Qasidas

You who sit enthroned upon the word 'except,' you have swallowed both worlds in the single mouthful of 'no.' Without your being, no one escapes the prison of nothingness; you have caught us in clay, in the cell of all that is not You. Since you showed your face through the window of 'except,' both worlds have hidden their cheeks behind the veil of 'no.' You smear the face of both worlds with the clay of negation, but the 'except' sorts the pure from the dregs. The corridor of 'no' leads nowhere; if you are a traveler, set foot on the road of 'except.' In the six directions, do not seek news of a living thing, for there is nothing but a dead man's bones in this tomb of annihilation. To boast of existence is nothing but claiming partnership with God; do not take 'there is no god' to mean anything but 'all but Him is nothing.' See the water of life flowing in the channel of 'except'; take it that the face of both worlds is smeared with the clay of 'no.' You who are the very honor of the garden of existence, your beauty; and the veil over that beauty is its sheer abundance of light. Your love has thrown the whole expanse of the horizons beneath its feet; your beauty has seized the existence of both worlds and made it visible. What concealment can a beauty keep that burns through every veil, a face that grows famous precisely by being hidden? Why does this lion hearted love writhe in the dust, in an arena where the majesty of beauty has lowered its curtain? Love seized the hem of majesty with both hands of annihilation, then writhed in blood, having died, and through dying lived on. When the sun of eternal beauty draws its sword, it makes the phoenix of fortune appear in a severed head's palm. What are the two worlds? A dark cloud, and your light is like the sun shining behind the veil of mystery. So many thousand veils, yet your beauty is unveiled; your beauty is plain to see, while you stay hidden behind the curtain. The lantern is a veil for the candle's face, yet the lantern itself shines only by the candle's light. Eighteen thousand worlds, and one Creator of worlds; a hundred thousand mirrors, and one who shows them all. The viewer, with weak eyes, keeps needing some lens that will clear and brighten his sight. For the wise, the two worlds are a pair of glasses on the eye, fit to gaze upon the indescribable face of God's majesty. In your workshop the sky is a millstone, and it turns upon the water of your majesty. The ranks of intellects and the hosts of souls are the millers, and this heap of dust is the meal ground within it. To the intellect you are plainer than scent in rosewater; to the senses your face is more hidden than dye in henna. Your essence is too unbound for the intellect to prove; the negation of both worlds is the witness to your existence. Who gave such steadiness to this broad, low plain? Who raised this lofty tent of sky so high? Were it not for your power, the earth would have no firmness; were it not for your will, who would hold up the sky? The sleeping globe of earth would sit upon the wheel of heaven, and the sky's back would lie down on the dust of earth. The vault of heaven would be level with the dust, and the dust of earth would rise as a haze on the face of the air. Your act is substance and accident, intellect, soul, and nature; your word is proof and ruling, argument and guidance. The originator is brought into being by you, the new made eternal by you; by you the necessary becomes contingent, and existence passes into nothing. You are free of all forms, yet the form of all forms; free of any motive, while you are the purpose of all creation. O Source of sources, O Cause of causes, you are the beginning of all, and you are their end as well. Apart from your perfect essence, to whom belongs the kingdom of existence? Apart from your all encompassing knowledge, to whom belongs the verdict in judgment? You are with no one, yet no one is apart from you; you are in no place, yet no place is empty of you. The being of others only seems to be, and is not complete; your being is the true being, though it looks like nonbeing. The stone that falls from the mountaintop to the ground, the dust that rises into the air from underfoot, every speck that gleams in the sun's ray, every drop that parts longingly from the cloud, the lightning that leaps from the cloud's dark vein, the cloud that weeps even as the lightning laughs, the branch that sways in dance from the wind's breath, the bird that the leaf sets singing as the breeze stirs, every bud that gasps from a tight breath, every fresh blossom that opens at the slap of the morning wind, the face whose color shatters as it pales, the hair whose value grows the more it is loosened and tousled, the water in its flowing and the wind in its motion, the stone in its weight and the wave in its swimming, all of these have thanks for your bounty on their tongues; all of these turn their heads toward you in prayer. No, more than that: they are all your gratitude and your praise; they are all your hymn, your eulogy, your acclaim. Whatever signals the glorifying of the Giver is praise, be it substance or accident, sound or voice. Meaning is what guides every word to its purpose; the ear knows the word only for the sake of the meaning. Since whatever exists is a ray of the bounty of your essence, every existing thing is a guide for the mind toward you. What standing have we to offer you praise and thanks? It is fitting only that you yourself praise yourself. Yet it is through our tongues that you have offered to yourself all this gratitude poured out from earth to sky. A stone laying its head on the ground in thanks if it falls from the mountain, a leaf bowing in thanks borne on the breeze. Your command is obeyed, your order is heeded: the sea in its surge and the mountain in its echo. By you the heavens move and the earth stays still; by you the moon is in its furnace of fire and the sun in its blaze. By you the ant toils in the soil and finds its grain; by you the worm grazes within the stone. By you the seed in the womb draws its allotted sustenance; by you the grain sprouts in the cradle of the soil. In the green wood you grant a shroud to the dead body; in the dry earth you grant food to the living. The dew lays the rose petal like linen under the moonlight, its soft pillow and cushion being your protection. From the moving body you put wool into a cap; from the budding bush you put cotton into a cloak. In the poison bearing thorn you place a spring of honey, and then in that honey, by your grace, you place a cure. In the leaf and fruit of the green herb to the withered plant, from you comes healing for every pain, a remedy for every ache. O reviver of bones when they have crumbled to dust, O creator of souls when they have scattered like motes. O you who set the soul in motion when it has gone still, O you who renew the body when it has decayed. O ever existing one, eternal without end, O abiding one, lasting forever without passing away. No leaf has fallen, no seed has grown, but its knowledge is held in the treasuries of your unseen. Your knowledge encompasses all things, and that is the divine measure; it is before the existence of all, and that is the divine decree. We have no one to trust but your mercy; we have no refuge to seek but your threshold. We are servants, and far, far be it from us to defy your will; no refuge but at your door, none but you, and no, none but you. You are the Giver and I am the weak servant; you are the sun and I am a scattered mote of dust. If you call me, you are the doer of whatever you will; if you drive me away, you are powerful over whatever you wish. Yet since your mercy is vast, O my Lord, and since the bounty of your grace is general everywhere, if you show me mercy, it is by your grace, without anything owed; and if you turn me away, then I am the one who deserves it. My Lord, by your grace, forgive my sins; my Lord, by your kindness, pardon my faults. O intercessor whose pleas are accepted, best of intercessors, the helper honored with victory and brotherhood.

You who invented these nine circling spheres, and whose grace nurtures every being in the world. No one walks without pockets and arms full of your bounty, ever since your generosity opened its shop. While your kindness, like a nurse, pours milk into its throat, the garden's rose opens its mouth like a child. Your grace is a sage whose single glance gives even smoke the alchemical power of gold. Describing you, my speaking tongue is like the wild lily; you would think it grew no tongue at all for speech. However far I look, from your grace were born every particle of the earth and every moment of time. On the road toward your essence, at the very first station, the feet of all travelers sink into the mud. On your path, the practical mind, through the force of worship, has shot an arrow and fumbled for the target. The theoretical mind has washed its face in your ocean, yet it stays at the shore and has never seen the depths. They say: since the made world is a certainty, reason can infer its Maker through thought and reflection. But isn't reason itself part of the made world? How can the made carry a trace back to its Maker! What better proof than his own existence to establish the Lord of earth and time? Since there is no one but you, what can I say of a partner? Oneness is enough; let us just close our mouths. The foundations of both worlds were born from you, O true foundation of all the world from head to foot. You are present before yourself, and the whole world is from you; to deny such knowledge is beyond the tongue's power. The believers in God's bodily form lie trampled under blame, since your essence is what created place itself. Since on the road to your nobility it is but a thread of illusion, the lowly bondage of the parts of time. You who claim knowledge, you cannot even give voice and expression to knowing your own self. It is ignorance, not knowledge, to try to prove the Lord of the world through fancies and imaginings. The knot of your prayer beads solves nothing; if you are a true wayfarer, untie the knot of your own soul's thread. From fixed stars and planets comes nothing but knots; better dust on your sight than that you gaze at the heavens. Since burning has never been your lot, you cannot know the state of a heart scorched among the burned. See, intoxicated, on his road, how the chained waves dance, the flowing water with a fetter on its feet. Climbing the gallows is the first step on his road; do not mock those who share Mansur's nature. O existence of those who vanished on the road of longing for you, O name and trace of every heart without name or trace. Both your love, the lover, and the beloved are all you; you are the knower and the known of this hidden secret. Who pours the wine of spirits into the cup of bodies? You are the cupbearer, you the tavern, you the soul's wine. On your road I am that lost one, without heart or faith, so shamed I cannot even speak my name and trace. Brighten my sight with the kohl of true knowing, enough that I may tell certainty apart from mere guessing. Give me so much wine of restlessness from the grace of eternity that I may wet the lips of my thirsting soul with it. When the Generous One asks me this question, I will say: the one drunk on the open vision knows nothing of mere knowledge.

The sun of the sky doesn't suit you, my beloved, why would you pair yourself, like the moon, with ones lesser than you? I watch you from afar, for like the sun the radiance of your face dazzles my eyes. Your love is enough for my heart from you; yes, people content themselves with the sun's light instead of the sun itself. My heart swelled with longing for your arrow until the shaft of your coquetry sank in up to its feathers. Don't stain your hands and your skirt with my blood; my half a life isn't worthy of the wound you give. The angels would swarm to your head like bees, if you parted your sugar lips in a smile. Now that the field of beauty is yours without dispute, just step out and show yourself, my silver-breasted idol. How could another heart be lit by the light of your love? Its torn chest has neither window nor door for it. When your love fills my heart, what use is my soul? Two kings cannot fit in one country. I have no need of the sky's sun, for in my heart your sorrow is the sky, you are the sun, and my scars are the stars. You broke my heart and blood pours from my eyes; strange that the glass shattered yet the wine still drips from the cup. Why keep my heart chained in grief? Set it free. What harm if your curls have one knot fewer? My heart brims with blood like a bud; if there's no gentle breeze of kindness, then send a life-giving wound. Instead of one knot, a hundred knots have fallen in it; no wonder, if I don't know my heart's true worth. I, who know no one but the tip of your curls, how long will you turn away from me like an enemy? I don't know what fate this is, that you always raise a toast with my blood to please my enemies' hearts. As if your cruelty were not enough, time too has now buckled its belt to help the heavens torment me. To console me, they hold me like a child, now your cruelty, now the tyranny of the sky in their arms. Lost to myself, they hold me by both hands: grief on one side and sorrow on the other. I am so weary of the state of this ruined world, longing to escape from this narrow place of fear and danger. Like a speck of dust I take my place each moment in the sun's beam, hoping to cast myself out through the window of the sun. Surely I would have left this world by now, had the hope of circling the Prophet's shrine not held me back. Time throws me down only so that the kindness of the king who cherishes his friends may lift me from the dust. Paradise itself would come running to my door, if I went to the door of that lord and source of joy. The one God of the world, king of the realm of faith, the heaven of the world of souls, the leader of jinn and men; The king upon the throne of prophethood, Muhammad the Arab, the dust of whose threshold is collyrium for the eyes of the heavens. Before his all-embracing grace, what is devotion, what is sin? In friendship with the dogs at his door, what is good, what is evil? Recalling the sweetness of his grace, whoever swallows poison tastes the flavor of sugar by the dust of his feet. Whoever is habituated to the antidote of his love faces no danger at all from the poison of sin. If it were not for the sun's longing to circle his door, it would be a wonder for it ever to lift its head from the east. When you raise the banner of intercession on Judgment Day, you shade the people's heads from the burning sun. What a wonder, that anyone finds shade then, when from the heat even the sun itself, desperate, creeps into your shadow. It would be in vain that hell was ever created, if you alone interceded for everyone in the world. You are eager to intercede, and I am lost in wonder at your noble nature, granting freedom on Judgment Day. May the remorse that weighs on sinners never come to torment the helpless ascetic too. You will not withhold your kindness, and I fear that out of your generosity the sinner grows even bolder in his sin. How could anyone climb to heaven with the banner of knowledge when your love is not their guide and leader? Your enemy stays a wretch, dark as ignorance in his black cloak, even supposing he bathed in the sun's bright spring. If the breeze of your kindness blew through the garden, it could be that people would gather fruit even from the cypress and the willow. By the great equator of your justice, with utmost truth, the celestial belt itself is made of grace and skill. The heavens' own equator, so crooked and at odds, stands before yours like a belt with its waist broken. No decree of fate runs without the sign of your wisdom, and to oppose your power lies beyond the limits of destiny. The least of your followers equals a hundred like Moses son of Amram; the humblest slave of your court outweighs a thousand Alexanders. The perfect minds owe their gnosis to you, the rational souls owe their manners and conduct to you. The lowest step of your rank is the place where, helpless, Gabriel let his feathers fall along the road. On the night your lightning of revelation struck the seven heavens, if the sky did not burn, why did it turn the color of ash? On the night you departed, leaving its hand stained crimson, the sky still strikes its head with grief. The vast realm of your holiness is a space where the imagination of reason has no room to pass. How blessed that journey, how fortunate that road, ennobled with you as its traveler, God as its goal, ascension as its course. Rapture was the guide, the seven heavens the caravan litter; the trusted spirit Gabriel ran on foot, while Buraq served as the mount. What a Buraq, racing like the wind in full gallop; what a steed, swifter on the road than lightning. The sky was a ball before its tail, caught in the curve of the polo stick; the earth beneath its hoof was dust scattered by a storm. So swift in its turning that wherever it dashed, it arrived before the line of sight could even reach. The sun, resembling its brow, rose high in fortune; the moon, akin to its horseshoe, climbed high among the stars. Beneath your thigh ran that wind-footed flash of lightning, Buraq by name, but truly lightning in speed and motion. The sky leapt out with a broken head beneath its hoof, and that is why twilight's hem is wet with blood. So light-footed it takes no harm, not even a speck, as it shows itself to the eye like the light of vision itself. At the moment of your ascent on the Night Journey, O king of both worlds, it raced through the heavens like lightning, in such haste. Before even one hoof had touched the sky, the print of its horseshoe was left behind as the crescent moon. By night it had risen around the heavens, and still the sun and the moon run after it, breathless in pursuit. His swiftness on the Night of Ascension is proof enough: he returned before the door knocker had stopped trembling. However fast he traveled, even that was left behind when he set foot in triumph upon the placeless realm. Buraq stayed back, and Gabriel's feathers fell away at the spot where his sandaled feet stepped on. The talk has run long. O my mind, rest a moment; close this book by laying out my own condition. Great king, you know how the high celestial wheel has girded itself with spite against the wise. No sapling of merit remains in the garden of this age; and if one supposedly does, it bears neither leaf nor fruit. Like a nurse, fate lays in the lap of suffering every fruit the mothers of art have borne. It bites away at all the marks of humanity, so that harm reaches the worthy man from everyone. To keep watch over such people is like raising a dragon in your own home. Consider all the cruelties heaven has dealt out of treachery to people of merit, by every child of mankind and jinn. Especially to me, lost and dazed, who from a flood of injustice can no longer tell my head from my feet. A thousand thorns have broken in my feet from cruelty, since I plucked a single rose from the garden of art. I have melted so much that my body has become mere bone, hard as marble, from the turning of this vile sky. I beg from you a single glance for these dogs, so that I may turn my back on the whole world at once. I would not buy the favor of earth and sky for half a grain, if your kindness, even half a grain, would aid me. First I swear by the dust of your feet, which is the crown upon the heads of the lords of jinn and men. Then by the chain of grace, first and last, I raise my oath higher than the heavens. By the Maker who by His power laid the four elements to rest beneath the seven heavens. Then through their union brought forth the offspring that destiny has named the human race. From Him, the Originator of all things, this motion arose, then by His eternal will, set within measure. He sent it down the ladder of descent until it found its place and station at the lowest rung. When He raised it up by the sacred ascension, He drew it to His side and made it a prophet. By the necessary Being and its claim to universal existence; by the poverty of the contingent, which is even less than nothing. By that existence which is the very wellspring of being; by that nothingness which in absolute terms is cast out. By those ranks of being that came forth from divine will, one before, the other after. By that pure abstraction granted to the intellect, free of any taint of matter and form. By the luminous intellect and the spiritual soul, by the bodily nature and the mirror-bright form. By the restlessness and bewilderment of the ninth sphere, and by its blank simplicity, untouched by marks of gain and loss. By its universal embrace of the world of bodies, beyond whose grasp not even half a speck escapes. By the eighth sphere and its vast constellations, each one a quarry of a hundred stars. By those wandering planets whose troubles find no shelter except at your door. By the poverty of the new moon, which each month, from its destitution, bends its back in humility before the sun. By the burning of fire, that delicate warm-natured thing that recalls hearts full of sparks. By the rush of the wind and its restless disorder, forever frantic like the state of helpless lovers. By the kindness of water and the purity of its essence, which is the source of life for all creation. By the darkness and lowliness of earth, trampled by the world, never lifting its head. By the one Being and the two worlds, the three dimensions and the four elements, the five senses, the six directions, and the seven stars. By the eight gardens of paradise, the nine spheres, and the ten pure intellects, by the rational soul, then by accident and substance. By the laughter of the streambed and the frown of the wave's crest, by the jug full of the sea and the parched throat of the desert. By the green of the meadow and the fresh face of the garden, by the bitterness of the colocynth and the honor of the first fruit. By the laughter of the rose and the weeping of the grieving nightingale, by the scar of the tulip and the violet's pain from the narcissus. By the sweet smile of the bud and the laughter of the rose, by the eloquence of the lily and the color of the lotus. By the frown of the sea and the dark fate of the cloud, by the defiance of the shooting star and the brightness of the planet. By the standing of the wall and the perched roof above, by the cramped heart of the window and the welcome of the open door. By the cotton-spinning of snow and the glass-making of ice, by the marble-games of hail and the dance of the rain. By the morning that lifts its veil and the evening that draws one on, by the white face of day and the dark form of night. By the wheeling of sighs and the world-roaming of tears, by the weeping of nights of separation and the cries of dawn. By the bond that binds the eye to shedding blood, and the loathing that drives the heart's blood from the liver into tears. By the eagerness of the beloved's curls to coil, and the laughter that gives the beloved's ruby lips their sweetness. By that glance, met halfway, the seductive, quarrelsome look of the beloved. By the teardrop that reaches the lashes and turns back, for fear of the fierce, fight-seeking sweetheart. By the thread of a life that, from the strain of grief, is held like a rosary, its body tied in a hundred knots. By your universal grace, O king of the realm of faith, by your mercy that is broad as the light of the sun. By the lion of the thicket of valor, Ali the friend of God, who guarded your faith with the two-pronged sword Zulfiqar. By the water of the jewel of purity, whose skirt of honor, through kinship with you, became a sea of eleven gems. By those two poles of the heaven of leadership, one after another, by the right of the nine who turn in succession. By the right of the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, by the origin and the return, from the day of the covenant to the resurrection. By the truth of all these oaths, great and small, whose offering brought you nothing but a headache. That if the heavens turn all my body's bones to blood, and if they make my frame a target for shooting stars, If the worn-out roof of the sky should fall upon my head, and if it should rain meteor-stones down on me, Every strand of hair in this world, whether straight or bent, cuts into my soul like an arrow or an axe. My longing for you will not lessen by even half a speck; I will never leave your door for any other place. If even half a grain of your kindness walks beside me, I could shatter the heads of the moon and the sun with my bare hands. When your boundless grace takes me under its shelter, what power has any star to steal even a single hair from me? The tongue of complaint runs long and the nature of desire is meddlesome; by your own kindness, overlook my overreaching. The length of my words has weakened my plea, yet your grace knows that to keep it hidden is better. When your kindness cut short the thread of my speech, it gestured: come now, walk the road of your true purpose. This brilliant ode that sprang from my nature was not from me; it was your grace that became my helper. Zahir and Anvari were masters who shaped my talent, yet by the blessing of praising you I shattered their slates. Kamal took the fullest pride in his own gift, claiming he had carried his oath-poem all the way to the heavens. I had raised my oath-poem up to Kamal's height, then your grace lifted it one whole sky above his. As long as the heavens carry your saddle-cloth upon their shoulders, fate stands as your servant and destiny as your friend. Your opponents bend beneath the burden of their sins, while your allies have both fate and destiny as their helpers.

My heart, how long will you see yourself as a carpet spread beneath these nine canopies? Rise above this throne just once and you will see the heaven of the soul. The sky is your true nest, so how long will you stay on the ground? Like a bird with its wings torn off, watching the nest from afar. Like Jacob, give up your attachment to Canaan; for without Joseph it is a cruelty to gaze on this face or that. Close your eyes, and every strand of hair will become a seeing eye; still your tongue, and every hair tip will become a tongue. Two powers are set within you: perception and motion. With the one you learn knowledge, with the other you find strength. Make these two powers your wings in this prison. Take flight, so you may see your own nest clearly. You have only seen yourself feeble inside this cage. Take to the air, and you will see yourself a soaring phoenix. Like a bird that has lost its nest, you are afraid of yourself; but you will see your own glory once you find yourself back in the nest. Short of sight, you have not seen the wonders of creation; you think this is the only sky, you see this as the whole world. In that valley where the men of God walk, you would see the heavens like dust raised by a caravan. Enter the world of pure intellect, where you will see neither of these two worlds at all, or if you do, they look like two rungs of a ladder. There you will find the lines of the six directions gathered like a point on one side, and see the spheres of the nine heavens like a center in the middle. A world where you find yourself free of every flaw, a world where you find yourself safe from every accusation. A world where, if you find a stone, you find it ruby and gold; a world where, if you see a thorn, you see a rose garden. Wherever you stroll in that valley, you find your heart's whole desire; wherever you sit, you find nothing but peace of soul. In that land you will not find a single heart circled by grief, nor in that valley a single heart beating with anything but joy. There no one owes a debt, and you owe no one; every heart you see there is as glad as your own. Sometimes the holy souls and angels are your hosts and grant your heart's wish; sometimes you see the spiritual ones as guests at your own table. You host the sanctified spirits in delight, and you host the pure, bodiless beings with honor. When you remember that home where you once spent your days, your heart fills with pity for every king and ruler you see. And when you recall the feasting and hospitality of these earthly people, you find yourself dripping with shame, like sweat running down. If you gain the honor of God's special banquet hall, out of pure awe you no longer wish even to see yourself there at all. You will not find yourself in the midst, yet you gain eternal joy; you will not see yourself, yet you find everlasting life. You have a road in that world that is not so long, but here you do not want to see your own gain turn to loss. Set one foot upon the body so the path of the soul appears; trample your lower self underfoot so you may see the face of the soul. With a single step you reach your destination, yet it is necessary that you glimpse a sign of the home before you set out. The sign is the sacred law, the seeing is knowledge, the walking is leaving the self behind; once you abandon yourself, you will find yourself a marker in that world. If you tread this path without law and knowledge, you will find only thieves of faith and ghouls of the soul. Action without knowledge is nothing but walking into a dragon's jaws; when deeds lack wisdom, you will see them as a hissing serpent. Yet knowledge without action grants no wish either; what good is a brave man you find with no sword and no spear? What archery can you expect from a boastful marksman whose bragging fills the air while no arrow sits on his bow? Act on what you know, scatter your seed, for the crop of this world is harvested in the next. Heaven is born from words, paradise rises from deeds; palaces, beautiful maidens and servants are all the harvest sown by your hand and tongue. The crimson wine you will find is knowledge and its fruits; the eternal food you will see is pure intention and sincerity. For the man of true meaning, deeds are not prayer and fasting alone; you treat one as an amulet for the soul, the other as a guard for bread. From pilgrimage you want fame, from holy war you seek a name; you give a little charity and expect to be in debt's favor for a lifetime. True action is seeking nearness to God and obeying Him in every task where knowledge shows you His pleasure. Whatever you sow with your hand, water it with the eyes of attention; for if you scatter dry seed, you will only see your own harvest ruined. Be humble toward people, show meekness to others, for these acts of humility become your ladder to the heavens. Prayer became the believer's ascent so that, each moment you lay your head on the ground, you would find yourself in the sky. Cast pride and arrogance out of the realm of your heart, for with conceit you will see your kingdom held by a demon. Drive the commanders of anger and lust out of the body's realm, for their flame turns this sacred light to smoke. When the vapors of desire rise like a tide of lust, you will see the face of the soul's sun hidden in clouds of darkness. When the sea of rage begins to surge, you will see the boat of the heart writhing in a whirlpool of confusion like hell itself. From the rabble of base nature comes such a turmoil of revolt that the realm of your chest grows more ruined than a lover's state. From these wild desert dwellers comes such reckless boldness that you see the chaos of marauders shaking the city of certainty. Come, sever the attachments of craving from their roots, for in the marketplace of Resurrection you will see every form laid bare in its shop. From the outward you can reach the inward, if you are a man; for once you grasp the proof, you find it an interpreter of the Quran. If you wish, you can rise even one step higher, for then you will surely see the outward as the very essence of the inward. And if you pass beyond even this, you have a station where, transformed into a phoenix, you find the peacock of immortality nesting. You hold a paradise yet rest content in a hell; I am amazed that the gold lies buried in your house while you chase the dust of the caravan. In truth you are a paradise, yet you have made yourself a hell with this misplaced thought, that you will gain this and behold that. Cut your attachment to desire and you will be safe from hell; lift the veil from yourself and you will see eternal paradise. Why do you wander seeking a rose's scent in this ancient thicket of thorns? Bow your head to your collar and you will find a garden within a garden. If you step out of this dungeon of tomorrow and yesterday, you will see eternity past and eternity to come as two twin children in one place. Sometimes you find the deer of pre-eternity grazing in the meadow of eternity, sometimes the bull of earth plowing the field of the sky. Turn your face from this wilderness of dread toward the street of union, for there you will see your own scattered pieces gathered as one. Pass from this self-regard into the realm of selflessness, for there you will find a trace of everything you lost here. Like Abraham, step into the fire of love and watch, for you will see every hair of yourself blossoming like a branch of redbud. The colorful surface has deceived you; open the eye of the heart, for on the mirror of the soul you will plainly see the stain of this darkness. Do not be dazzled by ornament; polish instead the eye of meaning, for you will find the colorful surface a crocodile that swallows the soul. You, who look only at the surface, are already lost in wonder at this shape and form. What will you do if one day you see eternal beauty? In this ruined corner of existence, what feeling can be born from water and clay, when even in its air you find yourself at every moment raining fire? Pass through the Egypt of meaning, for in every alley of its hidden world you will see the goods of Joseph's beauty, caravan after caravan. Know that the beauty you see on the surface is only a reflection of inner beauty, since you find so much grace of color, water, and scent among earthly beings. Look at the color of tulip and rose, at the clarity of ruby and pearl, and you will see the hand of nature's master at work. Recognize the color play of nature's garden in this: you find color spread on the cheek of what the sea and the mine bring forth. See the inherent beauty of the vegetative and animal soul, whether you behold a peacock or a parrot, a rose or sweet basil. Watch the beauty of the speaking soul reveal itself, and be amazed, when you see the charm, coyness, and flirtation of the beloved. Rise one veil higher still, and know it as the beauty of the universal soul, for you will find its motion in the heavens and its light in the stars. The beauty of the universal intellect can become clear to you, if with the eye of love you look at the sky in ecstasy and longing. Contemplate with the inner eye the eternal beauty, before which you will see the universal intellect bewildered like the minds of ordinary people. Know it all to be from the radiance of eternal beauty's light, whether you find a rose among thorns or see a soul within a body. You lack the eye of meaning; otherwise, in the scroll of every thorn you would find the tale of that rose's beauty, story upon story. You cannot break this spell of surface color unless within yourself you find the power of spiritual love. Here the drum of victory thunders only in the name of love; if you do not come as love's warrior, you will find only disgrace in this arena. When love arrives in the field like Fereydun, you will see every hair on your body become, through valor, the banner of Kaveh. Step into the battle with the ego stripped bare and free, for there you will see nakedness become the armor on a holy warrior's horse. Be humble in your quest for greatness, for through honor in this field you will see the head of submission rise to the sky. Do not seek to push ahead; and if it should happen, act so that even seated at the head of the gathering you see yourself at the threshold. Bury the head of arrogance in the dust, for in this assembly you always see a hand of rejection against the arrogant. Take the troubles of the age to be the polish that clears the heart's rust, for you see the mirror grow bright from the polishers' ash. Gold of low purity has no escape from being melted; what does it matter if you see this melting as the embarrassment of being tested? Today purge the dross of existence from your coin, if you want tomorrow to see yourself shining like pure gold. I marvel that, having tied your being to this place, you still expect to find in yourself wings to fly into the placeless realm. You cannot spread your wings in the air of timelessness while you see yourself with feathers bound in the trap of time. The men of God are phoenixes soaring in the divine realm. How long will you, here in the material world, watch the ill fortune of the heavens and the luck of the stars? See how the phoenix of reason spreads its shade; what state is this, that for an owl of mad longing you make the skull's cup a nest? The pleasures of the mind are better for you than those of the body, for you find these ever changing while you find those eternal. Of comforts, best is the one you gain without pain and toil; of blessings, best is the one you enjoy without need of palate or mouth. A bone exists only for the marrow inside it. How wretched you are in your ignorance, seeing only the bone and missing the marrow. If in worshiping God your eyes are fixed on heaven's maidens and youths, I am amazed: you see the beauty of the sun only in two faint stars. We look upon a guard's face only to draw near the king. You are content with the king's nearness merely to glimpse the guard! The promise of paradise is made for the weakness of our resolve, just as a furnace tender sees paradise in a furnace, not in a garden. Each receives the reward of his deeds according to his aspiration. You see paradise and the bright-eyed maidens exactly as your understanding grasps them. Everyone imagines something of paradise: one sees nearness and the divine face, while you see only the flesh of birds and bread. One enjoys the company of the maidens and fruits as knowledge; you treat them all as wares for the belly and the mouth. You can measure this by the Prophet's ascension itself: where others saw mysteries, you see only a turban, a beard, a robe, and a cloak. Don't you see that a single truth can carry a thousand names, and in the meaning of each you find a difference? Names differ according to people's comprehension; that is why in the Quran you sometimes find heaven called smoke. God's gift of women is, to us, a blessing for the soul; the sage calls it animal spirit, while you see only bread on a table. To the wise who ponder meaning, in the language of religious law you find the nakedness of resurrection day to be a metaphor for the soul's freedom from the body. Freedom from the body needs a light spirit to take flight; for you it is hard, since you see your own weight pressing down from these four elements. If you shake the dust of the four elements from your wings, you will find yourself nested like the angels on the branch of the lote tree of heaven. Why not shake your robe free of the elements and their traces, since it is from the elements that the chains come which you also see binding the unbelievers? Fayyaz, I found you troubled, and my heart grew heavy at this handful of advice that rises from your heart to your tongue. My aim in this song is neither preaching nor moralizing; but when there is pain in the heart, you also find a cry on the lips. Know these words to be smoke from the fire of meaning: when fire hides within a house, you see its smoke escape. You simply lack that inner state which grasps more than the senses; otherwise you would see this blood forever flowing from the root of every hair. Do not call me a preacher, for a preacher's spirit is cold; here you find someone soaked in his own blood from head to foot through his words. Do not call him a moralizer, this one who weaves fine points from the ledger of the heart, whose pen tip you see scattering blood like a strand of eyelash. At the prompting of the sage of Ghazni I raised these laments, in a tune where you find one bird speaking the language of another. Silence is now a duty for the one wise in meaning, for if he speaks as lightly as the soul, you find him heavy as the body. My conversation is with the living-hearted dead; from these dead-hearted living, you find my love sealed upon my lips. To gauge the pains of suffering from a place of comfort is like wanting to know the state of storm-tossed eyes while standing safe on the shore. You judge the condition of others by your own state; you see the world as a rose garden because that is what you see in your mirror. You who are at ease, what do you know of the world's turmoil? Look at my condition, and you will see the chaos of the end of time. If you want a ghazal, I will open it with two lines from two of my own couplets, so you will find even the soul of the nightingale of Shiraz delighted.

You look in the mirror and see the world as a rose garden; look at my state instead, and you will see the final chaos of the age. The clear joy of lovers is the mirror of the beloved. Why keep me withered while you fancy yourself the gardener? You waste your coquetry on every worthless fool, that single glance that could set a hundred households ablaze like lightning on a harvest. You can turn a lover's loss of both worlds into his gain; with one glance you yourself lose nothing of your store of pride. I ask for nothing from seeing you but longing itself. What harm if from my frustration you grant one heart its wish? By the blessing of love I hold both spring and autumn at once: my lashes are the clouds of spring, my face the falling leaves of autumn. I have sealed my tongue from talk, yet in thanks for that silence every tip of my hair speaks with every tip of hair. I have fallen from my own restless wavering, yet still I search for you; you see my tears, flowing helplessly in every direction. I stand at your command, I have given my heart to your service; I am such that however you wish me, that is just how you find me. If I rise up to lament, you sense the breath of autumn; if I sit down weeping, you see the purple bloom of spring. I am so hopeless of myself that you would wish it on an enemy, yet so full of hope that you yourself would hope the same. Though it is not fitting to speak of my despair of myself, yet you see hope made eloquent by my longing. My hope is hope through and through, yet all the flight of my hope you will find circling the tomb of the Prophet of the last age. What a tomb, whose height rises higher than the turning sky; what a tomb, whose honor stands paired with the divine throne. From its pure air you grasp the meaning of paradise in spring; from its sacred dust you read the garden of Eden. What vastness is in his shrine, glory be to God, that these nine heavens are but one awning in its courtyard. What meaning, God protect it, lives in its air, that within it you see Gabriel's breath flow into the body with every inhalation. What wisdom, marvelous is God's power, fills its air, so that at its touch you see even the firm mine reach its limit. God forbid that the demon of sin, from which Adam was not safe, should enter there; if you could make your place there, you would find safety till Judgment Day. Think of Medina as a body of balanced temperament, and this radiant tomb pouring into it like a soul. At that threshold, so many heads have bowed in honor to its dust that if you dig its ground, you reach the heavens at the center. If its earth is not literally the sky, then in meaning at least you see it as a dwelling for the world-warming sun of the soul. Muhammad, whom you find creation owes its very being to; you see his existence as the cause that brought the kingdom of 'Be, and it was' into being. If he were merely possible, then between the possible and the necessary I would be amazed to find any real separation between. Both the low and the high bow their heads to the line of his command, for you find him the caravan leader and the world his caravan. All keep their heads bowed, past and future alike, for you see his rule running over both what has gone and what is to come. How wonderfully universal, glory be to God, is this mercy, what a nature, that through it what you see for a friend, you see the same for an enemy. If the dust of orphanhood settled on his face, it could not darken it, for you see the world treating that dust of orphanhood as kohl for its eyes. An orphan without a father, yet father to the whole world, for you see his nature pour free tenderness upon everyone. He had no father over him, but God's grace was over him; what need of a father for one over whom you see God's loving grace? Do you not see in his Quran that proof itself is put to shame, for in every single letter you see truth laid bare? Do you not read his sayings, until your lips fall silent from talk, for in them you find certainty unveiled, beyond all doubt? Through his Salman you find all of Plato's wisdom humbled; through his Miqdad you find all the learning of Greece diminished. At his court you find a thousand like Aristotle without deeds; at his threshold you see a thousand like Alexander standing guard. With the light of the Quran, what need have you of Greek learning? You hold fire before your eyes, yet seek its glow from smoke. Who would mention Aristotle and Plato beside Muhammad the chosen? When the sun has risen, would you still look for the light of two faint stars? Plato boasts of reason; Muhammad weaves love. Look at the result of this, and you will see the worth of that. To die in love is better for you than to live in reason; for in reason you find the rust of the heart, and in love the polishing of the soul. You need the longing for martyrdom that flames up from the heart, so that you see the flash of the sword as a candle on the grave of the slain. If you want the difference between gnosis and proof, find it like this: gnosis is the beloved at your side, while proof is a mere messenger between you. Come with love into the marketplace of his sacred law, for from every side, wherever you stroll, you will see all beauty on display. Make the dust of holy Medina the kohl of your eyes, then look, if you wish to behold the beauty of the faces of the spirits. By his dust, beside which even the water of life dies of thirst, moisten your lips with a kiss, and you will find eternal life. For a lifetime this longing has rubbed its head against the heavens, yet at my feet you see the heavy chains of worldly attachments. Though my body is far from that threshold, open your inner eye, and you will see my soul spread like a carpet at that doorway. My body rolls in the water of my tears from longing for his dust, like a fish you see thrashing on the ground, far from its water.

The arching sky eyes our small possessions; my Joseph finds no buyer better than a wolf. How could I not be scarred by the heavens, when for a lifetime the sun's rays have burned my heart and the stars have set it smoldering. The camphor balm of the moon turns to a blade of diamond on my wound; how is it that starlight becomes a dagger in my eye? The four elements have blocked my path from all four sides; these six directions have boxed me in like a trapped game piece. How can I face an opponent as strong as the sky, when even the ant ties its belt to mock my thinness? After this I expect no kindness from the heavens; how can one who nurtures scoundrels ever nurture decent people? If you doubt the sky's blindness to true worth, just watch the greater malefic set above the greater benefic. Decency has been leveled with the dust by the cruelty of time; this base age, being base by nature, has shattered the value of all jewels. From now on substance accomplishes nothing in this world; perhaps only worthlessness can produce a worthy man. The goods of art bring nothing but regret; the merchandise of knowledge finds no buyer but oblivion. The mother of the age, with such cruelty in her nature, has weaned the child of knowledge from the milk of learning. Humanity flees these people the way Adam fled the demon; decency bolts from these human demons as a fairy flees. Dear friends, the water of honor is found nowhere but in the well of the heart; to my Joseph these brothers are a mother's love. Until a thing bends, no plan ever comes out straight; you cannot strike the ball without a curved mallet. If anyone could rest easy in greatness, then why does the sky bear the burning marks of stars across all seven of its limbs? My heart, you never lift your head from the sleep of desire for even a breath, to see the emperor's palace standing in the path of the flood. How can anyone sleep secure upon the throne of glory and fortune? The scaffold of death waits behind the seat of rule. This royal pomp has dust in its mouth; this Sanjar's court has nothing but wind within. How long must we cower like women beneath the sky? How long will the heavens drape their veil over the heads of men? Like the light of the eye, if you step out of yourself for a moment, you can easily pass through this prison of glass. You keep carving fine images of thought in your imagination; Muslim's child, how long will you go on making idols? The gathering of the heart's people has darkened with the sky's chatter; where is the radiance of an opening line bright as the eastern sun? My companions, by good fortune my market runs hot; love is the broker, and grief brings a hundred buyers from every side. Telling the story of the voiceless is not for every tongue; one cannot take up the pen carelessly for such a tale. If you crush my letter like a tulip petal, blood of longing will trickle from its every pore. My candle is in love with burning moths tonight; I would give my life freely, but I have no wings to lose. You see me changing in form, like an ember in my breast: now silk of flame, now ashen wool. I lay my face on the dust of love and my heart upon the beloved's blade; the goldsmith knows the worth of gold, the jeweler the worth of jewels. The ember in my palm turned to molten gold, so fiercely did my tears' moisture make fire master my nature. Only my blood knows the worth of the sword of cruelty; flame has no better customer than rich oil. I am a lover, yet the beloved's nature comes from me: the seductive magic of the glance, the plundering of the eyes. If the color of love does not fade, I can show the charms of seduction in the dress of lovemaking. When my beloved's face blooms like a flower in a hundred springs, it is a single rose for the hand of power in the field of artistry. If the partridge boasts of its strut against my beloved's grace, it steps far beyond its measure. For longing of her face, faith casts its prayer beads from its hand; before a single strand of her hair, the unbeliever ties on his pagan girdle. Had her eyelashes not taught it how to pierce, the thorn of grief would never have lanced the vein of my heart. My breast is torn in a hundred places like a bud, yet my collar is whole; what can I do, having no hand to rend my shirt like the rose? Now I am stripped of feather and wing; where is the time when my ambition proudly spread its plumage over the Simurgh's body for a lifetime? For ages I flew level with the Anqa in my splendor; now even an ant shrinks from me, ashamed to be called my equal. How could my days not be dark, when my fortune turns my nature, born of flame, into the shape of ashes? I am freed from the trouble of the Huma's wing's headache, now that the shadow of black fortune has crowned my head. How could the hand of disaster reach the goods of misfortune? The moon only bleaches the indigo linen of night. When the fat of existence melts in the fire of grief, the thin waist laughs at the plump hips. If friendship is delicate, befriend it with a hundred harsh trials; the thorn becomes a pillow for the fresh rose petal in the garden. If you gather lightness of spirit from the dust of love's road, you can fly off like the color from a lover's face. Break your feet so you can take a step on this road; pass beyond your own head if this journey demands a head. There is much pain and little cure before me; beware, do not count pain itself as the lesser remedy for pain. Whomever you see, the sky has deceived in some way; with me it has played the woman, with others the man. The field of my ambition drinks the water of contentment; the elixir of contentment has turned the dust in my hand to gold. I feast on the blessing of poverty as my pride, off this dry and wet world, the bounty of the King who rules all land and sea. The sovereign of the realm of possibility, who at the sacred mint has made the coin of existence gold for the stamp of his command. He has made the ten pure intellects the steps of his pulpit, and the nine vaulted heavens the platform for his sermon. Ahmad the messenger, who on the highway of faith, for the heart's sake, has made a bright guiding lamp of every footprint. The palm of his fortune casts its shade above the sky; the rosebush of his justice runs its roots beneath the earth. Beneath the shade of his justice all dwell content, from the cosmic fish to the moon; from the seas to the lands all feed on the crumbs of his bounty's table. The universal essence has made a page for each part of his knowledge; the thread of the soul has ruled the lines for the words of his wisdom. To describe his worth, this scroll, in nine folds, has coiled within itself for ages, longing to be a book. While Adam was still hidden in the mold of water and clay, he was already showing his prophethood in the hall of revelation. He was, like a lantern in the loins of the pure messengers; the candle of his light kept safe from this whirling storm. The ship of existence would have feared the storm of annihilation, had the majesty of his worth not served as its anchor. Through the trust of his light's existence upon Abraham, the very nature of Azar's idol-making was given a new disposition. Each night, with the strap of the Milky Way, fate beats the drum of the night watch in his name upon the roof of this rounded dome. Wherever the sun of his judgment casts its rays, the golden bird of the sky becomes like Jesus' bird, a bat of the night. When the rays of his judgment stretch out their skirt, the sun flees behind a mote for shelter from its veil. When the sea of his hand raises the wave of generosity, the ocean, abashed, shrinks into the narrowness of a single drop. To adorn the maidens of his bounty, the sun, every dawn, works the goldsmith's forge in the mine. When the cloud's hand stirs the foam from the sea of his abundant generosity, the raindrop turns to a jewel in the beggar's hand. It turned its own dust to gold yet found no welcome from his hand; this much wretchedness is enough for the child of the world. On the road to his worth, those longing souls who have fallen, the print of their feet vies with the heavens in greatness. Each spring, the fragrance of his character plays Khizr, guiding the scent of the rose to the nostrils of the nightingales. On the branch of his nurture, the molting nightingale lays the egg of the Anqa beneath its featherless wing. When the fearless sword of his law leaves its sheath, sedition trembles and flees for shelter into headlessness. Since the wine flask has felt the blow of his prohibition on its neck, the daughter of the vine can no longer veil herself. I fear that when his kindness spreads the skirt of intercession, the unbeliever will sit shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim. See the heart's strength that lay in the battle of brave warriors: the lion-like charges of Ali leaned their backs on the wall of his protection. The sun of his praise has shown me an opening line, through which the joy of composing praise has grown young again in my heart.

Before the palace of your power, this blue dome of the sky has bowed its head low like a violet, ashamed of its own ugliness. This vaulted, ornamented arch has bent its back so it can kiss your threshold like a humble servant. There is no room for you in this six sided hut of the six directions; your essence is a pearl that belongs to another ocean. The sky is full of holes, always, just like my heart, longing for your worthy gathering to be its incense burner. Everything would be hard and barren if your pure being were not at the center; you made the origin its origin and the source its source. The sand of your desert gives water to the pearls of Eden; the thorn on your road collects tribute from the freshest rose petals. Before your hand the sea holds its breath like a whirlpool; before your generosity the cloud weeps from shame at being outdone. Your pure body casts no shadow, because your shadow itself is brighter than the eastern candle's light. When your foot grazes the crown of the heavens, the dust of your feet becomes a crown on the sky's head forever. The splitting of the moon was the work of a single finger of your miracle; tearing open the heavens was just a glimpse of your ascension. If the ignorant think tearing the sky impossible, what does it matter? A true miracle must accomplish the impossible. I prove this matter correctly with reasoning, so no one imagines it is mere poetic fancy. To suppose it is essentially impossible is pure ignorance here; if you look closely, tearing is easier than creating from nothing. Breaking a habit is one thing, but a miracle is the very breaking of the natural order; how could one claim prophethood without overturning nature? In philosophy, yes, breaking the outermost boundary is impossible; but count nothing the limiter except the surface of the highest sphere. On the night of ascension no one spoke of anything beyond that highest sphere; I know this from the traditions about that night. O Messenger of God, best of the messengers, seal of the prophets, you whose praise leaves even the free intellect bewildered. I describe your glory only to the measure of my own understanding, though I know your worth is far beyond the reach of any knowledge. I am one of the servants in the circle of your service, though I have my failings in this servitude. Though my sins are beyond count, in the reckoning before your forgiveness they are a blade of straw before a roaring storm wind. I can no longer bear this distance from your court; though I am unworthy, you have the power to draw me near. I love your household and your pure family; I know no other fit for mastery and leadership. As long as your pure family are my leaders and masters, God forbid I should accept serving anyone else. Anyone who boasts of faith without love for your family is, to me, no different from a faithless enemy. You boast of love and longing, Fayyaz, and then talk of patience and restraint? If you truly love the household, weep tears of blood from grief. Where is loving while staying calm and far from the beloved? For lovers, patience away from the beloved is faithlessness. A lover's share is dry lips and wet eyes; until the lover's hand loses patience, it should be tearing his collar. May my restless hand never fall short of clutching my heart's collar; may my eyes never go a moment without tears in this love.

Worthy of leadership in form and in essence is Ali, the guardian, who is king and master. The world is like an eye and he is its pupil; the world is like a word and he is its meaning. Faith needs him to come into being, just as raw matter needs form to take shape. He is faithful and most faithful, the guardian and the most deserving; the knowing and the most knowing, the high and the highest. Guardian of guardianship, heir of inheritance, guidance of guidance, both the highest and the nearest. Were his being not the final cause, the first causes would have stood idle and useless. Place in its settling and time in its passing both obey his haste and his delay. Were his light not at the center, both worlds would remain like the eyes of a blind man. From the restraint of his piety and the giving of his knowledge, the body grows lean while the mind of reason grows full. On every mountain and every plain, look: the radiance of his face is revelation upon revelation. The dust of his road and the print of his foot are the breath of Mary's Jesus and the hand of Moses. His light is the secret of the world's creation; his essence is the power of God Most High. Even if, by impossible supposition, he offered deadly poison, it would be better than manna and quail from anyone else. When he charges, what are Rostam and Dastan? When he works a miracle, what are Moses and Jesus? In his hand is the pen of the First Intellect; from his knowledge comes the writing of the Universal Soul. Come to the quarter of his rank and glory and see revelation poured down layer upon layer. A lane from his house is the First Body; a nurse in his dwelling is the First Soul. If you saw his pure garden, the highest sun would seem small to your eyes. All his servants are pure intellects; all his attendants are exalted souls. Before him, by one measure, the commoner and the elite are the same; in one step, the heavenly and the earthly are equal. How wretched is the one who, on the Day of Gathering, finds comfort in paradise while shut out from his door. Were his nearness to the Prophet not so close, loving the kin would not have been made obligatory. The whole substance of love for him is the love of the houris; the whole fruit of devotion to him is the harvest of the Tuba tree. Without his guardianship, rising is falling; with his guardianship, falling is rising. Whether day or night, to those who dwell at his door, what does it matter, west or east, who sits in the sun's house? Captives of his face, lost in his hair, whether a plain full of Majnuns or a city full of Laylas. Those who gird themselves to the lasso of his love, Azra on one side and Salma on the other. At the gate of his eternal presence, longing is heaped upon longing. Leadership befits the one who is adorned with virtues and emptied of vices. Who but him is so emptied of vices? Who but him is so adorned with virtues? If anyone else claimed his place, that claim would be empty of meaning. When there is no meaning, speaking is mere dissent; when there is no proof, a claim is mere boasting. Knowledge is made strong by his mind; piety is made precious by his company. The dead heart is brought to life by his words; what better way is there to raise the dead? Both knowledge and insight are sacrifices on his road; both this world and the next are subordinate to him. A king whose qualities the Lord of Revelation has, out of honor, dictated in a hundred places. The divine words, both earlier and later, are all praise of him, composed by God Himself. You will not find a chapter or a verse in the Quran that does not point most clearly to his perfection. God gave all the prophets of the nations a hundred kinds of glad tidings through his coming. Gabriel was commissioned to proclaim him; the Prophet was forbidden to keep him hidden. Prophethood is confirmed by proclaiming his rank; the mission is voided by concealing him. What schemes the people of enmity devised to hide his worth from the whole world. But from a handful of rising dust, the sun is never hidden in the heavens. From the cold breath of the slandering envious, his light never went behind a veil of concealment. Yes, can the torch of the blazing sun ever be put out by the wind of a breath? He is the best of creation after the Prophet, since all the directions of virtue are folded within him. In abundant knowledge and in manifest wisdom, in the manners of asceticism and the rites of piety. In being first to Islam and in nearness to the Prophet, both in form and in essence. His courage was such that, until the Day of Judgment, faith stands firm by the strength of his arm. He tore every veil of disbelief and disobedience; he shattered all the splendor of Lat and Uzza. The leaders of the community rely on him in every kind of knowledge and in the rules of religious verdicts. The sea of wisdom is but a drop from his ocean; the mystic's unveiling is but a ray of his light. Both reciter and preacher claim kinship with him; both grammarian and syntactician take pride in him. He has been the source for interpreting the verses, the refuge for explaining the revelation. The sayings of the elders rest on him; the displays of the masters are traced to him. The arts of learning come from teaching his knowledge; the God-given sciences come from the guidance of his secret. In every event his reason has been the guide; in every question his knowledge has been the verdict. In the difficulties of every event, all who usurped the caliphate returned to him. He never strayed a hair's breadth from God's command, nor wronged the people by even a grain. The conditions of leadership were gathered in him by the explicit text of God's word. Leadership draws its soundness from infallibility; by the text, infallibility is made complete. The texts of purity descend upon him; the proofs of infallibility flow through him. From the clear verses and the truthful traditions, each of which leads to piety as its aim. Traditions reaching the level of mass transmission, both in their wording and in their meaning. Not weakened or falsified by the transmitter, nor in need of verifying or vouching for the narrator. First I will prove the point from the Quran, then complete the argument with the traditions. For whom was 'so that He may remove' and 'and purify'? Whom does 'who recites it' bear witness to? For what dwelling did 'Has there not come' descend? Why was the Prophet reproached over 'convey the message'? Whom did God intend by 'indeed'? Who was it that gave his ring to the beggar? Who was the one with whom, by God's command, the Prophet invoked mutual cursing against the Christians? Who was commissioned to return the chapter of Acquittal? To whom did he give the banner as the foremost? Who held the honor of brotherhood with the Prophet? Who was equal in rank to the resolute messengers? For whose sake did Gabriel say 'there is no youth like him'? For whom did the Prophet say 'you are of me'? On the day of Ghadir, for whom did the Prophet say from the pulpit, 'Am I not nearer to you?' For whom was the tradition issued that is recorded about the roasted bird? Why did he command that he be greeted with the title of leadership? Why was the reward for the mission love of the kin? One for whom these virtues are firmly established, one in whom these proofs are made to flow, He was foremost over all others in leadership; he was more deserving than any other of the caliphate. It is pure ignorance and sheer misery to make anyone else his equal. How can it be right for anyone of knowledge to say that someone else is worthier than him? I cannot believe that any person of learning has dared this in his heart, Unless, to gain rank and station, he sought favor with the masters of this world. What loss is there in such trade, when one sees a man sell the rewards of the next world for this one? Leave aside the next world: what shame for one who must abide near that king's dwelling. My God, You know that the generous sinner has no refuge but the threshold of that king. Forgive him his known shortcomings for his sake; forgive him these great sins for his sake. For even if I am not worthy, You can grant for his sake a hundred thousand servants like me. A dog can be looked upon for its master's sake; one can be pardoned, the servant for the lord's sake. Do not lessen for me the blessing of his love, for in both worlds this is reward enough for me.

When the martyr of your love recalls your face, his spirit trembles; when he imagines your arrow, his very bones shake. Until the one sick with love for you is worn out by pain, death comes to his bedside meaning to take his life, and trembles. If you pass haughtily by the dust of one you have slain, longing brings his feeble soul back to life, and it trembles. The one killed by your glance, undone by the cruelty of your nature, his last breath leaves his throbbing body, and trembles. So agitated, his soul leaves the body and settles ashamed on the branch of the lote tree, the soul of the slain, and trembles. The line of your glance reaches the eye disturbed, like a thief who finds the watchman, and trembles. Your sorrow, parted from my heart, is restless like my own heart, like a bird that has lost its nest, and trembles. Your sorrow left my heart and grew lonely, beside itself, like a traveler the caravan abandons, who trembles. Since I am head to foot full of the wounds of his blade, my heart, out of dread, recalls his eyebrows, and trembles. When his glance draws the sword of cruelty from its sheath, death, in fear, grips the reins, and trembles. My longing wants to paint, with the pen of regret in hand, the thought of a kiss traces a picture on his lips, and trembles. How can I draw on my heart the thought of kissing those lips, when my lips, even saying the name of his threshold, tremble? How can I bring my two bold hands to that slender waist, when even his hair, dazzled, reaches for that waist and trembles? Mani could not imagine it with any pen, yet he would try to draw the shape of that mouth on a speck of dust, and tremble. He has cast me so low, that unbeliever, that in fear of him the heavens call me the dust of his threshold, and tremble. He cast a glance toward me and I grew anxious with dread, like a sacrifice that sees the intent to take its life, and trembles. Just as my heart, from the cruelties of that ill-tempered tyrant, gives the point of his arrow a place in its eye, and trembles. It is fitting now that I bring my complaint of his sorrow to a court whose mere mention makes the aged sky recall its trial, and tremble. Exalted Ali, before whose shame at any rudeness the heavens draw the dust of his threshold across their eyes, and tremble. A king of lofty rank, so high in worth that the sky begs greatness at his threshold, and trembles. The sanctuary of his shrine is a garden worthy of his glory, so that the sky, naming it the garden of paradise, trembles. The least lane of his city of majesty is a road such that reason, naming it the Milky Way, trembles. To host his servants, fate, out of embarrassment, sends the satin of the sky to serve as his tablecloth, and trembles. If intellect were admitted to the school of his refinement, like a child it would take the tablet in hand from his fingers, and tremble. On the battlefield that lion-feller wields a blade so fierce the sun recalls his blood-spilling sword, and trembles. If the sun likened his blade to a wave, in fear of the water all its bones would turn liquid, and tremble. When the wind of his wrath sweeps gloriously into battle, his enemies' limbs become like a wet willow, and tremble. When the fire of his anger flares up for vengeance, the earth leaps from its place like a wild rue seed, and trembles. Before the might of his glory the enemy's bones are mere straw and chaff; in fear of his vengeance the smoke of their soul rises, and trembles. The steed of his swift life is so fierce, unruly and bold that it sends the moon as its horseshoe up the sky, which trembles. When the earth quakes under his horse's hard hooves, it leaps in courtesy to kiss his reins, and trembles. When time wishes, at the moment of his gallop, to fall in at his stirrup, from running its very life reaches its lips, and trembles. When his speed leaves the highest heaven behind in the dust, his age stumbles after in two steps of his charger, and trembles. The sky shakes over him like smoke over a flame; when he rides hard, its bones one by one tremble. From another opening my page is filled with light, for the sun swears by his soul, and trembles.

The sky bends like a bow at the mere thought of your bow, and trembles; the sun's ray pictures your spear, and trembles. If the strength of your arm came to Rostam's mind, the arrow on his bowstring would freeze in place and tremble. If the heavens imagined your fury, in fear of punishment they would forget their old grudges and tremble. Suppose the West remembered your form: the sun would stick in its mouth like a morsel and tremble. If an eloquent speaker tasted the flavor of your words, his own speech would knot on his tongue from shame, and tremble. If Mercury, scribe of the heavens, glanced at your pen, his pen would sweat with shame between his fingers and tremble. What awe of him has settled in the heart of the sky, that it sits like dust on his threshold and trembles? When your enemy sees the flame of your sword from afar, his breath rises like smoke in fear for his life, and he trembles. So deeply does dread of you settle in the foe's heart that his quaking body falls to the depths of hell and trembles. My king, in your praise stands Fayyaz, a sharp and zealous wit, who scatters the stars of his own sky in tribute, and trembles. When the morning breeze hears the scent of your praise in his words, it scatters flowers with every breath of joy, and trembles. If in the garden the nightingale sang a single point of his, the rosebud would kiss its mouth a thousand times and tremble. Yet before you he is so helpless with shame that the very bone of his soul melts and trembles. Like a lover who, longing, pours out his heart to the beloved, a thousand fine words knot on his tongue, and he trembles. See his hidden love, do not see his open faults; for he has melted away, and even his open shame hides itself, and trembles. As long as the willow stands at the garden's edge, it is ashamed before your young boxwood stature, and trembles. Your beloved's bearing is as upright as the boxwood; your enemy, like a faint-hearted willow, trembles in the wind.

No scent of any flower reaches me, left or right; yet your curling hair has chained the morning breeze at its feet. In the garden, your breeze so steals away the senses that for an instant no flower's scent dares rise. With all the splendor your face has added to beauty, the dew's weeping over the flower's disarray is out of place. Your stature gives pride a whole new rank; let the cypress and the boxwood sit down, defeated, and rightly so. My mind is at ease, free of worry over those who bring salves, for the tip of your hair perfumes the wound of my heart. Let the salt of poison on my heart's wound be forbidden to me, unless its longing yawns open beneath your sword. The houri's tresses draw to themselves the scent of amber, if only a speck of dust from your hair lingers in my mind. All night long, at the threshold of your street, its task is to drip; though my tears are dyed red, footed in my heart's blood. For a lifetime now, out of my poverty of heart's blood, my share of tears comes from the blisters on the soles of my feet. So often has it fallen at your street that I grow envious of any dust that might rise up from your path. If your bold spirit did not bloom from the opening couplet, another opening of mine shines forth from behind the curtain of the heart.

If the bud refuses to open before your lips in the meadow, that is fair: against the splendor of your beauty the whole meadow is a cramped little space. The one who adorned you head to toe with feigned indifference can teach my heart that same art of aloofness. Lovers usually beg pardon for the cruelty they suffer; but whatever wrong you do, it is you who must beg my pardon. Your coquetry could be met with my own indifference, yet my heart will not leave me alone. What can I do? Love is a curse. You are itching for a fight, your glance makes that plain; you thirst for blood, your pretended carelessness gives it away. Even your scowling out of coyness lifts the grief from my heart; the knot in your frown is what unties my every knotted sorrow. It is not only longing for your arrow that knots my heart; the steel of your sword has left blisters all over it too. You have said my rival speaks rightly about me; but that is a rightness standing at the very border of wrong. If my crime is wanting you, then there are countless sinners; why draw so sharp a line between mere desire and love? From the table of my grief no dish ever comes twice, for the mother of my fortune gives birth only to the rare and singular. If weeping tears the veil from my eyes, no wonder, for your glance is what unveils the workings of my heart. I owe so much to the sting of my sorrow upon heart and soul, for love of you has decorated my face with a brand. The point of repeating these openings is to display your beauty; like the sun, each day it shines in a different land.

Last night your beauty arranged the splendor of the garden; before the boxwood of your stature, the cypress kept rising and bowing in awe. Even the shadow of kohl, being a stranger, cannot enter the corner of your eye, for it is the bridal chamber of modesty. My longing's regret cannot reach the level of your collar; the word that would loosen your knot stays trapped in the fold of your robe. Whoever wants your pain measured to their endurance will gain no pain worthy of its cure. Like Mount Sinai at the moment of revelation, my patience is lost; holding my heart steady before you is beyond the reach of my strength. Lovers, do not swallow the dust of the beautiful ones' promises; the letter of union with idols rides on the wing of the Simorgh of fidelity. If my impatient heart does not take offense at the truth: where is the limit of my love, and where the limit of your beauty? My love is greater than anything that can be said, yet I cannot ask for you in the measure that your beauty deserves. With beauty like this, do not forbid me my desire, for to see you and not fall in love is something only God could do. The cloud draws its substance from the sea, but my eye is a lash, a cloud whose wealth is a hundred seas. Each eye spends the blood of my heart separately; it is wrong to say that separate purses mean separate bowls. Lost in the valley of love, put no cotton in your ears; the one robbing this caravan is the sound of the traveling bell. Whatever your merciless glance did to my wounded heart, the look from the corner of your eyes apologized for it all. For lifetimes I have sown the seed of faithfulness in my heart for you; what I have harvested is only the crop of your cruelty. My heart's ripeness lay in resting on your fidelity; what burns me now is the raw hope of that fidelity. Though I am unfulfilled by you, I am glad that, through devotion to the king of men, my breath finds fulfillment in both worlds. Ali, the high in rank, king of the realm of guardianship, for whose verses of glory both worlds are too narrow a space. When his majesty appears in the revelation of attributes, the mind, from the abundance of thought, falls into ruin and lack. Sedition wants to hide itself in its own embrace, in a place where his shoe scatters drops upon the sea. The ocean sweats with shame before his hand; when did a single drop ever own the grandeur of the sea? Before his face the sun lays its hand upon its eyes; how could a mote bear to play at gazing on the sun? The essence of the rose does not unknit its frown, since it heard that he is the deputy of the court of destiny. God knows this, and so does that deputy of God's decree; over this question, unbelief raises an uproar against faith. The nine heavens look like an imagined point to the eye beside the palace of his glory, which the world cannot equal. Where his worth pitches its tent on the plain of appearance, the divine throne, out of courtesy, hides behind a wall. In wishing for the bounty of his hand drawn from desire's pearl, the skirt of poverty is more precious than the pocket of wealth. It is the dome of his court whose loftiness gives the wheel of heaven a place within the shade of its wall. The shadow of his roof at last fell over the head of the sky; see now how the owl's egg rests in the shade of the phoenix. His honor did not become the caravan-leader of existence only now; from the day of eternity his worth has set the chain of destiny in motion. If the sky confuses your street with the Kaaba, it is from lack of discernment, for it cannot tell its left hand from its right. At the Kaaba's gate, your worth is the people's prayer-direction, where ring upon ring of seeing eyes are fixed. I wear the servant's ring in my ear and feel proud, for the fame of this ring reaches even heaven's ear. The lancet of your generosity drew red blood from the vein of the mine; out of envy at your giving, a fever burns through the body. When the hand of your court boasts of its bounty, the dust at your door is fuller than the mine, while the sea hangs its head in shame. Even the water of your sword cannot quench his thirst; the sickness of one who envies your rank must be an unending dropsy. Whenever the lightning of your sword leaps from the cloud of its sheath, your enemy's army is promised a downpour of disaster. One who envies your rank never loses the road to oblivion, for the edge of your curved blade keeps the road straight. The substance of your blade is held in the salamander's egg; that is why in the fire-temple it has its place, raining down sparks. Your enemy saw the flame of God's wrath in your sword; if he confessed it to be the Hand of God, he spoke the truth. Until your sword turned curved, the path of God was not made straight; the arch of your blade is the prayer-guide in the valley of faith. Your friends never even glimpse the flame of your sword in dreams; the attention of your blade's edge is reserved for your foes. When the egg of your sword's substance hatches its chick of death, its drink is the enemy's heart-blood, its food his brains. The promises death has made through your arrowhead, until they pierce your enemy's heart, when will they come true? It travels as a messenger only toward the enemy's chest; on the wings and feathers of your arrow is bound the letter of annihilation. Do not toughen your eye like armor, for it cannot be turned back; the word of your arrow against the foe is the decree of fate. Its word struck hard in the heart of one who wished you ill; the arrow that deceives the enemy has a tongue that grips. Why does it keep moaning at the shortness of its luck, the head of your enemy, when it reaches the saddle-straps of your lasso? I do not know what the lance whispered into your steed's ear, for every single strand of his hair rose up in playful delight. That swift one, when he sets his hoof in the eye, you would say the image of the soul appears in the mirror of the heart. So hot in his gallop that when he lays his neck to the rein, what comes to his mind is the morning breeze itself. So bold-eyed that, struck by the harm of his narrow envy, the one who lays a hand on his back has it stained as if with henna. He will not yield himself to be watched, for like the deer of a glance, by the time you lift your lashes he has vanished from sight. If the steed of life were to borrow speed from him, then the eternal life of Khizr would be worth only a single breath of breeze. How could he not be restless in his light, leaping motion, when his hoof is flint and the field of the sky is full of glass? If he should drive a nail into the eye of the crescent moon with his horseshoe, it would befit hands and feet stained the henna-color of the dawn-twilight's blood. Since I have given up on both worlds for him, I have judged it right that the new moon is half a horseshoe, of one color with his own. Neither fire nor water can harm him, for like the wind he passes now over a fire-temple, now over the sea. On his head the tuft of his forelock is like a flame, you would say a lock of scattered smoke in the hand of the breeze. Did the wind of a sigh tangle and break his hair? Did the color of shyness leap from its place at a single glance? On this saddle, his back is adorned like a peacock; the two stirrups on either side are the ring of a virgin's eye. Madness speaks through the wild tangle of Majnun's hair, while Layla's curling locks are a chain that binds the mane. The curl of the mane lifts grief from a love-stricken heart; each knot in the strand untangles a tightness of the soul. When his tousled forelock shows itself off, it leads the way for the scattered tresses of the brides of distant Cathay. His charge tears a breach through the very heart of all creation, and his neigh strikes rust off the heart of victory and triumph. Yes, the eyes of triumph all watch for the print of his hoof; the face of victory shows clear in the mirror of his shoe. If the dust of his road wipes the rust from the heart of the ages, it has every right, for that dust gives the sun its mirror's shine. No one has seen an eye like his, except your own high resolve, which in a single step can rise beyond both worlds. You whose every word becomes the adornment of speech: until you spoke, hidden meaning dared not unveil its face. On the palate of the eloquent, all speech was tasteless, until the salt of your eloquent word gave taste its true flavor. The pearl of your word is so brimming with abundance that whole shoals of meaning swim through it like waves. Others measure their speech against yours, for in the sea of language the pearl of your word stands alone. The thought of the masters of speech is lofty, true, but the distance from mere magic to true miracle is vast. Your speech is a glowing night-jewel; in its light the ear, like the eye, can see the secrets of meaning. A spring of sweet drink boils up from the ear of my heart, brimming with honey from the sweetness of your words. Your book is a wondrous land in the realm of speech, its very air and water made of Jesus' breath and Khizr's water of life. A land of abundance: in the shade of its fountainhead, for ages Khizr has waited for the water of eternal life. The ruled lines of its pages are a flowing channel of grace; in place of pebbles, pearls of meaning glitter there. Both worlds wear, ring-like, the hook of its curved letters in their ears; in the hand of the sage Reason, each alif is a staff. The loop of its 'meem' is sweet as the ruby lips of the lovely; the curve of its 'noon' is like the arch of an idol's brow. Its subtle themes are kohl for the world-seeing eye; its eloquent meanings are the script and beauty-spot on fair faces. Your nature set the alphabet of knowledge in motion by God's own teaching, for it was groomed in the school of eternity. The Universal Intellect held the tablet of letters in its hand while the child of your nature was adorning the school of eternity. The pen of your reason needs no practice-sheet; even the First Intellect is an old copy of fate's design. The knowledge of both worlds embraces only emptiness, wherever your depth rises to be weighed in the mind. No one's understanding can reach to grasp your depth; this is a bride who sits in the bridal chamber of God's own knowledge. Longing for your pure resting place burns my heart, for in that garden the whole world's wealth lies beneath my feet. How blessed is that radiant garden, in whose shade one can see where the key to the door of paradise lies. If the sun grows dim, its shrine still has its lamp; if the heavens collapse, its dome stands firm. When its servant comes out at dusk, lamp in hand, you would say the banner of your dawn had risen in the east. Burnt wings and feathers fall on every side from the angels, when its servant once more lights the candle's face anew. When Moses saw this candle's smoke from afar, he wondered if a lamp was shining once more on Mount Sinai. The throne and the heavens circle his head like the sky; the sun's heart bleeds with envy at his golden lamp. For the sun to claim it rivals his candle is a sickness; for the sky to imagine it matches his lamp's smoke is madness. So high is the dome of his worth that even with all my striving, the head of my thought barely reaches the strap of his saddle. Even if walking your road leaves a blister on my foot, I would not trade it for the garden of paradise. Though I am less than a speck in both worlds, why grieve, when my heart, lit by your love, shines like the sun? The talk of your love is the prayer on my tongue and heart; why grieve if all my devotion comes down to this one task? My back bent with the grief of loving you, and I am glad, for in my whole life this is the only prayer I have truly performed. I will not complain to you of the sky's coldness, for it is only dust that one day rose up from your road. I do not press a claim of love before you for some reward, for even in my failure, a hundred wishes are granted to me by you. This much from you is wish enough for me: that one day I hear from your own lips that Fayyaz is the dog of our alley. From eternity the ring of your servitude is in my ear; from the curl of your hair, chains hang around my soul's neck. I am the dog on your chain; to whom can I boast of faith? My fate is in your hands; through whom else could my work go right? You hold up both worlds, and I have fallen, helpless; if you do not take my hand, I cannot rise. I will fold up the tale of longing for you, leaving it unsaid, for the step of prayer is dearer to me than this duty of words. As long as the brow of dawn glows with light, as long as the moon's polish strips the rust from night's mirror, may the morning of friends be bright with this good news: that your moonlike face is the moonlight, and your enemies the dead grass. Night and dawn, my chant is the work of praying for you, as long as the color of answered prayer shows on dawn's face.

If your grief offers my soul no release toward safety, who will give me shelter from the endless struggle with sorrow and the cruelty of time? Your captive cannot escape this life of pain and grief by death, for you do the killing, and your glance breathes life back into the body of your martyr. Don't be surprised that the color drains from my face under your hot gaze; your color-stealing look brings the promise of autumn to the eye. Even when you rein in your glance, both worlds bleed because of you; imagine the moment you let your flirting eyes loose at full gallop. You deceive me with promises, and in my pure foolishness I keep believing the mirage will give the thirsty man running water. Your hidden look reached me, then passed up the shame of killing me; who ever expected death to seize a man and then grant him a reprieve? You wrong me beyond all limit, and my heart is fragile beyond all limit; perhaps the cruelty you deal me is what gives me strength to bear you. You feel no grief for my weakness, and I do not know hereafter who could endure your warring will the way I have, with his very life. Your sorrow never passes my way, nor does patience spare me a glance, for your love takes all of one and gives all of the other from my soul. Sometimes your gaze falls on me in such a daze, as one offers wine to a drunkard whose head is already heavy with the cup, pouring a fuller measure. Your manner steals the hearts even of the doves, my idol; step into the garden, for your graceful walk recalls the gait of the swaying cypress. After this, the reproach of living drags me down with grief; sweet is the hour when your eyebrow gives your glance the word to kill me. Your defiant glance has set a new fashion in stealing hearts: it takes people's hearts openly and hands them secretly to your curling lock. Who will bring word to Khosrow that Farhad the mountain-carver, remembering your beloved, licks the foot of Bisotun in longing, kisses the blade of his pickaxe, and gives up his life? My heart has nurtured you by weeping blood from its eyes; no doubt the palm tree of my hope yields exactly what it has been fed. From the lasso of your twisting locks so little strength is left in me that when you appear, the sapling of your stature seems to hang upon your slender waist's hair. When the arrow of your flirting glance seeks a target from the bow of your coquetry, everywhere the gesture of your eyebrow points it straight at my wounded soul. Your gaze never falls on me unless cruelty has whispered to your charm to make your dart sit poised on the string, like a bow drawn taut. In the land of fairy-faced lovers, only loss is true gain; how sweet the hour when your sorrow comes and turns my profit into loss. Even if union with you brings my heart no satisfaction, I am content, for against the will of fate the king of earth and time grants all I desire. Ali, master of sea and land, the friend of God, whose generous open hand gives the empty, greedy belly safety from the torment of want. If his kind, gracious glance falls on the dust of his road, no wonder that road's dust should carry the scent of paradise's breeze. No wonder if his glance gives a flame the freshness of a rose-bough; no wonder if his look gives smoke the grace of a gentle breeze. Heaven would never again boast its roses and hyacinths over his bounty, if the morning breeze brought flowing water to the garden from his roadway dust. If a trace of the storm-blast of his wrath reached the eternal garden, it would strike the rose of his everlasting spring with the blight of autumn's poison. If his approval sets a thing in motion or his refusal restrains it, he gives the earth time's stillness and gives time the earth's swift haste. His gracious look takes the throbbing breath from the bud's heart; the glance of his awe gives the breath of dawn its trembling. The refusal of his prohibitions stills the joints of the heavens from moving, and obedience to his commands sets motion flowing like wine through their veins. His protecting look lifts the jaundice from the sun's pale face; the glance of his justice gives jaundice to the red-cheeked tulip. No wonder if the bird of the heart soars on the wings of longing for you; even a fallen feather, touched by love of you, might take flight. Your words in conversation bring the dead heart to living breath; your gentle breath gives the weary body strength and endurance. The good counsel of your breath sweeps the dust of doubt from the mind of reason; your reasoned argument gives even uncertainty the nature of certainty. If the shadow of your dignity falls on the roadway dust, it is no wonder that your gravity lends that dust the steadfast weight of a mountain. Don't be amazed if a single sign from your majesty, when it appears, uproots mountains from the earth and turns them into shifting sand. If the perfume from the dust of your street brings the garden its luster, the morning breeze, fittingly, kisses the lip of the bud and gives up its life. The wrinkle of a wave would no longer rise stintingly on the sea's brow if your generosity let it sip from the drops of your hand. The wound of the mine's digging would no longer cut its liver out of stone-hearted hardship, if your generosity assigned it a pension from the surplus of your bounty.

If the morning breeze loosens one knot from my beloved's hair, my envy of that breeze ties a thousand knots in my heart. As surely as you wring the life from my heart and soul, so the tip of your hair tightens its knots. A thousand threads of life have already turned to knot after knot; do not allow more knots in that twisting hair. When the thread of my life grew too weak to hold a knot of its own, a thousand knots wound themselves into the strands of your hair. No effort of fingernails could undo the knot in the thread of my life, for the beloved is delicate and the knot is firm. She loosened the knot of her brow and closed the road to complaint; her untying left me tangled in a knot. The frown on your brow is lovely, O sweet-smiling one; do not come near with your lips, and keep that knot in your brow. Because it bears a likeness to the tip of your hair, a knot would gladly fall in my heart and count it an honor. You tie a knot in your brow; look at the jealousy of it, that a mere frown above the eye should win such prestige. With a single passing breeze a knot slipped from your hair; no knot stays bound when you are around. You parted your lips in a smile in the garden, and out of longing the laughing rose drew tight like a bud upon the bough. I will never undo the knot from the thread of my life, for it remains a keepsake left by your hair. When in autumn you step out to wander the meadow, the heart of spring knots with envy of the bud. It was not drops of blood that flowed from my heart to my eyes; from the watering of my eyes the knots grew moist. I was already weary of a single knot in my heart, the one that tangled my affairs like the beloved's hair. Now what can I do? From grief for you, in my narrow chest, where one heart was, a hundred thousand knots have fallen. How could the thread of my life not be cut short, when it has taken countless knots from your hair? Why has the thread of my life, which needed nothing but grief for you, ended up knotted like a twisting strand? Your curling hair, all in knots, looks as though the very axis of the world had jammed into a knot. It is the noose of a hunting lion, in whose curve the thread of life is knotted within the body of its prey. Ali of high rank, whose nail of justice has cut every knot from the spiteful heart of the age. So thoroughly did his untying leave no tangle that in his reign even a lock of hair will not meet a knot. In the era of his just hand, what recourse is left, unless a knot should fall in the heart of the king's enemy? In the season when his even temper keeps the promise of loyalty, no knot of waiting remains in the king's path. My heart's desire has tasted the pleasure of his opening; a thousand thanks that the knot has served me well. From fear of him none can breathe a word of oppression, for the breath of the quarrelsome man knots in his chest. So widespread has the joy of his untying grown that a knot now sits unbearable in the lovers' hearts. The work of reason has fallen into such a tangle that the strand of hope's hair holds not a single knot. From the watering of the springtime of his good fortune, the knot grew so moist with the bounty of freshness, that it makes the knot in the strands of the beautiful ones' hair like a string of pearls strung with gems. By its very nature a knot has fallen so kindly that a knot is now a balm upon my wounded heart. By his justice, from the famine of capture, the snare itself has become a knot in the heart of worry. So much does the breeze of his reign bring blossoming that if the knot does not break into a smile, what use is it? Why should the nail need force to undo it, when the knot opens of its own will into a smile? From the freshness of his sweet reign, the knot cannot hold, like a drop from too much moisture finding no rest in the vein of life. Do not be amazed if, by the grace of his untying, the knot in a wounded heart should open by itself like a bud. So hidden is the knot now that I cannot tell how a knot became visible in his enemy's heart. How often, out of envy, he ties the thread of his foe's life into a knotted row, like the beads of a rosary. His enemy cannot part willingly: a knot has fallen of necessity in his heart. In the grip of sorrow, the vein of his enemy's life is a snare that knots itself night and day out of jealousy. When he sets out to war with the tongue of his wrath, the flame is forever knotted by his sparks. From his generous hand things have grown so tight, I fear a knot will form bubble-like in the sea. These are not pearls; from envy of his countless palmfuls, countless knots have fallen in the heart of the sea. These are not stars; envy of his loftiness has cast a thousand knots in the heart of the restless sky. These are not jewels; the malice of the quarrelsome foe has tied a knot in the soul of his fearless sword. Loose your aim in wrath, for the longing in the enemy's breast has knotted in the heart of the gleaming arrowhead. My lord, far from your door I am slain, with a thousand longings knotted in my restless soul. The dust of your street is kohl in my eyes; like a pupil, my hope has knotted in that dust. The hope of blistering my feet on the road to circle your door has knotted like a blister in my wounded heart. Show such favor that by good fortune I may, on the thorny road to your door, undo a thousand knots from my blistered heart. I have no task but the resolve to circle your door; from enmity, the heavens have thrown a knot in my affairs. As long as union does its trade through opening, as long as the orbit keeps its knot through binding, may the bountiful heart's opening grant you union's fulfillment, and may it never again meet the knot of this longing.

Your ruby lips outshine pearls when you speak; that vein of salt grows sweeter than sugar when you smile. I love your heart more than my own life, yet fortune never grants me the chance to hold you close. Whenever I gazed into the mirror without your face, the glass turned golden on me like the sun, blank and cold. Among lovers whose lives are in disarray, who but your curling locks has ever dared embrace your waist? Your love fears none of reason's spells; no one stops fate's arrow with a shield. From the chain of burnt and scattered hearts, only your beauty mark has fallen, scorched, into your embrace. Who has looked at you and not seen, from sheer shyness, dewy sweat draw a rose petal across your face? Each drop of my tears is a whole sea twisted upon itself; what storm lies hidden behind these wet eyes? If a flame leaps, smoke rises from this fire temple; my heart is a hell coiled in scrolls of sparks. Strangely, our ruin received word of repair: it is a flood that has crashed against the walls and door. People crowd to look on you, but barely open their eyes; nothing of you can fit within their sight. I close my eyes when I see your beautiful face, so I can hold your image whole within my gaze. I fear I would melt to water if I came near you, like a dewdrop on a fresh, moist rose. The mirror gathered wondrous roses from your reflection, heaping rose upon rose across its breast and embrace. The sigh I breathed at dawn in memory of you turned my soul into another sky entirely. The brand I set on my liver out of love for you became a new sun rising over the realm of my heart. I am the wound that leaves no mark on your hard heart; let this lament, steeped in blood, leave its trace at last. Plunder has spread to Tartary from your two eyes; uproar has reached the Berbers from your two tresses. My eyelashes promise a rain of tears as long as the down on your cheek circles it like a halo around the moon. See the mark of sorrow's slap on my sallow face; no one ever stamped a coin on gold more finely than this. A lover's letter of grief cannot be given to a dove; no one has ever entrusted a flame to a feather. What has a lover to do with order and peace? Out of pain for you I have wound myself onto the road of travel. Thinking of your hair will end in madness; may no one let this smoke coil into their heart. The heart must not be surrendered to scattered desires; better to steer the ship clear of this contrary wind. The heart's cargo can rest at the shore no longer; knowingly cast the skiff of being into danger. Pleasure has set a strange snare along your path; if you are a man of grief, carry your soul out of this abyss. Khosrow has won Shirin's sweet lips to his heart's desire; tell any new Farhad not to dash his head against the mountain. Sweeter to me than Jamshid's throne and the crown of kings is any handful of dust I can scatter on my head. The dust I can pour on my head is the dust of the sacred precinct, whose splendor turns the very blood in a pearl to water with envy. The dust of the shrine, that pure garden whose soil the angels draw across their eyes like kohl of hope. Longing for the dust of that place, which shames even paradise, one could not bear to settle in Eden's garden itself. The court of the king of both worlds, so exalted that the heavens cannot even rise into its view. That king whose command is destiny, whose equal no likeness has ever shown in the mirror of worth. A king the whole community needs for its very existence, as matter needs form to take its shape. If the throne of his kingship were brought into view, the nine heavens would lie beneath it, and he above all. The guide of guidance, Lion of God, King of sanctity, who surpasses all souls and horizons in grace and skill. Praiser of the Prophet in both his deeds and his words, himself praised by God in the verses and chapters of the Quran. Best of all creation, for after the Prophet there is no man of God like him among angels, jinn, or humankind. In the substance of his sword lies a hidden flame that sends the enemy's soul as kindling into hell. In his swift horseshoes hides a fire that consumes the foe's body to the very core. That bold, fairy faced one who finds no rest until the pupil of his eye draws people close within his gaze. His dust can be seen only on the battle line, where the bride of victory uses it as kohl for her eyes. Wherever he goes, the eye of triumph follows his tracks, until, like a lover, it draws him close in embrace. The iron of his horseshoe sparks at every strike; if the foe takes shelter in stone, the sparks find him there. Who can hold firm against the fury of his charge? Even a mountain, as his foe, is cut down to its waist. I cannot describe the speed of his march; the pen splinters at its head before I can write it. On the ruled lines of the page, the letters of his haste flash like lightning piercing through the veins of a cloud. With his two pronged blade he would seize all horizons, even if the whole world were sword, spear, and shield. He would tear up the very roots of the thornbush of unbelief, even if its roots ran deep into solid rock. If his dread cry reaches back to eternity past, you would see his arm around the waist of eternity to come. Against his charge what is a mountain that does not crumble, when no one can tie even a hair around mountain or hill? Whether Rostam son of Zal or Sam son of Nariman, before him they are mere straw scattered by a storm. Islam grew strong armed only because he guarded its egg with the single grip of his two edged sword. The splendor that the gate of Khaybar saw in his hand, even the disk of a shield could hardly show on its palm. Son in law, cousin, and brother, who but he stands beside the chief of prophets in perfection and skill? Who but he should sit in the Prophet's place? The sun's seat befits none but the moon. An essence that was the Prophet's cousin and his brother, with the realm of holy souls bound in service at his waist. First of all to embrace Islam, foremost of all in the heights of human perfection. Kinship, precedence, and surpassing excellence, all of it attested in the Quran and in the traditions. Could anyone, in the end, claim precedence over such an essence? A curse upon Abu Bakr, Uthman, and Umar. My king, you are that lord of the world before whom both worlds, against the field of your glory, are like Shimr beside an ocean. If reason set out to measure your grandeur, it would be stranded forever on the battlements of the throne. The wings of thought burn away when they try to fly toward the summit of your majesty in the flight of the gaze. The blistered footprints of those who seek your door scatter across every pathway like the Pleiades. Lovers of your gate sell their pride even to the heavens, yet for all their humility still rank above the moon's sphere. This rank cannot be set even beside the sun; when would they trade the gold pallor of their cheeks for mere gold? While I serve you, why should I complain of the heavens' cruelty? From the tyranny of rivals there is no escape. For a lifetime I have been the world's giver through your grace, just as ruby and pearl shine by the light of the sun. I am the slave of the slave whose master is you; I am the dust of that street where even your dog walks. Qanbar will gain no advantage over me on Judgment Day; how can the quenched compare to the thirsty? Carry word of my lament. No one could tell your love apart from my very being, like milk that has been blended with sugar. Though my heart is thinner and clearer than a mirror, your love is set in it like an inscription carved in stone. When my eye, parted from your door, sheds tears like a sea, you would think the very ocean had crashed into the Berber coast. As long as the realm of the possible is not free of gain and loss, as long as all that exists turns toward good and evil. May good turn to evil for the one who wishes you ill, and may the one who wishes you well see only gain from every loss.

Such a soul-reviving breeze swept across the meadow that the morning wind seems to breathe with the miracle of Jesus. The garden is so moist with grass and flowers that if you squeezed the air, water would drip out. The air over the lawn has grown so joyful that the bud can no longer contain its delight within its cloak. Since the spirit of growth has been so generously poured out, it is fitting that every wish should ripen into fulfillment. If time itself grows like the springing grass, then today, without delay, yesterday becomes tomorrow. Do not marvel that through this striving of growth the lover's sapling of longing bears the fruit of desire. Given such abundant flourishing, it is no wonder if the sapling of prayer at last bears the fruit of being answered. When the stature of the beautiful grows so tall in grace, how could the palm tree of the heart's longing not rise high? The sapling of cypress, growing graceful in the garden, longs for the slender stature of beautiful boxwood-like figures. The garden's cypress sapling rubs its head against the clouds, so much has it drawn growth from spring's bounty. When I take up the pen to describe this air and water, my words turn green in the water like a reed. The waves of the breeze have grown so full of joy that they treat the ship of sorrow as a wave treats it on the sea. When the morning breeze sets out to praise the weather, it fills the mouth of the bud with gold in admiration. Since the wind blew on the branch, every leaf, out of delight, sings the praise of this air and water. How can the bird sit silent when the breeze's bounty gives a tongue to the speechless lily? How can the nightingale's flight pause in such splendor, now that even the painted silk takes wing on the morning breeze? By the bounty of the meadow breeze's lightness one could fly without the help of wings, like the color of henna spreading. The air has grown so heavy with moisture that no wonder a wave of air does the work of water upon the page. The ripple of the file looks like a wave of the sea on water, so much have all things drawn moisture from the air. Freshness has spread so universally that not even abstinence has stayed dry in this world. Fire could hide among the grass now, so tempered is nature, like wine within a glass. Now that grass has sprung even from stone, there is hope we may sow the green seed of faithfulness in the hearts of the beloved. Come and see how, in reviving the dead plants, the morning breeze takes on the role of Jesus' breath. The balance of nature has grown so universal that even a breath of hypocrisy, if tempered, becomes proper, despite its hypocrisy. The sun is hidden behind black clouds, like a lovely face beneath dark, night-colored locks. Because of the crowding of clouds over the world of being, the light can find no path to reach the face of the earth. The rain loses its way down through the darkness, and so the lamp of lightning flares again and again in the sky. The army of clouds covers the sky like layers of darkness, and within it the rain hides like the water of life. The drops fall so unbroken that a thousand ripples form at once on the surface of the water. The rainbow has become like a cotton-carder's bow, fluffing cotton from the clouds and tossing it into the air. Today the rose branch in the garden is Moses' deputy, drawing the shining white hand out from its sleeve. When I take up the page to describe this air and water, a thousand buds of meaning blossom for me. As soon as it reaches my tongue it bursts into bloom; I render the tale of the bud with brilliance and grace. An open arrowhead lodges in the breast of the bud when, in this air, an arrow flies free from the bow. In all the world the only unopened bud is the bud of our heart; otherwise the bud would have vanished into legend like the phoenix. That is no shooting star by night: from the abundance of bounty on earth, the stars descend from the sky to breathe this air. So soul-reviving has it grown that you would think the air has caught its fragrance from the resting place of Zahra. What a resting place, the honor of the gem of religion; what a resting place, the light of the eyes of brightness and radiance. What a resting place, that if its dust reached the heavens, a thousand precious souls would offer themselves as ready sacrifice. What a resting place, so exalted in worth that it would be ashamed if a houri offered her perfumed bosom and sleeve to it. Blessed pure resting place where the gem of chastity has settled like a pearl in the heart of its shell. The sapling of the garden of purity, the rose of faith's orchard, the joy of the unmalicious heart of God's Messenger. The priceless shell of the pearls Husayn and Hasan, the proof from which the exalted Imams derive their worth. The fruit born of her worth gave rise to the harvests of generosity, knowledge, justice, bounty, and openhandedness. For the line of the eleven, in nobility Ali is the major premise and she the minor. Behold the majesty whose lineage has given birth to the greats of faith and nation until Judgment Day. Honorable descent is from her, light of the eye of lineage; nobility is from her line, the crown of glory and height. Among the servants of her faithfulness are Sarah and Hagar; among the nurses of her household, Mary and Eve. A hundred thousand houri-like ones fall at the dust of her door; a hundred thousand like Asiya run around her in devotion. To be a maid in her sanctuary is the wish of the lady of Egypt; to beg at her door is the hope of the king of Sheba. Who but she is called daughter of the Prophet, flesh of his flesh; who but she bears the title of the Pure, the Virgin? The clay of Eve had not yet been kneaded when she was already named the mistress of all women. The seal of chastity was set upon her pure being, just as prophethood was sealed in the lord of both worlds. How proudly the sky preened over this desire, to become the humblest curtain-keeper following her rank. Yet on the path of reason and analogy it is heedless, for what fraction of the sea can be reckoned in a count? The vaulted sky is but one step of her palace of majesty; the six directions are but one courtyard of her household. If they tried to measure the expanse of her worth, even the imagining of the placeless could not find its dimensions. The bride of her true majesty draws back no veil except in the bridal chamber of the knowledge of the matchless God. Imagination cannot traverse the field of her worth; one cannot cross an ocean by the strength of swimming alone. Though the length of time be coiled loop upon loop like a lasso, it still cannot reach the summit of her palace of majesty. Even if time tied its own head into a knot to stand up tall, it could not encompass the field of her worth. There is not a hair's breadth of exaggeration in these words; pure realities stand beyond yesterday and tomorrow. Both this long span of time and this wide expanse of space, set beside the holy realm, are a mere speck in the desert. Her worth cannot be seen with the outward eye; how could the sight of the worldly reach where she is? Yet even with the outward eye, if you look, you will see that her worth has risen above all that exists. The purity of her lineage sends a greeting from Adam; the majesty of her descent sends a message from Eve. Her nobility in eternity past rode side by side with the Eternal; her majesty in eternity to come rode stirrup to stirrup with Everlastingness. Divine worth nursed her at its breast; divine decree helped raise her in its lap. If a tyrant here usurped her right by his own decree, what will he do there where God is the judge? Though he took her injury lightly, what will he do, for in harming her he has harmed God and His Messenger? O most noble one, you whose rank is fit to be praised by Gabriel, by God, and by the angels. Who am I to describe the rank of your station? Who am I to be a fit singer of your praise? You whom God the Almighty Himself has praised; you whom the lord of both worlds has described. The veil of your worth was lifted by 'she is part of me'; the height of your station was shown by 'whoever harms her.' What need is there to define your rank, when the rank of the Imams bears ample witness to your exalted station? Gabriel was indebted for the honor of serving you; God's grace hastened eagerly to nurse you. At service in your court the sky seeks its desire; sweeping the dust of your threshold, the sun finds its wish fulfilled. Night and day the heavens travel the road of harmony with you; that is why the soles of their feet are forever blistered. The dust of your threshold is the adornment of the spring breeze; the dust of your court is the honor of the morning wind. The sky could rival your rank only if a chameleon could fly on the wings of the sun. Me, and the worthiness to serve you? What a hope! Me, and being fit to obey you? What a blessed wish! Hoping for your kindness is, for me, the best of deeds; turning to your grace is, for me, the best of rewards. From me there is no service worthy of your station; from me there is no praise befitting your glory. For me to claim to praise your virtue is a false claim; for me to sing your eulogy is likely a mistake. From this claim of praising you I seek nothing else; from this boast of eulogy I have no other desire than this: That I confess your majesty, what grace that is; that I have come to know you, thanks be to God. As long as in this world, through grace and through wrath, friends are honored and enemies abased, May your dear ones, like generous friends, dwell honored by your kindness, and your enemies forever, everywhere, beneath your wrath.

Come, the wine cup swears by our old vow to break your repentance once more; leave that to me. Don't pin your heart on penitence, my heart, or you'll become an idol-worshipper; come, the idol-breaker has arrived, the wine that shatters every vow. Ascetic, if you look with the eye of true insight, worshipping your own repentance and worshipping idols are one and the same. Come to the tavern's school, to the old wine-master, so you may learn how to journey beyond yourself. Among the people of true devotion, your prayer is not valid unless you have learned from the cup the art of bowing low. The smile of the wine-cup's flower is a hidden hint: these two days of life yield nothing from grieving. Cup-bearer, bring that wine you know so well, whose very scent from the bottle is an intoxication that fells brave men. So we may wash the dust of reason from heart and soul, and shake the haze of intellect off head and body. How sweet is the wine of pure beholding, whose cup is drunk through the eye, not through the mouth. Whoever has tasted the drunkenness of the beloved's face knows that the only true wine is the wine of love; all the rest is mere trickery. God knows, and the Giver, and the cup-bearer of Kawthar, that wine never left my skirt soberer than before. There is only me, the wine, and the gaze of that bloodthirsty child of an eye whose lips, fresh from milk, have washed themselves in the blood of my heart. The talk of wine has spilled at last into verse and song; for it is settled: one word always gives birth to another.

Your cheek has become that light of the sacred valley, a lamp in the night of your dark hair for the Moses of my heart. When your beauty shakes its sleeve in pride, may even the holy lamp not be safe from its dazzling blow. It is not just your cheek showing through the curls of your hair; it is fire fallen into the harvest of my fortune. On the night of separation, when I sigh, the sky hides its own lamp under the hem of its skirt in fear. My chest is full of the smoke of sighs, and I fear, O silver cheeked, moon chinned beauty, that your image, Finding the house so full of smoke, will make an excuse and leave, and walk right out of my heart. I am so full of love for you that blood spills from my lashes, for there is no longer room enough inside my own body. You are the one who, with a single blink of your lashes, sends the heart's blood streaming from my wounds down to my hem. You darkened my day, yet I am glad, for my mind stays bright with love for the king who outshines me. A king who, by the power of his nurture, can light up my darkened heart like the sun. Grandson of the Prophet, light of Ali's eye, leader of all the world, Prince Hasan. An emperor before whom, each evening, the sky lowers its sun crowned head in reverence. Time drinks the blood of his heart like wine; whoever stretches his neck against him is drained like a wine flask. From the garden of his worth the rose blooms eternal; the sky's sun is but a flower above his meadow. To write the heading of his praise, the red dawn grinds vermilion as red as my own weeping eye. What is the sky but a beggar at his door, raising its henna stained hand, a candle at the window? The place of grace at his gate is like the plain of Arafat; the place of light at his threshold like the sacred valley. His presence is the garden for the sapling of life; his mind is the rose garden for the flower of the sun. Even if the span of time were a full circle, the robe of your worth would still have no edge to its hem. The measure of your worth needs no explaining; the qualities of your being are beyond words. Fate's decree does not turn its head from the line of your command; the heavens do not pull their neck from the collar of your order. The musk deer of Khotan confess their fault by their boasting, beside the perfume of your noble character. A broken glass cannot be made whole again, yet a broken heart can be mended by your kindness. It would be no wonder if, by the thought of your protection, even a dewdrop could not be crushed by a pestle in a mortar. If the rope on your enemy's gallows should snap, a noose of his own life thread falls around his neck. A body not nurtured by the dust of your threshold wears the shroud of death while still alive. If the heavens do not obey your command, cut them apart, sever their waist, break their head. A thousand pearls of Aden envy the very pebbles of the city of your glory and grandeur. Through the rule of your world nurturing justice, beautiful ones keep strife from their lashes and bitterness from their speech. By the rule of your justice, the morning breeze, fearing your wrath, dares not carry a cure into the garden without permission. By recalling your mirror clear spirit, the dust of grief can be wiped from the hearts of lovers. It is no wonder if, imagining your grace, a grain of millet should swell with pride like a mountain. If the breeze of your grace blew over hell, it could free the damned from eternal torment. If your wealth were shared out among the world, the ant of neglect could leave a hundred harvests untouched. Your justice is so devoted to truth that it would be strange if it ever fell for the curl of a beloved's hair. To prepare your healing draught in fate's pharmacy, the stars serve as jewels and the sky as the mortar. If a single spark from the flame of your will fell on my heart, the wound in my chest would shine bright as the sun. If you have made peace with one of enemy nature, no wonder, for it is custom to stop a dog's mouth with a morsel. You became a martyr to poison, yet out of pure devotion the life of both worlds has turned to snake venom for me. My lord, I have a tale on my tongue, an account already clear before you. Since it is plain to you, it is best left unspoken, for the king himself knows how to care for his servant. When I have your kindness, to whom should I complain? When I have your street, where else should I make my home? From the shortcomings of my fortune, knot upon knot has formed; from chest to tongue I hold a thousand kinds of words. I cannot complain of the base heavens, though I have a hundred grievances of every kind against them. The heavens, whose habit is always to nurture ignorance, do not favor people of merit, and least of all me. The heavens never tended to the learned, so busy were they always serving the desires of every fool. Even an enemy, if he looked with the eye of fairness, would see me always the nurse of manners and knowledge. From the moment I took up the tablet and pen, I have known nothing but reading and writing. By the love of learning I became nurtured in exile; for the love of being a stranger I cut myself off from home. What of it that Anvari was supreme in verse? I am the rare wonder of my age in every art. No skill remains in the world that I have not cultivated; refinement is born from no mother but on my own lap. I am always ashamed of my own poetry; what business has a Plato with idle chatter? I would never have so much as glanced at poetry, were it not for praising my leader. From the fragrance of the bride that is your beauty's hair, my fame has passed beyond Khata and Khotan. I, whom love for you has cast out of both worlds, why should I complain of exile or of homeland? Of whom should I complain, and why, and of what? Why tell tales of moon and sun, and to what end? If I do not follow the fashion of people of this age, no wonder, for now the very style of poetry takes pride in me. My speech is lofty while the rival's rank is low; it is not his fault if he cannot rise to such words. The time for prayer has come, Fayyaz, so end your words, for pouring out the heart's pain is not the way of devotion. As long as the two eyes of modesty stay blind, as long as the tongue of prayer remains halting, May an arrow strike the eyes of your enemies, and may prayer be a coat of armor on the breast of your companions.

I wrote a letter to my beloved with the blood of my lost patience and calm, folded tight like a rosebud, layer upon layer, all of it blood. What a letter, adorned with this account; what a letter, refined with this theme. It said: you, for whose absence my soul of longing hangs on my lips; you, parted from whom my eye of hope is filled with blood. I am the one who, without you, has no steadiness or patience in my soul; I am the one who, without you, has no rest or calm in my heart. You are the one who, without me, is at ease inside and out; you are the one who, without me, is composed within and without. How can I tell you what I suffer at the hand of separation? May no one be left helpless in the hand of his enemy. Live happily and free, for far from you my share of love has dragged its tent out to the desert of madness. To free me from this spell, breath by breath the thought of your narcissus eyes breathes out an enchantment. I still thirst for the water of life that is your lips, though a hundred rivers have burst from my eyes. I have no sense of day or night; this much I know: now and then my grief grows beyond all bounds. The lasso of your curls is still around my heart's neck, even if I were to pass beyond the veil of the seven heavens. The sting of the nail of longing: who is its Layla? They point to me, saying this is the new Majnun. Grief for you cut me off from friend and stranger; even the joy of madness drove me from the dust of your street. I wrote this petition in black ink, meaning: from being far from you, I have no blood left to give my heart. When the letter brimmed over, top to bottom, with the blood of complaint, suddenly I remembered my heart, so full of faithfulness, which had stayed behind, far from me, in that lock of hair, sitting in the curve of that tress, sunk to the waist in blood. As kindness required, I did this: I filled the margin of the letter with questions about its state, saying: this heart, deceived and caught in the trap of your tress, tell me, in that curl of black hair, how are you, how do you fare? Even in dreams my fate is to see her face, but in dreams too I have no luck, for my fortune is wretched. Since you have access to the ring of that tress, you who from eternity were caught in the curve of that curl, the way meaning lies coiled in the torment of letters, the way a theme hides in the bend of an inadequate word, remembering my eye that throbs with the blood of the liver, it would be fitting if you gazed on that rosy face. When you steal a dark glance, remember my breast, for I too swallow only the blood of grief in memory of you. Though my place there is crowded with rivals, still your place stays empty in this sorrowing breast. The letter was sent off in the hands of the morning breeze; having kissed the dust of her door, the breeze stood waiting outside. It lingered there before her door, outside, because the breeze had no way into her sacred presence. With a courteous hand it brought the letter forward; she took it from its hand and made grace its debtor. When with a coy hand she opened the letter, what did she see? A letter tangled, like a captivating tress. Fold on fold like fresh wounds brimming with blood, line by line like a sea of blood tossing in waves. Mockingly she said: this resembles no one's handwriting; surely its scribe was a child or a madman! Its meanings all more disconnected than talk of faithfulness; its phrases all more tangled than the speech of madness. Neither familiar to the eye nor close to the heart's word; neither its wording nor its theme is known to the mind. Perhaps it is the rough draft of some idol's curl on curl of hair! Perhaps it is crammed with the state of some heartsick lover! She tossed it down beside her own tress and said coyly: you, who have such a script, work out the meaning yourself. When the tress saw the familiar writing, it coiled in on itself; it threw the knot of the thread's end into the hand of doubt. After much thought she said: this is from someone whose patience and calm have left him, as he has left our side. Who has the spirit to write, in the way of faithfulness, a reply, and ask: what is your state, what has befallen you? She sent a spoken message, yet veiled with coyness: you, who from being far from us are as wretched as your own luck, why have you become so helpless in the grip of parting? Did I not tell you that separation from the beloved brings no good fortune? Being far from the dust of our threshold does not suit you; strive hard to free yourself from the claws of grief. If escape from separation is not easy for you, seek help from the king of the inhabited world. A king whose praises cannot be confined, even if the mind grew artful in mastering every art, a king whose honor has set the very color of his kingship's foot upon the head of the heavens, a king whose stature of rank, though it strain forever, will never bow beneath this overturned vault. The Imam whose obedience is a duty, Prince Hussein, cherished by the grace of God who is beyond all how. Strange would it be if his virtues, which have escaped all counting, surrendered even the hem of their robe to confinement. The six directions are all a sea and his essence the pearl; the nine heavens all a scroll and his essence the meaning. Were he not the link of creation's coming to be, eternity-past would be the storehouse of the letter K, eternity-future the stable of N. For his birth the heavens moved; for his abode the earth chose stillness. Before the palace of his glory, the sky's circle was like a small window to the eye; before the chamber of his sanctity, the heavens were a mere antechamber. Suppose they spread out the spheres into one vast plain: before the courtyard of his worth it would be but a bridge over a wilderness. Had his banner not been raised high to the sky, what would have held up this old roof like a pillar? At the smallest sign of opposing him, the twilight sat down in blood; opposing him brought no blessing to the base sky. I sang it wrong, I erred in this point; it does not befit him to be spoken of by such a measure. Who is Time, to clash with him so rashly? Who is the sky, to come at him with trickery? If opposing him so much as crossed the sun's mind, like the dark heart of a tulip it would sit black-faced in blood. Time, in its months and years, never strays from his will; through ages and centuries the wheel does nothing but his command. He had no desire for this two-day life; he had no attachment to this base little chamber. Otherwise he would have raised the dust of eternity-past out of eternity-future, had his pleasure been bent on seizing the world. If his will set the point of the compass moving, it would draw the world into a loop, like the letter N and the dot of N. If a single dot fell from the pen of his command, the sky would drown in it like a drop in a great river. If he set a knot in the corner of his brow, the motion of the sky would turn into stillness. Eternity-future thrusts its head out from the collar of eternity-past to gaze at his glory, which has pitched its tent outside. For the palace of his glory, Destiny carries the building materials, fixing the brick of moon and sun upon the heavens. At his threshold the high heaven is lowly; for those who dwell at his door the inhabited world is cramped. The banner of his fortune does not fit within the world, just as the sigh of a sorrowing lover will not fit a narrow heart. How can anyone see the splendor of his rank and majesty while imprisoned in the torment of these six directions? He has cast his shadow over past, present, and future; he has set his foot on what was, what is, and what will be. Alexander is among the guardians of his splendor; Plato is among the narrators of his knowledge. On the scale of his wisdom, the reason of the world's wise men weighs as little, before sound judgment, as the lightweight nonsense of madness. His gentle, sweet breeze has the nature of the water of life; the flame of his wrath has the nature of the plague. Even with infinite numbers one cannot reckon the count of his grace, for it exceeds infinity itself. Number could not encompass his perfection, though it tried, for his limit, like his perfections, surrounds all things. For the infinity of numbers exists only in potential, while his infinity stands free of the disgrace of mere potential. How heart-opening now is the dawning of his praise's rising; the heavens cast a thousand smiles of mockery at the sun.

How glorious you are, your station beyond all imagining; even thought cannot find its way into your sacred sanctuary. You hold a place so high that the summit of the great throne is, to the vast realm of your worth, only a flat plain. You are the king whose praise, like that of your grandfather and father, fills a thousand passages of God's own word. Your majesty and worth rise above all measure; your rule and rank surpass even fate itself. Time is grateful to serve at your shrine; the heavens are indebted to wait at your door. By your protection the world is shielded from the malice of the sky; by your justice the age is safe from disaster. Whenever the mirror of your generous spirit is remembered, the dust of grief lifts from the sorrowing heart. You could cure the pale sickness of the sun, if you made a remedy of the leaven of your own love. If anyone who opposes you should climb by force up to the heavens, the Milky Way would drop like a noose around his neck. Your enemy will die with parched lips in the end, even if, like Pharaoh, he were drowned in the great river. To a friend's ear, the clash of your sword in battle clears the heart of rust better than the song of the lute. When you charge the broken foe on the day of war, you are more bountiful than the rain-cloud days of spring. There is thunder in the war-cry of the field and lightning in the flame of the blade; clouds of smoke from the enemy's heart and a drizzle of blood. Your follower thirsts only for the enemy's blood; even the Euphrates cannot relieve his need. Since the age is as waterless as the back of a mirror, it is no wonder its people come out parched with thirst. One from whose ruby lips the fountain of Kawthar flows: why would he soil those lips with this base world's water? If for a couple of days the wheel of fate, out of black misfortune, filled your friends' narrow hearts with blood through its hatred of you, yet look now at the hundred torments it suffers from the wounded sighs of the heartbroken who love you. What heart is not bound to your loving kindness? Judge this truth by the dust of your own grave. For one pierced pearl of the fragrant dust at your threshold, the sky would give up all the thousand pearls of its stars. It is no pearl, and I cannot say what freshness this is, that the water of the hidden pearl thirsts for its lips. Is Karbala not, by your presence, the envy of paradise? Through your connection the whole inhabited earth becomes heaven. A king with prayer begs death from God, in the hope of being buried in Karbala. If the sky should offer the sun as its price, then the sun-colored earth there has still been cheated of its worth. Ambergris cannot reach the rank of his dust, though it give up its soul; it can only deepen its color and scent by being linked to him. The rose cannot reach his thorn, though it offer its very spirit; it can only push its head up out of his garden's soil. No wonder that, linked to you, the earth turns into a musk-pod; like the navel of the Chinese deer it is full of blood, and what blood! My heart burns like a tulip with the scar of longing, if the heavens be mistaken for your shrine. Though by its vastness the sky boasts of being your equal, mere swelling can never be counted as true fullness. What a shrine, whose surroundings no eye has ever seen; what a shrine, around which no imagination has ever circled. Its dome reaches the Fish-star at the height of the highest heaven, the way a towering mountain rises above the plain. If the sky tried to display its splendor to match it, out of shame it would shift from color to color like a turkey-fowl. The toppled wheel of heaven spins a thousand times and still cannot reach his roof, like a walnut tossed against a dome. Even imagination, throbbing like a child on the edge of a rooftop, finds no rest if it should reach his height. My king, far from your door both my eyes have become two rivers of blood, one a Euphrates, one a surging Tigris. The dust of your street upon my frail body is a thousand times finer than satin and the costliest silk. I keep the hope of reaching you in my body in place of my soul; now it is for you and your grace to decide what should be done, and how. May God bring me to the dust of your threshold, that I may dissolve in it like a drop in the great river. The longing for Jamshid's splendor is in my head; may God grant me good fortune and a blessed star. Rein in the swift horse of your words a moment, Fayyaz, for the heart of acceptance has bled waiting for this prayer. Out of envy at the lofty height of your noble threshold, may the back of the heavens stay bent forever with grief, and may your enemy's stature be bowed low, while your friends, from the wine of your kindness, have rosy cheeks. In my longing eyes, the hope of the dust of your threshold, like my love for you, grows greater in my heart each day.

Thanks be to God, I have no business with the turning sky; not a speck of dust from either world clouds my heart. I am the free spirit who has set foot upon the world; no grief of the heavens, no sorrow of the age, weighs on my heart. With a noble nature I need neither high nor low; in my temper, heaven and earth are worth nothing at all. This is pride enough for me in all the world: I turn my face in need to no door but God's. Except the door of need, which is the absolute threshold, my heart hopes for nothing from any other door. Let whoever is my enemy die of envy; this is God's gift to me, and there is no escaping it. Let the wheel of fate carry off my very bones; my nature is that of the phoenix, not something base and wretched. What does the sun's display do to one like me? Even rubies are no cure that I have need of. Sky, do not grow more haughty with me than this; even your worn old canopy will not last. I am a jewel nobler than the sphere and the elements; my essence is not made of these seven heavens and four elements. The garment of detachment suits my body best; this cloak of brute matter holds no value for me. I am the very form itself; what use is raw matter? It is only a curtain hung before my form. I am so full of the world's ways that, it seems, the world to me is nothing but a house full of snakes. In the exile of existence I have grown this worn and broken; otherwise no one is wretched in his own homeland. The prison of the body has made my being wretched and worn; look closely, and there is no one like me in this land. Do not see me as lowly: the honor of love crowns my head; whoever love has ennobled is never base. The fear and hope of love have split my heart in two; for this throne of heaven has no earring but my heart. From nothingness I have arrived at the form of being; a pity this fine secret is not clear to everyone. Take the minted coin of your own existence from love; this counterfeit coin of yours has no worth. Your existence is base, false silver; cast it from you; here only the coin of non-being has any value. Do not set your heart on the world, for this raging flood leaves no crossing except by passing beyond your own life. Speak little of the earth, do not boast of the heavens; motion is at its peak and stillness has no permanence. This one is dust already settled, that one dust still rising; from dust and grime you gain nothing but darkness. In the alley of becoming nothing rises but dust; the whole world is dust, yet there is not a single rider. Though no one in the world is truly idle, I walked among the work and found not one true worker. The fool, even light as a breeze, is a burden on the mind; the wise man, even as heavy as a mountain, is no burden at all. Let go of the world's heights and depths, for a flood finds no fixed place among high ground or low. Let go of long ambition and sit still, for this striving is a shoreless sea that has no edge at all. In the end, except the firm rope of the Friend's good pleasure, whatever the hand of ambition grasps gives no firm hold. Through humility I have reached the place of heights; my ascent has no foothold but my own lowliness. How can I give thanks that, for so many reasons, you are ashamed of me, while I feel no shame toward you? Sitting in blood, I thank my grief and sorrow; my heart is torn to shreds like a flower, yet there is nothing to do but smile. Scar upon scar sits in my heart like tulip after tulip, yet, unlike the tulip, my heart's wound is not on show. Not a single hair's breadth of my heart is without love's brand, yet not a hair of it is scarred by the turning sky. We are without bread or water; how could fate ever brand us? The piece of my heart is no stranger to the blood of grief. Every atom trembles with longing for the divine; in the prison-city of love, even the earth finds no rest. If I speak less of the heavens, it sits better in the heart, for to reason, no word is ever cheap or pitiful. Whatever I turn my eyes from, I find sweeter to leave, except one threshold whose builder is not mere time. The court of the king of both worlds, so exalted that if the sky comes uninvited, it gains no entry there. That king of the realm of faith, so high in rank that the sun cannot pass over the summit of his glory. The prince of earth and time, Zayn al-Abidin, a king the like of whom this age has never seen. Faith is his keepsake, as he is the keepsake of faith, for the Family of the Prophet has no remembrance but him. If anyone were to count the servants of his court, none stands outside it except God the Lord himself. His obeyed command runs so absolute and effective that such authority belongs only to the Lord besides him. Armies of intellects take grace from his sign; the host of souls has no counselor but him. The stars borrow their light from the radiance of his mind; the heavens have no axis to turn on but his door. On any ground his thought makes luminous, no dense, dark thing casts a shadow ever again. In his court, of which the world is but a shadow, the nine heavens are no more than a single curtain, like one tray. The whole world goes on foot before him; in all creation there is no rider but him. Victorious in the war against the lower self, no one fights that battle so skillfully as he. The cry of the greatest triumph belongs to his name; no one stands so firm in conquering himself as he. The whole world is his servant and he is king, yet a king whose only work is servanthood to God. If the dust of his feet sends up its scent on a breeze, garden and meadow need no spring wind at all. Wherever his nature breathes its amber-scented air, there is no need to seek out the musk of Tatary. On any soil where his presence casts its shadow, winter holds no quarrel with the flowers and the green. A garden he passes by in bloom leaves no knot of grief in the bud upon any branch. In all four seasons, even the thorn on his path is not without a share; if it bears no flower, it is at least bound in bud. Every tulip that watches the dust of his road with its eye feels no wounded longing burning in its heart. In any climate his dewdrop is a gift of his grace, if a tulip breathes out flame, it bears no scar of pain. In the age when the dust of his path is balm for the eye, the narcissus no longer hopes for the gift of sight. In a heart where the flame of his love raises its banner, the rose finds no thorn pricking it, only the freshness of the meadow. Without his love, even if the heart is a blooming rosebud, it is nothing but an arrow's barb meant to pierce the chest. Wherever the shadow of his generous hand falls, the spring cloud yields nothing but darkness in comparison. Before the dripping of the cloud of his giving hand, even a pearl, like a drop of water, holds no luster. If anyone dares test the ocean against him, in the sea of his hand all things count for nothing. However restlessly it runs in every direction like a wave, to eternity no path of its own ever leaves his shore behind. Beside the sea of his hand the ocean is but a fleck of foam, and the cloud, born of his bounty's vapor, is only vapor. In the age of his giving, except in the eye of his foe, a treasure is worth no more than a handful of dust, dust on its head. When the moon of his knowledge rises from the horizon of his heart, the land of ignorance has no fear of dark nights. Except his heart, which holds the infinite of knowledge, there is no place that can wall in the infinite. The mountain's steadiness cannot match the shadow of his forbearance; beside his dignity, the mass of earth is mere dust on his road. If the heavens so much as imagine his justice, out of fear they would no longer wage war against the broken-hearted. His justice has so demanded purity that for all eternity no dust of dimness can cloud the mirror. His kindness has so softened the temper of all that amid colors and breaking there is no discord left. Since the hue of harmony has been poured among opposites, hope never flees the lover's mind. I am lost in wonder at the high resolve of his court, which does not stoop even to be compared to the heavens. In his presence Time stands on one foot at attention; in his service the sky cannot hold steady for a single breath. One day Destiny complained to Fate and said: While the king's command holds, I have nothing to do. Fate cried out at it in anger and said: O simple one, even this is not clear to you. Do you know who this is, his rank and his state? No one in the world equals him in power. Were it not for his existence, this whole workshop of creation would hold no worth before God, the Mighty and Glorious. In short, he is the very purpose of the world's making; in existence he is not, like you and me, mere filler. I mean he is the grandson of the Prophet, the guardian; without his love the world's foundation does not stand firm. Bow your head in consent, following his way, for this is nothing other than the consent of the Lord himself. Otherwise it is between you and the king's wrath, and should something befall you, no one can help. A king whose being is the very workshop of power, to quarrel with him is to wage war with God. How could I soil my speech with talk of his enemy? The parrot of my eloquent nature does not feed on carrion. How could anyone lend an ear to talk of his foe! This highway of hearing is no hole for a snake. O king, I am the one whose nature, scented like ambergris, draws its essence from nothing but the fragrant dust of your door. Your love has caught fire in my whole being, so that my heart is nothing but sparks from its flame. My heart is bright from the smokeless flame of your love, for this flame is made entirely of light, not fire. What place have I, and what place has praise of you? In the sea of your praise the mind finds no foothold. Your description lies beyond the workshop of imagination; such fine cloth is not woven from this warp and weft. Yet I am glad of this, comfort that swells the heart: beyond the thought of serving you I have no work at all. Nothing keeps me company but talk of your love; the lover's only comfort is the word of his beloved. The unkindness of fate drove my heart away from itself, a mercy I can hope for from no one but your grace. Since your kindness has become the guarantor of your friends' tomorrow, today there is no fear of the cruelty of the age. I know that, except for acting against your will, on Judgment Day there is no barrier in the path of the Lord's mercy. As long as the sun pours light upon the age, and the age has no rest but in its hurried turning, may your love keep the heart of your friend radiant with light, and your enemy as restless as one who has no dignity. The dust of your road is the polish of Fayyaz's eye, so that from the heavens nothing settles on its mirror but specks of dust.

Spring has sealed the meadow's colors with such a spell that color no longer fears autumn's shattering touch. The morning breeze passing over the field's carpet of green leaves the very mark of velvet rippling across granite. Now that the rose's Joseph has become the cherished lord of the garden's Egypt, time, like Zuleikha, has grown young again. In the garden, the rosebud's leaf holds, in its bright hand, a thousand hidden miracles up its sleeve. The rose branch has soaked its robe in blood upon the stem, as if paying the blood-price for slain Siyavash. One of gentle nature is never barred from the garden, though, like flowing water, it has a thousand twists to follow. The air holds such moisture that, without the cloud's expense, rain forms ready over the wide plain of the open sky. Given the bounty of the garden's air and water, no wonder if an arrowhead, like a bud, takes root and grows. From the cloud's moisture, such tenderness and delicacy that the air itself is woven into the body of the garden's beauty. The dew's weight leaves its trace upon the rose petal, like the mark of teeth on a beloved's lip. The breeze moves carefully through the meadow, lest its rippling motion snap a swaying branch. The gardener's heart is at ease about broken branches, for the spring cloud's healing balm has guaranteed the cure. The garden's parts have grown so subtle that, like the rose's scent, they are nearly hidden from sight. Into the dead daughters of the plants beneath the soil, the growth-breath, like the Messiah's miracle, breathes life. No wonder the fruit, from such abundance of readiness, shows itself, like blossom, more plainly than the leaves. With things so steeped in moisture, no wonder if the arrow, in the wave of the morning breeze, bends like a bow. The page has absorbed so much moisture from the air that writing upon it is like a design drawn on running water. No wonder in the garden, like molten gold, the air's wetness makes the flame itself flow and pour. Now that fire and water share one hue, how could the flame ever harm the moth's wing? Were Nimrod's fire to burn in this spring, the sprouting of fresh basil within it would be no miracle. From such freshness and moisture, even amid the fire, the sapling of smoke stands like a cypress in the garden. When roses spring from every thornhead, what wonder if the flower of my tears has bloomed from my lashes? Why grieve over loneliness, when even a person's shadow receives a soul from the life-giving morning breeze? Green has breathed across the mirror's surface from the dew, so that one's reflection could hide itself within it. At dawn the flint's spark would not catch fire, so much moisture did the cloud give to the tinder. Perhaps, like Noah, we should sail the meadow in a boat, for the wave of dew is raising a flood in the garden. By the strong pull of the breeze, the rose's scent would reach it, even if the nightingale's cage were made of anvil-iron. The joy of the rose's laughter cast its sorrow's bundle to the wind; the dew has thrown the pages of grief onto running water. From the delight of blooming swiftly, the joyful rose leaps past its bud-stage with an easy bound. From the burden of dew, the cloud-camel pressed its breast to the earth, or the earth, in its growth, took hold of the cloud's hand and rein. When I look at the rosebud, my heart bleeds: why has it bowed its head into its collar with so much wealth at hand? I learned the art of hiding pain from the bud, which keeps smiling forever though its heart is torn to pieces. The scent of the rose carries word of the rapture of madness; tell my companions to leave a rose with me in prison. Let the drunken revelers, with their songs of ecstasy in the meadow's ear, not silence the nightingales' lament. The longing for the garden is so woven into the drunken nightingale, its desire to soar through the open sky, that if you gave the nightingale even fuller wings, it would take flight without owing anything to the bow's force. Whoever has heard the nightingale's lament knows why the rose's collar is torn open down to the hem. Let the nightingale be a prisoner in the cage's corner, the one that in this spring sings nothing but praise of the king. A king whose field of glory, if you tried to measure it, the rope of all time's length could not span its breadth. A king whose tent of worth, if you pitched it, the whole expanse of the plain would only equal its canopy. A king whose fortune, if it spread its shade, would hide the six directions beneath a single step of that shadow. Imam of East and West, before whose love's radiance the high sun whirls like a speck of dust, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Baqir, the splitter of sciences, whose high banner of knowledge is the pillar of this hall. If the veil were lifted from the face of his knowledge, the sciences of both worlds would become dust on a mirror. He is its equal, if the sun were made pure spirit; he is its likeness, if the Quran took bodily form. If the robe of his learning so much as shook its hem, the whole dust of Greek philosophy would scatter into oblivion. From the dust of his street the soul has been clothed since eternity; from the bounty of his table the spirit is fed forever. If the sun put on the garment of his shadow, night and day would become one throughout creation. If his cast-off cloak were draped over the sky, the sky's stature would fall short and its hem would drag the ground. Non-existence could never breach the house of being again, if for safekeeping he raised a wall around the world. The seven climes are but a courtyard of his vast realm; the nine heavens are but a single chamber of his palace. On land and sea the skies are part of his caravan; by day and night the elements are hired hands in his kitchen. The angels sweep his threshold with their wings and feathers, as the attendants dust and clean his courtyard. They do not pitch the pavilions of his majesty in any field that lies within the land of place or the fortress of time. If the whole of possibility were seated foursquare on its throne, he would pass clean through it from every side with two fingers. Even in a thousand years the heavens could not reach his palace of glory, though they flew up roaring like a demon. Certainty finds no trace of the depth of his glory; what then can the bow of guesswork accomplish in vain? If imagination dove as a swimmer into the sea of his perfection, it would race like a wave yet hardly reach the shore. Though number is exact, his infinity defies it; not even half a fraction can bring his limit into view. Were it not for the gifts of his open hand, the sea would never form a pearl, nor the mine make gold. But what is a mine or an ocean compared to a hand that turns dust into gold and stone into coral? His gift reaches even the lowliest in full, just as greed fills the laps of all the rest. If a cloud rises from his open palm, the horizon fills with pearls of rain like the skirt of heaven. The ocean knows the pearl-scattering of his hand, so, like the sky, it gathers up its hem in awe. His giving is not just rubies and gold, for instance, those are treasures of the earth, hoards of the mine. But from the gifts of his ocean of knowledge, forever, comes every delight of the soul, every joy of the spirit. How fine, distinguished above all the world's people in noble character, like a rose branch standing proud in the garden. In the breadth of his single heart, the whole world's lord; in the measure of one man, the master of all creation. Set apart from his peers by the merit of his virtues, alone among the people of the earth in his goodness. If the spring of your justice casts its shade on the meadow, no menace of autumn could drain the color from its face. If the breeze of your kindness passes through the garden, the blossom smiles open in the womb of the branch. Whoever looks with the eye of discernment at the dust of your road sees in it the same moon that lights the darkest night. How could the sun be mistaken for your shadow? No one ever mistook smoke for flame. Between your judgment and the light of the sun there is the same difference as between knowledge and direct sight. All the world's people live on the share you grant, as water is given to the thorn root for the sake of the rose. Obedience comes whiter-faced to the Day of Judgment; in the water of your threshold's soil, even sin is washed and dives clean. A thousand years of worship will not lift your opponents out of being deprived of forgiveness. Even if they spend their whole lives in a single prostration, without your favor they only beat their heads against an anvil. The wretchedness in the enemy's heart cannot be undone by deeds, for no one washes off his destiny with flowing water. By reason and analogy you are the one fit for the succession; by proof and argument you deserve the imamate. You are the one to whom Jabir al-Ansari, in the Prophet's own words, sent greetings across the span of centuries. Your body is no less than the spirit of Jesus, son of Mary; the hand of Moses, son of Imran, lives in your sleeve. When you draw the hand of miracle from your sleeve, the staff of Moses and a shepherd's stick are one and the same. If Moses turned a staff into a serpent, at your command the hair on the enemy's body becomes a serpent. If the blind of heart fails to know you as you truly are, that is the flaw of his cursed nature, so why should it trouble you? When the blind man cannot witness the light, no fault falls upon the shining sun. My lord, you are one whose true rank the mind cannot grasp in thought or put into words. Praise and description must match one's understanding, and you, as you truly are, cannot be known at all. What are the senses, outer and inner, beside your radiance? What is the eye of a bat before the light-spreading sun? You can be perceived only by pure intellect, for the radiance of the spirit does not fit within the vessel of the eye. But the mind cannot describe you, for when it beholds you, reason itself is left bewildered. What can one say who has not seen you? And once one sees you, what words remain? For inner certainty is something words can never carry. I have known you through your knowledge and your virtue, yet what use is that? May God let me see you with my own eyes, face to face. Though I have gathered nothing but shortcoming, though I have no substance but my own flaws, The wares of my learning hold no capital but vain longing, and the trade of my deeds yields nothing but loss. Yet I carry love for you, and this deed of mine is enough; knowing you is my knowledge, and this awareness is enough for me. My hope rests in your grace, and what work could be better than this? When you are my gain, why should I grieve over any loss? Through the brilliance of speech, set apart from all the beasts, lies the essential mark that distinguishes the jewel of mankind. May your enemy, like an animal, be left tongue-tied and dumb; may your follower forever speak warmly in your praise. By your radiance let friend be told from foe, as pearl and coral are known among rows of cheap beads. On that day when a father forgets even his son, remember me, and do not forget the one who has bestowed so much upon you.

In this world of vanity, the height of wisdom is this: that a person, like a fairy, vanishes from sight. The state of the times is something best left unseen. How lucky is the narcissus, whose eye, by nature, is blind. My waking fortune has only deepened my envy; my fate is an eye shut in sleep until the morning of resurrection. Don't chase fame, for the sky has a slanderous tongue. Veil your face, for the eye of the star is salty and stinging. May the tongue of the pen be cut, the pen that made me famous throughout the world for a single striking line. How deeply people sleep in this caravanserai, which is a place to pass through, not a place to stay. The dust of the caravan has faded from sight into nothingness; even the moan of its bell has left the listening ear. The caravan has gone ahead, and there is no road back. Wishing for what is gone is itself not possible. Beware, don't lay down your bedroll of idleness in this inn, for nothing but a flood passes through this ruin. What trust can you place in a palace where the breaks of disaster have already opened a thousand kinds of cracks? How can anyone sleep safely under a fistful of clay, when the floodwater is annihilation and the soil is the dust of decay? A thousand houses of mud rub their heads against the sky, yet no one bothers to rebuild the ruined house of the heart. The time is past when there was power but no wisdom. Now that what was possible is gone, what use is wisdom? Now that you have squandered the ready cash of opportunity, don't bring the goods of excuses, for you have no excuse. Now that done and undone leave only regret, where can we go? The earth is hard and the sky is far. To the discerning ear, the ring of a china bowl is a tale of the skull-cup of the emperor of China. Only that person gains true presence from worldly wealth who reaches presence by being absent from his own riches. A thousand years of worship cannot reach the worth of gladdening a single broken heart with your own self. If dry asceticism could raise anyone to high rank, then Balaam son of Beor would sit on the roof of heaven. And if greed could lift anyone to fortune and high station, the ant would outdo Solomon in lordship. If lust and rage could earn nobility, beasts and birds would lack nothing of being human. And if outward knowledge brought honor, how could Satan, crying 'I am made of fire', have grown so proud? If you had inner sight to see falsehood for what it is, you would see this earthen image brimming with light. Yes, what distinguishes a human is discernment, discernment alone; the one without it is far removed from humanity. Through the rational soul, man gains nobility over the beast, or else, by bulk and force, the elephant would be a prophet. Clothing is a curtain hiding the flaws of the talentless. What does it matter if the gifted man is left bare? No art in a person is finer than love. If you are not alive with love, you are a corpse in a grave. A thousand perfect cures might come, and rightly so, to a heart that grows sick from the illness of love. Come, let us set the pen of thought to the way of love, for the turmoil of passion has torn the robe of my patience. From the word of love, my heart fell to the thought of a ghazal, like Mansur, sent to the gallows for the secret he spoke.

I cannot tell how that face could ever be hidden from my sight, when it never leaves my mind for even a breath. No evil eye should fall on her beauty; we pray that even the mirror's gaze stays far from that face. Out of jealousy I cannot bear to see even the messenger of my own glance, should it stray by accident near her street. May the wide world never catch her scent; may the breeze never pass through her quarter. Her beauty cannot be seen for the dazzle of its light; happy the face that hides within its own radiance. Look closely at a single mote of dust until it dawns on you: the sun reveals itself in every speck. The earth would feel no shame to receive her lovers, even if they took nothing to the grave but the longing to see her. Her eyebrow won the whole world's heart in just two lines, the way a poet becomes famous for a single opening couplet. The image of the beloved springs from every strand of my hair, like Shirin's lovely face from Shapur's brush. Why is my heart so ruined by the reflection of her face, a face that has filled the house of the mirror with light? Only after separation can one know the worth of union; distance from your street was a necessity for me, truly necessary. After watching the mountain-carver Farhad, I became certain: union with the beloved can never be won by force. I am not one who seeks release from pain and grief; I tried a thousand cures, and each wound only festered. Loving your face, my patience has fled my heart; remembering your eyes, sleep has fled my eyes. The fire you light in my chest never dies down, however much they pack camphor salve on the burn of my heart. Apart from your street I find no road to anywhere; the day of your absence is night to me, and I am night-blind. At the mention of your sweet name the thirsty leave quenched; at the memory of your ruby lips the drinker grows drunk again. Out of envy of your face the curl is scarred; do not loosen it, for the fresh wound of the sun would only fester. My heart never tastes honey from your lips without the sting of a rival; he sits over your nectar like a wasp. Whenever your drunken glance fell on the garden, every drop of wine turned into a grape on the vine. Now, far from your street, I am a prisoner of separation, like a feeble sparrow caught in a falcon's grip. The longing for Solomon's glory is in my head, the desire that has made the world as narrow to me as an ant's eye. From the joy of dwelling on the dust of a threshold whose architect was wondrous Fate, with heaven as its hired laborer, what a threshold! Before its firmness the seven heavens themselves confess their weakness and shortfall. What a threshold! No higher building was ever within the power of the hand of might to raise. What a threshold! With all its thousands of carvings and designs, the sky cannot be called as adorned as it. What a threshold! If the sun fell on its surface, you would think a speck of decay had settled on it. A thousand years have passed, and many more will pass, yet it fears no decay from the wear of ages. The lofty court of the king of religion, faith, and law, whose fame of sovereignty reaches to the trumpet blast of Judgment Day. Imam Jafar al-Sadiq, whose judgment is like the true dawn; the very breath of the true morning glows with light from the dust of his door. A king whose circle of justice has drawn both worlds into its embrace as a measuring tool encircles its field. Before the expanse of his everlasting domain, Solomon's whole kingdom looks like the track of an ant. As long as his banners of victory stand still or sway, time has no need for the turning of the spheres. Out of fear, the world would join nonexistence forever, if his strength let a single eternity slip its guard. Since the cure for every pain comes from him, I marvel why the sun still lies here so sick and worn. Wherever he turns, he is always one step ahead: before him eternity runs like the morning breeze, behind him eternity past like the west wind. If they lifted the veil from the face of his judgment, the universe would drown in light like the sun. In any garden where it casts its rays like the sun, the flower of revealed light blooms from a dry branch. In thanks for his bounty the sky stands wholly on its feet; if it sat down for a moment, it would be ungrateful. If the ocean of his knowledge stirred its waves, half a single drop of it would solve all the world's hard problems. Hidden truths circle his mind, troop upon troop, like houris parading in the meadow of paradise. The heavens are but one page from his book; on half its leaf the Gospel is recorded, on the other half the Psalms. Hell and heaven are two shadows of his wrath and pardon; mourning and joy are two rays of his anger and grace. If you wish to see the flame of God's wrath made plain, look from afar at the corner of his frowning brow. And if you have never seen the gate of grace flung open, see the smile of light in the brow of his morning sign. The wounds of a hundred broken hearts are healed when his smile glows full on his ruby lips. From the bounty of his universal justice it is no wonder if the ruined heart of a lover is made whole again. When his glance lays color on a face, the grape's blood turns to water in its core out of fear. When his stern rule kindles his face with anger, the very breath of song knots in the strings of the lute. If his awe reaches the seven heavens, it throws into them a thousand kinds of trembling collapse. If the envier does not know his worth, no matter: the nerve of his understanding has gone to sleep, for he is the enemy of understanding. The tongue of his enemy strikes only his own heart; if it stings like a lancet, it dives into its own honey, a wasp. Greed has so gripped the vein of his enemy's throat that nothing has met that throat but the butcher's blade. The malice of the ill-wisher is no choice of his own; the bat is born to be the enemy of light. The enemy exists only so causes may show their effect, the way the sun became famous through its shadow. From his nature comes the sky, a censer whose smoke and incense fill the nostrils of the higher world. The sweetness of his speech, on the palate of the thirsty intellect, settles like wine in the nature of one already drunk. When he composes verse in praise of his own generosity, whole seas of meter rise wave upon wave. How distinguished in essence and quality among all the world's people, like the fire of Mount Sinai among lights, itself pure light. The order of your sciences shames the threading of pearls; the pearls scattered loose are captives of your prose. The brilliance of wisdom is a star to the heaven of faith; the jewels of your words are a guide-law to the kingdom of religious law. Each night, to keep watch over the world, the sky draws the dust of your feet as a collyrium of light into the eyes of the stars. In the workshop of destiny, the powers that govern all affairs draw their help from you to bind and loosen their aims. In the realm of fate the commands of Be! enter through your thought and issue from your breast. For the sake of honor, the dust of your road upon the body is a thousand times finer than satin and fine silk. A single moment resting in the shade of your street wall is better to me than the shade of the Tuba tree, the houris, and the palaces of paradise. What are thorns and straw to your sanctuary, what are the wings of angels, when the throng of houris have swept it with their tresses? In a dwelling swept by the wings of angels, what joys one can find, to the blinding spite of the enemy! Each one inclines to his own nature, no harm in that, even if the crowd of foes has chosen against you. If few people walk your path, what does it matter? You are a bridge over hell, and crossing the bridge is hard. If your followers are few, no grief: a thousand drops become, in time, a single pearl. The pearl, born of pure clay, is that rare; the shard, born of base substance, is that abundant. In rank, the human stands above all creation, yet in numbers human beings fall short even of the ants. Look at the human race itself: among their multitude, the distance between a true human and a false one is vast. A thousand drops of seed are needed for one to gain the full capacity for all the stages of being. And once it has that capacity, ages must pass before even one ripens, with a hundred hardships and great force. And once it ripens, scarcely one in a hundred thousand turns out so that it brings light to the eye and joy to the heart. My lord, sun of the world, my soul, you are the one in whom the secret of prophecy found its full appearing. You are the essence of the Family, the choicest of the line; through you the Prophet's spirit is gladdened forever. You are the one upon whose face, behind the veil of fate for an age, pre-eternity gazed from afar. The eternity to come, that has hidden its face in the veil of the unseen, keeps its eye on the road, awaiting the lasting of your reign. What need is there for reason to describe your essence, when your face appears unveiled even to a blind eye? I am one of the servants of your court, whose tongue is forever a flame of light in your praise. I am one whose mind, from contemplating the praise of your presence, has become a pavilion of houris within its inner curtains. I hold a thousand lovely images drawn in dark ink, brighter of face than the work of Shapur's brush. In this ode you have aided my spirit; otherwise the strength for it would have stayed bound in 'Zahir.' Now this alone is my hope in both worlds: that God may raise me up among the dogs of your door. Like the sun I light up the wheel of this dusty earth; how shall I carry the lamp of your love into the lonely grave? Though the failings of this lavish sinner mount higher and higher, the forgiving God will surely pardon his sins for your sake. As long as the universal intellect has a collar, may the breast of my pen be radiant with light from your praise. May my hand stay joined to the hem of your grace, like the longing hand of the ascetic reaching for the hem of a houri.