One day Majnún, whose love for Laili has inspired many a Persian poet, was playing in a little sand heap when a friend came to him and said—“Why are you wasting your time in an occupation so childish?” “I am seeking Laili in these sands,” replied Majnún: whereat his friend, all lost in amazement, cried—“Why, Laili is an angel, so what is the use of seeking her in the common earth?” “I seek her everywhere,” said Majnún, bowing his head, “that I may find her somewhere.”
And so the traveller, on this stage of his pilgrimage, should regard no earthly abode as too humble a shrine for the spirit of the True Beloved. He should eat, but only to live; he should drink, but only to love; and, though all worldlings should be shunned, he should keep in touch with the hearts of his fellow-travellers lest, peradventure, he might lose a guide to his destination. Now, if he find in this region some sign from the Unsigned, and trace the lost Beloved, he will pass forthwith into the limitless bourne of Devotion, and see the setting of the sun of Inspiration, and watch in rapture the dawn of Love. At this time the crops of Wisdom are burnt in the fire of Affection, and the traveller loses all consciousness of self; he knows neither knowledge nor ignorance; he recognises neither certainty nor doubt; but, turning his back on the dusk of perplexity, he rides breast forward on the charger of Pain and Endurance, drawing ever nearer to the light of salvation. In this Kingdom of the Soul, he will know nothing but tribulation unless he strive strenuously to escape from himself on the wings of self-renunciation. “Oh, traveller, if thou wouldst gaze on the Joseph face of thy Beloved turn not away from the Egypt of Love! And wouldst thou attain to divine truth, oh learn the way of friendship from the grate, consuming thyself for the sake of the True Beloved! For the love that thou wouldst find demands the sacrifice of self to the end that the heart may be filled with the passion to stand within the Holy of Holies, in which alone the mysteries of the True Beloved can be revealed unto thee. This is so.”
A PERSIAN SUFÍ OF THE ORDER OF THE LATE SEPHÍ ’ALÍ SHÁH.
And thenceforward the traveller, his heart aglow with the sacred fire of Love, tears aside the curtain of earthly passions, and wins his way into the Kingdom of Knowledge. He has passed by slow degrees from doubt into certainty and from darkness into light. Seeing with clearer eyes he is now quick to discern wisdom in ignorance and in oppression justice. Then, on ascending hopefully the ladder of Wisdom, he rises higher and higher above the ocean of being, and enters into closer communion with the spirit of the one he seeks. The arc of truth becomes an almost perfect round, and he is drawn irresistibly towards the centre, where dwells the object of his quest. After traversing the realm of knowledge, which is the last stage of fear, the traveller enters the first City of Union, and drinks deep from the bowl of its spirit: and the next thing he does is to enter the chamber of the True Beloved. As all the shine of the sea and its shade are reflected in the heart of a single pearl, so now the infinite splendour is manifested within the traveller’s soul. Looking round him with the eyes of Unity he recognises his true identity in that of his host, and reads the name of the Beloved in his own name. The circle of his aspirations will soon be complete, for the sun of divine grace is seen to rise equally on all creatures; and he is prepared in spirit to advance one step nearer the end. And soon, on the breeze of godly independence, which blows from the spirit’s flame and burns the curtain of poverty, the traveller is borne into the City of Freedom. There he will know no sorrow, but will pass through the gates of joy, and, though he be on the earth, will ride the heaven of power, and quench his thirst in the wine of love. The sixth stage on the road to immortality is that of Amazement. Sometimes he will notice perfect poverty in riches, and sometimes perfect wealth in poverty. His surprise will grow at every step. Each second will bring a fresh revelation. Now he will dive into the ocean of divine omniscience, and now be carried to the crest of omnipotence divine.
The traveller passes swiftly from this stage into the region of absolute poverty and nothingness, which is the true forgetfulness of self in the love of the Beloved. He is now as a pearl in the sea of the infinite splendour: poor in the things created, but rich beyond counting in the things that are spiritual and pure. And thus, casting aside the burden of consciousness for ever, he becomes one with the Beloved and enters the Kingdom of Immortality. The renunciation of self, therefore, is the Alpha and Omega of the Súfí doctrine: the lover, in other words, must turn the Beloved, otherwise he can never hope to gain admittance into the Chamber of Love. “One came to the Beloved’s door and knocked. And a voice from within whispered, ‘Who is there?’ And the lover answered, saying, ‘It is I.’ Then the voice said, ‘There is not room in this house for thee and me,’ and the door was not opened unto him. So the lover went back into the desert and fasted and prayed. And at the end of a year he returned once more to the Beloved’s door and knocked. And the voice from within said again, ‘Who is there?’ And this time the lover, having learned the lesson of self-renunciation, answered, ‘It is thyself,’ and the door was opened unto him.”
(b) The Shiah Faith in its Relation to the Persian Passion Play.
The Shiah faith is as old as ’Alí; for, on the feast of Ghadir, he is said to have been selected by Muhammad as his successor. In the ages immediately succeeding the Prophet, it spread itself East and West. The Muslim colonies, in various parts of the Empire, embraced its political teaching. It took root even in Mecca and Medina; but it was in Persia alone that it grew, in the Ninth Century, to be the State religion, waning and waxing in its hold on the people during the dynastic changes to which the country subsequently submitted itself; until, in the declining years of the Fifteenth Century, under the Safaví Kings, it re-established its grip, this time for good, on the national conscience. The mourning celebration of the month of Muharram, in which the whole country, with the exception of the Sunnis, takes part to this day, was founded in the Tenth Century by Ahmad Muizz-u’d-Dawlat. In order to appreciate the depth of feeling underlying this yearly commemoration, the reigns of the early Caliphs must be reviewed. For, in the story of the family of the Tent, lies the raison d’être of the Muharram celebration.
When Muhammad died he was succeeded by his father-in-law, Abú Bekr, a man of great prudence and sincere piety. His rule was accepted by all the Prophet’s companions, if we except the Hashemites, who, under the leadership of ’Alí, declined at first to take the oath of fidelity. But the death of Fatima, the wife of ’Alí, so subdued the spirit of her husband that he made his peace with the aged Caliph, who died after a reign of two years, bequeathing his sceptre to the iron hand of the incorruptible Omar. In the twelfth year of a reign of unexampled glory Omar was assassinated, and his successor was elected by six of his most trustworthy lieutenants. Othman, the man chosen by them, had been Muhammad’s secretary: he was not a successful ruler. His helpless character and resourcelessness of mind succumbed to the burden of his responsibilities; his subjects rose in arms throughout his Empire, and the treachery of one of his secretaries hastened his downfall. The brother of Ayeshah is believed to have led the assassins, and Othman, with the Kurán on his knees, was pierced with a multitude of wounds. He died in the year 655 A.D., in the eleventh year of his reign. The inauguration of ’Alí put an end to the anarchy that ensued; but, with all his bravery and all the brilliancy of his endowments, ’Alí was alike too forbearing and too magnanimous to cope successfully with the difficulties of his position. He was not so much a politician as a poet turned knight-errant, a religious enthusiast turned soldier. The first Caliph would have secured the allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful of the Arabian chieftains, by gifts. Omar, the second Caliph, would have insured his authority and checked their lawlessness by casting them into prison. Whereas ’Alí, from purely chivalrous motives, left them to their own devices without, however, in his contempt for what he had condemned in another as self-seeking generosity, bribing them to keep the peace. And so Telha and Zobeir escaping from Medina, fled, and raised the standard of revolt in Assyria. The Prophet’s widow, Ayeshah, the implacable enemy of ’Alí, accompanied them, and was present at the battle in which the Caliph, at the head of twenty-nine thousand men, defeated the enemy, and in which the rebel leaders were slain. This battle was called the Day of the Camel: for, “in the heat of the action, seventy men, who held the bridle of Ayeshah’s camel, were successively killed or wounded; and the cage or litter in which she sat was struck with javelins and darts like the quills of a porcupine.” Ayeshah was reproached by the victorious ’Alí, and then sent under escort to Medina where she lived to the end of her days at her husband’s tomb.
Meanwhile, Moawiyah, the son of Abú Sophian, had assumed the title of Caliph and won the support of the Syrians and the interest of the house of Ommiyah, and against him ’Alí now marched. Mounted on a piebald horse, and wielding his two-edged sword with terrific effect, he literally ploughed his way through the ranks of the Syrians, crying out at every stroke of the blade, “God is victorious.” In the course of the night in which the battle raged he was heard to repeat “that tremendous exclamation” four hundred times. Nothing save flight would have saved his enemies, had not the crafty Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances the sacred books of the Kurán, thus turning the pious zeal of his opponents against themselves; and ’Alí, in the face of his followers’ awe, was constrained to submit to a humiliating truce. In his grief and anger he retreated to Kufa; his party was dejected; the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen, and of Egypt acclaimed his stealthy rival; and he himself, in the mosque of his city of refuge, fell a victim to a fanatic’s knife.