“O Thou in whose bat well-curved my heart like a ball is laid,
Nor ever a hairbreadth swerved from Thy bidding nor disobeyed,
I have washed mine outward clean, the water I drew and poured;
Mine inward is Thy demesne—do Thou keep it stainless, Lord!”
Jalāluddīn teaches that man’s love is really the effect of God’s love by means of an apologue. One night a certain devotee was praying aloud, when Satan appeared to him and said:
“How long wilt thou cry, ‘O Allah’? Be quiet, for thou wilt get no answer.” The devotee hung his head in silence. After a little while he had a vision of the prophet Khadir, who said to him, “Ah, why hast thou ceased to call on God?” “Because the answer ‘Here am I’ came not,” he replied. Khadir said, “God hath ordered me to go to thee and say this:
“‘Was it not I that summoned thee to service?
Did not I make thee busy with My name?
Thy calling “Allah!” was My “Here am I,”
Thy yearning pain My messenger to thee.