Volume One
Among the Jews there was a tyrannical king, an enemy of Jesus, who burned and destroyed Christians. It was his turn during the era of Jesus. He was the soul of Moses, and his soul was Moses. The cross-eyed king. For the sake of Allah, he separated those two companions of Allah from each other. He told a skilled cross-eyed man, “Go, bring that bottle from the house.” The cross-eyed man replied, “Which of those two bottles should I bring? Tell me clearly.” The master said, “Those are not two bottles. Go, leave your cross-eyedness, do not be so much of a seer!” The cross-eyed man said, “Master, do not scold me. The bottle is two.” The master said, “Break one of those two bottles!” When the apprentice broke one, both disappeared from sight.
Man becomes cross-eyed due to partisanship, anger, and lust. The bottle was one, but to his eye it appeared as two. When he broke the bottle, neither that bottle nor the other remained. Anger and lust make a person cross-eyed; they separate him from uprightness. When malice comes, skill is veiled. From the heart to the eye, hundreds of veils descend. When a judge decides in his heart to take a bribe, how can he distinguish the oppressor from the oppressed who weeps and moans?
The king became so cross-eyed due to his Jewish hatred that, O Lord, O Lord! Claiming to be the protector and supporter of the religion of Moses, he had hundreds of thousands of innocent believers killed.
The king had such a highwayman, such a cunning vizier that he could even tie water into knots with his trickery. He said, “The Christians protect their lives and hide their religion from the king. Kill them less, for there is no benefit in killing; the scent of religion will not emerge—it is not musk or aloeswood! It is a secret hidden within a hundred coverings. Its exterior is known to you, but its interior is the opposite.”
The king said: “Well then, tell me, what shall we do; what trick and deceit shall we employ in this matter, what is the solution? What shall we do so that not a single open or secret Christian remains in the world?”
The vizier said: “Judge me in anger, have my ear and hand cut off; have my nose and lip split! Then take me to the gallows. At that moment, let an intercessor plead for my pardon. Have this done at a crossroads, in the marketplace, before the crier. Then exile me to a distant city from your presence, so that I may sow a hundred kinds of religious indifference among them.
In this state, I will say: I am a secret Christian; O Allah who knows secrets, You know my heart! The king understood my iman (faith); out of fanaticism, he sought my life.
I wanted to hide my religion from the king, to appear as if I belonged to his religion. The king sensed a scent of my secrets. My words appeared faulty in his presence.
He said: “Your words are like bread with a needle inside. There is a window from my heart to yours. I saw your state through that window, I can no longer listen to your words.” If the spirituality of Jesus had not aided me, he would have torn me to pieces in his Jewish manner. For Jesus, I would risk my head, give my life, and count it as a hundred thousand favors to my soul. I would not withhold my life from Jesus, but I am well-versed in the knowledge of his religion. The destruction of that pure religion among the ignorant pains me.
Thanks to Jesus, we became guides to this true religion. Since we girded ourselves with the zunnar, we have been saved from the Jew and Judaism. O people, the era is the era of Jesus. Listen to the secrets of his religion with your soul!”
When the vizier recounted this trick to the king, he completely removed the king’s anxiety.
The king did whatever the vizier told him. The people were bewildered by this secret and unknown trick. He exiled him to the side where the Christians resided. The vizier then began to invite the people.
THE CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN THE VIZIER’S TRICK
Hundreds of thousands of Christians gradually gathered around him. He secretly explained to them the secrets of the Gospel, the zunnar, and prayer. Outwardly, he was explaining the rulings of religion; but in reality, this explanation was a whistle and a trap to ensnare them.
Because (it is difficult to understand hidden trickery), some of the Companions (ṣaḥāba) would ask the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) about the tricks of the rebellious and cunning nafs (the lower self);
“What hidden malice does the nafs mix into acts of worship and heartfelt ikhlas (sincerity)?” they would ask.
They would not ask the Prophet about the virtue and reward of worship; they would ask about bad traits, saying, “What is the most obvious fault?” They could distinguish the rose from celery, recognizing the trickery of the nafs in the finest detail, from hair to hair, from atom to atom. Those among the Companions who split hairs were generally fascinated by that sermon and bayān (clear exposition).
The Christians gave their hearts to him completely. After all, what strength can the imitation of the common people have? They sowed love for him in their hearts, thinking him to be the successor of Jesus. But in reality, he was the one-eyed accursed Dajjāl.
O Allah, come to our aid; how excellent a helper You are! O Allah, there are hundreds of thousands of traps and baits, and we are like pure birds left without bait. At every moment we are caught in a new trap, even if each of us were a falcon or a simurgh.
You always save us from the trap. O rich and independent Allah, yet we are again heading towards a trap! We are busy storing wheat in this granary, but we lose the wheat we have gathered. We, this community of wild creatures, do not think that the depletion of wheat is due to the trickery of the mouse. As the mouse bores holes in our granary, the granary is ruined by its trickery. O soul, first repel the evil of the mouse, then strive and labor to store wheat!
Listen to one of the reports from that greatest of the great: “Prayer is not complete without huzūr al-qalb (presence of heart).” If there is no thieving mouse in our granary, where is the wheat of forty years of worship? Why do the grains of sincere daily worship not accumulate in our granary?
Many sparks of fire leapt from the flint and iron, and that burnt heart accepted and drew them in. But in the darkness, a thief secretly puts his finger on the sparks. He extinguishes them one by one so that not a single lamp shines in the heavens.
As long as Your grace is with us, what fear can we have of those base thieves, and when? Even if there are thousands of traps in a single step, as long as You are with us, there is no sorrow! Every night You save souls from the trap of the body, You remove the planks.
Every night, souls escape from this cage; they attain detachment, being neither rulers nor ruled. At night, there is no news of the prison; those invited to the sultan’s court are unaware of the state at night. There is no worry, no thought of profit or loss. There is neither the fantasy of this woman nor the delusion of that man!
The state of the gnostic (ʿārif) is also like this while awake; Allah said, “They are asleep.” Do not deny this. They are asleep to the affairs of the world day and night; they are like a pen in the hand of their Lord, turned as He wills. One who does not see the hand during writing thinks the movement of the pen is from the pen itself. Allah showed the people only a small portion of this state of the gnostic; but the people were overcome by the sleep of heedlessness (ghaflah) and did not understand the gnostic. Their souls went to an incomprehensible desert of secrets. Their spirits are at rest, their bodies too. Then, with a whistle, You draw them back into the trap, and You subject them all to the burden of obligation.
*When the light of dawn rises and the golden-necked falcon of the heavens flaps its wings, the One who brings forth the morning, like Isrāfīl, brings everyone from that realm to the world of forms; He makes the scattered souls into bodies, and each body He makes pregnant again. Keep the steeds of your soul without saddles; this is the secret of “sleep is the brother of death.”
But He ties their feet with a long rope so that He may pull them back from that meadow and bring them again under the burden from the pasture. If only He would protect the soul like the Companions of the Cave (Aṣḥāb al-Kahf), or like Noah’s Ark, so that this mind, this eye and ear, this wakefulness and intellect would be saved from the flood. There are many Companions of the Cave in the world who are right beside you and before you in this time. In the cave, the friend sings with him. What benefit, when your eye and ear are sealed?
The caliph said to Layla: “Are you the one for whom Majnun was ruined and lost himself in love? You are not more beautiful than other beauties.” Layla replied, “Be silent, for you are not Majnun.”
The one who is awake is even more asleep. His wakefulness is worse than his sleep. If our soul is not truly awake, wakefulness is like a pass between two mountains for us. Every day, the soul is kicked by fantasy, by loss, by profit, by fear of losing. What purity, what subtlety, what strength, what path to the heavens remains!
The one who is asleep is called so because he hopes from every fantasy and converses with it; in sleep, he sees Satan as a houri, then, with lust, he pours the seed of manhood to Satan. When he sows the seed of lineage on barren ground, he wakes up, comes to himself, and flees from that fantasy. The headache he gets from that dream is the filth of the body. Ah, that fantasy which appears outwardly but is not seen in reality, which has no essence!
The bird is in the air, its shadow appears to fly on the ground like a bird. A fool tries to catch that shadow, running until he is exhausted. He does not know that the shadow is the reflection of the bird in the air; he does not know where the essence of that shadow is! He shoots arrows at the shadow. Because of this pursuit, his quiver is emptied.
The quiver of his life is emptied. Life is gone; he burned and melted in pursuit of the shadow! If a person’s nurse is the shadow of Allah, she saves him from shadow and fantasy. The servant of Allah is the shadow of Allah. He has died to this world and is alive with Allah. Without missing the opportunity and without doubting, cling to his hem so that you may be saved from the tribulations at the end of time.
How did Allah lengthen the shadow (the verse)—this is the imprint of the awliyāʾ (friends of God). For the walī is the proof of the sun of Allah’s light. Do not walk this path without this proof; say, like Khalil (Abraham), “I do not love those that set!” Walk, find a sun from the shadow. Cling to the hem of Shāh Shams-i Tabrīzī! If you do not know the way to the place of this wedding and bride, ask the light of Truth from Husam al-Din!
If envy grabs you by the throat on the path… know that the rebellion of Iblis is envy. For he was ashamed of Adam because of envy… He fights against blessedness with envy. There is no more difficult pass on the path than this. Blessed is the one whose companion is not envy. This body has always been the house of envy. Lineage becomes tainted because of envy. The body is the house of envy, but Allah has purified and cleansed that body.
The verse “Purify My house” refers to bodily purification. Though the talisman of the body belongs to the earth, in reality it is a treasure of light. If you plot and envy one who in reality has no body, the heart is darkened by that envy. Throw earth under the feet of the men of Allah!
The nature of that little vizier was envy, so he gave his ear and nose to the wind for nothing! With the hope that with the poison flowing from the needle of envy, he would poison the sorrowful to their very souls.
The one who cuts off his nose out of envy leaves himself without ears and nose. The nose is that which smells, and in the scent, it leads the one who smells to the face where the scent is. Whoever cannot smell is noseless, and the only scent is the scent of religion. Whoever smells a scent but does not give thanks for it has shown ingratitude for the blessing and has destroyed his own nose. Both give thanks and be a servant to those who give thanks. Die in their presence and gain eternal life! Do not acquire your capital, like the vizier, through highway robbery. Do not prevent Allah’s servants from prayer.
That disbelieving vizier, as a religious advisor, deceitfully mixed garlic into almond halva!
Those with taste sensed a bitterness mixed into his words. He was speaking subtly mixed with malice, pouring poison into rose-watered sugar syrup. Outwardly, his words said, “Be swift on the path,” but then he would say to the soul, “Be lax.”
Though the outside of silver is white and clear, the hand and garment become like tar from it. Though it appears red-faced with sparks of fire, look at the darkness at the end of what it does! Lightning appears to be pure light at first glance; (but) its specialty is to steal the light of the eye (to dazzle).
The vizier’s words were a yoke for all except those who were awake and had taste (they accepted his words and followed him). The vizier was separated from the king for six months; during this time, he was a refuge for those who followed Jesus. The people generally entrusted both their religion and their hearts to him. Everyone was ready to sacrifice their life before his command and decree.
Messages were going back and forth between the king and him. The king was secretly sending him instructions.
Finally, so that his wish would be fulfilled and the land of the Christians would be given to the wind. The king wrote, “O my fortunate vizier, the time has come, quickly free your heart from sorrow.” The vizier replied, “My king, right now I am busy sowing discord in the religion of Jesus.”
During their rule, the people of Jesus had twelve chiefs. Each sect was subject to one chief; each had become a servant out of greed for their own chief. These twelve chiefs and their peoples were attached to that evil vizier. All trusted his word, all followed his way. The moment he said, “Die,” each chief would immediately die.
The vizier prepared a scroll for each chief. The writing on each scroll was about a different matter.
Each had a different ruling. From beginning to end, they contradicted each other. In one, he made the path of asceticism and hunger the pillar of repentance and the condition of turning to Allah.
In another, he said, “Asceticism is useless; there is no salvation on this path except through generosity.”
In another, he said: “Your hunger and giving of wealth is shirk (associating partners with God) to your deity. Apart from relying on Allah in times of sorrow and ease and submitting completely, all else is trickery and a trap.”
In another, he said: “What is obligatory is service; the idea of tawakkul (reliance upon God) is nothing but sin.”
In one, “The commands and prohibitions in religion are not for practice, but to show our incapacity. So that we may see our incapacity and know and understand Allah’s power.”
In another, “Do not see your own incapacity, wake up, come to yourself; seeing incapacity is ingratitude for blessings. See your own power, for this power is from Him. Know your power and blessings, for that is power.”
In another, he said: “Pass beyond both of these; whatever fits into your gaze becomes an idol!”
In another: “Do not extinguish this candle, for this vision is like a candle in the assembly. If you pass beyond vision and imagination, you will have extinguished the candle of union at midnight.”
In another, he said: “Extinguish it, do not fear, so that you may see hundreds of thousands of rewards. For by extinguishing the candle of vision, the candle of the soul increases and gains strength. Because of your patience, your Layla becomes Majnun! Whoever abandons the world for the sake of asceticism, the world comes to him in abundance!”
In another: “Whatever the Truth has given you, He has sweetened and made easy in its creation. Take it well; do not trouble yourself.”
In another, he said: “Abandon what is yours, for what your nature accepts is rejected and evil. The paths that are contrary to each other are easy for the nafs; each has become a religion and soul for everyone. If making the religious matters of the Truth easy was the right path, every Jew and Magian would hear and understand Allah.”
In another, he said: “What is easy is that which is the life of the heart and the nourishment of the soul. Whatever the nature enjoys, when its time passes, it yields no crop, like seed sown on barren ground. Its yield is nothing but regret; its gain brings nothing but loss to its owner. That pleasure, in the end, does not seem as easy and pleasant as it did at first; in the end, its name becomes hardship, it becomes strengthened.
Distinguish between what is strengthened and what is made easy; see its face according to its end, and see the other’s face according to its end.” In one scroll: “Seek a master. The ability to see the end is not found in lineage (being proud of ancestry).
All kinds of followers of religion, without seeking a master, without following prophets, saw the ends of matters according to their own minds and thus fell into error and misguidance. Seeing the end is not something woven or spun by hand. If it were so, how could there be differences in religions?”
In one, he said: “You are the master, for you recognize the master. Be a man, do not be the laughingstock of men; look after yourself, do not become foolish.”
In another: “All these are one. Whoever sees two is a poor cross-eyed man.” In one scroll: “How can faces be one, who can think so, unless he is mad! Each of these is the opposite of the other. How can poison and sugar be one? Unless you pass beyond both poison and sugar, how can you smell the scent of the garden of unity?”
That vizier, the enemy of the religion of Jesus, wrote twelve such scrolls in this manner.
Disagreement is in the manner of going, not in the reality of the path.
He could not catch the scent of Jesus being of one color. He did not acquire the character of the temperament of the jar of Jesus.
A multicolored garment, when dipped in the pure jar of Jesus, becomes simple and delicate like the morning breeze, dyed in a single color. This single color in unity is not the kind of monotony that brings boredom and distress.
Rather, that single color is like the sea, and those who dive into it are, like fish, full of life and joy. On land, there are thousands of colors, but the fish are at war with dryness!
Who is the fish spoken of as an example, what is the sea, that the great and exalted king should resemble it! Hundreds of thousands of seas and fish in the world of existence prostrate in the presence of that generosity and bounty.
How many rains of bounty have fallen, so that the sea became one that scatters pearls. How many suns of generosity have shone, so that the cloud and the sea learned generosity. The light of His essence struck water and earth, so that the earth became able to receive seed and grain.
The earth is trustworthy; whatever you sow in it, you reap its kind without betrayal. The earth has gained this trustworthiness from that trustworthiness, for the sun of justice has shone its light upon it.
Unless spring brings the command of the Truth, how can the earth reveal its secret? He is so generous and giving that He has given these tidings, this trustworthiness, and this truthfulness to an inanimate, dry earth. His bounty and generosity inform dry earth, while His wrath and majesty blind intelligent people.
There is no strength in the soul or heart for such ecstasy. To whom shall I speak? There is not a single ear in the world! Wherever there is an ear, it became an eye because of it. Wherever there is a stone, it turned into jade by His grace.
He is the one who creates alchemy; what is alchemy? He is the granter of miracles; what is simya? My praise is in fact the abandonment of praise; for this praise is a proof of existence, and existence is an error. One must become annihilated before His existence; what is existence in His presence? It is nothing but a meaningless thing! If existence were blind… it would melt from Him, it would know and understand the heat of the sun. The fact that this apparent existence does not know that it exists by Allah’s existence is proof of its blindness.
Like the king, the vizier was ignorant and heedless. He was grappling with the Pre-Eternal Allah, whose existence is necessary. He was grappling with such a powerful Allah that He can create a hundred like him from nothing in an instant.
When He gives you the ability to see yourself, He creates hundreds of worlds in your sight like the world. No matter how great and endless the world seems to you, know that it is not even a speck before His power. In any case, this world is the prison of your souls; awaken, go to that side! For that side is your plain, your place of recreation.
This world has limits, but that world is essentially limitless. Form and image are a veil, an obstacle to that meaning.
He broke the hundreds of thousands of spears of Pharaoh with a single staff of Moses. Hundreds of thousands of Galen’s medical skills became null before Jesus and his breath. There were hundreds of thousands of books of poetry, but before the book of a single Unlettered One, they became shameful and disgraceful.
Why should one who is not base not die before such a victorious Allah? He tore out many hearts like mountains. He hung the cunning bird by its two legs. One does not reach Allah by attaining perfection in intellect and intelligence. The king’s bounty and generosity accept none but the one who knows his own incapacity.
Alas… Many treasure diggers and hoarders became the laughingstock of that one who sits idle, that ox (vizier). Who is the ox that you should be his laughingstock?
When a woman’s face turns pale from a bad deed and shame, Allah strikes her and makes her the star Venus. If making a woman Venus is a blow, then is becoming clay not a blow? O stubborn one! While the soul raises you to the highest heavens, you go to the lowest, towards water and mud. You exchanged such an existence, envied even by intellects, for this baseness. Now see, how is this your own striking? Compared to that blow, this is extremely low. You drove the steed of aspiration towards the stars, you busied yourself with the science of the stars, but you did not recognize Adam, who was prostrated to!
O ungrateful child! After all, you are a son of Adam; how long will you count baseness as honor? How long will you say, “Let me conquer the world, let me fill this world with my own existence”? If snow covered the world from end to end, the heat of the sun would melt it at a single appearance.
Allah destroys the sin of that vizier, and a hundred thousand more like him, with a single spark. He turns baseless fantasies entirely into wisdom; He turns poisonous water into sherbet. He turns words that give rise to doubt and suspicion into reality and certainty. He brings forth friendship and love from the causes of hatred and enmity.
He nourishes Abraham in the fire; He makes fear into the security and safety of the soul. I am amazed at the causality of His burning. In His fantasies, I am like a Sophist.
The vizier devised another trick in his own mind. He abandoned preaching and advice and entered seclusion. He burned and destroyed his disciples. He remained in seclusion for forty or fifty days. The people went mad because they were deprived of his longing, his state and manner, his words and companionship. They pleaded and lamented, while the vizier was doubled over in asceticism in seclusion.
All together they said, “We have fallen into a bad state without you, we are in confusion; what becomes of the blind unless there is someone to guide him with a stick? Have mercy. For Allah’s sake, do not separate us from yourself any longer! We are like children, you are our nurse; spread that shadow over us.”
The vizier said: “My soul is not far from friends. But there is no permission to go out. The chiefs began to plead and intercede, the disciples began to speak out: ‘O generous one! What bad fortune that we have become orphans both in heart and in religion without you. You make excuses, but we sigh cold sighs from the burning of our hearts with pain. We are accustomed to your companionship. We have been nourished by the milk of your wisdom. For Allah’s sake, do not do this cruelty to us; please do not postpone today to tomorrow! Can your heart consent that the lovers remain without benefit in the end? They all are writhing like fish on land. Break the dam of my river, open the water! O one without equal in this age! For Allah’s sake, come to the aid of the people!’”
The vizier said: “Pay attention, O lovers of gossip! Those who seek outward sermons spoken by the tongue and heard by the ear! Plug the ear of this base sense with cotton, untie the head of sense from the eye of the body! The cotton of that hidden ear is the head ear; unless this ear is deaf, the ear of the soul is deaf. Be without sense, without ear, without thought, so that you may hear the address, ‘Return to your Lord (irjiʿī ilā rabbiki).’
As long as you are in the gossip of wakefulness, how can you catch a scent from the companionship of sleep! Our words and deeds are walking outwardly. The inward walking is above the heavens.
The body saw dryness (this world), for it was born of dryness (this world); the Jesus of the soul stepped onto the sea. The walking of the dry body fell to dryness, but as for the walking of the soul: it stepped right into the middle of the sea. Life passed on the path of dryness; sometimes crossing mountains, sometimes seas, sometimes plains…
Where will you find the water of life; where will you split the waves of the sea? The wave of land is our delusions, understanding, and thought. The wave of the sea is self-annihilation, intoxication, and nonexistence.
As long as you are in this intoxication, you are far from that intoxication. As long as you are intoxicated by this, you hate that cup. Outward gossip is like dust. Make it a habit to listen for a while, like the ear!”
All together they said: “O wise one who seeks excuses, do not inflict this suffering on us! Load the animal with as much as it can bear. Assign work to the weak according to their ability!
Every bird’s morsel is according to itself. How can every bird swallow a fig (whole)? If you give bread instead of milk to a child, know that you have killed the poor baby! After that, when its teeth come out, it will want bread by itself.
If a bird whose wings have not yet grown tries to fly, it becomes the prey of every predatory cat. But when it grows wings, it flies by itself, without any constraint, without good or bad whistling.
Your word silences Satan, your grace and generosity give our ears intellect and understanding. When you are the speaker, our ears are entirely intellect.
Since you are the sea, our dryness is also the sea! O you, from the constellation Simak (in the eighth heaven) to the fish at the bottom of the sea, everything is illuminated by you! When we are with you, the earth is better for us than the sky. Without you, even at the highest point of the sky, we are in darkness.
O moon! What is this heaven that it can be compared to you? The heavens have height in form. The height due to meaning is the purity of your soul. The height in form belongs to bodies, but before meaning, bodies are nothing but names.
The vizier said: “Shorten your arguments; listen to my advice with heart and soul. If I am trustworthy, a trustworthy man is not accused even if I say, ‘Give to the sky!’ If I am pure perfection, what is the denial of perfection? If not, what is this trouble, this torment? I will not leave this seclusion because I am occupied with the states of the heart.”
All together they said: “O vizier, we do not deny, our words are not like those of strangers. Our tears flow from separation from you, sighs surge from the depths of our souls!”
A child does not quarrel with its nurse. Though it knows neither good nor bad… it only cries continuously! We are like the harp, you are striking the plectrum; the moaning is not from us, you are the one moaning!
We are like the reed flute, the melody in us is from you. In gain and loss, we are like a game of chess; O you of beautiful character! Our gain and loss are from you.
O you who are the soul of our soul! Who are we to be present and visible with you! We are nothing. Our existences are You, the Absolute Existence, who shows through transient forms.
We are all lions, but lions painted on a flag! Their occasional movements and leaps are from the wind. Our movement and existence are your gift. Our existence is generally your creation. Otherwise, you showed the taste of existence.
You made the nonexistent fall in love with you! That taste of grace and bounty… do not withhold the appetizer, the wine, and the cup! If you withhold, who can seek and search? How can the design contend with the designer? Do not look at us, look at your own generosity and bounty!
We were not, nor was our struggle. Your grace heard even our unspoken secrets. The design is in the presence of the designer and his pen, but like a child in the womb, helpless and with hands tied.
In the presence of power, all creatures in the world are helpless like embroidery before a needle. On the embroidery frame, sometimes the image of Satan, sometimes the image of man is worked; sometimes joy, sometimes sorrow is embroidered. The embroidery frame has no hand to move to repel it; it has no tongue to speak about benefit or harm.
Read the tafsir (Qur’anic exegesis) of the verse from the Qur’an: Allah said, “You did not throw when you threw” (Qur’an 8:17). If we shoot an arrow, the shooting is not from us. We are the bow, and Allah is the One who shoots the arrow with that bow. This is not compulsion (jabr), but the meaning of the Compeller (al-Jabbār). Mentioning compulsion is only for supplication and entreaty to Allah.
Our lament is proof of our helplessness and lack of power. Our shame for what we have done is proof that we have free will. If we have free will in doing or not doing, what is the shame? What is this lamentation, this shame, this discipline? Why do teachers train their students; why does thought turn from one plan to another?
If you say, “He is heedless of compulsion. The moon belonging to the Truth hides its face in the cloud.” There is a good answer to this; if you listen, you will abandon disbelief, affirm the religion, and follow me: Longing and lamentation are for the time of illness.
The time of illness is entirely the time of wakefulness. When you are ill, you constantly seek forgiveness for your sin. The ugliness of your sin becomes apparent to you; you intend to reform when you recover. After this, you vow to do nothing but servitude.
Thus, it is clearly understood that illness grants you wisdom. O seeker of the essence! Know this essence: whoever has pain has caught the scent and found the remedy. The more awake one is, the more afflicted he is. The better one understands the matter, the paler his complexion.
If you are aware of the compulsion of the Truth, where is your lament? Where is your vision of the chain of the Compeller? How can one who is chained rejoice? How can a prisoner in prison be free? If you see that your feet are tied, that the king’s officers are set over your head… Then do not act as an officer over the helpless. For this task is not the nature and character of the helpless. Since you do not see, do not speak of Allah’s compulsion! If you see, what is the sign of what you see?
In whatever matter you have inclination, you clearly see your own power in that matter; in whatever matter you have no inclination or desire… you make yourself a Jabri (determinist) by saying, ‘This is from Allah!’ The prophets are Jabri in worldly matters, and the disbelievers are Jabri in matters of the hereafter. The prophets have free will in matters of the hereafter, and the ignorant have it in worldly matters.
For every bird goes to the place of its own kind, its body flies behind, its soul goes faster and further! The disbelievers, being of the kind of Sijjīn, have come comfortably to the prison of the world.
The prophets, being of the kind of Illiyyīn, their soul and heart have gone towards Illiyyīn. There is no end to this discourse, but let us return and complete the story:
The vizier called out from inside: “O disciples, let this be known to you from me. Jesus revealed to me, ‘Separate yourself from all your close ones and friends, be alone, turn your face to the wall and sit alone, choose seclusion even from your own existence.’ From now on, there is no permission to speak, from now on I have nothing to do with gossip.
Farewell, friends! I am dead, I have sent my burden to the fourth heaven. Thus, let us not burn in hardship and trouble under the sphere of fire. From now on, above the fourth heaven, I will sit with Jesus.”
Afterwards, he called those chiefs one by one, alone, and spoke a word to each. To each he said, “In the religion of Jesus, you are the deputy of Allah and my successor. The other chiefs are your followers. Jesus has made all his followers and helpers yours. Whichever chief leads and does not follow, seize him; either kill him or capture and imprison him. But do not tell anyone this while I am alive, do not aspire to leadership until I die. Do not reveal this until I die. Do not claim sovereignty and victory.
Here is this scroll and the rulings of the Messiah in it… Read this to the community in a correct manner!”
He told each chief separately: “There is no deputy in the religion of Allah except you!” He honored each one separately. Whatever he said to one, he said to the other. He gave each a scroll, each scroll expressing the opposite of the other. The text of those scrolls was as different from each other as the shapes of the letters from ‘ya’ to ‘alif’. The ruling of this scroll was the opposite of the other; we have already mentioned this contradiction.
Then he closed his door for another forty days. He killed himself and was freed from his existence. When the people heard of his death, his grave became like the place of resurrection. Many people, tearing their hair and clothes in mourning, piled up on his grave.
Only Allah knows the number of those who gathered there from among the Arabs, Turks, Greeks, and Kurds. They sprinkled the earth of the grave on their heads. They saw his pain as a remedy for their own pain. For a month, the people shed bloody tears over his grave. Because of the pain of his separation, both kings and great and small were lamenting.
After a month, the people said: “O nobles! Who among you will sit in the vizier’s place, so that we may recognize that person as imam and leader in place of the vizier? Let us deliver our hands and hems into his hand.
Since the sun has set and wounded our hearts, we have no choice but to light the lamp in its place. When the beloved disappears from sight, when we are deprived of union with him, it is necessary for someone to be his deputy, for someone to remain as a keepsake for us. When the season of the rose passes and the rose garden is ruined, from where shall we get the scent of the rose? From rosewater!
Since the Exalted Allah is not openly present, these prophets are the deputies of the Truth. No, I spoke wrongly. If you consider the deputy and the one who appoints him as two, this is an error, not a good thing. As long as you worship form, it is two. For the one who is freed from form, it is one. If a man looks at the light of the eye, the light of the two eyes cannot be distinguished from each other.
If there are ten lamps in one place, outwardly each is separate from the other. If you turn to their light, surely you cannot distinguish the light of one from the others.
If you count a hundred apples and a hundred quinces, each is separate. If you squeeze them, there are no longer a hundred, all become one. In meanings, there is no division or number, there can be no separation or unification. The unity of the friend with the friends is sweet. Hold the foot of meaning (turn to it), form is rebellious. Melt and annihilate the rebellious form so that you may see the unity that is like a treasure beneath it. If you do not melt it, His grace will melt it anyway.
O Allah, who is the servant of my heart! He both reveals Himself to hearts and sews the dervish’s cloak. We were all spread out and one. There we were headless and footless; we were a jewel like the sun, without knots and pure… like water. When that beautiful and delicate light comes into form, numbers appear like the shadow of the castle towers. Destroy the towers with the catapult so that separation is removed from among this group.
Surely I would open and explain this, but I fear that even a single thought may slip. Subtleties are like a sharp steel sword. If you have no shield, retreat! Do not come before this diamond without a shield. For the sword does not feel shame in cutting. For this reason, I have put the sword in its sheath; lest someone who reads backwards gives a contrary meaning.
We have come to the completion of the story, to speak of the loyalty of the community of the truthful: After the death of that leader, they rose and sought a deputy in his place.
One of the chiefs stepped forward and went to that loyal community. He said: “Here is the deputy of that person; in this age, I am the successor of Jesus. Here is the scroll, my proof that after him, the deputyship belongs to me.”
Another chief came out of ambush. His claim to succession was the same as this one’s. He too took out a scroll from under his arm and showed it. Both began to display Jewish anger.
The other chiefs also, one after another, formed a group (each making a claim and drawing sharp swords). Each had a sword and a scroll in hand; like drunken elephants, they fell upon each other.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians died, and thus mounds of severed heads formed. Floods of blood flowed from right and left. Clouds of dust rose like mountains into the air. The seeds of discord sown by the vizier became calamities upon their heads.
The walnuts were cracked; those with sound kernels, after being cracked, possessed a pure and delicate soul. But killing that pertains to the form is like breaking and cutting a pomegranate or an apple. The sweet one becomes pomegranate syrup, but the rotten one is nothing but a sound. In essence, what has meaning is revealed; the rotten one is disgraced and departs.
O worshiper of form! Strive to attain meaning! For meaning is a wing to the body of form. Associate with the people of meaning so that you may both gain gifts and become a youth (fata). A soul without meaning in this body is, without doubt, like a wooden sword in a sheath. As long as it is in the sheath, it is valuable. When it comes out, it becomes an instrument for burning. Do not take a wooden sword to battle; to avoid lamentation, check it once first; if it is wood, go… seek another; if it is diamond, come forward joyfully!
The diamond sword is from the arsenal of the awliyāʾ (friends of God). To see them is alchemy for you. All the knowers have said only this: the knower is a mercy to the worlds. If you are buying a pomegranate, buy the smiling (cracked) one, for its smile tells you it has seeds. What a blessed smile that is, for it shows the heart from the mouth, like a pearl in the box of the soul.
An unblessed smile is the smile of the accursed: when it opens its mouth, it shows the darkness of its heart. The smiling pomegranate makes the garden smile. The companionship of the men (of God) also makes you one of the men. Even if you are hard stone or marble, if you reach a person of heart, you become a jewel. Plant the love of the pure deep in your soul. Do not give your heart to any love other than the love of those with a happy heart.
Do not go to the land of despair, there are hopes. Do not go into darkness, there are suns. The heart draws you to the land of the people of heart; the body draws you to the prison of water and mud. Be aware, take the nourishment of the heart from a companion of the heart… nourish your heart with him. Go, learn fortune from a man of fortune!
In the Gospel, the name of Mustafa, the chief of the Prophets, that sea of purity, was mentioned. His attributes, form, battle, fasting, and eating were described. When the Christian community came to that mention, for the sake of reward, they would kiss his exalted name and rub their faces on his subtle qualities.
During this turmoil we have described, that community was safe from the discord and chaos. They were safe from the evils of those chiefs and the vizier, protected in the refuge of the name of Ahmed. Their lineage increased. The light of Ahmed helped and befriended them.
Another sect of Christians who despised the name of AHMED, because of the discord and the ill-fated vizier whose plan and mischief were both ill-fated, became despised and worthless. Because they followed scrolls whose meanings were contrary and words were at odds, their religion became confused, as did their rulings!
If the name of Ahmed helps so, how does his light protect? If the name of Ahmed is a solid door, what then of the essence of that secure soul?
After the king who would not accept advice, who had gone astray because of the vizier’s calamity.