1- O doves that haunt the arak and ban trees, have pity ! Do not double my woes by your lamentation !
2- Have pity ! Do not reveal, by wailing and weeping, my hidden desires and my secret sorrows !
3- I respond to her, at eve and morn, with the plaintive cry of a longing man and the moan of an impassioned lover.
4-The spirits face one another in the thicket of ghada trees and bent their branches towards me, and it (the banding) annihilated me;
5- And they brought me divers sorts of tormenting desire and passion and untried affliction.
6- Who will give me sure promise of Jam and al-Muhassab of Mina ? Who of Dhat al-Athl ? Who of Na'man ?
7- They encompass my heart moment after moment, for the sake of love and anguish, and kiss my pillars.
8- Even as the best of mankind encompassed the Ka'ba, which the evidence of Reason proclaims to be imperfect.
9- And kissed stones therein, although he was a Natiq (prophet). And what is the rank of the Temple in comparison with the dignity of Man ?
10- How often did they vow and swear that they would not change, but one dyed with henna does not keep oaths.
11- And one of the most wonderful things is a veiled gazelle, who points with finger-tip and winks with eyelids.
12- A gazelle whose pasture is between the breast-bones and the viscera. O marvel ! a garden amidst fires !
13- My heart has become capable of every form : it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks.
14- And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka'ba and the tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran.
15- I follow the religion of Love : whatever way Love's camels take, that is my religion and my faith.
16- We have a pattern in Bishr, the lover of Hind and her sister, and in Qays and Layla and in Mayya and Ghaylan.
Commentary :
1- ' O doves,' i.e. the influences of holiness and purity.
3- ' I respond to her,' i.e. I repeat to her what she says to me, as God said to the soul when He created her, ' Who am I ?' and she answered, ' Who am I ?' referring to her purities, whereupon He caused her to dwell four thousand years in the sea of despair and indigence and abasement until she said to Him, ' Thou art my Lord.'
4- ' Faced one another,' because love entails the unior of the two opposites.
' In the thicket of ghada trees,' i.e. the fires of love.
' Branches,' i.e. flames.
' Annihilated me,' in order that He alone might exist, not I, through jealousy that the lover should have any existence in himself apart from his beloved.
6. 'Jam', i.e. union with the loved ones in the station of proximity, whch is al-Muzdalifa.
'Al-Muhassab,' the place where the thoughts which prevent lovers from attaining their object of desire are cast out.
' Dhat al-Athl,' referring to the principle, for it is the principle in love that thou shouldst be the bery essence of thy beloved and shouldst disappear in Him from thyself.
' Na'man', the place of Divine and holy bliss.
7- 'For the sake of love and anguish,' i.e. in order to inspire me with passion.
' And kiss my pillars' (properly, kiss over the litham or veil covering the mouth), i.e. he is veiled and unable to behold them except through a medium (waseta). The ' pillars ' are the four elements on which human constitution is based.
10- 'One dyed with henna' : he refers to sensual influences (waredat nafseya), such as descended on the soul when God addressed it and said, ' Am not your Lord?' (Kor.vii,171), and received from it a promise and covenant. Then it did not faithfully keep the sation of unification (Attawhid), but followed other gods. No one was exempt from this poly-theism, for everyone said, ' I did ' and ' I said ', at the time when he forgot to contemplate the Divine Agent and Speaker within him.
11- ' A veiled gazelle,' i.e. a Divine subtlety (Latifa) veiled by a sensual state, in reference to the unkown spiritual feelings (Ahhwal) of gnostics, who cannot explain their feeling to other men; they can only indicate them symbolically to those who have begun to experience the like.
' With red finger-tip ' : he means the same thing as he meant by ' one dyed with henna ' in the last verse
' And winks with eyelids,' i.e. the specualtive proofs concerning the principles of gnostics are valid only for those who have already been imbyed with the rudiments of this experience. Gnostics, thoufh they resemble the vulgar outwardly, are Divines inwardly.
12- 'Whose pasture,' etc., as 'Ali' said, striking his breast, 'Here are sciences in plenty, could I but find people to carry them (in their minds).'
' A garden amidst fires,' i.e. Manifold sciences which, strange to say, are not consumed by the flames of love in his breast. The reason is, that these sciences are produced by the fires of seeking and longing, and therefore, like the salamander, are not destroyed by them.
13- ' My heart has become capable of every form,' as another said, ' The heart ( Al Qalb ) is so called from its changing ( Taqallob ),' for it varies according to the various influences by which it is affected in consequence of the variety of its feelings is due to the variety of the Divine manifestations that appear to its inmost ground (Sir ). The religious law gives to this phenomenon the name of ' transformation '.
' A pasture for gazelles.' i.e. for the objects of his love.
' A cnvent for Christian monks' : inasmuch as he makes the loved ones to be monks, he calls the heart a convent.
14- ' A temple for idols.' i.e. for the Divine Realities which men seek and for whose sake they worship God.
' The pilgrim's Ka'ba,' because his heart is encompassed by exalted spirits.
' The tables of the Tora,' i.e. his heart is a table on which are inscribed the Mosaic of sciences that have accrued to him.
' The book of the Koran,' because his heart has received an inheritance of the perfect Muhammadan knowledge.
15- ' I follow the religion of Love,' in reference to the verse 'Follow me, then God will love you' (Kor. iii, 29).
' Whatever way Love's camels take,; etc., i.e. ' I accept willingly and gladly whatever burden He lays upon me. No religion is more sublime than a religion based on love and longing for Him whom I worship and in whome I have faith'. This is a peculiar preorogative of Moslems, for the station of perfect love is appropriated to Muhammad beyond any other prophet, since God took him as His beloved ( Habib).
16- He says, ' Love, qua love, is one and the same reality to those Arab loves and to me, but the objects of our love are different, for they loved a phenomenon, whereas I love the Essential'. ' We have a pattern in them,' because God only afflicted them with love for human beings like themselves in order that He might show, by means of them, the falseness of those who pretend to love Him and yet feel no such transport and rapture in loving Him as deprived those enamoured men of their reason and maed them unconscious of themselves.
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