunged into an ocean of confusion”, alludes to the “Dark Night of the Soul” (see Note 35 below). 28 In the Koran, references to God’s closeness to Man are not lacking. E.g. L, 15, “We have created Man, and We know what his soul whispers and are nearer to him than his jugular vein”. Cf. LVII, 6, and LVII, 8.

22 See Koran XXXVI, 37-40. For “Provider” (ar-Razzdq) in the next verse, see Koran LI, 58.

30 The word translated “robber” is ‘ayydr. “Ayydr is evocative of the resourceful rogues common in Iranian society in troubled times. They were often disbanded troopers; this particular ‘ayydr’s sword must have been stored away for future campaigns. These ‘ayydrdn are reminiscent of the British Isles’ own ‘ayyar, Robin Hood. The ‘ayydran were not always deplored. They were often, even if sneakingly, admired for courage, for standing up to tyrants and protecting the needy. That in this anecdote the ‘ayydr turns out to be a scrupulous observer of the principle that a guest might not be slain is signif-

icant. at When the Angels bore Jesus towards the Throne of God, on reaching the

Fourth Heaven they were commanded +o search him for any relic of his material existence that might be about his person. He was found to have the

The Speech of the Birds

425

needle referred to here, and a broken bowl. He was consequently kept where he was. Concerning the needle, among the Jews, if a tailor wore his needle on his outer garment on the Sabbath, he was subject to reproach. One wonders whether this tradition about Jesus might be traceable to this particular taboo. See Koran XLI, 11, “Then He straightened Himself up to the sky, which was smoke ...”. See Koran XXII, 18.

See Koran XLVIII, 29, “Their mark is on their faces from the effect of pros-

tration”. The devout touch the ground with their foreheads so often that they bear a permanent scar, especially if, as some do, they place a brick of sacred clay on the ground where their foreheads are bowed down onto it. 35 This couplet contains two very important Safi terms, bast, which means ‘spreading’, “expansiveness’, and indicates the happiness of being filled with and open to God; and qgabz, ‘contraction’, or ‘squeezing’, the state when God is withheld from the worshipper, whose misery then might be compared to the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ known to Christian mystics. When visited by qabz, the Safi adept feels his heart contracted due to the sense that God is withholding Himself and the worshipper is exposed to enthralment to the phenomenal world. Koran II, 246, says, “God withholds

and offers and to Him will you be returned”. According to Hujwiri, Kashfu’l-Mahjub (English translation, R.A. Nicholson, London, 1936, pages 374-376), these two states are not in human control and, according to a Muhammedan tradition, the true believer’s heart is between the two of the

merciful God’s fingers which symbolise His attributes of glory, Jaldl, and beauty, Jamal. God’s revealing of Himself in one or other of these aspects results in either the heart’s contraction in fear and the sorrow of frailty’s failure, or expansion in hope and joy. See Nicholson’s Commentary in the last two volumes of his: The Mathnawi ofJaldlu’d-Din Rimi, E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series, Cambridge 1937 (which contains the text, a translation and a commentary), page 40, note on verse 393, in which the Tradition mentioned above is given. Cf. Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (op. cit., page 383), in the Chapter on the Dark Night of the Soul, where the alternations

between the mystic’s sense of attainment and that of negation (bast and qabz) have, as she says, been called the “Game of Love”: “God plays, as it were, ‘hide and seek’ with the questing soul”. “Attar alludes more than once to this “Game of Love”. 36 See Part II, Note 1 below. a7 God’s breathing of His spirit into the clay of the first man is mentioned in Koran XV, 29. For the “vapour”, or “froth”, see Koran XLI, 11. Cf. Genesis

II, 6, “But there went up a mist from the Earth .. .”.

38 The first verse alludes to “The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus”, the persecuted Christian youths whom God caused to find refuge in a cave where they slept for several centuries; according to Koran XVIII, 24, some three-hundred

426

The Speech of the Birds years. When they awoke, they found Christianity triumphant and their persecutor, the Emperor Decius (249-251 ap), long since dead. The dog is mentioned as having been with them, its fore paws stretched out on the threshold of the cave (Koran loc. cit., 17). Thus the dog, sanctified by being mentioned in the Koran, is taken to be the participator in holiness with the youths, and the episode gives the title to the chapter of the Koran here being cited, The Chapter of the Cave. The reference to the cat alludes to the intimate companion of the Prophet’s

later years,

‘Abdullah

or ‘Abd

ar-Rahman,

nicknamed

Abt

Huraira, “Father of the Kitten”, because he used to sit in the Prophet’s presence with a kitten on his shoulder or head. Abt Huraira died in 678 ap. He was reputed for piety and remembering an exceptionally large number of the Prophet’s sayings, his dicta, the Traditions. There might also be allusion to stories of cats owned by Sdfi Shaikhs, which passed into legend on account of actions that were taken for miracles inspired by God. Because of Abt Huraira’s love of cats and the Prophet’s tolerance of his being accompanied by a cat, Sufis cherish them. It seems that “Attar was no exception. 39 See Koran XXXIV, 13. If the Jinns had known the unseen they would have realised that Solomon had been dead long before the staff which God caused to hold up his corpse on its Throne had been gnawed away by “the beast of the Earth” and he fell to the ground. According to legend, the Genii mean-

while had continued work to complete the Temple. 40 The speech of the ant is an allusion to the Koran, XXVII, 18 and 19. 41 See Koran XX, 19-21, God changes Moses’ staff into a serpent. 42 A reference to the Koranic verse which speaks of the beginning of the Deluge, XI, 42, “Until Our command came and the oven boiled up . . .”. 43 The she-camel which Salih, the reformer who appeared among the people Thamtd, received as proof of his Divine mission, but which they killed. See

Koran XXVI, 153-157; cf., XXVII, The story of Samiri (the Samaritan), for the impatient Jews during Moses’ 45 The eight Heavens or Paradises were

44

46-54. and how he made a calf which lowed absence is in the Koran XX, 87-91. called: the Abode of Immortality, Dar

al-Khuld; the Abode of Peace, Dar as-Salam; the Abode of Rest, Dar al-Qarar, the Garden, Heaven, Jannat; the Garden as Home, Jannat al-Ma'wd; the Paradise of Delights, Jannat an-Na‘im; the Highest Heaven, ‘Illiytin; and

Paradise, Firdaus. The Seven Hells: the Burning Hell, Sagar; the Flaming Fireof Hell, Sa‘ir,; the Blazing Fire, Laza; the Consuming Fire, Hutama; Hellfire, Jahim; Hell, Jahannam; and the bottomless, nethermost pit of Hell,

Hawiyya. 46 From the pinnacle of the created world to its base, the fish upon which the cow rides (cf. verse 123 below, and Note 19 above). 47 This refers to a Tradition, (hadith, plural ahadith, a reported saying of the

Prophet, literally “record”, “narrative”),-““Adam’s clay was kneaded by hand forty days”.

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427

48 See Koran VII, 171, which describes Man’s testifying to God that He is his Lord. This was the primeval covenant concluded when God asks, “Am I not

your Lord?”, and Man answers, “Yes, we testify”. Among other references, the Covenant between God and his Creatures is explicitly mentioned in XX, 114: “We made a Covenant with Adam formerly, but he forgot, and We

found not in him steadiness of purpose.” 49 These verses refer to the Koran LXXVIII, 6 and 7, “Have We not made the earth a flat expanse / And the mountains as pegs?”, and, perhaps less obviously, Koran XXII, 5, where it says, “and one sees the earth withered up,

but when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells and gives rise to every beauteous kind.” Cf. XVII, X 61.

50 Graffiti or talismanic scratchings on rocks have been taken by the superstitious to be talismans designed to protect hidden treasure: the poet is already approaching his theme of The Hidden Treasure. 51 See note 50 above and the Tradition that God made the Creation because He was “a hidden Treasure” which desired to be known, so He made the

Creation that He might be known. (See E.J.W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, London, 1900, reprinted 1958, Volume 1, page 17). (Cf. Verse 11

above.)

52 The reference is to the man who is a mu“ttil, one who denies God any describable attribute. Tatil, emptying the idea of God of all attributes, is the

opposite of tashbih, anthropomorphically ascribing human and humanly comprehensible attributes to God. The former finds sanction in the Koran XLII, 9, “. . . there is nothing like Him”; but both positions have been treated as heresy and the Sufi seeks to rise above the controversy over God’s nature and attributes, and especially the danger that the ta‘til might lead to the dreaded assumption that there can be no comprehending of God. In this position there is grave risk: God being totally beyond description or definition could result in agnosticism if not atheism — the plight of those who have no “news” of Him. Tashbih is little better: it leads to the danger of idolatry, the paganism of idol-worship which the Prophet of Islam made it his first purpose to eliminate and supersede. Ta‘til is here condemned, but the poet does not fully slip into tashbih. He makes God King, and, indeed, Koran VII, 52, — “then He seated Himself on the Throne” — is a verse quoted by the “anthropomorphists”; ‘Attar also asserts His immanence; all that is, is the

expression of Him, and He is certainly not anthropomorphic. (See verse 172 below, for example, and Part Two, Note 425: ‘Attar is refuting the position

of the Mu'tazilites). 53 An allusion to the Koranic verse L, 15: “And We are closer to him than his jugular vein”. Cf. note 28 above. 54 See note 51 above. 55 “Dust on its head”: Cf. verse 110 above; putting dust on the head is a sign of grief and shame — that it is also a sign of shame should be noticed. Seeing someone’s dust is an idiom for becoming aware of the passing and presence

428

The Speech of the Birds of someone; an idiom native to dry lands where movement is signalled by the raising of dust. Behind these verses, 150, 151, 152, lies the Koranic verse

103, Surah VI: “Sight reacheth to Him not, but He comprehendeth all vision”. 56 See preceding Note. 5 This is an allusion to the important Tradition, “Know yourself that you may know your God” or, “He who has known himself has known his Lord”.

Al-Ghazali

(died 1111) opens

his book,

the Kimfya-ye

Sa‘ddat, “The

Alchemy of Felicity” (Tehran, 1319 and 1333, 1939 and 1953-4, ed. Ahmad

Arar, page 41), with the two versions of this Tradition. He correctly ascribes it to “past Prophets”, for, of course, it is a dictum remembered from as far

back as Empedocles. Al-Ghaz4li adds that — “the personal soul (nafs) of human creatures is like a mirror into which whoever looks sees God (Haqq); but”, he adds, “many people look at themselves and do not see God. Hence recognition of that aspect is requisite because it is the mirror of mystical insight . . .”. For “mystical insight” the word al-Ghazali used was ma‘ifat, the word which ‘Attar himself uses to the same effect in verses 161 and 173 below. In words which echo those of Rumi in the Mathnawt, Book I, verses

3056-3063 (Nicholson’s edition) about the man who knocked at a friend’s door and answered the call, “Who is it?”’, with, “It is ’’ — he was later, after

suffering a year in separation from the friend, admitted when he said, “It is you”; there was no room in the house for two “I’s” — Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-c.1327/8) said: “If I am to know God directly, I must become completely He, and He, I, so that this He and this I become and are one I”. John of Ruysbroeck said, “We behold that which we are, and are that which

we behold”. Hence “Know thyself. . .”. 58 It would be an absurdity to attempt to predict anything of Him. See Koran X, 37, in Arberry’s translation, “And the most of them follow only surmise, and surmise avails naught against the Truth”; or, it might be said, “against the Reality”. 52 The cryptic allusion here is an abbreviation of a Koranic sentence, Koran CHI, 3; X, 90; XXV, 66-72; LXX, 22-35: “Except those who have believed

and wrought the works of righteousness . . .”. 60 The poet has in mind the Tradition, “Whatever you distinguish with your imaginations is in the final analysis an artificial creation like you and goes back

to

you”.

(See

Badi©

uz-Zaman

Firdzanfar,

Ahadith-i

Masnavi,

(“Traditions in the Masnavi”), Tehran, 1324/1944-5, page 142.) 61 See the Tradition, “We know You not; the Truth is the mystical knowledge of You”. The poet quotes the first phrase. 62 See Koran XXVIII, 88, “Invoke not along with Allah any other god; There is no god but He; everything perishes but His Countenance; His is the ordainment, and to Him will you be made to return”, is the Koranic sanction behind these words. Jalalu’d-Din Rumi, in the Mathnawi, Book 1 (E.J.W. Gibb Series, Op. cit.),

The Speech of the Birds

429

verse 1926 says, citing the earlier poet Sana’i (died 1130/1131) — it might have been from San4’i’s Divan that ‘Attar derived this allusion - : “Beware! lift not your heads from the Id of negation,

Bring your heads out of this fantasy and imagining.”

The Ja, the Arabic particle “no”, figures in the formula 14 ildha illa’Lléh, “There is no god but Allah”. The exhortation is that since God grants knowledge of Himself to those who abandon their phenomenal self-existence, it is essential to seek the only Reality (Haqq) in place of the unreal and illusory. The Sdfis believe in fand, obliteration of the self, for the way to be opened to baqd, access to the Everlasting. Plato, Phaedo, 79 D, seems to describe this state: “. . . when the soul [no longer operating through the senses] inquires alone by itself, it departs into the realm of the pure, the everlasting, the immortal and the changeless, and being akin to these, it dwells always with them whenever it is by itself and is not hindered, and it has rest from its wanderings and remains always the same and unchanging with the changeless, since it is in communion therewith”. It will be noted that the word “akin” is used: there is no question here, or in Sufism or genuine mysticism in general, of the soul’s or the seeker’s own identification becoming obliterated in the One; it is a case of utter, as it were, mutuality,

in which the two become as one. 63 The “Perfection” here means the “completion”, the “coming to an end”. It is the traveller on the Path’s ultimate attainment of his goal and the ending of his striving: his reaching the station of obliteration of the self (fand) and permanence (bagd) in the Eternal. Some Sifis believed such a station unattainable this side of death. ‘Attar believed that the adept could reach the stage of losing human attributes and becoming possessed of the divine, holder of the rank of the Perfected (kamil) and the station of Certitude (yagqin). 64 Jalalu’d-Din Rimi (Mathnawt, Book 5, 4146-7) has How through thinking might this “I” be revealed? That “I” is revealed after obliteration of the self (fan). These intellects in searching fall Into the pit of transmigratory incarnation (huliil{) and being “united” (ittihdd).

The word here translated “infusion” is hululi, usually meaning belief in incarnation or the transmigration of souls. ‘Attar is adopting the same position as that Jalalu’d-Din Rimi indicates in the citation above. He regarded the doctrine of incarnation, and becoming joined with God (ittihad, being

united) as heretical: it was not a question of joining God or receiving God into the body. This would have been contrary to the strict monism in which Rami and ‘Attar believed. (Cf. Nicholson, Kashfu’l-Mahjub, op. cit., p. xii.) There was no “I”, but only ever God. Hence ‘Attar, when he says, in effect,

that “This is what infusion means”, is speaking, not for, but against the Huliliyeh, those who believe in transmigration, either in the form of the divine becoming entirely infused in the body, or entering it as water enters a jug without being mingled with the jug’s clay. Reference should be made

430

The Speech of the Birds to the Encyclopaedia of Islam Il, Article: Hull; to R.A. Nicholson’s commentrary on, and translation of the Mathnawt, Book V, lines 4147 et seq., and

Sayyid Sadiq Goharin’s commentary on Faridu’d-Din ‘Attar’s Asrar Nameh, Tehran 1959, page 341. 65 The word is gibla, the direction in which Muslims turn in prayer, i.e. towards the Ka‘ba in Mecca. 66 Ma‘rifat; the rest of the line is explained from the Koran II, 28, “I am going to place a vicegerant on earth”, the announcement which God made to the Angels, to herald the advent of Adam. “To them He did not teach the names of things as He did Adam, the father of Man.” 67 See Koran II, 32 “. . We said to the Angels ‘Prostrate yourselves to Adam’. They, all but Iblis [the Devil], prostrated themselves. He in his pride refused and became of the unbelievers.” 68 Wild Rue is burned as a protection against evil. For details, see Bess Allen Donaldson, The Wild Rue, A Study ofMuhammedan Magic and Folklore in Iran, London, 1938, page 20 and passim.

69 See note 50 above. 70 Here ‘Attar is, in effect, stating that the Huldliyeh are indeed wrong. At this point the Masnavi verses in note 64 above may be recalled. 71 I.e., of Him. 72 See note 52 above and the reference to Koran XI, 9, “and the Throne was upon the water”. Also XX, 4, “The Merciful on the Throne has sat firm”. In LXIX, 17, on the Last Day when Heaven is rent asunder, eight Angels

will appear and “bear the Throne of Thy Lord”. Commentators describe how God created a ruby and looked upon it so that it melted. He then created the Throne, ‘arsh, and placed it on the waters. Then He created the

Tablet and the Pen. Other versions associate the Throne’s creation with that of light and, from it, of colours. They related how out of a portion of the universal light the Throne was fashioned; see also verse 296 below. To be associated with this verse of ‘Attar’s is the belief that no mortal has the

strength to look upon the Throne, clad as it is in dazzling light. There are legends about the vastness of the Throne. Safi definitions depict it as environing all things, and as the place whence God’s decrees descend. In Shi‘ite allegorical interpretation, the Throne stands for God’s knowledge and power, and is over and encircling all. The Dais, kursi, is defined in Persian lexicons as a platform comes raised from the ground, and also as the Seventh Heaven, but the obvious reference is to Koran II, 256, the celebrated “Throne Verse”, in which the

majesty of God is described: His Throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and it tires Him not to guard them both; He is high and grand. The word used here for “Throne” is kursf, in Arabic, chair, seat, pedestal, etc. For Sufis, the kursi represents the ¢entre whence God commands His

creation. So both ‘arsh, Throne, and kursi are among the mysteries of God’s

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431

power and are so close to Him (and so dangerously suggestive of a location for Him) that we are enjoined in this verse of ‘Attar’s to make no enquiry, about the very centre of God’s reality. 73 Ru beh divar, “face to the wall”, is a common phrase meaning “despairing”, as also does the phrase “biting or gnawing the hand” (in helplessness). 74 Literally, “I became Zanzibari-hearted”. The author uses words such as ‘Hindu’ and ‘Abyssinian’, for “slave”. Slaves were designated according to the lands whence they were imported. Hence when Hafiz (died 1389) alludes to the “Indian mole” on the cheek of the beloved, he is not only suggesting the mole’s colour, but the idea of enslavement. Here the poet speaks of the heart of the Zangi: Zanzibar was a source of slaves, but at the same time he is punning: zangi dil can suggest both sadness and joy, and it appears that the slaves from Africa were noted for merriment and also a recognitive loyalty. The word zang means “bell”. To say hich zang dar dil nemizanad means “it doesn’t ring any bell in the heart”, i.e. “it doesn’t do anything for one” or “doesn’t make (anyone) happy”, while zang az dil zidudan literally means “to polish rust off the heart”, metaphorically, “to soothe or console the heart”. #5 This could be a reflection of one of the meanings given in the Note above for the metaphor zangi dil. 76 The soubriquet ‘Attar means reminder that Faridu’d-Din drug-store keeper, dealing in ae The Divine Light transmitted

a dealer in attar of roses etc.; this verse is a ‘Attar had been an eminent pharmacist and

attars. through Muhammad, or simply Muhammad

himself; but see below.

78 Cf. The dancing and hand-clapping of certain Safi Orders. See Note 74 above for an allusion to the adept’s joy; compare the merriment of St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Teresa of Avila’s singing ditties to herself. a9 Concerning the Unveiling, reference should be made to the Chapter of which these words form part of the title in the Mfrsddu’l-Thdd of Najmu’d-Din R4zi (Daya), Persian text edited by Muhammad Amin Riahi, Tehran, 1352/1972-3 and 1365/1985—6, pages 310 et seq., and Hamid Algar, the English translation, The Path of God’s Bondsmen from Origin to Return, Delmar, New York, 1982, pages 304 ff. Ie. Al-Mustafa, “The Chosen”, a name of Muhammad’s. 80 See Koran XXI, 107:” We have sent thee but as a mercy to the worlds”. Cf. 81 note 85 below, on verse 276.

82 The Prophet Muhammad had precedence over all other Prophets whose work he completed, but see below for his precedence over all creation. (Cf. verses 275, 385, and 421 below, for example).

83 Koran XVII, I, speaks of “him who journeyed by night with His (God’s) servant from the sacred Mosque”, i.e. the Ka‘ba at Mecca, “to the farthest

Mosque”, i.e. the Temple of Jerusalem. The Commentators, the authors of legends, and also the Prophet’s biographer, Ibn Hisham, have developed the

432

The Speech of the Birds theme of the Prophet’s miraculous ascent, mi‘rdj, the nocturnal journey made by Muhammad through the Seven Heavens on the 27th of the Arabic month

of Rajab in the Muslim Calendar. It is to this event that allusion is made here. The symbolism of the Prophet’s unique mi‘rdj is manifold, but in one aspect it stands for Muhammad’s

access to and command over both worlds, the

heavenly and terrestrial, the spiritual and earthly. See the next verses. 84 This refers to a Tradition (hadith), one of the sayings attributed to the Prophet, to the effect that “I am the convenor who will assemble the people (on the Last Day) at my feet”. 85 Likewise a reference to a hadith, “Verily I am the compassion for the level plains”, [See Koran XX, 106] that is to say, where mankind will be assembled on the Last Day; but cf. Koran XXI, 107, alluded to above in note 81

— “a mercy to the worlds”. A feature of ‘Attar’s poem is emphasis Prophet Muhammad’s compassion as the intercessor on people’s ‘Attar seems to ascribe to him redemptive powers. See verses below point introduced here, that on the Last Day he will be the intercessor

on the behalf. on the for his

community. 86 See Note 72 above. 87 An allusion to a hadith which avers that had it not been for Muhammad, God would not have created the world, the hereafter, the heavens, the earth, and the Throne, Dais, Tablet, Pen, Heaven and Hell, and had it not been for Muhammad, He would not have created Adam. The Light of Muhammad,

an important theme among the Shi‘is, preceded Adam and the rest of creation: all else came in the wake of that Pure Light. See Goharin, ed., Persian Text,

Notes, page 278, note on verses 276-300 on page 15 of the text. 88 The same theme is continued with the support of another hadith: “I would only have created the heavens but for you”. 89 See hadith: “God first created my light”. 90 See Note 87 above. 91 In developing the theme of how the Light of Muhammad was created from God, the progression is from Muhammad to the creation of the world, and Adam’s creation, from this Light. When God had created the Light of

Muhammad, Nér-i Muhammad, He kept it by Him a thousand years during which it was occupied praising the Divine Essence. Then He made the Light manifest and created twelve veils for it. Several thousand years now elapsed till from the Light God created twenty seas, in each of which were several worlds of which only God had knowledge, but He plunged Muhammad into those seas and it was on Muhammad’s emerging from the last of them that God addressed him with the announcement that he was the last of His Prophets and to be the intercessor on the Day of Retribution. Upon hearing this the Prophet prostrated himself. When he rose, a hundred and twenty four thousand drops of water poured from him, each of which God turned into a prophet who should be in his wake. (This account is reminiscent of Zoroastrians’ vision of the creation, and divinity’s emergence in it).

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92 The word translated “standing position” is ruku‘ the third prayer position in Muslim prayer, when the person praying while standing up bows the head and torso placing the hands, the fingers separated, on his knees. He repeats the phrase “God is Great”, and continues, “I extol [the holiness of ] my Lord, the Great”, to which the Shi‘is add the phrase “and with His praise”. The “T extol [the holiness] . . .” is thrice repeated. 93 Here the qgiydm is referred to. Standing erect the worshipper keeps the right hand over the left below the navel or with the hands placed on the breast,

the practice of the three orthodox schools and the Wahhabis. The Shi‘is keep their hands to their sides. In all sects women perform the giydém with their hands on their breasts and eyes looking towards the ground. In this position the worshipper recites, though the Shi‘is do not, the following: Holiness to Thee,

O God

And Praise be to Thee! Great is Thy name! Great is Thy greatness! There is no deity but Thee! Then the words, “I seek refuge in God from cursed Satan”, once said,

followed by the tasmiyah, “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful”, whereupon the Fatiha, the First Chapter of the Koran, “Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds; the Compassionate the Merciful,” and so on to

the end of the Chapter is repeated. After this the worshipper is free to recite as many verses of the Koran as he might wish, but he should recite at least one long or two short ones. The hundred and twelfth Sura or Chapter is often preferred, namely, “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, say,

‘He is God, One, God the Everlasting, He begetteth not, and is not begotten, and not to Him isa single one equal’.” (A useful reference is Hughes’s Dictionary of Islam, reprinted, London, 1935, from the first printing in 1885.)

94

The profession of Faith, the tashahhud, the bearing witness to the unity of God and the Apostleship of Muhammad, “There is no god but God and . Muhammad is His Apostle”. 95 In Islam, prayer is the second of the five pillars of the Faith, and enjoined upon the worshipper at least five times a day, early morning, midday, afternoon, evening and night. These times are specifically alluded to in the Koran and there is a Tradition to the effect that on his Miraculous Ascent, when

the Prophet passed Moses, Moses asked him how many times a day prayer had been ordered. The Prophet replied, “Fifty”, but Moses said his Israelites had been unable to manage so many. Muhammad begged the Lord to remit a number until he got it down to five. Some of the movements have been described in notes 92-93 above. There are ten different postures varying from low bowing to prostration with the forehead touching the ground, sitting on the haunches and turning the head from side-to-side in the greeting to the guardian angels which marks the end of the canonical prayer; after this a supplication is usually offered.

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The Speech of the Birds

96 “Essence” is zdt or dhdt, and “attributes” are sifat. The former, the essential being of anything, for the Sufi is the reality of the Universe while the sifat are the accidents, the non-essentials in relation to the real substance. The difference between zat and sifat is that zat is not subject to change, but

the attributes are. 97 See Koran XV, 29. 98 On the basis of Koranic authority it is accepted in Islam that the Prophet’s mission, as he himself is reported as saying in a hadith, was to all creatures on earth. E.g., Koran VII, 157-158, “O people, I am the messenger of

Allah to you all”. Other references relate to the Prophet’s exhortations addressed to the People of the Book: those with a scripture of their own, in this instance principally the Jews. But also implicit in this and the next verse, where it is further emphasised or defined, is the hadith: “There is no

child but is born in the Religion, but his parents make him a Jew or Christian or Magian”. The assumption is that at birth all are Muslim, not Jew, Christian or Zoroastrian. See Sa‘di (died 1292), Gulistan, Book 1, story

4. 99 There is a Tradition that the Prophet explained to his wife, ‘Ayesha (‘A’isha), that all of us are hosts to a devil, but God had aided him in over-

100

coming his so that it even became Muslim at, in the words of another hadith to the same effect, his hands. (Cf. Part Two, verse 618, and Note 3.) This refers to Koran XLVI, 28-31, and LX XII, 1-19, where it is recorded

how the Jinns recerved Muhammad’s message and were converted and ready to pass the message on to their own kind. The actual “Night” is the occasion when, as the commentaries have it, the Prophet spent a whole

night within a magic circle converting the crowds of genii that came to him. It is said that on the night of his Miraculous Journey, the Prophet summoned the Angels (qudstdn) and apostles antecedent to himselfto follow him and, as they climbed up behind him, take him as their model. Thus the “Angels’ Night” was the night of the mi‘rdj, the Miraculous Ascent. 102 The allusion is to the miracle attributed to the Prophet in his avoidance of being poisoned when a roasted calf containing poison was offered him and he stopped eating after consuming only a morsel, because, as he told his companions, the dead animal had spoken to him and warned him that its meat had been poisoned to cause the Prophet’s death. There is also a legend that the lizards conversed with the Prophet. 103 To call Muhammad “The Summoner to God” is a reflection of Koran XLVI, 30-31, “O our people, respond to the Summoner of Allah, and believe in Him; He will forgive you some of your sins, and give you shelter from a punishment painful. If anyone does not respond to Allih’s

101

summoner,

there is no-one able to frustrate God in the earth, nor apart

from Him will he have any patrons; these are in manifest error”. 104 On the Prophet’s conquest of Mecca and his upbraiding of the idols in the Ka‘ba, they crashed to the ground.

The Speech of the Birds 105

435

It is said that the stones greeted the Prophet and pebbles in the palm of his hand testifed to the truth of his mission. The poet in fact says that they recited the tasbih, an allusion to the ejaculation subhdna’Lldh, “Praised be

God’s holiness”’ of the pious. There is a Tradition to the effect that, according

to the Prophet,

its recitation

a hundred

times,

night and

morning, might atone for all a man’s sins. The word tasbth is also used to mean the rosary-like beads which many Muslims carry between their fingers. 106 107

108

“ Of all peoples”, c.f. note 113 on verse 321 below, and Note 98 above.

The Prophet as intercessor on behalf of “my people”. It is said that he will speak to the assembled resurrected as they are fearful of punishment and hopeful of favour, saying ummati, ummati, “my people, my people”. Pir, literally “elder”, but also the title accorded the Safi Master under

whose direction it is essential Sufi adepts should be, open always to his guidance and instructions. Here the poet makes the Prophet the supreme pir of the world, see Note 106 above. For “slave to a faction” see verses 477-531 below, which the poet here anticipates. 109 Reminiscent of Koran II, 73, with its reference to unlettered folk who know not the Book, but only fancies as they conjecture. 110 Hadith: “O People, I am your Imam. Do not precede me in bowing, in the prostration, or in the raising of the head, for I see you whether in front of me or behind me”. See Mirsdd al-‘Ibad, text op. cit., page 313, transla-

tion, op. cit., page 307. The text edited by Husain al-Husaini, Tehran, 1312/1932, has the citation on page 173.

114

See Koran XXXIII, 40: “Muhammad is not the father (abd) of anyone of

i2

your men, but the Apostle of God and Seal of the Prophets”. For the word translaterd here “morality”, the original is khulq, which can be translated “disposition”, or simply “nature”, “character”. Behind it lies the Koranic verse in Chapter LXVIII, 4, where, following the translation

by A.J. Arberry (The Koran Interpreted, World’s Classics, O.U.P., page 599), it says “surely thou art upon a mighty morality”. The word khulq certainly lends itself to being interpreted “‘morality”. Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (Everyman’s Library 105, London, 1992, page 601), renders

the verse in question as “And lo! Thou art of a tremendous nature”. George Sale (The Koran, London, 1825, Vol. II., page 447) has, “for thou art of a

noble disposition”, and cites the commentator Al-Baidawi for the note that this apostrophising of the Prophet alludes to the patience and resignation with which he had borne persecution at the hands of his kinsfolk. ‘Attar

gives the word khulq only; his audience would know that in the Koran it is qualified by the epithet azim, “mighty”, “great”, “noble”. $13

See Koran XXXIV,

114

mankind as a bearer of good tidings and a warner”. See Koran V, 5: “Today for you have I perfected your religion and completed for you My bounty, and approved for you Islam as religion”.

28: “And We have not sent you otherwise than to

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The Speech of the Birds

115 See note 83 above. 116 The “Two Summits” are Mecca, with its Ka‘ba, and Jerusalem with its Temple. The Prophet initially decreed the latter as the point towards which to turn in prayer, but later, a Koranic Revelation made the Ka‘ba in Mecca the direction which should be faced in prayer. Jerusalem, however, remains specially revered by Muslims. On his Miraculous Ascent, the Prophet was conveyed from one city to the other, thus to embrace them both.

117

Indeed, as this hemistich indicates, he embraced all. That he cast no shadow is accounted one of his miracles. Hence in verse 320 above, the word for

“miracle” has been translated in the plural: all these verses coherently hang together on specific themes as one, so to speak, recollection to do with the Prophet follows another in the poet’s mind. 118 See Koran XXXIII, 6: “The Prophet is nearer to the believers than themselves, and his wives are their mothers . . .”. Cf. Note 255 below.

119

Inaccounts of the mi‘rdj, it is said that all the Prophets accorded Muhammad precedence, vying with each other in showing him respect. 120 See Note 87 above and the preceding note. 121 This statement is based on the hadith: “The learned of my Community are more erudite (or virtuous) than the Prophets of the Israelites”. 122

Based on Koran VII, 156, “. . . The native Prophet, whom

they find

mentioned in the Torah and the Evangel in their possession, urging them to what is reputable, and restraining them from what is disreputable . . .”. Koran LXI, 6, has: “And when Jesus, son of Mary, said: ‘O Children of

Israel, I am Allah’s messenger to you, confirming the Torah that is before me, and giving good tidings of a Messenger who will come after me bearing the name Ahmad’”. (Ahmad, meaning “the Most Praised”, is an elative of the word Muhammad, meaning “the Praised”.) Cf. Surah XLVIII, 29. In

some Islamic circles, reference in this context is made to the Gospel according to John, XVI, 7-11. Commentators on the Koran have suggested that (see Goharin’s note on this verse, and also Bell’s note on Koran LXI, 6, with reference to John XIV, 16) the word Ahmad, the “most

praised”, was based on the Greek Gospel’s Periklutos, “Comforter”, possibly because

of confusion

with

Periklétos,

meaning

“celebrated”,

(see the

Farhang-i Anandardj, “Anandar4j’s Dictionary (of Persian)” Tehran, n.d., Vol. IV, under the word fargqlit). 123

The stone in the Ka‘ba, the “Black Stone” at the south-eastern inside corner of the building is the stone referred to in this verse, while the Robe

of Honour must refer to the Kiswa, the Ka‘ba’s annually renewed covering of black with a gold band round it. 124 Qibla, the point turned to in prayer. Cf. Koran XXVII, 93. 125 With an allusion to Mecca, the Prophet’s native place, having become the focus of prayer, reference is coupled to his destruction of the idols of which the Ka‘ba had been the repository. Cf. the following verse. 126 See Koran III, 106: “You are the best community ever produced for the

The Speech of the Birds people urging what is reputable and believing in Allah.” 127 The legend is that a well in Medina drop of saliva into it and it was filled any other found in the city. 128 Khwandamir gives the legend in the

437

restraining what is disreputable, and ran dry. The Lord of Apostles spat a to the brim with water sweeter than Habib as-Styar (Tehran no date, Vol.

I., page 440), as also the account, traceable to Koran LIV, 1, “The Hour

has drawn near, the moon has been split”, of how Muhammad, wagging a finger at it, caused the moon to split in half. One half remained in the sky. The other was hidden behind a mountain. Muhammad is said to have achieved this feat at the behest of idolators, and another version of the legend is that the moon’s two segments went up his sleeves and came out

129

130

131

at through his collar. Legend has it that Muhammad caused the sun to retrace its diurnal journey so that his son-in-law, “Ali, could say the evening prayer which he had missed. See Koran III, 97-100 inclusive, the last part of Surah V, 97, and also 98, as verses lending sanction to verse 336 above. V, 98 opens with, “Allah has appointed the Ka‘ba, the Sacred House, al-Haram, a sanctuary for the

peoplesc".iCE XXVII93: The “cloak of sanctity” translates the word khirqah, the mantle or “habit” denoting the venerability and experience requisite in a guide, the Pir, of a Sufi Order. The wearer, once he has shown evidence of having acquired the necessary degree of authority, receives the khirqah from his predecessor: the cloak is handed down from the murshid (guide) to the murid (pupil) through generation after generation and has its own genealogy often tracing the line of descent back to ‘Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, or to the first Caliph, Abt Bakr, both of whom are assumed to have received the orig-

inal cloak from the Prophet himself: The khirqah’s venerability is made physically manifest by the number of patches, often outnumbering pieces of the original cloak, on so ancient a garment. These cloaks were frequently described as weighing a great deal because of the numerous patches. (See Note 243 below). Dahiya was one of the Prophet’s most respected intimates at Medina. When asked what the Angel Gabriel looked like, the Prophet is reputed to have replied that he looked like Dahiya. £32 According to a hadith, besides his being sent as the seal of the Prophets, the earth made for Muhammad his mosque, the ground on which he might kneel to pray and prostrate himself, (the word masjid means ‘place in which to pray or bow down in prayer’). Cf. Mirsddu’l-‘Ibdd, text, op. cit., p. 136, translation, op. cit., p. 158. Earth also provided the material with which to perform ritual ablutions; when water is unavailable, the Muslim permitted use of “fine sand” as a cleanser; see Koran IV, 46, V, 8.

is

133 There is a hadith: “Earth contracted for me and I saw its easternmost (parts)

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The Speech of the Birds

and its westernmost”. Goharin suggests that this Tradition might be alluded to in this verse. 134 The Prophet’s reputed inability to read and write enhanced respect for him, and for the miraculous nature of the Revelation accorded him from on high. See Koran VII, 158, “. . . His Messenger, the illiterate Prophet” (an-nabiu’l-ummt). Koran II, 73, with its criticism of those “who write the Book with their hands and then say, ‘This is from Allah’” might also have been in the poet’s mind. The translation “illiterate Prophet” has been disputed; the word ummi, besides meaning unlettered, can also be taken to mean “of the people”, “belonging to the community”. Some translators have adopted this interpretation, but not Sale, Goharin, or certain Muslim commentators. ‘Attar appears to make the matter clear. For the Sufi, it is the inner knowledge that counts, not scholastic book lore. The latter is not

needed for faith, which it might impede and obscure. The knowledge is given (or withheld) by God, not acquired. Safi poets frequently enjoin the abandonment of books, in such phrases as “wash the pages clean”. 135 See Koran XCVI, 1, “Recite in the name of your Lord ...”. 136 According to the hadith, “The best of you, my generation, then those who'll follow”. Cf. verse 335 above. 137 Goharin suggests that this alludes to Koran XX, 107, to which might be added 108. “On that day they will follow the Summoner in whom is no crookedness; voices will be hushed to the All-Merciful, so that you hear

nothing but a murmuring. / That day intercession will not avail, except (that of) him to whom the Merciful gives leave, and of whose speech He approves.” Cf. XXVII, 87. Returning to the theme of the Prophet’s role as mankind’s intercessor on the Last Day, the second of these two verses,

138

of course, indicates that intercession might only be by God’s permission. (See the next verse). “Passionate yearning” is a, probably poor, attempt to translate the word shawq, which, in the idiom of the Safis, means the heart’s hastening towards

encountering the Beloved and its yearning for signs of the Beloved and for annihilation of the self in witnessing those signs. For the Sifis, shawq has

three stages or degrees. The first is the ardour of the devout for becoming freed from fear and knowing the expansiveness of joy in triumph over carnality. The second degree is passion for the Glorious Presence and love of the graces of His clemency and His word and teaching of virtue. The third is the fire that blazes up in the wayfarer’s heart when the flames of perfect love are emptied of any alloy and the weakness and afflictions of the body, so that the adept’s happiness lacks only beholding face-to-face the Beloved, for the wayfarer still sees himself a veil between the lover and

the loved. The word translated “petitioning” reflects the word su’él, meaning “requesting” or “seeking”; in Sufi terminology, diligently seeking for the True. The Prophet in his longing for God would, it is said, utter the phrase “Allah, forgive me and have mercy on me and join me to the

The Speech of the Birds

439

(only) Friend”. Incidentally, in verse 265 above, ‘Attar, in the context of

his own dying, eliptically alludes to this pleading of the Prophet. Another Tradition has it that when he was about to expire, the Prophet raised his head

towards

heaven

and

said, “To

the All-highest

Friend,

to the

All-highest Friend”, whereupon he died. It might be remarked that the use of the word rafiq, here translated “Friend”, is distinctly Sufistic in so far as God is apostrophised, not as a distant, utterly remote Yahweh, or indeed, in some conceptions of Him, Allah, but as an intimate: a friend or

companion, with the implication of love — He is the Beloved. The inference to be drawn from the verse here being commented upon is, as Dr. Goharin observes, that in his last breath, the Prophet, having lost his own

power, was going back to the source of that power, yet still, in the passion

139

and love he bore for God, not halting his quest for the Truth. Rather, he was still petitioning the Glorious Presence. Bilal, an Abyssinian convert, was the first Muslim to assume the duties of the Muezzin, the caller to prayer. Rami, Mathnawi , Book 1, 1986, has

Jan kamal ast 0 nidd-ye 4 kamdl: Mustafa guyan arahni ya Bilal! The Spirit is perfection and its cry, perfection: Mustafa (Muhammad) saying, “Release us, O Bilal”.

R.A. Nicholson (Commentary . . ., Book 1, verse 1986, Cambridge, 1937,

page 136) comments that the Divine Spirit, Jan, “Is the Spirit (Rvh) or Reality (Haqiqa) or Light (Nur) of Muhammad”, while the words addressed, according to a Tradition, by Muhammad to Bilal, asking him to relieve Muhammad from the illusory world and its burden, Nicholson points out, are to ask Bilal to chant the Call to Prayer (adhan, or azan) in his role as Muezzin. Firtiz4nfar cites the whole of this hadith in his Ahadith-i Masnavi,

op. cit., page 21, in the context of the verse quoted above. The hadith reads, “O Bilal relieve us with the Prayer’. “Attar would assume that his audience would know the whole of the hadith of which he gives the first words only. (It is tempting here to recall Bess Allen Donaldson, The Wild Rue, op. cit., pages 71 and 73, with her account of the belief that on dying Muslims

are subject to a process of squeezing, both on the beir and in the grave, by the interrogating angels Munkar and Nakir who questioned the dead on their sins of omission and commission during the life just relinquished; but the inference to be drawn in this instance is not of this order. The idea of the squeezing might be applied to the word here translated “constriction”, but the Prophet was not yet dead and, secondly, the verse links up with verses that have gone before it and are concerned with the longing of the Soul to escape from the world of illusion and its distractions). 140 The hadith, “Speak to me O Humaira” records the Prophet’s request to his wife, ‘Ayesha, referred to as Humaira,

“the little red one”, because of

her complexion. Perhaps the contrast between the complexions of the Abyssinian convert and this favourite wife of the Prophet’s occurred to

440

The Speech of the Birds the poet’s mind, but what is being described in these verses is Muhammad’s

expression of longing for The Beloved: Humaira, the favourite wife, here symbolises the Divine with which the Prophet longs to converse, as a lover might with a beloved. Raimi, in the Mathnawi, follows his reference to Humaira and citation of the hadith (Book 1, verse 1972) with the following: This ‘Humaira’ is a feminine word and the Spirit (Divine Spirit):

The Arabs give this Spirit (Jan) a feminine noun, But of being feminine the Spirit has no fear: The Spirit has nought to do with male and female. (verses 1974-5). Cf. Mirsddu’l-‘Ibad, English translation, op. cit., page 117, “When Adam

gazed on the beauty of Eve, he saw a ray of the beauty of God.” 141

Seclusion, khalvat, or khalwat, is the mystic’s ‘seclusion’ alone with God. Koran XXXIX, 16, has “Say, Allah do I serve, in Him my sole religion.”

The khalvat is characterised by the adept’s being empty of any sense of “T’”’: any self-consciousness. It is to be alone with God. The word ‘aql, translated here “‘intellect’’, is, in this context, the discursive reason; the thinking

capacity of the individual person: the hemistich answers the question posed 142

in verse 347. Time, vagt, or waqt, in Safi parlance is “that whereby a man becomes independent of the past and the future, as, for example, when an influence from

God descends into his soul and makes his heart collected (mujtami‘); he has no memory of the past and no thought of that which is yet to come. . .”. “All people fail in this, and do not know what our past has been or what our future will be, except the possessors of vagt, who say: ‘Our knowledge cannot apprehend a future or the past, and we are happy with God in the present (andar waqt). If we occupy ourselves with tomorrow, or let thoughts of it enter our minds, we shall be veiled (from God), and a veil is a great

distraction (paragandagt)’.” (Hujwiri’s Kashfu’l-Mahjub, “The Revealing of the Veiled”, translated by R.A. Nicholson, op. cit, pages 367-368). Hence

vaqt (in Arabic waqt) might be said to be “the moment of immediate experience of being under Divine Control (tasrif),” (Nicholson,

“Commentary

on the Mathnawi”, Vol. I., page 22). See also p. 223 and passim in Lewisohn (ed.) Classical Persian Sufism: From its Origins to Rumi, Khaqani Nimatullah Publications, London, New York, 1993.

The Safi is said to be “the son of the moment” because he is subject to the moment’s dominant state; but the choice of the “time” lies not within any human’s power. God alone can confer or withdraw it. Hence “knowledge” is of no avail, as ‘Attar says. Because the vagt cuts out the root of the past and of the future, and eradicates concern for the morrow or yesterday from the heart, Sufi Shaikhs have described it as a cutting sword, but a sharp blade no human can control and the cutting of which is sudden and violent. (Cf. the Risdla of Al-Qushairi ,who died in 1073, Arabic text, Cairo, 1940, pages 33 ff., and Badf‘ uz-Zaman Firtzanfar’s Persian transla-

The Speech of the Birds

441

tion, Tehran 1967, pages 88 ff.). The difference between ‘ilm, acquired knowledge, and ma‘rifat, gnosis, is involved in ‘Attar’s verse. The former is knowledge in the acquisition of which the man of learning (lim) depends upon himself. For gnosis the gnostic (Grif) depends upon his Lord, (Hujwiri, op. cit., page 383). Also behind ‘Attar’s verse is the hadith cited

by Hujwiri in the context of vaqt: “There is a time for me with God which not the Angel of the Proximity nor any prophetic messenger can encompass.” There is none but God; Hujwiri says that it is a moment when “the eighteen-thousand worlds do not occur to my mind and have no worth in my eyes”. (Cf. Sa‘di, Gulistan, Book II, Story 9.)

143

144

Muhammad, not in this instance the Khalilu’llah: the Khalilu’llah, see Note 16 above, was a title accorded to Abraham, but here the word khalil is being

used in the literal sense of “bosom friend”. This is an allusion to how Gabriel, accompanying the Prophet on his Miraculous Ascent, knew that he could not proceed beyond the Lote Tree of the Extremity. This Lote Tree is alluded to in the Koran LIII, 13-18, in

which the Prophet is described as meeting Gabriel by the Lote Tree of the Extremity. According to some Traditions the Lote Tree is the abode of the Angel Gabriel and situated in the Seventh Heaven, but it symbolises the bounds between the knowable and the absolutely hidden: the frontier between the Oneness and Multiplicity. Gabriel’s halting indicated that he knew his station as an angel: he could not go all the way with Muhammad into communion with the One. When Muhammad asked Gabriel why he stopped, he replied, according to a hadith “Were I to advance the breadth of a fingernail, I would be burned”. (See Mirsddu’l-‘Ibad, op. cit., transla-

tion, page 84, Note 32, page 142, and Note 33, and page 199. On both the last two pages the Tradition is cited.) 145 Simurgh, a name of the mythical Iranian “Phoenix”. The word can be read as a compound of si, “thirty”, and murgh, “bird(s)”. The Simurgh comprehends but also transcends all the birds of creation. The theme of this book is the quest of the latter for the Simurgh, but in the Simurgh the thirty birds who survived the ordeal of the quest ultimately find themselves. But see Part Two, Note 40 below. For Moses’ encounter with God, see Koran

XX,

verses 8-41. God

showed him His signs. (Cf. Exodus, Chapters 3 and 4.) 146 See Koran XX, 12, and Note 147 below. 147 Koran XX, 12: Tuwaé is the name given this valley in this Koranic verse. 148 See Note 144 above. On his Miraculous Ascent, the Prophet heard the flip-flop of sandals and asked the Angel Gabriel whose they were. Gabriel told him they were

the sandals of the Prophet’s friend, Bilal, the first

Muezzin and said by some to have been the Prophet’s steward. See Note 139 above. The implication is that even a servant and intimate of the Prophet’s was greater than Moses, for he was allowed to keep his sandals on; but the poet makes this clear in the following verses.

442 149

The Speech of the Birds I.e., Muhammad’s servant, Bilal. The ‘his’ in ‘his eminence’ refers to Muhammad, as it does in the following verse, “His servant”, i.e. Muhammad’s servant.

150 There is a Tradition that Moses prayed God to make him of Muhammad’s people. 154 Jesus was received into the Station of Proximity while, it is said, in the wilderness, and as a result he could do no other than summon creation to the Faith of Muhammad when, as Muslim commentators fortell that Jesus

will, he returns to earth at the Millenium and prostrates himself before the Prophet. As seen above, Jesus’ abode was the Fourth Heaven (see Note 122 above, and verse 361 below).

152 153

See preceeding Note. See Note 122 above for Jesus, as in the Koran LXI, 6, as the giver of “good

tidings of a messenger . . . Ahmad”. 154

See Koran XVI, 66, ““We have sent down the Book to thee only in order

that thou mayest make clear to them that in which they differ, and as a guidance and a mercy to a people who believe.” I Boye) See Koran XV, 72: “By your life, in their intoxication they were blindly wandering”. That God swore by the life of Muhammad is taken as proof of the special regard the Prophet enjoyed in the eyes of his Lord. 156 See Note 105 above. 157

In the Mathnawi, Book 1, Verse 2113, Rimi has: The moaning pillar, because of separation from the Apostle, Was uttering a lament just like rational beings.

The “moaning pillar” alludes to before the minbar, staired pulpit, Prophet had been wont to lean the pulpit, the tree-trunk’s lament

the old date palm trunk against which, was introduced into the mosque, the when preaching. On his adoption of resembled that of a woman hankering

for a lost lover, husband or child; the word here translated “pillar tree”’ is hundana, derived from the verbal root hanna, “to long”, “yearn”, “hanker”. It is the word ‘Attar uses in this verse for the whole concept of the tree the

Prophet had lent against: “the moaning of the hundna arose far and wide”’. The tree was in fact treated like a mortal: it was buried as a human would be and the legend has it that on the day of Resurrection it will be resurrected and allowed to flourish forever “among the green trees of Paradise.” (See Goharin: Farhang-i Lughat va Ta‘birat-i Masnavi, “Vocabulary of the Words and Expressions in the Masnavi”, Tehran 1959, Vol. I, page 187.) 158 See Note 3 above: Koran XXXI, 9. 159 An allusion to Koran LXXIII, 1 and 2: “O you wrapped up, arise at night except (for) a little”. Sale (op. cit., Vol. II, page 459), citing two eminent commentators, Zamakhshari (died 1143), and Baidawi (died 1286), has this note, which is to the same effect as Goharin’s, though the latter mentions ‘Ayesha’s report that, since he eschewed silks, furs, cotton etc., the Prophet

was wrapped in a goat- or camel-haired mantle.

The Speech of the Birds “When this revelation was brought to Muhammad, in his garments, being affrighted at the appearence messenger to him] or, as some say, he lay sleeping according to others, [was] praying, wrapped up in

443 he was wrapped up of Gabriel [God’s unconcernedly, or, one part of a large

mantle, or rug, with the other part of which ‘Ayesha had covered herself

to sleep.” The Sura in question is called ““The Enwrapped”, but see Bell’s translation, (Edinburgh 1937 and 1960, Vol. II., page 613) for a different view of

the matter. 160 There is word-play here: “Lift your head out of your rug (gilim)” is an idiom meaning “Act in your full capacity”; “Act according to your rank”. 161 This can be taken as meaning “Trample on Moses’s dispensation”; ‘Attar is punning on the words qadr, “worth”, “value”, but also “decree”, “power”, and gilim, “rug”; but cf. Koran XCVII, concerning God’s sending down His Revelation. In view of verse 381 and 382 below, this

short Sura is worth quoting in full. Verily have We sent it down on the Night of Power. And by what might you fathom what the Night of Power is? The Night of Power is better than a thousand months. The Angels and the Spirit do descend therein, by permission of their Lord, regarding each matter. It is Peace until the rising of the Dawn.

The “Night of the Decree” might be a preferable translation to the usual rendering, “Night of Power”. In Koran XLIV, 1 and 2, come the words: “By the Book that makes plain, /

Verily did We send it down on a blessed night . . .”. The poet is evidently following a chain of thought that, with its allusion to the Prophet’s being urged to rise in order to pray, verse 379 above might have begun: for the Sufi, since, though it is believed to be one of the last

ten nights of the month of Ramadan, the Month of Fasting, the Lailatu’l-Qadr, Night of Power, is not attached to any particular date in the calendar, its blessings can only be obtained by those who pray and keep vigils on many nights, if not every night. Hence in the Mathnawi is found the verse: Truth is the Night of Power, hidden among nights, So that the soul might make of every night trial.

Cf. Nicholson’s Commentary . . ., Vol. I, page 340. 162

The reference is to asl, foundation of the Law, of which there are four —

the Koran, the Sunna (the practice of the Prophet recorded in the hadiths), giyds ( analogy), and ijma’ (consensus); and to far‘, branch, 1.e. the application of the principles in jurisprudential practice (figh). 163 According to a hadith, Muhammad,

having been created before Adam, preceeded all the Prophets, all of whom are beneath his standard. (See the

following verses.)

444 164

The Speech of the Birds There might be an allusion here to hadiths, there are at least two such, testi-

fying to Muhammad’s precedence among Prophets. Eg., “ I was before all Prophets in Creation, and the last of them to be sent”, and the hadith, “We are the last and the foremost”. Cf. Mérsadu’l-‘Ibad translation, op. cit., page

157; text, page 136. See Koran VII, 97: “Do they feel safe from the craftiness of God? No-one feels secure from God’s wiles save a people that will lose”. 166 See Koran XII, 87: “. . . despair not of the comfort of Allah; none despair of the comfort of Allah but an unbelieving people”. 167 On Muhammad as intercessor: he was sent as “ a mercy to the worlds” 165

(Koran XXI, 107, see Note 81, 85 and 137 above), and, see also Note 107

above. There are a number of Traditions attesting to the Prophet as intercessor, e.g., “I am the first intercessor, and the first to be caused to intercede.” (See Mirsdd . . ., op. cit., translation page 155, text page 143,

168 169 170

where the subject of Muhammad’s foremost role at the Resurrection is discussed.) The idiom is: “Do not turn my face black (on account of sin)”. ‘Attar’s name was Muhammad. A reference, it seems in view of verses to follow, to the muharjirin, the

“Emigrants”, those who accompanied the Prophet on his hijra, ‘separation from tribe and family to form a fresh association’, but often translated “flight”; “migration”, that of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina.

171

Abt Bakr, a confidant on June 8, was Caliph

Muhammad’s only companion on his escape from Mecca, was of Muhammad (see next verse) and, after the Prophet’s death 632, his first successor (Caliph) as head of the Community. He from 632 to 634.

A722 ‘Ali, Fourth Caliph (656-661), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. Al-Murtaza, means the “Chosen” or “Approved”. 173 Sidq, “sincerity”, see next Note and Note 180. 174 “Trueness”’, translating the important word sidq, “truth”, “sincerity” as in unswerving loyalty and devotion. See Note 180 below. 175 ‘Umar, the second Caliph (634-644). 176 The model of decorum: the Caliph “Uthman (644-656). The Prophet is

reputed to have said, “If it were that he was in the middle of his house, and the door closed upon him, and he were to put aside his clothes to pour water upon himself, modesty would forbid him to straighten his back.” 177 The second hemustich alludes to the last of the four “Othodox” Caliphs, all of whom were among the original muharjinin, ‘Ali ibn Abi TAlib. 178 First convert to Islam; but this is disputed. However, as a wealthy merchant of Mecca, Abt Bakr’s early acceptance of Muhammad’s mission would be an important and helpful factor. (Cf. next verse.) 179 See Note 9 above, and 180 below. 180 See Note 173 above concerning sidg: its use in verse 425 alludes to Abt Bakr’s title of As-Siddiq, ‘the veracious” or “confirmer of the true”.

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Abt Bakr was given this name, it is said, because when the early Muslims doubted Muhammad’s account of his mi‘raj, miraculous night journey, it was Abt Bakr who testified to the accuracy of the Prophet’s description of Jerusalem, which he had passed on his journey, so to confirm the truth of the Prophet’s narrative and repair the critics’ shaken belief in the Prophet. Koran XXXIX, 34, “and by God, he who’s come with the Truth, and he who’s testified to it”, is mentioned in a Tradition ascribed to ‘Ali as

referring to the Prophet and Abt Bakr respectively; but the Koranic allusion behind verse 427 is IX, 40: “If you do not aid him, Allah has already

aided him, when those who have disbelieved expelled him with only one companion (as in ‘Attar’s quotation of the words here, the Koran has liter-

ally “second of two”); the two of them were in the cave, and he was saying to his companion: “Grieve not, verily Allah is with us’”. The allusion is to the Prophet and Abt Bakr hiding in the cave of Thaur. 181

The word translated “Pole” is qutb. It means “pole”, “axis”, “wheel-axle”,

“pivot”, but in Sufi terminology, in the conception of a saintly hierarchy between the phenomenal world and Divine Reality, qutb is a very special term indeed. It, or the word ghawth, (“helper’, “aider’’), refers to the first

of this Order of holy maintainers of the world. Below the qutb come the three nuqaba, (“leaders”, “investigators”) and below them, the four autdd (“pegs”, or “tent-pegs”, “pillars’””), and below them the seven abrar (“the pious”), and then the forty abdal (“substitutes”), and the three-hundred akhyar (“the good”). Their numbers differ in various sources; some have seventy abdal for instance. Hujwiri (translation, page 214) describes these saints as, ‘those who have power to loose and to bind and are the officers of the Divine court’. He gives them as three-hundred in number and states that they all know one another (regardless of chronological time) and “cannot act save by mutual consent.” He begins his description with the statement that God has caused the prophetic evidence to persist throughout all ages and “has made the Saints the means whereby it is manifested, in order that the signs of the Truth and the proof of Muhammad’s veracity may continue to be clearly seen. He has made the Saints the governors of ”

ee:

the Universe; they have become entirely devoted to His business and have

ceased to follow their sensual affections”. In Rami’s Mathnawi, reflecting Ibnu’l-‘Arabi’s concept, the qutb, “pivot of the world”, is seen as the Perfect Man, Insdnu’l-Kamil, and, to quote

Nicholson’s gloss on Book I, verse 1583 (“. . . place and ‘no-place’ are in his control”. See Commentary, Vol. 1., page 113), the qutb.is the “Pole. . .,

on whom the universe revolves, and ‘the essences of all things that exist are drawn to obey his command, as iron is drawn by the magnet’”. Here Nicholson’s Studies in Islamic Mysticism (Cambridge 1921 and 1967, page 130) is being cited where the words of ‘Abdu’l-Karim al-Jili (died c. 1406-1417) are repeated from Jili’s work on the Insdnu’l-Kamil. 182 Al-Mustafa: the Prophet.

446 183

The Speech of the Birds Abt Bakr’s piety, also learning, and his special closeness to the Prophet are mentioned in numerous Traditions. On his esteem among Sufis, Hujwiri says: “. . . the whole sect of Safis have made him their pattern in stripping themselves of worldly things, in fixity (tamkin), in eager desire for poverty, and in longing to renounce authority. He is the Imam of the Moslems in general, and of S&fis in particular.”

(Translation,

page 72). Aba

Bakr

prayed in a murmur: he knew that He Whom he addressed would hear. The History of the Caliphs, by Suydti (born 1445), gives (see the English translation by HLS. Jarrett, Calcutta 1881, reprinted, Amsterdam,

1970,

pages 25 ff.) an account of the First Caliph based on ancient sources and hadiths. One of the engaging stories about Abi Bakr and repeated by Hujwiri (op. cit., pages 69-71) is that As-Siddiq prayed God for “plenty of the world” but to be made “desirous of renouncing it”. Hujwiri considers the best form of poverty to be that resulting from renunciation of great wealth accrued. 184 Of legends about him is the account of his stuffing his mouth with pebbles lest he should be noisy, a babbler, and loud in praying. See verse 435 and Note 187 below for “one word” and “rarer air”. 185 Musk was brought from Central Asia after being extracted from the bladder of deer. Abt Bakr’s power (as The Perfect Man) was such that a sigh of his could reverse the process. In this “reversal” there might be a subtle allusion to Abt Bakr as qutb: in Paradise the saints were said to be able to make the four rivers of Paradise flow in any direction they pleased; the four rivers being of water, honey, milk, and wine. (See Nicholson, Commentary . . ., as cited in Note 181 above.)

186 187

The hadith: “Seek you knowledge, even in China”. “Gravity” and “stones”, ‘Attar is punning on the word sang, which means both. Hu, “He”, was the Sufi’s favourite ejaculation testifying to God’s

being the only Reality and object of his quest. As Hujwiri (translation page 238) says, “Then I became a bird, whose body was of Oneness and whose wings were of Everlastingness, and I continued to fly in the air of the Absolute (hiwiyyat) . . .”. See Koran II, 158, “there is no god but He”. The Sufi hii refers to these words, in Arabic, la ildha illd huwa, cf. Studies in

Islamic Mysticism, op. cit., page 96. It is tempting to suppose that ‘Attar had Hujwiri’s text in mind when he spoke of Abt Bakr’s escaping to breathe “the rarer air”. It is unlikely that he did. Hujwiri probably wrote his Kashfu’l-Mahjub in Lahore, where, c. 1072 or 1076, he died, but both men

belonged to the same ethos and what Nicholson says in the Preface to his translation of Hujwiri’s work (p. xiii) is important here: He strenuously resists and pronounces heretical the doctrine that human personality can be merged and extinguished in the being of God. He compares annihilation to burning by fire, which transmutes the quality of all things to its own quality, but leaves their essence unchanged. [See Note 63 above] . . . Notwithstanding the homage which he pays to the Prophet we cannot separate

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Hujwiri, as regards the essential principles of his teaching, from his older and

younger contemporaries, Abt Sa‘id b. Abi’l-Khayr and ‘Abdallah Ansari. These three mystics developed the distinctively Persian theosophy which is revealed in full-blown splendour by Farid al-din ‘Attar and Jalal al-din Rami.

Hujwiri had, however, in the eleventh century visited Safis in Khurdsan and Transoxiana. (See Kashfu’l-Mahjub, translation, pp. 173-174.) and, of course, ‘Attar of Nishapur was in the Khurasanian tradition established by

Shaikh Najmu’d-Din known as “Kubra”, whose murid, Majdu’d-din Baghdadi (or Khwarazmi) (died c. 1209-10 or 1219-20 ap) ‘Attar met and followed as Najmu’d-Din’s successor. (Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd, op. cit., page 6, and Firizanfar, Shahr-i Hal-i ‘Attar-i Nishaburi, Tehran,

1339/1959-60,

1340/1960-61, page 19.) 188 There is an ancient Tradition to the effect that ‘Umar said precisely this. 189 An allusion to Abt Bakr’s succession as the first of Muhammad’s Caliphs, Deputies, in the leadership of the Muslim Community. 190 Discriminator, farigq, was a title bestowed upon ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph. Accounts vary, but tradition mainly affirms that the Prophet conferred this title on ‘Umar when this formerly pugnacious foe of the new Faith was converted to it. ‘Ayesha is reported to have said that it was the Prophet who awarded this title to an enemy turned into a powerful ally who was at pains to make his conversion as public as possible; before it, the Prophet and his small band of followers, surrounded by hostility in Mecca, had been forced into hiding. “Umar’s acceptance of Islam is said to have occurred in the sixth year of its preaching, in the last month (628 ap). When he became Muslim (for further details see Note 192 below), the Prophet is said to have uttered the hadith: “God through “Umar has divided (faraqa) Truth from Falsehood”. ‘Umar is reputed to have taken a party of adherents of the religion he had just joined to the mosque accompanied by another group led by Hamzah, converted three days before ‘Umar. The hostile Meccan compatriots and fellow Quraish on seeing these two brave bands fell silent in sorrow over this defection from their old pagan religion. ‘Umar’s bold gesture in at once making his accession to Islam public has

also been associated with the Apostle’s calling “Umar the Fartiq, discriminator. ‘Umar himselfisreported to have asked the Prophet why they should remain in hiding, for were they not “in the Truth”? When Muhammad

191

answered affirmatively, ‘Umar and Hamzah marched with their two bands to the mosque. ‘Umar later recounted that it was then that the Prophet called him the Discriminator, because Islam was thus made manifest, and truth distinguished from falsehood. The allusion is to ‘Umar’s gift of often making judgements and uttering injunctions which anticipated Koranic revelation so that verses shortly afterwards revealed to the Prophet endorsed what ‘Umar had said. Suytti (translation, op. cit., page 125 ff.) gave twenty examples of these percipient utterances. Acknowledging ‘Umar’s capacity for being inspired in this

448

The Speech of the Birds way, a hadith is attributed to the Prophet: “Verily Allah has placed the truth on the tongue of ‘Umar and in his heart”.

192

The allusion is to ‘Umar’s road to Damascus-type of conversion. He, like

St. Paul against the Christians, had been a zealous persecutor of the first Muslims in Mecca. Hearing that his sister Fatima and her husband, Sayyid Ibn Zaid, had abandoned paganism for Islam, ‘Umar hastened to their house intent upon killing them. On entering he heard muttering: they were communicating with another early Muslim, who managed to conceal himself. ‘Umar asked what was going on. His sister replied that they were having a discussion. He charged them with changing their religion. An altercation followed in which he trampled on his brother-in-law and slapped his sister in the face, drawing blood. He then demanded the book they had, so that he might read it, but, citing the Koran LVI, 78, his sister

pointed out that he was unclean and “truth is not but for the purified”. (For the last word the Koran has mutahharin; ‘Attar uses the singular, mutahhar, in his verse.). ‘Umar made his ablutions, took the book and began reading the chapter “T.H.”, (fa hd). He read as far as verse 7, “Allah, there is no God but He, to Him belong the names most beautiful”, whereupon ‘Umar asked to be directed to the “‘safe-house” where Muhammad was:

the house of one Argam. The Prophet was inspired to cause his people to admit ‘Umar, whom he welcomed and who at once recited the Confession of Faith, “There is no god but God”, but ‘Umar added what later became

part of the Muslim Doxology, “and Muhammad is His Apostle”. T.H. are the letters at the beginning of the chapter which in consequence is entitled “T.H.”. Their significance has not been clearly resolved. They are followed by the beautiful words, which probably bore an allusion to the persecution the Muslims were then suffering, “We have not sent down upon you the Koran that you should be harrassed”. 193 194

For hui, He, see Note 187 above.

The hadith: “The first whom God will greet is ‘Umar, and the first He’ll bless, and the first whom He will take by his hand and enter into Paradise”. The “Messenger” is, of course, Muhammad, and his “word” is the term,

gawl, as in Sunnatu’l-Qawl (see Note 197 below), the Tradition of what the Prophet himself said, as contrasted with the Sunnatu’l-Fi‘l, what he did, his manner of conduct, and Sunnatu’t- Tagrir, what others did or said in his presence without his reproof. Sir literally means road. As As-Siratu’l-Mustaqim

“The Straight Way”, it is frequently mentioned in the Koran as the way of the Faith; but in Islamic tradition it commonly also means the bridge finer than a hair, sharper than a sword, surrounded by brambles and thorns, over which the spirits of the dead, both good and bad, must pass, the former

crossing in a flash, but the bad faltering and falling into the fires of hell. Rawlinson (The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, London, 1876, pages 135-136) says that Zoroastrianism “taught that the soul of man was immortal, and would continue to possess forever a separate conscious

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existence. Immediately after death the spirits of both good and bad had to proceed along an appointed path to the ‘bridge of the gatherer’ (chinvat peretu). This was a narrow road conducting to heaven or paradise, over which the souls of the pious alone could pass, while the wicked fell from it into the gulf below, where they found themselves in the place of punishment”. Cf. R.C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight ofZoroastrianism, London, 1961, the “Bridge of the Requiter’’, pages 36, 59, 96, 111, 226, 302-4. The one allusion to the Bridge of Sirat in the Mathnawt, Book II, verse 255, is

metaphorical in the context of avoidance of excess, a characteristic of the Way of Islam. 195 196

See the hadith cited above, in the preceding Note.

One of the hadiths eulogising “Umar is: “Umar is the lamp of the people in Paradise.” 197 See the hadith cited in Note 191 above. Whether or not the spirit of man might see God after death is a controversial issue in Islam. See verse 398 (“the eye of the soul”) above in this context, and Part Two, Note 425 below. 198 See Note 196 above. Here ‘Attar translates the hadith into Persian. 199 Sunna: the custom of the Prophet. The word sunna means “usual practice”, “customary procedure”. In Islam it came to mean “usage sanctioned by tradition”, that of the Prophet. The Sunna of the Prophet comprised what he said and did, and became legally binding as a source of precedence in law: a pillar of the Law in addition to the Koran. The Prophet’s Sunna has been handed down through the hadith, ‘Traditional record”, plural, ahadith,

(See Note 47 above). “Uthman was called “Lord of the Two Lights” because the only man, it was said, to have married in succession two daughters of a prophet. They were Rugayya and Umm Kulthim, both daughters of the Prophet Muhammad, the second of whom “Uthman married after Ruqayya’s death. Incidentally, ‘Uthm4n’s mother was a daughter of the Prophet’s paternal aunt. 201 The “second Joseph” is an allusion to ‘Uthman’s comeliness of person, to which historians as well as tradition attest. Joseph was considered a paragon of beauty. The Prophet sent a man with some meat for “Uthman and Ruqayya, whom the man found sitting together. On his return, the Prophet asked him, “Have you ever seen a more comely pair?”, to which the reply was that he had not. The Prophet is also reported to have said, “I have seen 200

‘Uthman, son of ‘Affan, but never have I seen man or woman more hand-

some of face than he”. 202 See Note 176 above. 203 ‘Uthman’s kinsmen of the Umayyah: as Caliph, “Uthman favoured his kinsmen for posts, as governors over places newly conquered and settled in Syria, Iraq and Iran for example. To Kia he sent a cousin who was a drunkard, and he appointed a member of his clan to the freshly conquered

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450

city of Rayy in Iran. His nepotism aroused dissension in Kafa, but his

‘asabtyyah, clan-loyalty, took precedence during the second half of his twelve-year Caliphate, and (see next verse) in 656 AD he was murdered. 204

The word translated “virtuous learning” is hunar, which means “virtue”,

but also “skill”, “‘artistic capacity” etc. It has been paraphrased here as “virtuous learning” because it might be a reference to “Uthman’s authority and circumspection in the matter of transmitting hadiths, and to his having commanded the proper rescension of the Koran. As the Prophet received the Revelation, the verses which he uttered were written down by certain of his Companions on “scraps, thin white stones, palm stems and in the breasts of men”, i.e. in their memory. (Ibn Nadim, Fihrist, English translation by Bayard Dodge, New York, 1970, Vol. I, page 48.) Aba Bakr and ‘Umar are reported to have urged Zaid ibn Thabit to collect these fragments before reciters who had memorised what was written on them were removed through death such as they risked in the battles of early Islam. Zaid ibn Thabit demurred and the fragments came into the keeping of ‘Umar’s sister (in some accounts, daughter) Hafsa, until “Uthman, appre-

hensive of disagreements over the Book among

converts, ordered its

rescension in manuscript form. Hafsa delivered the fragments to him and

he commissioned Zaid ibn Thabit and three others to transcribe them before they were returned to Hafgsa. He sent copies of the transcription to every district and ordered the burning of other versions. 205 206 207

During ‘Uthman’s reign, many important conquests were achieved or consolidated. The Prophet.

The hadith is, “Verily the Angels are abashed by ‘Uthman (as they are before God and His Apostle)”. It occurs in different forms in different works. The Prophet is reputed to have said, “Shall I not be bashful before the man before whom the Angels are abashed?”, as, on ‘Uthman’s entering his

room, the Prophet for the sake of propriety modestly arranged his garment. 208

After ‘Uthman had raised mounts and money, “more than any had ever

done”, for the army of Tabuk in an expedition against the Greeks, the Prophet promised that ““Uthman will not be judged whatever he might do after this”, and, “it shall not harm “Uthman, whatever he might do after

this”. (See Suyti, op. cit, pages 156,157, and Hisham-Ish4g, The Life of Muhammad, translated by A. Guillaume, Oxford, 1955, page 603.) 209

In the sixth year of Islam, 627-8 Ap, the Prophet arrived outside Mecca.

The Meccan Quraish, who were still pagan, thought he intended Mecca’s conquest. To reassure them that his arrival was only in connection with the Pilgrimage and that he intended no bloodshed, he sent ‘Uthman as an envoy into the city. When “Uthman failed to return, rumour spread that he had been murdered. The Prophet and his band of followers were beneath

a tree at a spot called al-Hudaibiya.

His followers

swore,

or

re-swore, but in the context of doing battle, allegiance to him, vowing

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451

loyalty in giving battle to the end against the Meccans. In the clasping of hands on the swearing of this oath the Prophet averred that his hand was given on ‘Uthman’s behalf. However, an emissary came out from Mecca named Suhail ibn “Amr. He had the unharmed ‘Uthman brought to the Prophet, and the Prophet concluded the Truce of al-Hudaibiya with Suhail to the effect that there should be peace between the Muslims and the unconverted Meccans for ten years, and that the Pilgrimage of the next year should be permitted to the Muslims, but, two years later, when the Meccans broke the Truce, Muhammad in fact entered Mecca in triumph.

Koran, XLVIII, The Chapter of the Victory, signals God’s having granted the Prophet victory (verse 1) and (verse 18) that “Allah was well pleased with the believers when they swore allegiance to thee under the tree .. .”. Hence the oath of allegiance given to Muhammad by his supporters has become known as the “Oath of the Tree”, and is referred to, following the Koranic

verse 18 cited above, as the “allegiance pleasing to God”. The following verse in the poem alludes to the fact that ‘Uthman was not present beneath the tree when the oath was taken, but also to the Prophet’s honouring him by pointing out that the procedure was on behalf of a faithful Companion at that moment believed to have been slain. The Prophet is reputed to have said “Verily “Uthman is employed in the requirements of God and the needs of His Apostle” as “he struck one hand against the other, thus giving the hand of the Apostle of God as a pledge for “Uthman; a hand better than the hands of the others present”. (See Goharin’s note, pages 289-290, and The Life of Muhammad, op. cit., pages 499 ff.) 210 “Gateway to Wisdom”: among the numerous Traditions concerning ‘Ali are many alluding to his knowledge. The one to which our poet must be referring here is Muhammad’s saying: “I am the city of wisdom and ‘Ali is its gate”. 211 Saqt-ye Kawthar, “Dispenser of Kawthar’: Kawthar is the name given to a pool in Paradise of which the water, some have said it rises from the foot

of the Tree of the Extremity (see Note 144 above), is ceaselessly abundant and cleansing to those who have been faithful. As used in Koran CVII, verse 1, it means

“abundance” —

(‘‘Verily, We have given thee abun-

dance”), but numerous Traditions, especially those beloved of the Shi‘i, make it the “Sacred Pond” in the water of which ‘Ali washes the faithful and so delivers them from hell. Whoever is washed in its water will never again know thirst or defilement. In Sufi terms, as for example in the Masnavi, Kawthar stands for the inexhaustable fountain of God’s grace, and

a source of drops that become pearls of gnosis, ma‘rifat. Aba Hamid al-Ghazali (died 1111), in his discussion of Kawthar, does not mention ‘Ali (Ihya’w’l-Ulim

“Revivification of the Sciences”, Beirut, n.d., Voli EV,

pages 528 ff.), but the Shi‘ite commentator on Al-Ghazili’s great work, Muhsin al-Kashani (died 1680 ap) adds an important gloss in which he states that ‘Ali ibn Abi T4lib gave the friends of God to drink from Kawthar

452

The Speech of the Birds and drove His enemies away from it. (Al-Mahjjatu’l-Baida, “The Shining Path”, in the Fi Tahdhtb al-Ihy4, “In the Rectification ‘Revivification’”’, Beirut 1983, Vol. VIII, page 352).

of

the

212 “Son of the uncle of Mustafa”: that ‘Ali was the Prophet’s cousin as well as, through marriage to Fatima, his son-in-law, constituted kinship ties of great significance, especially for the Shi‘a sect in Islam with its belief in the legitimacy of ‘Ali’s succession to the Prophet, and that of his progeny by Fatima.

213 ‘Attar would have many traditions to draw upon to this effect. One was uttered by the Prophet when he nominated ‘Ali his Vicegerent during the Tabuk expedition. ‘Ali asked, was he going to be left behind among the women and children? The Apostle of God replied, “Are you not content to be to me in the relation of Aaron to Moses.

. .?”” On another ocasion,

the Prophet assured ‘Ali that, ““You are my brother in this world and the next”: 214

I.e. husband of the virtuous Fatima. The word batul, “virgin”, is a title often

given her. It is also used for the Virgin Mary. It implies religious renunciation of the world as well as chastity. 215

“Husband of the Innocent”, i.e. of Fatima the Chaste.The word ma‘sum,

“kept from sinning”, is the word translated here “Innocent”. The noun ‘isma means “protection”, “keeping back” (from sin or danger). 216 ‘Ali’s perspicacity in matters relating to the Law and judgement is attested by many Traditions. “Umar is reported to have said, “ ‘Ali is the best of us in judicial decision”; and ‘Ayesha, to have said, “Verily he is the most learned in the Sunna that is left”. Hence ‘Ali became the one of whom it was said, by “Umar in the first instance, ““None of the Companions used to say ‘Ask of me’ save ‘Ali’. It is reported — and this might surely have been in the poet’s mind when he wrote Sahib-i Asrar, “Master of Mysteries”, so

that saliini, “Ask of me” would naturally follow — that ‘Ali said: “Ask me about the mysteries of the hidden and I am the heir of the knowledge of the Prophets and Apostles”; but cf. Notes 224 and 252, and verse 470

below. 217 In addition to the preceeding Notes on ‘Ali’s legal acumen etc., in the context of this verse Dr. Goharin cites the story of the Prophet’s sending ‘Ali when still a youth to adjudicate between factions in the Yemen. ‘Ali protested youthfulness and lack of qualifications as a judge in claiming that he was an unsuitable emissary. The Prophet struck him on his breast and said, “O God, guide his heart anght and confirm his tongue”. The Prophet also said: “Verily the best in judgement is ‘Ali ibn Abi T4lib.” 218

See the Note above for the hadith of which the phrase aqzakum, “best of

you in judgement”, occurs. (Cf. Note 216 above). 219

Mamsuis means “touched”. The hadith is: “Do not revile ‘Ali, verily he is

touched with the Essence of God”. 220 The poet puns on the word dam, “breath’, or, as in dam-i ab, “drop of

The Speech of the Birds

453

water”. The allusion might be to a tale about ‘Ali’s having the hand of a black slave cut off because the slave had committed theft, but ‘Ali restored

the severed hand by rubbing his spittle on it. Or it might refer to how the severed hand of Hisham ibn ‘Adi in the battle of Siffin was similarly restored to the wnist by ‘Ali’s ministrations. The Battle of Siffin was part of the Fitna,

and the first wars of Muslim against Muslim in Islam, when ‘Ali and the ‘Umayyad Mu‘awiyya (Caliph from 661-680) conducted a series of negotiations and skirmishes between 656 and 658 arising from Mu‘Awiyya’s refusal to acknowledge ‘Ali as Caliph and allegations concerning his complicity in the murder of the Caliph ‘Uthman, Mu‘4wiyya’s kinsman. 224

It is related that when, on taking Mecca, the Prophet set about ridding the Kaba of idols, as there were some he could not reach, ‘Ali brought them

222

An allusion to Koran XX, 23-24, where God commands Moses to press

down after he had mounted on the Apostle’s shoulders. his hand to his side and draw it out white as another sign of God’s power to make His servant effect miracles. Thus the “white hand of Moses” has become a metaphor for unusual spiritual power. 2n0 Dhu’l-Fagar: the name of ‘Ali’s sword. It originally belonged to an unbeliever slain in the battle of Badr in the year 2 AH / 624 AD against the Quraish. A second less sanguinary battle of the same name took place two years later, but the first battle of Badr was the significant one: it marked the consolidation of Muhammad’s power. The sword became his and was passed on to ‘Ali. Hence this hemistich implies ‘Ali’s special position in relation to the Prophet and, through him, to God. (For “the white hand”,

224

see Note 222 above.) It has been related how at times ‘Ali, because of excess of agitation and loss

of patience with his people, would whisper his secrets into a well. For the nature of the “secrets” see Verse 543 and Note 252 below, and verses 468

and 470 above. Aba Bakr and ‘Umar, the first of the four Caliphs, were chosen by and from among the Companions. 226 “Deny”, takdhtb kun, “reject as false”. Cf. takdhib rastila’llah, “rejecting the Apostle of God”, i.e. giving him the lie; regarding his message as false. Cf. the next verse, second hemistich. 227 Both hemistich’s reflect hadiths. Behind the first is, “My Companions are like the stars and whomever of them you follow, you will be nightly guided”. 228 See Verse 483 above. This is to deny the Shit‘ites exclusive espousal of ‘Ali and reprobation of the other three of the first four “Rightly Guided” Caliphs. 229 A reference to the gathering and transcribing of the Revelation under 225

‘Uthman, but it had been urged by his predecessors.

230

The Prophet’s “Spiritual Companions” were said to number thirty-three thousand.

454

The Speech of the Birds

231

The Prophet met an Arab who asked if he should let his camel go free while he trusted in God. The Prophet answered, “Hobble the camel and (then) trust”. 232 An allusion to the Tradition that Abé Bakr on one occasion said, ‘Depose me, but it will not be for your good’. 233 ‘Umar is said to have invented a scourge which he carried on his shoulders to chastise evil-doers, drunkards etc. His son visited him anointed with oil

and having a fancy hairstyle. ‘Umar scourged him because, he said, “I saw that his spirit made him vain, and I wished to abase it within him”. ‘Umar’s severity was as notorious as his austerity. 234 Nothing was left to him but a blanket. Examples of his dedication are given in tales of his disposing of his wealth. The Prophet asked him what was left for himself and his family. Aba Bakr replied, “Allah and His Apostle”. See next verse. 235 It is tempting to prefer an alternative reading, maghz, “kernel”, here to mujiz, “miracle”, in the second line: the contrast between “kernel”, and geshr, “husk”, here translated “superficialities”, is striking. Yet Goharin’s

choice of reading seems justified by the resonance of the word “miracle” as suggestive of the Miracle of the Koran. With reference to the preceding verse, Abii Bakr had also given his daughter, ‘Ayesha, in marriage to the Prophet. 236 Itis related that the Prophet’s pulpit, minbar, had three steps. On becoming Caliph Abt Bakr preached from the second, not from the top step from which Muhammad had preached. 237 Of‘Umar’s asceticism there are many accounts. His garments were patched with bits of leather. He would refrain from meat, butter, fats, and so on,

238

239

and make bricks for lodgings and collect thorns for fuel for the needy. Asked for money from the Public Treasury, ‘Umar inquired whether he was to meet God as a faithless Amir, and made the petitioner a grant of ten-thousand dirhams of his own. People seeing “Umar carrying a skin of water on his back expostulated with him, but he said, “My spirit made me vain and I wanted to abase it”.

240 Abd ‘Abdallah Hudhaifa ibn’ul-Yaman was greatly trusted by Muhammad who employed him on secret missions. He took part in the battle of Uhud (625 ap) when the Meccans under Abi Sufydn defeated Muhammad,

and Hudhaifa’s father was killed. ‘Umar later made

him

Governor of Al-Madain (Ctesiphon) after Hudhaifa had played an active role in the conquest of Iran. He died some forty days after ‘Umar’s assassination. 241

There is a Tradition to the effect that ‘Umar said, “The most beloved of

men to me is he who reveals my faults”. 242 See Notes 237 and 131 above. 243 The Sdfi khirqa, or dalq, was a mantle which was the more prized the more it was patched. See Note 131 above.

The Speech of the Birds

244

455

It is reported that “Umar asked if he were a monarch or a caliph. Salman al-Farisi, the Persian freedman of Muhammad, whom the Prophet confided

in as an adviser on military and fiscal matters, replied that if he were to tax the land of Muslims and use the receipts unlawfully, he would not be a caliph, but a monarch. Another is said to have answered him that he was

not a monarch, because a caliph neither takes unlawfully nor gives what is not due. A monarch, on the other hand, oppresses the people, “and takes from this and gives to that”. 245 “Umar’s Caliphate saw great Muslim conquests. ‘Attar uses the Arabic word ayyam, here translated “days”, which is what it literally means, but this plural noun is also used for the “days” of celebrated Arab battles and victones, a point which “Attar would not miss. 246 “Umar was assassinated by a Persian slave skilled as an artificer whose skills included the design and construction of mills, so that ‘Umar, contrary to

his decree that male slaves above puberty should not be allowed into Medina, permitted the slave’s master, Mughaira ibn Shu’uba, to bring this Abt Lula into the town. When

his master imposed a tax on the slave,

whose business was doubtless prospering due to his expertise, the slave complained to the Caliph. ‘Umar said the tax was not excessive and the slave departed in anger. He took a double-bladed dagger and hid in the mosque until “Umar arrived to pray, when he stabbed him three times. “Umar, aged 61 or 66, died of the wounds. (644 ab). 247 Uvais-i Qarani was mentioned in one of the earliest books about the founding Saints of Islamic Sufism, Ibn Mubarak Marwazi’s (died 797 ap) Az-Zuhud wa’r-Raqa’iq. (Classical Persian Sufism; From its Origins to Rumi, op. cit., pages 34-35). Uvais-i Qarani is for the Sufi the paragon of withdrawal from the physical into the spiritual world, from the world of form (stirat) into that of “inner meaning” (ma‘and), before which form acts as a veil. (See ibid., pages 328, 329). ‘Attar, in his Tazkiratu’l-Awltyd (“Memorials of the Saints”, ed. Nicholson, London and Leiden, 1905, Vol. I., pages 15 ff., and, Dr. Muhammad Isti‘lami, ed., Tehran, 1346/1966-7,

pages 19 ff.) devotes the second of his “Notices of the Holy” to Uvais, the mysterious, most reclusive of true devotees given exclusively to contemplation of the Divine and hence so oblivious to the world as to be themselves unseen in or by the world. In his report, ‘Attar follows, occasionally quite literally, the account given by Hujwiri (Nicholson’s translation of the Kashfu’l-Mahjub, op. cit., pages 83-84 and the Persian text, ed. Zhukovsky, Leningrad, 1926, pp. 99-100.); the two men might have been drawing from the same source; but see Note 187 above. According to their narratives, the Prophet indicated that Uvais was distinguished by, though he was not leprous, white patches on his side and on the palm of a hand, approximately the size of a dinar. The Prophet said that as-Siddiq would not himself see Uvais. In this

he implied that the first Caliph was sufficiently “seated in the seat of

456

The Speech of the Birds sincerity” to have no need of encountering Uvais in the flesh, but the

Prophet added that both ‘Umar and ‘Ali would see this holy person. The Prophet himself enjoyed spiritual communion with him. ‘Attar recounts how eventually ‘Umar and ‘Ali found Uvais barefooted,

bareheaded, and dressed in a blanket, but under that blanket (gilim) thay saw “the riches of eighteen thousand worlds”. ‘Umar asked, “Who will buy this Caliphate from us fora crust?” Uvais replied that buying and selling did not enter into the matter: ““Why do you offer it for sale? Throw it away so that anyone who finds it might pick it up”. But that would only make the Companions protest that “what you’ve accepted from Siddiq, working for many thousand Muslims, cannot be left, for one day of your justice has superiority over a thousand years of devoted worship”. 248 ‘Ali died after the schismatic Ibn Muljam had stuck him with a sword blow that penetrated to the brain. ‘Ali lingered in Kufa a day or two and expired on the 21st of January 661 ap Ibn Muljam was burned after his limbs had been cut off. 249 250

Haidar means “lion”, it is a variant on “‘Ali’s title, “Lion of God”. ‘Atig, “the manumitted, liberated”, a title conferred on Abt Bakr by the

Prophet and taken to be on account of his having been exempted from hell-fire. It is also said that this soubriquet was conferred on him in allusion to the excellence (‘itdqa) of his countenance. The theme here is, of course, the division, following the Prophet’s death, between Sunnites and Shi'ites,

251

252

the latter comprising the Shi‘at ‘Alf, ‘Ali’s Faction. (See the next Note.) Alluding to ‘Ali’s not having been preferred until after Abi Bakr, ‘Umar and ‘Uthman for the Caliphate. The Shi‘a believe he was the only legitimate heir to the Prophet as leader of the Community. The reference is to the Prophet’s divulging esoteric doctrine to ‘Ali with the injunction that he should pass it on to nobody. In the Mathnawi (Book IV, line 2232), this secret is alluded to in connection with ‘Ali’s sighing into a well (see Verse 476 and Note 224 above). The suggestion is that ‘Ali’s sighs contained the mystery which he could not express other than into the depths of the well: It isn’t the time for consultation. Move on now! Like “Ali, sighs into the well fetch!

Cf. Nicholson’s Commentary . . ., Vol. VIII, page 182, where he refers to this verse in the Mantiqu’t-Tair.

2a3

The inference is that its water had been exhausted in tears. For the Safi,

shedding tears is an act of grace. The tears betoken not only contrition but sorrow in being parted from the Divine. The more the tears, the greater their sanctifying power; weeping deeply was expressed in terms of “weeping blood”, hence the well’s being “full of blood” (verse 545). (Cf. verses 58, 77 etc. above).

254

There is a hadith to the effect that the Prophet said, “When my Companions are mentioned, speak no more”.

The Speech of the Birds 235

Ummu’l-Mu’minin,

457

“Mother of the Faithful”, was the title bestowed on

wives of the Prophet and is derived from the Koran XXXIII, 6: “The Prophet is nearer to the believers than they are to themselves, and his wives are their mothers”. 256

The reference is to the Battle of the Camel (December 656 ap) when Talha

and Zubair, supported by ‘Ayesha, were the aggressors against “Ali, whose proclamation as the fourth Caliph in June 656 they contested. The battle was fought outside Basra, when ‘Ali defeated the allies in a battle called “Of the Camel” because ‘Ayesha observed it from her camel, which was the

rallying point for warriors she was supporting. Talha and Zubair were both defeated and slain. ‘Ayesha was captured, but sent back to Medina with honour. This was the first contest of Muslim against Muslim. (See Mas‘tdi, the Murtj adh-Dhahab, “Les Prairies d’Or”, text and translation by Barbier de Meynard, Vol. IV, Paris, 1865, pp. 304 ff.). Cf “Mustafa-ite host” in

257

552 above; ‘Ayesha was Muhammad’s spouse, see Note 257. below. “The daughter” was ‘Ali’s wife, Fatima, daughter of the Prophet. “He who could war against the daughter”, refers to ‘Ali and Fatima’s enemies who,

258 259 260

in attacking them, were attacking the Prophet. See verse 18 and Note 12 above for ‘Attar’s play upon letters of the alphabet. Concerning the Battle of the Camel: the contestants on both sides ranked as Companions. The story is about how Bilal, who, as seen above, became Muhammad’s muezzin and trusted friend, when he accepted Islam was subjected to the wrath of his Master, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, who bitterly resented this

Abyssinian slave deviating from the ancient gods of Mecca. Bilal was bound and laid on stony ground outside Mecca in the full glare of the sun, and given a fearful whipping and beating with sticks, until Abd Bakr came on the scene and protested against this treatment. Umayyah thereupon asked Abi Bakr to buy Bilal, which he did. He took Bilal home and when the Prophet heard what had happened, he said, “I am partner with you in this transaction.” Abd Bakr replied, “I have freed him for the sake of the Apostle of God”. With some variation Rami in the Mathnawi (Book VI, verses 888-952, text, pages 324-327) relates the whole story. (Cf. Nicholson’s translation, Book VI, pages 307-311. The references are 261 262

to Nicholson’s edition and translation of the Mathnawt, op. cit.) Muhammad’s Meccan foes were, of course, polytheists.

‘Attar is being exceptionally elliptical here, reproaching, and it does seem that he has is likened to one who allows himself to be contrast with the Caliphs and Companions burdens of office for the sake of the One. 263 These two verses relate to accounts — e.g. Muhammad,

Guillaume’s

translation,

op.

the individual whom a specific individual afflicted by a chance of the Prophet, who

‘Attar is in view, thorn, in bear the

See Ibn Hisham-Ishaq’s Life of cit., pages

221-223

—

of

458

The Speech of the Birds

Muhammad’s escape from the Meccan conspiracy to kill him. When armed men came to his house, with God’s help he made them temporarily blind and went his way, later to hide in the cave. When the conspirators began to search for him, they came upon the “green mantle” in which Muhammad usually slept. Seeing ‘Ali asleep beneath it, they thought it was the Prophet and lay in wait for him, but in the morning it was ‘Ali who emerged, and with complete sangfroid. For before the conspirators had arrived, the Prophet, warned by the Angel Gabriel not that night to sleep in his accustomed place, had instructed ‘Ali to lie on his bed wrapped in his mantle, and told him that no harm would befall him. The next verse, of course, alludes to Abé Bakr, the Apostle’s companion in the cave. 264 Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiya was the famous woman mystic of Basra. Born in 713 or 714 ap, she died in 801. She is a most revered saint and frequently mentioned in Safi literature, e.g. ‘Attar’s Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, Nicholson’s

edition, op. cit., Vol. I, pages 59-73 ( Cf. Margaret Smith, Rabi‘a the Mystic and Her Fellow Saints in Islam, Cambridge 1928). Al-Ghazali in the Ihyd.. ., cites lines of hers expressive of her complete preoccupation with mystic love and intimacy with God: “I have made You the Companion of my heart, And my body is friendly towards its guests, But the Beloved of my heart is the guest of my soul”.

(See Margaret Smith’s Article, Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiya, in Gibb and Kramer’s Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, op. cit., Leiden, 1955, pages 462-463). ‘Attar relates (page 68) how one spring day Rabi‘a entered her house to pray and a servant came in from outside and said, “O Mistress, come out and see the

(Divine) handiwork”. Rabi‘a answered, “Come you in a moment to see the Maker”. 265

The word mard, “man”, is commonly used in Safi compositions in the sense of “‘a brave”, a brave traveller on the, by no means easy or unchallenging, Path; but to be recalled is the fact that both William Law

(1686-1761) and Johann Tauler (c.1300—1361) spoke of the seeker in terms of his being a “man”. Tauler exhorted those to whom he was preaching with the words, “Be a man!”,

Viriliter agite; emphasis on the necessity for

the seeker to be virile is particularly characteristic of the 13—14th century German school of mystics; but the need for courage and gallantry is common to all the Schools, and in medieval Europe, of course, the idea of

the quest was associated with knightliness — the Persian mard also stands for “warrior”. 266 ‘Attar (idem.) also relates how Rabi‘a once saw someone with a bandaged head. She asked, “Why the bandage?” “My head aches”, was the answer. Rabi‘a asked the person’s age. ““Thirty” was the reply. Rabi‘a asked if ever before (in a lifetime of thirty years) the person had suffered pain. The answer was “No”. Rabi‘a said: “Thirty years your body’s had perfect health?

The Speech of the Birds

459

Have you never tied on the bandage of gratitude? On the one night your head aches, you put on the bandage of complaint!” 267

As ‘Attar relates in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd, op. cit., one day the Basran

ascetic, preacher and Koran-copier (said to have been influenced by the Gospels), Malik ibn Dinar (died 748-9 ap) found Rabi‘a engaged in her morning prayer on a reed mat and with nothing in her house but a broken-sided pot she used for her ablutions and drinking water. She said to Malik, “O Malik, come and look into my eye because there is something piercing it”. “I looked. A piece of reed from her prayer mat had penetrated her eye some finger’s breadth and had destroyed it. I said, ‘O Mistress of Women, your eye’s ruined, and you did not notice?’” She replied, “O Malik, I was engaged in prayer when this happened to me, and when I stand before my Master, if all hell were stuffed into my eye, out of

268

fear of Almighty God I would not notice”. This refers to an event in the life of Muhammad of peculiar significance if only because it resulted in the revealing to him of two cardinal principles affecting Islamic Law and personal conduct. They are, that no allegation should be countenanced unsupported by witnesses, and that believers should not enter houses other than their own, unless in the way of normal social intercourse and with the exchange of customary salutations. In other words, people’s privacy must be respected. These principles are set out in the eighteen verses,

11-29,

in the Chapter in the Koran

called Nur,

“Light”, Chapter XXIV, and they remain effective as part of the Law and code of behaviour of Muslims. The specific verses referred to above are 13 and 27-29, but the whole passage in this Chapter is on the side of respect for the person and privacy, with, in particular, dire warnings of God’s punishment for those who spread slander. It was a slander against ‘Ayesha that, after for a while the Prophet had felt some misgivings because of it and she had gone to stay at the house of her father Abi Bakr, was divinely revealed, in these Koranic verses, to be

false. ‘Ayesha had accompanied him on a raid against the Bani al-Mustaliq. When his force decamped for the return to base, she, having withdrawn

herself for a personal reason, found she had lost her necklace, so she returned to the spot where she had been, to search for and find it. But in consequence of this absence, she was accidentally left behind when the Prophet and his party moved on; her cameleers had assumed that she was in her howdah and led her camel away. ‘Ayesha was left alone and without her mount. She wrapped herself in her wearing apparel and sat down in the hope that she would be rescued. It was customary for a man to bring up the rear of the army and make sure that neither stragglers nor baggage had been left in the desert. On this occasion this duty had been deputed to Safwan ibn Mu‘attal. He had, as

she says in an account attributed to her, seen ‘Ayesha, “before the veil was prescribed”. Therefore, when he found her, recognising who she was, he

460

The Speech of the Birds said, “This is the Prophet’s wife!” He mounted her on his camel and brought her back to the army. The trouble was that by the time they reached the others she and Safwan had been alone together for a whole night. People began to draw the wrong conclusions and a serious calumny was spread. The Prophet and she were separated and one of the causes of ‘Ayesha’s hostility to ‘Ali and, therefore, of the Battle of the Camel and her part in it, was that he was supposed to have strengthened Muhammad’s

suspicion against her and recommended the Apostle to be rid of her and select another wife. Happily, the Prophet became reconciled with ‘Ayesha, through the divine exculpation. The Prophet went straight to the Mosque and, as he mounted the minbar, recited the verses referred to here with their

269

condemnation of calumniators and warning of God’s punishment. I.e., the house of her father.

PART TWO: THE BOOK The Koranic verses round which legends have arisen about the Hudud (hoopoe) and Sheba, in, for example, the Qisasu’l-Anbiyd (‘Tales of the Prophets”, op. cit. pages 291 ff), are Stira XXVII, 20 ff., the Chapter of the Ant (an-Naml) and XXXIV, the Chapter of Sheba (Saba), verses 14-18. The Koran mentions how the Sabaean kingdon of South Arabia disintegrated because of its people’s iniquity. Koran XXXIV, 15, however, refers to the sailu’l-arim, “the dam flood”, a reference no doubt to the

bursting of the famous Marib dam (see Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Article, Marib), an event of great significance in the early history of Southern Arabia and the Yemen. From at least the eighth century BC a civilisation famed for its luxury and splendour existed in the area irrigated by the dam, but also enjoying the advantage of being a junction on routes by which incense was carried from the East northwards up the Arabian peninsula to the Mediterranean; when this trade took to the sea-route up the Red Sea,

the Sabaean kingdom’s decline must further have been accelerated. Bilqis was the legendary Queen of Saba’ associated in scripture, as the Queen of Sheba, with Solomon. The tenor of the Koranic references to the Solomon-Sheba legend, both in the Chapter of the Ant and that of Saba’,

has the burden of how Sheba had to be recalled to the True Faith and to gratitude to God from a state of unbelief or infidelity, kufr, a word which means, as well as “unbelief”, “ingratitude”. The hoopoe is introduced as the

bird which aroused Solomon’s wrath when he reviewed the birds of the universe and found the hoopoe missing. (XX VII, 20-21). Solomon, the heir of David, was by God’s grace versed in the mantiqu’t-tair, “speech of

birds”. The hoopoe’s absence from the parade was because it was indeed “the courier of every valley”. The bird explained its absence to Solomon by stating that it had journeyed south and discovered the land of Saba. Incidentally, Aristophanes’ hoopoe, in The Birds is referred to as having flown to various places, to see whether he could find a desirable city, and as a bird that “flew round land and sea,

and knew what men felt” etc. In Saba it had found a woman ruling a land of plenty, and the possessor of “a mighty throne”, but she worshipped the sun because misled by Satan (XXVII, 24). King Solomon had a letter indited and, to test the hoopoe’s veracity, sent the bird to bear the letter with instruc-

tions that an answer should be brought back from the Queen. The Queen eventually presented herself before Solomon, who had threatened to destroy her realm, and, awed by his power, admitted the wrong she had done to herself and, “with Solomon, surrendered to Allah” (XXVII, 45). For the

honour of this message-bearing, as verse 617 below indicates, the hoopoe has a double row of pale orange coloured feathers tipped with black and

462

The Speech of the Birds about two inches high, as a crest on its head. It is partly cinnamon coloured or white, with a palish brown neck — a good camouflage for a bird on the desert floor. It is notorious for its dirty nesting habits: it is said to nest in rubbish heaps, but its allowing the remains of its food of insects to accumu-

late in the nest has probably given rise to this assumption since the nest becomes “extremely offensive” (Bewick, A History of British Birds, Newcastle, 1847, Vol. 1, page 290). Apropos the hoopoe’s absence from Solomon’s Parade of the Birds, it is interesting that Bewick says it is “a solitary bird, two of them seldom being seen together”. In the East, it was famed for water divining powers. Legend has it that, while the birds of the air formed a parasol over King Solomon’s head to shelter him from the glare of the sun, he needed the hoopoe to discover where water for his ablutions

before praying might be found under the surface of the sands. (Qisasu’l-Anbiyd, op. cit., page 292). It is impossible to speak of the hoopoe without recalling HAfiz’s lyric, translated by this writer in collaboration with the poet John Heath-Stubbs (Hafiz of Shiraz: Thirty Poems, London, 1952, in the ‘Wisdom of the East’ series published by John Murray, pages 36-37) as O hoopoe flying on the dawn-wind, to Saba I am sending you: Look, how far it is, from here to there, I’m sending you!

It’s a pity—a bird like you in this dustbin of care: To find the nest of fidelity I am sending you. Say: In love’s road there is no far or near: I see you plain; my blessings I am sending you. Moming and evening, cargoes of supplication Upon the North and the East Winds I’m sending you. Though you are hidden, my heart and you are friends: Accept my compliments; praise I am sending you. Lest grief’s battalions should lay waste your heart My own loved lifefor danegeld I am sending you. To let musicians speak out my desire, Poetry set in modes to the harmenica I am sending you. Hand me the cup; good news speaks from the Unseen: Bear patiently the pain; here is a drug I am sending you. Enjoy God’s craftsmanship in your own face

2

Revealed, as this reveals—the mirror I am sending you. Hafiz, we sing your praise in our assemblies: Hurry—a horse and a robe of honour I’m sending you. See Note 1 above, and Koran XVII, X 16, “Solomon became heir to David

and said, ‘O people we have been taught the language of the birds (mantiqu’t-tair) and awarded everything; surely this is evident excellence’.” Cf. 1, Kings, IV, verse 33: “He (Solomon) uttered three-thousand proverbs,

and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He discoursed of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon down to the marjoram that grows out of the wall, of beasts and birds, of reptiles and fishes. Men of all races came to listen to the

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wisdom of Solomon . . .”. The reference to Solomon’s being the heir to David is naturally followed by his declaration that he had been taught the utterance of birds, because there is a tradition that David, gave the kingdom of the birds this feat of singing God’s praises. There is thus an association between David and Solomon’s understanding of their notes. ‘Attar himself called his poem Mantiqu’t-Tair, “The Birds’ Rhetoric”, and also, in verse

4457 below, Maqamat-i Tuytr, “The Seances (or Stations) of Birds”; but maqdmat, as well as meaning stages on the Sufi Path, also has the sense of “musical modes”. Thus the word as used here could contain a (punning) allusion to the birds’ songs. A Koranic base for these two highly suggestive verses is XX XVIII, 29-39, where Solomon is described as having become so enamoured of the beauty of horses he had acquired that apparently he neglected the evening prayer before the going down of the sun. God induced his repentance by making a devil or jinn assume the appearence of King Solomon, obtain his signet ring (see Part One Note 22), in which Solomon’s power lay, and sit upon the royal throne (XX XVIII, 33), but then were the “satans, every builder and (pearl) diver (of them) / And others bound together in fetters”, and God told Solomon that this was His gift to him (XX XVIII, 36-58). Moreover (XXXVIII, 35), once Solomon had craved forgiveness, God made the winds blow gently under Solomon’s command, wherever he pleased. Koran XXVII, 17, speaks of Solomon’s hosts and how they comprised jinns, men and birds, all kept in order by him. Koran XXI, 81-82 says that God subjected the wind to Solomon and “of the satans some who used to dive for him and do work besides that — over them We kept watch”. For ‘Attar’s

implication that it was the Hoopoe who must watch over the devil, see the comment at the conclusion of this Note. Round these Koranic utterances legends, not without Talmudic precedents, have been woven. For example, about the devil Sakkar’s seducing Solomon’s concubine to hand over the ring the keeping of which she had while Solomon was washing. Thus this evil one was enabled to usurp Solomon’s power and, having taken on his appearence, occupy the throne for forty days at the end of which the devil fled. He threw the ring into the sea. It was swallowed by a fish, but the fish was netted and Solomon recovered his ring. He had Sakkar weighted with a boulder and thrown into, it is said, Lake Tiberias. There is also a version which makes Solomon himself, disgusted with power (see verses 898 to 912

below), throw the ring into the sea. The magic carpet, shadravan, or shadraban, is in legend described as of great size and capable of conveying Solomon and all his attendents, including the jinns and devils, while the birds were his canopy, great distances for periods as long as a month. (See Goharin’s Note, pages 298-299). The subjection of the winds mentioned in the Koran seems to have been the origin of the story of Solomon on his carpet riding them wherever it pleased him to go. But the chief religious purpose of these Koranic passages alluding to

464

The Speech of the Birds Solomon is the recovery of those who had strayed from the True Religion, or the chastisement and fettering of those refusing to return to the Faith. The Queen of Sheba recanted and was saved. The evil ones refused obedience and were bound and fettered. The word translated “devil”, which the Hoopoe is enjoined to restrain in bonds and fetters, is the ancient Iranian word, div, a satanic figure or Satan himself, Iblis, or, in Persian, Ahriman. What, however, ‘Attar is doing in the first hemistich of verse 618 is to express the Sufi belief that the nafs, the carnal

or appetitive soul, is the equivalent of the devil within us. Thus, as Sayyid Sadiq Goharin points out, Mawlana Jalalu’d-Din Rumi said, Mathnawit, op. cit., Book III, 3197, in Nicholson’s translation: The Flesh (nafs) and the devil have . . . been one from the first, and have been an enemy and envier of Adam.

Also, (ibid., verse 40—53): The fleshly soul and the Devil both have (ever) been one person (essentially); (But) they have manifested themselves in two forms.

Hence the Hoopoe’s right to be Solomon’s confidant, the sharer of his

secrets, depended upon the bird’s keeping his devil, his carnal and concupiscent soul, bound and fettered, as Solomon kept the jinns and satans over

which God had given him power. The reference here to Moses should be read in conjunction with the knowledge that for the Safi Moses had the status, as one who had spoken with

God Almighty and also conversed with the Prophet, of the Perfect Man endowed with Divine Perfection, so that, in Dr. Goharin’s words, he might

converse with God in the language of the heart and the soul. Birds of the dove family are noted for closeness to man and, especially the turtle-dove, for their being the emblem of “connubial attachment and constancy”. Perhaps, however, as the bird of Mount Sinai, the poet had the rock-dove

in mind; but the whole Colomban species is notable for gentle cooing and, of course, for “homing”, hence the reminder in verse 623 below that the

dove should hasten “home”, i.e. to the appointed place. (See Note 6 below). With reference to the succeeding verses it should be observed that Pharaoh stands for the concupiscent carnal spirit that constantly lies in wait to ambush travellers on the Safi Path, and deprive them of the sight of the beauty of the only Reality. The bird of Sinai, the Blessed Mountain, means the guide for the soul’s ascent to the pinnacle where the wayfarer at last experiences the unveiling when the Truth is revealed to him. Koranic references to Moses are not lacking, e.g., Sura XXVII, 7-12, and other passages already cited in Part One. Verse 7 of Sura XXVII speaks of how Moses perceived a fire from which he promised his household he would bring a flame. Verse 9 gives Allah’s declaration: ““O Moses, [see,] it is I, Allah. the Sublime, the Wise.” The verses in ‘Attar’s poem here being commented

upon echo such verses of the Koran as these. Sayyid Sadiq Goharin points out that the Sufi, perhaps influenced by, among

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other sources, the Rasd’il of the Ikhwadn as-Safa’, the “Letters of the Brethren

of Purity”, a compendium of science, myth and tradition compiled in the late tenth century , was certainly aware of the, originally Pythagorian, theory of the “music of the spheres”, derived from the Pythagorian obsession with numbers and the sense that, as numbers were important in music, so they could be a means of describing the harmonies of the Cosmos. But ‘Attar’s

hostility towards the philosophy of the Greeks makes it seems unlikely that, while he would know of these theories, they ranked at all high in his mind. As Rami says (Mathnawt, Book II, verse 1102), The Spiritual Truths have from the Ninth Sphere Without any (worldly) pomp and circumstance, pomp and circumstance.

In his next verse Rami continues: The creature has only a borrowed pomp and circumstance: The pomp and circumstance belonging to the (world of )Command are the real thing.

Of the Sphere of the Nine it is the Ninth which matters. ‘Attar’s position would resemble that of Mawlana Jalalu’d-Din Rimi. (Cf. Part One, verse

6). The reference is Koran VII, verse 138, “We made an appointment with Moses for thirty nights, but We completed them with ten (more), so that

the full period of his Lord’s appointment was forty nights, and Moses said to his brother Aaron: ‘Be my vice-gerent among the people, and act uprightly, and follow not the way of those who cause corruption’.” According to a hadith, a Tuba is a tree in Paradise planted by God with His

own hand. He breathed His Spirit into it and it produces ornaments and robes for the blessed. While his main theme in the next four verses is the parakeet’s ridding itself of the Nimrodian carnal spirit, if only from the poet Sana’i ‘Attar would be aware of the Safi word-play on Bi-bargi, literally,

“Jeaf-lessness”, metaphorically lack of worldly goods as a sign of readiness for the receipt of mystical knowledge; see Mathnawit, op. cit, Book III, verse

989: ... the garniture of being ungarnished is the sign of the Tuba tree.

See Nicholson’s Commentary . . ., Vol. II, page 27. See Part One, Notes 16 and 143, and Koran IV, verse 124, “Allah took

Abraham as a friend”. Hence Khalil means Abraham. Cf. Isaiah, XLI, verse 8, “race of Abraham My friend”, and James, II, 23, where it is noted that

Abraham was called “God’s friend”. ‘Irfan, knowledge of the Divine; the reference is to Mount Sinai.

10 The ‘chaker’, partridge (Alectoris graeca) is probably so named in an onomatopaea for its characteristic cackling or gurgling chuckle; cf. the 11

Persian word ‘Att4r uses, gahqaha, and Note 65 below. For the she-camel, see Part One, Note 43, and Koran VII, 71-77, XI, 64-71, XXVI, 141-159, XXVII, 46-54, and LIV, 23-32. The story is of how the

righteous Sdlih preached belief in the One God and repudiation of their evil

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The Speech of the Birds ways to the people of Thamtd. They are alleged to have asked him for a sign to authenticate his God-given authority so to preach. The evidence from God was in the form of a large she-camel bearing, legend has it, a large offspring. The camel is said to have issued from a cleft in a rock. Salih

enjoined the people of Thamid, with the threat of Divine punishment, to refrain from harming this sign from Allah, but a dispute over arrangements for her to be watered and the great ones’ unwillingness to accede to Salih’s authority as a Prophet combined to result in their backsliding and slaying the camel. S4lih and a few loyal adherents escaped and, as he had warned,

three days later, “The shout caught those who had done wrong, and in the morning they were crouching in their dwellings, as if they had never lived at ease in them; ‘Ho Thamtd disbelieved in their Lord. Ho away with Thamiud’” (XI, 70-71). Their houses were crushed and they, obliterated, to become, with Ad, which rejected the preacher Hud, and the rejecters of Noah, and be, like the people who would not heed the admonitions of Lot,

examples of what befalls the unrighteous who do not accept Allah’s messengers. For Sifis, Salih exemplifies the Perfect Man; an example which in these

verses of ‘Attar the partridge is urged to emulate in melting away the mountain of its carnal soul so that a she-camel might come out of it: that the bird of the rocky places might, in other words, gain access to the Mount of Divine Knowledge about which it is wont to strut. t2 Cf. Part One, Note 185 for the “Rivers of Paradise”: ‘Attar is here alluding to the power of the Insanu’l-Kamil, “the Perfect Man”, or the Qutb in terms

which he has, in a work of thematic unity, already anticipated in the Prologue. $3 Dr. Goharin points out that the allusion here is to the Sufi position, contrary to that of the philosophical school of the Mu‘tazilites, that the native, inborn

intelligence is idiosyncratic to each individual. Hence, individuals perceive and express the reality of existence in a manner personal to themselves. Consequently conflicting views on form and substance arise, but the Sifis believe that by the Path of Love these conflicting views and contradictions can be cancelled out and the individual, freed of them, realise eternity

14

without beginning (azal) and eternity without end (abad) as one. Part of ‘Attar’s opposition to philosophy, that of the “Greeks”, might be seen as reflected in his espousal of this position. See Part One, Notes 171 and 180, and verse 439. This allusion to the Cave of Thaur, in which the Prophet and Abi Bakr hid from their pursuers,

becomes explicit in the next verse, 639, in which the hawk is cast in the role of Abt Bakr in the Cave. 15 The Covenant between God and Man and referred to as alast from Koran VII, 171, “‘Am I not your Lord?’ (alastu birabbikum?) and they (Adam’s posterity) answered “Yes, we have borne witness’.” The poet plays on the two key words, alast and bala, “Yes”; but in Persian, as in Arabic, the word

bala’ means “calamity”, 99

66

“catastrophe”. The primeval covenant between God

The Speech of the Birds and the seed of Adam is of great significance in Safi lore. In annotated, it is in apposition to the “Miraculous Ascent” — drawing close to God. Some of the alast’s significance for the clear in the next verse. 16 Here the poet indulges in a pun much resorted to by medieval

467 the verse here the Prophet’s Safi becomes Persian poets:

that on the Arabic word used in this Koranic context for “yes”, bald, and the Persian word bala, which means “calamity”, “catastrophe”, “grief”, (see

preceding Note). 17 See Mathnawt, Book II, verses 1850-1853, and Nicholson’s Commentary . . ., on verse 1850, page 308: “Jesus mounted on the ass (cf. St. Matthew XXI) represents the connection of the spirit (rh) with the carnal soul (nafs)”. Rami says: Leaving Jesus, you’ve nurtured the ass; inevitably, like the ass, you’re outside the veil. Jesus’s fortune is knowledge and gnosis; they’re not the lot of the ass, O you assinine one! The complaint of the ass you hear and pity overcomes you. Then you are unaware that the ass commands you to be an ass! Pity Jesus and have no pity for the ass: Don’t make nature lord it over your intellect.

Thus the ass of Jesus stands for the carnal soul. (Cf. Goharin, Lughat-i.. . Masnavi, op. cit., Vol. IV, pages 257-8.).

18 Riuhu’llah, God’s Spirit, Jesus; see Koran XIX, verse 17, “We sent unto her (Mary) Our spirit and it took for her the form of a human being, perfectly shaped”, and IV, verse 169, “The Messiah, . . . His Word which He cast

upon Mary, and a spirit from Him.” The Anouncing Angel, Gabriel, was called the rthu’l-quds, Spirit of Holiness, although it might have been he who

breathed into Mary the Divine Spirit. (Cf. Sale, The Koran, op. cit., Vol. II, page 144.) 19 According to Bewick (op. cit., page 144), nightingales “are seen at all times in India, Persia, China and Japan”. He cites lines from Milton that include the following: Sweet bird that shunn’st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy!

(11 Penseroso)

From Sir Philip Sidney’s The Nightingale, the following lines might be remembered: The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making; And, mournfully bewailing,

Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth. . .

In “Tales of the Prophets”, it is related that whenever David uttered

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The Speech of the Birds Psalmody, unbelievers gave up the ghost and the faithful were filled with joy.

20 See Part One, verse 30, Note 21, and Koran XXI, 80, and XXXIV, 10. 21 The allusion is to the tale of the Fall. Satan entered the Garden of Eden, which he had been forbidden, in the mouth of a serpent, in order to tempt

Adam and Eve. The peacock was his help-mate, guiding Satan to his victims. After they had succumbed to his wiles, God’s wrath was manifested in Adam’s dismissal to the mountain in Ceylon, and Eve’s to the town ofJidda,

while the serpent, which had been comely, was deprived of cover for its body and of its feet and sent to Isfahan! The peacock was punished with expulsion from the garden to India, and by having its feet made ugly. (For references see Goharin’s note on his page 304). See verses 824, 825 below. 22 Verses 658 and 659 refer, firstly, to Koran XII, where his imprisonment is mentioned (see Part One, Note 17 above), and, secondly, ibid. verse 26, for

“Joseph the Man of Truth”, in the judgement seat. 23 “The note of the Turtle Dove is singularly tender and plaintive . . . cooing .. in the most gentle .. accents”. (Bewick, op. cit., page 322.) Poets should be, and good ones are, accurate observers of nature.

24 2

The allusion here is to the Turtle Dove’s legs, which are red in colour. Koran XXI, 87, speaks of Jonah as “him of the fish”, dhu’l-ntin. Cf. The

Book of Jonah, and how he spent three days and three nights in the belly of “a great fish” (I, 17, and II, 1-10).

26 See Part One, Note 19, for the significance of the moon and the fish. The

poet is playing on the word mah, moon, and mdhi, fish; but as with so much else he has in fact anticipated the purport and imagery of these verses in those on the Prophets in Part One. ah It was customary for Sultans and patrons to reward poets by scattering jewels over them and stuffing their mouths with gems. Hafiz says: You have composed a ghazal, Hafiz, and threaded pearls. Come and sing sweetly! For on your verse the firmament scatters the knot of the Pleiades.

28 According to tales of the prophets and Koranic commentators of old, Alexander the Great was counted one of the Holy Men of God Who had made him master of the world, over which he journeyed with Khizr, his nephew, as his companion. Alexander, the Lord of the Two Horns

(Dhw’l- Qarnain), heard that in a place of darkness lay the spring of the water of life: anyone who drank of it would be blessed with eternal life. Khizr and Elias, who were prophets and with Alexander on the quest that he proceeded to make for this spring, brought him to it. The two prophets drank of it and were accorded eternal life, but when Alexander came in their wake and

sought also to drink the water, it transpired that the spring could no longer be found and Alexander retired disappointed from the place of darkness. Since Khizr possessed life everlasting, he became the guide to many prophets and men of God, one of whom was Moses. The story of Alexander the Great, which commentators have adorned with legend, is given in Koran

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XVIII, 82-98. Sufis see in Khizr an example of the Perfect Man, holy in the

sight of God and exemplar of all ages, to be a guide to those who take to the Path in quest of the Divine, hence the allusion in ‘Attar’s verse to how

the Ring Dove might through Khizr have access to the water of life. In popular belief, wherever this forever youthful holy person, whose name, Khizr, means the Green One (the “Green Man”) places his foot, verdure will sprout. He has been variously identified with Elijah, Saint George, and Phineas. The story of Khizr and Moses is to be found in Koran XVIII, 64,

“Then they found one of our servants upon whom We had bestowed a mercy from Us and whom We had taught from Our side knowledge”. Moses requested him to be allowed to follow him on condition that he taught him the knowledge that he had been granted. Though not mentioned by name, the commentators have stated that “one of our servants” was Khizr. Ilyas is the name given in the Koran (VI, 85 and XXXVII, 123) to the Biblical prophet Elijah (Elias); see Article Ilyas,in Encyclopaedia of Islam II. For Khizr and Alexander, and the Alexander Legend, see Qisasu’l-Anbiya, op. cit., page 321 fff. 29 Obviously the poet still has the reference to Khizr in mind when he alludes 30

to Alexander the Great, Dhu’l-Qarnain, ‘The Lord of the Two Horns”. The Path, tarigat, and the Truth, hagigat, are the Safi terms for two of the

three stages which the Sufi must pass in the process of purifying himself. The stages are shar‘fat, tariqat, and hagigat. The shari‘at makes worship legally binding, and hagiqat signifies witnessing the Divine; the former must, to be acceptable, aid the latter, which, unless strictly adhering to sharf‘at, will not be attained. Hujwiri (Translation, op. cit., page 383 ff.) discusses shari‘at and

hagigat, beginning with the observation that Sufis use these terms “to denote soundness of the outward state and maintenance of the inward state”. He regards it as heretical to consider it possible for one of these conditions to subsist without the other: to maintain that, when the Truth is revealed, the

Law is abolished. He also castigates “formal theologians” for asserting that there is “no distinction between sharf{‘at (law) and hagigqat (truth), since the Law is the Truth and the Truth is the Law .. .”. He points out that haqiqat “signifies a reality which does not admit of abrogation and remains in equal force from the time of Adam to the end of the world, like knowledge of God and like religious practice, which is made perfect by sincere intention;

and shari ‘at signifies a reality which admits of abrogation and alteration, like ordinances and commandments”. Thus sharf‘at is in Man’s province while haqigat is “‘God’s keeping and preservation and protection”, so that it follows that one cannot be maintained without the existence of the other and hagiqat has to be coupled with observance of shari‘at. In other words, “shari‘at is the doing of the slave and hagqiqat the keeping of the Lord”. Reference might also be made to the Mathnawt, the introduction to Book V (Nicholson’s 31

translation, Vol. VI, page 3). The Presence alludes to Solomon who in Sifi lore was considered a Qutb

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The Speech of the Birds

(Pole) of the world of contingencies and one who had a unique knowledge of all the enigmas and secrets of the world of the essence, while the hoopoe was seen as a metaphor for the Perfect Man and guide for the way of the soul. 32 The reference is to the hoopoe as the bearer of King Solomon’s letter to the Queen of Sheba, and, as a messenger, the bearer of letters in general. See Note 1 above. The letters were headed with the formula Bismi’llah, “In the

33 34

Name of God”. See Note 1 above, “a solitary bird, two of them seldom being seen together”. “Remembered”, mazkuir, or madhkur: For the Safi this term also has the resonance of the One Invoked in the zikr, dhikr, or the “remembered One”, the

zikr being the Stfi’s private and voluntary but constant prayer. It takes the form of repetition of formulas, generally comprising divine names and prescribed by the Pir, the Safi’s Master and Guide. Thus the heart is concen-

trated on the Divine.

(See Annemarie

Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of

Islam, Chapel Hill, 1975, pages 169-178, for further details and references;

see also M. I. Waley in Lewisohn ed., Classical Persian Sufism, op. cit., pages 530-535, and Underhill, op. cit., page 58.) 35 The allusion here is to how it is incumbent upon all to acknowledge the Perfect Man and Guardian of the Age. As suggested in Part One, Note 181, the belief is that at no time does the world lack such a proof (hujjat) of the Divine purpose; a hadith much cited by Stfis and attributed to the Prophet, is to the effect that he who dies without knowing his Imam dies as an unhallowed pagan. Also, in tasawwuf, Sufism, it is axiomatic that the adept cannot proceed without the guidance of a Pir, guide or elder; “Attar alludes to this fact more than once. The hoopoe is the impersonation of the Pir. 36 Qéaf is the name of the mountain which girdles the world and is said to be of emerald, so that in the mornings when the sun shines upon it, it emits

green rays, but blue when the sun sets. It is surrounded by water and very high, and is said to lend its colours to the sky. In these and other aspects Qaf is reminiscent of the mythical peak of Hara, identified with Demavand in the Alborz Mountains north of Tehran. It is mentioned in the account in the Qisasu’l-Anbiyd of Alexander and Khizr reaching the Water of Life, concealed in darkness behind the Mountain of Qaf (page 330). Chapter L of the Koran bears the title Qaf, thus commentators have been afforded scope for accounts of the mythology of this world-engirdling magical mountain created by God; God is seen as having sworn by the Mount Qéaf because Sura L, 1, has, “Qdf. By the Glorious Koran!” as the Chapter’s opening. Dhit’l-Qarnain is reputed to have asked Qéaf to tell him something of the majesty of God. The reply was that this majesty was beyond all description and conception; but the Mount divulged to Alexander that beyond it for a distance of five hundred years journey lay a land of snow mountains and, beyond these, a land of mountains of hail. Were it not for the existence of these mountains of snow and hail, the world would be burnt up by the fires

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of Hell. As Mawlané Jalélu’d-Din Rami says in the Mathnawt, Book IV (Nicholson’s edition, pages 498-500), in a section devoted to this, as it were,

metaphorical Mount Qéaf, “Behold the wilderness of three hundred years of travel; mountains has the King filled with snow.” (Text, Book IV, verse 3735, cf. Nicholson’s Commentary . . ., Vol. II, page 218, concerning

Alexander the Great and his encounter with the Mount of Qaf.) Something of the significance of Qaf for the Sufi might be seen in a verse from the Mathnawi concerning a lover’s return to concentration on the Beloved: He said, “O ‘Angqa (the fabulous bird) of God, the soul’s circling flight, Thanks be that thou hast returned from that mountain of Qaf’. (Mathnawt, Book IV, beginning at line 4694.)

Rumi also has (Book II, lines 54 and 55): At times you become the sun and at times are the sea, At times you become the mountain of Qaf and at times the ‘Anqa. You are neither this nor that in your essence: O greater than any imaginings and than more, more!

The dwelling place of the Simurgh (see verse 712) was on the Mount of Qaf, the inaccessibility and mystery of which stand for the Divine inaccessibility and mystery. As Rami says (Book IV, lines 3711-3715) regarding Dhia’l-Qarnain’s sighting of Mount Qaf: Went Dhia’l-Qarnain towards the mountain of Qaf. He saw that it was of emerald pure. Round the world it had become an encircling ring. He stopped in amazement at that expansive creation. He said, ““You are the mountain. What are the others?

For before your vastness they are playthings.” It replied, “They are my veins, those mountains. They are not comparable with me in beauty and worth. I in every land have a vein hidden: To my veins are tied all the regions of the world. . .”.

The ‘anga4 was for Arabian folklore what the sfmurgh, with which it became identified, was for Iranian. Both were birds of fable and the ‘anqa was associated with the Arabian peninsula where, incidentally, the Greeks located the phoenix. (See Encyclopaedia of Islam II, Article: ‘Anka , and Note 38 below.) aT See Koran L, 15, “We have created man, and We know what his soul whispers within him, for We are nearer to him than his jugular vein”. Sa‘di has (Gulistan, Book II, story 10): The Friend is nearer to me than I. The problem is this — I from Him am far. What should I do? To whom can it be said that He Is in my breast, but I am separated?

38 Alluded to here is the hadith: “Verily between God and His Creation are seven thousand veils”, or, as the Mirsddu’l-‘Ibad, op. cit., has it, “Verily for

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The Speech of the Birds God there are seven thousand veils of light and darkness”, (text, page 311;

39

translation, page 304). The allusion is to how fand, obliteration of the self, is the essential prelude to baqd, eternal life.

40 The simurgh is equated in the lexicons with the ‘anqd, but while the latter is associated with lands south and west of Iran, the etymology of the word simurgh makes this particular conception of a huge fabulous bird one of very ancient Iranian provenance. In the Avesta, saéno meregho is the form given for the simurgh, and in Middle Persian, or Pahlavi, the form sen-murv occurs,

for the bird who is the chief of all birds and the first to have been created. Sir J.C. Coyajee connects the sfmurgh, or sinmurgh, with the Chinese mythical bird sien-ho, which he translates as “crane” and in the Encyclopaedia of Islam II, on ‘anqd, it is said that the mythical ‘anqd, described as being long of neck, was probably of the heron type. Coyajee makes the sien-ho a strong, large and swift bird capable of carrying stallions, loaded camels, and even boats. (Cults and Legends of Ancient Iran and China, Bombay, 1936, pages 46-52). He also mentions the simurgh’s role in having a caesarian operation performed to accomplish the birth of Rustam, as described in the Shahnama of Firdawsi, and the simurgh’s part in the healing of the wounds the hero Rustam sustained at the hands of Isfandiyar (ibid., pages 13-17, 18, 122), while he offers fascinating evidence for similar characteristics having been ascribed to both the simurgh of Iran and its Chinese counterpart. Because of the simurgh’s good offices as a healer, it came to be known as hakim, the

‘physician.’ Indeed, the word saéno is the name in the Avesta (Yasht, 12, 17) given the “Tree of All Remedies”, or of “All Seeds”. Zl, Rustam’s father,

had been nurtured in the Alborz mountains by the simurgh after the latter had seized the baby for food for its young, but God had called from heaven and instructed it not to harm, but to cherish the one who would be the father

of the great Iranian champion. Firdawsi in the Shahnama lovingly describes the various episodes in which the simurgh figures, and, on Zal’s being recov-

ered by his father, the simurgh had given him one of its magic plumes and told him that if ever he were in a grave emergency, he should place the plume on burning coals and thereupon the sfmurgh would come to the rescue. The simurgh’s being connected with fire is, of course, especially in an Iranian context, significant. With regard to the name, saéno, while it can be associated witha mythical Tree of Life, “Attar, as will be seen, puns on the fact that the Persian

word for “thirty” is also sf: the inference is that the simurgh is the thirty little birds who, after many trials and tribulations, eventually reach their King Bird. But, according to certain Sufi writings, the sfmurgh’s nest was said to

have been on top of the Tuba Tree, an Islamic concept, though it recalls the Avestan Saéno Tree, while the magical power of his feathers, when strewn on the ground, caused trees to fruit, and grass to grow. [Cf. the myth of the Saéno Bird’s scattering the seeds of the Saéno Tree.] It is as if the Divine

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473

two aspects, of beauty, jamal, and sublimity, augustness, jaldl, are respectively reflected in the Simurgh’s nesting on the Tuba and on Mount Qaf. Yet another association with ancient Iranian mythology comes to mind when it is remembered that “the warrior god” against evil, Varethragna, could also be incarnated as a bird of which a feather, rubbed on the body of a person

lucky enough to possess one, had magical healing powers. John Cooper mentions that, in the context of a verse from the Masnavi cited in Note 33, one of the various names applied to the ‘anga bird was Angel of Inspiration, surtish, a concept of Zoroastrian origin. (See Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi, Leonard Lewisohn, ed., page 429.) It has also been said that were a mirror or reflecting metal to be held up in front of the simurgh, every eye that saw its reflection would be dazzled. (See verse 720 above). Legend is not wanting in accounts of how elusive the simurgh is: were anybody to reach the Mount of Qaf, the simurgh would not make itself visible; as a line of verse has it, You are with us but to us you are not: You are not one of those souls that’s visible.

Hence it is not difficult to understand why ‘Attar makes the King Bird, which the birds of the world want to reach, the magisterial, elusive, vast,

multi-faceted Simurgh. Nicholson, in his Commentary on the Mathnawi, Book I, verse 1441, says: “In Persian mysticism the simurgh represents God or the soul as a mode of Divine being . . . and [it] is supposed to dwell on Mount Qaf, like the “nga with which it is often identified.”” Nicholson cites the Mantiqu’t-Tair in his note. ( See also Dr. Goharin’s note on his verse 713,

on pages 310-315 of his text and Commentary.) 41

See Part One, Note

186 for the hadith, “Seek you knowledge,

even in

China”. 42 The metaphor of the image of the feather — the quickening sign of Divinity dropped in the midst of mankind and, through the drawing of it, as the representation and sign of the True Reality, made perceptible to the eye of the hearts of all. The feather’s magical healing properties were, of course, part of folklore (see Note 40 above), but ‘Attar makes the feather of the simurgh

the sign of the Divine. See Part One, verse 8, for “agitation” (“shifting states”), but especially Part One, verses 117-119, for the anticipation of this

verse. ‘Attar might well say, thus to emphasise the significance of this short excursus on the simurgh, “ah the wonder!”. 43 The nightingale is known as the bird of a thousand notes. 44 See Note 34 above concerning the zikr, to which this is an allusion. 45 See Note 2 above: David relinquishes his psalmody, and the birds take over the task. 46 See the opening to the Mathnawit, Hear from the reed how it tells the tale: Of separations complaining. Saying, ‘Ever since I was cut out of the reed-bed,

474

47

The Speech of the Birds Because of my lament men and women have wailed. I want a breast sliced through on account of separation, That I might tell the pain of desire’s affliction. Everyone who’s left far from his source, Looks for the return of the time of his union. I in every assembly was bewailing: The companion of the sorrowful and of the glad I became. Everyone on account of his own opinion became my friend: From within me none sought my secrets. Cf. ‘Ali and the well in Part One, verses 468, 476, 543, and Notes 224 and

252: 48 “Self-denial”, bi-bargi, leaflessness; see Note 7 above. 49 See verse 799 below. Allah’s compassion is alluded to: He rejoices in His Creation. 50 “Sugar” — speech: farsi shikarast, as the Persian saying has it, meaning “Persian is sugar’; but also the parrot’s power to imitate human speech signifies (a) capacity for concentration, and (b), desire for release from natural limitations. 51 An allusion to Alexander the Great; see Note 28 above, but here ‘Attar makes Alexander’s disappointment reason for his exaltation. 52 The peacock signifies the adherer, in religion, to the externals of practice and, rather than the spirit, to the letter of the law. Also, the false purveyer of religion, the hypocritical preacher is implied. (See Goharin, Lughat wa ta‘birat-i Masnavi, op. cit., Vol. VI., page 219). As alluded to in verse 825

below, the peacock’s ugly feet are proverbial; but see the Mathnawi, Book II., verse 3757, for the implication that the feet of the genuinely spiritual peacock would be fairer by far than false claimants to sanctity who are strutting about in pride of their peacock’s plumage. In Book V, verse 498 and Book VI, verse 682, Rumi counsels combating the danger of pride in the beautiful peacock plumage by having regard for the ugly feet. Sa‘di, in the Gulistan (Story 8 of Chapter 2) speaks of how men praised the peacock for its colours and adornments while the bird itselfisashamed of its ugly feet. (Cf. Nicholson’s note on Book II, 3757, Commentary . . ., page 268.) 53 See Note 21 above. 54 See Koran XIII, 23, XVI, 33, XVIII, 30, “For these are Gardens of Eden with rivers flowing beneath them in which they will be adorned with bracelets of gold, and wear green garments of satin and brocade, reclining therein on the couches; a good reward . . .!”” Among the numerous enticing Koranic references to the Gardens of Eden, or, as for instance in Koran XXXI, 7, where the words used by ‘Attar occur, jannatu’n-na‘tm, “Gardens of Felicity”, instead of jannatu’l-‘adn, “Gardens of Eden”; it seems, in the context of the peacock, that “Attar might have had the verse quoted here,

XVIII, 30, in mind. bf I.e. Perfect Man.

f

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475

56 Cf. John XIV, 2. Oe The hadith here alluded to occurs in at least two wordings and is to the effect that the first nourishment given to the people in the Garden is the liver of the “fish”, or the choice tip of the liver of the fish (or “the large fish”). ‘Attar is playing on the association of “liver” and “sadness”, as if the freshly entered souls in Heaven still had things to bewail and still knew yearning. For his point is that Paradise is not the complete happiness: there is something more and better; see the next verse.

58 ‘Attar takes the duck as typifying the devout man who is obsessed with the minutiae of ritual ablutions and, by extension, ritual ceremony. 59 The allusion is to the story of Rabi‘a and Hasan-i Basri, when he asked the female saint to join him in praying on a mat spread on water and she replied by inviting him to join her on one floating on air. She pointed out to him that neither feat booted anything: fish were doing what he did all the time, and flies, what she did. What had to be done was beyond both and beyond both the elements involved. (Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, op. cit., Vol. L., page 65). 60 “Wondrous powers”, karamat, see Hujwiri (translation, op. cit., pages 218 ff.), are acts vouchsafed to saints as proof of their sincerity and truth, and acts

which are out of the ordinary. In the case of prophets, however, they are mujizat, “miracles”. Hence here “wondrous” has been used as an epithet for “powers”, rather than “miraculous”. Kardmat are acts of grace vouchsafed

by God. Sa‘di tells of an old man of Faryab whom he met and who Spread his prayer mat on the face of the water — Is it, 1wondered, a fantasy, or do I dream?

(Bustan, Kulliyat-i Sadi, edited Furaghi, Tehran, 1363/1983-4, page 289, and G. M. Wickens, translator, The Bustan, Tehran, 1984—5, page 111).

The idiom is “water is in my stream”, a saying which means “blessed with good fortune”, “in luck’s way”. 62 Cf. Koran XXI, 31, “.. . and of water have We made everything living. . .” 61

and Genesis, I, 20.

63 The play is on an idiom centred on the “unwashed face”, meaning “ashamed”, “without honour”. 64 Or, see preceeding note, seeing the reflection of the faces of the unvirtuous, including your own. [With reference to the verse before, ab, “water” in Persian, also means (the lustre of ) “honour”: the poet is punning here]. The partridge typifies lovers of gems, jewels, precious stones and other rare 65 objects. It seems probable that ‘Attar’s partridge is the continental and, in old

parlance, Greek partridge, called by Francis Willughby, (The Ornithology, London, 1678, page 169), “Great Red Partridge”, with a red bill (see verse 872 below) and legs. Though he says that these partridges lay their eggs “under some great stone”, he does not mention the penchant for stones attributed to this bird in Persian folklore. With reference to Note 10 above,

Willughby alludes to its being called, from the sound it makes, cacabis.

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The Speech of the Birds

66 Bewick, op. cit., page 355, “the plumage is rusty brown, with a vinous reflection”. 67 The poet is punning on figh, “sword”, but also “mountain peak”, and kamar, “waist”, but also “belt”. The punning cannot be reflected in English, but,

in the original, the military connotations of the words tigh and kamar present the military association leading to “Colonel-in-Charge”. Compare Part One, verse 13.

68 The poet is, of course, making the partridge describe its own predicament, of being in fiery passion for stones, while fire blackens them; so, ultimately left with no nourishment and worn out by scrabbling round the rocks in quest of stones to break in search of gems, it eventually drops asleep on the rocks. 69 “Order”, nizam, but the pun is on the meaning “stringing pearls”. The Arabic verbal root, nazama, besides meaning to “put in order”, “regulate”, means “to string”, as of pearls. The, as it were, socio-political sting in the assertion that the Lord of Jewels keeps order without interruption, is that, in realms dependent upon mercenary armies, distribution of booty kept them in order, while the bounty of royal patrons obviated opposition. Cf. verse 684 above. His life is tied to the mountains because they are the source of the wealth for the largesse required to maintain sovereignty. 70 ‘Ayyar, see Part One, Note 30; but ‘aydr means standard-setting on gold and silver, assaying. 71

The pun here is on the word gohar, “jewel”, “pearl”, “gem” etc., but also

(see verse 888 above), “essence”, “virtue”, “substance”. The man “with nothing of worth”, i.e. “of no substance”, could also be read, “man without

gems’’. 72 The partridge’s red bill and legs betoken the frustration of which his “lame excuses” are, with their shifting conceptions and ideas, redolent. 73 See Part One, Note 22, and Note 3 above, for the purport ofthis story. For sources for this story, see Dr Fatima San’atiniya: Mdakhuz-i-Qisas wa Tamthilat-i Masnavihd-ye ‘Attdr-i Nishaburi, Tehran, 1369/1989-90, pp.

133-134. 74 See Note 3 above.

75 The poet has Koran XXXVIII, 29-39 in mind, where Solomon repents of loving “good things more than remembrance of my Lord” (XXXVIII, 31) and (XX XVIII, 34) asks God to forgive him and grant him a kingdom such as no-one else after him might have. The poet glosses this request with the implication that King Solomon considered the kingdom such a hindrance to his progress on the Way of the Spirit that, here, he is made to ask God not to grant anyone another kingdom such as his, but not for quite the same reason

as that implicit in ‘Attar’s

Koranic

source.

Legend

has it that

Solomon’s worldly concerns caused him to be debarred from entrance into Paradise until after the Prophets had been received there. 76

See Part One, Note 264, “Attar must have had the story, (Tazkiratu’l-Awliya,

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477

page 68) of Rabi‘a’s bidding her servant to leave the fresh spring day outside and enter her room “to see the Maker”. is The legendary Huma is said to live off bones and harm no other creature. Those over whose head this ostensibly benign bird flies and casts its shadow, are said to become kings. Hence when a king was being selected, his fortune was assured if the Huma appeared and singled someone out for sovereignty. However, ‘Attar makes his Huma the type of the false ascetic: the devotee who uses a show of piety to attract worldly gain, and, instead of seeking seclusion and occupying himselfin private prayer, hobnobs with rulers and men of influence, whom he sets out to impress with his sanctimonious bearing. 78 Mahmid, the Ghaznavid Sultan (998-1030 ap), was an extremely powerful ruler and in particular famous for his conquests in India and implanting of Islam there. To a degree the more remarkable when cetain aspects of his character and rule are taken into consideration, he very often appears in Safi writings as a paragon; but he was famous for having an austerely religious mien. See Note 170 below. 79 Cf. Koran XL, verse 42, “O my people, this nearer life is only a (passing) enjoyment: surely the world to come is the abode of permamence”’. 80 ‘Attar treats the falcon as did the ancients: a haughty bird, but he also makes it typify the courtier and official scribe who, from proximity to rulers, felt entitled to superiority over lesser mortals, and to boast of an exalted position from which mundane advantage could be taken. Hence, the falcon was privy to confidential matters pertaining to eminent personages, and the older manuscript reading of Dr. Goharin’s text which is followed here precludes interpretation suggestive of “holy mysteries”. The context is entirely worldly. The following verses allude to the falcon’s being hooded and fed on morsels of meat in a lengthy and exacting preparation for work as a hunter sighted solely for prey, its perch the hands and arms of the great who employ the bird in the chase as, in the Gulf States, Amirs and Shaikhs still do. As

Hafiz says (Divan, op. cit., page 976, verse 5): The falcon, though from time to time over its head it wears a hood,

The birds of Qaf know the rules of the etiquette of kings. But, in the Persian idiom, to have a ‘cap put on the head’ (see verse 943), means ‘to be deceived’, ‘taken in’.

81 Old Persian books on falconry speak of the bird’s fear of the hunter’s eyes, so that it is necessary quickly to bind and hood its eyes when its training 1s to begin and its development to make it a swift predator is started. 82 The Divine Ruler is always the same, equitable and reliable. The worldly is sometimes reliable, sometimes not; “shifting states” are characteristic of the

phenomenal world. (See Part One, verse 8).

83 Cf. Sa‘di (Gulistan), Book I, story 32: Espousing a view contrary to the sultan’s, One must wash one’s hands of life;

478

The Speech of the Birds If the Shah about the day says, “This is night’, Reply must come, ‘Ah yes, behold the moon and the Pleiades!’ Also, in ibid., story 12, Sa‘di, like ‘Attar, says that of the “capriciousness of

the nature of kings it is necessary to be full of wariness”’. 84 Alluded to is the shout of the halbadiers and attendants who always went before royal persons and shouted diirbdsh, “keep your distance”, or “out of the way”, pushing people aside. This practice was reported by visitors to Tehran until at least the late nineteenth century. 85 This story ineluctably calls to mind accounts of how Sultan Sanjar the Saljaq (died 1157 ap), as some say, ina

state of intoxication fired arrows, according

to some accounts three, at his court poet, Mu‘izzi (died c. 1125-7). It appears that he was seriously wounded, but that he continued to live in pain for several years. To his wound and bearing the arrow-tip in his breast, the poet alludes in one or two of his panegyrics. For further details see the Divan-i Mu‘izzi, ed. Abbas Iqbal, Tehran 1318/1938—9, Introduction, pages ha ff,

and Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, Dordrecht, 1968, page 195 and Note 49. Cf. the story of William Tell. William Tell has become a folk-hero symbolizing struggles for political and individual freedom. 86 According to the Burhan-i Qati, (“The Conclusive Proof”), an important Persian Dictionary, Bu Timar, “Father of Sorrow”, is known for its continual

anxiety in its fear that water, at the edge of which it makes its nest, might be diminished if it drank any. Hence, however thirsty it may be, it refrains from drinking. It is known for swiftness; “Attar says it entered “in haste”. Translators have taken it to be the heron, appropriately called in modern Persian ‘the fish eater’, mahikhur. Willughby says that it feeds on fishes, frogs, etc. (Omithology, op. cit., page 278) 87 God, or the Simurgh as the symbol of the Divine. 88 Dark blue is the colour of mourning. See next verse. 89

See Part One, Note 211.

90 Kuf, or buf, or bum, while the smaller owl is called in Persian jughd. They are not considered a happy omen and are associated with ruined places. (See second hemistich of this verse). ‘Attar makes the owl typify the reclusive miser. 91 An allusion to wine-drinkers’ drinking the forbidden liquor surreptitiously in waste places on a city’s edge; places which, for instance, through the collapse or failure of irrigation channels that provided the water supply, have been abandoned; or places ruined by war. Such abandoned quarters are a feature of old Iranian cities. Wine drinkers have recourse to ruins, khardbdt,

so that this word has acquired the additional meaning of “tavern” or “drinking-bothy”. The owl, however, as it says, prefers ruins for themselves

and the treasure they might conceal, not as secret drinking places. 92

See Part One, Note 50.

93 I.e. the purpose of life, in realising the Divine, unachieved. Cf. verse 811 above.

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479

94 See Koran VI, 74: “. . when Abraham said to his father Azar, ‘Do you take idols as gods? Verily, I think that you and your people are in manifest error’.” 95 Samiri, he who, during Moses’s absence, seduced the Israelites into worshipping a calf made out of their melted-down trinkets. See Koran II, 51, 86, and VII, 146-153, XX, 90-91, and Qisasu’l-Anbiyd, Op. cit., pages 213-221.

96 ‘Attar makes this bird the type of the weak, docile creature, neither spirited nor strong enough to endure the travails of the Path. oF A bird that cannot exert itself to get thirty grains, cannot hope to reach the Simurgh through the rigours of the sdlik’s, wayfarer’s, discipline of prayer, fasting and withdrawal, in the way of the Sifi. ‘Attar uses the word cheleh, which is the forty-day fast, but what has to be understood is a perpetual state of complete devotion in accordance with a discipline, riya4zat, to which the genuine adept must subject himself. The reference to a bird incapable of gathering anything and therefore incapable of relinquishing anything recalls the prayer of Abt Bakr for plenty, but to be made desirous of renouncing it. See Part One, Note 183. 98 The Pure Shadow: the Prophet Muhammad. See Part One, verse 281. 99 Alluded to here is istighraq, literally “drowning”, and used in Stfi terminology for the total absorption in God which is sought, through practice of the zikr (literally “invocation”, here translated as “fruitful practice”), by the adept who strives in total concentration on the Divine so to lose conscious-

ness of the self that he becomes completely submerged in the “Ocean of Unity” (tawhid). In, the Kashfu’l-Mahjub (English translation, op. cit., page 381 ff), there is a caution against taking istighrdq too far, but, as also on page 385, where it is mentioned under kulliydt, istighraq is defined, in the latter

reference, as “absorption of the attributes of humanity in the Universal (kulliyat)”. Nicholson’s Commentary on the Mathnawt, on Book I, verse 1111, and verse 2097, and Book II, verse 301, and Book VI, verses 2008 and

4630-4632 might also be referred to in the context of istighragq. Interestingly, while istighrag entailed complete loss of consciousness of the attributes of the self in absorption in those of God, this, as the second

hemistich of verse 1085 clearly implies, was not to be taken as meaning that the adept became God (see Part One, Note 62 above). It means that the “drowned” loses conscious existence, and initiative and movement: that our

conflicting attributes (“shifting states”) are held in unity through realisation of the Divine Essence, while the latter is both the One and the Many. The wine is, as it were, suffused in the water, but the wine and the water are still

wine and water. (Cf. verses 2450-2456 below). Mansur al-Hallaj committed the error, or was alleged to have, against which ‘Attar warns: Husain ibn

Mansur Hallaj (the “wool-carder”) seemed to err by saying “I am God”, literally, “I am the Truth (al-Haqq)” — al-Haqq being one of the Names of God. For this he was put to death in Baghdad in 922 ap. As Hafiz says: . .. that comrade for whom the gibbet was raised high, His crime was this, that he was divulging the mysteries.

480

The Speech of the Birds The simple profession, that, as in the state known as fand, the self had ceased consciously to exist, there no longer being two, worshipper and the Worshipped, the worshipper “was God”, was a profession only meant to demonstrate the worshipper’s acceptance of absolute humility in entire self-abnegation. The problem was that among the uninitiated and the inimical, this profession was taken as gross blasphemy. Hence ‘Attar’s warning, both in this verse and that preceding it, and in the explanations which follow. (Cf. Lewisohn, op. cit., p. 42 and passim on Hallaj).

100

The word translated “love’ in this verse is ‘ishq, which is to be distinguished from the human feeling of love, muhabbat, although this word can,

in Arabic, be used synonymously with ‘ishg. Nicholson, translating Hujwiri’s Kashfu’l-Mahjub (translation, op. cit., page 310), terms ‘ishq “excessive love”. To make this distinction was necessary because Hujwiri is discussing the differing views of Sufi Shaikhs concerning the allowability or otherwise of Man’s bearing “excessive love” towards God. ‘Attar, while

saying that the Divine Beauty is such that love cannot be offered to it, is alluding to this argument among leading Sufis, of whom Hujwiri observes that the “moderns assert that excessive love, in this world and the next, 1s

properly applied only to the desire of attaining the essence, and, in as much as the essence of God is not attainable, the term (‘ishq) is not nghtly used in reference to Man’s love towards God, although the terms “love” (mahabbat) and “pure love” (safwat) are correct”. Hujwiri goes on to say that as it is claumed that ‘ishq, “excessive love”, can only be prompted by actually seeing the object of it, and as “no-one in the world sees Him”, ‘ishq in relation to God is inadmissible. For the “essence of God” is not attainable or perceptible, that Man should be able to feel exessive love towards Him; but man feels love (mahabbat) towards God, because “God through His attributes and actions is a gracious benefactor to His friends”, i.e. the

Saints. ‘Attar speaks in the same verse of the perfection of God’s grace: His kindness in making the heart the mirror in which His beauty might be reflected. Koran V, 59 states that Allah loves His people and they love Him. Hujwiri recalls (translation page 311) that Mansur al-Hallaj’s last words from the scaffold were, “It is enough for the lover that he should

make the One single”. In other words, that no “you” should remain. But in the following anecdote beginning at verse 1096, ‘Attar makes the matter clear. \ 101

In both verses, words associated with the Koran are used: mashaf, “book”,

“text”, but also The Koran, and Ayeh, or Ayat(i), “a sign”, “miracle”, the word used for “verse of the Koran”. It also can mean the stops which show the Koran reciter where to pause. Hence the king’s eyes could be a verse or a stop in “The Koran”, while the world’s expansion is the Koran of the

king’s mysteries. Thus the handsome king is a metaphor for God. 102

“Hearing him”; an allusion, surely, to His Revelation recited in the Koran.

See verse 1097 above and Note 101.

The Speech of the Birds 103

481

See Koran L, 15: “. . . We are nearer to him than his jugular vein”. See

Note 37 above. 104 Ay4z, Abu’l-Najm ibn Uymdg, was the favourite Turkish slave of the Sultan Mahmid of Ghazna, after whose death in 1030 aD Ayaz continued

in the service of Sultan Mas‘id (1031-1041), and appears to have survived (Ibn Athir, al-Kamil fi’t-Tarikh, edited, Thornberg, Leiden, 1851-1876, reprint, Beirut, 1963, Vol. IX, page 638) until 1057 ap. That from being

Mahmtd’s cup-bearer, sdqf, he rose to being a provincial governor, points to his having been a man of sagacity as well as fidelity to his Ghaznavid masters. In Sufi literature and Persian poetry of a Sufistic kind,he holds a prominent position as the other half of a love affair with Mahmid that has been treated as an allegory of a sacred relationship and lovers’ communion on a spiritual level. Rami, in the Mathnawi, has a moving “exemplification” treatment of this love in Book V, beginning at line 1857 (in Nicholson’s edition, page 118, cf. Nicholson’s

Commentary . . ., Note on Book II,

1049). The story in ‘Arizi’s Chahér Magdleh (“Four Discourses’), (Browne’s translation, Gibb Memorial Series, Cambridge, 1921, pages 37-38, and text, Qazvini and Mo‘in, Third edition, Tehran 1333/1954, pages 55-58, and Notes, pages 175-176) indicates, in a work composed in

circa 1155 ap, that, great though the Sultan’s love for Ay4z was, it did not exceed the bounds of what was lawful. Farrokh-i Sistani (died 1037-8),

one of Mahmtd’s court poets, has a gasida, about “‘Amir Uymaq . . . the Beloved” (editor Dabir Siyagi, Tehran 1335/1956, pages 161-163), which begins, in the words of the Sultan, Distress at not seeing that moon-countenance Makes of my bed a bed of thorns. In the dark of night everyone gains sleep; I, in grieving for him, till day, wakefulness.

(cf. Dr. Jalal Matini’s valuable Article, Aydz, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. III.)

105 An alternative spelling for “Ayaz”. 106 See Part One, verse 32, and Note 23. 107 There is an allusion here to Koran VII, 171, “‘Am I not your Lord?’ and they answered bald, ‘yes’”, and so it was that Man became, besides his being

God’s Vice-Gerent and accordingly superior to the Angels, the bearer of the primeval Covenant with his Lord, a trust which entails suffering. As the poet Hafiz has it: The stage of bliss is not attainable without pain: Yes (balf) with the word calamity (bald) did they conclude the alast covenant. (Divan, ed. Khanlari, op. cit., Ghazal 20, page 56, verse 5.) See verse 640

and Note 15 above. 108 “Renunciation” or “holy poverty” speak of the adept’s divesting himself of all that pertains to him and looking only towards the Divine. The essence of this poverty is averting the eyes “from all created things and, in complete annihilation (fand’), seeing only the All-One”. Thus the adept “hastens

482

The Speech of the Birds towards the fullness of eternal life”. (Hujwiri, translation, page 20). In short,

complete love is annihilation of the self and exclusion of the world of forms. True wealth belongs only to God: that of the world is to be rejected as conterfeit. (Cf. Koran II, verse 274). The reward of the poor in this world is the comfort “secretly laid up for them as a reward”. (Koran, XXXII, 17; 109

cf. I Corinthians, II, [X, 9). The hadith ascribed to the Prophet and alluded to here 1s, “Poverty is near

to being unbelief”. (Hujwiri, ibid., page 61). In the Path, men of holiness have passed beyond place, degrees and stations or stages (maqamat), and all outward expression of “underlying realities”. (Idem., page 58). But, in respect of both these Notes, see the next verse: in fand’, body and soul no longer remain. Hence, neither do belief and unbelief. 110 Riyazat, see Note 97 above. The word’s primary meaning is the taming or training of an animal. Hujwiri (translation page 202) speaks of it as the training of a colt; or of a boy “of foreign race” to make him speak Arabic in place of his mother tongue; or training a beast to respond to being called. But finally, he speaks of it as the process of being led to union with God by knowledge of the lower soul (hence the Tradition “Know thyself. . .”) and the mortification of the lower soul. In this last definition of riydzat is the crux of the matter of the great significance of this word in the Sufi context: it was the conquest of nafs, the carnal soul. The novice was set

varying types of riyazat by the murshid or pir, such as laundering for and waiting on the community of the Sufi hospice, khangah, or being sent out to beg and travel, dependent on begging for sustenance; or other menial tasks, such as characterise novice training in most religious Orders, the object being to break down personal pride, ambition and the entertaining of a sense of superiority over one’s fellows. In sum, it was the “breaking-in” of the obstreperous appetites. Dr. Goharin’s note on verse 1024 of his edition of ‘Attar’s Asrar Nameh (Tehran 1338/1959, page 313) is not the

less illuminating for giving important sources. Cf. his note on this verse in his edition of the Mantiqu’t-Tair, pages 322-3. That each of the Shaikh’s novices was so well disciplined indicates the effectiveness as well as the eminence of this Pir of his Age, about whom more must be said. (See following Note). 111

‘Ilm, “knowledge”,

‘amal, “practice”, “works”, “action”, from which, as

Hujwiri says (translation page 11, Zhukovsky’s text, page 11), “knowledge and action are linked to each other”. He cites the hadith, “The devotee

without comprehension is like a donkey on a treadmill”; comprehension of Divine requisites is meant by “knowledge” here, and the ass turning the mill, as it goes round and round on the same track, makes no progress. Prayer is an action, but as such only valid if performed with knowledge of its validating purification procedures, the qibla, the direction to which the

prayer must turn, and the correct intention. Thus for the Safi, knowledge of the Divine and the application of that knowledge through good works

The Speech of the Birds

483

are inseparable. In this context, ‘ilm is not applied learning related to the world of things, but the knowledge or apprehending of the spiritual. Without knowledge God cannot be known. If knowledge is lacking, the practice of the Faith is of no use. Cf. the Epistle ofJames, Chapter II, verses 14, 17, and especially 20: “faith divorced from deeds is barren’’.

The Shaikh of Sam*4n is designated as of San’4n in manuscripts other than the two in Qoniya upon which the text here used is based, and which are mentioned in the Introduction. The late Badi’uz-Zaman, in his Ahvdl-i .. . Attdr-i Nishaburt (op. cit., pp. 320-336), furnishes a detailed account

of the background to ‘Attar’s story of the apostasising Shaikh. He points out that the poet would know of the notorious renegade Ibn as-Saq4, a man of eminence under the Caliphs of Baghdad who, in spite of celebrated piety, on an official mission to the Byzantine Court fell in love with a Christian, some say the Emperor’s daughter, and left his faith to remain in the Christian empire. His consequent notoriety made poets mention him in verses in both Arabic and Persian. Badi’uz-Zamén suggests (pp. 327-328), that ‘Attar elected not to call his Shaikh after this renegade, and

it might further be conjectured that he chose to change San’4n to Sam’An, to conceal what recent Iranian scholars have concluded was in fact the Shaikh’s real identity. Although forgotten during the intervening centuries, perhaps fourteenth century AD/eighth century AH less faithful copyists of the poem did know it and avoided ‘Attar’s subterfuge of “‘fictionalising” the Shaikh by altering the poet’s Sam’4n to San’an, to give the Shaikh what has since 1960 emerged as probably his correct designation. In 1940-41 the late Mujtaba Minovi raised the matter in his description, in the Review

of the Tehran

Faculty of Letters,

Vol. VIII, no.

3.,

1340/1940—41, of a manuscript he had discovered in Istanbul, the Aga Sophia no. 2910. It contained a work that had long been unknown, the Tuhfatu’l-Multik, a Persian “Gift for Kings” for the guidance of a prince, most likely Sanjar the Saljag ruler of Khorasan and later the last great Saljugq Sultan (d.1157). It has now been authenticated as the work of the great philosopher Aba Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, then resident in his native Khordsan, where he died in 1111 ap. Badi’uz-Zaman shows cause for this

“Gift for Kings” having been written sometime after 1098/9 ap and the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders: reference to the alienation of Muslim territory makes this surmise feasible. He also discusses the whereabouts of San’4n, perhaps the San’ of the Yemen, but these are matters over which to linger is unnecessary here. Two issues are in point. Allusion has already been made to a defection from Islam to Christian Byzantium, Rim. There are, in addition and per-

tinent to ‘Attar’s story, many known examples of well-placed Muslims under the ‘Abbasids of Baghdad finding delectation in hospitable Christian cloisters where music, wine, and liaisons with wine-servers exercised a -

484

The Speech of the Birds fascination over these visitors that, besides being mentioned in poetry, was registered as a social phenomenon and, at times as a deplorable evil, in the annals of the time. Firdzanfar gives useful references to them (pp. 320-328). The second issue results from the rediscovery of the manuscript of the Tuhfatu’l-Multk, which Dr. Danishpazhth edited and published in the

Revue de la Faculté des Lettres _de Mashad (Vol. I, nos.

2-3,

Summer/Autumn 1344/1945, pp. 240-300). I am indebted to. Mrs. Annabel Keeler for providing me with a copy. In its Section 10, on the ‘Stories of the Prophets and something of the anecdotes of Shaikhs’, occurs

the narrative of how a Pir in the Meccan Sanctuary, who had three hundred disciples there and one, who was the agent of the Shaikh’s rescue, resident in al-Ghazali’s and ‘Attar’s native Khorasan, following a dream about an

idol’s visiting his bedside, knew that it was intended that he should go to Rum and there see what might befall him. His name was “Abdu’r-Razzaq San’4ni and the account of his experience, willing service tending pigs etc., though given with none of the poetical embellishments of ‘Attar’s, is item by item parallel to it. The brief prose version ends with the Shaikh’s redemption following divine interventon through the Prophet, and his paramour’s receiving instruction in, and being converted to Islam. The last phrase is:

“And this is all the trouble and the to-do needed so that a single guebr might desert ‘guebrism’ and take the path to the expansive carpet of the Blessedness of Islam”; but there is more to this episode than this, of course.

As a matter of fact, in the interesting early fourteenth century Turkish translation of the Mantiqu’t-Tair by Gulshehri, he does call the Shaikh of San’an ‘Abdu’l-Razzaq. 112 “Unveiling”, kashf, which means “unveiling”, but in Sdfi terminology it is the explicit bearing of witness to the reality of the Hidden. Hence it is the act conjoined with knowledge of the Invisible: the “inward mysteries”. 113 The major Pilgrimage is the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca performed in the month of Dhi’l-Hijjah, the twelfth month of the Muslim year. It is the fifth pillar of Islamic practice, and laid down in the Koran, XXII, 28, and III, 91, and IT, 153 and 192. In the last, Chapter II, 192, the “lesser pilgrimage”,

114

‘umra, is, like the hajj, enjoined. ‘Umra is the visiting of the Ka‘ba at any season of the year save for the eighth, ninth and tenth days of Dhi’l-Hijjah, the month reserved for the hajj, the merits of which the ‘umra does not have, though to perform it is a meritorious act. Since the Shaikh is'described as being in the Meccan sanctuary, he was, of course, permanently on the “‘umra. “No sunnat did he let slip”: he was strict in observance of the practice of the Prophet as recorded in the Traditions. See Part One, Notes 162 and

194; the sunna was one of the pillars of the Law. ‘Attar mentions it following his reference to the Shaikh’s harmonising of “knowledge” and “works”: the Shaikh’s observance of the sunna was part of his practice or action, ‘amal, while ‘ilm included knowledge of the Traditions of the Prophet; knowl-

The Speech of the Birds

115 116

117

118 119

485

edge of holy precedents, hence the word ‘dlim, plural ‘ulamd, for Muslim religious scholars. Karamat. See Note 60 above. Magqamat, the plural of maqam, “station” or “standing”. Hujwiri, has a definition and description of the initial stations which are worth quoting in extenso: “Station” (maqam) denotes anyone’s “standing” in the Way of God, and his fulfilment of the obligations appertaining to that “station” and his keeping it until he comprehends its perfection so far as lies in a man’s power. It is not permissible that he should quit his “station” without fulfilling the obligations thereof. Thus, the first “station “ is repentance (tawbat), then comes conversion (indbat), then renunciation (zuhd), then trust in God (tawakkul), and so on: it is not permissible that anyone should pretend to conversion, or to trust in God without renunciation. (The Kashf al-Mahjub, translation, op. cit., page 181.) ‘Aqaba, “steep pass”, “obstacle”, and ‘uquba, “torment”, “punishment”: ‘Attar is playing on two words both derived from the same Arabic verbal root. : Rum (Rome), the term used for the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium. The area covered would be West and Central Asia Minor. In other words, they were leaving the Dar as-Salam, “Abode of Peace”, for the Dar al-Harb, “Abode of War”: from Islamic territory into Christian.

120 Ruhu’llah, Jesus, the “Spirit of God”; see Note 18 above. 121 “Pagan’s girdle”, zonnar, the belt worn by Christians and Jews by which they were distinguished from Muslims. In India it is the term applied to the Brahmanical

22

thread,

and the plaited girdle of the Parsee.

In the

Sufi-gnostic context, Hujwiri (op. cit., pages 259 and 273) uses this word for polytheism or “dualism”, i.e. worship so ordered that it suggests acknowledgement of more than one object of adoration. Conceits feature in this verse: the play upon musky fragrance, mushkin, and “darkness of colour”, likewise, mushkin; on pur chin, full of wrinkes or crinkles, but chin also means “China”, and the phrase occurs in the same

hemistich with Rim, “Greece” or “Byzantium”; and chin also suggests knitting of the brows, while mushkin can be extended to suggest lamentation or what is sinister, so that the danger implicit in the threat posed by this

Christian beauty is implied, and also the agony of one who might fall in love with her. 123

The reference is, of course, to eyelashes. Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis,

The Conference of the Birds, Penguin Books, 1984, page 59, felicitously translate these verses as follows: The face beneath her curls glowed like soft fire; Her honeyed lips provoked the world’s desire; But those who thought to feast there found her eyes Held pointed daggers to protect the prize.

The Speech of the Birds

486 124

Smallness of the mouth of the beloved is considered an added beauty — and temptation (see next verse). Her mouth was too tiny for words to pass through it, and so sealed that whoever talked about it did not know what they were talking about and, moreover, had no information that it might

£25

126

have conveyed. As already noted, the tasbih alludes to the beads used like the rosary for private prayer, especially with the ejaculation subhdna’llah, “Praise be to God”. Tawbeh, or tawbat, the turning back to God in remorse for sins of the flesh and deviations of the heart. See Koran LXVI, 8, “O you who have

believed, show to God a sincere repentance. It might be that your Lord will pardon your misdeeds”, and hadiths such as that God loves no-one more

than those who repent, and, the repentant is as one sinless, and

“Penitance is the act of returning”, i.e. from disobedience, with the rejection of sinfulness and determination not again to sin (Hujwiri, op. cit., pages 294-5). Tawbeh was the first stage on the path of the sdlik, the wayfarer. Hence it marked the beginning of dedication to God and of obedience. Thus the Shaikh was, in effect, being urged to return to the Path and begin all over again the sdlik’s progress. 127, 128,129 The words used here are: 1, ndmuis, “chastity”, “modesty”, “being discreet”, as well as “place-seeking”’, serving ambition by pretending to virtue; 2, hal, literally, “state”, “condition”,.and for the Safi the condition

of being either open to God or removed from Him, which condition is not in the gift of the devout seeker, but only to be bestowed upon the seeker’s heart from God: vaqt, “time with God”, a state of being with God,

like hal, is either granted by God or withheld (See Part One, Note 142). Thus it can be negative, but the word is generally used in the context of the murid’s being “with God in the delight of hal”. (Hujwiri, op. cit., page 370). Hal pertains to the object desired, the murdd. Vagqt is the station of the desirer, the murid. Hdl might be translated “ecstasy”, but here a more neutral paraphrase has been preferred. In modern colloquial Persian, hal is used with the verb kardan (to do, make etc.) in the sense of “to enjoy”, “to be happy”; since hdl is not a fixed state, in the second hemistich it has seemed appropriate to make, in a sense, the Shaikh allude to this variability, as hdl is granted or withheld. The implication is that the Shaikh is tired of waiting upon his “states”: his ecstasy is now determined by the’Christian paramour, while 3, muhdl, “the impossible”, “absurd”, “what cannot be”, tells its own tale in the context of the Shaikh’s abandonment of the Path,

130

sulk, under the influence of infatuation with the girl’s visible beauty. “Reconcile . . .”, the Persian is literally “collect yourself”, the word used being jam

“union”, i.e. “union with God alone with no other inter-

vening”’. (See Hujwiri, op, cit., pages 251-260 for a detailed exposition of jam‘ as being with God and not in thesstate of tafriqa, separation.) T31 Mihrab, the point on the Ka‘ba-facing wall of a mosque. It is generally

The Speech of the Birds

487

marked by a niche facing which the Imam stands when leading the congregation in prayer. In the Koran III, 32, 33, and XIX, 12, it is used for the

“sanctuary” in which Zachariah was performing his priestly office, as described in Luke I, 9, where the word “sanctuary” appears. 132

Khalvat, See Part One, Note 141.

133, 134 Dair, a Christian monastery, cloister or chapel. Medieval Islamic literature is not without anecdotes about how certain Muslims, including notables, found local Christian religious houses attractive places to visit and, though here ‘Attar’s metaphorical allusion to inebraition must be respected, to drink the forbidden wine. Cf. verse 1352 below, and Note 111 above.

135

“Turn back” — the poet alludes to the primary meaning of tawbeh. See Note 126 above.

136

The idiom ‘Attar uses here is kiseh dukhtan, literally, “to sew the purse”,

i.e. to fashion a purse ready to receive money it is thought possible another might have and be deprived of, so that the idiom comes to mean “to have an eye on somebody’s money”, “to have designs on getting the better of somebody”, “to entertain expectations of somebody”. Sana’i uses it in verses that might be paraphrased: 99

66

For those curls black and fair,

Men have sown many purses of hope.

and Do not from the sphere prepare the purse to receive fidelity: There’s no dome that keeps a walnut from rolling down. (See Dekhuda:

1257).

137

Kitadb-i Amsal 0 Hikam, Tehran,

1310/1930-31, Vol. Ill, page

Futuh, “conquest”, but in Safi terminology it means the unexpected “opening” — “opening” refers to the word’s primary meaning — to the receipt of grace associated with the devotee’s completion of the stages of the Way by which the carnal self is overcome.

‘Attar means

both the

conquest of the Pir by the girl, and the damage that is being done to his futuh in the mystical sense. 138 There is a suppressed allusion here to awaiting the mystical “opening’. 139 Hands held across the chest was the posture of a servant awaiting orders; a sign of servitude — the lover awaits the beloved’s command, which in fact comes in the next verse but one. 140 In preparing the corpse for burial three washings were prescribed: the sidra (lotus), the kafiir (camphor), and the third, a bath in clear water. The poet has the camphor bath in mind, for which those about to die would prepare a stock of camphor as they would prepare their shrouds. (See Bess Allen Donaldson, The Wild Rue, op. cit., page 72). 141

The

Persian

has

mughan,

literally,

“Magian”,

but

used

for

other

non-Muslims also and, by extension, for tavern-keepers and, as in mugh bacheh, ““Magian child”, for the wine server. 142

See Notes 133-134 above.

The Speech of the Birds

488 143

144

“Heedlessness”, ghaflat, or ghiflat, is the opposite of remembrance (of God), zikr. The latter is piety; ghaflat is sin. Hujwiri (op. cit., page 187) calls it “the greatest of evils” while love (mahabbat) is, “the clearest of revelations”. (Cf. ibid., page 155). Those who give way to ghaflat are the heedless who have set their hearts on wordly matters; but the main point about ghaflat is that it results in absence from God and being present with the self. “Chance”, qaz4, literally “deciding”, but its meaning has been extended to include “the command of Allah” (see Koran XXXIII, 37, 38). For gaz is Allah’s eternal command which He may exercise at will, and which is the ordainment

of all, sin and evil not excepted, though while sins are by

Divine Decree, they are part of God’s creative command, not His religious command. Under the latter, faith is tested and this command may either be obeyed or disobeyed: a measure of free will is admitted. In the Mathnawt (III, 3630), Man is declared not to be the enemy of God when he sins, but

of himself and “What does the Fire care that you have become firewood?”

In other words, is God to suffer defect because of the creature’s burning? God’s mercy is not, as is Man’s, mingled with sorow and anxiety. It is exempt from both sorrow and anxiety. Cf. the hadith of the Prophet: “These are in Paradise and I care not; these are in Hell and I care not”. The error of the Shaikh was, like all else, pre-ordained, but not his choice of it.

That arose on account of ghaflat; but “Attar here seems to anticipate the ending of the episode of the Shaikh, for in using this word, qazd, he is

alluding to the mystery (cf. Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, op. cit., pages 199-200) of free will and predestination; a mystery which, as Rami in the Mathnawt teaches, only love and faith can override. (Cf. Note 152 and verse 1460 below). 145 In the state of fand, annihilation of the self, it goes without saying that religious texts no longer bear any more significance for the devotee than other phenomena do; but implicit in the Shaikh’s predicament is something that a Pir must warn his novices against when they embark on the riydzat, the disciplining of the self. It is the danger of falling for hallucinatory temptations and visions, which are considered promptings of the Devil, and are known to all mystics undergoing the ordeal of self-mortification. The Shaikh’s fand in adoration of his “idol” was a false fand. It is with this danger, of pseudo-mystical experience, that it seems the poet intended the Shaikh’s story in no small measure to be concerned. The irony is that the Shaikh had himself been an eminent Pir; where was his Pir? But sight must not be

lost of the fact that the poet makes this epic interlude of the Shaikh’s story a paradigm of the tribuations of the Path of ‘ishq, passionate dedication to the Beloved. 146

“Grace’s abandonment”, khizlan; Koran III, 154, speaks of how Allah, if

He helps you, none might overcome you, but “if He abandons you, who will help you after Him?”, hence it is upon All4h that the believers should

The Speech of the Birds

489

place their trust. Koran XIII, 39, and XXV, 70, speak of Allah’s substitu-

tion of evil deeds by good ones for those who believe, repent and work righteousness, and of how Allah “will delete what He wills, or confirm”.

(XIII, 39.) The matter is that of grace (Iutf), either bestowed or, khizlén, withheld in the creature’s abandonment. When Allah chooses to lead astray, He is abandoning, i.e. withholding guidance; but He does so because the human agent has, of his own volition, neglected the Faith, opening the way for Satan to complete the business. God himself is not directly connected with evil. What is involved is the freedom of man. (See A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, Cambridge, 1932, pages 195 and 213, also, pages 81 and 82).

The matter was one of dispute, but ‘Attar’s (un-Mu ‘tazilite) position would mean that he saw it in terms of Allah’s having endowned Man with the power of discrimination, tamyiz, and also with passion, desire, hawa. When Allah is grace-bestowing, is protective of the soul, tamyiz prevails with His aid; but when He leaves the soul in the lurch, khazala, hawa gains force and

results in leading astray. Thus khizlan is the opposite of tawfiq, divine guidance or aid. Cf. Koran VI, 125: “If Allah wills to guide . . . He opens the breast for Islam, but if He wills to send astray, He makes [the] breast narrow ...”. (Cf. John VI, 65, “‘No-one can come to me unless it has been

granted by the Father’”.) St. John of the Cross says: “That which his anguished soul feels most deeply, is the conviction that God has abandoned it. . .; that He has cast it away into darkness as an abominable thing . . . the shadow of death and the pains and torments of hell are most acutely felt,

and this comes from the sense of being abandoned by God, being chastised and cast out by His wrath and heavy displeasure”. (See Underhill, op. cit.,

pages 389, 390, 391.) The anguish alluded to here was a necessary stage in the development of the spiritual consciousness. 147

“Evil Things”, khaba’is, see Koran VII, 156, and XXI, 74, for the foul

things to which the faithless resort. 148

The idiom is, “Let us gather in the skirt from . . .”, alluding to how the

religious would pull up the hem of their robe in order to prevent its being polluted with dirt and, by extension, its wearer with impunity. 149

The poet in this verse plays on the word dam, “breath”, “moment”, and,

in the compound, hamdami, “comrade”, “fellow”, “in sympathy with”, but there is more to this particular word-play than immediately meets the eye, for the poet, in using this word, is also suggesting that the disciples shut-up: “haggle”, or argue the less. 150 See Notes 144 and 146 above, and the next verse. 151 “Discipleship”, irddat, genuine discipleship moved by the spirit. 152 See Notes 144 and 146 above, and references given loc. cit. Qadar, here translated as “Divine Will”, is a term which immediately brings to mind

the vexed argument in Islam about free will and predestination. The latter is signalled by the word gadar: Allah measuring out, according to His will, his decrees to man; ordainments which Muslim theologians have argued

490

The Speech of the Birds made man little more than an automaton, but an automaton that enter-

tained the notion of freedom of choice. ‘Attar is interesting here in bringing gqaz4 and qadar together in the same verse, but, as argued in the footnotes above, both gazd and qadar had to be part of the Divine Ordainment; God pre-ordained the Shaikh’s aberrance; Fate decreed that he act as one aber-

rant; in Ash‘arite theology, man “acquires his act”, kasb, acquisition. (See AJ. Wensinck, op. cit., p. 52, and passim). In this juxtaposition of the two, ‘Attar might be suggesting ambivalence over the issue of Free Will and Predestination, but theological niceties were not the Sufi’s main preoccu-

pation. He accepted Islam as the best of religions, and in the Koran found plenty of scope for Sufistic exegesis in terms of God’s mercy etc. He therefore accepted the theology of God as the sole Willer of all that happens in His creation; but also that, while God might pre-ordain errancy on the

believer’s part, he does not so deprive the believer of choice that, should the believer fall into the jaws of fate, it could be seen as the fault of God.

Rather, in the end it was the result of the believer’s having neglected obedience to God, consequently to lose the God-given faculty of discrimination, tamyiz. After this loss, the jaws of the crocodile, fate, were opened, ready

to snap. (See verse 1476 below). The Sufi was eminently a humanist, in contrast to the theologian: the Safi knew that allowance had to be made

for human frailty. But, Revelation II, 27, need not be forgotten: “and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter are broken to shivers; as I also have received from my Father”. is 154 155

156 157

Gabr, “Gabar”, a derogatory term for a Magian or Zoroastrian.

Pirahan-i kaghiz, “paper shirt”, a metaphor for a petition for justice. See Note 97 above for the forty-day abstenence in rapt devotion in khalvat, for which a special place or cell was allocated in the khangah, and which could only be undertaken under the Pir’s supervision. The formula for the zikr the adept was to recite was prescribed by the Pir, and the object of the forty-day seclusion was attainment of concentration on the Divine to the exclusion of all else. See next verse for the fasting and vigils that were also a feature of this form of riydzat. The Prophet Muhammad.

The Prophet is said to have plaited his hair and to have let down plaits to hang over his chest from either side of the head. This feature would ensure that the devout disciple recognised who was approaching. 158 See verse 1274 and Note 126 above. 159 “Spittle”, tuf. While it is a word of the same orthography, t+vowel+f, it has the vowel u instead of short a. The latter would make it read taf, which means “heat”, “ardour”, etc., but here the saliva is as effective in laying sin as the night dew was in settling the dust. The poet is continuing the image, of moisture as the dampener of the obscuring dust on the devotee’s path, the path which the Shaikh (verse 1506 above) had lost. 160 Ignorance: Not to be Muslim was to be in the state of ignorance, jahiltya.

The Speech of the Birds

491

161

Dhawg or zawa, “taste”: the taste for the Faith’s ultimate attainment might in the devotee excite either joy or sorrow, joy in the zealous quest, sorrow at the goal’s not being attained; qabz as well as bast. It might be added that the words “taste”, “tasting”, and “savouring” are, as any reader of their writings will know, frequent in the utterances of Christian mystics; St. John of the Cross said, of the mystic’s reaching the Divine Reality, that he “enjoys a certain contact of the soul with Divinity; and it is God Himself who is felt and tasted’’. (Italics added.) 162 The allusion is to the necessity of the salik’s having a guide, the Pir. 163 Abu Yazid Taifir ibn ‘Isa ibn Surishdn al-Bistami, a great mystic of Islam who died in Bistam in Khorasan in, most probably, 875 ap. He left no written work, but his sayings became a compendium of traditional spiritual wisdom, were handed down to successors and were an influence on

the great mystic al-Junaid of Baghdad (died 910 ap) whom Bay4zid might have met. Bay4zid’s Pir had been a certain Abt ‘Ali as-Sindi, Abt ‘Ali of Sind, whom Bayazid is said to have taught enough Arabic for him to understand portions of the Koran, but from whom he might in return have gleaned certain Indian mystical insights (see, inter alia, R.C. Zaehner: Aba

-Yazid of Bistam: a turning point in Islamic Mysticism, Indo-Iranian Journal, Vol. I, 1957, No. 4, pages 286-301. This article has been said to be “uncon-

vincing”, but R.A. Nicholson and other authorities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries subscribed to the possibility of an Indian influence). He, as “the blacksmith of myself”, hammered the self, in order to

attain union with the Divine, before Whom he as a zonnar-knotting infidel was in the habit of presenting himself. Eventually he made claims of being as great as, if not greater than, God, once he had encompassed those stages of the Way he regarded as barriers between him and God, and expeienced fana. ‘Attar (Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd, op. cit., Part I, page 179), reports that when someone saw Bay4zid in a dream and asked him, “What is Sufism?”, he

answered, “Shutting the door on your own ease and spending a long time kneeling in tribulation”. There is a story about his having been in a Christian monastery and converting its inmates en masse to Islam; a story ‘Attar might have had in mind in the context of that of Shaikh-i Sam’an.

In the words ‘Attar cites from Bayazid’s private ejaculations in prayer (mundjjat) and ecstatic utterances (shathahat) are many parallels to the phrases and images which ‘Attar deploys in his poem. For example, Bayazid is quoted in the Tazkirat (178-179) as saying, “The people are in a boundless sea and far from them there is a ship. Strive to board this ship and save your body from this sea”. (See Encyclopaedia of Islam II, Article, Abt Yazid al-Bistami, by H. Ritter, and Encyclopaedia Iranica, Article: Bestami

Bay4zid). But this story of Bayazid’s going out into the desert is given in a succinct prose version in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Part I, pages 155-156) as the answer Bay4zid gave to someone who asked him how he had reached a high spiritual station (maqdm). Bayazid said:

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492

“One night in infancy I stepped outside Bistam. Moonlight was shining, the world was quiet, but I beheld a Presence beside which eighteen thousand worlds appeared a speck. Confusion fell upon me and a tremendous state overcame me. I said, “O Lord, a Court of this magnitude, but so empty, and works of this magnificence, but so solitary?” A voice from the Invisible gave utterance, saying, “The Court is not empty because of this that nobody comes, (but) becauase of this, that we do not want (them), for not every unwashed face is fit for this Court”.

164

The term is istighnd’, a term much used by Persian poets for the detachment, self-sufficiency, independence, disdainfulness of the beloved, both

with a small or a capital ‘b’. Here it is a case of the capital “B’: the Divine Self-sufficiency,

but Rami

(Mathnawi,

Book

IV, verse

45) beautifully

describes istighna’ in the erotic metaphor of the pined-for beloved’s utter self-sufficiency when pursued by the lover for whom, Neither cajolery was of any use to him nor riches: Without expectations and desire was that sapling. Hafiz has: The talk is about our need and the self-sufficiency of the beloved; What boots incantation O heart when with the heart-stealer it doesn’t take?

165

166 167

The sun. Hafiz has: In an assemblage in which the sun is reckoned but a speck, Seeing yourself as big is not the rule of decorum. “Another bird in the world”, i.e. other than the hoopoe. Dr. Goharin notes that in the time of “Attar and subsequently it was the

practice for Koran reciters to sit at the foot of the minbar and, before the preacher began to preach, beautifully chant from the Holy Book. In this instance, the reciters were the nightingale and the dove. 168 169

L.e., of wine.

Dr. Goharin points out that the Stfis believed that the way to union with the Real was not worship alone, because Iblis, in addition to significant acts

of worship, performed those of obedience but was still rejected. The thesis is that the matter depends on the favour and magnanimity of God, as Bayazid said: “I have experienced nothing through praying but the body’s halting, and from fasting, nothing but hunger. That which I have is by His gift, not through any action of mine. Through your own striving nothing can be gained. The lucky is he who’s foot, as he is walking, suddenly slips down upon a treasure trove so that he becomes rich.” (Tazkiratu’l-Awliy4, op. cit., Part I, page 155.). The point is that receipt of grace is not through our striving, but through God’s favour, and that we should not pray (see verse 1664 below) with reward in view, but with the intention of becoming

a vessel prepared, in collectedness and tranquility and through obedience, for the receipt of grace should God vouchsafe it. 170

See Note 104 above. Mas‘id was Mahmitd’s successor as the Ghaznavid

Sultan (1031-1041 ap). In at least two’ manuscript versions of the text, the reading “Mahmud” occurs, but the manuscript followed here is authorita-

The Speech of the Birds

493

tive because of its antiquity and consequent proximity to the time of ‘Attar. That these Ghaznavid Sultans should, in various Sufi texts, appear as paragons of virtue and, as in the story that follows, vessels of grace and proxies for the Divine seems paradoxical, especially in relation to modern Iranian historians’ condemnation of them as fanatical, hypocritical, and tyrannical. They were of Turkish descent from Turks enslaved and converted to Islam under the Iranian Samanid Dynasty of Greater Khor4san (319-1005 ap). In present-day Afghanistan, based on Ghazna (Ghazni) a former

Samanid

slave-general,

Sabuktagin

(977-997

ap),

Sultan

Mahmiud’s predecessor, replaced Samanid power, then on the wane, throughout Eastern Khordsin. Sultan Mahmtd was notoriously a zealous Sunnite Muslim, and it was he who has been credited with carrying Islam

into India in a series of celebrated conquests there. The Ghaznavid régime in Iran was replaced by that of the Saljaqs (1038-1194), who from 1050 until 1157 dominated the Eastern Caliphate. As a consequence of the disintigration of their dominion, ‘Attar and his contemporaries would have lived through exceedingly troubled times, notably under the Khwarazmshahs (circa 1077—1231ap), and the Chingizid Mongol invasion, in which ‘Attar apparently perished, of 1220-21. Hence the Ghaznavid epoch might, by the early thirteenth century, have, relatively speaking, appeared as a sort of Golden Age, in which the Iranian traditions and patronage of poets that were a feature of the Samanid Court were continued by the Ghaznavids. It might be, therefore, that Mahmid’s and

Mas‘tid’s place in the eyes of certain Safis of the thirteenth century can be partly explained in these terms. C. E. Bosworth (The Ghaznavids: their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 994:1040, Edinburgh, 1963, page 193), in a useful and thoughtful summing up suggests that the attitude of the dynasty towards Sufism might be explained in terms of respect for genuine individual holy men, “whilst recognising that among the Sufis were many tricksters”. In any event, rulers would be suspicious of Sufi Shaikhs who collected large bands of followers, “thereby creating a nexus of loyalties which could not directly be controlled by the central government or its local agents”. But the paradox of the respect paid to these dynasts by certain Stfis remains unresolved, and prompts questioning as to whether Sultan Mahmiad, for example, had some secret affiliation with, say,

certain eminently holy Shaikhs, to account for the references to him made by ‘Attar, such as in the preceding anecdote about Mahmud and Ayaz. The Sufi commentator on the Koran, Rashidu’d-Din Maybudi, on one occa-

sion in his Commentary (begun in 1126 ap) refers to Mahmud as an “Arif, “gnostic”, a term which implies recognition of the Sultan as a true and accomplished follower of the Path of ma‘rifat. Maybudi says, “As is related of the sultén-i “arif Mahmid, in the assembly of intimacy he sat only with Ayaz ...”. In the present anecdote, Sultan Mas‘td figures as the possessor of divine power, while in the preceding story Mahmud was shown to

494

The Speech of the Birds possess remarkable spiritual insight. Mas‘td possesses dawlat, in this instance the power of conferring grace and good fortune, so that he was comparable with Solomon as an agent of the Divine Order: a vessel of grace.

171

“Station”, maqam; ‘Attar’s use of this word, with its Safi connotation, (as

well as the need to rhyme with dam, “snare”), strengthens the underlying allusion to the devotee’s keeping himself concentrated in prayer for long periods. 172

In the

Tazkiratu’l-Awliya

(Part

1, page

55), ‘Attar relates

this story

concerning the Sdfi ‘Ajami (the “Persian”) Habib, of how a murderer who had been put to death was seen in a dream, but in the Elysian fields. Asked how this had come about, the murderer replied, “When they hanged me, ‘Ajami Habib passed by and looked at me through the corner of his eye. All this is from that look’s blessings”. ‘Ajami Habib was a money-broker notorious and loathed for extortion, but he repented, not least under the

guidance of Hasan al-Basri (died 728 ap), the great preacher and teacher in Basra, where Habib also resided. Habib was instructed in the Koran —

as his soubriquet implies, he was not an Arabic speaker — and became the recipient of gifts of sustenance, for himself and his wife, from God, while he, having given up his entire wealth and possessions, devoted himself to religious exercises. (Ibid., pages 49-52.) 173 So spelt in the poem. In the reference given in Note 172 above, it is spelt ‘Ajami, without the initial alif. 174 Thorns and brushwood were collected in the plains and carried to towns and villages to be fuel for the public baths. 175 Cf. Hafiz’s verse (Divan, ed. Khanlari, op. cit., page 269, ghazal 122), which Dr. Goharin cites here: Every dew-drop on this route is a hundred fiery oceans: O the agony that this riddle has neither description nor explanation!

176 An allusion to God’s generosity: see verse 1824 below. 177 Bi-bargt, “leaf-less”. See Note 7 and 48 above. 178

Both zahir, “dysentery”, and the dough kneaded with blood, allude to the dolour experienced through love, and the tears; with dysentery blood is

also associated. 179 Nauqani has not been identified. Aba’l-Hasan Kharaqani (for the metre, Kharqani) is the reading in some MSS. He was a celebrated Shaikh (died 1024 ap), and a follower of the rite of Bay4zid. See Jami, Nafahdtu’l-Uns, edited Mahdi Tawhid Pur,Tehran, n.d., pages 298-299; but this work does

not mention a Shaikh Nauqani. Cf. Garcin de Tassy, Mantiq Uttair ou la langue des Oiseaux, translation, Paris, 1863, and 1980, page 95.

180

See Part One, Notes 264 and 267. This anecdote is told, but differently and in more detail, in Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, Nicholson Pt. I, pp. 62-63;

Isti‘lami, p. 79. 181 Jami ‘at, “collectedness”, see Part One, Note 142 and Part Two, Note 130

above.

The Speech of the Birds 182 183 184

495

Vaqt, see Part One, Note 142 above, and Part Two, Notes 127, 128, 129. See Part One, Notes 7 and 8 above.

In effect this passage introduces the first stage of the Way: that of repentance. 185 See Koran XXXIX, 54, “. . . do not despair of Allh’s mercy: verily Allah forgives sins entirely. Verily He is the Forgiving, the Compassionate”, and XII, 87. Cf. Part One, Note 166 above.

186

“Grace”, lutf. God is absolute Mercy (see Mathnawt, Book I, 243). Though His lutf is often contrasted with His gahr, or ghadab, “wrath”, to take them as opposites would be an over-simplification: gahr is Divine Mercy in disguise, lutf-i khafi. “Attar’s verses are based on the theme that the pain and torment God inflicts on us are for our own good; lutf-i khafi hidden grace in the guise of gahr. There is a hadith, marvellously brief and to the point: “God Great and Glorious said, ‘My compassion streaks ahead of My wrath’.” 187 God’s kindness is everlasting and manifold: He has, as a tradition puts it, many kindnesses hidden. Behind these references to God’s lutf and karam, “magnanimity”’, stand such verses of the Koran as LV, 29, ““Whatsoever is

in the heavens and the earth petitions Him: every day He is engaged in toil”, and LVII, 11 (also 17): “Who is he who will lend Allah a good loan,

and He will double it for him? For him is a generous “generous repayment”, ajrun karim, “generous return”. 188

repayment”;

See Koran LIII, 32, Allah “may recompense those who do well with the best”, 33, “. . . verily thy Lord is wide in forgiveness”, and II, 203, “Allah is merciful to servers”, i.e. those obedient to Him, and III, 29, Allah “‘is

Forgiving, Compassionate”, and XIII, 7, “verily thy Lord is forgiving to the people in spite of their wrong-doing; and thy Lord is severe in punishment”. Cf. Note 185. 189 “Sincerity”, sidq: Dhu’l-Nun, the great mystic of Egypt, is reputed to have said: “Sincerity (sidq) is the sword of God on the earth: it cuts everything

190

that it touches” (Kashfu’l-Mahjub, translation, op. cit., page 101). See Part One, Notes 173, 174, and 180. Futtihat, “openings”, also “conquests”. In Safi terminology it implies God’s

sending down His Grace upon the devout. Hence futuh can be translated “spiritual favour”. Certain Safis held that the Safi neither need work nor

beg for a livelihood. It would come to him minu’l-futth, through an “opening” granted by God. (See, for example, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings, Edinburgh, 1909, Vol. 2, pages 102, 103, Article,

191

Asceticism (Muslim).) Cf. Note 137 above. Rthu’l-Amin, the Archangel Gabriel; literally the “Faithful Spirit”. See Koran XXVI,

193.

192 The Sidra Tree. See Part One, Note 144 above, and Koran LIII, 14-15 ett.

193

“I am with you”, labbayka. According to the hadith, “When the slave says

The Speech of the Birds

496

ya Rabb (Oh Lord) , God answers, Labbayka, Oh My slave.” “Ask, and it

will be given unto you.” Selfless prayer, when God alone is in the heart, evokes “an immediate inward response.” (See Mathnawi, Nicholson’s Commentary, on Book I, 1578). 194

Qértin, the Korah of the Old Testament who, with Dathan and Abiram,

rebelled against Moses, probably on political grounds in opposition to Moses’s lay powers, as well as on religious, in contempt of Moses’s Divine designation, and against his exercise of the offices of priest as a Levite. However it was, and the matter has been much worked over by biblical

scholars, the Earth’s splitting and swallowing up Korah and his people as a punishment is described in Numbers,

XVI,

31-32,

and in the Koran

XXIX, 39. In the latter the concluding sentence is significant, “Allah was not one to wrong them, but they themselves were wronging”. Koran XXVII, 76-81, speaks of Qartin’s fabulous wealth and pomp and pride. Qarin is also mentioned, with Pharaoh and Haman, Pharaoh’s anti-jewish minister in Koran XL, 24-25; but see the Book of Esther III, 1, and VII,

6, for example, where Haman is Ahasuerus’s minister, not Pharaoh’s. They were those who refused to accept Moses’s God-given authority and accused him of lying and being a magician. The 13th Century Koranic commentator, al-Baidawi, who borrowed from earlier commentators, says

that Qartn falsely accused Moses of immorality. Moses complained to God Who told him to command Earth as he wished. Moses commanded it to swallow up Qarin and his people. But, with reference to this story as “Attar presents

it, Qisasu’l-Anbiyd,

“Tales

of the Prophets”,

(op. cit., pages

225-228), recalls how Moses instructed Qarin in the religious sciences and how, after Moses had received but set aside the secrets of alchemy, Qaran

stole them and made himself enormously rich; even the keys to his treasuries were of gold. Hence Moses asked him to pay the alms tax, zakdt. Qarin not only refused but had himself raised on a golden throne opposite to where Moses sat as lawgiver to his people. Then Qarin caused a whore to lie about Moses’s having enjoyed her services, but the woman was prompted by God to repent. She exposed Qartin’s plot to Moses. God reminded Moses that the earth was his to command, and Qarin and his

throne sank into it when Moses told it to open. The story alludes to a tradition as follows (page 228), “that Qartn seventy times begged Moses for quarter, but Moses granted it not to him. Almighty God sent Moses a vahi (revelation) saying that ‘for all Our Glorious Power, if he had only once asked of Us mercy, I would have given it him and endued his repentance

with grace, and forgiven him’.” 195

“Lord”, “saint”, wali: the possessor of wilayat, the mystical inward aware-

ness of oneness with God: the inward aspect of Prophethood, as contrasted with its outward, legalistic, institutional aspect. The Divine Mercy is what makes men holy: the practice of compassion is what gains holy men God’s favour, beneficence, ni‘mat. Vali-ye ni‘mat, “Lord of bounty”, is a respectful

The Speech of the Birds

497

phrase for a good man, righteous fathers etc., but in the Safi context, walf,

196

or vali, means more. It means “saint”, a man whose exemplar is God alone. There is an allusion to God’s gift to mankind in the Prophet Muhammad in the reference to the “part and the whole of existence”; see Part One, verse 311 above, and verses 1895 to 1898 below. But of course the concept

of the verse here being annotated is based on Koran II, 32: “. . . We said to the angels: “Prostrate yourselves to Adam’. They prostrated themselves, with the exception of Iblis. In his pride he refused and became one of the unbelievers.” Cf. Koran XV, 30 and XXXVIII, 73, 74. God made Man

his Vice-gerent on earth. See Fatimeh San’atiniya, op. cit., p. 143, for sources for this study. They include Abt Fadl Rashid al-Din al-Maybudi’s commentary on the Koran, Kashf al-asrar wa ‘uddat al-abrar, 10 vols. Edited by ‘Ali Asghar Hikmat, Tehran, Intisharat-i Daneshgahi, 1952-60/1331-9 AH (Tehran, 3rd Edition, 1357/1977-8, Vol. I., p. 367, in the commen-

197

tary on Surah II). “Desire”, shawq, “desire”, “longing”. Hujwiri (translation, op. cit., page 128) cites the saying: “God created men’s hearts to be the homes of His praise, but they have become the homes of lust; and nothing can clear them of lust except an agitating fear or a restless desire (shawq)”. In the context

of this see verse 1873 above. 198 As are jewels or rewards in other kinds scattered on court poets, or among people at weddings and other festive occasions. The verb is nisdr kardan. For the Angels’ celebrating God’s Prasies without intermission, see Koran

XXI, 20. 199

‘Attar mentions a holy dervish, ‘Abbaseh-ye Tusi, Abbaseh of Tus, twice

in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliy4, (op. cit., Part I, page 59, and Part II, page 145); once in the context of R4bi‘a’s being a man, because a man in the Path of Holiness, when ‘Abb4seh is remembered as having declared that, when

God summons men on the Day of Resurrection, the leader of the ranks will be Mary, the mother of Christ; and once in the context of the great mystic, Manstr al-Hall4j. ‘Abb4seh of Tis said that “on the morrow of the

Resurrection, were Manstr to be brought in heavy manacles into the arena and his fetters removed, he would set the whole Resurrection by its ears”. 200 201

“Heedless”, see Note 143 above, and Note 209 below.

References to Allah as the Provider, Razzdq are numerous in the Koran, e.g. LI, 58, “Verily is Allah the Provider, the Possessor of Strength, the

Firm”. 202

The heart, the mirror to be cleansed in order to reflect the Divine; in

‘Attar’s world, looking-glasses were of polished metal. 203 Shibli: Abi Bakr Dulaf ibn Jahdar, born, of a family originally from Transoxiana, in Baghdad in 861 ap, he died in 945 ap. He gained considerable celebrity as a great Safi mystic following his conversion at the age of forty, and under the influence of Junaid and one of Junaid’s intimates. Shibli’s fame was not, however, unquestioned. The zeal of a convert was

The Speech of the Birds

498

mingled with a high degree of eccentricity, but ‘Attar in his account of him (Tazkirat .. ., Part I., pages 160-192) extols him as a unique Sufi paragon, without equal in mystical states and knowledge, and of acts of self-mortification (riydzdat), and acts of grace (karamat) beyond description. Although Shibli had been a friend of Manstr al-Hall4j, the latter’s trial and

terrible execution ostensibly for having declared “I am the Truth (God)”, in March 922 ap, apparently shocked and frightened Shibli so much that he went to the foot of the scaffold and accused Mansur of having sinned. But it is said that, while he disavowed Manstr in public, he revered him

in secret. Shibli’s odd behaviour eventually landed him in the Baghdad Bedlam, but there he discoursed on mysticism to a succession of attentive

and distinguished visitors. He left no written works, but his sayings became part of the Safi canon, and unusual for a Safi Pir was his standing in the

legal circles of the Maliki School of Law, to which he belonged. That he was respected in legal circles might have saved him from going the same ghastly way as Hallaj. His Sufi descent was, as already observed, from Junaid. He might be considered to stand as a link in the chain of Pirs which stemmed from that great mystic of Baghdad. “Attar relates the account given in the next verses, that of Shibli’s disappearence for a while, after which he was found in a house of catamites, in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Part II, page 172, and in Isti‘lami’s edition, page 627). When asked how he came to be in such a place, he replied, as he is made to do in the poem, that it was entirely the proper place for him because, as those frequenting it were neither men

nor women

in the world, so he was neither a man

nor a

woman in religion. 204 See Note 94 above: Abraham’s father who fashioned idols. 205 Al-‘Uzza, the ancient Arabian goddess: her name meant “the powerful”. Her principle sanctuary was between Mecca and Ta’if, in the Nakhla Valley. She became predominent over the other two gods, Al-Lat, and Manat — the “three daughters of Allah”. See Koran LIII, 19 ff., for a

polemic against them. Al-‘Uzza was the patron goddess of Mecca and therefore dear to the Quraish; she was also worshipped in Hira and not unrecognised in Syria. Her worship had more than a tinge of cruelty: human sacrifices are mentioned. The Prophet was careful to ensure the destruction of her sanctuary. 206

The dervish cloak: the khirga, and, in the next verse, the garb of those brave

enough to brace themselves for the Way. On “Spiritual Chivalry” see Lewisohn, op. cit., pp. 549 ff. 207

‘Attar seems here to be anticipating verse 1988 and 1989 below, in which

208

he speaks of the wild Turkman’s accepting the Faith. The nafs, lower or carnal self or spirit, is considered so great an enemy and threat to the seeker of the Truth, the sdlik, the traveller on the Path to realisation of the Divine, that Safi works, in prose and verse, are full of references to, and exhortations against, it. The latter are often couched in

The Speech of the Birds

499

strong language, in terms of uprooting, violently stamping out the lower self; Rami speaks of tearing down the house (of the body) and wrenching up the paving stones of the floor to eradicate this lurking enemy within, the agent of Iblis which manifests itself in many colours and shifting, deceitful guises, while St. Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380), in fact in the context of purging spiritual self-love and in the tribulations of the Dark Night of the Soul, speaks of these tribulations as “correction and reproof digging up the root of self-love with the knife of self-hatred and the love of virtue”. Numerous Traditions are ascribed to the Prophet, as well as a host of sayings of the Saints, in this context. Koran XXIX, 69 is cited with its emphasis on the striving (jahd), the struggle to extirpate the diabolical self: “Those who strive to the utmost for Us, We will guide them into Our ways ...”. The Prophet is reported as saying, “We have returned from the lesser jihad (war for the Faith) to the greater”. Asked what he meant by the latter, “It is the struggle against the self”, he answered. The Prophet also said: “Your most implacable foe is your own self between your two sides”. The English translation of Hujwiri (op. cit., pages 201-210) has an important section on the “Mortification of the Lower Soul” and its necessity. In the Mirsddu’l-‘Ibad (text, op. cit. page 136, translation page 158) it is reported that the Prophet, among his other distinguishing features, drew the distinction between himself and other prophets that they had not been fully liberated from the self and could not therefore effectivey intercede for mankind at the Resurrection, on which occasion they would be busy proclaiming their own selfhood. 209 “Heedlessnesss”, ghafilt: the reference is to ghaflat, see Note 143 above. Hujwiri (op. cit. page 155) says “and when anyone is absent from God and present with himself, that state is not remembrance of God (zikr), but absence; and absence is the result of heedlessness (ghaflat).”

210

“Blaze”, sar, the word used in, among many references, the Koran XXII, 4, XXXI, 20, XLVIII, 13, for the Blaze or Inferno into which sinners are

211

“Iciness”, zamharir, extreme and bitter cold, the location of which is said

cast. See Part One, Note 45. to be between the heavens and the earth in the sphere of ether (hawd), which is beneath the sphere of fire and above the globe of the earth. Vapours from the seas were said to rise to the level of zamharir, there to become frozen. According to a Tradition, it is the place where unbelievers

212 ais

will meet their deserts. Rami similarly couples sar with zamharir in Book IV of the Mathnawi, verse 2526. See Note 199 above. “Crowd”, hasham; ‘Attar’s use of this word, hasham, indicates that the Day

of the Final Questioning, Doomsday, is implied. 214

“Being present with Him” paraphrases the word hudur, huzur, “presence”,

but in Sifi terminology the “presence of the heart” when the certainty of intuitive faith, yagqin, fills the heart. It is described with its (apparent)

The Speech of the Birds

500

opposite, ghaibat, absence, in Hujwiri (op. cit., page 258 ff.); but the heart’s absence from all things except God is what is intended by ghaibat, whereas huzir is the heart’s presence with God but again, to the exclusion of all

else. Koran VI, 94, “You have come to Us singly as We created you... .”, is cited in the context of being present with Him. Hafiz has the verse: If you desire any presence, do not be absent from Him, Hafiz! Whenever you have met Him Whom you desire, say farewell to the world and forget it,

in which he alludes both to huziir and ghaibat in the same hemistich. The word huztirisalso taken as meaning the heart, qalb, as the heart is the instru-

ment of the “presence”. The idea implicit in all this is that originally there have to be two, but when “presence” is achieved, then there is only One.

215 216 2h

Le. the state of huztir.

See the hadith: “The world is the prison of believers and the paradise of unbelievers.” Malik Dinar: see Part One, Note 267 above. The present anecdote about Malik’s being asked about how he was is told in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd, op. cit., Part One, page 46. (Nicholson’s edition).

218

“Dear one”, aziz, “precious”, “dear”, used in Sufi terminology for one

who is blessed: who has attained the goal of the quest. 219

“You are powerless”, standing for “you have no hawl”; hawl means power.

The phrase [4 hawl, “no power’, is part of the aphorism “There is no power and no strength except in God”. ‘220 See Note 194 above. 221 Shaddad is described by the Koranic commentators as the architect of the garden of Iram in the vicinity of Aden and called after his great grandfather, and deliberately planned as an imitation of the celestial Paradise. When the garden was completed, Shaddad, the king of the people of ‘Ad, set out with a great concourse to see it, but when they were within a day’s jourmey of the garden, they were all destroyed by a terrible noise from heaven. The Koranic reference, though Shaddad is not mentioned, is to be found in Surah LXXXIX, verses 5 and 6, “Hast thou not seen how thy

Lord dealt with ‘Ad, / Iram of the pillars; . . . ?”. It is tempting to think that by the “pillars”, or “tent-poles”, gaunt columns, rising to the sky such as are seen at the sites of ancient ruined cities in the Arabian peninsula, are intended. The commentators have a story about how an Arab searching for a strayed camel came upon the site of the garden of Iram; but, of course, Shaddad is mentioned by ‘Attar, along with Pharaoh, Nimrod, and Korah,

as the type of the worldly and impious potentate in rebellion against God and His messengers.

oan

“A nothing”, ld shai, see Koran III, 182, “this present life is only an illusory enjoyment”, and VI, 32 “and that which is the life of the world is nothing but a game and a sport .. .”, and IX, 38, “The enjoyment of the life of the world is in comparison with the life of the Hereafter naught but

The Speech of the Birds

501

a little thing”. Also, Surah XXIII, 42, in which reference is made to the

fate in store for worldlings, while all these references indicate the nothingness of the lower world. 223 The reference is to turning the faces of the dead towards Mecca at the time of death, and the last struggle is the “squeezing” at the time of the terrible interrogation of the departed by the two angels of the grave, Nakir and Munkar, when the dead are asked to repeat a catechism concerning their faith. (See Bess Allen Donaldson, The Wild Rue, op. cit., Chapter 7.) ‘Attar

might have had in mind what Muhammad al-Ghazali was speaking of in the Kitab al-Khawf wa’r-Raja’, “The Book of Fear and Hope” (see Note 303 below) where he describes how a man’s eyes diverted from God and turned to “this world” meant, were he to die in this state, that the “seal”

of rejection would be on his heart and, veiled from Him, the blazing fire would be his lot. (See McKane, translator, “The Book of Fear and Hope”,

224

Leiden, 1962, p. 65.) Reflected here is the saying ascribed to the Fifth Imam of the Twelver Shiva, Muhammad Bagir ibn ‘Ali, who died in either 732, 733, or 735 ap. As his

title Bagir suggests, he was reputed to be immensely learned. Commenting on Koran II, verse 257, in which the word tdghuit occurs, meaning “idols”,

Muhammad Bagir is reported to have said, in explanation of the word taghut, “Anything that diverts you from contemplating the truth is your taghut’’, i.e., “your idol”. See Hujwiri, op. cit., page 78. Cf. Sale’s Qu’ran, Vol. II., page 45, Note on verse 257. (Bell says that faghuit is an Ethiopic borrowing). wap

From verse 86, Koran III. The whole verse reads: “You will not attain to

righteousness until you disburse what you love, and whatever thing you contribute, Allah of it knows”.

226 A doubtless poor attempt to reflect “Attar’s playing with the letters of the alphabet; but the lines are interesting because they make the hoopoe play the part of the novice or schoolmaster, teaching the pupil addresed as “boy”, ghulam. ‘Attar plays on the vav of of the Persian word for “he”, which is alif vav, G, so that he takes up the word khiin, “blood”, but here translated “hell”, which has as its middle letter, vav, and the word khdak,

‘earth’ or ‘dust’, the middle letter of which is alif. 227

See Notes 59 and 172 above. The Shaikh of Basra was Hasan al-Basri, the

celebrated pietist, theologian, and by no means uncontroversial traditionalist. With his asceticism he significantly influenced the development of Sufism; one eminent Sufi described him as the Im4m of the Sufis. It seems

that his father was most probably Iranian: before conversion he was called Péréz. He was brought to Medina, it is said, as a captive, but manumitted and later married to a local lady, Hasan’s mother, in Medina where tradi-

tion has it that Hasan was born in 642 ap, although this date has been contested

(vide E.J.

II, Article:

Hasan al-Basri, and the bibliography

appended to it). Having early in life gone to Basra, it was there that he died

The Speech of the Birds

502

in 728 ap. Surviving fragments and quotations attest to the eloquence and literary quality of his homilies; he left no books. His sermons contain such exhortations as the thoroughly medieval “Make the world like the bridge which you cross but on which you do not build”, and the thoroughly Safi, “Re-polish these hearts, for verily they soon gather rust”. He was deeply suspicious of the dangers of wealth; hence it is perfectly natural that, in this section of his poem, ‘Att4r should have Hasan, as well as Rabi‘a, in mind. As an exemplar for Safis Hasan’s incontestible prominence is demonstrated in numerous references to his sayings in Sufi literature, both Arabic and Persian, and the calling of him the “Im4m” of the followers of the Path was

coupled with the statement that those followers took their light from his lamp. ‘Attér speaks of him in exchanges with Rabi‘a in the Tazkiratu’lAwliya (Nicholson’s edition, Part I, pages 24 ff, and Isti’lami’s, pages 78 ff), a fact which makes it certain that by the “Shaikh of Basra’, Hasan is meant.

In any event, the story of his asking Rabi‘a how she had attained to such a degree of sanctity, and her reply that it was through losing all in Him that she had, and Hasan’s asking her how she knew Him, and her answering

that he knew the ‘how-ness’, occurs in 79). Hasan also asked itual matters without heart with no human

interrogative ‘how’, but she knew without any the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Part I, page 66; Isti’lami, page her about how she had acquired knowledge of spirinstruction or hearing lectures: it had entered her intervention. This exchange is repeated in the poem,

but what is interesting about ‘Attar’s citations of Hasan and Rabi‘a commu-

nicating with each. other is that he makes Hasan the pupil and Rabi‘a the teacher, thus to reverse the usual order of precedence pertaining to these two saintly persons. For reasons which cannot be gone into here, there are grounds for supposing that “Attar would have been unable to accept Hasan as anything like an “Imam” of the Sifis. In the dialogues between him and Rabi‘a, ‘Attar certainly cuts Hasan down to size. There is, however, a

chronological problem. Rabi‘a was born in 713-14 or, perhaps, three or four years later. Hasan died in 728 ap, and she, in 801. There is a gap of slightly more than seventy years between their life-spans; Massignon (L. Massignon: Essai sur les origine du Lexique Technique de la Mystique Musalman, Paris, 1922 and 1954, page 200) in fact places Rabi‘a, but in the second degree, among those he considers the most faithful interpreters of Hasan’s thought. But as for the chronological difficulty, it has to be remembered that, for the Sufi compilers of hortatory works, people such as Rabi‘a and Hasan of Basra were not seen as individuals of any particular time or place — the very nature of their profession precluded any self-regarding posture as individuals — but as emblems: the types of the holy. 228

“Azrael”, ‘Izrd’tl, the Angel of Death, who comes at the hour of a man’s

dying to take away his soul. See Koran XXXII, 11: “The Angel of Death, who is given charge concerning you, will call you in. Then to your Lord will you be made to return.”

The Speech of the Birds 229

503

Shibli, see Note 203 above. The story here versified occurs very briefly in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson, Part II, page 172; and Isti’lami, page 627): “It is related that one day he (Shibli) saw one weeping sorely. He asked, “Why do you weep?”. He answered, “I had a friend. He died”. He replied, “O ignorant man, why take a friend who dies?”

230

Husain ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, Mansir ‘the wool-carder’, referred to in notes 99, 199 and 203 above, was executed in Baghdad in 922 ap after for a

number sies that sorcery. number

of years he had been harassed and imprisoned on charges of hereincluded pantheism, blasphemy and charlatanry, to say nothing of He was born in Fars circa 858 Ab, and of Persian descent. For a of years he lived in retirement (khalvat) with certain notable Sufi

teachers, but, having become

disillusioned with them, he moved

on,

causing grave offence by going from one to another without permission. Hence, when he arrived in Baghdad, his reputation as an erring pupil was such that the great Shaikh Junaid (see Note 232 below) refused to answer such a murid’s questions. But more formidable enemies were such as the philosophical sect of the Mu‘tazila (with whom Hasan of Basra has been, but ambiguously, associated; see Note 227 above and the tentative suggestion that ‘Attar was not in the first rank of Hasan’s admirers.). When he

languished in jail, influential visitors were not lacking, but their attentions to him no doubt, without any connivance on his part, involved him in the political feuds which were so much a feature of Baghdad at that time. He has been most reverently and extensively treated by L. Massignon in his La Passion d’Halladj, Martyr mystic de Islam, Paris, 1922, of which Herbert Mason’s English translation has been published in the Bollingen Series, No. XCVIII,

Princeton,

1982. Hallaj’s execution, while politics might have

been involved, has generally been attributed to the blasphemous statement, “T am the Truth (God)”, with which ‘Attar opens the anecdote here being annotated. Al-Hujwiri (translation, pages 150-153) usefully and with compassionate understanding gives a profile of Hallaj, of whom he says — and in this he is echoed in ‘Attar’s verse 2288 below — that a “person overcome with rapture has not the power of expressing himself correctly; besides, the meaning of the expression may be difficult to apprehend, so that people mistake the writer’s intention, and repudiate not his real meaning, but a notion which they have formed for themselves”. “Attar’s

verse 2287 reflects the account given in his Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson Part II, pages 141-145; Istil4mi, pages 583-595) of how when al-Hallaj

was being cut to pieces and his limbs were burned, the ashes cried out “I am the Truth (God)”. ‘Attar, who echoes some of the features of Hujwiri’s profile of Hall4j, and has written a memorial to this mystic which is both detailed and certainly not that of one who does not revere his memory. But Dr. Goharin points out that the story told in these verses, about the victim smearing his face with his own blood lest he should look pale from fear, has also been told of the execution of the Iranian heresiarch Babak

504

The Speech of the Birds Khurrami, who was put to death in a similarly cruel manner in Baghdad in 838 AD. However, for the Siifis the episode belongs to al-Hallaj, and it seems most likely that in view of ‘Attar’s verses 2291 to the end of the episode, he had verses in mind which in one of the many accounts, of varying authenticity, of al-Hall4j’s last hours, al-Hallaj is said to have uttered as he was “strutting” in his chains towards the scaffold outside the New Prison in Baghdad. (op. cit., Vol. I, page 583) They go as follows: “The One Who invites me, so as not to seem to wrong me,

Bid me drink from the cup He drank from: like the host who waits on a guest; Then, when the cup was passed round, He called for the

leather whip and the blade. Thus does it befall the one who drinks the Wine with the Dragon in summer.

‘Attar echoes the last part of this recitation in his verse 2297. (See Mason’s translation , Vol. I, p. 583).

231

“Penman’s blob” — the poet refers to the halgeh-ye mim, the “ring of the letter mim”, “‘m”, which in the Arabo-Persian alphabet is a small ink-filled circle or blob. The word mim, here mimi, rhymes with bimi, “any fear”.

252

Al-Junaid, Abt’]-Q4sim ibn Muhammad, one of the most notable of Sufi leaders. To him can be attributed the systemisation of Tasawwuf, Sufism. He died in Baghdad in 910 ap. He had been brought up in Safi circles and was both the nephew and disciple of Abu’l-Hasan Sari al-Saqati, the great Baghdadi Shaikh to whom is attributed the development of the theme of maqamat, “stations”, in respect of the Sufi Path: i.e. degrees of attainment on the part of the murid. Junaid was an exponent of sahv, the sober or conscious school of Sufism, as contrasted with sukr, the school of rapture

or intoxication. As recounted in Hujwiri (translation page 189) and the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson part II, page 12; Isti‘lami, pages 423, 424), apart from rebuking him for leaving other Shaikhs without their permission, the question Mansur al-Hallaj eventually had answered by Junaid related to this matter of sahv and sukr, when Junaid in fact told Mansir that there was no real difference between the two states, except that in that of sahv the Divine Presence could be known sanely, but neither state was in

the gift of human beings and, therefore, arguing about them was superfluous: Junaid told Mansur that he considered Mansir’s words meaningless quibbling. Junaid’s chief contention was that, while self-control should be exercised, human action should be attributed to God, not God’s action to man, for man must live and act through God, not of himself. (See Hujwiri,

translation, page 185). ‘Attar, who treats of Junaid at length in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd, points out the difference between him, the exponent of sahv, and Abt Yazid of Bistam, the exponent of sukr; but for the calamitous incident about to be related in ‘Attar’s poem, there seems to be

evidence that he had in mind that Junaid’s own definition of mystical experience is in terms of the calamity of ceaseless torment and such an experience’s being beyond description, unbounded, and in its fierce onslaughts,

The Speech of the Birds

505

unbearable. (See Shorter Encycopaedia of Islam, Article, al-Junaid, by the late A. J. Arberry, who cites Junaid’s own writings in a series of letters to disciples and would-be disciples). Junaid does appear to have been careful to maintain at least the outward appearence of orthodoxy, and was cautious in his use of words, and had received legal training. He was recognised as the Shaikh al-Masha’ikh, the Leading Shaikh, the “referred to” of Shaikhs

(Tazkiratu’l-Awliy4, Nicholson, Part II, page 5; Isti‘lami, page 416.). It is appropniate that ‘Attar should introduce him in the act of preaching: Hujwiri (page 129) speaks of how, out of respect for al-Saqati, Junaid would not preach while the latter was still alive, until the Prophet appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to “speak to the people, for God has made your words the means of saving a multitude of mankind”. However, as Dr. Goharin points out, the story of the holy man whose

beloved son was decapitated has been told, both in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, ‘Attar’s own work (page 210), and in the Asrar at-Tawhid of Muhammad

ibn Munavwvar (Asrar at-Tawhid fi Maqamat ash-Shaikh Abi Sa‘id, Tehran, 1313/1933—4, pages 110-111) in the context of Shaikh Abt’l-Hasan Kharagani (see Note 179 above), whose son Ahmad, the apple of his father’s eye, was seized and beheaded, his head being left on the threshold of the Shaikh’s oratory so that, in the morning, when the Shaikh stepped out, he nearly stepped on it. The account in the Asrar at-Tawhid is interesting because it is also about Shaikh Abt Sa‘id’s decision to visit the Shaikh of Kharaqgan, whom he made his successor. Before he set out, he said to

his disciples, who were accompanying him from Nishapur, that Shaikh Kharagani could not suffer any disaster when he, Abt Sa‘id, was present. The son’s beheading occurred on the night when Abd Sa‘id was expected, but he did not arrive until the next day, whereupon he was able to explain his enigmatic remark to his disciples, concerning a disaster which he, in his spiritual prescience, had forseen. But, as told in the Asrdr at-Tawhid, the point of the story is, as always, that all occurrances are the gift of, and caused by God. For Shaikh Abt Sa‘id’s delayed arrival at Shaikh Kharaqani’s door was due to the fact that Shaikh Abt Sa’id had been prayed to go to honour some lands which he had been told needed to be trodden upon by one of the friends of God. Thus, while Shaikh Kharaqani was deprived of it, the great Shaikh Abt Sa‘id’s presence was being bestowed upon the fields that had thirsted for the visit of a man of God. Abd Sa‘id ibn Abi’l-Khair (967-1049 ap) was the notable Khordsanian mystic of Maihana, in Northeastern Khorasan. The question of why, in the Mantiqu’t-Tair story of the cruel beheading of a loved and apparently only son should be told in the context of al-Junaid, is, perhaps, while unresolved, a further illus-

tration of the fact that the poet was dealing in topoi: not in actual happenings, but in types emblematic of the trials of the Way and the courage needed in the sdlik, the wayfarer, in meeting and overcoming them. At the same time, the folk-lore element in these tales and episodes

506

The Speech of the Birds should not be discounted. The famously eloquent Shaikh Abi’l-Hasan al-Kharaqani is reported to have said, “There are two ways, one wrong and one right. The wrong way is Man’s way to God, and the right way is God’s way to Man. Whoever says he has attained to God has not attained; but

when anyone says that he has been made to attain to God, know that he has really attained.” Man is either given salvation or it is withheld from him. (Hujwiri, translation, page 163). 233

The allusion is to the Koran LXXXVI, verse 5-7: “And let Man look —

from what was he created? / He was created from water gushing forth, / Which issues from between the loins and the ribs”. Also XXXII, 7, “Then

He appointed his progeny to be from a discharge of nasty liquid”. Cf. XCVI, 1 and 2: “Recite in the name of your Lord / Who created, / Created

234

Man from clotted blood.” Qagqnus or Qagnis, for the Greek kuiknos, Latin cycnus, or cygnus, the “swan”, especially famed in ancient legend for its dying song, but the word might also be translated “phoenix”. For, in addition to its having the power to produce amazing music by letting the wind on a mountain-top blow through, some accounts say, as many as three-hundred and sixty holes in its powerful beak, it is a bird that, after living a thousand years, collects a mound of brushwood, and then by ecstatically flapping its wings, produces fire which lights the faggots so that the bird is burnt away, but it parthenogenetically produces an egg that is left in the ashes so that, in its offspring, this bird might nse again. (See Burhdn-i Qati, ed. Mo‘in, Tehran 1332-1333 / 1952-3-1953—-4, Vol. III, pages 1535-6). For how music is said to have been derived from the Qaqntis, see the verses which

follow. 235

I.e. the real purpose of Man’s creation, to know God, unachieved: no ruler

(see the next verse: the Lieutenant-Governor) can without difficulty and sacrifice become a dervish. 236

237

See Part One, note 57 above. Alluded to is the hadith important in Sufism, “Whoever has known himself knows his Lord”. Cf. Koran XLI, 53, “We

shall show them Our signs on the horizons and in themselves until it become clear to them that it is verily the Truth”. (Italics added). Al-Ghazali (died 1111 Ap) links the these two premisses together in the opening paragraph of his “Alchemy of Happiness”, Kimiyd-ye Sadat, ed. Ahmad Aram, Tehran 1333 / 1953-4, page 9). See also verse 2389 below. The spot near the Euphrates where, in October 680 ap, Husain ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib was slain by a party of ‘Umayyad soldiers sent to bar the entrance into Kufa which he intended to effect, to take charge of its Shi‘ite

population in his capacity as Imam of the Shi‘a. He, his relatives and a few followers were prevented from reaching the river to quench their thirst — hence, in this particular episode, the Karbala incident might naturally have come to the poet’s mind — and were rapidly worsted, after a gallant stand, by the patrol sent out from Kufa by “Ubaid ibn ‘Al ibn Ziy4d, the

The Speech of the Birds

507

Governor of Iraq on behalf of the ‘Umayyad Caliph Yazid I (680-683 ap). To the latter, Husain in Medina had refused to swear allegiance on his

accesssion. Yazid is reported to have deplored the third Im4m of the Shi‘a’s murder, but it is a death that has become the martyrdom, and the Passion,

the re-enactment of which Shiites stage on its anniversary in the first month of the Muslim year, Muharram, on the tenth day of which the massacre

occurred in 61 AH. The occasion and the preceding nine days are marked by scenes of great emotion and sermons in which the sorrows of the world are recapitulated, combined with grief over the martyrdom of Husain which, to the devout Shi‘ite, was a cruel death at the hands of the agents

of tyranny, so that it is emblematic of the suffering of all who are oppressed. (See P. Chelkowski, ed., Taiyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, New York

University Press, 1979, and the admirable note on page 121, of Darbandi and Davis, op. laud.).

238

Rumi, as Dr. Goharin points out, gives a story of the same purport in the Mathnawi, Book II, line 1510 ff, ‘How Luqman’s virtue and sagacity became manifest to his examiners.’ 239 See Part One, Note 194 above. It is the bridge across which the dead must pass, the righteous reaching the other side, the unrighteous falling into the fiery pit. 240 See Note 232 above: he was the Shaikh Abt Sa‘id Fazlollah ibn Abi’]-Khair-i Maihani. Maihana, where in December 947 ap the Shaikh

was born, and where in January 1049 he died, was a small town some fifty miles west of Sarakhs in Northeastern

Khorasan,

but, after his public

espousal of Sufism in his fortieth year, the Shaikh became for a time, from circa 1024 AD, a major charismatic spiritual force in Nishapur. Multitudes gathered round him. He was famous for large public banquets for the poor, but a thorn in the flesh to the Authorities. Most of his life, however, he

was in Maihana, following a dozen or so years as a student, in both law and mysticism, in Sarakhs, whence his Pir sent him back to Maihana and

endowed him with the zikr which comprised repetition of the word | “Allah”. (See R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, op. cit, pages 1-76, the Asrar at-Tawhid, op. cit., and the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd, passim, and further bibliography in the valuable article, Abt Sa‘id, in the Encyclopaedia

Tranica.). Hujwiri relates that the Shaikh was reported to have said, “Sufism is the subsistence of the heart with God without any mediation”. 241

Literally, “I have made a fortress behind my knees”, an allusion to the Sufi

242

posture in meditation (murdqaba), with the knees drawn up under the arms in an act of self-controlling, which is what the word murdqaba suggests, as it does being on one’s guard. The story which ‘Att4r here elaborates is related in his Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson, Part II, page 16, Isti‘4mi, page 428) as follows: “Someone in

his (Junaid’s) assembly got up and asked, ‘At what time might the heart be content?’ He answered, ‘That time when He is the heart.’” Dr. Goharin,

508

The Speech of the Birds and see ‘Attdr’s verse 2446 below, preposition “in”, “in the heart’.

243

amends

the text by adding the

See Note 146: khazlén, or khizlan, based on Koran III, 154: “If Allah help

you, no one can overcome you; but if He abandon you, who will help you after Him?” Luff, “grace”, khazlan, God’s witholding of it. Obedience is the way to avoiding this witholding. 244 Dushvart: difficulties of the Road, on the way to God, are here implied. 245 Probably Sultan Mahmtd is meant, in which case the city would be Ghazna, the modern Ghazni in Afghanistan. 246 The word akkdf means saddlers or, rather, weavers and purveyors of saddle cloths; but the reference is to the Shaikh of Shaikhs, Ruknu’d-din Akkaf, cited by Dawlatshah (Tazkiratu’sh-Shu‘ara, ed. E. G. Browne, London and Leiden, 1901, page 188. Cf. Firaz4nfar Badi‘u’z-Zaman, Sharh-i Ahval va

Nagqd-i Tahlil-i Asrar-i Shaikh Farfdu’d-Din ‘Attar-i Nishdébiiri — “Biography and Critical Analysis of the Works of Shaikh Faridu’d-Din ‘Attar of Nishaptr’” —Tehran 1339/40, 1959-60,61, page 30) as the Pir to whose oratory ‘Attar went, and at whose hands he made his repentance and

embarked upon the strivings in the Safi path. However, Firazanfar points out (ibid., page 31) that, as so often in details, Dawlatshah is not to be relied

upon: Firtzanfar thinks it unlikely that ‘Attar ever saw the Shaikh in question since, when Ruknu’d-Din died in 1154-55 ap, 549 an, ‘Attar would be only an infant. Nevertheless, Dawlatshah’s anecdote and the way he

speaks of the Shaikh indicate the Shaikh’s position as an exemplar of Sufism. 247

“Pole”, qutb, see Part One, Note 181 above.

248

Bayazid: see Note 163 above. The Tirmizi mentioned in verses to do with servantship etc. seems to indicate that the person intended is Abt Abd Allah Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Tirmizi, to whom Hujwiri (translation, page 141) attributes the saying that “anyone ignorant of the nature of servantship is yet more ignorant of lordship”. Tirmiz, once an important emporium, is the modern Termez situated north of Balkh and just north of the River Oxus. A pupil of Muhammad ibn ‘Ali’s was Aba Bakr al-Warrdq (the stationer or transcriber), also of Tirmiz. He died in 893 ap. Though a close pupil of Tirmizi’s — ‘Attar more than once cites him for authentication of Tirmizi’s sayings and practice (Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, Part Two, pages 91-99, and Isti‘lami, pages 524-553) — al-Warraq lived and taught most of his life in Balkh. One of the comments ‘Attar reports his having made about his teacher is that the latter was visited by and communed with Khizr (see Note 28 above), who visited him every Sunday. (Cf. Hujwiri, p. 141). Tirmizi was a pioneer in the inculcation of austere self-analysis and silent meditation in one place: both he and his pupil were early exponents of the contemplative and rigorous school of Safi practice based on the dictum that to know your Lord you must first know yourself.

249

The “you”, he whose sigh was received in the Court, is the one who has

become so absorbed in God that Bayazid had perforce to accord him prece-

The Speech of the Birds

509

dence. Note the phrase, in verse 2511 above, “lost to myself”; the allusion 1s to fand. Cf. Note 242 above: “He is the heart”. 250 In the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson, Part Two, page 254; Isti‘lami, page 715), the story is given that when death approached the Shaikh of Kharaqan, he said, “Would that they tear my blood-filled heart asunder and show it to the people, that they might understand that in this godliness idolatory will not do.” (For the original’s metre, “Kharaq4ni” must be read “Khargani”.) 251 On this matter of respect, see Hujwiri, pp. 217-218. Abu Sa‘fd is reported to have said, concerning one who disrespectfully entered a mosque putting his left foot forward first, “He who does not know how to enter the home

of the Friend is not suitable for us.” (Idem., p. 218.) 252 “Playing fair and risking all”: this paraphrases pakbdzi, defined as “playing straight”, but also, in Safi terms, in the Way of God becoming rid of all

and having the heart clear of any preoccupations. (See Firtizanfar, op. cit., page 375.) 250

See Note 248 above, one of the two saints of Tirmiz has been alluded to

as “The Saint of Turkestan”. But conjecture might be untoward; as better left to others. The reference might be to Ahmad Yesevi (d. 1166 AD). (See Note 330 below.) 254

For the differing versions of this execution of a son, see the second para-

graph of Note 232 above. 255 The punning here is on sar-tiz, metaphorically the eyelashes of the beloved, but in its primary meaning, “dagger-point”. 256 Dht’l-Niun of Egypt, a celebrated mystic who died in 859, though other dates given are 856 and 861 Ap. His tombstone has been reported upon and still exists. To him is attributed the enunciation of the doctrine of gnosis, ma‘rifat. L. Massignon, Essai svir les Origine du Lexique de la Mystique Musalmans, op. cit., pages 206-213, has a useful account of this great exponent of spiritual love, and of spiritual concepts, due to which he fell foul of the Mu‘tazilites. See also Encyclopaedia of Islam II, Article: Dhuv’l-Nun,

257

and the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam. As a poet has said: The blood-wit, for our disobedience, is the fruit of love;

We were drunk and in heedlessness to the tavern went. (See Farhang-i ‘Anandrdj, under daiyat, page 1980.)

258 259 260

This anecdote can be read in conjunction with the episode of Joseph and his brothers’ exposure, beginning at verse 2712 below. See Note 15 above. The “exalted king” is an allusion to Ibrahim ibn Adham, who was reputed to have been the son ofa prince of Balkh to whose dominion he succeeded, but, in a manner that has been seen as reminiscent of the Buddha, he

renounced all for the religious life. One legend is that, out hunting one day, he heard a voice; according to Hujwiri (op. cit., page 103), it came

510

The Speech of the Birds from an antelope. It asked Ibrahim whether he thought it was simply for hunting beasts of the field that he had been created. He at once repented. He is said to have shed his princely garments and in exchange for them borrowed the coarse woollen cloak of a shepherd. In other words, he

became a Sufi. He left the region where he had once been a potentate and went to Syria where, rather than beg, he gained his sustenance by employment in various menial jobs. He is reputed to have died in a naval campaign against Byzantium, probably in 161 AH / 777-778 AD; was he perhaps a galley-slave? According to, among others, Hujwiri, like the two saints from Tirmiz (see Note 248 above), Ibrahim was in communion with Khizr, the guide to eternal life by the way of holiness and abstinence. Ibrahim was (see the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, pages 155-156) more an ascetical than a speculative mystic. He remained a model of austerity and renunciation of the material world. A saying attributed to him is, “Take God as your companion and leave mankind alone”. A figure, the more attractive as the

sometime “Prince of Balkh” who gave up his kingdom, Ibrahim was a greatly revered Safi exemplar and was duly memorialised in the Sufi hagiographies. However, for further details, based on up-to-date research in the many literary references to Ibrahim, the Article, Ibrahim b. Adham, in the Encyclopaedia of Islam II, should be consulted. There, it must be said,

261

much of the Ibn Adham legend is subjected to criticism both rigorous and dismissive. See Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson Part I, page 93; Isti‘lami, page 111) for this anecdote concerning Ibrahim ibn Adham, who is said one day to have seen a poor man who was complaining. Ibrahim said to him, “I suppose you purchased poverty gratis.” The man replied, “Does anyone ever purchase poverty?” Ibrahim answered that, yes he had, at the price of the kingdom of Balkh, and it was cheap at that, because worth more.

262

Ghar, a region in what is today Afghanistan, covered the uplands and mountains south of Herat and north of Ghazna and K4bul. Although it has not been possible precisely to identify the Shaikh-i Ghuri, since the Sultan Sanjar (1118-1157), the Saljuqid, made this region tributary to himself, it seems correct, in view of the reference to Sanjar on which this story hinges,

to assume that the Shaikh was of Ghar. The region had been under its local rulers after the demise of Mahmud of Ghazna in 1030 ap. They enjoyed independence in their mountain strongholds until the intervention of Sultan Sanjar. The region was eventually subjected to the Khwarazmshahs (1077-1231), but ultimately overrun by Chingiz Khan’s forces. The Shaikh might have been Shaikh ‘Abd Allah Karjistini, mentioned by Jami (Nafahdtu’l-Uns, edited by Tawhid Pir, Tehran n.d., page 448). This Shaikh came from a village in Karjistan, a district adjacent to Ghur, but ended his days and was buried in Tis. The former rulers of Ghar became established in India, where the last of them, in Lahore, established Qutb

al-Din Aibak (1206-1210 ap) as ruler of Northern India.

The Speech of the Birds

511

See Note 232 above concerning the two schools, of ecstatic Sufism (sukr) and sober (sahv). Here ‘Attar seems to put both in their place as affording a distinction ultimately of no consequence in the light of the overall purpose of the Sufi quest. 264 “Black bile”, the morbid humour thought to cause melancholy. 265 “Gnosis”, ma‘rifat: Hujwiri, (op. cit., page 382), comments that “the Sufi Shaikhs give the name of ma‘rifat (gnosis) to every knowledge that is allied with (religious) practise and feeling (hdl)”. The poet has alluded to this hdl, translated “feeling”, in verse 2648 above. 266 Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal was born in Baghdad in 780 ap and 263

died there in 855. He was the founder of one of the schools of Muslim

Law, and so greatly revered that his tomb was frequented by the pious and those in need of solace. (I. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, Edited by Stern and translated by Barber and Stern, London, 1967, Vol. I., page 233.). But

during his life, Ibn Hanbal suffered greatly for his rigidly orthodox, traditional beliefs, which made him reject the Mutazlites’ views, so that, while

they held sway under three Caliphs sympathetic to them between 813 and 842 apb., Ibn Hanbal was constantly persecuted and, under the mihna (Inquisition), was tortured for refusing to say that the Koran was created and not the Eternal Divine Word. Besides being a great collector of hadiths, which his son ‘Abd Allah published after his death, in the collection known as the Musnad, Ibn Hanbal was recognised by the Orthodox Sunnis as their Imam. For his special relationship with Bishr-i Hafi, Bishr the Barefooted,

see the following Note. 267

Bishr ibnu’]-Harith al-Hafi, Bishr son of Harith and known as the bare-

foot (al-Hafi), because,

according to both Hujwiri

(page 105), and

Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson Part I, page 107; Isti‘lami, page 129), he said

the earth was God’s carpet, not to be trodden upon in shoes, which would be discourteous. The story of how Ibn Hanbal used to go to Bishr and say, “Speak to me about my Lord”, is related in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd as well as being the subject of these verses in the poem. For Ibn Hanbal perceived that, for all his celebrated learning, still Bishr knew God better than he did. Hujwiri says that such was Ibn Hanbal’s respect for Bishr that, when he was asked to explain sincerity (ikhlds), he complied: it was to escape ostentatious and hypocritical action; and trust (tawakkul), which he explained as having confidence in God, the Provider of our daily bread; and to explain contentment (rid4), which he categorised as committing one’s affairs to God, when the questioner asked him to explain mahabbat, “love”, Ibn Hanbal replied that the explanation of this must be asked of Bishr, “for I

will not answer it while he is alive”. (See Hujwiri, pages 117-118.) 268

The words in quotation marks are from the Koran XVII, 36 and, as “‘fulfil

My covenant”, II, 38.

269

See Note 258 above. The Koranic background to this incident is XII, 15: “So, when they had taken him away, and agreed to place him in the bottom

512

The Speech of the Birds of the cistern, and We inspired in him the thought “Thou wilt certainly tell

270

them of this business of theirs when they are not aware’.” This story, somewhat varied and expanded, but of the same purport, is in Rami’s Mathnawt, Nicholson’s edition, Book 5, verses 3165 ff.

271

“The slave” because, of course, the dervish means himself. Cf. Nicolson’s translation of the Mathnawi version, Book 5, verses 3167-8, where he has: ... O God, why dost not Thou learn from this bountiful Khwaja how to keep (Thy) slave? O God let this ra’{s (high dignitary) and chosen minister of our king teach Thee how to care for Thy slave.

272

The mir-i kariz, the official, in a country like Iran where water is a precious commodity, in charge of its distribution from underground canals through which water tapped at the foot of uplands is drained to the cultivable ground where villages subsist. The water is brought in channels, called kariz, or ganat, tunnelled below ground to save it, in a dry climate, from evaporation. The mir-db, water chief, or the mir-i kdriz, is an important person in any cultivated area that requires irrigation and deft control of water distribution.

273

See Koran XII, verse 31. When the women saw Joseph, the servant in the

274

house of their hostess, so great was their agitation that they cut their hands with the knives they had been given as eating utensils, and said, “This is not a man; this can only be a noble angel”. “Daily bread”, rizq: there are numerous references in the Koran to God as the Provider. E.g. XXXIV, 14, “Eat of the provision of your Lord and show Him gratitude”, XLV, 4, “and the provision which Allah has sent down from the heaven whereby He has revived the earth after it has become dead”, and X, 60, “Have you considered the provision which Allah has sent down for you. . . ?, and LI, 58, “Verily Allah is the Provider

(ar-Razzaq) ...”. 275

Wasiti: the reference is to Abi Bakr Muhammad ibn Misa al-Wasiti, a Sdfi

of the third and fourth centuries AH/ 9th and 10th ap. According to Dr. Goharin, in his Notes (page 331), this Shaikh died after 932 ap, but in the Nafahatu’l-Uns (op. cit., p. 175), Jami cites a report that WaAsiti died and was buried at Merv before 320 AH,/ 932 ap. He resided in Merv, the first

city, according to Hujwiri, where he found that he could live in peace. (Translation, page 154). He had been one of Junaid’s early disciples, but, as the story in the forthcoming verses might be taken to demonstrate, his “abstruse manner of expression caused his sayings to be regarded with suspi- ° cion by formalists (zdhiriyan)” (ibid.). He is said to have been welcome to the people of Merv because he was of an amiable disposition. His comment on himmat, holy aspiration, combined with remembrance (dhikr) of God in either absence (ghaibat) or in presence (huztr) was implicit in Note 214 above: to be absent from the self was 4 prerequisite of being present with God. ‘Attar’s prose version of this anecdote goes as follows: “It is related

The Speech of the Birds

513

that one day he (Wasiti) was visiting the cemetery of the Jews and saying, ‘These are a people all of the pardoned: forgiveness is theirs’. People overheard these words. He was seized and carried off to the lodgings of the judge. The judge shouted at him, ‘What sort of comment is this you have made, that the Jews are pardoned?’ The Shaikh answered, ‘According to your judgement, they are not; but in the judgement of Him, they are forgiven.’” (Nicholson,

276 247 278

279

280

Tazkiratu’l-Awliya,

Il, page 267, Isti‘lami, page

734). It seems that in this dialogue the questioner is the owl. “Sanctum”: khalvatgah. See Note 163 above. This incident is recounted in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, Nicholson, Part I, page 178; Istilami, page 209, as follows: “It is related that a disciple saw the Shaikh in a dream. He asked, ‘How are you getting on with Munkar and Nakir?’ He replied, ‘When those two precious ones posed the question, I replied that no purpose would be served them by this question, for the reason that, were I to say my God is He, such an answer as this from me would be nothing. But go you back and ask Him who to Him am I.Whatever He might say will be it. If 1 a hundred times were to aver that my God is He, so long as He did not recognise in me His slave, it would be of no use.’” See Note 223 above, and al-Ghazali, Kimiyd-ye Sa‘adat, op. cit., pages 874 ff. Anecdotes centred on the public baths’ stoke-holes bring to mind the legend of how the great Safi poet, Sana’i of Ghazna (died 1130-31 ab) became a Safi. In the Nafahdtu’l-Uns, (op. cit., page 5956) Jami relates that the Sultan Mahmtd was setting out on a winter campaign against the infidels of India. When he was coming out of Ghazna, the poet Sana’i uttered a gasida, an ode, in his praise, and was in the way of being presented to the

Sultan. He passed by the entrance to a stoke-hole, gulkan, when one divinely infatuated and, because he was always drinking them, known as the lees-drinker, heard the recitation in honour of the Sultan and called to

his wine-boy, “fill up a bumper so that I can drink to the grave of that silly little Mahmid, son of Sabuktagin”. The boy protested that Mahmud was a warrior for the Faith and Padshah of Islam. His master retorted, “He’s a

most dissatisfied little nobody: what has come under his rule he joins to his empire and then is straight away off to seize another realm”. The man took a cup and drained it. Then he asked for another cup to drink to the tomb of “that piffling Sana’i the poet”. The boy pointed out that Sana’i was a man of learning and gracious disposition. His master replied that, “if he were disposed to grace, he’d be engaged in something that would be of use to him. He scribbles a few hyperboles on paper that are of no use to him at all, and he doesn’t know for what he has been created”. When Sana’i

heard this, he underwent a profound change: “through the rebuke of that cup-draining toper, from the intoxication of heedlessnes (ghaflat) he

514

The Speech of the Birds became sober and embarked on the Path to become engaged in proceeding on the quest (sultik)”. It might be added that vide eg. Mathnawt, Book I, verses 2770--2772, and Nicholson’s note on them, the bath-house was a symbol for the phenomenal world; the fact that the man who recalled Sana’i

from the phenomenal to the real world was in the ash-pit meant that he was not luxuriating in the baths within. Jami concludes his narrative of Sana’i’s coming to repentance (tawbeh) with the anecdote of how he had heard that concerning Sand’i’s repentance Jalélu’d-Din Rami had said under his breath, I have gone back on what I have said because there is not In speech Truth nor in Truth, speech.

281 282

Someone who overheard this remarked how odd it was that while he rejected speech Sana’i continued to busy himself with words. (This story occurs in another anecdote, in which Jalalu’d-Din Rumi is not the speaker of the verse in question.) In Muslim tradition, the forbidden fruit was not an apple but a wheat grain. For the shame when nakedness was perceived, see Koran XX, verse 119; and Koran VII, verses 25, 26, 27, where Adam’s nakedness is associated with the shame of indecency, in what, in respect of Islamic social laws and

conventions, can be regarded as very influential verses related to such issues as the veiling of women and the prohibition of male nudity. 283 Le. it rests with God. 284 Dhawgq, see Note 161 above and Note 291 below: spiritual feeling and perception, granted according to our capacities. See Nicholson, Commentary . . ., op. cit., Book I., verses 887-888. Cf. Mirsadu’l-‘Ibad, op. cit., Index under dhawg in the Persian text.

285

286

287 288

In these verses the hoopoe, in his role as pir, is warning the novice of the danger of hallucinatory visions and diabolical promptings, which come in the guise of holiness, that are phenomena familiar to all mystics and against which the Guide has to warn those in his charge. “My companions”, ashdb-i man; ashab, “companions”, is the term which

might be considered generally reserved for the Companions of the Prophet. Perhaps “Attar by its use here intended to demonstrate the arrogance of this Shaikh. “Self-conceit”, ‘ujb, being amenable to applause and the flattery of other mortals, and thus ready to court the world for its praises and accolades. Hafiz h. . the verse: What have you to say about shame when I have fame because of shame? And of fame what have you to ask when I have shame because of fame?

289

Dogs were considered ritually unclean and, among Muslims to this day, are not, except in the case of certain hunting tribes, notably in Afghanistan, welcome anywhere where food is being served and eaten. 290 Moses is called here by the name Kalim, given him because he conversed with God. Koran IV, 162, has: “God addressed Moses in conversation”.

The Speech of the Birds 291 292

515

Dhawg, or zawq, see Notes 161 and 284 above. “Sense of degradation”, but the word translated thus, dzarm, really means in one of its numerous connotations, “modesty”; but according to the Burhan-i

Qati’ (Vol.

1 of Mo’in’s edition, page 36) it can also mean,

“becoming Muslim”. Hence it is possible that ‘Attar might have been punning and, in effect, suggesting the double entendre, “Have you no ‘becoming Muslim’?” Po fe See Note 194 above. 294 “Travels”, safar. In the Safi context this is a technical term for the travels which, broadly speaking from one khangah to another, but over long distances throughout the Islamic lands, the pir would prescribe for the murid with the rules that governed these journeys, which were part of the discipline, riyazat. 295 See the following verses about the dancing dervish. 296 The idea of the link between hearts and friendship comes out in the Persian saying, dil be dil rah darad, “hearts find a way to hearts”: cor ad cor loquitur. 297 Thus to shelter him from the muhtasib, the prefect or policeman of public morals and weights and measures in the market, part of whose duties was to arrest those drunk in public. 298 See Note 297 above. 299 “Stepped out of line”. There were rules as to how far the Muhtasib might go. Permission for him himself to administer physical punishment on the spot was not among them. 300 See Part One, Note 60, and Part One, verse 179. The reference is to the illusory nature of the created being, but becoming absorbed in God removes the creature from his illusory being and lifts him into the Divine companionship. The Tradition on which this concept is based is of a highly and unusual philosophical kind and must probably be a late Tradition. 301 Jami (Nafahatu’l-Uns, op. cit., page 200) profiles this Aba ‘Ali Ahmad ibn Muhammad

ibnu’l-Qasim ibnu’l-Manstr Ridbari and suggests that this

notable Safi Shaikh was of Sasdnid lineage: a descendant of Chosroes. Hearing the words of Junaid stirred his heart to bring him to Sufism and, as a man trained and eminent in the law, he exemplified the Sufi alliance

of hagigat, the Truth, and sharf‘at, Divine Law. In view of the following saying attributed to him by Hujwiri (translation, page 157), it seems perfectly appropriate that ‘Attar should have him in mind in the context of the hoopoe’s last reply: He who desires, desires only for himself only what God desires for him, and he

who is desired does not desire anything in this world or the next except God.

Hujwiri continues: Accordingly, he who is satisfied with the will of God must abandon his own will in order that he may desire, whereas the lover has no will of his own that he should have any object of desire. He who desires God desires only what God desires, and he whom God desires, desires only God.

The Speech of the Birds

516

In other words, and here the eye is on verse 3050 above, he who

is

admitted to intimacy with God can desire only God. Rudbar was the mountainous region northeast of Qazvin and later — the Shaikh died 322 AH

302 303

/ 933-34

ap

—

famous

for Isma‘ili

strongholds,

those

of the

“Assassins”. Cf. verse 2104 above. The reference is to the ejaculation of the word “hu”, pie", “Hope and fear”, rajé and khawf, Safi technical terms meaning hope for the attainment of the Beloved, and fear lest there be rejection. Hujwiri cites a Shaikh who was “perfectly grounded in the station of hope in God”, yet who practised as one in the station of fear, for fear and hope are “the two pillars of faith”. “Those who fear engage in devotion through fear of separation (from God), and those who hope engage in it through hope of union with God”. (Translation, page 122). It is interesting that this reference to hope and fear should follow an anecdote concerning Abi “Ali Rudbari, for he is quoted by al-Qushairi (Ar-Risdla al-Qushairtya, Cairo, 1359 aH/1940 ab, page 68) as having said, “khawf and raja are like the two wings of a bird. If they are balanced, the bird will fly straight and on course, but if one of the two is defective, the bird will be defective, and if both wings go, the bird will be on the verge of death”. (Cf. Mathnawt, Book II, verses 1553 and 4). As suggested in the Introduction (p. 11), ‘Attar appears to have been greatly influenced by his fellow Khorasanian, Muhammad al-Ghazali, as well as by the latter’s brother, Ahmad. At times it almost seems as if in his

poem ‘Attar is following the prose of Muhammad al-Ghazali’s Arabic Ihya’ Ulum ad-Din (“The Revivification of the Sciences of Religion”). References to Hope and Fear immediately recall al-Ghazali’s magisterial exposition of these two factors’ role in religious psychology in Volume IV of the Ihya’ (Cairo edition printed in Beirut, pages 142-189), “The Book of Fear and Hope”, which has been traslated into English by William McKane (Leiden 1962; see Note 223 above), while both al-Qushairi’s bird-wing image and the verses alluded to in Rimi’s Masnavi match al-Ghazali’s emphasis on the necessity of the adept holding Hope and Fear in equilibrium. Al-Ghazali, incidentally, as does ‘Attar, illustrates his disquisition with

the sayings and questions of Holy Men, included,

the Prophet’s Companions

and with citations of, besides the Koran,

Traditions

of the

Prophet. Also, as one example, he uses the same episode, of the Prophet asking of God the right to judge his people so that their sins might not be known to others, as “Attar does (see verses 592-602).

For al-Ghazali Fear looks as if it can be related to the Divine jalal, God’s Almightiness, and Hope to His Beauty, jamdl. Fear impells the worshipper along the path of awe as he jettisons worldly vices and preoccupations in the way of purification; Hope impells him along the path of yearning under the compulsion of love.

The Speech of the Birds

517

It might seem valid to say that no commentary on ‘Att4r’s poem would be complete without references to al-Ghazali’s Ihya’. 304 In Iran the customary courtesy is the standing up of members of a group of people on the entrance of another guest. 305 “Highest mansions”, “illiyyvin, are situated in the highest heaven and reserved for the most faithful. The Koranic allusion is LXXXIII,

306

18-21,

where the book recording the good deeds of the faithful is mentioned as if it were synonymous with “illiyysin. In Safi terminology they constitute the abode in heaven of those eternally and unchangingly the mugarrabiin-i ilaht, the beloved closest to God. The Muslim geographers divided the seas of the world into seven: that of India, ‘“Uman, the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Grecian (Aegean Sea), the Western Ocean, and the China Sea. (See Abdullah Mustawfi Qazvini,

Nuzhatu’l-Quiub, Translated by Le Strange, Leiden and London, 1919, pages 222-232, and Hudud al-‘Alam, “The Regions of the World”, trans.

307

V. Minorsky, London, 1937, paragraph 3, pages 51-56). Sultan Mahmid of Ghazna (Ghaznain), see Notes 104 and 170 above. He reigned from 998 to 1030 AD and made some seventeen campaigns into North West India as far south as Lahore, (for details, see Gardizi: Zainu’l Akbar, ed. Habibi, Tehran 1347/1967-8, p. 191, and M. Nazim, The Life

and Times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghzana, Cambridge, 1931, pages 86-122, and C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Tran, 994-1040, Edinburgh, 1963, page 235 and Index, and on the Somnat

campaign and its spoils, as well as the kudos Mahmud gained through this destruction of a Hindu temple as a Ghazi, warrior for the Faith, see pages 53, 78, and, for the force Mahmidd recruited for what he evidently saw as

an important campaign, doubtless inspired by the expected richness of the booty, page 114). Somnat was in Gujurat and the site of a famous temple to Shiva. Mahmid pillaged it on an expedition between 1024 and 1026. Lat (see Note 205 above) was, of course, a greatly revered idol in pre-Islamic Arabia. Its temple was in Ta’if and, after his conquest of Mecca, the Prophet sent one of his trusty lieutenants to destroy the temple. Muslim historians were apt to call the Shiva of Somnat, Lat. See Note 309 below.

308

See Note 94 above. Azar, Abraham’s father as mentioned in the Koran (VI,

74) was a worshipper of idols and in legend, a carver of them. 309 Which the Hindus were not, but the Zoroastrians were known as worshippers of fire. As with Lat (see Note 307 above), the pre-Islamic goddess, besides his reluctance to forego playing on the word “fire”, “Attar might have been using these terms generically for paganism and pagans in general. 310 See Note 15 above. The allusion is to God’s covenant with Man, when Man replied affirmatively to God’s question, “Am I not your Lord?”, alastu birabikkum? pid This story is a simplified version of this incident as related by the Sufistic Koran Commentator,

Rashidu’d-Din Maybudi, in his Kashfu’l-Asrar wa

The Speech of the Birds

518 ‘Uddatu’l-Abrar,

ed. Ali Asghar

Hikmat,

Tehran,

1358/1978-9

(3rd

printing), Vol. 5, p. 72. See Fatimeh San’atinia, op. cit., pages 164-5. 312 Abt ‘Ali al-Fazl ibn Muhammad Farmadi was a pupil of al-Qushairi and knew and was, in Nish4pur, influenced by the great mystic Abt Sa‘id Ibn Abi’l-Khair. Hujwiri notes (translation, page 169) that Abu ‘Ali was to be successor (as pir) of the “unique and incomparable” Abt’l-Qasim ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdullah al-Gurgani, for which succession he says Farmadi was eminently suitable as one whose authority all Safis would obey. He had been studying theology in Nishapdr when, hearing that Abu Sa‘id had come into the city and was holding a meeting, Abt ‘Ali went to him and fell in love with him and the Sdfi life. (Jami, Nafahdatu’l-Uns, op. cit., pages 368.). One authority states that Abu ‘Ali died in 477 AH/1034—-5 ap. 313 “Jealous exclusiveness”, paraphrases one of the the central concepts of Sufism. It is ghairat, which literally means “jealousy”, but which, for the Safi, means the shared jealousy between the lover and Beloved, by which the latter’s refusal to countenance any straying of the lover after something other than He complements the former’s refusal, where he is a true lover,

to contemplate anything other than the Beloved. Another paraphrase could be “jealous vigilance”. Rami, Mathnawi, Book I, 1712-1713, has: “It was the jealousy of God and there is no evading God; Where is the heart that, through loving God, is not a hundred splinters?”

and, Book I, 1736-1741: “All kings are the slave of their own slave: All people are the dead for one who has died for them. All kings are the abject of those abject to them. All people are intoxicated by the intoxicated for them. The hunter becomes the prey of the birds, That he might suddenly make them the prey. Heart-snatchers the hearts of those whose hearts are lost to them hold captive: All beloveds the prey of their lovers. Whomever you have spotted as the lover, the beloved know,

For he by affinity is both that and this. The thirsty, if they seek water in the world,

Water also in the world seeks the thirsty.”

R. A. Nicholson’s Note on these verses is too illimunating not to be quoted, from Vol. I of his Commentary, pages 121-122, in full: These verses give a poetical form to the doctrine, with which students of Ibnu’l-‘Arabi are familiar, that correlative terms, such as Being and not-being,

the One and the many, Creator and creature, Lord and slave, are merely names for different aspects of the same reality, each aspect logically necessitating the other and being interchangeable with it. According to the point of view, God (actually) is man and man is God, or God (conceptually) is not man and man is not God. Thus it may be said that a king is the slave of his subjects, inasmuch as the existence of subjects is a necessary condition for kingship; and that a beloved person is devoted to the lovers on whom his “belovedness” depends. Hence every lover (‘ashiq) is a beloved (ma‘shtig), and every beloved a lover. If Love

The Speech of the Birds

519

needs and desires Beauty, no less does Beauty need and desire Love. God, who is Absolute Beauty and Love, loves those who love Him, and since He loves them, He leaves nothing of themselves in them: they are one with Him, and in

reality He is the only Beloved and only Lover.

See also Commentary, pages 118-119, concerning the verses Book I, 1712-1713: the lover who loves all the Divine attributes without distinguishing between them, himself becomes invested with them all, so that his individual existence ceases. Cf. Mathnawt, Book I, 1574: He is the lover of the Whole and he himself is the Whole: He is the lover of himself and the seeker of his own love.

314 Dhawgq, see Notes 161, 284 and 291 above. B15 An allusion to the mark or scar which sometimes shows on the forehead of those who constantly prostrate themselves in prayer. See Part One above, Note 34. [The brand mark is also the mark of a slave.] 316 Ahl-i Dil, “posessors of a heart”, a term applied to Sifis and, among them, to each other; but it also means

manliness, is of the essence

“brave”, or “stout-hearted”.

Courage,

of Sufism and the word here translated

“fellow-veteran” is the single word “man”, mard.

317

The “Seven

Wadis”, seven vales or valleys, are in fact, in view of the

meaning of the word wadi, water-courses or boulder-strewn riverbeds that in lands of little rain are more often than not dry and without shelter from trees, although at certain seasons hosts to flash-floods when water rushes down from melting snow or after a sudden thunderstorm on upland heights. Travellers might often, especially in narrow gorges or where tracks are difficult, have to make their way through these dry river-and torrent-beds, in which the going is hard. But what is being alluded to in these verses, in addition to the journey’s hardships, are the seven stages of the Safi Way: 1, the Maqam of Repentance; 2, God-fearingness; 3, asceticism; 4, poverty; 5, patience; 6, resignation; 7, trust in God; though, as will

be seen below, the number and naming of the Maqams can vary. Associated with these stations of the Way are ten states (hdl, plu ahwal); 1, controlled,

receptive meditation (murdqabat); 2, proximity (qurb); 3, love (mahabbat); 4, fear (khawf ); 5, hope (raja’); 6, longing, desire (shawq); 7, intimacy (uns), which Hujwiri (translation, page 376) links with awe, haibat, where he describes the two states as “two states of the dervishes who travel on the

Way to God. When God manifests His glory to a man’s heart so that His Majesty (Jalal) predominates, the man feels awe (haibat), but when God’s beauty (Jamal) predominates, he feels intimacy (uns); those who feel awe are distressed; while those who feel intimacy are rejoiced.”; 8, being assured (itmindn); 9, true contemplation (mushahadat); 10, the certainty of intuitive

faith (yaqin). To these ten states and seven stages later Safis have added and offered modifications. ‘Attar himself, in his Musibat Nameh, gave five wadis, but in the Mantiqu’t-Tair, seven: 1, the seeking, (talab); 2, love (‘ishq); 3,

intuitive inner knowledge:

gnosis (ma‘rifat); 4, independence of need

520

The Speech of the Birds

e wa

(istighna); 5, unification (tawhid), related to Koran XVI, 23, “Your God is One God”, and Koran CXII, 1, “Say, ‘He is All4h, One’”, see Hujwiri,

page 278 ff; 6, amazement (hairat) — Shibli said, “Gnosis is continual amazement”. Of the two types of hairat, the real gnosis is in amazement at the quality of God, because this is beyond the scope of reason. (Cf, Ibid., page 275, and also, Underhill, op. cit., page 335); 7, poverty (faq?), i.e. renunciation and humility — the lover’s renunciation of personal will and affirmation of the will of the Beloved, and, of course, God loves the poor, see, for example, Koran II, 274 and Koran XXXII, 16; and annihilation

(fand), the annihilation of the individual consciousness and identity, but see Hujwiri, pages 241-246. 318

“Seeking”, talab, the quest in which the falib, “seeker”, or sdlik, “wayfarer”’,

319

proceeds beyond the bounds of sensuality and carnal desires and finds that the curtains of phantasy fall away to reveal reality, while the talib passes from the many to the One. Talab is the first stage of the Way because it marks the first awareness of something to be sought beyond the phenomenal. In the following verses, notably 3239 ff., the process subsumed under the name falab is clearly indicated. I.e. what is independent of and outside qualification (na‘t) or characterisation, and is known as sifat, literally, attribute, but in Sufi terminology the

attribute of unqualifiability. That something does not subsist save through itself shows the istighna or self-sufficiency of it. (See Hujwiri, translation, page 386 and the text in the Tehran Edition of Zhukovsky’s text, (Tehran 1336/1956) page 501, line 11.) See note 368 below. 320 Tawhid, of which Hujwiri says (page 278): Real unification (tawhid) consists in asserting the unity of a thing and in having a perfect knowledge of its unity. Inasmuch as God is one, without any sharer in His Essence and Attributes, without any substitute, without any partner in His actions, and inasmuch as Unitarians (muwahhiddn) have acknowledged that He is

such, their knowledge of unity is called unification.

321 fs9 323 324

Hairat: the bemusement or amazement of the gnostic which is due to the fact that God’s quality lies beyond the scope of reason (see Note 317 above). See Note 317 above. Dhat: the essence or reality of something. This story, of how Iblis, the Devil, saw the concealment of the treasure of God’s secret, the, as it were, Divine bleeping mechanism, in the heart of

Adam is recounted in ‘Attar’s Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Vol. II, pages 37-38), and attributed to the great Sufi saint Aba ‘Abdallah ‘Amr ibn ‘Uthman Makki (died either 291 AH/903—4 ap or 297/909-10 in Baghdad). Junaid was influenced by him; he was a mystic of the “sober” rather than “intoxicated” school. Another, and most beautiful version of this story is in the Mirsadu’l-‘Ibad of Najmu’d-Din Razi (Daya), (op. cit., text, 65-82, translation, fourth chapter of the second Book, pages 94 ff.). ‘Attar’s version, as given in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyaé, was taken from a book which Abt

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‘Abdullah “Amr ibn “Uthman (called in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd4 Malaki ‘Amr ibn “Uthman) had written and, in the context, appropriately entitled

325

Ganjnameh, “The Book of the Treasure”. (For other references see the Note by Dr. Goharin on page 334: the Note to his text, verse 3250.) The Mirsad . . . might be cited in the context of the hiding of the treasure (text, page 68): Padshahan of the phenomenal world, when they command a construction, appoint menial employees for the work; they would disdain themselves in person to apply their hands to the clay — they assign it to others. Yet when the work reaches the place where they wish to deposit treasure, they send all the servants and entourage far away, and in person apply their hands to the clay, and carefully shape that spot to the size and measurements of the treasure. Then that treasure they themselves, on their own, place in it. God Almighty ... said... ‘I fashion this by Myself with no intermediary, because in it I am going to lay the treasure of gnosis.’

326

This anecdote is in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson’s Edition, part II, page 180, Istilami, page 636-7), where Shibli is reported on dying, a propos verse 3266 above, to have repeated the words of the Divine interdiction on Iblis: “And verily upon you be a curse until the Last Day”.

S27 328

“Consternation”’,, hairat. See Note 321 above.

“Jealousy”, ghairat: that exclusive jealousy between the Beloved and the lover. See Note 312 above. Jae Majnun, treated here as a proper name, that of a mythical lover round whom ancient romances were woven; but the word also literally means “the possessed” or “the mad”. Majnan was enraptured of the beauty of Laila, whose name means “night”; it suggests a black-eyed, dusky maiden. E.J.W. Gibb neatly observes that the “romance itself is merely the slender story of the desert beauty and her frenzied lover” (E.J.W. Gibb, History of Ottoman Poetry, London, 1904 and 1965, Vol. III, page 87). This “slender

story” became the stuff of great poetry in the hands of Nizami (died 1202-3 AD), the Persian, and Fiziuli (died c. 1562-3) the mellifluous Turko-Persian poet. A Divan of love-poems in Arabic is ascribed to the Majntn Qais al-’Amiri, “an almost mythical personage” said to have died c. 70 AH/689 AD. (See Gibb as cited and E.G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, Cambridge, 1928, Vol. II, pages 406-407). Hujwiri’s commment attests to an early recognition among Stfis of Majnin as the type of the true lover. (See Translation, page 258). On page 353 Hujwiri also quotes a verse attributed to the aforementioned Qais and of a purport frequently taken up by Persian poets:

330

Truly I wish to sleep, although I am not drowsy, That per chance thy beloved image may encounter mine. Khwajeh, although sometimes called Im4m, Yuisuf-i Hamadani died on his

way back from Herdt to Merv in 535 aH (1140-41 ap). He occasionally sojourned in Herat, but the people of Merv begged of him to return to them. In the Tazkiratu’l-Awliyd ‘Attar singles him out as one who taught

522

The Speech of the Birds the importance for Sifis of keeping alive the memory of the example of deceased Safi Masters by daily readings of their works and the recitation of litanies. (Nicholson’s Edition, Vol. I, page 5; Istiami, page 8). For this

Shaikh’s role as founder of a silsila, chain of pirs, see Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rimi, op. cit., pages 177 and 285. He was the teacher of Ahmad Yesevi (died 1166), a most prominent Shaikh in Turkestan. (See ibid., page 177, and Nafahdtu’l-Uns, op. cit., page 377). He began his life in Baghdad and ‘Att4r cites him as one of the Shaikhs who did not reject the claims of Manstr al-Hallaj to being acknowldged as a Sufi. (Tazkiratu’lAwliyd, Vol. II., page 135, Isti‘l4mi, page 583. Reference should also be

made to the Index of the English Translation, under Hamadhani (Yf) of Massignon, The Passion of al-Halldj, op. cit.). Le. suffering: the pain.

i 332 Abt Sa‘id ibn Abi’l-Khair Fazlull4h ibn Muhammad-i Maihana, see Note 232 above. 333 “Depression”, gabz. See Note 161 above. The eyes being filled with blood of course means filled with tears. 334 Le. they have become his taghit; see Note 224 above. 53D “Love”, ‘ishq: (Cf. Note 100 above). Qushairi said, “Love is the effacement of the lover’s attributes and the establishment of the Beloved’s

essence”; but the Safi Masters have written much on the subject of ‘ishq,

both in prose and verse, because it is pivotal to Sufism and, while ma‘rfat, gnosis, and mahabbat, love in the sense of the felt instinct to reach out and bridge the “severance”, furgat, from God that is the lot of Man in his

worldly condition, are both necessary pillars for the support of the supreme, exceeding love, which is ‘ishq, they are, of course, of a lower degree. All ‘ishq is mahabbat, but not all mahabbat is ‘ishq, but mahabbat is a degree higher than ma‘rifat, because all mahabbat includes and follows from ma‘rifat. See Suhrawardi (The Maqtul, “killed”: he was executed by order of Saladin’s son in 1191 ap, having been charged with pantheism), Risdlat

fi-Hagiqatu’l-‘Ishq, Tehran, 1325/1945, page 12. Mahabbat is still in the realm of feeling, which the consuming passion that is ‘ishq exceeds. Mansur al-Hallaj’s dying words — “It is enough for the lover that he should make the One single” — is indicative of the meaning of ‘ishg as a result of (Hujwiri, translation, page 311) the lover’s existence having been cleared away from the path of love and the dominion of his lower soul (nafs) having been utterly overturned. Abt Yazid of Bistém is cited as saying, “Love consists in regarding your own much as little and your Beloved’s little as much”. (Cf. Koran IV, 79: “The enjoyment of this life is a little thing; the Hereafter is better for those who show piety”.) Saint Paul (Corinthians I, 13, verses 1-3) does, in fact, have the, as it were, three

degrees: the gift of prophesy and knowledge of “every hidden truth”, ma‘ifat, then faith, and then love, without which neither of the former is

enough. For further references to this central and abiding Safi concept,

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‘ishq, see Dr. Goharin’s Note on pages 334-335 of the Notes on his text of the Mantiqu’t-Tair.

336

He does not rest contented with pulpit promises, or warnings, about the Afterlife. 337 Vide Dr. Goharin’s Note cited in Note 335 above: “Love in Sufism is the opposite to reason (‘aql) in philosophy”, and, as Rimi has it, Reason in describing it (love) is like a donkey stuck in mud; The description of love, and a lover too, love has told.

338 339 340 341

The allusion is to the suf, wool, of the Stfi’s cloak: Sufis, the wool-wearers.

He will not spoil, or allow to be spoiled, his vocation as a Safi. For rue, aloes, and the Evil Eye, see Bess Allen Donaldson, The Wild Rue, op. cit.

Ie. not of the congress of genuine dervishes, because he still had one personal posession left: his life. This incident is strikingly reminiscent of the account, generally considered apocryphal, of ‘Attar’s own sudden conversion to the Way of Poverty. Dawlatshah,

who died in about 1494—5 ap, in the TazkiratuSh-Shu ‘ara

“Memorials of the Poets”, op. cit., pages 187-188), relates it as follows: Now the cause of the Shaikh’s repentance (tawbeh) was this that his father in the town of Shadiakh having been an eminent pharmacist of worth and renown, after his father’s demise, he, following in his footsteps, was engaged in pharmacy, and had a store so arranged that from beholding it people had their eyes made radiant and their brains, fragrant. One day the Shaikh, in the manner

of an

important shop proprietor, was seated at the top of the shop and surrounded by nimble slave-boys ready to serve. Suddenly one mad, or rather, in the Path, quite

sane, came to the door of the shop and, with penetrating appraisal, looked inside, but, tears having welled up to his eyes, he heaved a sigh. The Shaikh said to the dervish, “Why are you staring? It would be better were you quickly to move on”. The madman answered, ‘“‘Aye master, I am lightly laden and, apart from my cloak, possess nothing: Oh possessor of a purse ful of aromatic remedies, For the time of departure, what provision? I can soon pass from this market-place. You take your weight of goods and chattels in hand and by way of scrutiny, ponder on your condition”. ‘Attar asked,

“How will his khirqah, Shaikh was the shop to

you pass away?” The dervish said, “Like this”, and, having torn off and placed it under his head, he surrendered his soul to God. The filled with yearning by the enraptured one’s condition . . . He gave the sack and became free of the market-place of the world.

The following verse from Sa‘di’s Gulistan, Chapter 7, comes to mind in the context of the dervish’s lying down and dying: The donkey upon whom they impose a slight load, Proceeds along the road the most comfortably: Tradition (khabar) has it that, ‘dying for the poor comes with ease’;

The dervish possesses nothing, that he should depart with grief.

342

Dawlatshah’s narrative may, of course, be apocryphal; and it might be a legend developed from these particular verses, but it is interesting that ‘Attar himself describes just such an episode. Precisely how apocryphal is

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Dawlatshah’s story? The answer must be that Dawlatshah’s account, like

Jami’s similar one in the Nafahatu’l-Uns, is quite apocryphal. First of all, this kind of “typical” legend about a sudden “conversion” is found elsewhere with no bearing on ‘Attar. Secondly, while immensely learned in the Scriptures, there is evidence that from early childhood ‘Attar showed a

marked propensity for Sufism. He began at least two of his Sufi maqams in his pharmacy (See Firtz4nfar, Ahvdl . . ., op. cit., page 17, where ‘Attar is quoted as having said, in his Khusrau Nameh, that he did), and it was there

that he records how he took the pulses of scores of patients daily; besides, in his practicing, being a doctor of the psyche, he was also, in his drugstore (dawa-khaneh), a doctor of physic. The story of the indigent lover of Ayaz is, with a difference, told in the Risaleh-ye Lava’th of ‘Ain al-Quz’at 343

344

Hamadani, Tehran, n.d., pp. 83-84. “Calenders”, galandar, the term for itinerant dervishes who have abandoned

all possessions, wives, families, any association with the people and things of the world, in order to devote themselves heart and soul to seeking the beauty and glory of God. (See Burhan-i Qati§, op. cit., the definition of the word galandar, and Dr. Mo’in’s note, pages 1540-1541). “Being alone”, khalvati; Abraham’s complaint that the Angel of Death was in the way exemplifies, in the next anecdote, the significance of this hemistich in verse 3463.

345 346

Abraham, The Friend of God. See Part One, Note 16.

349

See Part One, Note 66, and the reference to ma‘rifat in Note 335 above.

The Angel of Death (Azrael) who bears away the soul at the moment of expiring. See Koran XXXII, 11, “The Angel of Death who is given charge concerning you will call you in; then to your Lord will you be made to return.” (See Note 228 above.) 347 “Piously bequeath”, sabil kardan: one of the meanings of sabil is vaqf, pious endowment left for the provision of books and upkeep for scholars and students of divinity. 348 The allusion is to the fire into which Nimrod catapulted Abraham. See Part One, Notes 7 and 15.

As Hujwiri points out, ma'‘rifat is of two kinds: the knowledge of the learned and intuitive knowledge: absorption in the knowledge of God. The learned know divinity, ‘lm, which is acquired learning; hence they’re called ‘ulamd, the plural of ‘alim. They are the theologians and in need of external guidance. But for the Sufi ma‘rifat is knowledge that includes the feeling of and for God. Hence Sifis are ‘urafa, the plural of Grif, those who know in spirit. Thus the gnosis vouchsafed the “rifisthat to which reason, ‘aql, cannot of itself attain: this gnosis is beyond intellectual knowledge and demonstrable cognition. A saying attributed to ‘Ali ibh Abi Talib is “I know God by God, and I know that which is not God by the light of God”. Ma‘rifat can only be present if God implants it in the heart. Mirsddu’l-‘Ibdd, (text, Op. cit.,

page 111), describes how ‘the soul of the human was so created that on it

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the capacity was conferred that, once the seed of spirituality was sown there, it, by a careful husbandry of the spirit breathed into it by God (Koran XV, 29), might, in the sun of Grace and by the water of the Divine Law,

be nurtured. Thus the fruits of proximity and of gnosis (ma'‘rifat) will it so abundantly bring forth that they cannot be comprehended by the imagination, understanding, or intellect (‘aql) of any created being, and of which no amount of talking can penetrate the substance’. Ma‘rifat is, perhaps above all, the recognition that “what is not God is phenomenal (muhdath)”. (Hujwiri, op. cit., page 270. On the whole subject reference should be made to the translation of the Kashfu’l-Mahjub, pages 267 f€.). Not all have the capacity for ma‘rifat: as Rami (Mathnawi, Book I, verse 580) put it: The bait of every bird is according to its capacity; How might a fig be the food for every bird?

Rumi also (ibid. 570-571) has: The exterior journey is our speech and action. The interior journey is above the sky. The sense perceived dryness because born of dryness; The Jesus of the spirit set foot upon the sea. Safis associate ma‘rifat with the trust (amdnah) referred to in Koran XXXIII, 72, “Verily We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to bear it and shrank from it, but man bore

it;...”. The implantation of the capacity for ma ‘rifat goes back, then, to the original covenant between God and Man: “Am I not your Lorde”, and the answer was the acknowledgement in the word, “Yes”. (Cf. Nicholson, Commentary . . ., Book I, 1958-9).

350

This verse provides an example of both chiasmus and antimetabole, the Arab-Persian term for which is laff wa nashr, antimetabole is the repetition of words, in the reverse order, that reflect words earlier in the verse: “deple-

tion”, “repletion”, “progression”, “regression”. Compare a line in Shakespeare’s sonnet 154: “Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.” 351 oz

“State”, hal; but the state divinely vouchsafed to the creature.

“The violent wind”, sarsar, the violent wind God sent to destroy the miscreant people of ‘Ad: Koran LIV, 18—20, “. . . and of what nature was

My punishment and My warning? / We sent upon them a roaring wind on a day of continuous calamity / which carried off the people as if they had been the stumps of palms uprooted.” Cf. Koran XLI, 15 and LIII, 69. In all instances the context is the destruction of the people of ‘Ad because they refused to acknowledge Allah as superior to them. Cf. Note 221 above. 353

See Note 131 above, but here the mihrab is the Court of God towards which

the devotee is making his way. 354

“Measure”, gadr, “worth” etc., but also whatever God or Providence has

ordained. Hence the second hemistich alludes to the rank decreed for the devotee. Implicit is the Safis’ recognition of the fact that in the way of

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spiritual attainment not all are equal and some might be so endowed as to progress further than those who only reach the lower stations. 355 Kamil, “a Perfect Man”. See Hujwiri, op. cit., page 407, and pages 405 ff. 356

In other words, you might reach a long way, but remember Koran L, 29:

“The day We say to Gehenna, ‘Are you full?’ and it says, “Are there any more?” To boast of attainment in the Way is impious: if a Safi is asked, to which station, maqam, he has attained, he will not say, but will beg to

357

be excused answering such a question. The play is on the words, tahntyat, “condolence”.

358

‘Ilm, “knowledge”, which is necessary for acting rightly and, in the Sdfi

“felicitation”,

and

ta‘tyat,

context, see verse 3509 below, a light from the lamp of prophethood. ‘I/m ‘per se’ is knowledge of the externals of things. For the Sufi, however, it is to be regarded as necessary, but limited to what devotion requires, and the help-mate of ma‘rifat, and the cognition of God and of his Law, both essential for purposeful devotion, whilst Koran II, 96 warns against evil, worldly “acquired knowledge”, prompted by Satan as temptation to lead the souls of men astray. 359 An allusion to the hadith : “Seek you learning even in China’. See Part One, Note 186.

360 361

“The ungrateful”, kdfir, also “unbeliever”, “infidel”. The pun is on sim, which means both “silver” and the “string of an instru-

ment”, tar. Hence the hemistich could also mean “Arise if you are one who sits in the market-place harkening to the lute-string’s twang.” 362

The idioms for indulging in trivialities, frivolities, are “measures the wind” and “measures the moonlight”, both metaphors for vain or futile actions and preoccupations. In other words, distractions which are the antithesis

of concentrated devotion, himmat. The implied comparison, in the onginal, between the coldness of moonlight and what ought to have been a lover’s ardour, is not to be overlooked. A paraphrase of the second hemistich might be: At night does he measure moon-beams because of burning? 363 Hafiz must have had this episode in mind when in one of his ghazals he said: Her eyes looking for trouble and lips mocking, At midnight last night to my pillow she came and sat. She lowered her head down to my ear. In a sorrowful voice She said: “Oh my ancient lover, are you asleep?”

364

The pun is on the word 4b, “lustre”, “honour”, but of course primarily meaning “water”; also, it could mean “tears’’. In this instance the lover’s

face is pallid; but implicit in this hemtistich is the reference to weeping in the next two verses and verse 3576 above. As noted elsewhere, tears are

the bearers of the consolation of grace, and they manifest fear of God (see Note 303 above and al-Ghazali, “The Book of Fear and Hope”, op. cit.,

The Speech of the Birds

365 366 367

527

pp. 43-44 on the merits of weeping. Cf. Koran XVII, 109, “. . . weeping, and it increaseth them in humility”. See Notes 324 and 325 above. For example, Rabi‘a.

‘Abbaseh

of Tus,

a holy one

mentioned

in the

Tazkiratu’l-Awliyé

(Nicholson’s text, pages 14, 59, in Part 1, and 30 and 145 in Part 2;

Isti‘lami’s pages 72 and 594, according to his Index; also Zarrinkub, op. cit., p. 270). This holy man’s name was Abi Muhammad ‘Abbas ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abi Manstr and he is said to have been killed in 1154 ap

368

369 370

when the Ghuzz Turks sacked Nishaptr. See Koran II, especially verse 40: “. . . the Angels said, ‘O Mary, Allah gives you tidings of a Word from Himself whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, one eminent in this world and the Hereafter, one of them brought near.” For the phrase kafir-i ni‘mat, the “ungrateful for benefits or favours”, see verse 3507 above and Note 360. Kafir of course also means “infidel”, “unbeliever”’. Istighna, ““needlessness”, also “detachment”. In Koran XLVI, 6, 7, Man is

warned against considering himself self-sufficient: “Verily Man acts presumptiously, / Because he sees himself self-sufficient”. Rami echoes this verse in Mathnawi V1, 4763: He perceived self-sufficiency within himself.

An insolence from self-sufficiency became manifest.

Istighnda is a divine attribute: not one the human can claim as his own. 371

See Notes 318 and 319 above, and Note 408 below. The Angels. Cf. 1498 above, and Dante, Purgatorio, Casto VIII ll. 28-30

for green-clad angels. 372

See Part One, Notes 7 and 8, but in particular, for what is alluded to here,

see the Qisasu’l-Anbiyd, (op. cit., pages 57 ff), on Nimrod’s refusal of Abiraham’s call that he should become Muslim, and Abraham’s sending an

Ee

army of gnats by which Nimrod and his people were overcome. See Koran XXVIII, 3-13: Pharaoh “sought to weaken by slaying their sons and keeping their women alive”, with reference to the Jews in Egypt. Cf. Exodus I, 9-10, 15-22, and II, 1-10, for the account, closely resembling

that in the Qisasu’l-Anbiya, pages 150, 151, of how the Pharaoh feared the growing numbers of the children of Israel in his realm, and decreed that boys should be killed at birth and only girls spared. Hence Moses’ mother under divine inspiration offered her son to the mercy of the river, but God’s

mercy was over him and he was found by, according to the Koran XXVIII, 8, Pharaoh’s wife, but in Exodus, Pharaoh’s daughter. Exodus II, 5.

374 315 376

See Part One, Notes 82 and 101.

See Note 330 above. “Cannot move”, murddr, probably a reference to the game _ nard, backgammon, when the counter falls into a square from which it cannot - get out.

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The Speech of the Birds

377 Darbandi and Davis have felicitously, “Strive not to strive . . .”. “Attar seems to be suggesting (see the following verses) leaving worldly preoccupations for those of the other world. 378 “Needlessness”, bi niydézi, is the Persian lexicographer’s definition of “self-sufficiency”, istighna; ‘Attar has both terms in the first half line and, in

this translation, they are reversed. 379 A geomancer.

)

380

Reference should be made to Part One, Note 4.

|

381

Huzur, the heart’s being present with God in the certainty (yaqin) of faith. See Note 214 above.

382

Tawhid: the second hemistich in fact explains it. Koran XVI, 23, and Koran CXII, 1, have respectively: “Your God is One God”, and, “Say, ‘He is Allah, One’”, i.e. the undivided: the basis in Islam for the concept

of God is that God is one with no sharer in His essence and attributes, with no

substitute,

with no

partner in His actions.

Islam is absolute

monotheism and Sufism is the ultimate expression of this monotheism or unitarianism. So far from being “unorthodox”, Sufism might be said to take Islam, with its humanity and tolerances, but above all its monotheism, to its ultimate realisation. God Himself is unification, Oneness; His command (see the Koranic reference above, CXII, 1) that His creature, Man,

should declare Him One is His unifying inclusion of His creature, and His creation of unification in the creature’s heart with, thirdly, human beings’

recognition of God’s Oneness: their acknowledgement of the unity of God. The paradox is that, for the Oneness to be acknowledged, there have to be two, the One, and the Acknowledger. As Hafiz says, in a verse

quoted earlier, If you desire any sense of presence, be not, Hafiz, absent from Him:

When you meet Him whom you desire, skip the world and disregard it.

383

For this acknowledgement to be complete, tajrid is necessary, the negation in abstraction, the word used in this verse, of all additional works of the

self, from all extraneity into God alone: the abeyance of the self even in its quest to lose itself, and the creature’s coming to rest in the God Who is with him. (Dr. Goharin, in his note on verse 3694 as numbered in his text, verse 3694 in this translation, cites Ibn ‘Arabi to this effect. Tajrid, signifies detachment from both worlds: the sdlik or talib, the seeker as he travels towards attainment of the Presence, must have a devotion that knows no

looking back towards wordly things, nor any consideration of the other world. He must exclude such barriers to the perfect realisation of God as these thoughts and premonitions would constitute. He must be mujarrad, literally, “denuded”,

but in this context,

“free of all other than the

Absolute”, totally pure and knowing rio otherness. 384 Abt ‘Ali Daqqaq: Hujwiri (page 162) and Nafahdtu’l-Uns, (op. cit., page 297) testify to this Shaikh’s authority and eloquence as a preacher. The latter source says he died in 405 aH / 1014-15 ap, (according to another

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529

source, he died in 1015 or 1021 ap). He was known as the Zabdn-i Vaqt,

385

386

387 388

389

(Tongue of the Age), Sufism’s spokesman of his time. He resided and died in Nishaptr. He was the great Safi Qushairi’s father-in-law. Ie. not competent, without authority and power, unable either to propose or dispose. Hujwiri (ibid.) cites Abu “Ali Daqqaq as saying: “Whoever becomes intimate with anyone except God is weak in his (spiritual) state, and whoever speaks of anyone except God is false in his speech”. Le. through God’s Revelation in the Koran and the hadiths of His Prophet. The allusion is to the state of Adam immediately after his creation and before he fell: fell into the entrammelment of the being of which he self-consciously became aware after succumbing to the temptation. In Sufism the continuing identity of the devotee is axiomatic: annihilation (fana’) does not mean “absorption” into the Godhead. As will be seen subsequently, annihilation of the attributes of the self is followed by subsistence (baqa’) in God for eternity ; but subsistence of “this person” in God. God created creation, the Tradition says, that He might be loved: He is the only One, but for this very fact to be recognised, there has to be the recogniser. Cf. Part One, Note 62 above.

390

A great mystic who, as this story tells, of reason. His request was granted: he was highly regarded by such eminences commenting on Luqman’s liberation

asked to be freed of the operations became one of the enraptured. He as Abt Sa‘id ibn Abi’1-Khair, who, from the normal workings of the

intellect, said, “Luqman is one of the divinely freed, Praise to God, from

orders and prohibitions”. (Nafahdatu’l-Uns, op. cit., page 707). Abu Sa‘id also averred that Lugman was fine because, “I see no-one less attached, less driven by the affections and more abstinent than he 1s, who in all the world has no attachment to anything, neither to this world, nor to the next, nor to the self”. (Idem.) 391

Hasan, known as “Little Hasan”, Hasanak, was the Abt ‘Ali Hasan ibn Muhammad Mikali who became a vazir to Sultan Mahmud in 415

AH/1024 ap, a choice of which it appears that Mahmud soon repented — Hasanak was young and inexperienced, but handsome and frank. His high-handedness made him many enemies and under Mas‘id, Mahmud’s son, he was eventually put to death at Balkh in 432 AH/1031 Ap. (See C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids . . ., op. cit., especially pages 182-184 for a masterly summary of this member of the Mikali family’s career’.) 392 “Aura”, far, or farr, “luminosity”, but used of the light or aura attached to ancient Shahs of Iran and the signal of divine guidance and protection. 393 “Amazement”, hairat, see Note 317 above. The amazement of those who have attained knowledge of God’s being, and entailing amazement at one’s own, “because when a man knows God he sees himself entirely subdued by the Divine omnipotence; and since his existence depends on God, and his non-existence proceeds from God, he becomes amazed, saying, “Who

530

The Speech of the Birds and what am I’. In this sense the Apostle said: ‘He who knows himself has come

to know

his Lord’, i.e. he who knows himself to be annihilated

knows God to be the eternally subsistent. Annihilation destroys reason and all human attributes, and when the substance of a thing is not accessible to reason it cannot possibly be known without amazement”. (Hujwiri, op. cit., page 275.) 394

There

is a recollection

here of Muhammad

having been

within

two

bow-shots of God on his Miraculous Ascent. 395

‘Azra, the heroine in the Romance of Wamigq and ‘Azra, once described as

a pleasing tale compiled by wise men and dedicated to King Nushirvan, the Sdsanian ruler (531-579 ap). The T4hirid ruler, ‘Abdullah ibn Tahir (828-844 ap) for whom this description was made on the book’s presentation to him, ordered it to be destroyed because, “For good Muslims, the

Koran and Traditons of the Prophet are suficient reading material, and this romance was written by Magians”. 396 ‘Attar is punning: the name ‘Azra. In Arabic ‘adhra’, means the sign Virgo and carries the sense of virginity, so that another meaning is “an unbored pearl”. Having regard to the following verse, the allusion here is to the girl’s pearl-like teeth. In the number of teeth mentioned, there is

397

also an allusion to the smallness of her mouth, in itself considered an attractive feature. The allusion to Joseph and the well in the context of the girl’s chin in verse 3815 is again taken up in this poetic medium that, with its imagery and play on contrasting colours, might be cited as having preceeded the development, or, after Islam’s coming to Iran, redevelopment of visual art, notably in the post-Mongol period, in miniature painting from the 15th Century ap. On colours, however, and what seems to have been ‘Attar’s attitude towards them, and towards theories about their signifi-

cance, (not least such as were, unwarrantably, foisted upon Aristotle), see Part One, Note 72. ‘Attar seems to have seen them, when not using them

simply for descriptive purposes, as a feature of the phenomena of illusion; and for him, Aristotle,

or anything ascribed to him, was

not on any

pedestal. } 398 Eleven verses have been devoted to a lyrical description of the girl’s beauty. Such descriptive passages in Persian poetry are known in rhetoric by the term, taghazzul, a word derived, like ghazal, “love lyric”, from the root of the Arabic verb meaning to show amorousness, to woo or court, to eulogise

the beloved. 399

A pun on the word pardeh, “veil”, but also “musical mode”, might be

intended here, so that the meaning could be, “Her reason fell out of tune”; but the veil image suggests the fact that mystical encounters with the Divine are beyond the operations of reason or the intellect. The poet is probably killing two birds with one stone. Ah, the marvels of the Persian language! 400 Like ‘Azra, Shirin was the heroine of a great love-story; but it is also the

The Speech of the Birds

531

adjective “sweet”, hence the contradiction suggested by “bitterness” in the same hemistich. 401 Taraz, in the Jaxartes region of Central Asia, was an important Muslim trading post connecting Central Asia with China, and “proverbial for the beauty of its men and women.” (Guy le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge, 1930, page 487.) 402 Reminiscent of Wordsworth’s “Intimations of immorality”. 403 “The four boundaries”, char hadd, the same as char arkdn, “the four pillars’, meaning the four limits of the world, North, South, East, and West; but there is a double-entendre here, to include allusion to the four elements or

404

humours of the human body. Shaikh Abu’l-Qiasim Ibrahim ibn Muhammad

ibn Mahmtid

Nasrabadi

(died 367 AH/977—-8 AD), whom ‘Attar describes in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson, Part II, pages 311-319; Isti‘4mi, pages 787-795) as one so passionate in his devotion and so overcome by confusion that, a resident devotee in Mecca, a mujavir, he was expelled from the Ka‘ba because of his

excesses. He donned the zonnar and visited a fire-temple, performing the circumambulations (tawaf) there which were a gesture of reverence reserved for the Ka‘ba. ‘Attar relates the incident in question in the following verses. 405 406 407 408

Guebre, a term used for fire-worshippers; also, non-Mulsims in general.

See Note 404 above. I.e. Sdfis.

Fagqr o fand, “poverty and annihilation”, or “passing away from the self”. In the Safi context faqr in its form is indigence and destitution, but in its essence, fortune and freedom of choice. “He who regards the form rests in the form and, failing to attain his object, flees from the Essence; but he who has found the Essence averts his gaze from all created things, and, in

complete annihilation, seeing only the All-One he hastens towards the fullness of eternal life”; see Hujwiri, page 20. Thus the faqir, the destitute, has nothing, and in nothing has no loss or diminution. Hujwiri reminds us that if the Safi keeps anything back, he is “imprisoned” or entrammelled to the same extent as the measure of what he keeps back. But in the fagr of Sufism, those who follow it are, while physically poor, spiritually infinitely rich. Ibnu’l-‘Arabi, (died 1240) makes fagr mean “need”, rather than “poverty”, and specifically the creature’s need of God: Koran XXXV, 16, “O people you are the ones in need (al-fugara’) of Allah and Allah is the Rich (al-Ghanty), the Praiseworthy”, is Ibnu’l-‘Arabi’s text behind his definition

of Poverty, with its contrast between being in need and being rich. Being rich means having no need of anything: being independent in the way of God, Who has “Being and all its attributes . . . in Himself. He is independent of the Cosmos and needs nothing from it. The opposite, Poverty, is the ‘inherent attribute of all created or temporarily originated . . . things’.”

(Cited from Chittick, Ibnu’l-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination: the Sufi

The Speech of the Birds

532

Path of Knowledge, New York, 1989, page 64; cf. page 44). Hujwiri says of the Safi’s concept of faqr, “they used the word ‘poverty’ to denote the denunciation of the lover’s personal will, and his affirmation of the Beloved’s will, and they call the lover ‘poor’, fagir”. (Hujwiri, op. cit., page 309.) Perhaps in this is, for present purposes, to be found the most useful definition of what is meant by faqr, but it has to be seen in contrast to the Divine richness or independence, without the realising of which all mortals remain indigent. As for fana, this is achieved when a man becomes annihilated from his attributes and attains “subsistence”; when he is “neither near nor far, neither stranger nor intimate, neither sober nor intoxicated, neither sepa-

rated nor united; when he has no name or sign or mark’. (Hujwiri, page 243.) Subsistence is baqa. In the present context it means “a subsistence that always was and always will be”; in other words the subsistence of God and His eternal attributes. Fand includes recognition of the ephemerality of the phenomenal and acknowledgment of the eternal world. Fand is the stage requisite before that of baqa, and consists in the shedding of all worldly qualities, by means of discipline, and, further, the shedding of the senses embodied in this world, in order that emptiness may be achieved and, thus, readiness to achieve union with the Divine. As has been said earlier, in fand, self-consciousness is obliterated; for the rest, as in verse 3956 below, ‘Attar

says it is not within the scope of rational conception; but, see Genesis I, 26-27, it is related to Man’s having been made in the image of God, an image which it is the purpose of Man’s creation that he should realise in his own being once he has become united with God. 409 This is an allusion to the return, from the state of fand, of the spirit endowed 410

with eternal subsistence, baqd. Ma‘shtq-i Tus, the “Beloved” of Tus, was named Muhammad and buried in Tus, where he had lived, near to Mashhad in Iran’s northeastern province of Khorasan. Unconventional and plain, but courteous, in his behaviour,

he was greatly revered, not least by eminent Shaikhs of his time and later, Abd Sa‘id ibn Abi’l-Khair for example, (967-1048 ap), and the Imam Ahmad

al-Ghazali

(died 1126).

The

latter said that, on

the Day

of

Resurrection, the faithful would entertain the wish that they had been the dust upon which Ma‘shiq of Tis one day might have trodden. (Nafahatu’l-Uns,

Muhammad

‘Abadi’s

edition,

Tehran,

1370/1990-91,

page 314.). 411

As adumbrated in Note 408 above, annihilation of the self is followed by

and the pre-requisite of subsistence eternal. Hujwiri (pages 242-246) links fand o baqd, annihilation and subsistence, and says that the latter begins and

ends in annihilation; but that it will never be annihilated. There is subsistence that always was and will be: “thé subsistence of God and His eternal attributes”. To know the un-eternal nature of this world and the eternal of the next is in what knowledge of annihilation and subsistence lies. ‘Attar

The Speech of the Birds

533

himself explains how, once this knowledge of subsistence has been realised, the entrant into baqa (who ceases, of course, to be an “entrant”) can, and

412 413

414

should, return to the phenomenal world as an exemplar of holiness, but one endowed with comprehension of the Eternal. See Part One, Note 194 above. The kind of lamp which ‘Attar would know would be a container of bronze or earthenware shaped like a bird’s head, the beak sticking out and filled

with oil from the container. When the oil is set alight, it casts the flame from the tip of the beak to provide illumination. The beak was hollowed into the duct through which the oil ran to feed the flame at the tip of the beak. This verse is reminiscent of Hujwiri’s use (page 245) of the fire analogy: . . . our subsistence (baqd) and annihilation (fand) are attributes of ourselves, and resemble each other in respect of their being our attributes. Annihilation is the annihilation of one attribute through the subsistence of another attribute. One may speak, however, of an annihilation that is independent of subsistence, and also, of a subsistence that is independent of annihilation: in that case annihilation means ‘annihilation of all remembrance of other’, and subsistence means ‘subsis-

tence of the remembrance of God’ (baqd-yi dhikr-i haqq). Whoever is annihilated from his own will subsists in the Will of God, because thy will is perishable and

the Will of God is everlasting: when thou standest by thine own will thou standest by annihilation, but when thou art absolutely controlled by the will of God thou standest by subsistence. Similarly, the power offire transmutes to its own quality anything that falls into it, and surely the power of God’s Will is greater than that offire; but fire affects only the quality of iron without changing its substance, for iron can never become fire. (Italics added.)

415

Buraq, “the bright one”, is the beast upon which the Prophet Muhammad is said to have performed the Miraculous Ascent. It is said to have been white in colour and to have had two wings and to have been between a mule and an ass in size. Some, however, have likened this fabulous crea-

ture — there is no refenece to it in the Koranic reference to the Night Journey (Mi‘raj), XVII, 1 — to a mare with a woman’s head and peacock’s tail. It has been a frequent motif in verse and in miniatures; see T. W. Arnold, Painting in Islam, Oxford, 1928, pages 117-122, and plates 53-56.

416 Ie. the Pir. 417 A reminiscence of the “note-book”’ (daftar) which the first moth opened on reporting back to the assembly. 418 Jesus and the needle. See Part One, Note 31. Jesus was held up in the Fourth Heaven because found to have a needle and a broken pot with him. Suzan-i ‘Tsd, “Jesus’s Needle”, is discussed in Burhdn-i Qati’, op. cit., page

419

1187. Because of the qandt system of irrigation, comprising underground water conduits along the line of which there are open shafts, and also having in mind the village wells, the windlass and its rope was and remains a feature of rural Iran as essential as it is common.

534

The Speech of the Birds

420 See Note 401 above. 421 “World-burning” can be a metaphor for “world conqueror”, hence the suggestion of wide conquest effected by the length of the boy’s tresses; but see verse 4028 below. 422 lI.e. his mouth was so small as to be said not to exist. 423 Mundjat, the secret prayers the Sufi is enjoined to offer night and day. 424 There is a supressed colour image here because of the possible pun on the word translated “mud”, gil, “clay”, or “viscous mud”, and the word for

(red) rose, gul, the letters of which are the same, but the short medial vowel

differs in the two words: the redness of the blood and blackness of mud. 425 “He saw the king’s face face-to-face”: this hemistich calls to mind the Ash‘arite controversy with the Mu‘tazilites concerning whether or not God might ever be seen on either this or the other side of death. Abu’]-Hasan

‘Alf ibn Isma’il al-Ash‘ari (873/4 — 935/6 ap) began his career as an exceptionally precocious pupil of al-Jubba’i, whom he might have succeded as head of the Mu‘tazilite movement in Basra. Instead, at about the age of 39—40, al-Ash‘ari seceded from Mut‘tazilism in favour of the ahlu’s-Sunna,

the orthodox traditionalists. He later moved from Basra to Baghdad. The claim was made that in a dream the Prophet Muhammad had thrice urged him to join the ahlu’s-sunna, those who did not accept rational argumentation in theology, kalam. Al-Ash‘ari gave up kaldm, but inaugurated his own kalam, since in a last dream he had been enjoined not to give up kalam but to make it the theology of Tradition. Al-Ash‘ari’s new position, which (see Note 485 below) gained great ascendancy in Iran, meant that he did not accept the Muttazilite divestment of God of any attributes (ta‘til), since this might lead to a negation of God, atheism. (See Part One, Note 52, concerning fa‘til, the term for the emptying of attributes in the context of the Divine.) The Muttazilites said that God had no attributes distinct from His Essence (see verse 4691 below, for an allusion to the opposing view.) Hence the Muttazilites glossed over Koranic passages which referred to God’s “hand” and “face”, which they said referred, not to anthropomor-

phic properties or attributes, but to abstract qualities such as “grace”, and “essence”. While al-Ash‘ari conceded that nothing physical was meant, he said that these qualities were real attributes, but their precise nature unknowable. He similarly interpreted the reference to God sitting on the Throne (Koran XX, 4). He also contested the Muttazilite view that the Koran was created, since al-Ash‘ari maintained that the Koran was the

speech of God, and, as His Speech was one of His Eternal Attributes, so too must the Koran be eternal, hence uncreated. On the question which

the verse from ‘Attar cited here raises, al-Ash‘ari opposed the view of the Mu'tazilites that God could not literally be seen since this would suggest His being corporeal and limited; al- Ash‘ari held that, although the manner of it may not be elucidatable, the vision of God (visio beatifica) in the world to come will be vouchsafed. He may not have wished to go publicly so far

The Speech of the Birds

535

as to suggest what in the Safi context might be assumed, and what would be certainly consonant with the thesis of the Mantiqu’t-Tair, that “seeing”

God cannot be proscribed if God is All: to see Him is His seeing Himself. Indeed, like the wordless and heardless speech between God and the birds

which ‘Attar mentions, this seeing was non-seeing, but nevertheless seeing. ‘Attar himself says, reporting on the mystic Abi; Hamza Baghdadi in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson, Part Two, page 260, Isti‘lami, page 724), that God “Can be seen without any howness, when His attribute of seeing becomes the seeing of someone”. The question of seeing God of course is mentioned in Exodus XXXIII, 20, ‘My face you cannot see, for no mortal man may see Me and live’, but He added, *. . . here is a place beside Me.

Take your stand on the rock and when My glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen’. The story of Moses’s encounter with God in the Koran (VII, 139) is remarkably similar, and indeed the Gospel according to Saint John (I, 18), says that no-one has ever seen God, “but God’s only Son, he who is nearest to the Father’s heart, he has made him known”. (Reference should be made to A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed,

Cambridge, 1932, pages 64 ff; also pages 90 ff.). Al-Ash‘ari did in fact explain that the qualities of God were free from any limitations of space and above the drawing of any comparisons. What is in point here — he contested also the Mu'‘tazilite position on free will, presenting a subtle argument that man’s acts were fore-ordained but his choice in performing them was his own, and he accepted Kawthar, the Pond, and the bridge of Sirat, and other eschatological features as real, as indeed “Attar also does, — is that

as an Ash‘arite ‘Attar unequivocally stated the view that in the final stages of man’s entelechy as the realiser of the Divine, the Divine would be seen “face-to-face”, albeit (see Nicholson’s Commentary on the Mathnawt, Book

I, 25-26), the mystic cannot experience the Beatific Vision until the “mountain” of his bodily nature has been demolished, entirely spiritualised by Divine Love. The possessors of spiritual vision believed that the faithful might see God both in Paradise and in this world. The Caliph “Umar is reported to have said, “I saw my Lord with my heart”, and ‘Ali, “I do not worship a Lord Whom I have not seen”. Another aspect of al-Ash‘ari’s kalam was Muhammad’s intercession. This was denied or rationalised by the Muttazilites, but, as will have been seen, not least in the story of Shaikh Sam’4n, ‘Att4ér emphasises Muhammad’s role as intercessor, notably in his

description of Muhammad in Part One. But to behold their Lord after death is reserved for the righteous: see Koran LXXXIII, 15, on the un-righteous, who “shall be veiled from their

Lord”. Cf. Koran XVIII, 110, “Whoever looks forward to the meeting with his Lord, let him work righteous work”. And most important is the text, Koran LKXXV, 22-23: “Upon that day faces shall be glowing / gazing

The Speech of the Birds

536

upon their Lord”. There is also a hadith, “Verily you will see your Lord on the Day of Resurrection as you see the Night of Power” (see Part One, Note 140), i.e. God’s Revelation in the Koran; but on the Day of Resurrection, having received His Revelation, and been opened to the faith, then will its Author and Origin be seen. Sa‘di said, citing another hadith: O you have said, “And he who dies shall see Me”;

The heart is the sacrifice to your heart-seeking utterance. Would that in the day a thousand times I Might die in order to see Your face.

And Hafiz has (Khanlari’s text of the Divan, Tehran 1362 / 1984-5, page AS 2yverses2): O the borrowed soul which to Hafiz the Friend granted, Let me one day see His cheeks and surrender it.

426

But the references are many that are used to support, on scriptural grounds, the Ash‘arite position concerning this seeing of God, and expressive of the Safi poets’ espousal of it. What is in question is the vision of Reality as opposed to khaydl, phantasmagorical forms; but it will be understood that, for the mystic who has become the Beloved while the Beloved has become the mystic, this question of seeing, as it were, each other should not be viewed in terms of two observers looking at each other. In other words, where the final stage of the Via Mystica is the context, the controversy over seeing God might be considered a red herring. The juxtaposition, “burning fire” and “ocean of water”, is a device by no means seldom seen in Persian poetics: the linking of two contrasting images. In this instance this laconic phrasing alludes to the dervish’s love-sickness, the burning, and the prince’s tears; also the prince’s blue eyes.

427

428

See verse 4040 above, in which the reference to gold and silver portends an allusion to alchemy: the alchemy of love. The poet comes out with the reminiscence of that allusion in the verse here being commented upon. That is to say, like motes in a shaft of sunlight through a window, rawzan.

What comes to mind are the round apertures in the domes of the bazars in Persian cities, through which shafts of sunlight fall upon the stalls and people below. 429

Abw’l-Husain Ahmad ibn Muhammad Nari of Baghdad, who died in 295

AH/907-8 Ab. ‘Attar relates this question and answer incident in the Tazkiratu’l-Awliya (Nicholson II, page 54; Istilami, page 473). Nuri was associated with such coevals as Junaid and the latter’s teacher, Sari Saqati. 430 According to legend, it was a grain which Eve offered to Adam and which he and she fatefully shared. See Qisasu’l-Anbiyd, op. cit., pages 16 ff. 431 In other words, birds over which the words, “In the Name of God” have been pronounced preparatory to having their throats cut in the prescribed manner of slaughter. The phrase here translated “‘with throats about to be

The Speech of the Birds

BOT

cut”, is in fact the phrase, nim bismil, “half bismilldhed”, bismil being short for bismillah, “In the Name of God”, the formula said as an animal is slaugh-

tered in the ritual manner. 432

“Presence”, here huztir. to be absent from the self is presence with God.

Self gone, division and partnership and particularity are also gone, and the heart is present with God, no self remaining. Hujwiri cites Junaid as saying “For a time I was such that the inhabitants of heaven and earth wept over my bewilderment (hairat) then, again, I became such that I wept over their absence (ghaibat); and now my state is such that I have no knowledge either of them or of myself”. Hujwiri adds (translation , page 251) that this “is an excellent indication of “‘presence’.” He concludes that he has explained the meaning of “presence” and “absence”, that the sense in which Sifis use

433

434 435 436

these terms might be known. Cf. Note 214 above. “Script”, ruq‘a, anything written on a piece of paper; but also the piece of paper itself and a patch on clothing, so that the word is evocative of the patched cloak of the dervish, the khirqah or the muraqqa‘. “That group”, i.e. Joseph’s ten brothers: see the next episode. In sorrow, but also to ward off evil.

Malik ibn Du’r, the Khuza’ite reputed to have drawn Joseph out of the well. The story of Malik Du’r, or, Zu’r, as in the reference the name is

spelt, and his retrieval and purchase ofJoseph is told in the Qisasu’l-Anbiya (op. cit., page 90). 437

In the context of these verses, from the handing of the script to the birds,

reference is implicit to the Recording Angels, mentioned in Koran LXXXII, 10-12: “But over you are guardians, / Noble, writing. / They know what you do”. “Proximity”, qurbat, ““. . . thine eye is closed to thyself and to all that is other than God, and thy human attributes are consumed by the flame of proximity to God”. (Hujwiri, page 249, citing the words of several “Shaikhs of ‘Traq’’.) 439

See Note 40 above: the pun is on sf murgh, “thirty birds”, and the name,

Simurgh. For discussion of the vexed problem in medieval Muslim theology (kalam) concerning the question, whether in this life, i.e. before death, a

mortal might see God, see Note 425 above. “From the world” — it is the world’s role to recognise its Creator; without “the world”, God could not

be “known”.

440

Again, an allusion to the hadith , “He who has known himself has known

his Lord”.

441 442 443

Husain ibn Mansir al-Hallaj. See Note 230 above.

“T am the Truth (God)”, Mansir al-Hallaj’s words which, inter alia, brought down upon him execution for blasphemy. The play is on the words, asl, “origin” or “foundation”, here translated as “principle”, and far’ “branch” or “branches”. Islamic Law has the asl, and the far‘, details of practice based on the legal principles. In other words, figh,

538

The Speech of the Birds

applied law. The asl comprises the four foundations of the Law: Koran, Sunna, qiyds (analogy), and ijma‘ (consensus). 444 I.e.immortality in the Eternal after divestment of human attributes. 445 There is remarkable colour imagery here, but see verses 895-896 above for colours’ capacity to delude, and Note 397 above, although I am indebted to Mr. John Cooper for reminding me, of the significance especially, of the colour red. As he says, it should “‘never be forgotten that ‘red sulphur’ is the alchemical name for gold, which denotes the Perfect man, the result of

the hermetic action of the colour red.” (See Nizami, The Haft Paykar, translated by Julie Scott Meisami,

Oxford,

1995, note 351, 101, page 294).

Hence, perhaps, ‘Attar’s “the red of his beauty’s visage, . . . source of perfection’s furthest limit.” (Cf. Underhill, op. cit., pages 145-146, on the symbolism of colours, borrowed from alchemy and made analogous to the stages of the Mystic Path: black for Purgation, white for Illumination, and red for Union.). 446 There is evidence that the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna was an unusually large man; it looks as if, once again, ‘Attar had him in mind.

447

The reference to dust, of course, suggests the contrast between liquid tears

448

and dry dust, which the tears would lay. “Jealousy”, ghairat. Nicholson’s Commentary on the Mathnawt, Book I, verses

1712-1713 is worth citing again: “God is jealous of any so called existence other than His own, for in reality the Divine Being is all that exists and is absolutely transcendant: He demands that His lovers should make Him their sole object of desire and lose themselves in Him.” This note is repeated here both for the reader’s convenience and because of its appositeness. 449 Literally, “You’re playing shirin”: “You are eluding me”, as, in the famous romance, Shirin did Farhad; but also “you’re playing sweet” — shirin means “sweet”. 450 “Abandonment by grace”, khizlan: see Note 146 above. 451 Among the Sufis tears are counted as the product of grace and tear-bottles, tall stemmed glasses with an opening of the shape of an eye bath, may still be seen in Iran. For an explanation of the sanctity of tears, but in this instance in a Shi‘i context, see Bess Allen Donaldson, The Wild Rue, op. cit., page 178. 452 Alluding to the chileh, the Safi’s forty days and nights of self-mortification. In the next hemistich the reference is to maqam, “station”, a stage on the Sufi Path. The Shah’s love and repentance had brought him to a high station, while his being reduced to a hair’s breadth betokens the self-mortification his actions had made him undergo for their atonement. 453

The

word

latif can mean

both “delicate” and “kind”, but a point to

remember here is that, in the context of kindness (Iugf), it is one of the names of God.

The Speech of the Birds

539

454 As was customary for those petitioning the great, or asking a conqueror to raise a siege and remit slaughter. 455 Stringing of pearls, often used as an analogy for composing verses; as Hafiz says: You’ve composed a ghazal and strung pearls: come and sweetly sing, Hafiz, Because on your verses the firmament throws the knot of the Pleiades.

456 As mentioned earlier the name ‘Attar means dispenser of perfumes and pharmaceuticals,

457 458

but see

next

verse.

See

verse

4488

below:

attar

is

concocted from roses. “Lover’s Mode”, pardeh-ye ‘ushshagq, like pardeh-ye Khorasan, pardeh-ye ‘Iraq, the name of a musical mode. The twin titles of the work suggest that, following the Prologue, the Tawhid, the “Book” was conceived as consisting of two parts: the birds’ discussions and the hoopoe’s homilies, the Mantiqu’t-Tair, “The Birds’

Debate”, and then the following of the Way through its various stages, magqamat, 1.e. “The Stages of the Birds”. 459 “Court”, but the word used is divan, so that the poet was also implying that, once the reader has embarked upon his poems, for Divan means an author’s collected poems, pain and sacrifice will be involved; see verse 4465 below. 460 Or, “the equipment for days (of battle)”. Both translations are possible. 461 Yagin, “certainty”, anything beyond doubt. For the Sufis there were three degrees of yagin: ‘ilmu’l-yaqin, knowing something in its diverse parts and on trustworthy report; “inu’l-yagin, knowing something through having seen it with one’s own eyes; and haqqu’l-yaqin, the ultimate degree of certainty, the knowledge of the essence and quality or quiddity of something and knowing it with all the senses. This is the “certainty” to which ‘Attar seems to be referring here.

462

“Them”, the saints, awliya: those who have achieved the purpose and completed the Path; the “precursors”, see verse 4448 above, whom in his

463

Tazkirat, ‘Attar has memorialised. For the story of Dhti’l-Qamain, ‘He of the Two Horns”, believed to refer to Alexander the Great, see Koran XVIII, 82—98, where he is shown as one

with access to God and serving God. Commentators are divided as to whether he was to be accounted a prophet, but he has been widely regarded as a man of a degree of faith and piety such that God enabled him to reach the ends of the earth, (Cf. I, Maccabees, Chapter 1, verse 3), while for the

sake of the protection of good on earth against the corruption of Yajtyj and Majij (Gog and Magog), he built a barrier of iron and brass. (Koran loc. cit., 93-96.) 464 “Calamity”, bald, which is also the affirmation Adam’s offspring as seed uttered in response to the question, “Am I not your Lord?” (Koran VII, 174.) 465

A legitimate rendering of zindeh dil, “living heart”, in the Safi context

540

The Speech of the Birds would also be “Stfi hearted”, or, like a genuine Sifi, “pure-hearted”. On “living heart”, with these special Safi connotations, see verses 4462 and

4491 above. 466 ‘Attar is saying that the person who has become acquainted with his work, the Mantiqu’t-Tair, “Speech of the Birds”, would be in a position to realise

467

the requisite alchemy of love; but implicit is also an allusion to Solomon. Having in the preceding verse mentioned his own spiritual guidance, afforded in his “Speech of the Birds”, ‘Attar here launches his attack on the Mu‘tazilites, upholders of a rational theology (kalam) attributable in its

origins to the methods of the Greek philosophers. ‘Attar in condemnatory terms refers to the Mu‘tazilite position when he speaks of “The man who denies God attributes” in Part One, verse 134, see Part One, Note 52, and

also Notes 425 above and 485 below. In Note 425 the allusion he made in Part One, verse 134 is expanded upon in the context of Ash‘arism, and the Ash‘arite position concerning the question of the visio beatifica, the seeing of God. (In verses 4531 and 4533 below, “intuitive knowledge”’ is ma ‘rifat); while his whole concept of a moving and changeable cosmos is the reverse of Aristotle’s and, interestingly, close to the post-Copernican of the nineteenth century in Europe. (See for example, Francis R. Johnson, Astronomical Thought in Renaissance England, Baltimore, 1937.) 468

‘Umar al-Fartgq, “the Discriminator’, see Part One, Note 190.

469 Medina. 470 A reference to ‘Attar’s Tazkiratu’l-Awliya, his “Memorials of the Saints”, vide Note 462 above; but see the next verse.

471

Copyists of manuscripts later than the one upon which this translation is based have changed the word

zandn,

“women”,

to zaban,

“tongue”;

perhaps the wit of the original was found difficult to stomach, but, as usual in the Sufi context, when ‘Attar uses the word mardum, “men”, implicit is

the notion of men brave enough to venture upon the Way and strive to attain the Destination. 472

The name “‘Attar” means dispenser of attar of roses.

473 The word-play is on divan, “book”, “works”, and divanagi, “madness”, “folly”. : 474 Bahr-i zharf, “deep sea”, etc., but bahr, “ocean”, also means “prosody”; it is the collective noun for the metres of poetry, so that ‘Attar is punning here and alluding to his “profound” verses. 475 “Innovation”, bida‘at, but especially innovation in religious matters as a cause of theological disputes, such as often ended in the innovators’ persecution when their innovation seemed to threaten conservative religious tradition; here “Attar is once more alluding to the doctrines of sects like the

476

Muttazilites. ; “True Reality”, haqiqat, the abiding of the creature in the place of union with God and the standing of his heart in the place of abstraction, tanzth (see Hujwiri, page 384).

The Speech of the Birds

541

477 Le. not subject to fand: la yafna. 478 Devising a pseudonym for a book could be taken as leaving it to be regarded as dedicated to a patron while its composer used a nom de guerre out of modesty; but also implicit here is that ‘Att4r was not afraid to acknowledge himself author of his works 479 “Object of Praise”, mamduh, the person praised by a panegyrist; but ‘Attar’s “praised patron” is God, no earthly Sultan. 480 Saint John of Damascus (died 749 ap near Jerusalem) expressed God as “some infinite and boundless ocean of being, gathering in Himself the totality of all”. This was his interpretation of Exodus III, 14, “I am Who I am”.

481

“Ishmael”, Isma‘il: Koran XI, 74, speaks of the “announcement” of Isaac as ason, and XX XVII, 100 relates how Abraham announced to his son that in a dream he had seen that he must sacrifice him; God, of course, rescued the boy, but the Commentators are at variance about whether the son in

question was Isaac or Ishmael, although the main orthodox view is that he was not Ishmael, but Isaac, Ishdq. See Qisasu’l-Anbiyd, op. cit., page 63,

where reasons for preferring Ishmael for the sacrificial role are given. Ishmael is mentioned in the Koran, e.g., XIX, 55, “Make mention

of

Ishmael in the Book; verily he was one who spoke the promise truly, and he was a messenger, a prophet”, as if he were, indeed, a prophet. He is considered the progenitor of the Arabs. 482 Abt Sa‘id, see Notes 232 and 332 above. This tale is in the Tazkiratu’lAuliyd as follows: It is reported that the Shaikh one day saw a drunkard fallen down. The Shaikh said, “Give me your hand”. The man replied, “Go away, oh Shaikh, because

lending a helping hand is not your job. The helping hand of the helpless is God”. For the Shaikh the moment was auspicious. (Nicholson, Part 2, page 335, Isti‘lami, page 813). ‘Attar also uses the

483

same story in his Musibat-Nameh. It was common for prisons to be pits in the ground into which prisoners were lowered and left exposed to the heat of the sun and any refuse ill-wishers chose to throw into the hole. It was in such a pit that, before their execution in 1842, the two British Officers, Stoddart and Connolly,

484 485

were confined by the Amir of Bukhara. It hardly needs saying that ‘Attar here has the story of Joseph in mind. Abi ‘Ali al-Hasan al-Ish4q, the Niz4mu’]-Mulk (“Order of the Kingdom”)

was the great vazir in the service of the Saljiiq rulers, Alp Arslan (1063-1072 AD) and Malik Shah (1072-1092 ap). He was assassinated by a fidd’!, one of the Assassins, in October 1092, after many years as Chief Minister and a patron of learning, especially in the promotion of orthodox theology, for which Nizamu’l-Mulk established famous colleges in Baghdad and his native Khorasan. With his great contemporary, Abt Hamid al-Ghazali, the Nizamu’l-Mulk supported not only orthodox theology, but, see Note 425 above, Ash‘arism. In view of ‘Att4r’s own position in these matters, see

542

The Speech of the Birds again Note 425 and also Note 52 in Part One, it seems perfectly fitting that he should cite his fellow-Khorasanian by name, Nizamu’l-Mulk of Tas. As

Petrushevsky, in Islam in Iran, translated from Russian by Hubert Evans, (London, 1985, pages 182-183) says concerning the Shafi‘ite school’s ascendancy under Nizamu’]-Mulk’s ministry: The Shafi‘ite school was the first to adopt the Ash‘arite system and since this madhhab was particularly in vogue in Iran, it was able to consolidate its position there before the tenth century was out. Elsewhere the system was apt to be disputed before acceptance notwithstanding its conservative character and spread less fast, and less easily. The Hanbalites, in spite of the honour in which Ash‘ari

had held their founder-teacher, became open enemies; and under the first Seljiq Sultan, Tughril Beg, conqueror of Iran (1038-63), the Ash‘arites were declared heretics, and persecuted. Under his successor, Alp Arslan (1063-72), the vizier,

the famous Nizamu’l-Mulk who was himself aShafi‘ite, convinced the Sultan of the orthodoxy of the Ash‘arites, and so managed to put a stop to the persecutions. In course of time, the Ash‘arite kalam won recognition in all the Sunni countries, and became firmly entrenched in Iran.

‘Attar’s verses have also lent support to the supposition that the great vazir was sympathetic to Sufis, as his patronage of al-Ghazali would likewise indicate. 486 I.e. as, for example, his brothers sold Joseph. 487 For Solomon’s passing through the “Valley of the Ants”, see Koran XXVII, verse 18. (Cf. Proverbs, VI, 6), Go to the ant, you sluggard, Watch her ways and get wisdom, and Qisasu’l-Anbiyd, op. cit., pages 287 ff.

488 489 490

This story is in the Asrar-i Tawhid, Tehran, 1313/1973-4, page 223.

The dallak, masseur, was presumably hinting at a tip. This is reminiscent of the phrase used synonymously for the Glorious Koran, Hablu’l-Matin, “the Firm Rope”.

491

See Note 425 above concerning the Divine Essence and the Attributes through which that Essence becomes manifest.

492

The word ‘Attar is punning on here is shawkh, “impertinence”, “cheekiness”, “joke”, etc., and “dirt”, the dirt which the vigorous wielder of the

loofah in the public baths scrapes from the pores of those under’his ministrations. 493 The twenty-eighth of Shawwél is the twenty-eighth of the tenth month of the Muslim Calender, in this instance, in the year six hundred and...

AH; the figures are not decipherable but the seventh century AH is equivalent to the years 1203-1299 ap, i.e. the thirteenth century aD, hence the manuscript must have been written very close to the time of the poet who died circa 1220 ap. ‘

APPENDICES

APPENDIX

I

Stories in the Mantiqu't- Tair.

Title

Beginning at Verse Part One:

The robber and his captive guest. The babe in the millstream. “Umar and selling the caliphate. ‘Ali’s compassion for his assailant. Bilal’s testimony under the lash. Rabi‘a’s devotion. The Prophet asks to be his people’s sole judge.

67 409 523 544 563 582 Due

Part Two: The story of the Simurgh. The dervish and the prince’s daughter. Khizr and the madman. Adam’s expulsion from Paradise. The madman’s opinion of the two worlds. Soloman’s ring and lordship of the world.

130 776 814 839 864 898

Mahmid in the other world.

930

The king who used his favourite for target practice. The visionary questions the mourning sea. The miser turned into a mouse. Jacob admonished for speaking the name of Joseph. The king who possessed great beauty. Alexander disguised as an envoy. The secret way between Mahmid and Ayaz. The story of Shaikh San’an. Bayazid goes out on a starry night.

Sultan Mas‘id and the fisher boy.

964 998 1020 1043 1096 1126 1133 1186 1621 1667

546

The Speech of the Birds

The murderer reaches Heaven because of a saint’s glance. Mahmid and the old thorn-gatherer. Shaikh Naugqani’s dust-sifting. A naked dervish given a patched cloak. Rabi‘a’s aborted pilgrimage. A dervish complains of fleas and flies. The repentance-breaker and the open door. Gabriel hears the cry, “I am with you”. The Safi, the seller of honey, and God’s mercy on Qarin after Moses’ cruelty to him. The sinner taken to Heaven and the boy whose lamp was blown out by the wind. ‘Abbaseh and God’s care for the needy. Shibli among the transvestites. Two litigious Sufis and the judge. The beggar who fell in love with Egypt’s king. The grave-digger and his dog. ‘Abbaseh on the unsuppressible carnal spirit. The ragged elder and the king in thrall to the flesh. The two lascivious foxes. Iblis’s complaint against the pious man. Malik Dinar’s confession. The man whose riches left Divine Compassion no room. When it is too late to turn the face towards God. The novice who hid his gold. Rabi‘a and her coins. The devotee and the bird on the tree. The prince’s marvellous palace with a chink for death to enter by. The vain merchant’s gilded mansion. The sweeping away of the web, spider, and its prey. The dervish met in the desert. The mourner and the boy who had not known the world. The man lovesick for a woman.

1692 1708 1770 1790 1803 1815 1829 1842 1860 1877 1903 1922 1938 1949 1983 1987 2001 2023 2035 2043 2066 2075 2107 2120 2134 Pi A

Zita 2178 2200 2212 2218

The Speech of the Birds

547

The bereaved man and Shibli. The merchant who sold his beautiful slave-girl. The Chosroes and the greyhound. Hallaj at the gibbet. Junaid and his son’s decapitation. The death and rebirth of the Qaqnus bird. The son mourning his father. Death and the lieutenant-governor. Jesus drinks water from a clay jar. The observer of the Way restrained from drinking sherbet. The king who gave a servant bitter fruit. The man in the stoke-hole. The old woman and the Shaikh of Maihana. Junaid on when a happy heart may be gained. The bat that thought it had passed the sun. The Chosroes returning to his adorned capital. The master of Akkaf’s seed given precedence on the way. Shaikh-i Kharaqani’s last words. The slave who treated his robe of honour disrespectfully. The Shaikh of Turkestan and the things which he loved. Shakih-i Kharaqani’s craving for aubergine. Dhi'n-Niin’s amazement at God’s treatment of

2577

His servants. The luck of the magicians of Pharaoh.

2594

The old woman’s bid The price Ibn Adham The Shaikh’s reply to bridge. The weeping ecstatic

2246 2254 2266 2287 2399 2321 2354 2360 2370 2402 2417 2431 2439 2445 2457 2481 2007 2525 29955 2599 2562

for Joseph. paid for poverty. Sanjar from beneath the

2606 2621

asks what is the world.

2644

Ahmad Hanbal’s visits to Bishr-i Hafi.

Mahmid and the aged Indian king. The two knights’ armistice for praying. Joseph’s ringing bowl exposes his brothers.

2631

2659 2667 2688 2712

548

The Speech of the Birds

The good governor’s example of how to treat a servant. The naked devotee assailed by falling tiles in a ruin. The poor man who borrowed a donkey he lost. Egypt’s famine and too many mouths. Children throw stones at one crazed with love.

DISD

Wasiti visits the cemetary of the Jews.

2812 2832

Bayazid and the two interrogating Angels.

The dervish’s love-sick pleading with God. Mahmid and a boilerman in the stoke hole.

The The Iblis The The The The The

two water-sellers. Shaikh whose donkey broke wind. warns Moses against saying “I’’. danger of the eye’s seeing. Shaikh and the dog. devotee who loved his beard too much. fool with his beard drowning in the sea. Sufi on whom it always rained when he wanted to wash his clothes. The dancing madman alone in the mountains. “Look to your own faults, not others’.”

2774 2780 2792 2798

2847 2861 2887 2918 A957. 2943 2953 2960 2974 2988

The drunkard who saw another’s drunkenness,

3003 3011 3018

but not his own. The warrior who saw the blemish in his mistress’s

3028

eye. The Muhtasib who himself behaved drunkenly. Ba ‘Ali of Rudbar desires only God. Worship, and hope and fear. Ayaz wants only Mahmdd, not the sultanship. There is only one “you” for Rabi‘a. God reminds David that for Him there is no substitute. Mahmtd destroys the idol. Mahmaid bestows battle spoils on the dervishes. Zulaikha has Joseph beaten in prison. + The slave-dealer who asked a pious slave to wake him up to pray.

3040 3052 3066 3078 3103 ott 3121 3138 3170 3189

The Speech of the Birds Those in Hell question those in Heaven. The impecunious man who asked the Prophet for a mat on which to pray. Iblis’s refusal to bow to Adam. Shibli ties on the pagan’s girdle. Majntn in quest of Laila. Yasuf-i Hamadani on how all are Jacobs seeking their Joseph. The Shaikh of Maihana learns what the seeking is. Mahmid and the sifter of dust.

Rabi‘a asks when that door was ever closed. The man who bankrupted himself for love of a pot-boy. Majntn disguised as a sheep seeks Laila’s proximity. Mahmud and the beggar who fell in love with Ayaz. The Arab who fell among the Persians. The lover and his dying beloved. Abraham sees the Angel of Death as coming between him and God. The man in China turned to stone. The lover whose beloved found him asleep. The love-sick night watchman. ‘Abbaseh on the power of one spark of love. The man in a ruin who called Mahmitd a

blasphemer. The village boy who fell into a well. Yusuf-i Hamadani on the way’s endlessness. The geomancer and his tray of sand. The Pir desirous of being left in his infirmity. The fly caught in the honey. The Shaikh who fell in love with the kennel-girl. Subtle mysteries are not for the unready. The world resembles a plastic model. The old woman offers a Shaikh her gold.

What the aged slave deserves. The lover chooses to drown with his beloved.

The secret exchange between Ay4z and Mahmud.

549 3198 $217 3250 3273 3288 3292 3303 Joa! core 3355

3365 3388 3427 3449 3464 3503 3520 3531 Ghee, ops4

3601 3615 3636 3647 3659 3674 3691 3702 3707 3741 eyo) 3762

550

The Speech of the Birds

The princess and the beautiful slave-boy.

3814

The mother who knew for whom she mourned.

3893

The Safi who was locked out.

3906

The Shaikh who forfeits name and shame.

3920

The bewilderment of the novice and his Pir.

3934

Ma‘shiq of Tas tells a novice to melt always.

3957

A lover weeping at being returned to himself.

3963

The moth who discovered news of the candle.

3986

The Safi who complained of blows on the back.

4004

The beggar entranced by the handsome prince.

4020

Shaikh Nari on how union might be attained.

4124

Laila’s reproaches Majntn’s best praise.

4179

The moral of the moth.

4189

Joseph shows his brothers the receipt for his sale.

4201

Hallaj’s voiceless ashes.

4259

The vazir’s beautiful son.

4290

A dying preacher’s awareness of sermons’ valuelessness.

4505

What Aristotle said to the dying Alexander.

4521 4543

The Stfi asked how long he would discourse on men of God. The devotee ends with only tears, rags and a piece of clay.

4579

The man of faith not visible in himself.

4598

Shibli’s weakness forgiven because he admitted it.

4610

The treasure horde of the tears of one devout.

4628

Abt Sa‘id and the drunkard who told him to leave him to God.

4643

The penitent’s forgiveness ought to be gratis.

4657

Nizam al-Mulk declares himself the friend of God’s friends.

4665

Soloman and the ant.

4674 4683

Abt Sa‘id and the masseur who showed him

the dirt from his body.

APPENDIX

II

The Risdlatu't-Tuyur, “The Birds’ Story”, of Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghaziali,

Offered in English from the Persian.* The godly Imam, Lord of the Saints, Pole of the Holy, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, God sanctify his precious spirit, said that, although the birds were many, and varied in character, form and song,

and each of them was drawn to a particular nest and individual dwellingplace, nevertheless, they all united and agreed that, “By all means do we need a monarch to whose court we might always resort and submit to him our wants”. Then they were unanimous that the regal crown and throne of a Padshah became no one more than the Simurgh. To Him were the conditions of sovereignty amenable. It was He upon whom sovereignty must be established for, “If we are to abide in the wilderness, we might fall into the enemy’s snare — Verily is for you Satan the enemy so regard him as an enemy' — and be afflicted by it, A city over which there is no ruler’s shadow

Take as ruined though it be not laid waste, and were the protection of a king’s panoply not over us, never may we be safe from the foe — Verily you have no dominion over My servants.”? Then they asked for news and sought His nesting-place. They questioned people who had reached the Presence. These related that the Simurgh’s nest was on the island of glory and in the city of greatness and honour. Being eager for the Presence made them of a single mind and resolution, and they fastened the torque of yearning round their necks and tied the girdle of longing round their waists, and shod themselves with the shoes of questing, and they all at once resolved to arise, that they might go to the King’s Throne, in order to gain the robe of honour and graze in the meadows of munificence and the gardens of His content-

ment. Flames of the fire of craving were leaping up from their hearts and with the tongue of seeking they were asking the way.

552

The Speech of the Birds I said, ‘Where, O beautiful friend, might I find you?’

She answered, ‘No longer entertain hope of union.” They having perched atop this fire, a herald made the proclamation, “Throw not yourselves to the slaughter, and hand not yourselves over to perdition.* Come not forth from your own nests, because if you put a foot outside the nest, the mill stone of disaster will be ground on your heads and your foot will slip into the cleft of pain. Now what for you is expedient is this, that you all stay at home”. When they heard this warning, their eagerness became the more and they turned restless and cried: But till for a darling’s sake my soul’s forfeited, I’ll not give up love even supposing I could. And they all averred, “For us there’s no escaping this enterprise. Until we perish, we’ll not turn back. Since distance from that face is not to be borne,

Not to turn away from that face is better. Since the cure for our sickness is in nought but service, and our desire for the cure is nought but natural, were we not to attain to that state of blessedness, the fear would be that we would lose our minds and be

confounded. Our honour and glory lie in servitude: The Messiah does not disdain to be God’s slave, nor do the Angels near Him.°

Like your tresses not one moment may I be at rest; May there be round my throat only the ring of your snare; So long as there’s the name and sign of love in the world, May I have no name other than ‘Your slave and lover’!”’ Then, when all together they ascended on the wing of zeal, the herald cried: “‘Safety’s in the nest. Keep the treasure of security and put not your foot into the limitless desert, for in ‘your road there are oceans of murderous calamity, the depth of which is unfathomable. And there are high mountains the height of which has no limit; and hot regions, and

The Speech of the Birds

553

cold regions. For this reason, many creatures have turned their backs on this servitude: they have feared the dangers of the way, for Verily We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, and they refused to bear it and they shirked it, and man bore it . . .°. Rely not on your own strength and know that there’s no loss greater than obeying the enemy; but it might be admissible that Death’s Decree waylays you — you, your goal unattained and not having seen the abode of the Friend.” When they heard this pronouncement, on the principle that Avid is man for what is forbidden, their eagerness increased. At once they became agitated. They became as if under compulsion and said: “We've pitched So with the fire On love a heart We’ve entered

the tent of being in love on the firmament, of non-existence we’ve torched possessions. set has for us become complete: the House of Idols and quaffed the juice of the

vine.”

Then each of them alighted upon the chimney stack’ of devoted zeal and out of love bit the bridle of going after Him. For Him they submitted to the discipline of ardent desire and stepped out onto the Way. They denied themselveds sense, repose and ease, and were saying: Whoever’s lost his heart can’t be in his senses;

Can’t be without lamentation and without loud cries;

In the agony of a heart lost and the pain of separation, It’s impossible any more to stay silent. Then they placed their feet in the desert of what God might choose

for them! till they reached the shore of the ocean of necessity. Some in that ocean

were

drowned,

and all those who

had made

themselves

acclimatized to hot regions, when they reached cold ones, they perished, and likewise perished whoever had made themselves habituated to cold regions,when they reached hot ones. Then when they came to the valley of greatness, the wind of fate arose and awesome lightning streaked the air, and a number of them were destroyed. Only a small group of

them was left, for Few among My servants are the thankful.’ And they

554

The Speech of the Birds

arrived at the island of the King and alighted at the portal of His glory, sending someone in so that the King received news of them, and the King was on the Throne of Power in the Castle of Greatness and Exaltedness. Then the King Simurgh commanded that they be interrogated as to with what intention they came. They answered, “We have come that you should be our king, for Thee do we serve and on Thee do we call for help.”'° The King Simurgh replied: “Say that We are King whether you say so or not, whether you acknowledge it or not. Of your service and obedience We have no need. Go back!” Thereupon they all fell into despair and were confounded, stupified, grief-stricken. They perceived no way of remaining where they were, and no way of returning whence they came. Their hearts were convulsed with agony. They said, “Now is the business dire.” This time my heart has no reprieve from love: This is the retribution of him who does not obey.

Now is my baggage weighed down with sorrow; A pain that in nowise accepts any cure. So all in that station were reduced to helplessness, and said: “To go back in hopelessness would be the act of a coward, and also, to go back with so much weakness and sickness that as a result of this long journey have over come us would be impossible. Let us once more send a message: maybe He’ll grant us access to His Presence.” They composed the message and said, “Although You have no need of our service, we are not without need of Your service and power and

sovereignty, and this is the portal of the needy — let us in to Your Presence. In love of You I bring my heart in fidelity, My breaches of faith confessed do I bring. Though You none of Your lordship offer,

We go on fulfilling our dues of servitude. We are the guests of Your munificence. We are the contented in Your kindly regard.”

The Speech of the Birds

555

The King’s word came back: “Arise and go to your hovel of sorrows, for here is the Presence of Magnificence and Greatness. Your eyes could no more bear the dazzling light of this epiphany than the eye of the bat can bear seeing the sun. You do not have the strength for Our Majesty. But when his Lord unveiled His glory to the mountain, He made it powder and Moses fell down thunderstruck”.''They answered: “This time it’s all over”, and for the nonce they together turned away forlorn, and became thunderstruck and drank of the bowl of disappointment. They donned the rags of bankruptcy and all consigned their hearts to Heaven’s decree and took their lives in their hands, because (as the saying goes) ‘There’s no rest like death’. Every night that I contend with sadness over you,

A little more of hope do I cast to the winds. Would that I might burn like the candle’s moth, That at last, when I’m burnt, I might escape from myself. Then, once their hopelessness was confirmed, a herald called out: “Do

not be without hope, and Despair not of the comfort of Allah. Verily none other than the tribe of unbelievers despair of Allah’s comfort.'* Though Our perfect independence of all and the excess of Our exaltedness are the cause of rejection, the perfection of Our munificence is the cause of acceptance and being brought near. And since you have realized the worthlessness of your worth and from Our door have turned away impotent, and become without hope, it befits Our generosity that we should bring you to alight in the mansion of magnanimity and the nest of delight, for it is to this door that the needy, the indigent, suppliants and the poor come. It is the abode of the poor and the home of the necessitous and the refuge of the friendless. For this reason was it that the Lord of the Greatest of All Declarations,'’ on him be peace,

said: ‘O God, let me live a humble man and let me die a humble man

and (on the Last Day) assemble me among the humble’. And whoever is truly a suppliant and humble is an intimate and companion for King Simurgh.” Then they all came in peace and quiet, alighting in the gardens of delight and putting on the garb of joy, and standing in attendance upon

the King, before Whose Throne they formed ranks. Then, when their

556

The Speech of the Birds

state was established and they were properly arranged and became the courtiers of the Padshah, they enquired about the comrades and the condition of the stragglers. They asked, “That crowd which perished in the desert, what’s become of them, for we want to see them and condole

with them?”

On account of the multitude of sighs grief for you has fetched from me, I fear that because of me satisfaction will turn to enemity. Ah the pity that through the pain of separation, O Darling of the World,

My heart’s become bloodied, but your heart’s unaware of me! “And that other party, the ones whom the waves of the ocean destroyed and whose fate it was to be dragged down by crocodiles, where are they that they may behold this proximity of ours and know what dignity we have found and to what degree we have attained.” In the hand there must be the tip of the friend’s tress, but there is

not. On the lips must be delicious wine, but there is not.

Since we have grasped the skirt of union with you,

Strength and gold there must be, but there is not. They were told, “They are in the Presence of the King — In a sure seat in the presence of a Mighty King'*— and they have found life in the Truth; Say not of him who has been slain in the way of God, he’s a dead man. Rather, he is alive with his Lord;'® He who issues from his home a migrant in the way of God and His Messenger, and death overtakes him, his ransom is then incumbent upon God.'® Even as Our Grace drew you hither once you placed your feet in the desert of perdition and scented the jasmin of the quest, so did the hand of Our benevolence raise them up and make them close to Our Presence. They are within the Presence of the Most Holy, and enfolded by the veil of omnipotence.” In the Way of Love there is no less nor greater: Fortune has no special kinship with anyone.

The Speech of the Birds

557

Why do you scorn the love-lorn? For this affair has no mastership or penury. They replied: “We have a great wish to see them. By which route may we reach them?” The answer came: “You’re still in the thrall of human nature and the manacle of doom, and panicky over things. Before the time when death comes, you’ll not be able to meet them. When from this thralldom you are clear and have flown the nest of evanescent form, then will you see each other and exchange visits with each other, for ‘The people are sleeping, but when they die, they wake up’; but so long as you are still in the cage of forms, the strings of fussy formalities round your feet, you will never reach them.”

When that verdant sweetheart saw my face pale, She said, “No more have any hope of union,

For you have become our opposite in appearance: You’ve the colour of Autumn and, we, the hues of Spring”. They said: “Of what sort is the ordering of the going back of this collection of people when they have halted because of friendlessness, bad luck, and sheer exhaustion from this servitude?” The reply came: “Alas, this is not on account of their infirmity. Rather, it is because of Our unfriendliness: if it had been Our will, the means of their coming would have been prepared; And if they wished to go forth they would have made some preparation, but Allah was averse to their being caused to go forth and held them back.’ Had We wished, We would have brought them near to Us, but We did not so wish. We drove them away. And moreover, even as you indulge in the supposition that you came of your own volition, and that your earning arose from your own selves, it is not so, but it is We who made you fancy you were filled with craving, and caused you to be restless, and We brought you near to Ourself, for We have carried them by land and by sea.'® When they heard this utterance from on high, they perceived Providence’s completeness, attained to the uttermost degree of Guidance, and turned firmly faithful to the grace and munificence of the King; the lords of the world did they become and masters of the Faith,

for In time you shall know its tidings.’

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The words, “We have come into the Presence of the King”, are correct

from people who from the beginning come to that Presence. But to those who might have flown the King’s nest and at the King’s call return there, as, O thou trustful soul, Return to thy Lord approving and approved,”° and they say, ““We’ve come back”, will “Why have you come? Go back” not be said? But let “Why have you been called? Why did the King raise you up and bring you?” be uttered, and, “This land is the land of the proximity, the very capital of the Power and the Glory”. The answer would be in accordance with the question, and the question measured by the strength to bear it, and the strength to bear it by the degree of devotional aspiration, and the devotional aspiration in proportion to the powers of attraction of the King: One pull of the enticements of God equals the action of men and genii.”! To whomsoever has not the stomach for understanding these words and these metaphysical subtleties say: “Renew your covenant and come forward like the birds and make the nesting of birds your lodging, and seek the peace of spiritual men that you may be endued with the attributes of Soloman. Learn the language of the birds, as We have been taught the speech of birds,” for “the tongue of birds the birds know”. Now renewing the covenant is to cleanse the inner of all defilement and depravaties, and it is washing away from the outer all uncleannesses and ritual impurities.’ After that, be observant of the times of prayer and, other than for mentioning God Almighty, deploy not the tongue, for creatures are either in the sleep of heedlessness or awake mindful. And if they are mindfully awake, they are the drawn up by God, for, So be you mindful ofMe, I will be mindful ofyou.** And if they are in the sleep of negligence, they are God’s cast-outs, because They have forgotten Allah so He has forgotten them,” themselves. Whoever has become awake and mindful has become the companion of the Sultan, for, I am the crony of he who remembers Me. But whoever has gone to sleep in heedlessness has become the intimate of Satan, for, And who tums a blind eye to the remembering of the Merciful One, to him shall We assign a devil, and he’ll be a companion for him.”° No mortal is free of these two characteristics in any condition and moment of a single state, and the sign becomes apparent in him. Sometimes this description is correct in respect of him: The miscreants will be known by their mark,’’ and sometimes this one: . . . the mark of them is on their faces from the effect ofprostration.”*®

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May God the Almighty confer Grace and grant Guidance to the straight road of Truth. The day when neither riches avail nor sons, except he who comes to Allah with a pure heart.” Finished is the Risdlatu’t-Tuytr by the help of God and His favour.

NOTES The original is in Majumeh-ye Asds-i Farsi-ye Ahimed-i Ghazzali (sic), ed. Ahmed Mujahid, Tehran University Publications and Press, No. 1717, 2nd

ed. pp. 77-82. Koran, XXXV,

6.

Koran, XLII, 23.

The inference is that which is ultimately a main argument of this document: it is not ‘I’ who finds; it is God, and His ‘finding’, of the servant

whom He has never lost — it is the servant who has lost the way to Him — is clinched when ‘T’s’ no longer obtrude themselves. But see also the discouraging proclamation to come: the rigours of the testing of the pilgrims’ resolution. Koran, II, 191. ) Koran, IV. 170: Koran,

XX XIII, 72.

The Persian NNO

is badgir, literally a tall wind vent on the roof of a house, designed to conduct cooling breezes down into the basement in which the occupants take refuge from intense summer heat. The bddiyeh-ye ikhtiydr, literally ‘desert of choice’, but see Hujwiri, Nicholson’s translation, The Kashf al-Mahjub, London 1936, page 388: what is signified is acceptance of God’s choice in preference to one’s own. [Cf. Paul’s Epistle II, Timothy, I:9.] Koran, XXXVI,

12.

Koran, I, 4. Koran, VII, 139. Koran, XII, 87.

I.e. the Prophet to whom was given the Revelation, the Koran. Koran, LIV, 55.

Cf. Koran II, 52. Koran IV, 100. Koran, IX, 46. See Koran, XVII, 72. Koran, XXXVIII, 88. The message of the Koran is alluded to.

Koran, LXXXIX, 27-28. Ath-thagalain, literally, the “two heavy ones”, but defined as “men and

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genii”. Here it might also be seen as obliquely referring to the ‘weight’ of the ‘strength to bear’ and ‘religious aspiration’. pee Koran, allusion pi) “Ritual 24 Koran, Z Koran, 26 Koran, 2a Koran, 28 Koran, 29 Koran,

XXVII, 16, words put into the mouth of Soloman, David’s heir, in to one of his celebrated attributes. impurities” in Islamic Law, “ahdath”, the word the author uses. II, 152. IX, 67. XLIII, 36. LV, 41. XLVIII, in verse 29. XXVI, 88-89.

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