بخش 43 - مهلت دادن موسی علیه‌السلام فرعون را تا ساحران را جمع کند از مداین

He (Moses) said, “The (Divine) command hath come. Go, the respite is (granted) to thee. I depart to my dwelling-place: thou art delivered from me.”

He was going (on his way), and at his heels (went) the dragon wise and loving, like the hunter's dog.

Like the hunter's dog, wagging its tail: it made the stones (crumble as) sand beneath its hoof.

With its breath it drew in stone and iron (to its jaws) and visibly chewed the iron into small fragments.

In the air it was making itself (rise) above the zodiac, so that Greeks and Georgians would flee from it in panic.

From its palate it cast out foam, like a camel: whomsoever a drop hit, he was smitten with tubercular leprosy.

The gnashing of its teeth would break the heart; the souls of black lions would be distraught (with terror).

When that chosen one (Moses) reached his kinsfolk, he took hold of the corner of its mouth, and it became again a staff.

He leaned upon it, saying, “O wonder! to me (’tis clear as) the sun, to my enemy (’tis dark as) night.

O wonder! How doth this host not see a whole world filled with the sun at morning tide?

Eyes open, and ears open, and this sun! I am amazed at God's eye-bandaging.

I am amazed at them, and they too at me: (we are) from one springtime, (but) they are thorns and I am jasmine.

I bore to them many a cup of pure wine: its juice turned to stone before this company.

I twined a handful of roses and carried it to them: every rose became as a thorn, and the honey turned to poison.

That (pure wine) is the portion allotted to the selfless: since they are with themselves (not freed from self), how should it be shown (to them)?

With us, one must needs be a waking sleeper, that in the state of wakefulness he may dream dreams.”

Thought of created things is an enemy to this sweet (waking) sleep: until his (any one's) thought is asleep, his throat is shut.

A (mystical) bewilderment is needed to sweep (such) thought away: bewilderment devours (all) thought and recollection.

The more perfect he is in (worldly) science, the more backward he is in reality and the more forward in appearance.

He (God) hath said, “(Verily, to Him we are) returning”; and the return is in the same wise as a herd turns back and goes home.

When the herd has turned back from (after) going down to water, the goat that was the leader (now) falls behind (becomes the hindmost),

And the lame hindmost goat is now in front: the return caused the faces to laugh of them that were frowning (before).

How did this party (the prophets and saints) become lame and give up glory and purchase ignominy in vain?

This party go on the pilgrimage (to Reality) with broken legs, (because) there is a secret way from straitness to ease.

This company washed their hearts (clean) of (the exoteric) kinds of knowledge, because this knowledge does not know this Way.

(In order to tread this Way) one needs a knowledge whereof the root is Yonder, inasmuch as every branch is a guide to its root.

How should every wing fly across the breadth of the Sea? (Only) the esoteric knowledge will bear (thee) to the Presence (of God).

Why, then, should you teach a man the knowledge of which it behoves him to purify his breast?

Therefore do not seek to be in front: be lame on this side, and be the leader at the moment of return.

O clever one, be thou (according to the Prophet's saying, “We are) the hindmost and the foremost”: the fresh fruit is prior to the tree.

Although the fruit comes last into being, it is the first, because it was the object.

Say, like the angels, “We have no knowledge,” to the end that “Thou hast taught us” may take thy hand (come to thy aid).

If in this school thou dost not know the alphabet, (yet) thou art filled, like Ahmad (Mohammed), with the light of Reason.

If thou art not famous in the world, (yet) thou art not deficient: God knoweth best concerning His servants.

A treasure of gold is (hidden), for safety's sake, in a desolate spot that is not well-known.

How should they deposit the treasure in a well-known place? On this account it is said, “Joy is (hidden) beneath sorrow.”

Here the mind may bring (suggest) many difficulties, but a good beast will break the tether.

His (God's) love is a fire that consumes difficulties: the daylight sweeps away every phantom.

O thou with whom He is pleased, seek the answer from the same quarter from which this question came to thee.

The cornerless corner of the heart is a King's highway: the radiance that is neither of the east nor of the west is (derived) from a Moon.

Why on this side and on that, like a beggar, O mountain of Reality, art thou seeking the echo?

Seek (the answer) from the same quarter to which, in the hour of pain, thou bendest low, crying repeatedly, “O my Lord!”

In the hour of pain and death thou turnest in that direction: how, when thy pain is gone, art thou ignorant?

At the time of tribulation thou hast called unto God, (but) when the tribulation is gone, thou sayest, “Where is the way?”

This is because (thou dost not know God): every one that knows God without uncertainty is constantly engaged in that (commemoration of Him),

While he that is veiled in intellect and uncertainty is sometimes covered (inaccessible to spiritual emotion) and sometimes with his collar torn (in a state of rapture).

The particular (discursive) intellect is sometimes dominant, sometimes overthrown; the Universal Intellect is secure from the mischances of Time.

Sell intellect and talent and buy bewilderment (in God): betake thyself to lowliness, O son, not to Bukhárá!

Why have I steeped myself in the discourse, so that from story-telling I have become a story?

I become naught and (unsubstantial as) a fable in making moan (to God), in order that I may gain influence over (the hearts of) them that prostrate themselves in prayer.

This (story of Moses and Pharaoh) is not a story in the eyes of the man of experience: it is a description of an actual (spiritual) state, and it is (equivalent to) the presence of the Friend of the Cave.

That (phrase) “stories of the ancients,” which the disobedient (infidels) applied to the words of the Qur’án, was a mark of (their) hypocrisy.

The man transcending space, in whom is the Light of God— whence (what concern of his) is the past, the future, or the present?

His being past or future is (only) in relation to thee: both are one thing, and thou thinkest they are two.

One individual is to him father and to us son: the roof is below Zayd and above ‘Amr.

The relation of “below” and “above” arises from those two persons: as regards itself, the roof is one thing only.

These expressions are not (exactly) similar to that (doctrine of spiritual timelessness): they are a comparison: the old words fall short of the new meaning.

Since there is no river-marge, close thy lips, O waterskin: this Sea of candy hath (ever) been without marge or shore.