بخش 31 - ظاهر شدن فضل و زیرکی لقمان پیش امتحان کنندگان

Whatever food they brought to him (Luqmán's master), he would send some one to Luqmán after (receiving it),

He would eat his remnants and be enraptured: any food that he (Luqmán) did not taste, he (the master) would throw away;

Or if he ate (of it), (’twould be) without heart and without appetite: this is (the sign of) an affinity without end.

When he cut it and gave him a slice, he ate it as if it were sugar and honey.

On account of the pleasure with which he ate (it), he gave him a second (slice), (and went on) till the slices (given him) reached the seventeenth.

One slice remained. He said, “I will eat this (myself), so that I may see what a sweet melon this is.

He (Luqmán) eats it with such pleasure that from his delight (all) natures have become eager and craving the morsel.”

As soon as he (the master) ate it, by its sourness there was kindled fire (which) blistered his tongue and burnt his throat.

He became beside himself for a while on account of its sourness; after that, he said to him, “O (you who are) soul and world,

How did you make all this poison an antidote? How did you deem this cruelty to be kindness?

What patience is this? For what reason is this great fortitude? Or, perchance, in your opinion this life of yours is an enemy (which you would fain destroy).

Why did not you cunningly bring (forward) a plea, saying, ‘I have an excuse (for declining to eat): desist for a while’.”

Luqmán said, “From thy munificent hand I have eaten so much that I am (bent) double with shame.

I was ashamed not to eat one bitter thing from thy hand, O thou who art possessed of knowledge.

Since all parts of me have grown from thy bounty and are plunged in thy bait and snare—

If I make outcry and complaint because of one bitter thing, may the dust of a hundred roads be on (all) parts of me!

It (the melon) had the enjoyment of thy sugar-bestowing hand: how could it (such enjoyment) leave any bitterness in this melon?”

By love bitter things become sweet; by love pieces of copper become golden;

By love dregs become clear; by love pains become healing;

By love the dead is made living; by love the king is made a slave.

This love, moreover, is the result of knowledge: who (ever) sat in foolishness on such a throne?

On what occasion did deficient knowledge give birth to this love? Deficient (knowledge) gives birth to love, but (only love) for that which is (really) lifeless.

When it sees in a lifeless being the colour (appearance) of a desired one, (’tis as though) it heard the voice of a beloved in a whistle.

Deficient knowledge cannot discriminate: of necessity it deems the lightning to be the sun.

When the Prophet called the “deficient” (man) accursed, (his meaning) as interpreted was “deficiency of mind,”

’Tis deficiency of mind that is the bad disease: it is the cause of (God's) curse and merits banishment (from His presence),

Forasmuch as the perfecting of minds is not remote (impossible), but the perfecting of the body is not within our power.

The miscreance and Pharaoh-like pride of every infidel who is far (from God) have all been produced by deficiency of mind.

Relief for bodily deficiency has come in the (words of the) Qur’án—it is no crime in the blind man.

Lightning is transient and very faithless: without clearness (of mind) you will not know the transient from the permanent.

The lightning laughs: say, at whom is it laughing? At him that sets his heart upon its light.

The lights of the sky are hamstrung (feeble and imperfect): how are they like (that Light which is) neither of the east nor of the west?

Regard the lightning as (what) taketh away the sight; regard the everlasting Light as entirely Helpers (to the attainment of vision).

To ride (your) horse upon the foam of the sea, to read a letter in a flash of lightning,

Is, to fail, because of covetousness, to see the end; it is, to laugh at your own mind and intellect.

Intellect, by its proper nature, is a seer of the end (consequence); ’tis the fleshly soul that does not see the end.

The intellect that is vanquished by the flesh becomes the flesh: Jupiter is checkmated by Saturn and becomes inauspicious.

Still, turn this gaze (of yours) upon this inauspiciousness, look on that One who made you ill-starred.

The gaze (of him) that surveys this ebb and flow pierces from the inauspicious influence to the auspicious.

For the purpose that fear of the left hand side may bring to birth in you the delight of “the (blessed) men are led to hope for the right hand side,”

So that you may have two wings (fear and hope); for the bird that has (only) one wing is unable to fly, O excellent (reader).

(O God), either let me not come to speech (at all), or give me leave to tell (the whole) to the end.

But if Thou willest neither this nor that, ’tis Thine to command: how should any one know what Thou intendest?

One must needs have the spirit of Abraham to see in the fire Paradise and its palaces by the light (of mystic knowledge);

And mount step by step above the moon and the sun, lest he remain like the door-ring fastened on the door;

And, like the Friend, pass beyond the Seventh Heaven, saying, “I love not them that set.”

This bodily world is deceptive, save to him that has escaped from lust.