O my Joy and my Desire and my Refuge,
My Friend and my Sustainer and my Goal,
Thou art my Intimate, and longing for Thee sustains me,
Were it not for Thee, O my Life and my Friend,
How I should have been distraught over the spaces of the earth,
How many favours have been bestowed, and how much hast Thou given me.
Of gifts and grace and assistance,
Thy love is now my desire and my bliss,
And has been revealed to the eye of my heart that was athirst,
I have none beside Thee, Who dost make the desert blossom,
Thou art my joy, firmly established within me,
If Thou art satisfied with me, then
O Desire of my heart, my happiness has appeared.
Translated by Margaret Smith1
Dear love
’tis less than I have vowed
but let me gather in
and bring all love from earth and sea and sky;
then
let us to its equaling
that love,
when death has ravished us,
encase our shroud.
Translated by Omar Pound2
Four things banish grief and care,
Four sweet things incline
Body and soul and eyne
To enjoy, if they be there:
Water, wine,
Gardens bright and faces fair.
Thou scolder of grape and me,
I ne’er shall win thy smile.
Because against thee I rebel
’Tis churlish to revile.
Ah, breathe no more the name of wine
Until thou cease to blame,
For fear that thy foul tongue should smirch
Its fair and lovely name!
Come, pour it out, ye gentle boys,
A vintage ten years old,
That seems as though ’twere in the cup
A lake of liquid gold
And when the water mingles there,
To fancy’s eye are set
Pearls over shining pearls close strung
As in a carcanet.
Translated by R. A. Nicholson3
She seemed so bored,
I wanted to embrace her by surprise;
But then the scalding waters
Fell from her eyes and burnt her roses.
I offered her a cup…
And came to paradise…
Ah, sorrow,
When she rose from the waves of wine
I thought she would have killed me
With the swords of her desolation…
Especially as I had tied her girdle
With the wrong bow.
Translated by Powys Mathers4
Hurry, for the beergardens are blooming.
The war still a hill away. Earth
With all its aviary is sitting
In amity with the natural voices.
They sing, till your veins are strings
And a friction begins like recovery.
The soil has come into flower, and wine
(From the bed where an intact leek
And a Roman endlessly reproduce her)
Looks out. If you catch the instant
You will see her nodding.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah5
Thus by the camel he loves
Upon which is a fine rider
Shaded the brows of the eyes
The collar of his shirt torn
When she crossed the soft sand
Vehemence shone in his eye
She chafed the ostrich mother
When a cold shower hit her
She goes to her eggs in the desert
In whose hollow is the chick
And by a hand forbidden in mixing
The wine whose light flames
So when it joins the explosion
It is like the foamy pearls
He poured it gloriously, pure
Princes and bold ones grew it
By a basin of a peopled mosque
How wide and well supported
Its roof does not encompass it
A mountain alone conceals it
And the camp of Banu Abu Sufyan
Where the numbers gather
Where the crowds are at home
And the abodes prepared
The camps of warriors where
The torrents flow furiously
To houses which are settled in
Their grief for my soul’s one
Sweetest to the eye bekohled
Whose eye opthalmia circles
Going to her desert and herds
Returning from her folk
And all struck dead by parting
As the youth bends his neck
A poet, when he flashes
A smile, the cold appears
When we arise we pray that
None of us parts from other
I move him when they arise
And touch him when they sit
The merciful Caliph is not just
To me when they are praying
And where is Mirbad the ruined
As described and Jalad
And its trench for the mosque
Was glorious as was Naḍad
And the camel mart where one
Drove galloping horses
A place where denying grief
Was not lacking to me
Some Arabs stripped the place
Where its sun rose high
When I said: How is life?
He said: a thick bore
May Allah forbid moderation
Even if a land shelters them.
Translated by Arthur Wormhoudt6
Live securely, as you wish;
the palace heights are safe enough.
With pleasures flooding day and night,
the smooth proves sweeter than the rough.
But when your breath begins to clog
in sharp contractions of your lungs,
then know for certain, my dear sire,
your life was vain as idle tongues.
Translated by James Kritzeck7
Surely shall Fate disjoint the proudest nose,
All wears away by movement and repose.
In long experience if wisdom be,
Less than my portion is enough for me.
Eager I take the hopes my soul inspires;
False are these hopes and vain are these desires.
That my hereafter I neglect is clear,
Since I am pleased and happy with things here.
O thou that gloriest in thy worldly state,
Mud piled on mud will never make thee great.
Nay, wouldst thou see the noblest man of all,
Look at a monarch in a beggar’s pall!
To him great honour by folk is given,
’Tis he knows how to live on earth for Heaven.
Translate by R. A. Nicholson8
Virtue cast an eye at me coming, and cried.
I swore I was fasting, he laughed till he died.
He leaned on his elbows by the seaside
And talked to himself and the fish and the tide.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah9
I recall the campsite at ‘Arafah and shed tears at ‘Abarah.
The schools where the Qur’an is taught, [there] its recital is no longer; the abodes of Revelation are as vacant courts.
[Oh, how I wish] for the Family of the Prophet of God at al-Khaif at Minā, at the corner of the Ka’bah, at the sacrifice at ‘Arafah, and the heaps [at ‘Arafah];
[For] the abodes of ‘Alī, Husain, Ja’far, Hamzah, and the Worshipper whose knees are calloused—
Abodes effaced by the damage of injustices, not by days and years.
Stop. Let us ask the house, whose people are few, when is the time for fasting and prayer?
Where are they whom distant journeys have estranged from their abode and who have become disordered and dispersed in the lands?
When they trace their lineage, they are the heirs of the Prophet. They are the best leaders and protectors,
Whereas [other] people are envious, liars, hate one another, and are possessed of rancour and revenge.
When they remember those slain at Badr, Khaibar, and Hunain, they shed tears.
The graves at Kufāh, Taibah, and Fakhkh, my prayers reach them!
Others are [buried] in Juzājān, and there is a tomb at Būkhamrā near al-Ghurbah.
In Baghdād is a tomb for a Pure Soul. May God include him in Paradise!
As for these deaf ones, their intrinsic qualities defy my powers of description;
They await the Ressurection, when God will send a Restorer who will scatter their grief and cares.
Souls at the two rivers of Karbalā, whose [final] abode is by the bank of the Euphrates,
The vicissitudes of Time have dispersed them [and], as you see, they have a dust color and are covered with stones.
There is a band of them in Madīnah, who are forever emaciated from need;
Who have few visitors except the male hyena, the eagle, and the vulture;
They are forever asleep in their various beds in the regions of the earth.
They who formerly were the raiders and chosen leaders of the Hijāz and its people,
The distress of years has overtaken their neighborhood, so that a party of horsemen no longer warm themselves at their fires.
When they joined battle, their spears flashed in the sun—pokers of the coals of death and woe.
If one day they boasted, they brought forth Muhammad, Gabriel, and the Furqān, the possessor of the Sūras.
[Beware of] cursing the Family of the Prophet, for, as long as I live, they are my beloved and the people of my trust.
I choose them as guides for my affairs, for they are the best in all situations.
O God, add clear vision to my firm belief; add the love of them to my other good qualities.
I swear that you, young and old, are [ever ready] to free slaves and to pay the bloodwit.
I love my remotest relation out of love for you, and I avoid for your sake my kin and daughters.
Fearing an enemy, who opposes those alive of the Family of Truth, I hid my love of you.
Time has surrounded me with evil, and I hope for security after death.
Do you not see me go forth for thirty years, eve and morn, continuously sad?
I see booty divided amongst others; their hands are empty thereof.
The bodies of the Family of the Prophet are lean; the necks of the family of Ziyād are distended [with food].
The daughters of Ziyād live in palaces; the family of the Messenger of God lives in the desert.
When they suffer injury, they stretch out to their oppressors hands afflicted with past injuries.
Were it not for him, who I hope will come today or tomorrow, my sighing for them would cut my heart.
No doubt an Imām is coming—and Imām who will govern according to the name of God and the Blessings.
He will distinguish those false and true among us; he will requite with favors and revenge.
I will restrain my heart from opposing [your enemies], for what I have met of tears suffices me.
O my soul, delight! O my soul, rejoice! for what cometh is not remote.
If God will delay the time of my death and will bring this event within my lifespan,
I will recover without damage to my heart, and I will let my lance and sword water in my enemies.
I wish to transfer the sun from her fixed abode and to cause the hard, bare stones to listen.
[However,] many are those who know and do not benefit; many are those who are obstinate and incline to their passions and doubts.
My end is that I will die with grief for them—[a grief] which reverberates in my throat.
[And] it is as though you saw my ribs become narrow with the intensity of [my] sighing.
Translated by Leon Zolondek10
In the name of God the merciful the compassionate. We shall begin, in the name and by the help of God, with some sayings of the devotees concerning asceticism and with some mention of their characteristics and their exhortations.
‘Auf said on the authority of Hasan: “The feet of a son of Adam will not stir (from the place of Judgment) until he be asked of three things—his youth, how he wore it away; his life, how he passed it; and his wealth, whence he got it and on what he spent it.”
Yúnus son of ‘Ubaid said: “I heard three sayings more wonderful than any I have ever heard. The first is the saying of Ḥassán son of Abú Sinán—‘Nothing is easier than abstinence from things unlawful: if aught make thee doubt, leave it alone.’ The second is the saying of Ibn Sírin—‘I have never envied any one thing.’ The third is the saying of Muwarriḳ al-‘Ijlí—‘Forty years ago I asked of God a boon which He has not granted, and I have not despaired of obtaining it.’ They said to Muwarriḳ, ‘What is it?’ He replied, ‘Not to meddle with that which does not concern me.’”
Ziyád, the slave of ‘Aiyásh son of Abú Rabí’a, said, “I am more afraid of being hindered from prayer than of being denied an answer to my prayer.”
Some people said to Rábi’a of (the tribe) Ḳais: “We might speak to the men of thy family and they would purchase for thee a maid-servant who would relieve thee of the care of thy house.” “By God,” said she, “I am ashamed to beg aught of this world from Him who is the lord of it all: how, then, should I beg it from one who is not the lord of it?”
A certain ascetic said: “Your dwellings are before you, and your life is after your death.”
And Samuel son of ‘Ádiyá, the Jew, said in verse:
“Being dead, I was created, and before that I was not anything that dies; but I died when I came to life.”
Ḥassan son of Dínár said: “Ḥasan (of Baṣra) saw a man in his death-struggle. ‘Surely,’ he exclaimed, ‘a thing of which this is the end ought not to be desired at the first and ought to be feared at the last.’”
Mujálid son of Sa’íd gives the authority of Sha’bí for the following words spoken by Murra of Hamdán. Mujálid relates that he had himself seen Murra, and that according to Ismá’íl son of Abú Khálid, who told Mujálid that he had never seen the like of him, Murra used to perform prayers of five hundred bowings in a day and a night. Murra would often say: “When (the Caliph) ‘Uthmán—may God be well pleased with him!—was killed, I thanked God that I had taken no part in those wars, and I added two hundred bowings. Then after the battle of Nahrawán, at which I was not present, I thanked God and added a hundred bowings; and when the rebellion of Ibn Zubair took place, I thanked God for the same reason and added a hundred more.” Now, I ask God to forgive Murra, notwithstanding that we perceive no justification for some of his words, for you will not find amongst orthodox Moslems a single jurist who denies that it is lawful to fight the Khárijites, even as we do not find any of them denying that it is lawful to fight robbers.
‘Umar son of ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz was questioned concerning those who murdered ‘Uthmán and those who deserted him and those who defended him. He answered, “God withheld my hand from that bloodshed, and I prefer not to dip my tongue in it.”
Abu’l-Dardá came to visit a sick man and said, “How do you find yourself?” “I am in fear of death.” “From whom have you obtained all good?” “From God.” “Why, then, are you afraid of Him from whom alone you have obtained all good?” And when Abraham was cast into the fire, Gabriel (on whom be peace!) said to him, “Dost thou want anything, O Friend of Allah?” “From thee, nothing,” he replied.
It has been related to me that ‘Umar son of Khaṭṭáb (may God be well pleased with him!) said: “O people, there came over me a time when I was thinking that those who recite the Qur’an sought thereby only Allah and what is His to give. But now meseems that some of you recite the Qur’an, seeking thereby what is with men. Oh, seek Allah by your recitation and seek Him by your works! Well did we know you when the Revelation was coming down and when the Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace!—was in the midst of us; but the Revelation hath ceased and the Prophet is gone, and now I know you only by that which I say unto you. Look you, whosoever showeth to us good, we will think good of him and praise him for it; and whosoever showeth to us ill, we will think ill of him and hate him for it. Restrain ye these souls from their lusts, for they are eager in desire, and if ye restrain them not, they will speed you to the most evil end. Verily this Truth is weighty and wholesome, and verily falsehood is light and unhealthy. To abandon sin is better than to strive after repentance. Many a time hath one glance sown the seed of a lust, and the lust of a moment hath left a long grief behind.”
Abú Ḥázim the Lame said: “I have found worldly wealth to be two things. One of these is due to me, but I shall never receive it in advance of its appointed term, not though I should demand it with all the might of the heavens and the earth. The other is not due to me: I have not obtained it in the past nor shall I obtain it in the future. What is due to me is withheld from others, just as what is due to others is withheld from me. For which of these twain’s sake, then shall I waste my life and bring my soul to perdition?”
Said Jesus son of Mary—the blessings of God be on our Prophet and on him!—“Verily the friends of God have no fear nor do they grieve. They are those who looked to the reality of this life when others looked to its appearance, and to the state hereafter that abideth, when others looked to the life that fleeteth away. They made to die thereof that which they feared would make their spirits die, and they abandoned thereof that which they knew would abandon them.”
And seeing him go forth from the house of a harlot, they said, “O Spirit of God, what doest thou here?” Jesus answered, “The physician comes only to the sick.”
And he passed by some people and they reviled him. Then he passed by others and they reviled him. And the more they spake evil, the more he spake good. A man of the disciples said to him, “The more they do thee evil, the more thou doest them good: it is as though thou wert setting them on against thee and inciting them to revile thee.” Jesus said, “Every man gives of that which he hath not.”
Translated by R. A. Nicholson11
After the Victory at ‘Amuriyya
The sword is a better reporter than books
Follow the meteors of lances at war
They drive beyond the seven planets
And further than fables and the perjured
Ornaments of heaven, and sciences
Heady as pine and slight as willow.
The librarian mutters of two months
That stare like crows, of a tailing star at dusk,
Of steady and turned bodies, of poles
And orbits and spaces, mineral gods
By which he disposes his estates,
A heathen in a gown.
Conquest of conquests, outside embrace of language
The day of ‘Amuriyya was rich with bags of milk
Islam drove the confounders of faith down the slopes
It was worth the sacrifice of many mothers.
The forelocks of nights had whitened since Alexander
But she was unwrinkled, and no hand had divided
Her virginity. The kings of Anatolia
Had never forced her. The years shook her niggardly
Like old women churning a fine foam
On the pail and spilling nothing.
But a dazzle,
And affliction was on her. First Ankara
Fell, and the squares were empty, the public places
Mournful as monuments. Then the plague came
Through the fields and through the family.
The best men dropped between the walls, their hair
Hot and scarlet, but not for orthodoxy
Not with the Prophet’s henna.
The Prince of Believers sold rock and wood
To fire. He departed at midnight
In a forenoon of flame, and one sun
Rose livid as the other died, utterly
Pure of light, except where smoke made haggard
The fringes, trying the private dark.
Time cleared like cloud
The day broiled
Obligation was appeased
Trophies were abundant
Near husbands fallen early
New grooms couched that night.
Vestiges of camps, their pasture plucked,
Where the ballad lovers encouraged their griefs
Were greener than all we left. We liked
Those sores better than the crimson and shamed
Cheeks of girls we took, and the befouled steppe
Better than the vineyards down south.
You feed on victory, Prince, your sword
Drags souls from coverts, your commissars
Fit your armies for many fronts.
God has hurled you on two cities:
Whose marshals said, “No grass will be cropped
By these stray nomads, no roses round here.”
They fêted on hope till the antlers of swords
Locked, and swung the frustrating vessels
Of water and bush with death.
A girl in Zibatræa was taken by the Greeks.
As they rent her she shrieked your name.
You heard her beyond the two torrents, and you
Dashed your cup on the marble, and spat out
The saliva of sweet women. The free cities
Crying for help brought even in a summer
Unemployment to cold trickling mouths
And sent you among the fair people
With a sword of fair play and the fare of death to them
And glory to the Arab faces.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah12
Bodies of water like horses
Breaking from the starter’s rope
Hit the bath with a white
Roll of fluid ingots. Wind
Warms overhead creasing it.
The sun doubles it grimacing
Like an uncle. The rain adds
Gum and sorrow to the flow.
But at night the stars descend
In silent order, and you see
The cosmos standing on its hands.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah13
When I had become aware of the wide-spread decrease, and disappearance of learning, of Government being too busy to set up a market for Adab, so that it became effaced and erased, I took it upon myself to compose a book on knowledge and on the rectification of tongue and hand for the benefit of those of the scribes whose education was scanty: a book through which I reached my soul’s desire for them, and my heart’s ease, and in which I registered for their sake all that God had presented me with for the day of victory. But I impose upon them the condition not only to study it, but also to learn by heart the original sources of the sayings, so as to introduce them as similes into the spaces between their lines when they write, and to make use of their beautiful conceits and elegant expressions when they speak. After having undertaken to look after part of their equipment, zeal called me to satisfy their wants, for I was afraid lest, if I left them to themselves for the remaining needs and trusted them to select it, their perseverance might not last against neglect and out of weakness they might not find their riding beasts easy so that they might turn away from the end, as they had turned away from the beginning; or lest they might attempt this with weakness of purpose and languidness of application so that weakness of natural disposition and disgust at inconvenience might overpower them. Therefore I finished for them what I had begun and coated with plaster the building of which I had laid the foundations; and I behaved towards them like one who acts kindly towards him he loves, rather like a tender father towards a son who shows filial piety. But I shall be satisfied with their casual thanks, relying upon God for reward and remuneration.
This book, although not dealing with Qur’án or Sunna, the religious law or the knowledge of what is lawful and what is forbidden, yet leads on to the heights of things and shows the way to noble character; it restrains from baseness, turns away from ugly things, incites to right conduct and fair management, to mild administration and to rendering the land prosperous. For the way to Allâh is not one nor is all that is good confined to nightprayers and continued fasting and the knowledge of the lawful and the forbidden. On the contrary, the ways to Him are many and the doors of the good are wide; and the soundness of religion depends on the soundness of time and the soundness of time on the soundness of government, whilst the soundness of government depends—beside the help of Allâh—on leading aright and providing proper understanding.
I have arranged these ‘Uyûn al-Akhbār as an eye-opening for those whose upbringing is scanty, as a reminder for the learned, as an education for the leaders of men and those whom they lead, as a place for the kings to rest from the toil of endeavor and weariness. I have classified it into chapters and connected one chapter with one that is like it, one narrative with one that resembles it, one word with its sister; so that he who studies may find it easy to learn, and he who reads remember it, and he who is in search for something may turn to it. Through it the minds of the learned are impregnated, the thoughts of the wise are assisted in being brought forth; it contains the fresh butter of pure milk, the ornament of culture, the fruits of prolonged thought, the choicest words for the eloquent, the intelligence of poets, the lifestory of kings, the traditions of preceding generations. I have collected for you a great deal in this book of all this, that you may train your soul with the best of it, that you may straighten it with its thiqâf, free it from its bad qualities, as you would free the white silver from its dross; and drill it to accept good behavior, upright mode of life, noble culture and grand character, as taught in it. Let it enter your speech when you hold a conference, and your eloquent style when you write; with its help you will succeed in what you ask for, you will use beautiful words in intercession, and escape blame by means of the best excuses, when you apologize. For words are the pitfalls of hearts, and lawful sorcery. Make use of its culture in the company of your ruler, and in setting aright administration, in making his policy mild, and in managing his war. Enliven your company through it, whether in earnest or in joke, render your proofs obvious with the help of its similes, humiliate your adversary by taking them into account so that truth may manifest itself in the most beautiful shape and that you reach your aim with the lightest of provision and gain your goal calmly; and that you may overtake the tracked beast, bending part of your rein and walking gently and come in first. All this, provided your natural disposition be compliant, your temper ready and your feeling tractable; should this not be the case, those whose intelligence points out to them the defects of their patience and reflection; who put the remedies of this book on the illness of their natural disposition, drench their soul with its (the book’s) water and strike fire from it through its lights, will find this book able to restore the sick and sharpen the blunt and arouse the drowsy and awake the slumbering; until with the help of Allâh even they come near the ranks of those that are gifted by nature.
I did not think it right for this book of mine to be a bequest for those who pursue this world, as opposed to those who pursue the next world; nor the chiefs, as opposed to the masses, nor to the kings as opposed to the subjects. On the contrary, I have given every one of these parties their share and made their part copious. And I have included in the book new examples from the beautiful sayings of the ascetics about the world and its misfortunes, and decay and death; sayings that they quote to each other, whenever they assemble, and which they introduce into their correspondence, when they are separated one from another; sermons and sayings about asceticism, self-restraint, fear of God, certainty of belief and the like of these. Perhaps Allâh will lead back through them those who turn aside, bend towards repentance those who deviate, restrain those who act wrongly, and soften through their delicacies the hardness of hearts. But with all this I did not deprive the book of strange curiosities, witty and sagacious sayings, words that please and others that make laugh; lest there should be omitted from the book any of the roads that travelers have traveled or any way of speech to which speakers have had recourse; and in order to give rest to the reader from the toil of seriousness and the tiring effect of truth for “the ear is wont to reject, while the mind has eager desire” (for what it deems elegant). For if a joke is suitable or almost so, and fitting in with its time and the conditions that bring it forth, it is not bad nor to be disapproved of, belonging neither to the big nor even the small sins, if God will. Therefore, this our book will take you in the end to the chapter on jests and merriment and to such of them as have been handed down from Sharifs and Imâms. If then you, who show a grave mien, come across a saying you hold in light esteem or you find good or you admire or you laugh at, know our method and our mention. Remember also that if you, in your asceticism, can dispense with it, there are others, easygoing in those things in which you exert yourself, who may want it. The book has not been composed for you to the exclusion of others and could not therefore have been arranged according to your outward predilections. Had it been influence by the fear of those that don grave miens, half of its beauty would have gone and half of its juice, and those would have turned away from it whom we should love to turn towards it along with you.
Abú Muhammad said: I wrote a letter to one of the rulers and in one part of it I said: The resolute men have always found sweet the bitter words of the sincere, they have always wished to be guided aright in their faults and to inquire after the right judgment from everybody down to the foolish maidservant. Whilst there are those who are in need of proving the love they claim for him and the purity of their intention, Allâh has made this unnecessary for me through that which compulsion has rendered obligatory; since I have always been hoping for an increase of my present state from the lasting of your privilege and the rising of your scale and the unfolding of your high rank and power.
And in another passage I wrote: In this letter I have taken upon myself a certain amount of blame, and have acted contrary to my own knowledge by offering my judgment without having been asked for advice, and have put myself in the place of the special officers without having been placed there. But my soul burning with anger and feeling uneasy at what it heard, dragged me away from a path right for it, to one right for you, when I saw the tongue of your enemy unfolding itself with its charges against you and its arrows piercing you; whilst I was your friend incapable of arguing since he did not find an excuse, and whilst I saw the common people engage in all kinds of talk regarding you. For there is nothing more harmful for the ruler in some cases nor more useful to him in others, than they; for horsemen carry along what Allâh makes run down their tongues and stories remain and remembrance holds out against time and the ends prevail and news which has become manifest has more weight in their eyes, than the testimony of trustworthy witnesses.
And again in another passage: He who leads people and manages their affairs is in need of a wide chest and he must gird himself with patience and bear up with the want of culture of the common people; he must make the ignorant understand and satisfy the man against whom the decision has gone and who has been denied his request by pointing out whence he has been denied it; for since people are not universally satisfied, even if all the causes of satisfaction have been put together for their benefit, much less will they be satisfied if some have been withheld from them. And they do not accept obvious excuses, even less dubious ones. And your brother is he who tells you the truth and is grieved for you, not he who follows you in your passion and afterwards disappears from you without bringing you near.
Ziyâd said to a man who consulted him: All those who ask for advice have confidence and every secret has its depository. But there are two things in men that cripple them in their efforts; the squandering of secrets and the venting of advice. There is no room for a secret except in one of two men; the man of Future Life who hopes for God’s reward or the man of this world who has nobility in his soul and an intelligence with which to preserve his rank; and I have tested both of them for you.
One of the scribes wrote: Know that he gives you good advice and is anxious for you, who examines for you with his sight the things behind the ends and who shows you the likeness of the things of which you are afraid; who mixes for you the rough and the smooth in his speech and his advice, in order that your fear may equal your hope and your gratitude correspond with the benefit bestowed on you. And know further that he cheats you and instigates others against you, who helps your being seduced, who levels for you the smooth ground of oppression, who runs with you in your bridle obedient to your passion.
And in a passage: If I am suspect in your eyes at present, you will find on reflecting on the various sides of this advice things that will show you that it issued from truth and sincerity.
Ibrâhîm ibn al-Mundhir said: Ziyâd ibn ‘Ubeydallâh al-Ḥārithi asked ‘Ubeydallâh ibn ‘Umar about his brother Abû Bakr as to whether to appoint him a judge, and he advised him to do it. But when he sent to Abû Bakr he refused, whereupon Ziyâd send for ‘Ubeydallâh asking him to help him against Abû Bakr. Abû Bakr said to ‘Ubeydallâh: “I beseech you by God, do you think it right for me to take charge of the judgeship?” He said, “By God, no.” Whereupon Ziyâd said: “God is far from such imperfection! I asked your advice and you advised me to appoint him and now I hear you forbidding him!” He said: “O Amîr, you asked my advice, so I exerted my judgment for your benefit and gave you my sincere advice, now he asked my advice, so I exerted my judgment for his benefit and gave him my sincere advice.”
Naṣr ibn Mâlik was at the head of Abû Muslim’s police. When Abû Muslim received Abû Ja’far’s leave to come to see him he asked Naṣr’s advice and he told him not to go and said: “I do not trust him with regard to you.” Abû Ja’far said to him, when he came to him: “Did Abû Muslim ask your advice with regard to coming to see me and did you forbid him?” “Yes.” “How is this?” “I heard your brother Ibrâhim the Imâm quote in the name of his father Muhammad ibn ‘Alî: ‘Men will go on receiving an increase in their judgment, as long as they give sincere advice to those who ask for their advice.’ So I behaved to him accordingly, and now I behave toward you as I did toward him.”
Mu’āwiya said: “I used to meet an Arab of whom I knew that there was in his heart hatred against me and I used to ask his advice, whereupon he would stir up his hatred against me in the measure he felt it in his soul. While he went on to overwhelm me with insult, I overwhelmed him with forbearance until he turned into a friend whom I asked for help and who gave it, and whom I asked for assistance and who answered my call.”
Translated by Josef Horovitz14
Mild-handed, dandified, cerebral, arcane,
Typhooning the giants, putting the shrewd on pins
With schemes finer than the composition of winds,
Your record wrecks your man before the game.
Closer than lovers whom on indiscretion
Cautioned to dumbness, you evolve machines
And file them for the tactical moment in
Your cabinet of swift assassination.
You play with your opponents’ souls for pieces.
The red board is awash with white blood. You move
Like extinction through the shanks, ennui through love,
Strokes through silence at chosen sacrifices.
Like grey hair under the night of youth advancing
On unspoiled cheeks you progress. You distil
A foreign bubble in a misty cell
To make the serum of the seven adventures.
Unnatural organs at your centre function
And so control your poise of hand, that though
Your eyes in the gallery, you throw
The king and all his knights into confusion.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah15
He dyes
his white hair black
in part,
believing some
will think him wise
and others
young.
Translated by Omar Pound16
Think otherwise of me, for it is wrong
To scowl because my praises are so long.
As there lay very little in the well,
I could not use a shorter rope of song.
Translated by Henry Baerlein17
The Messenger of God and his companions had given order that the attack was not to begin before he released a signal, and until then the enemy was to be prevented from advancing by a screen of arrows. And the Prophet took up his station, Abu Bakr beside him, in a wooden structure from which he could observe the battle.
According to Abu Ga’far, the battle of Badr was fought on a Friday, the seventeenth of Ramadan. The Messenger of God drew up his supporters in files, moving backwards and forwards with a baton in his hand to marshal them. As he passed Sawad Ibn Ghaziyya, he found him out of line, and saying “Get into place, Sawad,” thrust the baton into his belly. He answered, “Messenger of God, you have hurt me. God sent you to be the truth, and you should rather lead me.” Then the Prophet of God uncovered his stomach and said, “Be led”; whereupon Sawad threw his arms about him and kissed him. “What made you do that, Sawad?” he asked. “Messenger of God,” he said, “I saw these great hurts and was not sure I should live; and if this was my last moment with you, I wanted my flesh to touch yours.” The Messenger of God wished him well and returning to the scaffolding went up to the platform; and Abu Bakr was with him.
The Messenger of God scrutinized the polytheists and their armament, and compared his own forces, which numbered not more than three hundred. He turned and faced the holy way and prayed to God asking Him to fulfil His promises; warning Him that if the congregation of believers was destroyed it would be an end of His worship on earth. He prayed unremittingly till his garment dropped off; and Abu Bakr, taking it and throwing about him again, said, “Prophet of God, you have invoked your Lord enough. He will surely make good His promises to you.” On the instant God inspired His Messenger with the verse “If you summon your Lord He will reply ‘I am your reinforcement with a thousand angels mounted on horses’.”
Then the vision was over, and he told Abu Bakr, “God’s victory is at hand. I see Gabriel with us holding the reins of his horse, leading it over the rim of the pits.” At that moment Maghi’, the slave of ‘Omar Ibn Khattab, was hit by an arrow and killed, and became Islam’s first martyr. He was followed by Haritha Ibn Suraqa of the tribe of Beni ‘Adi ibn Nagar who was killed as he drank at the well. The Messenger of God went out to the men to encourage them and stir them. “By Him who holds the soul of Mohammed in His hands,” he said, “each of you that fights and dies, patient, hungry, attacking, never falling back, God admits that man to Paradise.” ‘Umar Ibn il Hamam, who was eating a few dates he had been carrying, looked up and asked, “Is the only barrier between Paradise and me death at their hands?” And he tossed the dates aside, took his sword, and went and fought the enemy till he died—singing
Running to God without arrows
But love and promise and patience
For all runs out like arrows
But love of God and guidance.
And Ibn ‘Afra’ asked the Prophet, “Messenger of God, what would make the Lord smile in the face of His slave?” He answered, “If he dipped his hand in the enemy, naked.” At this Ibn ‘Afra’ slung down the shield he was holding, and went in and fought the enemy till he died.
The Messenger of God picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them at the opposing Quraish, and said, “Their faces are mutilated.” Then he turned to his supporters and told them to charge. God slew adversaries and made them victims in great numbers, and it was defeat for the Quraish.
Among those who came to guard the Prophet of God and prevent the enemy reaching his platform, was Sa’ad Ibn Ma’az; and the Prophet saw him standing at the foot of the scaffolding his face creased from repugnance of the work the army was doing.—“As if you hated our men’s doing,” he said. “Yes,” Sa’ad said. “Yes, Prophet of God, this is the first time God has fallen on the polytheists, and the frenzy of the blow of battle is stranger that the way of taking prisoners.”
The Prophet of God said that day to his companions, “I understand that the Beni Hisham have been pressed unwillingly into battle against us. Let our men spare any of them they meet. And Abu al Bukhturi Ibn Hisham should be spared, and so should my uncle ‘Abdul Mutallib if anyone comes across him.” Now Mugadar Beni Zayad found himself confronting al Bukhturi, who had with him a friend from Mecca, Ganada Ibn Tabha. Being told “The Prophet of God has forbidden your death,” al Bukhturi asked Mugadar, “What about my friend here?” Mugadar answered, “In God’s name no. Your friend shall not survive. The Prophet of God only ordered us to spare you.” “Then, by God,” said al Bukhturi, “We will die together. The women of the Quraish shall never say of me that love of life made me leave a friend to his fate.” And he raised his sword for the fight, reciting:
The good son keeps his laurel crown
Until he cuts a way or is cut down.
And they fought till Mugadar killed him.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah18
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Praise belongs to God, Who has made clear with manifest demonstration, to the people of gnosis and revelation, what special favours He bestowed upon them, in pre-eternal eternity, before “before” came into being, when there was neither “when” nor “where” nor “how” nor “there”, and when there was neither “not-when” nor “not-where” nor “not-how” nor “not-there”, by making them worthy of His unification, and the separation of His isolation, who had passed away from the pretence of attaining His limitation. For they were chosen for Himself, and made under His eye, and on them He cast a love from Him and of Him: “and I chose thee for Myself” and “that thou mayst be made under My eye”, “and I cast on thee a love from Myself”.
Now one of the qualities of those whom God has fashioned for Himself, making them under His eye, and casting on them His love from Himself and of Himself, is this: that their knowledge stays not fixed in one place, nor does their intellect accord with a fixation of a certain intelligence, nor is their resolve directed towards the accomplishment of a single purpose. These are they who are transported by gnosis whither knowledge never transported them—to an infinite aim. Intellects would shrink, minds perish, gnosis be constricted, times pass away, bewilderment would wander in bewilderment, at the description of the first step taken to accord with the quality of a locus for a love, because of the various degrees of knowledge, appointed by God for them through Himself and of Himself, which continued passing over them. For ah! that, which is His, is His through Him being with Him: “whither then will ye depart?” Hast thou not heard of the knowledge of His folding up what He Himself displayed, and His revealing what He himself concealed? Of how He chose whom He chose to receive the secret of His revelation? “He revealed unto His servant what He revealed; the heart belied not what he saw” “at the highest horizon”. He testified to him that he was His servant alone; therefore God did not use him jealously, because of any secret yearning for a desire, or a covert gratification of a lust, or a commerce with a glance, or traffick with a thought: he did not stake a claim by utterance, nor outstrip the just claimants by a spoken word, neither did he for a single instant consider any personal advantage. “He revealed unto him” then “what He revealed”—He made his intellect ready for that which He bestowed on him when He took him to Himself, and chose him for a certain matter, laying on him “what burden he has to bear”, and he bore it. “He revealed unto him” then “what He revealed— at the highest horizon”: for space was too narrow, and created things shrank, before suffering the revelation that was made to him to pass through them or over them, save “at the highest horizon”, “when there covered the lote-tree, what did cover it”—a glance, from the majesty of His glance, which has no object of glance, falling upon the lote-tree, when there covered it what did cover it, and it withstood that which did cover it.
Consider also the mountain, when “He revealed Himself” to it; “He made it dust, and Moses fell swooning, and when he recovered, he said, Glory be to Thee! I have turned unto Thee”—that is, I return to ask of Thee the vision: after experiencing this station, in spite of knowing how enormous his petition was, and despite the fact that, had knowledge met with reality in the time of asking, words would not have been permissible or appropriate. Now in this station there is a knowledge which may not be inscribed, and which it is not appropriate to put in writing.
Consider also how God relates concerning His Beloved: “and he saw him yet another time, at the lote-tree of the utmost boundary.” The word “at” here does not imply place: it only implies the moment of revealing the knowledge of the “moment”. Consider then the excellence of the two moments, and the variety of the two places, and how the two stations differed, the one being on high, and the other below. So excel the intellects of the Gnostics who believe. Some of them can utter intimate converse, being aware of how near He is Who converses with them and draws them unto Him: whether they be on high or below, the knowledge of the fact does not veil them. Others are not able to do this: with them God makes secondary causes a means to understanding, so that through these they are able to understand when God addresses them, and answer Him. Do not pause at God’s saying, “and no man is permitted that God may speak with him, save it be by revelation, or from behind a veil, or that He sendeth a messenger, to reveal by His leave what He wills.” These are matters too vast for narrow knowledge to comprehend, except a man consult with those who enjoy neighbourhood, or occupy himself with knowledge of the winding ways that lead to the sciences of the elect, who are solitary even from their solitudes, and are free from all their desires. For a barrier has been set between them and the objects of their lusts: swept along by the winds of understanding, they were brought down to the seas of wisdom, whence they draw the pure water of life. They fear no mischief thereof, no visitation, they expect, neither are they avid to seek the attainment of any end: nay rather, ends are for them beginnings. What in other men is hidden, in that they are manifest, and they are hidden in that in which other men are manifest. They are the trustees of God’s revelation, the preservers of His secret, performing His command, speaking of His truth, acting in obedience to Him. They vie with one another in good works, hastening beforehand to perform them: in the very beginning of their course they preserved excellent manners in their dealings, whatever might be the due which they were required to pay to God. No wise counsel is there, which they have not put into practice, no means to winning God’s favour, which they have not employed. Their souls liberally gave all their strength in paying His first due, seeking to come to Him, zealous, leaving nothing, and reserving nothing: rather, they considered that what they owed, at the time of their payment, was greater far than all that their payment had of merit. God’s manifest signs to them point, and the sciences of God in them abound. No reproach gives them pause at any visitation, no fear hinders them at any calamity, no covetousness incites them in making any preparation. They preserve God’s Book which was entrusted to them, and to it bear witness, for when they perform any duty, they do not turn from seeking refuge in turning to ask God’s help, to complete what they set out to do. Their counseling others does not diminish their listening to God addressing them, so long as there remains in them any vestige of the life that is in Him: for they fear lest, knowing what they are required to do for God, they may suffer some vain conceit to enter into the performance of their dues. Therefore they do not hesitate to run forth eagerly when ever the command comes, that act may follow command, without sharp, appreciable division, such as would not be of the nature of the command.
These are the qualities of the elect of God, His beloved friends, whose eye is ever fixed on the saying, which has application to them, impressing the duty of servanthood in true discipline—a discipline which is only condemned in the case of those who undertake it, without performing their obligations under it, failing to practice it.
The souls of practitioners take hastily the knowledge they have, and are veiled by the thought of that knowledge so that they do not know what the knowledge of that knowledge means to them or what God’s favour means in revealing to them the knowledge of that that knowledge is. So veil thickens upon veil, hiding the revelation of the sciences of the veils, and they remain beneath their covering. “Thou wast in heedlessness of this, and we uncovered thy covering, and thy sight to-day is keen”—such a man understands the limits of things, for the Creator uncovers them, and reveals the light of creation in which He clothed them, and the beauty of will, which was manifested in His pervading power, concentrating them and separating them, giving them movement and reality. “It tires Him not to keep them both, for He is High, Mighty. No constraint is there in the faith: guidance has become clear from error.”
Translated by A. J. Arberry19
I
Here I am! Here I am!
My secret One, my trusted One.
I have answered Your call.
You are my meaning, and my hope.
I call to You…or, no,
You call to Yourself.
Do I say ‘It is You’?
Or do You whisper ‘It is I’?
You are the distance I must go,
My spring of springs,
My reasoning, my words,
These stammerings.
You are everything I am
My hearing and my sight,
My universe,
My trifling things.
The sum of everything I am
You are. And everything I am
Is Mystery. I have confused You
With my little meaning.
It is You I’ve been in love with
And been crushed, in moments
When You let Yourself become
My prisoner in love.
I mourn in being exiled
From my home—I chose it so;
My enemies are happy
In my sorrow…
I come near You,
My fear excites me.
Desire steadies me
In my inmost heart…
What can I do with One
With Whom I am this much in love?
O Lord, the doctors say
They’re tired of my sickness.
They say, Cure it through Him.
I say to them, O people
What sickness can be cured
By its disease?
My love for my Lord
Consumes and makes me weak.
How can I say to Him,
It is Your doing…
I look…my heart perceives,
But how can I explain
His ways except
By wordless gestures…?
My self’s at fault,
O woe to me!
I am the source
Of my own agony…
Like a person drowning
In the sea
Who reaches out for help
With fingertips alone…
Only He Who has come down
To depths known in the heart,
Only He, descends
Into this melancholy.
He knows what I have known
In the long illness;
And in His will I see
My death and resurrection.
O my request and hope,
My home, my very breath,
My faith…
My worldly fate…
Though You are hidden
To my eyes,
My heart perceives You
In the distance…
II
I cry to You for souls whose present witness (I myself)
Now goes beyond the Where to meet the Witness of Eternity.
I cry to You for hearts so long refreshed
By clouds of revelation which once were filled with seas of wisdom.
I cry to hear the Word of God, which since it perished long ago
Has faded into nothingness in our memory.
I cry to You for the inspired speech which silences
The brilliant words of eloquent and learned orators.
I cry to You for signs that have been gathered up by intellects;
Nothing now remains of them in books except debris.
I cry to You, I swear it by Your love, for the Virtues
Of those whose only mount for reaching You was silence.
All have crossed the desert, leaving neither well nor trace behind;
Vanished like the ‘Ād tribe and their lost city of Iram.
And after them stumbles an abandoned crowd, looking for their trails,
Blinder even than she-camels, blinder than the dumbest of beasts.
III
Murder me now, my faithful friends,
For in my murder is my Life.
My death would be to go on living
And my Life would be to die.
To me removal of my self
Would be the noblest gift to give
And my survival in my flesh
The ugliest offence, because
My life has tired out my soul
Among its fading artifacts.
So kill me, set aflame
My dried out bones
And when you pass by my remains
In their deserted grave,
You will perceive the secret of my Friend
In the inmost folds of what survives.
One moment I’m a sheikh
Who holds the highest rank,
And then I am a little child
Dependent on a nurse
Or sleeping in a box
Within the brackish earth.
My mother gave her father birth,
Which as a marvel I perceived,
And my own daughters whom I made
Became my sisters in this way to me,
Not in the world of time
Nor through adulteries.
So gather all the parts together
Of the glowing forms
Of air and fire,
And pure water
And sow them in unwatered soil;
Then water it from cups
Of serving maids
And flowing rivulets;
And, then, when seven days have passed,
A perfect plant will grow.
Translated by Herbert Mason20
O thou whose cynic sneers express
the censure of our favourite chess!
Know that its skill is science’ self,
its play distraction from distress
It soothes the anxious lover’s care,
it weans the drunkard from excess;
It counsels warriors in their art,
when dangers threat and perils press;
And yields us, when we need them most,
companions in our loneliness.
Translated by N. Bland21
Our old moon put her horns away and the dark nights were there;
There danced a girl-moon through the clouds, pallid as ivory.
At break of day went Jupiter patrolling down the sky,
Just as the lonely watchman with a lantern passing by.
Translated by Henry Baerlein22
We shouted for servants, but all slept.
The palace was quiet and I
Stared at the archer in his eyes
And dropped my head and licked
His trickling fingers, and he fumbled
Dreamily for the jugs and poured
Half and half into our tumblers
Leaning on his elbows he snored.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah23
When the passion through the reason pictures the loss of a beloved associate, grief thereby follows. We need a very long and detailed discussion in order to make clear whether grief is an affection of the reason or the passion; but we have already stated at the beginning of this book that we shall not here enter into any discussion unless it be unavoidable in view of the purpose we have here been pursuing. On this account we shall leave aside the discussion of this theme and proceed straight to the purpose at which we have aimed in this book. Still, it may be possible for anyone with the slightest grasp of philosophy to deduce and extract this idea from the sketch we have made of grief at the beginning of the discourse. Now we will have done with that and leave it on one side in order to go after our principal purpose.
Since grief clouds the thought and reason, and is harmful alike to soul and body, it is our duty to endeavour to dismiss and repel it, or at any rate to reduce and diminish it as much as possible. This can be done in two different ways. The first is to be on one’s guard against it before it actually comes in or that it may not happen, or if it does, so that it will be as slight as possible. The second is to repel and banish it when it has occurred, either wholly or to the greatest possible extent, and to take precautions betimes either in order that it may not happen, or if it does, so that it will be slight and weak. This may be accomplished by reflecting on the ideas which I am now about to mention.
Since the substance out of which sorrows are generated is simply and solely the loss of one’s loved ones, and since it is impossible that these loved ones should not be lost because men have their turns with them and by reason of the fact that they are subject to the succession of generation and corruption, it follows that the man most severely afflicted by grief must be he who has the greatest number of loved ones and whose love is the most ardent, while the man least affected by grief is he whose circumstances are the reverse. It would therefore seem that the intelligent man ought to cut away from himself the substance of his griefs, by making himself independent of the things whose loss involves him in grief; and that he should not be deceived and deluded by the sweetness they impart while they remain in being, but rather keep in mind and image the bitterness that must be tasted when they are lost.
If it be objected that he who takes the precaution of not making and acquiring loved ones, because he is afraid of the grief of losing them, merely hastens forward the day of grief; the answer would be that even if his precautions and previsions do have this result, the grief such a man hastens forward is by no means equal to that he fears to fall into. A man who has no children cannot be so grief-stricken as the man who loses his child; this is true even if the childless man is of the sort that grieves because he has no child—I leave out of account those who do not trouble or care or grieve about such a matter at all. The grief of him who has no darling is nothing beside the grief of him who loses his darling.
It is said that someone remarked to a philosopher, “If only you took a child!” To this the philosopher replied, “The trouble and grief I have trying to keep this body and soul of mine in health tax me beyond my powers—how then should I add and join to them the like again?” I once heard an intelligent woman remark, “One day I saw a woman terribly distressed over the loss of a child—so much so that she was afraid to go near her husband for fear that she might find herself having another child on whose account she might suffer equal affliction.”
Because the possession of the beloved is agreeable and congenial to nature, and the loss thereof is contrary and repugnant to nature, the soul is bound to be more sensitive to the pain of losing the beloved than to the pleasure of having him. In the same way a man may be in good health for a long time and feel no pleasure in being so, yet if he is affected by sickness in one of his members he immediately feels severe pain there. So it is with all loved persons: so long as they are there, or one has their company for a long while, one ceases to feel such pleasure in their existence, but as soon as one loses them one is smitten by severe pain at their loss. It is for this reason that if a man has enjoyed for a long time the possession of a family and a precious child, and is then afflicted by the loss of both, he experiences in a single day, nay, a single hour, a sense of pain exceeding and obliterating the pleasure he formerly enjoyed in having them. This is because nature accounts and reckons all that long enjoyment as her due and right; nay, she counts it as yet less than her right, for even in those circumstances she is never without the feeling that what she possesses is very little, and is constantly and forevermore wanting to have more of it, being as she is so fond and avid of pleasure.
This being so—since the pleasure and enjoyment felt in having loved ones, while they are there, is something so poor, so obscure, so feeble and inconsiderable, whereas the grief, distress and anguish of losing them are so palpable, so huge, so painful and ruinous; what is one to do, but get rid of them altogether, or assert one’s independence of them, in order that their evil consequences, their train of hurtful, wasting griefs, may be destroyed or at least diminished? This is the highest level that can be reached on this topic, and the most effective in amputating the very substance of grief.
After this it follows that a man should picture and represent to himself the loss of his loved ones, and keep this constantly in his mind and imagination, knowing that it is impossible for them to continue unchanged forever. He should never for a moment give up remembering this and putting it into his thoughts, strengthening his resolve and fortifying his endurance against the day when the calamity happens. That is the way to train and gradually to discipline and strengthen the soul, so that it will protest little when misfortunes occur; because one has been little habituated and felt small trust and reliance in the survival of the loved ones during the time they were actually there, and one has frequently represented to the soul and inured and familiarized it with the picturing of those misfortunes before they occurred. It was in this sense that the poet said:
The man of prudence pictures in his soul
Ere they descend, what mishaps may befall;
So, come they sudden, he is not dismayed,
Having within his soul their image laid.
He views the matter reaching to its worst,
And what must hap at last, faces at first.
If however a man is excessively cowardly and extremely inclined to passion and pleasure, and he cannot trust himself to use anything of these twain devices, it is not necessary for him to endeavour to satisfy himself with one beloved out of his many, and to regard her as indispensable and irreplaceable; he should on the contrary adopt several, so as to have one always to stand in the stead (or come near to doing so) of any he may unfortunately lose. In this way it is possible for his sorrow and grief not to be extreme over the loss of any of them.
This is a summary of the precautions that may be taken against the fact and the occurrence of grief. As for the manner in which grief may be repelled or lessened when it has become a reality and has actually happened, we shall proceed to discourse on that subject now.
When the intelligent man examines and considers those things within this world which are affected by the alternation of generation and corruption, when he perceives that their element is changeable and dissoluble and fluid, that nothing is constant or permanent as an individual, but rather that all things pass away and perish and change and decay and vanish; when he reflects on all this, he ought not to take too much to heart or feel too outraged or stricken by the sudden deprivation of anything. On the contrary, he must reckon the period of their survival to be an advantage, and the enjoyment he has of them a positive gain, seeing that they will inevitably perish and cease to be. Then it will not seem so very terrible or important to him when the need comes, because that is a thing, which must come upon sooner or later. So long as he goes on desiring that they should survive forever, he is yearning for the impossible, and by yearning for the impossible he is bound to bring grief upon himself, and follow the inclinations of his passion rather than his reason. Moreover the loss of those things that are not necessary to the continuance of life does not call for everlasting grief or sorrow; they are soon replaced and made good, and this leads on to consolation and oblivion; gaiety returns, and things come back to what they were before the misfortune happened. How many men we have seen struck down by a terrible and shocking calamity, and presently pick themselves up again, until they became exactly as they were before the blow fell, enjoying life to the full and entirely content with their circumstances!
It therefore behooves the intelligent man to remind himself, when the misfortune is upon him, how it will presently pass and give way and he will return once more to normality; he should present this picture to his mind, and stir within himself the desire for its realization, all the time drawing to himself what may preoccupy and divert his thoughts as much as possible, to speed his emergence into this settled state. The impact of grief can also be greatly lightened and assuaged by reminding oneself of how many there are that share one’s misfortunes, and how scarcely a single man is free of them; by remembering too how others have been after the blow has fallen, and the various ways they have consoled themselves; and then by considering his own circumstances and how he has previously consoled himself, when and if misfortunes have come upon him before.
Furthermore, if it be true that the man most severely afflicted by grief is he who has the greatest number of loved ones and whose love is the most ardent, all the same the loss of one of them is bound to result in a corresponding diminution of grief; indeed such a loss relieves his soul of perpetual worry and anticipatory fear, so that he acquires a wariness and fortitude to endure subsequent buffetings. In this way the loss of loved ones actually brings profit in its train, even though the passion may revolt against it; and while the sedative may be bitter to the taste, yet it does in the end afford relief. It was such an idea as this the poet had in mind when he wrote:
In truth, though we have lost in thee our lord,
Our cave of refuge, and for thee
Have grieved and fretted long,
Yet hath our loss yielded this much reward:
We can outface calamity,
Though it be massive strong
As for the man who prefers to follow the dictate of reason and to deny the call of passion, who has complete possession and control of himself, against grief he has one sure protection. The intelligent and perfect man never chooses to continue in a situation that is harmful to him, and therefore he is up betimes to reflect upon the cause of the grief whereby he has been visited. If it be a matter that can be repelled and put an end to, he substitutes for grieving a consideration of the means he may adopt to repel and put an end to that cause. If however it be a matter of diverting his mind from it and trying to forget it, striving to obliterate it from his thoughts and drive it out of his soul. This is because it is passion, not reason, that invites him to continue grieving in those circumstances; for reason only urges one towards a course that yields profit sooner or later. But to grieve over what yields no return whatsoever, but only immediate loss, is bound, so far from proving profitable, to lead to yet further loss in the long run too. The intelligent and perfect man follows only the dictate of reason, and never continues in any state unless he feels free to do so for a definite reason and with a clear justification; he will not follow or go along with his passion when it would lead him in a contrary direction.
Translated by A. J. Arberry24
The city and the household may be compared with the body of a man. Just as a body is composed of different parts of a determinate number, some more, some less excellent, adjacent to each other and graded, each doing a certain work, and there is combined from all their actions mutual help towards the perfection of the aim in the man’s body, so the city and the household are each composed of different parts of a determinate number, some less, some more excellent, adjacent to each other and graded in different grades, each doing a certain work independently, and there is combined from their actions mutual help towards the perfection of the aim in the city or household, except that the household is part of a city and the households are in the city, so the aims are different. Yet there is combined from these different aims, when they are perfected and combined, mutual help towards the perfection of the aim of the city. This again may be compared with the body, since the head, breast, belly, back, arms, and legs are related to the body as the households of the city to the city. The work of each of the principal members is different from the work of the other, and the parts of each one of these principal members help one another by their different actions toward the perfection of the aim in that principal member. Then there is combined from the different aims of the principal members, when they are perfected, and from their different actions, mutual help towards the perfection of the aim of the whole body. And similarly the situation of the parts of the households with respect to the households and the situation of the households with respect to the city, so that all the parts of the city by their combination are useful to the city and useful for the continued existence of the one through the other, like members of the body.
As the doctor treats any sick member only in accordance with its relation to the whole body and the members adjacent to it and connected with it, since he treats it with a cure by which he affords it health whereby the whole body benefits, and the members adjacent to it and connected with it benefit, so the ruler of the city must necessarily rule the affair of each part of the city, small, like one man, or great, like a household, and treat it and afford it good in relation to the whole city and each of the other parts of the city, by seeking to do what affords that part a good which does not harm the whole city nor any of its parts but a good from which the city as a whole benefits, and each of its parts according to its degree of usefulness to the city. And just as when the doctor does not observe this, aims at providing health to a particular member and treats it without regard to the condition of the other members near it, or treats it with what is bad for all the other members, and affords it health but thereby does something which does not benefit the body as a whole nor the members adjacent to it and connected with it, that member is impaired, as well as the connected members, and the evil permeates the other members, till the whole body is corrupted, and the city also.
Translated by D. M. Dunlop25
The pearl-fishing in the Persian Ocean lasts from the beginning of Nísán (April) to the end of Ailúl (September); there is no fishing during the rest of the year. In our earlier works we have enumerated all the pearl-fisheries in this ocean, which is the only one where pearls are to be found: they are peculiar to the sea that washes the coasts of Abyssinia and Khárak and Ḳuṭur and ‘Umán and Sarandíb (Ceylon) and other countries. We have also mentioned how the pearl is formed and the different opinions attributing to its origin to rain-drops and to many things besides, and have described pearls of both sorts, namely, the ancient and those of recent formation, which are called maḥár and known as balbal. The flesh and fat in the shell is an animal: it feels alarm for the peal within it on account of the divers, as a mother fears for her child. Concerning the manner of diving, we have previously explained that the divers never touch meat, but live on fish and dates and similar foods, and how they slit their ears at the base to make an exit for the breath instead of the nostrils, because they plug the latter with something made of dhabl, that is, the shell of the sea-tortoise which is used for making combs, or of horn, but not of wood: it penetrates the nostrils like an iron arrow-head. In their ears they put oiled cotton, and when they are at the bottom of the sea a little of the oil exudes and gives them a bright light. They smear their feet and legs with black pigment for fear of being swallowed by the sea-beasts: the blackness scares these monsters. The divers at the bottom of the sea utter piercing cries like a dog’s yelp in order to make themselves heard by one another. All this we have related in our preceding books with much curious information about the divers and the pearl-fishing, the pearl and its animal, and the qualities, marks, prices, the weights of pearls.
Muhtadí-billah had set himself to lead a virtuous and religious life. He called the men of learning to his court, conferred dignities on the divines, and included them all in his bounty and affection. He used to say, “O sons of Háshim, let me follow the path trodden by ‘Umar the son of ‘Abdu’l-‘Aziz, so that I may be amongst you what ‘Umar was amongst the sons of Umaiya.” He restricted luxury in articles of dress and furniture and food and drink. By his command the gold and silver vessels in the treasury were put out and broken and coined into dinars and dirhems; and he gave orders that the painted figures adorning the rooms of the palace should be effaced. He slaughtered the rams which were set to butt against each other in the presence of the Caliphs, and the fighting-cocks, and killed all the wild beasts in the menagerie. He also forbade the use of brocade carpets and every sort of rug or carpet that is not expressly sanctioned by the Mohammedan religious law. It was the custom of the Caliphs before him to spend 10,000 dirhems daily on their table, but Muhtadí abolished that practice and assigned a sum of about 100 dirhems to meet the daily cost of his table and his entire maintenance. Often he would fast for several days at a time. It is said that after he was murdered his baggage was removed from the place where he had sought refuge, and they came upon a small padlocked chest which belonged to him. On opening it, instead of the money or jewels which it was supposed to contain, they found a jubba (shirt) of wool or camel’s hair and an iron collar. They questioned the attendant, who declared that as soon as darkness fell, the Caliph used to put on the jubba and the collar and pray, bowing and prostrating himself, until dawn; and that he would sleep for an hour after the second night-prayer and then rise. Shortly before his assassination, when he had performed the prayer of sunset and was about to break from his fast, one of his intimate friends heard him say, “O God, it is a true saying of Thy apostle Mohammed (God bless him!), that Thou dost never turn away the supplication of a just Imám—and I have taken pains to act justly towards my people; or of one who is wronged—and I am suffering wrong; or of one who has not yet broken his fast—and I am still fasting.” Having uttered these words, he began to call down vengeance on his enemies and pray that he might be delivered from their violence.
Translated by R. A. Nicholson26
Parting has just taught our eyelids separation
That bleeds, and associated the heart with grief
I hoped the hour they went for a show of her wrist
So the tribe perplexed would stay before going
If she appeared to bewilder them shame would draw
A curtain to guard their wits from her glance
By the camel and its driver and myself! a moon
Is panting in the curtains from her motion
As for the dress, when one strips its beauty,
Undressed one clothes her in beauty naked
The musk embraces it with the embrace of a lover
Until it is wrinkles on the belly wrinkles
I was anxious about my tears because of my sight
But now after you each dear thing is scorned
The clouds bring their watery breasts for you
For a beloved there are memories in flashes
When I approached terrors, a heart went with me
When I wished solace from you it betrayed
I appear and he who thought evil of me bows down
I do not chide him with forgiveness but scorn
And so I was among my people and in my country
For what is precious is alien wherever it is
I am envious of virtue, a liar about my mark casts
Down a hero and meets me when his time comes
I’m not thirsty for what does not bruise desire
Nor do I reject that which passes as weakness
Nor am I happy when others are praised for that
Even if you brought me the century full
No one ever attracts my camel toward him
While I stay alive nor while our saddle rocks
But if I had been able I would have ridden
All mankind as a camel to Sa’id ibn Abdallah
For the camel is wiser than the people that I see
As blind to what he sees as benevolence
It is generosity even if bounty is small for him
Bravery even if he is not content as hero
It is provision what his hand has gained for us
And if he gives some of it he glorifies us
Time is easy on the tips of his fingers
Until they are supposed to be times for time
He hurls battles and lances and catastrophes and
The sword and the guest’s open, glad handshake
You imagine from the warmth of heart he is aflame
From his kindness and cheer that he is drunk
Singing girls trail the skirts of their gowns
By his bounty, and the horses wear his halters
He gives as a welcome to the clients beforehand
As one does good to the thirsty with water
Paradise is the reward of the Banu Hasan for they
In their people are as Adnan’s nobility
Allah did not cry glory lost in their ancestors
And indeed we now see it in them
If written to or met or warred on they are found
In script and word and battle to be knights
As if their tongues in argument were made,
Like the lance heads on the spears in jousting
As if they came to drink death out of thirst
Or smell the Khatti lances a sweet herbs
Beings, for one whose enmity I desire, the worst
Enemy, and for one I’m friendly with brothers
Natures which if the negroes had they’d change
Into thin lips, curly hair, and white skins
With souls whose brilliance makes them loved
Perforce, even if far from you in hate
Whose fathers are unclouded like their foreheads
And their mothers, their minds and thoughts
O hunter of armies whose flanks are fearful
Whereas the lions hunt men one by one
As for gifts every hour is time for his giving
But donors dispense only now and then
You are one who gathers wealth for generous uses
Then you accept clients for it as treasurers
Responsible to yourself as guardian when alone
You do nothing secretly that you do not openly
I don’t seek increase of what in you is noble
I as one who slept would awaken being awake
Indeed by such as you I shone with magnanimity
With repulse of the hate of days by content
You are most far reaching in fame and greatest
In power, and highest of them building glory
Allah has honored earth with you as its dweller
He honored men since he made men like you.
Translated by R. A. Nicholson27
Shame kept my tears away
But’s brought them back again.
My veins and bones seep through the skin
graining her iv’ry face
with lines anew.
Unveiling shows pale veil beneath
as woman’s Rhetorick
of inlaid gold and pearl
in filigree marks cheek
and jowl.
Her night of hair she parts in three
(to make for me four nights of one?);
pale moon reflects her day of face,
that she and I may double see
as one.
Translated by Omar Pound28
Strive always for the highest, you will gain the highest seat,
And have the half-moon’s silver for the covering of your feet.
Translated by Henry Baerlein29
How glows mine heart for him whose heart to me is cold,
Who liketh ill my case and me in fault doth hold!
Why should I hide a love that hath worn thin my frame?
To Sayfu’l-Dawla all the world avows the same.
Though love of his high star unites us, would that we
According to our love might so divide the fee!
Him have I visited when sword in sheath was laid,
And I have seen him when in blood swam every blade:
Him, both in peace and war the best of all mankind,
Whose crown of excellence was still his noble mind.
Do foes by flight escape thine onset, thou dost gain
A chequered victory, half of pleasure, half of pain.
So puissant is the fear thou strik’st them with, it stands
Instead of thee, and works more than thy warriors’ hands.
Unfought the field is thine: thou need’st not further strain
To chase them from their holes in mountain or in plain.
What! ’fore thy fierce attack whene’er an army reels,
Must thy ambitious soul press hot upon their heels?
Thy task it is to rout them on the battle-ground:
No shame to thee if they in flight have safety found.
Or thinkest thou perchance that victory is sweet
Only when scimitars and necks each other greet?
O justest of the just save in thy deeds to me I
Thou art accused and thou, O Sire, must judge the plea.
Look, I implore thee, well! Let not thine eye cajoled
See fat in empty froth, in all that glisters gold!
What use and profit reaps a mortal of his sight,
If darkness unto him be indistinct from light?
My deep poetic art the blind have eyes to see,
My verses ring in ears as deaf as deaf can be.
They wander far abroad while I am unaware,
But men collect them watchfully with toil and care.
Oft hath my laughing mien prolonged the insulter’s sport,
Until with claw and mouth I cut his rudeness short.
Ah, when the lion bares his teeth, suspect his guile,
Nor fancy that the lion shows to you a smile.
Naught kills the noble like forgiveness—yet
Where are the noble who no boon forget?
Kindness subdues the man of generous race,
But only makes more insolent the base.
As ill doth bounty in sword’s place accord
With honour as in bounty’s place the sword.
Translated by R. A. Nicholson30
My songs gave eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf
Set the critics flapping like nightbirds
Set me at rest all night on my bed.
And pay me well if I write you a eulogy
The flatterers will come to you mouthing it.
And desert every voice but mine, for I
Am the singing lark, the rest are echo.
Time is my scribe and my register
It follows me singing the words I drop.
From safe harbours they sailed away
Pre-occupied because of my poems.
The throats that had never spoken trilled
My scale, the moment before landfall.
They went on, and left me long vague nights,
Longer than bridal nights, and showed me
The regular unwanted moon, and held
The new moon beyond the stretch of roads,
A journey away, and the way doubled
By a stop in existence like a wall.
And for their Hermes of calamity
They made me live when the lovers had gone.
The hot gardens sometimes heard voices
In migrant winds. Like a tree I waited
For the voice to come back. Touching a glass
I sometimes choked because the mind flashed
To fixed steel, that now catches the water
By the one-time camping-place of girls.
I watched the stars on their dark cruises.
Could they not lead to the high clearings?
Has the night not seen your eyes, I cried,
To grow thin and quiet and go?
By the last house I found dawn. The meeting
Healed my limbs and the night died
And the day stood in quick light,
Still wet with gelatine of birth, the sign
That hills were opening, and over lush roads
The sun advancing as your envoy.
Here is the final stretch, the instrument
That cuts short the reminiscence
The chatter of what they did to death, the coil
Of it, and the paternal tube of it
And snakiness. At a long paean
The corpse turns over, quicker than hands,
Whose horns state the pain of earning,
Do for time and his slip. He passes
Imperiously, owning the air
And filigree of limbs and soul,
A trap in beauty’s structure, that no lover
Could fathom and keep the manacles.
Galenus with his atabrine, the fluting moron
With his goats, went after him. They counted
A similar tally of hours, and the quiet
Was sweeter for the fool. Unbroken drive
Even for welfare is only warfare
And the metal weights on the lungs
Deny the blossoms to the stretch of need.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah31
Thy fiercest foe is one thou dost not fight:
Thy kindest friend is one far out of sight.
Much knowledge have I gained of men and days,
Experiment has trained me in their ways.
And from the furthest furthest is my fear;
While danger from the nearest is most near.
The trusted comrade is the foe who harms:
The enemy avowéd least alarms.
That is no home where none has friendly mind:
They are no kinfolk of whom none is kind.
Connexion is connexion of the heart;
Thy neighbour he who distant takes thy part.
Grief amasses, patience scatters;
Love unites, but on some matters
Disagrees; when eyes are sleeping
Mine are waking or are weeping.
Had thy gaze, fair maid, not charmed me,
Never had my vision harmed me.
But on me thy glance went straying:
Then thy folk depart conveying
Far away upon the morrow
Eyes whence all their beauty borrow
Translated D. S. Margoliouth32
I went to the vizier’s house another evening, and the first thing which he addressed to the gathered circle was, “Do you prefer the Arabs over the non-Arabs or the non-Arabs over the Arabs?”
I said, “In the opinion of the learned men, there are four nations: the Greeks, the Arabs, the Persians and the Indians. Three of these are non-Arab, and it is difficult to say that the Arabs by themselves are preferable to the other three, in spite of both their common collections and their differentiations.” He said, “However, I like from this group the Persians.” And I said, “Before I decide anything, speaking for myself, I will relate a conversation by Ibn al-Muqaffa, who is of pure Persian origin and is deep-rooted among non-Arabs, a man superior among the people of merit...” The vizier said, “Bring me unto the blessing of God and His assistance.”
I then related the conversation of Shabîb ibn Shabba, who said: We were standing in the courtyard of the camel station (in Basra)—the standing place of the nobles and the meeting place of the people, with the notables of Egypt present—when Ibn al-Muqaffa came into view. There was not among us anyone who did not take delight in him or who did not derive satisfaction in questioning him, and we rejoiced at his appearance. He said, “What keeps you upon the backs of your animals in this place? By god, if the Caliph were to send out to the people of the earth, seeking the likes of you, he should not locate anyone like you. Now go to the house of Ibn Barthan, in extended shade and shielded from the sun, facing the northerly breeze. Give rest to your animals and servants. We will sit on the ground, for it is a fine carpet, most tread upon.” Some of us were listening, for he is the most accomplished of the circle and the most prolific at conversation. So we hastened to do what he had said and alighted from our animals at the house of Ibn Barthan, inhaling the northerly breeze, when Ibn al-Muqaffa drew near to us and said, “Which nation is most intelligent?” We thought that he had in mind the Persians, so we said, “The Persians are the most intelligent,” seeking to ingratiate ourselves and having in mind to flatter him. But he said, “Not at all. That ability is not theirs, nor is it among them. They are a people who were taught and who then learned, who were given an example and who then imitated and followed after, who were started on a matter and who then went on to pursue it. They have neither invention nor discovery.” So we said to him, “The Greeks.” But he said, “It is not them either. Though they have strong bodies and are masters at building and architecture, they do not know anything other than those two, nor have they perfected anything else.”
We said, “The Chinese.” He replied, “Masters of furniture and crafts, but they have neither thought nor deliberation.” We said, “The Turks.” He answered, “Lions for quarrel.” We said, “The Indians.” He responded, “Masters of imagination, trickery, sleight-of-hand, and deception.” We said, “The Negroes.” He said, “Roving cattle.” So we handed over the matter to him, and he said, “The Arabs.” We exchanged glances and whispered to one another; that enraged him, his color turning pale. Then he said, “It seems that you suspect me of ingratiating myself with you. By God, I wish that this thing were otherwise, but I would be disgusted if the matter escaped me and its correct solution eluded me. I will not leave you until I explain why I said what I did, in order to clear myself of the suspicion of deception and the imputation of flattery.
“The Arabs did not have a proper condition to follow as a pattern nor a Book to guide them. They are people of a poor land, deserted from mankind; everyone among them, in his loneliness, has need of his thought, his contemplation, and his mind. They knew that their livelihood came from the plants of the earth, so they marked each of them and attributed to each of its type, and they knew the benefit that was in the fresh plant and the dry plant, and their growth cycles, and which its succession and rendered it as spring, summer, and mid-summer and winter. They knew that their drink was from the heavens, so they invented for them the constellations. And they were aware of the changing of time, so they made for it divisions of the year. They needed to spread out on the earth, so they made of the heavenly stars guides for the sections of the earth and its regions, and followed the land by means of them. And they made among themselves something which would prevent them from doing evil and which would make them desirous of the beautiful, by which they would avoid baseness and which would spur them on to excellent qualities, even to the extent that a member of their nation, though he be in any remote spot of the earth, describes these excellent qualities, not omitting a thing from his description, and he is immoderate in the censure of evil acts and condemns them at length. They do not discourse except in discussion which encourages good deeds, the preservation of the neighbor, the giving away of goods, and the setting up of commendable acts. Everyone of them achieves that by his mind and deduces it by his native intelligence and his thought, without learning or becoming well-mannered; instead, his natural disposition is well-bred and his mind is perceptive. This is why I said they are the most intelligent nation, because of the soundness of natural endowment, correctness of thought, and acuteness of understanding.” This was the end of the conversation.
The vizier said, “How good is what Ibn al-Muqaffa said! How good is what you narrated and what you brought! Bring me now what you have heard and have deduced.”
I replied, “If what this man, skillful in his manners and excellent of mind, has said is sufficient, then anything added to it would be a superfluity, unnecessary to it, and following it with something similar would be of no use.”
The vizier said, “The range of description varies in beautifying and making ugly; the different characteristics depend upon what is thought correct and incorrect. This question—I mean the preference of one nation over another— is, among nations, a thing over which people have contended and have pushed each other around. Nor, since we have exchanged words in this room, have they come to a firm settlement and an apparent agreement.”
I responded, “This happens of necessity, for it is not in the Persian’s nature nor his custom nor is origin to acknowledge the merit of the Arab, and neither is it in the nature of the Arab nor in his habit that he be delighted at the merit of the Persian. And the same applies to the Indian, the Greek, the Turk, the Dailamite, and others, for the consideration of merit and nobility rests upon two things. The first is that by which one people became distinguished from another, at the time of the creation, by the choice of good and bad, by correct and erroneous opinion, and by the contemplation of the beginning and the end. The matter depends upon this, but secondly, every nation has virtues and vices and every people has good and bad qualities, and every group of people is both complete and deficient in its industry and its wielding of influence. And it is decreed that bounties and merits and faults be poured forth over all mankind, scattered among them all.
“Thus the Persians have politics, manners of government, restraints, and ceremonies; the Greeks have science and wisdom; the Indians have thought, deliberation, agility, beguilement, and perseverance; the Turks have courage and boldness; the Negroes have patience, the ability for hard labor, and joy; the Arabs have bravery, hospitable reception, fidelity, gallantry, generosity, responsibility to obligation, oratory, and a gift for explanation.
“Moreover, the merits mentioned above, in these famous nations, are not possessed by everyone of their individuals but rather are widespread among them. But there are some in their group who are devoid of all of them and are characterized by their opposite; that is, the Persians do not lack a man ignorant of politics and lacking in manners, found among the riffraff and the rabble. Similarly, the Arabs do not lack a cowardly or an ignorant or a foolish or a miserly or an inarticulate man. And the same holds true for the Indians, the Greeks, and others. Accordingly, when the people of merit and perfection from the Greeks are compared with the people of merit and perfection from the Persians, they come together on an even path. There is no difference between them except in the degrees of merit and the extents of perfection, and those are general rather than specific. In a like manner, when the people of shortcoming and vileness of another nation, they come together on an even path. There is no difference between them except in the degrees and extents. Thus it has become clear from this list that all the nations have divided among themselves merits and shortcomings by the necessity of natural endowment and the choice of thought. Beyond that, people only compete among themselves regarding inheritance, native custom, overwhelming passion of irascible souls, and the angry impulse of emotional force.
“Here is another thing, an important principle which it is not possible to avoid pointing out in our discussion. Every nation has a period of domination over its opponents. This is clearly evident when you imagine for a moment the Greeks at the time of Alexander the Great, when they conquered, governed, ruled, sowed and unsowed, prescribed, managed and commanded, incited and restrained, erased and recorded, acted and reported. Similarly, when you turn your attention to discussing Chosroës Anûshirvân [Sasanid Emperor, 531–578 ad], you find these same conditions…And for this reason, Abû Muslim, when asked which people he found most courageous, said, ‘All people are courageous when their fortune is rising.’ He had spoken truly. And accordingly, every nation at the beginning of its prosperity is virtuous, courageous, brave, worthy of glory, generous, outstanding, eloquent, perceptive, and reliable. This point of view is extrapolated from a phenomenon common to all nations, to one universal to each nation at a time, to a thing embracing each group, to one prevalent to each tribe, to something customary in each family, to one special to each person and each man. And this change from nation to nation illustrates the abundance of the generosity of God to all His creation and creatures in proportion to their fulfillment of His demand and their readiness to exert themselves at length in attaining it.”
Translated by John Dumis33
I was told the following by Abu’l-Faraj Babbaghā: Some delay had occurred in the matter of the clothing regularly sent me by the Prince Saif al-Daulah, who liked, enjoyed, and appreciated nothing better than to be asked, when he would give, then to be asked for more, when he would give more, and indeed to be pestered with demands. It was even his habit to put something away behind his back which he meant to give some person. He would then say: I want to give this to So-and-so, and an attendant would go and fetch the man, who was told that he was to have an audience. When the man presented himself Saif al-Daulah would give him nothing; the man would say to him: What is there behind his majesty’s cushion?—Saif al-Daulah would ask what business it was of his. The man would say: I am quite sure his majesty has set it aside for me. Saif al-Daulah would deny it, and the man affirm it, and seize it when Saif al-Daulah would try to pull it away. If this were done, Saif al-Daulah would ultimately give it to the man and add some further douceur—So, said Babbaghā, I wrote to him, importuning him to send the clothes as usual:
“It is a sign of the courage of the hopeful (God prolong the life of our lord the Prince Saif al-Daulah) if he is satisfied with the person on whom his hopes are set; and the worth of the importuned occupies in his mind. For very different are the degrees and the gradiations of men in their assumption of munificence and their cultivation of ambition. Loftiness of morality is to be found in loftiness of pursuit.
The glory craved by Saif al-Daulah’s soul
Surpasses calculation and control.
His bounty to my hopes I guaranteed;
He sent them joyful home, from wandering freed.
Once I had felt his goodness, I no more
Needed to haunt the grudging miser’s store.
The rain is jealous of his lavish stream;
Fate sees with envy my fulfilled dream.
Now my knowledge—God aid him—that I am nearest to him of his suppliants, the one with the strongest claim, the greediest for an increase of his favours, and the most importunate in soliciting his bounty, has encouraged me to approach his heart with a request and to address his munificence in the language of hope:
If every one knows the position assigned
The slave in his master’s affection and mind,
Evinced by the robes of distinction he wears
Discomfiture bringing thereby to his peers;
How strange that his grant is withheld, when the same
Who orders, is advocate too for the claim.
May he see to this, please God!”
Translated by D. S. Margoliouth34
They are agreed that God will be seen with the eyes in the next world, and that the believers will see Him but not the unbelievers, because this is a grace from God: for God says, “To those who do what is good, goodness and an increase.” They hold that vision is possible through the intellect, and obligatory through the hearing. As for its being intellectually possible, this is because God exists, and everything which exists may (logically speaking) be seen. For God has implanted in us vision: and if the vision of God had not been possible, then the petition of Moses, “O Lord, show Thyself to me, that I may look upon Thee”, would have been (evidence of) ignorance and unbelief. Moreover, when God made the vision dependent on the condition that the mountain should abide firm—for He says, “And if it abide firm in its place, then shalt thou see Me”—and seeing also that its abiding firm would have been intellectually possible, if God had made it firm; it necessarily follows that the vision which was dependent on this was intellectually permissible and possible. Since therefore it is established that vision is intellectually possible, and as moreover it is shown to be obligatory through the hearing—for God says, “Faces on that day shall be bright, gazing on their Lord”, and again, “To those who do what is good, goodness and an increase”, and again “Nay, verily, from their Lord on that day they are veiled”—and as the Traditions assert that there is vision, as when the Prophet said, “Verily ye shall see your Lord as ye see the moon on the night of its fullness, without confusion in the vision of Him”, concerning which matter the stories are well known and authenticated: it follows that it is necessary to state this, and to believe that it is true.
As for the esoteric interpretation of those who deny the vision of God, this is impossible, as for example those who construe “gazing on their Lord” as meaning “gazing on the reward of their Lord”: for the reward of God is other than God. So with those who say “show Thyself to me, that I may look upon Thee” is a petition for a sign: for God had already shown Moses His signs. It is the same with those who interpret “No vision taketh Him in” as meaning that, as no vision taketh Him in in this world, so also in the world to come: God denied that He could be taken in by the vision, for such taking-in would imply modality (kayfīyah) and circumscription; He denied, therefore, that which implies modality and circumscription, but not the vision in which there is neither modality nor circumscription.
They are agreed that God is not seen in this world either with the eyes or with the heart, save from the point of view of faith: for this (vision) is the limit of grace and the noblest of blessings, and therefore cannot occur save in the noblest place. If they had been vouchsafed in this world the noblest of blessings, there would have been no difference between this world which passes away, and Paradise which is eternal: and as God prevented His conversant from attaining this in the present world, it is the more proper that those who are beneath him should be likewise (prevented). Moreover, this world is an abode of passing-away: therefore it is not possible for the Eternal to be seen in the abode that passes away. Further, if they had seen God in this world, belief in Him would have been axiomatic (ḍarūrah). In short, God has stated that vision will occur in the next world, but He has not stated that it occurs in this world: and it is necessary to continue oneself to what God has expressly stated.
Translated by A. J. Arberry35
‘Ísá ibn Hishám related to us and said: In the year ah 75 I took part in a raid, on the frontier of Qazwín, with those that raided it. We crossed not a rugged upland, but we also descended into a valley, until our march brought us to one of the villages. The scorching noon-day heat impelled us to seek the shade of some tamarisk trees in the centre of which was a spring, like unto the flame of a torch, more limpid than a tear, gliding over the stony ground as glides the restless serpent. We took what food we were inclined to take, then we sought the shade and addressed ourselves to the noon-day nap. But sleep had not yet overcome us when we heard a voice more disagreeable than the braying of an ass and a footfall lighter than that of a camel’s colt; accompanying these two was the sound of a drum which seemed to proceed from the jaws of a lion and which drove away the scout of sleep from the people. I opened both my eyes and looked towards him, but the trees intervened between us. So I listened and lo! he was reciting to the beat of the drum:—
‘I invite to God, is there an answerer?
To a spacious shelter and luxuriant pasture.
To a lofty garden the fruits whereof cease not to be near to gather and never vanish from sight
O people, verily I am a man returning
From the land of infidelity, and wondrous is my story.
If now I have believed, how many nights
Have I denied my Lord and committed the questionable thing?
Ah! many the swine the ends of whose soft bones I have chewed,
And the intoxicant of which I have obtained a share!
Then did God guide me and zealous and effectual endeavour raised me from the baseness of unbelief,
But I continued to conceal my religion from my people,
And to worship God with a penitent heart.
I adored the goddess al-Lát, for fear of the enemy,
And in dread of the Watcher, I looked not towards the Ka’ba.
I besought God when night enveloped me and dreadful day wasted me,
Lord, as Thou saved me,
Now deliver me, for I am a stranger among them.
Then did I take the night as my steed,
And I had before me no spare mount, except resolution.
Suffice thee to know of my journey, that it was in a night,
In which the head of a child would almost turn grey,
Until I passed from the enemy’s territory
Into the guarded domain of the Faith, and then I shook off fear.
When signs of the Faith came in sight, I said:
Assistance from God and a speedy victory.’
Now, when he reached this verse, he said: “O people! I have entered your dwelling with a resolution which love hath not excited, nor poverty impelled. I have left behind my back gardens planted with trees, and vineyards, damsels of equal age with swelling breasts, and excellent horses, heaped up wealth, equipments, a numerous tribe, mounts and slaves: but I came forth as the serpent issues from its hold, and the bird goes forth from its nest, preferring my religion to my worldly possessions, bringing my right to my left, and joining my day march to my night journey. Now I pray ye will ye combat the fire with its own sparks, and stone the Byzantine empire with its own missiles, and with assistance and aid, with support and succour, and help me in invading them, but not exceeding bounds, every one according to his several ability and in proportion to his wealth? I will not regard a bag of ten thousand dirhems too much; I will accept a mite and not decline a date. For each one from me there will be two arrows, one of which I will sharpen for future recompense, and the other I will notch with prayer and with it from the bow of darkness shoot at the gates of Heaven.’ Said ‘Ísá ibn Hishám ‘His admirable diction excited me, so I cast off the robe of sleep and ran to the company and lo! it was our Shaikh, Abú’l-Fatḥ al-Iskanderí, with a sword which he had drawn, and in a garb which he had adopted as a disguise. Now when he saw me he winked his eye at me and said: ‘May God be merciful to him who from his abundance will help us and apportion to us a share of his favours.’ Then he took what he got, then I led him aside and said: ‘Art thou of the sons of the Nabateans? He answered:—
‘As is my state with fate, such is my state with pedigree.
‘My genealogy is in the hands of Time, if it is hard upon it, it will change.
In the evening a Nabatean am I, in the morning an Arab.’
Translated by W. J. Prendergast36
Some years ago, however, a pagan sect started into existence somehow or other. They considered how best to employ the interpretation (of the Qur’an), and to attach themselves to the system of the exoteric school of interpreters who, as they maintain, are the Jews and Christians. For these latter have astronomical tables and calculations, by means of which they compute their months, and derive the knowledge of their fast days, whilst Muslims are compelled to observe the new moon, and to inquire into the different phases of the light of the moon, and into that which is common to both her visible and invisible halves. But then they found that Jews and Christians have no certainty on this subject, that they differ, and that one of them blindly follows the other, although they had done their utmost in the study of the places of the moon, and in the researches regarding her motions (lit. expeditions) and stations.
Thereupon they had recourse to the astronomers, and composed their Canons and books, beginning them with dissertations on the elements of the knowledge of the Arabian months, adding various kinds of computations and chronological tables. Now, people, thinking that these calculations were based upon the observation of the new moons, adopted some of them, attributed their authorships to Ja’far al-sadik, believed that they were one of the mysteries of prophecy. However, these calculations are based not upon the apparent, but upon the mean, i.e. the corrected, motions of sun and moon, upon a lunar year of 354 days, and upon the supposition that six months of the year are complete, six incomplete, and that each complete month is followed by an incomplete one. So we judge from the nature of their Canons, and from the books which are intended to establish the bases on which the Canons rest.
But, when they tried to fix thereby the beginning and end of fasting, their calculation, in most cases, preceded the legitimate time by one day. Whereupon they set about eliciting curious things from the following word of the Prophet: “Fast, when she (new-moon) appears, and cease fasting when she reappears.” For they asserted, that the words “fast, when she appears” mean the fasting of that day, in the afternoon of which new-moon becomes visible, as people say, “prepare yourselves to meet him” which case the act of preparing precedes that of meeting.
Besides, they assert that the month of Ramadan has never less than thirty days. However, astronomers and all those who consider the subject attentively, are well aware that the appearance of new-moon does not proceed regularly according to one and the same rule for several reasons: the motion of the moon varies, being sometimes slower, sometimes faster; she is sometimes near the earth, sometimes far distant; she ascends in north and south, and descends in them; and each single one of these occurrences may take place on every point of the ecliptic. And besides, some sections of the ecliptic sink faster, others slower. All this varies according to the different latitudes of the countries, and according to the difference of the atmosphere. This refers either to different places where the air is either naturally clear or dark, being always mixed up with vapours, and mostly dusty, or it refers to different times, the air being dense at one time, and clear at another. Besides, the power of the sight of the observers varies, some being sharp-sighted, others dim-sighted. And all these circumstances, however different they are, are liable to various kinds of coincidences, which may happen at each beginning of the two months of Ramadan and Shawwâl under innumerable forms and varieties. For these reasons the month Ramadan is sometimes incomplete, sometimes complete, and all this varies according to the greater or less latitude of the countries, so that, e.g. in northern countries the month may be complete, whilst the same month is incomplete in southern countries, and vice versa. Further, also, these differences in the various countries do not follow one and the same rule; on the contrary, one identical circumstance may happen to one month several consecutive times or with interruptions.
But even supposing that the use which they make of those tables and calculations were correct, and their computation agreed with the appearance of newmoon, or preceded it by one day, which they have made a fundamental principle, they would require special computations for each degree of longitude, because the variation in the appearance of new-moon does not depend alone upon the latitudes, but to a great extent also upon the longitudes of the countries. For, frequently, new-moon is not seen in some place, whilst she is seen in another place not far to the west; and frequently she is seen in both places at once. This is one of the reasons for which it would be necessary to have special calculations and tables for every single degree of longitude. Therefore, now, their theory is quite Utopian, viz. that the month of Ramadan should always be complete, and that both its beginning and end should be identical in the whole of the inhabited world, as would follow from that table which they use.
If they contend that from the (above-mentioned) tradition, which is traced back to Muhammad himself, the obligation of making the beginning and end of fasting precede the appearance of new-moon, follows, we must say that such an interpretation is unfounded. For the particle Lam relates to future time, as they have mentioned, and relates to past time, as you say, e.g.: (“dated from this or that day of the month”), i.e. from that moment when days of the month were past already, in which case the writing does not precede the past part of the month. And this, not the first mentioned, is the meaning of that tradition. Compare with this the following saying of the Prophet: “We are illiterate people, we do not write nor do we reckon the month thus and thus and thus,” each time showing his ten fingers, meaning a complete month or thirty days. Then repeated his words, saying, “and thus and thus and thus,” and at the third time he held back one thumb, meaning an incomplete month or twenty-nine days. By this generally known sentence, the Prophet ordained that the month should be one time complete, and incomplete another time, and that this is to be regulated by the appearance of new-moon, not by calculation, as he says, “we do not write, nor do we reckon (calculate).”
But if they say that the Prophet meant that each complete month should be followed by an incomplete one, as the chronologists reckon, they are refuted by the plain facts, if they will not disregard them, and their trickery in both small and great things, in all they have committed, is exposed. For the conclusion of the first-mentioned tradition proves the impossibility of their assertion, viz. “Fast when she (new-moon) appears, and cease fasting when she re-appears, but if heaven be clouded so as to prevent your observation, reckon the month Sha’bān as thirty days.” And in another tradition, the Prophet says, “If a cloud or black dust should prevent you from observing the new moon, make the number thirty complete.” For if the appearance of new-moon be known either from their tables and calculations, or from the statements of the authors of the canons, and if the beginning and end of fasting is to precede the appearance of new-moon, it would not be necessary to give full thirty days to the month Sha’bān, or to count the month Ramadan as full thirty days, in case the horizon should be covered by a cloud or by dust. And this (i.e. to give full thirty days to Ramadan) is not possible, except by performing the fasting of the day in the evening of which the new-moon is first seen.
If, further, the month Ramadan were always complete, and its beginning were known, people might do without the observation of new-moon for the month Shawwál. In the same way, the word of the Prophet: “and cease fasting when she (new-moon) re-appears” is to be interpreted.
However, party spirit makes clear-seeing eyes blind, and makes sharphearing ears deaf, and instigates people to engage in things which no mind is inclined to adopt. But for this reason, such ideas would not have entered their heads, if you consider the traditions which occur in the books of the Shi’a Zaidiyya,—may God preserve their community!—and which have been corrected by their authorities,—may God bless them!—as for instance, the following: In the time of the Prince of the Believers (‘Ali) people had been fasting twenty-eight days in the month of Ramadan. Then he ordered them still to perform the fasting of one day, which they did. The fact was that both consecutive months, Sha’bān and Ramadan, were imperfect, and there had been some obstacle which had prevented them from observing new-moon at the beginning of Ramadan; they gave the month the full number of thirty days, and at the end of the month the reality of the case became evident. Then there is the following saying, related to have been pronounced by ‘Abu-’Abd-Allah Alsadik: “The month of Ramadan is liable to the same increase and decrease as the other months.” Also the following is reported of the same: “If you observe the month Sha’bān without being able to see the new-moon, count thirty and then fast.” The same ‘Abu-’Abd-Allah Alsadik, on being asked regarding the new-moon, said: “If you see the new moon, fast, and if you see her again, cease fasting.” All these traditions in the code of the Shi’a refer only to the fasting.
It is astonishing that our masters, the family of the Prophet, listened to such doctrines, and that they adopted them as a uniting link for the minds of the community of the believers who profess to follow them, instead of imitating the example of their ancestor, the Prince of the Believers (‘Ali), in his aversion to conciliating the obstinate sinners, when he spoke: “I did not hold out an arm to those who lead astray” (i.e. I did not lend support to them).
As regards the following saying, ascribed by tradition to Alsadik: “When you observe the new-moon of Rajab, count fifty-nine days, and then begin fasting;” and the following saying ascribed to the same: “If you see the new-moon of the month of Ramadan at the time when she appears, count 354 days, and then begin fasting in the next following year. For the Lord has created the year as consisting of 360 days. But from these he has excepted six days, in which he created the heavens and the earth; therefore they (these six days) are not comprehended in the number (of the days of the year)”—regarding these traditions we say, that, if they were correct, his (Alsadik’s) statement on this subject would rest on the supposition, that it (the month Ramadan) was really greater in one place, and did not follow the same rule everywhere, as we have heretofore mentioned. Such a method of accounting for the six days is something so subtle, that it proves the tradition to be false, and renders it void of authenticity.
In a chronicle I have read the following: “Abu-Jafar Muhammad ben Sulaiman, Governor of Kufa, under the Khalif Mansur, had imprisoned ‘Abdalkarim ben ‘Abi-al’auja, who was the uncle of Ma’n ben Za’ida, one of the Manichaeans. This man, however, had many protectors in Baghdad, and these urged Mansur in his favour, till at last he wrote to Muhammad ordering him not to put ‘Abd-alkarim to death. Meanwhile, ‘Abd-alkarim was expecting the arrival of the letter in his cause. He said to ‘Abu-aljabbar confidentially: “If the ‘Amir gives me respite for three days, I shall give him 100,000 dirhams.” ‘Abu-aljabbar told this to Muhammad, who replied: “You have reminded me of him, whilst I had forgotten him. Remind me of him when I return from the mosque.” Then, when he returned, ‘Abu-aljabbar reminded him of the prisoner, whereupon he (Muhammad) ordered him to be brought and to be beheaded. And now, knowing for certain that he was to be killed, he said, “By God, now that you are going to kill me, I tell you that I have put down 4,000 traditions (in my books), in which I forbid that which is allowed, and allow that which is forbidden. And verily, I have made you break your fast when you ought to have fasted, and I have made you fast when yon ought not to have fasted.” Thereupon he was beheaded, and afterwards the letter in his cause arrived.
How thoroughly did this heretic deserve to be the author of this subtle interpretation which they have adopted, and of its original (i.e. the text to which the interpretation refers)!
I myself have had a discussion with the originator of this sect, regarding the Musnad-tradition (i.e. such a tradition as is carried back by an uninterrupted chain of witnesses to Muhammad himself). On which occasion I compelled him to admit that consequences, similar to those here mentioned, follow from his theories. But then in the end he declared, that the subject was one that of necessity resulted from the language (i.e. from the interpretation of the Lam al-Taukit), and that the language has nothing whatever to do with the law and its corollaries. Thereupon, I answered: “May God have mercy upon you! Have not God and his Prophet addressed us in the language generally known among the Arabs? But the thing is this, that you have nothing whatever to do with the Arabic language; and also in the science of the law you are utterly ignorant. Leave the law aside and address yourself to the astronomers. None of them would agree with you regarding your theory of the perpetual completeness of the month of Ramadan; none of them thinks that the celestial globe and sun and moon distinguish the moon of Ramadan from among the others, so as to move faster or slower just in this particular month. The luminaries do not mark out this month in particular as do the Muslims, who distinguish it by performing their fasting in it.
However, arguing with people who are obstinate on purpose, and persevere in their obstinacy on account of their ignorance, is not productive of any good, either for the student or for the object of his researches. God speaks (Sura lii. 44): “If they saw a piece of heaven falling down, they would say, ‘it is only a conglomerated cloud.’” And further (Sura vi. 7): “If we sent down to you a book (written) on paper, and they touched it with their hands, verily the unbelieving would say, ‘This is nothing but evident witchcraft.’” God grant that we may always belong to those who follow and further the truth, who crush and expose that which is false and wrong!
Translated by E. Sachau37
“Tell me about the poetry of the jinns” said Ibn Qȧrih “for the mortal known as al-Marzubȧni collected a selection of it”. “But this” replied the old man “is trash of no account. Does mortal man know any more about verse than a cow does of astronomy or geometry? Mortals have only fifteen kinds of metre, and reciters could scarcely better them; while we have thousands which mortals have never heard; what they know has been communicated to them by learned babes among us, who have spat out to them an amount as it were the thin bark of a jungle-tree of Num’ȧn.
“I composed a single-rhymed poem and some odes centuries before Adam was created. I have heard that you are a circle of mortals who admire the poetry of Imru ul Qais beginning: ‘Rise up ye two and let us weep for the memory of loved one and home’ and that you teach it to your youth in the schools. If you wished, I could recite you a thousand verses in this metre rhyming in manzili and haumili, and a thousand in the same strain rhyming in manzilu and haumilu, and another in manzila and haumila, and manzilihu and haumilihu, and manzilahu and haumilahu, and manzilihi and haumilihi.
And all being in honour of a poet of ours who was eternally lost for being an unbeliever, and he is now blazing in the depths of Hell.”
“Old man” said Ibn ul Qȧrih “How have you kept your memory?”
“We are not like you, sons of Adam.” Replied the Jinn “to be overcome by forgetfulness and damp, for you were created of clay, while we are created of flames of fire”.
Ibn ul Qȧrih’s passion for literature moved him to ask the old man to dictate him some of his poetry. “If you wish” replied he “I will dictate more than all the camels can carry, and which all the books of your world could not contain.”
Ibn ul Qȧrih was about to write from his dictation, but he thought: “I worried myself in the transitory world with collecting literature, and got no profit out of it. I am now so unsuccessful that I have left the joys of Paradise, and have come to copy the literature of the jinns, although I have enough literature—especially as oblivion is general among the literary men of Paradise, and I have become their greatest poet with the longest memory—to Allah be the praise!”
He then asked the old man what was his eponym that he might honour him by using it.
“Abū Hadrash” replied he. “I have had the descendants that Allah decreed, and they are now many tribes. Some are in Hell-fire and others in Paradise.”
“Abū Hadrash” replied Ibn ul Qȧrih “how is it that I see you grey-haired, when the denizens of Paradise have perpetual youth?”
“Mortals have had that bestowed on them in Paradise” replied he “while we have been denied it, for we were given power to change our shape in the transitory world, and any one of us if he willed could change into a spotted viper or a sparrow or a pigeon,—though in the eternal world, we have been forbidden to change, being left unchanged as we were created. The sons of Adam have the privilege of being made in a form of beauty. One of the mortal poets in the transitory world said: “We have been given the power of deceit, and jinns the power of change! And truly I have met evil at the hands of the sons of Adam, and they have met the like from me!”
Translated by G. Brackenbury38
God prolong your existence till ‘Urayya be removed, and till the Arabs speak of the Pleiads without the diminutive form; and continue your prosperity until Irāb turns one morning into a hawk or raven in the sky! Often as I write, my letters do not reach you, and through no fault of mine.
“How fair a mountain is mount Rayyān! And nobler still he who dwells there! How sweet to those southern breezes that at times reach you from mount Rayyān!”
By Rayyān I mean your dwelling, wherever it may be; and by its inhabitant yourself, wherever you happen to be. And this is allowable in a quotation, just as I may say “there is no hero like ‘Amr,” though the person whom I mean be not named ‘Amr. And my grief at parting from you is like that of the turtle-dove, which brings pleasure to the hot listener, retired in a thickly-leaved tree from the heat of the summer, like a singer behind a curtain, or a great man hedged off from the frivolous conversation of the vulgar; with a collar on his neck almost burst by his sorrow; were he able, he would wrench it with his hand off his neck, out of grief for the companion whom he has abandoned to distress, the comrade whom Noah sent out and left to perish, over whom the doves still mourn. Varied music does he chant in the courts, publishing on the branches the secrets of his hidden woe; if he strike up the note of al-Gharīḍ, he leaves the lover at death’s door; and if he imitate a tune of Ma’bad, he does so wondrous well. He summons mourners, such as invite to melancholy; fie upon them, may they be bereaved, who trust not in the Eternal, whose father moaned for Wadd, and who have inherited his lamenting from generation to generation. Truly they wail excessively, and yet their eyes shed no tears. I know not, and indeed it is a puzzle, whether it be singing or moaning. Every grey-green bird is like an orator, on moist branch, with a band of pitch on its beak, with fire kindled in its heart, and with its feet dipped in blood, with a collar of coals and a garment of cinder.
Or rather my grief is like that of the she-dove, when she perceives the star of the wasted, having dwelt in Yemen till some divine doom brought her to an arid land that had neither dew nor showers; and when she looks at Canopus, it reminds her of companions she had known in a land of Yemen, none of whom had ever dealt unkindly with her; and feeling her throat oppressed with regrets she begins to cry and grieve, alleviating by the emission of these sounds the grief which she feels for the dead; thinking that there is no escape from the confinement of the cage, she wishes that God would change her into a mewing day-cat, or a moaning night-wolf; that she might escape by such deliverance from some of her troubles.
My abode is Ma’arrah of Nu’ān, and civil strife is rife among us; there are spear-thrusts and bow-shots; and by the time summer comes swords will have been drawn as well. Had I been able, I should have used no wood but markh for firesticks, and inhabited no city but the capital. However, my camel’s legs are tied; and God bless Labīd for saying—
“When Lubad saw the rest of the vultures fly away, he raised his feathers like a poor man who has no arms.”
I offer you, my friends, and your children salutation such as would enliven the waste wilderness, and stretch from Syria to Yemen. If it passes by men who are burning a fire of tamarisk, they will think the tamarisk must be aloes, so fragrant will it leave the air.
Translated by D. S. Margoliouth39
Life is a flame that flickers in the wind,
A bird that crouches in the fowler’s net—
Nor may between her flutterings forget
That hour the dreams of youth were unconfined.
There was a time when I was fain to guess
The riddles of our life, when I would soar
Against the cruel secrets of the door,
So that I fell to deeper loneliness.
One is behind the draperies of life,
One who will tear these tanglements away—
No dark assassin, for the dawn of day
Leaps out, as leapeth laughter, from the knife.
If you will do some deed before you die,
Remember not this caravan of death,
But have belief that every little breath
Will stay with you for an eternity.
Translated by Henry Baerlein40
Upon the threshing-floor of life I burn
Beside the Winnower a word to learn,
And only this: Man’s of the soil and sun,
And to the soil and sun he shall return.
And like a spider’s house or sparrows nest.
The Sultan’s palace, though upon the crest
Of glory’s mountain, soon or late must go:
Ay, all abodes to ruin are addrest.
So, too, the creeds of Man: the one prevails
Until the other comes; and this one fails
When that one triumphs; ay, the lonesome world
Will always want the latest fairy-tales
Seek not the Tavern of Belief, my friend,
Until the Sakis there morals mend;
The trust of wisdom; better far is doubt
Which brings the false into the light of day.
Or wilt thou commerce have with those who make
Rugs of the rainbow, rainbows of the snake,
Snakes of a staff, and other wondrous things?
The burning thirst a mirage can not slake.
Religion is a maiden veiled in prayer,
Whose bridal gifts and dowry those who care
Can buy in Mutakallem’s shop of words
But I for such, a dirham can not spare.
Why linger here, why turn another page?
Oh! seal with doubt the whole book of the age;
Doubt every one, even him, the seeming slave
Of righteousness, and doubt the canting sage.
Translated by Ameen Rihani41
’Tis said that spirits remove by transmigration
From body into body, till they are purged;
But disbelieve what error may have urged,
Unless thy mind confirm the information.
Tho’ high their heads they carry, like the palm,
Bodies are but as herbs that grow and fade.
Hard polishings wears out the Indian blade,
Allay thy soul’s desires and live calm.
In the casket of the Hours
Events deep-hid
Wait on their guardian Powers
To raise the lid.
And the Maker infinite,
Whose poem is Time,
He need not weave in it
A forced stale rhyme.
The Nights pass so,
Voices dumb,
Without sense quick or slow
Of what shall come.
By Allah’s will preserving
From misflight,
The barbs of Time unswerving
On us alight.
A loan is all he gives
And takes again;
With his gift happy lives
The folly of men.
Thou art diseased in understanding and religion. Come to
me, that thou mayst hear the tidings of sound truth.
Do not unjustly eat what the water has given up, and do not
desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,
Or the white (milk) of mothers who intended its pure draught
for their young, not for noble ladies.
And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking their
eggs; for injustice is the worst of crimes.
And spare the honey which the bees get betimes by their
industry from the flowers of fragrant plants;
For they did not store it that it might belong to others, nor
did they gather it for bounty and gifts.
I washed my hands of all this; and would that I had perceived
my way ere my temples grew hoar!
Translated by R. A. Nicholson42
We say that human souls are of the same species and concept. If they existed before the body, they would either be multiple entities or one single entity. But it is impossible for them to be either the one or the other, as will be shown later, therefore it is impossible for them to exist before the body. We now begin with the explanation of the impossibility of its numerical multiplicity and say that the mutual difference of the souls before [their attachment to] bodies is either due to their quidity and form; or to the element and matter which is multiple in space, a particular part of which each matter occupies; or to the various times peculiar to every soul when it becomes existent in its matter; or to the causes which dived their matter. But their difference is not due to their quiddity or form, since their form is one, therefore their difference is due to the recipient of the quiddity or to the body to which the quiddity is specifically related. Before its attachment to the body the soul is quiddity or to the body to which the quiddity is specifically related. Before its attachment to the body the soul is quiddity pure and simple; thus it is impossible for one soul to be numerically different from another, or for the quiddity to admit of essential differentiation. This holds absolutely true in all cases for the multiplicity of the species of those things whose essences are pure concepts is only due to the substrata which receive them and to what is affected by them, or due only to their times. But when they are absolutely separate, i.e. when the categories we have enumerated are not applicable to them, they cannot be diverse. It is therefore impossible for them to have any kind of diversity or multiplicity among them. Thus it is untrue that before they enter bodies souls have numerically different essences.
I say that it is also impossible for souls to have numerically one essence, for when two bodies come into existence two souls also come into existence in them. Then either—
1. these two souls are two parts of the same single soul, in which case one single thing which does not possess any magnitude and bulk would be potentially divisible. This is manifestly absurd according to the principles established in physics. Or—
2. a soul which is numerically one would be in two bodies. This also does not require much effort to refute.
It is thus proved that the soul comes into existence whenever a body does so fit to be used by it. The body which thus comes into being is the kingdom and instrument of the soul. In the very disposition of the substance of the soul which comes into existence together with a certain body—a body, that is to say, with the appropriate qualities to make it suitable to receive the soul which takes its origin from the first principles—there is a natural yearning to occupy itself with that body, to use it, control it, and be attracted by it. This yearning binds the soul specially to this body, and turns it away from other bodies different from it in nature so that the soul does not contact them except through it. Thus when the principle of its individualization, namely, its peculiar dispositions, occurs to it, it becomes an individual. These dispositions determine its attachment to that particular body and form the relationship of their mutual suitability, although this relationship and its condition may be obscure to us. The soul achieves its first entelechy through the body; its subsequent development, however, does not depend on the body but on its own nature.
But after their separation from their bodies the souls remain individual owing to the different matters in which they had been, and owing to the different matters in which they had been, and owing to the times of their birth and their different dispositions due to their bodies which necessarily differ because of their peculiar conditions.
Translated by F. Rahman43
It descended upon thee from out of the regions above,
That exalted, ineffable, glorious, heavenly Dove.
’Twas concealed from the eyes of all those who its nature would ken,
Yet it wears not a veil, and is ever apparent to men.
Unwilling it sought thee and joined thee, and ye, though it grieve,
It is like to be still more unwilling thy body to leave.
It resisted and struggled, and would not be tamed to haste,
Yet it joined thee, and slowly grew used to this desolate waste,
Till, forgotten at length, as I ween, were its haunts and its troth
In the heavenly gardens and groves, which to leave it was loath.
Until, when it entered the D of its downward Descent,
And to earth, to the C of its centre, unwillingly went,
The eye (I) of Infirmity smote it, and lo, it was hurled
Midst the sign-posts and ruined abodes of this desolate world.
It weeps, when it thinks of its home and the peace it possessed,
With tears welling forth from its eyes without pausing or rest,
And with plaintive mourning it broodeth like one bereft
O’er such trace of its home as the fourfold winds have left.
Thick nets detain it, and strong is the cage whereby
It is held from seeking the lofty and spacious sky.
Until, when the hour of its homeward flight draws near,
And ’tis time for it to return to its ampler sphere,
It carols with joy, for the veil is raised, and it spies
Such things as cannot be witnessed by waking eyes.
On a lofty height doth it warble its songs of praise
(For even the lowliest being doth knowledge raise).
And so it returneth, aware of all hidden things
In the universe, while no stain to its garment clings.
Now why from its perch on high was it cast like this
To the lowest Nadir’s gloomy and drear abyss?
Was it God who cast it forth for some purpose wise,
Concealed from the keenest seeker’s inquiring eyes?
Then is its descent a discipline wise but stern,
That the things that it hath not heard it thus may learn.
So ’tis she whom Fate doth plunder, until her star
Setteth at length in a place from its rising far,
Like a gleam of lightning which over the meadows shone,
And, as though it ne’er had been, in a moment is gone.
Translated by E. G. Browne44
Now it is well known that man differs from all other animals in that he cannot enjoy a good life in isolation and alone, managing all his affairs without any partner to assist him in the fulfilment of his needs. A man must perforce attain satisfaction by means of another of his species, whose needs in turn are satisfied by him and his like: thus, one man will act as conveyor, another as baker, another as tailor, another as sewer; when all unite together, the needs of all are satisfied. For this reason they were constrained to construct cities and societies. Those makers of cities who did not observe the conditions required in their undertaking, confining themselves only to coming together in one community, achieved a kind of life little resembling that which is proper to men, being devoid of those ‘perfections’ which men require.
This being so, it is necessary for men both to associate with each other, and to behave like citizens. This is obvious; it also follows that it is necessary to the life and survival of mankind that there should be co-operation between them, which can only be realized through a common transaction of business; in addition to all the other means which secure the same purpose. This transaction requires a code of law and just regulation, which is their turn call for a lawgiver and regulator. Such a man must be in the position to speak to men, and to constrain them to accept the code; he must therefore be a man.
Now it is not feasible that men should be left to their own opinions in this matter so that they will differ each from the other, every man considering as justice that which favours him, and as injustice that which works against his advantage. The survival and complete self-realization of the human race requires the existence of such a lawgiver, far more than for instance the growth of hair on the eyelashes and eyebrows, the development of a hollow instep, and such other advantages as are not necessary to survival but are at the most merely useful to that end.
It is entirely possible for a righteous man to exist; and it is not feasible that the Divine Providence should have required the other small advantages, and not have required this which is the foundation of them all; neither is it reasonable to suppose that the First Principle and the Angels should have been aware of the former and not have known of the latter. Finally it is not likely that this, being a matter known to be existentially possible and actually necessary to establish a beneficent order, should yet not exist; indeed, how should it not exist, seeing that that which depends and is constructed upon its existence does in fact already exist?
It follows therefore that there should exist a prophet, and that he should be a man; it also follows that he should have some distinguishing feature which does not belong to other men, so that his fellows may recognize him as possessing something which is not theirs, and so that he may stand out apart from them. This distinguishing feature is the power to work miracles.
Such a man, if and when he exists, must prescribe laws for mankind governing all their affairs, in accordance with God’s ordinance and authority, God inspiring him and sending down the Holy Spirit upon him. The fundamental principle upon which his code rests will be to teach them that they have One Creator, Almighty and Omniscient, Whose commandment must of right be obeyed; that the Command must belong to Him Who possesses the power to create; and that He has prepared for those who obey Him a future life of bliss, but wretchedness for such as disobey Him. So the masses will receive the prescriptions, sent down upon his tongue from God and the Angels, with heedful obedience.
It is not necessary for him to trouble their minds with any part of the knowledge of God, save the knowledge that He is One, True, and has no like; as for going beyond this doctrine, so as to change them to believe in God’s existence as not to be defined spatially or verbally divisible, as being neither without the world nor within it, or anything of that sort—to do this would impose a great strain upon them and would confuse the religious system which they follow already, bringing them to a pass wherefrom only those rare souls can escape who enjoy especial favour, and they exceedingly uncommon. The generality of mankind cannot imagine these things as they really are except by hard toil; few indeed are they who can conceive the truth of this Divine Unity and Sublimity. The rest are soon apt to disbelieve in this sort of Being, or they fall down upon the road and go off into discussions and speculations which prevent them from attending to their bodily acts, and often enough cause them to fall into opinions contrary to the good of society and inconsistent with the requirements of truth. In such circumstances their doubts and difficulties would multiply, and it would be hard indeed by words to control them: not every man is ready to understand metaphysics, and in any case it would not be proper for any man to disclose that he is in possession of a truth which he conceals from the masses; indeed, he must not allow himself so much as to hint at any such thing. His duty is to teach men to know the Majesty and Might of God by means of symbols and parables drawn from things which they regard as mighty and majestic, imparting to them simply this much, that God has no equal, no like and no partner.
Similarly, he must establish in them the belief in an afterlife, in a manner that comes within the range of their imagination and will be satisfying to their souls; he will liken the happiness and misery there to be experienced in terms which they can understand and conceive. As for the truth of these matters, he will only adumbrate it to them very briefly, saying that it is something which “eye hath not seen nor ear heard”, and that there is pleasure awaiting us beyond the grave which is a mighty kingdom, or pain that is an abiding torment. God certainly knows the beneficent aspect of all this, and it is always right to take what God knows exactly for what it implies. There is therefore no harm in his discourse being interspersed with sundry hints and allusions, to attract those naturally qualified for speculation to undertake philosophical research into the nature of religious observances and their utility in terms of this world and the next.
Now this person, the prophet, is not of the kind that often comes into the world, in every age; the gross matter able to receive his sort of “perfection” occurs in but few temperaments. It follows from this that the prophet must devise means of securing the survival of his code and laws in all the spheres of human welfare. There is no doubt that the advantage in this is, that men will continue to be aware of the existence of God and of an afterlife; and the danger of their forgetting these things, a generation after the prophet’s mission, will be circumvented. He must therefore prescribe certain acts which men should repeat at close intervals, so that if the time for the performance of one act is missed there may soon be an opportunity for performing the next like act while the memory is still fresh and has not yet become obliterated.
These acts must of course be linked up with some means of calling God and the afterlife to mind, else they will be useless; this mnemonic can only consist of set words to be uttered, or set resolves to be intended in the imagination. Men must also be told that these acts are means of winning God’s favour and of qualifying for a great and generous reward: these acts should in fact be of such a sort, and should be like the religious observances prescribed for men to follow. In a word, these acts should be reminders; and those reminders must either be certain motions, or the denial of certain motions resulting in other motions. The former category may be illustrated by the instance of formal prayers, the latter by fasting; for though fasting is in itself a negative idea, it stirs nature violently and so reminds the faster that what he is doing is not meaningless, with the result that he remembers what his intention is in fasting, namely to win the favour of Almighty God.
He should also if possible mix in with these observances other interests, in order to strengthen and extend the code, and to make their practice generally advantageous in a material sense also. Examples of this are Jehad and Pilgrimage. He should specify certain places in the world as the most suitable for worship, stating that they belong exclusively to God; certain obligatory acts must also be specified as being done for God’s sake only—as for instance the offering of sacrifices, which are of great help in this connexion. The place which is advantageous in this context, if it be the town where the lawgiver took refuge and dwelt, will also serve the purpose of bringing him to mind, an advantage second only to that of remembering God and the Angels. This single place of refuge cannot be close at hand for the whole community of the Faith; obviously therefore it must also be prescribed as a place for migration, and for journeying unto.
The noblest of these observances from a certain point of view is that one in which the performer assumes that he is addressing God in private converse, that he is turning to God and standing before Him. This observance is Prayer. Certain steps preparatory to prayer must also be prescribed, similar to these which a man customarily undertakes of his own accord before entering the presence of a human ruler; namely, purification and cleansing. The regulations laid down for these should be effective and impressive. The act of prayer should further be accompanied by those attitudes and rules of conduct usually observed in the presence of kings: humility, quietness, lowering the eyes, keeping the hands and feet withdrawn, not turning about and fidgeting. For every moment of the act of worship, appropriate and seemly rules and usages should be prescribed. All these conditions of religious observance serve the useful purpose of keeping the people’s thoughts fixed firmly upon the recollection of God; in this way they will continue in their close attachment to the laws and ordinances of the Faith; without these reminders they will be apt to forget all about it in one or two generations after the prophet’s death. These practices will also be of the enormous advantage to them in the hereafter, by purifying and lifting up their souls as we have already shown.
So far as the elect are concerned, the advantage they derive from all these prescriptions is mainly connected with the afterlife. We have established above the true nature of the hereafter, and proved that happiness in the world to come is to be acquired by cleansing and uplifting the soul, through removing it far from such bodily conditions as conflict with the means of securing that happiness. Spiritual elevation is achieved through the acquisition of moral qualities and virtuous habits, which in their turn are acquired by means of acts calculated to divert the soul from the body and the senses and to remind it of its true substance.
If the soul is frequently turned in towards itself, it will not be affected by the physical circumstances of the body. It will be reminded and helped to do this by acts which are in themselves fatiguing; and outside the usual habit of reason; indeed, the reason itself is stimulated by them to undertake these tasks. They fatigue the body and the animal faculties, destroying their inclination to take things easily, to be slothful and unwilling to go to any trouble, to dull the natural zest and avoid all discipline save for the purpose of getting advantages in the form of bestial pleasures. The soul will be constrained to attempt these motions by the very recollection of God, of the Angels and of the world of perfect happiness, whether it will or no; consequently it will become firmly disposed to chafe at the influences of the body and will acquire the habit of dominating it and not to be merely passive in its control. Bodily actions as they occur will not then affect the soul so powerfully and habitually as would be the case if the soul were satisfied and content to submit to the body in everything. All this proves the truth of the saying, that good habits drive out evil ones. If a man continues in this course, he will acquire the habit of turning automatically towards the true, and away from the false; he will become thoroughly prepared and ready to be delivered into celestial happiness when the body is left behind.
If a man performs these acts without believing them to be a duty imposed by God, and in spite of this his each act is accompanied by the remembrance of God, and a turning away from all other things, he will be worthy to acquire some measure of this spiritual fervour: how much more, then, if he follows this use knowing that the Prophet has come from God to prescribe, he acting in all this as God’s agent. For the Prophet was truly charged by God to impose these religious observances upon his followers: observances which are of benefit to men in that they perpetuate among them the Prophet’s laws and ordinances, which are the means whereby they live at all, and by stimulating them to spiritual zeal bring them near to the nigh Presence of God in the world to come.
Such a man is richly qualified to dispose the affairs of his fellows in a manner securing the regular provision of their well-being in this world, and their ultimate salvation in the world to come: he is a man distinguished above all his fellows by his Godliness.
Translated by A. J. Arberry45
Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: I needed a cupping, while I was staying in Hajr al-Yemâmeh, and accordingly was directed to a Shaykh who cupped skilfully. So I sent my slave-boy to summon him into my presence and kept waiting for him, but he was slow to return after he had gone, so that I began to fancy that he had run away, or met with accident after accident. Then he came back like one who has failed in his errand and disappointed his master. Said I to him: “Woe betide thee, for the tardiness of Find, and thy fire-shaft missing to give a spark.” Then he pretended that the Shaykh was busier than the woman of the two butter-bags and in the midst of a battle like the battle of Hunain. Now I loathed to go to a cupper’s place, and I was at a loss between sallying forth and lagging behind. Finally I saw that there was no rebuke upon him who goes to the privy. Thereupon, when I had reached his shop and got sight of his face, I perceived an old man of cleanly aspect, surrounded by ring upon ring of onlookers and throng upon throng [of customers]. Before him stood a youth like [the sharp sword] Ṣamṣâmah, about to be cupped, the Shaykh saying to him: “I see thou hast stretched forth thy head, before thou bringest out thy scrap, and hast offered me thy nape without saying to me ‘This is for thee.’ But I am not of those who sell ready goods for owed money, nor look out for the shadow after the substance. So if thou dole out thy coin, thou wilt be cupped in both thy neck-veins, but if thou deem stinting better, and hoarding more becoming in thyself, then read the Sura,” he frowned and turned away, “and vanish from out of my sight, or else—” Then the youth said: “By Him who has forbidden the forging of lies, as He has forbidden the chase in the two sacred precincts, I am more penniless than the babe two days old, so trust to the flow of my mountain slope, and grant me a delay until times have mended with me.” Said the Shaykh to him: “Fair promises are like the shoot of a tree, that has an equal chance that it perish, or that the fresh date be gathered from it. So what will teach me, whether I am to reap fruit from thy tree, or to derive from it an ailment? Furthermore what relying is there that, when thou hast gotten thyself far away, thou wilt fulfil what thou promisest? For in sooth, treachery has become as the whiteness in a horse’s forefeet amongst the adornments of this generation, so rid me, by Allah, of thy bothering, and take thee off to where the wolf howls.” Then the lad advanced towards him, overcome with shame, and said: “By Allah, none breaks faith, save the mean, the contemptible, and none resorts to the pond of treachery but the worthless, and if thou knewest who I am, thou wouldst not let me hear ribald talk; but thou hast spoken in ignorance, and where it behoved thee to prostrate thyself, thou hast foully aspersed, and how abject are exile and poverty, and how beautiful is the speech of him who said:
‘The stranger, who trails his skirt pompously, meets but with scorn, how will he fare then abroad, if food and drink fail him?
But no distress brings disgrace upon the high-minded man: camphor and musk, well ye know, though pounded spread fragrance,
The ruby is often tried in Ghada-fire’s fiercest glow, the fire abates but the ruby still remains ruby.’
Said the Shaykh to him: “O thou bane of thy father, who causest thy kindred to wail, art thou in a place to brag of, and of an account to be blazed forth? or in the place of a hide to be flayed, and of a nape to be cupped? And granted thy house be such as thou claimest, results therefrom the cupping of the hind-part of thy neck? By Allah, if thy father lorded it over ‘Abd al-Manâf, or if ‘Abd al-Madâd humbled himself to thy maternal uncle, hammer not cold iron, and seek not that which thou wilt not find, and boast when thou boastest, of thy belongings, not of thy forefathers, and of thy gatherings, not of the roots from which thou springest, and of thy own qualities, not of thy rotten bones, and of thy valuables, not of thy pedigree. Yield not to thy ambition or it will abase thee [bring thee to fall], nor follow thy lust lest it lead thee astray. I commend to Allah him who said to his son:
‘Be upright, my dear son, for the straight tree will spread its roots, whereas, when it grows crooked it speedily pines away,
Obey not abasing greed, but behave as a man who bears in silence the pangs of hunger, that gnaw at his vital parts;
And battle against lust that destroys thee, for many who had soared to the stars, enslaved by lust, fell and came to grief.
Be helpful to thy kinsfolk, for shameful it is to see the pinch of distress in those depending upon the free.
And keep to the friend who when the times turn their back on thee, betrays not, but proves faithful, when matters go wrong with thee.
And pardon if thou art strong, for no good is in a man who needlessly wounds, when power of wounding is in his grasp
And guard thee of complaining, thou hearest no man of sense complain, but the fool, who snarls and growls while he checks himself.’
Then the lad said to the onlookers: “How wonderful! What a strange rarity! the nose in the sky and the rump in the water; words sweet as wine and deeds hard as flint stone.” Then he assailed the Shaykh with a sharp tongue and in burning rage, saying: “Out upon thee for a fashioner of fine speeches, who swerves from the road of kindliness. Thou preachest benevolence and actest with the ruthlessness of the cat. And if the briskness of thy trade is the cause of thy crustiness, then may Allah strike it with slackness and allow it to be spoiled by thy enviers, until thou art seen more bereft of customers than the cupper of Sabat, and narrower, as far as thy livelihood is concerned, than the eye of the needle.” Said the Shaykh to him: “Nay, may Allah visit thee with blisters all over thy mouth, and heat of the blood, until thou art driven to a cupper of mighty roughness, heavy in charges, with blunt cupping-knives, snotty and breaking wind at every moment.” Now, when the youth saw that he was complaining to one who would not be silenced, and intent on opening a door that would be kept locked, he desisted from bandying words and made ready for departure. But the Shaykh knew that he deserved blame for what he had said to the youth. So he felt inclined to pacify him, and vouchsafed to submit to his claim and not to ask a fee for cupping him. The lad, however, would not hear but of going and fleeing from his presence, and the twain ceased not from argument and abuse, and tugging each other about, until the youth quaked from the strife and his sleeves got torn. Then he cried aloud over his exceedingly great loss, and the rending of his honour and his rags, while the Shaykh began to make excuses for his excesses, and to quiet the other’s tears. But the youth would not listen to his apologies nor abate his weeping until the Shaykh said to him: “May thy uncle (meaning himself) be thy ransom, and that which grieves thee pass over. Art thou not tired of wailing? Wilt thou not learn forbearance? Hast thou not heard of him, who exercised forgiveness, taking after the speech of him who said:
‘Quench by thy mercy the fire of anger that recklessly a churl has kindled in thee, and pardon his trespass,
For mercy is far the best of jewels that grace the wise, and sweetest fruit, culled by man, is ready forgiveness.’
Then the youth said to him: “Forsooth, if thou wert to look at my sordid life, thou wouldst excuse my flowing tears. But the smooth-skinned make light of what the back-sore feels.” Then it was as if he became ashamed, and he left off weeping, regaining his composure, and he said to the Shaykh: “I have now conformed with thy wish, so patch up what thou hast rent.” Said the Shaykh: “Get thee gone! thou over-taxest the flow of the streamlets of my bounty: spy for another’s lightning, than mine.” Then he rose to go from row to row, and begged for the gift of the standers-by, inciting while he was wending his way between them:
‘I swear by Mecca’s holy house, whither flock in pilgrim’s garb the pious from far and wide:
If I possessed but food for one day, my hand would never touch the lancet or cupping-cup.
Nor would my soul, that craves for fair fame with men, contentedly put up with this sign of trade,
Nor had this youth complained of harshness from me or felt the lacerating prick of my sting.
But, lack-a-day, foul fortune’s fell fitfulness, left me to grope my way in pitch-darkest night
And poverty brought me to such piteous pass: the blazing pit of hell I would fain prefer!
Is there a man then whom compassion impels, and tender feelings prompt to prove kind to me?’
Said Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm: Thereupon I was the first to commiserate with his misfortune, and doled out to him two dirhems, saying [within myself], “They are of no account, even though he should be a liar.” So he rejoiced at the first-fruit of his gathering, and augured well from them for the obtainment of what he needed; and the dirhems ceased not to pour upon him, and to come to him from all sides, until he had become possessed of verdant plenty, and a well-filled saddle-bag. Then he cheered up at this, and congratulated himself on the event, saying to the youth: “This is a spring-growth of thy sowing, and a milk-flow of which one half belongs to thee; come then to take thy share, and be not abashed.” Thus they divided the money between them to the nicety with which the fruit of the dwarf palm splits in two, and rose in perfect agreement, and when the bond of conciliation was tied between them, and the Shaykh bethought himself of going, I said to him: “My blood is heated, and I had directed my steps to thee, so wouldst thou please to cup me and rid me of my ailment?” Then he turned his glance upon me and scanned me sharply, whereupon he came close up to me and incited:
‘What think’st thou of my cunning and beguiling, and what occurred ’twixt me and my kid yonder?
That I come off as victor in the contest, and feed on fertile meadows after famine!
Tell me, my heart’s core, tell me, pray, by Allah, hast ever thou set eyes upon one like me?
To open by my spell each fastened padlock? to captivate all minds by charm of witchcraft?
To blend the serious with the sportive humour? If Al Iskandari has been before me,
The dew precedes the shower, but the shower excels the dew in fructifying bounty.’
Said the narrator: Then his poetry roused my attention and made me perceive that he was our Shaykh, whom every finger points out. So I rebuked him for his lowering himself and stooping to self-abasement. But he took no notice of what he heard, and minded not my rebuke, saying: “Any shoe suits the barefooted who walks on flints.” Wherewith he stepped away from me contemptuously, and started off, he and his son, like two racehorses.
Translated by F. Steingass46
al-Ḥárith son of Hammám related:
I went from ‘Iráḳ to Damascus with its green watercourses, in the day when I had troops of fine-bred horses and was the owner of coveted wealth and resources, free to divert myself, as I chose, and flown with the pride of him whose fullness overflows. When I reached the city after toil and teen on a camel travel-lean, I found it to be all that tongues recite and to contain soul’s desire and eye’s delight. So I thanked my journey and entered Pleasure’s tourney and began there to break the seals of appetites that cloy and cull the clusters of joy, until a caravan for ‘Iráḳ was making ready—and by then my wild humour had become steady, so that I remembered my home and was not consoled, but pined for my fold—wherefore I struck the tents of absence and yearning and saddled the steed of returning.
As soon as my companions were arrayed, and the agreement duly made, fear debarred us from setting on our way without an escort to guard us. We sought one in every clan and tried a thousand devices to secure a man, but he was nowhere to be found in the hive: it seemed as though he were not amongst the live. The travellers, being at the end of their tether, mustered at the Jairún gate to take counsel together, and ceased not from tying and unbinding and twisting and unwinding, until contrivance was exhausted and those lost hope who had never lost it.
Now, over against them stood a person of youthful mien, garbed in a hermit’s gaberdine: in his hand he held a rosary, while his eyes spake of vigil and ecstasy; at us he was peering, and had sharpened his ear to steal a hearing. When the party was about to scatter, he said to them, for now he had laid open their secret matter, “O people, let your cares be sloughed and your fears rebuffed, for I will safeguard you with that which will cast out dread from your breasts and show itself obedient to your behests.” Said the narrator: We demanded of him that he should inform us concerning his gage, and offered him a greater fee than for an embassage; and he declared it was certain words rehearsed to him in a dream of the night, to serve him as a phylactery against the world’s despite. Then began we to exchange the furtive glance and wink to one another and look askance. Recognising that we thought poorly of his tale and conceived it to be frail, he said, “Why will ye treat my solemn assurance as an idle toy and my pure gold as alloy? By God, I have traversed many an awesome region and plunged into deadly hazards legion, and it hath enabled me to do without the protection of a guide and to dispense with a quiver at my side. Furthermore, I will banish the suspicion that hath shaken you and remove the distrust that hath o’er taken you by consorting with you in the desert lands and accompanying you across the Samáwa sands. If my promise prove true, then do ye make my fortune new; but if my lips forswear, then my skin ye may tear and spill my blood and not spare!”
We were inspired to give his vision credit and allow the truth to be as he said it, so we refrained from harrying him, and cast lots for carrying him; and at his bidding we cut the loops of delay and put aside fear of harm or stay. When the pack-saddles were tied and the hour of departure nighed, we begged him to dictate the words of the magic ritual, that we might make them a safeguard perpetual. He said, “Let each one of you repeat the Mother of the Qur’an at the coming of eve and dawn; then let him say, with a tongue of meekness and a voice of weakness, ‘O God! O quickener of bodies mouldering in their site! O averter of blight! O Thou that shieldest from affright! O Thou that dost graciously requite! O refuge of them that sue for favour in Thy sight! O Pardoner and Forgiver by right! Bless Mohammed, the last of the prophets for ever, him that came Thy message to deliver! Bless the Lights of his family and the Keys of his victory! And save me, O God, from the intrigues of the satanical and the assaults of the tyrannical; from the vexation of the insolent and the molestation of the truculent; from the oppression of transgressors and the transgression of oppressors; from the foiling of the foilers and the spoiling of the spoilers; from the perfidy of the perfidious and the insidiousness of the insidious! And, O God, protect me from the wrong-doing of them that around me throng and from the thronging around me of them that do me wrong; and keep me from the hands of the injurious, and bring me out of the darkness of the iniquitous, and in Thy mercy let me enter amongst Thy servants that are righteous! O God, preserve me from dangers on my native soil and in the land of strangers, when I roam and come home, when I go in quest and return to rest, in employment and enjoyment, in occupation and vacation! And guard me in myself and my self, in my fame and my aim, in my weans and my means, in my hold and my fold, in my health and my wealth, in my state and my fate! Let me not decline toward fortune’s nadir, or fall under the dominion of an invader, but grant me from Thyself a power that shall be my aider! O God, watch over me with Thine eye and Thine help from on high; and distinguish me by Thy safeguarding and Thy bounteous rewarding; and befriend me with Thy favour and Thy blessing alone, and entrust me not to any care but Thine own! And bestow on me a happiness that decayeth not, and allot to me a comfort that frayeth not; and relieve me from the fears of indigence, and shelter me with the coverlets of affluence; and suffer not the talons of mine enemies for Thou art He that hearkeneth to prayer.’”
Then he looked down with an unroving eye, and uttered not a word in reply, so that we said, “An awe hath astounded him, or a faintness hath dumbfounded him.” At last he raised his head and heaved his breath and said, “I swear by heaven with its starry train, and by the earth with its highways plain, and by the streaming rain, and by the blazing lamp of the Inane, and by the sounding main, and by the dust-whirling hurricane: truly this is the most auspicious of charms and will stand you in better stead than the men-at-arms: he that cons it at the smiling of the dawn dreads no calamity ere evening’s blush comes on; and he that murmurs it to the scouts of darkness as they advance is ensured for the night against any thievish chance.”
Said the narrator: So, for our part, we learned it till we knew it by heart, and we repeated it each man to his neighbour, lest we should forget it and lose our labour. Then we marched, speeding the beasts along by prayers, not by the drivers’ song, guarding bundle and bale by holy words, not by men in mail; and our friend, although his attention we never lacked, was not, claiming the fulfilment of our pact, until, when the house-tops of ‘Ána rose in the distance, he cried, “Now, your assistance! your assistance!” whereupon we brought to him of our goods both the concealed and the revealed, and the corded and the sealed, and said, “Take at thy choice, for thou wilt not find amongst us a dissentient voice.” But all his delight was for the light and the fine, nothing pleased his eye but the coin: ’twas a full load he shouldered and bore, enough to keep want from his door; then off he skipped as the cutpurse skips, and away he slipped as quicksilver slips. We were distressed by his defaulting and amazed at his bolting, and we sought everywhere for a clue and inquired after him from false guides and true, till we heard that since foot in ‘Ána he set he had never quitted the cabaret. The foulness of this rumour egged me on to test the ore of its mine and meddle with what is not in my line. Long before sunrise I repaired to the tavern in disguise, and lo, amidst jars and vats, there was the old varlet in a robe of scarlet, and around him cupbearers beaming and candles gleaming and myrtle and jessamine and pipe and mandolin: now he would be broaching the jars, now waking the music of guitars, now inhaling sweet flower-smells, now sporting with the gazelles. When I struck upon his guileful way and the difference of his today from his yesterday, I said, “Woe to thee, O accursed one! So soon hast thou forgotten the day of Jaurún.” But he guffawed with a will and began merrily to trill:
“I ride and I ride through the waste far and wide, and I fling away pride to be gay as the swallow;
Stem the torrent’s fierce speed, tame the mettlesome steed, that wherever I lead Youth and Pleasure may follow.
I bid gravity pack, and I strip bare my back lest liquor I lack when the goblet is lifted:
Did I never incline to the quaffing of wine, I had ne’er been with fine wit and eloquence gifted.
Is it wonderful, pray, that an old man should stay in a well stored seray by a cask overflowing?
Wine strengthens the knees, physics every disease, and from sorrow it frees, the oblivion-bestowing!
Oh, the purest of joys is to live sans disguise, unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation,
And the sweetest of love that the lover can prove is when fear and hope move him to utter his passion.
Thy love then proclaim, quench the smouldering flame, for ‘twill spark out thy shame and betray thee to laughter:
Heal the wounds of thine heart and assuage thou the smart by the cups that impart a delight men seek after;
While to hand thee the bowl damsels wait who cajole and enravish the soul with eyes tenderly glancing,
And singers whose throats pour such high-mounting notes, when the melody floats, iron rocks would be dancing!
Obey not the fool who forbids thee to pull beauty’s rose when in full bloom thou’rt free to possess it;
Pursue thine end still, though it seem past thy skill: let them say what they will, take thy pleasure and bless it!
Get thee gone from thy sire if he thwart thy desire; spread thy nets nor inquire what the nets are receiving;
But be true to a friend, shun the miser and spend, ways of charity wend, be unwearied in giving.
He that knocks enters straight at the Merciful’s gate, so repent or e’er Fate call thee forth from the living!”
I said to him, “Bravo, bravo, for thy recitation, but fie and shame on thy reprobation! By God, whence springeth thy stock? methinks thy riddle is right hard to unlock,”
He answered, “I do not wish to explicate but I will indicate:
I am the age’s rarity, the wonder of mankind,
I play my tricks amongst them all, and many a dupe I find;
But then I am a needy wretch whom Fortune broke and beat,
And father, too, of little ones laid bare as butcher’s meat.
The poor man with a family—none blames him if he cheat.”
Said the narrator: Then I knew he was Abú Zaid, the rogue of his race, he that blackens the face of hoariness with disgrace; and I was shocked by the greatness of his iniquity and the abomination of his obliquity. “Old man,” I said, “is it not time that thou draw back from thy course of crime?” He growled and scowled and fumed, and pondered a moment and resumed, “’Tis a night for exulting, not for insulting, and an occasion for wine-quailing, not for mutual scoffing. Away with sorrow till we meet tomorrow I.” So I parted from him, in fear of a row, not because I relied on his vow; and I passed my night in the weeds of contrition for having gained admission to the daughter of the vine, not to a mosque or a shrine. And I promised God Almighty that nevermore would I visit a drinking-shop, not though the empire of Baghdád were given me as a sop, and never see the vats of wine again, even if the season of youth might be mine again.
Then we saddled the camels tawny-white in dawn’s twilight, and left Abú Zaid in peace with his old tutor, Iblis.
Translated by R. A. Nicholson47
In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate!
The words of the Shaykh, the Imam, the learned Scholar, the Proof of Islam and the Blessing of Mankind, Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazālī aṭ-Tūsī—may God sanctify his rest and lighten the darkness of his tomb:
Praise be to God as is His right, and blessing and peace be upon the best of His creatures, Muhammad, and on his house and Companions after him!
With eager desire you are setting out to acquire knowledge, my friend; of yourself you are making clear how genuine is your longing and how passionate your thirst for it. Be sure that, if in your quest for knowledge your aim is to gain something for yourself and to surpass your fellows, to attract men’s attention to yourself and to amass this-worldly vanities, then you are on the way to bring your religion to nothing and destroy yourself, to sell your eternal life for this present one; your bargain is dead loss, your trading without profit. Your teacher abets you in your disobedience and is partner in your loss. He is like one who sells a sword to a highwayman, for in the words of the Prophet (God bless and preserve him), “whoever aids and abets a sin, even by half a word, is partner with the sinner in it”.
On the other hand, if in seeking knowledge your intention and purpose, between God most high and yourself is to receive guidance and not merely to acquire information, then rejoice. The angels will spread out their wings for you when you walk, and the denizens of the sea will ask pardon from God for you when you run. Above all, however, you must realize that the guidance which is the fruit of knowledge has a beginning and an ending, an outward aspect and an inward. No one can reach the ending until he has completed the beginning; no one can discover the inward aspect until he has mastered the outward.
Here, then, I give you counsel about the Beginning of Guidance, so that thereby you may test yourself and examine your heart. If you find your heart drawn towards it and your soul docile and receptive, go ahead, make for the end, launch out into the oceans of knowledge. If, on the other hand, you find that when you turn to the matter seriously, your heart tends to procrastinate and to put off actually doing anything about it, then you may be sure that the part of your soul which is drawn to seek knowledge is the evil-inclined irrational soul. It has been roused in obedience to Satan, the accursed, in order that he may lower you into the well by the rope of his deception, and by his wiles lure you to the abyss of destruction. His aim is to press his evil wares upon you in the place where good wares are sold, so that he may unite you with those “who most lose their works, whose effort goes astray in this present life though they think they are doing well” (Q. 18, 103f).
Moreover Satan, to impress you, rehearses the excellence of knowledge, the high rank of scholars and the Traditions about knowledge from the Prophet and others. He thus diverts your attention from sayings of the Prophet (God bless and preserve him) such as the following: “Whoever increases in knowledge and does not increase in guidance, only increases in distance from God”; “the most severe punishment on the day of Resurrection is that of the scholar to whom God gave no benefit from his knowledge”; “O God, I take refuge with Thee from knowledge which does not benefit, from the heart which does not humble itself, from the act which is not lifted up to God, and from the prayer which is not heard”; “during my night-journey I passed some groups of people whose lips were cut by fiery scissors, and I said to them, Who are you?, and they replied, We used to command others to do good and yet ourselves did not do it, and to prohibit others from doing evil and yet ourselves did it.’
Beware then, unfortunate man, of listening to his fair words, lest he lower you into the well by the rope of his deception. Woe to the ignorant man, when he has not learned even once, and woe to the learned man when he has not put into practice what he learned a thousand times!
People who seek knowledge are of three types. There is the man who seeks knowledge to take it as his travelling-provision for the life to come; he seeks thereby only the Countenance of God and the mansion of eternity; such a man is saved. Then there is the man who seeks it for the help it gives in his transitory life in obtaining power, influence and wealth, and at the same time is aware of that ultimate truth and in his heart has some perception of the worthlessness of his condition and the vileness of his aim. Such a man is in jeopardy, for if his appointed term comes upon him suddenly before he repents, a bad end of life is to be feared for him and his fate will depend upon the will (of God); yet, if he is given grace to repent before the arrival of the appointed term, and adds practice to theory, and makes up for the matters he has neglected, he will join the ranks of the saved, for “the man who repents of sin is like the man who has none”.
A third man has been overcome by Satan. He has taken his knowledge as a means to increase his wealth, to boast of his influence and to pride himself on his numerous following. By his knowledge he explores every avenue which offers a prospect of realizing what he hopes for from this world. Moreover he believes in himself that he has an important place in God’s eyes because with his garb and jargon he bears the brand and stamp of the scholar despite his mad desire of this world both openly and in secret. Such men will perish, being stupid and easily deceived, for there is no hope of their repentance since they fancy that they are acting well. They are unmindful of the words of God most high, “O ye who have believed, why do ye say what ye do not do?” (Q. 61, 2). To them may be applied the saying of the Messenger of God (God bless and preserve him), “I fear on your account one who is the Dajjāl (or Antichrist) more than I fear the Dajjāl”, and when someone said to him, “Who is that?”, he replied, “An evil scholar”.
The point of this is that the aim of the Dajjāl is to lead men astray. The scholar is similar if he turns men from this world by what he says, yet he calls them to it by what he is and what he does. A man’s conduct speaks more eloquently than his words. Human nature is more inclined to share in what is done than to follow what is said. The corruption caused by the acts of this misguided man is greater than the improvement effected by his words, for the ignorant man does not venture to set his desire on this world till the scholars have done so. Thus this man’s knowledge has become a cause of God’s servants venturing to disobey Him. Despite that his ignorant soul remains confident; it fills him with desire and hope, and urges him to expect a reward from God for his knowledge. It suggests to him that he is better than many of God’s servants.
Be of the first group, then, O seeker of knowledge. Avoid being of the second group, for many a procrastinator is suddenly overtaken by his appointed term before repenting, and is lost. But beware, above all beware, of being in the third group and perishing utterly without any hope or expectation of salvation.
If, then, you ask, What is the Beginning of Guidance in order that I may test my soul thereby?, know that the beginning of guidance is outward piety and the end of guidance is inward piety. Only through piety is anything really achieved; only the pious are guided. Piety designates carrying out the commands of God most high and turning aside from what He prohibits, and thus has two parts. In what follows I expound to you briefly the outward aspect of the science of piety in both its parts.
Translated by W. Montgomery Watt48
Know that the contact of brotherhood is a bond between two persons, like the contract of marriage between two spouses. For just as marriage gives rise to certain duties which must be fulfilled when it is entered into, so does the contract of brotherhood confer upon your brother a certain right touching your property, your person, your tongue and your heart—by way of forgiveness, prayer, sincerity, loyalty, relief and considerateness.
In all, this comprises eight duties:
The first duty is the material one.
God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him Peace!) said:
— Two brothers are likened to a pair of hands, one of which washes the other.
He chose the simile of the two hands, rather than the hand and the foot, because the pair are of mutual assistance towards a single aim. So it is with two brothers; their brotherhood is only complete when they are comrades in a single enterprise. In a sense the two are like one person. This entails a common participation in good fortune and bad, a partnership in the future as in the present moment, an abandonment of possessiveness and selfishness. In thus sharing one’s property with one’s brother there are three degrees:
The lowest degree is where you place your brother on the same footing as your slave or your servant, attending to his need from your surplus. Some need befalls him when you have more than you require to satisfy your own so you give spontaneously, not obliging him to ask. To oblige him to ask is the ultimate shortcoming in brotherly duty.
At the second degree you place your brother on the same footing as yourself. You are content to have him as partner in your property and to treat him like yourself, to the point of letting him share it equally. al-Hasan said there was once a man who would split his waist-band between himself and his brother.
At the third degree; the highest of all, you prefer your brother to yourself and set his need before your own. This is degree of the ṣiddiq and the final stage for those united in spiritual love.
Self-sacrifice is one of the fruits of this degree. Tradition tells how a Sufi fraternity were slanderously misrepresented to one of the Caliphs, who ordered their execution. Now one of their number was Abu’l-Husayn al-Nuri, who ran forward to the executioner so that he might be the first to be put to death. Asked why, he replied:
— I wished that my brothers rather than I should have that moment to live.
This, to cut a long story short, was the cause of all of their lives being saved.
If you do not find yourself at any of these stages in relation to your brother, then you must realize that the contract of brotherhood is not yet concluded in the Inner. All that lies between you is a formal connexion, lacking real force in reason or religion.
Maymun ibn Mahran said:
-One who is content not to put his brother first.
As for the lowest degree this is also unacceptable to truly religious people. Tradition tells that Utba al-Ghulam came to the house of a man whose brother he had become, saying:
— I need four thousand of your money.
The other said:
— Take two thousand.
Utba declined the offer, saying:
— You have preferred this world to God. Are you not ashamed to claim brotherhood in God when you can say such a thing?
You ought to avoid worldly dealings with one at the lowest stage of brotherhood. Abu Hazim said:
— If you have a spiritual brother do not deal with him in your worldly affairs.
By this he meant ‘if he is at this stage’.
As for the highest degree, this corresponds to the description of the true believers given by God (Exalted is He!) when He said:
— They agree their affairs by mutual consultation, and spend freely of what We have bestowed upon them. (Qur’an, 41.38)
That is, they are co-owners of worldly goods without distinctions of status. There were those who would shun the fellowship of man who used the expression “my shoe”, thereby attributing it to himself.
Fath al-Mawsili once came to a brother’s house while he was away. Telling his brother’s wife to bring out his chest, he opened it and took from it what he needed. When the slave-girl later informed her master he exclaimed:
— If what you say is true you are a free woman for the sake of God!
So delighted was he at his brother’s deed.
Once a man approached Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) and said:
— I wish to take you as my brother in God.
— Do you know what brotherhood entails?
— No.
— That you have no greater right to your pounds or your pence than I have.
— I have not yet reached that stage.
— Then begone from me!
Ali son of al-Husayn (may God be pleased with both) said to a man:
— Does one of you put his hand in the pocket or purse of his brother and take what he needs without permission?
— No.
—Then you are not brothers!
Some people called upon al-Hasan (may God be pleased with him!) and asked:
— Abu Sa’id, have you done your ṣalāt prayer?
— Yes.
— Because the market folk have not yet prayed
— And who takes his religion from the market folk?
I hear that one of them would refuse his brother a penny. al-Hasan said this as if it amazed him.
A man came to Ibrahim ibn Adham (may God be pleased with him!) as the latter was leaving for Jerusalem, and said:
— I wish to be your traveling-companion.
— On condition that I have more right to your goods than you.
— No.
— I admire your sincerity!
Now this Ibrahim ibn Adham (may God be pleased with him!) would never differ with a man who accompanied him on a journey, and he would only choose for a companion someone who was in harmony with him. His fellow on one occasion was a sandal-thong merchant. At a certain staging-post someone presented Ibrahim with a bowl of broth. He opened his companion’s bag, took a bundle of thongs, set them in the bowl and returned it to the giver of the present. When his companion came along he asked:
— Where are the thongs?
— That broth I ate, what did it cost?:
— You must have given him two or three thongs.
— Be generous and generosity will be shown you!
He once gave a donkey belonging to his companion, without his permission, to a man he saw walking. When his companion came along he said nothing and did not disapprove.
Umar’s son (may God be pleased with them both!) said that one of the companions of God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him Peace!) was given a sheep’s head. He said:
—My brother so-and-so needs it more than I do,
and sent it to him. That person sent it on to another. Thus it was passed from one to another till it came round again to the first, after being through seven hands.
Tradition tells that Masruq owed a heavy debt. His brother Khaythama was also in debt, so Masruq went and paid off Khaythama’s debt without his knowledge, and Khaythama went and paid off Masruq’s debt without his knowledge.
When God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him Peace!) witnessed the brotherhood between Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf and Sa’d ibn, al-Rabi’, the latter offered to put the former first both materially and spiritually. Abd al-Rahman said:
— God bless you in both respects.
thus preferring his brother in the same way as his brother preferred him. It was as if he accepted then returned the compliment. This is equalising, whereas the first gesture was preferment. Preferment is worthier than equalising.
Abu Sulayman al-Darani used to say:
— If I owned the whole world to put in the mouth of a brother of mine I would still deem it too little for him.
He also said:
—I feed a morsel to a brother of mine and find the taste of it in my own throat.
Spending on brothers is even worthier than giving alms to the poor, for Ali (may God be pleased with him!) said:
—Twenty dirhams I give to my brother in God are dearer to me than one hundred I give in alms to the needy.
He also said:
—To make a meal and gather my brothers in God around it is dearer to me than to free a slave.
In putting others first, all follow the example of God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him Peace!). He once entered a thicket with one of his companions and gathered two toothpicks, one of them crooked and the other straight. The straight one he gave to his companion, who said:
— O Messenger of God, you are more entitled to the straight one than I!
But he replied:
— When a comrade accompanies a comrade, if only for one hour of the day, he will be asked to account for his companionship, whether he fulfilled his duty to God therein or whether he neglected it.
He indicated by his own example that putting the companion first is to fulfil one’s duty to God in fellowship.
On another occasion God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him Peace!) went out to a well to wash at it. Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman took a robe and stood screening God’s Messenger while he washed. Then Hudhayfa sat down to wash himself, and God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him Peace!) took his turn to stand screening Hudhayfa from view with the robe. But he objected saying:
— My father be your ransom, and my mother too! O messenger of God, do not do it!
Yet he (God bless him and give him Peace!) insisted on holding the robe as a screen while Hudhayfa washed, and he said:
— Each time two people are in company together, the dearer to God is he who is kinder to his companion.
Tradition tells that Malik ibn Dinar and Muhammad ibn Wasi’ went together to the house of al-Hasan while he was out. Muhammad ibn Wasi’ took out a basket of food from under al-Hasan’s bed and began to eat. Malik said to him:
— Clap your hands to fetch the master of the house.
But Muhammad paid no attention to his words and went on eating, for Malik was more for politeness and manners than he. Then al-Hasan arrived and said:
— My dear Malik, we were not used to being so shy one of another till you and your fellows appeared.
With this he indicated that to make oneself at home in one’s brothers’ homes is part of true brotherhood.
And indeed, God (Exalted is He!) said:
— Or of your friend, or to which you have the keys. (Qur’an)
For although one brother would give the keys of his house to another, permitting him to act as he saw fit, a brother felt that piety required him to refrain from eating, until God (Exalted is He!) revealed this Verse and allowed them to help themselves to the food of brothers and friends.
Translated by Muhtar Holland49
The sciences called by the philosophers “physical” are many. We will mention some of them, so that it may be seen that the Sacred Law does not require a dispute over them, except on a few points which we have mentioned.
These sciences are divided into principal and subsidiary sciences, The principal sciences are eight: (i) The discussion of all that relates to body, qua body (i.e., division, motion, and change); and all that appertains to movement, or follows from it (i.e., Time, Space, and the Void). This is the subject-matter of the book called Physics. (ii) The inquiry concerning the various kinds of the component parts of the world (e.g., the heavens, and all that is in the hollow of the sphere of the Moon—viz., the four elements); the nature of these things, and the cause of the location of each one of these in a definite place. This, is discussed in the book called De coelo. (iii) The inquiry concerning the laws of generation and corruption; development and reproduction and growth and decay; transformations; and the manner of the preservation of species, in spite of the corruption which overtakes individuals because of the two—i.e., Eastward and Westward celestial movements. This is discussed in the book called De generations et corruptione. (iv) The inquiry concerning the accidental conditions of the four elements whose mixture results in meteorological phenomena—e.g., clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, the halo, the rainbow, thunderbolts, winds, and earthquakes. (v) The study of the mineral substances. (vi) The science of botany. (vii) The study of animals. It forms the subject of the book called Historia animalium. (viii) The study of the animal soul, and the faculties of perception, showing that the soul of man does not die because of the death of the body, but that it is a spiritual substance whose annihilation is impossible.
The subsidiary sciences are seven: (i) Medicine. It aims at discovering the principles governing the human body; its various conditions (e.g., health and disease); the causes of these conditions, and their symptoms—so that disease may be prevented, and health may be preserved. (ii) Astrology. It is an estimate, based on the figures and constellations of stars, as to what will happen to the world and to people; how new-born babes will fare, and how the years will progress. (iii) Physiognomy. It infers moral character from physical appearance. (iv) Interpretation of dreams, which is an elucidation, derived from dreamimages, of what the soul has observed of the Hidden World, and the imaginative faculty has represented through a different symbol. (v) The talismanic art, which combines celestial forces with those of some terrestrial bodies, so as to produce from the combination another force which will work wonders in the world. (vi) The art of magic, which combines earthly substances to produce strange things from them. (vii) Alchemy, which aims at changing the properties of mineral substances, so that finally gold and silver may be produced through some controlled device.
The Sacred Law is not necessarily opposed to any one of these sciences. However, we shall select from them four points on which we have to criticise the philosophers:
(i) Their postulate that the connection observed to exist between causes and effects is a necessary connection, and that it is not possible or feasible to produce a cause which is not followed by its effect, or to bring into existence an effect independently of the cause.
(ii) Their assertion that human souls are self-subsisting substances which are not impressed upon bodies, and that death means the severance of their connection with the bodies; when their directive function ceases. For, they argue, the soul exists in itself in any event. And, they assert, this is known by a rational argument.
(iii) Their assertion that the extinction of these souls is impossible; and that once having been produced, they have an everlasting existence whose annihilation is impossible.
(iv) Their assertion that the return of the souls to the bodies is impossible.
Criticism of the philosophers on the first point is necessary, for on that criticism is to be built the affirmation of the miracles which mark a departure from the usual course of events—e.g., the Rod turning into a serpent; the revivification of the dead; and the splitting of the Moon. He who thinks that the natural course of events is necessary and unchangeable calls all these miracles impossible. Thus, the philosophers interpret the Qur’anic references to the revivification of the dead, saying that it means the supercession of the Death-arising-from-ignorance by the Life-resulting-from-knowledge. Or, they interpret the Rod’s devouring the magic of the magicians, by saying that it means the refutation of the doubts of the disbelievers by the Divine proof which was manifested at the hands of Moses. As regards the splitting of the Moon, they often deny the fact, and assert that the transmission of the Tradition has not been continuous and trustworthy.
And it is only on three points that the philosophers affirm extraordinary miracles:
(i) In regard to the faculty of imagination. They assert:
When this faculty becomes mature and strong, and if sensuous preoccupations do not distract it, it catches a glimpse into the Preserved Tablet. Thereupon, the forms of particulars which will take place in the future are impressed upon it. This happens in waking life in the case of the prophets; and only in sleep in the case of all other men. This, then, is the prophetic property of the faculty of imagination.
(ii) In regard to a property of the faculty of theoretical reason. Say the philosophers:
This property actually amounts to an intuitive power—viz. the quickness of transition from one object of knowledge to another. A man who has a sharp intelligence awakens to the proof, when only that which has been proved is mentioned to him; or when only the proof is mentioned to him he awakens to that which has thereby been proved. In other words, he discovers it out of himself. Generally, when the middle term occurs to him, he awakens to the conclusion; or when only the two terms which occur in the conclusion are presented to his mind, the middle term which joins the terms of the conclusion arises in his mind. And people are divided into different classes in respect of this power. There are those whose awakening is self-determined. Then there are those who need some stimulus, however slight, in order to awaken. Finally, there are those who will not awaken, in spite of a stimulus, until they have taken considerable pains. Since it is possible that the side of deficiency should have its extreme end in those who have no intuition at all (so that, in spite of all stimuli, they are incapable of understanding the intelligibles), it is also possible for the side of possession or potency to have its extreme end in one who will awaken to all the intelligibles, or to most of them, in the shortest and the quickest time. And the difference is quantitative as well as qualitative— according as the awakening extends to some problems or to all of them, and according as it is more or less quick and immediate. Therefore, many a pure and holy soul has an intuitive understanding of all the intelligibles, which (understanding) is continuous and takes the shortest time. Such a one is the prophet, whose theoretical faculty is a miracle. He need not be taught the intelligibles; for, as it were, he learns by himself. And that is the quality mentioned in the Verse: ‘Its oil would well-nigh give light though no fire were in contact with it, light upon light.’
(iii) In regard to the practical faculty of the soul. Say the philosophers:
This faculty develops to such an extent that physical things can be influenced and controlled by it. For example, when our soul imagines something, the limbs and their faculties serve it, moving towards the direction imagined to be desirable. Thus, when a man imagines something sweet, his mouth waters, and the salivary faculty, which causes saliva to flow from its sources, comes into action. Similarly, when a man imagines sexual intercourse, a certain faculty comes into action, and the (genital) organ becomes excited. Or, when a man walks over a plank which is elevated, with its two sides supported on two walls, he has the possibility of falling overwhelmingly presented to his imagination. Consequently, his body becomes passive to the imagination; and he falls. If the plank rested on ground, he would walk over it, and would not fall. And this is so, because the bodies and the bodily faculties are created to be the servants and the subordinates of the soul. And the service differs according as the soul is more or less pure and powerful. Therefore, it is not improbable that the power of a soul should be so great that the physical forces outside its own body should have to serve it. For the soul is not impressed upon the body; it has only a certain inclination towards, or interest in, directing it, the inclination or the interest having been created to be part of its nature. If, therefore, the physical parts of its own body can obey the soul, it will not be impossible for such parts outside the body to do the same. This is the reason why when a man’s soul contemplates the blowing of winds; the falling of rains; the gathering of thunderbolts, or the trembling of the Earth (in order to swallow up a people)—which are all natural phenomena whose occurrence depends on the appearance of Heat or Cold or Motion in the Air—then such Heat or Cold appears in the soul, and these phenomena arise therefrom, although no perceptible physical cause is present. This is the miracle of a prophet. But such a thing is bound to occur in the Air which is prepared to receive it. It is not possible for the miracle to go to such an extent as to transform a piece of wood into an animal, or to split the Moon which is incapable of being split.
Translated by S. A. Kamali50
[If teleological study of the world is philosophy, and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy.]
We say: If the activity of “philosophy” is nothing more than study of existing beings and reflection on them as indications of the Artisan, i.e. inasmuch as they are products of art (for beings only indicate the Artisan through our knowledge of the art in them, and the more perfect this knowledge is, the more perfect the knowledge of the Artisan becomes), and if the Law has encouraged and urged reflection on beings, then it is clear that what this name signifies is either obligatory or recommended by the Law.
[The Law commands such a study.]
That the Law summons to reflection on beings, and the pursuit of knowledge about them, by the intellect is clear from several verses of the Book of God, Blessed and Exalted, such as the saying of the Exalted, “Reflect, you have vision”: this is textual authority, for the obligation to use intellectual reasoning, or a combination of intellectual and legal reasoning. Another example is His saying, “Have they not studied the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and whatever things God has created?”: this is a text urging the study of the totality of beings. Again, God the Exalted has taught that one of those whom He singularly honoured by this knowledge was Abraham, peace on him, for the Exalted said, “So we made Abraham see the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, that he might be” [and so on to the end of the verse]. The Exalted also said, “Do they not observe the camels, how they have been created, and the sky, how it has been raised up?”, and He said, “and they give thought to the creation of the heavens and the earth”, and so on in countless other verses.
[This study must be conducted in the best manner, by demonstrative reasoning.]
Since it has now been established that the Law has rendered obligatory the study of beings by the intellect, and reflection on them, and since reflection is nothing more than inference and drawing out of the unknown from the known, and since this is reasoning or at any rate done by reasoning, therefore we are under an obligation to carry on our study of beings by intellectual reasoning. It is further evident that this manner of study, to which the Law summons and urges, is the most perfect kind of study using the most perfect kind of reasoning; and this is the kind called “demonstration”.
[To master this instrument the religious thinker must make a preliminary study of logic, just as the lawyer must study legal reasoning. This is no more heretical in the one case than in the other. And logic must be learned from the ancient masters, regardless of the fact that they were not Muslims.]
The Law, then, has urged us to have demonstrative knowledge of God the Exalted and all the beings of His creation. But it is preferable and even necessary for anyone, who wants to understand God the Exalted and the other beings demonstratively, to have first understood the kinds of demonstration and their conditions [of validity], and in what respects demonstrative reasoning differs from dialectical, rhetorical and fallacious reasoning. But this is not possible unless he has previously learned what reasoning as such is, and how many kinds it has, and which of them are valid and which invalid. This in turn is not possible unless he has previously learned the parts of reasoning, of which it is composed, i.e., the premises and their kinds. Therefore he who believes in the Law, and obeys its command to study beings, ought prior to his study to gain a knowledge of these things, which have the same place in theoretical studies as instruments have in practical activities.
For just as the lawyer infers from the Divine command to him to acquire knowledge of the legal categories that he is under obligation to know the various kinds of legal syllogisms, and which are valid and which invalid, in the same way he who would, know [God] ought to infer from the command to study beings that he is under obligation to acquire a knowledge of intellectual reasoning and its kinds. Indeed it is more fitting for him to do so, for if the lawyer infers from the saying of the Exalted, “Reflect, you who have vision”, the obligation to acquire a knowledge of legal reasoning, how much more fitting and proper that he who would know God should infer from it the obligation to acquire a knowledge of intellectual reasoning!
It cannot be objected; “This kind of study of intellectual reasoning is a heretical innovation since it did not exist among the first believers.” For the study of legal reasoning and its kinds is also something which has been discovered since the first believers, yet it is not considered to be a heretical innovation. So the objector should believe the same about the study of intellectual reasoning. (For this there is a reason, which it is not the place to mention here.) But most (masters) of this religion support intellectual reasoning, except a small group of gross literalists, who can be refuted by [sacred] texts.
Since it has now been established that there is an obligation of the Law to study intellectual reasoning and its kinds, just as there is an obligation to study legal reasoning, it is clear that, if none of our predecessors had formerly examined intellectual reasoning and its kinds, we should be obliged to undertake such an examination from the beginning, and that each succeeding scholar would have to seek help in that task from his predecessor in order that knowledge of the subject might be completed. For it is difficult or impossible for one man to find out by himself and from the beginning all that he needs of that subject, as it is difficult for one man to discover all the knowledge that he needs of the kinds of legal reasoning; indeed this is even truer of knowledge of intellectual reasoning.
But if someone other than ourselves has already examined that subject, it is clear that we ought to seek help towards our goal from what has been said by such a predecessor on the subject, regardless of whether this other one shares our religion or not. For when a valid sacrifice is performed with a certain instrument, no account is taken, in judging the validity of the sacrifice, of whether the instrument belongs to one who shares our religion or to one who does not, so long as it fulfils the conditions for validity. By “those who do not share our religion” I refer to those ancients who studied these matters before Islam. So if such is the case, and everything that is required in the study of the subject of intellectual syllogisms has already been examined in the most perfect manner by the ancients, presumably we ought to lay hands on their books in order to study what they said about that subject; and if it is all correct we should accept it from them, while if there is anything incorrect in it, we should draw attention to that.
[After logic we must proceed to philosophy proper. Here too we have to learn from our predecessors, just as in mathematics and law. Thus it is wrong to forbid the study of ancient philosophy. Harm from it is accidental, like harm from taking medicine, drinking water, or studying law.]
When we have finished with this sort of study and acquired the instruments by whose aid we are able to reflect on beings and the indications of art in them (for he who does not understand the art does not understand the product of art, and he who does not understand the product of art does not understand the Artisan), then we ought to begin the examination of beings in the order and manner we have learned from the art of demonstrative syllogisms.
And again it is clear that in the study of beings this aim can be fulfilled by us perfectly only through successive examinations of them by one man after another, the later ones seeking the help of the earlier in that task, on the model of what has happened in the mathematical sciences. For if we suppose that the art of geometry did not exist in this age of ours, and likewise the art of astronomy, and a single person wanted to ascertain by himself the sizes of the heavenly bodies, their shapes, and their distances from each other, that would not be possible for him—e.g., to know the proportion of the sun to the earth or other facts about the sizes of the stars—even though he were the most intelligent of men by nature, unless by a revelation or something resembling revelation. Indeed if he were told that the sun is about 150 or 160 times as great as the earth, he would think this statement madness on the part of the speaker, although this is a fact which has been demonstrated in astronomy so surely that no one who has mastered that science doubts it.
But what calls even more strongly for comparison with the art of mathematics in this respect is the art of the principles of law: and the study of law itself was completed only over a long period of time. And if someone today wanted to find out by himself all the arguments which have been discovered by the theorists of the legal schools on controversial questions, about which debate has taken place between them in most countries of Islam (except the West), he would deserve to be ridiculed, because such a task is impossible for him, apart from the fact that the work has been done already. Moreover, this is a situation that is self-evident not in the scientific arts alone but also in the practical arts; for there is not one of them which a single man can construct by himself. Then how can he do it with the art of arts, philosophy? If this is so, then, whenever we find in the works of our predecessors of former nations a theory about beings and a reflection on them conforming to what the conditions of demonstration require, we ought to study what they said about the matter and what they affirmed in their books. And we should accept from them gladly and gratefully whatever in these books accords with the truth, and draw attention to and warn against what does not accord with the truth, at the same time excusing them.
From this it is evident that the study of the books of the ancients is obligatory by Law, since their aim and purpose in their books is just the purpose to which the Law has urged us, and that whoever forbids the study of them to anyone who is fit to study them, i.e, anyone who unites two qualities, (1) natural intelligence and (2) religious integrity and moral virtue, is blocking people from the door by which the Law summons them to knowledge of God, the door of theoretical study which leads to the truest knowledge of Him; and such an act is the extreme of ignorance and estrangement from God the Exalted.
And if someone errs or stumbles in the study of these books owing to a deficiency in his natural capacity, or bad organization of his study of them, or being dominated by his passions, or not finding a teacher to guide him to an understanding of their contents, or a combination of all or more than one of these causes, it does not follow that one should forbid them to anyone who is qualified to study them. For this manner of harm which arises owing to them is something that is attached to them by accident, not by essence; and when a thing is beneficial by its nature and essence, it ought not to be shunned because of something harmful contained in it by accident. This was the thought of the Prophet, peace on him, on the occasion when he ordered a man to give his brother honey to drink for his diarrhoea, and the diarrhoea increased after he had given him the honey: when the man complained to him about it, he said, “God spoke the truth; it was your brother’s stomach that lied.” We can even say that a man who prevents a qualified person from studying books of philosophy, because some of the most vicious people may be thought to have gone astray through their study of them, is like a man who prevents a thirsty person from drinking cool, fresh water until he dies of thirst, because some people have choked to death on it. For death from water by choking is an accidental matter, but death by thirst is essential and necessary.
Moreover, this accidental effect of this art is a thing which may also occur accidentally from the other arts. To how many lawyers has law been a cause of lack of piety and immersion in this world! Indeed we find most lawyers in this state, although their art by its essence calls for nothing but practical virtue. Thus it is not strange if the same thing that occurs accidentally in the art which calls for practical virtue should occur accidentally in the art which calls for intellectual virtue.
[For every Muslim the Law has provided a way to truth suitable to his nature, through demonstrative, dialectical or rhetorical methods.]
Since all this is now established, and since we, the Muslim community, hold that this divine religion of ours is true, and that it is this religion which incites and summons us to the happiness that consists in the knowledge of God, Mighty and Majestic, and of His creation, that [end] is appointed for every Muslim by the method of assent which his temperament and nature require. For the natures of men are on different levels with respect to [their paths to] assent. One of them comes to assent through demonstration; another comes to assent through dialectical arguments, just as firmly as the demonstrative man through demonstration, since his nature does not contain any greater capacity; while another comes to assent through rhetorical arguments, again just as firmly as the demonstrative man through demonstrative arguments.
Thus since this divine religion of ours has summoned people by these three methods, assent to it has extended to everyone, except him who stubbornly denies it with his tongue or him for whom no method of summons to God the Exalted has been appointed in religion owing to his own neglect of such matters. It was for this purpose that the Prophet, peace on him, was sent with a special mission to “the white man and the black man” alike; I mean because his religion embraces all the methods of summons to God the Exalted. This is clearly expressed in the saying of God the Exalted, “Summon to the way of your Lord by wisdom and by good preaching, and debate with them in the most effective manner”.
Translated by G. F. Hourani51
I saw a proof of the goodness of Allâh and of his splendid protection when the Franks (the curse of Allâh upon them!) encamped against us with knights and foot-soldiers. We were separated from one another by the Orontes (Al Âṣî), whose waters were so swollen that the Franks could not reach us and we were prevented from reaching them. They pitched their tents on the mountain, while some took up their position in the gardens in their neighbourhood, set their horses free in the meadows and went to sleep. Some young foot-soldiers from Schaizar took off their clothes, took their swords, swam towards these sleepers and killed several of them. Then a number of our enemies rushed at our companions, who took to the water and returned, while the Frankish army rushed down the mountain on horseback like a torrent. Near them there was a mosque, the mosque of Aboû’l-Madjd ibn Soumayya, in which there was a man named Ḥasan az-Zâhid (the ascetic) who lived on a flat roof and used to retire to the mosque to pray. He was dressed in black woollen clothes. We saw him, but we had no means of reaching him. The Franks came, got down at the gate of the mosque and went towards him, while we said, “Power and might belong to Allâh alone! The Franks will kill him.” But he, by Allâh, neither stopped praying nor moved from his position. The Franks stopped, turned away, remounted their horses and rode off, while he remained motionless in the same place, continuing to pray. We did not doubt that Allâh (glory be to him!) had blinded the Franks with regard to him and had hidden him from their sight. Glory to the Almighty, the Merciful!
Among the favours of Allâh the Host High was one shown when the king of the Greeks (Ar-Roûm) camped before Schaizar in the year 532. A body of infantry came out from Schaizar to fight. The Greeks cut them to pieces, killed some and took others prisoner. Among those who were taken captive was an ascetic of the Banoû Kardoûs, a holy man born a slave of Maḥmoud, son Ṣâliḥ, lord of Aleppo. When the Greeks returned, he was their prisoner. He reached Constantinople (al-Ḳousṭaṭîniyya). One day while he was there he met a man who said to him: “Are you Ibn Kardoûs?” “Yes,” he answered. The other replied, “Come with me, take me to your master.” They went together and Ibn Kardoûs presented to his master his companion, who discussed with him the prisoner’s ransom until this was fixed by the two parties at a sum with which the Greek declared himself satisfied. The amount having been paid, the man gave to Ibn Kardoûs a sum of money in addition, saying to him: “This is to enable you to rejoin your family. Go in peace with Allâh the Most High.” Ibn Kardoûs left Constantinople and returned to Schaizar. This deliverance came from Allâh by his mysterious favour. For Ibn Kardoûs did not know who it was who had ransomed him and set him free.
A similar thing happened to me. When, on our departure from Miṣr, the Franks attacked us on the road after they had killed ‘Abbâs, son of Aboû ‘I-Foutoûḥ, and his eldest son Naṣr, we fled to a neighbouring mountain. Our men climbed it on foot, leading their horses. As for me, I was on a hack and could not walk. I got on to my mount. Now the sides of this mountain are all jagged rocks and stones which, trampled underfoot by a horse, make its feet bleed. I whipped the hack to make it go up. But it could not, and went down, driven back by the sharp rocks and stones. I dismounted, rested it and stopped, not being able to walk. Then a man came down to me from the mountain, took one of my hands while my hack was in the other, and pulled me to the top. By Allâh, I did not know who he was and I have never seen him since.
In such times of difficulty, people recall to you the least benefits and claim compensation for them. A Turk had given me a little water to drink, in exchange for which I had given him two dînârs. He never ceased, after our arrival at Damascus, to claim from me what he wanted and to ask me to satisfy his wishes because of this little drink that he had given me. Now my benefactor considered himself an angel (may Allâh have mercy upon me!) by whom Allâh had come to my help.
Translated by G. R. Potter52
Now, when he saw that all things existing were the work of the Creator, he again considered the power of the same, greatly admiring so rare a workmanship, such accurate wisdom and profound knowledge.
There appeared to him in the most minute creatures (much more in the greater) such signs of wisdom and marvels of the work of creation that his mind was filled with the greatest admiration. Then he became assured that all these things must proceed from a voluntary Agent of infinite perfection, even above all perfection, to whom even the weight of an atom could not be unknown whether in heaven or earth, nor any other thing whether lesser or greater than it.
Thereupon he considered all the different sorts of animals, and how this Agent had given to every one of them such a fabric of body and then taught them what use to make thereof. For if he had not taught them to use the members he had given them for those employments for which they were designed, they would not have derived any benefit or advantage therefrom, but on the contrary would rather have found them a burden.
Hence he knew that he was most bountiful and most gracious of all. And then, when he perceived among the creatures anything that had beauty, perfection, power and strength, or whatever other excellency it had, he concluded that it must necessarily proceed from that voluntary Agent, from his existence and by his operation.
He knew that the qualities that were in him were much greater, more perfect, more absolute, more bountiful, more excellent and more lasting; and there was no comparison between those things that were in him and those that were found in the animals.
Nor did he cease to go on with his search till he had run through all the attributes of perfection, and found that they were all in the Agent and proceeded from him, and that he was worthy of them more than any to whom they should be ascribed.
Also he searched all the attributes of defects, and saw him free from them and void of them. And how was it possible for him to be otherwise, since the notion of imperfection is nothing but mere privation or what depends upon it.
How should he in any degree partake of privation, who is a most simple being, the very essence himself, and giving a being to everything that exists, and besides whom there is no existence. For He is the Existence, He is the Absolute, He is the Perfection, He is the Beauty, He is the Glory, He is the Power, He is the Knowledge, He is He, and all Things perish beside Him. (Qur’an.)
Translated by Paul Brönnle53
But upon a time it hapned* that in a certain dry Wood, Fire chanced to be kindled by the mutual knocking and dashing together of the Boughs of some Trees, which consisted of a gummy or rosiny Substance. Which when he perceived, he saw somewhat that affrighted him, being a thing which he had never seen before; so that he stood a good while much wondering at it. Yet he ventured to draw nearer and nearer to it by degrees, still observing its glittering Light, and that wondrous great Force, whereby it seized on everything that it touched, and converted it into its own Nature. Then, to satisfie his Wonder yet farther, and being incited also by that innate Courage and Boldness, which God had planted in his Nature, he was induced to put his Hand to it, and had a mind to lay hold thereon. But when he felt that it burnt his Hand, and that he was not able to lay hold on it, he attempted to take a Stick from the burning Tree, which the Fire had not as yet wholly seized upon; and laying hold on that part which was yet untouch’d, (the Fire having possessed the other end only) he easily affected what he intended and desired; and brought the Fire-brand in his Hand to the Place of his Habitation. For he had before retired into a certain Covert, which he had made choice of for himself, as a fit Lodging, and place of Retirement. And when he had brought the Fire thither, he ceased not to feed it with Stubble and dry Sticks, and other combustible Matter. So that partly out of his Admiration at it, and partly out of the Delight he took in it, he would not suffer it to go out, nor could endure to be long absent from it. But the chief Reason that caused him to make so much of it, and frequent it in the Night-time, was this, that it supplied the Place and Office of the Sun, as well in regard of Light as Heat; insomuch that he was extreamly taken with it, and esteemed it the most excellent and useful of all those things which he had about him. When he also observed that the Flame tended upward towards the Heavens, he began to be persuaded that it was of kin to those celestial Bodies which he saw moving and shining above his Head. He tried also the force and strength thereof upon all manner of Bodies, by casting them into it, by which Experiment he found that it prevailed over all of them sooner or later, according to their several Natures and Dispositions, which rendered them more or less combustible.
And among other Experiments, wherewith he made trial of its strength, he put thereinto certain Fishes which the Sea had cast upon the Shore; which being fried, and the Steam thereof coming to his Nose, his Appetite was stirred up, and became quickned thereby, insomuch that he ventured to taste some part thereof; which he found agreeable to his Palate, and agreeable to his Stomach, from thence forward he accustomed himself to eat Flesh; and to that end, used all kind of Arts he could think on which might enable him to hunt both by Sea and Land, and to catch such living Creatures as were fit for him to feed on, until at length he became to be very expert in them. By this means, his love and regard for the Fire encreased daily, because by the help thereof he provided himself with various sorts of good Food, which he had never afore been acquainted with.
Translated by George Ashwell54
(from the Latin rendering by Edward Pocock)
The blessed Mosque is oblong in shape, and is surrounded on all four sides by porticos. In its centre is a court covered with sand and gravel. The south side has five rows of porticoes and the west four. The sacred Rawdah is at the eastern extremity of the south side. It extends over two rows of porticoes on the side of the court and projects about four spans into the third. It has five angles and five sides, and its form is so wondrous that one can barely portray or describe it. Four of its sides incline away from the direction of the qiblah in an ingenious fashion, and because of this deviation from the qiblah, no one is able to face them in his prayers. The sheik, the imam, learned and pious, last of the learned doctors, and pillar of jurisprudents, Abu Ibrahim Ishaq ibn Ibrahim the Tunisian—may God hold him in His favour—told us that ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz—may God hold him in His favour—determined this in planning the construction from a fear that men might take them as a place of prayer. From the east side, the Rawdah also covers two rows of porticoes, and thus encloses six portico columns.
The length of the side facing the qiblah is twenty-four spans, that of the east thirty, that between the east and the north corners thirty-five, that from the north corner to the west thirty-nine, and that from the west corner to the south twenty-four. On this side is an ebony chest inlaid with sandal-wood, faced with silver and embellished with stars. It is opposite the head of the Prophet—may God bless and preserve him—and is five spans long, three wide and four high. On the side between the north and the west corners is a place over which hangs a curtain that is said to be where the angel Gabriel came down. Upon him be (eternal) happiness.
The circumference of the venerated Rawdah is two hundred and seventy-two spans. It is covered with finely cut marble of splendid quality. The wainscot rises to a third (of its height) or a little less. Above this another third of the blessed walls is daubed with an unguent of musk and other perfumes to a depth of half a span, and blackened, cracked, and accumulated by the passage of time. The walls above this are composed of wooden lattice-work that reaches to the ceiling, for the top of the blessed Rawdah touches the ceiling of the Mosque. The veils (that covers the Rawdah) fall as far as the line of the marble wainscot. They are of azure colour with a check of white quadrangular and octangular figures containing roundels and encircled by white dots. They present a handsome spectacle of novel design. In the upper part runs a band tending to white. In the south wall, opposite the venerated face of the Prophet–may God bless and preserve him—is a silver nail before which men stand to give their salutations. At his feet—may God bless and preserve him—lies the head of Abu Bakr The Faithful—may God hold him in His favour—and the head of ‘Umar The Distinguisher (of True from False) is nigh to the shoulders of Abu Bakr The Faithful—may God hold them both in His favour. He who makes his salutation turns his back to the qiblah and, looking towards the venerated face, gives his salute. He then turns right towards the face of Abu Bakr, and then towards that of ‘Umar—may God hold them both in His favour.
Before this venerated wall hang about twenty silver lamps, and amongst them are two of gold. At the north of the sacred Rawdah is a marbled trough having at its southern end a kind of mihrab. It is said that it is the house of Fatimah—may God hold her in His favour—and also reputed to be her grave. God best knows the truth of this. To the right of the venerated Rawdah the noble pulpit stands forty-two paces away from it. It is set in the blessed haud which is fourteen paces long, six wide, and a span and a half high, and wholly clothed in marble. Between it and the small Rawdah that lies between the venerated tomb and the pulpit, and which tradition declares to be one of the Rawdahs [gardens] of Paradise, lie eight paces. Into this Rawdah men throng to pray, as indeed it is meet and proper that they should. Beside it, to the south, is a pillar said to enclose a relic of the palm-tree trunk that leant towards the Prophet—may God bless and preserve him. A piece of it can be seen in the pillar and men kiss it and hasten to acquire blessings by touching it and passing their cheeks over it. At the south end of this small Rawdah is the chest (described above).
The venerated pulpit is a man’s stature or more in height, five spans wide, five paces long, and has eight steps. The door is in the form of a grille four and a half spans long. It is locked but is opened every Friday. The pulpit is covered with ebony-wood, and the seat of the Prophet—may God bless and preserve him—can be seen above, covered by an ebony board that does not touch it, but protects it from being sat upon. Men insert their hands beneath it and smooth the venerated seat to acquire blessings by touching it. At the top of the right support of the pulpit, where the preacher puts his hand when delivering the khutbah, is a hollow silver ring, resembling that which the tailor puts on his finger, but only so in shape and not in size, for this is larger and loose and encircles the support. Men say that it was the plaything of al-Hasan and al-Husayn—may God hold them in His favour—when their grandfather [Muhammad]—may God bless and preserve him—delivered the khutbah.
The venerated Mosque is one hundred and ninety-six paces long and one hundred and twenty-six wide. It has two hundred and ninety columns that are like straight props, for they reach the ceiling and have no arches bending over them. They are composed of stone hewn into a number of round, bored blocks, mortised together and with melted lead poured between each pair so that they form a straight column. They are then covered with a coat of plaster and rubbed and polished zealously until they appear as white marble. The portico to the south, which we have mentioned as having five rows of porticoes, is enfolded by a maqsurah that flanks its length from west to east and in which there is a mihrab. The imam prays in the aforementioned little Rawdah beside the chest. Between this maqsurah and the Rawdah and the sacred tomb is a big painted reading-desk on which lies a large Qur’an locked in a case. It is one of the four copies sent by ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan—may God hold him in His favour—to the several cities.
Beside the maqsurah, to the east, are two large cupboards containing books and Qur’ans endowed as a waqf to the blessed Mosque. Hard by these cupboards, in the second (row of) porticoes and also to the east, is a trap-door fitted to the level of the ground and locked. It covers a subterranean passage, to which one descends by steps, that leads out from the Mosque to the house of Abu Bakr the Faithful—may God hold him in His favour. This is the way that ‘A’ishah was wont to use. Fast by this house is that of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, as well as that of his son ‘Abdullah—may God hold them both in His favour. Beyond a peradventure this place is the passage leading to Abu Bakr’s house which the Prophet—may God bless and preserve him—especially commanded should be preserved. In front of the sacred Rawdah is another large chest that holds the candles and chandeliers which every night are lit before it.
Towards the east is a wooden structure where some of the guardians of the blessed Mosque sleep. These guardians are Abyssinian eunuchs and slaves of handsome presence, elegantly clad and ornamented. The resident muezzin of the Mosque is a descendent of Bilal—may God hold him in His favour. In the north part of the court is a large pavilion, newly-built called Qubbat al-Zayt [The Pavilion of the Oil], that acts as a store for the appointments of the blessed Mosque and contains all that is needful for it. Beside it in the court are fifteen palm trees. In the upper part of the mihrab that is in the south wall inside the maqsurah, is a square yellow stone, one span square and of a bright and shining surface, that is said to be the mirror of Chosroes. God best knows. Above this in the mihrab there is a nail driven into the wall, and on it is a kind of small casket of which no one knows the origin but which men say may be the drinking cup of Chosroes. God best knows the truth of all this.
The lower half of the south wall is cased with marble, tile on tile, of varying order and colour: a splendid marquetry. The upper half is wholly inlaid with pieces of gold called fusayfisa [Gr., Ψηφοζ] in which the artist has displayed amazing skill, producing shapes of trees in diverse forms, their branches laden with fruits. The whole Mosque is of this style, but the work in the south wall is more embellished. The wall looking on the court from the south side is of this manner, as also is that which does so from the north side. The west and east walls that overlook the court are wholly white and carved, and adorned with a band that contains various kinds of colours. It would take too long to portray and describe the decorations of this blessed Mosque that contains the sacred and unspotted tomb whose charge is more noble and whose resting-place is more exalted than all that adorns it.
The blessed Mosque has nineteen gates of which only four are open. On the west there are two, one called Bab al-Rahmah [Gate of Pity], and the other Bab al-Khashya [Gate of Fear]. On the east there are also two, one called Bab Jibril [Gate of Gabriel]—upon whom be eternal happiness—and the other Bab al-Rakha’ [Gate of Plenty]. Facing Bab Jibril – upon whom be eternal happiness—is the house of ‘Uthman—may God hold him in His favour—in which he was martyred. Facing the venerated Rawdah on this eastern side is the tomb of Jamal al-Din of Mosul—may God have mercy on his soul—whose story and the monuments of whose generosity are celebrated, and whose memorable deeds we have already recorded. In front of the venerated Rawdah is (a window with) an iron grating opening on the Rawdah from which exudes a perfumed aroma. To the south there is a small locked gate; to the north there are four locked gates; to the west another five, also locked; and to the east yet five more locked, which with the four open gates gives a total of nineteen gates. The blessed Mosque has three minarets, one in the angle between the east and the south, and the other two in the two north corners. They are small and have the form of turrets but the first is like a minaret.
Translated by R. J. C. Broadhurst55