بخش 96 - پیش رفتن دقوقی رحمة الله علیه به امامت

This discourse hath no end. “Run quickly! Hark, the (time for) prayer is come. Go forward, O Daqúqí!

O unique one, come, perform the twofold (genuflexion), that Time may be adorned by thee.

O clear-sighted Imám, in the ritual prayer a clear eye is requisite in the leader.”

According to the religious Law it is objectionable, O worthy (reader), to put forward a blind man in the office of Imám.

Though he know the Qur’án by heart and be quick and learned in divinity, the clear-sighted man is superior, even if he be a fool.

The blind man has no (means of) abstention from filth: the eye is the source of abstention and precaution.

He does not see the dirt in passing by. May no true believer have blind eyes!

The man outwardly blind is in outward (material) filthiness; the man inwardly blind is in inward (spiritual) filthiness.

This outward filthiness may be removed by some water; that inward filthiness (gradually) increases.

It cannot be washed away save by water of the eye (tears), when (once) the inward filthinesses have become manifest.

Since God has called the infidel “filth,” that filthiness is not on his outward part.

The infidel's outward part is not defiled by this (outward filth); that filthiness is in (his) disposition and religion.

The smell of this (outward filth comes (extends to a distance of) twenty paces; but the smell of that (inward) filth (reaches) from Rayy to Damascus;

Nay, its smell goes up to the heavens and mounts to the brain of the houris and Rizwán.

What I am saying is according to the measure of your understanding: I die in grief for (the absence of) a sound understanding.

The understanding is (like) the water, and the bodily existence (is like) the jug: when the jug is cracked, the water spills from it.

This jug has five deep holes: neither water will stay in it nor even snow.

You have heard, too, the command (of God), “Close ye your eyes tightly”; (yet) you have not walked aright.

Your speech bears away your understanding by (way of) the mouth; your ear is like sand: it drinks (sucks up) your understanding.

Similarly, your other holes (avenues of sense-perception) are drawing (off) the hidden water of your understanding.

If you expel the water from the sea without (admitting) compensation, you will make the sea a desert.

’Tis late; otherwise, I would declare the (true) state of the case (as to) the entrance of compensations and substitutes,

(And tell) whence come to the sea those compensations and substitutes after (such) expenditures.

Hundreds of thousands of animals drink of it; from outside also the clouds take it (its water) away;

(But) again the sea draws (into itself) those compensations— whence (they come) is known to the righteous.

We began the stories in haste; in this Book (the Mathnawí) they are left without (being brought to) the (final) issue.

O Light of God, noble Husámu’ddín, a king whose like the sky and the elements have never brought to birth,

Seldom hast thou come into (the world of) soul and heart, O thou at whose advent heart and soul are abashed.

How oft have I praised the people of the past! Of necessity, thou wert (the object of) my quest in (praising) them.

Verily the invocation knows its own house: attach the praise to the name of whomsoever you will.

God hath set down these tales and parables for the purpose of concealing (the true nature of) the praise from the unworthy.

Even if such praise is abashed before thee, yet God accepts the (utmost) exertion of one that has little (to give).

God accepts a crust (of bread) and absolves (the giver), for from the eyes of a blind man two drops (of light) are enough.

Birds and fishes know the (real meaning of) the ambiguous style in which I have praised compendiously this person of goodly name,

To the end that the sighs of the envious may not blow upon him, and that he (the envier) may not bite the (false) idea of him (Husámu’ddín) with the teeth (of malice).

Where should the envious man find even the idea of him? When did a parrot rest in the abode of a mouse?

That idea of him (Husámu’ddín) arises (in the mind of the envious man) from cunning practice (on his part): it is the hair of his eyebrow, not the new moon.

I sing thy praise outside of the five (senses) and the seven (heavens). Now write “Daqúqí went forward.”