THE FOUNDATIONS
OF THE KORANIC WORLD
(1)
MAN: GODS
VICEGERENT
In both worlds, everywhere are the marks of love; | |
man himself is a mystery of love. | |
Loves secret belongs not to the world of wombs, | |
not to Shem or Ham, Greece or Syria: | 1160 |
a star without East and West, a star unsetting | |
in whose orbit is neither North nor South. | |
The words I am setting tell his destiny, | |
their exegesis reaches from earth to heaven. | |
Death, grave, uprising, judgment are his estates, | 1165 |
the light and fire of the other world are his works; | |
himself is Imam, prayer and sanctuary, | |
himself the Ink, himself the Book and the Pen. | |
Little by little what is hidden in him becomes visible; | |
it has no boundaries, its kingdom no frontiers. | 1170 |
His being gives value to contingent things, | |
his equilibrium is the touchstone of contingent things. | |
What shall I declare of his sea without a shore? | |
All ages and all times are drowned in his heart. | |
That which is contained within man is the world, | 1175 |
that which is not contained within the world is man. | |
Sun and moon are manifest through his self-display; | |
even Gabriel cannot penetrate his privacy. | |
Loftier than the heavens is the station of man, | |
and the beginning of education is respect for man. | 1180 |
Man alive in heart, do you know what thing life is? | |
One-seeing love that is contemplating duality: | |
man and woman are bound one to the other, | |
they are the fashioners of the creatures of desire. | |
Woman is the guardian of the fire of life, | 1185 |
her nature is the tablet of lifes mysteries; | |
she strikes our fire against her own soul | |
and it is her substance that makes of the dust a man. | |
In her heart lurk lifes potentialities, | |
from her glow and flame life derives stability; | 1190 |
she is a fire from which the sparks break forth, | |
body and soul, lacking her glow, cannot take shape. | |
What worth we possess derives from her values | |
for we are all images of her fashioning; | |
if God has bestowed on you a glance aflame | 1195 |
cleanse yourself, and behold her sanctity. | |
You from whose faith the present age has taken all fire, | |
now I will tell you openly the secrets of the veil. | |
The joy of creation is a fire in the body | |
and society is lightened by that light, | 1200 |
and whosoever takes any portion of that fire | |
watches jealously over his private passion; | |
all the time he fixes his gaze on his own image | |
lest his tablet should receive any other image. | |
Mohammed chose solitude upon Mount Hira | 1205 |
and for a space saw no other beside himself; | |
our image was then poured into his heart | |
and out of his solitude a nation arose. | |
Though you may be an unbeliever in God, | |
yet you cannot gainsay the Prophets glory. | 1210 |
Though you possess a soul illumined as Moses, | |
yet without solitude your thoughts remain barren; | |
by isolation the imagination becomes more vivid, | |
more vivid, more questing, more finding. | |
Science and passion are both stations of life | 1215 |
both take a share of the impact of events. | |
Science derives pleasure from verification, | |
love derives pleasure from creativeness. | |
Display is very precious to the verifier, | |
to the creator solitude is very precious. | 1220 |
The eye of Moses desired to behold Being | |
that was all part of the pleasure of verification; | |
thou shalt not see Me contains many subtleties | |
lose yourself a little while in this sea profound. | |
On all sides lifes traces appear unveiled, | 1225 |
its fountain wells up in the heart of creation. | |
Consider the tumult that rages through all horizons; | |
inflict not on the Creator the trouble of display | |
solitude is the protection of every artist, | |
solitude is the bezel in the artists ring. | 1230 |