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GULSHAN-I RÂZ
گلشن راز
The
Mystic Rose Garden
SHEIKH MAHMÛD
SHABISTARI
Edited
by: Dr. Necati Aksu
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QUESTION XV.
865
Idols, girdles and Christianity in this discourse
Are all infidelity ; if not, say what they are.
ANSWER XV.
866
Here idol is the
evidence of love and unity,
Girdle is the binding of the bond of obedience.
867
Since infidelity and faith are both based on Being,
Idol-worship is essentially Unification. 1
868
Since all tilings are the manifestors of Being,
One amongst them must be an idol.
869
Consider well, wise man,
An idol as regards its real being is not vain.
2
870
Know that God Most High created it,
And whatever comes from the Good is good.
871
Being is purely good in whatever it be,
If it also contains evil, that proceeds from ' other.'
3
872
If the Musulman but knew what is faith,
He would see that faith is idol-worship.
873
If the polytheist only knew what idols are,
How would he be wrong in his
religion ?
874
He sees in idols naught but the visible creature,
4
And that is the reason that he is legally a heathen.
875
You also, if you see not " The Truth" hid in the idols,
In the eye of the law are not a Musulman.
876
By telling beads and saying prayers and reading the Koran
The heathen becomes not a Musulman.
877
That man is disgusted with superficial faith,
To whom the true infidelity has once been revealed.
878
Within every body is hidden a soul,
And within infidelity is hidden true faith.
879
Infidelity is ever giving praise to " The Truth;"
The text, "All things praise God," proves it. Who can gain say
it ?
5
880
What am I saying ? I have gone astray from the road
?
6
" Leave them, and after all tliat is revealed, say, God,"
7
881
Who adorned the face of the idol with such beauty ?
Who became an idol-worshipper,
unless " The Truth "
willed it ?
882
It is He that made, He that said, He that
is,
8
Made good, said good, is good.
883
See but One, say One, know but One,
In this are summed up the roots and branches of faith.
884
It is not I who declare this ; hear it from the Koran,
" There is no distinction in the creatures of the Merciful."
9
INDICATION
OF THE GIRDLE.
885
The knotted girdle is the emblem of obedience.
I have looked and seen the origin of every thing,
886
For the wise man finds no trustworthy information
As to anything except in its original usage.
10
887
Gird your loins, like a valiant man, with manliness,
Join the band who "fulfil my covenant."
11
888
With the horse of knowledge and the
bat of obedience
Bear off from the field the ball of good fortune.
889
For this duty did God create you,
Albeit He created many creatures besides you.
12
890
Knowledge is as a father, practice a mother
Of mystic states which are " a joy of the eyes."
13
891
Doubtless, there is no mortal man but has a father,
14
There was never but one Messiah in the world.
15
892
Cast aside vain tales, and mystic states and visions,
Dreams of lights, and marvels of miracles.
16
893
Your miracles are comprised in " Truth" worship,
17
All besides is pride, vain glory and illusion of existence.
894
In this path whatever is not of poverty of spirit
Is but being puffed up and
seeking our own glory.
18
895
By cursed Iblis, who witnesses not verity,
Are wrought thousands of miracles.
896
Now he approaches from the wall, now from the roof,
Now he dwells in your heart, now in your body.
897
He knows all the hidden counsels of your heart,
He works in you unbelief, and transgression and sin.
898
Iblis is the Imam, and you his followers,
19
But how can you rival him in his miracles ?
899
If your miracles are wrought only in self- ostentation,
You are a Pharaoh, to wit, one arrogating divinity.
900
But he who has fellowship with " The Truth"
Is never one who vaunts himself.
901
All your regard is set on creatures ; Beware
That you fall not into captivity of this disease.
20
902
If you consort with the base, you become an animal ;
Nay, not an animal, but at
once a stone.
21
903
Flee from connection with the base,
Lest you fall headlong from your natural rank.
904
You have wasted your precious life in trifling,
You think not of what use is such a life as yours.
905
They call it peace when it is confusion,
They take an ass for their guide see his beard !
22
906
The leadership having now
devolved on fools,
All men have fallen on evil days.
907
See the one-eyed
Dajjal,
23 in what way
He is sent into the world as an ensample.
908
See this ensample, man of sense !
Know him for the ass whose name is Jassds.
909
See all these asses in the toils of that ass,
Being the forerunners in ignorance
of that ass.
910
When our lord told the story of the latter days,
In several places he signified this matter.
911
See now how there are blind and gluttons,
All knowledge of the faith has departed to heaven.
912
There remain not in the midst courtesy and modesty,
None have shame for their ignorance.
913
The whole condition of the world is upset ;
If you are wise, see in what state
it is.
914
One who is accursed and banned and hated
Is now Shaikh of the age, because his father was good.
915
Yet that wicked son was slain by Khizr,
24
Because his father and grandfather were good.
916
O
ass, now you have chosen for your Shaikh
An ass who is more ass-like than yourselves.
917
For as much as " he knoivs not cat from mouse,"
25
How will your secret be purified through him ?
918
If the son shows a trace of his father,
What shall I say ? Verily he is light upon light.
919
If the son be of good judgment
and fortune,
He is as fruit, the cream and perfection of the tree.
920
But how can he be
Shaikh of the faith,
Who knows not good from evil, evil from good ?
921
Discipleship is learning the knowledge of the faith,
Kindling with light the lamp of the heart.
922
Did ever one learn knowledge from the dead ?
Was ever lamp lighted from ashes ?
923
For this cause my mind" is resolved on this,
To gird my loins with the Magian girdle.
26
924
Not for this cause that I may gain fame,
That I have, but am ashamed of it.
27
925
Since my rival is base for this cause,
My obscurity is preferable to his fame.
926
Again an inspiration came to me from " The Truth,"
" Cavil not at Wisdom because
of a fool."
28
927
If there were no sweepers in the world,
The world would be buried in dust.
928
After all, the bond of genus connects us all
So goes the world,
Allah is all-ivise.
929
Nevertheless flee from the society of the base,
If you seek to be a true servant abandon form ;
29
930
Form accords not with true obedience,
Practise true obedience, and abandon form.
INDICATION
ON CHRISTIANITY.
931
In Christianity the end I see is purification from
self,
30
Deliverance from the yoke of bondage.
31
932
The blessed portal of Unity is the sanctuary of the soul,
Which is the nest of the Everlasting the Simurg.
933
This doctrine was taught by God's spirit (Jesus),
Who proceeded from the Blessed Spirit.
32
934
Also by God is placed in you a soul,
Wherein is a sample of the Blessed Spirit.
935
If you find release from the carnal mind of humanity,
You will obtain entrance to the life of Divinity.
936
Every man who is purified as angels are pure
Will ascend with God's spirit to the fourth heaven.
ILLUSTRATION.
33
937
The infant that sucks the breast is confined
At his mother's side in a cradle.
938
But when he is grown up and able to travel,
If he is manly he goes with his father.
939
The elements are to you as your mother after the flesh,
You are an infant, and your father is the Father on high.
34
940
For this cause said Jesus at the time of His ascension,
" I go unto my
Father which is on high."
35
941
You too, soul of your Father, turn to your Father,
Your companions are gone, go forth too.
942
If you desire to take wing as a bird,
Cast the carrion world to the vultures.
943
Give to the base the treacherous world,
It is not meet to give carrion but to dogs.
36
944
What matters relationship ? Seek your real friend,
Set your face towards " The Truth," forsake relations.
37
945
For him who is drowning in the sea of not being,
The text " no relation" 38 is the coin of his state.
946
Every relationship that arises from lust
Yields no issue but pride and high-mindedness.
947
If lust remained not in the midst,
All relations would become an empty tale.
948
When lust is doing its work in the
midst,
One becomes a father, another a mother.
949
I say not what your father and mother are,
For it behoves you to regard them
with reverence.
950
The deficient in sense is called sister,
39
The envious is named brother.
951
Your own enemy is called your son,
40
And a stranger your kinsman.
952
Say then who are your paternal and maternal uncles,
What proceeds from them but pain and wrinkles ?
953
The companions who are with you
on the mystic path,
O
brother, are also companions in foolish jesting. 41
954
If you sit in the street of their pleasantry,
What good can I say you see of them ?
955
All relations are a fairy tale, a
spell, a bond,
By the soul of the prophet they are naught but a delusion.
956
With manliness deliver yourself like a valiant man,
But yet make not vain the truth of any.
42
957
If one atom of the law be neglected,
You will be excluded from the faith in both worlds.
958
Beware ! Omit not the duties of the law,
But at the same time have regard to yourself.
959
From gold and women
43 comes naught but store of pain,
Abandon them as Jesus abandoned Mary.
960
Be a " true believer,"
44 and forsaking the bond of sects,
Enter the cloister of faith as a Christian monk.
45
961
While " other" and "others" are set before your eyes,
Though you be in a mosque, it is no better than a Christian
cloister.
962
When the vesture of " other" passes out of sight,
The cloister becomes to you as a mosque.
46
963
I know not in what religious state you are,
Cast out your adversary the flesh,
that you may escape.
964
Idols, girdles, Christianity and church bells
All indicate the renouncing of name and fame.
965
If you would become a faithful servant,
Prepare yourself in faithfulness and sincerity.
966
Go, take yourself out of your own road,
Every moment renew your faith.
967
While infidelity dwells in your inmost soul,
Be not satisfied with this outward Islam.
968
Of yourself every moment renew your faith,
Be a believer, Be a believer, Be a believer !
969
Verily faith is born of infidelity,
That is not infidelity from which faith is increased.
970
Abandon study to be seen and heard of men,
Cast off the Durvesh cloak, bind on the Magian girdle.
971
Be as our Magian sage in pure infidelity,
If you are a man, give your heart to
manliness.
972
Purge yourself from affirmations and negations,
Give your mind wholly to the young Christian.
INDICATION
OF IDOLS AND YOUNG CHRISTIANS.
47
973
Idols and young Christians are the Light made manifest,
For it finds its exponent in the idol's face.
974
It leads captive all hearts,
It is now the minstrel, now the cupbearer.
975
What a minstrel is he who by one sweet melody
Burns up the garners of a hundred devotees !
48
976
What a cupbearer is he who by a
single cup
Makes drunken two hundred men of threescore and ten !
977
If he enters the mosque at early dawn,
He leaves not a single wakeful man therein.
49
978
If he enters the cloister drunken at night,
He makes Sufis' stories an empty tale.
979
If he enters the college as a veiled drunkard,
The professor becomes helplessly drunken.
980
From love to him devotees lost their heads,
And became outcasts from house and home.
981
He makes one faithful, another an infidel,
50
He fills the world with tumult and wrong.
982
Taverns have been edified by his lips,
Mosques have been illumined by his cheek. 51
983
All my desire has been accomplished through him,
Through him I gained deliverance from infidel lust.
984
My heart was hid from
knowledge of itself by a hundred veils,
By pride and vanity and self conceit and illusion.
985
That fair idol entered my
door at early morn,
And wakened me from the sleep of negligence.
986
By his face the secret chamber of my soul was illumined.
Thereby I saw what I myself really am.
987
When I cast a look on his fair face
I
heaved a sigh of wonder from my soul.
988
He said to me, "O Pharisee and hypocrite,
" Thy life has been spent in seeking name and fame,
989
"Behold this knowledge, devotion, self seeking and illusion,
" From what have
they kept thee back, laggard !
990
" To cast one glance on my face for half a
moment,
" Is worth a thousand years of devotion."
991
In fine the face of that world-adorner
Was disclosed and unveiled before my eyes.
992
The face of my soul was blackened with shame
To think of my life lost and my wasted days.
993
But when that moon, whose face was as the sun,
Saw that I had cast away hope from my soul,
994
He filled a goblet and gave it me to drink,
52
And from that draught fire was kindled within me.
995
" Now," quoth he, " with
this wine, tasteless and odourless,
53
" Wash from thee the writing on the tablet of Being."
996
When I had drained that pure draught to the last drop
I fell beside myself on the bare dust.
997
Now I neither exist in myself, nor do I not exist,
I am not sober, not sick, not drunken.
998
Sometimes like his eye I am joyful,
Sometimes like his curls I am fluttering.
999
Sometimes by force of nature I am lying on ashes,
Sometimes at a look from him I am in the rose garden.
54
1 For if ' other ' exists ' unification
' is impossible.
' Other ' involves shirk, giving
partners to God, Manichasanism. L. Compare Hafiz (Brockhaus), Ode 79 : " Between
the love of the cloister and that of the tavern there is no difference, For
wherever love is, there is the light of the face of the Beloved. Wherever the
pious works of the Moslem hermitage display their beauty,
There are the bells of the Christian convent and the name of the Cross."
2 See note on couplet 236.
3 I. e. not being and plurality. L. See couplet 033.
4 I. e. the phenomenal. L.
5 See note on couplet 440.
6 I. e. far from the road of the external positive law, but yet leave gainsayers
and
say of all it is God. L.
7 Say God (has sent down the Koran), and then leave
them to amuse themselves with their vain discourses." Koran, Sura VI. 91.
8 Said, i. e. be an idol-worshipper. L.
9 Koran, Sura LXVII. 3.
10 See couplet 728.
11 Koran, Sura II.
38 : "O children of Israel, fulfil your covenant with me,"
i.e. obedience. See couplet 419.
12 Koran, Sura LI. 56 : "I have not created .Tins and men save to serve and
obey me."
13 " No soul knoweth the joy of the eyes which is secretly prepared for them as a
reward for that which they have wrought." Koran, Sura XXXII. 18. See
1 Cor. ii. 9.
14 Knowledge, the father, is necessary, as well as obedience or practice, the
mother,
to bring men to the good fortune of Union. L.
15 See Koran, Sura III. 42.
16 Compare couplet 849 and note.
17 Miracles, karamat, also mighty works, honour, as in couplet 554.
18 Miracles, if done to be seen of men, are a cause of egoism. L.
19 Because you work miracles for self-ostentation. L.
20 I. e. the wish to be thought a mighty worker of miracles. You seek the appro
bation of the base, and, by consorting with them, sink to their level. L.
21 Naskh transmigration of the soul into men,
maskh into animals, raskh into
plants
and into minerals, faskh into all. L. See Schmoluers (Documenta, p. 123).
22 I. e. the mark of the popular Shaikh. L. This passage would seem to have
been written under the influence of personal animosity against some particular
popular teacher, but Lahiji treats it as of only general application.
23 Dajjal, Antichrist, and
Jassâs, the spy, a mighty beast sixty cubits high,
will
appear as precursors of the last day. Sale's Koran, Prelim. Discourse, p. 57,
and Sura XXVII. 83, 84. 1 John ii. 18. 1 Tim. iv. 1.
24 See Koran,
Sura XVIII. 61. Khizr slew him because he feared that his parents
would suffer for their son's perverseness.
25 Or ' calling cattle, from driving them away,' or
' good from evil.'
26 I. e., as a mark of distinction from the ignorant Shaikh, who cleaves only to
outward form. L.
27 Because it is shared with the ignorant Shaikh. L.
28 Because all things are created for some purpose. L.
29 'Ibadat, servitude, obedience, devotion.
'Adat, custom, usage, habit, form,
mechanical religion, routine. Lahiji explains it as
' the five pillars
' of the Moslem
law, viz. reciting the creed, prayer, fasting, alms and pilgrimage. St. Paul's '
righte- ousness of the law.'
30 Purification from self,
tajrid. See note on couplet 86. So in couplet 936
below,
purified, mujarrad:
" If you ascend, like Messiah, pure and free to heaven."
Hafiz.
31 Bondage, taklid. See note on couplet 109.
32 The Holy Ghost, or "
Blessed Spirit," is by Muhammadans identified with the
angel Gabriel, the Divine Messenger. See Deutsch, Remains, p. 80, and Koran, Sura II. 81, III. 40. The Jewish expositors seem to have held the same view.
Rodwell sub loco.
33 On the spiritual ascension of the human soul.
34 Father âba. See Rom. viii. 15.
35 See John xx. 17.
36 Alluding to the
Hadis : " The world is carrion, and they that seek it are dogs."
N.
37 Jesus had no relations says Lahiji, possibly alluding to Matt. xii. 48.
38 When the trumpet shall be sounded, there shall be no relation between them
on that day, neither shall they ask aid of one another." Koran, Sura XXIII. 103.
39 See couplet 186.
40 Koran, Sura LXIV. 14 : "
Verily in your wives and children you have enemies."
41 Even the relationship of the Sufi
tarikat must be renounced. L.
42 Compare
Tennyson,
" In Memoriam," xxxiii.
43 Hammer reads sozan, needle, and says there is a legend that Jesus at the time
of his ascension had a needle stuck in the border of his garment, and could not
obtain entrance to heaven till he had cast it away.
44 " Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was of the true religion,
a
true believer (Hanifun Muslimun), and not one of the idolaters." Koran,
Sura III.
60. This "
religion of Abraham "
is, according to Deutsch (Remains, pp. 94, 128), the clue to Islam. The Hanifs,
mentioned in the Talmud, seem to have instructed Muhammad in the Jewish faith
and doctrines.
45 I. e. renouncing all worldly relations. L.
46 Koran, Sura II. 59 : " Verily Muslims and Jews and Christians and Sabeites
whoever of these believeth in God and the last day, and doeth that which is
right,
shall have his reward with the Lord." Compare Acts x. 35 : " In every nation he
that fearethHim and worketh, righteousness is accepted with Him,"
47 Young Christian,
i.e. the Pir or spiritual guide. L.
48 I.e., their self regard. L.
49 They learn their waking to be an ' illusion.' L.
50 This is the effect of preaching the truth. L.
51 The tavern is the exponent of the Divine
jalal, and the mosque of jamal. L.
52 The cup of Ma'rifat, or Divine knowledge. L.
53 I. e., pure from phenomenal qualities. L.
54 This is descriptive of the alternations of
sahu, sobriety, and mahu,
intoxication
of union. L.
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