I was, ere a name had been named upon earth, Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth: When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign And Being was none, save the Presence Divine. Named and name were alike emanations from Me, Ere aught that was 'I' yet existed, or 'We'; Ere the veil of the flesh for Messiah was wrought, To the Godhead I bowed in prostration of thought; I measured intently, I pondered with heed (But, ah, fruitless my labour!) the Cross and its Creed: To the pagod I rushed and the Magian's shrine, But my eye caught no glimpse of a glory divine; The reins of research to the Kaaba I bent, Whither hopefully thronging the old and young went; Candahàr and Herat searched I wistfully through, Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view. I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless and lone, Of the globe-girding Kàf,[55] but the Anka[56] had flown! The seventh earth I traversed, the seventh heaven explored, But in neither discerned I the court of the Lord. I questioned the Pen and the Tablet of Fate, But they whispered not where He pavilions His state; My vision I strained, but my God-scanning eye No trace that to Godhead belongs could descry. My glance I bent inward: within my own breast Lo, the vainly sought elsewhere! the Godhead confessed!
Jalaluddin's chief work, the Masnavi, containing upwards of 26,000 couplets, was undertaken at the instance of one of his disciples and intimates, Husam-ud-din, who had often urged him to put his teaching into a written form. One day when Husam-ud-din pressed the subject upon him, Jalaluddin drew from his turban a paper containing the opening couplets of the Masnavi, which are thus translated by Mr. Whinfield:—
Hearken to the reed flute, how it discourses, When complaining of the pains of separation:— 'Ever since they tore me from my ozier-bed, My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears. I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs, And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home. He who abides far away from his home Is ever longing for the day he shall return; My wailing is heard in every throng, In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.'
The reed flute is one of the principal instruments in the melancholy music which accompanies the dancing of the Mevlevi dervishes. It is a picture of the Sufi or enlightened man, whose life is, or ought to be, one long lament over his separation from the Godhead, for which he yearns till his purified spirit is re-absorbed into the Supreme Unity. We are here reminded of the words of Novalis, "Philosophy is, properly speaking, home sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home."
Briefly speaking, the subject of the Masnavi may be said to be the love of the soul for God as its Origin, to Whom it longs to return, not the submission of the ordinary pious Moslem to the iron despotism of Allah. This thesis is illustrated with an extraordinary wealth of imagery and apologue throughout the six books composing the work. The following fable illustrates the familiar Sufi doctrine that all religions are the same to God, Who only regards the heart:—
Moses, to his horror, heard one summer day A benighted shepherd blasphemously pray: 'Lord!' he said, 'I would I knew Thee, where Thou art, That for Thee I might perform a servant's part; Comb Thy hair and dust Thy shoes and sweep Thy room, Bring Thee every morning milk and honeycomb.' Moses cried: 'Blasphemer! curb thy blatant speech! Whom art thou addressing? Lord of all and each, Allah the Almighty? Thinkest thou He doth need Thine officious folly? Wilt all bounds exceed? Miscreant, have a care, lest thunderbolts should break On our heads and others perish for thy sake. Without eyes He seeth, without ears He hears, Hath no son nor partner through the endless years, Space cannot contain Him, time He is above, All the limits that He knows are Light and Love.' Put to shame, the shepherd, his poor garment rent, Went away disheartened, all his ardour spent. Then spake God to Moses: 'Why hast thou from Me Driven away My servant, who goes heavily? Not for severance it was, but union, I commissioned thee to preach, O hasty one! Hatefullest of all things is to Me divorce, And the worst of all ways is the way of force. I made not creation, Self to aggrandize, But that creatures might with Me communion prize. What though childish tongues trip? 'Tis the heart I see, If it really loves Me in sincerity. Blood-stains of the martyrs no ablution need, Some mistakes are better than a cautious creed, Once within the Kaaba,[57] wheresoe'er men turn, Is it much to Him Who spirits doth discern? Love's religion comprehends each creed and sect, Love flies straight to God, and outsoars intellect. If the gem be real, what matters the device? Love in seas of sorrow finds the pearl of price.'
A similar lesson is taught by the apologue of the "Elephant in the Dark":—