بخش 136 - بیان آنک خلق دوزخ گرسنگانند و نالانند به حق کی روزیهای ما را فربه گردان و زود زاد به ما رسان کی ما را صبر نماند

This discourse hath no end. (God said), “Hark, O Moses, let those asses go to the grass,

That they may all be fattened by that goodly fodder. Hark, (let them in), for We have wrathful wolves.

We surely know the plaintive cry of Our wolves: We make these asses a means of livelihood for them.

The gracious alchemy breathed from thy lips wished to make these asses human.

Much kindness and favour didst thou show in calling them (to God), (but) ’twas not the fortune and provision allotted to those asses.

Therefore let the quilt of bounty cover them, that the slumber of forgetfulness may overtake them speedily,

So that, when this troop (of asses) shall start up from suchlike slumber, the candle will have been extinguished and the cup-bearer will have gone.

Their rebellious disobedience kept thee in a (great) perplexity: therefore they shall suffer in retribution a (great) sorrow,

To the end that Our justice may step forth and bestow in retribution what is appropriate to every evil-doer;

For the King, whom they were not seeing openly, was (always) with them secretly in their lives.”

Inasmuch as the intellect is with thee, overseeing thy body, and though this perception of thine is unable to apprehend it,

(Yet) its perception, O such and such, is not unable to apprehend thy motion and rest when it tries,

What wonder if the Creator of that intellect too is with thee? How art thou not conceding (the truth of that)?

He (some one) pays no heed to his intellect and embarks on evil; afterwards his intellect rebukes him.

You forgot your intellect, your intellect did not (forget you), since that act of rebuke is the result of its presence (attention).

If it had not been present (attentive) and had been heedless, how should it have slapped you in rebuke?

And if your carnal soul had not been inattentive to it, how should your madness and heat have acted thus?

Hence you and your intellect are like the astrolabe: by this means you may know the nearness of the Sun of existence.

Your intellect is indescribably near to you: it is neither to the left nor to the right nor behind nor in front.

How (then) should not the King be indescribably near? for intellectual search cannot find the way (to Him).

The motion that you have in your finger is not in front of your finger or behind it or to the left or to the right.

At the time of sleep and death it (the motion) goes from it (the finger); at the time of waking it rejoins it.

By what way doth it come into your finger, (that motion) without which your finger hath no use?

The light of the eye and pupil, by what other way than the six directions doth it come into your eye?

The world of creation is endued with (diverse) quarters and directions, (but) know that the world of the (Divine) Command and Attributes is without (beyond) direction.

Know, O beloved, that the world of the Command is without direction: of necessity the Commander is (even) more without direction.

The intellect was (ever) without direction, and the Knower of the exposition is more intelligent than intellect and more spiritual even than spirit.

No created being is unconnected with Him: that connexion, O uncle, is indescribable,

Because in the spirit there is no separating and uniting, while (our) thought cannot think except of separating and uniting.

Pursue that which is without separation and union by (aid of) a spiritual guide; but the pursuit will not allay your thirst.

(Yet) pursue incessantly, if you are far from the Source, that the vein of (true) manhood (in you) may bring you to the attainment (of your desire).

How should the intellect find the way to this connexion? This intellect is in bondage to separation and union.

Hence Mustafá (Mohammed) enjoined us, saying, “Do not seek to investigate the Essence of God.”

(As regards) that One whose Essence is an object of thought, in reality the (thinker's) speculation is not concerning the Essence.

It is (only) his (false) opinion, because on the way to God there are a hundred thousand veils.

Every one is naturally attached to some veil and judges that it is in sooth the identity (‘ayn) of Him.

Therefore the Prophet banished this (false) judgement from him (the thinker), lest he should be conceiving in error a vain imagination.

And (as for) him in whose judgement (conception of God) there is irreverence, the Lord hath doomed the irreverent to fall headlong.

To fall headlong is that he goes downward and thinks that he is superior,

Because such is the case of the drunken man who does not know heaven from earth.

Go ye and think upon His wonders, become lost (to yourselves) from the majesty and awe (of Him).

When he (who beholds the wonders of God) loses beard and moustache (abandons pride and egoism) from (contemplating) His work, he will know his (proper) station and will be silent concerning the Worker (Maker).

He will only say from his soul, “I cannot (praise Thee duly),” because the declaration thereof is beyond reckoning and bound.