The work contains many hundreds of anecdotes, related to Eflākī by trustworthy reporters, whose names are generally given, and a few for which he vouches himself as an eyewitness. Every anecdote is the account of a miracle wrought by the living or the dead; or is the narrative of some strange or striking event. It is, in fact, a species of the Acts of the Apostles of the Mevlevī dervish fathers, and is a rare specimen of what fervid religious enthusiasm can invent or exaggerate, pious credulity can believe, and confiding ignorance accept. In these days of Christian “Spiritualism,” let not the reader be over-shocked at learning that Muslim “Saints,” lovers of their Creator, and beloved by Him in return, hold themselves and are held by their dervish brethren to be the successors and spiritual inheritors of the prophets, from Adam to Muhammed; that, in virtue of this spiritual communion with God, they know all the secrets and mysteries of heaven and earth, and not only suspend or overrule the laws of nature at their will, but also deal out death or disease by their anger, health or prosperity by their blessing; the whole in strict accordance, however, with the eternal will and foreknowledge of Him by whom alone all things are made.
The anecdotes translated are chosen as being characteristic of various points of dervish credence or assertion. Most of them inculcate some moral truth or point of practical wisdom. A few will be found, however, to go far beyond the credible; and one or two, unless totally misunderstood by the translator, are simply and grossly blasphemous. These last are here given as specimens of the exaggerated dervish doctrines which cause the orthodox among the ‘Ulemā[3] of Islām to hold all such quasi-religious associations to be more or less heterodox.
The dervishes of Islām appear to be a kind of Gnostics. They style themselves Poor, Impassioned, Adepts, and Perfect. In many respects their doctrines correspond with those of Buddha, Pythagoras, and Plato, making all souls that are destined to salvation to be emanations from the divine Light or Glory of God, in which they will be again congregated; and all those doomed to perdition to have been formed out of the Fire of His wrath, to which also they will eventually be consigned.
It is but too patent to the translator that he is bound to sue for the kind indulgence of a critical public, in offering them the present volume in verse. He has no claim to being a poet himself; and had never practised the art of metrical composition until very lately. Sensible himself to the earnestness of thought and beauty of diction imbedded in the writings of the great poets of Islām, and keenly aware of the condition of dry bones to which literal prose translation almost always reduces a songster’s numbers, he has preferred to clothe his author in a presentable garb, though it be but a crumpled wrap, rather than exhibit him to readers of taste as a mangled mass, stripped of all beauty, and in great measure divested even of cognisable form, through the conflict of dictions and diversities of ideas.
He is in the position of the raindrop sung by Sa’dī (see Chap, iii., No. 14, of the Anecdotes), and mentioned of old by Chardin, Addison, and Sir William Jones. May the thoughts in the Mesnevī be the gems that will make his effort acceptable to the British public. At most, he is but the diver who risks extinction in the hope that he may have a chance to offer an acceptable pearl of price to those for whom he has worked:—
“A raindrop, from a cloud distilled,
At sea’s expanse with tremor filled,
Mused: ‘Where the main rolls, am I aught?
In ocean’s presence, sure, I’m naught.’
Itself, thus eyed with scorn profound,