Ibn Arabi

1. Would that I were aware whether they knew what heart they possessed! 2. And would that my heart knew what mountain-pass they threaded! 3. Dost thou deem them safe or dost thou deem them dead? 4. Lovers lose their way in love and become entangled. 1. 'They,' i.e. the Divine Ideas (###), of which the hearts (of gnostics) are passionately enamoured, and by which the spirits are distraught, and for whose sake the godly workers (###) perform their works of devotion. 'What heart': he refers to the perfect Muḥammadan heart, because it is not limited by stations (###), Nevertheless, it is possessed by the Divine Ideas, for they seek it and it seeks them. They cannot know that they possess it, for they belong to its essence, inasmuch as it beholds in them nothing except its own nature. 2. 'What mountain-pass they threaded,' i.e. what gnostic's heart they entered when they vanished from mine. 'Mountain-pass' signifies a 'station' (###), which is fixed, in contrast to a 'state' (###), which is fleeting. 3. The Divine Ideas, quâ Ideas, exist only in the existence of the seer; they are 'dead' in so far as the seer is nonexistent. 4. Lovers are perplexed between two opposite things, for the lover wishes to be in accord with the Beloved and also wishes to be united with Him, so that if the Beloved wishes to be separated from the lover, the lover is in a dilemma.

1. On the day of parting they did not saddle the full-grown reddish-white camels until they had mounted the peacocks upon them, 2. Peacocks with murderous glances and sovereign power: thou wouldst fancy that each of them was a Bilqís on her throne of pearls. 3. When she walks on the glass pavement 1 thou seest a sun on a celestial sphere in the bosom of Idrís. 4. When she kills with her glances, her speech restores to life, as tho’ she, in giving life thereby, were Jesus. 5. The smooth surface of her legs is (like) the Tora in brightness, and I follow it and tread in its footsteps as tho’ I were Moses. 6. She is a bishopess, one of the daughters of Rome, unadorned: thou seest in her a radiant Goodness. 2 7. Wild is she, none can make her his friend; she has gotten in her solitary chamber a mausoleum for remembrance. 8. She has baffled everyone who is learned in our religion, every student of the Psalms of David, every Jewish doctor, and every Christian priest. 9. If with a gesture she demands the Gospel, thou wouldst deem us to be priests and patriarchs and deacons. 10. The day when they departed on the road, I prepared for war the armies of my patience, host after host. 11. When my soul reached the throat (i.e. when I was at the point of death), I besought that Beauty and that Grace to grant me relief, 12. And she yielded—may God preserve us from her evil, and may the victorious king repel Iblís! 13. I exclaimed, when her she-camel set out to depart, 'O driver of the reddish-white camels, do not drive them away with her!' 1. 'The full-grown camels,' i.e. the actions inward and outward, for they exalt the good word to Him who is throned on high, as He hath said: ' And the good deed exalts it ' (Kor. xxxv, 11). 'The peacocks' mounted on them are his loved ones: he likens them to peacocks because of their beauty. The peacocks are the spirits of those actions, for no action is acceptable or good or fair until it hath a spirit consisting in the intention or desire of its doer. He compares them to birds inasmuch as they are spiritual and also for the variety of their beauty. 2. 'With murderous glances and sovereign power': he refers to the Divine wisdom (###) which accrues to a man in his hours of solitude, and which assaults him with such violence that he is unable to behold his personality (###), and which exercises dominion over him. 'A Bilqís on her throne of pearls': he refers to that which was manifested to Gabriel and to the Prophet during his night journey upon the bed (###) of pearl and jacinth in the terrestrial heaven, when Gabriel alone swooned by reason of his knowledge of Him who manifested Himself on that occasion. The author calls the Divine wisdom 'Bilqís' on account of its being the child of theory, which is subtle, and practice, which is gross, just as Bilqís was both spirit and woman, since her father was of the Jinn and her mother was of mankind. 3. The mention of Idrís alludes to her lofty and exalted rank. 'In the bosom of Idrís,' i.e. under his control, in respect of his turning her wheresoever he will, as the Prophet said: 'Do not bestow wisdom on those who are unworthy of it, lest ye do it a wrong.' The opposite case is that of one who speaks because he is dominated by his feeling (###), and who is therefore under the control of an influence (###). In this verse the author calls attention to his puissance in virtue of a prophetic heritage (###) for the prophets are masters of their spiritual feelings (###), whereas most of the saints are mastered by them. The sun is joined to Idrís because the sun is his sphere, and the Divine wisdom is described as 'walking' (instead of 'running', etc.) because of her pride and haughtiness, and because she moves in the feelings of this heart and changes from one feeling to another with a sort of absolute power (###). 4. 'She kills with her glances': referring to the station of passing away in contemplation (###). 'Her speech restores to life': referring to the completion of the moulding of man when the spirit was breathed into him. She is compared to Jesus in reference to Kor. xxxviii, 72, ' And I breathed into him of My spirit ,' or Kor. xvi, 42, ' That We say to it "Be", and it is .' 5. 'Her legs': referring to Bilqís and the glass pavement (Kor. xxvii, 44). 'Is like the Tora in brightness,' because the Tora (###) is derived from the phrase, ###, 'the stick produced fire.' The four faces (###) of the Tora, namely, the four Books (the Koran, the Psalms, the Pentateuch, and the Gospel), correspond to the fourfold light mentioned in Kor. xxiv, 35 (###). 6. 'One of the daughters of Rome': this wisdom, being of the race of Jesus (###), is described as belonging to the Roman Empire. 'Unadorned,' i.e. she is of the essence of unification (###) and without any vestige of adornment from the Divine Names, yet there shines from her the 'radiance' of Absolute Goodness, viz. the burning splendours (###) which, if God were to remove the veils of light and darkness, would consume the glories of His face (###). 7. 'Wild is she, none can make her his friend,' because contemplation of the Essence is a passing away (###), in which, as as-Sayyárí 1 said, there is no pleasure. She is 'wild', inasmuch as noble souls desire to seize her, but she does not show friendship to them, because no relation exists between them and her. 'In her solitary chamber,' i.e. in the heart. Her solitude is her looking on herself, for God says, 'Neither My earth nor My heaven contains Me, but I am contained by the heart of My servant who is a believer'; and since the heart which contains this essential wisdom of the race of Jesus is bare and empty of all attributes (###), it is like a desert and she is like a wild animal. Then he mentions the marble tomb of the Roman emperors, that such a mausoleum may remind her of death, which is the severance of union, and make her shun familiarity with the created world on account of this severance. 8. The four Books (the Koran, the Psalms, the Tora, and the Gospel) are here indicated by the mention of those who study and expound them. All the sciences comprised in the four Books point only to the Divine Names and are incapable of solving a question that concerns the Divine Essence. 9. If this spiritual being, forasmuch as she is of the race of Jesus, appeals to the Gospel by way of justifying it in anything which men's thoughts have falsely imputed to it, we humble ourselves before her and serve her no less devotedly than do the heads of the Church, because of her majesty and sovereign might. 10. 'Upon the road,' i.e. the spiritual ascension (###). 11. 'To grant me relief': he means what the Prophet meant by his saying, 'Lo, the breath of the Merciful comes to me from the quarter of al-Yaman.' The writer begs that the world of breaths (###) may continually be wafted from her to him along with the spiritual feelings (###). [paragraph continues] The Arabs refer to this in their poetry, for they speak of giving greetings and news to be delivered by the winds when they blow. 12. 'May God preserve us from her evil!' He refers to the Tradition 'I take refuge with Thee from Thyself'. 'The victorious king,' i.e. thoughts of knowledge and Divine guidance. 'Iblís,' i.e. the thought of becoming one with God (###), for this is a hard station, and few who attain to it escape from the doctrines of and incarnation (###). It is the station indicated in the Tradition 'I am his ear and his eye', etc. 13. He says, 'When this spiritual essence desired to quit this noble heart on account of its (the heart's) return from the station denoted by the words, "I have an hour which I share with none save my Lord," to the task imposed upon it of presiding over the phenomenal worlds, for which purpose its gaze is directed towards the Divine Names, the lofty aspiration (###) on which this spiritual essence was borne to the heart, took its departure.' He calls this aspiration 'her she-camel', and the drivers of such aspirations are the angels who approach nearest to God (###). 49:1 Kor. xxvii, 44. 49:2 The author explains that ### is equivalent to ###. 52:1 Abu ’l-‘Abbás as-Sayyárí of Merv (died 342 A.H.). His doctrine of union and separation (###) is explained by al-Hujwírí in the Kashf al-Maḥjúb .

1. O my two friends, pass by al-Kathíb and turn towards La‘la‘ and seek the waters of Yalamlam, 2. For there dwell those whom thou knowest and those to whom belong my fasting and my pilgrimage and my visit to the holy places and my festival. 3. Never let me forget at al-Muḥaṣṣab of Miná and at al-Manḥar al-A‘lá and Zamzam certain grave matters. 4. Their Muḥaṣṣab is my heart, because of their casting the pebbles, and their place of sacrifice is my soul, and their well is my blood. 5. O camel-driver, if thou comest to Ḥájir, stop the beasts a little while and give a greeting, 6. And address to the red tents on the side of the guarded pasture the salutation of one who longs for you and is distraught. 7. And if they return thy greeting, once more let the East wind bring thy salaam to them; and if they are silent, journey on with thy camels and advance 8. To the river of Jesus, where their riding-camels halted and where the white tents lie beside the river-mouth, 9. And call Da‘d and ar-Rabáb and Zaynab and Hind and Salmá and Lubná, and listen, 10. And ask them whether at al-Ḥalba is She, the limber one who shows thee the radiance of the sun when she smiles. COMMENTARY 1. 'O my two friends,' i.e. his reason and his faith. 'Al-Kathíb,' the place of contemplation. 'La‘la‘,' the place of bewilderment and amazement, that he may no more be conscious of love and longing. 'The waters of Yalamlam,' i.e. the fountain of life, since water is the source of every living thing. 2. 'Thou knowest': he addresses Faith, not Reason, for knowledge of the Essence and of its attributes is gained solely by means of Faith. 'And those to whom belong,' etc., i.e. the Divine attributes. 'My fasting': he means the quality of being independent of food (###), as God said, 'Fasting belongs to Me,' i.e. that quality cannot truly be predicated of a man; yet a man has some part in fasting, since it entails abstinence from food and nourishment. 'My pilgrimage,' i.e. a repeated turning towards this pure Essence for the sake of gaining a blessing at every moment from the Divine Names. This pilgrimage and visitation (###) is incessant, though a man is momently going from one Name to another. 'My festival,' referring to the concentration (###) of the mind when all mystical stations and Divine verities are united therein, just as all sorts and conditions of men assemble at Mecca for one purpose. 3. 'Never let me forget': he alludes to an occasion when he became invested with Divine qualities (###) in the sense of the Tradition 'I am his ear and his eye', and he also calls attention to his having attained by Divine investiture the station which is described in the words ' And thy Lord is not forgetful ' (Kor. xix, 65). 'At al-Muḥaṣṣab,' the place where the pebbles are cast. He refers to the verse ' And remember God even as ye remember your fathers, or more reverently ' (Kor. ii, 196), i.e. in this place cast the memory of your fathers out of your hearts and mouths. 'At al-Manḥar al-A‘lá,' the place of (spiritual) sacrifice, as the poet says: 'Thou offerest victims, but I offer my life-blood.' 'Zamzam': he means the station of everlasting life. 4. 'Their Muḥaṣṣab': 'their' refers to the Divine verities which descend upon the heart and cast out sensual and devilish thoughts. 'Their place of sacrifice': the story is well known of the youth who mentally offered himself at Miná when he saw the people offering sacrifice, and died on the spot. 5. 'O camel-driver': he addresses the Desire which drives his thoughts to the abode of those whom he loves. 'Ḥájir': ḥijr is the understanding, and the way (to God) is only through faith and contemplation, not through the understanding in respect of its power of reflection but in virtue of its cognition and belief. 'Stop the beasts a little while,' because when the lover first approaches the dwelling-place of his beloved he is dazed and dumbfounded and often swoons; consequently he is apt to break the rules of good manners in greeting her. 6. 'The red tents': the Arabs deem red the most beautiful of all colours, and red tents are reserved for brides. 'On the side of the guarded pasture,' i.e. the tents are inaccessible except to those who have the right to approach them. He calls the tents qibáb (round tents or domes) because roundness is the first and best of shapes, and he says that the Divine Realities which he loves are their original home, which is beside God, not beside any phenomenal object, for they belong to 'the world of command' (###). 7. 'Let the East wind,' etc.: he mentions the East wind particularly, because ṣabá signifies 'inclination' ( mayl ). 8. 'To the river of Jesus,' i.e. to the ample knowledge manifested in Jesus (###). 'The white tents': white, because Jesus was born of a virgin. 'Beside the river-mouth,' i.e. this knowledge is approached by the way of Divine allocution and manifestation (###). 9. He says, 'Call the names of these Divine Realities according to their difference, in order that whichever is yours may respond to you and that thus you may know what is your position in regard to them.' 10. 'Al-Ḥalba,' a quarter of Baghdád. Ḥalba means 'racecourse'. The Divine Realities strive to outstrip one another in haste to reach the phenomena which display their traces and manifest their power. Hence he speaks of 'the limber one', i.e. inclining towards the phenomenal world. 'The radiance of the sun': formerly thou wert in a station of Jesus, but now thou art asking of a station of Idrís, lofty and polar (###), for to him belongs the fourth heaven. 'When she smiles': he indicates that this is the station of Expansion (###) and that she is with him in joy and beauty (not in awe and majesty).

1. Greeting to Salmá and to those who dwell in the preserve, for it behoves one who loves tenderly like me to give greeting. 2. And what harm to her if she gave me a greeting in return? But fair women are subject to no authority. 3. They journeyed when the darkness of night had let down its curtains, and I said to her, 'Pity a passionate lover, outcast and distraught, 4. Whom desires eagerly encompass and at whom speeding arrows are aimed wheresoever he bends his course.' 5. She displayed her front-teeth and a levin flashed, and I knew not which of the twain rent the gloom, 6. And she said, 'Is it not enough for him that I am in his heart and that he beholds me at every moment? Is it not enough?' 1. 'Salmá': he alludes to a Solomonic ecstasy (###), which descended upon him from the station of Solomon in virtue of a prophetic heritage. 'In the preserve,' i.e. an unattainable station, viz. prophecy, whereof the gate was closed by Muḥammad, the last of the prophets. Solomon's experience of this Divine wisdom (###) in so far as he was a prophet is different from his experience of it in so far as he was a saint, and we share it with him only in the latter case, since our experience of it is derived from the saintship which is the greatest circle (###). 2. God does nothing of necessity: whatever comes to us from Him is by His favour. The author indicates this Divine Solomonic apparition ( nukta ) by the term 'marble statues' (i.e. women fair as marble statues). He means that she does not answer by speech, for if she did so her speech would be other than her essence, whereas her essence is single, so that her advent is identical with her speech and with her visible presence and with her hearing; and in this respect all the Divine Realities and Attributes resemble her. 3. 'They journeyed,' etc.: the ascension of the prophets always took place during the night, because night is the time of mystery and concealment. 'The darkness of night,' i.e. the veil of the Unseen let down the curtains of gross corporeal existence, which is the night of this animal organism, throwing a shroud over the spiritual subtleties and noble sciences which it enshrines. These, however, are not to be reached except by journeying through bodily actions and sensual thoughts, and whilst a man is thus occupied the Divine wisdom goes away from his heart, so that on his return he finds her gone and follows her with his aspiration. 4. 'Speeding arrows': he describes this celestial form as shooting his heart, wherever it turns, with the arrows of her glances, as God said, ' Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah ' (Kor. ii, 109). 5. 'She displayed her front-teeth,' etc., i.e. this lover found his whole being illuminated, for ' God is the light of the heavens and the earth ' (Kor. xxiv, 35), and the Prophet also said in his prayer, 'O God, put a light into my ear and into my eye,' and after mentioning the different members of his body he concluded, 'and make the whole of me one light,' viz. by the manifestation of Thy essence. Such a manifestation is compared to a flash of lightning on account of its not continuing. The author says that he did not know whether his being was illuminated by the manifestation proceeding from this Divine wisdom, which smiled upon him, or by a simultaneous manifestation of the Divine Essence. 6. 'She said,' etc., i.e. let him not seek me from without and let it satisfy him that I have descended into his heart, so that he beholds me in his essence and through his essence at every moment.

1. My longing sought the Upland and my affliction the Lowland, so that I was between Najd and Tiháma. 2. They are two contraries which cannot meet: hence my disunion will never be repaired. 3. What am I to do? What shall I devise? Guide me O my censor, do not affright me with blame! 4. Sighs have risen aloft and tears are pouring over my cheeks. 5. The camels, footsore from the journey, long for their homes and utter the plaintive cry of the frenzied lover. 6. After they have gone, my life is naught but annihilation. Farewell to it and to patience! 1. 'The Upland,' referring to God on His throne. 2. 'They are two contraries,' etc.: he says, 'Inasmuch as the spiritual element in man is always governing the body, it can never contemplate that which is uncomposed apart from its body and independently, as some Ṣúfís and philosophers and ignorant persons declare.' Hence the writer says, 'my disunion will never be repaired,' i.e., 'I cannot become united with Him who is pure and simple, and who resembles my essence and reality. Therefore longing is folly, for this station is unattainable, but longing is a necessary attribute of love, and accordingly I cease not from longing.' 3. 'My censor,' i.e. the blaming soul (###). 5. 'The camels,' i.e. the actions or the lofty thoughts (###)—since, in my opinion, such thoughts belong to the class of actions—on which the good words (###) mount to the throne of God. They 'long for their homes', i.e. for the Divine Names from which they proceeded and by which they are controlled. 6. 'My life is naught but annihilation': he says, 'When the lofty thoughts ascend to their goal I remain in the state of passing away from passing away (###), for I have gained the life imperishable which is not followed by any opposite.' Accordingly, he bids farewell to patience and to the mortal life, because he has quitted the sensible world.

1. When they departed, endurance and patience departed. They departed, although they were dwelling in the core of my heart. 2. I asked them where the travellers rested at noon, and I was answered, 'Their noonday resting-place is where the shíḥ and the bán trees diffuse a sweet scent.' 3. Then I said to the wind, 'Go and overtake them, for they are biding in the shade of the grove, 4. And bear to them a greeting from a sorrowful man in whose heart are sorrows because he is separated from his people.' 1. 'They departed,' i.e. the Divine Ideas (###). 'They were dwelling in the core of my heart': the Divine Ideas have no relationship except with their object (###), which is God; and God dwells in the heart, according to the Tradition 'Neither My earth nor My heaven contains Me, but I am contained in the heart of My servant who believes'. Since, however, no manifestation was vouchsafed to him at this moment, the Ideas, being objects of vision, disappeared, notwithstanding that God was in his heart. 2. 'I asked them,' i.e. the gnostics and the real existences (###) of the past Shaykhs who were my guides on the mystic Way. 'Their noonday resting-place,' etc., i.e. they reposed in every heart where the sighs (###) of longing appeared, for shíḥ denotes inclination ( mayl ) and bán absence ( bu‘d ). 3. 'I said to the wind,' i.e. I sent a sigh of longing after them in the hope of causing them to return to me. 'In the shade of the grove,' i.e. amongst the arák trees, whereof the wood is used as a tooth-stick (###). He refers to the Tradition 'The use of the tooth-stick purifies the mouth and pleases the Lord', i.e. the Divine Ideas are dwelling in the abode of purity.

1. As I kissed the Black Stone, friendly women thronged around me; they came to perform the circumambulation with veiled faces. 2. They uncovered the (faces like) sunbeams and said to me, 'Beware! for the death of the soul is in thy looking at us. 3. How many aspiring souls have we killed already at al-Muḥaṣṣab of Miná, beside the pebble-heaps, 4. And in Sarḥat al-Wádí and the mountains of Ráma and Jam‘ and at the dispersion from ‘Arafát! 5. Dost not thou see that beauty robs him who hath modesty, and therefore it is called the robber of virtues? 6. Our trysting-place after the circumambulation is at Zamzam beside the midmost tent, beside the rocks. 7. There everyone whom anguish hath emaciated is restored to health by the love-desire that perfumed women stir in him. 8. When they are afraid they let fall their hair, so that they are hidden by their tresses as it were by robes of darkness.' 1. 'As I kissed the Black Stone,' i.e. when the Holy Hand (###) was outstretched to me that I might take upon it the Divine oath of allegiance, referring to the verse ' Those who swear fealty to thee swear fealty to God; the hand of God is over their hands ' (Kor. xlviii, 10). 'Friendly women,' i.e. the angels who go round the throne of God (Kor. xxxix, 75). 2. 'The death of the soul,' etc.: these spirits say, 'Do not look at us, lest thou fall passionately in love with us. Thou wert created for God, not for us, and if thou wilt be veiled by us from Him, He will cause thee to pass away from thy existence through Him (###), and thou wilt perish.' 3. 'Have we killed,' i.e. spirits like unto us, for the above-mentioned angels who go round the Throne have no relationship except with pilgrims circumambulating the Ka‘ba. 5. 'Beauty robs him who hath modesty,' since the vision of Beauty enraptures whosoever beholds it. 'The robber of virtues,' i.e. it takes away all delight in the vision of beauty from him who acts at the bidding of the possessor of this beauty; and sometimes the beauteous one bids thee do that which stands between thee and glorious things, inasmuch as those things are gained by means of hateful actions: the Tradition declares that Paradise is encompassed by things which thou dislikest (###). 6. 'At Zamzam,' i.e. in the station of the life which thou yearnest for. 'Beside the midmost tent,' i.e. the intermediate world (###) which divides the spiritual from the corporeal world. 'Beside the rocks,' i.e. the sensible bodies in which the holy spiritual beings (###) take their abode. He means that these spirits in these imaginary forms are metaphorical and transient, for they vanish from the dreamer as soon as he wakes and from the seer as soon as he returns to his senses. He warns thee not to be deceived by the manifestations of phenomenal beauty, inasmuch as all save God is unreal, i.e. not-being like unto thyself; therefore be His that He may be thine. 7. In the intermediate world (###) whosoever loves these spiritual beings dwelling in sensible bodies derives refreshment from the world of breaths and scents (###) because the spirit and the form are there united, so that the delight is double. 8. When these phantoms are afraid that their absoluteness will be limited by their confinement in forms, they cause thee to perceive that they are a veil which hides something more subtle than what thou seest, and conceal themselves from thee and quit these forms and once more enjoy infinite freedom.

1. Their abodes have become decayed, but desire of them is ever new in my heart and decayeth not. 2. These tears are shed over their ruined dwellings, but souls are ever melted at the memory of them. 3. Through love of them I called out behind their riding-camels, 'O ye who are rich in beauty, here am I, a beggar! 4. I have rolled my cheek in the dust in tender and passionate affection: then, by the true love which I owe to you, I, do not make hopeless 5. One who is drowned in his tears and burned in the fire of sorrow with no respite!' 6. O thou who wouldst kindle a fire, be not hasty! Here is the fire of passion. Go and take of it! 1. 'Their abodes have become decayed': he says, 'the places of austerities and mortifications, where the Divine Names made works (###) their abode, have become decayed through age and loss of youthful strength.' The word ### is used in reference to the springtide (###) of human life. 3. 'Behind their riding-camels,' i.e. the powers of youth and the delights of the commencement (###). 4. 'I have rolled my cheek in the dust,' i.e. desiring to be united with you, for God says, 'Seek access to Me by means of that which I have not,' viz. abasement and indigence. 6. 'Here is the fire of passion,' i.e. in my heart.

1. Flashes of lightning gleamed to us at al-Abraqán, and their peals of thunder crashed between the ribs. 2. Their clouds poured rain on every meadow and on every quivering branch that bends towards thee. 3. The watercourses were flooded and the breeze wafted perfume, and a ringdove flapped her wings and a twig put forth leaves. 4. They pitched the red tents between rivulets (creeping) like serpents, amongst which were seated 5. Friendly damsels, bright of countenance, rising like the suns, large-eyed, noble, of generous race, and limber. 1. 'Al-Abraqán,' i.e. two manifestations of the Essence, one in the unseen and one in the visible world. 'Flashes of lightning,' referring to the variety of forms in the latter manifestation. 'Peals of thunder,' i.e. the Divine converse (###) which followed the manifestation. This is a Mosaic ecstasy (###), for Moses first saw the fire and afterwards heard God speak. The mention of thunder also signifies that God's speech was a rebuke. 2. 'Their clouds,' i.e. the ecstasies (###) which bring forth the Divine sciences. 'On every meadow,' i.e. the heart of man together with the Divine sciences which it holds. 'On every quivering branch,' i.e. the straight movement (###) which is the growth of man (###) as God says that He created Adam after His own image; and from this station it 'bends', i.e. inclines towards thee that it may instruct thee. 3. He says, 'The valleys of the Divine sciences were flooded, and the world of breaths (###) diffused the sweet scents of the Divine sciences.' 'A ringdove,' i.e. the Universal Soul together with the effect it produces upon the Partial Soul, which appears in the form of the Universal in so far as it possesses the two faculties of knowledge and action. 'A twig,' i.e. that with which the branches are clothed. He refers to the verse ' Take your becoming vesture at every mosque ' (Kor. vii, 29), i.e. the everlasting vesture of God, which consists in the various kinds of Divine science and gnosis. 4. 'The red tents,' i.e. the bride-like forms of Divine wisdom. 'Rivulets,' i.e. diverse sciences connected with the works which lead to union with these forms of Divine wisdom. 'Like serpents': cf. Kor. xxiv, 44, ' And amongst them is one who walks on his belly .' He refers to those devout persons who scrupulously examine their food, for by means of pure food which produces strength for the practice of devotion the heart is illuminated and becomes the abode of these forms of Divine wisdom. 5. 'Bright of countenance,' etc., i.e. there is no doubt concerning them, as the Prophet said, 'Ye shall see your Lord as ye see the sun at noonday when no cloud comes between.' 'Noble,' i.e. proceeding from the results of works prescribed by God, unlike the maxims of the philosophers which spring from their own minds. 'Of generous race': ### is derived from ###. He means, therefore, that they understand what is imparted to them and perceive its value. 'Limber': although per se they are in the station of equilibrium and inflexibility, yet when they are invoked with longing and humility and love they incline towards the caller, because he is not able to ascend to them.

1. She said, 'I wonder at a lover who in conceit of his merits walks proudly among flowers in a garden.' 2. I replied, 'Do not wonder at what thou seest, for thou hast beheld thyself in the mirror of a man.' 1. 'Flowers,' i.e. created things. 'A garden,' the unitive station (###), i.e. his essence. ‘Utba al-Ghulám used to walk proudly and swagger in his gait. 'How should not I do so,' he said to one who found fault with him, 'since He has become my Lord and I have become His slave?' When a man realizes God in the sense of 'I am His hearing and His sight', this station justifies the attribution to him of whatever is attributed to God. 2. He says, 'I am like a mirror to thee, and in those qualities with which I am invested thou beholdest thyself, not me, but thou beholdest them in my human nature which has received this investiture.' This is the vision of God in created things, which in the opinion of some is more exalted than the vision of created things in God.

1. O doves that haunt the arák and bán trees, have pity! Do not double my woes by your lamentation! 2. Have pity! Do not reveal, by wailing and weeping, my hidden desires and my secret sorrows! 3. I respond to her, at eve and morn, with the plaintive cry of a longing man and the moan of an impassioned lover. 4. The spirits faced one another in the thicket of ghaḍá trees and bent their branches towards me, and it (the bending) annihilated me; 5. And they brought me divers sorts of tormenting desire and passion and untried affliction. 6. Who will give me sure promise of Jam‘ and al-Muḥaṣṣab of Miná? Who of Dhát al-Athl? Who of Na‘mán? 7. They encompass my heart moment after moment, for the sake of love and anguish, and kiss my pillars, 8. Even as the best of mankind encompassed the Ka‘ba, which the evidence of Reason proclaims to be imperfect, 9. And kissed stones therein, although he was a Náṭiq (prophet). 1 And what is the rank of the Temple in comparison with the dignity of Man? 10. How often did they vow and swear that they would not change, but one dyed with henna does not keep oaths. 11. And one of the most wonderful things is a veiled gazelle, who points with red finger-tip and winks with eyelids, 12. A gazelle whose pasture is between the breast-bones and the bowels. O marvel! a garden amidst fires! 13. My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, 14. And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka‘ba and the tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran. 15. I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take, that is my religion and my faith. 16. We have a pattern in Bishr, the lover of Hind and her sister, and in Qays and Lubná, and in Mayya and Ghaylán. 1. 'O doves,' i.e. the influences of holiness and purity. 3. 'I respond to her,' i.e. I repeat to her what she says to me, as God said to the soul when He created her, 'Who am I?' and she answered, 'Who am I?' referring to her qualities, whereupon He caused her to dwell four thousand years in the sea of despair and indigence and abasement until she said to Him, 'Thou art my Lord.' 4. 'Faced one another,' because love entails the union of two opposites. 'In the thicket of ghaḍá trees,' i.e. the fires of love. 'Branches,' i.e. flames. 'Annihilated me,' in order that He alone might exist, not I, through jealousy that the lover should have any existence in himself apart from his beloved. 6. 'Jam‘,' i.e. union with the loved ones in the station of proximity, which is al-Muzdalifa. 'Al-Muḥaṣṣab,' the place where the thoughts which prevent lovers from attaining their object of desire are cast out. 'Dhát al-Athl,' referring to the principle (###), for it is the principle in love that thou shouldst be the very essence of thy Beloved and shouldst disappear in Him from thyself. 'Na‘mán,' the place of Divine and holy bliss 7. 'For the sake of love and anguish,' i.e. in order to inspire me with passion. 'And kiss my pillars' (properly, kiss over the lithám or veil covering the mouth), i.e. he is veiled and unable to behold them except through a medium (###). The 'pillars' are the four elements on which the human constitution is based. 1 10. 'One dyed with henna': he refers to sensual influences (###), such as descended on the soul when God addressed it and said, ' Am not I your Lord ?' (Kor. vii, 171), and received from it a promise and covenant. Then it did not faithfully keep the station of unification (###), but followed other gods. No one was exempt from this polytheism, for every one said, 'I did' and 'I said', at the time when he forgot to contemplate the Divine Agent and Speaker within him. 11. 'A veiled gazelle,' i.e. a Divine subtlety (###) veiled by a sensual state (###), in reference to the unknown spiritual feelings (###) of gnostics, who cannot explain their feelings to other men; they can only indicate them symbolically to those who have begun to experience the like. 'With red finger-tip': he means the same thing as he meant by 'one dyed with henna' in the last verse. 'And winks with eyelids,' i.e. the speculative proofs concerning the principles of gnostics are valid only for those who have already been imbued with the rudiments of this experience. Gnostics, though they resemble the vulgar outwardly, are Divines (###) inwardly. 12. 'Whose pasture,' etc., as ‘Alí said, striking his breast, 'Here are sciences in plenty, could I but find people to carry them (in their minds).' 'A garden amidst fires,' i.e. manifold sciences which, strange to say, are not consumed by the flames of love in his breast. The reason is, that these sciences are produced by the fires of seeking and longing, and therefore, like the salamander, are not destroyed by them. 13. 'My heart has become capable of every form,' as another has said, 'The heart (###) is so called from its changing (###),' for it varies according to the various influences by which it is affected in consequence of the variety of its states of feeling (###); and the variety of its feelings is due to the variety of the Divine manifestations that appear to its inmost ground (###). The religious law gives to this phenomenon the name of 'transformation' (###). 'A pasture for gazelles,' i.e. for the objects of his love. 'A convent for Christian monks': inasmuch as he makes the loved ones to be monks, he calls the heart a convent. 14. 'A temple for idols,' i.e. for the Divine Realities which men seek and for whose sake they worship God. 'The pilgrim's Ka‘ba,' because his heart is encompassed by exalted spirits. 'The tables of the Tora,' i.e. his heart is a table on which are inscribed the Mosaic sciences that have accrued to him. 'The book of the Koran,' because his heart has received an inheritance of the perfect Muḥammadan knowledge. 15. 'I follow the religion of Love,' in reference to the verse ' Follow me, then God will love you ' (Kor. iii, 29). 'Whatever way Love's camels take,' etc., i.e. 'I accept willingly and gladly whatever burden He lays upon me. No religion is more sublime than a religion based on love and longing for Him whom I worship and in whom I have faith'. This is a peculiar prerogative of Moslems, for the station of perfect love is appropriated to Muḥammad beyond any other prophet, since God took him as His beloved (###). 16. He says, 'Love, quâ love, is one and the same reality to those Arab lovers and to me, but the objects of our love are different, for they loved a phenomenon, whereas I love the Essential.' 'We have a pattern in them,' because God only afflicted them with love for human beings like themselves in order that He might show, by means of them, the falseness of those who pretend to love Him and yet feel no such transport and rapture in loving Him as deprived those enamoured men of their reason and made them unconscious of themselves. 66:1 In the Ismá‘ílí system Muḥammad, regarded as an incarnation of Universal Reason, is the Náṭiq of the sixth prophetic cycle. See Professor Browne's Literary History of Persia , i, 408 seq. 68:1 The author leaves the next two verses unexplained. 'The best of mankind' is Muḥammad.

1. At Dhú Salam and the monastery in the abode of al-Ḥimá, are gazelles who show thee the sun in the forms of marble statues. 2. Therefore I watch spheres and serve in a church and guard a many-coloured meadow in the spring. 3. And at one time I am called the herdsman of the gazelles in the desert, and at another time I am called a Christian monk and an astrologer. 4. My Beloved is three although He is One, even as the (three) Persons (of the Trinity) are made one Person in essence. 5. So be not displeased, O friend, that I speak of gazelles that move round the marble statues as 'a shining sun', 6. Or that I use metaphorically the necks of the gazelles, the face of the sun, and the breast and wrist of the white statue, 7. Just as I have lent to the branches (spiritual) endowments and to the meadows moral qualities, and to the lightning laughing lips. 1. 'Dhú Salam': a station to which submission is rendered on account of its beauty. 'The monastery,' referring to a Syrian ecstasy (###). 'The abode of al-Ḥimá,' that which surrounds the most inaccessible veil of Divine glory. 'Gazelles,' i.e. forms of Divine and prophetic wisdom which descend upon his spirit. 'Marble statues,' i.e. sorts of knowledge (###) with which neither reason nor lust is connected; hence he makes them inanimate (###). 2. 'I watch spheres,' i.e. the spiritual states in which these sorts of knowledge revolve, like the sun. 'And serve in a church,' because marble effigies are found in churches. 'And guard,' etc.: the meadows where these gazelles pasture are the scenes of devotional acts and Divine morals; they are described as 'many-coloured', i.e. adorned with the Divine realities, and spring-like, because that which is new and fresh is more delightful to the soul. 3. He refers to his ever-changing spiritual states, which bring with them manifold Divine influences and sciences. Although the spiritual experiences vary, the Divine substance (###) remains one. This is the 'transformation' (###) of which Muslim speaks in the chapter on Faith . Those who worship God in the sun behold a sun, and those who worship Him in living things see a living thing, and those who worship Him in inanimate objects see an inanimate object, and those who worship Him as a Being unique and unparalleled see that which has no like. 4. He says, 'Number does not beget multiplicity in the Divine substance, as the Christians declare that the Three Persons of the Trinity are One God, and as the Koran declares (xvii, 110): " Call on God or call on the Merciful; howsoever ye invoice Him, it is well, for to Him belong the most excellent Names ."' The cardinal Names in the Koran are three, viz. Allah and ar-Raḥmán and ar-Rabb, by which One God is signified, and the rest of the Names serve as epithets of those three. 6. 'Necks,' indicating the Light (###), as in the Tradition 'The muezzins shall be the longest-necked of mankind on the Day of Resurrection'. 'The face of the sun,' as in the Tradition 'Ye shall see your Lord as ye see the sun'. 'The breast and wrist of the white statue,' as in the Tradition which mentions the breast and fore-arm of the Almighty. 7. 'The branches,' i.e. the souls distraught by the majesty of God and turned away by love from the consciousness of their personality and from the contemplation of their phenomenal nature. 'The meadow,' i.e. the station of union (###) in which God has placed them. 'Moral qualities,' i.e. the scented breaths of Divine Mercy, viz. the goodly praise (###) of the kind mentioned in the Tradition 'Even as Thou dost praise Thyself'. 'The lightning,' i.e. a manifestation of the Divine Essence. 'Laughing lips,' as God is said in the Tradition to rejoice at the repentance of His servant, or to laugh (###).

1. A ringdove wailed and a sad lover complained, and he was grieved by her trilling note and complaint. 2. Tears flowed from their eyes in distress for her complaint, and ’twas as tho’ they (the tears) were fountains. 3. I responded to her in the bereavement caused by the loss of her only child: one who loses an only child is bereaved indeed. 4. I responded to her, while Grief walked between us; she was invisible, but I was clearly seen. 5. In me is a burning desire, from love of the sandy tract of ‘Álij, where her tents are and the large-eyed maidens, 6. With murderous glances, languishing: their eyelids are sheaths for glances like swords. 7. I did not cease to swallow the tears proceeding from my malady and to conceal and guard my passion from those who blame me, 8. Until, when the raven's croak announced their departure, separation exposed the desire of a sorrow-stricken lover. 9. They journeyed continuously through the night, they cut the nose-rings of their camels, so that they (the camels) moaned and cried under the litters. 10. I beheld the pangs of death at the time when they loosed the camels’ reins and tied their saddle-girths. 11. Oh! separation together with love's pain is mortal, but love's sorest pain together with meeting is light. 12. None blames me for desiring her, for she is beloved and beautiful wherever she may be. 1. 'A ringdove,' i.e. the Universal Spirit, born of God and breathed into Man. She is described as having a collar (ring), in reference to the covenant which He laid upon her. 'A sad lover,' i.e. the partial spirit which is in Man. 'Her trilling note,' i.e. the sweet melodies calling him to union with her. This union is the first resurrection at death (###). 2. 'From their eyes': he refers to the partial spirits (###). 'Her complaint': the Universal Spirit, which is the father of the partial spirits, longs for them even more than they long for her. 3. 'Her only child,' i.e. the special quality which distinguishes her from all things else, viz. her unity (###), whereby she knows the unity of Him who brought her into being. The loss of it consists in her not knowing what it is and in its not being plainly discerned by her. 4. 'She was invisible,' for she does not belong to the world of expression and exposition. 5. 'The sandy tract of ‘Álij,' i.e. the subtleties of the acquired or analytic sciences. ‘Álij refers to the striving after good works (###). 'Her tents,' the veils which conceal these sciences. 'The large-eyed maidens,' i.e. the sciences which descend upon the solitary recluse. 6. 'With murderous glances,' i.e. they cause him to pass away from his own personality. 'Languishing,' i.e. they incline towards the solitary. The term 'glances' indicates that they are sciences of contemplation and revelation, not of faith and mystery, and that they proceed from the manifestation of forms. 7. He refers to a state of concealment which is characteristic of the Malámatís. 1 9. 'They journeyed continuously': since the object sought is infinite, the return from it is also a journey towards it. There is no migration except from one Divine Name to another. 'They cut the nose-rings of their camels,' on account of the violent haste with which they travelled. 11. 'Meeting,' a kind of presence (###) in which there is no passing away (###). 12. He says, 'The aspirations and desires of all seekers are attached to Her, yet She is essentially unknown to them hence they all love Her, yet none blames another for loving Her. Similarly, every individual soul and the adherents of every religion seek salvation, but since they do not know it they are also ignorant of the way that leads to it, though everyone believes that he is on the right way. All strife between people of different religions and sects is about the way that leads to salvation, not about salvation itself. If anyone knew that he was taking the wrong way, he would not persevere in his error.' Accordingly the author says that She manifests Herself everywhere, like the sun, and that every person who beholds Her deems that She is with him in Her essence, so that envy and jealousy are removed from their hearts. 74:1 A Ṣúfí sect or school who emphasized the need of incurring blame ( malámat ) for God's sake and of concealing spiritual merit, lest they should fall into self-conceit. See my translation of the Kashf al-Maḥjúb , pp. 62-9.

1. He saw the lightning in the east and he longed for the east, but if it had flashed in the west he would have longed for the west. 2. My desire is for the lightning and its gleam, not for the places and the earth. 3. The east wind related to me from them a tradition handed down successively from distracted thoughts, from my passion, from anguish, from my tribulation, 4. From rapture, from my reason, from yearning, from ardour, from tears, from my eyelid, from fire, from my heart, 5. That 'He whom thou lovest is between thy ribs; the breaths toss him from side to side'. 6. I said to the east wind, 'Bring a message to him and say that he is the enkindler of the fire within my heart. 7. If it shall be quenched, then everlasting union, and if it shall burn, then no blame to the lover!' 1. He refers to the vision of God in created things, viz. the manifestation in forms, and this causes him to cleave to phenomena, because the manifestation appears in them. 'The east,' i.e. the place of phenomenal manifestation. 'If it had flashed in the west,' i.e. if it had been a manifestation of the Divine essence to the lover's heart, he would have longed for that purer manifestation in the world of purity and mystery. 2. He says, 'I desire the forms in which the manifestation takes place only in so far as they are a locus for the manifestation itself.' 3. The world of breaths (###) communicated to me the inward meaning of these phenomenal forms. 4. 'Rapture' (literally, 'intoxication,' ###): the fourth degree in the manifestations. The first degree is ###, the second ###, and the third ###. 'From my reason,' because intoxication transports the reason and takes away from it whatever it has. 5. 'The breaths,' etc., i.e. the overwhelming awe inspired by this manifestation produces in him various ecstasies (###). 7. He says, 'If the awful might of this manifestation shall be veiled through the permanence of the Divine substance, then the union will be lasting; but if the manifestation be unchecked, it will sweep away all that exists in its locus , and those who perish are not in fault.' This is the saying of one possessed and mastered by ecstasy.

1. They left me at al-Uthayl and an-Naqá shedding tears and complaining of the fire (that consumed me). 2. My father be the ransom of him for whose sake I melted with anguish! My father be the ransom of him for whose sake I died of fear! 3. The blush of shame on his cheek is the whiteness of dawn conversing with the redness of eve. 4. Patience decamped and grief pitched tents, and I lie prostrate between these two. 5. Who will compose my distracted thoughts? Who will relieve my pain? Guide me to him! Who will ease my sorrow? Who will help a passionate lover? 6. Whenever I keep secret the torments of desire, my tears betray the flame within and the sleeplessness. 7. And whenever I say, 'Give me one look!' the answer is, 'Thou art not hindered but for pity's sake.' 8. It cannot be that one look from them will avail thee. Is it aught but the glimpse of a levin that flashed? 9. I am not forgetting the time when the camel-driver, wishing for separation and seeking al-Abraq, urged them on. 10. The ravens of separation croaked at them—may God not preserve a raven that croaked! 11. The raven of separation is only a camel which carried away the loved ones with a swift wide-stepping pace. 1. He laments the departure of his companions, viz. the spiritual angelic beings who suffer no natural bondage, whilst he is left a prisoner in this body, occupied with governing it and prevented from wandering freely through the celestial spheres. 'Al-Uthayl,' his natural constitution (###). 'An-Naqá,' his body. 2. 'My father,' i.e. the Highest Spirit (###) which is his real father in the world above and his phenomenal mother in the world below. 'Of him for whose sake I melted with anguish': he refers to the Divine mystery contained in his heart. 'Of fear,' i.e. fear of the radiance of the Divine majesty. 6. The love that is revealed is stronger and more passionate, for there is no good in a love that is ruled by reason. 7. God in His mercy veils the splendours of His face from His creatures. 8. The more the Beloved looks on thee, the more is thy anguish increased. Vision is possible only in moments of ecstasy. 9. 'The camel-driver,' i.e. the voice of God calling those exalted spiritual beings to ascend towards Him. 'Separation,' i.e. their departure from the phenomenal world. 'Al-Abraq,' the place where God is manifested in His essence. 10. 'The ravens of separation,' i.e. considerations affecting his phenomenal existence, which hinder him from the ascent to God. 11. 'A camel,' i.e. the ravens of separation are really a man's aspirations (###), since aspiration bears him aloft and unites him with the object of his search.

1. They (the women) mounted the howdahs on the swift camels and placed in them the (damsels like) marble statues and full moons, 2. And promised my heart that they should return; but do the fair promise anything except deceit? 3. And she saluted with her henna-tipped fingers for the leave-taking, and let fall tears that excited the flames (of desire). 4. When she turned her back with the purpose of making for al-Khawarnaq and as-Sadír, 5. I cried out after them, 'Perdition!' She answered and said, 'Dost thou invoke perdition? 6. Then invoke it not only once, but cry "Perdition!" many times.' 7. O dove of the arák trees, have a little pity on me! for parting only increased thy moans, 8. And thy lamentation, O dove, inflames the longing lover, excites the jealous, 9. Melts the heart, drives off sleep, and doubles our desires and sighing. 10. Death hovers because of the dove's lamentation, and we beg him to spare us a little while, 11. That perchance a breath from the zephyr of Ḥájir may sweep towards us rain-clouds, 12. By means of which thou wilt satisfy thirsty souls; but thy clouds only flee farther than before. 13. O watcher of the star, be my boon-companion, and O wakeful spy on the lightning, be my nocturnal comrade! 14. O sleeper in the night, thou didst welcome sleep and inhabit the tombs ere thy death. 15. But hadst thou been in love with the fond maiden, thou wouldst have gained, through her, happiness and joy, 16. Giving to the fair (women) the wines of intimacy, conversing secretly with the suns, and flattering the full moons. 1. 'The camels' are the human faculties, 'the howdahs' are the actions which they are charged to perform, 'the damsels' in the howdahs are the mystical sciences and the perfect sorts of knowledge. 3. He says, 'This Divine subtlety, being acquired and not given directly, is subject to a change produced by contact with phenomena'; this change he indicates by speaking of 'her henna-tipped fingers', as though it were the modification of unity by a kind of association (###). Nevertheless, her staying in the heart is more desirable than her going, for she protects the gnostic as long as she is there. 'And let fall tears,' etc.: she let loose in the heart sciences of contemplation which produced an intense yearning. 4. 'Al-Khawarnaq and as-Sadír,' i.e. the Divine presence. 5. 'Perdition!' i.e. death to the phenomenal world now that these sublime mysteries have vanished from it. 'Dost thou invoke perdition?' i.e. why dost thou not see the face of God in everything, in light and darkness, in simple and composite, in subtle and gross, in order that thou mayst not feel the grief of parting. 6. 'Cry "Perdition!" many times' (cf. Kor. xxv, 15), i.e. not only in this station but in every station in which thou art placed, for thou must bid farewell to every one of them, and thou canst not fail to be grieved, since, whenever the form of the Truth disappears from thee, thou imaginest that He has left thee; but He has not left thee, and it is only thy remaining with thyself (###) that veils from thee the vision of that which pervades the whole of creation. 7. 'O dove of the arák trees': he addresses holy influences of Divine pleasure which have descended upon him. 'Have a little pity on me!' i.e. pity my weakness and inability to attain unto thy purity. 'For parting only increased thy moans': he says, 'Inasmuch as thy substance only exists through and in me, and I am diverted from thee by the dark world of phenomena which keeps me in bondage, for this cause thou art lamenting thy separation from me.' 8. 'And thy lamentation,' etc., i.e. we who seek the unbounded freedom of the celestial world should weep more bitterly than thou. 'Excites the jealous': jealousy arises from regarding others (###), and he who beholds God in everything feels no jealousy, for God is One; but since God manifests Himself in various forms, the term 'jealousy' is applicable to Him. 10. 'Death,' i.e. the station in which the subtle principle of Man is severed from its governance of this dark body for the sake of the Divine subtleties which are conveyed to it by the above-mentioned holy influences. 11. 'Ḥájir' denotes here the most inaccessible veil of the Divine glory. No phenomenal being can attain to the immediate experience thereof, but scents of it blow over the hearts of gnostics in virtue of a kind of amorous affection (###). 'Rain-clouds,' i.e. sciences and diverse sorts of knowledge belonging to the most holy Essence. 13. 'O watcher of the star,' in reference to keeping in mind that which the sciences offer in their various connexions. 'O wakeful spy on the lightning': the lightning is a locus of manifestation of the Essence. The author says, addressing one who seeks it, 'Our quest is the same, be my comrade in the night.' 14. This verse may be applied either to the heedless (###) or to the unconscious (###). 15. 'The fond maiden,' i.e. the Essential subtlety which is the gnostic's object of desire. 'Through her': although She is unattainable, yet through her manifestation to thee all that thou hast is baptized for thee (###), and thy whole kingdom is displayed to thee by that Essential form. 16. 'Conversing secretly with the suns,' etc., in reference to the Traditions which declare that God will be seen in the next world like the sun in a cloudless sky or like the moon when she is full.

1. O driver of the reddish-white camels, do not hasten with them, but stop! for I am a cripple going after them. 2. Stop the camels and tighten their reins! I beseech thee by God, by my passion, by my anguish, O driver! 3. My soul is willing, but my foot does not second her. Who will pity and help me? 4. What shall the skilled craftsman do in a case where his tools have declared themselves to be working mischief? 5. Turn aside, for their tents are on the right of the valley. God bless thee, O valley, for what thou containest! 6. Thou hast collected a folk who are my soul and my breath and the inmost core of the black clot in the membrane of my liver. 7. May my love be unblest if I do not die of grief at Ḥájir or Sal‘ or Ajyád! 1. The Divine Spirit which speaks in Man and is charged with the governance of this body says to the camel-driver, i.e. to God's summoner who guides the lofty aspirations in their journey heavenward, 'Do not hasten with them, for I am hampered by this body to which I am tied until death.' 3. 'Who will pity and help me?' He refers to the decree of God (###). 4. He says, 'What shall I do? Though I am able to quit the body at times, i.e. in moments of passing away and absence (###) under the influence of ecstasy, my aim is to depart entirely; and, moreover, at such moments the sensible world exercises a powerful attraction upon me. This attraction (here called "his tools") spoils what I am endeavouring to do, and disturbs my state of passing away and absence in order to bring me back to the body.' 5. 'Their tents,' i.e. the abodes of these aspirations, which are, in their knowledge of God, not in God, since He is not a locus for anything. Knowledge of God is the utmost goal to which contingent being can attain, and the whole universe depends on knowledge and on nothing else. 'On the right of the valley,' referring to the occasion when God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai (Kor. xix, 53). 'What thou containest,' i.e. Divine, holy, and Mosaic kinds of knowledge. 7. 'Ḥájir,' i.e. the intermediate world (###). 'Sal‘,' a mountain near Medina, i.e. the station of Muḥammad. 'Ajyád,' a mountain near Mecca, i.e. a Divine station which causes me to pass away from all phenomenal existence.

1. Halt at the abodes and weep over the ruins and ask the decayed habitations a question. 2. 'Where are the loved ones? Where are their camels gone?' (They answer), 'Behold them traversing the vapour in the desert. 3. Thou seest them in the mirage like gardens: the vapour makes large in the eyes the figure (of one who walks in it).' 4. They went, desiring al-‘Udhayb, that they might drink there a cool life-giving fountain. 5. I followed, asking the zephyr about them, whether they have pitched tents or have sought the shade of the ḍál tree. 6. The zephyr said, 'I left their tents at Zarúd, and the camels were complaining of fatigue from their night-journey. 7. They had let down over the tents coverings to protect their beauty from the heat of noon. 8. Rise, then, and go towards them, seeking their traces, and drive thy camels speedily in their direction. 9. And when thou wilt stop at the landmarks of Ḥájir and cross dales and hills there, 10. Their abodes will be near and their fire will be clearly seen—a fire which has caused the flame of love to blaze. 11. Make the camels kneel! Let not its lions affright thee, for longing love will present them to thine eyes in the form of cubs.' 1. He says to the voice of God (###) calling from his heart, 'Halt at the abodes,' i.e. the stations where gnostics alight in the course of their journey to infinite knowledge of their object of worship. 'And weep over the ruins,' i.e. the traces left by those gnostics, since I cannot accompany them. 'The decayed habitations,' because there is no joy in the abodes which have been deserted, and their very existence depends on those who dwell in them. 2. 'Their camels,' i.e. their aspirations. 'The vapour,' i.e. the evidences (###) of that which they seek, for its evidences are attached to its being found in themselves. 'The desert,' i.e. the station of abstraction (###). 3. 'Makes large,' i.e. they are grand because they give evidence of the grandeur of that which they seek. Hence it is said, 'In order that he who was not (namely, thou) may pass away, and He who never was not (namely, God) may subsist for ever.' And God said, ' Like a vapour in the plain (i.e. the station of humility) … when he cometh to it, he findeth it to be nothing, but he findeth God with him ' (Kor. xxiv, 39), inasmuch as all secondary causes have been cut off from him. Accordingly the author says that the vapour makes large, etc., meaning that Man's superiority over all other contingent beings consists in his giving stronger evidence of God, since he is the most perfect organism, as the Prophet said, 'Verily he was created in the image of the Merciful.' 4. 'Desiring al-‘Udhayb,' i.e. seeking the mystery of life in the station of purity from the fountain of liberality. 'That they might drink': shurb is the second degree of Divine manifestation (###) dhawq being the first. 5. 'Whether they have pitched tents,' referring to knowledge acquired by them. 'Or have sought the shade of the ḍál tree,' referring to knowledge divinely bestowed, in which their actions have no part. Ḍál implies bewilderment (###). 6. 'At Zarúd,' a great tract of sand in the desert: inasmuch as sand is often tossed by the wind from one place to another, he indicates that they are in a state of unrest, because they are seeking that which is unimaginable, and of which only the traces are to be found in the soul. 7. 'Coverings to protect their beauty,' i.e. unless their faces, viz. their realities, were veiled, the intense radiance of this station would consume them. 8. 'Seeking their traces': he says, 'Seek to approach the degree of the prophets with thy aspiration (this he indicates by the word "camels"), but not by immediate experience (###), for only the Prophet has immediate experience of this station.' There is nothing, however, to prevent anyone from aspiring to it, although it is unattainable. 9. 'Ḥájir,' referring to the obstacle which makes immediate experience of this station impossible for us. 10. 'Their fire will be clearly seen,' i.e. the perils into which they plunged before they could arrive at these abodes. According to the Tradition, 'Paradise is encompassed with hateful actions.' One of the illuminati (###) told me at al-Mawṣil that he had seen in a dream Ma‘rúf al-Karkhí sitting in the midst of Hell-fire. The dream terrified him and he did not perceive its meaning. I said to him, 'That fire is the enclosure that guards the abode in which you saw him seated. Let anyone who desires to reach that abode plunge into the fire.' My friend was pleased with this explanation and recognized that it was true. 11. 'Let not its lions affright thee,' i.e. if thou art a true lover be not dismayed by the dangers confronting thee. 'In the form of cubs,' i.e. innocuous and of no account.

1. O mouldering remains (of the encampment) at al-Uthayl, where I played with friendly maidens! 2. Yesterday it was cheerful and smiling, but to-day it has become desolate and frowning. 3. They went far away and I was unaware of them, and they knew not that my mind was watching over them, 4. Following them wherever they journeyed and pitched tents, and sometimes it was managing the beasts of burden, 5. Until, when they alighted in a barren wilderness and pitched tents and spread the carpets, 6. It brought them back to a meadow verdant and ripe which erstwhile had been an arid desert. 7. They did not halt at any place but its meadow contained forms beautiful as peacocks, 8. And they did not depart from any place but its earth contained tombs of their lovers. 1. 'Al-Uthayl,' i.e. the natural constitution. Its remains are described as 'mouldering' because they are changed by the various spiritual emotions (###) which pass over them. 'Friendly maidens,' i.e. forms of Divine wisdom by which by the gnostic's heart is gladdened. 2. 'Desolate and frowning,' because he has returned to the world of sense and consciousness. 3. 'And they knew not,' etc.: as, when a man leaves a place, he remains there in imagination and keeps the picture of it in his soul. 4. 'It was managing the beasts of burden,' i.e. he was influencing them by his thought, so that their thoughts turned to him. This was the result of his sincerity; for the inferior, if he turn sincerely to God, may influence the superior, as often happens with sincere novices and their spiritual directors. 5. 'In a barren wilderness,' i.e. the station of absolute and abstract unification. 'And spread the carpets,' in reference to the Divine favours which they received on reaching the abode of the Truth. 6. In this verse he points out that no reality except the Divine substance can subsist together with abstract unification. Hence, when they gained this station and realized it and knew the meaning of God's word, ' There is nothing like unto [paragraph continues] Him ,' He brought them back to the unification of their own essences in respect of their oneness, which is incomparable in respect of the Divine substance contained in its essence. 'To a meadow verdant and ripe,' referring to the Divine mysteries which the Truth conveyed to them by the realities of the Names. 7. 'Forms beautiful as peacocks,' i.e. their lovely spiritual states, actions, and dispositions. 8. 'Tombs of their lovers,' i.e. the realities which desire that their traces should be manifested in gnostics. These objects of knowledge only exist through those who know them, and therefore they love the existence of the gnostic, in so far as he knows them, more intensely than they are desired by him. Accordingly the author describes them as dying when the gnostics depart.

1. My lovesickness is from her of the lovesick eyelids: console me by the mention of her, console me 2. The grey doves fluttered in the meadows and wailed: the grief of these doves is from that which grieved me. 3. May my father be the ransom of a tender playful girl, one of the maidens guarded in howdahs, advancing swayingly among the married women! 4. She rose, plain to see, like a sun, and when she vanished she shone in the horizon of my heart. 5. O ruined abodes at Ráma! How many fair damsels with swelling breasts have they beheld! 6. May my father and I myself be the ransom of a God-nurtured gazelle which pastures between my ribs in safety! 7. The fire thereof in that place is light: thus is the light the quencher of the fires. 8. O my two friends, bend my reins aside that I may see the form of her abode with clear vision. 9. And when ye reach the abode, descend, and there, my two companions, weep for me, 10. And stop with me a little while at the ruins, that we may endeavour to weep, nay, that I may weep indeed because of that which befell me. 11. Passion shoots me without arrows, passion slays me without a spear. 12. Tell me, will ye weep with me when I weep beside her? Help me, oh help me to weep! 13. And rehearse to me the tale of Hind and Lubná and Sulaymá and Zaynab and ‘Inán! 14. Then tell me further of Ḥájir and Zarúd, give me news of the pastures of the gazelles! 15. And mourn for me with the poetry of Qays and Lubná, and with Mayya and the afflicted Ghaylán! 16. Long have I yearned for a tender maiden, endowed with prose and verse, having a pulpit, eloquent, 17. One of the princesses from the land of Persia, front the most glorious of cities, from Isfahan. 18. She is the daughter of ‘Iráq, the daughter of my Imám, and I am her opposite, a child of Yemen. 19. O my lords, have ye seen or heard that two opposites are ever united? 20. Had you seen us at Ráma proffering each other cups of passion without fingers, 21. Whilst passion caused sweet and joyous words to be uttered between us without a tongue, 22. You would have seen a state in which the understanding disappears—Yemen and ‘Iráq embracing together. 23. Falsely spoke the poet 1 who said before my time (and he has pelted me with the stones of his understanding), 24. 'O thou who givest the Pleiades in marriage to Suhayl, God bless thee! how should they meet? 25. The Pleiades are in the north whenever they rise, and Suhayl whenever he rises is in the south.' 1. 'Her of the lovesick eyelids': he means the Presence desired by gnostics. Although she is too sublime to be known and loved, she inclines towards them in mercy and kindness and descends into their hearts by a sort of manifestation. 'Console me by the mention of her': there is no cure for his malady but remembrance (###). He says 'Console me' twice, i.e. by my remembrance of God and by God's remembrance of me (cf. Kor. ii, 147). 2. 'The grey doves,' i.e. the spirits of the intermediate world. 'And wailed,' because their souls cannot join the spirits which have been released from imprisonment in this earthly body. 3. 'A tender playful girl,' i.e. a form of Divine wisdom, essential and holy, which fills the heart with joy. One of the maidens guarded in howdahs': she is a virgin, because none has ever known her before; she was veiled in modesty and jealousy during all her journey from the Divine Presence to the heart of this gnostic. 'The married women,' i.e. the forms of Divine wisdom already realized by gnostics who preceded him. 4. 'And when she vanished,' etc., i.e. when she set in the world of evidence (###) she rose in the world of the Unseen (###). 5. 'O ruined abodes,' i.e. the bodily faculties. 'At Ráma,' from (###) (he sought), implying that their search is vain. 'How many fair damsels,' etc., i.e. subtle and Divine forms by which the bodily faculties were annihilated. 7. The natural fires are extinguished by the heavenly light in his heart. 8. 'The form of her abode,' i.e. the Presence from which she issued forth. He seems to desire the station of Divine contemplation, since wisdom is not desired except for the lake of that to which it leads. 9. 'Weep for me,' because this Presence annihilates everyone who attains unto her and beholds her. 10. 'That I may weep,' etc., i.e. for the loss of the loved ones and of everything except the ruins of their abode. 11. 'Without arrows,' i.e. from a distance. He refers to the state called ###. 'Without a spear,' i.e. near at hand. He refers to the state called ###. 13. Hind was the mistress of Bishr, and Lubná of Qays b. adh-Dharíḥ; ‘Inán was a slave-girl belonging to an-Náṭifí; Zaynab was one of the mistresses of ‘Umar b. Abí Rabí‘a; Sulaymá was a slave-girl whom the author had seen: he says that she had a lover. He interprets the names of all these women mystically, e.g. Hind is explained as an allusion to the Fall of Adam, and Zaynab as signifying removal from the station of saintship to that of prophecy. 16. He describes this essential knowledge (###) as endowed with prose and verse, i.e. absolute in respect of her essence, but limited in respect of possession (###). 'A pulpit,' i.e. the ladder of the Most Beautiful Names. To climb this ladder is to be invested with the qualities of these Names. 'Eloquent,' referring to the station of Apostleship. The author adds: 'I allude enigmatically to the various kinds of mystical knowledge which are under the veil of an-Niẓám, the maiden daughter of our Shaykh.' 17. 'One of the princesses,' on account of her asceticism, for ascetics are the kings of the earth. 18. '‘Iráq' indicates origin, i.e. this knowledge comes of a noble race. 'A child of Yemen,' i.e. in respect of faith (###) and wisdom and the breath of the Merciful (###) and tenderness of heart. These qualities are the opposite of what is attributed to ‘Iráq, viz. rudeness and severity and infidelity; whereas the opposite of ‘Iráq itself is not Yemen, but the Maghrib, and the opposite of Yemen itself is not ‘Iráq, but Syria. The antithesis here is between the qualities of the Beloved and those of the lover. 19. 'Two opposites,' referring to the story of Junayd, when a man sneezed in his presence and said, ' God be praised! ' (Kor. i, 1). Junayd said, completing the verse, ' Who is the Lord of created beings .' The man replied, 'And who is the created being, that he should be mentioned in the same breath with God?' 'O my brother,' said Junayd, 'the phenomenal, when it is joined to the Eternal, vanishes and leaves no trace behind. When He is there, thou art not, and if thou art there, He is not.' 22. 'Yemen and ‘Iráq,' etc., i.e. the identification (###) of the qualities of Wrath and Mercy. He refers to the saying of Abú Sa‘íd al-Kharráz, who on being asked how he knew God, answered, ' By His uniting two opposites, for He is the First and the Last and the Outward and the Inward ' (Kor. lvii, 3). 24. 'The Pleiades,' i.e. the seven attributes demonstrated by scholastic philosophers. 'Suhayl,' i.e. the Divine Essence. 25. 'In the north,' i.e. in the world of phenomena. The Divine attributes are manifested in Creation, but the Divine Essence does not enter into Creation. 87:1 ‘Umar b. Abí Rabí‘a, ed. by Schwarz, vol. ii, p. 247, No. 439.