Muntakhab al-tawarikh 366: CLIV. Nami.
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 366
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CLIV. Nami.
366.1
This is the poetical name of Mir Muhammad Ma'sum Safavi, the orthodox and noble son of Mir Sayyid Safa‘i, who was one of the great Sayyids and respected elders of the city of Bhakkar. to be led out and again brought forward. After the command had been given for him to be seated he began to talk lewdly, obscenely, and foolishly, and fell into an argument with Mulla Bikasi. To Mir ‘Abdu-l-Hayy the Sadr, who took the part of the Mulla he said, ‘What shall I do? I am friendless. The face of a friendless man is blackened’, and when Khwaja Husain of Marv, on whom rested some slight suspicion of infamy, supported the other two he said, ‘Khwaja, what occasion was there for your assistance?’ His late majesty, much vexed and annoyed by this churlish behaviour, rose and left the darbar, but, in spite of his annoyance so great was his clemency that he would not consent to Niyazi’s being injured or harassed in return for his evil and beastly conduct. The reason for Niyazi being turned out of Transoxiana was an ode which he wrote, of which the closing verses run as follows:— “That is not the crepuscule that appears in the sky; it is my rosy-coloured wine. I am a debauchee swilling the lees, and the goblet of the sky is my cup. Since Niyazi has become the king of the age in the kingdom of eloquence The name of Jami has been obliterated, and that of Niyazi is in its place.”
366.2
It is said that he was one day reciting this ode of his in a gathering at Thatha and there happened to be there a copy of the divan of his holiness the Maulawi. It was opened at random and " I am not grieved only my affairs have not turned out well but have turned out ill, 'It will be, it will be' never comes to pass. Say 'Be not,' and see what comes to pass." No other religious director could possibly have given me better direction than this. My second director was Mir Abu-l-Ghais of Bukhara, who in rank and dignity was many degrees greater than I, for until the time when I made his acquaintance, if my horses missed their corn and grass for one day I would be so vexed and angry that I would turn my head away from everybody, and not speak a word to any one; but after I fell into the company of the Mir I observed that sometimes, for three or four consecutive days, there was neither corn nor grass in his stables, nor the smoke of any fire in his kitchen, and in spite of this state of things, he was so cheerful, merry, and jovial that no suggestion of his indigence and actual want was conveyed to anybody, and nobody was in a position to talk about his affairs. Wealth and want were always alike to him. Take refuge from the shocks of fate among those Sufis Who grieve for existence and rejoice at non-existence.
366.3
I then began to console myself by the thought that if times were so hard with this great man and yet made no difference to him, I had a much better reason for being cheerful and happy, seeing that I had not a hundredth part of his state and pomp to keep up. My third director is a slave-girl bestowed upon me by the emperor. Quum enim, instantibus vel diaboli insidiis vel desideriis naturalibus, me sentio, sive oculorum micantium sive libidinis indulgentiae causa, ad stuprum tractum, statim domum reversus cum ea rem habeo, unde quiescit cor meum; et, corpore aqua loto, mundus fio. And a director has no greater duty than that of restraining a person from unseemly and unbecoming acts. The Mir is a most diligent student and has correct taste in poetry and in the composition of enigmas. He is high-minded and sublime in disposition. He has composed a divan, and a masnavi in the metre of the Yusuf-u-Zulaikha (of Nizami).
366.4
Mīr Muḥammad Ma’ṣūm is at present enrolled among the amīrs of the empire, and holds some appointment in the imperial service in Sind and Qandahār. He is very strict in religion, in piety, praise and prayer, and in reading the Qur’ān, and somebody once said to him, ‘One cannot do without a director in these duties. You should get a director and receive instruction from him, and you can then take your leave of him.’ Ma’ṣūm replied, ‘I have at present two or three directors, what need have I of another? My first director was his majesty, for this reason, that when I came from my dear native land to the capital I was so filled with the pride and aspirations of youth, which are the sources of extravagant hopes and desires, that I could not bring myself to consider the acceptance of any thing so humble as a commandership of a thousand, or even of two thousand. When I arrived at court I tasted the sticks of the ushers and mace-bearers who keep order, and had to endure insults, and when after a long period of expectation, his majesty honoured me by bestowing on me a command of twenty, then all my extravagant claims took wings to themselves, and I, recognising my proper rank and place, resigned myself to God’s will, and bowed my head in acquiescence, and was at peace; and there is that proverb, “Although I struggled much to become somebody I became nothing, now I let myself alone in order that I may become whatever I am to become.”
366.5
Until at length I have become, through thee, a byword for madness. I have poured from my heart so much hot blood that it has cast All my life, entirely, and utterly, into a fiery slough. My love for thee has thrown a thousand knotty difficulties in my path But has not yet solved even one of the difficulties caused by thy absence. On the one hand the fear of death offers the intoxication of absence from thee. On the other the delight of reunion with thee offers me the fruition of all my hopes. Though the dead have not risen the tumult of the resurrection has arisen. From the fire which has flamed up from my heart. The eyes of a whole world are suffused with blood by that eyelash of thine. A whole people is sleeping in dust by reason of that collyrium-tinged eye of thine. In both worlds have I lighted the fire of madness. 368 But I have not given in my ode a hint of the secrets of thy love. That heart which I had, steeped in the love of thee Is melted into blood and poured out on my body. From my grief in thy absence I have at the end of each eyelash a cloud which rains sparks. I have in my breast a hundred heaps of fire which burn in thy absence. The eyes of the age have no employment but to gaze upon thee The eyes of principalities and powers are smitten with love in thy service. I desire to be released from the hell of separation from thee By him who wipes out infidelity, who protects the faith, and who guides peoples in the right way.
366.6
The following few couplets are productions of his brilliant imagination:— “How sweet it is to think that when I am beside myself with love thou wilt come to ask my condition And I shall explain it at length to thee in the speech in which no tongue has part.” “When she saw my tears she concealed her smile: It is clear that my tears are not without their effect.” “In love there is an intoxication which revives tired lovers: In absence there is a subtle delight which even union lacks.” “My moon-like beauty gave her message to the messenger with a laugh: The trace of that laugh still lingers in the message which she sent.” He sent the following qasidah in praise of the prophet from Ahmadabad to me in Atak:— “The scar of love which has been on my heart from eternity Has been changed, by the blessings which even thy absence can bestow, to naught but pain. The flood of fire which my heart in its pain heaved up Has thrown confusion into the temperament of the earth and the age. The remembrance of my grief for thee gives me a taste of sweet sorrow: The flavour of thy absence from me gives me an idea of the sweet savour of death. Happy is he who has set his foot in the path of love, For he enjoys delights without sight, and a love without arts. If thou find thy way to the Laboratory of Creation thou shalt see Both creation in action and love transformed to deeds.
366.7
My disquiet has drawn me from love to madness, If thy auspicious glance should fall by chance on an onion, The world beside it appears less than an onion. In this thy age thy Zu-l-faqar explains to thy enemy and thy ‘Yea, verily’ to thy petitioner the meaning of ‘Nay’ and ‘Yea.’ If through thy mind there pass but the semblance of wrath, Death trembles like a willow from fear. The sky of thy might has such width that the sun Would not wonder could he find shelter behind it as behind a lofty mountain. If thy dagger lend its tongue to the sword of discipline Woe be to the sky with its crooked dealings, its fraud and its many deceits. Since eloquence is decked as a bride for thy praise, I have decked her with striped garments of flowery speech. Woe to thee Nami, and woe to those who shall arise with thee, When the black book of your acts is opened before you at the resurrection! I am hopeful of obtaining a mediator like the sun On that day on which there shall no longer remain any shadow of hope, Him who is the rain from the cloud of God’s mercy, the cup-bearer of the Day of Resurrection, The greatest protection of the faith, and the lord even of death.” Quatrains. “One should sit alone with one’s self in the assembly, One should commune ever with one’s self, One should be both the nightingale and the rose of the meadow, One should be distraught with one’s own affairs The king of Najaf, ‘Ali, the saint, the king who passes not away
366.8
He it is whom the wish of all the prophets has gained for the world He is the moon from whom the sun receives his light, He is a lion beneath whose feet the lion of the heavens lies in the mire His protection has thrown up a fortress around the people of the world From which, except by death and by the gate of death, no one can pass If the arm of the sky should feel, even in a dream, the strength of thy grasps, it would pluck from its joint its withered hand When thy majestic shout reaches a mountain range It reverberates, coiling like a whip lash about the mountain masses If one dot of the qaf of thy power could be weighed against Qaf (Caucasus) The dot would take the place of Qaf and the scale of Qaf would fly up as high as Saturn If thy hand should check the reins of eternity without end It would fall a thousand stages behind eternity without beginning. The tree of the sky is but one leaf from the garden of thy power The garden of the world is but half a mound from the cultivated area of thy munificence Thy age has so sweetened the disposition of the world That it is no longer possible to distinguish between poison and honey I weep seas upon seas and worlds upon worlds of blood, I blossom with gardens upon gardens and meadows upon meadows of roses.”
366.9
“On the day on which I arise, crying out for grief at her absence The hand of my heart is twisted in the skirt of separation. With those tears which are mingled with my heart’s blood, I shed on my skirt the blood of two thousand hearts.” “In the ocean of my heart a sea of blood is in turmoil, A hundred hells of pain are burning within me. I shall strike fire into the structure of the world From this madness which burns within me.” “Seek not a sweetheart lest thy whole heart turn to blood, Lest thou be not hers until thou art completely changed, Lest thou become distracted, deranged, and mad, Lest thou depart completely from the fashion of the age.” “Although the seekers after His beauty are many Not every eye is worthy to catch a glimpse of the Face of the Friend; Not all idolatry is worthy of the sacred thread, Nor is every head worthy of adorning the gibbet.” “Every moment my heart arranges its thoughts of thee, And makes a thousand guesses as to where thou art. I fear, my love, that the bird of my soul Will one day fly from its cage in the desire to be with thee.” “O thou who hast laden thy camel, And hast fallen asleep, forgetful of the march, Wake, and set in the road the foot of search, For all have gone and thou, too art of this caravan.” “Thou hearest the shout of departure from all Thou hearest the cry ‘Come on’ both before and behind All have made a night march to a distant halting-place Whilst thou hast slept by the road and hearest but the sound of the bell.”
366.10
“O thou who desirest a glimpse of that Face, Thou needest eyes other than those in thy head Dost thou wish to miss none of those Glances? Thou must have eyes in the heart, and within them yet other eyes.” “The love of thee is not to be bought by any buyer The price of one hair of thine is this world and the next Thy love is not a rose which blooms in streets and markets, Nor is it such musk as is found in the perfumer’s shop.” “These complaints of the defilements of the world! Find not fault with others, for thou, too, art one of the throng. Preserve thine own skirt from defilement, Nazir, for the two or three days which thou hast to spend on this midden.” “In loving lovely ones one must accustom one’s self to madness, One must lead one’s soul to the endurance of separation, One must become as a bottle filled with blood, And then pour one’s heart out at one’s eyes.” “In our religion thou must ever be constant And keep the faith while in the circle of infidelity This is the path of love of our beloved, To stand ever with the sacred thread of idolatry round the neck, and yet remain a Musalman.” “A rose-garden of beauty is the cheek of my enslaver When it displays itself before my wounded heart “Every tear which I have shed from my eyes I have first mixed with the poison of my grief for her absence. I fear that at the resurrection a hell will arise From these tears which I have shed in her absence.”
366.11
“How long wilt thou fill thy heart with wrath on account of one thing or another? How long wilt thou make thy breast no more than a coffer of gold? Thy business is not to make thy heart turbid; Thy business is to make it as clear as a mirror.”