English
In Praise of Him
You who boast that your heart is in love: happy for you, if your tongue agrees with your heart.
Put down the instruments of sense, fancy, and illusion; travel alone and light, for the path is narrow.
Ask the way from reason, an elder who knows the One; do not follow fancy, a hypocrite thief.
Rise beyond the heavens if you mean to journey; even this dust around the tent is where night raiders strike.
Leave yourself behind and go until you reach Him, for the one who outruns himself is the one drawn near.
Open the inner eye, but keep watch on that eye too, for it also is a field where lightning flashes deceive.
Hear the eternal call with the ear of the heart, not the ear of the head, whose channel is struck by thunderbolts.
For anyone truthful on this road, giving up his life and drawing a breath are the same, like the honest dawn.
You have shut your heart tight in this ten-sided body like a bud, then you claim single-heartedness: that too does not fit.
The demon has puffed you up to think you are an angel; your lustful ego trusts in this flattery.
The sun of truth is veiled behind your shadow of self; otherwise the whole world is a place of sunrise.
How could you taste that private nearness with God, so that your drink is pure wine and your station is gardens?
Does the man who knows the truth seek serving-boys and maidens? When was the true lover a slave of lust?
Why lift your head to the sky, blazing with pride like fire? Were you not, at first, only a drop of spilled fluid?
For a mouthful you wear the patched cloak and say 'I am a Sufi,' with no shame before people and no fear of the Creator.
Set aside the double-faced ways, drop the coarse pretense; pull out a thousand nails, for they are all obstacles.
You say, from fear of death I will hoard my provisions; you know Him as the One who withholds, but not as the Provider.
Place no trust in the bond you have with anyone, when your very existence slips from you moment by moment.
Your going to the prayer-niche is idle as a hanging lamp, while your inner self burns and your outside dangles empty.
Why make a mere chain of appearances a collar on your neck? Is it not enough that you are bound by so many ties?
Your reason is a demon's lamp, your tongue a half-done work of the ghoul, your ear a window of greed, your eye a sinner.
The truly human one in this world is the one whose gaze, like the world's chief minister, is fixed on the truths.
Masud Saed, whose generous favors of every kind go ahead of his aspiration toward the people of merit.
Through the blessing of those precedents and the power of those aspirations, fresh fortune reaches him each moment from the unseen.
In the garden of noble character he is the lily; in the orchard of Abu Hanifa's school he is the poppy.
Good fortune, reined in, obeys the sign of his judgment; divine aid keeps pace, saddled beside his resolve.
No fine point ever escapes his shining mind, just as the sun always passes over the smallest particles.
In the sacred valley of Muhammad's law his knowledge is like oceans and his forbearance like towering peaks.
On the field where his majesty shows its face, the king of the stars ranks no higher than a pawn.
Whoever presses his lips against the dust of his threshold no longer even speaks of the water of life.
Bravo, you of praised qualities, whose presence gathers the good of so many people.
Your being, among the gatherings of the age's sons, is like moonlight in the heart of the darkest nights.
No wonder if delightful meanings lie in your handwriting; do not doubt that fine sugar can hide in the dark.
The revival of learning is folded into your words; it is as if your breath matches the breath of Jesus.
If the miracles of saints break the ordinary, your noble deeds break through even those ordinary limits.
In your presence, for those who gather the sciences, Gabriel's mighty wing serves as their cushion.
You are the eye and lamp of the people of truth, for the lights of knowledge rise from your inner mind.
Your works are graceful, your meanings subtle, your gifts abundant, and your chapters full of fine nuance.
Rank is noblest when it is safe from any rival; your high office is so complete it is free of any peer.
Through your dignity the law rules over the kingdom, and through your care the kingdom keeps step with the faith.
Your judgment counsels where discord cuts; your pen mends where the sword tears apart.
Just be yourself, until the fruits of your judgment ripen, for this young man is still only now coming of age.
That is no hand: what is it? A wellspring of sustenance. That is no pen: what is it? A key to locked doors.
It is no mere reed you raise in your blessed hand; to the mind, its very form seems a speaking revelation.
The knot of need is untied by his existence; the hand of hope finds a companion in his tongue.
The virgin veiled in the unseen is the daughter of your thought, and that lean, yellow, weeping pen is her devoted Vamiq.
The ink rises to its neck and over its head: see how skilled this dark swimmer is at swimming.
It so tunneled into the treasuries of secrets that it deserved to be cut, for that is the punishment of a thief.
Its head is the seat of speech, its waist the place of logic: how fitting that it is a speaker head to toe.
The coin of speech gained value by the stamp of praising you; the market of merit thrives on your street.
My lord, I have no share of your service, because the many kinds of disappointment of these days block the way.
The maidens of your praise are my thoughts and gifts; for long now they have embraced me with sincere longing.
A pause in the duties of favor is no fault, since they are neither rebellious nor divorced from you.
The failing is not yours in nurturing the people of merit; it is our own age of fortune that will not cooperate.
Though many boast loudly in their verses, there is a difference between the one who truly speaks and the one who merely brays.
Why should I stretch out the prayer, when all around you is a pavilion of God's own protection?