How a certain Shaykh said to Báyazíd, “I am the Ka‘ba: perform a circumambulation round me.”
شاعر: رومی
وزن: فاعلاتن فاعلاتن فاعلن (رمل مسدس محذوف یا وزن مثنوی)
صنف: مثنوی
Báyazíd, the Shaykh of the community, was hurrying to Mecca for the greater pilgrimage (hajj) and the lesser (‘umra).
In every city to which he went he would at first make search after the venerable (saints).
He would roam about, asking, “Who is there in the city that is relying on (spiritual) insight?”
God has said, “Whithersoever thou goest in thy travels, thou must first seek after a (holy) man.”
Go in quest of a treasure, for (worldly) profit and loss come second: regard them as the branch (not as the root).
Whoever sows is in quest of wheat; the chaff comes to him indeed, (but only) secondarily.
If you sow chaff, no wheat will come up: seek a man, seek a man, a man!
When it is the season of pilgrimage, go in quest of the Ka‘ba; when you have gone (with that purpose), Mecca also will be seen.
In the Mi‘ráj (Ascension of the Prophet) the quest was (for) vision of the Beloved; ’twas but secondarily that the empyrean and the angels were also shown.
