[208] Mír Said Muhammed Nurbaksh was the assumed name of Shams-eddin, a descendant from a Guebre family of Irák. He fixed himself in Kachmir, where he became the founder of a sect which acknowledged him as a prophet and a Mahdi, and took from him the name of Nur-bak-shian.—(See Journal des Savants, avril 1840; article de M. Mohl sur l’Histoire de Ferishta.)
[209] The word here used by the author is برزخ barzakh, “interval of time, according to the Koran (chap. XXIII) between the death of a man and the resurrection, before which the souls of the departed receive neither reward nor punishment.”
[210] We have already mentioned (vol. I. p. 55. note 1) the Enka, or Simurgh, “thirty birds,” as an object of fabulous romance. At one time this mysterious bird was counsellor of the Jins (genii), and for the last time was visible at the court of Solomon, the son of David, after which he retired to the mount Kaf, which encircles the earth. According to a tradition of Muhammed, God created, in the time of Moses, a female bird, called Enka, having wings on each side and the face of a man. God gave it a portion of every thing, and then created a male of the same species. They propagated after the death of Moses, feeding on ferocious beasts and carrying away children, until the intervening time between Jesus and Muhammed, when, at the prayer of Khaled, this race was extinguished. Proverbially, the Enka is mentioned as a thing of which every body speaks without having ever seen it.
But a much greater import is attached to this name in the doctrine of the Sufis: with them this bird is nothing less than the emblem of the supreme Being, to be sought with the utmost effort and perseverance through innumerable difficulties which obstruct the road to his mysterious seat. This idea was ingeniously allegorized in the famous poem entitled Mantek al tair, “the colloquy of the birds,” composed by Ferid-eddin Attar, a Persian poet, who was born in Kerken, a village near Nishapúr, in the year of the Hejira 513 (A. D. 1119), and lived 110, 112, or 115 years, having died in A. H. 627, 629, or 632 (A. D. 1229, 1231, or 1234). In this composition, the birds, emblems of souls, assemble under the conduct of a hoop (upapa), their king, in order to be presented to Simurgh. To attain his residence, seven valleys are to be traversed; these are: 1. the valley of research; 2. that of love; 3. that of knowledge; 4. of sufficiency (competence); 5. of unity; 6. of stupefaction; and 7. that of poverty and annihilation, beyond which nobody can proceed; every one finds himself attracted without being able to advance. These are evidently as many gradations of contemplative life, and austere virtue, each of which is described in glowing terms, for which scarce an equivalent is to be found in European languages. The birds, having attained the residence of Simurgh, were at first ordered back by the usher of the royal court, but, as they persevered in their desire, the violence of their grief met with pity. Admitted to the presence of Simurgh, they heard the register of their faults committed towards him read to them, and, sunk in confusion, were annihilated. But this annihilation purified them from all terrestrial elements; they received a new life from the light of majesty; in a new sort of stupefaction, all they had committed during former existence was cancelled, and disappeared from their hearts; the sun of approximation consumed, but a ray of this light revived them. Then they perceived the face of Simurgh: “When they threw a clandestine look upon him, they saw thirty birds in him, and when they turned their eyes to themselves, the thirty birds appeared one Simurgh: they saw in themselves the entire Simurgh; they saw in Simurgh the thirty birds entirely.” They remained absorbed in this reflection. Having then asked the solution of the problem We and Thou, that is, the problem of apparent identity of the divinity and his adorers, they received it, and were for ever annihilated in Simurgh: the shade vanished in the sun.—(See Notices et Extraits des MSS., vol. XII. pp. 306-312).
According to the thirty-seventh and last allegory of Azz-eddin Elmocadessi, an Arabian poet, who died in A. H. 678 (A. D. 1280), the assembled birds resolved to pass a profound sea, elevated mountains, and consuming flames, to arrive at a mysterious island where Simurgh or Enka maghreb, “the wonderful,” resided, whom they wished to choose for their king. After having supported the fatigues, and surmounted the difficulties and perils of their voyage, they attained their aim, a delightful sojourn, where they found every thing that may captivate the senses. But when they offered their homage to Simurgh, he at first refused them, but having tried their perseverance in their attachment to him, he at last gratified their desire, and granted them ineffable beatitude.—(See Les Oiseaux et les Fleurs, Arabic text and French translation, by M. Garcin de Tassy, pp. 119, etc., and notes, p. 220).
[211] The Súfis are divided into three great classes, to wit: 1. واصلان vásilán, “those who arrived (at the desired end),” the nearest to God; 2. سالكان sálikan, “the travellers, the progressive;” 3. مقيمان mukíman, “the stationaries.”—According to others (see Graham, Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. I. pp. 99. 100), a Súfi may be: 1. a salik, “traveller;” 2. a مجذوب majezub, “one attracted in a state of intoxication from the wine of divine love;” 3. a majezub salik, “an attracted traveller,” that is, a partaker of the above two states. I omit other divisions and subdivisions.
[212] فيص Silvestre de Sacy translates “emanation, overflowing."—(Journal des Savans, déc., 1821, p. 733.)
[213] نشا is interpreted in the dictionary: growing, producing, being borne upward, etc.; above it can but signify “a condition of being.”
[214] Koran.
[215] In the Desátir the moon is called “the key of heaven.”