Muntakhab al-tawarikh 22.3
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 22.3
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22.3.1
From the advice of the holy men may you be informed at least once, that in these two worlds at any rate you are famous for creating dissensions.
Perversity springs from your heart as pride springs from foolishness. Evil arises from your body as rashness does from youth.
You are the moisture of the gullet of hypocrisy, the blast of the forge of tyranny, you are the flower of the garden of inordinate desire, and the mud which befouls the reservoir of the soul.
When present you melt the soul, perchance you spring from the heat of Tamuz; in your ode you scatter snow perchance you are of the breath of autumn.
You like a child seek throughout your life after vain images; from your fancifulness the sorrows of time have made you old in your youth.
Poetry is but a desire, and its metre is like the mirage which is void of water. This breath of life is grief to me, but its savour is better than the water of life.
When your desire becomes collected that fancy becomes enjoyment, when your breathing is harmonious, it becomes a scatterer of pearls.
How long this desire of the imagination? make one breath pearl-scattering in praise of that man whose equal wisdom has not seen even from the beginning, The King of the throne of "Kun" is Muhammad who pitched the tent of dignity by the side of the door of the Protector from the house of Ummahani.
He was a mortal of angelic beauty, a sky with the lowliness of earth. Like the sky he was pure in body; like the Angels he was pure in soul.
22.3.2
He was a pearl whose place was in the treasury of God, and he was a moon whose brightness shone forth from the sky of eternity.
He was such a pearl that nothing of more value than his nature was ever produced by the medium of the elements from the sea of heaven.
He was such a moon that in every early morning the face of the star of Yaman became black as coal from shame at his cornelian-like lips.
So sweet-tongued a prophet that the salvation of his disciples comes by faith in his words, from the eloquence of his utterances.
So eloquent in pearl-like speech that the beauty of his utterance makes the heart's blood like the hidden wealth of the mine, a royal treasure.
The brightness of the eastern sun is shamed by the beauty of his face, and the stature of the cypress of the garden is bowed before the perfect uprightness of his form.
By his accountantship he has adopted the way of absolute monarchy; and by his eloquence he has opened the door of auspicious government.
The attraction of secret desire, by revelation has drawn him from the expanse of the natural world to the ocean of spiritual existence.
By the good tidings of his friend, his heart became intoxicated with the hope of a meeting. The son of Abu Qahafah has drunk from the cup of his friendship.
His speeches have founded a fortress for the decrees of God. ‘Umar by his justice became the builder of it, by right government.
22.3.3
One, third in order, has placed the footstep in this way, whose path to the enjoyment of this world was not obstructed by pride.
His fourth pillar was ‘Ali who at the time of battle made the face of the sun pale from the glitter of his sword.
Oh, King! I entreat you by your friends deliver me during the whole of my life by your aid from the calamity of foolish friends.
He who demanded from me this Qasida, may his life like my Qasida be ornamented with the jewels of meaning.
The following also he wrote, imposing upon himself the necessity of introducing the words “hair” and “ant,” in a declaration of the unity of God and in praise of the Prophet, may the peace of God be upon him:
Although with tongue, I split hairs at the time of discourse, still in the praise of God, by reason of amazement, I am dumb as the ant.
And in the pursuit of the fairy-faced ones with chainlike locks, through desire often have I bound fast, like the ant, my life to my waist with my heart.
And for the sake of the amber-eyed and sugar-lipped ones, in my fancy I have bored the hair of speech a hundred ways by way of trial.
That I might have a store like the ant, in his praise I have cleft the hair into halves, and have not received one jot from any one in recognition.
Henceforth, like the ant, I will gird my loins at the door of the Incomparable one, and from the foot of each hair, with a hundred tongues will I proclaim his gracious aid.
22.3.4
How can I open my lips, I that am voiceless as an ant and a fish. Nay rather will I make each hair a tongue to scatter pearls.
With this ant-like writing and these sugar-like words, by means of poetical arrangement I will split the hair in the declaration of the unity of God the discerner of secrets.
That God to whose workmanship each several hair bears witness, and all that exists, ant and fish and snake, wild beasts and birds, men and genii.
He who alone is self-existent, and is not within the bounds of computation, from whose wisdom in both worlds nothing is hidden, neither the track of the ant nor the point of the hair.
If, though as a single hair, his favour is shed upon the egg of an ant, from it there will issue in a single moment a hundred Jamshids, each one like a hundred Jamshids.
Oh Thou by whose power hair and blood and bone take shape, Oh Thou who art surety for the daily supply of food to bird and ant and snake and fish.
In the body of every ant there is an exact account of thy equity, on the point of each hair there is a boundless praise of thy bounty.
The eye of thy mercy provides sustenance for every ant and locust. The hand of thy favour tints the hair of all both old and young.
The pen of thy skill shows that of which a manifest sign is shewn on the body of every ant, and appears on the end of every hair.
The mole on the cheek of the brides appear like spots on a mirror.
The hair on the face of kings appears like ants upon the Arghawan.
22.3.5
By thy order it is that the stomachless ant is hungry in the way.
By this bounty it is that the motionless hair upon the body is satisfied.
He who did not turn away his head from your door even by a hair's breadth, the ant, although tongueless, began to praise him like the lizard.
When he like the fish became sleepless and fasting in devotion to you then without doubt with the sword of the finger he split the moon into two parts like a hair.
He was a sign like the true dawn, hair-splitting in his speech. His followers were as successful as ants in opposing the scorpions of religion.
The silvery body of the seven heavens, would become (black) like ants, when he cast aside the covering from his dark locks.
For the ants of religion he carried away so much provision that there remained on the point of each hair an evidence of that bounty for ever and ever.
Oh thou Creator, I have made every hair a tongue, but yet like an ant I complain in my heart of my voicelessness to sing thy praise.
If thou hadst illumined the eye of the ant like the thread of hair, without the permission of thy mercy this caravan would not have passed.
I am like an ant in water, or like a hair in the fire, because this sugar-scattering mind of mine is not fit for this relation.
I have the foot of effort in the stirrup of devotion to you like the ant; as long as one single hair remains of me I will not desist from this endeavour.
22.3.6
How can my burden be in the least degree lightened apart from thy consent? How can I gird my loins like the ant through avarice, in the service of this one or that?
Although like the ant I have been crushed by the (iron) hand of desire
Yet I never contemplated the slightest idea of profit or loss apart from thee.
Since this is from thee I am happy, although my heart is distraught and pained; my heart is like the eye of the ant and my condition is like the hair of the heart-ravishing one.
If the ant brought the foot of a locust into the presence of Solomon, Shihab would have come headlong to thy door with the feet of his soul about his head as hair.