Mysteries of The Selflessness

MYSTERIES OF THE SELFLESSNESS
Strive, and find yourself in selflessness; this is Of stresses and soft cheeks, and rubbed his

the easy path, may God know better.1 brow
Rumi Against the saki’s door, rehearsed the chant
Of Magian wenches. I would martyr be
Dedication to the Muslim Community To your brow’s scimitar, am fain to rest
Like dust upon your street. Too proud am I
Question me not when I speak of Love. If I
To mouth base panegyrics, or to bow
may not have tasted this wine, someone else
My stubborn head to every tyrant’s court.
must have.
Trained up to fashion mirrors out of words,
Urfi of Shiraz
I need not Alexander’s magic glass.
You, who were made by God to be the Seal My neck endures not men’s magic glass.
Of all the peoples dwelling upon earth, My neck endures not men’s munificence;
That all beginnings might in you find end; Where roses bloom, I gather close the skirt
Whose saints were prophet‐like, whose Of my soul’s bud. Hard as the dagger’s steel
wounded hearts I labour in this life, my lustre win
Wove into unity the souls of men; From the tough granite. Though I am a sea,
Why are you fallen now so far astray Not restless is my billow; in my hand
From Makkah’s holy Ka‘ba, all bemused I hold no whirlpool bowl. A painted veil
By the strange beauty of the Christian’s way? Am I, no blossom’s perfume‐scattering,
The very skies are but a gathering No prey to every billowing breeze that blows.
Of your street’s dust, yourselves the cynosure I am glowing coal within Life’s fire,
Of all men’s eyes; whither in restless haste And wrap me in my embers for a cloak.
Do you now hurry like a storm‐tossed wave, And now my soul comes suppliant to your
What new diversion seeking? No, but learn door
The mystery of ardour from the moth Bringing a gift of ardour passionate.
And make your lodgement in the burning A mighty water out of heaven’s deep
flame; Momently trickles ‘er my burning breast,
Lay love’s foundation‐stone in your own soul, The which I channel narrower than a brook
And to the Prophet pledge anew your troth. That I may fling it in your garden’s dish.
My mind was weary of Christian company, Because you are beloved by him I love
When suddenly your beauty stood unveiled. I fold you to me closely as my heart.
My fellow‐minstrel sang the epiphany Since love first made the breast an instrument
Of alien loveliness, the lovelorn theme Of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart
Was molten to a mirror; like a rose
1 Arberry omitted the quotations from Rumi and I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang
Urfi. They have been translated separately for the This mirror in your sight. Gaze you therein
present edition.

4 Collected Poetical Works of Iqbal
On your own beauty, and you shall become Prelude: Of the bond between individual
A captive fettered in your tress’ chain. and community
I chant again the tale of long ago,
To bid your bosom’s old wounds bleed anew. The link that binds the individual
So for a people no more intimate To the Society a mercy is;
With its own soul I supplicated God, His truest self in the community
That He might grant to them a firm‐knit life. Alone achieves fulfilment. Wherefore be
In the mid‐swatch of night, when all the So far as in thee lies in close rapport
world With thy Society, and lustre bring
Was hushed in slumber, I made loud lament; To the wide intercourse of free‐born men.
My spirit robbed of patience and response, Keep for thy talisman these words he spoke
Unto the Living and Omnipotent God That was the best of mortals: “Satan holds
I made my litany; my yearning heart His furthest distance where men congregate.”
Surged, till its blood streamed from my The individual a mirror holds
weeping eyes. To the community, and they to him;
“How long, O lord, how long the tulip‐glow, He is a jewel threaded on their cord,
The begging of cool dewdrops from the A star that in their constellation shines;
dawn? And the Society is organized
Lo, like a candle wrestling with the night As by comprising many such as he.
O’er my own self I pour my flooding tears.” When in the Congregation he is list
I spent myself, that there might be more light, ’Tis like a drop which, seeking to expand,
More loveliness, more joy for other men. Becomes an ocean. It is strong and rich
Not for one moment takes my ardent breast In ancient ways, a mirror to the Past
Repose from burning; Friday does not shame As to the Future, and the link between
My restless week of unremitting toil. What is to come, and what has gone before,
Wasted is now my spirit’s envelop; As is Eternity. The joy of growth
My glowing sigh is sullied all with dust. Swells in his heart from the community,
When God created me at Time’s first dawn That watches and controls his every deed;
A lamentation quivered on the strings To them he owes his body and his soul,
Of my melodious lute, and in that note Alike his outward and his hidden parts.
Loves’s secrets stood revealed, the ransom‐ His thoughts are vocal on the People’s
price tongue,
Of the long sadness of the tale of Love; And on the pathway that his forbears laid
Which music even to sapless straw imparts He learns to run. His immaturity
The ardency of fire, and on dull clay Is warmed to ripeness by their friendship’s
Bestows the daring of the reckless moth. flame,
Love, like the tulip, has one brand at heart, Till he becomes one with the Commonwealth.
And on its bosom wears a singly rose; His singleness in multiplicity
And so my solitary rose I pin Is firm and stable, and itself supplies
Upon your turban, and cry havoc loud A unity to their innumerate swarm.
Against your drunken slumber, hoping yet The word that sits outside its proper verse
Tulips may blossom from your earth anew Shatters the jewel of the thought concealed
Breathing the fragrance of the breeze of Within its pocket; when the verdant leaf
Spring. Falls from the stem, its thread of hope for
Spring
Is snapped asunder. He who has not drunk
The water of the People’s sacred well,
The flames of minstrelsy within his lute

Secrets & Mysteries 5
Grow cold, and die. The individual, That the community is made up of the
Alone, is heedless of high purposes; mingling of individuals, and owes the
His strength is apt to dissipate itself;
The People only make him intimate
perfecting of its education to prophethood
With discipline, teach him to be as soft Upon what manner man is bound to man:
And tractable as is the gentle breeze, That tale’s a thread, the end whereof is lost
Set him in earth like a well‐rooted oak, Beyond unraveling. We can descry
Close‐fetter him, to make him truly free. The individual within the Mass,
When he is prisoner to the chain of Law And we can pluck him as a flower is plucked
His deer, by nature wild and uncontrolled, Out of the garden. All his nature is
Yields in captivity the precious musk. Entranced with individuality,
Yet only in Society he finds
Thou, who hast not known self from
Security and preservation. On
selflessness,
The road of life, the furnace of life’s fire,
Therefore hast lost thyself in vain surmise,
That roaring battlefield, sets him aflame.
Within thy dust there is an element
Men grow habituated each to each,
Of Light, whose single shaft illuminates
Like jewels threaded on a single cord;
Thy whole perception; all thy joy derives
Succors each other in the war of life
From its enjoyment, all thy sorrow springs
In mutual bond, like workmen bent upon
From its distress; its constant change and turn
A common task. Through such polarity
Keep thee in vital being. It is one
The constellations congregate, each star
And, being one, brooks no duality;
In several attraction keeping each
Grace to its glow I am myself, thou thou.
Poised firmly and unshaken. Caravans
Preserving self, staking and making self,
May pitch their tents on mountain or on hill,
Nourishing pride in meek humility,
Broad meadow, fringe of desert, sandy
It is a flame that sets a fire alight,
mound.
A spark that overshoots the blazing torch.
Yet slack and lifeless hangs the warp and
Its nature is to be both free and bond;
woof
Itself a part, it has the potency
Of the Group’s labour, unresolved the bud
To seize the whole. I have beheld its wont
Of its deep meditation, still unplayed
Is strife incessant, and have called its name
The flickering levin of its instrument,
Selfhood, and Life. Whenever it comes forth
Its music hushed within its muted strings,
From its seclusion, and discreetly steps
Unsmitten by the pounding of the quest,
Into the riot of phenomena
The plectrum of desire; disordered still
Its heart is impressed with the stamp of “he”,
Its new‐born concourse, and so thin its wine
“I” is dissolved, converting into “thou”.
As to be blotted up with cotton flock;
Compulsion cuts the freedom of its choice,
New‐sprung the verdure of its soil, and cold
Making it rich in love. While pride of self
The blood in its vine’s veins; a habitat
Pulls its own way, humility is not born;
Of demons and of fairy sprites its thoughts,
Pull pride together, and humility
So that it leaps in terror from the shapes
Comes into being. self negates itself
Conjured by its own surmise; shrunk the
In the community, that it maybe
scope
No more a petal, but a rosary.
Of its crude life, its narrow thoughts confined
“These subtleties are like a steely sword:
Beneath the rim of its constricting roof;
If they defeat thy wit, quick, flee away!”2
Fear for its life the meagre stock‐in‐trade
Of its constituent elements; its heart
Trembling before the whistle of the wind;
2 The quotation is from Rumi.

Its spirit shies away from arduous toil, By faith in God the One; what other home
Little disposed to pluck at Nature’s skirt, Should bring the hapless wanderer to rest?
But whatsoever springs of its own self Upon what other shore should Reason’s
Or falls from heaven, that it gathers up. barque
Till God discovers a man pure of heart Touch haven? All men intimate with truth
In His good time, who in a single word The secrets of the Godhead have by heart,
A volume shall rehearse; a minstrel he Which is implicit in the sacred words
Whose piercing music gives new life to dust. He comes unto the Merciful, a slave.
Through him the unsubstantial atom glows In action let faith’s potency be tried,
Radiant with life, the meanest merchandise That it may guide thee to thy secret powers:
Takes on new worth. Out of his single breath From it derive religion, wisdom, law,
Two hundred bodies quicken; with one glass Unfailing vigour, power, authority.
He livens an assembly. His bright glance Its splendour doth amaze the learned mind,
Slays, but forthwith his single uttered word But giveth unto lovers force to act;
Bestows new life, that so Duality The lowly in its shadow reacheth high,
Expiring, Unity may come to birth. And worthless earth becomes like alchemy
His thread, whose end is knotted to the skies, Precious beyond compute. Its mighty force
Weaves all together life’s dissevered parts. Chooseth the slave, whereof it doth create
Revealing a new vista to the gaze, Another species; sprightlier he treads
He can convert broad desert and bare vale Upon the path of truth, and in his veins
Into a garden. At his fiery breath The blood burns hotter than the lightning’s
A people leap like rue upon a fire shaft.
In sudden tumult, in their heart one spark Fear dies, and doubt; toil is new vitalized;
Caught from his kindling, and their sullen The vision sees the inner mystery
clay Of all creation. When in servanthood
Breaks instantly aflame. Where’er he treads To God man’s foot is established, beggary’s
The earth receiving vision, every mote bowl
May wink the eye at Moses’ Sinai. Becomes the magic cup that Jamshid bore.
The naked understanding he adorns,
There is no god but God: this is the soul
With wealth abundant fills its indigence,
And body of our Pure Community,
Fans with his skirts its embers, purifies
The pitch that keeps our instrument in tune,
Its gold of every particle of dross.
The very substance of our mysteries,
He strikes the shackles from the fettered
The knotted thread that bids our scattered
slave,
thoughts.
Redeems him from his masters, and declares,
And when these words, being uttered on the
“No other’s slave thou art, nor any less
lips,
Than those mute idols.” So unto one goal
Reach to the heart, they do augment the
Drawing each on, he circumscribes the feet
power
Of all within the circle of one Law,
Of life itself; graven upon the rock,
Reschools them in God’s wondrous Unity,
They wake a heart therein; but if the heart
And teaches them the habit and the use
Burns not with the remembrance of that faith
Of self‐surrender to the Will Divine.
It doth convert to clay. When we inflamed
The hearts within us with the passionate glow
The pillars of Islam Of this belief, we set ablaze the barn
First pillar: the Unity of God Of all contingency with but a sigh.
This is the lustre glittering in the hearts
The Mind, astray in this determinate world,
Of men, those steely mirrors liquefied
First found the pathway to this distant goal

By Faith’s consuming flame, whose torch is That despair, grief and fear are the mother of
like abominations, destroying life; and that belief in the
A tulip in our veins, and so we bear Unity of God puts an end to those foul diseases
No other mark of glory but its brand.
The amputation of desire condemns
Through this true Faith black man becomes as
To Death; Life rests secure on the behest
red,
Do not despair. Desire continuing
Kinsman to Omar, aye, and Abu Dharr.
The substance is of hope, while hopelessness
The heart’s a lodge to self and the Not‐self,
Poisons the very blood of life. Despair
And passion quickens when the cup is shared;
Presses thee down, a tombstone on thy heart,
When several hearts put on a single hue
And, though thou be as high as Alond’s
That is community, which Sinai
mount,
Grows radiant in one epiphany.
It casts thee down; impotence is the slave
Peoples must have one thought, and in their
Of its poor favours, unambition hangs
minds
Upon its skirts. Despair lulls life asleep,
Pursue a single purpose; to one draw
And proves the langour of its element;
Their temperaments respond, one testing‐
The spirit’s eye is blinded by the smear
stone
Of its collyrium, and brightest day
Discriminates their hideous from their fair.
Transformed to pitchy night; life’s faculties
Unless the instrument of thought possess
Die at its breath, Life’s springs are all dried
The fire of truth, it is impossible
up.
Its range can be so wide. We Muslims are,
Despair and Sorrow sleep beneath one quilt;
Children of Abraham, which fact is proved
Grief, like a lancet, pierces the soul’s vein.
(If proof thou seekest) by Your father he.
O thou who art a prisoner of care,
Though nations’ destinies their lands control,
Learn from the Prophet’s message, Do not
Though nations build their edifice on race,
grieve!
Thinkest thou the community is based
This lesson fortified with trusty faith
Upon the Country? Shall so much regard
The heart of Abu Bakr, and with the cup
Be blindly paid to water, air and earth?
Of blessed certitude rejoiced his soul.
It is dull ignorance to put one’s boast
The Muslim, well content with God’s good
In lineage; that judgment rests upon
grace,
The body, and the body perishes.
Is like a star, and goes upon his way
Other are the foundations that support
Smiling. If thou acknowledgest a God,
Islam’s Community; they lie concealed
Shake free from sorrow, and deliver thee
Within our hearts. We, who are present now,
From vain imaging of Fortune’s turns.
Have bound our hearts to Him who is unseen,
Life more abundant strength of faith bestows.
And therefore are delivered from the chains
No fear shall be upon them: let this be
Of earthly things. The cord that links this folk
Constantly on thy lips. When Moses strides
Is like the thread which keeps the stars in
Before the Pharaoh, steadfast is his heart
place,
As he remembereth Thou shalt not fear.
And, as the sight itself, invisible.
Fear, save of God, is the dire enemy
Well‐pointed arrows of one quiver are we,
Of Works, the highwayman that plundereth
One showing, one beholding, one in thought;
Life‘s caravan. Purpose most resolute.
One is our goal and purpose, one the form,
When fear attends, thinks upon what may be,
The fashion, and the measure of our dream.
And lofty zeal to circumspection yields.
Thanks to His blessings, we are brothers all
Or let its seed be sown within thy soil,
Sharing one speech, one spirit and one heart.
Life remains stunted of its full display.
Feeble its nature is, and well accords.

With heart a‐tremble and with palsied hand. Plucks it asunder, and I spread it o’er
Fear robs the foot of strength to rove abroad, With surging gore for shift. But if that breast
And filches from the brain the power of Serenely throb with a believer’s heart
thought. And glow reflective to an inward light,
Thy enemy, observing thee afraid, My soul is turned to water by its flame,
Will pluck thee from thy bower like a bloom; My shafts fall soft as the innocuous dew.”
Stronger will be the impact of his swords,
Emperor Alamgir and the tiger
His very glance transfix thee like a knife.
Fear is a chain that fetters close our feet, Shah Alamgir, that high and mighty king,
A hundred torrents roaring in our sea. Pride and renown of Gurgan Timur’s line,
And if thy melody not freely soars, In whom Islam attained a loftier fame
Fear has relaxed the tension of thy strings; And wider honour graced the Prophet’s Law,
Then twist the pegs that keep thy lute in tune, He the last arrow to our quiver left
And hear its music mount into the skies In the affray of Faith with Unbelief;
In unrestrained and passionate lament. When that the impious seed of heresy,
Fear is a spy sent from the clime of Death, By Akbar nourished, sprang and sprouted
Its spirit dark and chill as Death’s own heart; fresh
Its eye wreaks havoc in the realm of Life, In Dara’s soul, the candle of the heart
Its ear’s a thief of Life’s intelligence. Was dimmed in every breast, no more secure
Whatever evil lurks within thy heart Against corruption our community
Thou canst be certain that its origin Continued; then God chose from India
Is fear: fraud, cunning, malice, lies – all these That humble‐minded warrior, Alamgir,
Flourish on terror, who is wrapped about Religion to revive, faith to renew.
With falsehood and hypocrisy for veil, The lightning of his sword set all ablaze
And fondles foul sedition at her breast. The harvest of impiety; faith’s torch
And since it is least strong when zeal is high, Once more its radiance o’er our counsels
It is most happy in disunion. shed.
Who understands the Prophet’s clue aright Many the tales misguided spirits told,
Sees infidelity concealed in fear. Blind to the breadth of his percipient mind;
He was a moth that ever beat its wings
Conversation of the arrow and the sword
About the candle‐flame of Unity,
How truthfully the well‐notched arrow spoke An Abraham in India’s idol‐house.
Unto the sword in heat of battletide: In all the line of kings he stands alone;
“What magic lustre glitters in thy steel His tomb is witness to his saintliness.
Like fairy dancers in the Caucasus?
One day that ornament of crown and throne,
Thou, who canst boast in thy long ancestry
That lord of battle, saint and emperor,
Of Ali’s trusty weapon, Dhul‐Faqar;
Set forth into the jungle with the dawn
Who hast beheld the might of Khalid’s arm,
Attended by one faithful follower;
Sprinkled red sunset on the head of night –
Exultant in the joyous breath of morn,
Thine is the fire of God’s omnipotence,
Birds sang their hymns to God on every tree.
And neath thy shadow Paradise awaits.
The conscient king became absorbed in
Whether I wing in air, or lie encased
prayer,
Within the quiver, wheresoe’er I be
Striking his tent from this contingent world
I am all fire. When from the bow I speed
To pitch it in the realm of truth sublime.
Towards a human breast, right well I see
A tiger at that instant from the plain
Into its depth, and if it do not hold
Suddenly sprang; heaven trembled at his roar;
A heart unflawed, unvisited by thoughts
Scenting afar the presence of a man,
Of terror or despair, swiftly my point

He leaped on Alamgir, and smote his loins. Converted our vast myriads into one,
The king, unviewing, drew his dagger forth And joined our fractions in a mighty whole
And rent the belly of the furious beast; Inseparable, indivisible.
His heart admitting not a thought of fear, He, who is pleased to guide whomso he will,
He stretched the tiger prostrate at his feet, Made of Apostleship a magic ring
Then sped again impatiently to God To draw around us; the community
Mounting prayer’s ladder to his heavenly A circle is, whose great circumference
throne. Centers on Makkah’s valley; and by force
A heart so humble and at once so proud And virtue of that same relationship
No other lodge but the believer’s breast Stands our community unshakable,
Possesses; for the servitor of Truth Tidings of mercy to the world entire.
Is naught before his Master, but stand firm Out of that sea we surge, nor break apart
Against Untruth, and positive indeed. Like scattering waves; its people, closely
Thou too, O ignorant man, take such a heart fenced
Into thy hold; let it a litter be Within the ramparts of that holy soil,
Wherein immortal Beauty may be borne. Roar loud as jungle lions. If thou look
Stake self, to win self back; spread out the To prove the truth that lies within my words,
snare Gazing with Abu Bakr’s veracious eyes,
Of supplication, glory to entrap; The Prophet, power and strength of soul and
Let Love set fire to pale Anxiety; heart,
Be thou God’s fox, to learn the tiger’s trade Becometh more beloved than God Himself.
The fear of God faith’s only preface is, His book is reinforcement to the hearts
All other fear is secret disbelief. Of all believers; through his wisdom flows
The lifeblood of the whole community;
Second pillar: Apostleship
To yield his garment’s hem is death – the rose
Abraham, friend of God, loved not the things So withers at the blast of Autumn’s wind.
That set; and lo, his footprint was a guide His was the breath that gave the people life;
To all successive prophets. He, the sign His sun shone glory on their risen dawn.
And witness to the everlasting Lord, In God the individual, in him
Yearned in his heart for a Community, Lives the community, in his sun’s rays
And from his sleepless eyes the flood of tears Resplendent ever; his Apostleship
Unceasing flowed until the message came, Brought concord to our purpose and our goal.
Cleanse thou My House. Then for our sake he A common aim shared by the multitude
made Is unity which when it is mature,
A desert populous, and founded there Forms the community; the many live
A temple whither pilgrims might process. Only by virtue of the single bond.
And when the stem of turn thou unto us The Muslim’s unity from natural faith
Burst into bud, the tillage of our Spring Derives, and this the Prophet taught to us,
Took visible shape; God fashioned forth our So that we lit a lantern on Truth’s way.
form This pearl was fished from his unfathomed
And through Apostleship breathed in our sea,
flesh And of his bounty we are one in soul.
The soul of life. We were a word unvoiced Let not this unity go from our hands,
Within this world, that by Apostleship And we endure to all eternity.
Became a measured verse; and that same God set the seal of holy Law on us,
grace As in our Prophet all Apostleship
Both shaped our being, gave us Faith and Is sealed. The concourse of unending days
Law, Is radiant in our lustre; he was Seal

To all Apotles, to all People we. He shattered every ancient privilege,
The service of Truth’s winebearer is left And built new walls to fortify mankind.
With us; he gave to us his final glass. He breathed fresh life in Adam’s weary
No Prophet after me is of God’s grace, bones,
And veil the modest beauty of the Faith Redeemed the slave from bondage, set him
Muhammad brought to men. The people’s free.
strength His birth was mortal to the ancient world,
All rest in this, that still the secret guards Death to the temples of idolatry.
Of how the Faith’s Community is one. Freedom was born out of his holy heart;
Almighty God has shattered every shape His vineyard flowed with that delightful
Carved by imposture, and for evermore wine.
Stitched up the sacred volume of Islam. The world’s new age, its hundred lamps
The Muslim keeps his heart from all but God ablaze,
And shouts abroad, No people after me. Opened its eyes upon his living breast.
He drew on Being’s page the new design,
That the purpose of Muhammad’s mission was to
Brought into life a race of conquerors,
found Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood among
A people deaf to every voice but God’s,
all mankind
A moth devoted to Muhammad‘s flame;
Throughout the world man worshipped The fire of God was glowing in the brilliance
tyrant man, Of the Sun’s sanctuary. His fervour flushed
Despised, neglected, insignificant; Creation all with joy; new Ka‘bahs rose
Caesar and Chosroes, highwaymen Where China’s temples once with idols stood.
enthroned, And in the order of his chivalry
Fettered and chained their subjects, hand and They were most noble who feared God the best.
foot. Belivers all are brothers in his heart,
High Priest and Pope, Sultan and Prince—for Freedom the sum and substance of his flesh.
one Impatient with discriminations all,
Poor prey a hundred huntsmen took the field; His soul was pregnant with Equality.
The sceptred monarch and the surpliced Therefore his sons stand up erect and free
priest As the tall cypresses, the ancient pledge
Each claimed his tribute from the wasted In him renewing, Yea, thou art our Lord.
fields; Prostration unto God had marked his brow;
The bishop, eager for this abject game, The Moon and stars bow down to kiss his
Bartered God’s pardon with the penitent. feet.
The Brahman from his garden raped his
The Story of Bu Ubaid and Jaban, in illustration of
blooms,
Muslim Brotherhood
The Magian fed his harvest to the fire.
Serfdom debased man’s nature; while his reed A certain general of kind Yazdajerd
Throbbed with therenody of his heart’s blood. Became a Muslim’s captive in the wars;
Until one faithful reassigned their rights A Guebre he was, inured to every trick
To those whose rights they were, the Of fortune, crafty, cunning, full of guile.
Khaqan’s throne He kept his captor ignorant of his rank
Delivering into his subjects’ hand; Nor told him who he was, or what his name,
Fanned their dead embers into flame anew; But said, “I beg that you will spare my life
Raised up Farhad, poor hewer of the rocks. And grant to me the quarter Muslims gain.”
To Parwiz’ royal height; brought dignity The Muslim sheathed his sword. “To shed thy
To honest toil, and robbed the taskmasters blood,”
Of tyrant overlordship. By his might He cried, “were impious and forbidden sin.”

When Kaveh’s banner had rent to shreds, Determine my appeal by the Quran!”
The fire of Sasan’s sons turned all to dust, The upright cadi bit his lips in ire
It was disclosed the captive Jaban was, And summoned to his court the unjust king
Supreme commander of the Persian host. Who, hearing the Quran invoked, turned pale
Then was his fraud reported, and his blood With awe, and came like any criminal
Petitioned of the Arab general; Before the judge, his eyes cast down in shame,
But Bu Ubaid, famed leader of the ranks Is cheeks as crimson as the tulip’s glow.
From far Hijaz, who needed not the aid On one side stood the appellant, and on one
Of armies to assist his bold resolve The high exalted emperor, who spoke.
In battletide, thus answered their request. “I am ashamed of this that I have wrought
“Friend, we are Muslims, strings upon one And make confession of my grievous crime.”
lute “In retribution” quoth the judge, “is life,
And of one concord. Ali’s voice attunes And by that law life finds stability.
With Abu Dharr’s, although the throat be that The Muslim slave no less is than free men,
Of Qanbar or Bilal. Each one of us Nor is the emperor’s blood of richer hue
Is trustee to the whole community Than the poor builder’s.” Listening to these
And one with it, in malice or in truce. words
As the community is the sure base Of Holy Writ, Murad shook off his sleeve
On which the individual rests secure, And bared his hand. The plaintiff thereupon
So is its covenant his sacred bond. No Longer could keep silence. “God commands
Though Jaban was a foeman to Islam, Justice and kindliness,” recited he.
A Muslim granted him immunity; For God’s sake and Muhammad’s, he
His blood, O followers of the best of men, declared,
May not be spilled by any Muslim sword.” “I do forgive him.” Note the majesty
Of the Apostle’s Law, and how an ant
The story of Sultan Murad and the architect, in
Triumphantly outfought a Solomon!
illustration of Muslim Equality
Before the tribunal of the Quran
An architect there was, that in Khojand Master and salve are one, the mat of reeds
Was born, a famous craftsman of his kind, Coequal with the throne of rich brocade.
Worthy to be an offspring of Farhad.
Concerning Muslim Freedom, and the secret of the
Sultan Murad commanded him to build
Tragedy of Kerbala
A mosque, the which pleased not his majesty,
So that he waxed right furious at his faults. Whoever maketh compact with the One
The baleful fire flared in the ruler’s eyes; That is, hath been delivered from the yoke
Drawing his dagger, he cut off the hand Of every idol. Unto love belongs
Of that poor wretch, so that the spurting The true believer, and Love unto him.
blood Love maketh all things possible to us
Gushed from his forearm. In such hapless Reason is ruthless; Love is even more,
plight Purer, and nimbler, and more unafraid.
He came before the qazi, and retold Lost in the maze of cause and of effect
The tyrants’s felony, that had destroyed Is Reason; Love strikes boldly in the field
The cunning hand which shaped the granite Of Action. Crafty Reason sets a snare;
rock. Love overthrows the prey with strong right
“O thou whose words a message are of arm.
Truth,” Reason is rich in fear and doubt; but Love
He cried, “whose toil it is to keep alive Has firm resolve, faith indissoluble.
Muhammad’s Law, I am no ear‐bored slave Reason constructs, to make a wilderness;
Patient to wear the ring of monarchs’ might. Love lays wide waste, to build all up anew.

Reason is cheap, and plentiful as air; There, till the Resurrection, tyranny
Love is most scarce to find, and of great price. Was evermore cut off; a garden fair
Reason stands firm upon phenomena, Immortalizes where his lifeblood surged.
But Love is naked of material robes. For Truth alone his blood dripped to the dust,
Reason says, “Thrust thyself into the fore;” Wherefore he has become the edifice
Love answers “Try thy heart, and prove Of faith in God’s pure Unity. Indeed
thyself.” Had his ambition been for earthly rule,
Reason by acquisition is informed Not so provisioned would he have set forth
Of other; Love is born of inward grace On his last journey, having enemies
And makes account with self. Reason Innumerable as the desert sands,
declares, Equal his friends in number to God’s Name.
“Be happy and be prosperous”; Love replies, The mystery that was epitomized
“Become a servant, that thou mayest be free.” In Abraham and Ishmael through his life
Freedom brings full contentment to Love’s And death stood forth at last in full revealed.
soul, Firm as a mountain‐chain was his resolve,
Freedom, the driver of Love’s riding‐beast. Impetuous, unwavering to its goal
Hast thou not heard what things in time of The Sword is for the glory of the Faith
war And is unsheathed but to defend the Law.
Love wrought with lustful Reason? I would The Muslim, servant unto God alone
speak Before no Pharaoh casteth down his head.
Of that great leader of all men who love His blood interpreted these mysteries,
Truly the Lord, that upright cypress‐tree And waked our slumbering community.
Of the Apostle’s garden, Ali’s son, He drew the sword There is none other god
Whose father led the sacrificial feast And shed the blood of them that served the
That he might prove a mighty offering; lie;
And for that prince of the best race of men Inscribing in the wilderness save God
The Last of the Apostles gave his back He wrote for all to read the exordium
To ride upon, a camel passing fair. Of our salvation. From Husain we learned
Crimsoned his blood the cheek of jealous The riddle of the Book, and at his flame
Love Kindled our torches. Vanished now from ken
(Which theme adorns my verse in beauty Damascus might, the splendour of Baghdad,
bold) Granada’s majesty, all lost to mind;
Who is sublime in our community Yet still the strings he smote within our soul
As Say, the Lord is God exalts the Book. Vibrate, still ever new our faith abides
Moses and Pharaoh, Shabbir and Yazid – In his Allahu Akbar, Gentle breeze,
From Life spring these conflicting potencies; Thou messenger of them that are afar,
Truth lives in Shabbir’s strength; Untruth is Bear these my tears to lave his holy dust.
that
Fierce, final anguish of regretful death. That since the Muhammadan Community
And when the Caliphate first snapped its is founded upon belief in one god and
thread
apostleship, therefore it is not bounded by
From the Quran, in Freedom’s throat was
poured space
A fatal poison, like a rain‐charged cloud Our Essence is not bound to any Place;
The effulgence of the best of peoples rose The vigour of our wine is not contained
Out of the West, to spill on Kerbala, In any bowl, Chinese and Indian
And in that soil, that desert was before, Alike the sherd that constitutes our jar,
Sowed, as he died, a field of tulip‐blood.

Turkish and Syrian alike the clay Our Master, fleeing from his fatherland,
Forming our body; neither is our heart Resolved the knot of Muslim nationhood.
Of India, or Syria, or Rum, His wisdom founded one community—
Nor any fatherland do we profess The world its parish—on the sacred charge
Except Islam. When pure‐descended Ka‘ab To civilize; that Ruler of our faith
Brought to the Prophet for an offering Of his abundant bounty gave the earth
His famed Banat Su’ad, whereon he strung Entire to be the confines of our mosque.
The night‐illuming jewels of his praise, He, whom god eulogized in the Quran
And there addressed him as an unsheathed And promised He would save his soul alive,
sword Struck hapless awe into his enemies
Of India, it did not please his heart So that they trembled at his majesty.
(Being sublimer than high heaven’s sphere) Why fled he, then, from his ancestral home?
To be attributed to any clime; Supposest thou he ran before his foes?
And so the Prophet answered, “Rather say The chroniclers, ill understanding what
A Sword of God, if Truth thou worshippest, The Flight portends, have hid the truth from
No other pathway travel but of Truth.” us.
Full well he knew the mystery of Part Flight is the law that rules the Muslim’s life,
And Whole, the very dust beneath his feet And is a cause of his stability;
Being the magical collyrium Its meaning is to leap from shallowness,
Laid on the eyes of all God’s messengers; To quit the dew, the ocean to subdue.
And so he spoke to his community, Transgress the bloom; the garden is thy goal;
“Of all this world of yours, I love alone The loss of less more vastly gain adorns.
Obedient hearts, sweet perfumes, women chaste.” The sun’s great glory is in ranging free;
If the perception of realities The skies’ arena lies beneath his feet.
Guideth thy steps, the subtlety confined Be not a streamlet, seeking wealth from rain;
In that word yours will not be hid from thee. Be boundless; quest no limit in the world.
Indeed, that lantern of all beings’ night The frowning sea was once a simple plain,
Dwelt in the world, but was not of the world; Played being shore, and liquefied of shame.
His splendour, that consumed the adoring Have thou the will to master everything,
breasts That thou mayest win dominion over all;
Of holy angels, shone while Adam yet Plunge like a fish, and populate the sea;
Was clay and water. Of what land he was Shake off the chains of too constricted space.
I know not; this much only I do know, He who has burst from all dimension’s bonds
He is our comrade. These base elements Ranges through all directions, like the sky.
He reckoned for our world, himself our guest. The rose’s scent by parting from the rose
We, who have lost the souls within our Leaps far abroad, and through the garden’s
breasts, breadth
Have therefore lost ourselves in this mean Disseminates itself. Thou, who hast snatched
dust. One corner of the meadow for thine own,
Thou art a Muslim, do not bind thy heart. Like the poor nightingale art satisfied
To any clime, nor lose thyself within To serenade one rose. Be like the breeze;
This world dimensionate. The Muslim true Cast off the burden of complacency
Is not contained in any land on earth; From thy broad shoulders; in thy wide
Syria and Rum are lost within his heart embrace
Grasp thou the heart, and in its vast expanse Gather the garden. Be thou wary; lo,
Lose this mirage of water and of clay. These times are full of treachery, the way
Beset by brigands; wayfarer, beware!

That the country is not the foundation of Attended the regime which he devised,
the community That caltrop which he scattered on the road
Of advancing days. Dark night he wrapped
Now brotherhood has been so cut to shreds About the peoples’ eyes; deception called,
That in the stead of the community In his vocabulary, expediency.
The Country has been given pride of place
In men’s allegiance and constructive work; That the Muhammadan Community is
The Country is the darling of their hearts,
also unbounded in time, since the survival
And wide humanity is whittled down
Into dismembered tribes. Men thought to find
of this noble community has been divinely
Paradise in that miserable abode promised
Of ruin where they made the peoples dwell. In Spring thou hast heard the clamorous
This tree has banished heaven from the world nightingale,
And borne for fruit the bitterness of war; And watched the resurrection of the flowers;
Humanity is but a legend, man The buds arrayed like brides; from the dark
Become a stranger to his fellow‐man. earth
The spirit has departed from the flesh, A veritable city of stars arise;
Only the seven disjointed limbs remain; The meadow bathed in the soft tear of dawn
Vanished is humankind, there but abide That slumbered to the river’s lullaby.
The disunited nations. Politics A bud bursts into blossom on the branch;
Dethroned religion, this tree first struck root The breeze new‐risen takes it to her breast;
Within a Western garden, and the tale A bloom lies bleeding in the gatherer’s hand
Of Christianity was all rolled up, And like a perfume from the mead departs.
The radiance of the Church’s lantern dimmed; The ring‐dove builds his nest; the nightingale
Pope powerless and baffled, from his hand Takes wing; the dew drops softly, and the
The counters scattered; Jesus’ followers scent
Spurning the Church; debased the coinage Is sped. What though these mortal tulips die,
Of the True Cross’s Law. When atheism They lessen not the splendour of the spring:
Fist rent religion’s garment, there arrived For all the loss, its treasure still abides
That Satan’s messenger, the Florentine Abundant, still the thronging blossoms smile.
Who worshipped falsehood, whose collyrium The season of the rose endures beyond
Shattered the sight of men. He wrote a scroll The fragile eglantine time, yea, it outlives
For Princes, and so scattered in our clay The rose’s self, the cypress, and the fir;
The seed of conflict; his fell genius The jewel‐nourishing mine bears jewels yet,
Decamped to darkness, and his sword like Unminished by the shattering of one gem.
pen Dawn is departed from the East, and night
Struck Truth asunder. Carving images Gone from the West: their too‐brief‐historied
Like Azar was his trade; his fertile mind up
Conceived a new design; his novel faith Visits no more the wine‐vault of the days;
Proclaimed the State the only worship; Yet, though the draught be drunk, the wine
His thoughts the ignoble turned to praise‐ remains
worthy. Eternal as the morrow that awaits
So, when the feet of this adorable When all our yesterdays are drowned in
He kissed, the touchstone that he introduced death.
To test the truth was Gain. His doctrine So individuals, as they depart,
caused Are fallen pages from the calendar
Falsehood to flourish; plotting stratagems Of peoples more enduring: though the friend
Became an art. A sad and sorry end

Is on journey, the companionship The thunder of those legions armed with
Still stays; the individual is gone death.
Abroad, unstirring the community. Confusion sore confounded in the breast
Other each essence is, the qualities Of that disaster slept; its yesterday
Other; they differ both in how each lives Gave birth to no glad morrow. Muslim might
And how they die. The individual Quivered in dust and blood; Baghdad beheld
Arises from a handful of mere clay, Such scenes as Rome ne’er witnessed in her
The nation owes its birth to one brave heart; throes.
The individual has for his span Now ask, if so thou wilt, what new design
Sixty or seventy years, a century Purposing Fate, malignant as of old,
Is for the nation as single breath. Proposed this holocaust; whose garden
The individual is kept alive sprang
By the concomitance of soul and flesh, Out of the Tartar fire? Whose turban wears
The nation lives by guarding ancient laws; The rose transmuted from those lambent
Death comes upon the individual flames?
When dries life’s river and the nation dies Because our nature is of Abraham
When it forsakes the purpose of its life. And our relationship to God the same
Though the community must pass away As that great patriach’s: out of the fire’s
Like any individual when Fate, depths
Issues the fiat none may disobey, Anew we blossom, every Nimrod’s blaze
Islam’s Community is divine Convert to roses. When the burning brands
Undying marvel, having origin Of Time’s great revolution ring our mead,
In that great compact, Yea, Thou art our Lord. Then Spring returns. The mighty power of
This people is indifferent to Fate, Rome,
Immovable in Lo, We have sent down Conqueror and ruler of the world entire,
Remembrance, Which abides while there is yet Sank into small account; the golden glass
One to remember, whose continuance Of the Sassanians was drowned in blood;
Persists with it. When God revealed the Broken the brilliant genius of Greece;
words Egypt too failed in the great test of Time,
They seek God’s light to extinguish, this bright Her bones lie buried ’neath the Pyramids.
lamp Yet still the voice of the muezzin rings
Was never troubled it might flicker out. Throughout the earth, still the Community
’Tis a community that worships God Of World – Islam ‐‐ maintains its ancient
In perfect faith, a people well‐beloved forms.
By every man who has a conscient heart. Love is the universal law of life,
God drew this trusty blade out of the sheath Mingling the fragmentary elements
Of Abraham’s desires, that by its edge Of a disordered world. Through our hearts’
Sincerity might live, and all untruth glow
Consume before the lightning of its stroke. Love lives, irradiated by the spark
We, who are proof of God’s high Unity There is no god but God. Though, like a bud,
And guardians of the Wisdom and the Book, Our hearts are prisoned by oppressive care,
Encountered heaven’s malice long ago, If we should die, the graden too will die.
The unsuspected menace of the hordes
Of savage Tartary, loosed on our heads
To prove its terror. Not the Judgment Day
Shall match the staring horror of those
swords,

That the organization of the community is See how the capital of all our hopes
only possible though law, and that the law Is lodged securely in our children’s breasts!
The weary wanderer in the wilderness
of the Muhammadan Community is the Unwatered, eyes aflame in the hot sun,
Quran His camel nimbler than the agile deer,
When a community forsakes its Law Its breath as fire, when he would look to sleep
Its parts are severed, like the scattered dust. Casting him down bencath some shady palm,
The being of the Muslim rests alone Then with the dawn awake, the caravan
On Law which is in truth the inner core Clanged to departure, ever journeying
Of the Apostle’s faith. A rose is born Through the wide prairies, unfamiliar
When its component petals are conjoined With roof and door, stranger to fixed
By Law; and roses, being likewise bound abodes—
By Law together, fashion a bouquet. When his wild heart responded vibrantly
As sound controlled creates a melody To the Quran’s warm glow, its restless waves
So, when control is absent, dissonance Sank to the calm of a sequestered pearl.
Results. The breath we draw within our throat Reading the lesson of its verses clear
Is but a wave of air which, in the reed He who had come a slave went forth from
Being constricted, blows a tuneful note. God
Knowest thou what thy Law is, wherein lies A master. Now upon his instrument
Beneath yon spheres the secret of thy power? New melodies imperial were heard;
It is the living Book, that wise Quran Jamshid’s high throne he trampled underfoot;
Whose wisdom is eternal, uncreate. Cities sprang up out of the dust he trod,
The secrets of the fashioning of life A hundred bowers blossomed from his rose.
Are therein written; instability O thou, whose faith by custom is enslaved,
Is firmly established by its potency. Imprisoned by the charms of heathendom,
Undoubted and unchanging are its words, Thou who hast torn thy heritage to shreds
Its verses to interpretation not Treading the highway to a hateful goal,
Beholden; in its strength the raw desire If thou wouldst live the Muslim life anew
Acquires maturity, the bowl fears not This cannot be, except by the Quran
To dash against the rock. It casts away Thou livest. See the Sufi in his garb
The shackling chains, and leads the free man Of mystic minstrelsy, his heart inflamed
forth By the fierce fervour of Iraqi’s verse!
But brings the exultant captor unto woe. Little do his wild ecstasies accord
The final message to all humankind With the austere Quran; the dervish cap
Was borne by him elect of God to be And mat of reeds replace the crown and
A mercy unto every living thing; throne;
By this the worthless unto worth attains, His boasted poverty rich tribute takes
The prostrate slave lifts up his head on high. Secured on many a hermitage endowed.
Having by heart this message, highwaymen The preacher, with his wealth of anecdote
Turned guides upon the road, and by this And wordy legend, little has to tell
book If truth, for all his fine grandiloquence;
Were qualified high masters of the rolls; Khatib and Dailami are on his lips,
Rude desert‐farers through one lantern’s glow In every week Tradition he delights,
A hundred revelations to their brain The little met with, and the insecure.
In every science won. So he, whose load It is thy duty to recite the Book,
The mountain’s massive shoulders could not bear, And therein find the purpose thou dost seek.
Clove by his might the power of the spheres.

That in times of decadence strict Was rent asunder, still they laboured on
conformity is better than free speculation To keep the highroad of their forefathers.
O thou whose ancient concourse is dispersed,
The present age has many tumults hid Within whose breast the lamp of life is out,
Beneath its head; its restless temperament Grave on thy heart the truth of Unity,
Swarms with disorders. The society And in conformity essay to mend
Of ancient nations in these modern times The ruin of thy fortune. In the time
Is in confusion; sapless hangs life’s bough. Of decadence, to seek to exercise
The glamour and the glitter of our days The speculative judgment of the mind
Have made us strangers to our very selves, Completes the people’s havoc finally;
And robbed our instrument of melody; Salvation lieth less in following
Filched from our heart its pristine fire, and The blinkered pedant’s dictum, being found
dimmed Humble imitation of the past.
Within our breast the radiance and the flame Caprice corrupted not thy fathers’ brain;
There is no god but God. Whene’er decay The labour of the pious was unsoiled
Destroys the balanced temperament of life, By interested motive, finer far
Then the community may look to find The thread of thought their meditation wove,
Stability in strict conformity. Closer to the Prophet’s way conformed
Go thou thy fathers’ road, for therein lies Their self‐denial. Jaafar’s raptured view
Tranquility; conformity connotes And Razi’s patient delving are no more;
The holding fast of the community. Departed is the glory that adorned
In time of Autumn, thou who lackest leaf The Arab nation; narrow shrunk for us
Alike and fruit, break never from the tree, The defile of the Faith, whose mysteries
Hoping that spring may come. Since thou hast Every impostor boasteth to possess.
lost Thou, who art stranger to the secret truths
The sea, be prudent, lest a greater loss Of Faith, if thou art wise, accord thyself
Befall thee; the more carefully preserve With one sound Law; for I have heard it said
Thy own thin rivulet; for it my hap By those who take and know the pulse of Life,
Some mountain torrent shall replenish thee Thy contrariety severs Life’s veins.
And thou once more be tossed upon the The Muslim lives by following one Law;
breast The body of our Faith’s community
Of the redeeming tempest. If thy flesh Throbs vital to the Word of the Quran.
Is yet possessed of a discerning eye, All earth we are; that is our conscient heart;
Take warning from the Israelitish case; Hold firm to its protection, since it is
Consider well their variable fate, The Cord of God. Upon its sacred thread
Now hot, now cold; regard the obduracy, Gem‐like be safely strung, or otherwise
The hardness of their spare and tenuous soul. Be scattered, as the dust upon the wind.
Sluggishly flows the blood within their veins,
Their furrowed brow sore smitten on the That maturity of communal life derives
stones
from following the divine law
Of porticoes a hundred. Though heaven’s grip
Hath pressed and squeezed their grape, the Seek thou no other meaning in the Law,
memory Nor look save light to find within the gem;
Of Moses and of Aaron liveth yet; God was the jeweller who fashioned forth
And though their ardent song hath lost its This jewel, diamantine through and through.
flame, Law is the only knowledge of the Truth,
Still palpitates the breath within their breast. Love the sole basis of the Prophet’s code;
For when the fabric of their nationhood The individual through Law attains

A faith maturer, and more fair adorned. Yea, and mature as a firm mountain‐chain.
The rule of Law secures an ordered life Full life’s religion is Muhammad’s faith,
To all the nation, which established rule His code the commentary on life’s law;
Condition is of its continuance. Be though earth‐lowly, it shall lift thee up
Power is patent in its knowledge, this High as the heavens, and will fashion thee
The sign of Moses’ staff and potent hand; Harmonious to God’s summons. The rough
So I declare the secret of Islam rock
Is Law, in which all things begin and end. Is polished to a mirror by this faith,
Since thou art called to be a guardian And this unrests the steel’s corroding heart.
Of the Faith’s wisdom, I will tell to thee
Now when the Prophet’s watchword passed
A subtle truth of the perspicuous Law.
from ken
If any Muslim be engaged upon
His people held no more the secret key
A meritorious act, and causelessly
To their continuance. That lusty sprout
Therein be challenged, forthwith it becomes
Tall and firm‐rooted (Muslim of the wastes
His sacred duty to discharge the same;
Mounted on camel, who in Batha’s vale
Power is deemed the very spring of Life.
Took his first steps) that by the desert warmth
Upon the day of battle, if the foe
Was nourished up, now fanned by Persia’s
Supposing truce is imminent neglects
breeze
His army’s marshalling, and casually
Is so diminished, that it hath become
Confronts his fortune, breaking down the
Thin as a reed. He who was wont to slay
wall
Tigers like sheep now winces at the ant
And citadel of his defence; until
Trampled unwittingly; he who in joy,
His order is restored, to march against
Allahu Akbar crying, turned the rock
His unarmed country is prohibited.
To running water, trembles at the note
Knowest thou then the mystery of this
Of amorous nightingales; he whose high will
Divine commandment? Life not living is
Reckoned the mountain trifling as a straw
Except we live in danger. Law requires
Commits himself entire to abject trust;
That when to war thou comest, thou shalt
He whose firm blow once broke his foemen’s
blaze
neck,
A fiery torch, and split the throat of rock.
His heart is wounded by his own breast’s
Law tries the power of the strong right arm;
beat;
Confronting thee with Alond’s massive
He whose bold tread a hundred tumults
height,
limned
It bids thee pound into collyrium
Now cowers in retirement from the world;
That craggy mount, and with the ardent
He whose command none dared to disobey,
breath
Before whose door great Alexander stood
Drawn from thy throat its flint to liquefy.
A suppliant, and Darius begged his bread,
The lean and feeble sheep is scarce a prey
His ardour is attuned to mean content,
Worthy the tiger’s claw; or if the hawk
His boast the proffered bowl of mendicants.
Consorts with sparrows, meaner‐spirited
Shaykh Ahmad, Sayyid lofty as the spheres,
Than its poor victims it shall soon become.
From whose keen brain the sun’s self
The Lawgiver, to whom all fair and foul
borrowed light
Was fully known, this recipe of power
(The roses that bedeck his holy grave
For thee prescribed. By toil the nerves are
No other god but God breathe from his dust)
steeled,
Thus spoke to a disciple: “O though life
And thou art raised to eminence in the world;
Of thy dear father, it behoves us all
Or be thou wounded, this will make thee
That we beware of Persia’s fantasies;
strong,

Though Persia’s thoughts the heavens have O thou condemned to tread an arduous road
surpassed Unmounted, footsore, what am I to say
They equally transgress the boundaries When this the Prophet asks me: ‘God to thee
Set by the Prophet’s Faith.” Brother, give ear Committed a young Muslim, and he won
To his sage counsel, and attentively No portion of instruction from my school;
Receive the rede of a protagonist What, was this labour too, too hard for thee,
Of our community; take these wise words So that that heap of clay became not man?”
To fortify thy heart; conform thyself So gentle was my noble sire’s reproof
With Arab ways, to be a Muslim true. That I was torn by shame and hope and fear:
“Reflect a little, son, and bring to mind
That a good communal character derives The last great gathering of the Prophet’s fold;
from discipline according to the manners Look once again on my white hairs, and see
How now I tremble between fear and hope;
of the Prophet
Do not thy father this foul injury,
A mendicant like Fate inexorable O put him not to shame before his Lord!”
Battered upon our door incessantly;
Thou art a bud burst from Muhammad’s
Enraged, I broke a stave upon his head,
branch;
And all the harvest of his beggary
Break into bloom before the genial breeze
Spilled from his hand. In youth’s beginning
Of his warm Spring; win thee the scent and
days
hue
The reason thinks not upon right and wrong.
Of that sweet season; strive to gain for thee
My father, by my temper much distressed,
Some fragment of his character sublime.
Grew very pale; the tulips of his cheeks
Well said great Rumi, guide in whose shrunk
Withered; an anguished sigh sprang from his
drop
lip
An ocean of deep wisdom slumbereth:
A star gleamed in his eye, brief glittering
“Snap not the thread of thy brief days from
Upon his lashes, and then slowly fell.
him
And as a bird that in the time of Fall
Who was the Seal of Prophets; little trust
Trembles within his nest when dawn blows
In thy poor craft and faltering footsteps
chill,
place.”
So in my flesh shivered my heedless soul;
The nature of the Muslim through and
The Layla of my patience now no more
through
Rode peacefully the litter of my heart.
Is loving kindness; with both hand and
And then my father spoke: “Upon that morn
tongue
The people of the Best of Messengers
He strives to be a mercy in the world,
Are gathered up before the Lord of All,
As he whose fingers split the moon in twain
Warriors of his Pure Community
Embraces in his mercy all mankind.
And guardians of his Wisdom’s loveliness,
Noble was he, in every attribute;
Martyrs who proved the Faith – all these like
Thou art no member of our company
stars
If from his station thou departest far.
Shall shine within that peopled firmament;
Bird of our garden, one in song and tongue
Ascetics too, and they that loved their God
With us, if thou dost own a melody
With anguished hearts, and scholars erudite,
Carol it not alone, nor let it soar
And shamefast rebels against God’s
But on a branch that in our garden grows.
commands.
Whatever thing has capital of life
Then in the midst of that great company
Dies in an uncongenial element
This suffering beggar’s cries shall mount on
Art thou a nightingale? Fly in the mead,
high.

And with thy fellow‐minstrels mediate Life’s torch contrived a curtain of its smoke,
Thy song. Art thou an eagle? Do not live And that its motion might be seen at peace,
At ocean’s bottom; in the solitude Its wave was in the gem immobilized.
Of the unpeopled desert make thy home. Life’s furnace drew its breath, forthwith
Art thou a star? Shine in thy firmament, became
Nor set thy foot beyong thy proper bounds. A tulip, and burst blooming from the branch.
Thy thought is immature, lame, slow to rise,
If thou wilt take a drop of April shower
If thou suppose the mortal flower itself
And nurture it within the garden’s close
The fleeting colour. Life is not a bird
Till, like the dew of the abounding Spring,
A‐building nests; ’tis but a wing of hue
A rosebud takes it to its near embrace,
And wholly flight; imprisoned in the cage,
Then, in the rays of heaven‐glittering dawn
Yet ever free; lamenteth as it sings;
Whose magic knots the blossoms on the
Washeth each moment from its wing the will
branch,
To fly, yet ever seeks new stratagems
Thou shalt draw out the lucent element
Itself devising; bindeth knot on knot
Within its substance, all the ecstasy
Its own affairs, yet with consummate ease
Of leaping in its trembling particles.
Resolveth all its problems. Swift‐paced Life
What is thy jewel? But a watery wave;
Stands rooted in the mire, that it may feel
What is thy effort? Naught save a mirage.
Pulsing a doubled joy to walk abroad.
Hurl it to ocean, that it may become
Anthems unheard lie dormant in its flame;
A jewel gleaming like a tremulous star.
To‐morrow, yesterday, the children are
The April raindrop, banished from the sea,
Of its to‐day. Each moment it creates
Dies on the cornstalk with the morning dew.
Fresh difficulties, passing freely through;
The pure clay of the Muslim is a gem;
Thus, instantly its task is ever new.
Its lustre and its radiance derive
Though like a sent it is all will to leap,
Out of the Prophet’s ocean. Come thou, then,
When in the breast it maketh its abode
Brief April shower, come into his breast,
It is a breath. Upon itself it spins
And issue from his mighty sea, a pearl!
Its threads, becomes a skein, and knots itself.
Outshine the sun upon this shadowy world,
The seed, that holdeth knotted in its grain
And glow forever in immortal light.
The leaf and fruit, in good time openeth
Its eyes upon itself, and is a tree;
That the life of the community requires a
Creating out of water and of clay
visible focus, and that the focus of the A garment it revealeth hand and foot,
Islamic community is Makkah’s sacred Eye, yea, and heart. Life chooseth to confine
house Itself within the body’s solitude,
And Life createth mighty companies.
Now I will loose for thee the knotted cord
That is Life’s riddle, and reveal to thee Such is the law that governeth the birth
Life’s mysteries; its trade, from self to leap Of nations, life gathereth on a point
Swift as a phantom, nimbly to escape Of focus which, related to the ring,
From the constriction of Dimension’s grasp. Is as the spirit hidden in the flesh,
Then how comes Life into this world of late The track of the circumference concealed
And soon? How does its instant time give Within the centre. Peoples win their bond
birth And order from a focus, and that same
To yesterdays and morrows? Look upon Perpetuates the nation’s sum of days.
Thyself, if thou possessest eyes to see; The Sacred House at once our secret is
Fool, art thou aught but constantly aleap? And guardian of our secret, our heart’s fire
So, to display its glow invisible And instrument whereon our passion plays.

We are a breath nurtured within its breast; Upon God’s path the thorn‐points pierced his
The body we, and it the precious soul. feet;
Our garden glitters joyous in its dew, He wore a rose‐bower in his turban’s fold.
Our fields are watered from its holy well.
Its dancing motes give lustre to the sun That true solidarity consists in adopting a
Plunging into its firmanent profound. fixed communal objective, and that the
We are the proof that justifies its claim,
objective of the Muhammadan community
Attestors witnessing for Abraham.
This made our voices loud upon the earth, is the preservation and propagation of
Stitched up with Time our Pre‐eternity; Unitarianism
In circumambulation of its shrine And now I will impart to thee the tongue
Our pure community draws common breath, Of all things that have being; in this speech
Dawn’s sun encaged; by its arithmetic The letters and articulated sounds
The many count as one, and in that tie Are life’s activities. When life is bound
Of oneness thy self‐mastery waxes strong. In firm attachment to an aim professed
Thou livest by a sanctuary’s bond The opening verse rises spontaneously;
And shalt endure, so long as though shalt go And if that purpose serves us for a goad,
About the shrine thereof. Upon this earth Swift as the tempest gallopeth our steed.
By congregation lives a people’s soul, The goal avowed is the true mystery
And congregation is the mystery Of life’s cntinuance, that focuses
Of Makkah’s power. Take heed once again, The restless flow of its mercurial powers.
Enlightened Muslim, by the tragic fate When life is conscious of a purposed aim,
Of Moses’ people, who, when they gave up All means material yield to its control;
Their focus from their grasp, the thread was It makes its self the follower of that goal,
snapped For its sole sake collects, selects, rejects.
That bound their congregation each to each. The helmsman shoreward bound resolves to
That nation, nurtured up upon the breast sail
Of God’s apostles, and whereof the part The flooding main; the destination far
Was privy to the secrets of the whole, Determines the selection of the paths.
Suddenly smitten by the hand of Time The moth’s heart bears the brand of the
Poured out its lifeblood in slow agony. delight
The tendrils of its vine are withered now, Of burning, for which joy it flutters still
Nor even any willow weeping grows About the candle. If the madman Qais
More from its soil; exile has robbed its tongue Was wanderer in the wilderness, his aim
Of common speech; both nest and birdsong Was the high litter wherein Layla rode.
gone; Now be our Layla but familiar
The candle out; dead the lamenting moth – With cities, never shall we lift our tread
My poor dust trembles at the history. To span the desert. In the enterprise
O thou, sore wounded by the sword of Fate, The purpose lies as hidden as the soul
Prisoner of confusion, doubt, dismay, Within the body, and from this alone
Wrap thee in pilgrim robes; unshroud the Each labour takes its quality and size.
dawn The blood that circulateth in our veins
Of night’s dark dust. Plunge, as thy forebears The nimbler moveth, having the desire
did, To reach a goal; life’s self consumes itself
Into prostration; lose thyself, until In that bright flame, aglow with tulip‐fire.
Thou art entire prostration. Long ago The Goal is as a plectrum, that awakes
The Muslim fashioned meek humility, The hidden music in the instrument
And thence developed a world‐shaking pride;

Of high ambition, an attractive point A hundred songs, as freely in thy veins
Whereunto moves all centripetal force; The lifeblood pulses; rise, and smite the
This stirs a people’s hands and feet to move strings!
In vital unison, one vision clear Allahu Akbar! This the secret holds
Bestowing on a hundred several sights. Of thy existence; wherefore let it be
Be the mad lover of the loveliness Thy purpose to preserve and propagate
Of noble purpose; flutter like a moth No other god. If thou a Muslim art,
About this ardent lamp. Sweet was the air Till all the world proclaims the Name of God
Qum’s music‐maker sang, the silken strings Thou canst not rest one moment. Knowest
Sweeping responsive to his pulsing thought: thou not
“While yet the traveller bends to pluck the The verse in Holy Scripture, calling thee
thorn To be a people just, God’s witnesses?
That pricks his foot, the litter vanishes.” Thou art the glow and glory of the days,
If thou art heedless but for one brief breath, And made to testify to all mankind;
A hundred leagues thou strayest from thy To all who comprehend the weight of words
stage. Make general proclamation, and impart
The learned gospel of God’s Messenger.
This ancient creature, that men call the world,
Unlettered was He, innocent of guile
Out of the mingling of the elements
The words he uttered, that elucidate
Derived its body; a hundred reed‐beds sowed
The mystery He did not go astray.
That one lament might burgeon; bathed in
Yet, when he held the pulse of living things,
blood
The secrets of Life’s constitution he
A hundred meads, to yield one tulip‐bloom.
Forthwith revealed, and cleansed of ancient
Many the shapes it fetched and cast and broke
blight
To grave upon Life’s tablet thy design;
The garment of the tulips of this mead.
Many laments it sowed in the soul’s tilth
Life here below is bound up with his Faith
Till sprang the music of one call to prayer
Nor can survive, save guarded by his Law.
Awhile it battled sternly with the free,
Having his Book beneath thy arm, stride out
And had much traffic with false lords, at last
With greater boldness to the battlefield
To strew the seed of faith in the heart’s soil
Of works; for human thought, idolatrous
And on the tongue to cry There is one God.
And idol‐fashioning, is all the time
No other god but God – this is the point
In quest of some new image; in these days
On which the world concentrically turns,
It follows once again old Azar’s trade,
This the conclusion of the world’s affairs.
And man creates an ever novel god
From this the sphere derives its strength to
Whose joy is shedding blood, whose hallowed
wheel,
name
The sun its constancy and brilliance,
Is Colour, Fatherland, Blood‐Brotherhood.
The sea her gems, created of its glow,
Humanity is slaughtered like a sheep
That set the ocean’s billows quivering.
Before this worthless idol. Thou, whose lips
This is the breeze that fans the earth to bloom,
Have touched the sacred bowl of Abraham,
This rapturous glow a few poor feathers
Whose blood is ardent with his holy wine,
flames
Against this falsehood, garmented as truth,
Into the nightingale; and this same fire
Lift now the blade there is not aught but God
Runs like a torch along the vineyard’s veins
And smite! The days are shrouded all in mirk;
And glitters crimson in the dusty bowl.
Display thy light, and let the thing in thee
In Being’s instrument its melodies
Perfected shine o’er all humanity.
Life hidden; O musician, Being’s lute
I tremble for thy shame, when on the Day
Seeketh for thee; within thy body flow
Of Reckoning that Glory of all time

Shall question thee: “Thou tookest from my The body it assaults with fortune’s sword
lips That thou mayest see if there be blood within;
The word of Truth, and wherefore hast thou Dash thou thy breast against its jagged rock
failed Until it pierce thy flesh, and prove thy bone.
To pass my message on to other men?” God counts this world the portion of good
men,
That the expansion of communal life Commits its splendour to believers’ eyes;
depends upon controlling the forces of It is a road the caravan must pass,
A touchstone the believer’s gold to assay;
world order
Seize thou this world, that it may not seize
Thou, who hast made with the Invisible thee
Thy covenant, and burst forth like a flood
And in its pitcher swallow thee like wine.
From the shore’s bondage, as a sapling rise
The stallion of thy thought is parrot‐swift,
Out of this garden’s soil; attach thy heart
Striding the whole wide heavens in a bound;
To the Unseen, yet ever with the seen
Urged ever onwards by the needs of life,
Wage conflict, since this being visible
Raised up to rove the skies, though
Interprets that unviewed, and prelude is
earthbound still;
To the o’ermastery of hidden powers.
That, having won the mastery of the powers
All otherness is only to subdue,
Of this world‐order, thou mayest
Its breast a target for the well‐winged shaft;
consummate
God’s fiat Be! made other manifest
The perfecting of thy ingenious crafts.
So that thy arrows might be sharp to pierce
Man is the deputy of God on earth,
The steely anvil. Truly it requires
And o’er the elements his rule is fixed;
A tightly knotted cord, to whet and prove
On earth thy narrowness receiveth breadth,
The wit of the resolver. Art thou a bud?
Thy toil takes on fair shape. Ride thou the
Interpret in thyself the flowery mead;
wind;
Art thou a dewdrop? Dominate the sun!
Put bridle on that swift‐paced dromedary.
If thou art equal to the bold emprise,
Dabble thy fingers in the mountain’s blood;
Melt thou this snow‐lion with one torrid
Draw up the lustrous waters of the pearl
breath!
From ocean’s bottom; in this single field
Whoever hath subdued the things perceived
A hundred worlds are hidden, countless suns
Can of one atom reconstruct a world,
Veiled in these dancing motes. This glittering
And he whose shaft would pierce the angel’s
ray
breast
Shall bring to vision the invisible,
First fastens Adam to his saddle‐bow;
Disclose uncomprehended mysteries.
He first resolves the knot phenomena
Take splendour from the world‐inflaming
And, mastering Being, proves his lofty power.
sun,
Mountain and wilderness, river and plain,
The arch‐illuming levin from the storm;
All land and sea – these are the scholar’s slate
All stars and planets dwelling in the sky,
On which the man of vision learns to read.
Those lords to whom the ancient peoples
O thou who slumberest, by dull opiates
prayed,
drugged,
All those, my master, wait upon thy word
And namest mean this world material,
And are obedient servants to thy will.
Rise up, and open thy besotted eyes!
In prudence plan the quest, to make it sure,
Call thou not mean thy world by Law
Then master every spirit, all the world.
compelled;
Open thine eyes, and into all things gaze;
Its purpose is to enlarge the Muslim’s soul,
Behold the rapture veiled within the wine.
To challenge his potentialities;

The weak, endowed with knowledge of the To all a stranger, mother‐worshipping,
power Drunken with weeping and with milk and
Of natural things, takes tribute from the sleep,
strong. His ear cannot distinguish la from mi,
The outward form of Being is not bare His music’s the mere jangling of a chain.
Of inward meaning; this old instrument Simple and virgin are his thoughts as yet,
Still keeps its pitch, still lightning in its song Pure as a pearl his speech; to search and
If played with cunning, self against the strings search
For plectrum striking. Thou, whom God His meditation’s sum, as on his lips
designed Spring ever Why and When and How and
Saying, Behold! Why travellest thou this way Where;
Like blind men? Lo, thy self‐enkindled drop Receptive to all images his mind,
Being intimate with mysteries, is like wine His occupation other to pursue,
Within the tendril, dew upon the rose; Other to see. Let any take his eyes
Let flow into the ocean, it becomes Creeping behind his back, and how distressed
A pearl, its substance glittering as a star. His little soul becomes! So immature
Fan not the rose’s petals like the breeze, His thoughts are yet that like the new‐sprung
But punge into the meaning of the bower; hawk
Whoso hath spun about phenomena Flutters its wings, to try the world’s wide air;
The knotted noose, hath mastered for his He lets them slip, to hunt and seize their prey,
mount Then calls them home again unto himself.
The lightning and the heat. He makes the Lit by the pyrotechnics of the mind
word The rocket of his fancy fills the sky
Wing like a bird in flight, the instrument With coruscating embers. At the last
Sing of itself without the plectrum’s touch. His eye prehensile lights upon himself;
Thy ass is lame, because the way of life His little hand clutched to his breast, he cries
Was arduous, and thou too ignorant “I!” So his memory maketh him aware
Of life’s hard combat; while already now Of his own self, and keeps secure the bond
Thy fellow‐travellers have reached the goal, Linking to‐morrow with his yesterday;
Borne from her litter Layla, the divine Upon this golden thread his days are strung
And lovely Truth; like Qais thou wanderest Like jewels on a necklace, one by one.
Distracted in the desert, weary, sore. Though, every breath, ever diminishes,
Yet Adam’s glory was that he possessed Ever augments his flesh, “I am the same
The knowledge of the names, and being wise As I have ever been,” his heart declares.
In natural ken, was thereby fortified. This newborn “I” the inception is of life,
This the true song of life’s awaking lute.
That the perfection of communal life is Like to a child is a community
attained when the community, like the Newborn, an infant in its mother’s arms;
individual, discovers the sensation of self; All unaware of self; a jewel stained
and that the propagation and perfecting of By the road’s dust; unbound to its to‐day
Is its to‐morrow, fettered not its feet
this sensation can be realized through
By the successive links of night and day.
guarding the communal traditions It is the pupil lodged in Being’s eye,
O thou of gaze intent, hast thou not seen Other beholding, lost unto itself;
An infant, unacquainted with its self, A hundred knots are in its cord to loose
So unaware of what is far, what near Ere it can reach the end of selfhood’s thread
That it aspires to rein the very moon? But when with energy it falls upon

The world’s great labours, stable then And from thy present shall thy future stem.
becomes If thou desirest everlasting life,
This new‐won consciousness; it raises up Break not the thread between the past and
A thousand images, and casts them down; now
So it createth its own history. And the far future. What is life? A wave
Yet, when the individual has snapped Of consciousness of continuity,
The bond that joins his days, as when a comb A gurgling wine that flames the revellers.
Sheddeth its teeth, so his perception is.
The record of the past illuminates That the continuance of the species derives
The conscience of a people; memory from motherhood, and that the
Of past achievements makes it self‐aware;
preservation and honouring of
But if that memory fades, and is forgot,
The folk again is lost in nothingness. motherhood is the foundation of Islam
Know, then, ’tis the connecting thread of days The instrument of man sings melodies
That stitches up thy life’s loose manuscript; When struck by woman’s plectrum; his soul’s
This selfsame thread sews us a shirt to wear, pride
Its needle the remembrance of old yarns. Swells of her deference. The woman clothes
What thing is history, O self‐unware? The nakedness of man; the loveliness
A fable? Or a legendary tale? Of the beloved a garment weaves for love.
Nay, ’tis the thing that maketh thee aware The love of God is nourished at her breast,
Of thy true self, alert unto the task, A lovely air struck from her silent hand;
A seasoned traveller; this is the source And he in whom all beings make their boast
Of the soul’s ardour, this the nerves that knit Declared he loved three things – sweet
The body of the whole community. perfume, prayer,
This whets thee like a dagger on its sheath, And womankind. What Muslim reckons her
To dash thee in the face of all the world. A servant, nothing more, no part has won
Ah, how delightful is this instrument Of the Book’s wisdom. If thou lookest well,
And how inspiring, that within its strings Motherhood is a mercy, being linked
Imprisons those departed memories! By close affinity to prophethood,
See the extinguished splendour blaze anew! And her compassion is the prophet’s own.
Behold all yesterdays in the embrace For mothers shape the way that men shall go;
Of its to‐day! Its candle is a star Maturer, by the grace of Motherhood,
To light the peoples’ fortunes, and illume The character of nations is, the lines
To‐night and yesternight in equal shine. That score that brow determine our estate.
The skilful vision that beholds the past If thou art learned to attain the truth
Can recreate before thy wondering gaze Behind the form, our word community
The past anew; wine of a hundred years Hath, in the Persian, many subtleties.
That bowl contains, an ancient drunkenness He, for whose sake God said Let there be life,
Flames in its juice; a cunning fowler it Declared that Paradise lies at the feet
To snare the bird that from our garden flew. Of mothers. In the honouring of the womb
Preserve this history, and so abide The life communal is alone secured,
Unshaken, vital with departed breaths. Else is life raw and brutish. Motherhood
Fix in firm bond to‐day with yesterday; Quickens the pace of life, the mysteries
Make life a bird accustomed to the hand. Of life revealing; tortuously twists
Draw to thy hand the thread of all the days, The current of our stream, so that it flows
Else thou art blind‐by‐day, night‐ Bubbling and whirling on its rapid course.
worshipping. Take any peasant woman, ignorant,
Thy present thrusts its head up from the past,

Squat‐figured, fat, uncomely, unrefined, That the Lady Fatima is the perfect
Unlettered, dim of vision, simple, dumb; pattern of Muslim womanhood
The pangs of motherhood have torn her heart,
Dark, tragic rings have underscored her eyes; Mary is hallowed in one line alone,
If from her bosom the community That she bore Jesus; Fatima in three.
Receive one Muslim zealous for the Faith, For that she was the sweet delight of him
God’s faithful servant, all the pains she bore Who came a mercy to all living things,
Have fortified our being, and our dawn Leader of former as of latter saints,
Glows radiant in the lustre of her dusk. Who breathed new spirit into this dead world
Now take the slender figure, bosomless, And brought to birth the age of a New Law.
Close‐cosseted, a riot in her glance, His lady she, whose regal diadem
Her thoughts resplendent with the Western God’s words adorn Hath there come any time,
light; The chosen one, resolver of all knots
In outward guise a woman, inwardly And hard perplexities, the Lion of God,
No woman she; she hath destroyed the bonds An emperor whose palace was a hut,
That hold our pure community secure; Accoutred with one sword, one coat of mail.
Her sacred charms are all unloosed and And she his mother, upon whom revolves
spilled; Love’s compasses, the leader of Love’s train,
Bold‐eyed her freedom is, provocative, That single candle in the corridor
And wholly ignorant of modesty; Of sanctity resplendent, guardian
Her learning is inadequate to bear Of the integrity of that best race
The charge of motherhood, and on the dusk Of all God’s peoples; who, that the fierce
And evening of her days not one star shines; flame
Better it were this rose had never grown Of war and hatred might extinguished be,
Within our garden, better were her brand Trod underfoot the crown and royal ring.
Washed from the skirt of the community. His mother too, the lord of all earth’s saints
And strong right arm of every freeborn man,
Stars without number whispering No god
Husain, the passion in the song of life,
But God, ungleaming in the dark of time
Teacher of freedom to God’s chosen few.
And not yet risen from nonentity,
The character, the essential purity
Still wait without the bounded territories
Of holy children from their mothers come.
Of quality and quantity, being hid
She was the harvest of the well‐sown field
Within the shadows of our patent life,
Of self‐surrender, to all mothers she
These our epiphanies still unbeheld;
The perfect pattern, Fatima the chaste.
Dew not descended on the rose’s bloom,
Her heart so grieved, because one came in
Buds not yet torn by the lascivious breeze.
need,
This garden of potentialities,
She stripped her cloak and sold it to a Jew;
These unseen tulips blossom from the bower
Though creatures all, of light alike and fire,
Of fertile Motherhood. A people’s wealth
Obeyed her bidding, yet she sank her will
Rests not, my prudent friend, in linen fine
In her good consort’s pleasure. Fortitude
Or treasured hoards of silver and of gold;
And meekness were her schooling; while her
Its riches are its sons, clean‐limbed and strong
lips
Of body, supple‐brained, hard‐labouring,
Chanted the Book, she ground the homely
Healthy and nimble to high enterprise.
mill.
Mothers preserve the clue of Brotherhood,
No pillow needed she to catch her tears,
The strength of Scripture and Community.
But wept contrition’s offering of pearls
Upon the skirt of prayer; which Gabriel
stooped

To gather, as they glistened in the dust, From their warm nest. High, high the
And rained like dew upon the Throne of God. cravings are
God’s Law a fetter locks about my feet That wrestle with thy soul; be conscious still
To guard secure the Prophet’s high behest, And ever of thy model, Fatima,
Else had I surely gone about her tomb So that thy branch may bear a new Husain,
And fallen prostrate, worshipping her dust. Our garden blossom with the Golden Age.
Address to the veiled ladies of Islam Summary of the purport of the poem in
O thou, whose mantle is the covering exegesis of the Surah of Pure Faith
That guards our honour, whose effulgence “Say: He is God, One”
Our candle’s capital, whose nature pure
To us a mercy, our religion’s strength, I dreamed one night I looked upon Siddiq
Foundation of our true community! And plucked a rose that blossomed at his feet
Our children’s lips, being suckled at thy –
breast, He, that most generous was of all mankind
From thee first learn to lisp No god but God. Unto our Master, he that stood the first
Thy love it is, that shapes our little ways, Like Moses on the Sinai of our Faith,
Thy love that moulds our thoughts, our Whose zeal was as a cloud that showered rain
words, our deeds. Upon the tilth of our community,
Our lightning‐flash, that slumbered in thy Second to own Islam, to share the Cave,
cloud, Badr, and the Tomb. “O chosen of Love’s
Glitters upon the mountain, sweeps the plain. choice,”
O guardian of the blessings of God’s Law, I cried to him, “whose love is the first line
Thou from whose breath the Faith of God In the collected poetry of Love,
draws fire, Whose hand established on a firmer base
Coxcomb and crafty is the present age, A remedy for our immediate woes.”
Its caravan a highwayman, well armed “How long”, said he, “wilt thou be prisoner
To seize and spoil Faith’s riches; blind its To base desire? Get lustre, and new light
brain, To light thee, from the Surah of Pure Faith.”
That knoweth naught of God; ignoble they This one breath, winding in a hundred
Who are the captives of its twisted chains; breasts,
Bold is its eye, and reckless; swift to snatch Is but one secret of the Unity;
The talons of its lashes; its poor prey Get thee its colour, to be like to it,
Calls itself free, its victim vaunts it lives! Reflective to its beauty in the world.
Thine is the hand that keepeth fresh and He, who bestowed this Muslim name on thee,
green Drew thee to Oneness from Duality;
The young tree of our Commonwealth, as ’Tis thou thyself hast called thee Afghan, Turk
thou –
Guardest inviolate the capital Ah, thou remainest as thou ever wert!
Of our Community. Fret not thyself Deliver now the named from all the names;
To calculate the profit and the loss, Have done with cups; ally thee to the jar!
Being content to tread the well‐worn path Thou hast become a scandal to thy name,
Our fathers went before. Be wary of A leaf that fell untimely from thy tree;
Time’s depredations, and to thy broad breast Attune thee unto Oneness; be thou gone
Gather thy children close; these meadow‐ From Twoness; nor dissect thy Unity.
chicks, Thou who art servant unto One, if thou
Unfledged as yet co fly, have fallen far

Art thou, how long wilt thou to school of To those whose bowls are empty, whose
Two? needs none.
Lo, thou hast shut thy door upon thyself;
Harun Rashid, that captain of the Faith
Take to thy heart that which thy lips imbibed.
Whose blade to Nicephor of Byzance proved
A hundred nations thou hast raised from one,
A deadly potion, unto Malik spoke
On thy own fort made treacherous assault.
Upon this fashion: “Master of my folk,
Be one; make visible thy Unity;
The dust before whose door illuminates
Let action turn the unseen into seen;
My people’s brow, melodious nightingale
Activity augments the joy of faith,
Carolling mid the roses of good words,
But faith is dead that issues not in deeds.
I am desirous to be taught by thee
“God, the Self‐Subsistent” The secrets of those words. How long art thou
Content in Yemen to conceal the glow
If thou hast bound thy faithful heart on God
Of thy bright rubies? Rise, and pitch thy tent
The Self‐subsistent, thou hast overlept
Here, in the homestead of the Caliphate.
The rim of things material. No slave
How fair the brightness of the shining day,
To things material God’s servant is;
The captivating beauty of Iraq!
Life is no turning of a water‐wheel.
The Fount of Khizer gushes from its vines,
If thou be Muslim, be not suppliant
Its earth is healing for the wounds of Christ.”
Of other’s succour; be the embodiment
“I am the Prophet’s servant,” Malik said,
Of good to all the world. Make not complaint
“And only him I love, with all my heart.
Of scurvy fortune to the fortunate,
Bound to his saddle‐bow, I will not quit
Nor from thy sleeve reach out a beggar’s
His holy sanctuary. By the kiss
hand.
Of Yathrib’s dust I live; my night to me
Like Ali, be content with barley‐bread;
Is fairer that Iraq’s pellucid day.
Break Marhab’s neck, and capture Khyber’s
Love says, ‘Obey my ordinance; sign not
fort.
The articles of service even to kings.’
Why bear the favour of the bountiful,
Thou wouldst become my master, overlord
Why feel the lancet of their nay and yea?
Of this freed slave of God, that I should wait
Take not the sustenance from mean, base
Upon thy door to teach thee, and no more
hands;
Serve the community, being bound to thee.
Thou art a Joseph; count thyself not cheap.
Be it thy wish some portion to attain
And if thou be an ant, and lackest wings
Of godly knowledge, in my circle sit
And feathers, go not unto Solomon
And study with the rest. Indifference
To plead thy want. The road is arduous;
To worldly needs engenders fine disdain,
Go light‐accoutred, if thou wouldst attain;
And holy pride takes many splendid shapes.”
Unfettered live thy days, unfettered die.
Count o’er the rosary of Take thou less Godly indifference is to put on
Of this world’s goods, and thou shalt riches win The hue of God, and from thy robe to wash
In living free. So far as in thee lies The dye of otherness. But thou hast learned
Become that Stone of the philosophers, The rote of others, taking that for store,
Not the base dross; a benefactor be, An alien rouge to beautify thy face;
Not a petitioner for others’ alms. In those insignia thou takest pride,
Thou knowest well bu Ali’s eminence, Until I know not if thou be thyself
Accept from me this draught, drawn from his Or art another. Fanned by foreign blasts
cup – Thy soil is fallen silent, and no more
“Trample Kai‐Kaus’ throne beneath thy foot; Fertile in fragrant roses and sweet herbs.
Yield up thy life, but not thy self‐respect!” Desolate not thy tilth with thy own hand;
The tavern door stands open of itself Make it not beg for rain from alien clouds.

Thy mind is prisoner to others’ thoughts, “He begat not, neither was He begotten”
Another’s music throbs within thy throat,
Loftier than hue and blood thy people are,
Thy very speech is borrowed, and thy heart
And greater worth one Negro of the Faith
Dilates with aspirations not thine own.
Than are a hundred redskin infidels.
The song thy ring‐doves sing, the leafy gowns
A single drop of water Qanbar took
That deck thy cypresses, are meanly begged;
For his ablutions is more precious far
Thou takest wine from others in a bowl
Than all the blood of Caesar. Take no count
Itself from others taken upon loan.
Of father, mother, uncle; call thy self
If he, whose glance contains the mystery
An offspring of Islam, as Salman did.
Erred not the sight – if he should come again
See, my brave comrade, in the honeyed cells
Unto his people, he whose candle‐flame
That constitute the hive a subtle truth;
Knows its own moth, who can distinguish
One drop from a red tulip is distilled,
well
One from a blue narcissus; none proclaims,
His own from strangers standing at the gate,
“I am of jasmine, of lily I!”
Our master would declare, Thou art not mine.
So our community the beehive is
Woe, woe, alas for us upon that day!
Of Abraham whose honey is our Faith.
How long wilt thou content thyself to live If thou hast made of our community
The life of stars, that in the risen morn Lineage a part essential, thou hast rent
Lose all their being? Thou hast been deceived The fabric of true Brotherhood; thy roots
By the false dawn, packed up thy goods and Have struck not in our soil, thy way of
gone thought
From the broad firmament. Thou art the sun; Runs counter to our Muslim rectitude.
Look on thy self a little; purchase not
Ibn‐i‐Mas‘ud, that lantern bright of Love,
Some shreds of radiance from others’ stars!
Body and spirit blazing in Love’s flame,
Thou hast engraved thy heart with alien
Being distressed upon a brother’s death
shapes,
Dissolved in tears, a mirror liquefied,
Gambled the alchemy and gained the dross;
Nor any term to his lamentings saw
How long this glittering with others’ shine?
But in his grief; as of her child bereaved
Shake off heavy fumes for foreign grapes!
A mother weeps, so uncontrollably
How long this fluttering about the flame
He sobbed: “Ah, scholar of humility,
Of party lanterns? If thou hast a heart
Alas, my comrade in the schools of prayer!
Within thy breast, with thine own ardour
My tall young cypress, fellow traveller
burn!
Upon the pathway of the Prophet’s love!
Be like the gaze, wrapped round in thy own
O grief, that he is now denied the courts
veils;
Of God’s Apostle, while mine eyes are bright
Rise on the wing, but ever wheel back home;
With gazing fondly on the Prophet’s face!
Bubble‐like bar thy little privacy
Against the intruder, if thou wouldst be wise. The bond of Turk and Arab is not ours,
No man to individuality The link that binds us is no fetter’s chain
Ever attained, save that he knew himself, Of ancient lineage; our hearts are bound
No nation came to nationhood, except To the beloved Prophet of Hijaz,
It spurned to suit the whim of other men. And to each other are we joined through him.
Then of our Prophet’s message be apprised, Our common thread is simple loyalty
And have thou done with other lords but To him alone; the rapture of his wine
God. Alone our eyes entrances; from what time
This glad intoxication with his love.
Raced in our blood, the old is set ablaze

In new creation. As the blood that flows His shoulders bared to take the lightning’s
Within a people’s veins, so is his love scourge,
Sole substance of our solidarity. Against the false he is a sword, a shield
Love dwells within the spirit, lineage Before the truth; evil and good are proved
The flesh inhabits; stronger far than race Upon the touchstone of his ordinance
And common ancestry is Love’s firm cord. And prohibition. Knotted in his coals
True loverhood must overleap the bounds A hundred conflagrations lurk; life’s self
Of lineage, transcend Arabia Derives perfection from his essence pure.
And Persia. Love’s community is like Through the broad spaces of this clamorous
The light of God; whatever being we world
Possess, from its existence is derived. No music sounds but his triumphant song,
“None seeketh when or where God’s light His loud Allahu Akbar. Great is he
was born; On justice, clemency, benevolence;
What need of warp and woof, God’s robe to Noble his temper, even in chastisement.
spin?” At festival his lyre delights the mind;
Who suffereth his foot to wear the chains Steel melts before his ardour in the fight.
Of clime and ancestry, is unaware Where roses blossom, with the nightingale’s
How He begat not, neither was begot. His sweet song mingles; in the wilderness
No falcon is more swift upon the prey.
“And there is not any equal unto Him”
His heart untranquil scorns to take repose
What is the Muslim, that hath closed his eyes Beneath the heavens; in the spreading skies
Against the world? This heart attached to He makes his dwellings, as on soaring wing
God, He rises far beyond yon ancient hoop
What is its nature? On a mountain‐top That spans our firmament, to whet his beak
A tulip blowing, that hath never seen Against the gleaning stars.
The trailing border of the gatherer’s skirt; Thou, with thy frail
The flame is kindled in his ardent breast Unspread pinion, tentative to fly,
From the first breaths of dawn; heaven suffers Art like some chrysalis, that in the dust
not Still slunmbers on; rejecting the Quran,
To loose him from her bosom, deeming him How meanly thou hast sunk, base caviller
A star suspended; the uprising sun Protesting of the turn of Fortune’s wheel!
Touches his lips with dawn’s first ray, the Yet, lying abject as the scattered dew,
dew Thou hast within thy grip a living Book;
Bathes from his waking eyes the dust of sleep. How ling shall earth content thee for thy
Firm must the bond be tied with There is none home?
If thou wouldst an unequalled people be. Life up thy baggage; hurl it to the skies!
He who is Essence One, unpartnered is;
His servant too no partner can endure; The author’s memorial to him who is a
And whoso in the Highest of the High mercy to all living beings
Believeth, cannot suffer any peer
O thou, whose manifesting was the youth
In his high jealousy. Wrapt round his breast
Of strenuous life, whose bright epiphany
The robe of Do not grieve, borne on his brow
Told the interpretation of life’s dreams,
The crown Ye are the highest, he transports
Earth attained honour, having held thy court,
On his broad back the burden of both worlds,
And heaven glory, having kissed thy roof.
Protects both land and sea in his embrace;
Thy face illumes the six‐directioned world;
His ear attentive to the thunder’s roar,
Turk, Tajik, Arab—all thy servants are.
Whatever things have being, find in thee

True exaltation, and thy poverty He cried against me, “These are Europe’s
Is their abundant riches. In this world spells
Thou litst the lamp of life, as thou didst teach He weaves to bind us with, the psaltery
God’s servitors a godly mastery. Of Europe that he strikes into our ears.”
Without thee, whatsoever form indwelt O thou, that to Busiri gavest a Cloak
This habitat of water and of clay And to my fingers yielded Salma’s lute,
Was put to shame in utter bankruptcy; Grant now to him, whose thoughts are so
Till, when thy breath drew fire from the cold astray
dust That he can no more recognize his own,
And Adam made of earth’s dead particles, Perception of the truth, and joy therein.
Each atom caught the skirts of sun and moon, Be lusterless the mirror of my heart,
Suddenly conscious of its inward strength. Or be my words by aught but the Quran
Since first my gaze alighted on thy face Informed, O thou whose splendour is the
Dearer than father and dear mother thou dawn
Art grown to me. Thy love hath lit a flame Of every age and time, whose vision sees
Within my heart; ah, let it work at ease. All that is in men’s breasts, rend now the veil
For all my spirit is consumed in me, Of my thought’s shame; sweep clean the
And my sole chattel is a reed‐like sigh, avenue
The lantern flickering in my ruined house. Of my offending thorns; choke in my breast
It is not possible not to declare The narrow breath of life; thy people guard
This hidden grief; it is not possible Against the mischief of my wickedness;
To veil the wine in the translucent cup. Nurse not to verdure my untimely seed,
But now the Muslim is estranged a new Grant me no portion of spring’s fecund
Unto the Prophet’s secret; now once more showers,
God’s sanctuary is an idols’ shrine; Wither the vintage in my swelling grapes
Manat and Lat, Hubal and Uzza – each And scatter poison in my sparkling wine;
Carries an idol to his bosom clasped; Disgrace me on the Day of Reckoning,
Our shaykh – no Brahman is so infidel, Too abject to embrace thy holy feet.
Seeking his Somnath stands within his head. But if I ever threaded on my chain
Arabia deserted, he is gone The pearl of the Quran’s sweet mysteries,
With all his being’s baggage, slumberous I to the Muslims I have spoken true,
To drowse in Persia’s wine‐vault. Persia’s O thou whose bounty raises the obscure
sleet Unto significance, one prayer from thee
Has set his limbs a‐shiver; his thin wine Is ample guerdon for my word’s desert;
Rune colder than his tears. As timorous Plead thou to God my cause, and let my love
Of death as any infidel, his breast Be locked in the embrace of godly deeds.
Is hollow, empty of a living heart. Thou hast accorded me a contrite soul,
I bore him lifeless from the doctors’ hands A part of holy learning; establish me
And brought him to the Prophet’s presence; More firm in action, and my April shower
dead Convert to pearls of great and glittering price.
He was; I told him of the Fount of Life,
Since first I cast the baggage of my soul
I spoke with him upon a mystery
In this world’s caravanserai, one more
O the Quran, a tale of the Beloved
Desire I ever nourished, like my heart
Of Najd; I brought to him a perfume sweet
Dwelling within my breast, mine intimate
Pressed from the roses of Arabia.
From life’s dawn; since first I learned thy
The Candle of my music lit the throng;
name
I taught the people life’s enigma; still
From my sire’s lips, the flame of that desire

Kindled and glowed in me. My roll of days Is emptied of all memories but thee;
As heaven lengthens, in life’s lottery I will be bold to speak of my desire,
Marking me loser, ever lustier grows If thou wilt give me leave. My life hath been
The youth of my desire; this ancient wine Unfurnished in good works, and therefore I
Gains greater body with the passing years. Might not aspire to worthiness of this,
This yearning is gem beneath my dust, Which to reveal I am too much ashamed;
A single star illumining my night. Yet thy compassion maketh me more bold.
Awhile with rosy checks did I consort, The honey of thy mercy comforteth
Played love with twisted tresses, tasted wines The whole round world; and this my yearning
With lustrous brows, the lamp of godly peace is,
Rudely extinguished; lightnings danced about That I be granted in Hijaz to die!
My harvest; my heart’s store of merchandise A Muslim, stranger to all else but God –
By highwaymen was plundered. Yet this How long shall he the heathen girdle wear
draught And keep the temple? O the bitter shame
Was spilled not from the goblet of my soul, If, when his earthly days are at an end,
This gold refined not scattered from my skirt. A pagan shrine receives his mortal bones.
My reason diabolical resolved If from thy door my scattered parts arise,
To wear the Magian girdle; its impress Woe to this day, that morrow how sublime!
Stamped o’er my spirit’s furrows. Many years O happy city that thy dwelling was,
I was doubt’s prisoner, inseparable Thrice‐blessed earth wherein thou dost
From my too arid brain. I had not read repose!
One letter of true knowledge, and abode “My friend’s abode, the city of my king –
Still in philosophy’s conjecture‐land; True patriotism, the lover’s creed.”
My darkness was a stranger to the light Give to my star an even‐wakeful eye,
Of God, my dusk knew not the glow of dawn. And in the shadow of the wall a place
And yet this yearning slumbered in my heart, To slumber, that my spirit’s quicksilver
Close‐shrouded as the pearl within the shell; Be stilled; that I may say unto the skies,
But lastly from the goblet of mine eye “Behold me, tranquil; ye who looked upon
It slowly trickled, and within my mind My first beginning, witness now my close.”
Created melodies. And now my soul [Translated by A.J. Arberry]

Mysteries of The Selflessness

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Mysteries of The Selflessness

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Strive, and find yourself in selflessness; this is Of stresses and soft cheeks, and rubbed his

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