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Secrets &

Mysteries

Muhammad Iqbal

Retold by Khurram Ali Shafique

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THE MAKING OF Secrets & Mysteries

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Contents 1. The Secrets of the Self

The self Desire Love Strength and weakness Literature and ideas Disciplining the self The young man and Ali Hajwiri Life in a group Time is a sword An invocation

2. Mysteries of Selflessness Dedication Prelude: individual and society Oneness of God Prophet-hood Space and time Quran National life Motherhood Summary An invocation

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The Secrets of the Self

But yester-eve a lamp in hand1 The Shaykh did all the city span, Sick of mere ghosts he sought a man, But could find none in all the land.

“I Rustum or a Haydar seek I’m sick of snails, am sick,” he said, “There’s none,” said I. He shook his head, “There’s none like them, but still I seek.”

– Rumi

My tears washed the rose’s face in the morning and drove away sleep from the narcissus’ eyes while my passion made the grass grow. The Gardener sowed my verse by planting my tears in the soil and thereby reaped a sword.

I know things that are yet unborn in the world and I am the poet of tomorrow. My own age doesn’t understand my deep meanings and despaired of my old companions I am looking towards those who will come after me. Indeed, many poets were born after their deaths and opened our eyes when their own were closed. They sprung like flowers from the dust of their tombs.

O Saki! Pour moonbeams into the dark night of my thought so that I may guide the wanderers and exalt the worth of my poetry by sinking into the ears of the world.

My mentor is Rumi, who turned my dust into gold and set my ashes aflame. I saw him in my dream when I slept after crying over the plight of humanity. “Take a drought of love’s pure wine,” he said to me. “How long will you be silent like a bud? Strike the chords of your heart and rouse a tumultuous strain; let your perfume be spread far and wide like the rose. Disclose the secrets of the ancient wine seller, put aside the melancholy of the old times and set your feet on a new path. O Caravan Bell! Awake!”

At these words I rose like music from the string and prepared a Paradise for the ears where I may unveil the secrets of the self.

The self

The self gives form to Life. Whatever you see is a secret of the self.

1 This versified translation from Rumi is taken from Sheikh Mahmud Husain.

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It created the universe of Thought when it awoke to consciousness. With a hundred worlds in its Essence, it gave birth to its opposites for the sake of affirming itself and, imagining them to be different, it sowed the seed of opposition in the world.

The pencil of the self lined a hundred today’s so that it could achieve the dawn of a single tomorrow. Its illusions are the soul of reality. It slays so that it could know the strength of its arm, and it shapes and perfects spiritual beauty by destroying and creating. A hundred gardens perish for the sake of a single rose and a hundred new moons are born to grace a single sky. Farhad chiseled the Mount Beston until a stream of milk gushed out of its barren rocks and yet his labors were justified because Shireen, indeed, was beautiful. And likewise, a hundred Abrahams were burnt to light the lamp of one Muhammad.

The self likes to express itself. The chain of cause and effect is also a creation of the self, so that there could be action in the world, and the expanse of Time is the playground. The self rises, kindles, falls, glows, breathes, burns, shines, walks and flies until it creates sands by scattering itself and mountains through reuniting.

Life in each atom is in proportion with the power of the self, for all life in the universe comes from this power. When a drop of water recognizes this power it turns itself into a priceless pearl and when a mountain loses its self it turns into sand, surged over by the mighty sea. The wave, so long as it keeps its own, rides the mighty sea; and the grass, by finding a means of growth in itself, cleaves the breast of the garden. Because the Earth is firmly based on itself, the captive moon goes round it but the being of the sun is stronger and hence the Earth itself is captive to its fascination.

The river of life expands into an ocean when life gathers strength from the self.

Desire

Desire is the origin of Life and it is through desire that Life is preserved. It is the soul of the world and it is in the nature of everything. Partridge’s legs are derived

from its desire to walk elegantly, the nightingale’s beak from its endeavor to sing and our delight in seeing has crystallized into an eye. Desire sets the heart dancing and turns the breast into a mirror.

Negation of desire is death to the living, just as the absence of heat extinguishes the flame. Social organizations, customs, laws and the miracles of science are all embodiments of a desire that burst forth from the hearts of the people and took shape. It was good that the reed got separated from the reed-bed because in this manner it was turned into a flute and its music got heard!

Rise! Form an ideal and become acquainted with the mystery of Life.

Love

Love develops the unknown possibilities of the self, instructs it to illuminate the world and makes it more living, more burning, more glowing and more lasting.

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Love is fearless in its nature and free from the constraints of this world since it doesn’t belong to this world. It cleaves the hardest rocks since it is the Fountain of Life and the flashing sword of Death.

It leads to improvement. Love of God at last becomes wholly God. Therefore, seek a beloved and learn to love. Seek an eye like Noah and a heart like Job,

find a Perfect Master and transmute your dust into gold. Like Rumi, light a candle and burn the city within you in the fire of the master so that a new world might be born from its ashes.

There is a beloved hidden in your heart whose lovers become fairer than the fair, sweeter, comelier and more beloved. The soil of Arabia came to life by his grace and rose to the skies. Muhammad, who lives in every Muslim’s heart, is the source of our glory, and eternity is less than a moment of his time. He slept on a mat of rushes but the crown of Chosroes was under his people’s feet; he chose the nightly solitude of Mount Hira and founded a state, laws and a government. Rich and poor were alike in his sight; he brought the ancient empires to an end and set forth a new era. With the key of religion he opened the door of this world.

We, his followers are destitute in the world today and we look towards his mercy – when the daughter of the hospitable Hatim of Tay was taken prisoner in battle and brought into his presence with her feet in chains, face unveiled and neck bowed with shame, he covered her head with his own mantle. In him is our trust not only in the Day of Judgment but also in this world.

Fashioned by our love for him, we are free from the limitations of territorial loyalties because he demolished the distinctions of race – we belong to Arab, China and Persia alike. We are like sight, which is one though it is the light of two eyes; we are like a rose with many petals but with one perfume, for we are the secret concealed in his heart and he is the soul of our society.

Devote yourself to this beloved, retreat for a while in the Hira of the heart, depart from your self and flee to God. Then, strengthened by God, return to your self and break the idols of false passions, so that the Lord of Ka‘abah may make you the vicegerent on the Earth.

You are weak because you are destitute. This malady has robbed you of your imagination; otherwise you can quaff rosy wine from the jar of existence, take your money from the purse of Time, and never be obliged to anyone in the world.

Beware of incurring obligations! When the Caliph Umar dropped his whip while riding a camel he insisted on dismounting in order and to pick it up himself; he refused to be obliged to anyone for the small favor of picking up his whip and giving it back to him. Receiving benefits debases a nature that fixes its gaze on the sky, and poverty becomes poorer by asking.

Do not scatter your handful of dust. Asking disintegrates the self just as love makes it stronger.

Strength and weakness

The self rules the world when it is strengthened by love. A disciple of Bu Ali Qalandar, the renowned saint of Panipat, was passing through the

bazaar one day. The governor of the city happened to come out on horseback, his servants

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and staff-bearer riding on his side. The forerunner shouted at the dervish to get out of the way but he, intoxicated with the wine of Bu Ali’s discourse, failed to pay attention. He walked on with drooping head, sunk in the sea of his own thoughts. The heedless staff-bearer broke his staff on the head of the dervish, who now painfully stepped aside and with a heavy heart went to Bu Ali. Tears dropped from his eyes as he complained.

A strange fire seemed to come out of the Saint’s soul. In a fiery torrent of speech he dictated a letter to King Alaudin Khalji, the mighty monarch of the Indian Empire. “Your governor has broken my servant’s head and cast burning coals on his own life. Arrest this wicked governor, or else I will bestow your kingdom on someone else!”

The saint’s secretary took his pen and wrote it down. The King trembled in every limb upon receiving this letter and instantly sought handcuffs for the governor. For the embassy to the Saint he chose the sweet-voiced eloquent poet Ameer Khusrau of Delhi and asked him to entreat the Saint to forgive this offence.

Khusrau’s music used to spring from the secrets of Life itself. Harmonies flew from his lute and filled the chamber with the soft moonlight of his genius as he entered the Saint’s presence. Bu Ali’s soul melted, and in exchange for a strain of poetry he returned the kingdom that was firm like mountains.

The negation of the self, on the other hand, is a doctrine invented by the subject nations in the world so that by this means they may sap and weaken the character of their rulers. Have you heard the story of the sheep whose meadow was overpowered by the tigers?

“The sharpness of your teeth brings disgrace upon you and blinds the eye of your perception,” one of the sheep said to the tigers when it found no escape from them. “Paradise is for the weak alone; strength is but a pathway to hell. The world is an illusion; so do not torment yourself for a phantom! Close your eyes, ears and lips so that your thought may reach the lofty sky! Life’s solidity depends upon self-denial and the spirit of the righteousness is fed by fodder.”

The sheep declared itself an apostle of God, and the tiger tribe – exhausted by hard struggle – set their hearts on the comfort of the sheep’s religion. In time their nature was transformed, their teeth were blunted and the awful flashing of their eyes was put out. The desire for action left their hearts and they lost reputation, prestige, fortune, the power of ruling and the resolution to be independent. Physical strength diminished while spiritual fear increased, bringing in its wake poverty, lethargy and low-mindedness. They called their decline Moral Culture.

Literature and ideas

The Greek philosopher Plato was one such sheep. His thought has deeply influenced the mysticism and literature of Islam and it is high time that we should guard ourselves against his theories.

He was an idealist whose imagination failed to work in the sphere of reality and hence he made hand, eye, and ear of no account. To die is the secret of life, according to him; as if the candle becomes more glorified by being put out! He is a sheep in a philosopher’s garb and yet the soul of our Sufi bows to his authority.

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Sweet is the world of phenomena to the living spirit; dear is the world of non-existence to the dead one. Plato disbelieved in the material universe, invented invisible ‘Ideas’ and poisoned the thoughts of many nations that were yet to come.

The aim of literature should be to create beauty, since beauty nourishes desire – desire is the creator and preserver of life, but it is also love’s message to beauty. Hence, whatever is good and fair and beautiful is our guide in our quest, and the job of the poet is to make the fair, fairer – beauty unveils itself in the poet’s breast and his look turns the rose rosier, the Nature more enchanting. His bell wakes up the caravan and leads it into Life’s paradise. Through his magic, Life develops itself and becomes self-questioning and impatient.

Doomed is the nation that resigns itself to death and whose poet turns away from the joy of existence because then his mirror shows beauty as ugliness, his honey leaves a hundred stings in the heart, his kiss robs the rose of freshness and he takes away from the nightingale’s heart the joy of flying. He sinks you in the sea of hallucination, makes you unworthy of action and his beauty has no dealings with Truth. He is sick, and by his words our sickness is increased.

O you who has been bewitched by such poets, you have drunk deadly poison through the ear! Your way of life is a proof of your degeneracy; and a disgrace to Islam.

Love should strengthen the self but see what image of Love have you carved out of your deviance. In your imagination, Love appears as pale, heartsick, enfeebled and full of childish tears. He makes distressful sighs, begs at the tavern-doors and steals glimpses of beauty from lattices. On his lips a store of complaints against heaven, and flattery and spite the mettles of his mirror – this is not Love but a phantom of sick imagination.

Reform your literature. Clear seeing thought shows the way to action just as the lightening-flash precedes the thunder. Go back to the scorching heat of the Arabian Desert if the spring of Persia and Iran have fettered you to comfort – let your body and soul burn in the fire of Life so that you may be fit for life’s battle.

If you wish to have a healthy imagination then let life be the criticism of poetry.

Disciplining the self

The training of the self has three stages: obedience, self-control and divine vicegerency. The camel is patient and obedient. It steps noiselessly along the sandy track, knows every

thicket and carries rider, baggage and litter. It eats seldom, sleeps little and trots on to the journey’s end even more patiently than the humans who ride it. You, too, will enjoy the best destination if you do not refuse the burden of duty.

One who would master the sun and stars must become the prisoner of law. Air becomes fragrant when it is contained in flower bud; the perfume becomes musk when it is contained in the navel of the musk deer, and a worthless person becomes worthy by obedience while disobedience turns fire to ashes.

Do not transgress the statutes of the Prophet; do not complain of the hardness of the Divine Law; O you, who are emancipated from the old custom, adorn your feet once more with the same fine silver chain.

However, a human being must be superior to a camel – the camel cannot hold its own halter in its hand! The camel cares only for itself, and therefore must be controlled by others.

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The soul, too, is conceited, self-governed and self-willed; those who don’t command their own souls come under the sway of others’ commands.

Contrasting elements were mixed in your soul when you were created – love, fear, greed, courage, and so on; fear of God, fear of the world, fear of the world to come, and so on. To give your control over yourself is the purpose of all worships – prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and almsgiving. You will break the spell of every fear as long as you hold fast to the belief that, “There is no god except God.”

Divine vicegerency is sweet, and if you can rule the camel of your soul then you can rule the world. God’s vicegerent is like the soul of the universe, just as God Himself is. Such a person is the shadow of God’s name, he knows the mysteries of part and whole, executes the divine command in the world, and creates new eras to be fashioned according to choice.

God’s vicegerent is the final cause of why God taught Adam the names of all things, and he receives his power from God Himself; he is the inmost sense of what God said about the Prophet’s ascension, “Glory to Him that transported his servant by night.”

He is the yield of many generations and his hidden being is the unheard music of Life’s harp. He gives a new explanation of Life, and a new interpretation to this dream.

Ali, the first Muslim and the strength of Islam, received the title Bu Turab from the Prophet, and the Quran described him as “the hand of God.” The inner meanings of the names of Ali are linked with the mysteries of Life itself.

Bu Turab means the master of dust or clay. The dark clay that forms our body blocks our reason and our far-reaching thought – it makes our eyes blind, and our ears deaf; and it has in its hand the two-edged sword of lust that breaks the hearts of the travelers on the path. Ali, the Lion of God, subdued the body’s clay and transmuted it and was named Bu Turab from his conquest of the body. Whoever becomes a Bu Turab, turns back the sun from the west and through self-knowledge acts as the hand of God. He becomes the gate of the city of knowledge, and reigns over all.

To turn to dust is the creed of a moth; to conquer your clay and cast its atoms in a new mould is worthy of a human being. You are soft as a rose; become hard as a stone, for unless from your own earth you build your own wall or door, someone else will make bricks of your clay.

Power is the only law of life, since life is power made manifest – falsehood derives from power the authority of truth, and deems itself true by falsifying truth by the means of power. It says to good, “You are bad,” and good becomes evil.

You whose glass cries out the injustice of the stone, how long this wailing, crying and lamentation? Mean spirits have no weapon but resentment, while the potentialities of the brave souls are displayed in willing acceptance of what is difficult.

The young man and Ali Hajwiri

This story from the life of Ali Hajwiri (Data Ganj Bakhsh) is like a rosebud containing an entire garden in it.

A young man came from Merv to Lahore, where Ali Hajwiri used to live and teach. He was tall like a cypress tree but was hemmed in by the foes. “I am as a glass in the midst of stones,” he lamented before the Saint. “Please show mercy and do teach me how to lead my life amongst enemies!”

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“Your enemies are your friends,” said Ali Hajwiri, in whose nature love had allied beauty with majesty. “They awaken your potentialities. The stones in the way whet resolution and what is the use of eating and sleeping like a beast if you don’t strengthen your self. If the stone thinks itself to be glass it becomes glass and gets into the way of breaking. Become full of self if you wish to live!

“Death is not the parting of the soul and body but it takes place through one becoming oblivious of one’s self. Focus on the self and be a man of action. Be a man of God and bear mysteries within!”

The same matter can be explained by means of another story. A thirsty bird pecked a diamond with its beak because, fainting with thirst, he had fancied it was a drop of water. “I am not a dewdrop and I do not quench thirst,” said the sunbright stone. “I do not live for the sake of others. I am one whose water will shiver the beaks of birds and even humans would not survive if they swallow me!” The bird soon discovered a drop of dew that was ready to drop from a rose-twig and was trembling in fear of the sun. It was born in the sky but had stopped for a moment on the twig, from a desire to be seen but had gained nothing from Life. The thirsty bird hopped under the rosebush and the dewdrop trickled into its mouth. Then it was no more.

Let me open another gate of Truth with yet another little story. The coal in the mine said to the diamond, “We are comrades and our being is one, yet splendors rise from every side of you while I am my valued less than earth.” The diamond replied, “Dark earth, when hardened, becomes dignified. Having been at strife with its circumstances it is ripened by struggle and grows hard like stone. It is this ripeness that has adorned me with stone while you are burnt because your body is soft.”

Be void of fear, grief and anxiety. Be hard, be a diamond!

Life in a group

There once lived at Benaras a venerable Brahmin, whose head was deep in the ocean of thought and yet he could not solve the mysteries of being and not-being. One day he visited an excellent Sheikh, who in his breast had a heart of gold.

“O wanderer in the lofty sky!” The Sheikh said to the Brahmin, who was eager to take advice. “Be reconciled with the earth for a while. If you are an unbeliever then be firm in your unbelief because if a people’s life is derived from unity then unbelief too is source of unity. O inheritor of an ancient culture! Turn not your back on the path of your ancestors.”

Once upon a time, laying hold of the skirt of the mountain, the River Ganges said to the Himalayas, “God told you the secrets of the heavens but deprived your foot of graceful gait. What good is your sublimity and stateliness, since life springs from perpetual movement and you are deprived of it.”

The Himalaya puffed angrily like a see of fire and replied, “Your wide waters serve me as my looking glass and in my bosom are a hundred rivers like you. This graceful gait of yours is an instrument of death because whoever moves way from the self is sure to die. You take pride in your ability to move but you do not consider that you have made your existence an offering to the ocean. Be self-contained in yourself like the rose in the garden and do not go to the florist in order to spread your perfume. To live is to grow in yourself and to gather roses from your own flowerbed.”

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The continuation of social life depends on firm attachment to the characteristic traditions of the community and the color of God is the tincture of a Muslim’s heart. Let your nature prevail by means of love, for a Muslim, if he is not loving, is an infidel. Upon God depend his seeing, eating, drinking, and sleeping and his will becomes one with the will of God, since he embodies the saying, “There is no god but God.”

In the tradition of Islam there is no place for war except for the sake of God. The Mughal Emperor Shahjahan once visited the Saint Mian Mir of Lahore, in order to obtain blessings for an impending invasion on Deccan. “The Muslim strengthens his strategy with prayers and turns from this world to God,” said the Emperor at the end of his request.

The Saint made no answer until a disciple came to him with the offering of a silver coin. “I have earned it with my sweat,” said the poor disciple. “Please accept it from me.”

“This money should be given to our Emperor,” said the Saint. “He is a beggar in royal robes. His eyes are always fixed on the tables of others, his hunger has consumed a whole world, his building lays a wide land waste and his victory is always followed by famine and plague. In his delusion he calls his pillage an empire but his wars bring death – to his own soldiers as well as to the enemy. The beggar’s hunger consumes his own soul but the king’s hunger destroys state and religion. Whoever draws a sword for any cause except the Truth, his sword is sheathed in his own breast.”

I will now offer some precepts for the Muslims of India.2 These come from Mir Najat Naqshbandi, the Old Man of the Desert3:

Firstly, Move around yourself; what is life but to be freed from moving around others! Secondly, remember what Rumi has to say about knowledge: “Knowledge, if it serves

your body, is a snake. Knowledge, if you take it to heart, is a friend.” Thirdly, perfect your knowledge with spiritual fervor. You must have heard how Rumi

himself got acquainted with the true meaning of knowledge. In the beginning he used to give lectures on philosophy at Aleppo; he was wise in understanding but ignorant of love and love’s passion. The venerable dervish Shams Tabriz came to his college and cried out, “What is all this noise and babble?”

“Peace, O fool!” exclaimed Rumi. “Do not laugh at the doctrines of the sages; get out of my college. This is argument and discussion: what have you to do with it?” These words increased the anger of Tabriz, and caused a fire to burst forth from his soul and burn the stacks of books that lay around the lecturer. “How did you kindle this fire, which has burnt the books of the philosophers?” Rumi cried, and Tabriz answered, “O unbelieving Muslim, this is vision and ecstasy: what have you to do with it? My state is beyond thought, and my flame is the Alchemist’s stone.”4

Do not seek the glow of love from the knowledge of today. It has fallen down in crossing the bridge of life, its nature remains untouched by the glow of love, and it is ever engaged in a joyless search.

Fourthly, come back to your self. You are the trustee of the wisdom of the Quran. Find the lost unity again.

2 ‘India’ at that time referred to the British India, which included the present-day Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. 3 This seems to be a fictitious character. Iqbal introduces fictitious sages in other books also, for instance, Mehrab Gul Afghan in Zarb-i-Kaleem (The Rod of Moses) and Mullah Lolabi Kashmiri in Armughan-i-Hijaz (The Arabian Gift). 4 This account of their meeting need not be taken literally: it is generally seen as an allegorical description of Tabriz’s influence on Rumi. Rumi accepted Tabriz as his mentor and himself became a spiritualist.

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Fifthly, do not run after illusions in the name of spirituality. Our spiritual directors owe their rank to their white hair and are the laughing-stock of children in the street. The true faith has been lost to monasticism. Do not seek your own kind in another’s shop and understand the needs of the day.

Time is a sword

God bless Imam Shafi‘, who said, “Time is a sword.” How should I tell you the secret of this cutting sword? There is life in its flashing edge and its owner rises above hope and fear. Holding it in his hand, Moses parted the Red Sea and turned its waters into dry earth. The arm of Ali drew strength from this sword and conquered Khyber. You must also observe the turning of the days and read the signs of Time.

Break the illusion, stop counting time by the passing moments and behold a new world within you!

Time does not depend on the movement of the Sun, for the Time is forever while the Sun is not. Our Time, which has neither a beginning nor an end, lies in the garden inside us and is the secret of the light of the Sun and the stars. “Do not vilify time, for time is God,” said the Prophet. Time is the secret of Life, and Life is the secret of Time.

By perceiving Time as a linear motion you turned it into a girdle around your waist and became a prisoner. You had the secret of God in your soul but you put the lights off and became an illusion. Revive yourself by understanding what the Prophet meant when he said, “I have a time with God of such sort that neither an angel nor prophet is my peer.”

Let me tell you the difference between the slave and the free. The slave follows the day and the night while Time itself resides in the heart of the free.

There were days when we the Muslims, too, were the masters of this secret. We poured rosy wine from the jar of Truth and unveiled the face of reality. Do not look down upon us, O you who now carry the sword of Time! We are the successors of Moses and Aaron, we carry the secret of God in our hearts and our bond with the Prophet frees us from worrying about today and tomorrows.

An invocation

O You who are the Soul of the Universe! Once more dwell in our breasts and give comfort to our hearts.

Give us unity and strength. We are like dispersed stars in the world – though of the same family, we are strangers to each other. Bind again these scattered leaves; revive the law of love and take us back to serve you as in the good old days. Commit your cause to us, who love you.

Teach us the secret of ‘There is no god,’ and the mystery of ‘except God.’ Let me sow my tear into the garden and let it grow into a fire that should make the tulip

fairer. I am a Sinai, burning the secrets; send me a Moses. I have wronged myself and I have sinned, but I have a flame in my heart that has burnt the idol-house of knowledge. I have

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taught the candle to burn openly while I consume myself unseen by the world. How long shall I wait for one to share my grief? How long must I search for a confidant?

I am like a single tulip in a garden: I am alone in the midst of company. Give me a sympathizing friend adept in the mysteries of my nature – endowed with madness and wisdom, and one who doesn’t run after the phantom of vain things. Give me such a friend, so that I may confide my lament to his soul and see again my face in his heart. I will mould his image in my own clay and be to him both idol and worshipper.

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Mysteries of Selflessness

Strive, and find yourself in selflessness; this is the easy path, may God know better.

Rumi

Dedication

To the Muslim Community Question me not when I speak of Love. If I may not have tasted this wine, someone else must have.

Urfi of Shiraz

You, whom God made the last of the peoples of the Earth so that all beginnings might end in you, why have you fallen captive to the charms of others? Lay the foundation of love in your soul and renew your pledge with the Prophet.

The charms of Europe faded away in my eyes when I beheld your beauty unveiled. Other poets sing of imaginary beloveds, of beautiful cheeks and tresses, but I now sing of you. I am now like an ocean, except that my waves are restless no more and I don’t hold out the begging bowl of bubble.

I do not sing panegyrics, I do not bow before kings and monarchs, but I am offering my homage to you, O Muslim Community! You are the beloved of our Prophet, and hence I call you my heart.

In the mid swatch of night when the entire world was hushed in slumber, I made my loud lament to God that He might grant a firm-knit life to people who are no more intimate with their own souls. “How long, O Lord, must I burn like the tulip and beg the morning dew to quench my fire?”

The secrets of love stand revealed in my nature. My song imparts fire to sapless straw and grows flowers that suite the bosom of love. One such flower I now offer to you: love, like the tulip, has one brand at heart and on its bosom wears a single flower. May you wake up from your deep slumber; may tulips blossom from your earth anew, breathing the fragrance of the breeze of spring!

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Prelude: individual and society

The bond between the individual and the society is a mercy because the individual self achieves fulfillment only in the group. The individual and the group are like mirrors held to each other. One gains respect from the society and the society is comprised of many like him or her.

An individual is like a drop that becomes an ocean by mingling in the group. His or her soul becomes a treasury of the ancient culture and a road to the glorious future – in a community the individual becomes a link between what is to come and what has gone before.

The individual owes his or her body and soul to the community. It nurtures him or her and swells his or her heart with the joy of growth. Its needs become the criterion of his or her actions. Alone, he or she is heedless of high purpose and his or her strength is apt to dissipate itself. The group gives discipline, roots and love.

You have lost yourself in vain surmise because you did not know the self from selflessness. The self is an element of light in your dust, whose single shaft illuminates your whole perception; all your joys and sorrows spring from its enjoyment and its distress, while your life depends on its constant change and turn. Each self is a single unity and brooks no duality; because of it, I am myself and you are you.

The nature of the self is to be both free and bound – itself a spark, it has the potency to seize the whole. When it comes out of its seclusion and steps into the riot of phenomena, its heart is impressed with the stamp of ‘the other,’ its ‘I’ dissolves into ‘you’ and its immense freedom is fettered by the constraints of love and company. The pride of many selves pulled together gives birth to humility and each self, a petal on its own, becomes a garden in itself when in company:

“These subtleties are like a steely sword; if they defeat your wit, quick, flee away!”

Rumi

However, the question how society first came into being has baffled the philosophers for ages. We cannot solve it by going back in time but can only understand it by looking into the nature of the human being – the way a flower is plucked to represent the garden.

A prophet alone has the ability to contain an entire book in a single word, and hence elevate savages and barbarians to the highest aims of civilization. He takes inspiration from a direct experience of the Ultimate Reality, and therefore his look integrates the fragmented faculties of life, purifies reason, regenerates the individual and gives birth to culture and society. Hence the community is made up of the mingling of individuals but owes the perfecting of its education to prophet-hood.

Oneness of God

The structure of the Muslim Community rests on two pillars: the oneness of God and prophet-hood.

The mind, astray in this world, first found the pathway to its destiny by faith in one God – what other home should bring the poor traveler to rest? Oneness of God also means the

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oneness of the humankind, and an end to the distinctions of color, race or status. It binds the group in an indivisible unity – the instrument of thought transcends the barriers of the physical world with the fire of truth. Hence, the Muslim Community rises above regional loyalties – country, land and race belong to dust and with dust they perish. Our foundations lie concealed within our hearts.

Belief in the oneness of God also puts an end to despair, grief and fear, which are the source of all evils and destroy life. Despair is like a tombstone on your heart – it lulls life asleep, blinds the spirit’s eye and kills all faculties – while grief, like a lancet, pierces the soul’s vein. Remember what the Prophet said to his trusted companion Abu Bakr when they were left alone on their way to Madinah: “Do not grieve!”

Fear is a spy sent from the kingdom of Death. Its spirit is dark and chill like Death’s own heart, its ear is a thief of Life’s intelligence and its eye wreaks havoc in the realm of Life. You can be sure that fear is the origin of whatever evils lurk in your own heart – fraud, cunning, malice and lies all flourish on fear, who hides itself behind falsehood and hypocrisy. It grows weak when zeal is high and therefore it is most happy in disunion.

How truthfully the well-notched arrow spoke to the sword in a battle when it said, “I am a fire whether I wing in air or lie encased within quiver. When I speed from the bow towards a human breast, right well I see into its depth. If I do not find a heart unflawed, unvisited by thoughts of fear or despair, then I cleave it asunder. But if that breast embodies a pure heart serenely throbbing with faith and glowing reflective to an inward light, then my fire is turned to water by its flame and my shaft falls soft as dew.”

The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir, who is grossly misunderstood for his efforts to reintegrate the Muslim Community in India, was the last arrow left to our quiver in the affray of Faith with Unbelief. One day he set forth into the jungle attended by one loyal servant. The birds were exultant in the joyous breath of morn and sang their hymns on every tree. The Emperor also became absorbed in prayer and was transformed from this contingent world to the realm of the sublime truth.

Presently, a tiger sprang from the plain, attracted in this direction by the scent of a human being. Heaven trembled at his roar as he leaped on Alamgir and hit his waist. The Emperor didn’t turn around but took out his dagger, slit the belly of the furious beast, and then became absorbed in his sublime worship again.

You too should let love burn all anxiety so that your heart becomes the throne of immortal Beauty. The fear of God is the title of the book of faith; in the fear of anything else is the seed of duality.

Prophet-hood

The apostleship of Muhammad is the second pillar of our community. Abraham, who refused to worship anyone except God, built the sanctuary of Ka‘abah

and prayed to God for a nation that should inherit him. We are the garden watered by the tears of his sleepless eyes.

The prophet-hood of Muhammad, which was God’s reply to Abraham’s prayer, is a magic ring around us. The Muslim Community is a circle whose great circumference centers on Ka‘abah, and by the force and virtue of this relationship it remains unshakable – out of the sea we surge like scattering waves.

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God is the source of the individual’s ego but the Prophet is the source of the Community’s ego, which is a tiding of mercy to the entire world. A community comes into being when a common aim matures in the hearts of many, and Muhammad’s aim was to found brotherhood, equality and freedom among all humanity.

Priests and kings had put fetters around the necks of the people everywhere in the world. The Prophet came to reassign the rights of those whose rights they were. He delivered the king’s throne into the subject’s hands, brought dignity to honest labor, forbade the tyranny of the taskmasters, shattered every ancient privilege, redeemed the slave from bondage and breathed fresh life in Adam’s weary bones. His birth was the end of the ancient world as he was the last of the prophets. We are the last of the communities as our lifeblood flows through his wisdom.

An illustration of Muslim brotherhood is the story of Bu Ubaid and Jaban. Bu Ubaid was a companion of the Prophet who led the Muslim armies against Persia after the Prophet’s death. Jaban, the Supreme Commander of the Persian armies, was very crafty and full of guile. He did not reveal his name when a Muslim soldier took him prisoner in war, and begged mercy upon his life. The soldier, not knowing who his prisoner was, granted him life. Jaban’s identity was disclosed after the final defeat of the Persians, and then his blood was petitioned of the Arab general.

“Friends, we are Muslims,” said Bu Ubaid, who didn’t need armies to assist his bold resolve. “We are strings upon one lute, playing one tune – the voices of the slaves Qanbar or Bilal attune with Ali and Abu Dharr. Each one of us is trustee to the whole Community, and the pledge of one is as good as the pledge of all. Though Jaban was an enemy of Islam, yet a Muslim has granted him immunity and therefore no Muslim sword should spill his blood.”

An illustration of Muslim equality is the story of Sultan Murad and the architect of Khojand, who was unsurpassed in his craft but his hand was cut off when the King was displeased by a mosque he built on the royal command.

The architect went to the court and petitioned against the king. “I am no slave of the king but a freeman,” he cried. “Determine my appeal by the Quran!” The Qazi5 bit his lip in anger and summoned to his court the unjust king, who, hearing the Quran invoked, turned pale with awe and came like any criminal. The exalted monarch stood next to the architect and blushed like a tulip while his eyes were cast down in shame. He confessed his guilt.

“The Quran says that in retribution is life,” said the Qazi, “Life finds stability by justice. A Muslim slave is no less than a freeman, and the blood of a king is not thicker than the architect’s.” Upon hearing this, the mighty Emperor shook off his sleeve and bared his hand. The architect could no longer keep silent and cried, “God commands kindness as well as justice. I forgive the Sultan in the name of God and his Prophet!”

Note the majesty of Muhammad’s law, and how it creates equality between master and slave, making the mat of reeds equal with the throne of rich brocade.

Freedom is born in the bosom of love, and whoever makes a bond with the Almighty is delivered from the yoke of everyone else. Reason is ruthless, but love is even more so, and it is also purer, nimbler and more undaunted. Thriving on doubt and suspicion, reason is lost in the maize of cause and effect while love, rich in firm resolve, strikes boldly in the field of action. Reason teaches us to see ourselves while love teaches us to test ourselves. Reason invokes us to take pleasure while love empowers us through loyalty. Freedom is the contentment of love’s soul and the driver of its ride.

5 Judge in a medieval Muslim court.

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The story of Husain is an illustration of how love handles the lustful reason in the hour of trial.

Two forces come forth from Life. The first is represented by the Pharaoh and Yazid, the second by Moses and Husain. Husain came like a rain-charged cloud to spill his blood on the soil of Kerbala when the caliphate first broke away from the Quran and the freedom of the Muslim Community was throttled. Setting out with only seventy-two companions against a hostile army of countless soldiers, he offered his life so that tyranny was evermore cut off till the end of the world. The mystery of God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael was at last revealed through the sacrifice of Husain.

The hand of time has washed away the imprints of our majesty – bygone is the glory of Damascus, Baghdad and Granada. Yet the strings Husain smote within our souls vibrate forever: the cry of ‘God is Great,’ which he raised in Kerbala, forever renews our faith.

Space and time

Since the Muslim Community is founded upon belief in the oneness of God and prophet-hood, it is bounded neither by space nor by time.

Our essence is not of any place. The vigor of our wine is not contained in any bowl – Chinese, Indian, Turkish and Syrian alike are the shred that constitutes our jar.

The poet Ka‘ab, who was once an enemy of the Prophet, repented and brought an ode to him. This was his famous Banat Suad, in which he addressed the Prophet as ‘one of the swords of India,’ since the Indian swords were much admired in those days. The Prophet didn’t like this analogy and changed the line to ‘one of the swords of God.’ Being more sublime than the heavens, it didn’t please his heart to be attributed to any clime.

On another occasion he said, “Of all this world of yours, I love prayer, perfumes and women.” The subtlety confined in yours should not be missed on a perceptive mind – the Prophet dwelt in this world but was not from this world. He was a prophet even while Adam yet was clay and water, so we cannot say what land he was from. He was our guest and lived amongst us but these base elements he reckoned for our world. A Muslim, likewise, is not contained in any land.

The meaning of the Prophet’s migration to Madinah is lost upon our historians. He, whose life God had promised to save, did not need to flee from his enemies. The moving from Makkah to Madinah was to establish the law that guides the Muslim’s life and gives stability to our community: be boundless and seek no limit in the world. The rose’s scent doesn’t remain confined in the rose but disseminates itself throughout the garden!

Beware of the present day nationalism. Disunited nations have banished the unity of the humankind. It started when the Europe revolted against the Church, and then Satan sent an apostle by the name of Machiavelli, the Florentine philosopher who wrote The Prince, thereby equating politics with treachery. He established the basis of the community as conflicting interests and tricked the entire world into believing that worldly gains should justify war and mayhem.

Nations also die, just like individuals – just as an individual dies when the river of its life dries, so a nation dies when it forsakes its purpose. But the Muslim Community has been promised an everlasting life as God Himself has said in the Quran, “We have sent down remembrance and We shall indeed preserve it.” The remembrance of God in this world is

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the purpose of the life of our community. God seeks witnesses on His existence, and we are such witnesses.

The savage Tartars were loosed upon our heads and no other holocaust in history matches the staring horror of the swords that brought such destruction to Baghdad, as even Rome did not see in the days of its decline and fall. Yet, the fire of the Tartars turned into a rose bed for us, just as the fire of Nimrod had turned into rose bed for Abraham.

The Muslim Community has survived the test of time where the brilliant genius of Greece has broken down, the mighty power of Rome turned to small account, the golden glass of the Sassanids drowned in blood and the bones of Egypt lie buried beneath the Pyramids.

Love is the universal law of life – the elements of nature would remain fragmented without it and not form a world. Love itself thrives on the warmth of our hearts, and its own glow depends on the spark of the oneness of God, which lives in our bosoms: though we might be gloomy like rosebuds waiting for the spring, yet the entire garden dies if we die!

Quran

The organization of the community is only through law. The Quran is the law of the Muslim Community.

A rose is born when law conjoins petals; roses likewise bound together form a bouquet. Melody comes into being when the sound is controlled and dissonance happens when the control is lost. Likewise, the Quran is the law of the Muslim Community and the secret of its power.

The Quran is eternal and unchanging and its verses need no interpretation as everything is stated clearly and beyond doubt. It is the final message of God, revealed through the Prophet, who was sent as a mercy to all humanity. Likewise, the Quran casts away the shackling chains and leads forth the free individual but brings the exultant tyrants to misery. The weary wanderers of the desert, whose eyes were set aflame in the hot sun, was raised to Chosroes’ high throne when his heart responded to the Quran’s warm glow.

Your faith has become slave to custom. Liberate yourself from the shackles of the Sufis and the priests by finding the purpose of your life in the Quran first hand. Do not give in to the speculation of the leaders of a decadent age but adhere to the masters of the past as long as the spring doesn’t return to your garden. Learn a lesson from the Jews – though enslaved and destitute for centuries, they have still survived as a nation because they kept the highroad of their ancestors. The memory of Moses and Aaron lived in their breasts even when the fabric of their nationhood was rent asunder!

The ruptured vision of Imam Jafar and the patient delving of Razi are no more; an autumn has descended upon your garden but do not break yourself from the tree looking for spring elsewhere. A broken twig doesn’t turn green with the coming of spring, and discord severs life’s vein.

The maturity of the communal life derives from following the Divine Law, so do not seek other meaning in the Quran – the inside of a gem also contains light just like its surface, and God Himself has fashioned this perfect jewel that is the Quran.

The secret of Islam is Law, in which all things begin and end, and love is its sole basis. Law tries the power of the strong right arm by placing difficulties before you so that you

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should blaze a fiery torch in your soul and split the heart of difficulties. The Prophet, who was the knower of all fair and foul, has prescribed this recipe of strength for you – take it, and come out of your retirement.

The pure stream of the Divine Law got polluted with the diseased doctrines from Persia, India and other climes, so that your heart now trembles at your own breast’s beat! Return to the purity of God’s own ways, and be a true Muslim.

National Life

The communal character acquires spiritual beauty through discipline according to the manners of the Prophet.

Once, in the days of my youth I broke a stick upon the head of a beggar who was pestering our door like inexorable Fate. The harvest of his beggary spilled from his hands. My father’s face went pale when he saw this. Seeing his anguish, I too became anxious.

“On the Day of Judgment, when the followers of the Prophet would be gathered – the holy warriors, sages, martyrs and mystics – and this beggar will emerge from their ranks, bringing his complaint. What will I say when the Prophet asks me, ‘God committed to you a young Muslim, and you could not impart him any instruction from my school? Was it a labor too hard for you to turn a heap of clay into a human being?’ O my son! Look again at my white hair and see how now I tremble between fear and hope.

“You are a bud burst from Muhammad’s branch. Strive to gain some fragrance from his sweet character, and remember what great Rumi said: ‘Do not snap the thread of your brief days from him who was the seal of the prophets.’ He was a mercy in the world and his kindness embraced the entire world. Fly in the meadows if you are a nightingale, dwell in the wilderness if you are an eagle, or shine in the sky if you are a star but do not set your foot beyond the proper bounds. A raindrop banished from the ocean dies on the cornstalk with the morning dew but the one lodged in the heart of the ocean comes out as a pearl.”

In the world of phenomena the self also needs an empirical background for its existence. The self is like a flame and the body is like a veil of smoke for its protection. A community also needs a physical embodiment, just like an individual. For the Muslim Community, this visible focus is Ka‘abah.

A people’s soul lives by congregation. The Sacred House in Makkah is at once our secret and the guardian of our secret. It is an instrument on which our passions play and in circumambulation of this shrine our community draws a common breathe. It lies in the centre of the Community, like the spirit of life hidden in the heart of the seed. It is the impulse that makes us grow and expand.

Once again, take a lesson from the Jews. The tendrils of their vine were withered and they even lost their tongue, their common speech, when they gave up their focus from their grasp. A nation nurtured upon the breasts of God’s prophets poured its lifeblood in slow agony and my poor dust trembles at their history.

Next comes the necessity of adopting a tangible common objective. The preservation of the belief in the oneness of God is the objective of the Muslim Community.

You must have heard the story of Qais, who went crazy in his love for Leila, so that he was called Majnoon, or the madman. He would roam around in the deserts until even the animals there became his friends and acquaintances. What kept him going? It was the fact

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that the high litter in which Leila rode was somewhere in the desert, and Qais wanted to seek it out. Purpose keeps the life going – our Leila has left the deserts and taken to city and hence our hearts are no more in the deserts!

The Persian poet Malik of Qum said a beautiful thing. Using the analogy of Qais, he said, “I bent to pluck the thorn from my foot and the litter vanished. In a single moment I was left a hundred years behind on the road!” The self burnt a hundred Abrahams to light the lamp of one Muhammad. You ought to be the glow of that lamp and illuminate the world. I tremble for your shame when on the Day of Judgment the Prophet shall ask you, “You took from my lips the word of Truth. Why did you fail to pass it on?”

But the expansion of communal life cannot happen if you consider this world base and mean. The communal life expands itself by overcoming the physical resources – one who has subdued the perceived things can reconstruct the world from an atom. God calls this world the portion of good people and commits its splendors to the believers’ eyes. The human beings are God’s deputies on this Earth and their rule was fixed over it when God taught Adam the names of all elements.

Cast away the slumber brought upon you by doctrines that are like opiate in their effect. Your thought can transcend this world and reach heavens if you align your thought with the stark reality of Nature. Be guided by the necessities of this world, so that you should become its master.

A community also has a self, just like an individual, and its self is strengthened by the continuation of communal traditions. A child has a short attention span and therefore unfit to be left out of its mother’s lap – it cannot sense the link between one moment and another, and it cannot grasp the common thread between one passing reality and another. Growing up is the process of discovering such links and committing them to memory in order to make sense of the world. Likewise, a community needs to make links between its past and present and this unity is achieved through the perpetuation of its history.

The sixty or seventy years of an individual’s life are like a breath in the life of a community. A community lives much longer, and therefore it needs generations to pass on their experiences to posterity. The community finds its mental health if each individual lives like a living embodiment of all that has gone before. The unity of consciousness between successive generations is the guarantee of a community’s healthy life, and this is possible through continuation of communal traditions.

Motherhood

Woman is the muse who inspires the man to sing and her deference swells his soul’s pride. The Quran calls her the clothe for man’s nakedness. Indeed, a heart-winning beauty could be the only dress suitable for love.

The flame that sparks the quest for God is very often kindled at first by the love of a woman. The Prophet mentioned her with prayer and sweet perfume. Whoever regards woman as inferior hasn’t grasped the meaning of the Quran.

Motherhood is linked with prophet-hood – the mother is a mercy to her child the way a prophet is a mercy to his following – the words ummat (a prophet’s following) and umumat (motherhood) are derived from the same root! An illiterate and uncomely woman who gives birth to a healthy individual for her community is better than an educated beautiful woman

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who chooses to remain barren, because the continuance of the species depends on motherhood and the preserving and honoring of motherhood is the substance of Islam. The garden of possibility is blooming with unseen tulips depending on the bower of fertile motherhood for their blossoming.

Our Lady Fatima is the best role model for the women of the Muslim Community. If Mary is haloed by the virtue of being the mother of Jesus then Fatima has threefold honor: she was the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, the wife of Ali the Lion of God and the mother of Hasan and Husain – Hasan was the leader of the love’s train, who preserved the unity of the Muslim Community by declining the throne and the scepter; Husain was the strength of the soul of freedom in the world, whose existence enriched the Life’s melody.

Fatima’s heart was so kind that she sold her cloak to a Jew in order to help a needy. Angels were at her command but she submitted herself to the will of her husband; she ground the homely mill while her lips chanted the Holy Book. She never shed tears over her circumstances but wept contrition’s offering of pearls during her prayers – which Gabriel gathered to rain like dew upon the Throne of God. I should prostrate on her tomb and worship it if God’s command didn’t forbade me!

O Women of Islam! Your mantle guards our honor and your purity is the foundation of our community. Preserve our traditions without counting profit and loss. Guard our young ones against the fraud of this age, and be wary of contemporary depredations. Take Lady Fatima for your role model so that your branch may also bear a Husain and the spring may return to our garden.

Summary

I saw Abu Bakr Siddique in a dream one night and plucked a rose that blossomed at his feet. “O Chosen of Love’s Choice!” I cried to him. “Your hand strengthened the foundation of our community. Please suggest a remedy for our immediate woes.”

“How long will you be a prisoner of base desire? Illuminate your self with the Surah of Pure Faith.”

In the exegesis of the Surah of Pure Faith is the purport of what I have to say.

Say: Allah is One; all things depend on Him; He begets not, and He is not begotten; and there is none like unto Him.

To say, “Allah is one,” is as if one breath is winding in a hundred breasts to form one

people. The oneness of God implies our unity, and we must rise above nationalities, race and lineage.

To say, “All things depend on Him,” is to understand that he depends on none, and thus we should not lower ourselves before anyone in this world. The Caliph Harun al Rashid asked Imam Malik, the great scholar of hadith, to accept a post in Baghdad. Malik replied, “I am the Prophet’s servant and I will not leave Madinah. If you wish to learn hadith from me you must come to my school. I will not wait upon your door to teach you.”

Godly indifference is to put the hue of God and to wash from your robe the dye of others. You have beautified your face with alien rouge and your mind is a prisoner to others’ thoughts. You are the Sun, and if you look a little on your self you would not borrow

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radiance from others’ stars! No one ever attained selfhood without knowing oneself, and no nation came to nationhood without liberating itself from the whim of others.

To say, “He begets not, and He is not begotten,” is to mean that our humanity is above race and color. When Salman the Persian was asked his lineage, he replied that he was the son of the faith, Islam. Honey is extracted from many flowers but the drops are all alike and one drop doesn’t say to the other that it came from the tulip or the narcissus.

When Ibn Masud, a Companion of the Prophet, lost his brother, he grieved that he still has the pleasure of the Prophet’s company, while his brother no longer has it. Likewise, the bond of Turk and Arabs is not ours and the link that binds us is no fetter’s chain of ancient lineage. Our hearts are bound to the Prophet, and we are joined to each other through him.

To say, “and there is none like unto Him,” means to be an unequalled people in the world. O Muslim Community, the analogy of your existence should be a tulip blowing on a mountaintop that has never seen the trailing border of a gatherer’s skirt. The first breath of dawn kindled the flame in its breast; heaven deems it a suspended star and suffers not to lose it from its bosom; the uprising Sun touches its lips with dawn’s first ray, and the dew bathes from its waking eyes the dust of sleep.

An Invocation

O Prophet! Who are more beloved to me than my parents! Your love has lit a flame in my heart, like a lantern flickering in my ruined house. It was

not possible to keep it a secret, but our Sheikh is more infidel than a Brahmin for he carries his idols in his head. He cries against me, “These are Europe’s spells! His music is coming of the Europe’s lute!”

You gave your cloak to the poet Busayri, and you have given me this lute. Grant the perception of truth and its joy to him whose thoughts have gone so astray that he can no more recognize his own.

Your splendor is the dawn of every age and time, and you see all that is in men’s breasts. If my words are informed by anything but the Quran and if my heart is without luster, then expose me and guard your people against the mischief of my wickedness. Choke the breath of my life in my breast, do not grant fertility to my barren field with the spring shower, and wither the vintage in my swelling grapes. Disgrace me on the Day of Judgment by stopping me to kiss your feet.

However, if I have threaded the pearls of the Quran’s sweet mysteries on my thread and spoken the truth to the Muslims, then pray to God that my love be reconciled with action. I have been accorded a contrite soul and a part of the Holy learning, may I be established more firm in action and my drops converted to pearls of great value and glitter.

I have one more desire in my heart ever since I was born. It kept burning even when awhile in my youth I consorted with rosy cheeks, played love with twisted tresses and tasted wine with lustrous brows. It didn’t fade out when my diabolical reason resolved to wear the infidel’s robe and made me the doubt’s prisoner, inseparable from my too arid brain. Lastly from the goblet of my eye it slowly trickled and created melodies within my mind.

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Now that my soul is emptied of all memories except you I will be bold to speak my desire, if you allow. My life doesn’t make me worthy of it but your compassion makes me brave. My yearning is that I may be granted to die in Hijaz.6

I am a Muslim and a stranger to all else but God. O the bitter shame that a pagan land should receive my bones when my days come to an end. Though my present is no good but my future should be blessed if the scattered particles of my dust rise from your doorstep on the Day of Judgment.

Give me a place in the shadow of your wall so that my restless spirit may find a peaceful sleep. Then I should say to the skies, “Behold my resting place! You looked upon my first beginning, now witness my close.”

6 The part of Arabia where the Prophet spent his life. Both the cities of Makkah and Madinah are situated in Hijaz.