In that grave that is dreaded by all men.
You, I, and those resembling you, one day,
Will turn to dust and your rank will not stay.’
Pharaoh said, ‘You’ve another name, and it2320
Differs from this and is a better fit:
“One of the slaves of Pharaoh, who has many,
And nurtured first your spirit and your body,”
A rebel enemy who chose desertion,
Fleeing this realm due to an ill-starred action,
You’re false and ignorant while being bloodthirsty;
From attributes like these you are known easily.
In exile you are threadbare, poor, and low,
Because you failed to give me thanks you owe.’
Moses said, ‘God forbid that one should claim2325
Partnership with that King and not feel shame.
In kingship He has no associate;
His slaves have Him as Master and that’s it.
His creatures have no other owner—they
Who make such false claims will themselves decay.
He has designed me; He is our designer.
He who claims otherwise is a cruel liar.
You cannot make my eyebrow that you view—
How could you make my soul then? It’s not true.
You’re the false rebel in reality,2330
For with the Lord you claim duality.
Although I killed a ruffian once in error,
It wasn’t selfish or for my own pleasure.
I punched him and he fell down suddenly.
He who died lacked a soul originally.
I killed a cur, you children—don’t forget
A million, harmless innocent ones yet:
You’ve killed those babies and you have the guilt—
What will come to you from the blood you’ve spilt?
You murdered most of Jacob’s progeny2335
In the vain hope of trying to murder me.
In spite of you, God chose me anyway—
What you concocted was upturned that day.’
Pharaoh said, ‘Let that go! Is there a doubt
That this was my fate’s share I’ve been dealt out,
For you to put me down now in plain sight,
To darken my day which had shone so bright?’
‘Abasement is then on the Final Day
Much worse if you don’t heed the things I say.
A flea’s bite is too painful now for you,2340
So if a snake should bite what will you do?
It seems I’m spoiling your work outwardly—
I’m turning it to roses actually.’
Explaining that cultivation lies in destroying, concentration in distraction, soundness in brokenness, attainment in failure, and existence in non-existence, ‘and the remainder are opposites and pairs’.
A man once started breaking up the ground.
An idiot screamed whose anger was unbound:
‘Why are you breaking up this earth by digging?
You’re spoiling this good soil now with your tilling.’
The first man said, ‘Let me be. Please depart.
Tell growing and destruction’s acts apart.
This can’t grow flowers or a field of wheat2345
Without disturbance that does not look neat.
How will you see the fruit of a fine orchard
Until its order first appears haphazard?’
Unless you lance the boil how will it heal,
And how will you enjoy the way you feel?
How will your health improve unless you try
The medicines which will detoxify?
The tailor cuts the cloth he sews up later
To make clothes, but none then attack the tailor,
And asks, ‘Why have you cut this satin? What2350
Can I do with the pieces you have cut?’
When an old building is replaced, one must
Demolish it first till what’s left is dust.
The ironmongers, carpenters, and butchers
Will first destroy and then become constructers.
Medicinal herbs are also pulverized,
So that the body gets revitalized.
Till wheat is ground in mills no one is able
To put attractive breads on their own table.
That bread and salt appealed I don’t forget,2355
O fish, to free you from your sad fate’s net.
You will escape the endless net of evil
If you accept now Moses’s good counsel.
You’ve made yourself a slave of base desire;
You’ve made a worm a dragon breathing fire.
I’ve brought another dragon here for that one
To fix with its breath that of your fierce dragon,
So that it is subdued. Then mine will start
To tear your fiery dragon’s limbs apart.
You can flee both if you accept submission;2360
If not your soul will face its demolition.
Pharaoh said, ‘You’re a sorcerer in fact;
You’ve caused division through false ways you act.
You’ve split a close group into separate factions,
Just as you’ve caused splits in the rocks of mountains.’
Moses said, ‘I’m immersed in God’s decree—
Who ever mixed God’s name with sorcery?
That’s based on negligence and unbelief;
Moses’s soul’s the bright torch of belief.
Moses resemble sorcerers? You’re shameless.2365
My breath makes even Jesus feel so jealous.
Resemble sorcerers? Filth, in my station
My soul gives light to books of revelation!
Since you are flying with desire’s base wings
You doubt me and dream up such hideous things.’
Whoever’s actions are so wild and bestial
Imagines wicked things about great people
Since you are part of this world in its bondage,
You just see everything in your own image:
If when you turn, your head starts spinning too,2370
You’ll think the room spins from your point of view.
And if you sail a ship across the ocean,
You’ll think it is the coasts that are in motion.
If after battle you feel crushed with sorrow,
You’ll view the world as being very narrow.
If you feel joy as friends would like you to,
The world will seem a rose garden to you.
Many have gone as far as to Iraq
Then told of lies and unbelief once back.
Many have gone on to Herat and India2375
And said the trade is all that they remember,
Or on to China and to Turkestan,
And told just of deceit there from each man.
Since he sees just the colour and the smell,
Tell him to search in other lands as well.
If a cow comes to Baghdad suddenly
And wanders here and there so leisurely,
Of all the marvellous pleasures found therein,
She’ll notice nothing but a melon skin.
If hay has fallen in the road, or grass,2380
It’s suitable for that cow or an ass.
Like dried meat hung on hooks from one’s base nature,
One’s soul, tied thus to causes, won’t grow greater.
That realm where causes are all torn to bits
Is God’s earth ,* mighty ruler here, and it’s
Replaced each moment—souls can actually see
The world’s renewal so explicitly.
Though it be paradise and its famed rivers,
It would turn ugly with unchanging features.
Explaining that every human sense perception also has different objects of perception which the other senses are unaware of, in the same way that every skilled craftsman is a stranger to the work of the other ski
lled craftsmen, and its lack of awareness about what is not its business does not prove that those objects of perception don’t exist. Although it denies them due to its condition, here by its denial we don’t mean anything but lack of awareness.
Your own perception limits your world view;2385
Your unclean senses veil the pure from you.
Cleanse them in mystic vision’s streams some moments;
Deem this the Sufis’ washing of their garments.
Once you are pure the souls of men who’re holy
Will tear the veil off so they join you fully.
If light and images were everywhere,
The eyes would certainly then be aware.
You’ve shut yours and you bring ears in their place
To show them a fair maiden’s curls and face:
‘We can’t see images,’ the ears make clear,2390
‘But if the image makes noise we can hear.
We’re knowledgeable in the field we’ve chosen,
Which is when there’s a sound or words are spoken.’
If you say, ‘Come and see this beauty, nose.’
It’s not the right fit for what you propose.
‘If it were musk or roses,’ it will say,
‘I’d smell them. All my knowledge comes this way.
How can I see the beauty’s face? Don’t ask
Of me such an impossible new task.’
The crooked sense sees everything as flawed,2395
Even if you go properly to God.
Cross-eyed eyes never see what’s singular—
My noble friend, of this you should be sure.
Moses said, ‘Pharaoh, you’re false totally;
You think you are not different to me.
Do not compare me with yourself, for you
Perceive one thing as if it’s really two.
Just for one moment see me through my seeing,
To then perceive a realm beyond your being,
And flee from name and honour’s narrow well,2400
Then see pure love within pure love. Farewell.’
When you’ve fled body, then you’ll realize
That ear and nose can both change into eyes.
Bayazid’s saying’s true and not a lie:
‘A mystic’s every hair becomes an eye.’
Eyes were not eyes at first, as you should know,
Inside the womb when in an embryo.
The eye’s white fat is not what gives you sight;
If not, how come you dream with eyes shut tight?
Demons can also see as can the jinn2405
Although their eyes don’t have white fat within.
There was no link between white fat and vision;*
The Loving Maker has made that connection.
Man comes from dust, but doesn’t look like it;
Jinn are of fire with naught else mixed with it.
The jinn do not resemble fire, of course,
However hard you look, though that’s their source.
Birds are of air and don’t resemble it;
God linked together things, though they don’t fit.
The link between such ‘branches’ and their ‘root’ 2410
Is out of reach for reason to compute.
When Man is born of dust originally
How then are son and father linked? Tell me.
If there’s a link, it’s veiled from understanding:
Reason can’t know what’s outside rationalizing.
If eyeless vision were not gained from God,
How could the wind have recognized the Aad?
How could it have told faithful one from foe,
Or wine from cup, if God did not bestow?
If Nimrod’s fire did not have eyes to see,2415
Could Abraham have been saved specially?
If parting waves did not possess that vision,
How did it tell a Jew from an Egyptian?
If hills and mountains lacked perception, why
Did they join David with words from on high?*
And if the ground did not have eyes within,
How should it then have swallowed Korah in?
The moaning pillar had eyes in its heart
Knowing the time Mohammad would depart.*
If gravel could not see to understand,2420
How then did it bear witness in a hand?*
O intellect, stretch your wings and recite:
‘The earth was made to quake with awesome might. ’*
How can the earth speak up at Resurrection
On good and evil if it does lack vision?
She’ll share her knowledge and experience, and
Reveal her secrets so we understand .*
Moses said, ‘His dispatching me to you
Is proof the sender was aware and knew
That such a medicine fits perfectly2425
To remedy this actual malady.
You had yourself foreseen that God would choose
Me, Moses, for this mission and would use
The rod and light in my hand with success
To shatter your horn of presumptuousness.
And this is why the Lord of all religions
Showed you a future through such scary visions
That suit your evil soul’s wish to rebel—
So you’ll know He knows what suits you as well,
So you’ll know He is wise and knowing; Hē2430
Can heal the sickness with no remedy.
Due to interpreting, you had turned blind
To them, and thought “It’s sleep’s tricks on my mind.”
Then that astrologer and that physician,
Though they saw flashes of the truth, kept hidden
Selfishly all the facts: “Anxiety,”
One said, “Does not suit your great majesty.
Exotic food can lead to strange dreams, too,
Or food that simply disagrees with you,”
Because he saw you did not seek good counsel,2435
Being short-fused, bloodthirsty, far from humble.
Real kings kill for reform, which they must manage,
Their mercy though is greater than their damage.
The king should have what’s like his own Lord’s nature:
His mercy does prevail above His anger.*
Anger should not prevail as with the Devil,
Such that he sheds blood needlessly through evil.
Neither a mildness that’s effete, for then
His wife and handmaid would choose other men.
You’ve made your breast the Devil’s home today,2440
And made spite the direction that you pray.
Your sharp horn has left many with guts torn—
Behold, my rod can break your shameless horn!’
How worldly people attack other-worldly people and push against them as far as the border of reproduction and generation, which is the frontier of the Unseen, and how the other-worldly are unaware of the ambush, for the infidel makes an assault when the holy warrior is not fighting.
In their attack the worldly people’s forces
Surged at the mystic people’s central fortress,
To seize the passes to the Unseen realm,
So holy ones won’t come from there to them.
When holy warriors aren’t fighting, then
The infidels surge—they’re contrary men.
When the Unseen’s pure warriors, out of kindness,2445
Refrain from combat, you men who are hideous
Attack the passes that connect this sphere,
So men from the Unseen won’t come down here.
You wrenched their loins and wombs through wicked ways,
So you could then control birth’s passageways.
How can you seize the route the Glorious One
Opened for procreation? Stubborn one,
You blocked the frontier passes to end doubt,
But still a captive managed to get out.<
br />
Behold! I am that captain and I’ll break2450
Your power, name, and honour for His sake.
Come, block the passes tightly and then smile
At your own honour’s moustache for a while—
Fate will tear out your moustache hair by hair:
‘Fate makes precaution blind ’ will be shown there.
Is yours or is the Aad’s moustache more scary
When all lands trembled at their breath, so wary?
Is yours or the Thamud’s a fiercer face
When their like’s not found in the human race?
If I give more examples now to you,2455
Deaf one, you’ll hear but still pretend not to.
I now repent of speech I’ve used, like sin;
Without it I’ve made you some medicinē
Which I’ll place on your boil that is so tender—
With your beard it will heal or burn forever,
So that, foe, you’ll know He’s informed and gives
What is most fitting to each thing that lives.
When have you ever acted wickedly
And not seen what fits that eventually?
When have you sent a good deed heavenward2460
And not seen its like come back as reward?
If you remain alert and are observant,
You’ll see your action’s answer come each moment.
If you’re observant and grasp straight away,
You will not need to wait till Judgement Day.
The one who takes the hint correctly here
Won’t need to wait until it’s all made clear.
Stupidity is what gives you depression
When you don’t grasp the hint and the allusion.
Your heart turned black due to your evil, so2465
Learn that one shouldn’t act that way below,
Lest arrow-like that darkness reaches you
And brings the punishment for evil too.
And if the arrow hasn’t come, that’s been
Due to God’s mercy. What you did was seen.
So be observant if you are in need
Of heart—something is born from every deed.
And if you have a loftier aspiration,
This venture goes beyond close observation.
Explaining that the earthly body of Man, like high-quality iron, is capable of becoming a mirror, so that even while in this world, inside it heaven, hell, the Resurrection, and other things are shown to direct vision and not just through imagining.
Though you’re dark matter, just like iron, you2470
Should nonetheless start burnishing well too.
Until your heart completely fills inside
The Masnavi, Book Four Page 19