1 Being is a sea whereof phenomenal manifestations are the waves ; speech is the
shore, because speech, logos proforikos, is the differentia of man (animal
rationale), who is the epitome of phenomenal existence, and the differentia of a class is
its limit
or boundary from other classes. Knowledge of the heart=Divine verities. L.
2 Wave here means human soul or reason. L.
3 Knowledge is only communicable by language. L.
4 Shore was before compared to speech, here to body, i. e. the totality of man.
L.
5 Faiz, emanation ;
faiz-ul-kadis, emanation of Divine grace. De Sacy, Notices
desMSS.,X. 66.
6 Compare Koran, Sura II. 29 : "And he taught Adam the names of all things."
7 Nafs has here the double sense of soul and wind, blowing the pearl-oysters to
the shore. L.
8 The end of knowledge is action or practice, and practice of virtuous acts
leads to the acquirement of good habits,
' states
' or knowledge of heart, or ecstatic
states. L.
9 I. e. from the body, mere bodily acts. L.
10 Bodily actions are to knowledge of the word or of the faith or external
science, 'ilm ul yakin, as body is to soul ; and again knowledge of the word is
to ' states
' or knowledge of heart, 'ayn ul yakin, as bodily actions to knowledge of the
word. L.
11 Alluding to the
Hadis, "An angel enters not a house where there are dogs or
forms."
12 Koran, Sura XLI. 53 : " We will show them our signs in the quarters of the
heavens, and in their own souls." See a passage from Kant quoted in Hamilton's
Metaphysics, I. 38 : " Two things there are which the oftener and the more stead
fastly we consider them, fill the mind with an ever-new and an ever-increasing
admira tion and reverence, the starry heaven above, and the moral law within."
13 I. e., equipoise or the mean.
14 "The sage is he who knows things as they are (speculative wisdom), and acts
as he ought (practical wisdom)." Aklilak-i-Nasiri, Preface.
15 This Aristotelian doctrine of the ' mean
' is found in the Akhlak-i-Nasiri, I. 4, and in the Akhlak-i-Jalali, I. 4, where also occurs the comparison with the bridge, See Esdras, ii. 7.
16 Khamad, ' letting the fire out,'
' insensibility,' anaesthesia (Nicom. Eth., III. 10), Akhlak-i-Nasiri, I. part II., chapter 5.
17 This refers to the bridge over hell. Compare couplet 382, note.
18 Koran, Sura XV. 44 : " Hell hath seven gates." So in the
Midrash. Rodwell
sub loco.
19 Lahiji says fire, water, earth, and air, the four elements of which bodies are
com pounded, lose their individual qualities in the compound bodies, and
equipoise
(equity) is what unites them into homogeneous compounds. See Grant, Nico machaan
Ethics, I. 204.
20 In Akhlak-i-Jalali, I. 5, it is said : " The connection of soul with body is
by means of a perfect proportion or equipoise existing between the elementary
particles, wherefore the dissolution of that proportion effects the severance of
that connection,
(i.e. death)." The same doctrine is found in Al Farabi, 'Ayun-ul-Masail, chapter
xix. See Schmolders, Documenta, p. 114, and Milton's Paradise Lost, V. 470.
21 I. e. man's body. L.
22 Koran, Sura XV. 29 : "We breathed into him of our spirit." Equipoise of body
is what attracts this increment of spirit. L.
23 This explains how the connection of spirit with body is not by way of a
compound,
but by way of nexus, spirit being attached ab extra to body. L. Compare Tauler,
quoted in Vaughan, I. 62 : " God pours himself out into our spirit, as the sun
rays
forth its natural light into the air, and fills it with sunshine, so that no eye
can tell the difference between the sunshine and the air. If the union of the
sun and air cannot be distinguished, how far less this divine union of the
created body and
uncreated spirit."
24 Koran, Sura IX. 36: "This is the right faith." The marriage is between
reasonable soul, nafs-i-natika, the 'essence of man,' and body, the 'form of
man.' L.
25 Universal Soul is the compendium of all particular souls. L.
26 Mulakat, heavenly, which is the motive power of earthly beauty. Lahiji says it
is a spark from the light of Unity, and is one though manifested in various
theatres.
27 " In truth there is one and the same principle, which, if prevailing in the
attempered elementary particles is equipoise of temperament, if produced in
musical
tones is excellent and delightful intervals, if apparent in the gestures is
grace, if found
in language is eloquence, if produced in the human limbs is beauty, if in the
qualities of the soul equity. Of this principle the Soul is enamoured and in
search, whatever
form it may take, whatever dress assume." Akhlak-i-Jalali, I. 5. This idea comes
from Plato. See Jowett's Plato, III. 138.
28 Alluding to Koran,
Sura XXXIII. 52 : " Though their beauty charm thee."
29 Compare Sadi's Diwan:
" I know not what sort of shrine is the brow of the fair,
For if an atheist
beholds it, he presently falls to prayer."
30 It is Divine beauty displayed in earthly beauties which attracts all hearts.
L.
31 Evil, batil, vain, false,
' what is without God.'
32 See note on couplet 673.
33 Lahiji says legal good and evil are both manifestations of " The Truth,"
because " There is no worker in creation save Allah," but yet evil comes not from God
but
from 'other,' i.e. notbeing. See couplet 871. This resembles the view of
Augustine
and Aquinas, viz. that evil is a negation, a departure from God, the source and
sum
of all existence (Mozley, Augustinian doctrine of Predestination, 253). The
Koran
is in one department of its language necessitarian, and in another department it
uses the language of free-will. Compare Sura XCI. 8. with IV. 81. At one time it
says God originates everything, evil included, at another it ascribes evil to
man's
will or Satan's. (See Mozley, ib., p. 30.)
