by Muhyi'ddin Ibn al-'Arabi

Muhyi'ddin Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abdallah al-Ta'i al-Hatimi, known as Ibn al-'Arabi (1165–1240 CE), is the most celebrated of all Muhammadan mystics — the Shaykh al-Akbar, the Greatest Master. Born in Murcia, Spain, he spent years in Mecca, where he encountered Nizam, the learned and beautiful daughter of a Persian scholar, who became for him what Beatrice was to Dante: a type of heavenly perfection, a living symbol of the Divine love that is the subject of these odes. The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq — the Interpreter of Desires — was composed during his pilgrimage to Mecca in 611 A.H. (January 1215 A.D.). Its sixty-one odes employ the conventional language of Arabic love poetry — the beloved, the caravan, the departing camels, the gazelles of Najd — to express mystical realities: the soul's longing for God, the stations of the Sufi path, the doctrine that all things are manifestations of the One.

When pious critics objected that his love-poems were impious, Ibn al-'Arabi wrote a commentary in which he reveals the esoteric meaning of almost every verse. This edition presents both the odes and the commentary. The beloved's glance is the annihilation of the self in contemplation. The caravan's departure is the soul's passage through spiritual stations. The gazelle of Najd is the Divine Wisdom that the gnostic pursues across the desert of existence. The famous declaration of Ode XI — 'My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, and a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka'ba and the tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love' — is the fullest expression of the Sufi doctrine that all ways lead to the One God.

Translated by Reynold A. Nicholson, Lecturer in Persian at Cambridge (1868–1945), from three Arabic manuscripts. The Arabic text is edited from MSS. N, L, and M. First published by the Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1911, as Oriental Translation Fund New Series Vol. XX. Public domain.

Preface

Whatever view may be taken of the respective merits of
Arabic and Persian poetry, I think it will generally be
allowed by those familiar with the mystical literature of both
nations that the Arabs excel in prose rather than in verse,
while the Persian prose-writers on this subject cannot be
compared with the poets. Faridu’ddin 'Attar, JaldJu’ddin
Rumi, Hafiz, and J&ml — to mention only a few oij the great
Persian poets whose works, translated into various languages,
have introduced the religious philosophy of Sufiism to a rapidly
widening circle of European culture — arc as much superior to
their Arab rivals, including even the admirable Ibn al-Farid,
as the Futuhdt al-Makkiyya and the Fusils al-Hikam are
superior to similar treatises in Persian. The Taiyuman al-
Askwdq is no exception to this rule. The obscurity of its
style and the strangeness of its imagery will satisfy those
austere spirits for whom literature provides a refined and
arduous form of intellectual exercise, but the sphere in which
the author moves is too abstract and remote from common
experience to give pleasure to others who do not share his
'visionary temper or have not themselves drawn inspiration
from the same order of ideas. Nevertheless, the work of
such a bold and subtle genius deserves, at any rate, to be
studied, and students will find, as a reward for their labour,
many noble and striking thoughts and some passages of real
beauty. The following lines are often quoted. They express
the Sufi doctrine that all ways lead to the One God.

‘ My heart has become capable of every form ; it is a pasture
for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,

And a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka‘ba and the
tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran.

I follow the religion of Love : whatever way Loves
camels take, that is my religion and my faith.’ 1
1 jdi, 13-15.

The present edition was designed in the first instance
for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and is now
published in its original shape. I will not repeat or expand
what I have said in my brief introduction concerning the
date of composition, the different recensions of the text, the
method of interpretation, and the general character of these
remarkable odes, but it may be useful to indicate in a few
words some of the principal theories which are shadowed
forth symbolically in the text and revealed more explicitly
in the authors commentary. Although the Tarjumdn ctl-
Ashwctq affords material for an essay on Ibn al-'Arabfis
theosophy, I feel, speaking for myself, that further study of
his works is necessary before such a task can be attempted
with advantage. Much valuable information is contained in
a treatise on Monism by ‘All b. Sultan Muhammad al-Qari
al-Harawi 1 — a polemic directed against Ibn al-'Arabi and his
followers who held that all Being is essentially one with God,
notwithstanding its apparent diversity. This pamphlet was
written in answer to a champion of Ibn al-'Arabi, who had
collected under twenty-four heads various passages in the
Futiihdt and the Fusu- % to which objection was taken by
orthodox theologians, and had endeavoured to justify the
author against his critics. 'All al-Qari regards Ibn al-'Arabi
as a dangerous infidel and gives him no quarter. Of course
the offending passages admit of more than one interpretation,
and the author would doubtless have repudiated the con-
struction put upon them by theologians. Their pantheistic
import, however, cannot be explained away. I have classified
the following examples for the sake of convenience and have
added a few references to the commentary on the Tarjumdn .

1. God and the World. Ibn al-'Arabi says in the Futuhdt ,

• Glory to God who brought all things into existence, being
  Himself their substance jLs}\ the

1 Brockelmann, ii, 394. The work in question is entitled <3Lj^

It appeared, together with several other tracts on the same

subject, in a volume published at Constantinople in 1294 a.ii., a copy of
which was given to me by Dr. Riza Tevfi'q.

substance of every object in manifestation, although He is
not the substance of objects in their essences/ 1 And again,
in the Fusus, ‘ God manifests Himself in every atom of
creation : He is revealed in every intelligible object and
concealed from every intelligence except the intelligence of
those who say that the Universe is His form and ipseity
inasmuch as He stands in the same relation to
phenomenal objects as the spirit to the body/

2. God and Man. ‘ Man is the form of God and God is
   the spirit of Man/ * Man is to God as the pupil to the eye :
   by means of him God beholds the objects which He has
   created/ ‘ Man’s origin is both temporal and eternal ; he is
   an organism durable and everlasting/ ‘ Man is the substance
   of every attribute wherewith he endows God : when he
   contemplates God he contemplates himself, and God con-
   templates Himself when He contemplates Man. Hence Abii
   Sa‘fd al-Khamiz said that he was a face and tongue of God,
   who is called by the name of Abu Sa‘id al-Khamiz and also
   by other temporal names, because God unites all opposites
   in Himself/

God dwells in the heart of Man (vi, 1), and Man, invested
with Divine qualities, is a mirror which displays God to
Himself (x, 2). Divine qualities may justly be attributed
to anyone who is so transported from himself that God
becomes his eye and his ear (x, 1). Although union with
God is not possible while the body exists (v, 2), Ibn al-
‘Arabl, like Plotinus, holds that ‘deification’ is attainable
(xxiv, 3).2 Elsewhere he says that knowledge of God is the
utmost goal that can be reached by any contingent being
(xvii, 5). This knowledge is gained solely by means of
Faith and Contemplation, which Reason may serve if it
consents to lay aside its reflective faculty (iii, 2, 5). What,
then, is the end of knowledge ? Apparently, a state of
Nirvana or transcendental unconsciousness, ^

1 Cf. xx, 25 : * The Divine attributes are manifested in creation, but the
Divine essence does not enter into creation.’

(v, 6). The phenomenal vanishes in presence of the
Eternal (xx, 19).

3. Religion, Since all things are a manifestation of the
   Divine substance, it follows that God may be worshipped in
   a star or a calf or any other object, and that no form of
   positive religion contains more than a portion of the truth.
   ‘Do not attach yourself/ Ibn al-‘Arabi says, ‘to any particular
   creed exclusively, so that you disbelieve in all the rest ;
   otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to
   recognize the real truth of the matter. Let your soul be
   capable of embracing all forms of belief. God, the omni-
   present and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for
   He says, “ Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah ”
   (Ivor, ii, 109) ; and the face of a thing is its reality/ It is
   vain to quarrel about religion. ‘ Everyone praises what
   he believes ; his god is his own creature, and in praising it
   he praises himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs of
   others, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike
   is based on ignorance. If he knew Junayds saying — “the
   water takes its colour from the vessel containing it” — he
   would not interfere with the beliefs of others, but would
   perceive God in every form and in every belief/ 1 The Divine
   substance remains unchanged and unchangeable amidst all
   the variety of religious experience. ‘ Those who worship
   God in the sun behold a sun, and those who worship Him in
   living things see a living thing, and those who worship Him
   in inanimate objects see an inanimate object, and those who
   worship Him as a Being unique and unparalleled see that
   which has no like ’ (xii, 13). In a noteworthy passage Ibn
   al-‘Arabi seeks to harmonize Islam with Christianity. The
   Christian Trinity, he says, is essentially a Unity which has
   its counterpart in the three cardinal Names whereby God is
   signified in the Koran, viz. Allah, ar-Rahman, and ar-Rabb
   (xii, 4). Islam is peculiarly the religion of Love (xi, 15),
   and God’s mercy is denied to none, be he Moslem or infidel,
   who invokes Him in the extremity of his need. Even if it

■ am ■■ ukct xiii> l%

so be that the unbelievers shall remain in Hell for ever, they
will at last feel its fiery torments a pleasure and delight.

Ibn al-'Arabi is said to have claimed that he was the Seal
of the Saints, as Muhammad was the Seal of the Prophets,
and also that the Saints are superior to the Prophets, but it
is very doubtful whether these accusations are well founded.
He seems to have maintained that the Prophets, in so far as
they are Saints, derive their knowledge from the Seal of the
Saints, and that the Prophets in virtue of their saintship are
superior to the Prophets in virtue of their prophetic dignity
(cf. iv, i ; xviii, 8). He does assert, however, that he had
reached a spiritual degree which was not attained by any of
his peers (xxiv, 4).

I desire gratefully to acknowledge the valuable assistance
of Sir Charles Lyall, who read the text and translation in
manuscript, and made a number of suggestions, nearly all of
which I have inserted in the book while it was passing
through the press. The fact that it has undergone his
criticism enables me to offer it to students of Arabic
poetry with more confidence than would otherwise have
been possible. My thanks are due also to the Librarian of
the University of Leiden, who caused two MSS. of the
Tarjumdn to be sent to Cambridge, and allowed them to
remain there as long as they were required.

Introduction

Although Ibn al-'Arabi (560-638 a.h.) is the most celebrated
of all Muhammadan mystics, the only one of his 150 extant
works that has hitherto appeared in a European edition is
the brief glossary of Sufi technical terms which

was published by Fluegel in 1845, together with the Ta'rlfdt
of Jurjanl, under the title of Definitiones theosophi Mohji-
cd-dln Mohammed ben Ali vulgo Ibn Arabi dicti. So far
as I am aware, none of his books has been translated into
any European language, and no trustworthy account can yet
be given of his vast theosophical speculations, which produced
an extraordinary impression throughout the Moslem world.
By far the larger portion of his writings is in prose, but the
poetical remnant includes a Diwdn of about 450 pages
(published at Bulaq in 1271 a.h.) and several smaller
collections. One of these is the Tarjumdn al-Ashivdq or
4 Interpreter of Desires \ The fact that it is accompanied
by a commentary, in which the author himself explains the
meaning of almost every verse, was the principal motive
that induced me to study it ; its brevity was a strong
recommendation ; and something, I suppose, may be attributed
to my possessing an excellent MS., which, as is noted on the
last page, has twice undergone collation and correction.

A curious problem of literary history is involved in the
question of the date at which the poems and the commentary
were composed. The MSS. of the Tarjumdn al-Ashwdq
exhibit three different recensions. The first recension ,
represented by Leiden 875 (2), Brit. Mus. 1527 x, and Gotha
22G8, contains the poems without the commentary. In his
preface Ibn al -‘Arabi refers to his arrival in Mecca in
598 a.h., and Dozy assumed — on insufficient grounds, as
I shall presently show — that the poems were composed in

that year. They were condemned by some devout Moslems

UnTWUaTIT - TJiyTilzGcT Dy wiCfUsQii^y

a

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ

as 4 vain and amatorious and in order to refute his critics
the author issued a second recension , represented by Leiden
04 1 and Brit. Mus. 754 b containing the same 'poems with
a commentary and a new preface, in which he declares that
he composed these poems, while visiting the holy places at
Mecca, in the months of Rajab, Sha‘ban, and Ramad&n,
611 A. H. The third recension is represented by Bodl. (Uri)
1276, Munich 5241, Berlin 7750 and 7751, and the MS. cited
by Hajji Khalifa (Fluegel’s edition), ii, 276. It agrees with
the second in giving the date of composition as 611 a.ie, but
includes a statement of the circumstances which caused the
author to write his commentary.

My MS. seems to be unique1 in so far as it contains
the preface belonging to the first recension and also the
additional statement which differentiates the third recension
from the second.

Dozy, as I have said, believed that the true date of
composition, namely 598 A.H., was given by the author in
the preface to the first recension, and that on publishing
the second recension he post-dated it by thirteen years.

‘ To wipe out the memory of his offence the poet not only
proved by means of his commentary that Heavenly, not
earthly, love was the theme that inspired him, but he also
pretended that the poems were composed at a different time ;
by which artifice, though he could not deceive those who had
read them before, he might dupe anyone who had heard
people talk of them and the scandal produced by them/ 2

Before considering the justice of Dozy’s criticism it will be
well to set forth the evidence more fully than he has done.
I shall therefore summarize the contents of the prose sections
which form an introduction to the text of the poems.

1 Perhaps I should say ‘ almost unique since Pertsch’s description of
Gotha 22G9, which is defective at the beginning, leads me to suppose that
it resembles my MS. in this particular. The Gotha MS., however, has
the date 611 a.h., which is wanting in mine.

2 Leiden Cat., ii, 77. The last clause, as printed, runs : ‘qui de iis deque
magna offensione cuius causa exstiterant, fando audiverant,, i.e. ‘the
scandal which had produced them \ Dozy cannot have meant to write this.

THE TARJTJMAN AL-ASHWAQ

1. Preface to the First Recension1
   On his arrival at Mecca in 598 A.H. Ibn al-'Arabi found
   a number of scholars and divines, both male and female,
   whose ancestors had emigrated from Persia in the early days
   of Islam. He particularly mentions Maldnu ’ddin Abu Shujd/
   Z&liir b. Rustam b. Abi Y-Raja al-Isbahani and his aged sister,
   Fakhru 'n-Nisa bint Rustam. [With the former he read the
   book of Abu 'Isa at-Tirmidhi on the Apostolic Traditions.
   He begged Fakhru n-Nisa to let him hear Traditions from her,
   but she excused herself on the plea of her great age, saying
   that she wished to spend the last years of her life in devotion.
   She consented, however, that her brother should write for
   Ibn al-'Arabi, on her behalf, a general certificate
   for all the Traditions which she related ; and he received
   a similar certificate from Makinu 5 ddin himself.] 2 *

Makinu ’ddin had a young daughter, called Nizam and
surnamed ‘Aynu ’sh-Shams wa d-Baha, who was exceedingly
beautiful and was renowned for her asceticism and eloquent
preaching. [The author says that he would have descanted
on her physical and moral perfections had he not been
deterred by the weakness of human souls, which are easily
corrupted, but he eulogizes her learning, literary accomplish-
ments, and spiritual gifts.] Ibn al-'Arabi observed the
nobility of her nature, which was enhanced by the society
of her father and aunt. He celebrated her in the poems
contained in this volume, using the erotic style and
vocabulary, but he could not express even a small part of
the feelings roused in him by the recollection of his love for
her in past times xss? L ^xj < — C!

Uj. fmJ ^ [Here my MS. adds:

' Nevertheless I have put into verse for her sake some of
the longing thoughts suggested by those precious memories,

1 I follow the text of my MS. The passages which occur in it, but not in
the Leiden MS. 875 (2), are enclosed in square brackets. The Arabic text
will be found below.

2 Instead of the foregoing passage the Leiden MS. 875 (2) has: 4 And

I received a certificate from both Of them.’ jjy (§)

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ

and I have uttered the sentiments of a yearning soul and
have indicated the sincere attachment which I feel, fixing
my mind on the bygone days and those scenes which her
society has endeared to me ’ (^Lsr^b ^ jJiH j^*!b

CJi).] The author continues: ‘Whenever I mention
a name in this book I always allude to her, and whenever
I mourn over an abode I mean her abode. In these poems
I always signify Divine influences and spiritual revelations
and sublime analogies, according to the most excellent way
Avhich we (Sufis) follow . . . God forbid that readers of
this book and of my other poems should think of aught
unbecoming to souls that scorn evil and to lofty spirits that
are attached to the things of Heaven ! Amen ! ’

[These pages include the love-poems which I composed at
Mecca, whilst visiting the holy places in the months of
Rajab, Sha‘ban, and Ramadan. In these poems I point
(allegorically) to various sorts of Divine knowledge and
spiritual mysteries and intellectual sciences and religious
exhortations. I have used the erotic style and form of
expression because men’s souls are enamoured of it, so that
there are many reasons why it should commend itself.]

2. Preface to the Second Recension

After giving a list of Ibn al-‘Arabfs names and titles, the
text proceeds as in the last paragraph within square
brackets : ‘ These pages include the love-poems which

I composed at Mecca ... in the months of Rajab, Sha‘ban,
and Ramadan in the year 611. In these poems,’ etc.,
without further variation.

3. Preface to the Third Recension

This is identical with the last, but contains in addition
the following statement of the motives which induced the
author to write his commentary.1

‘I wrote this commentary on the Diwan entitled Tarjuman

1 In some MSS. this statement does not form part of the preface, but is
placed after the text and commentary. It occurs in my MS. on fol. 140a.

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ

al-Ashiv&q, which I composed at Mecca, at the request of
my friend al-Mas‘ud Abu Muhammad Badr b. ‘Abdallah
al-Habashf al-Khddim and al-Walad al-Bdrr Shamsu ’ddin
Isma‘i'1 b. Sudaldn an -Nuri 1 in the city of Aleppo. He
(Shamsu ’ddin) had heard some theologian remark that the
author’s declaration in the preface to the Tarjumdn was
not true, his declaration, namely, that the love-poems in
this collection refer to mystical sciences and realities.
“ Probably,” said the critic, “ he adopted this device in order
to protect himself from the imputation that he, a man
famous for religion and piety, composed poetry in the erotic
style.” Shamsu ’ddin was offended by his observations and
repeated them to me. Accordingly, I began to write the
commentary at Aleppo, and a portion of it was read aloud
in my lodging in the presence of the above-mentioned
theologian and other divines by Kamalu ’ddin Abu ’1-Qasim
b. Najmu ’ddin the Cadi Ibn al-‘Adim 2 — God bless him !
I finished it with difficulty and in an imperfect manner, for
I was in haste to continue my journey, on the date already
mentioned.3 When my critic heard it he said to Shamsu ’ddin
that he would never in future doubt the good faith of any
Sufis who should assert that they attached a mystical
signification to the words used in ordinary speech ; and he
conceived an excellent opinion of me and profited (by my
writings). This was the occasion of my explaining the
Tarjum&n.’

I have now laid before the reader, nearly all the available
materials for a solution of this problem. How, then, does it
stand with the charge of falsification brought by Dozy
against Ibn al-‘Arabi ?

Dozy’s theory seems to me untenable on the following
grounds : —

1 He wrote commentaries on two treatises by Ibn al-‘Arab£ (see
Brockelmann, i, 44.3).

2 This is the well-known historian of Aleppo.

3 No date is mentioned in my MS. According to Ildjjf Khalifa (ii, 277),
the author finished his commentary in the second Rabf‘, 612 a.ii. (July
August, 1215 A.P.), at Aqsaray (in Lycaonia).

THE TARJUMAX AL-ASHWAQ

(a) I bn al-‘Arabi does not imply, in the preface to the
first recension, that the poems were composed in 598 a.h.
Although he only arrived at Mecca in that year, he speaks
of his acquaintance with Nizam, the daughter of Makinu ’ddin,
as something past , and of Makinu ’ddin himself as no longer
alive.1

( b ) The hypothesis that 598 a.h. was the date of com-
position is not required. No arguments have been advanced
to show that the date given by the author, Gil a.h., is
impossible or unlikely. There is nothing incredible in the
statement that, while visiting the holy shrines at Mecca in
this year, the author was inspired by those familiar scenes
to celebrate in mystical fashion the feelings of love connected
with an earlier period of his life.

(c) The poems themselves contain evidence that they were
not composed at the date which Dozy attributes to them.
The second and third verses of the thirty-second poem run
as follows : —

mm .Jjjj 1 4 / ] L:>- ^ A > « ^ i,m ! ^ CJ <S,j

Ibn al-‘Arabi was 50 years 'old when he wrote these
verses.2 He was born in 560 a.h., so that in 598 a.h. his
age was only 38. In 611 a.h. he was 51. To say ‘ 50 ’
instead of ‘ 51 ’ is a small poetical licence, which needs no
apology, whereas on Dozy’s supposition the author must
have antedated his age and post-dated his poems by
considerably more than a decade in each case.

We may therefore conclude that Ibn al-‘Arabl’s account
of the matter is correct, and that the composition of the
Tarjumdn al-Ashivaq was finished in Ramadan, 611 a.h.
(January, 1215 A.D.). A few months afterwards the author
began to write his commentary at Aleppo, for Ilajji Khalifa
tells us that it was completed in Rabi‘ ath-thani of the
following year (August, 1215 A.D.).

1 This is indicated by the words . which follow his name.

2 Another reference to the poet’s age occurs in xxxvi, 2.

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ

The further question, whether Ibn al-'Arabi was quite
sincere when lie claimed that his poems were intended
to be mystical in spirit, though erotic in form, must,
I think, be answered in the affirmative. Students of
Oriental poetry have sometimes to ask themselves, ‘ Is
this a love-poem disguised as a mystical ode, or a mystical
ode expressed in the language of human love ? ’ and to
acknowledge that they cannot tell. Here, however, the
balance is not so nicely poised that every reader may be
allowed to choose the interpretation which pleases him.
Some of the poems, it is true, are not distinguishable from
ordinary love-songs, and as regards a great portion of the
text, the attitude of the author’s contemporaries, who refused
to believe that it had any esoteric sense at all, was natural
and intelligible ; on the other hand, there are many passages
which are obviously mystical and give a clue to the rest. If
the sceptics lacked discernment, they deserve our gratitude for
having provoked Ibn al-‘Arabl to instruct them. Assuredly,
without his guidance the most sympathetic readers would
seldom have hit upon the hidden meanings which his fantastic
ingenuity elicits from the conventional phrases of an Arabic
qasida.1 But the fact that his explanations overshoot the
mark is no proof of his insincerity : he had to satisfy his
critics, and it would have been difficult to convince them
that the poems were mystical in spirit and intention unless
he had given a precise and definite interpretation of every
line and of almost every word. The necessity of entering
into trivial details — an Arab is in any case apt to exaggerate
details at the expense of the whole — drives the author to
take refuge in far-fetched verbal analogies and causes him
to descend with startling rapidity from the sublime to the

1 The author admits that in some passages of his poems tho mystical
import was not clear to himself, and that various explanations were

suggested to him in moments of ecstasy: Vv^i Jo 1*^

• '**>» ‘— — ^' i £ j d— * L — 1 '

^~x-- 55a’ at footy'

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ

ridiculous. We have seen that when he published his
commentary he omitted from the preface those passages
relating to the beautiful and accomplished Nizam which
occur in the first recension. No doubt they had been
misunderstood ; it was inevitable that they should excite
suspicion. To cancel them was merely to deprive his critics
of a powerful weapon against which he could not defend
himself effectively. For, if Nizam was to him (and manifestly
she was nothing else) a Beatrice, a type of heavenly perfection,
an embodiment of Divine love and beauty, yet in the world’s
eyes he ran the risk of appearing as a lover who protests his
devotion to an abstract ideal while openly celebrating the
charms of his mistress. In the poems she is scarcely ever
mentioned by name, but there are one or two particular
references which I will quote here : —

' Long have I yearned for a tender maiden, endowed with prose
and verse cu' j), having a pulpit, eloquent,

One of the princesses from the land of Persia, from the most
glorious of cities, from Isfah&n.

She is the daughter of Tr&q, the daughter of my Imam, and
I am her opposite, a child of Yemen.’

(XX, 15-17.)

‘ 0 my two comrades, may my life-blood be the ransom of a slender
girl who bestowed on me favours and bounties !

She established the harmony of union, for she is our principle of
harmony she is both Arab and foreign: she makes

the gnostic forget.

Whenever she gazes, she draws against thee trenchant swords,
and her front teeth show to thee a dazzling levin.*

(XXIX, 13-15.)

4 Verily, she is an Arab girl belonging by origin to the daughters
of Persia, yea, verily.

Beauty strung for her a row’ of fine pearly teeth, white and pure
as crystal.’

(XLII, 4-5.)

Since I do not propose either to discuss the poems from
a literary and artistic standpoint or to give an account of
the mystical doctrines which the author has occasion to

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ

touch upon in the course of his commentary, it only remains
to describe the MSS. which I have used in preparing this
edition.

1. A MS. in my collection, dated 1029 a.h. It contains
   both the text of the poems (written with red ink) and the
   commentary. Inscriptions on the last page certify that it
   has been twice diligently collated and corrected. In referring
   to it I shall use the designation N.

2. A MS. in the Leiden University Library, Cod. 875 (2)
   Warn, (see Dozy’s Catalogue , ii, 74). It contains only the
   text of the poems, with a preface, and is dated 992 A.H. In
   referring to it I shall use the designation L.

3. A MS. in the Leiden University Library, Cod. 641
   Warn, (see Dozy’s Catalogue , ii, 75-7). It is dated 984 a.h.,
   and contains both text and commentary. In referring to it
   I shall use the designation M.

The Arabic text printed below is based on N., and the
variants in LM. are noted at the foot of the page. The text,
which exhibits many grammatical and metrical irregularities,
is not vocalized in any of these MSS.

The commentary in N., from which my translation is
made, is sometimes not so full as that in M. The latter
includes a few excerpts from the Futuhat al-Makkiyya.
The English version of the commentary is usually very much
abridged, but I have rendered the interesting and important
passages nearly word for word.1

I shall now transcribe the text of the preface and the
poems according to N. The Arabic text will be followed by
an English version of the poems, with annotations based on
the author’s commentary.

1 The correct title of the commentary seems to be j[^ jjl

~ ; it is derived from the phrase

, which occurs in the preface (p. 12, 1. 7 infra). The erroneous reading
is found in most MSS., and Hdjji Khalifa gives the title of the
commentary as JX

The Arabic text of the poems and the full critical apparatus, including textual variants from manuscripts L and M, appear in the original 1911 edition. The OCR rendering of the Arabic script in the digitized source is not suitable for reproduction here.

Translation and Commentary

Ode I

1. Would that I were aware whether they knew what heart

they possessed !

2. And would that my heart knew what mountain-pass they

threaded !

3. Dost thou deem them safe or dost thou deem them dead ?

4. Lovers lose their way in love and become entangled.

Commentary

1. 4 They/ i.e. the Divine Ideas of which the

hearts (of gnostics) are passionately enamoured, and by
which the spirits are distraught, and for whose sake the
godly workers perform their works of

devotion.

‘ What heart ’ : he refers to the perfect Muhammadan
heart, because it is not limited by stations
Nevertheless, it is possessed by the Divine Ideas, for they
seek it and it seeks them. They cannot know that they
possess it, for they belong to its essence, inasmuch as it
beholds in them nothing except its own nature.

2. ‘ What mountain-pass they threaded,’ i.e. what gnostic’s

heart they entered when they vanished from mine. ‘Mountain-
pass ’ signifies a 'station’ which is fixed, in contrast

to a ‘ state ’ ( J L*- ), which is fleeting.

3. The Divine Ideas, qua Ideas, exist only in the existence
   of the seer ; they are ‘ dead ’ in so far as the seer is non-
   existent.

4. Lovers are perplexed between two opposite things, for
   the lover wishes to be in accord with the Beloved and also
   wishes to be united with Him, so that if the Beloved wishes
   to be separated from the lover, the lover is in a dilemma.

Ode II

1. On the day of parting they did not saddle the full-grown

reddish-white camels until they had mounted the
peacocks upon them,

2. Peacocks with murderous glances and sovereign power :

thou would st fancy that each of them was a Bilqis on
her throne of pearls.

3. When she walks on the glass pavement1 thou seest a sun

on a celestial sphere in the bosom of Idris.

4. When she kills with her glances, her speech restores to

life, as tho’ she, in giving life thereby, were Jesus.

5. The smooth surface of her legs is (like) the Tora in

brightness, and I follow it and tread in its footsteps
as tho’ I were Moses.

G. She is a bishopess, one of the daughters of Rome, un-
adorned : thou seest in her a radiant Goodness.2

7. Wild is she, none can make her his friend ; she has

gotten in her solitary chamber a mausoleum for
remembrance.

8. She has baffled everyone who is learned in our religion,

every student of the Psalms of David, every Jewish
doctor, and every Christian priest.

9. If with a gesture she demands the Gospel, thou wouldst

deem us to be priests and patriarchs and deacons.

10. The day when they departed on the road, I prepared

for war the armies of my patience, host after host.

11. When my soul reached the throat (i.e. when I was at

the point of death), I besought that Beauty and that
Grace to grant me relief,

12. And she yielded — may God preserve us from her evil,

and may the victorious king repel Iblis !

13. I exclaimed, when her she-camel set out to depart,

‘ 0 driver of the reddish-white camels, do not drive
them away with her ! 9

1 Kor. xxvii, 44.

2 The author explains that is equivalent to .

Commentary

1. ‘ The full-grown camels/ i.e. the actions inward and out-
   ward, for they exalt the good word to Him who is throned
   on high, as He hath said: ‘And the good deed exalts it’
   (Kor. xxxy, 11). 'The peacocks' mounted on them are his
   loved ones : he likens them to peacocks because of their
   beauty. The peacocks are the spirits of those actions, for
   no action is acceptable or good or fair until it hath a spirit
   consisting in the intention or desire of its doer. He compares
   them to birds inasmuch as they are spiritual and also for the
   variety of their beauty.

2. ‘ With murderous glances and sovereign power ' : he

refers to the Divine wisdom which accrues to

a man in his hours of solitude, and whicli assaults him with
such violence that he is unable to behold his personality

t&A), and which exercises dominion

over him.

‘ A Bilqis on her throne of pearls ’ : he refers to that
which was manifested to Gabriel and to the Prophet during

his night journey upon the bed (; i'y) of pearl and jacinth

in the terrestrial heaven, when Gabriel alone swooned by
reason of his knowledge of Him who manifested Himself
on that occasion. The author calls the Divine wisdom
‘ Bilqis ’ on account of its being the child of theory, which
is subtle, and practice, which is gross, just as Bilqis was both
spirit and woman, since her father was of the Jinn and her
mother was of mankind.

3. The mention of Idris alludes to her lofty and exalted
   rank. ‘ In the bosom of Idris/ i.e. under his control, in
   respect of his turning her wheresoever he will, as the
   Prophet said : ‘ Do not bestow wisdom on those who are
   unworthy of it, lest ye do it a wrong.' The opposite case is
   that of one who speaks because he is dominated by his
   feeling (JU>), and who is therefore under the control of an
   influence (jJA In this verse the author calls attention to
   his puissance in virtue of a prophetic heritage

l^J Ul^), for the prophets are masters of their spiritual
feelings (Ji^.), whereas most of the saints are mastered by
them. The sun is joined to Idris because the sun is his
sphere, and the Divine wisdom is described as ‘ walking ’
(instead of ‘ running ’, etc.) because of her pride and haughti-
ness, and because she moves in the feelings of this heart and
changes from one feeling to another with a sort of absolute
power ^ uj^).

4. ‘ She kills with her glances ’ : referring to the station

of passing away in contemplation J ‘ Her

speech restores to life ’ : referring to the completion of the
moulding of man when the spirit was breathed into him.
She is compared to Jesus in reference to Kor. xxxviii, 72,
'And I breathed into him of My spirit’ or Kor. xvi, 42,
c That We say to it "j Be”, and it is.’

5. ‘ Her legs ’ : referring to Bilqls and the glass pavement
   (Kor. xxvii, 44).

‘ Is like the Tora in brightness,’ because the Tora (S^yJl)
is derived from the phrase jjjJl ‘ the stick produced

lire.’ The four faces (*;>-J) of the Tora, namely, the four
Books (the Koran, the Psalms, the Pentateuch, and the
Gospel), correspond to the fourfold light mentioned in
Kor. xxiv, 35

G. ‘ One of the daughters of Rome ’ : this wisdom, being
of the race of Jesus (a:x!s^1 is described as belonging

to the Roman Empire. f Unadorned,’ i.e. she is of the
essence of unification (ju^-jdl) and without any vestige of
adornment from the Divine Names, yet there shines from
her the 4 radiance ’ of Absolute Goodness, viz. the burning
splendours which, if God were to remove

the veils of light and darkness, would consume the glories of
His face (te>-.

7. 4 Wild is she, none can make her his friend,’ because
   contemplation of the Essence is a passing away (*Ui), in

THE TABJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (ll)

which, as as-Sayyari 1 said, there is no pleasure. She is
‘ wild inasmuch as noble souls desire to seize her, but she
does not show friendship to them, because no relation exists
between them and her.

‘ In her solitary chamber/ i.e. in the heart. Her solitude
is her looking on herself, for God says, ‘ Neither My earth
nor My heaven contains Me, but I am contained by the heart
of My servant who is a believer ’ ; and since the heart which
contains this essential wisdom of the race of Jesus is bare
and empty of all attributes (ajjisSb ^i), it is

like a desert and she is like a wild animal. Then he
mentions the marble tomb of the Roman emperors, that
such a mausoleum may remind her of death, which is the
severance of union, and make her shun familiarity with the
created world on account of this severance.

8. The four Books (the Koran, the Psalms, the Tora, and
   the Gospel) are here indicated by the mention of those who
   study and expound them. All the sciences comprised in the
   four Books point only to the Divine Names and are incapable
   of solving a question that concerns the Divine Essence.

9. If this spiritual being, forasmuch as she is of the race
   of Jesus, appeals to the Gospel by way of justifying it in
   anything which men’s thoughts have falsely imputed to it,
   we humble ourselves before her and serve her no less
   devotedly than do the heads of the Church, because of her
   majesty and sovereign might.

10. c Upon the road/ i.e. the spiritual ascension

11. ‘To grant me relief’: he means what the Prophet
    meant by his saying, ‘ Lo, the breath of the Merciful comes
    to me from the quarter of al-Yaman/ The writer begs that
    the world of breaths (^UPJ\ ^!L) may continually be wafted
    from her to him along with the spiritual feelings

1 Abu 1- ‘Abbas as-Sayyari of Alerv (died 342 a. h.). His doctrine of union
and separation (AUij % is explained by al-Hujwfri in the Kashf

al-Mahjub.

THE TATUUM AN AL-ASHWAQ (il, III)

The Arabs .refer to this in their poetry, for they speak of
giving greetings and news to be delivered by the winds
when they blow.

12. ‘May God preserve us from her evil!* He refers to
    the Tradition ‘I take refuge with Thee from Thyself'.

‘ The victorious king,' i.e. thoughts of knowledge and
Divine guidance.

‘ Iblfs,’ i.e. the thought of becoming one with God (As?),
for this is a hard station, and few who attain to it escape
from the doctrines of jUJM and incarnation It is

the station indicated in the Tradition ‘ I am his ear and his
eye ’, etc.

13. He says, ‘When this spiritual essence desired to quit
    this noble heart on account of its (the heart’s) return from
    the station denoted by the words, “ I have an hour which
    I share with none save my Lord,” to the task imposed upon it
    of presiding over the phenomenal worlds, for which purpose
    its gaze is directed towards the Divine Names, the lofty
    aspiration (aXs>) on which this spiritual essence was borne
    to the heart, took its departure.’ He calls this aspiration
    ‘ her she-camel ’, and the drivers of such aspirations are the
    angels who approach nearest to God (0,yJiU!!).

Ode III

1. 0 my two friends, pass by al-Katlnb and turn towards

La‘la‘ and seek the waters of Yalamlam,

2. For there dwell those whom thou knowest and those to

whom belong my fasting and my pilgrimage and my
visit to the holy places and my festival.

3. Never let me forget at al-Muhassab of Mind and at

al-Manliar al-A‘la and Zamzain certain grave matters.

4. Their Muhassab is my heart, because of their casting the

pebbles, and their place of sacrifice is my soul, and
their well is my blood.

5. O camel-driver, if thou comest to Hdjir, stop the beasts

a little while and give a greeting,

G. And address to the red tents on the side of the guarded
pasture the salutation of one who longs for you and
is distraught.

7. And if they return thy greeting, once more let the East

wind bring thy salaam to them ; and if they are
silent, journey on with thy camels and advance

8. To the river of Jesus, where their riding-camels halted and

where the white tents lie beside the river-mouth,

9. And call Da'd and ar-Rabab and Zaynab and Hind and

Salma and Lubna, and listen,

10. And ask them whether at al-Halba is She, the limber
    one who shows thee the radiance of the sun when
    she smiles.

Commentary

1. ‘ O my two friends/ i.e. his reason and his faith.

' Al-Kathib/ the place of contemplation.

' Lada'/ the place of bewilderment and amazement, that
he may no more be conscious of love and longing.

‘ The waters of Yalamlam/ i.e. the fountain of life, since
water is the source of every living thing.

2. ‘ Thou knowest 5 : he addresses Faith, not Reason, for
   knowledge of the Essence and of its attributes is gained
   solely by means of Faith.

c And those to whom belong/ etc., i.e. the Divine attributes.

‘ My fasting ’ : he means the quality of being independent
of food as God said, 'Fasting belongs to

Me/ i.e. that quality cannot truly be predicated of a man ;
yet a man has some part in fasting, since it entails abstinence
from food and nourishment.

‘ My pilgrimage/ i.e. a repeated turning towards this pure
Essence for the sake of gaining a blessing at every moment
from the Divine Names. This pilgrimage and visitation
is incessant, though a man is momently going from
one Name to another.

' My festival/ referring to the concentration of the

mind when all mystical stations and Divine verities are

united therein, just as all sorts and conditions of men
assemble at Mecca for one purpose.

3. 4 Never let me forget 5 : he alludes to an occasion when
   he became invested with Divine qualities (l£fcS\ ULLsr) in the
   sense of the Tradition ‘ I am his ear and his eye ', and he
   also calls attention to his having attained by Divine in-
   vestiture the station which is described in the words 1 And
   thy Lord is not forgetful' (Ivor, xix, 65).

‘ At al-Muhassab/ the place where the pebbles are cast.
He refers to the verse ‘ And remember God even as ye
remember your fathers, or more reverently' (Ivor, ii, 196),
i.e. in this place cast the memory of your fathers out of
your hearts and mouths.

‘ At al-Manhar al-A‘la/ the place of (spiritual) sacrifice,
as the poet says :

4 Thou offerest victims, but I offer my life-blood/

• Zamzam 5 : he means the station of everlasting life.

4. ‘ Their Muhassab * : ‘ their 5 refers to the Divine verities
   which descend upon the heart and cast out sensual and
   devilish thoughts.

• Their place of sacrifice ’ : the story is well known of the
  youth who mentally offered himself at Mina when he saw
  the people offering sacrifice, and died on the spot.

5. ■' O camel-driver' : he addresses the Desire which drives
   his thoughts to the abode of those whom he loves.

‘ Hdjir ’ : hijr is the understanding, and the way (to God)
is only through faith and contemplation, not through the
understanding in respect of its power of reflection but in
virtue of its cognition and belief.

‘ Stop the beasts a little while/ because when the lover
first approaches the dwelling-place of his beloved he is dazed
and dumbfounded and often swoons ; consequently he is apt
to break the rules of good manners in greeting her.

6. ‘ The red tents ’ : the Arabs deem red the most beautiful
   of all colours, and red tents are reserved for brides.

‘ On the side of the guarded pasture/ i.e. the tents are

THE TABJUHAX AL-ASHWAQ (ill, IV)

inaccessible except to those who have the right to approach
them. He calls the tents qibdb (round tents or domes)
because roundness is the first and best of shapes, and he
says that the Divine Realities which he loves are in their
original home, which is beside God, not beside any phe-
nomenal object, for they belong to ‘ the world of command ’

7. • Let the East wind/ etc. r he mentions the East wind
     particularly, because mbd signifies ‘ inclination ’ ( mayl ).

8. ‘ To the river of Jesus,’ i.e. to the ample knowledge
   manifested in Jesus (spLU\

4 The white tents’: white, because Jesus was born of
a virgin.

‘ Beside the river-mouth,’ i.e. this knowledge is approached
by the way of Divine allocution and manifestation

9. He says, ‘ Call the names of these Divine Realities
   according to their difference, in order that whichever is
   yours may respond to you and that thus you may know
   what is your position in regard to them.’

10. ‘ Al-Halba/ a quarter of Baghdad. Halba means ‘ race-
    course’. The Divine Realities strive to outstrip one another
    in haste to reach the phenomena which display their traces
    and manifest their power. Hence he speaks of ‘ the limber
    one ’, i.e. inclining towards the phenomenal world.

‘ The radiance of the sun ’ : formerly thou wert in a station
of Jesus, but now thou art asking of a station of Idris, lofty
and polar ( JvAc.), for to him belongs the fourth heaven.

‘When she smiles’: he indicates that this is the station
of Expansion and that she is with him in joy

and beauty (not in awe and majesty).

1. Greeting to Salma and to those who dwell in the preserve,
   for it behoves one who loves tenderly like me to give
   greeting.

o o

j ■* w

Ode IV

2. And what harm to her if she gave me a greeting in

return ? But fair women are subject to no authority.

3. They journeyed when the darkness of night had let down

its curtains, and I said to her, ‘ Pity a passionate
lover, outcast and distraught,

4. Whom desires eagerly encompass and at whom speeding

arrows are aimed wheresoever he bends his course.’

5. She displayed her front-teeth and a levin flashed, and

I knew not which of the twain rent the gloom,

0. And she said, ‘ Is it not enough for him that I am in his
   heart and that he beholds me at every moment ? Is
   it not enough ? ’

Commentary

1. ‘Salma’: he alludes to a Solomonic ecstasy

which descended upon him from the station of
Solomon in virtue of a prophetic heritage.

‘ In the preserve,’ i.e. an unattainable station, viz. prophecy,
whereof the gate was closed by Muhammad, the last of the
prophets. Solomon’s experience of this Divine wisdom
(<u£^) in so far as he was a prophet is different from his
experience of it in so far as he was a saint, and we share it
with him only in the latter case, since our experience of it
is derived from the saintship which is the greatest circle

2. God does nothing of necessity: whatever comes to us
   from Him is by His favour. The author indicates this
   Divine Solomonic apparition ( nulda ) by the term ‘ marble
   statues ’ (i.e. women fair as marble statues). He means that
   she does not answer by speech, for if she did so her speech
   wpuld be other than her essence, whereas her essence is
   single, so that her advent is identical with her speech and
   with her visible presence and with her hearing ; and in this
   respect all the Divine Realities and Attributes resemble her.

3. ‘ They journeyed,’ etc. : the ascension of the prophets
   always took place during the night, because night is the
   time of mystery and concealment.

Ode V

'The darkness of night/ i.e. the veil of the Unseen let
down the curtains of gross corporeal existence, which is the
night of this animal organism, throwing a shroud over the
spiritual subtleties and noble sciences which it enshrines.
These, however, are not to be reached except by journeying
through bodily actions and sensual thoughts, and whilst
a man is thus occupied the Divine wisdom goes away from
his heart, so that on his return he finds her gone and follows
her with his aspiration.

4. ' Speeding arrows * : he describes this celestial form as
   shooting his heart, wherever it turns, with the arrows of her
   glances, as God said, ' Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face
   of Allah' (Ivor, ii, 109).

5. ' She displayed her front-teeth/ etc., i.e. this lover found
   his whole being illuminated, for ' God is the light of the
   heavens and the earth ’ (Ivor, xxiv, 35), and the Prophet
   also said in his prayer, ' O God, put a light into my ear and
   into my eye/ and after mentioning the different members of
   his body he concluded, 'and make the whole of me one
   light/ viz. by the manifestation of Thy essence. Such a
   manifestation is compared to a flash of lightning on account
   of its not continuing. The author says that he did not
   know whether his being was illuminated by the manifestation
   proceeding from this Divine wisdom, which smiled upon him,
   or by a simultaneous manifestation of the Divine Essence.

6. ' She said/ etc., i.e. let him not seek me from without
   and let it satisfy him that I have descended into his heart,
   so that he beholds me in his essence and through his essence
   at every moment.

7. My longing sought the Upland and my affliction the

Lowland, so that I was between Najd and Tihama.

2. They are two contraries which cannot meet: hence my

disunion will never be repaired.

3. What am I to do ? What shall I devise ? Guide me

O my censor, do not affright me with blame !

4. Sighs have risen aloft and tears are pouring over my

cheeks.

5. The camels, footsore from the journey, long for their

homes and utter the plaintive cry of the frenzied
lover.

6. After they have gone, my life is naught but annihilation.

Farewell to it and to patience !

Commentary

1. ‘The Upland/ referring to God on His throne.

2. ‘ They are two contraries/ etc. : he says, ‘ Inasmuch as
   the spiritual element in man is always governing the body,
   it can never contemplate that which is uneomposed apart
   from its body and independently, as some Sufis and
   philosophers and ignorant persons declare/ Hence the
   writer says, ‘ my disunion will never be repaired/ i.e.,
   ‘ I cannot become united with Him who is pure and simple,
   and who resembles my essence and reality. Therefore
   longing is folly, for this station is unattainable, but longing
   is a necessary attribute of love, and accordingly I cease not
   from longing/

3. ‘ My censor/ i.e. the blaming soul

4. ‘ The camels/ i.e. the actions or the lofty thoughts

— since, in my opinion, such thoughts belong to the
class of actions — on which the good words
mount to the throne of God. They ‘ long for their homes ',
i.e. for the Divine Names from which they proceeded and by
which they are controlled.

G. ‘My life is naught but annihilation' : he says, ‘ When
the lofty thoughts ascend to their goal I remain in the state
of passing away from passing away JLi30> f°r

I have gained the life imperishable which is not followed
by any opposite.' Accordingly, he bids farewell to patience
and to the mortal life, because he has quitted the sensible
world.

Ode VI

1. When they departed, endurance and patience depai'ted.

They departed, although they were dwelling in the
core of my heart.

2. I asked them where the travellers rested at noon, and

I was answered, 4 Their noonday resting-place is where
the shill and the ban trees diffuse a sweet scent.’

3. Then I said to the wind, * Go and overtake them, for they

are biding in the shade of the grove,

4. And bear to them a greeting from a sorrowful man in

whose heart are sorrows because he is separated from
his people.’

Commentary

1. • They departed,’ i.e. the Divine Ideas luJl).

‘ They were dwelling in the core of my heart ’ : the Divine

Ideas have no relationship except with their object (

which is God ; and God dwells in the heart, according
to the Tradition 4 Neither My earth nor My heaven contains
Me, but I am contained in the heart of My servant who
believes ’. Since, however, no manifestation was vouchsafed
to him at this moment, the Ideas, being objects of vision,
disappeared, notwithstanding that God was in his heart.

2. ‘ I asked them,’ i.e. the gnostics and the real existences
   (jjljtoA of the past Shaykhs who were my guides on the
   mystic Way.

4 Their noonday resting-place,’ etc., i.e. they reposed in
every heart where the sighs of longing appeared, for

shih denotes inclination ( mayl ) and ban absence {bn1 cl).

3. f I said to the wind,’ i.e. I sent a sigh of longing after
   them in the hope of causing them to return to me.

‘ In the shade of the grove,’ i.e. amongst the arctic trees,
whereof the wood is used as a tooth-stick He

refers to the Tradition * The use of the tooth-stick purifies
the mouth and pleases the Lord ’, i.e. the Divine Ideas are
dwelling in the abode of purity.

Ode VII

1. As I kissed the Black Stone, friendly women thronged

around me ; they came to perform the eircum-
ambulation with veiled faces.

2. They uncovered the (faces like) sunbeams and said to me,

‘ Beware ! for the death of the soul is in thy looking
at us.

3. How many aspiring souls have we killed already at

al-Muhassab of Mina, beside the pebble-heaps,

4. And in Sarlmt al-Wadi and the mountains of Rama and

Jam4 and at the dispersion from ‘Arafat !

5. Dost not thou see that beauty robs him who hath modesty,

and therefore it is called the robber of virtues ?

6. Our try sting-place after the circumambulation is at

Zamzam beside the midmost tent, beside the rocks.

7. There everyone whom anguish hath emaciated is restored

to health by the love-desire that perfumed women
stir in him.

8. When they are afraid they let fall their hair, so that

they are hidden by their tresses as it were by robes
of darkness.*

Commentary

1. ‘ As I kissed the Black Stone/ i.e. when the Holy Hand

(<L:Alu51 was outstretched to me that I might take

upon it the Divine oath of allegiance, referring to the verse
‘ Those uho swear fealty to thee swear fealty to God ; the
hand of God is over their hands ’ (Ivor, xlviii, 10).

‘Friendly women/ i.e. the angels who go round the throne
of God (Ivor, xxxix, 75).

2. ‘The death of the soul/ etc. : these spirits say, ‘Do not
   look at ns, lest thou fall passionately in love with us. Thou
   wert created for God, not for us, and if thou wilt be veiled
   by us from Him, He will cause thee to pass away from thy
   existence through Him (<u uJlyfj ^ l-TUT), and thou
   wilt perish/

3. ‘ Have we killed/ i.e. spirits like unto us, for the

above-mentioned angels who go round the Throne have no
relationship except with pilgrims circumambulating the Kacba.

5. ‘ Beauty robs him wlio hath modesty/ since the vision
   of Beauty enraptures whosoever beholds it.

f The robber of virtues/ i.e. it takes away all delight in the
vision of beauty from him who acts at the bidding of the
possessor of this beauty ; and sometimes the beauteous one
bids thee do that which stands between thee and glorious
things, inasmuch as those things are gained by means of
hateful actions : the Tradition declares that Paradise is
encompassed by things which thou dislikest

6. ‘ At Zamzam/ i.e. in the station of the life which thou
   yearnest for.

‘ Beside the midmost tent/ i.e. the intermediate world
which divides the spiritual from the corporeal

world.

‘ Beside the rocks/ i.e. the sensible bodies in which the
holy spiritual beings take their abode. He

means that these spirits in these imaginary forms are
metaphorical and transient, for they vanish from the dreamer
as soon as he wakes and from the seer as soon as he returns
to his senses. He warns thee not to be deceived by the
manifestations of phenomenal beauty, inasmuch as all save
God is unreal, i.e. not-being like unto thyself ; therefore be
His that He may be thine.

7. In the intermediate world !1) whosoever loves these

spiritual beings dwelling in sensible bodies derives refresh-
ment from the world of breaths and scents Jh JL)

because the spirit and the form are there united, so that the
delight is double.

8. When these phantoms are afraid that their absoluteness
   will be limited by their confinement in forms, they cause
   thee to perceive that they are a veil which hides something
   more subtle than what thou seest, and conceal themselves
   from thee and quit these forms and once more enjoy infinite
   freedom.

Ode VIII

Ode IX

ym

1. Their abodes liave become decayed, but desire of them is

ever new in my heart and deeayeth not.

2. These tears are shed over their ruined dwellings, but souls

are ever melted at the memory of them.

3. Through love of them I called out behind their riding-

camels, * 0 ye who are rich in beauty, here am I,
a beggar !

4. I liave rolled my cheek in the dust in tender and passionate

affection : then, by the true love which I owe to you,
do not make hopeless

5. One who is drowned in his tears and burned in the fire of

sorrow with no respite ! ’

6. 0 thou who wouldst kindle a fire, be not hasty ! Here is

the fire of passion. Go and take of it !

Commentary

1. ‘Their abodes have become decayed’ : he says, ‘the
   places of austerities and mortifications, where the Divine
   Names made works (JU^I) their abode, have become decayed
   through age and loss of youthful strength.’ The word c
   is used in reference to the springtide ,) of human life.

2. ‘ Behind their riding-camels,’ i.e. the powers of youth
   and the delights of the commencement (ildjdl).

3. ‘ I liave rolled my cheek in the dust,’ i.e. desiring
   to be united with you, for God says, ‘ Seek access to Me
   by means of that which I liave not,’ viz. abasement and
   indigence.

4. ‘ Here is the fire of passion,’ i.e. in my heart.

5. Flashes of lightning gleamed to us at al-Abraqan, and

their peals of thunder crashed between the ribs.

2. Their clouds poured rain on every meadow and on every

quivering branch that bends towards thee.

3. The watercourses were flooded and the breeze wafted

perfume, and a ringdove flapped her wings and a twig
put forth leaves.

4. They pitched the red tents between rivulets (creeping) like

serpents, amongst which were seated

5. Friendly damsels, bright of countenance, rising like the

suns, large-eyed, noble, of generous race, and limber.

Commentary

1. ‘Al-Abraqan/ i.e. two manifestations of the Essence, one
   in the unseen and one in the visible world.

‘ Flashes of lightning/ referring to the variety of forms in
the latter manifestation.

‘Peals of thunder/ i.e. the Divine converse
which followed the manifestation. This is a Mosaic ecstasy
<3W), for Moses first saw the fire and afterwards
heard God speak. The mention of thunder also signifies that
God’s speech was a rebuke.

2. ‘Their clouds/ i.e. the ecstasies (J\tl>J) which bring
   forth the Divine sciences.

‘ On every meadow/ i.e. the heart of man together with
the Divine sciences which it holds.

‘ On every quivering branch/ i.e. the straight movement
(<uJb^M which is the growth of man iUJ),

as God says that He created Adam after His own image ; and
from this station it ‘ bends *, i.e. inclines towards thee that it
may instruct thee.

3. He says, * The valleys of the Divine sciences were

flooded, and the world of breaths ^JU) diffused the

sweet scents of the Divine sciences.’

‘ A ringdove/ i.e. the Universal Soul together witli the
effect it produces upon the Partial Soul, which appears in
the form of the Universal in so far as it possesses the two
faculties of knowledge and action.

‘A twig/ i.e. that with which the branches are clothed.
He refers to the verse ‘ Take your becoming vesture at every
mosque 5 (Ivor, vii, 29), i.e. the everlasting vesture of God,
which consists in the various kinds of Divine science and gnosis.

Ode X

4. ‘ The red tents/ i.e. the bride-like forms of Divine
   wisdom.

‘ Rivulets/ i.e. diverse sciences connected with the works
which lead to union with these forms of Divine wisdom.

‘Like serpents’: cf. Ivor, xxiv, 44, 'And amongst them is one
ivho u ulks on his belly? He refers to those devout persons
who scrupulously examine their food, for by means of pure
food which produces strength for the practice of devotion
the heart is illuminated and becomes the abode of these forms
of Divine wisdom.

5. ‘ Bright of countenance/ etc., i.e. there is no doubt
   concerning them, as the Prophet said, ‘Ye shall see your
   Lord as ye see the sun at noonday when no cloud comes
   between/

‘ Noble/ i.e. proceeding from the results of works prescribed
by God, unlike the maxims of the philosophers which spring
from their own minds.

‘ Of generous race ’ : is derived from jjLc. He means,

therefore, that they understand what is imparted to them and
perceive its value.

‘Limber’: although per se they are in the station of
equilibrium and inflexibility, yet when they are invoked
with longing and humility and love they incline towai'ds the
caller, because lie is not able to ascend to them.

1. She said, ‘ I wonder at a lover who in conceit of his merits

walks proudly among flowers in a garden.’

2. I replied, ‘ Do not wonder at what thou seest, for thoxi

hast beheld thyself in the mirror of a man/

Commentary

1. ‘ Flowers/ i.e. created things.

‘A garden/ the unitive station VJUfl), i.e. his essence.

‘Utba al-Ghulam used to walk pi'oudly and swagger in his
gait. ‘ How should not I do so/ he said to one who found
fault with him, ‘ since He has become my Lord and I have

Ode XI

become His slave ? ’ When a man realizes God in the sense
of ‘ I am His hearing and His sight this station justifies the
attribution to him of whatever is attributed to God.

2. He says, ‘ I am like a mirror to thee, and in those
   qualities with which I am invested thou beholdest thyself,
   not me, but thou beholdest them in my human nature which
   has received this investiture/

This is the vision of God in created things, which in the
opinion of some is more exalted than the vision of created
things in God.

1. 0 doves that haunt the ardk and ban trees, have pity !

Do not double my woes by your lamentation !

2. Have pity ! Do not reveal, by wailing and weeping, my

hidden desires and my secret sorrows !

3. I respond to her, at eve and morn, with the plaintive cry

of a longing man and the moan of an impassioned
lover.

4. The spirits faced one another in the thicket of ghadd

trees and bent their branches towards me, and it (the
bending) annihilated me ;

5. And they brought me divers sorts of tormenting desire

and passion and untried affliction.

6. Who will give me sure promise of Jam' and aDMuhassab

of Mina ? Who of Dliat al-Athl ? Who of Na'man ?

7. They encompass my heart moment after moment, for the

sake of love and anguish, and kiss my pillars,

8. Even as the best of mankind encompassed the Ka‘ba,

which the evidence of Reason proclaims to be
imperfect,

9. And kissed stones therein, although he was a Natiq

(prophet).1 And what is the rank of the Temple in
comparison with the dignity of Man ?

1 In the IsmaTlf system Muhammad, regarded as an incarnation of
Universal Reason, is the Xatiq of the sixth prophetic cycle. See Professor
Browne’s Literary History of Persia, i, 408 seq.

10. How often did they vow and swear that they would not

change, but one dyed with henna does not keep oaths.

11. And one of the most wonderful things is a veiled

gazelle, who points with red finger-tip and winks
with eyelids,

12. A gazelle whose pasture is between the breast-bones and

the bowels. O marvel 1 a garden amidst fires !

13. My heart has become capable of every form : it is a

pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,

14. And a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka‘ba and the

tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran.

15. I follow the religion of Love : whatever way Love’s

camels take, that is my religion and my faith,

16. We have a pattern in Bishr, the lover of Hind and her

sister, and in Qays and Lubnd and in Mayya and
Ghaylan.

Commentary

1. 4 O doves,’ i.e. the influences of holiness and purity.

2. 4 I respond to her,’ i.e. I repeat to her what she says to
   me, as God said to the soul when He created her, 4 Who am
   I ? ’ and she answered, 4 Who am I ? ’ referring to her
   qualities, whereupon He caused her to dwell four thousand
   years in the sea of despair and indigence and abasement
   until she said to Him, ‘ Thou art my Lord.’

3. • Faced one another/ because love entails the union of
     two opposites.

• In the thicket of ghadii trees/ i.e. the fires of love.

4 Branches/ i.e. flames.

4 Annihilated me,’ in order that He alone might exist, not
I, through jealousy that the lover should have any existence
in himself apart from his beloved.

6. ‘ Jam4/ i.e. union with the loved ones in the station of
   proximity, which is al-Muzdalifa.

‘Al-Muhassab/ the place where the thoughts which prevent
lovers from attaining their object of desire are cast out.

4 Dhdt al-Athl,’ referring to the principle (J^)7 for it is

THE TAItJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (Xl)

the principle in love that thou shouldst be the very essence
of thy Beloved and shouldst disappear in Him from thyself.

‘ Na'man,’ the place of Divine and holy bliss

7. ‘ For the sake of love and anguish,’ i.e. in order to
   inspire me with passion.

‘ And kiss my pillars ’ (properly, kiss over the litham or
veil covering the mouth), i.e. he is veiled and unable to
behold them except through a medium (aL-A). The ‘pillars’
are the four elements on which the human constitution is
based.1

10. ‘One dyed with henna’: he refers to sensual influences

such as descended on the soul when God
addressed it and said, ‘ Am not I your LorclV (Ivor, vii, 171),
and received from it a promise and covenant. Then it did
not faithfully keep the station of unification (ju^dl)i but
followed other gods. No one was exempt from this poly-
theism, for every one said, ‘ I did ’ and ‘ I said at the time
when he forgot to contemplate the Divine Agent and Speaker
within him.

11. ‘A veiled gazelle,’ i.e. a Divine subtlety (<£Lk!) veiled

by a sensual state <3U~), in reference to the unknown

spiritual feelings (Jb*J) of gnostics, who cannot explain
their feelings to other men ; they can only indicate them
symbolically to those who have begun to experience the like.

‘ With red finger-tip ’ : he means the same thing as he
meant by ‘ one dyed with henna ’ in the last verse.

‘And winks with eyelids,’ i.e. the speculative proofs
concerning the principles of gnostics are valid only for
those who have already been imbued with the rudiments
of this experience. Gnostics, though they resemble the
vulgar outwardly, are Divines (^-317,) inwardly.

12. ‘Whose pasture,’ etc., as ‘AH said, striking his breast,

‘ Here are sciences in plenty, could I but find people to carry
them (in their minds).’

1 The author leaves the next two verses unexplained. * The best of
mankind’ is Muhammad.

‘A garden amidst fires/ i.e. manifold sciences which,
strange to say, are not consumed by the flames of love
in his breast. The reason is, that these sciences are
produced by the fires of seeking and longing, and therefore,
like the salamander, are not destroyed by them.

13. ‘ My heart has become capable of every form/ as

another has said, ‘The heart (y Jill) is so called from its

changing (<uJJu)/ for it varies according to the various
influences by which it is affected in consequence of the
variety of its states of feeling (Jh^-1); and the variety
of its feelings is due to the variety of the Divine
manifestations that appear to its inmost gvound (J^). The
religious law gives to this phenomenon the name of

• transformation ’ ^ JiuslL JkdJl).

‘ A pasture for gazelles/ i.e. for the objects of his love.

‘ A convent for Christian monks ’ : inasmuch as he makes
the loved ones to be monks, he calls the heart a convent.

14. ‘A temple for idols/ i.e. for the Divine Realities which
    men seek and for whose sake they worship God.

‘ The pilgrims Iva‘ba/ because his heart is encompassed by
exalted spirits.

‘ The tables of the Tora/ i.e. his heart is a table on which
are inscribed the Mosaic sciences that have accrued to him.

‘ The book of the Koran/ because his heart has received an
inheritance of the perfect Muhammadan knowledge.

15. ‘I follow the religion of Love/ in reference to the verse
    ‘ Follow me, then God will love you 1 (Ivor, iii, 29).

‘ Whatever way Love’s camels take/ etc., i.e. ‘I accej^t
willingly and gladly whatever burden He lays upon me.
No religion is more sublime than a religion based on love
and longing for Him whom I worship and in whom I have
faith \ This is a peculiar prerogative of Moslems, for the
station of perfect love is appropriated to Muhammad beyond
any other prophet, since God took him as His beloved

16. He says, ‘Love, qud love, is one and the same reality
    to those Arab lovers and to me, but the objects of our love

Ode XII

are different, for they loved a phenomenon, whereas I love the
Essential. 4 We have a pattern in them/ because God only
afflicted them with love for human beings like themselves
in order that He might show, by means of them, the falseness
of those who pretend to love Him and yet feel no such
transport and rapture in loving Him as deprived those
enamoured men of their reason and made them unconscious
of themselves.

1. At Dhu Salam and the monastery in the abode of al-Hima

are gazelles who show thee the sun in the forms of
marble statues.

2. Therefore I watch spheres and serve in a church and guard

a many-coloured meadow in the spring.

3. And at one time I am called the herdsman of the gazelles

in the desert, and at another time I am called a
Christian monk and an astrologer.

4. My Beloved is three although He is One, even as the

(three) Persons (of the Trinity) are made one Person
in essence.

5. So be not displeased, 0 friend, that I speak of gazelles

that move round the marble statues as ‘ a shining sun',

6. Or that I use metaphorically the necks of the gazelles,

the face of the sun, and the breast and wrist of the
white statue,

7. Just as I have lent to the branches (spiritual) endowments

and to the meadows moral qualities, and to the
lightning laughing lips.

Commentary

1. ‘Dhu Salam’: a station to which submission is rendered
   on account of its beauty.

‘ The monastery/ referring to a Syrian ecstasy (<3U~

‘ The abode of al-Hima/ that which surrounds the most
inaccessible veil of Divine glory.

'Gazelles/ i.e. forms of Divine and prophetic wisdom
which descend upon his spirit.

' Marble statues/ i.e. sorts of knowledge (uJ^U^) with
which neither reason nor lust is connected ; hence he makes
them inanimate

2. ' I watch spheres/ i.e. the spiritual states in which
   these sorts of knowledge revolve, like the sun.

' And serve in a church/ because marble effigies are found
in churches.

f And guard/ etc. : the meadows where these gazelles

pasture are the scenes of devotional acts and Divine morals ;
they are described as ' many-coloured i.e. adorned with the
Divine realities, and spring-like, because that which is new
and fresh is more delightful to the soul.

3. He refers to his ever-changing spiritual states, which
   bring with them manifold Divine influences and sciences.
   Although the spiritual experiences vary, the Divine substance

remains one. This is the 'transformation' (. J
of which Muslim speaks in the chapter on Faith,
Those who worship God in the sun behold a sun, and those
who worship Him in living things see a living thing, and
those who worship Him in inanimate objects see an inanimate
object, and those who worship Him as a Being unique and
unparalleled see that which has no like.

4. He says, 'Number does not beget multiplicity in the
   Divine substance, as the Christians declare that the Three
   Persons of the Trinity are One God, and as the Koran
   declares (xvii, 110) : " Call on God or call on the Merciful ;
   howsoever ye invoke Him , it is well, for to Him belong the
   most excellent Names.” 1 The cardinal Names in the Koran
   are three, viz. Allah and ar-Rahrnan and ar-Rabb, by which
   One God is signified, and the rest of the Names serve as
   epithets of those three.

G. ' Necks/ indicating the light as in the Tradition

‘ The muezzins shall be the longest-necked of mankind on the
Day of Resurrection \

Ode XIII

‘ The face of the sun/ as in the Tradition ‘ Ye shall see
your Lord as ye see the sun \

‘ The breast and wrist of the white statue/ as in the
Tradition which mentions the breast and fore-arm of the
Almighty.

7. 4 The branches/ i.e. the souls distraught by the majesty
   of God and turned away by love from the consciousness of
   their personality and from the contemplation of their
   phenomenal nature.

‘ The meadow/ i.e. the station of union AiL*) in

which God has placed them.

‘ Moral qualities/ i.e. the scented breaths of Divine Mercy,
viz. the goodly praise **L i!) of the kind mentioned in

the Tradition ‘ Even as Thou dost praise Thyself’.

‘The lightning/ i.e. a manifestation of the Divine Essence.

‘ Laughing lips/ as God is said in the Tradition to rejoice
at the repentance of His servant, or to laugh

1. A ringdove wailed and a sad lover complained, and he was

grieved by her trilling note and complaint.

2. Tears flowed from their eyes in distress for her complaint,

and ’twas as tho’ they (the tears) were fountains.

3. I responded to her in the bereavement caused by the loss

of her only child : one who loses an only child is
bereaved indeed.

4. I responded to her, while Grief walked between us ; she

was invisible, but I was clearly seen.

5. In me is a burning desire, from love of the sandy tract of

‘Alij, where her tents are and the large-eyed maidens,
G. With murderous glances, languishing : their eyelids are
sheaths for glances like swords.

7. I did not cease to swallow the tears proceeding from my

malady and to conceal and guard my passion from
those who blame me,

8. Until, when the raven's croak announced their departure,

separation exposed the desire of a sorrow-stricken lover.

9. They journeyed continuously through the night, they cut
   the nose-rings of their camels, so that they (the
   camels) moaned and eried under the litters.

10. I beheld the pangs of death at the time when they loosed

the camels’ reins and tied their saddle-girths.

11. Oh! separation together with love’s pain is mortal, but

love’s sorest pain together with meeting is light.

12. None blames me for desiring her, for she is beloved and

beautiful wherever she may be.

Commentary

1. ‘A ringdove,’ i.e. the Universal Spirit, born of God and
   breathed into Man. She is described as having a collar
   (ring), in reference to the covenant which He laid upon her.

• A sad lover,’ i.e. the partial spirit which is in Man.

‘Her trilling note,’ i.e. the sweet melodies calling him to
union with her. This union is the first resurrection at
•death (cu~*Jb JjSl

2. ‘From their eyes’: he refers to the partial spirits

( \ ‘ Her complaint ’ : the Universal Spirit, which

is the father of the partial spirits, longs for them even more
than they long for her.

3. ‘ Her only child,’ i.e. the special quality which dis-
   tinguishes her from all things else, viz. her unity
   whereby she knows the unity of Him who brought her
   into being. The loss of it consists in her not knowing what
   it is and in its not being plainly discerned by her.

4. ‘ She was invisible,’ for she does not belong to the world
   of expression and exposition.

5. ‘ The sandy tract of ‘Alij,’ i.e. the subtleties of the
   acquired or analytic sciences. ‘Alij refers to the striving
   after good works ( <Ls5U^)*

‘ Her tents,’ the veils which conceal these sciences.

‘The large-eyed maidens,’ i.e. the sciences which descend
upon the solitary recluse.

6. ‘ With murderous glances,’ i.e. they eause him to pass
   way from his own personality.

Ode XIV

• Languishing/ i.e. they incline towards the solitary. The
  term ' glances ’ indicates that they are sciences of contemplation
  and revelation, not of faith and mystery, and that they
  proceed from the manifestation of forms.

7. He refers to a state of concealment which is characteristic
   of the Malamatis.1

8. ' They journeyed continuously ’ : since the object sought
   is infinite, the return from it is also a journey towards it.
   There is no migration except from one Divine Name to
   another.

'They cut the nose-rings of their camels/ on account of
the violent haste with which they travelled.

11. 'Meeting/ a kind of presence in which there is

no passing away (*Li).

12. He says, 'The aspirations and desires of all seekers are
    attached to Her, yet She is essentially unknown to them
    hence they all love Her, yet none blames another for loving
    Her. Similarly, every individual soul and the adherents of
    every religion seek salvation, but since they do not know
    it they are also ignorant of the way that leads to it, though
    everyone believes that he is on the right way. All strife
    between people of different religions and sects is about the
    way that leads to salvation, not about salvation itself.
    It; anyone knew that he was taking the wrong way, he
    would not persevere in his error/ Accordingly the author
    says that She manifests Herself everywhere, like the sun,
    and that every person who beholds Her deems that She is
    with him in Her essence, so that envy and jealousy are
    removed from their hearts.

13. He saw the lightning in the east and he longed for the
    east, but if it had flashed in the west he would have
    longed for the west.

1 A Sufi sect or school Mho emphasized the need of incurring blame
(maid mat) for God's sake and of concealing spiritual merit, lest they should
fall into self-conceit. See my translation of the Kashf al-Mahjub, pp. 62-9.

75-

2. My desire is for the lightning and its gleam, not for the

places and the earth.

3. The east wind related to me from them a tradition handed

down successively from distracted thoughts, from my
passion, from anguish, from my tribulation,

4. From rapture, from my reason, from yearning, from ardour,.

from tears, from my eyelid, from fire, from my heart,

5. That f He whom thou lovest is between thy ribs ; the

breaths toss him from side to side \

6. I said to the east wind, ‘ Bring a message to him and say

that he is the enkindler of the fire within my heart.

7. If it shall be quenched, then everlasting union, and if

it shall burn, then no blame to the lover ! '

Commentary

1. He refers to the vision of God in created things, viz. the
   manifestation in forms, and this causes him to cleave to
   phenomena, because the manifestation appears in them.

4 The east/ i.e. the place of phenomenal manifestation.

‘If it had flashed in the west/ i.e. if it had been a mani-
festation of the Divine essence to the lovers heart, he would
have longed for that purer manifestation in the world of
purity and mystery.

2. He says, ‘ I desire the forms in which the manifestation
   takes place only in so far as they are a locus for the mani-
   festation itself/

3. The world of breaths i\ ^!U) communicated to me

the inward meaning of these phenomenal forms.

4. ‘ Rapture 5 (literally, ‘ intoxication/ JUL) : the fourth
   degree in the manifestations. The first degree is j.j, the
   second L-Jy* , and the third .

‘ From my reason/ because intoxication transports the
reason and takes away from it whatever it has.

5. ‘ The breaths/ etc., i.e. the overwhelming awe inspired by
   this manifestation produces in him various ecstasies

6. He says, ‘ If the awful might of this manifestation
   shall be veiled through the permanence of the Divine

Ode XV

substance, then the union will be lasting ; but if the mani-
festation be unchecked, it will sweep away all that exists
in its lociis , and those who perish are not in fault/ This is
the saying of one possessed and mastered by ecstasy7.

1. They left me at al-Uthayl and al-Naqa shedding tears

and complaining of the fire (that consumed me).

2. My father be the ransom of him for whose sake I melted

with anguish ! My father be the ransom of him for
whose sake I died of fear !

3. The blush of shame on his cheek is the whiteness of dawn

conversing with the redness of eve.

4. Patience decamped and grief pitched tents, and I lie

prostrate between these two.

5. Who will compose my distracted thoughts ? Who will

relieve my pain ? Guide me to him ! Who will ease
my sorrow ? Who will help a passionate lover ?

6. Whenever I keep secret the torments of desire, my tears

betray the flame within and the sleeplessness.

7. And whenever I say, f Give me one look !’ the answer is,

‘ Thou art not hindered but for pity’s sake.’

8. It cannot be that one look from them will avail thee. Is

it aught but the glimpse of a levin that flashed ?

9. I am not forgetting the time when the camel-driver,

wishing for separation and seeking al-Abraq, urged
them on.

10. The ravens of separation croaked at them — may God not

preserve a raven that croaked !

11. The raven of separation is only a camel which carried

away the loved ones with a swift wide-stepping pace.

Commentary

1. He laments the departure of his companions, viz. the
   spiritual angelic beings who suffer no natural bondage, whilst
   he is left a prisoner in this body, occupied with governing it
   and prevented from wandering freely through the celestial
   spheres.

Ode XVI

‘ Al-Uthayl/ his natural constitution ( <du?l).

‘ Al-Xaqa/ his body.

2. ‘ My father/ i.e. the Highest Spirit (^Lr^i _^H), which
   is his real father in tlie world above and his phenomenal
   mother in the world below.

‘ Of him for whose sake I melted with anguish ’ : he refers
to the Divine mystery contained in his heart.

‘ Of fear/ i.e. fear of the radiance of the Divine majesty.

6. The love that is revealed is stronger and more passionate,
   for there is no good in a love that is ruled by reason.

7. God in His mercy veils the splendours of His face from
   His creatures.

8. The more the Beloved looks on thee, the more is thy
   anguish increased. Vision is possible only in moments of
   ecstasy.

9. ‘ The camel-driver/ i.e. the voice of God calling those
   exalted spiritual beings to ascend towards Him.

‘ Separation/ i.e. their departure from the phenomenal
world.

‘ Al-Abraq/ the place where God is manifested in His
essence.

10. ‘ The ravens of separation/ i.e. considerations affecting
    his phenomenal existence, which hinder him from the
    ascent to God.

11. ‘ A camel/ i.e. the ravens of separation are really
    a man’s aspirations (**.&), since aspiration bears him aloft
    and unites him with the object of his search.

12. They (the women) mounted the howdahs on the swift

camels and placed in them the (damsels like) marble
statues and full moons,

2. And promised my heart that they should return ; but do

the fair promise anything except deceit ?

3. And she saluted with her henna-tipped fingers for the

leave-taking, and let fall tears that excited the flames
(of desire).

4. When she turned her back with the purpose of making

for al-Khawarnaq and as-Sadfr,

5. I cried out after them, 4 Perdition 3 5 She answered and

said, * Dost thou invoke perdition ?

6. Then invoke it not only once, but cry “ Perdition ! ” many

times.'

7. 0 dove of the ardk trees, have a little pity on me ! for

parting only increased thy moans,

8. And thy lamentation, 0 dove, inflames the longing lover,

excites the jealous,

9. Melts the heart, drives off sleep, and doubles our desires

and sighing.

10. Death hovers because of the dove's lamentation, and we

beg him to spare us a little while,

11. That perchance a breath from the zephyr of Hajir may

sweep towards us rain -clouds,

12. By means of which thou wilt satisfy thirsty souls ; but

thy clouds only flee farther than before.

13. O watcher of the star, be my boon-companion, and

0 wakeful spy on the lightning, be my nocturnal
comrade 3

14. O sleeper in the night, thou didst welcome sleep and

inhabit the tombs ere thy death.

15. But hadst thou been in love with the fond maiden, thou

wouldst have gained, through her, happiness and joy,

16. Giving to the fair (women) the wines of intimacy, con-

versing secretly with the suns, and flattering the full
moons.

Commentary

/

1. ‘The camels' are the human faculties, ‘the howdahs’
   .are the actions which they are charged to perform, ‘the
   damsels' in the howdahs are the mystical sciences and the
   perfect sorts of knowledge.

2. He says, ‘ This Divine subtlety, being acquired and not
   given directly, is subject to a change produced by contact
   with phenomena ’ ; this change he indicates by speaking of
   4 her henna-tipped fingers ', as though it were the modification

of unity by a kind of association (i. Nevertheless,

her staying in the heart is more desirable than her going, for
she protects the gnostic as long as she is there.

‘ And let fall tears,’ etc. : she let loose in the heart sciences
of contemplation which produced an intense yearning.

4. ‘ Al-Ivhawarnaq and as-Sadir,’ i.e. the Divine presence.

5. ‘Perdition!’ i.e. death to the phenomenal world now
   that these sublime mysteries have vanished from it.

‘ Dost thou invoke perdition ? ’ i.e. why dost thou not see
the face of God in everything, in light and darkness, in
simple and composite, in subtle and gross, in order that thou
mayst not feel the grief of parting.

6. ‘Cry “Perdition!” many times’ (cf. Kor. xxv, 15),
   i.e. not only in this station but in every station in which
   thou art placed, for thou must bid farewell to every one of
   them, and thou canst not fail to be grieved, since, whenever
   the form of the Truth disappears from thee, thou imaginest
   that He has left thee ; but He has not left thee, and it is
   only thy remaining with thyself G cjCiJ.) that veils
   from thee the vision of that which pervades the whole of
   creation.

7. ‘0 dove of the ardk trees’: he addresses holy influences
   of Divine pleasure which have descended upon him.

‘ Have a little pity on me ! ’ i.e. pity my weakness and
inability to attain unto thy purity.

‘For parting only increased thy moans’: he says, ‘ Inasmuch
as thy substance only exists through and in me, and I am
diverted from thee by the dark world of phenomena which
keeps me in bondage, for this cause thou art lamenting thy
separation from me.’

8. ‘ And thy lamentation,’ etc., i.e. we who seek the
   unbounded freedom of the celestial world should weep more
   bitterly than thou.

‘ Excites the jealous ’ : jealousy arises from regarding
others (jLiSl), and he who beholds God in everything feels
no jealousy, for God is One; but since God manifests Himself
in various forms, the term ‘jealousy ’ is applicable to Him.

Ode XVII

10. ‘Death/ i.e. the station in which the subtle principle
    of Man is severed from its governance of this dark body for
    the sake of the Divine subtleties which are conveyed to it by
    the above-mentioned holy influences.

11. ‘ Ilajir ’ denotes here the most inaccessible veil of
    the Divine glory. No phenomenal being can attain to the
    immediate experience thereof, but scents of it blow over the
    hearts of gnostics in virtue of a kind of amorous affection

‘ Rain-clouds/ i.e. sciences and diverse sorts of knowledge
belonging to the most holy Essence.

13. ‘0 watcher of the star/ in reference to keeping in mind
    that which the sciences offer in their various connexions.

c O wakeful spy on the lightning ’ : the lightning is a locus
of manifestation of the Essence. The author says, addressing
one who seeks it, * Our quest is the same, be my comrade in
the night/

14. This verse may be applied either to the heedless
    (al jJA\ Jj&l) or to the unconscious

15. ‘ The fond maiden/ i.e. the Essential subtlety which is
    the gnostic’s object of desire.

‘ Through her ’ : although She is unattainable, yet through
her manifestation to thee all that thou hast is baptized
for thee and thy whole kingdom is displayed

to thee by that Essential form.

16. ‘Conversing secretly with the suns/ etc., in reference
    to the Traditions which declare that God will be seen in the
    next world like the sun in a cloudless sky or like the moon
    when she is full.

17. O driver of the reddish-white camels, do not hasten with

them, but stop 1 for I am a cripple going after them.

2. Stop the camels and tighten their reins ! I beseech thee

by God, by my passion, by my anguish, 0 driver!

3. My soul is willing, but my foot does not second her. Who

will pity and help me ?

4. What shall the skilled craftsman do in a case where his

tools have declared themselves to be working mischief ?

5. Turn aside, for their tents are on the right of the valley.

God bless thee, O valley, for what thou eontainest !

6. Thou hast collected a folk who are my soul and my breath

and the inmost core of the black clot in the membrane
of my liver.

7. May my love be unblest if I do not die of grief at Hajir or

Sal* or Ajyad !

Commentary

1. The Divine Spirit which speaks in Man and is charged
   with the governance of this body says to the camel-driver,
   i.e. to God’s summoner who guides the lofty aspirations in
   their journey heavenward, ‘ Do not hasten with them, for
   I am hampered by this body to which I am tied until death/

2. • Who will pity and help me V He refers to the decree
     of God

3. He says, * What shall I do ? Though I am able to quit

the body at times, i.e. in moments of passing away and
absence *Uih) under the influence of ecstasy, my

aim is to depart entirely; and, moreover, at such moments
the sensible world exercises a powerful attraction upon me.
This attraction (here called “ his tools ”) spoils what I am
endeavouring to do, and disturbs my state of passing away
and absence in order to bring me back to the body/

5. ‘ Their tents,’ i.e. the abodes of these aspirations, which
   are in their knowledge of God, not in God, since He is
   not a locus for anything. Knowledge of God is the utmost
   goal to which contingent being can attain, and the whole
   universe depends on knowledge and on nothing else.

• On the right of the valley/ referring to the occasion when
  God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai (Kor. xix, 53).

‘ What thou eontainest,’ i.e. Divine, holy, and Mosaic kinds
of knowledge.

7. ‘ Ilajir,’ i.e. the intermediate world (^: Jl).

THE TARJUMAX AL-ASIIWAQ (XVII, XVI 1 1)

‘ Sal*/ a mountain near Medina, i.e. the station of
Muhammad.

‘Ajyad,’ a mountain near Mecca, i.e. a Divine station
which causes me to pass away from all phenomenal existence.

Ode XVIII

1. Halt at the abodes and weep over the ruins and ask the

decayed habitations a question.

2. ‘ Where are the loved ones ? Where are their camels gone ? *

(They answer), 4 Behold them traversing the vapour
in the desert.

3. Thou seest them in the mirage like gardens : the vapour

makes large in the eyes the figure (of one who walks
in it).’

4. They went, desiring al-TJdhayb, that they might drink

there a cool life-giving fountain.

5. I followed, asking the zephyr about them, whether they

have pitched tents or have sought the shade of the
ddl tree.

6. The zephyr said, c I left their tents at Zarud, and the

camels were complaining of fatigue from their night-
journey.

7. They had let down over the tents coverings to protect

their beauty from the heat of noon.

8. Rise, then, and go towards them, seeking their traces, and

drive thy camels speedily in their direction.

9. And when thou wilt stop at the landmarks of Hajir and

cross dales and hills there,

10. Their abodes will be near and their fire will be clearly

seen — a fire which has caused the flame of love to
blaze.

11. Make the camels kneel 3 Let not its lions affright thee,

for longing love will present them to thine eyes in
the form of cubs.’

Commentary

1. He says to the voice of God (Jj^)l .t'j) calling from
   his heart, f Halt at the abodes,’ i.e. the stations where gnostics

alight in the course of their journey to infinite knowledge of
their object of worship.

‘ And weep over the ruins/ i.e. the traces left by those
gnostics, since I cannot accompany them.

‘ The decayed habitations/ because there is no joy in the
abodes which have been deserted, and their very existence
depends on those who dwell in them.

2. ‘ Their camels/ i.e. their aspirations.

‘ The vapour/ i.e. the evidences ( JjSj) of that which they
seek, for its evidences are attached to its being found in
themselves.

‘ The desert/ i.e. the station of abstraction (jj^asf*).

3. ‘ Makes large/ i.e. they are grand because they give
   evidence of the grandeur of that which they seek. Hence it
   is said, ‘ In order that he who was not (namely, thou) may
   pass away, and He who never was not (namely, God) may
   subsist for ever.5 And God said, ‘ Like a vapour in the
   plain (i.e. the station of humility) . . . ivhen he cometh to
   it, he findeth it to be nothing, but he findeth God with him 5
   (Kor. xxiv, 39), inasmuch as all secondary causes have been
   cut off from him. Accordingly the author says that the
   vapour makes large, etc., meaning that Man’s superiority
   over all other contingent beings consists in his giving stronger
   evidence of God, since he is the most perfect organism, as the
   Prophet said, 4 Verily he was created in the image of the
   Merciful.5

4. ‘Desiring al-‘Udhayb/ i.e. seeking the mystery of life
   in the station of purity from the fountain of liberality.

‘That they might drink5: shurb is the second degree of
Divine manifestation ( jlsaJl), dhawq being the first.

5. ‘ Whether they have pitched tents,5 referring to know-
   ledge acquired by them.

‘ Or have sought the shade of the ddl tree/ referring to
knowledge divinely bestowed, in which their actions have no
part. Ddl implies bewilderment (i*.^).

G. ‘ At Zarud/ a great tract of sand in the desert : inas-
much as sand is often tossed by the wind from one place

Ode XIX

to another, he indicates that they are in a state of unrest,
because they are seeking that which is unimaginable, and of
which only the traces are to be found in the soul.

7. 4 Coverings to protect their beauty/ i.e. unless their
   faces, viz. their realities, were veiled, the intense radiance of
   this station would consume them.

8. 4 Seeking their traces ’ : he says, 4 Seek to approach the
   degree of the prophets with thy aspiration (this he indicates
   by the Mrord “ camels ”), but not by immediate experience
   (JU), for only the Prophet has immediate experience of
   this station/ There is nothing, however, to prevent any-
   one from aspiring to it, although it is unattainable.

9. 4 Ilajir/ referring to the obstacle which makes immediate
   experience of this station impossible for us.

10. ‘Their fire will be clearly seen/ i.e. the perils into
    which they plunged before they could arrive at these abodes.
    According to the Tradition, 4 Paradise is encompassed with
    hateful actions/

One of the illuminati ( told me at al-Mawsil that
he had seen in a dream MaTuf al-Karkhi sitting in the midst
of Hell-fire. The dream terrified him and he did not perceive
its meaning. I said to him, 4 That fire is the enclosure that
guards the abode in which you saw him seated. Let any-
one who desires to reach that abode plunge into the fire/
My friend was pleased with this explanation and recognized
that it was true.

11. 4 Let not its lions affright thee/ i.e. if thou art a true
    lover be not dismayed by the dangers confronting thee. 4 In
    the form of cubs/ i.e. innocuous and of no account.

12. O mouldering remains (of the encampment) at al-Uthayl,

where I played with friendly maidens !

2. Yesterday it was cheerful and smiling, but to-day it has

become desolate and frowning.

3. They went far away and I was unaware of them, and they

knew not that my mind was watching over them,

4. Following them wherever they journeyed and pitched

tents, and sometimes it was managing the beasts of
burden,

5. Until, when they alighted in a barren wilderness and

pitched tents and spread the carpets,

C. It brought them back to a meadow verdant and ripe
which erstwhile had been an arid desert.

7. They did not halt at any place but its meadow contained

forms beautiful as peacocks,

8. And they did not depart from any place but its earth

contained tombs of their lovers.

Commentary

1. • Al-Uthayl/ i.e. the natural constitution. Its remains

are described as ‘ mouldering ’ because they are changed by
the various spiritual emotions which pass over them.

‘ Friendly maidens/ i.e. forms of Divine wisdom by which
the gnostic’s heart is gladdened.

2. ‘ Desolate and frowning/ because he has returned to the
   world of sense and consciousness.

3. ‘ And they knew not/ etc. : as, when a man leaves
   a place, he remains there in imagination and keeps the
   picture of it in his soul.

4. ‘ It was managing the beasts of burden/ i.e. he was
   influencing them by his thought, so that their thoughts
   turned to him. This was the result of his sincerity ; for
   the inferior, if he turn sincerely to God, may influence the
   superior, as often happens with sincere novices and their
   spiritual directors.

5. • In a barren wilderness/ i.e. the station of absolute and
     abstract unification.

‘And spread the carpets/ in reference to the Divine favours
which they received on reaching the abode of the Truth.

6. In this verse he points out that no reality except the
   Divine substance can subsist together with abstract unification.
   Hence, when they gained this station and realized it and
   knew the meaning of God’s word, ‘ There is nothing like unto

Ode XX

Him / He brought them back to the unification of their own
essences in respect of their oneness, which is incompai’able
in respect of the Divine substance contained in its essence.

‘ To a meadow verdant and ripe/ referring to the Divine
mysteries which the Truth conveyed to them by the realities
of the Names.

7. • Forms beautiful as peacocks/ i.e. their lovely spiritual
     states, actions, and dispositions.

8. c Tombs of their lovers/ i.e. the realities which desire
   that their traces should be manifested in gnostics. These
   objects of knowledge only exist through those who know
   them, and therefore they love the existence of the gnostic, in
   so far as he knows them, more intensely than they are
   desired by him. Accordingly the author describes them as
   dying when the gnostics depart.

9. My lovesickness is from her of the lovesick eyelids :

console me by the mention of her, console me !

2. The grey doves fluttered in the meadows and wailed : the

giuef of these doves is from that which grieved me.

3. May my father be the ransom of a tender playful girl,

one of the maidens guarded in howdahs, advancing
swayingly among the married women !

4. She rose, plain to see, like a sun, and when she vanished

she shone in the horizon of my heart.

5. 0 ruined abodes at Rama ! How many fair damsels with

swelling breasts have they beheld !

6. May my father and I myself be the ransom of a God-

nurtured gazelle which pastures between my ribs in
safety !

7. The fire thereof in that place is light : thus is the light

the quencher of the fires.

8. O my two friends, bend my reins aside that I may see the

form of her abode with clear vision.

9. And when ye reach the abode, descend, and there, my two

companions, weep for me,

10. And stop with me a little while at the ruins, that we

may endeavour to weep, nay, that I may weep indeed
because of that which befell me.

11. Passion shoots me without arrows, passion slays me

without a spear.

12. Tell me, will ye weep with me when I weep beside her?

Help me, oh help me to weep !

18. And rehearse to me the tale of Hind and Lubmi and
    Sulayma and Zaynab and Tnan !

19. Then tell me further of Hajir and Zarud, give me news

of the pastures of the gazelles !

15. And mourn for me with the poetry of Qays and Lubmi,

and with Mayya and the afflicted Ghaylan 1

16. Long have I yearned for a tender maiden, endowed with

prose and verse, having a pulpit, eloquent,

17. One of the princesses from the land of Persia, from the

most glorious of cities, from Isfahan.

18. She is the daughter of ‘Iraq, the daughter of my Imam,

and I am her opposite, a child of Yemen.

19. O my lords, have ye seen or heard that two opposites

are ever united ?

20. Had you seen us at Rama proffering each other cups of

passion without fingers,

21. Whilst passion caused sweet and joyous words to be

uttered between us without a tongue,

22. You would have seen a state in which the under-

standing disappears — Yemen and Tntq embracing
together.

28. Falsely spoke the poet 1 who said before my time
    (and he has pelted me with the stones of his under-
    standing),

29. ‘ O thou who givest the Pleiades in marriage to Suhayl,

God bless thee ! how should they meet ?

25. The Pleiades are in the north whenever they rise, and

Suhayl whenever he rises is in the south.’

1 ‘Umar b. Abf Rabi'a, ed. by Schwarz, vol. ii, p. 247, No. 439.

Commentary1

1. ‘ Her of the lovesick eyelids * : he means the Presence
   desired by gnostics. Although she is too sublime to be
   known and loved, she inclines towards them in mercy
   and kindness and descends into their hearts by a sort of
   manifestation.

‘ Console me by the mention of her 5 : there is no cure for
his malady but remembrance (^3). He says ‘Console me’
twice, i.e. by my remembrance of God and by God’s
remembrance of me (cf. Ivor, ii, 147).

2. ‘ The grey doves/ i.e. the spirits of the intermediate
   world.

‘ And wailed/ because their souls eannot join the spirits
which have been released from imprisonment in this
earthly body.

8. ‘ A tender playful girl/ i.e. a form of Divine wisdom,
   essential and holy, which fills the heart with joy.

‘ One of the maidens guarded in howdahs’ : she is a virgin,
because none has ever known her before ; she was veiled in
modesty and jealousy during all her journey from the Divine
Presence to the heart of this gnostic.

‘ The married women/ i.e, the forms of Divine wisdom
already realized by gnostics who preceded him.

4. ‘ And when she vanished/ etc., i.e. when she set in the

world of evidence ^1U) she rose in the world of the

Unseen

5. ‘ 0 ruined abodes/ i.e. the bodily faculties.

• At Rama/ from , (he sought), implying that their
  search is vain.

‘ How many fair damsels/ etc., i.e. subtle and Divine forms
by which the bodily faculties were annihilated.

7. The natural fires are extinguished by the heavenly light
   in his heart.

8. ‘ The form of her abode/ i.e. the Presence from which
   she issued forth. He seems to desire the station of Divine
   contemplation, since wisdom is not desired except for the
   sake of that to which it leads.

9. ‘ Weep for me/ because this Presence annihilates every-
   one who attains unto her and beholds her.

10. ‘ That I may weep/ etc., i.e. for the loss of the loved
    ones and of everything except the ruins of their abode.

11. ‘ Without arrows/ i.e. from a distance. He refers to
    the state called AA .

‘Without a spear/ i.e. near at hand. He refers to the state
called

is ••

13. Hind was the mistress of Bishr, and Lubna of Qays
    b. al-Dharih ; ‘In&n was a slave-girl belonging to an-Ndtifi ;
    Zaynab was one of the mistresses of ‘Umar b. Abi Rabra ;
    Sulayma was a slave-girl whom the author had seen : he
    says that she had a lover. He interprets the names of all
    these women mystically, e.g. Hind is explained as an allusion
    to the Fall of Adam, and Zaynab as signifying removal from
    the station of saintship to that of prophecy.

1G. He describes this essential knowledge
as endowed with prose and verse, i.e. absolute in respect of
her essence, but limited in respect of possession ^

uXJulO-

‘ A pulpit/ i.e. the ladder of the Most Beautiful Names.
To climb this ladder is to be invested with the qualities of
these Names.

‘ Eloquent/ referring to the station of Apostleship.

The author adds : ‘ I allude enigmatically to the various
kinds of mystical knowledge which are under the veil of
an-Nizam, the maiden daughter of our Shayldi/

17. ‘ One of the princesses/ on account of her asceticism,
    for ascetics are the kings of the earth.

18. ‘‘Iraq' indicates origin, i.e. this knowledge comes of
    a noble race.

‘ A child of Yemen/ i.e. in respect of faith (^UA) and
wisdom and the breath of the Merciful an^

tenderness of heart. These qualities are the opposite of
what is attributed to ‘Iraq, viz. rudeness and severity and
infidelity, whereas the opposite of ‘Iraq itself is not Yemen,

Ode XXI

but the .Maghrib, and the opposite of Yemen itself is not
‘Iraq, but Syria. The antithesis here is between the qualities
of the Beloved and those of the lover.

19. ‘Two opposites/ referring to the story of Junayd,
    when a man sneezed in his presence and said, ‘ God be
    praised /’ (Ivor, i, 1). Junayd said, completing the verse,
    ‘ Who is the Lord of created beings / The man replied, ‘ And
    who is the created being, that he should be mentioned in the
    same breath with God V ‘0 my brother/ said Junayd, ‘ the
    phenomenal, when it is joined to the Eternal, vanishes and
    leaves no trace behind. When He is there, thou art not, and
    if thou art there, He is not/

20. ‘ Yemen and ‘Iraq/ etc., i.e. the identification of

the qualities of Wrath and Mercy. He refers to the saying
of Abu Sa‘id al-Kharraz, who on being asked how he knew
God, answered, ‘ By His uniting two opposites, for He is the
First and the Last and the Outward and the Inward 7
(Ivor. 1 vii, 3).

24. ‘ The Pleiades/ i.e. the seven attributes demonstrated
    by scholastic philosophers.

‘ Suhayl/ i.e. the Divine Essence.

25. ‘ In the north/ i.e. in the world of phenomena. The
    Divine attributes are manifested in Creation, but the Divine
    Essence does not enter into Creation.

26. O garden of the valley, answer the lady of the preserve

and her who hath shining front-teeth, O garden of
the valley !

2. And let a little of thy shades o’ershadow her for a short

time until she be settled in the meeting-place.

3. And her tents be pitched in thy midst. Then thou wilt

have as much as thou wishest of dew to feed the
tender shoots,

4. And as much as thou wishest of showers and the moisture

of clouds passing over her ban trees at eve and morn,

Ode XXII

5. And as much as thou wishest of dense shade and fruit,

delicious to the gatherer, swaying the bough (on
which it hangs),

6. And of those who seek Zariid and its sands, and of those

who chant as they drive the camels from behind, and
of those who march in front and lead them well.

Commentary

1. ‘0 garden of the valley/ in reference to the bush in
   which the Divine light appeared to Moses.

• The lady of the preserve/ i.e. the reality of Moses,
  signifying a spiritual degree which the gnostic inherited
  from Moses. ‘ Preserve ’ denotes the station of Glory
  unattainable by his essence.

‘ Shining front-teeth/ because he is in the station of
converse and speech JU-L*!!).

2. ‘ Until she be settled/ i.e. until the place be ready for
   her reception, so that she may speak from his essence to his.
   essence without regard to anything extraneous.

3. ‘ Dew to feed the tender shoots/ i.e. gracious sorts of
   knowledge which nourish the human organism.

G. ‘Zariid and its sands/ i.e. elusive sorts of knowledge
which are not to be apprehended save in moments of ecstasy.

‘ And of those who chant/ etc. The kadi who drives the
camels from behind typifies that which comes with fear and
chiding and menaces, while the hddi who goes in front of the
camels typifies that which comes with hope and joy and
kindness. The former is the servant of the Wrathful
(,12*11 and the latter is the servant of the Merciful

L. Turn the camels aside towards the stony tract of Thahrnad,
where arc the tender branches and the humid meadow,

2. Where the lightnings show to thee their flashes, where

the clouds pass at eve and morn,

3. And lift thy voice at dawn to invoke the bright-faced

damsels and the fair lissome virgins,

4. Who murder with their black eyes and bend their supple

necks.

5. Among them is she who loves and assails with glances

like arrows and Indian swords every frenzied heart
that loves the fair.

6. She takes with a hand soft and delicate, like pure silk,

anointed with nadd and shredded musk.

7. When she looks, she gazes with the deep eye of a young

gazelle : to her e}re belongs the blackness of antimony.

8. Her eyes are adorned with languishment and killing

magic, her sides are girt with amazement and incom-
parable beauty.

9. A slender one, she loves not that which I love and she

does not fulfil her threats with sincerity.1

10. She let down her plaited lock as a black serpent, that she

might frighten with it those who were following her.

11. By God, I fear not death ; my only fear is that I shall

die and shall not see her to-morrow.

Commentary

1. ‘ The camels/ i.e. the clouds.

2. ‘The lightnings/ The author of these poems al ways
   uses the term ‘ lightning 5 to denote a centre of manifestation
   for the Divine Essence.

3. ‘ The bright-faced damsels/ i.e. intelligences derived from
   Idris which have descended from the fourth heaven.

‘ Lissome/ i.e. inclining towards the phenomenal world, to
replenish it. He means all realities that are connected with
the phenomenal world, e.g. the Divine Names.

4. • Who murder with their black eyes/ referring to the
     sciences of contemplation.

5. ‘ Indian/ because India is the place where Adam fell,
   and there the fountains of wisdom which were in Adam first
   gushed forth.

1 The author expressly says in his commentary that (to promise)

has here the meaning of (to threaten). This is a defiance of the

established usage, just as i g? ^ (for Ju }J) is a violation of grammar.

Ode XXIII

G. ‘ Pure silk/ i.e. undyed, in reference to her being
removed from all contamination.

‘ Anointed with naddj i.e. with mixed perfumes. He
means that she is invested with Divine qualities.

9. ‘ She loves not that which I love/ i.e. she is not limited
   by the will of anyone, and if it happens that her will is in
   accord with mine, that is due to the effect produced by her
   upon me, not to the effect produced by me upon her.

‘ She does not fulfil/ etc., i.e. she is clement and forgiving.

10. { Her plaited lock/ i.e. a chain of evidences and proofs.
    ‘ A black serpent/ referring to the science of the Divine

majesty and awe.

11. He says that he is only afraid of missing the con-
    templation of his Beloved, and that he hesitated to follow
    her because he wished to acquire such Divine faculties as
    would enable him to face this manifestation.

12. At dawn they alighted in Wadi ’l-‘Aqiq after having

traversed many a deep ravine,

2. And at daybreak they descried a cairn shining on the top

of a mountain peak.

3. When the vulture desires to reach it he is unable, and the

eggs of the a nuq are below it.

4. Ornaments are set upon it : its foundations are lofty, like

al-‘Aquq.

5. And they had written some lines which were communicated

to them : ‘ Oh, who will help a forlorn and longing
lover,

G. Who although his thought soars above this Arcturus, is
trodden underfoot like burning ashes,1

7. And whose home is beside this Aquila, yet he has died in

tears the death of the drowned ?

8. His love hath delivered him to calamities in this place

without a brother to befriend him.

1 This translation of is conjectural.

9. Then, 0 ye who come to the waters of the well, and 0 ye
   who inhabit Wadi ’l-‘Aqiq,

10. And 0 thou who seekest Medina to visit it, and 0 ye
    who travel on this road,

11 Look on us again with pity ! for we were robbed, a little
after dawn, a little before sunrise,

12. Of a bright-faced lissome damsel sweet of breath, diffusing

a perfume like shredded musk,

13. Swaying drunkenly to and fro like the branches, fresh

as raw silk,1 which the winds have bent,

14. Shaking, like the hump of a stallion-camel, fearsome

hips huge as sand-hills.

15. No censor blamed me for loving her, and my friend did

not blame me for loving her.

16. If any censor had blamed me for loving her, my sobbing

would have been my answer to him.

17. My desire is my troop of camels and my grief is my

garment and my passion is my morning drink and my
tears are my evening drink.’

Commentary

1. He describes pilgrims on the way to the Truth, travelling

in themselves through the night of their bodily existence and
stopping for rest at dawn, i.e. the boundary which divides
the wisdom appertaining to the Divine realities that is
deposited in the phenomenal world from the realities of the
Spirits of Light, which are called allegorically the Heavenly
Host ( JlsS! &*!!). The travellers cause their camels, i.e. their
aspirations, to halt in the Wadi ’l-‘Aqiq, where pilgrims put
on the garb of pilgrimage This is the station of

Muhammadan sanctity

2. ‘ A cairn,’ i.e. a guide, namely, the spirit.

4 A mountain peak,’ i.e. the body.

1 Sir Charles Lvall has suggested that should be rendered ‘red

.U \x

poppies’, but the commentary runs : aLcJAou J
^ L* (MS.

3. ‘The vulture/ i.e. the spirit of the intermediate world

( wh^h is nearer than any other of the ruling

spirits ^.^) to the Heavenly Host.

‘The ctniiq ,’ which lays its eggs in the loftiest and most
inaccessible places.

4. ‘ Ornaments/ i.e. the manifestation of the Divine
   qualities. In Bodl. (Uri) 1276, the commentary states that
   al-‘Aquq is said to be a great castle on the top of a high
   mountain.

5. ‘ And whose home/ etc., i.e. this station, notwithstanding
   its sublimity, is veiled by various sorts of revealed knowledge,
   belonging to the class of love, from this person who abides
   there, so that he is caused to pass away from the contemplation
   of himself in this centre of manifestation.

6. ‘ The waters of the well/ i.e. the life acquired from good
   works, viz. the life of knowledge ( 5L>-), in reference to
   Ivor, vi, 122 : 1 Shall he who was dead and whom we restored
   to life . . . ? 5

7. ‘ On this road/ i.e. the right way M^l), in

reference to Ivor, vi, 154.

11. ‘A little before sunrise/ i.e. the hour of the ascent that
    succeeds the Divine descent into the terrestrial heaven, which
    descent occurs in the last third of the night.

12. ‘A bright-faced lissome damsel/ i.e. the Essential
    attribute which is his object of desire. She is called
    ‘lissome’ because of her descent towards us, yet from it
    nothing is derived that can be grasped by knowledge or
    understanding or imagination.

‘ Diffusing a perfume/ etc., i.e. leaving Divine impressions
in the hearts of her worshippers.

13. ‘Swaying drunkenly/ in reference to the station of
    bewilderment (S^).

‘ Which the winds have bent, i.e. the aspirations (** f') '*y
seeking her cause her to incline, as God says, ‘ If anyone
comes a span nearer to Me, I will come a cubit nearer to him.’

14. This verse refers to the infinite bounties, spiritual and
    other, which God has heaped upon His servants.

Ode XXIV

15. Inasmuch as she is like the sun, which is common to
    all, she does not excite jealousy.

16. ‘My sobbing/ i.e. my ecstasy would make me deaf to
    his reproaches.

17. ‘My desire is my troop of camels/ which bear me to
    my Beloved.

The author says : A dervish recited to me the following
verse, to which I knew not any brother —

‘Everyone who hopes for thy bounty receives copious
showers thereof ; thy lightning never breaks its promise of
rain except with me.’

I admired its application and pursued its meaning, and
I composed some verses in the same rhyme, including this
verse among them on account of its perfection, and I said in
answer to that dervish (may God have mercy on him I ) as
follows : —

1. Halt by the ruined abodes at La*'la‘ and mourn for our

loved ones in that wilderness.

2. Halt by thy dwelling-places and call to them, wondering

at their loneliness, with exquisite lamentation.

3. ‘ Beside thy ban tree I have seen many a one like myself

plucking the fruit of comely forms and the roses of
a verdant meadow.

4. Everyone who hopes for thy bounty receives copious

showers thereof ; thy lightning never breaks its
promise of rain except with me/

5. She said, ‘ Yes ; there hath been that meeting in the

shadow of my boughs in the most plenteous spot,

6. When my lightning was one of the lightnings of smiling

mouths ; but to-day my lightning is the flash of this
brilliant stone.

7. Reproach, then, a fate which we had no means of averting :

what is the fault of the camping-place at La‘la‘ ? ’

8. I excused her when I heard her speech and how she was

complaining even as I complain with a sorrowful heart,

Ode XXV

9. And I asked her, when I saw her demesne, through which
   the four winds sweep at night,

10. ‘ Did their winds tell thee where they rested at noontide ? ’

She said, ‘ Yes ; they rested at Dhat al-Ajra‘,

11. Where the white tents are radiant with those rising suns

within/

Commentary

I. ‘The ruined abodes/ i.e. the vestiges of the dwelling-
places of the Divine Names in the hearts of gnostics.

4 In that wilderness/ i.e. in his empty heart.

3. £ Plucking the fruit of comely forms/ i.e. the manifold

knowledge of the Divine Self-subsistence with

which, according to our doctrine, it is possible to be invested.
This investiture (jlUst) is a matter of dispute amongst the
Sufis ; Ibn Junayd al-Ifriqi and his followers consider that it
is not correct.

‘ The roses of a verdant meadow/ referring to the station
of Shame (Usl), which results from meditation and con-
templation.

4. ‘ Thy lightning never breaks its promise/ etc., i.e. through

the lack of Divine favour He also indicates

that he himself is in a lofty station which was not reached
by any of his peers, because the lightning is a locus of
manifestation for the Essence, and from this locus the soul of
the seer gains no knowledge, inasmuch as it is a manifestation
devoid of material form.

G. ‘ When my lightning/ etc., i.e. that manifestation took
place in a lovely form, but my manifestation to thee is
formless and inanimate (£L'U^) and is not determined by
love and passion.

II. ‘The white tents/ in reference to the veils of lisrht

o

which are drawn over the splendours of the face of God.

1. 0 grief for my heart, 0 grief ! 0 joy for my mind, O joy !

2. In my heart the fire of passion is burning, in my mind the

full moon of darkness hath set.

3. O musk ! 0 full moon !* 0 bough of the sand-hills ! How

green is the bough, how bright the moon, how sweet
the musk !

4. 0 smiling mouth whose bubbles I loved ! and O saliva in

which I tasted white honey !

5. O moon that appeared to us veiled in a red blush of shame

upon thy cheek’ 1

6. Had she removed her veil, it would have been a torment,

and on this account she veiled herself.

7. She is the morning sun rising in a heaven, she is the

bough of the sand-hills planted in a garden.

8. Fear made me wateh her incessantly while I watered the

bough with falling rain.

9. If she riseth, she will be a wonder to mine eye, or if she

setteth she will be a cause of my death.

10. Since Beauty bound on her head a diadem of unwrought

gold, I am in love with gold that has been wrought.

11. If Iblis had seen in Adam the brilliance of her face, he

would not have refused to worship him.

12. If Idris had seen the lines that Beauty limned on her

cheeks, then he would never have written.

13. If Bilqis had seen her eoueh, the throne and the pavement

would not have occurred to her mind.

14. 0 sarh tree of the valley and O bdn tree of the thicket,

deliver to us of your perfume, by means of the
zephyr,

15. A musky odour which exhales its fragrance to us from

the flowers of thy lowlands or the flowers of the hills.

16. O ban tree of the valley, show us a branch or some twigs

that can be compared with her tenderness !

17. The zephyr’s breeze tells of the time of youth spent at

Hajir or Mina or Quba,

18. Or at the sand-hills and where the vale bends beside the

guarded pasture or at La‘la‘, where the gazelles come
to browse.

19. Do not wonder, do not wonder, do not wonder at an

Arab passionately fond of the coy beauties,

20. Who, whenever a turtle-dove moans, is thrilled by the
    remembrance of his beloved and passes away.

Commentary

1. ‘0 grief for my heart’: he fears that the anguish of
   love will destroy this body by the mediation of which he has
   acquired the Divine sciences. Although most souls desire to
   be stripped thereof and to return to their elemental world,
   yet in the opinion of profound theosophists abstraction from
   the body should only be sought through ecstasy and self-
   annihilation (M;Jh ib-), not by dissolving the connexion of
   body and soul.

‘ 0 joy for my mind,’ because the mind is the locus in
which the Truth is contemplated.

2. ‘ The full moon of darkness hath set ’ : in reference to
   the Tradition, * Ye shall see your Lord as ye see the moon on
   the night when she is full.’

• Darkness,’ i.e. the invisible world. He describes the moon
  as having set in the sensible world and risen in his mind.

3. • O musk,’ i.e. breathing Divine mercy.

• 0 full moon,’ because her light is borrowed from the Light
  of God, and because she is a mirror for Him who manifests
  Himself in her.

‘ 0 bough of the sand-hills,’ referring to the quality of
Self-subsistence

‘ How green is the bough ! ’ i.e. clothed with Divine Names.

4. 4 Bubbles ’ : as water is the source of all life, the bubbles
   signify the sciences of Divine mercy which appear from the
   Divine Life when the breaths (of mercy) flow.

‘ Saliva,’ i.e. sciences of communion and converse and speech
which leave a delicious taste in the heart.

5. God is described as bashful in an Apostolic

Tradition.

6. ‘ Had she removed her veil,’ etc. : according to the
   Tradition, ‘ God hath seventy thousand veils of light and
   darkness ; if He were to remove them, the splendours of His
   face would consume all that His sight perceives.’ Therefore

He keeps Himself veiled in mercy to us, in order that our
substance may survive, for in the survival of the substance of
phenomenal being the Divine Presence and its lovely Names
are manifested, and this is the beauty of phenomenal being ;
if it perished, thou wouldst not know, since all kinds of
knowledge are divulged by means of forms and bodies.

7. ‘In a heaven/ referring to the form in which the

manifestation takes place. The form varies according to the
variety of beliefs and cognitions; and this is what is called
‘transformation' JjLsrdh JjLJI). Some gnostics,

e.g. Qadib al-Ban, attain to this station in a sensible form.
Its spiritual form comprises all the mystical states (JW) of
mankind.

‘ The bough of the sand-hills/ the quality of Self-subsistence
in the garden of the Divine Names.

‘ Planted 5 refers to the investiture (jilsr) with this quality,
a doctrine which is contrary to that of Ibn Junayd and others.
We agree, however, as to its realization although I

deny the possibility of realizing anything which cannot be
an object of such investiture, since it is not to be apprehended
by feeling j) : it may be known symbolically, but not
emotionally.

8. ‘ Fear made me watch her/ i.e. in fear of being veiled
   from her I began to behold her in everything and before
   everything, regarding everything as depending on her and
   immanent (in God) before its creation.

‘ I watered the bough/ in order that the Divine sciences
which it contains might bear fruit in me.

9. ‘ She will be a wonder/ for it is wonderful that Man in
   his abasement should apprehend God in His glory.

10. ‘ Beauty/ i.e. a locus of ocular manifestation in the
    station of severance (ijijbM), in which Man is discriminated
    from God.

‘Unwrought gold/ referring to her freedom from contac-
with phenomena.

‘ Gold that has been wrought 9 : gold denotes the quality

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASRWAQ (XXV, XXVl) 101

of perfection which is attained by completing the series
of stations. It is described as wrought, because God’s
manifestation to us by means of ourselves is actual, whereas
His manifestation to us by means of Himself is not.

12. Idris typifies the speculative theologian.

13. 4 Her couch,’ i.e. her lofty degree.

' Her mind ’ : U for JU (mind), because • (*b), the second

letter of the alphabet, signifies Universal Reason, which is the
second category of Being.

15. 'From the flowers of thy lowlands,’ i.e. the station of

Divine Revelation which descends in the Sunna

of the Apostle and in the revealed scriptures.

' The flowers of the hills,’ i.e. the most inaccessible veil of
the Divine glory.

16. Man seeks God in want and in desire to receive,
    whereas God seeks Man in wealth and in desire to give.

17. • The zephyr’s breeze,’ etc., i.e. the sciences wafted into
      the heart from the revelation and manifestation of God in
      diverse stations.

18. 'At the sand-hills,’ i.e. the mount of Vision.

' Where the vale bends,’ i.e. the station of Mercy, which
allows the human essence to subsist ' beside the guarded
pasture i.e. at the manifestation of the Divine essence.

‘ At La'la',’ i.e. in the frenzy of love.

19. Do not wonder at a thing which yearns for its
    original home.

20. ' A turtle-dove,’ i.e. the soul of a gnostic like himself,
    whose sublime utterance excites in him a longing for God.

Ode XXVI

1. In the valley-curve between the two stony tracts is the

trysting-place. Make our camels kneel, for here is
the journey’s end.

2. Do not seek (any other spot) and do not call after this,

' 0 Bariq ! 0 Hajir ! 0 Thahmad ! ’

3. And play as friendly full-breasted damsels played, and

pasture as shy gazelles pastured

4. In a meadow whose flies sang and hummed and a warbling

O O

bird there answered them joyously.

5. Soft were its sides and soft its breeze, and the clouds were

flashing and thundering,

6. And the raindrops were descending from the crevices of

the clouds like tears shed by a passionate lover
because he is parted from her he loves.

7. And drink the pure essence of its wine with its intoxication,

and listen rapturously to a singer who chanteth there:

8. 4 0 the pure wine that in Adam’s time related concerning

the Garden of Eden an authentic tradition !

9. Verily, the fair women scattered it from the water of their

mouths like musk and the virgins bestowed it on us
without stint.’

Commentary

1. 4 In the valley-curve between the two stoi^ tracts,’
   i.e. in the place where Divine favours are bestowed on the
   soul which is the locus of an Essential manifestation.

4 The trysting-place,’ referring either to the station of
Faith or to God’s taking a covenant from the souls of
mankind.

4 The journey’s end/ i.e. the mystery of everlasting life.

2. 4 Do not seek,’ etc., in accordance with the Tradition,
   4 There is no mark beyond God.’

3. 4 And play/ etc., referring to the various states of this
   gnostic in which he is transported from one Divine Name to
   another. 4 Full-breasted damsels ’ and 4 shy gazelles ’ refer to
   the abstruse sciences of pure unification.

4. 4 In a meadow/ i.e. the Divine Presence, together with
   the Holy Names contained in it.

4 Flies/ i.e. subtle spirits.

4 A warbling bird/ i.e. the human soul, in respect of the
forms with which it is endued in every sphere and station.

5. 4 Were flashing and thundering,’ in reference to the two

states, viz. contemplation and interlocution (<

Cf. Ivor, ii, 206, and the Tradition, 4 God was in a dense
cloud ; there was no air above Him or below Him.’

Ode XXVII

6. 4 The raindrops/ i.e. manifold sorts of Divine knowledge.

7. ‘ The pure essence of its wine/ i.e. spiritual meanings
   and Divine sciences, which fill the heart with delight.

7 o

‘A singer/ i.e. the voice produced by the universal

praise ; the human soul hears it in its essence

and is enraptured.

8. ‘ The Garden of Eden/ i.e. this wine is derived from the

Presence which comes to dwell in the souls of gnostics at the
time of nurture ^i).

9. c The fair women/ i.e. the Divine Names.

‘ From the water of their mouths/ i.e. from the station of
speech and expression.

• The virgins/ i.e. from the station of shame, referring to
  contemplation.

1. 0 ancient temple, there hath risen for you a light that

gleams in our hearts.

2. I complain to thee of the deserts which I crossed, where

I let my tears flow unchecked,

3. Taking no joy in rest at dawn or dusk, continuing from

morn to morn and passing from eve to eve.

4. Truly, the camels, even if they suffer from footsoreness,

journey by night and make haste in their journey.

5. These beasts of burden carried us to you with eager desire,

though they did not hope to attain thereby.

(]. They traversed wildernesses and wellnigh rainless lands,
impelled by passion, but they did not therefore
complain of fatigue.

7. They did not complain of the anguish of love, and Tis
   I who complain of fatigue. Indeed, I have claimed
   something absurd.

Commentary

1. ‘0 ancient temple/ i.e. the gnostic's heart which
   contains the reality of the Truth.

Ode XXVIII

• There hath risen for yon/ etc., i.e. the light in the heart
  (which is the centre of the body) seeks to rise from its
  source and convey to the members of the body the Divine
  realities. In this station a man sees by God, hears by God,
  speaks by God, and moves by God.

2. ‘ The deserts which I crossed/ i.e. the mortifications and
   austerities which I suffered.

3. ‘ The camels/ i.e. the aspirations. He means that they
   do not cease from seeking, although exhausted by the
   difficulty of their quest. They are exhausted because
   the proofs supplied by the understanding are unable to
   lead them to the Divine reality.

4. 'I have claimed something absurd/ i.e. I pretend to love
   God, while complaining of distress and fatigue, yet these
   ‘ beasts of burden ’, viz. my acts and thoughts which I control
   and govern, make no complaint.

5. Between al-Naqa and La‘la‘ are the gazelles of Dhat

al-Ajra‘,

2. Grazing there in a dense covert of tangled shrubs, and

pasturing.

3. New moons never rose on the horizon of that hill

4. But I wished, from fear, that the}7 had not risen.

5. And never appeared a flash from the lightning of that

fire-stone

6. But I desired, for my feeling’s sake, that it had not flashed.

7. 0 my tears, flow ! 0 mine eye, cease not to shed tears !

8. 0 my sighs, ascend ! 0 my heart, split !

9. And thou, 0 camel-driver, go slowly, for the fire is

between my ribs.

10. From their copious flowthrough fear of parting my tears

have all been spent,

11. So that, when the time of starting comes, thou wilt not

find an eye to weep.

12. Set forth, then, to the valley of the curving sands, their

abode and my death -bed —

13. There are those whom I love, beside the waters of

al-Ajra‘ —

14. And call to them, ‘ Who will help a youth burning with

desire, one dismissed,

15. Whose sorrows have thrown him into a bewilderment

which is the last remnant of ruin ?

16. O moon beneath a darkness, take from him something

and leave something,

17. And bestow on him a glance from behind yonder veil,

18. Because he is too weak to apprehend the terrible beauty,

19. Or flatter him with hopes, that perchance he may be

revived or may understand.

20. He is a dead man between al-Naqa and La‘la‘/

21. For I am dead of despair and anguish, as though I were

fixed in my place.

22. The East Wind did not tell the truth when it brought

cheating phantoms.

23. Sometimes the wind deceives when it causes thee to hear

what is not (really) heard.

Commentary

1. ‘ Between al-Naqa and La'la'/ etc., i.e. between the
   hill of white musk, on which is the vision of God, and the
   place of frenzied love for Him, are diverse sorts of knowledge
   connected with the stations of abstraction (ju^sAll).

2. ‘ In a dense covert of tangled shrubs/ i.e. the world of
   phenomenal admixture and interdependence.

3. ‘ New moons/ i.e. Divine manifestations.

4. 'From fear/ i.e. from fear that the beholder might
   pass away in himself from himself, and that his essence
   might perish, whereas his object is to continue subsistent
   through God and for God ; or from fear that he should
   imagine the manifestation to be according to the essential
   nature of God in Himself (which is impossible), and not
   according to the nature of the recipient. The former belief,
   which involves the comprehension (aiUA) of God by the
   person to whom the manifestation is made, agrees with the

doctrine of some speculative theologians, who maintain that
our knowledge of God and Gabriel's knowledge of Him
and His knowledge of Himself are the same. How far is
this from the truth !

5. ‘ A flash from the lightning of that fire-stone,’ i.e. an
   inanimate, phenomenal, and earthly manifestation.

6. ‘ O camel-driver,’ i.e. the voice of God calling the
   aspirations to Himself.

‘ The fire,’ i.e. the fire of love.

10-11. He says that his eyes have been melted away by
the tears which he shed in anticipation of parting.

12. ‘To the valley of the curving sands,’ i.e. the station
    of mercy and tenderness.

‘ My death-bed,’ because the Divine mercy causes him to
pass away in bewilderment.

13. ‘Beside the waters of al-Ajra‘’: because this mercy

is the result of painful self-mortification (A ^

14. ‘ One dismissed,’ i.e one who has come to himself
    again after contemplation, according to the tradition that
    God says, after having shown Himself to His servants in
    Paradise, ‘ Send them back to their pavilions.’

15. ‘A darkness,’ i.e. the forms in which the manifesta-
    tion takes place.

‘ Take from him something,’ etc., i.e. take from him what-
ever is related to himself, and leave whatever is not related
to himself, so that only the Divine Spirit may remain in him.

21. ‘For I am dead of despair and anguish,’ i.e. I despair
    of attaining the reality of that which I seek, and I grieve
    for the time spent in a vain search for it.

‘ As though I were fixed in my place,’ i.e. I cannot
escape from my present state, inasmuch as it is without
place, quantity, and quality, being purely transcendental
( s~J).

22. ‘Cheating phantoms,’ i.e. the similes and images in

which God, who has no like, is presented to us by the
world of breaths JU).

Ode XXIX

1. May iny father be the ransom of the boughs swaying to

and fro as they bend, bending their tresses towards
the cheeks !

2. Loosing plaited locks of hair ; soft in their joints and

bends ;

3. Trailing skirts of haughtiness ; clad in embroidered

garments of beauty ;

4. Which from modesty grudge to bestow their loveliness

which give old heirlooms and new gifts ;

5. Which charm by their laughing and smiling mouths; whose

lips are sweet to kiss ;

G. Whose bare limbs are dainty ; which have swelling breasts
and offer choice presents ;

7. Luring ears and souls, when they converse, by their

wondrous witchery ;

8. Covering their faces for shame, taking captive thereby the

devout and fearing heart ;

9. Displaying teeth like pearls, healing with their saliva one

who is feeble and wasted ;

10. Darting from their eyes glances which pierce a heart

experienced in the wars and used to combat ;

11. Making rise from their bosoms new moons which suffer

no eclipse on becoming full ;

12. Causing tears to flow as from rain-clouds, causing sighs

to be heard like the crash of thunder.

13. 0 my two comrades, may my life-blood be the ransom

of a slender girl who bestowed on me favours and
bounties !

14. She established the harmony of union, for she is our

principle of harmony : she is both Arab and foreign ;
she makes the gnostic forget.

15. Whenever she gazes, she draws against thee trenchant

swords, and her front teeth show to thee a dazzling
levin.

1G. 0 my comrades, halt beside the guarded pasture of Iltijir •
Halt, halt, 0 my comrades,

17. That I may ask where their camels have turned, for

I have plunged into places of destruction and death,

18. And scenes known to me and unknown, with a swift

camel which complains of her worn hoofs and of
deserts and wildernesses,

19. A camel whose flanks are lean and whose rapid journeying

caused her to lose her strength and the fat of her
hump,

20. Until I brought her to a halt in the sandy tract of

HAjir and saw she -camels followed by young ones
at al-Uthayl.

21. They were led by a moon of awful mien, and I clasped

him to my ribs for fear that he should depart,

22. A moon that appeared in the circumambulation, and

while he circumambulated me I was not circum-
ambulating anyone except him.

23. He was effacing his footprints with the train of his robe,

so that thou wouldst be bewildered even if thou wert
the guide tracing out his track.

Commentary

1. ‘My father,’ i.e. Universal Reason.

‘The boughs,’ i.e. the Attributes which bear Divine know-
ledge to gnostics and mercifully incline towards them.

2. ‘ Locks of hair,’ i.e. hidden sciences and mysteries. They
   are called ‘plaited’ in allusion to the various degrees of
   knowledge.

‘ Soft,’ in respect of their graciously inclining to us.

‘In their joints and bends,’ in reference to the conjunction
of real and phenomenal qualities.

3. ‘Trailing skirts/ etc., because of the loftiness of their rank.
   ‘ Clad in embroidered garments,’ etc., i.e. appearing in

diverse beautiful shapes.

4. ‘ Which from modesty,’ etc., referring to the Tradition,
   ‘ Do not bestow wisdom except on those who are worthy of
   it, lest ye do it a wrong,’ since contemplation is not vouch-
   safed to everyone.

‘ Old heirlooms,’ i.e. knowledge demonstrated by proofs
derived from another.

£ New gifts,’ i.e. knowledge of which the proof is bestowed
by God and occurs to one’s own mind as the result of sound
reflection.

8. ‘ Covering their faces for shame,’ i.e. they are ashamed
   to reveal themselves to those whose hearts are generally
   occupied with something other than God, viz. the ordinary
   believers described in Ivor, ix, 108.

9. £ Teeth like pearls,’ i.e. the sciences of Divine majesty.

10. ‘ Experienced in the wars,’ etc., i.e. able to distinguish
    the real from the phenomenal in the similitudes presented to
    the eye.

11. ‘ From their bosoms,’ i.e. from the Divine attributes.

pi w

£New moons,’ i.e. a manifestation in the horizon Jcsr).

£ Which suffer no eclipse,’ i.e. they are not subject to any
natural lust that veils them from the Divine Ideas.

13. £ A slender girl,’ i.e. the single, subtle, and essential
    knowledge of God.

14. £ She established the harmony o£ union,’ i.e. this
    knowledge concenteited me upon myself and united me
    with my Lord.

£ Arab,’ i.e. it caused me to know myself from myself.

£ Foreign,’ i.e. it caused me to know myself from God,
because the Divine knowledge is synthetic (£3U^0 and does
not admit of analysis except by means of comparison ; and
since comparison is impossible, therefore analysis is impossible;
whence it follows that synthesis also is impossible, and I only
use the latter term in order to convey to the reader’s
intelligence a meaning that is not to be apprehended save
by immediate feeling and intuition.

£ Forget,’ i.e. his knowledge and himself.

15. £ A dazzling levin,’ i.e. a manifestation of the Essence
    in the state of beauty and joy.

16. £0 my comrades’: he means his understanding and
    his faith.

Ode XXX

17. ‘ Their camels,’ i.e. the aspirations which carry the
    ■sciences and subtle essences of man to their goal.

18. 4 A swift camel,’ i.e. an aspiration in himself.

19. f Whose rapid journeying,’ etc., i.e. this aspiration was
    connected with many aspects of plurality which disappeared
    in the course of its journey towards Unity.

20. 'In the sandy tract of Ilajir,’ i.e. a state which enabled
    me to discriminate between phenomena and prevented me
    from regarding anything except what this state revealed to me.

‘ She-eamels followed by young ones,’ i.e. original sciences
from which other sciences are derived.

21. ‘A moon of awful mien,’ i.e. a manifestation of Divine
    majesty in the heart.

22. c His footprints,’ i.e. the evidences which He adduced
    ns a clue to Himself.

‘ The train of his robe,’ i.e. His uniqueness and incom-
parability.

‘ So that thou wouldst be bewildered,’ i.e. our knowledge
of Him is ignorance and bewilderment and helplessness. He
says this in order that gnostics may recognize the limits of
their knowledge of God.

1. In the tamarisk groves of al-Naqd is a flock of qatd birds

over whom Beauty has pitched a tent,

2. And in the midst of the deserts of Idam are camels which

graze beside them and gazelles.

8. O my two friends, stop and beg speech of the relics of an
   abode which has become ruined after them,

9. And mourn for the heart of a youth who left it on the

day when they departed, and weep and wail.

5. Perchance it may tell whither they were bound, to the

sands of the guarded pasture or to Quba.

6. They saddled the camels and I knew not whether ’twas

from my heedlessness or because mine eye was dull.

7. ’Twas neither that nor this, but ’twas only a frenzy of

love which overwhelmed me.

8. 0 thoughts that fled and dispersed in pursuit of them like

the bands of Sab& !

9. I hailed every wind that blows, crying, ‘ 0 North wind !

0 South wind ! 0 East wind !

10. Have ye any knowledge of what I feel ? Anguish hath

befallen me on account of their departure.’

11. The East wind gave me its news delivered by the skill

plants vThich received it from the hill-flowers,

12. Saying, ‘ Whosoever is sick of the malady of passion, let

him be diverted by the tales of love.’

13. Then it said, ‘ 0 North wind, tell him the like of what

1 have told him, or something more wonderful.

14. Then do thou, 0 South wind, relate the like of what

I have related to him or something more sweet.’

15. The North wind said, ‘ I have a joy which the North

wind shares with the South wind :

16. Ever}^ evil is good in the passion which they inspire, and

my torment is sweetened by their approval.’

17. To what end, therefore, and on what ground and for what

cause dost thou complain of the sorrow and sickness ?

18. And when they promise you aught, you see that its

lightning gives a false promise of rain.

19. The Invisible fashioned on the sleeve of the cloud

a golden embroidery of the lightning’s splendour,

20. And its tears poured from it upon the middle of its

cheek-balls and kindled a fierce flame.

21. She is a rose that springs up from tears, a narcissus that

sheds a marvellous shower.

22. And when thou wouldst fain gather her, she lets down,

to conceal herself, a scorpion-like tress on each side
of her temples.

23. The sun rises when she smiles. 0 Lord, how bright are

these bubbles on her teeth !

24. Night appears when she lets fall her black, luxuriant,

and tangled hair.

25. The bees compete with one another whenever she spits.

0 Lord, how sweet is that coolness !

26. And whenever she bends she shows to us a (fruitful)

branch, or when she gazes her looks are drawn
swords.

27. How long wilt thou talk amorously at the sand-hill of

Hajir, O son of al-‘Arabi, to the coy beauties ?

28. Am not I an Arab ? and therefore I love the fair women

and am fond of the coy beauties.

29. I care not whether my passion rises with me or sets,

if only she be there.

30. Whenever I say ‘Will ye not?’ they say, ‘Wilt not thou V

and whenever I say, ‘ May not I ? ’ they say, ‘ He
refuses/

31. And whenever they go to the upland or to the lowland,

I cross the desert in haste to search for them.

32. My heart is the Samir! of the time : as often as it sees

the footprints it seeks the golden one that was turned
to gold.

33. And whenever they rise or set, it goes like Dhu ’1-Qarnayn

in quest of the means (of reaching them).

34. How oft did we cry out in hope of union ! How oft did

we cry out in fear of parting !

35. O sons of az-Zawra, this is a moon that appeared among

you and set in me.

36. By God, it is the source of my grief. How often do

I exclaim behind it, ‘ Alas ! ’

37. Woe is me, woe is me for a youth who, whenever a dove

warbles, is made to vanish !

Commentary

1. ‘ In the tamarisk groves/ etc., i.e. in the grove of the
   white hill are sciences which are the offspring of veracity, in
   reference to the pi'overb, ‘ More veracious than the qatd /

2. ‘ The deserts of Idam/ i.e. the stations of abstraction
   and isolation (jo^.iJb ju^dll).

‘ Camels/ i.e. sciences with which our souls are familiar.

‘ Gazelles/ i.e. abstruse sciences.

3. ‘ 0 my two friends/ i.e. his understanding and his faith.

4. 4 The sands of the guarded pasture/ referring to the

endurance of anguish caused by separation in

a station remote from phenomenal being and inaccessible.

4 Quba/ i.e. the station of repose, for the Prophet used to
alight there every Sabbath.

6. 4 The camels/ i.e. the aspirations on which our hearts ride.

7. 4Twas only a frenzy of love/ etc., i.e. my preoccupation
   with love for Him veiled me from Himself.

13-14. The East wind bestows on him the knowledge of
4 God created Adam after His own image the South wind
bestows on him the knowledge of the companions of the
right hand , Kor. lvi, 89), and the North wind

bestows on him the knowledge of the favourites of God
Kor. lvi, 87), which is the station between prophecy
and saintship and is attained only by the nonpareils (j^i^l),
of whom al-Khadir is one, as the Koran bears witness.
Abu H&mid (al-Ghazali) denies the existence of this station,
because he never reached or knew it, and he imagines that
those Saints who advance beyond the rank of the siddiqs
have fallen into prophecy and have acted irreverently, but
such is not the case. The station to which I refer lies between
the position of the siddiq and that of the Prophet. It is
indicated by the mystery which made an impression on the
heart of the greatest siddiq , Abu Bakr (A- A

1G. When the lover passes away from his own desire,
every evil becomes good to him, because it is the will and
desire of his Beloved.

18. 4 Its lightning gives a false promise of rain’: a
    manifestation of the Essence produces nothing in the heart,
    inasmuch as it cannot be apprehended or confined by any
    phenomenal object. In this respect it differs from the
    manifestation in forms in the world of similitudes, for the
    seer apprehends the form of that which is manifested to him
    and interprets it.

19. 4 On the sleeve of the cloud/ referring to Kor. ii, 206.

The cloud is the heart which clothes, i.e. contains, God. The
sleeve represents the hand which takes the pledge of fealty
to Him. The author describes a manifestation of the Essence
behind the veil of phenomena, a manifestation due to the fact
profoundly realized by a servant of God, that God created
Adam in His image.

20. ‘ And its tears/ etc., i.e. diverse sorts of evidentiary
    knowledge poured into the gardens of the Divine hearts and
    produced an overwhelming sense of awe and majesty.

21. ‘A narcissus/ i.e. a vision that imparts incomprehensible
    knowledge.

22. ‘The sun rises/ i.e. sciences appear which are connected
    with the Qutb and upon which the universe depends.

23. She reveals to the hearts of gnostics mysterious love.

24. When this gnostic feels in himself a Divine realization
    so that he attains to the station indicated in the Tradition,

‘ I am his ear and his eye/ his speech becomes pure Truth
and absolute Revelation, and the hearts of his disciples
receive from him knowledge in the same way as the bees
receive honey from God (Ivor, xvi, 70).

26. As the winds sway the bough, so the gnostic's aspiration
    causes God to incline mercifully towards him.

27. ‘At the sand-hill of Ilajir/ i.e. the white hill, well-
    known to the Sufis, on which it is impossible for anyone
    to set foot. He says, ‘ Why dost thou not occupy thyself
    with making ready for the gifts bestowed by this high
    station, in order that no thought of “the coy beauties",
    i.e. contemplation and bewilderment, may occur to thee ? ’

28. He answers : ‘ The beauties which I seek are the

offspring of the original fiat whence we came forth. I am
an Arab and therefore I love the coy beauties

i.e. do not blame me for acting as I am prompted by what in
me is original and real.'

29. • I care not/ etc., i.e. I am not limited by stations
      and degrees, but only by her, so that wherever she is I am.

30. When I say to the mediums and veils, ‘ Will you not
    consider my ease with her, that perchance I may win of

her such delight as other ecstatics have enjoyed ? 5 they
answer : ' Wilt not thou consider our faces how they are
turned towards thee and veiled from her ? ’ i.e. secondary
causes are merely an affliction and probation through which
you must pass, but if you remain with them you will receive
nothing except what their being can give, and you will
be veiled from the object of your desire.

' May not IV i.e. may not I attain to my Beloved ?

' He refuses/ i.e. he excludes those who seek him by
means of secondary causes. God is known only by means
of God. The scholastic theologian says : ' I know God by
that which He created/ and takes as his guide something
that has no real relation to the object sought. He who
knows God by means of phenomena, knows as much as
those phenomena give to him and no more.

31. 'They go to the upland/ i.e. the Divine realities
    reveal themselves in imaginary bodies as Gabriel appeared
    in the form of Dihya.

'To the lowland/ i.e. they reveal themselves, like the
spirits of the prophets, in earthly bodies of the intermediate
world.

32. ‘ As often as it sees the footprints/ etc. : cf .
    Kor. xx, 9G. He says: 'There is in me an aspiration with
    which I revive those whom I regard with favour, and those
    whose growth is symmetrical, and those whose form is erect
    (I mean in the earthly pilgrimage), and those whose hearts
    are prepared to receive the overflowing grace of the spirit ;
    and I breathe into them something of that which I have
    gained from that footprint, and they are revived thereby
    and are under my care/ He refers to the class of saints
    who have renounced the powers of ' control ’

which God bestowed upon them, for one who abides with
the Primal Realities is more perfect in knowledge than one
who is veiled by such Divine gifts. Abu Yazid (al-Bistanu)
said : 'It is not I whom they are touching, but it is a robe
in which God clothed me : how, then, should I hinder them
from that which belongs to another ? ’ Whoever sees the

116 THE TAR J UMAX AL-ASHWAQ (XXX, XXXl)

robe of honour which God conferred on the Black Stone,
and knows the stone, will know what I mean. This was
the station of Abu Yazid and of my Shaykh, Abu Madyan.

34. How often did we beg for power over the spiritual
    states, so that we might rule them without fear of losing
    them !

35. ‘ 0 sons of az-Zawra/ : az-Zawra is a name of Baghdad,
    which is the residence of the Qutb in the visible world.
    The author refers to those who are in the presence of the
    Qutb and under his aegis (Ajyta

‘ A moon,’ etc., i.e. an essential manifestation which appeared
among you through the existence of the Qutb, and vanished
in me, i.e. it is my inward being and mystery ) .

He makes himself to be one of the nonpareils

36. ‘ Behind it/ although it is within himself, indicating

that it is not circumscribed .-Aj), but that

it is with him in the category of additional, as the Prophet
said, ‘ 0 Lord, let me increase in knowledge/

37. ‘ A dove/ i.e. the spirits of the intermediate world,

the bearers of the inspiration that comes at the tinkling
sound (Z _\ ). which is like the noise of a chain when

it strikes a rock. They cause this heart to vanish, even as
they themselves vanish on hearing that sound. Hence
the Prophet said that this manner of inspiration was the
most grievous to him, and he used to pass away from his
senses, and wrap himself until it departed, after he had
understood its meaning. A portion of this belongs to his
(spiritual) heirs.

Ode XXXI

1. A lightning-cloud gleamed at Dhat ah Ada, with light

flashing over the plain thereof,

2. And the thunder of its secret converse cracked, and its

rain-cloud let fall copious showers.

3. They called to one another : 4 Make the camels kneel 1 ’

but they did not listen, and I in my passion cried
out : 4 0 driver,

4. Alight here and abide, for I love one who is with you,

5. A woman, slender, lissome, of fresh beauty, for whom

the heart of the sad lover is longing/

6. The assembly is filled with fragrance at the mention

of her, and every tongue utters her name.

7. And if her seat were a valley (but her throne is a high

mountain),

8. The low ground would be made high by her : *he who

looks enviously shall never attain to that height.

9. By her is every desert peopled, and by her is every

mirage transformed to abundant water,

10. And by her is every meadow made bright, and by her

is every wine made clear.

11. My night is radiant with her face, and my day is dark

with her hair.

12. The core of my heart, when the Cleaver shot it through

with her arrows,

13. Was cloven by eyes which are accustomed to aim at

the entrails, and none of their shafts misses the
mark.

14. No owl in desert places, no ring-dove or croaking

raven

15. Is more unlucky than a full-grown camel which they

saddled, that it might carry away one whose beauty
is surpassing,

16. And might leave at Dliat al-Ada a passionate lover

slain, although in love of them he is true.

Commentary

1. ‘ A lightning-cloud/ i.e. a manifestation of the Essence.

‘ Dh&t al-Add,/ in Tih&ma, i.e. the station of abasement
pertaining to exaltation, for God exalts those who humble
themselves before Him.

4 Light/ i.e. the light of exaltation.

4. ‘ Here/ i.e. beside one who seeks and loves you.

‘One who is with you’: he addresses the sciences imparted
to him by this manifestation. Inasmuch as they are sought,

Ode XXXII

not for their own sake but only for the sake of that on
which they are dependent, he says that he desires to
approach that by means of them.

5. ‘ A woman,’ etc., i.e. a Divine attribute which manifested
   itself in the world of similitude.

7, 8. Her sublimity exalts everyone in whom she dwells.

‘ A high mountain/ i.e. the heart of the gnostic.

o 7 o

‘ He who looks enviously,’ etc. : the Divine essence is
unknowable.

9. 4 Every desert,’ i.e. every heart laid waste by forgetful-
   ness of God.

10. ‘ Wine/ i.e. spiritual delight.

11. He says: fI have gained knowledge of the invisible
    world from her hair, and knowledge of the visible world
    from her face, and my visible world £>roduces her as an
    invisible being to the eye/ i.e. I have the power of appearing
    in different forms, like al-Khadir and some saints, e.g. Qadib
    al-Ban.

12. ‘ The Cleaver/ i.e. God, in reference to Kor. vi, 95, 96.

13. ‘ Was cloven/ etc., i.e. by the sciences and manifesta-
    tions of the Divine Ideas.

14-16. The most unlucky of all things is any ecstasy
that intervenes between thee and this Divine attribute, for
ecstasy takes possession of the heart, so that the mystery
of the Almighty which was illuminated by this Essential
Manifestation is left neglected and without power to retain
that which has already been revealed to it.

1. Our talk between al-IIaditha and al-Karkh recalls to me

the period of youth and its prime.

2. I said to myself : ‘ After fifty years, when through long

meditation I have become as weak as a young bird,

3. It recalls to me the neighbourhood of Salf and Ilajir, and

brings to my mind the period of youth and its
prime,

4. And the driving of the camels up hill and down dale, and

Ode XXXIII

my kindling fire for them by rubbing the ‘afar and
the markh together.’ 1

Commentary

1-3. He says : ‘ Our praise of God ( J3 ), telling of the
Divine Revelation, recalls to me the time of pilgrimage in
the station where the veils were rent and lifted from me
by acts of devotion that produced spiritual feelings and
aspirations of which I was unconscious, and brings me back
from my present state of acting in unveiledness and without
being conscious of consciousness to the former state of aeting
in which I was veiled.’

4. ‘ My kindling fire,’ etc., i.e. the things generated by
   veiled secondary causes whereby the reality is doubly
   disguised.

5. I respond with diverse notes of grief to every cooing dove

perched upon a bough in a grove.

2. She weeps for her mate without tears, but from my

eyelids the tears of sorrow are streaming.

3. I say to her, when my eyelids have shed their abundant

tears in token of my inward state,

4. ‘ Hast thou any knowledge of those whom I love, and

did they rest at midday in the shadows of the
branches ? ’

Commentary

1. ‘ Every cooing dove,’ i.e. subtle spiritual essences which
   appear in forms of the intermediate world.

2. 4 From my eyelids,’ etc.: because of my bodily existence.

3. ‘ Did they rest,’ etc., i.e. did they show themselves

in the shades of this natural organism, so that I may seek
them there ?

1 ‘ Afar and markh are the names of trees whose wood was used for
this purpose.

Ode XXXIV

1. At the hill among the mountains of Zaimd are haughty

lions, by the looks of lissome women

2. Overthrown, though they were bred in the carnage of war.

What match are the lions for the black eyes ?

3. The women’s looks murdered them. How sweet are those

looks from the daughters of kings !

Commentary

1. ‘ Haughty lions/ i.e. aspiring and courageous hearts.

‘ Lissome women/ i.e. the Divine Ideas.

3. ‘From the daughters of kings/ referring to Ivor, liv, 55:
   ‘ In the 'presence of a puissant king /

Ode XXXV

1. Three full moons, unadorned by any ornament, went forth

to at-Tandm with veiled faces.

2. They unveiled shining faces like suns and cried with

a loud voice ‘Labbayka’, visiting the holy shrines.

3. And they approached, walking slowly as the qatd birds

walk, in gowns of striped Yemen cloth.

Commentary

1. Three Divine Names went forth from the Divine

Presence to at-Tanhm, desiring to manifest their traces,
i.e. their bliss consists in such manifestation. ‘With

veiled faces/ lest anyone who was unable to endure the
sight of their splendour should behold them and perish.

2. ‘ They unveiled/ i.e. in the heart that was prepared to
   receive them.

‘ The holy shrines/ i.e. this noble heart.

3. ‘ In gowns of striped Yemen cloth/ i.e. graced by the
   subordinate Names which attended them like priests.

Ode XXXVI

1. 0 earth of the Highland, mayst thou be a blessed highland !
   May the rain-clouds water thee abundantly with
   shower on shower !

Ode XXXVII

2. And may he who has greeted thee for fifty years greet

thee once and twice and then once again !

3. I crossed every desert and wilderness to meet her, riding

on the big-humped she-camel and the old dromedary,

4. Until the lightning shone from the direction of al-Ghada,

and its coming in the night has increased the passion
that I felt before.

Commentary

1. ‘0 earth of the Highland/ i.e. the understanding in the
   corporeal world.

‘ The white clouds/ i.e. Divine Knowledge.

2. ‘ He who has greeted thee/ i.e. the Truth, which bestows
   spiritual gifts.

3. 4 1 crossed every desert and wilderness/ i.e. I suffered
   austerities and mortifications of the flesh.

‘ The big-humped she-camel/ i.e. the religious law.

• The old dromedary/ i.e. the matured and experienced mind.

4. ‘ The lightning/ i.e. the luminous radiance of the most
   inaccessible veil of the Divine glory.

• Al-Ghadd/ phenomenal existence.

• Coming in the night/ i.e. in the darkness of the phenomenal
  world.

1. 0 my two comrades, approach the guarded pasture and

seek Najd and yonder sign that marks the way,

2. And come down to a well at the tents of the curving sand

and beg shade of its ddl and salam trees.

3. And whenever ye come to the valley of Mina — for then

ye have come to that in which is my heart’s being-

4. Deliver to all who dwell there the greetings of love from

me, or only say, ‘ Peace be with you ! ’

5. And hearken what they will reply, and tell how one who

is heartsick

fl. Complains of the ardours of love, while he is hiding
nothing, seeking information, and asking questions.

Ode XXXVIII

Commentary

1. 4 0 my two comrades,’ i.e. his understanding and his faith.

4 The guarded pasture/ i.e. the veiled glory of God.

4 Najd/ i.e. sublime knowledge.

4 Yonder sign/ i.e. inductive knowledge.

2. 4 A well/ i.e. the source of eternal life.

4 At the tents of the curving sand/ i.e. in the presence of
Divine mercy.

4 Beg shade/ etc., i.e. seek delight in the knowledge that
bewilders the intellect and is exempt from all limitation.

3. 4 The valley of Mind/ i.e. the abodes of the Heavenly
   Host and of the Divine Names assembled for the purpose of
   manifestation.

4. 4 Or only say/ etc., i.e. if they are not pleased to receive
   my greetings, then make no mention of me.

5. 4 Asking questions/ i.e. touching the malady with which
   he is smitten, viz. the obstacles that hinder him from attaining
   to the object of his desire, notwithstanding that love has
   intoxicated his whole being.

6. The dearest place on God’s earth to me after Tayba and

Mecca and the Farther Temple is the city of Baghddn.1

2. How should I not love the (City of) Peace, since I have

there an Imam who is the guide of my religion and
my reason and my faith ?

3. ’Tis the home of a daughter of Persia, one whose gestures

are subtle and whose eyelids are languid.

4. She greets and revives those whom she killed with her

looks, and she conferred the best (gift) after beauty
and beneficence.

Commentary

1. 4 Tayba ’ (Medina), i.e. the station of Yathrib from which
   they return with utter failure to attain to true knowledge of
   the most glorious God, as Abu Baler said, 4 perception is

1 Baghdan is one of the seven various spellings of Baghdad.

Ode XXXIX

the incapacity to achieve perception/ This involves seeing
God in everything.

‘ Mecca/ i.e. the perfect heart which contains the Truth.
‘The Farther Temple’ (Jerusalem), i.e. the station of
holiness and purity.

‘ Baghdan/ i.e. Baghdad, because it is the abode of the
Qutb, in whom is the perfect manifestation of the form of
the Divine presence.

3. ‘ A daughter of Persia/ i.e. a form of foreign wisdom

(£Ujst connected with Moses, Jesus, Abraham, and

other foreigners of the same class.

‘ Whose eyelids are languid/ i.e. she is tender and merciful.

4. ‘ The best (gift) after beauty and beneficence ’ : Gabriel
   said, ‘Beneficence (^L^31) consists in thy worshipping God
   as though thou wert seeing Him/ and he added, ‘ for if thou
   seest Him not, yet He sees thee.’ Hence ‘ the best gift ’ after
   beneficence is God’s vision of thee.

5. My soul be the ransom of fair-complexioned and coy

virgins who played with me as I was kissing the
Pillar and the Stone !

2. When thou art lost in pursuit of them, thou wilt find no

guide but in their scent, the sweetest of traces.

3. No moonless night darkened o’er me but I remembered

them and journeyed in moonlight.

4. Only when I walk in their company of riders does the

night seem to me like the sun in the morning.

5. My love urged me to dalliance with one of them, a beauty

who hath no sister in humankind.

G. If she unveils her mouth, she will show to thee what
sparkles like the sun in unchanging radiance.

7. The whiteness of her forehead is the sun’s, the blackness

of the hair on her brow is the night’s : most wondrous
of forms is she — a sun and a night together !

8. Through her we are in daylight during the night and in

a night of hair at noon.

THE TAR J UMAX AL-ASHWAQ (XXXIX, XL)

Commentary

1. ‘ Virgins/ i.e. Divine sciences embodied in the world
   of similitude.

• As I was kissing/ etc., i.e. in the station of Divine
  allegiance (£>5151

2. ‘ Their scent/ i.e. their traces in the hearts of the gnostics
   who know them.

3. ‘ No moonless night/ i.e. the darkness of ignorance or
   bewilderment.

4. ‘ The blackness of the hair on her brow/ i.e. the
   mysterious sciences of which she is the bearer, e.g. the
   Traditions inspecting assimilation

5. ‘ We are in daylight during the night/ etc., i.e. in the
   essence of the case God’s invisibility is His visibility, and
   His visibility is His invisibility, if we regard Him and not
   our own reason.

Ode XL

1. Between Adhri'at and Busra a maid of fourteen rose to

my sight like a full moon.

2. She was exalted in majesty above Time and transcended

it in pride and glory.

3. Every full moon, when it reaches perfection, suffers

a waning that it may make a complete month,

4. Except this one : for she does not move through zodiacal

signs nor double what is single.

5. Thou art a pyx containing blended odours and perfume,

thou art a meadow producing spring-herbs and
flowers.

<3. Beauty reached in thee her utmost limit : another like
thee is impossible.

Commentary

1. ‘Between Adhri'at and Busra’: he mentions these
   places because they mark the farthest point reached by the
   Prophet in his Syrian journey.

‘ A maid of fourteen/ i.e. the perfect soul. Four is the

Ode XLI

most perfect number, and ten consists of four numbers,
viz. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4, and fourteen is 4 + 10.

4. ‘ Nor double what is single/ i.e. she is in the station
   of Unity and no one is joined with her, for she is not
   homogeneous with anything.

5. ‘ Blended odours and perfume/ i.e. Divine sciences and
   influences.

6. ‘ Beauty x^eached in thee her utmost limit/ as Abix
   Hamid (al-Ghazali) said, ‘ A more beautiful world than this
   is not possible. Had it existed and had God kept it to
   Himself, He would have shown avarice which is incompatible
   with His liberality and weakness which is contradictory to
   His omnipotence/

7. God save a bird on a bdn tree, a bird that has revealed

to me the true story

2. How the loved ones bound the saddles on their camels

and then gat them away at dawn.

3. I journeyed — and in my heart for their sake was a

blazing fire because of their departure —

4. Striving to outpace them in the darkness of the night,

calling to them, and then following their track.

5. I had no guide in pursuing them except a perfumed

breath of their love.

6. The women raised the curtain, the darkness became light,

and the camels journeyed on because of the moon-
shine.

7. Then I let my tears pour in front of the camels, and the

riders said, ‘ When did this river flow ? ’

8. And were unable to cross it. I said, ‘ My tears rolled in

streams/

9. Tis as though the thunderclaps at the gleam of the

lightnings and the passing of the clouds at the fall
of rain

10. Were the palpitation of hearts at the flash of teeth and
    the flow of tears for travellers who rode away.

12 6

11. O thou who likenest the lissomeness of the tall forms (of

the loved ones) to the softness of the fresh verdant
bough,

12. If thou hadst reversed the comparison, as I have done,

thou wouldst have taken a sound view ;

13. For the softness of the branches is like the lissomeness

of the tall forms, and the rose of the meadow is like
the rosy blush of shame.

Commentary

1. ‘ A bird on a ban tree/ i.e. the Prophet’s spirit in
   his body.

• The true story/ i.e. the Tradition concerning the descent
  of God to the terrestrial heaven.

2. ‘ flow the loved ones,’ etc., i.e. how God descended into
   the night of phenomenal forms and ‘ gat Him away at dawn’,
   that is, manifested Himself in the intermediate world, which,
   like the dawn, is light mingled with darkness ; for this
   manifestation is impure in comparison with the purity and
   holiness of the Godhead per se.

3. ‘ Following their track ’ : he refers to the investiture
   with Divine qualities.

4. ‘ A perfumed breath,’ alluding to the habit of guides,
   who on losing their way in desert places try to recover it
   by smelling the earth.

5. This verse refers to Kor. xxxiv, 22: 4 when the terror
   shall be removed from their hearts' etc.

6. ‘ The riders/ i.e. the angels mentioned in Kor. ii, 206.

7. f And were unable to cross it/ because these tears were
   shed in the grief of parting, and the Heavenly Host lack this
   emotion, for they are not veiled from God : hence they are
   not allowed to traverse this station.

11-13. The author says that, in accordance with the real
relation subsisting between God and His creatures, they
should be connected with Him, not He with them. Thus the
supple bough should be compared to the form of the Divine
Beloved and the rose to His cheeks, not vice versdy as

THE TARJUMAN AL-ASIIWAQ (XLI, XLIl)

happens in those Traditions which attribute human qualities
to God, although in reality He is the eternal source of such
qualities and therefore incomparable.

Ode XLII

1. 0 men of intelligence and understanding, I am distraught

between the sun and the gazelles.

2. He who forgets Sulia is not forgetful, but he who forgets

the sun is forgetful.

3. Let him offer himself to his herd, for gifts open the

mouth to utter praise.

4. Verily, she is an Arab girl, belonging by origin to the

daughters of Persia, yea, verily.

5. Beauty strung for her a row of fine pearly teeth, white

and pure as crystal.

6. I boded ill from her unveiling, and at that moment her

loveliness and splendour affrighted me.

7. From those twain I suffered two deaths: thus hath the

Koran revealed her.

8. I said, ‘ Wherefore did thy unveiling affright me ? ’

(She answered), * Thy foes have trysted to attack thee
when the sun shines.5

9. I said, * I am in a guarded demesne of black hair that

hides thee : let it fall at their coming.5

10. This poem of mine is without rhyme : I intend by it

only Her.

11. The word 4 Her 5 is my aim, and for Her sake I am not

fond of bartering except (with) * Give and take 5
(hd wa-hd)}

Commentary

1. ‘ Between the sun and the gazelles,5 referring to
   Kor. lxv, 12: ‘ The Divine command descendeth between
   them 5 (viz. the heavens and the earth).

2. The heedless man is not he who neglects what is

1 The meaning of the last hemistich is obscure. Possibly was

a formula used in completing a bargain.

THE TA11JUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (XLIl)

invisible, like the star Suha, but he who neglects what
is visible and manifest, like the sun.

8. ‘Let him offer himself to his herd,’ etc., i.e. let him
   sacrifice himself for the sake of those whom he loves, and
   then they will praise him.

9. ‘ An Arab girl/ i.e. one of the Muhammadan kinds of
   knowledge.

‘ Belonging by origin to the daughters of Persia 9 : for the
foreign and barbarous idiom is more ancient than

the Arabic (iop^l).

6. ‘ I boded ill from her unveiling ’ : when a woman

unveiled herself to an Arab with no particular motive, he
used to regard it as a sign that she was unlucky to him, and
lie used to be afraid in consequence.

7. ‘ Two deaths/ i.e. dying to (becoming unconscious of)
   others, and dying to himself, so that he remained with her in
   virtue of her, not in virtue of himself.

‘ Thus hath the Koran revealed her/ in reference to
Kor. xl, 11 : ‘ Thou hast caused us to die twice 9

8. ‘ Thy foes/ etc., i.e. they will beguile thee with a form
   resembling mine at the moment when I manifest my essence
   to thee, i.e. thy desire to obtain possession of my essence will
   deceive thee and make thee imagine that the form in which
   I appear to thee is I myself.

9. ‘ I am in a guai'ded demesne/ etc., as it is said of the
   Prophet : ‘ for He causes a guard {of angels) to go before and
   behind him 5 (Kor. lxxii, 27), that he might be in no doubt
   concerning his inspiration. This is the meaning of my verse,
   ‘ At night the angels descended upon my heart and circled it
   like the sphere that circles the pole-star/

10. ‘This poem of mine is without rhyme/ i.e. it has
    no recurring rhyme-letter {Z$*J)> which in a rhymed poem
    would invariably precede the U.

‘ I intend by it only Her 5 (or, as the author expresses it,
‘ only the letter hd ’), i.e. ‘ I have no connexion except with
Her, since my connexion with the phenomenal world is
entirely for Her sake, in so far as She reveals Herself there/

Ode XLIII

1. Let me never forget my abode at Wana and my saying to

camel-riders as they departed and arrived,

2. • Stay beside us a while that we may be comforted thereby,

for I swear by those whom I love that I am consoled
(by thinking of you).’

3. If they set out they will journey with the most auspicious

omen, and if they halt they will alight at the most
bountiful halting-place.

4. ’Twas in the glen of the valley of Qanat I met them,

and my last sight of them was between an-Naqa
and al-Mushalshal.

5. They watch every place where the camels find pasturage,

but they pay no heed to the heart of a lover led
astray.

6. 0 camel-driver, have pity on a youth whom you see

breaking colocynth when he bids farewell,

7. Laying his palms crosswise on his bosom to still a heart

that throbbed at the noise of the (moving) howdah.

8. They say, ‘ Patience ! ’ but grief is not patient. What can

I do, since patience is far from me ?

9. Even if I had patience and were ruled by it, my soul

would not be patient. How, therefore, when I have
it not ?

Commentary

1. ‘ W&na/ i.e. the station of confession and shortcoming
   and failure to pay due reverence to the majesty of the Divine
   presence.

‘ Camel-riders/ i.e. the saints and favourites of God (j\j> 5I\

5. ‘ Every place where the camels find pasturage/ i.e. the
   objects to which our aspirations tend.

6. ‘ 0 camel-driver ’ : he addresses the Divine voice which
   calls the aspirations towards it.

‘ Breaking colocynth/ i.e. having his face distorted with
anguish (for when colocynth is broken its pungent smell

Ode XLIV

causes the eyes to water). Imru’u’l-Qays says (cf. Ahlwardt,
The Diw&ns, 204, No. 26) :

Jks. JjjU o'jJ * US*? ' J-~W 'iUi Jift

1. The full moon appeared in the night of hair, and the

black narcissus bedewed the rose.

2. A tender girl is she : the fair women were confounded by

her, and her radiance outshone the moon.

3. If she enters into the mind, that imagination wounds

her: how, then, can she be perceived by the eye ?

4. She is a phantom of delight that melts away when we

think of her : she is too subtle for the range of vision.

5. Description sought to explain her, but she was tran-

scendent, and description became dumb.

6. Whenever it tries to qualify her, it always retires baffled.

7. If one who seeks her will give rest to his beasts, others

will not give rest to the beast of reflection.

8. She is a joy that transports from the rank of humanity

every one who burns with love of her,

9. From jealousy that her clear essence should be mingled

with the filth which is in the tanks.

10. She excels the sun in splendour: her form is not to be

compared with any.

11. The heaven of light is under the sole of her foot: her

diadem is beyond the spheres.

Commentary

1. ‘ The full moon,’ etc., i.e. the Divine manifestation
   appeared in the unseen world of mysterious knowledge.

‘ And the black narcissus/ etc., i.e. the weeping eye
bedewed the red cheeks. He means to say that the centre of
Essential manifestation replenished the Divine names.

2. 4 The fair women/ i.e. the attendant Names.

3. • One who seeks her/ i.e. the gnostic who is aware that
     he cannot reach her.

‘ His beasts/ i.e. his aspirations.

‘ Others/ i.e. men of understanding who assert that God is
known by logical demonstration.

8. ‘ Transports from the rank of humanity/ i.e. to the next

world, in which the disembodied spirits assume different
forms JSsSll

9. ‘The filth which is in the tanks/ i.e. the impurity and
   darkness of nature in the corporeal world.

10. Cf. Ivor, xx, 4, and the Tradition that God, before He
    created the Throne, was in a dense cloud, and neither above
    it nor beneath it wras any air.

Ode XLV

1. The loved ones of my heart — where are they ? Say, by

God, where are they ?

2. As thou sawest their apparition, wilt thou show to me

their reality ?

3. How long, how long w~as I seeking them ! and how often

did I beg to be united with them,

4. Until I had no fear of being parted from them, and yet

I feared to be amongst them.

5. Perchance my happy star will hinder their going afar

from me,

6. That mine eye may be blest with them, and that I may

not ask, ‘ Where are they ? *

Commentary

1. ‘ The loved ones/ i.e. the sublime spirits.

2. ‘ Their apparition/ i.e. their manifestation in the world
   of similitude.

3. ‘ I feared to be amongst them/ i.e. lest their radiance
   should consume me.

4. • My happy star/ i.e. the Divine favour predestined
     to me.

Ode XLVI

1. There is a war of love between the entrails and the large

eyes, and because of that war the heart is in woe.

2. Dark-lipped and swart is she, her mouth honeyed : the

evidence of the bees is the white honey which they
produce.

3. Full-ankled, a darkness o'er a moon ; in her cheek a red

blush ; she is a bough growing on hills.

4. Beautiful, decked with ornaments; she is not wedded; she

shows teeth like hailstones for lustre and coolness.

5. She keeps aloof in earnest, though she plays at loving in

jest ; and death lies between that earnest and jest.

G. Never did the night darken but there came, following it,
the breath of dawn : ’tis known from of old.

7. And never do the East winds pass over meadows

containing coy virgins with swelling breasts

8. But they bend the branches and whisper, as they blow,

of the flowery scents which they carry.

9. I asked the East wind to give me news of them. The

wind said, ‘ What need hast thou of the news ?

10. I left the pilgrims in al-Abraqan and in Birk al-Ghimad

and in Birk al-Ghamim near at hand ;

11. They are not settled in any country.’ I said to the

wind, ‘ Where can they take refuge when the steeds
of my desire are pursuing them ? ’

12. Far be the thought ! They have no abode save my mind.

Wherever I am, there is the full moon. Watch and see!

13. Is not my imagination her place of rising and my heart

her place of setting ? for the ill-luck of the ban and
gharab trees hath ceased.

14. The raven does not eroak in our encampments or make

any rift in the harmony of our union.

Commentary

1. He says: 4 There is a war of love between the world of
   intermixture and cohesion and the Divine Ideas, because this
   world desires and loves them inasmuch as its life is wholly
   derived from their beholding it. Nothing but this natural
   world hinders the hearts of gnostics from perceiving the
   Divine Ideas ; accordingly the heart is in woe and distress
   because of the war that continually exists between them.’

2. ‘ Dark-lipped and swart is she ’ : he infers to one of the
   Divine Ideas, whom he describes as having dark lips on
   account of the mysteries which she contains.

4 The evidence of the bees ’ : he mentions the bees because
they have immediate experience of the inspiration which the
hearts of gnostics desire.

3. 4 Full-ankled/ i.e. mighty and terrible, with reference to

jU ^ (Ivor, lxviii, 42) and to Ivor, lxxv, 29.

4 A darkness o’er a moon/ i.e. she is hidden save to the eye
of contemplation.

4 A bough growing on hills/ referring to the quality
of self-subsistence (^«*IaH) which is revealed in Divine
manifestations.

4. ‘ Ornaments/ i.e. the Divine Names.

4 Not wedded/ i.e. no human being has ever known her.

4 Teeth like hailstones/ referring to the purity of her
manifestation.

5. 4 She keeps aloof in earnest/ i.e. she is really inaccessible.

4 Death/ i.e. anguish for those who love her.

6. 4 Never did the night darken/ etc., i.e. every esoteric
   mystery has its corresponding exoteric manifestation ; God is
   both the Inward and the Outward.

7. 4 The East winds/ i.e. the spiritual influences of Divine
   manifestation.

4 Meadows/ i.e. hearts.

4 Coy virgins/ etc., i.e. subtle forms of Divine wisdom and
sensuous knowledge derived from the station of shame and
beauty.

8. 4 They bend the branches/ i.e. the Self-subsistent inclines
   towards those who subsist in phenomena.

9. 4 No country in particular/ etc., i.e. they do not remain
   in any one state, referring to settlement in the station of
   change (^bJ\ which theosophists consider

to be the most exalted of all the stations.

13. The ban tree suggests bayn (separation), and the
    gharab tree ghurbat (exile).

Ode XLVII

Ode XLVIII

1. 0 dove on the ban tree at Dhat al-Ghada, I am oppressed

by the burden thou hast laid upon me.

2. Who can support the anguish of love ? Who can drain the

bitter draught of destiny ?

3. I say in my grief and burning passion, 4 O would that he

who caused my sickness had tended me when I am
sick ! ’

4. He passed by the house-door mocking, hiding himself,

veiling his head and turning away.

5. His veiling did me no hurt ; I was only hurt by his

having turned away from me.

Commentary

1. ‘0 dove/ i.e. the Absolute Wisdom.

4 Dhat al-Ghada/ referring to states of self-mortification.

4 The burden 9 : cf. Ivor, xxxiii, 72.

4. 4 He passed/ etc., referring to Divine thoughts which
   flash upon the mind and are gone in a moment.

5. i.e. I am necessarily veiled from God, but God’s turning
   away from me is caused by some quality in me of which
   I am ignorant and which I cannot remove until God enables
   me to know what it is.

6. 0 camel-driver, turn aside at Sal4 and halt by the ban tree

of al-Mudarraj,

2. And call to them, imploring their pity and grace, 4 0 my

princes, have ye any consolation ? ’

3. At Rama, between an-Naqa and Hajir, is a girl enclosed in

a howdah.

4. Oh, her beauty — the tender maid ! Her fairness gives

light like lamps to one travelling in the dark.

5. She is a pearl hidden in a shell of hair as black as jet,

6. A pearl for which reflection dives and remains unceasingly

in the deeps of that ocean.

7. He who looks upon her deems her to be a gazelle of the

sand-hills because of her neck and the loveliness of
her gestures.

8. ’Tis as though she were the morning sun in Aries, crossing

the degrees of the zodiac at their farthest height.

9. If she lifts her veil or uncovers her face, she holds cheap

the rays of the bright dawn.

10. I called to her, between the guarded pasture and Rama,

'Who will help a man that alighted at Sab in good hope ?

11. Who will help a man lost in a desert, dismayed, con-

founded in his wits, miserable ?

12. Who will help a man drowned in his tears, intoxicated

by the wine of passion for those well-set teeth ?

13. Who will help a man burned by his sighs, distraught by

the beauty of those spacious eyebrows ? ’

14. The hands of Love have played at their will with his

heart, and he commits no sin in that which he seeks.

Commentary

1. ‘ Halt by the ban tree of al-Mudarraj ’ : he says,
   addressing the Divine messenger which calls the aspirations
   that seek to know and behold Him, 4 Appear to me in
   the station of self-subsistence and lovingkindness gradually

not suddenly, lest I perish/

2. 4 And call to them/ i.e. to the Divine Names.

3. 4 Rama/ one of the stations of abstraction and isolation.

‘ Between an-Naqa and Hajir/ between the white hill and
the most inaccessible veil, to which the hearts of mystics
can never attain.

‘ A girl enclosed in a howdah/ i.e. the Essential Knowledge
contained in the hearts of some gnostics.

4. ‘ To one travelling in the dark/ i.e. to those who ascend
   and journey in the night (like the Prophet).

5. God is beyond the reach of mental effort ; He is revealed
   by Divine favour to a heart empty of all thoughts.

6. ‘ Crossing the degrees of the zodiac/ etc., in reference
   to the magnification and glory which the seer feels in himself
   as he continues to contemplate her.

Ode XLIX

10. ‘ Sal*/ one of the stations of Divine sanctity.

11. ‘In his tears/ i.e. in the knowledge that comes of
    contemplation.

‘ Wine/ i.e. every science that inspires joy and rapture in
the human soul, e.g. the science of the Divine perfection.

‘ Those well-set teeth/ i.e. the grades of knowledge of God.

13. ‘ Those spacious eyebrows/ i.e. the station between
    the two Wazirs and Imams. He alludes to the station of
    the Qutb.

14. Who will show me her of the dyed fingers ? Who will

show me her of the honeyed tongue ?

2. She is one of the girls with swelling breasts who guard

their honour, tender, virgin, and beautiful,

3. Full moons over branches : they fear no waning.

4. In a garden of my body’s country is a dove perched on a

ban bough,

5. Dying of desire, melting with passion, because that which

befell me hath befallen her ;

6. Mourning for a mate, blaming Time, who shot her

unerringly, as he shot me.

7. Parted from a neighbour and far from a home ! Alas, in

my time of severance, for my time of union !

8. Who will bring me her who is pleased with my torment ?

I am helpless because of that with which she is
pleased.

Commentary

1. ‘Her of the dyed fingers’: he means the phenomenal
   power by which the Eternal power

jjib) is hidden according to the doctrine of some scholastic
theologians. He says, ‘ Who will impart to me the truth of
this matter, so far as knowledge thereof is possible ? ’ He
wishes to know whether God manifests Himself therein
(Jsr* LJ Jjb) or not. The author denies such mani-
festation, but some mystics and the Mu‘tazilites allow it,
while the Sufis among the Ash‘arites leave the question
undecided.

THE TAKJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (XL1X-LI)

4. ‘ A dove/ etc., i.e. a spiritual Prophetic essence which

appeared in the incommunicable self -subsistence. He refers
to the belief of some Sufis that Man cannot be invested with
the Divine Self-subsistence (U* 3 ^1').

5. ‘Dying of desire/ etc., with reference to Kor. iii, 29,
   ‘ Follow me , that God may love you / and Kor. v, 59, ‘ j He
   loves them and they love Him /

6. ‘A mate/ i.e. the Universal Form

‘ Blaming Time/ because the forms belonging to the world
of similitude are limited by Time in that world.

7. ‘A neighbour/ i.e. a gnostic who became veiled from his
   Lord by his ‘ self ’ after having subsisted by his Lord and for
   the sake of his Lord.

KA home/ i.e. his natural constitution, whenever he returns
to it.

Ode L

1. Oh, the traitress ! She has left bitten by her viper-like

locks one who would fain approach her,

2. And she bends her soft eye and melts him and leaves him

sick on his bed.

3. She shot the arrows of her glances from the bow of an

eyebrow, and on whatever side I came I was killed.

Commentary

1. • The traitress/ i.e. a deceitful Attribute, which caused
     one who sought her to become enamoured of the mysterious
     sciences derived from the Divine majesty and beauty.

2. ‘ His bed/ i.e. his body.

3. He describes the ‘ passing away ’ produced by contem-
   plation of the Divine Ideas.

Ode LI

1. At Dliat al-Acla and al-Ma’ziman and Barifj and Dhii Salam

and al-Abraqan to the traveller by night

2. Appear flashes of swords from the lightnings of smiling

mouths like musk-glands, the odour whereof none is
permitted to smell.

THE TAPvJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (LI, LTl)

3. If war is waged against them, they draw the swords of

their glances ; and if peace is made with them, they
break the bonds of constraint.

4. They and we enjoyed two equal pleasures, for the

Beloved has one kingdom and the lover another.

Commentary

1-2. He says, ‘ In the station of light and that of the
soul’s oppression between the two worlds and that of the
manifestation of the Essence and that where the ascending
spirits find peace (*Lj) appears a terribly beguiling grace
which is veiled by the favour of the Beloved/

3. This verse refers to the Wrath and Mercy of God.

4. £ Equal/ because God created Man after His own
   image.

c For the Beloved/ etc., i.e. the lover and the Beloved exert
a kind of mutual influence (. ) upon one another.

Ode LII

1. I am content with Radwa as a meadow and a lodging-

place, for it has a pasture in which is cool water.

2. May be, those whom I love will hear of its fertility, so that

they will take it as an abode and lodging-place.

3. For lo, my heart is attached to them and listens silently

whenever the camel-driver urges them on with his
chant.

4. And if they call to one another to set out and cross the

desert, thou wilt hear its wailing behind their camels.

5. And if they make for az-Zawra, it will be in front of them,

and if they are bound for al-Jar£a, it will alight there.
0. No fortune is found except where they are and where
they encamp, for the bird of Fortune has fledglings
in their tribe.

7. Fear for myself and fear for her sake battled with each

other, and neither gave way to its adversary.

8. When her splendours dazzle mine eyes, the sound of my

sobbing deafens her ears.

Commentary

1. ‘ Radwa/ with reference to the station of Divine
   satisfaction (UbH ^lL*).

‘ A pasture/ i.e. spiritual nourishment.

2. ‘ Those whom I love/ i.e. gnostics like himself.

3. ‘ The desert/ i.e. the stations of abstraction

‘Their camels/ i.e. the aspirations journeying away from
the body.

5. ‘ Az-Zawra/ i.e. the presence of the Qutb.

‘ In front of them 5 : he means that he anticipates them in
his thoughts and wishes.

‘ Al-Jar‘a/ i.e. a place where they suffer painful self-
mortification.

6. The gnostic seeks only that which is akin to himself.

7. ‘ Fear for myself/ i.e. fear lest my eyes should be dazzled
   by the manifestation of my Beloved’s glory.

‘ Fear for her sake/ i.e. fear lest her ears should be deafened
by the noise of my sobbing.

Ode LIII

1. Whenever we meet to take farewell thou wouldst deem

us, as we clasp and embrace, to be a doubled letter.

2. Although our bodies are dual, the eye sees only n

single one.

3. This is because of my leanness and his light, and were it

not for my moaning, I should have been invisible to
the eye.

Commentary

1-2. The doubled letter is two letters, one of which is
concealed in the other. The soul, bidding farewell to the
body, says, ‘ We are in this ease, for though we are really
two, we appear to be one.5 The soul loves the body because
all her knowledge of God is gained through her imprisonment
in the body and through her making use of it in order to
serve God. The author also refers to the verse, ‘ I am he
whom I love and he whom I love is I.5

The mention of * farewell ’ indicates a distinction between
the qualities which properly belong to the lover and those
which properly belong to the Beloved.

3. ‘ My leanness/ i.e. I am of the spiritual world.

‘ And his light/ i.c. on account of the intensity of his light
his eye cannot perceive either his own radiance or my
subtlety.

‘And were it not/ etc.: so Mutanabbi says, ‘Were it not
that I speak to thee, thou wouldst not see me.’

Ode LIV

1. They said, ‘ The suns are in the heavenly sphere.’

Where should the sun dwell but in heaven ?

2. When a throne is set up, there must be a king to sit

erect upon it.

3. When the heart is purged of its ignorance, then must

the angel descend.

4. He made Himself master of me and I of Him, and each

of us hath possessed the other.

5. My being His property is evident, and my possessing

Him is (proved by) His saying, ‘ Come hither/

6. O camel-driver, let us turn aside and do not lead the

travellers past Dar al-Falak.

7. A house on a river-bank near al-Musanna caused thee to

fall sick and did not make thee forget thy sickness.

8. Would that the lord of desire had laid on thee (0 my

censor ! ) my pain and the burden of love that was
laid on me !

9. For neither Zarud nor Hajir nor Salam is an abode that

emaciated thee.

10. From the burning grief of the journey (towards Him)

thou wert seeking the rain-clouds of union, but they
did not o’ershadow thee.

11. The glory of His sovereignty abased thee, and would that

as He abased thee so He had shown fondness towards
thee !

12. And oh, would that, since in His pride He refused to show

Ode LV

Himself fond, oh, would that He had emboldened thee
to show fondness towards Him !

Commentary

1. ‘ The suns are in the heavenly sphere/ i.e. the Divine
   radiance is in the heart.

2. Cf. Kor. xv, 29, and xx, 4.

3. 4 The angel/ i.e. the most sublime spiritual essences.

4. ‘ He made Himself master of me/ inasmuch as I am
   limited by Him.

‘ And I of Him/ inasmuch as the Divine Names are
manifested only in contingent being.

5. 4 Come hither ’ (Kor. xii, 23), i.e. in order that the
   Names may be manifested, which is impossible unless I
   receive them.

6-7. ‘ Dar al-Falak/ a convent for pious women at Baghdad
on the bank of the Tigris near al-Musanna, which is the
residence of the Imdm — on whom be peace ! The author
refers to the heart, because it is the Temple of Divine
manifestation.

‘ Al-Musannd./ the station of the Qutb, since it was the
Caliph’s palace.

‘ To fall sick/ i.e. to fall in love.

‘ And did not make thee forget thy sickness/ i.e. gave thee
no relief.

9. He says that the passion of his soul was not kindled by
   anything contingent or finite.

10. He says: ‘ Although thou hadst knowledge of God,
    that knowledge did not humble thee so much as thou wert
    humbled by the glory of His manifestation, i.e. thy abasement
    was due to His glory, not to Himself ; hence thy knowledge
    of Him was imperfect/

11. I am absent, and desire makes my soul die ; and I meet

him and am not cured, so ’tis desire whether I am
absent or present.

2. And meeting with him creates in me what I never

THE TARJUMAN AL-A8HWAQ (bV, LVl)

imagined ; and the remedy is a second disease of
passion,

3. Because I behold a form whose beauty, as often as we

meet, grows in splendour and majesty.

4. Hence there is no escape from a passion that increases

in correspondence with every increase in his loveli-
ness according to a predestined scale.

Commentary

1-4. He is continually tormented, for in the anguish of
absence he hopes to be cured by meeting his Beloved, but the
meeting only adds to his pain, because he is always moving
from a lower state to a higher, and the latter inevitably
produces in him a more intense passion than the former did.

Ode LVI

1. (My goal is) the corniced palace of Baghdad, not the

corniced palace of Sindad,1

2. The city set like a crown above the gardens, as though

she were a bride who has been unveiled in the most
fragrant chamber.

3. The wind plays with the branches and they are bent, and

’tis as though the twain had plighted troth with one
another.

4. Meseems, Tigris is the string of pearls on her neck, and

her spouse is our lord, the Imam who guides aright,

5. He who gives victory and is made victorious, the best of

Caliphs, who in war does not mount on horseback.

6. God bless him ! as long as a ringdove perched on a

swaying bough shall moan for him,

7. And likewise as long as the lightnings shall flash of

o o o

1 The second hemistich of this verse is borrowed from the verses of
al*Aswad b. Ya‘fur ( Mufaddaliyydt , ed. b}'’ Thorbecke, p. 52, 8-9 ; Bakri,
ed. by Wustenfeld, 105) :

A-^A % i A X j ^ l—

wl AX**: . \ ^ \

Sindad was a palace of Hira.

Ode LVII

smiling mouths, for joy of which morning-showers
flowed from mine eyes,

8. The mouths of virgins like the sun when the mists have
   withdrawn and when it shines forth clearly with
   most luminous radiance.

Commentary

1. • The corniced palace of Baghdad,’ i.e. the presence of
     the Qutb.

‘ The corniced palace of Sindad/ i.e. the kingdom of this
world.

3. ‘ The wind plays with the branches/ i.e. the aspirations
   attach themselves to the Divine Self-subsistence, which
   inclines towards them.

4. ‘ Tigris/ i.e. the station of life.

‘ The Im&m/ i.e. the Qutb.

5. ‘ Who in war/ etc., i.e. he has quitted the body and
   taken his stand on the spiritual essence by which he is
   related to God.

6. ‘ A ringdove/ etc., i.e. the soul confined in the body.

7. ‘ As long as the lightnings/ etc., referring to the glories
   of Divine contemplation.

8. O breeze of the wind, bear to the gazelles of Najd this

message : ‘ I am faithful to the covenant which yp
know.’

2. And say to the young girl of the tribe, ‘ Our trysting-place

is at the guarded pasture beside the hills of Najd on
the Sabbath morn,

3. On the red hill towards the cairns and on the right hand

of the rivulets and the solitary landmark.’

4. And if her words be true and she feel the same tormenting

desire for me as I feel

5. For her, then we shall meet covertly in the heat of noon

at hex' tent with the most inviolable troth,

G. And she and I will communicate what we suffer of love
and sore tribulation and grievous pain.

Ode LVIII

7. Is this a vague dream or glad tidings revealed in sleep or

the speech of an hour in whose speech was my happy
fortune ?

8. Perchance he who brought the objects of desire (into my

heart) will bring them face to face with me, and their
gardens will bestow on me the gathered roses.

Commentary

1. 4 0 breeze of the wind/ i.e. the subtle spiritual sense
   which gnostics use as a medium of communication.

4 The gazelles of Najd/ i.e. the exalted spirits.

2. 4 The young girl of the tribe/ i.e. the spirit especially
   akin to himself.

3. 4 The red hill/ i.e. the station of beauty, since red is the
   fairest of all the colours.

4 The solitary landmark/ i.e. the Divine singleness
which is inferior to oneness (Jo s}).

5. 4 In the heat of noon/ i.e. in the station of equilibrium

6. 4 Is this a vague dream?’ (cf. Kor. xii, 44), i.e. this
   union is impossible, for my spirit cannot escape from the
   corporeal world.

7. Oh, is there any way to the damsels bright and fair ?

And is there anyone who will show me their traces ?

2. And can I halt at night beside the tents of the curving

sand ? And can I rest at noon in the shade of the
arctic trees ?

3. The tongue of inward feeling spoke, informing me that she

says, 4 Wish for that which is attainable/

4. My love for thee is whole, 0 thou end of my hopes, and

because of that love my heart is sick.

5. Thou art exalted, a full moon rising over the heart, a

moon that never sets after it hath risen.

6. May I be thy ransom, O thou who art glorious in beauty

and pride ! for thou hast no equal amongst the fair.

7. Thy gardens are wet with dew and thy roses are blooming,

Ode LIX

and thy beauty is passionately loved : it is welcome
to all.

8. Thy flowers are smiling and thy boughs are fresh :

wherever they bend, the winds bend towards them. '

9. Thy grace is tempting and thy look piercing : armed with

it the knight, affliction, rushes upon me.

Commentary

1. ' The damsels bright and fair/ i.e. the knowledge derived
   from the manifestations of His Beautiful Name.

2. 'The tents of the curving sand/ i.e. the stations of
   Divine favour.

' The shade of the ardlc trees/ i.e. contemplation of the
pure and holy Presence.

8. This station is gained only by striving and sincere
   application, not by wishing. ' Travel that thou mayst
   attain ’ (JUoj

9. ' A moon that never sets/ etc. : he points out that God
   never manifests Himself to anything and then becomes veiled
   from it afterwards.

10. ' Thy gardens are wet with dew/ i.e. all Thy creatures
    are replenished by the Divine qualities which are revealed
    to them.

‘ Thy roses are blooming/ in reference to a particular
manifestation which destroys every blameworthy quality.

'It is welcome/ i.e. it is loved for its essence

8. ' Thy flowers/ etc., i.e. Thy knowledge is welcome to the
   heart.

' Thy boughs/ i.e. the spiritual influences which convey
Thy knowledge IgJiLU-).

1. Tayba hath a gazelle from whose witching eye (glances

like) the edge of a keen blade are drawn,

2. And at 'Araf&t I perceived what she desired and I was

not patient,

3. And on the night of Jam' we had union with her, such as

is mentioned in the proverb.

4. The girl’s oath is false : do not confide in that which

betrays.

5. The wish I gained at Mina, would that it might continue

to the last hour of iny life !

6. In La‘la‘ I was transported with love for her who

displays to thee the splendour of the bright moon.

7. She shot R&ma and inclined to dalliance at as-Saba and

removed the interdiction at al-Hajir.

8. And she watched a lightning-gleam over Baidq with a

glance swifter than a thought that passes in the mind.

9. And the waters of al-Ghada were diminished by a blazing

fire which passion kindled within his ribs.

10. And she appeared at the bdn tree of an-Naqa and chose

(for her adornment) the choicest of its superb hidden
pearls.

11. And at Dhdt al-Ada she turned backward in dread of the

lurking lion.

12. At Dhii Salam she surrendered my life-blood to her

murderous languishing glance.

18. She stood on guard at the guarded pasture and bent at
    the sand-bend, swayed by her all-cancelling decisive
    resolution.

19. And at ‘Alij she managed her affair (in such a way)

that she might escape from the claw of the bird.

15. Her Khawarnaq rends the sky and towers beyond the

vision of the observer.

Commentary

1. ‘Tayba (Medina) hath a gazelle/ referring to a Mu-
   hammadan degree (ajoa-sr* 4-J^), i.e. a spiritual presence
   belonging to the station of Muhammad.

2. ‘ On the night of Jam* ’ : he says, ‘ we abode in the station
   of proximity (<Sjyib) and He concentrated me upon myself’

' In the proverb/ namely, ‘ He did not salute until he
bade farewell’ ( U), i.e. they parted as soon as
they met.

Ode LX

1.47

4. He says, 4 Put no trust in an Attribute that is [not
   self-subsistent and depends on One who may not always
   accomplish its desires/

5. 4 She shot Rama/ i.e. she shot that which she was

seeking U because she regarded the thdng

as being the opposite of what it was and of what she believed
it to be.

'And inclined to dalliance at as-Saba/ i.e. she desired to
manifest herself.

8. 4 A lightning-gleam/ i.e. a locus of manifestation for the
   Essence.

9. 4 And chose/ etc., i.e. she revealed herself in the most
   lovely shape.

10. 4 Dh&t al-A<M/ i.e. the place of illumination.

4 She turned backward/ etc., i.e. she returned to her natural
world for fear that that fierce light should consume her.

12. Gnostics are annihilated by their vision of the Truth,
    but this does not happen to the vulgar, because they lack
    knowledge of themselves.

13. 4 The guarded pasture/ i.e. the station of Divine glory.

4 Bent/ i.e. inclined with Divine mercy. This refers to)her
investing herself with Divine qualities (jAsaH).

14. 4 That she might escape/ etc., i.e. she was unwilling to

receive from the spirits, for she wished to receive only from
God, by intuitive feeling not by cognition (ULc). food

sometimes bestows His gifts by the mediation of the exalted
spirits, and sometimes immediately.

15. 4 Her Khawarnaq/ i.e. the seat of her kingdom.

LX ,

1. Approach the dwelling of dear ones who have taken

covenants — may clouds of incessant rain pour upon
it! —

2. And breathe the scent of the wind over against their land,

in desire that the (sweet) airs may tell thee where
they are.

Ode LXI

3. I know that they encamped at the ban tree of Idam,
   where the ‘ ardr plants grow and the shlh and the
   Jcatam.

Commentary

1. ‘ Dear ones/ i.e. the exalted spirits.

f Covenants/ i.e. the Divine covenants taken from the
spirits of the prophets.

f Clouds of incessant rain/ i.e. knowledge descending upon
them continuously.

2: ‘ And breathe/ etc., referring to the Tradition, ‘ I feel the
breath of the Merciful from the quarter of Yemen/

3. 4 1 know/ The author says that ^ is here used with the
   meaning of ' .

4 At the bdn tree of Idam/ i.e. the station of Absolute
purity at the end of the journey to God.

‘The 'ardr plants/ etc., i.e. sweet spiritual influences
proceeding from lovely spiritual beings.

1. O bdn tree of the valley, on the bank of the river of

Baghdad !

2. A mournful dove that cooed on a swaying bough filled

me with grief for thee.

3. His plaintive song reminds me of the plaintive song of

the lady of the chamber.

4. Whenever she tunes her triple chords, thou must forget

the brother of al-Hadf.

5. And if she lavishes her melody, who is Anjasha the camel -

driver ?

6. I swear by Dhu ’l-Khadimat and then by Sindad

7. That I am passionately in love with Salma who dwells

at Ajyad.

8. No ; I am mistaken : she dwells in the black clot of blood

in the membrane of my liver.

9. Beauty is confounded by her, and odours of musk and

saffron are scattered abroad.

Commentary

1 . ‘ O ban tree/ etc., i.e. the tree of light in the station of
the Qutb.

2. ‘ A mournful dove/ i.e. an exalted spirit.

‘ On a swaying bough/ i.e. the human organism in the
station of self -subsistence

3. £ The lady of the chamber/ i.e. every reality that exercises
   dominion in its own world.

4. ‘ Her triple chords/ i.e. the body, with its three
   dimensions, viz. length, breadth, and depth. ‘ Triple chords ’
   may also refer to the grades of the three Names, which are
   the abode of the two Imams and the Qutb.

‘Al-Hadi/ the ‘Abbasid Caliph. His brother was a fine
musician.

5. ‘ Anjasha/ a camel-driver contemporary with the Prophet.
   He used to chant so sweetly that the camels died. (See
   Nawawi, ed. by Wiistenfeld, 164.)

6. ‘ Salma 5 (a womans name), i.e. a Solomonic station.

‘Ajydd’ (plural of a^, neck), a place at Mecca. Here
it refers to the throat through which the breath passes.

Colophon

Title: Tarjuman al-Ashwaq (Interpreter of Desires)
Author: Muhyi'ddin Ibn al-'Arabi (1165–1240 CE), born Murcia, Spain; died Damascus
Composed: Mecca, Ramadan 611 A.H. / January 1215 A.D.
Commentary written: Aleppo and Aqsaray, Rabi' II 612 A.H. / August 1215 A.D.
Translator: Reynold A. Nicholson, M.A., Litt.D. (1868–1945), Lecturer in Persian, University of Cambridge
Edition: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund New Series Vol. XX, London, 1911
Source: Archive.org digitization of the 1911 edition (DjVu OCR, 11,132 lines). Public domain.
Scribal note: OCR artifacts cleaned: multiple spaces normalized, digitization watermarks removed, running headers removed, page numbers removed. OCR-garbled Roman numerals corrected (l→I, Y→V in numerals). Arabic text section omitted — the OCR rendering of the Arabic script is not suitable for reproduction.
Archived: Good Works Library, New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026 CE

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