76

And when you pass on from this in thinking, ⁴
It is called by the learned interpretation. ⁵

But to learn of what kind this arrangement is,

Reference must be made to books of logic.

81

Moreover, unless divine guidance aids it,
Verily logic is mere bondage of forms. ⁷

82

That road is long and hard, leave it,

Like Moses for a season cast away that staff. ⁸

83

Come for a season into the " Valley of Peace," ⁹
Hear with faith the call, " Verily I am God."

84

He that knows " The Truth," ¹⁰ and to whom Unity is revealed,
Sees at the first glance the light of very Being.

Nay more, as he sees by illumination that pure Light,
He sees God first in everything that he sees ;

86

Abstraction ¹¹ is a condition of good thinking,
For then the lightning of divine guidance illumines us.

87

To him, whom God guides not into the road,
It will not be disclosed by use of logic.

88

Forasmuch as the philosopher is bewildered,
He sees in things nothing but the contingent ;

89

From the contingent he seeks to prove the necessary,
Therefore is he bewildered at the essence of the necessary.

Sometimes he travels backwards in a circle, ¹²

Sometimes he is imprisoned in the chain of proofs.

91

While his reason goes deep into phenomenal existence,
His feet are caught hi the chain of proofs.

92

All things are manifested through their likes,
But " The Truth " has neither rival nor like,

93

Since " The Truth " has neither rival nor peer,
I know not how you can know Him. ¹³

94

Necessary matter has no sample in contingent : ¹⁴

How can man know it, tell me how ? ¹⁵

Fool that he is ! for he seeks the blazing sun

By the dim light of a torch in the desert.
 

ILLUSTBATION.¹⁶

96

If the sun tarried always in one position,
And if his shining were all after one manner,

97

None would know that these beams are from him,
There would be no distinction between kernel and husk.

98

Know the whole world is a beam of the light of" The Truth,"
Yet " The Truth" within it is concealed from manifestation ; ¹⁷

99

And since the light of " The Truth " alters not nor varies,
And is void of change and transitoriness,

So you fancy that this world of itself is permanent
And enduring always of its own nature.

101

A man who relies on far-sighted reason ¹⁸

Has much bewilderment before him,

102

From far-sightedness of overweening reason

One derives philosophy, another the Incarnation. ¹⁹

103

Reason cannot endure the light of that face,

Go ! that you may behold it, seek another eye.

104

Since the two eyes of the philosopher see double, ²⁰

He is impotent to behold the unity of " The Truth."

From blindness arose the doctrine of ' Assimilation,' ²¹

From one-eyedness that of God's remoteness. ²²

106

From the same cause arose false and vain Metempsychosis, ²³

Since it had its origin from defective sight.

107

He is like one born blind, cut off from perfection,
The man who follows the road of schism, ²⁴

108

Men of externals have ophthalmia in both eyes, ²⁵
For they see in external objects naught but the external.

109

The theologian ²⁶ who has no perception of Unitarianism ²⁷
Is in utter darkness in clouds and bondage of dogmas ; ²⁸

Whatever each says about Unity, more or less,
Affords a specimen of his own power of insight.

111

The Divine Essence is freed from where, how, and why. ²⁹

Let His glory be exalted above what men say of Him. ³⁰

1 Thinking is the means to reach knowledge of God, m'arifat ; and thinking is of two kinds, logical demonstration, and spiritual illumination. L.

2 Tasawwur, conception, " idea."
3 Tazakkar, reminiscence, the anamnesis of Plato. All major premisses, or lirst principles, says Lahiji, are gained by intuition, or reminiscence of ideas known to the mind in a former state.
4 Compare Risala Shamsiya 5, ' Part is intuitive and part is inferential and the result of thought, i.e. of such an arrangement of known things, that it leads to the knowledge of unknown things.' See Aristotle, An Pri. I. L 6.
5 'Ibrat, from 'abr, passing over, interpretation, explication, probably a translation of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias, which treats of propositions.
6 Tasdik, assertion, verification, proposition, as in Risala Shamsiya 3.

7 Taklid. See note on couplet 109.
8 Koran, Sura XX. 14 and 11 : " What is that in thy right hand, Moses ? He answered, It is my staff whereon I lean, and wherewith I beat down leaves for my flock. God said, Cast it down, Moses ! And he cast it down, and behold it became a serpent, which ran about .... And when he was come near unto it (the
burning bush), a voice called to him, saying, Moses, verily I am thy Lord,
wherefore put off thy shoes, for thou art in the sacred Valley
' Towa.' "
9 I.e., the tarikat, or Sufi's progress and course of illumination which leads him to
the true knowledge of God. L.
10 The Truth, Hakk, is the usual Sufi expression for the Absolute Divine Being.
11 Tajrid, stripping off, making bare, seclusion from the world, logical abstraction, purification from self. Lahiji explains it as ' Passing by the stages of carnal lusts, and mental operations, and human pleasures and relations, and emerging from the limitation of self, which veils man's real essence.' Similarly, Plotinus directs the mys tical aspirant to ' simplify his nature,' that he may become identified with the infinite. And Dionysius, the pseudo-Areopagite, exhorts his disciple ' to abandon the senses and all operations of the intellect, all objects of sense and all objects of thought, and ignorantly to strive upwards towards union with Him who is above all essence and knowledge ; inasmuch as by separation of himself from all things, he will be exalted to the super-essential radiance of the Divine darkness.' Yaughan, Hours with the Mystics, I. 288.

12 He argues in a circle ; proves one contingent proposition by another contingent, which in its turn is proved by the first, and so on in an endless circle. L.
13 Sense supplies us with finite objects only, and reason has only these finite objects to work on. It cannot transcend them, or mount from them to the infinite.
14 The figment of contingent being occurs for the first time in the fifth book of Plato's Eepublic. Being, he argues, is the object of knowledge, and not being of ignorance, and therefore opinion which lies between them must have an object of its own as well, and this object is intermediate or contingent being, which is and is not, and partakes both of existence arid non-existence. On this Professor Jowett notes : " Plato did not remark that the degrees of knowledge in the subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object. With him a word must answer to an idea, he could not conceive of an opinion which was an opinion about nothing." Jowett' s Plato, II. 59.
15 Compare Hafiz, Ode 355 (Brockhaus 1 edition) :
     ' But how can our eyes behold Thee as Thou art ?
     ' As our sight is, so see we, and only in part.'
16 Tamsil, simile, analogy in logic. Schmolders (Documenta Philosophise Arabum).
This illustration was probably suggested by Ghazzali. See Lewes, History of
Philosophy, II. 51.

17 Compare Tennyson,
' The Higher Pantheism ' :
     ' The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,
       Are not these, Soul, the vision of Him who reigns ?
       Is not the vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems ? '
18 Far-sighted reason goes astray because it looks afar off for" The Truth," which is nearer to us than our neck vein.' L.
19 The philosopher regards necessary and contingent matter as two distinct
entities, whereas there is only the ' One.' L.
20 Halul, descending, descent of the Spirit, the incarnation of God in Christ. L. The Sufi sect called Nasriak, or Haluliah, held that God had descended into indi vidual men. See Sale's Koran, Prelim. Discourse, 125; Malcolm's Persia, II. 271.
21 Tashbih, assimilation. The " Assimilators," says Lahiji, liken God to a material body dwelling above the highest heaven, 'arsli, (i.e. they are, as we should say, anthropomorphists). Lahiji says these two doctrines are erroneous apart, but true together. God is remote from contingency, but is connected with the phenomenal world in that it is His reflection.
22 Tanzih, declaring God to be without an equal, exalted above, and remote from matter.
23 Tanasukh, transmigration of souls.

24 The schismatics, or Mutazzalites, deny the eternity, baka, of God, and are therefore debarred from attaining to true insight into the verities of things. L.
25 The men of externals (ahl i Zahir) are dominated by externals, and do not
penetrate to " The Truth" within them. L.
26 The Mutakallamin, or scholastic theologians, are
' they who tread the road to Divine knowledge with the foot of logic and not of illumination.' L. Al-kalam is defined in the Dabistan as the science enabling one to confirm the truth of religion by logical demonstration, and thus corresponds to the scholasticism of mediaeval Europe.
27 Tauhid, Unification, Unitarianism, belief in God's unity, acknowledging that all things are One. See Answer VII. and Hafiz (Brockhaus' edition), Ode 405 :
     ' Hafiz, when preaching unity, with Unitarian pen
       Blot out and cancel every page that tells of spirits and men.'

In the Dabistan, chapter xi., is given a list of the principal technical terms of the Muhammadan faith, with their exoteric or ordinary meanings, and with the esoteric meanings given to them by Miyan Bayazid, a Punjabi Sufi. The work of Tauhid is said to be " To annihilate self in the absolute Truth, and to become eternal in the Absolute, and to be made one with the One, and to abstain from evil."
28 Taklid, putting a collar on the neck, blind imitation, canting, bondage, subservience to authority ; compare the definition of religio from religare. Old women's religion is said to consist of taklid. The perfected Sufi advances from the stage of bondage, taklid, to that of absolute liberty and consciousness of truth, itlak wa tahkik. Compare St. Paul's expressions, " carnal ordinances," " law of a carnal commandment," " the yoke of bondage."
29 I.e., from quantity, quality, and relation. He is therefore incognoscible by the mind of man so long as it is not ' illumined ' by Divine grace. L.
30 Koran, Sura XVI. 3 : ' Let Him be exalted above the gods they join with Him.'