Chapter Six: On Forbearance, The Preferred Doctrine

In truth, our companions do not forbid this trait entirely. They say that although the person who practices forbearance and patience will have people grow bold with him and read it as weakness, still this trait carries benefits, and it plays a full part in the affairs of one's livelihood. The proof of this claim is that these days, unless a person has borne, as a child, the abuse of pederasts and thugs and has put forbearance and dignity to work, he will not now receive many slaps and beatings in the gatherings and assemblies of the great; they do not shove a finger up his backside, do not pluck his beard, do not throw him in the pool, do not heap gross insults on his wife and sister. That wise man now called a man of the age, thanks to the forbearance and dignity fixed and deposited in his rational soul, until he has endured those hardships cannot achieve a single barley-grain's worth, and remains forever failing, ruined, wretched, and giving joy to his enemies; they let him into no house, and he can gain no standing before any great man. Whoever says 'a slap is the key to sustenance' bases it on this notion, and it is the meaning of this verse they have composed: A man, in the grinding struggle of fate, should be the lower millstone, This confirms that claim. One benefit of forbearance is this: if a great man's harem and dependents are accused of some scandal, and he is stripped of the ornament of forbearance and the adornment of dignity, rage will overpower his temper and he goes mad, for 'anger is the ghoul of reason'; he permits the killing and beating of wife and child and the mutilation of his retinue and servants, tears down his own house with his own hands, drives wife and child to loathe him, and stays anxious and grief-stricken night and day lest some slanderer mock his household, dependents, and honor; and he says: If you have a sense of honor, you live in pain, and if you have none, you are counted no man. But that fortunate great man whose being is adorned with the ornament of forbearance and dignity, though a thousand times all his dependents were violated before his eyes, not a mote of dust would settle on his blessed mind. Inevitably, as long as he lives he passes his days in comfort and ease: he is pleased with his family and dependents, and they are at ease and safe from him. If at some point a scandal is brought to him, he pays it no heed and says: If a dog barks on the roof of the barn, do not grieve. A tale: I heard that recently a great man had a plain but chaste wife; he freed himself of her by divorce and took a beautiful whore in marriage. The lady, as is the custom, gave open invitation to all. They rebuked him: 'You cast off a chaste wife and chose a harlot?' Out of the perfection of his forbearance and dignity that great man replied: 'Your deficient minds cannot reach the secret of this wisdom; before this I used to eat shit alone, and now I eat sweets with a thousand men!' It is said among the proverbs that 'the cuckold is happy in both worlds.' They have interpreted it thus: as long as the cuckold is in this world, since he is not afflicted with the disease of jealous honor he can live carefree; and in the next world too, according to the saying 'the cuckold does not enter Paradise,' since he need not go to Paradise, he will be spared the vexation of keeping company with petty shaykhs and ascetics who dwell there and from their sour faces, thanks to the blessing of this disposition; wherever he sees a petty shaykh he says: If your place is to be in Paradise, others would sooner choose Hell, By this reasoning, the cuckold is happy in both worlds. But here a point arises: if a questioner asks, 'This crowd, that is, the eminent cuckolds, since they loathe Paradise because of the company of petty shaykhs, and in Hell too, for every shaykh in Paradise a thousand judges and their deputies and agents are seated, how is it they are not wearied by their company?' You answer: since the shaykhs in this world were marked by worship and purity, though this in secret smacked of hypocrisy and vanity, while that oppressed cuckold has never sat and prayed nor prostrated, the shaykh's way runs contrary to the cuckold's. But the judges and their followers, being famed for disobedience, fraud, deceit, trickery, devouring the forbidden, oppression, calumny, fault-finding, false testimony, greed, nullifying the rights of Muslims, covetousness, cunning, sowing discord among people, shamelessness, and taking bribes, and since these very traits are ingrained in the cuckold, there can be a full kinship between them, and this kinship itself becomes the ground of companionship with the judges and their followers, for 'like inclines to like.' In the words of the sages it is said that 'kinship is the cause of union.' Inevitably, when the little hell-fetcher drags such a fellow to Hell, that great man, glad at heart, says: If tomorrow they bring me into Paradise among the righteous without my friend, better still that they haul me into Hell with the sinners. One of the great commentators, interpreting the verse 'and there is none of you but shall come to it,' said this: all creatures pass over the bridge like lightning, except the judges and their followers, who abide in Hell forever and forever, playing fiery chess with one another. As it comes in the Prophetic reports and the traditions of Mustafa: 'the people of the Fire amuse themselves with fire.' For these reasons they prefer this trait over other traits.