Volume One
(I wonder) have you heard? In the time of ʿUmar, there was a musician who played the çenk (a stringed instrument) most beautifully and delicately. The nightingale would lose itself in his voice; the fervor of those who listened to one of his melodies would increase a hundredfold. Assemblies and gatherings were adorned by his tunes; tumult would arise from his voice. His voice, like that of Isrāfīl (the angel who blows the trumpet on the Day of Resurrection), would display miracles, bestowing life upon the bodies of the dead. Or he would assist Isrāfīl; even an elephant listening to his melodies would sprout wings. Isrāfīl, one day, arranges his melody and gives life to a decayed corpse of hundreds of years.
Among the prophets, too, there are such melodies that, in those melodies, those who desire attain a life beyond price. But the ear of sensation does not hear those melodies, for the ear of sensation is in a foul state due to evil deeds. Humankind does not hear the melody of the jinn, for they are strangers to the secrets of the jinn.
Indeed, the melody of the jinn is also in this world, but the melody of the heart (qalb) is higher than both these sounds. For both the jinn and humans are imprisoned; both are in this dungeon of ignorance and heedlessness.
Recite from Sūrat al-Raḥmān the verse “Yā maʿshar al-jinn” (O assembly of jinn), and know well the meaning of “tanfuḏū testatīʿū” (pass beyond, if you are able)! The inner melodies of the walīs (friends of God, awliyāʾ) first say: “O fragments of the world of nonexistence! Come to yourselves; you who have raised your heads from the nonexistence of the nafs (lower self), cast aside this illusion, this fancy!
O souls utterly decayed in the world of coming-to-be and corruption! Your eternal souls have neither come into being nor been born!” If I were to recite even a very small, very slight portion of those melodies, souls would raise their heads from their graves and tombs.
Listen! Those melodies are not far away; but you are not permitted to speak of them. Know that the walīs are the Isrāfīls of the age. The dead find life from them, they flourish. Dead souls, wrapped in their shrouds in the grave of the body, leap up and rise at their voice.
They say: This voice is utterly different from other voices; for reviving is the work of the voice of Allah. We died, we utterly decayed, we perished. But when the voice of Allah came, we all revived and arose.
Whether the voice of Allah comes from behind a veil or without a veil... Whatever Jibrīl (Gabriel) gave to Maryam (Mary) by breathing into her collar, the voice of Allah gives that to a human. O you whose skins have been decayed and destroyed by nonexistence! Return from nonexistence with the voice of the Beloved, become existent again!
Even if that voice comes from the throat of a servant of Allah, in essence and absolutely it comes from the Sovereign. Allah said to him: “I am the tongue, you are the body. I am your senses, your pleasure and your wrath,
Go! You are the one who hears with Me, sees with Me. What does it mean to be the possessor of the secret? You are the secret itself. Since you have attained the secret of ‘lillāh’ (for Allah) in the world of bewilderment, I too become yours. For ‘Whoever is for Allah, Allah is for him.’”
Sometimes I say you are you, sometimes I say you are Me. Whatever I say, I am a bright and shining sun. Wherever you shine as a lamp, there all the difficulties of the world are resolved.
The darkness that even the sun cannot dispel or illuminate becomes as bright as the forenoon from our nafs (lower self). He showed His names (asmāʾ) to the children of Adam directly. (He made Adam the locus of His names); to other creatures, the names were opened through Adam. Take His light, if you wish, from Adam, or from Him... Take the wine, if you wish, from the jar, or if you wish, from the pitcher!
For this pitcher is thoroughly united with the jar; that fortunate pitcher is gladdened not by outward pleasures like you, but by true joy. Muṣṭafā (the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Blessed is he who sees me, and blessed is he who sees the one who has seen my face.”
Whoever sees the lamp lit from a candle has, with certainty, seen that candle. In this way, if another lamp is lit from that lamp, and another from that, and so on up to the hundredth lamp, if the light of the first candle is transmitted to all, seeing the last lamp is seeing the first candle, which is the source of all.
If you wish, take that light from the last lamp, if you wish, from the first lamp... there is no difference. If you wish, see the light from the lamp of the latter ones, if you wish, from the lamp of the former ones.
The Prophet said, “The beautiful and pure fragrances of the Truth will blow in these days; listen for those times, let your mind be in those times, so that you may receive such fragrances, do not miss this opportunity.”
The sweet fragrance came, blew and passed while you were unaware... It bestowed life on whom it wished and passed on. Another fragrance has arrived; be awake, O friend, be awake so that you may not be deprived of this one as well.
The soul of fiery temperament gained the ability to extinguish fire from it. The unpleasant soul became pleasant through its grace. The fiery soul was extinguished because of it. The dead donned a robe from its light.
This freshness is the freshness of the Ṭūbā tree; this movement is the movement of the Ṭūbā tree. It does not resemble the movements of people.
If this eternal breath descended to earth and sky, the people of earth and sky would be struck with terror. In fact, out of fear of this endless breath, the heavens, the earth, and the mountains shrank from bearing that trust. Recite the verse “fa-abayna an yaḥmilnahā” (But they refused to bear it) and see.
If the heart of the mountain had not become blood out of fear, would it have been said, “ashfaqna minhā” (they shrank from it)?
This fragrance of Allah manifested to us in a different way last night, but a few morsels came and closed the door.
For a morsel, a Luqmān was held in pledge. Now it is Luqmān’s turn; O morsel, you withdraw. Remove the thorn that pierced Luqmān’s foot because of a morsel of hardship and toil.
There is not even a shadow of a thorn in his foot. But you, out of greed, cannot perceive it. Know as a thorn what you see as a date. For you are very ungrateful, very ignorant. While Luqmān’s soul is in a rose garden of Allah, why should the foot of the soul be hurt by a thorn? This body that eats thorns is a camel. The one born from Muṣṭafā (the Prophet) has mounted this camel.
O camel! There is such a rose-equivalent on your back that from its fragrance, hundreds of rose gardens have arisen in you.
Yet you still incline to the mugaylān thorn and the sand. How will you gather roses from this leftover thorn?
O you who wander from place to place, region to region in search of this! How long will you say, “Where is this rose garden?”
Unless you remove this thorn from your foot, your eye will not see. How can you wander and turn about? What a wonder, the son of Adam who does not fit into the world, secretly wanders around a thorn!
Muṣṭafā came to find a companion; he said, “Kallimīnī yā Ḥumayrāʾ” (Speak to me, O Humayra).
He said, “O Ḥumayrāʾ! Put the horseshoe in the fire so that this mountain may become a ruby.”
The word Ḥumayrāʾ is feminine, and the soul is also feminine in its celestial aspect. The Arabs have called the soul feminine. But the soul has no concern for femininity. For the spirit (rūḥ) has no connection with male or female!
It rises above both masculine and feminine. This is not the animal spirit (rūḥ al-ḥaywānī) that arises from dry and moist. This soul is not one that is strengthened by bread, or that sometimes becomes like this, sometimes like that.
This spirit gives delight, it is delightful, it is delight itself. O you who resort to means to attain your goal! You cannot make an unpleasant person pleasant. Even if you become sweeter than sugar, that sweetness may sometimes leave you, this is possible.
But if you become entirely sugar due to excessive loyalty, this is impossible. How could sweetness depart from sugar, is it possible?
O sweet friend! If the lover nourishes himself with the pure and unadulterated wine found within himself, in this station, reason disappears, (the intellect cannot comprehend this secret). Though the partial intellect appears to possess the secret, in reality it denies love. It is clever, it knows; but it has not been annihilated. Even an angel is a devil until it is annihilated.
The partial intellect is our friend in word and deed. But if you come to the matter of spiritual state (ḥāl), there it is nothing, mere nonexistence. Since it has not become annihilated from existence, it is nothing, it is nonexistence. Unless it becomes nonexistence by its own will, in the end it will be made nonexistence by force, against its will. That is enough for it.
The soul is perfection, its call and voice are also perfection. For this reason, Muṣṭafā said, “O Bilāl, comfort us, bring us joy; O Bilāl! Raise your voice, which surges wave upon wave from the breath I have breathed into your heart, from that effusion. With that breath that made even Adam lose himself, that astonished even the people of heaven, raise your voice!”
Muṣṭafā was beside himself with that beautiful voice. On the night of Taʿrīs, he missed the prayer. He did not rise from that blessed sleep; the time for the morning prayer passed and it was forenoon. On the night of Taʿrīs, in the presence of that bride, pure souls attained the fortune of kissing the hand.
Love and soul... both are hidden and veiled. Do not blame me for calling Allah “the bride.”
If the Beloved were offended by my words, I would be silent; if He gave me a moment’s respite, I would be silent.
But He says, “Speak, these words are not shameful. Your words are nothing but the manifestation of the decree and destiny in the world of the unseen.” What is shameful is shameful only to one who sees nothing but shame. But does the pure spirit of the world of the unseen ever see shame? Shame is shameful in relation to the ignorant creature; not in relation to the accepted by Allah.
Even kufr (disbelief) is a wisdom in relation to the Creator. But if you relate it to us, it is a calamity, a disaster. If someone has a hundred virtues and one fault, that fault is like the stalk of a plant. Both are weighed together on the scales. For the plant and the stalk are joined together like body and soul.
Thus, the elders did not say this word in vain: The bodies of the pure are as pure as the soul. Their words have become soul without mark or limitation, as have their selves and their forms. But the souls of those who are their enemies are mere bodies. That enemy is as useless as a broken die in a game of backgammon, nothing but a name.
The enemy entered the earth and became entirely earth. But this one, falling into the salt marsh, became entirely purified. That salt is such a salt that Muḥammad gained benefit from it, and because of it, the word ‘melīḥ’ (salty, pleasant) became eloquent.
This salt, this pleasantness, is inherited from him; his heirs are with you, seek and find! The heirs are sitting in your presence, but where is your presence? They are before you, but where is the soul that considers beginning and end?
If you think you have a before and after in yourself, you are attached to the body, deprived of the soul. Below, above, before, after; these are attributes of the body. The luminous soul is free from these and without direction.
So as not to fall into conjecture like the short-sighted, open your eyes with the light of that pure sovereign! Since you are thinking of outward beginning and end... You are only in this world of sorrow and joy. O you who are in reality non-existent! For the non-existent, where is beginning, where is end?
It is a rainy day, walk until nightfall! This rain is not the rain we know! It is from the rains of Allah.
He was such a musician that the world was filled with joy because of him. Those who listened would fall into strange states from his voice. The bird of the heart would fly with his melody; the intellect of the soul was enraptured by his voice.
But as time passed and he grew old, the soul that was once like a fledgling bird began, out of weakness, to hunt flies. His back became bent like the back of a jar, he became hunchbacked. The brows above his eyes turned into something like a saddle’s pommel.
His subtle voice, which once gave life to the soul, became vile, disgusting, ugly, and grating to the heart. That beautiful voice, which even Zuhayr envied, became like the bray of an old donkey. For what is there that was pleasant and did not become unpleasant? Or what ceiling is there that was not demolished and laid on the ground?
Only the blowing of the trumpet, the voices of the exalted and noble ones, which are but the echo of their breaths, are excepted from this; their voices are everlasting. Their hearts are such hearts that hearts are intoxicated by them. Their nonexistence is such nonexistence that our existences have come into being from that nonexistence.
The amber that attracts every thought and every voice is that heart. Inspiration, revelation, and the taste of the secret are again from that heart. When the musician grew quite old and weak, he became so needy from lack of income that he was in need even of a piece of thin bread.
He said: “O Allah, You have given me much life and respite, You have shown favor to a wretched person. For seventy years I have rebelled. You have not withheld Your grace from me for even a single day. Today there is no income, I am Your guest. I will play the çenk for You, I am Yours now.”
He took the çenk on his shoulder and set out to seek Allah; sighing, he headed toward the cemetery of Medina. “I will ask Allah for money for strings. For He bestows generosity and grace upon hearts that are sincere toward Him,” he said.
He played the çenk for a while and wept, then laid his head on the ground, made the çenk his pillow, and leaned against a grave. Sleep overcame the musician, the bird of his soul escaped from the cage; he left the instrument and leapt away. Reaching a pure realm, the plain of the soul, he was freed from the body and the tribulation of the world.
There, his soul was singing its adventure thus: If only they had left me here. My soul, in this garden, in this springtime, would become so pleasant, would become intoxicated with the tulip of this unseen plain. I traveled without head or feet, ate sweets without teeth or lips.
I would join the inhabitants of the heavens in dhikr (remembrance of God) without toil or hardship, would engage in thought without a brain, would jest with them. I would see a world with closed eyes; would gather roses and basil without hands or palms... The musician was a water bird; this world was a sea of honey. This honey was the spring from which the Prophet Ayyūb (Job) drank and bathed.
Ayyūb, by bathing in that spring, was purified from all illnesses from head to toe like the light of the east, became pure and clean. Even if the Mathnawī were as vast as the heavens in volume, it could not encompass even a small part of this world.
Yet those vast places, the heavens, tore my heart apart from their narrowness. This is a world that appeared to me in a dream; with its openness, it spread my arms and wings. If the path of this world were manifest in this world, very few people would remain in the world, and only for a moment.
The old musician was commanded, “Do not covet staying here, since the thorn has been removed from your foot, now go.” But the soul there, in the field of Allah’s mercy and grace, was saying, “Pause, wait.”
At that moment, Allah gave ʿUmar a sleep such that he could not resist it. “This was not a usual thing. This sleep came from the world of the unseen. It cannot be without cause,” he wondered. He laid his head down and slept. In his dream, a voice came from the Truth, and his soul heard this voice. This voice was such that it is the origin of every voice and melody. The real voice is that; all other voices are but its echo.
Turks, Kurds, Blacks, Persians, Arabs—all nations have understood this voice without need for ear or lip. Indeed, not only Turks, Persians, and Blacks... even the mountains and stones have heard that voice. At every moment, the voice of “Alastu” (Am I not your Lord?) comes from Allah, and substances and accidents come into being from that voice.
Even if, outwardly, there is no voice of “Balā” (Yes), their coming from nonexistence and becoming existent is their saying “Balā.” I have spoken of the understanding of trees and stones. Now, listen at once to this story that explains it!
The pillar Ḥannāna, out of separation from the Prophet, was weeping and moaning like those endowed with reason. The Prophet said, “O pillar, what do you want?” It replied, “My soul has become blood from your separation. You used to lean on me, now you have left me. You have ascended the pulpit.”
Thereupon the Prophet said, “O good tree, O companion of the secret of fortune! Tell me, what do you wish? If you wish, I will make you a date palm full of fruit, so that those in the east and those in the west may eat your dates.
Or Allah will make you a cypress in that world, so that you remain ever fresh.” Ḥannāna said, “I desire the everlasting and eternal.” O heedless one, listen and do not fall below a tree! The Prophet buried that tree so that it would be resurrected like people on the Day of Resurrection.
Hear this and know that whoever Allah has invited to Himself has renounced all worldly affairs. Whoever attains tawfīq (divine enablement) from Allah has found the path to that world. If someone has no share in the secrets of Allah, how can he affirm the moaning of inanimate things?
Yes, he says so, but not from the heart. He follows those who affirm outwardly, lest they call him a hypocrite. If inanimate things were not aware of Allah’s command “Kun—Be,” (and if they had not heard and obeyed this command and come into the world of existence), then this word would have been rejected in the world.
A mere suspicion, a slight doubt, causes hundreds of thousands of imitators and reasoners to fall into doubt. For their imitation and reasoning, even all their branches and wings, are based on conjecture. That despicable Shayṭān brings about a doubt. All these blind ones fall headlong.
The feet of the reasoners are wooden. A wooden foot is very weak, very unstable. But the pole of the age, who astonishes even the mountains with his steadfastness and is endowed with insight, is not like this. (He does not value reasoning.) To avoid falling headlong on the pebbles, the blind man’s foot is a stick, a stick.
Who is that rider who is the cause of the superiority of the army, that is, the people of religion! The seeing sovereign! Although the blind have found their way with a stick, it is still thanks to the seeing ones. If there were no seeing ones and sovereigns in the world, all the blind would die.
What can the blind do, what can they reap, what can they buy and sell, what profit or gain can they have? If Allah had not shown them mercy and favor, their sticks of reasoning would have broken at once. What is this stick? Analogies, proofs. Who gave them that stick? The seeing Allah!
Since the stick is an instrument of war and strife; O blind one, break that stick, shatter it! He gave you the stick and thus you entered the field. Then, in anger, you struck that stick against Him again. O crowd of the blind! What are you doing, what are you up to? Take a seeing person among you!
And you, hold fast to the skirt of the one who gave you the stick. Look, once Prophet Adam suffered so much because of reasoning and rebellion! Pay attention to the miracles of Mūsā (Moses) and Muḥammad. How did the stick become a serpent, how did the pillar become endowed with knowledge? The stick became a serpent, and a moan was heard from the pillar. These miracles are proclaimed five times a day to manifest the religion.
If the delight of this religion were not contrary to reason, would there be need for so many miracles? The intellect accepts everything that is in accordance with intellect without miracle or confusion. See this virgin path as contrary to intellect (beyond the limits of intellect, not contained by analogy or reasoning), and this view is acceptable to every possessor of fortune; pay attention to this as well.
Just as devils and beasts, out of fear and envy of humans, flee to islands and desolate places, so too do the deniers, out of fear of the miracles of the Prophets, hide their heads in the grass.
Thus, by living under the name of Islam, they do not want to let you know who they are or what they believe. Just as counterfeiters coat fake coins with silver and engrave the name of the sovereign on them, so too the outward aspect of their words is tawḥīd (the oneness of God) and sharia (the sacred law); but the inner aspect is like the wild seed in bread.
The philosopher has no power to deny religion or to debate with the people of religion. If he attempts such a thing, the true religion destroys him. His hand and foot are lifeless. Whatever his soul commands, both obey and do as it says. Though philosophers deny with their tongues the movement and speech of lifeless things, their hands and feet bear witness to its possibility.
Abū Jahl had pieces of stone in his hand. He said, “O Aḥmad, what is in my palm? Tell me quickly! Since you are aware of the secrets of the heavens, if you are a prophet, say what is hidden in my palm.” The Prophet said, “Shall I tell you what they are, or shall they themselves declare that we are true and affirm us; which do you wish?”
When Abū Jahl said, “The second is more astonishing,” the Prophet said, “Yes, Allah is able to do even more than that.” Immediately, each of the stones in Abū Jahl’s palm began to bear witness. “There is nothing worthy of worship except the One Allah,” they said, and “Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah,” they declared. When Abū Jahl heard these words from the stones, he angrily threw them to the ground.
Leave this aside and listen again to the story of the musician. When the musician became weary of waiting, again a voice came to ʿUmar! “O ʿUmar, relieve Our servant from need! We have a pure, noble servant; undertake the trouble of going as far as the cemetery.
O ʿUmar, arise. Take seven hundred dinars from the public treasury, count them all into his palm! Take that money to his presence and say, ‘O our accepted one! For now, take this little and excuse us.
This little money is only for silk (string) expenses. Spend it, and when it is gone, come here again.’ Upon this, ʿUmar, startled by the awe of the voice, girded himself for this service. With the purse of money under his arm, he ran toward the cemetery to search for the musician.
He circled around the cemetery for a while; he saw no one there but that old man. Thinking, “This cannot be him,” he ran once more. Eventually, he became tired, but still saw no one but that old man. He said to himself, “Allah said to me: We have a pure, accepted, and blessed servant;
How can an old musician be among the elect of Allah? O hidden secret, how sweet you are, sweet and strange!” Like a lion circling on the hunt, he circled the cemetery once more. When he was sure that there was no one there but that old man, he said, “There are many bright hearts in the darkness.”
He came and sat there, observing utmost propriety. At that moment, ʿUmar sneezed, and the old man awoke and jumped up. When he saw ʿUmar, he was astonished and froze. He wanted to leave, but began to tremble. He said to himself, “O Lord, calamity from Your hand! Now the muḥtasib (market inspector) has come upon the poor old musician.”
ʿUmar, seeing the old man’s face and his embarrassed, pale countenance, said, “Do not fear me, do not be afraid; for I bring you glad tidings from the Truth. Allah has praised your character so highly that He made ʿUmar fall in love with your beauty. Sit here before me; do not try to leave. Let me tell you some secrets from the world of fortune and prosperity.
Allah sends you greetings; He asks about your state and your well-being. He says, ‘From countless troubles and sorrows, how are you?’ For now, take these few dinars as silk money, spend them, and when they are gone, come here again!”
When the old man heard this, he began to throw himself to the ground, bite his hands, and tear his clothes. “O Allah, who has no equal! Out of excessive shame, the poor old man became speechless,” he began to cry. He wept and grieved for a while. Finally, he struck the çenk on the ground and broke it to pieces.
He said: “O you who are a veil between me and my Lord, O you who have led me astray from the main road!
O you who have sucked my blood for seventy years, who have blackened my face before the Possessor of Perfection! O Allah, Possessor of grace and loyalty, have mercy on my life spent in suffering and sin! Allah gave me such a life that no one in the world could know the value of even a single day of it. But I spent all that life, every breath, squandering it on the low and high notes, giving it to the wind.
Alas! From mentioning the Arab and Persian styles, from being occupied with the Iraqi mode, the time of bitter separation slipped from my mind. Woe is me, for the freshness of the Small maqām (spiritual station) withered the crop of my heart, my heart died.
Woe is me for the sound of these twenty-four maqāms, for the caravan has passed, and the day is over! O Allah, woe from the hand of this one who cries out! Help is sought not from anyone else, but from the One who is closer to me than myself. For this existence comes to me from Him at every moment... When my existence is annihilated, I see only Him, none other.” If someone gives you money, counts out gold for you, you look at him, not at yourself; this is like that.
Upon this, ʿUmar said to the musician, “Your weeping is a sign that you are in your right mind. The path of the annihilated is another path; for being in one’s right mind is another sin. Being in one’s right mind comes from remembering the past. The past is a veil to Allah, and so is the future.
Throw both into the fire. How long will you be like a reed, full of nodes because of these two? As long as there are nodes in the reed, it is not a confidant; it cannot be the intimate of the lips and the voice.
As long as you circumambulate yourself, how can you be in circumambulation? As long as you are in yourself, how can you be counted as having come to the Kaʿba? Your news is unaware of the bringer of news; your repentance is worse than your sin. O you who wish to repent of past states! When will you repent of this repenting, tell me! Sometimes you take the melody of the secret as your qibla; sometimes you kiss weeping and moaning.”
When al-Fārūq (ʿUmar) became a mirror to secrets, the soul of the old musician awoke in his body. He was freed from weeping and laughing, like the soul. His soul departed, and he was revived with a completely different soul. Then such bewilderment came to his heart that he was left outside both earth and sky (he forgot the whole world).
He was struck with such a seeking beyond the limits of searching that I do not know; if you know, tell me! He attained such a state beyond state, such a word beyond word, that he became absorbed in the beauty of Allah, the Possessor of Majesty. But you find only a single way of salvation... Or let there be someone other than the sea who knows and sees it... No, this is not that kind of immersion.
If these words did not manifest at every moment, if their constant manifestation did not cause these words to be spoken, the partial intellect would not speak words pertaining to the whole. But as they manifest one after another, they keep manifesting. For this reason, the waves of the sea keep coming here.
When the story of the old musician reached this point, the old man drew his face behind the veil, as did his states. The old man shook the dust of gossip from his skirt; only half a word about him remained in our mouths. If a hundred thousand souls were sacrificed in pursuit of this revelry, it would be worth it. In the forest of the soul, be a hunter born in hunting; go and play with the sun of the world!
The exalted sun has come to give life; as it empties at every breath, they fill it with light. O spiritual sun, give life and show newness to the old world. Intellect and spirit (rūḥ) flow into the human body from the world of the unseen like running water.
The Prophet said: “To give counsel, two angels call out in a beautiful form: O Allah, feed those who give to the needy, feed those who give, for every dirham they give, grant a hundred thousand favors!
O Lord, give nothing but loss upon loss to those who withhold their wealth!” But there are many withholdings that are better than giving. Do not give your wealth except where Allah has commanded, so that you may obtain a treasure beyond reckoning and thus not join the disbelievers, those who are ungrateful for blessings.
The disbelievers were those who sacrificed camels so that their swords might prevail over Muṣṭafā. Ask and learn the command of Allah from one who has reached Allah. Not every heart can understand the command of Allah. (Unwarranted generosity) is like a rebellious slave, thinking he is being just and generous, distributing the king’s wealth to rebels.
In the Qur’an, there is a verse that frightens the heedless: “All their deeds are but regret.” The justice and generosity of this rebel only distances him further from the king, causes him to fall from favor, and only blackens his face.
The notables of Mecca, when fighting the Prophet, also sacrificed animals, hoping that it would be accepted by Allah. For this reason, the believer always says in prayer, out of fear of not attaining tawfīq (divine enablement), “Ihdinā ṣ-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm” (Guide us to the straight path).
That giving of money is worthy of the generous. But giving one’s soul is, in essence, the gift of the lover. If you give bread for the sake of the Truth, they will give you bread; if you give your soul for the sake of the Truth, they will grant you a soul. If the leaves of this plane tree fall, Allah grants it the provision of leaflessness.
If you have no wealth left from giving, will Allah’s grace ever let you be trampled underfoot? When a man sows grain, his granary becomes empty, but the goodness of this is evident in the field. But if he stores the seed in the granary, as time passes, lice and mice eat up that seed.
This world is entirely perishing; seek what you desire in the world of steadfastness and permanence! Your form is nothing but zero; seek what you wish in the world of meaning! Put your bitter and salty soul before the sword, sacrifice it, and take the soul that is like a sweet sea!