Preface
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Thanks be to God, mighty and glorious: to obey Him brings us near Him, and to thank Him brings us more of His blessings. Every breath that goes in prolongs life, and coming out again it gladdens the soul; in every breath, then, there are two blessings, and for every blessing thanks are due.
What hand, what tongue is equal to the task Of all the thanks that He has the right to ask?
As God says in the Qur'an: "Work in thankfulness, family of David; few of My servants are thankful."
A servant does best to bring his excuse For all his failings to God's court, For in paying the worship His lordship deserves Every one of us falls short.
The rain of His mercy, beyond all reckoning, has reached everyone, and the table of His bounty, never begrudged, is spread everywhere. He does not tear away the veil that covers His servants' honor for a shameful sin, nor cut off their daily bread for a gross offense.
O Generous One, who from the treasury of the unseen Give the Zoroastrian and the Christian their daily share, How could You leave Your friends with nothing, When You show Your enemies such care?
He has told the east wind, His servant who lays the carpets, to spread out the emerald carpet, and bidden the spring cloud, His nurse, to rear the daughters of the plants in the cradle of the earth. He has wrapped the trees in green coats of leaves as their robes of honor for the New Year, and at the coming of spring He has set caps of blossom on the heads of the branches' little children. By His power the juice of a cane has become the finest honey, and by His care a date stone has grown into a towering palm.
Cloud and wind and moon and sun and sky are all at work So you can earn your bread, and not eat it without a thought; For your sake they all go round and do as they are told: It would not be fair if you did not do as you ought.
There is a saying handed down from the lord of all creation, the glory of all that exists, the mercy of the worlds, the pick of mankind and the crown of the cycle of time, Muhammad the Chosen One (God bless him):
The intercessor all obey, the prophet noble-souled, Handsome, stately, sweet of breath, and lovely to behold. What grief can reach the wall of your people, with you as its stay? What fear of the waves for one who has Noah to steer the way? He reached the heights by his perfection; his beauty let the daylight in; All his qualities were lovely: bless him, and bless his kin.
Whenever one of God's servants, a sinner whose life has fallen into ruin, lifts his hands in repentance to the court of God (mighty and exalted is He) in hope of an answer, God Most High does not look at him. The man calls again, and again God turns away; and when he calls a third time, pleading and weeping, God (glory be to Him, the Most High) says:
"My angels, I am ashamed before My servant, and he has no one but Me. I have forgiven him.
"I have answered his call and granted his need, for I am ashamed of how much My servant has prayed and wept."
See the generosity and kindness of God: the blame Is the servant's, who sinned, and God's is the shame.
Those who keep their vigil at the Kaaba of His majesty confess that their worship falls short: "We have not worshipped You as You deserve to be worshipped." And those who would describe the beauty of His face are left bewildered: "We have not known You as You deserve to be known."
If someone asks me to describe Him, What can one whose heart is lost say of One of whom no sign is found? Lovers are the ones the Beloved has slain, And from the slain there comes no sound.
One of the men of heart, those whose hearts are awake to God, had bowed his head into the collar of his robe in contemplation and sunk deep into the sea of mystic vision. When he came back from that state, one of his friends said, "What gift have you brought us from that garden you were in?" He said, "I meant to fill the lap of my robe with roses when I reached the rose tree, as a present for my friends. But when I got there, the scent of the roses made me so drunk that the hem of my robe slipped from my hands."
Bird of the dawn, learn love from the moth: It burned, and gave up its life, and from it no sound came. These pretenders who seek Him have no word of Him, For from those who had word of Him, no word ever came. O You beyond all imagining, beyond likeness, guess and surmise, Beyond all they have said, and all we have read and heard: The gathering is over, and our life is at an end, And in describing You we are still at the very first word.
The good name of Sa'di that is on the lips of the common people, the fame of his words that has spread over the face of the earth, the sugar cane of his talk that people eat like sugar, the scraps of his writings that they carry off like gold leaf: none of this can be put down to the perfection of his learning and his eloquence. The reason is that the lord of the world, the pole on which the circle of the age turns, the successor of Solomon, the champion of the faithful, the Great Atabeg (atabeg was the title of the Turkish princes who ruled Fars, the province of Shiraz), Muzaffar al-Dunya wa'l-Din, Abu Bakr son of Sa'd son of Zangi, God's shadow on His earth (Lord, be pleased with him and with his land), has looked on him with the eye of favor, praised him highly and shown him sincere goodwill. Naturally, then, all people, high and low, have come to love him; for people follow the religion of their kings.
Since you first looked on me with favor, I have won More fame for my works than the sun; Though this servant should be nothing but faults, The faults the sultan likes are merits, every one. In the bathhouse, from the hand of one I loved, A piece of sweet-smelling clay reached my hand one day. I said to it, "Are you musk, or ambergris? Your scent has made me drunk and stolen my heart away." It said, "I was a worthless bit of clay, But I kept company with the rose for a while, sitting near; My companion's perfection has worked on me; Otherwise I am the same earth that you see here."1
O God, let the Muslims enjoy his long life, double the reward of his good deeds, raise the rank of his friends and his governors, and destroy his enemies and all who hate him, by the verses that are recited in the Qur'an. O God, keep his land safe, and protect his son.
The world is fortunate in him: long may Sa'd, his fortune, last, And may the Lord uphold him with the banners of victory unfurled; Just so the young shoot grows, and he is its root, For the noblest seed makes the finest plants in the world.
May God (exalted and holy is He) keep the pure land of Shiraz safe and sound until the Day of Resurrection, through the awe of just rulers and the striving of learned men who live by what they know.
While one like you, God's shadow, watches over it, Fars need not fear the blows that time has in store; Today, on all the wide face of the earth, no one can show A refuge of content to match the threshold of your door. The care of the helpless is yours; the thanks are ours to give; And God, the world's Creator, will make your reward sure. O Lord, keep the land of Fars safe from the winds of strife As long as earth and wind themselves endure.
One night I was thinking over the days gone by and grieving for the life I had wasted, and with the diamonds of my tears I was boring into the stone of my heart's little house; and I spoke these lines, which suited my state:
Each moment one more breath of life is gone; I look, and there is not much left to go on. Fifty years are gone, and still you sleep and dream; Perhaps these last five days you may redeem. Shame on the man who goes with his work undone: The drum beats for the march, and his packing's not begun. On the morning the caravan is to depart, Sweet sleep keeps the man on foot from making his start. Each one who came put up a new building, then went away And cleared the lodging for someone else to stay; And the next man cooked up the same fond plan, And no one ever finished the building he began. Don't call a friend a friend who won't stay true; This traitor is no fit friend for you. Since good and bad alike must go the same way, Happy the man whose goodness carried the day. Send some comfort to your grave on ahead; No one will bring it after you: send it ahead. Life is snow in the midsummer sun; Little is left, and the master thinks he's far from done. You who went to the market with nothing to spend, I fear your kerchief won't come home full in the end. Whoever eats the crop he sowed while it's still green At harvest time has nothing but stray ears to glean.
When I had thought this through, I judged it best to withdraw into a corner of solitude and gather my skirts away from company, to wash my notebook clean of rambling talk and from then on ramble no more.
Better to sit in a corner, tongue cut out, deaf and dumb, Than be a man whose tongue is not under his thumb.
Then one of my friends, who had shared my camel litter on the road and my room at the college, came in at the door as he always used to. However much he laughed and joked and teased, I gave him no answer and did not lift my head from my knees, where I sat in devotion. He looked at me, hurt, and said:
Now, while you still have the power to speak, Speak, my brother, kindly and in a pleasant way; For tomorrow, when the messenger of death arrives, You'll have no choice but to hold your tongue that day.
Someone of my household told him how matters stood: "So-and-so has made up his mind and fixed his intention to spend the rest of his life in retreat and to choose silence. You too, if you can, go your own way and keep your distance." He said, "By the Almighty's glory and by our old friendship, I will not draw breath or take a step until he talks, in his old familiar way and his well-known manner. To hurt one's friends is foolish, and atoning for a broken oath is easy; and it goes against the right path and the judgment of men of understanding that Zulfiqar, the sword of 'Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law, should stay in its scabbard, and the tongue of Sa'di in his mouth."
What is the tongue in the mouth, wise man? It is the key To the treasure the man of talent keeps under lock; When the door is shut, how can anyone tell Whether he deals in jewels, or in a peddler's stock? Though for the wise, silence is good manners, When the moment needs it, better to speak with a will; Two things disgrace the mind: to keep your mouth shut When it's time to speak, and to talk when it's time to be still.
In short, I did not have the strength to keep my tongue from talking with him, nor did I think it decent to turn my face away from his conversation, for he was a friend after my own heart and his affection was sincere.
When you go to war, pick a quarrel with one You can do without, or from whom you can run.
Necessity made me speak, and we went out walking. It was spring, when the cold's assault had died down and the reign of the rose had begun.
The trees in their shirts of leaves are dressed Like fortunate men in their holiday best. It is the first of Ordibehesht, late April by the sun; From the pulpits of the branches the nightingale speaks; On the red rose the dew has dropped its pearls, one by one, Like sweat upon an angry beauty's cheeks.
One night I happened to stay in a garden with one of my friends: a lovely, pleasant spot, the trees thick and tangled. You would have said the ground was strewn with chips of blue enamel, and the necklace of the Pleiades hung from its treetops.
A garden whose stream ran pure and sweet, A grove whose birds sang in measured sound; The one full of tulips of every hue, The other with fruit of every kind to be found; And in the shade of its trees the wind Had spread a carpet of shot silk on the ground.
In the morning, when the wish to go home had won out over the wish to stay, I saw that he had gathered a lapful of roses, basil, hyacinth and sweet herbs, and meant to take them to the city. I said, "As you know, the roses of a garden do not last, and the season of the rose garden keeps no promise"; and the sages have said, "What does not last is not worth your heart." He said, "Then what is to be done?" I said, "For the delight of those who look into it and the pleasure of those who hear it, I can write a book, a Rose Garden, whose leaves the autumn wind will never lay a grasping hand on, and whose spring delight the turning of time will never turn to autumn's blight."
What good would a tray of roses do? Take a leaf from my Rose Garden with you. The rose lasts only five or six days, then it's gone; This Rose Garden stays lovely on and on.
The moment I said this, he emptied his lap of roses and caught hold of the hem of my robe: "When a generous man makes a promise, he keeps it." That same day I happened to write out a fair copy of a chapter on good manners in company and the etiquette of conversation, in a style that speakers can use and that will add to the eloquence of those who write letters. In short, some of the garden's roses were still left when the book of the Rose Garden was finished.
And it will truly be finished only when it is found acceptable at the court of the king who is the world's refuge, the shadow of the Maker and the ray of the Lord's grace, the treasure of the age and the shelter of safety, aided from heaven, victorious over his enemies, the strong arm of the conquering state, the lamp of the radiant faith, the beauty of mankind, the pride of Islam: Sa'd, son of the Great Atabeg, the mighty king of kings, master of the kings of Arabia and Persia, sultan of land and sea, heir to the kingdom of Solomon, Muzaffar al-Din Abu Bakr son of Sa'd son of Zangi (may God make the good fortune of them both endure, double their glory, and bring them both in the end to every good); and when he deigns to read it with a gracious glance of his lordly kindness.
If his lordly attention should adorn it, it will be A Chinese picture gallery, a work of Mani, master of design; There is hope he will not frown in weariness At these words, for a rose garden is no place to pine; Above all, since its auspicious preface Is written in the name of Sa'd, son of Abu Bakr, son of Sa'd, of Zangi's line.
Further: the bride of my thought, for want of beauty, will not raise her head, nor lift her despairing eyes from her feet in shame, nor be seen among the men of heart, until she is decked in the jewels of acceptance by the great emir, the just scholar, aided by God, victorious and triumphant, the support of the throne of the sultanate and the counselor in the governing of the kingdom, refuge of the poor, shelter of strangers, patron of the learned, lover of the God-fearing, pride of the house of Fars, Right Hand of the Kingdom, King of the Elect, Glory of the State and the Faith, Succor of Islam and the Muslims, Mainstay of Kings and Sultans, Abu Bakr son of Abu Nasr (may God lengthen his life, exalt his rank, open his heart and double his reward), who is praised by the great men of every land and is the sum of every noble quality.
Whoever stands in the shade of his grace Finds his sins counted as good deeds, and a friend in his enemy's place.
Each of his other servants and attendants has a duty assigned, and if they allow themselves some negligence or sloth in it, they are called to account and scolded; but not this company of dervishes, holy men vowed to poverty, whose duty is to give thanks for the favors of the great, to speak well of them and to pray for them. And such service is better done in their absence than in their presence, for the one comes close to flattery and the other is far from pretense.
The bent back of the sky stood straight with joy When Mother Time gave birth to a son like you; It is wisdom itself when the Creator's grace Sets one servant apart to see the common good through. He has won lasting fortune who lived with a good name, For men's good words keep that name alive after he has died; Whether the men of learning praise you or not, The face that wins all hearts needs no dresser at its side.
The reason I fall short and hang back in attending His Lordship's court is this. A group of the sages of India were talking about the virtues of Bozorgmehr, the wise vizier of the old Persian kings, and in the end they could find no fault in him but one: he was slow to speak. That is, he would hesitate a long while, and his listener had to wait and wait before he set out what he had to say. Bozorgmehr heard of it and said, "Better to think 'What shall I say?' than to regret 'Why did I say it?'"
An old hand at words, well schooled and gray, Thinks first, and only then has his say. Don't let words rush out as long as you can wait; Speak well: what does it matter if you speak late? Think first, and then draw breath to speak; but before They say "Enough!", stop, and say no more. Speech is what makes a man better than a brute; A brute is better than you, if your words don't suit.
How much more so, then, in the eyes of the great men of His Lordship's court (may his victory be glorious), which is the gathering place of men of heart and the center of scholars deep in learning! If I made bold to speak at length there, I would be guilty of impudence, like Joseph's brothers bringing their scanty goods before the great lord of Egypt. A bead of jet is not worth a barleycorn among jewelers, a lamp gives no light in front of the sun, and a tall minaret looks low at the foot of Mount Alvand.
Whoever sticks his neck out with a claim Will fall, and break that neck, and have himself to blame. Sa'di is a free man who lies low: No one goes out to fight a fallen foe. First think, then speak: a builder, after all, Lays the foundation first, and then the wall.
I can make palm trees out of wax, but not in an orchard; I can sell a beauty, but not in Canaan, Joseph's country.
They asked Luqman the sage, the wise man whom the Qur'an names, "From whom did you learn wisdom?" He said, "From the blind, who never set a foot down until they have tested the ground."
Know your way out before you go in; test your manhood, and then take a wife.
Though a rooster may be bold in a fight, What can he do against a bronze-clawed falcon's might? A cat's a lion when it comes to catching mice, But a mouse when a leopard comes in sight.
But trusting in the broad-mindedness of the great, who close their eyes to the faults of those beneath them and take no trouble to expose the offenses of their inferiors, we have set down in this book, briefly, a few rare sayings, proverbs, poems and stories, and the lives of the kings of old (God have mercy on them), and spent on it a part of a precious life. This was the reason for writing the book; and success comes from God.
This verse and this arrangement will last for years When every grain of our dust is scattered away; The point is to leave some trace of us behind, For I see nothing in our being that will stay; Perhaps some man of heart, in his mercy, Will say a prayer for the dervishes some day.
Looking closely at the order of the book and the shaping of its chapters, I judged it best to keep the words brief, so that this lush meadow and dense garden came to have eight chapters, eight gates, like paradise; and it was kept short so as not to weary the reader.
Chapter One: On the Conduct of Kings.
Chapter Two: On the Character of Dervishes.
Chapter Three: On the Excellence of Contentment.
Chapter Four: On the Benefits of Silence.
Chapter Five: On Love and Youth.
Chapter Six: On Weakness and Old Age.
Chapter Seven: On the Effects of Education.
Chapter Eight: On the Manners of Company.
In this season, when our time was sweet and our hearts were light, It was six hundred and fifty-six years since the Prophet's flight. Counsel was our purpose, and we said our say; We left it all with God, and went our way.
Chapter 1: On the Conduct of Kings
Story 1
I heard of a king who gave the sign for a prisoner to be put to death. The poor wretch, past all hope, began to curse the king and call him every foul name he knew; for, as they say, a man who has washed his hands of his life will say whatever is in his heart.
When need is dire and no escape can be made, The hand will grab a sharp sword by the blade. A man without hope has a tongue that will talk back, Like a beaten cat that turns on the dog to attack.
"What is he saying?" the king asked. One of his viziers, a kindly man, said, "My lord, he is reciting the Qur'an: 'those who swallow their anger and forgive their fellow men.'" The king was moved to pity and spared the man's life. Another vizier, the first one's rival, said, "Men of our rank should speak nothing but the truth in the presence of kings. This man cursed the king and called him foul names." The king frowned at this and said, "I liked his lie better than this truth of yours. His was meant to do some good; yours is built on malice." And the wise have said: "A lie that keeps the peace is better than a truth that stirs up trouble."
If a king does whatever you advise, It's a shame if your advice is less than wise.
On the arch of the great hall of Feraydun, the just king of the old Persian legends, these lines were written:
The world, my brother, will stay with none: Bind your heart to its Maker, the only One. Lean neither weight nor back on the world's crown; It has raised many like you, then cut them down. When the pure soul sets out to go its way, What matter, to die on a throne or the bare clay?
Story 2
One of the kings of Khorasan saw Mahmud of Ghazni, son of Sebuktigin, in a dream. His whole body had crumbled away and turned to dust, all but his eyes, which still rolled in their sockets and looked about them. The sages all failed to interpret it, except a dervish, who understood it and said, "He is still keeping a worried eye on his kingdom, because it is in other hands."
Many a famous man lies buried under the ground Of whom, on the face of the earth, no trace remains; And that old carcass they handed over to the clay The earth has eaten, till not even a bone remains. The good name of Nushirvan the Just lives on, Though it is long since anything of Nushirvan remains. Do good, So-and-so, and make the most of your days, Before the cry goes up: "So-and-so no longer remains."
Story 3
I heard of a prince who was short and plain, while his brothers were tall and handsome. Once, when his father was looking at him with distaste and contempt, the boy, who was sharp and quick to read a face, saw it and said, "Father, a short man with sense is better than a tall fool. What stands higher is not always worth more."
The sheep is clean meat, and the elephant is carrion.
Sinai is the smallest mountain on the earth, Yet none stands higher with God in rank and worth. Have you heard what a lean wise man Once said to a fool, fat and dim? "An Arab horse, however weak, Beats a stable of donkeys full to the brim."
The father laughed, the great men of the court approved, and the brothers were wounded to the soul.
Until a man has had his say, His faults and gifts are hidden away. Not every spotted hide's a rug: It may be a leopard, sleeping where it lay.
I heard that around that time a powerful enemy came against the king. When the two armies faced each other, the first man to ride out onto the field was this son, and he said:
No one will see my back on the day of the fight; If you see a head in the dust and the blood, it's mine. The man who fights is wagering his own blood; The man who runs away wagers the blood of the whole army.
With that he charged the enemy's ranks and brought down several seasoned fighters. When he came back to his father, he kissed the ground in homage and said:
You who thought me a sorry sight, Don't think that merit comes with bulk: A lean-flanked horse is what you need In battle, not a fattened ox's hulk.
They say the enemy's army was large and theirs was small, and some of the men began to turn and run. The boy gave a great shout: "Fight like men, or dress like women!" At his words the horsemen grew bolder, and they charged all together. I heard that they beat the enemy that very day. The king kissed the boy's head and eyes and took him in his arms, and every day looked on him with more favor, until he made him his heir.
His brothers grew jealous and put poison in his food. Their sister saw it from her room above and slammed the shutter; the boy understood, drew his hand back from the dish, and said, "It cannot be that men of merit should die and men of none take their place."
No one will go to sit in an owl's shade, Though the huma, whose shadow crowns kings, should fade.
His father was told what had happened. He summoned the brothers and gave them the dressing-down they deserved; then he assigned each of them a share in some far corner of the realm, so that the trouble settled down and the quarrel got up and left. For ten dervishes can sleep under one blanket, but two kings cannot fit into one country.
When a man of God has eaten half a loaf, He gives the dervishes the other; When a king has taken one whole realm, He is still bent on taking another.
Story 4
A band of Arab robbers had settled on a mountaintop and closed the caravan road. The people of the towns lived in terror of their tricks, and the sultan's troops were beaten every time, for the robbers had taken an impregnable stronghold on the peak and made it their refuge and their home. The men who governed that region met to consider how to be rid of the menace, since if the band went on like this for long, there would be no resisting them.
A tree that has only just struck root One man's strength alone can uproot; But leave it a while, just let it be, And not even a windlass will drag it free. A spring at its source can be stopped with a spade; Once it's in flood, not even an elephant can wade.
It was settled that they would set a man to spy on the robbers and watch for their chance, until a time came when the band had ridden out to raid some tribe and left the place empty. Then they sent a few seasoned, battle-tried men to hide in a ravine of the mountain. At nightfall the robbers came home from their journey with their plunder, took off their weapons, and laid down their goods and their spoils; and the first enemy to fall on them was sleep. When a watch of the night had passed,
The disc of the sun went down into the night; Jonah went into the fish, and out of sight.
the brave men sprang from their ambush, tied each robber's arms behind his back, and in the morning brought them all before the king. He gave the sign for every one of them to be killed. Now it happened that among them was a young man, the fruit of his youth just ripening, the first green down only now showing in the rose garden of his cheek. One of the viziers kissed the foot of the king's throne, laid his face on the ground to plead, and said, "This boy has not yet tasted any fruit from the garden of life, or had any joy of the first flower of youth. I count on Your Majesty's generous and noble nature to do your servant the favor of sparing his life." The king frowned; the request did not suit his lofty judgment, and he said:
Bad at the root, a man won't take the good men's light; Training the base is walnuts on a dome: none sit tight.
"It is better to cut off the line of these corrupt men and tear up their stock by the roots. Putting out the fire and leaving the embers, killing the viper and keeping its young: that is not what wise men do."
Though the clouds should rain the water of life, You'll wait for fruit from a willow in vain; Don't waste your life on the base: the reed They weave into mats is not sugar cane.
The vizier heard this and, willing or not, approved it, praised the king's sound judgment, and said, "What my lord (may his reign endure) has said is the very truth. If the boy had grown up in the company of those wicked men, he would have taken on their nature and become one of them. But your servant hopes that in the company of good men he will take to training and acquire the ways of the wise; for he is still a child, and the rebellious, stubborn ways of that band have not yet set in his nature. As the Prophet said: Every child is born with a sound nature; it is his parents who make him a Jew, a Christian or a Zoroastrian."
Lot's wife kept company with the wicked And lost a prophet's family, and her place; The dog of the Seven Sleepers spent a few days Following good men, and joined the human race.
With that, a group of the king's boon companions joined the vizier in pleading, until the king spared the boy's life and said, "I grant it, though I don't think it wise."
You know what Zal told his son Rostam, the champion? "Never count an enemy helpless or small. We've often seen the water of a little spring Grow, and sweep off the camel, load and all."
In short, they brought the boy up in comfort and luxury and set masters to train him, until he had learned graceful speech, the ready answer, and all the manners of serving kings, and everyone thought well of him. One day the vizier was saying something of his good qualities in the king's presence: that the training of wise men had done its work on him and driven the old ignorance out of his nature. The king smiled and said:
Raise a wolf cub among men as you may, It will grow up a wolf one day.
Two years or so went by. A gang of riffraff from the quarter took up with him and swore a pact, until, when the moment came, he killed the vizier and both his sons, carried off a fortune beyond counting, took his father's place in the robbers' cave, and rose in revolt. The king bit his hand in dismay and said:
Who can make a good sword out of bad iron? No training, sage, makes somebody of a nobody born. The rain, whose gentle nature no one disputes, Grows tulips in the garden, and in salt ground, thorn. Salt land will never yield you hyacinths: Don't squander seed and labor on its dust. To do a kindness to the wicked is the same As doing evil to the good and just.
Story 5
At the palace gate of Oghlamish I saw an officer's son, a boy with intelligence and shrewdness, understanding and insight beyond all description. Even in his childhood the marks of greatness showed on his brow.
Above his head, from his good sense, Shone a star of high eminence.
In short, he won the sultan's favor, for he had beauty both of face and of mind; and the wise have said, "True wealth lies in talent, not in gold; and greatness in wisdom, not in being old." His fellows envied his position, accused him of some treachery, and tried, without success, to have him put to death.
What harm can an enemy do, when the friend is kind?
The king asked him, "Why are these men so hostile to you?" He said, "Under the shadow of my lord's fortune (may his reign endure) I have satisfied everyone except the envious man, who will not be satisfied with anything less than the end of my good fortune. And may my lord's fortune and prosperity last for ever."
I can take care to hurt nobody's heart, But what can I do with the envious, who suffer from their own spite? Die, envious man, and be free: yours is an ill That nothing but death will ever set right. The luckless wish, with all their heart's desire, To see the lucky stripped of their riches and their might. If the bat's eye cannot see by day, What fault is that of the fountain of light? If you want the truth, a thousand eyes like those Had better go blind than the sun turn black as night.
Story 6
They tell of one of the kings of Persia who had stretched out the hand of plunder over his subjects' property and begun a reign of cruelty and oppression, until people fled his extortions into the wide world and his tyranny into exile. As the people dwindled, the revenue of the realm fell off, the treasury was left empty, and enemies pressed in.
Whoever wants a helper on the day of disaster, Tell him: be generous while the good times are here. The slave who wears your ring will go, if you don't treat him well; Be kind, be kind, and a stranger will wear your ring in his ear.
One day in his court they were reading from the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi's Book of Kings, the part about the fall of Zahhak the tyrant and the reign of Feraydun. The vizier asked the king, "Can anyone tell how Feraydun, who had no treasure, no land and no followers, came to be king?" The king said, "As you've heard, the people rallied to him with zeal and gave him their support, and he became king." The vizier said, "Your Majesty, if the people rallying around a man is what makes him king, why do you scatter the people? Can it be that you have no wish to be king?"
Hold your army dear as your life, for that is wise: It's on his army that a sultan's rule relies.
The king said, "And what makes the army and the people rally to a king?" The vizier said, "A king needs generosity, so that they gather round him, and mercy, so that they can live safe in the shelter of his rule; and you have neither."
A tyrant can't be a sultan, any more than one Can make a shepherd of a wolf: it can't be done. The king who lays the groundwork for wrong Digs out the footing that holds his kingdom's wall strong.
The good advice of his loyal vizier did not agree with the king's disagreeable nature. He frowned at it and sent the vizier to prison. Not long after, the sultan's cousins rose against him and claimed their father's kingdom; the people, whom his plundering hand had driven to despair and scattered, rallied to them and gave them their support, until the kingdom passed out of his hands and was settled on theirs.
A king who lets the weak beneath him be wronged Will find his friend a mighty foe when times are hard. Make peace with your people and sit safe from your enemy's war, For a just king of kings, his subjects are his guard.
Story 7
A king was sailing in a boat with a young Persian slave who had never seen the sea before or known the miseries of a ship. The boy began to weep and wail, and a trembling took hold of his limbs. However kindly they tried to soothe him he would not settle, and the king's pleasure was spoiled. No one knew what to do. There was a sage aboard, who said to the king, "If you command it, I'll quiet him in my own way." The king said, "That would be the greatest kindness."
The sage had the slave thrown into the sea. He went under a few times; then they took him by the hair and pulled him to the boat, and he clung to the rudder with both hands. Once he was out, he sat down in a corner and was calm. The king was amazed. "What wisdom was there in that?" he asked. The sage said, "He had never tasted the misery of drowning, and so did not know the worth of safety in a boat. In the same way, only a man who has been caught in misfortune knows what well-being is worth."
Barley bread doesn't please you, who've eaten your fill; The one you find ugly is the one I love. To the houris of heaven, the Heights in between are hell; Ask those in hell: the Heights are heaven above. It's one thing to hold your love, and not have to wait; Another, to keep both eyes fixed on the gate.
Story 8
Someone asked Hormuz, son of Nushirvan, "What fault did you find in your father's viziers, that you had them put in chains?" He said, "I knew of no fault. But I saw that their awe of me was boundless and that they had no real trust in my word, and I was afraid that, fearing harm from me, they would plot my death. And I acted on the words of the sages, who have said:
'Fear the man who fears you, sage, Though you could fight a hundred like him and come out ahead. The snake will bite the shepherd's foot Because it is afraid he'll take a stone and strike it dead. Don't you see how a cat, when it's cornered, Will claw the eyes out of a leopard's head?'"
Story 9
One of the kings of Arabia lay sick in his old age and had given up hope of life, when a horseman rode in at the gate with good news: "By my lord's good fortune we have taken such-and-such a fortress. The enemy are our prisoners, and the troops and people of that region have all submitted to your command." The king heaved a cold sigh and said, "This good news is not for me but for my enemies," meaning the heirs to his kingdom.
In this hope, alas, my precious life has run its course: That what my heart desired would come in at my door. My hope came true at last; but what's the good of it, When there's no hope the life that's gone will come back any more? The hand of death has beaten the drum to go: My two eyes, bid this head of mine farewell; Palm of my hand, forearm and arm, Take your leave of one another as well. On me, laid low as my enemies wished, Look in at the last, my friends. My days were wasted in ignorance: I took no care; you take care, my friends.
Story 10
I was keeping a retreat at the head of the tomb of the prophet John the Baptist (peace be upon him) in the great mosque of Damascus, when one of the kings of Arabia, a man notorious for his injustice, happened to come there on pilgrimage. He prayed, made his devotions, and asked for what he needed.
Rich and poor are slaves alike in the dust of this door, And those who are richer are the ones who need more.
Then he turned to me and said, "Since dervishes have spiritual power and are honest in their dealings, keep me in your prayers, for I am afraid of a dangerous enemy." I said to him, "Have mercy on your weak subjects, and you will suffer no misery from a strong enemy."
With the strength of your arm and the force of your fist It is wrong to break a weak man's helpless wrist. Does the man who won't spare the fallen have no fear That when he falls himself, no hand will be near? Whoever sowed the seed of evil and looked for good to grow Has addled his brain for nothing, and dreamed what can't be so. Take the cotton out of your ears and give the people their due; If you won't do justice, the Day of Justice waits for you. The children of Adam are limbs of one frame, For all at creation from one essence came. When the world makes a single limb suffer and ache, The others find no rest, and they too lie awake. If others' troubles leave you unconcerned, The name of human is a name unearned.
Story 11
A dervish whose prayers were always answered appeared in Baghdad. Word of him reached Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the governor whose name was a byword for cruelty, and he sent for him and said, "Say a good prayer for me." The dervish said, "O God, take his life." "For God's sake," said Hajjaj, "what kind of prayer is that?" He said, "It is a good prayer, for you and for all the Muslims."
You who crush the weak beneath your hand, How long do you think this booming trade will stand? What good does ruling the world do you? Instead Of tormenting people, you would be better dead.
Story 12
An unjust king asked a holy man which act of worship was the best. He said, "For you, a midday nap, so that for that little while you do no one any harm."
I saw a tyrant sleeping at midday, And said, "He's trouble; and trouble asleep is better. A man whose sleep is better than his waking Lives such a wicked life that death would be better."
Story 13
I heard of a king who had spent a whole night in revelry until daybreak, and at the end of his drunkenness he kept saying:
There's nothing in the world as sweet as this moment, none: No thought of good or bad, and no care for anyone.
A dervish who had slept outside in the cold said:
You, whose fortune has no equal under the sun, Say you have no troubles: do you think that we have none?
The king liked this. He held a purse of a thousand gold dinars out of the window and said, "Hold out the skirt of your robe, dervish." He said, "Where am I to get a skirt? I have no clothes." The king, pitying his wretched state all the more, added a robe of honor to the gift and sent it out to him.
In a short time the dervish ate up and scattered all that money and those goods, and came back.
Wealth never rests in the hands of those who give, Nor patience in a lover's heart, nor water in a sieve.
They told the king about him at a moment when he had no mind for him. He flared up and frowned at the man. That is why the shrewd and experienced have said that one must beware the sharpness and fury of kings: most of their attention is bound up with the great affairs of the realm, and they cannot bear the press of the common crowd.
The king's bounty is not lawful fare For one who cannot watch his time with care. Until you see your chance to speak, refrain; Don't spend your worth on talk that's all in vain.
He said, "Drive off this shameless, spendthrift beggar who has thrown away so much in so short a time. The public treasury is a mouthful for the needy, not fodder for the ones the Qur'an calls the brothers of devils."
A fool who burns a camphor candle while it's light Will soon have no oil left for his lamp at night.
One of the viziers, a man of good counsel, said, "My lord, I think the wise course is to give people like this an allowance for their needs, paid out a little at a time, so that they do not squander what they spend. But what you have ordered, rebuke and refusal, does not suit a man of generous spirit: to raise someone's hopes with kindness and then wound him again with disappointment."
You can't open your door to the greedy, and then, Once it is open, slam it in their faces again. You'll never see the thirsty pilgrims of the Hejaz Come to a pool of brackish water and gather round; But wherever there's a spring of water that is sweet, Men and birds and ants all gather round.
Story 14
One of the kings of old was slack in caring for his realm and kept his army on short rations; and so, when a hard enemy came against him, they all turned their backs.
When they grudge the soldier his reward, He grudges setting his hand to the sword.
I had been on friendly terms with one of the men who deserted him, and I reproached him. "It's low," I said, "ungrateful, mean and disloyal, to turn on an old master at the first small change in his fortunes, and to forget what he owes for years of his bread." He said, "If you are kind enough to excuse me, you may: in that campaign my horse had no barley and my saddlecloth was in pawn. When a sultan is stingy with his gold toward his soldiers, no one can be generous to him with his life."
Pay the soldier gold, and he'll give you his head; Hold back the gold, and he'll head for the hills instead. A well-fed fighter charges with fury into the fight; An empty belly puts its fury into flight.
Story 15
One of the viziers was dismissed and joined the circle of the dervishes. The blessing of their company worked on him, and he found peace of mind. Then the king took a liking to him again and offered him office. He would not accept it, and said, "To the wise, being unemployed beats being employed."
Those who retire to a safe corner and stay Have stopped the dogs' teeth and what people say; They have torn up their papers and broken their pens, And from the tongues of the faultfinders got away.
The king said, "But surely we need a capable man of sense, fit to manage the affairs of the realm." He said, "Your Majesty, the sign of a capable man of sense is just this: that he will not lend himself to such work."
The huma is honored above all other birds because It lives on bones, and hurts no creature with its claws.
They asked the lynx, "Why did you choose to keep company with the lion?" He said, "So that I can eat the leftovers of his kill and live safe from my enemies in the shelter of his might." They said to him, "Now that you have come under the shadow of his protection and gratefully admit his bounty, why don't you come closer, so that he brings you into his inner circle and counts you among his devoted servants?" He said, "I'm still not safe from his violence."
A Zoroastrian may spend a hundred years feeding the flame; Let him fall in for one moment, and it burns him all the same.
It may happen that a boon companion of the sultan comes away with gold, and it may be that he loses his head. And the sages have said that one must beware the changeable temper of kings, who at one time take offense at a greeting and at another give a robe of honor for an insult. And they say that a great deal of joking is a talent in boon companions and a fault in sages.
Keep your dignity, and keep to what you're worth, And leave the boon companions their jokes and mirth.
Story 16
One of my companions came to me complaining of hard times. "I have a small income," he said, "and a large family, and I cannot bear the weight of want. Many times it has crossed my mind to move to another country, so that however I manage to live, no one will know whether I am doing well or badly."
Many a man goes to bed hungry, and nobody knows; Many a man comes to his last breath, and no one weeps as he goes.
"Then again, I think of how my enemies would gloat: how they would laugh at me behind my back, put down my efforts for my family to a want of manly honor, and say:
'Don't even look at him, that man without honor: he'll never See good fortune's face, not for a single day; He picks an easy life for himself, and leaves His wife and children to hardship, and goes his way.'"
"I know something of accounting, as you are aware. If, through your influence, some post could be found for me that would give me peace of mind, I could not finish thanking you for the favor in all the rest of my life." I said, "Brother, the king's service has two sides, hope and fear: that is, hope of bread and fear for your life. And it goes against the judgment of the wise to expose yourself to that fear for the sake of this hope."
No one comes to the house of a dervish Demanding his tax on land and his garden's share; Either be content with worry and grief, Or lay out your own heart's flesh for the crows to tear.
He said, "That isn't to the point in my case, and you haven't answered my question. Haven't you heard that it's the man who plays false whose back shivers when the accounts are read?"
God is pleased by honesty, the straight way; I never saw a man on the straight road go astray.
"And the sages say that four kinds of people fear four others with all their souls: the outlaw fears the sultan, the thief the watchman, the adulterer the informer, and the harlot the officer who polices morals. But a man whose books are clean, what has he to fear from the auditor?"
Don't overstep in office, if you'd have Your enemies short of room when your accounts are shown; Keep clean, my brother, and fear no one: It's the dirty clothes that washermen beat on the stone.
I said, "The story of the fox fits your case. They saw him running away, beside himself, tumbling and scrambling. Someone said to him, 'What calamity has given you such a fright?' He said, 'I've heard they're rounding up camels for forced labor.'
"The other said, 'You idiot! What have camels to do with you, and what do you have in common with a camel?' He said, 'Hush! If the envious say out of spite that I'm a camel, and I'm caught, who is going to care enough about getting me out to look into my case? By the time the antidote arrives from Iraq, the snakebitten man is dead.' You too have merit and piety, devotion and honesty; but the captious lie in ambush and the accusers lurk in every corner. If they describe your good conduct as its opposite and you are called to answer before the king, will there be any room to speak then? The wise thing, then, as I see it, is for you to keep guard over the kingdom of contentment and give up the thought of rank."
The sea has countless gains in store; But if it's safety you want, it's on the shore.
My companion heard this, flared up, frowned at my story, and began saying hurtful things: "What kind of sense and competence is this, what kind of understanding and judgment? The sages' saying has come true: friends are useful in prison, for at the dinner table every enemy looks like a friend."
Don't count him a friend who, while your luck is good, Boasts of loyalty and sworn brotherhood; The friend I know will grip his friend's hand tight When he is ruined and stranded, in a desperate plight.
I saw that he was turning against me and hearing my advice as malice. I went to the head of the chancery, on the strength of an old acquaintance between us, explained my companion's situation, and spoke of his fitness and his deserving, until they appointed him to a minor post. Some time went by; they saw his fine nature and approved of his good management, his affairs went beyond that post, and he was established in a higher rank. In this way his lucky star kept rising until it reached the height of his wishes, and he was close to the throne, a man people pointed out and relied upon. I rejoiced at his good fortune and said:
Don't fret when things are stuck, and don't lose heart: The Water of Life flows in the darkest part. Let no one in his trouble cry out in despair: The Merciful keeps hidden kindnesses in His care. Don't let the turning days make you sour: Patience is bitter, but sweet fruit comes in its hour.
Around that time I happened to set out on a journey with a party of friends. When I was coming back from the pilgrimage to Mecca, he came two stages out to meet me. I saw that he looked wretched, dressed like a dervish. I said, "What has happened?" He said, "Just what you said would happen. Some people grew envious and accused me of dishonesty; the king (may his reign endure) did not trouble to get to the bottom of it; and my old companions and close friends kept silent when they should have spoken the truth, and forgot our long friendship.
'Don't you see how, before a man of rank, They stand to praise him, hands on their breasts, heads bowed? If fortune should ever bring him down, His head is under the feet of the whole crowd.'
"In short, I was suffering every kind of punishment until this week, when the good news came that the pilgrims were safely home; then he released me from my heavy chains and confiscated the estate I had inherited." I said, "That time, you would not take my hint, when I told you that serving kings is like a voyage at sea, dangerous and profitable: either you carry off the treasure, or you die in the spell that guards it."
Either the merchant hugs his gold with both hands, Or the waves one day throw him up dead on the sands.
I did not think it right to scratch at the wound inside him any further with reproaches, or to sprinkle salt on it. We kept to these few words:
Didn't you know you'd see the chains on your feet, When you wouldn't hear the counsel people bring? Next time, since you can't bear the pain of it, Don't put your finger where the scorpion can sting.
Story 17
There were several travelers on the Sufi path in my company, outwardly adorned with piety, and one of the great men had formed a very high opinion of them and fixed an allowance for them; until one of them did something unbecoming in a dervish. The man's good opinion went bad, and their stock went down. I wanted to find some way to save my companions' allowance, and set out to wait on him. His doorkeeper would not let me in and treated me rudely; and I excused him, for the wits have said:
Don't go near the door of an emir, a vizier or a sultan Without someone to introduce you to them; When the dog and the doorkeeper find a stranger, One grabs him by the collar, one by the hem.
As soon as the great man's intimates learned of my standing there, they showed me in with honor and set me a higher place; but I humbly sat lower down and said:
Allow me, the least of your slaves, to go And sit down with the servants in their row.
He said, "Heavens! What a thing to say!
"Though you sat on our very head and eyes, I'd bear the load, for you're the one we prize."
In short, I sat down and talked of this and that, until the matter of my companions' lapse came up, and I said:
What crime has my lord, so generous before, now found, That he looks on his servant with contempt today? To God alone belong true greatness and command: He sees the crime, and does not take the bread away.
The governor was greatly pleased with what I said, and ordered that my companions' livelihood be provided as before, and the allowance for the days it had lapsed be paid in full. I gave thanks for his kindness, kissed the ground in homage, and asked pardon for my boldness; and as I was leaving, I said:
Since the Kaaba is where all who are in need must turn, People travel many leagues from distant lands to see; You'll have to bear with the likes of us, for no one Will throw a stone at a fruitless tree.
Story 18
A prince inherited a great treasure from his father. He opened the hand of generosity, gave liberality its full due, and poured out bounty without stint on his army and his subjects.
A box of aloes wood does nothing for the nose; Put it on the fire, and it smells like ambergris instead. If you want greatness, be generous: A seed won't sprout until it has been spread.
One of his companions, a man of no judgment, began to give him advice. "The kings before you," he said, "gathered this wealth by hard work and laid it by for a purpose. Hold your hand back from what you are doing, for there are disasters ahead and enemies behind you: you must not be left helpless when the need comes."
Hand out a treasure to the people, and each Household will get a grain of rice, no more; Why not take a barleycorn of silver from everyone, And always have another treasure in store?
The prince frowned at this, rebuked the man, and said, "God Most High has made me master of this kingdom to eat and to give, not a watchman to keep guard over it."
Korah had forty houses of treasure, and perished all the same; Nushirvan never died, because he left a good name.
Story 19
They say that at a hunting ground they were roasting game for Nushirvan the Just, and there was no salt. A servant boy went to the village to fetch some. Nushirvan said, "Pay for the salt, so that it doesn't become a custom and the village isn't ruined." They said, "What harm can come of so little?" He said, "Injustice in the world started small, and everyone who came along added to it, until it reached the size it is now."
If the king eats one apple from his subjects' orchard, His slaves will tear the tree up, roots and every bit; For five eggs the sultan lets them take by force, His soldiers will put a thousand hens on the spit.
Story 20
I heard of a heedless man who would ruin the subjects' houses to fill the sultan's treasury, ignorant of the saying of the sages: "Whoever offends God (mighty and glorious is He) to win the heart of a creature, God Most High will set that same creature on him, to wipe him off the face of the earth."
What blazing fire does to the seed of rue is less Than what is done by the smoke of a heart in distress.
They say the lion is the chief of all the animals, and the donkey the lowest of the beasts; yet everyone agrees that a donkey that carries loads is better than a lion that tears men apart.
The poor donkey may be dull and dim, But it carries loads, and so we value him. The ox and the donkey that carry loads are of more worth Than men who torment the people of the earth.
Now back to the story of the heedless vizier. The king came to know his vile character from the signs of it, put him to the torture, and had him killed with every kind of punishment.
You won't win the sultan's favor till you find A way to keep his servants' hearts in mind. Do you want God to give you of His grace? Be good to God's creatures, the whole human race.
They say that one of the men he had wronged passed by him, looked at the ruin he was in, and said:
Not everyone whose office gives him strength of arm Can use the sultan's power to eat up people's goods and not pay; You can force a hard bone down your throat, But when it reaches the navel, it tears the belly on its way. The wicked tyrant does not remain; The curse that lies on him will always remain.
Story 21
They tell of a soldier who liked to hurt people, who hit a good man on the head with a stone. The dervish had no way to take revenge. He kept the stone by him, until the time came when the king grew angry with that soldier and threw him into a well. Then the dervish came and smashed the stone down on his head. He said, "Who are you, and why did you hit me with this stone?" He said, "I am So-and-so, and this is the same stone you hit me on the head with on such-and-such a day." He said, "Where have you been all this time?" He said, "While you were up high, I was afraid of you. Now that I've seen you at the bottom of a well, I took my chance."
When you see a worthless man whom fortune has blessed, The wise have always held submission best. If you have no sharp claws to tear and fight, Pick fewer quarrels with the beasts that bite. Whoever tries his grip against a steel arm Has done his own poor wrist the only harm. Wait till the days have tied his hands up tight, Then dash his brains out, to your friends' delight.
Story 22
One of the kings had a terrible disease, which it is better not to name again. A group of Greek physicians agreed that there was no cure for this illness except the gall of a man with certain particular qualities. The king ordered such a man to be found.
They found a peasant's son with just the qualities the physicians had described. The king summoned his father and mother and made them content with boundless wealth, and the qadi, the judge of the religious law, gave a ruling that it was lawful to shed the blood of one of the subjects for the sake of the king's health. The executioner made ready. The boy raised his head toward the sky and smiled. The king asked him, "What is there to laugh at, in this situation?" He said, "A child looks to his father and mother to be cherished; a case is brought before the qadi; and justice is asked of the king. Now my father and mother have handed me over to be killed for the trash of this world, the qadi has ruled that I may be put to death, and the sultan sees his own good in my destruction. Except for God (mighty and glorious is He), I see no refuge."
Whom can I cry to against what you do, When I must ask for justice against you from you?
The sultan's heart was shaken by these words. The tears came into his eyes, and he said, "It is better for me to die than to shed innocent blood." He kissed the boy's head and eyes, took him in his arms, gave him boundless gifts and set him free; and they say the king was cured that same week.
I still think of the couplet spoken by the man Who drove the elephants where the Nile's waters ran: "If you knew how the ant beneath your foot must feel: It's how you feel beneath the elephant's heel."
Story 23
One of the slaves of 'Amr ibn Layth, the Saffarid king, had run away. Men went after him and brought him back. The vizier had a grudge against him and advised that he be put to death, so that the other slaves would not try the same thing. The slave laid his head on the ground before 'Amr and said:
Whatever happens to my head, if you approve, is fair; What claim can a slave make? The judgment is the master's affair.
"But since I was raised on the bounty of this house, I would not want you to be held to account for my blood on the Day of Resurrection. Give me leave to kill the vizier; then order my blood to be shed in retaliation for his, so that you will have killed me justly." The king laughed. He said to the vizier, "What do you advise?" He said, "Lord of the world, for God's sake, set this brazen fellow free, as alms for your father's grave, before he gets me into some disaster. The fault is mine, and the sages were right when they said:
'When you go to war with a man who is throwing dirt, You're the fool: it's your own head that ends up hurt; When you shoot an arrow at your enemy's face, Know that you've sat yourself down in the target's place.'"
Story 24
The king of Zuzan, a town in Khorasan, had a minister of noble spirit and good report, who served everyone to their faces and spoke well of them behind their backs. It happened that something he did displeased the sultan, who confiscated his property and had him punished. But the king's officers remembered the favors he had done them in the past and felt bound to him in gratitude; and while he was in their custody they treated him gently and kindly, and would not allow him to be harshly handled or punished.
If you want peace with an enemy, then when he runs you down Behind your back, be sure to praise him when you meet; A spiteful man's mouth will have its say in the end: If you don't want his words bitter, make his mouth sweet.
He paid off part of what the king's order demanded, and for the rest he stayed in prison. They say that one of the kings of the neighboring lands sent him a secret message: "The kings of that country did not know the worth of so great a man, and treated him with disrespect. If the noble mind of So-and-so (may God grant him a happy release) should ever turn our way, every effort will be made to show him the highest regard. The notables of this kingdom long to see him, and await his answer to this letter."
The minister learned of this and, thinking of the danger, at once wrote a short answer on the back of the sheet, as he thought best, and sent it off. One of the household found out and informed the king: "So-and-so, whom you put in prison, is corresponding with the kings of the neighboring lands." The king flared up and ordered the matter looked into. They caught the messenger and read the letter. It said:
"The good opinion of great men is more than my merit deserves, and the honor of the invitation they have offered is one their servant cannot accept, because he was raised on the bounty of this house, and a man cannot be disloyal to his benefactor over a small change in his favor; as they say:
'The man who shows you kindness every day you live, If he wrongs you once in his whole life, forgive.'"
The king was pleased by his loyalty, gave him a robe of honor and gifts, and asked his pardon. "I was wrong," he said, "to hurt you, when you had done nothing wrong." He said, "My lord, your servant sees no fault in his lord in this. It was the decree of God Most High that something unpleasant should happen to your servant; and so it was better that it should come by your hand, since you have done your servant favors and kindnesses in the past. And the sages have said:
'If people hurt you, don't grieve or complain: From people comes neither comfort nor pain. Know that God is behind the ill will of friend and foe: The hearts of both are in His hands, and He turns them so. Though it's the bow from which the arrow flies, It is the archer who is seen by the wise.'"
Story 25
I heard of one of the kings of Arabia who said to his officials, "Double So-and-so's allowance, whatever it is now, for he is always at court, waiting for my orders, while the other servants are busy with amusements and games, and slack in their duty."
A man of heart heard this and cried out with a groan that came from the depths of him. They asked him, "What did you see?" He said, "The ranks of the servants at the court of God Most High are just like this."
Come to serve at the king's door two mornings in a row, And on the third his kindly look is sure to show. Rank comes from doing as you're told; Disobey, and you'll be left out in the cold. Whoever wears the look of the upright and just Lays his head in service on the threshold's dust.
Story 26
They tell of a tyrant who would buy the poor men's firewood at a cheat's price and force it on the rich at his own. A man of heart passed by him and said:
You're a snake that bites whoever comes in sight, Or an owl that brings ruin wherever you alight. Your strength may get its way with us; It won't with God, who sees what's hidden from our eyes. Don't use your strength against the people of the earth, Or a prayer against you will go up to the skies.
The governor was offended by what he said, frowned at his advice, and paid him no attention; until one night the kitchen fire caught in his woodstore and burned everything he owned, and moved him from his soft bed to a warm bed of ashes. It happened that the same man passed by him and heard him saying to his friends, "I don't know how this fire got into my house." He said, "From the poor men's hearts."
Beware the pain of hearts that are wounded deep, For an inner wound will fester, and at last will break; Don't overturn a heart, as long as you can help it, For a single sigh can make a whole world shake.
On the crown of Kay Khosrow, the great king of the Shahnameh, was written:
Through how many years and long lifetimes ahead Will people walk the earth above my head! As the kingdom came to me, from hand to hand down the line, So it will pass to other hands from mine.
Story 27
There was a man who had risen to the top in the art of wrestling. He knew three hundred and sixty fine holds, and every day he wrestled with a different one. But a corner of his heart was drawn to the good looks of one of his pupils, and he taught him three hundred and fifty-nine holds, all but one, which he kept putting off and holding back. In short, the youth rose to the top in strength and skill, and no one of his time could stand up to him; so much so that he said before the king of the day, "Whatever superiority the master has over me comes from his seniority and his right as my teacher. Otherwise I am no weaker than he is in strength, and in skill I am his equal." The king took this badly, and ordered them to wrestle.
They laid out a wide arena, and the great men of the state, the notables of the court and the strongmen of the whole earth came. The youth came in like a raging elephant, with a charge that would have torn a mountain of brass from its place. The master knew that the young man was stronger than he was, and he closed with him using the rare hold he had kept hidden from him. The youth did not know the defense against it, and was thrown into confusion. The master lifted him off the ground with both hands, raised him above his head and slammed him down. A roar went up from the crowd. The king ordered a robe of honor and gifts for the master, and rebuked and scolded the youth: "You claimed to be a match for the man who trained you, and you couldn't carry it through." He said, "Your Majesty, he didn't beat me by strength. There was one fine point of wrestling I still lacked, which he kept from me all my life; and today he beat me with that fine point."
The master said, "I kept it for just such a day; for the shrewd have said, 'Don't give your friend so much strength that he could do you harm if he turned enemy.' Haven't you heard what the man said who was badly treated by his own pupil?
'Either there was never loyalty in the world, Or no one practices it today; No one ever learned archery from me Who did not end by aiming it my way.'"
Story 28
A dervish who had given up the world was sitting in a corner. A king passed by. The dervish, with the ease of one who rules the kingdom of contentment, did not raise his head or take any notice. The sultan, with the pride of one who rules a kingdom of this world, was offended and said, "These people in patched cloaks are no better than animals: they have no merit and no humanity." The vizier went up to him and said, "My good man, the sultan of the whole earth passed by you. Why didn't you show him some service, and observe the rules of courtesy?" He said, "Tell the sultan to expect service from someone who expects favors from him. And tell him this as well: kings exist to guard their subjects, not subjects to obey kings."
The king is the dervish's guardian, Though the people's ease is his glory's to keep; The sheep is not there for the shepherd's sake: The shepherd is there to serve the sheep. Today you see one man with all he desires, Another with his heart rubbed raw by struggle and strain; Wait a few days, until the earth has fed On the dreamer's scheming brain. The line between the king and the slave is gone When the sentence written for us draws near; If someone digs up the dust of the dead, No rich man and no poor man will appear.
The king found the dervish's words sound. He said, "Ask me for something." He said, "What I want is for you not to trouble me again." He said, "Then give me some advice." He said:
Make the most of it now, while the blessing is in your hand: This fortune and this kingdom pass from hand to hand.
Story 29
One of the viziers went to Dhu'l-Nun of Egypt, the great Sufi saint, and asked for the help of his spiritual power: "Day and night I am busy serving the sultan, hoping for his favor and afraid of his punishment." Dhu'l-Nun wept and said, "If I worshipped God (mighty and glorious is He) the way you worship the sultan, I would be one of the saints."
Without the hope of comfort and the dread of pain, The dervish would set his foot upon the sky; And if the vizier feared God the way he fears the king, He would be an angel, and stand as high.
Story 30
A king ordered an innocent man to be put to death. He said, "Your Majesty, don't do yourself harm because of the anger you feel against me. This punishment will be over for me in one breath, and the sin of it will stay with you for ever."
The span of life has passed, like the desert wind; The bitter and the sweet, the ugly and the fair have passed; The tyrant thought it was us he was wronging: It stayed upon his neck, and from us it has passed.
The king took his advice to heart, and let the matter of his blood pass.
Story 31
Nushirvan's viziers were considering some important matter of state, and each of them offered a different opinion; and the king, too, thought out a plan of his own.
Bozorgmehr chose the king's plan.
The viziers said to him privately, "What merit did you see in the king's opinion, over the thinking of so many sages?"
He said, "Since the outcome of things is unknown, and whether anyone's opinion turns out right or wrong lies in the will of God, it is better to agree with the king's opinion; then, if it turns out wrong, I am safe from blame, because I followed him."
Contradict the sultan, and you might As well wash your hands in your own blood outright. If he says of broad day, "It's night," You must say, "Look, there's the moon, and the Pleiades in sight!"
Story 32
An impostor braided his hair into long locks, claiming, "I'm a descendant of 'Ali"; came into a city with the caravan from the Hejaz, claiming, "I'm just back from the pilgrimage"; and brought the king an ode, claiming, "I wrote it."
The king gave him many gifts and treated him with honor; until one of the king's boon companions, who had come back from a sea voyage that year, said, "I saw him in Basra at the Feast of Sacrifice, the very day the pilgrims are at Mecca!" That settled it: he had not been on the pilgrimage. Another said, "His father was a Christian in Malatya; how can he be a descendant of 'Ali?" And they found his poem in the collected works of Anvari, the great court poet.
The king ordered him to be beaten and banished, for telling such a jumble of lies.
He said, "Lord of the earth, let me say just one more thing to you; if it isn't true, I deserve whatever punishment you order."
He said, "Go on, then; what is it?"
He said:
If a stranger sets out yogurt for you, what you've got Is two jugs of water and one ladle of buttermilk in the pot; If you want the truth, then hear it from me: A man who's seen the world will lie a lot.
The king laughed and said, "He has never said a truer thing in all his life."
He ordered that what the man had hoped for be made ready, and that he be sent off happy.
Story 33
One of the viziers was merciful to those under him and used his good offices on their behalf.
It happened that he fell into the king's displeasure.
Everyone worked for his release; his guards were gentle in carrying out his punishment; and the great men spoke openly of his good character; until the king let his anger go.
A man of heart learned of this and said:
To win the hearts of friends, Selling your father's orchard is better; To keep the pot boiling for those who wish you well, Burning every stick in the house is better; Do good even to the man who wishes you ill: A dog's mouth sewn shut with a morsel is better.
Story 34
One of the sons of Harun al-Rashid, the caliph, came to his father in a rage: "So-and-so, an officer's son, insulted my mother."
Harun said to the great men of the court, "What should the punishment be for a man like that?"
One suggested death, another cutting out his tongue, another confiscation and exile.
Harun said, "My son, the generous thing is to forgive him. If you can't, then insult his mother back, but not so far that your revenge goes beyond the limit; for then the wrong would be on our side, and the right to complain on our opponent's."
The wise will not call him a man Who takes on a raging elephant to fight; No, the real man, if you look closely, Is the one who, when angry, says only what is right.
Story 35
I was sitting in a boat with a party of great men.
A skiff went down behind us, and two brothers were caught in a whirlpool.
One of the great men said to the boatman, "Save them both, and I'll give you fifty dinars for each."
The boatman dived into the water, and by the time he had rescued one, the other had drowned.
I said, "His life had run out; that is why there was delay in catching him, and haste with the other."
The boatman laughed and said, "What you say is certain. But there's more: I wanted to save this one more than the other, because once, when I was stranded in the desert, he put me up on a camel; and from the other one I got a whipping when I was a child."
I said, "God speaks the truth in the Qur'an: 'Whoever does good does it for his own soul, and whoever does evil does it against himself.'"
As long as you can, don't scratch at anyone's heart, For this road has thorns of its own; Help the poor dervish get his business done, For you will have business of your own.
Story 36
There were two brothers: one served the sultan, and the other ate bread earned by the strength of his own arm.
Once the rich one said to the poor one, "Why don't you take service, and be spared the drudgery of work?"
He said, "Why don't you work, and be spared the humiliation of service? For the wise have said: Better to eat your own bread and sit at ease than to buckle on a gold sword belt and stand in service."
Better to knead hot quicklime with your bare hand Than fold it on your breast at an emir's command. All my precious life was spent on this: What to eat in summer, and what to wear in snow. Greedy belly, make do with a single loaf, So you won't bend your back double, bowing low.
Story 37
Someone brought good news to Nushirvan the Just: "I've heard that God (mighty and glorious is He) has taken away So-and-so, your enemy."
He said, "And have you heard anything about His passing me over?"
The death of an enemy is nothing to cheer: We ourselves will not be for ever here.
Story 38
A group of sages were discussing some matter at Nushirvan's court, and Bozorgmehr, the chief of them, kept silent.
They said to him, "Why don't you speak with us in this debate?"
He said, "Viziers are like physicians, and a physician gives medicine only to the sick. Since I see that your opinion is sound, there's no wisdom in my speaking on top of it."
When things go well without my meddling in, It isn't proper for me to begin; But if I see a blind man near a pit, Then it's a sin for me to hold my tongue and sit.
Story 39
When the kingdom of Egypt was surrendered to Harun al-Rashid, he said, "Unlike that rebel Pharaoh, who was so proud of ruling Egypt that he claimed to be God, I will give this kingdom to none but the lowest of my slaves."
He had a Black slave named Khasib, as ignorant as a man can be. He gave him the kingdom of Egypt; and they say his sense and judgment went so far that when a group of Egyptian farmers came to complain to him, "We had planted cotton, and an unseasonable rain came and it was ruined," he said, "You should have planted wool!"
If learning made a man's living grow, No one would be poorer than those who don't know. The fools are given such a living that the wise Are left there helpless, and can't believe their eyes. Luck and power are not the prize of skill: They come from heaven's help, and heaven's will. Many times the world has seen it so: The fool held high, the man of sense brought low. The alchemist died in misery and toil; The fool found treasure in a ruin's soil.
Story 40
They brought one of the kings a Chinese slave girl. He wanted to lie with her while he was drunk, and the girl refused him. The king flew into a rage and gave her to a Black slave whose upper lip rose above his nostrils and whose lower lip hung down to his collar: a figure at whose face the demon Sakhr, who stole Solomon's ring, would have run away, and from whose armpit the spring of molten brass that flowed for Solomon would have caught a stench.
You'd say that, till the Resurrection, ugliness has found its place In him, as beauty did in Joseph's face.
As the wits have said:
A creature so revolting His ugliness can't be described to anyone; And then an armpit, God preserve us, like A carcass in the August sun.
They say that at that time the Black slave's lust was up and his desire too strong for him; his love was stirred, and he broke her seal. In the morning, when the king looked for the girl and could not find her, they told him the story. He was furious, and ordered that the slave and the girl be tied fast together and thrown from the roof of the palace into the depths of the moat. One of the viziers, a man of good character, laid his face on the ground to plead for them and said, "The poor slave is not at fault in this, since all your servants and attendants are used to Your Majesty's gifts." The king said, "What would it have mattered if he had put off his pleasure with her for one night? I would have rewarded him with more than the girl was worth." He said, "Lord of the earth, haven't you heard?
'When a man parched with thirst comes to a clear spring, Don't think he'll give a raging elephant a thought; A hungry heretic in an empty house, at a laden table: Reason can't believe he'd give Ramadan a thought.'"
The king liked this witticism and said, "Very well, I give you the slave. What shall I do with the girl?" He said, "Give the girl to the slave, for what he has half eaten is fit only for him."
Never accept as your beloved Someone who's been where they should not; A thirsty heart won't want clear water Half drunk by a mouth gone to rot.
Story 41
They asked Alexander the Great, "How did you take the lands of the East and the West? The kings before you had more treasure and more years, more land and more troops than you, and they never won such a conquest." He said, "With the help of God (mighty and glorious is He), whatever kingdom I took, I did not harm its people, and I never spoke of its kings except with good words."
The wise will not give a man a great man's name Who speaks of the names of great men to their shame.
Chapter 2: On the Character of Dervishes
Story 1
One of the great men asked a holy man, "What do you say of So-and-so the devotee, whom others have spoken of with scorn?"
He said, "In what shows I see no fault, and what doesn't show I can't know."
When you see a man in a holy man's dress, Count him holy, and think him a good man too; If you don't know what he keeps out of sight, What has the officer who polices morals inside his house to do?
Story 2
I saw a dervish rubbing his head on the threshold of the Kaaba and saying, "O Forgiving One, O Merciful! You know what to expect from a creature the Qur'an calls unjust and ignorant."
I've come with excuses for failing to serve, For I can't rely on the times I've obeyed; The sinners repent of the wrongs they have done; Those who know God ask pardon for having prayed.
Worshippers want wages for their worship, and merchants a price for their merchandise. I, Your servant, have brought hope, not worship; I have come begging, not bargaining.
Deal with me as befits You.
At the door of the Kaaba I saw a man begging, Who wept his heart out as he spoke, and said: "I don't ask You to accept my worship: Just draw the pen of pardon through my sins instead."
Story 3
They saw 'Abd al-Qadir of Gilan, the great saint of Baghdad (God have mercy on him), in the sanctuary of the Kaaba with his face laid on the pebbles, saying, "Lord, forgive me! And if I truly deserve punishment, raise me blind on the Day of Resurrection, so that I am not put to shame before the faces of the good."
Face down in the dust of my weakness, I say, Every dawn, as the morning breeze comes: "You whom I never once forget, Does any thought of Your servant ever come?"
Story 4
A thief got into a holy man's house. He searched and searched and found nothing, and was disheartened. The holy man knew it, and threw the blanket he had been sleeping on into the thief's path, so that he should not go away empty-handed.
I've heard that the men of God's way Never made even an enemy's heart sore; How will you ever reach that rank, When with your own friends you're at war?
The love of the pure in heart is the same to your face and behind your back; not like those who run you down when you're gone and would die for you when you're there.
Before you, a lamb that would not bite; Behind you, a wolf with a man-eater's appetite. Whoever brings you others' faults and tells them one by one Will surely take your faults to others when he's done.
Story 5
A few wandering dervishes had agreed to travel together, sharing the hardships and the comforts. I asked to go along; they would not go along with it. I said, "It is not like the generous ways of great men to turn their faces from the company of the poor and grudge them the benefit and the blessing. I know I have the strength and the speed in me to serve men as a help on the road and not a load on the mind."
If I can't ride with you on the animals you lead, I'll run on foot and carry the saddle-cloths you need.
One of them said, "Don't be hurt by what you've just heard. A few days ago a thief came along looking like a dervish and threaded himself into our circle."
How can people know who's at home behind the door? Only the writer knows what the letter has in store.
And since dervishes live in peace and good faith, they never suspected him of mischief, and took him in as a friend.
To the eye, those who know God wear only the patched cloak; That much is enough, since it's the side they turn to the folk. Wear what you like, but labor at what you do: Put on a crown, and shoulder a banner too. [Holiness is giving up the world, its lust and its desire, Not only giving up fine attire.] It takes a man inside the quilted coat of war; On an effeminate, what are the weapons for?2
One day we had walked until nightfall, and at night we slept at the foot of a fortress wall, when the luckless thief picked up a companion's water jug as if he were going off to wash for prayer; he was going off to rob.
See the holy man: he has put on the patched cloak, and over A donkey's back he has thrown the Kaaba's cover.
As soon as he was out of the dervishes' sight, he climbed a turret and stole a casket. By the time the day grew light, that dark soul had gone a good way down the road, and his blameless companions were still asleep. In the morning they hauled us all into the fortress, beat us, and threw us in prison. From that day on we gave up company and took the road of solitude.
And safety lies in being alone.
When one of a band does a thing that's unwise, No standing is left to the great or the small; Haven't you heard how a single ox at the trough Can foul the oxen of the village, one and all?
I said, "Thanks and gratitude to God (mighty and glorious is He) that I have not been cut off from the blessing of dervishes, though in outward form I have been parted from their company. I have profited from the story you told me, and people like me will find this advice useful all their lives."
With one rough-hewn fellow in the room, The hearts of the wise are filled with gloom. If they fill a whole pool with rose water, and a dog Falls in, it becomes a stinking bog.
Story 6
An ascetic was a king's guest. When they sat down to eat, he ate less than he wanted; and when they rose for prayer, he prayed longer than he was used to, so that they would think him all the holier.
I fear you'll never reach the Kaaba, Bedouin man: The road you're on is the road to Turkestan.
When he got home he called for the cloth to be spread so that he could eat. He had a son of sharp perception, who said, "Father, didn't you eat anything at the sultan's table?" He said, "In front of them I ate nothing that counted." The son said, "Then make up your prayers as well, for you did nothing there that counted either."
You who hold your virtues out on the palm of your hand, And keep your faults tucked away under your arm, What do you think you'll buy, you vain fool, With counterfeit silver, when you come to harm?
Story 7
I remember that in my childhood I was devout: I rose at night to pray, and I was passionate about piety and abstinence.
One night I was sitting up with my father (God have mercy on him). I had not closed my eyes all night, and I held the precious Qur'an in my lap, while a group of people slept around us.
I said to my father, "Not one of these people lifts his head to say even a short prayer of two bows. They are so fast asleep in their heedlessness you'd think they weren't sleeping but dead."
He said, "My dear boy, you would do better to be asleep yourself than to be tearing people to pieces."
The pretender sees nobody but himself, For conceit hangs a curtain in front of his view; If you were granted an eye that sees God, You'd see nobody weaker than you.
Story 8
A great man was being praised at a gathering, and they went on and on about his fine qualities.
He raised his head and said, "I am what I know I am."
Spare me the pain, you who count up my good: That's how I look outside; within, you've not understood. To the eyes of the world, my person looks fair; But for the foulness inside, I hang my head low; People admire the peacock for its colors and designs, And it is ashamed of its ugly feet below.
Story 9
One of the holy men of Lebanon, whose spiritual rank was talked of across the Arab lands and whose miracles were famous, came into the great mosque of Damascus and was washing for prayer at the edge of the Kallasa pool, when his foot slipped and he fell into the basin, and only got out of it with difficulty.
When they had finished the prayer, one of his companions said, "I have a difficulty, if I may ask."
He said, "What is it?"
He said, "I remember the sheikh, our master, walking on the Mediterranean without wetting his feet. What happened today, that in water no deeper than a man's height you came within a hair of drowning?"
The sheikh sank deep into thought, and after long reflection raised his head and said, "Haven't you heard that the Master of the World, the Prophet (peace be upon him), said, 'I have a time with God when there is no room beside me for the angel nearest the Throne, or for any prophet sent'? And he did not say 'always.' At a time like that, as he said, he had no attention to spare for Gabriel and Michael; and at other times he was content with his wives Hafsa and Zaynab."
The righteous behold God now revealed, now concealed.
They show themselves, and snatch themselves away.
You show your face, then hold yourself apart; You drive up your price, and fan the fire in our heart. I see the one I love with no veil, no go-between; Then a trance falls on me, and the road can't be seen.
Story 10
Someone once asked Jacob, who had lost his son, "Wise old man, whose soul is a shining one, You caught the scent of his shirt from Egypt, miles away: Why didn't you see him in the well of Canaan where he lay?" He said, "Our state is the lightning that crosses the sky: One moment it shows, the next it has passed by. Sometimes we sit on the highest heaven's seat; Sometimes we can't see the backs of our own feet. If a dervish could keep that state, and never fall, He would shake off both worlds from his sleeves, once and for all."
Story 11
Once, in the great mosque of Baalbek, I was giving a sermon to a congregation cold and dead at heart, people who had never found the way from the world of outward form to the world of meaning.
I saw that my words were not catching, and my fire was making no impression on the wet wood.
It seemed a waste to be training cattle and holding up a mirror in the street of the blind. But the door of meaning was open, and the chain of my talk ran long.
I was speaking on the meaning of the Qur'an's verse, "We are nearer to him than his jugular vein," and had brought the talk to the point where I said:
The Friend is closer to me than I am to me, And the hard part is, I'm so far away; What can I do? Whom can I tell? He is Here in my arms, and I am kept at bay.
I was drunk on the wine of these words, the dregs of the cup still in my hand, when a traveler passed by the edge of the gathering, and the last round of the cup took hold of him. He gave a cry, the others took up the cry with him, and the half-baked in the crowd came to the boil.
I said, "Glory be to God! The far who know are in His presence, and the near who cannot see are far away!"
If the listener can't take in what is said, Don't look for the speaker's gift to come through; Lay out a wide field of goodwill for the game, And the man with the words will hit the ball true.
Story 12
One night in the desert on the road to Mecca, I had no strength left in my legs for lack of sleep. I laid my head down and said to the camel driver, "Leave me be."
How far can a poor man walk on foot down the road, When even the strong camel is sick of its load? Before a fat man's body is worn down thin, A thin man has died of the hardship he's in.
He said, "Brother, the holy ground is ahead and the holdup men behind. Keep going and you win; go to sleep and you're done in."
It's sweet to sleep under the thorn trees on the desert way, The night the caravan leaves; but it's your life you pay.
Story 13
I saw a holy man on the seashore who had been mauled by a leopard, and no remedy would heal him.
He suffered from it a long time, and all the while he kept thanking God (mighty and glorious is He). They asked him, "What are you thanking Him for?" He said, "That I am stricken with suffering, not with sin."
If that dear Friend should give me up to a cruel death, Don't think that in that moment my life would be my care; I'd say, "What sin has this poor servant committed, To have hurt His heart?" That would be my care.
Story 14
A dervish fell into need and stole a blanket from a friend's house.
The magistrate ordered his hand cut off.
The owner of the blanket interceded for him: "I have forgiven him."
He said, "Your intercession will not make me set aside the punishment the law prescribes."
He said, "What you say is right. But whoever steals from property given in trust for charity is not liable to have his hand cut off; and, as the saying goes, a poor man owns nothing. Whatever dervishes have is held in trust for the needy."
The magistrate let him go, and began to reproach him:
"Was the world so narrow for you that you could find nowhere to steal except from the house of a friend like this?"
He said, "My lord, haven't you heard the saying: Clean out your friends' houses, and never knock at your enemies' doors?"
When hard times trap you, don't just sit there and despair: Skin your enemies; from your friends, take the sheepskin coats they wear.
Story 15
A king saw a holy man.
He said, "Do you ever think of me?"
He said, "Yes: whenever I forget God."
The man He drives from His side will run to everyone; The man He calls, He sends running to the door of none.
Story 16
One of the righteous saw in a dream a king in paradise and a holy man in hell.
He asked, "What earned the one his rise and the other his fall? For people believed the opposite."
A voice came: "This king is in paradise for his devotion to dervishes, and this holy man is in hell for courting kings."
What use are your patched cloak, your hair shirt, your rags? Keep yourself clear of the deeds that are blamed; There's no need for you to wear the coarse dervish cap: Have a dervish's nature, and wear a Tatar cap, unashamed.
Story 17
A man on foot, bareheaded and barefoot, came out of Kufa with the Hejaz caravan and joined us. He had no provisions at all.
He strutted along, saying:
I ride no mule, I carry no load like a camel's back; I'm lord of no subjects, and no king owns me; I don't fret for what I have, or grieve for what I lack; I draw an easy breath and spend my days carefree.
A man riding a camel said to him, "Dervish, where are you going? Turn back, or you'll die of hardship." He didn't listen, set foot in the desert, and went on.
When we reached the palm grove of Mahmud, death came for the rich man. The dervish came to his bedside and said, "We didn't die in the hard going; you died in the easy riding."
A man sat weeping all night by a sick man's bed; When day came, the sick man lived, and the weeper was dead. Many a swift horse has dropped by the way, While the lame donkey brought its life safe to the stall; We have buried many healthy men in the ground, And the wounded man did not die at all.
Story 18
A king sent for a devotee.
He thought, "I'll take some drug to make myself thin, and perhaps his good opinion of me will grow."
They say he took a deadly drug, and died.
I thought him a pistachio, all kernel within; He was an onion: skin upon skin upon skin. Holy men who turn their faces to the crowd Have their backs to Mecca when they've bowed. When a servant calls on his God, he ought To know no one but God: no other thought.
Story 19
Robbers fell on a caravan in the land of the Greeks and carried off goods beyond reckoning.
The merchants wept and wailed and called on God and the Prophet to intercede, and it did no good.
When the dark-souled robber has won the day, What does he care if the caravan weeps away?
Luqman the sage was in that caravan.
One of the caravan said to him, "Won't you give these men some advice and preach them a sermon, so that they'll let go of part of our goods? It would be a pity for so much wealth to go to waste."
He said, "It would be a pity to waste a word of wisdom on them."
Iron that the rot has eaten through No polisher can clean of the rust it's grown; What good is preaching to the black of heart? An iron nail will not go into stone.
Surely the fault lies with us.
In good times, take care of the broken in heart, For mending a poor man's heart turns trouble away; When a beggar comes to you pleading for something, Give it, or a tyrant will take it by force one day.
Story 20
However often the great Sheikh Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi (God have mercy on him) told me to give up sama', the Sufi gatherings for music and song, and urged me toward seclusion and solitude, the first flush of my youth would get the better of me, and passion and desire would go looking for it.
Against my teacher's judgment, I would take a step or two in that direction and have my share of the music and the company; and when my sheikh's advice came back to me, I would say:
If the qadi sat with us, he'd clap his hands with the song; If the officer who polices morals drank, he'd say the drunk did no wrong.
Until one night I came upon a gathering where I saw a singer in the middle of them:
His jangling plectrum, you'd say, was cutting your lifeline through; His voice was worse than the news of a father's death to you.
Sometimes his fellow drinkers put their fingers in their ears, and sometimes to their lips: "Quiet!"
Sweet singing moves us, and we long for the sound; But you, when you go quiet, are the sweetest singer around. Nobody enjoys you while you play, Except at the end, when you hush and go away. As soon as the harpist struck up and played, I turned to the host: "For God's sake," I prayed, "Pour quicksilver into my ears so I can't hear, Or open the door and let me disappear."
In short, to spare my friends' feelings, I went along with them, and after a long struggle got through the night to morning.
The muezzin sang out at the wrong hour, too soon: He doesn't know how much of the night has gone by; Ask my eyelashes how long the night was: Not for a moment has sleep come into my eye.
In the morning, as a mark of blessing, I took the turban from my head and a dinar from my belt, laid them in front of the singer, took him in my arms, and thanked him over and over.
My friends saw a devotion to him that was not like me, and put it down to a lightness in my head.
One of them let his tongue run on in complaint and began to reproach me: "What you've done doesn't fit the judgment of the wise, giving a sheikh's garment to a singer like that, who in all his life has never had a dirham in his palm or a scrap of silver in his tambourine."
A singer (heaven keep him far from this happy hall!) Whom no one ever saw twice in one place at all. As soon as the sound from his mouth first rose, The hair on everyone's body rose. The bird on the porch took flight in sheer dread; He tore up his throat and took the brains out of our head.
I said, "Better to shorten that tongue of complaint: it has been shown to me that this man works miracles."
He said, "Won't you tell me what kind, so that I too can seek his favor and ask forgiveness for the joke I made?"
I said, "Yes. It's because my great sheikh has told me time and again to give up sama', and preached to me eloquently, and it never went in at the ear of acceptance. Tonight my lucky star and blessed fortune guided me to this place, so that at this man's hands I have made my repentance: for the rest of my life I will never go near sama' or such company again!"
A lovely voice from a sweet palate, mouth and lips Will steal the heart, whether it sings or is still; But the Lovers' mode, and the Khorasan, and the Hejaz From the throat of a hateful singer sound ill.
Story 21
They asked Luqman, "From whom did you learn manners?"
He said, "From the ill-mannered. Whatever I saw them do that I disliked, I took care not to do."
No word is ever said in play That a man of sense won't learn from when he hears; But read a fool a hundred chapters of wisdom, And it all sounds like a game in his ears.
Story 22
They tell of a devotee who would eat sixty pounds of food in a night and say the whole Qur'an through in his prayers before dawn.
A man of heart heard of it and said, "If he had eaten half a loaf and gone to sleep, he would have done far better."
Keep the inside of you empty of food, And the light of knowing God will appear; You're empty of wisdom for one reason only: You're full of food right up to here.
Story 23
God's mercy held up the lamp of grace on the path of a man lost in forbidden things, until he came into the circle of those who seek the truth.
Through the blessing of the dervishes' company and the sincerity of their breath, his bad qualities were changed into good ones.
He had shortened his reach toward passion and desire, but the tongues of the scoffers were as long as ever about him: he was what he had always been, they said, and his piety and obedience were not to be trusted.
Pleading and repentance can save you from what God will do, But nothing can save you from what people say of you.
He could not bear the cruelty of their tongues, and took his complaint to his master on the Sufi path.
He answered him, "How will you ever give thanks enough for this blessing, that you are better than they think you?"
How long will you say, "The spiteful and envious Are combing poor me for faults, thread by thread; Sometimes they rise up to shed my blood, Sometimes they sit down to wish evil on my head"? Better be good, and have the world speak ill of you, Than be bad, and be thought good instead.
"But as for me," he said, "whom everyone thinks perfectly well of, while I am the very picture of imperfection: it is right for me to worry and to grieve."
From my neighbors' eyes I keep myself concealed; But God knows all my secrets, and all I have revealed. I've shut my door against the crowd, To keep them from spreading my faults about; What good's a shut door, when the One who knows the unseen Knows what's within and what's without?
Story 24
I complained to one of the sheikhs: "So-and-so has borne witness to my badness."
He said, "Shame him with your goodness."
Behave well, and the man who wishes you ill Will find no chance to speak of your faults, try as he will; When a lute is in tune, its strings kept in check, Why would the player ever wring its neck?
Story 25
One of the sheikhs of Syria was asked about the true nature of Sufism.
He said, "In the old days there was a band of people in the world who were disheveled outside and composed within; now there is a crowd who are composed outside and disheveled within."
Your heart running off each hour to some new place, You'll find no clearness, though you sit in retreat; And if you have rank and wealth, and farms and trade, With your heart on God, your solitude's complete.
Story 26
I remember one night I had walked all night with a caravan, and at dawn I slept at the edge of a wood.
A man in a frenzy, who was with us on that journey, gave a cry, set off into the desert, and did not rest for a moment.
When it was day, I said to him, "What was that state you were in?"
He said, "I saw the nightingales lamenting in the trees, and the partridges on the mountain, and the frogs in the water, and the beasts in the wood.
"And I thought it would be shameful for me to sleep on in heedlessness while they were all praising God."
At dawn last night a bird was singing its lament, And my reason, my patience, my strength, my wits all went. One of my devoted friends, it seems, Had caught the sound of the cry I sent; He said, "I'd never have believed That you'd be dazed like this by the cry of a bird." I said, "That is no way for a human to be: The bird singing praises to God, and I without a word."
Story 27
Once, on a journey to the Hejaz, a band of young men, men of heart, were my companions, keeping step with me on the road and keeping me company in talk.
Now and then they would hum a tune or recite a verse of mystical meaning; and there was a devotee on the road with us who disapproved of the dervishes' ways and knew nothing of their pain.
At last we came to the camp of the Banu Hilal. A Black boy came out of the Arab encampment and raised a voice that brought the birds down out of the air!
I saw the devotee's camel break into a dance, throw the devotee, and run off.
I said, "Sheikh, it moved an animal, and it makes no difference to you!"
Do you know what the nightingale said to me at the break of day? "What kind of man are you, who know nothing of love's way? The camel is in rapture and delight at the Arab's verse; If you've no taste for it, you're a brute whose nature is perverse." When the breezes blow across the pasture land, The willow branches bend; the hard rocks stand. Everything you see cries out His praise, far and near; The meaning of it is known to a heart that is all ear. The nightingale on its rose is not praising Him alone: Every thorn has a tongue to praise Him of its own.
Story 28
One of the kings came to the end of his days, and had no one to succeed him. He left a will that in the morning the first person to come in at the city gate should have the royal crown set on his head and the kingdom handed over to him.
As it happened, the first to come in was a beggar who had spent his whole life scraping together crusts and stitching together patches.
The great men of the state and the notables of the court carried out the king's will and handed over to him the keys of the fortresses and the treasuries, and he reigned for a while, until some of the emirs of the realm turned their necks away from obeying him, and kings on every side rose to contest the kingdom and drew up armies against him.
In short, the army and the people rose in turmoil, and some parts of his lands slipped out of his grip.
The dervish was sick at heart over this, until one of his old friends, who had been his companion in his days of poverty, came back from a journey and found him in this high position.
He said, "Thanks be to God (mighty and glorious is He) that your rose has come out of the thorn and the thorn out of your foot, and your high fortune has led you on, and luck and happiness have helped you along, until you have reached this rank. As the Qur'an says, with hardship comes ease."
A blossom will open, and then it will dry; A tree goes now naked, now clothed, as the seasons go by.
He said, "My dear friend, offer me your condolences: this is no time for congratulations. When you saw me last, I was worried about a loaf; today I am worried about a world."
If we lack the world, we ache with pain; If we have it, our love for it is a chain. There is no veil more troubling to the soul than this kind: Have it or not, it is torment to the mind. If you want to be rich, look for no other wealth But contentment, a fortune that's wholesome in every way; If a rich man pours gold into your lap, Don't think of his giving as merit he'll be paid one day; For I've often heard the great men say it: The patience of the poor is worth more than all the rich give away. When Bahram Gur, the hunter king, roasts a wild ass, it can't compare With a locust's leg that an ant brings as its share.
Story 29
Abu Hurayra, one of the Prophet's Companions (God be pleased with him), used to come every day to wait on the Chosen One, the Prophet (God bless him). He said, "Abu Hurayra, visit me every other day, and love will grow": that is, don't come every day, so that our love may increase.
Someone said to a man of heart, "For all the sun's beauty, we have never heard of anyone taking it for a friend or falling in love with it." He said, "That is because it can be seen every day, except in winter, when it is hidden away, and so is held dear."
There's nothing wrong with paying people a call, As long as you stop before they say, "Enough, that's all." Be the first to blame yourself, and then You'll never hear blame from other men.
Story 30
One of the great men had a contrary wind twisting in his belly. He could not hold it in, and out it came against his will. He said, "Friends, I had no choice in what I did; no sin has been written down against me; and my body has found relief. Be generous, then, and excuse me too."
The belly's a prison for wind, my sage; No sensible man keeps wind in a cage. When the wind's twisting your belly, let it depart: Wind in the belly is a weight on the heart. When a sour-faced, contrary friend turns to leave, Don't hold out a hand to stop him by the sleeve.
Story 31
I had grown weary of the company of my friends in Damascus, and I set out into the wilderness around Jerusalem and made friends with the animals.
Then came the time I was taken prisoner by the Franks, the Crusaders, and they set me to work alongside some Jews, digging clay in the moat of Tripoli.
One of the leading men of Aleppo, whom I had known before, passed by and recognized me, and said, "So-and-so! What has happened to you?"
I said, "What can I say?"
I kept running from people to the mountains and the plain, For I had no time for mankind; God was all on my mind; Imagine how I feel at this moment, when I have to make do Penned in a stable with the inhuman kind. Better with your feet in chains under friends' eyes Than with strangers in a garden of paradise.
He took pity on me, bought my release from bondage for ten dinars, took me with him to Aleppo, and married me to a daughter he had, with a bride-price of a hundred dinars.
Some time passed. She was bad-tempered, quarrelsome and disobedient; she began to let her tongue run, and to make my life a misery.
A bad wife in a good man's home Is hell in this world, before the world to come. Beware, beware of the bad wife's ire: "Our Lord, protect us from the torment of the Fire!"
Once, letting her tongue run in spite, she kept saying, "Aren't you the one my father bought back from the Franks?"
I said, "Yes, I'm the one. He bought me out of the Franks' chains for ten dinars, and made me your prisoner for a hundred."
I heard that a great man once snatched away A sheep from the jaws and claws of a wolf, its prey. That evening he set his knife at the sheep's throat, And the sheep's soul cried out against him, in a mournful note: "You snatched me out of the wolf's claws, it's true; But now I see the end: the wolf was you."
Story 32
One of the kings asked a devotee who had a family to keep, "How do you spend your precious time?" He said, "All night at my devotions, at dawn at my petitions, and all day at my provisions."
The king understood what the devotee was hinting at, and ordered an allowance set aside for his living, so that the burden of his family might be lifted from his heart.
You who are shackled by a family's chain, Don't dream of having any rest again. The cares of children, bread and clothes to buy, Will call you back from your journey to the sky. All day I plan how it is to be: At night, God shall have all of me. At night, as I bind myself to prayer and start, "What will my children eat at dawn?" fills my heart.
Story 33
One of the devotees lived in a forest and ate the leaves of the trees.
A king went to see him to pay his respects, and said, "If you think it right, I will build you a place in the city where you will have more leisure for worship than here, and others too can profit from the blessing of your breath and follow the example of your good works."
The ascetic did not take to the idea, and turned his face away.
One of the viziers said to him, "To spare the king's feelings, it would be proper for you to come into the city for a few days and see what the place is like. Then, if the purity of your precious time is clouded by the company of strangers, the choice is still yours."
They say the devotee came into the city, and they cleared the king's own garden palace for him, a place that opened the heart and eased the soul.
Its red roses were like the cheeks of the fair, Its hyacinths like the beloved's curling hair; For fear of the last cold of winter, the buds were still Like the nurse's babies, who have not yet drunk their fill. And boughs where the pomegranate flowers flare: Fire on the green tree, hanging there.
At once the king sent him a lovely slave girl:
A slip of the moon, made to lead holy men astray, With an angel's face, as lovely as a peacock's display; And once she'd been seen, no holy man Would have the patience to keep away.
And after her, in the same way, a slave boy of rare beauty and graceful build:
Men die of thirst around him, and he stands, A cupbearer who looks, and gives no drink from his hands. No eye could have its fill of him, no more Than a man with dropsy can drink his fill on the Euphrates' shore.
The devotee began eating delicious food and wearing fine clothes, enjoying fruits and scents and sweets, and gazing on the beauty of the slave boy and the slave girl. And the wise have said, "The curls of the beautiful are a chain on the foot of reason and a snare for the clever bird."
In your service I've staked my heart and my faith and all I knew; I'm the clever bird today, it's true, and the snare is you.
In short, his blessed state of inner composure had come to its decline, as the poet says:
Whoever he may be, jurist or master or disciple, Or an eloquent man of pure breath with a ready reply, Once he comes down into this base world, His foot gets stuck in the honey, like a fly.
Another time the king took a fancy to visit him.
He found the devotee changed from his former appearance: pink and white, grown fat, leaning on a silk brocade cushion, with the fairy-bodied slave boy standing over his head holding a peacock-feather fan.
He was glad to see him so well, and they talked of this and that, until at the end of their talk the king said, "No one in the world loves these two kinds of people as I do: the scholars and the ascetics."
His vizier, a philosopher who had seen the world and knew it shrewdly, was with him, and said, "My lord, the condition of friendship is that you do good to both kinds: give the scholars gold, so that they will read more; and give the ascetics nothing, so that they will stay ascetics."
A lady with a lovely face and a pure, fair skin: The paint, the patterns and the turquoise ring, she can do without; A dervish of good character and a pure nature: The bread of the Sufi lodge and the beggar's crust, he can do without. While I have, and want more of what I've got, They're right not to call me an ascetic: I'm not.
Story 34
In keeping with this, a king had an important matter come up. He said, "If this turns out as I wish, I'll give the ascetics so many dirhams."
When his wish came true and his worry was gone, keeping his vow became binding on him, since the condition had been met. He gave a purse of dirhams to one of his own slaves to spend on the ascetics.
They say the slave was clever and shrewd. He went around all day, came back at nightfall, kissed the dirhams, laid them before the king, and said, "I went all over looking for the ascetics, and I couldn't find any!"
He said, "What sort of story is this? As far as I know, there are four hundred ascetics in this kingdom."
He said, "Lord of the world, the one who is an ascetic won't take it, and the one who takes it is no ascetic."
The king laughed and said to his boon companions, "As much as I have devotion and regard for those who worship God, this impudent fellow has enmity and disregard; and the right is on his side!"
An ascetic who took the dinar and the dirham too: Go and find one more ascetic than he. He won't do.
Story 35
One of the learned, a man firm in his knowledge, was asked, "What do you say about bread from charitable endowments?"
He said, "If they take the bread to free their minds for worship, it is lawful; if they gather for worship to get the bread, it is forbidden."
Men of heart take bread to keep the corner where they kneel, Not keep the corner where they kneel to get a meal.
Story 36
A dervish came to a place whose owner was a generous soul. A company of learned and eloquent men were with him, each telling a witty story or a joke.
The dervish had come across the desert, worn out, and had eaten nothing.
One of them said, by way of teasing, "You must say something too."
He said, "I don't have learning and polish like the others, and I haven't read anything. Make do with one verse from me."
They all said eagerly, "Go on!"
He said:
I'm hungry, and facing a cloth of bread laid on the floor, Like a bachelor outside the women's bathhouse door.
His friends understood how desperate he was, and brought out the cloth.
The host said, "Friend, wait a little while: my servants are making grilled meatballs."
The dervish raised his head and said:
Tell your cooks they can let the meatballs be: Plain bread is a meatball to a hungry man like me.
Story 37
A disciple said to his master, "What shall I do? People are a torment to me: so many of them come to visit me that my time is all disturbed by their coming and going."
He said, "Lend something to every one of them who is poor, and ask something of every one who is rich, and not one of them will come near you again!"
If a beggar led the army of Islam in war, The infidels would run off to China for fear of what he'd ask for.
Story 38
A jurist said to his father, "None of these colorful, charming words of the preachers has any effect on me, because I don't see them doing anything that matches what they say."
They teach mankind to renounce the world and its gold, While they pile up the silver and grain they hold. A scholar who is all talk, with nothing to show: Whatever he says will take hold of no one, high or low. The scholar does no wrong; he's not the one who'll say "Don't do it" to the people, and do it himself anyway.
"Will you tell people to be good, and forget yourselves?" asks the Qur'an.
A scholar who lives for his pleasures and coddles his own hide Has lost himself: how can he be anyone's guide?
His father said, "My son, on the strength of an idle fancy you should not turn away from the teaching of those who give good counsel, accuse the scholars of going astray, and, looking for a scholar who never errs, cut yourself off from the benefits of learning; like the blind man who fell into the mud one night and kept calling, 'Muslims, somebody, hold up a lamp for me on my way!' A woman with a sense of humor heard him and said, 'You can't see the lamp: what would you see by the lamp?' In the same way, a preaching gathering is like a cloth merchant's shop: there, unless you pay cash, you take away no goods; and here, unless you bring devotion, you take away no blessing."
Take in the scholar's words with your soul's ear, Though his deeds don't match the words you hear; What the scoffer says is false, though it sounds deep: "How can a sleeper wake someone asleep?" A man should take advice in, and listen to it all, Even if he finds it written on a wall. A man of heart left the Sufi lodge for the college, And broke the bond of fellowship that the Path had tied. I said, "What is the difference between scholar and devotee, That made you choose this party, and the other set aside?" He said, "That one drags his own blanket clear of the waves; This one struggles to save the drowning from the tide."
Story 39
A man lay asleep drunk by the roadside, the reins of self-control gone from his hands.
A devotee passed by and looked down on him in that ugly state.
The young man raised his head from his drunken sleep and said:
"When they pass by what is idle, they pass by nobly," as the Qur'an says.
When you see a sinner, cover his shame and be kind; You who scorn what I do, why not pass with a noble mind? Holy man, don't turn your face from a sinner; Look upon him with a forgiving eye. If I'm no gentleman in what I do, You be a gentleman, and pass me by.
Story 40
A gang of louts set upon a dervish, said insulting things to him, beat him, and hurt him.
Unable to bear it, he took his complaint to his master on the Sufi path: "This is what happened."
He said, "My son, the dervish's patched cloak is the garment of acceptance. Whoever wears it and cannot bear to have things go against him is a pretender, and the cloak is forbidden him."
A stone won't muddy the waters of the sea in flood; Whoever knows God and is hurt is still shallow, and stirs up mud. If harm comes to you, bear it and don't complain: Forgiving washes you of sin, and leaves no stain. Brother, since you will be dust in the end, you must Become dust now, before you turn to dust.
Story 41
Listen to the story of a quarrel in Baghdad Between a banner and a curtain, and the words they had. Dusty from the road and sore from the stirrup's pace, The banner reproached the curtain to its face: "You and I are fellow slaves; we both belong To the sultan's court, and have served it all along. I've not rested one moment from service; by day Or by night I've been on the march and away. You've not been through toil or siege; you've never known The desert, the wind, the dust and the grit that's blown. I'm first in the march whenever there's work to do: Then why do they honor me less than you? You're among the servants with faces like the moon, With the slave boys who are scented like jasmine in bloom; I've fallen into the hands of the lads, and been bound, On the march, by the foot, and swung all around." It said, "My head is on the threshold, where it lies, Not, like yours, held up to the skies. Whoever holds his neck up high for nothing at all Will come down on that neck, and break it in the fall."
Story 42
A man of heart saw a strongman worked up into a fury, foaming at the mouth.
He said, "What's the matter with him?"
They said, "So-and-so insulted him."
He said, "This worthless fellow can lift three tons of stone, and he can't bear one word."
Give up boasting of your grip and claiming to be a man: Once your base self has beaten you, man or woman, it's the same case. If you can, put something sweet into someone's mouth; Manhood isn't putting your fist in someone's face. Even if he can split an elephant's brow, The man with no humanity is no man; The children of Adam are made of dust: If he isn't humble as dust, he is no man.
Story 43
I asked a great man about the ways of the brothers of purity. He said, "The least of it is that they put their friends' wishes before their own interests; and the sages have said, 'A brother who cares only for his own is no brother, and none of your own.'"
If your companion hurries ahead, he's no companion of yours; Don't bind your heart to someone whose heart isn't bound to yours. When your kin has no religion and no fear of sin, Cutting the tie is better than loving your kin.
I remember that a faultfinder objected to what I had said in this verse, and said, "God Most High has forbidden, in His glorious Book, the cutting of the ties of kinship, and commanded love of kin; and what you have said contradicts it." I said, "You are wrong: it agrees with the Qur'an:
"'If your father and mother strive to make you set up beside Me what you have no knowledge of, do not obey them.'"
A thousand kinsmen who are strangers to God would be well lost For one stranger who knows Him, whatever the cost.
Story 44
A gentle old man of Baghdad, well-bred, Gave his young daughter to a cobbler to wed. The stone-hearted little man bit her lip So hard that the blood began to drip. When her father saw her in the morning that way, He went to the bridegroom and had this to say: "You wretch, what teeth are these? Must you chew Her lip like that? It's not leather for a shoe!" This isn't a story I've told you in jest: Leave the joke aside, and take in the rest. A bad temper, once it has settled in to stay, Won't leave a man's nature till his dying day.
Story 45
They say a jurist had a daughter who was extremely ugly. She had come to a woman's age, and in spite of her trousseau and riches no one wanted to marry her.
Fine linen and brocade are ugly things to wear When the bride who wears them isn't fair.
In short, out of necessity, they married her to a blind man.
They say that around that time a physician had come from Serendip, as Ceylon was called, who could make the blind see.
They said to the jurist, "Why don't you have your son-in-law treated?"
He said, "I'm afraid he'll see, and divorce my daughter."
The husband of an ugly woman is better blind.
Story 46
A king looked at a group of dervishes with contempt.
One of them saw it, being shrewd, and said, "Your Majesty, in this world we fall short of you in soldiers and outdo you in sweet living; in death we are your equals, and at the Resurrection, your betters."
Whether a king, with his every wish fed, Or a dervish who is in want of bread, When the hour comes for both, the king and the poor, To die, they'll take a shroud from the world, and no more. Once you must pack your baggage and leave the land, A beggar's lot is better than a king's command.
The outside of being a dervish is a ragged robe and a shaven head; the inside is a heart that's alive and a self that's dead.
Not one who, if people cross him, gets up to fight, Sitting at the door of his claims, apart and alone; If a millstone comes rolling down from the mountain, He's no knower of God who gets up out of the way of the stone.
The way of the dervishes is remembrance of God, and thanks, and service, and obedience, and putting others first, and contentment, and belief in God's oneness, and trust in Him, and surrender, and patience.
Whoever has these qualities I have named is truly a dervish, even if he wears a courtier's coat.
But a good-for-nothing who wanders about, never prays, follows his passions and his whims, spends his days till nightfall in the bonds of lust and his nights till day in the sleep of heedlessness, eats whatever comes his way and says whatever comes to his tongue, is a rogue, even if he wears a dervish's cloak.
You whose inside is stripped bare of piety, Though you have the robe of hypocrisy on, Don't hang a seven-colored curtain at your door, When at home you have only a reed mat to sit on.
Story 47
I saw bunches of fresh roses that had been bound To a dome of grass growing up from the ground. I said, "What is this grass, so worthless and low, That it sits in line with the roses, row on row?" The grass wept and said, "Hush! The kind Never put old companionship out of mind. I may have no beauty, no color, no smell, But am I not grass of His garden as well? I am the slave of a generous Lord, Raised from of old on the bounty He poured. With or without any talent of my own, My hope is His grace, and His grace alone. Though I've no merchandise in hand, No capital of worship to command, He knows how to mend His servant's plight When there's no means left him, no hope in sight. It's a custom among masters who own the slaves they hold To give them their freedom when they've grown old. O Lord, who made the world so fair to see, Have mercy on Your old slave: on me." Sa'di, take the road to the Kaaba of consent; Man of God, keep to God's door, and be content. Wretched is the man who turns away his head From this door to look for another one instead.
Story 48
Someone asked a sage, "Which is better, generosity or courage?"
He said, "A man who has generosity has no need of courage."
Hatim of Tayy, the most generous of the Arabs, is dead, But his great name for goodness lives on, widely spread. Pay the alms due on your wealth: the vine, when its excess Is cut back by the gardener, gives more grapes, not less. On the tomb of Bahram Gur, these are the words you'll make out: "A generous hand is better than an arm that's stout."
Chapter 3: On the Excellence of Contentment
Story 1
A beggar from the Maghreb was standing in the row of the cloth merchants in Aleppo, saying, "Lords of plenty, if you had a sense of fairness and we had contentment, the custom of begging would vanish from the world."
Contentment, make me rich: There is no wealth beyond you. Luqman chose the corner of patience; Whoever lacks patience lacks wisdom too.
Story 2
There were two young men in Egypt, sons of emirs. One acquired learning, the other acquired wealth. In the end the one became the greatest scholar of his age, and the other became the ruler of Egypt.
After that the rich one would look down on the jurist with contempt and say, "I have risen to be sultan, and this one is still stuck in poverty."
He said, "Brother, I owe the Creator (exalted be His name) all the more thanks, since I came into the inheritance of the prophets, which is knowledge, and what came to you was the inheritance of Pharaoh and Haman, which is the kingdom of Egypt."
I am the ant that's ground beneath the heel, Not the wasp whose sting men groan to feel. How can I thank Him enough for this grace: I have no strength to harm the human race.
Story 3
I heard of a dervish who was burning in the fire of want and sewing patch upon patch onto his patched cloak, and saying, to comfort his poor heart:
Dry bread will do us, and a patched cloak to wear: Better our own troubles than men's favors to bear.
Someone said to him, "Why sit there like that? So-and-so in this city has a generous nature and a generosity that reaches everyone. He has girded himself to serve the noble-minded and sits waiting at the door of every heart. If he learned how things really stand with you, he would count it a favor to himself and a godsend to look after the feelings of a worthy man."
He said, "Hush! Better to die behind a door than to lay your need before anyone."
Better to sew on patches and keep to the corner of patience Than write to great men for a coat in a begging letter; I swear, it is the same as the torments of hell To enter paradise as your neighbor's debtor.3
Story 4
One of the kings of Persia sent a skilled physician to serve the Chosen One, the Prophet (God bless him).
He spent a year in Arabia, and no one brought him a case to try his skill on or asked him for treatment.
He came to the Prophet and complained: "Your servant was sent here to treat your Companions, and in all this time nobody has paid me any attention, so that I could do the service I was given."
The Messenger (peace be upon him) said, "These people have a rule: they don't eat until hunger gets the better of them, and they take their hands from the food while they still have an appetite."
The physician said, "That is the cause of good health."
He kissed the ground and went away.
The sage will open his mouth to speak, Or stretch his fingers toward the food he'd eat, Only when silence would bring harm about, Or going without his food would wear him out. No wonder, then, that what he says is wise, And that his eating bears good health as its prize.
Story 5
In the life of Ardashir son of Babak, the first of the Sasanian kings, we read that he asked an Arab physician, "How much food should a man eat in a day?"
He said, "The weight of a hundred dirhams, about ten ounces, is enough."
He said, "What strength will that much give?"
He said, in Arabic, "This much carries you, and whatever is more than that, you carry." That is: this much keeps you on your feet, and whatever you add to it, you are its porter.
Eating is for living and for calling on God's name; You believe that living is for eating: that's your aim.
Story 6
Two dervishes from Khorasan used to travel together, never leaving each other's company. One was weak and broke his fast only every second night; the other was strong and ate three times a day.
As it happened, they were arrested at the gate of a city on suspicion of spying. They were both put in a room, and the door was walled up with clay.
Two weeks later it came out that they were innocent. They opened the door and found the strong one dead and the weak one alive and well.
People were amazed at this.
A sage said, "The opposite would have been amazing. That one was a big eater; he could not bear to go without, and died of the hardship. This one kept himself in check, and so he bore it patiently, as he always had, and came through safe."
When eating little has become a man's nature, He takes it lightly when the hard times bite; But one who pampers his body in days of plenty Will die of the hardship when times turn tight.
Story 7
One of the sages kept forbidding his son to eat too much, because a full stomach makes people ill.
The boy said, "Father, it's hunger that kills people. Haven't you heard the wits' saying, 'Better to die full than live hungry'?"
He said, "Keep to the measure. As the Qur'an says, eat and drink, but do not go to excess."
Don't eat so much that it comes back out, Nor so little that from weakness your life goes out. Though the body's delight lies in the food it eats, Food makes you ill when you go past the measure and cram; Force down rose-petal jam, and it does harm; Eat dry bread after a long wait, and it's rose-petal jam.
They asked a sick man, "What does your heart want?"
He said, "For my heart not to want anything."
When the stomach is sour and the belly in pain, Set all the rest right, and it's all in vain.
Story 8
In Wasit the Sufis had run up a debt of a few dirhams with a grocer.
Every day he came to demand it and said harsh things.
His harassing wore the Sufis out, but there was nothing to do except put up with it.
A man of heart among them said, "It's easier to put off the belly with a promise of food than the grocer with a promise of money."
Better to go without a great man's bounty Than bear the insolence his doorkeepers show; Better to die with a craving for meat Than face the ugly dunning of the butcher you owe.
Story 9
A brave young man had taken a terrible wound in the war with the Tatars.
Someone said, "So-and-so the merchant has the antidote, the cure-all. If you ask him, he may not refuse you."
They say that merchant was famous for his meanness.
If his tablecloth held the sun in place of bread, No one would see daylight till the rising of the dead.
The young man said, "If I ask him, he will give me the medicine or he won't. And if he gives it, it will help or it won't. Either way, asking him is a deadly poison."
What you beg of the base, and are beholden for, Adds to your body, and takes from your soul's store.
And the sages have said: "If the Water of Life were for sale, say, and the price were losing face, no wise man would buy it; for better to die of a disease than live in disgrace."
Bitter gourd from the hand of a man of good grace Is better than sweets from a man with a sour face.
Story 10
One of the scholars had many mouths to feed and little to feed them with. He spoke of it to one of the great men, who held him in high regard. The great man's face clouded over at what he hoped for; a man of learning asking for help struck him as an ugly thing.
Don't take a face that bad luck has soured To a dear friend, or you'll make his life bitter too; Whatever you go to ask for, go smiling and fresh-faced: No door stays shut to an open face; it lets you through.
They say he added a little to the scholar's allowance and took a great deal off his regard for him. After some days, when the scholar found the old affection gone, he said:
Wretched is the food that is earned by disgrace: The pot is put on the fire, and the man is put in his place. He added to my bread, and took away my good name; Better to stay poor than to beg and live in shame.
Story 11
A dervish fell into need.
Someone said, "So-and-so has wealth beyond measure. If he knew of your need, he would surely not let a moment pass before meeting it."
He said, "I don't know him."
"I'll take you to him," the man said.
He took him by the hand and brought him to the man's house.
The dervish saw someone sitting there with his lip hanging and a scowl on his face.
He turned around and left without a word.
Someone said, "What did you do?"
He said, "I let him off his gift, in exchange for his face."
Don't take your need to a man with a sour face; His bad temper will only wear you away. If you must tell the sorrow in your heart, tell it to one Whose face pays you in comfort, cash, without delay.
Story 12
There was a drought in Alexandria, and even the dervishes had lost hold of the reins of their patience. The doors of heaven were shut against the earth, and the cries of the earth's people had gone up to heaven.
There was no creature left, beast or bird or fish or ant, Whose wail of misery had not gone up to the sky; It was strange the smoke of people's hearts did not gather Into a cloud, and rain the flood from every eye.
In such a year there was an effeminate (far be it from my friends!) whom it would be a breach of manners to describe, above all in the presence of great men; and yet it will not do to pass him over out of negligence either, since some would put that down to the storyteller's lack of skill. Let us keep to these two couplets, for a little points to a lot, and a handful is a sample of the sack:
If a Tatar should kill this effeminate, Let that Tatar off: there's no paying him back; How long will he be like the bridge at Baghdad, With water below him and a man on his back?
A man like this, one side of whose description you have now heard, had boundless wealth that year. He handed out silver and gold to the needy and spread his table for travelers. A band of dervishes, who had been driven by the cruelty of hunger to the end of their strength, decided to accept his hospitality and came to consult me. I would not go along with it, and said:
A lion won't eat what a dog has left over, Though it mean he must starve to death in his den. Give yourself up to helplessness and hunger, But don't hold out your hand to the meanest of men. Though he become a Feraydun in riches and realm, Count the man without merit as nothing at all; Silk and fine brocade on the unworthy Are gold and lapis laid on a wall.
Story 13
They asked Hatim of Tayy, "Have you ever seen or heard of anyone in the world more high-minded than you?"
He said, "Yes. One day I had slaughtered forty camels to feast the Arab emirs, and then I went out to a corner of the desert on some errand, and I saw a man who gathered thorns for a living, with a bundle he had tied together. I said to him, 'Why don't you go to Hatim's feast, when crowds of people have gathered at his table?' He said:
'A man who eats the bread his own hands earn Owes Hatim of Tayy no favor in return.'
"I saw that in high-mindedness and generosity of spirit he stood above me."
Story 14
Moses (peace be upon him) saw a dervish who had buried himself in the sand because he had nothing to wear.
He said, "Moses, pray to God (mighty and glorious is He) to give me enough to live on, for I'm at the end of my strength."
Moses prayed and went on his way.
Some days later, coming back from his communion with God, he saw the man under arrest, with a great crowd gathered around him.
He said, "What is all this?"
They said, "He drank wine, started a brawl and killed a man, and now they have sentenced him to die for it."
And the wits have said:
If the poor cat could only fly, No sparrow's egg would be left beneath the sky. A helpless man may come to power, and then Rise up and twist the arms of helpless men.
As the Qur'an says, if God were to spread His provision wide for His servants, they would run riot on the earth.
Moses (peace be upon him) acknowledged the wisdom of the Creator of the world and asked forgiveness for his own presumption.
What drove you into danger, you deluded thing, Till you died? If only the ant had never grown a wing! When rank and silver and gold fall into a servant's lap, His head can't help but be asking for a slap. Haven't you heard what Plato said about such things? "An ant is better off without its wings."
The father has honey in plenty, but the son runs a fever, and honey feeds a fever.
The One who will not make you rich knows well What's good for you, better than you can tell.
Story 15
I saw a Bedouin sitting among the jewelers of Basra, telling them this story: "Once I lost my way in the desert, and not a thing was left of my provisions. I had given myself up for dead, when all of a sudden I found a bag full of pearls. I'll never forget the joy and delight of thinking they were parched wheat, nor the bitterness and despair of finding out that they were pearls!"
In the dry desert, among the shifting sand, To the thirsty, what's a pearl in the mouth, or a shell? To the man without food, too weak to stand, Gold on his belt or a potsherd: who can tell?
Story 16
One of the Arabs was in the desert, saying, in the extremity of his thirst:
If only, before death takes me, I could have my wish come true: A river slapping at my knees, and my waterskin to fill all day through.
Story 17
In the same way, a traveler had got lost on a wide, flat plain. His food and his force had both run out, and he had a few dirhams tied at his waist. He wandered a long time and found no road, and in the end he died of the hardship. A party of people came by and saw the dirhams laid out in front of his face, and written in the dust:
Though he had all the purest gold, A man without provisions stands still; To a poor man burnt up in the desert, Raw silver won't do what a boiled turnip will.
Story 18
I had never complained of the turns of time, or frowned at the turning of the heavens, except once, when my feet were bare and I could not afford a pair of shoes. I came into the great mosque of Kufa with a heavy heart, and saw a man who had no feet. I gave thanks for God's blessing and bore having no shoes with patience.
To the eyes of a man who is full, roast chicken on the plate Is worth less than a sprig of leek; And to a man who has no money and no strength, A boiled turnip is the roast chicken of the weak.
Story 19
One of the kings, with a few of his intimates, was out hunting in winter and had strayed far from any settlement, until night came on. They saw a farmer's house.
The king said, "Let's spend the night there, so we're spared the cold."
One of the viziers said, "It is not fitting for the high rank of a king to take refuge in a farmer's house. Let's pitch tents right here and light a fire."
The farmer heard of it. He got together what food he had in the house, brought it out to them, kissed the ground and said, "The sultan's high rank would not have been lowered; it is only that they did not want a farmer's rank to be raised."
The sultan liked the way he spoke, and that night they moved into his house. In the morning the king had him given a robe of honor and gifts. They heard him walking a few steps beside the sultan's stirrup and saying:
Nothing was taken from the sultan's rank and might By staying with a farmer, housed and fed; The corner of the farmer's cap has touched the sun, Now a sultan like you has cast his shadow over his head.
Story 20
They tell of a notorious beggar who had piled up a great fortune.
One of the kings said to him, "They make out that you have money beyond counting, and we have an urgent matter on hand. If you would help us out with some of it, it will be paid back when the revenue comes in, with thanks."
He said, "Lord of the world, it would not befit the noble dignity of a king to soil the hand of his high purpose with the money of a beggar like me, which I have scraped together by begging, one barleycorn at a time."
He said, "Never mind: I'm giving it to the infidels. As the Qur'an says, the foul for the foul."
If a Christian's well-water isn't pure, so what? It's for washing a dead Jew: why should you care a jot? They said, "This lime plaster isn't clean." We said, "We'll plug the cracks of the latrine."
I heard that he refused the king's command, and began to argue and to give him insolent looks.
The king ordered the sum he had asked for to be wrung out of him with rebukes and threats.
When a thing can't be settled with grace, Disrespect will have to take its place. Whoever will not show himself mercy, it's fit That nobody else should show him any of it.
Story 21
I heard of a merchant who had a hundred and fifty camel loads of goods and forty slaves to serve him.
One night, on the island of Kish, he took me into his room.
All night long he never stopped rambling on: "I've a partner in Turkestan, and such-and-such goods in India, and this is the deed to such-and-such a piece of land, and So-and-so has gone surety for such-and-such."
Now he would say, "I've a mind to go to Alexandria; the air is good there."
Then again, "No! The Mediterranean is too rough. Sa'di, I have one more journey ahead of me. Once that's done, I'll sit in a corner for the rest of my life."
I said, "What journey is that?"
He said, "I'm going to take Persian sulfur to China, because I hear it fetches a fabulous price there; and from there I'll take Chinese porcelain to Rum, the old Greek lands, and brocade of Rum to India, and Indian steel to Aleppo, and Aleppo glass to the Yemen, and Yemeni striped cloth to Persia; and after that I'll give up trading and sit in a shop."
Honestly, he reeled off so much of this lunacy that he had no breath left to go on.
He said, "Sa'di, you say something too, about the things you've seen and heard."
I said:
Have you heard how, in the farthest wilds of Ghor, A caravan master fell from his beast, and gave This word: "The narrow eye of the man who loves the world Is filled by contentment, or by the dust of the grave."
Story 22
I heard of a man of property who was as famous for his meanness as Hatim of Tayy was for his generosity. Outwardly he was decked out with all the good things of the world, while the stinginess born in his nature sat as firmly in him as ever, so that he would not part with a loaf to save a life, would not treat the cat of Abu Hurayra, who loved cats, to a mouthful, and would not throw the dog of the Seven Sleepers a bone. In short, no one ever saw the door of his house open, or his tablecloth spread.
The dervish never got more of his food than the smell; When he had eaten his bread, the birds found no crumbs where they fell.
I heard that he was sailing the Mediterranean, bound for Egypt, with Pharaoh's notions in his head, until, as the Qur'an says of Pharaoh, "when drowning overtook him," a contrary wind rose against the ship.
If one can't get along with your fretful temper, what's he to do? The wind won't always blow the way the ship would like it to.
He raised his hands in prayer and began to cry out, uselessly. As the Qur'an says, when they board a ship, they call on God, giving Him their faith sincerely.
What use is the hand that the needy servant raises in prayer, Up to God when he asks, under his arm when it's time to share? Give comfort with your silver and your gold, And take some pleasure, too, from what you hold; And from this house, which will still be here when you've passed, Take one brick of silver, and one of gold, while you last.
They say he had poor relations in Egypt, who grew rich on what was left of his money. At his death they tore their old clothes in mourning, and had silk and Damietta linen cut for new ones. That same week I saw one of them riding a horse as swift as the wind, with a slave boy running at his heels.
Ah, if the dead came back once more To the midst of their tribe and kin, The heirs would find giving back the estate Harder than their kinsman's death had been.
On the strength of the acquaintance there had been between us, I caught hold of his sleeve and said:
Eat, my fine fellow, good-natured and kind, and taste What that luckless wretch heaped up and let go to waste.
Story 23
A strong fish fell into the net of a weak fisherman, and he had not the strength to hold it. The fish got the better of him, tore the net out of his hands and was gone.
The boy who went to fetch water from the stream: The stream came along and carried the boy away! Each time the net would bring in a fish; This time the fish went and carried the net away.
The other fishermen were sorry for the loss and blamed him: "A catch like that fell into your net, and you didn't know how to hold it!" He said, "Brothers, what could I do? It wasn't my portion, and the fish still had its portion of days. A fisherman whose portion it is not will catch nothing in the Tigris, and a fish whose hour has not come will not die on dry land."
Story 24
A man whose hands and feet had been cut off killed a centipede. A man of heart was passing by and said, "Glory be to God! With all of its thousand feet, when its hour came it could not run away from a man with no hands and no feet."
When the foe who takes lives comes after you at full stride, Fate ties the legs of the running horse you ride; At the moment the enemy is on you, hard upon Your heels, the ancient kings' great bow cannot be drawn.
Story 25
I saw a fool, well fed and well dressed: a costly robe on his back, an Arab horse under him and a turban of fine Egyptian linen on his head.
Someone said, "Sa'di, what do you make of this lettered silk on this unlettered animal?"
I said, in Arabic, borrowing the Qur'an's words for the golden calf:
A donkey that has come to look like men: A calf, a lowing body, as the calf was then.
One handsome nature is worth more than a thousand handsome robes.
You cannot say this animal looks like a man, Except for the gown and the turban and the outside he'll wear; Go through all his property and goods and all he has: You won't find anything lawful but his blood, anywhere.
Story 26
A thief said to a beggar, "Aren't you ashamed to stretch out your hand to every miser for a grain of silver?"
He said:
Better to stretch out a hand for a single silver grain Than have it cut off for a penny and a half's gain.
Story 27
They tell of a boxer whom hard times had set wailing: between his wide gullet and his narrow purse he was at his wits' end. He took his complaint to his father and asked his leave: "I mean to travel. It may be that by the strength of my arm I can get hold of my heart's desire."
Merit and talent are wasted till they are shown: They lay aloes on the fire, and grind musk on the stone.
The father said, "My son, put this impossible fancy out of your head; be content, and sit tight in safety; for the great have said, 'Fortune is not won by striving; the remedy is less fretting.'"
No hand can seize the hem of fortune by force; vain toil is the kind That puts dye on the eyebrows of the blind. Though there were a hundred wits in every hair of your head, Wit would be no use to you, once your luck had fled.
The son said, "Father, travel has a great many benefits: the mind's refreshment and the getting of profits; the seeing of wonders and the hearing of marvels; the touring of cities and the company of friends; the gaining of rank and good manners; the increase of wealth and earnings; the knowing of companions and the learning of the world's ways. As those who travel the Sufi path have said:
'While your shop and your house have you tied and bound, You raw boy, you will never be a man all round. Go out into the world and take your pleasure, roam, Before the day you leave the world for your long home.'"
The father said, "My son, the benefits of travel are past counting, just as you say; but they are sure to come only to five kinds of people.
"The first is a merchant who, with his wealth and his means, has charming slave boys and slave girls and nimble apprentices. Every day he is in a new city, every night at a new lodging, every moment at a new place of pleasure, enjoying the good things of the world.
"The rich man is no stranger on mountain, plain or waste: Wherever he goes, he pitches his tent and makes his bed; And the man whose hand can't reach the good things of the world Is a stranger, unknown, in the land where he was born and bred.
"The second is a scholar whom people hurry to serve and to honor wherever he goes, for his sweet speech and his power with words and his store of eloquence.
"The learned man is like pure gold: wherever he goes, His worth and his price are known; The ignorant son of a great house is like the town's own coin, That no one will take in a land not its own.
"The third is a handsome youth, whose company the inner hearts of men of heart incline to; for the great have said, 'A little beauty is better than a lot of money'; and they say, 'A beautiful face is a salve to wounded hearts and a key to locked doors.' And so his company is prized everywhere, and to serve him is counted a favor.
"A beauty finds respect and honor wherever he goes, Though in anger his father and mother and kin should drive him away. I saw a peacock's feather between the leaves of a Qur'an, And said, 'This honor is more than your due, by a long way.' It said, 'Hush! Whoever has beauty, wherever he sets his foot, No one holds up a hand to stand in his way.' When a boy is gracious, and stealing hearts is his art, What does it matter if his father casts him off and they part? He is a pearl: let there be no shell for him anywhere; An orphan pearl, the one of a kind, finds a buyer in every mart.
"The fourth is a sweet singer, who with a voice like David's can stop the water from flowing and the birds from flying; and by means of this gift he catches the hearts of those who long, and men of the spirit want his company and serve him in every way.
"My ears are all for the beauty of singing: Who is that plucking the strings and setting them ringing? How sweet is a soft and sorrowful air In the ears of friends who are drunk on wine at dawn; A lovely voice is better than a lovely face: The one is the body's pleasure, the other the food the soul lives on.
"Or, at the least, a craftsman who earns enough by the work of his arm that he never has to spend his honor for bread; as the wise have said:
'If the cobbler leaves his own city behind, He meets no hardship abroad: he earns his bread; But if the king of Nimruz falls from his kingdom into ruin, He has to go hungry to bed.'
"These qualities I have described, my son, are what give a man peace of mind on a journey and the means to a pleasant life. The man who has none of them goes out into the world on an empty fancy, and no one ever hears his name or any news of him again.
"A man the turning world has risen against in spite, The days will lead astray from his good, wherever he's bound; The pigeon that is never going to see its nest again, Fate carries straight to the grain in the snare on the ground."
The son said, "Father, how can I go against the word of the sages? For they have said, 'Though our daily bread is allotted, we are bound to take hold of the means of getting it; and though misfortune is decreed, we are bound to keep clear of the doors it comes in by.'
"Though your daily bread will come, beyond a doubt, Good sense says: go to the doors and seek it out; And though no one will die before his day, Don't walk into a dragon's mouth anyway.
"In the state I'm in, I could fight a raging elephant and wrestle a furious lion. The best course, then, father, is for me to travel, for I can't bear being poor any longer.
"When a man has fallen from his place and his station, What has he left to grieve for? The whole wide world is his to roam. At night every rich man goes off to a house of his own; The dervish: wherever night overtakes him is his home."
He said this, bade his father goodbye, asked his blessing and set off, saying to himself:
A man of skill whose luck won't give him his aim Goes off to a place where no one knows his name.
He went on like this until he came to the bank of a river whose force knocked stone against stone, and whose roar could be heard nearly four miles off.
A fearsome flood, where not even the waterbirds could find a safe place; The least of its waves would wrench a millstone loose from the bank's face.
He saw a crowd of people, each one with a small coin, sitting at the crossing with their baggage packed for the journey. The young man's hand for giving was tied, so he untied his tongue for flattery; but for all his pleading, no one was heeding. The heartless boatman turned away laughing and said:
No money, no crossing: force won't get you over to the far shore; What's the strength of ten men? Bring one man's fare, no more!
The boatman's taunt made the young man's blood boil, and he wanted his revenge; but the boat had pulled away. He called out, "If you'll be content with these clothes I'm wearing, I don't grudge them." The boatman was greedy, and turned the boat back.
Greed sews shut a shrewd man's eyes; Greed snares the fish and the bird that flies.
As soon as the young man had his hands on the boatman's beard and collar, he pulled him close and set about beating him without mercy. The boatman's mate came out of the boat to back him up; he met the same rough treatment and turned his back. They had no choice but to make peace with him and let him off the fare; for, as the saying goes, all forbearance is charity.
When you see a quarrel coming, bear it with patience, for A gentle word can shut the door on war. With a sweet tongue and kindness and a gentle air, You can lead an elephant by a single hair.
They fell at his feet, begging pardon for what had passed, and planted a few hypocritical kisses on his head and his eyes. Then they took him into the boat and set off, until they came to a column of old Greek work standing in the water. The boatman said, "The boat has sprung a leak. One of you, the bravest, has to go over to this column and hold the boat's rope while we mend it." The young man, in the pride of bravery that filled his head, gave no thought to the enemy whose heart he had wounded, nor to the word of the sages, who have said: "If you have hurt a man's heart, then though you do him a hundred kindnesses after it, do not feel safe from his revenge for that one hurt; for the arrowhead comes out of the wound, but the hurt stays in the heart."
How well Baktash said it to his comrade: "Never go Feeling safe once you have scratched a foe." Don't feel secure: your own heart will be wrung Once a heart has been wrung by you; Don't throw stones at the wall of a fortress, For stones may come from the fortress too.
As soon as he had wound the boat's rope around his forearm and climbed to the top of the column, the boatman jerked the rope out of his grip and pushed off. The poor man was left there, bewildered. For two days he suffered misery and hardship; on the third, sleep took him by the collar and threw him into the water. A day and a night later he was washed up on the bank, with a breath of life still in him. He began to eat the leaves of trees and to dig up the roots of plants, until he had got back a little strength. Then he set off into the desert and walked on until, thirsty and spent, he reached a well. People had gathered around it and were buying a drink of water for a copper coin. The young man had no copper coin. He begged and showed how helpless he was, and they had no pity. He reached out to take it by force, and that did not work. Driven to it, he knocked several of them down; the men got the better of him, beat him without mercy, and left him wounded.
Gnats, once they swarm, will take on an elephant, For all his rage and all his toughness of hide; And little ants, when they all act as one, Will tear the skin from a raging lion's side.
Since he had to, he fell in behind a caravan and went along with it. At nightfall they came to a place full of danger from thieves. He saw the caravan people trembling in every limb, their hearts set on dying. He said, "Don't worry: I am one man here who can take on fifty by myself, and the other young men will help." When he said this, the caravan people took heart at his boasting, were glad of his company, and thought it their duty to help him out with food and water. The fire in the young man's stomach had flared up, and the reins of endurance had slipped from his hands. He ate several mouthfuls as hungrily as he liked and drank a few gulps of water after them, until the demon inside him was quiet and he fell asleep. There was an old man among them who had seen the world. He said, "Friends, I'm more afraid of this guard of yours than of the thieves. They tell of an Arab who had saved up a few dirhams and could not sleep alone in the house at night for fear of the roving Luris. He brought one of his friends to stay with him, so that the sight of him would keep off the terror of being alone, and the friend spent a few nights in his company. As soon as he found out about the dirhams, he took them, spent them, and left town. In the morning they saw the Arab weeping and stripped bare. 'What's happened?' they said. 'Did a thief take those dirhams of yours?' He said, 'No, by God! The guard took them.'
"I never sat easy beside a snake, For I knew too well what a snake will do; The worse wound comes from an enemy's tooth Who looks, to everyone's eyes, like a friend to you.
"How do you know that this one isn't a thief himself, planted among us by trickery, to tip off his friends when the time is ripe? The best thing, I think, is to leave him asleep and move on." The young men thought the old man's plan was sound; they had also taken a certain fear of the boxer into their hearts. They loaded up their things and left the young man sleeping. He only knew it when the sun was beating on his shoulders. He raised his head and saw that the caravan had gone. The poor man wandered all over and could not find the road. Thirsty and destitute, with his face on the dust and his heart set on dying, he was saying:
Who will speak with me now the camels have been led from here? For a stranger, no one but a stranger is near. The man who is hard on strangers is one who has known Little of being a stranger, far from his own.
The poor wretch was saying this when a king's son, who had strayed far from his men while hunting, was standing over his head, listening and taking in the look of him: his outward appearance decent and his condition wretched.
He asked, "Where are you from, and how did you come to end up here?" The young man told him some of what had happened to him. The prince took pity on his ruined state, gave him a robe of honor and gifts, and sent a trusted man with him until he reached his own city. His father was overjoyed to see him and gave thanks that he was safe. That night he told his father all that had happened to him: the business of the boat, the boatman's cruelty, the villagers at the well, and the treachery of the caravan. The father said, "My son, didn't I tell you when you left that the empty-handed have the hand of daring tied and the paw of the lion broken?
"How well the penniless man put it, who knew how to fight: 'A grain of gold is better than three hundred pounds of might.'"
The son said, "Father, you'll never take the treasure until you've taken the trouble, never win against the enemy until you put your life at risk, and never gather in a harvest until you scatter the seed.
"Don't you see how much comfort I have earned with the little trouble I took, and how much honey I have brought home for the one sting I got?
"Though no one can eat more than is written by fate, It won't do to be idle in seeking, and wait; If the diver stopped to think of the crocodile's teeth, He'd never grasp the precious pearl beneath.
"The lower millstone does not move, and that is why it has to bear the heavy load.
"What will a fierce lion eat, at the back of his cave? And what does a hawk that has fallen get to eat? As long as you mean to do your hunting at home, Your limbs will be like a spider's, hands and feet."
The father said, "My son, this time heaven was on your side and fortune showed you the way: a man of fortune happened on you, took pity on you, and set your broken state with his kindness, as a bone is set. A chance like that comes rarely, and you can't make a rule out of the rare. Mind you don't let this tempt you to go hunting greed's way again.
"The hunter won't catch a jackal on every chase; One day a leopard may eat him in its place.
"As it happened with one of the kings of Persia, who had a precious stone set in his ring. Once, for his pleasure, he went out with a few of his intimates to the prayer ground outside Shiraz. He had the ring set up on the dome of 'Azod, and said that whoever could send an arrow through the ring would have it. As it turned out, the four hundred crack archers in his service all missed, except a boy on the roof of a Sufi lodge, who was shooting arrows in every direction in play. The morning breeze carried his arrow through the ring, and he was given a robe of honor and gifts, and the ring was granted to him. The boy burned his bow and arrows. They said, 'Why did you do that?' He said, 'So that the glory of the first shot stays as it is.'
"It may be that a sage of bright judgment Can't get a sound plan of his to come out right; It may be that an ignorant child, by mistake, Will hit the target with an arrow in flight."
Story 28
I heard of a dervish who sat in a cave, with the door shut in the face of the world. Kings and rich men no longer held any splendor or awe for him, so high was his spirit.
Whoever opens the door of begging for himself Will live, till the day he dies, in need; Give up desire, and be a king: The neck held high is the neck that's free of greed.
One of the kings of that region sent word that he counted on the noble character of such men to do him the kindness of breaking bread with him. The sheikh agreed, since the Prophet's practice is to accept an invitation. The next day the king went to thank him for coming. The devotee leapt up from his place, took him in his arms, was gracious to him and praised him. When he had gone, one of the sheikh's companions asked him, "All that kindness you showed the king today was against your custom; we've never seen the like of it." He said, "Haven't you heard the saying:
'Whoever's table you have sat at, it is right To rise and serve him when he comes in sight. The ear can go its whole life long And never hear drum or harp or reed-flute's song; The eye can bear to do without the garden's view; The nose, without the rose and eglantine, will do; If no pillow stuffed with feathers is to be found, You can sleep with a potsherd under your head on the ground; If there's no sweetheart there to share your bed, You can put your arms around yourself instead; But this worthless belly, coiling and twisting, can't bear To make do with nothing, when nothing is there.'"
Chapter 4: On the Benefits of Silence
Story 1
I said to one of my friends, "I have chosen, most of the time, to keep from speaking, because in speech good and bad are bound to come out together, and the eyes of enemies light on nothing but the bad." He said, "Better the enemy should see no good."
An enemy never passes a good man by Without branding him, in the Qur'an's words, "an insolent liar." In hatred's eyes, merit is the worst of faults, a thing to scorn: Sa'di is a rose, and to his enemies, a thorn. The world-lighting fountain of the sun's own light Looks ugly to a little blind mole's sight.
Story 2
A merchant suffered a loss of a thousand dinars. He said to his son, "You must not breathe a word of this to anyone." He said, "Father, it's yours to command, and I won't tell; but I'd like you to let me in on the use of it: what is the good of keeping it hidden?" He said, "So that the misfortune isn't doubled: one, the money lost, and two, the neighbors gloating."
Don't tell your grief to an enemy: he'll sigh, "God preserve us!", with joy in his eye.
Story 3
A sensible young man had a rich store of every kind of learning, and a shy nature. Whenever he sat in the gatherings of scholars, he held his tongue. Once his father said, "My son, you too should say what you know." He said, "I'm afraid they'll ask me about what I don't know, and I'll be put to shame."
Have you heard how a Sufi was hammering Nails into the soles of his sandals, two or three, When an officer caught him by the sleeve and said, "Come here and shoe my horse for me"?
Story 4
A learned man of high standing got into a debate with one of the heretics (God curse them, each and every one), and could not hold his own against him in argument; he threw down his shield and turned away. Someone said to him, "With all your learning and refinement, couldn't you find an argument against an unbeliever?" He said, "My learning is the Qur'an and the sayings of the Prophet and the words of the sheikhs, and he does not believe in them and will not listen. What use is it to me to listen to his blasphemy?"
The man you can't be rid of with the Qur'an and the Prophet's word, The answer to him is to give no answer: let him go unheard.
Story 5
Galen saw a fool who had grabbed a learned man by the collar and was treating him with no respect. He said, "If this man were not a fool himself, his dealings with fools would never have come to this."
Two wise men will never feud and fight, Nor will a sage wrangle with one who is light. If a fool, in his wild way, speaks harshly, then The wise man gently wins him round again. Two men of heart will keep a hair between them whole, And so will a headstrong man and a gentle soul; But where there are fools on either side, they'll strain And snap the bond between them, though it be a chain. A man with a foul temper swore at someone, who then Bore it, and said, "May your end be good, my friend: Whatever you call me, I am worse than that, it's true; I know you don't know my faults as well as I do."
Story 6
They count Sahban of Wa'il, the byword for eloquence among the Arabs, beyond compare, because he could speak before an assembly for a whole year without repeating a word; and if the same thing came up again, he said it in other words. And among the manners of the boon companions of kings is this:
However sweet and winning a word may sound, And worth believing, and praised all round, Once you have said it, don't repeat it: Halva's enough, once you eat it.
Story 7
I heard one of the sages say, "No one has ever confessed his own ignorance except the man who starts talking while another is in the middle of speaking and has not finished."
A speech, wise man, has a head and a tail: Don't start yours in the middle of someone else's tale. A man who has judgment and learning and wit Won't speak till he sees that the others have quit.
Story 8
Some of the courtiers of Sultan Mahmud said to Hasan of Maymand, his vizier, "What did the sultan say to you today about such-and-such a matter?" He said, "It's no secret from you either." They said, "What he tells you, he would never think fit to tell the likes of us." He said, "He tells me trusting that I won't tell. Then why do you ask?"
Not every word that comes to mind will a knowing man say; For the king's secret, his own head is too much to pay.
Story 9
I was hesitating over the purchase of a house. A Jew said, "I am one of the old householders of this quarter, after all. Ask me what this house is really like. Buy it: there's nothing wrong with it." I said, "Except that you are its neighbor!"
A house with a neighbor like you next door Is worth ten dirhams of bad silver at best; But one must live in hope: it will be worth A thousand once you've been laid to rest.
Story 10
One of the poets went to the chief of a band of robbers and recited a poem in his praise. The chief ordered him stripped of his clothes and thrown out of the village. The poor man was walking naked in the cold when the dogs came after him. He went to pick up a stone to drive them off, but the stones were frozen into the ground, and he was helpless. He said, "What sort of bastards are these people? They let the dogs loose and tie the stones down!" The chief saw and heard it from his window, and laughed. He said, "Wise man, ask me for something." He said, "I'd like my own clothes, if you'll be so kind."
We are content with your bounty, if only you let us leave.
Men live in hope that others will treat them well; I hope for no good from you: just do me no ill.
The robber chief took pity on him, ordered his clothes given back, and added a sheepskin coat and a few dirhams.
Story 11
An astrologer came home and found a strange man sitting with his wife. He swore and cursed at them, and a great uproar and commotion broke out. A man of heart who knew about it said:
What do you know of what's at the top of the sky, When you don't know who is in your house, close by?
Story 12
A preacher with a hideous voice thought his voice was beautiful, and would raise the most pointless clamor. You would have said the croak of the raven that foretells parting was in the strains of his tunes, or that the Qur'an's verse on "the most hideous of voices," the braying of the donkey, had been revealed with him in mind.
When the preacher Abu'l-Fawaris brays, he makes such a din It would bring the city of Istakhr in Fars tumbling in.
The people of the village put up with the affliction because of his rank, and did not think it wise to cross him. Then one of the preachers of that region, who bore him a secret grudge, came once to call on him and said, "I've had a dream about you. May it turn out well!" "What did you see?" he said. He said, "I dreamed that you had a beautiful voice, and people were soothed by every breath you drew."
The preacher thought about this for a while and said, "What a blessed dream you had, for it has made me see my fault. It is clear now that I have an unpleasant voice and that people suffer when I read aloud. I have repented: from now on I will preach only in a low voice."
I'm hurt by the company of a friend Who thinks my bad nature is all charm and grace, Who sees my faults as talent and perfection, And my thorn as a rose, or a jasmine in its place. Where is the bold, shameless, unclean enemy Who will show me my faults to my face?
Story 13
A man used to give the call to prayer in the mosque of Sinjar, without pay, in a manner that made his hearers loathe him. The owner of the mosque was an emir, a just and good man, who did not want to hurt his feelings. He said, "My good fellow, this mosque has muezzins of long standing, and I pay each of them five dinars. I'll give you ten to go somewhere else."
They agreed on this, and he left. Some time later he came across the emir in a lane and said, "My lord, you did me a wrong, getting me out of that place for ten dinars; where I've gone now, they're offering me twenty to go somewhere else, and I won't take it!" The emir laughed till he was helpless and said, "Don't you dare take it! They'll come up to fifty!"
No axe can scrape the mud off granite as hard As your harsh call to prayer scrapes the heart.
Story 14
A man with an ugly voice was reciting the Qur'an at the top of his lungs. A man of heart passed by and said, "What's your monthly pay?" He said, "Nothing." He said, "Then why go to all this trouble?" He said, "I recite for God's sake." He said, "For God's sake, don't recite."
If you go on reciting the Qur'an in this way, You'll take the glory of Islam away.
Chapter 5: On Love and Youth
Story 1
They said to Hasan of Maymand, "Sultan Mahmud has so many beautiful slaves, every one of them a wonder of the world. How does it happen that he has no fondness and no love for any of them such as he has for Ayaz, who is no greater beauty than the rest?" He said, "Whatever the heart takes in, the eye finds fair."
When the sultan is his disciple, a man Does well, though he does all the bad he can; And the one the king casts out of his grace Gets no kind word from anyone in the place. If someone looks at you with an eye that won't approve, Even Joseph's face is ugly to his sight; But look at a demon with an eye of love, And he'll seem an angel, a cherub made of light.
Story 2
They say a gentleman had a slave of rare beauty, and looked on him with love, and with honorable intent.
He said to one of his friends, "What a pity about this slave! With all the beauty and grace he has, if only he weren't so insolent and so rude."
The friend said, "Brother, once you've confessed that you love him, don't expect him to serve you; for when lover and beloved come in, master and slave get up and leave."
When a master starts to laugh and play With a slave who has a fairy's face, No wonder if the slave gives orders like a master, And the master bears his airs like a slave in his place.
Story 3
I saw a holy man caught in love for someone, with neither the strength to bear it nor the power to speak of it. However much blame he met and however dearly he paid for it, he would not give up his lovesick folly, and he said:
I won't take my hand from your hem, not though You cut me down with the sharpest sword you own; After you I have no refuge, no shelter: If I run, I'll run to you alone.
Once I reproached him, and said, "What has happened to that noble mind of yours, that your ignoble self has got the upper hand?" He sank into thought for a while, and said:
Wherever Love has come as sultan, Piety's strong arm can find no room to fight; How can the poor wretch, fallen in the mud Up to his collar, keep his hem white?
Story 4
There was a man who had lost his heart and given up his life. His gaze was fixed on a dangerous place, where ruin was all but certain.
There was no morsel he could picture ever reaching his mouth, no bird that would ever fall into his snare.
When your gold can't catch the eye of the one you desire, Gold is no more to you than dust or mire.
His friends gave him their advice: "Keep away from this impossible fancy. Plenty of others are prisoners of the same longing as you, with their feet in chains."
He groaned and said:
Tell my friends to spare me their advice: My eyes are fixed on what the one I love intends. Fighting men, by the strength of fist and shoulder, Kill their enemies; beauties kill their friends.
To take your heart back from the beloved out of fear for your life is no part of love.
Tied up in yourself as you are, A lover who lies is what you are. If no road will take you to the beloved's side, Friendship requires you to seek until you've died. If my hand can reach, I'll catch hold of the sleeve; If not, I'll die on the doorstep and never leave.
His people, who kept an eye on his affairs and pitied his plight, lectured him and then locked him up, and it did no good.
The pity is, the doctor orders patience for my ill, And this greedy self of mine wants sugar still. Have you heard what a beauty whispered, apart, To a man who had lost hold of his heart? "As long as you think your own self of worth, In your eyes, what can I be worth?"
They say that the prince who was the object of his gaze was told that a young man kept haunting the edge of the square, a good-humored, sweet-tongued young man who said graceful things and was heard to make clever and original remarks; and it seemed plain that his heart was troubled and his head full of some passion.
The boy knew that the man's heart was caught on him, and that he himself had raised this dust of trouble. He turned his horse toward him. When the man saw that the prince meant to come near him, he wept and said:
The one who killed me has come back to my side; His heart must burn, it seems, for the man who died.
However kindly the prince spoke to him, and asked him where he was from, and what his name was, and what craft he knew, he was drowned so deep in the sea of love that he had no room to breathe.
Though you can say the Qur'an by heart, all seven parts, When love has crazed you, you won't know where the alphabet starts.
The prince said, "Why won't you say a word to me? I'm one of the dervishes' circle myself; more than that, I wear their ring in my ear, like a slave."
Then, strengthened by his beloved's friendliness, he raised his head out of the tossing waves of love and said:
It's a wonder that I, with you here, remain; That you should speak to me, and words in me remain.
He said this, gave a cry, and surrendered his soul to God.
No wonder if, at the beloved's tent door, a man lies slain; The wonder is the living man: how did he bring his soul out safe again?
Story 5
One of the pupils at a school had perfect beauty, and the teacher, being human, as humans will, was taken with the beauty of his face; and when he found him alone he would say:
You with the face of paradise, I'm so lost in you That not one thought of myself ever comes; I can't shut my eyes from looking at you, Even though I see that, straight at me, the arrow comes.
Once the boy said, "Just as you attend to my manners at my lessons, attend to the manners of my soul as well; so that if you see something in my character you dislike, which seems fine to me, you can let me know of it, and I can work to change it."
He said, "My boy, ask someone else that. The eye I look at you with sees nothing but virtue."
The ill-wisher's eye (may it be torn from his head!) Looks at a virtue and shows you a fault instead; But have one virtue and seventy faults, and a friend's Eye sees that one virtue, and there it ends.
Story 6
I remember one night a dear friend came in at the door. I jumped up so wildly that my sleeve put out the lamp.
By night there came the image of one whose face makes darkness bright; I wondered at my luck: where did this fortune come from tonight?
He sat down and began to reproach me: "You saw me, and that moment you put out the lamp. What did you mean by it?"
I said, "I meant two things. One, I thought the sun had risen; and two, this couplet came to my mind:
'When a dreary bore sits down before the candle, Get up and put him out, in everyone's sight; But if it's one with sweet lips and a sugar smile, Catch hold of his sleeve, and put out the light.'"
Story 7
Someone said to a friend he had not seen for a long time, "Where have you been? I've been longing for you."
He said, "Better longing than sick of me."
You've come late, my tipsy idol, and so We won't be quick to let your hem go. Is a love you get to see only once in a long while Any worse, in the end, than one you see all the while?
A beauty who comes with friends in tow has come to torment you, for there is bound to be jealousy and rivalry.
If you come to visit me with friends in tow, Though you come in peace, you come as a foe. For one breath, my love mixed with the others there, And jealousy very nearly had me killed; My love laughed and said, "Sa'di, I'm the candle of the party: What is it to me if the moth gets itself killed?"
Story 8
I remember how, in days gone by, a friend and I kept company like two almond kernels in one shell. Then all at once it fell out that he had to go away.
After a time he came back, and began to reproach me: "All this while, you never sent me a messenger."
I said, "I couldn't bear it, that a messenger's eyes should be brightened by your beauty while I went without."
Tell my old friend: don't talk me into repenting; Not even at the point of a sword will I repent. I'm jealous that anyone should gaze at you his fill; Then I tell myself: no, no one will ever be content.
Story 9
I saw a scholar smitten with someone, and his secret out in public. He suffered a great deal of cruelty, and bore it with boundless patience.
Once I said to him gently, "I know there is no hidden motive in your love for this person, and that your affection is not built on any sin. Even so, it does not befit the standing of the learned to bring suspicion on themselves and put up with the cruelty of the ill-bred."
He said, "Friend, take the hand of reproach off the hem of my life. Time and again I have thought over the course you think best, and I find it easier to bear his cruelty than to bear not seeing him. And the sages say: It is easier to steel the heart for the strife than to keep the eye from the sight.
"The one without whom life can't be borne: If he is cruel, the cruelty must be borne. One day, beside myself, I begged him, 'Spare me, spare!' And many a time since I've asked pardon for it in prayer. A friend begs no quarter of a friend; My heart is set on whatever he may intend. If he kindly calls me to his side, Or angrily drives me off, it is his to decide."
Story 10
In the first flush of youth, as happens, and as you know, I had my heart set on a beauty, and a secret with him; for he had a voice that was sweet in its singing, and a face like the full moon when it rises.
The down on his cheek has drunk the Water of Life, and grows; Whoever eats sweets should look at the sugar his lip shows.
It happened that I saw him do something against my nature that I did not like. I drew my hem back from him, picked up my pieces from the board, and said:
Go off and take up whatever suits you; You don't want me? Go your own way; we're through.
I heard him saying as he went:
If the bat does not want to meet the sun, No trade is lost in the market of the sun.
He said this, and went away on a journey, and his distress left its mark on me.
I lost the days we were together; and no man knows What a sweet life is worth, until he feels the blows. Come back and kill me: to die in front of you Is sweeter than going on living after you.
But by God's grace and favor, after a while he came back. That voice like David's had changed, that beauty like Joseph's had suffered, a dusting had settled on the apple of his chin like the fuzz on a quince, and the market for his beauty had crashed. He expected me to hold him close; I held aloof, and said:
In the days when your cheek wore its first fine line, You drove the connoisseur out of your sight; Today you come to make your peace with him, Now that your line is dotted with its vowels, black on white. Fresh spring of mine, your leaves have turned yellow and old; Don't put the pot on: our fire has gone cold. How long will you strut and swagger with pride, Imagining last year's fortune still on your side? Go and see someone who still wants you; Play hard to get with whoever will buy you. They say the green in a garden is pleasing, And he who says so knows: He means that the green down on a lovely face Wins more of the lovers' hearts wherever it shows. Your garden is a bed of leeks: The more you pluck them, the more it grows. Whether you bear the hair by your ears or pluck it away, The fortune of your good-looking days will soon be gone; If I had the hold on my soul that you have on your beard, I'd never let it come out till Resurrection's dawn. I asked him, "What has happened to the beauty of your face, That ants are swarming all around the moon?" He answered, "I don't know what has happened to my face; Perhaps it's put on black to mourn my beauty, gone so soon."4
Story 11
Someone asked one of the masters of Arabic in Baghdad, "What do you say of beardless boys?"
He said, in Arabic, "There is no good in them: while one of them is smooth he plays rough, and once he is rough he plays smooth." That is, as long as he is pretty and delicate and slender, he is harsh and hard to deal with; once he has turned hard and rough, and is no use for anything, he turns tender and the harshness is gone.
A beardless boy, while he is lovely and sweet, Is bitter in his talk, and his temper is quick to flare; When the beard has come, and he's cursed with it, He mixes with people, and goes looking for affection and care.
Story 12
Someone asked one of the learned: "Suppose a man is sitting in private with a moon-faced beauty, the doors shut, the watchers asleep, desire urgent and lust in control, so that, as the Arabs say, the dates are ripe and the watchman won't say no. Is there any chance that the strength of his self-restraint will keep him safe?"
He said, "If he is safe from the moon-faced, he won't be safe from the gossips."
A man may be safe from his own soul's evil, and still Not be safe from the accuser who suspects him of ill. You can sit and mind your own affairs, all right; But nobody can tie people's tongues up tight.
Story 13
They put a parrot in a cage with a crow. The parrot found the very sight of him a trial, and kept saying, "What a loathsome face! What a hateful shape, what a cursed sight, what graceless looks! O crow of parting, bird of ill omen, if only there were as much distance between you and me as between the east and the west!"
Whoever wakes in the morning and first sees your face Has the morning of his lucky day turned into night; Some ill-starred creature like you should keep you company, But where in the world could one find another such fright?
The strange thing was that the crow too was sick to death of living next to the parrot, and fed up. He kept saying "God preserve us!" and lamenting the turns of the world, and wringing his hands in regret: "What upside-down luck is this, what low fortune, what shifty chameleon days! What would suit my standing is to be strutting along a garden wall with another crow.
"It's prison enough for a holy man to share A stable with the rakes, and be tethered there.
"Yes, and what have I done, that fate should punish me for it by stringing me into company with a fool like this, conceited, not of my kind, a babbler, and bind me in such chains of misery?
"No one would come near the foot of a wall Where someone had painted your face; If you were given a home in paradise, The rest would choose hell in its place."
I have brought in this parable so that you may know: however much the wise man loathes the fool, the fool is a hundred times more appalled by the wise man.
An ascetic was at the rakes' music one day, And a beauty from Balkh among them had this to say: "If you're sick of us, don't sit there sour and still: Among us, you yourself are the bitter pill." A gathering of roses and tulips, close around One another, and you, dry firewood, sprung from the ground; Like a wind against us, and unpleasant as the cold, You sit like settled snow, like ice, frozen and bound.
Story 14
I had a companion with whom I had traveled for years and shared salt, and between us the rights of friendship had been established beyond measure. In the end, for some small gain, he saw fit to hurt my feelings, and our friendship came to an end. Even so, there was still attachment on both sides; for I heard that one day, at a gathering, people were reciting two couplets of mine:
When my love comes in with a laugh that's full of salt, It rubs more salt into wounds already sore. Oh, if the end of a curl would only fall into my hand, As the sleeve of the generous falls into the hands of the poor!
A party of dervishes there applauded, not so much for the grace of the lines as out of their own good nature; and he too had been among them, praising the lines to the skies, regretting the loss of our old companionship, and confessing his fault. I saw that on his side, too, there was a wish to make it up. I sent him these lines, and we made peace:
Weren't we bound by a pledge, and faith kept on either side? You were cruel to me, and you broke the word you swore; I tied my heart to you once and for all, and let the world go, And never knew how soon you'd turn, and be my friend no more. If you still have a mind for peace, come back to me, And you'll be more welcome than you were before.
Story 15
A man lost his wife, who was young and beautiful, and her ancient mother stayed settled in the house because of the marriage portion. The man was sick to death of listening to her, and had no way out of living with her, until a party of acquaintances came to call on him in his grief.
One of them said, "How are you bearing the loss of your dear one?"
He said, "Not seeing my wife is not as hard on me as seeing her mother."
The rose has been plundered, and the thorn remains; They've carried off the treasure, and the snake remains. It's more pleasant to see your eye stuck on a spear Than to watch your enemies' faces appear. Cut off a thousand friends: it's your duty to, So that one enemy never comes into view.
Story 16
I remember that in the days of my youth I was passing down a street, with my eyes on a face, in the heat of midsummer, when the scorching air dried up your mouth and the poison wind of the desert boiled the marrow in your bones.
Being human and weak, I could not bear the noonday sun, and took refuge in the shade of a wall, hoping that someone would cool the summer's heat in me with a cold drink of water; when suddenly, out of the darkness of a doorway, a light shone: a beauty so lovely that the tongue of eloquence cannot describe it, like dawn breaking on a black night, or the Water of Life coming up out of the Land of Darkness where it lies, holding a cup of snow water with sugar poured into it and essence of roses mixed in. I don't know whether it had been scented with rose water, or a few drops from the rose of that face had fallen into it.
In short, I took the drink from that lovely hand and drank it, and began my life again:
There's a thirst in my heart that sips of clear water won't ease, Not even if I were to drink down seas. Happy the man born under a lucky star, whose eye Falls on a face like this, every morning; The man drunk on wine will wake at midnight; The man drunk on the cupbearer, on Resurrection morning.
Story 17
In the year that Muhammad Khwarazmshah (God have mercy on him) chose, for reasons of policy, to make peace with Khata, the land of the Khitai, I went into the great mosque of Kashgar and saw a boy, a student of grammar, perfectly formed and beautiful beyond all measure, the kind of boy of whom they say:
Your teacher taught you all the arts of flirting and stealing hearts; Taught you cruelty and coyness, scolding and the tyrant's arts. I've never seen a human with such a form and nature, such a figure, such a walk: Unless it was from a fairy that you learned these arts.
He had Zamakhshari's primer of Arabic grammar in his hand, and was reciting from it: "Zayd struck Amr, and Amr is the object." I said, "Boy, Khwarazm and Khata have made peace, and Zayd and Amr are still at war?" He laughed, and asked where I was born. I said, "The soil of Shiraz." He said, "What do you know of Sa'di's poems?" I said:
I've fallen for a grammarian who comes at me in a rage, As Zayd goes at Amr on the grammar-book's page; He trails his hem in pride and will not raise his head: Can a word that governs "trailing" make a "raising" instead?5
He sank into thought for a while, and said, "Most of his poems on this subject are in Persian. If you'd recite one of those, it would be easier to understand: speak to people according to their understanding, as the saying goes." I said:
Since your nature first set itself on grammar's art, It has wiped the face of patience from our heart. You in whose snare the lovers' hearts are laid, We are taken up with you, and you with Amr and Zayd.
In the morning, when I had made up my mind to go on my journey, someone had told him that So-and-so was Sa'di. He came running, all kindness, and sorry: "Why didn't you tell me all this time that it was you, so that I could have girded myself to serve you, in thanks for the coming of a great man?" I said:
In your presence, no voice comes out of me to say, "It's me."
He said, "Why not rest in this part of the world for a while, so that we can serve you and learn from you?" I said, "I can't, because of this story:
"I saw a great man up in the mountain heights, Content with a cave, who had given up the world's delights. I said, 'Why don't you come into town, and at least, Once in a while, let a knot in your heart be released?' He said, 'There are beauties there, fairy-faced, on every side; Where the mud is thick, even elephants slide.'"
With that, we kissed each other on the head and face, and said goodbye.
What good is it to kiss a friend's face, if you've got To say goodbye to him on the spot? It's like an apple saying goodbye to the orchard where it grew: Red on this side of its face, and yellow on that side too. If I don't die of grief on the day that we part, Don't think me fair in love, or true of heart.
Story 18
A man in a patched cloak was traveling with us in the caravan to the Hejaz. One of the Arab emirs had given him a hundred dinars to buy a sacrifice. Suddenly the robbers of the Khafaja tribe fell on the caravan and swept it clean. The merchants began to weep and wail, and to cry out to no purpose.
Plead with him, or shout and scold, The thief will not give back the gold.
All except that good dervish, who stayed as he was, with no change in him. I said, "Maybe the thieves didn't take your money?" He said, "Oh yes, they took it; but I was never so attached to it that parting from it would break my heart."
Don't tie your heart to anything or anyone, For taking it back again is not easily done.
I said, "What you've just said fits my own case. In my youth I came to be close to a young man, and our affection was so true that his beauty was the qibla of my eyes, the point they turned to as the faithful turn to Mecca in prayer, and union with him was the profit on the whole capital of my life."
Except for the angels of heaven, there will never again Be beauty of form like his on earth among men; By our friendship, after which all company is forbidden to me, No seed will ever grow into a man like him again.
Then all at once the foot of his life sank in the mud of death, and the smoke of parting rose from the hearth of his family's house. For days I kept vigil at his grave, and among the things I said in mourning for him was this:
If only, on the day the thorn of death pierced your foot, The world's hand had brought the deadly sword down on my head, So that my eyes would not see the world today without you! Here I am at your grave, with dust upon my head. He who would not settle, would not sleep, Till he had first strewn roses and eglantine around: The turning world has shed the roses of his face, And the brambles grow on his burial ground.
After I lost him, I resolved, with my mind made up, to roll up the carpet of desire for the rest of my life and to keep away from company.
The sea's profits would be fine, if not for the fear of the wave; The rose would be sweet company, if not for the thorn's ache. Last night I strutted like a peacock in the garden of union; Today, parted from my love, I'm writhing like a snake.
Story 19
They told one of the kings of Arabia the story of Majnun, "the Madman," and his Layla, and the frenzy he was in: that for all his learning and eloquence he had taken to the desert and let the reins of reason slip from his hand.
The king had him brought before him and began to reproach him: "What flaw did you find in the nobility of the human soul, that you took on the ways of the beasts and gave up the society of men?"
He said:
Many a friend has blamed me for loving her so; Has he never once seen her? Then he'd know. If only the ones who keep finding fault with me Could see your face, my heart's delight, So that, in your presence, instead of the citrons, They'd cut their hands, not knowing, at the sight.
And then the truth would bear witness to my claim, as Zulaykha said to the women of Egypt in the Qur'an's story of Joseph, when they had cut their hands at the sight of him: "This is the one you blamed me for."
The king took it into his head to see Layla's beauty for himself, and find out what kind of face had caused so much trouble.
He ordered her to be found. They went round the camps of the Arab tribes, found her, and stood her before the king in the courtyard. The king looked her over. He saw a dark-skinned, slight figure. She looked of no account to him, for the least of the servants of his harem were ahead of her in beauty and beyond her in finery.
Majnun read his mind, and said, "You have to look at Layla's beauty through the window of Majnun's eyes, for the secret of seeing her to be revealed to you."
Whenever the name of her pastures came to my ear, The doves of her pastures would have cried with me, could they hear. O band of friends, go and tell the man who is whole and well: What's in the heart of the one in pain, you can't tell. The healthy never feel the pain of a sore; I tell my pain only to one who has suffered it before. It's no use describing the bee and its sting To a man who's never been stung by anything. Until you've been through what we go through, Our state is only a story to you. Don't compare my burning with another's: understand, I have the salt in my wound, and he has it in his hand.
Story 20
They tell of a qadi of Hamadan who had fallen happily in love with a farrier's son, and the horseshoe of his heart was in the fire. For a long time he went after him, burning for him and running about, lying in wait and looking out, and saying, as the occasion called for:
That tall straight cypress came into my sight, Snatched my heart from my hand, and threw it underfoot outright; These bold eyes drag the heart off with a lasso: If you'd give your heart to no one, keep your eyes shut tight.
I heard that once, in a lane, the boy came face to face with the qadi. Something of the affair had reached his ears, and he was angry beyond words. He swore at him without restraint, called him vile names, picked up a stone, and spared him no insult. The qadi said to one of the respected scholars who was riding beside him:
Look at that beauty, and see his rage; and how That knot is tied in his sour and sweet brow.
In the Arab lands they say, "A blow from the beloved is a raisin."
A punch in the mouth from your hand is sweeter fare Than the bread my own hand puts there.
I do believe I catch a whiff of yielding in that impudence of his.
Grapes fresh from the vine are sour to eat; Wait two or three days, and they'll turn sweet.
He said this, and went back to the judgment seat. Several of the great men, respected witnesses of his court, were sitting with him while he judged. They kissed the ground before him: "With your leave, we'd like to say something, though it is a breach of manners, and the great have said:
'Don't argue with every word, it's not right to do; Finding fault with the great is a fault in you.'
"But since your lordship's past favors have always stayed with your servants, to see what is good for you and not say it would be a kind of treachery. The right course is this: do not circle round this boy in hope, and roll up the carpet of desire; for the office of qadi is a high place, and you must not drag it into disgrace with an ugly sin. The companion is the one you have seen, and the talk is the talk you have heard.
"One who has lost all shame, time and again, What does he care for the good name of other men? Many a good name, kept clean for fifty years, Is trampled by one bad name, and disappears."
The qadi liked the advice of his like-minded friends. He praised their good judgment and said, "My dear friends' view of what is good for me is exactly right, and the question admits of no answer. And yet:
"Blame me as much as you might: You can't wash an Ethiopian white. Nothing will make me forget you, try as you will; I'm a snake with a crushed head: I can't lie still."
He said this, and sent people to look into the boy's circumstances, and poured out boundless wealth; for they say that whoever has gold in the scales has strength in his arm, and whoever cannot reach a dinar cannot reach a friend in all the world.
Whoever sees gold will bow his head low; Though his shoulders be iron, like a balance beam, even so.
In short, one night a private meeting was arranged, and that same night the chief of police got word of it. The qadi spent the whole night with wine in his head and the young one in his arms. Too delighted to sleep, he sang:
Tonight this rooster can't be crowing at the proper time: The lovers haven't yet had enough of the embrace and the kiss. For one breath, my friend, trouble is asleep: take care, Stay awake, so that not a moment of life goes amiss, Until you hear the call to dawn prayer from the Friday mosque, Or the din of the drums at the atabeg's palace gate. When lips are on lips, as close as the lids of a rooster's eye, It's folly to part them because a silly rooster can't wait.
While the qadi was in this state, one of his household came in and said, "Why are you sitting there? Get up, and run while you have feet to run on! The envious have found fault with you; or rather, they have found the truth. Perhaps we can still put out the fire of this trouble with the water of good management while it is small; or tomorrow, when it flares up, it will take the whole world with it." The qadi looked at him with a smile and said:
When the lion has sunk its claws into the kill, What does it matter if a dog yaps its fill? Keep your face turned to the beloved's face, and let The enemy gnaw the back of his hand all he will.
That same night the king, too, was told: "Such a scandal has happened in your kingdom. What are your orders?" The king said, "I know him for one of the most learned men of the age, and the paragon of our time. It may be that his enemies have been plotting against him. I will not lend an ear to this until I see it with my own eyes; for the sages have said:
'To be quick in a rage to reach for the sword Is to bite your hand in regret afterward.'"
I heard that at dawn the king came, with a few of his intimates, to the qadi's bedside. He saw the candle standing, the beauty sitting, the wine spilled and the goblet broken, and the qadi in a drunken sleep, dead to the world.
He woke him gently, little by little: "Get up, the sun has risen." The qadi saw what was happening. He said, "From which direction did it rise?" He said, "From the east." He said, "Praise be to God! Then the door of repentance is still open; for the Prophet said, It will not be shut on God's servants until the sun rises in the west. I ask Your forgiveness, O God, and I turn to You in repentance."
These two things drove me into sin: Luck that comes to nothing, and an unfinished mind; If you have me arrested, I deserve it; If you pardon, pardon is better than paying back in kind.
The king said, "Repenting now, when you have seen your ruin coming, does no good. As the Qur'an says, their faith did not help them once they had seen Our might.
"What's the use of giving up theft at that point, When you can't get your rope up the palace wall? Tell the tall to keep their hands off the fruit; The short can't reach the branch at all.
"With a scandal like this out in the open, there is no way of escape for you." He said this, and the guards laid hold of him. The qadi said, "I have one more word to say in the sultan's service." The king heard him and said, "What is it?" He said:
Shake the sleeve of your displeasure at me as you will: Don't expect me to take my hand from your hem; I won't let go. If escape is impossible from this sin of mine, There is hope in the generosity you're known to show.
The king said, "That was a rare witticism and a strange turn of phrase; but it goes against reason and against the law that your learning and eloquence should rescue you today from the clutches of my punishment. The right course, as I see it, is to have you thrown down from the castle, so that others take the advice and learn the lesson." He said, "Lord of the world, I was raised on the bounty of this house, and I am not the only one who has committed this sin. Throw someone else down, so that I can learn the lesson." The king burst out laughing, forgave him his offense, and said to the hard-liners who had been hinting that he should be put to death:
You who each carry your own faults like a load, take care: Don't sneer at the faults that others bear.
Story 21
There was a young man, pure in his love and his ways, Who was pledged to a beauty with the purest of faces. I read that out on the ocean the pair Fell into a whirlpool together there. When a sailor came to grab his hand, so he Would not die in that condition in the sea, Out of the waves and his anguish he said, "Let me be: take my love's hand instead." As he said it, the world rose in a storm all around; They heard him say, as he gave up his soul and drowned: "Never listen to a tale of love from that worthless kind Who, when times are hard, put their love out of mind." That is how lovers have lived; and so, Hear it from one broken by love, and you'll know That Sa'di knows the ways of love as well as they Know Arabic in Baghdad, where it's spoken every day. The one who comforts your heart: tie your heart to that one; Then close your eyes to the world, and look at none. If Layla's Majnun came back to life, he'd look For the story of love, and write it out of this book.
Chapter 6: On Weakness and Old Age
Story 1
I was holding a discussion with a group of scholars in the great mosque of Damascus when a young man came in and said, "Is there anyone here who knows Persian?"
Most of them pointed to me.
I said, "I hope all is well?"
He said, "An old man of a hundred and fifty is dying, and he's saying something in Persian that we can't make out. If you would be kind enough to take the trouble, God will reward you; perhaps he is making his will."
When I came to his bedside, this is what he was saying:
I told myself I'd draw a few breaths as I liked; Alas, my breath is caught in my throat, and stuck; Alas, at life's table with its many dishes We'd eaten for a moment, and they said, "Enough."
I put the meaning of these words into Arabic for the Syrians, and they were amazed that after so long a life he still grieved so for the life of this world.
I said, "How are you, in this state?"
He said, "What can I say?
"Haven't you seen the agony a man goes through When a single tooth of his is pulled out? Imagine, then, what state he must be in In the hour when his precious soul goes out."
I said, "Put the picture of death out of your mind, and don't let imagination get the upper hand of your constitution; for the Greek philosophers have said that a constitution may be sound and still not be trusted to last, and an illness may be frightening and still not be a sure sign of death. If you like, I'll call a doctor to treat you."
He raised his eyes, laughed, and said:
The clever doctor claps his hands in dismay When he sees the old man's wits have fallen away. The owner is busy painting pictures in the hall, While the footings give way and the house is about to fall. An old man lay dying and groaned in pain, And his old wife rubbed him with sandalwood in vain. When the body's balance is knocked out of true, There's nothing a charm or a cure can do.
Story 2
An old man tells how he had married a girl, decked the room with flowers, sat alone with her, and fixed his eyes and his heart on her. For long nights he would not sleep, but told her jokes and witty stories, hoping that she would warm to him and lose her shyness.
"Among other things, I told her: 'Your high fortune has been your friend, and the eye of your luck was wide awake, when you fell into the company of an old man: ripe, well brought up, a man of the world, settled, who has tasted hot and cold and tried good and bad, who knows what companionship is owed and will do all that love requires; caring and kind, good-humored and sweet-tongued.
"'I'll win your heart as far as it's in me to do; If you hurt me, I will not hurt you. If you live on sugar, as a parrot does, I'll still Give up my own sweet life to feed you your fill.
"'You haven't fallen into the hands of some vain, headstrong, hot-headed, light-footed young man, who cooks up a new whim every moment and a new notion every minute, sleeps somewhere new every night and takes a new lover every day.
"'Don't expect the nightingales to be true: Every moment they're singing to a rose that's new.
"'Not so old men: they live by reason and good manners, not as ignorant youth demands.
"'Look for one better than yourself, and seize the day; With one like yourself, you'll throw your time away.'"
He said, "I went on in this vein so long that I thought her heart was caught in my noose and she had become my prey. Suddenly she heaved a cold sigh from the depths of her pain and said, 'All the things you've said don't weigh as much in the scales of my reason as one thing I once heard from my midwife: that for a young woman, an arrow in her side is better than an old man.'"
When she saw, between her husband's hands, A thing that drooped like the lip of a man who has fasted all day, She said, "He's got a dead thing there with him, And charms are for sleepers: this one has passed away." When a woman gets up from a man and is not satisfied, That house will see trouble and quarrels in plenty arise; An old man who can't get up from where he sits Without his stick: how is his stick to rise?
In short, there was no hope of their getting on, and it ended in divorce. When her waiting period was over, the time the law sets before a woman may marry again, they married her to a young man, hot-tempered and sour-faced, penniless and nasty. She suffered his cruelty and unkindness, and bore pain and hardship, and still she went on giving thanks to God for His blessing: "Praise be to God, I've escaped that painful torment and come to this lasting bliss."
In spite of your cruelty and your bad temper, I'll bear Whatever you load on me, because your face is fair. I'd rather burn in torment with you at my side Than enter paradise as another man's bride. A whiff of onion from a lovely mouth will be Sweeter than a rose from an ugly hand to me.
Story 3
I was the guest of an old man in Diyarbakir who had great wealth and a handsome son.
One night he told me, "In all my life I have had no child but this son. There is a tree in this valley that people visit as a shrine, to ask for what they need. Many long nights I wept and prayed to God at the foot of that tree, until He gave me this son."
I heard the son whispering to his friends, "If only I knew where that tree is, I'd go and pray there, and my father would die."
The father delighted that his son is so clever, and the son sneering that his father is senile.
Years go by, and you never set out To visit your father's grave, not one day; What good have you done in your father's place, That you look to your own son to repay?
Story 4
One day, in the pride of youth, I had pushed on hard, and at nightfall I was left worn out at the foot of a pass.
A frail old man who was coming along behind the caravan said, "Why are you sitting there? This is no place for sleeping."
I said, "How can I go, when I've no feet left for going?"
He said, "Haven't you heard what the men of heart have said: Better to walk and stop than run and drop."
You who long for the next stop, don't rush; Take my advice, and learn patience on the way: The Arab horse runs two stretches at a gallop, And the camel goes slowly, night and day.
Story 5
There was a young man in our circle of pleasure, quick and charming, laughing and sweet-tongued, into whose heart no grief of any kind ever came, and whose lips were never closed for laughing.
A long time went by without our happening to meet. After that I saw him: he had taken a wife and had children growing, the root of his gaiety was cut, and the rose of his desire had withered.
I asked him, "How are you? How are things?"
He said, "Since I've had children, I've stopped being a child."
What's this boyishness, when gray has changed my hair? The change of time is warning enough: beware. Now you are old, put childish things away; Leave to the young their joking and their play. Don't look for young men's merriment in men turned gray: The water that's gone won't come back to the stream, they say. Once the grain is ripe for the reaper's hand, It won't sway like the green young shoots in the land. My days of youth have slipped out of my hand; Alas for those heart-warming days; they won't come back! The strength of a lion's paw is gone; Now, like the cheetah, I'm content with cheese for a snack. An old woman had dyed her hair black; I said, "Old mother of the days gone by, Grant you've dyed your hair black by a trick: That hunched back of yours won't straighten, however you try."6
Story 6
Once, in the ignorance of youth, I shouted at my mother. She sat down in a corner, hurt, and said through her tears, "Have you forgotten when you were small, that you are so rough with me?"
How well an old woman spoke to her son, When she saw him a leopard-killer, an elephant in his might: "If only you remembered your childhood days, How helpless you lay in my arms, held tight, You wouldn't be cruel to me today, A lion of a man as you are, and I an old woman, frail and slight."
Story 7
A rich miser had a sick son. His well-wishers told him, "The right thing would be to have the whole Qur'an recited for him, or to offer a sacrifice." He sank into thought for a while and said, "Better the Book that sits on the shelf than the flock out on the hills."
A man of heart heard it and said, "He chose the recitation because the Qur'an is on the tip of his tongue, and his gold is in the depths of his soul."
Bowing the neck in worship is a fine thing to do; If only the giving hand would come along too! Over a dinar they'll stall, like a donkey stuck in the mud; Ask them to say "Praise be to God," and a hundred come out in a flood.
Story 8
They asked an old man, "Why don't you marry?"
He said, "I would get no pleasure from old women."
They said, "Take a young one, since you can afford it."
He said, "I'm old, and I have no liking for old women; so how could a young one, who is young, ever come to love me, who am old?"
A man of seventy plays at being young and in love: You're blind, admit it; give her a kiss, and sleep; that's enough. Muscle, not money, is what's needed: the lady would rather eat One carrot than sixty pounds of meat.7
Story 9
I've heard that lately an old man got it into his head, Gray as he was, to find himself a wife and wed. He married a pretty young thing whose name was Pearl, And hid her, like a pearl in its case, from the eyes of the world. As weddings go, it was a sight; But at the first charge the sheikh's staff fell asleep that night. He drew the bow, and did not hit the mark: no one can sew A heavy cloth except with a point of steel, as tailors know. He began to complain to his friends, and made his case That this brazen girl had swept his house clean, and left no trace. Between the husband and wife such war and trouble spread That it went to the chief of police and the qadi; and Sa'di said: "After all the fighting and the scandal, the fault is not the girl's: With a hand that trembles, how could you ever pierce a pearl?"
Chapter 7: On the Effects of Education
Story 1
One of the viziers had a dull-witted son. He sent him to a scholar: "Give this boy some education, and perhaps he'll get some sense." The scholar taught him for a long time, to no effect. He sent word to the father: "This boy is not getting any sense, and he has driven me out of mine."
When the stuff a thing is made of is fit to take it, Training will leave its mark, and the mark will stay; No amount of polishing can make good Iron that is base at the root, try as you may. Wash a dog in all the seven seas: Once it's wet, it's only fouler than before; And if they take Jesus' donkey to Mecca, When it comes back, it's still a donkey, nothing more.
Story 2
A sage was giving his sons advice: "My dear boys, learn a skill. The kingdom and fortune of this world are not to be relied on, and silver and gold are always in danger when you travel: either a thief carries them off all at once, or the owner eats through them bit by bit. But a skill is a spring that keeps on flowing and a fortune that lasts; and if a man of skill loses his fortune there is nothing to grieve over, for skill is a fortune in itself. Wherever he goes he is valued and seated at the head of the room, while the man without a skill picks up scraps and suffers hardship.
"It's hard, after high rank, to put up with commands; Used to coddling, to put up with harsh hands. Once, when trouble broke out in Syria, every man Left his own corner, and off they all ran: The farmers' sons who had learning Went off to be viziers to the king on his throne; And the viziers' sons, who were short on sense, Went off to beg in the villages on their own."
Story 3
A scholar was tutoring a prince, and he would beat him without restraint and scold him beyond measure. Once the boy, unable to bear it any longer, took his complaint to his father, and pulled off his shirt to show his aching body. The father's heart was wrung.
He said to the teacher, "You don't allow yourself half as much harshness and scolding with the sons of my ordinary subjects as you do with my son. Why is that?"
He said, "Because everyone, and kings above all, must think before they speak and act in ways that win approval; for whatever passes the hand or tongue of a king is sure to be on every tongue, while the words and deeds of the common people do not count for so much.
"If a dervish does a hundred things that are wrong, Not one in a hundred is known to his friends; But if a king makes a single joke, It's carried from land to land, to the world's ends.
"The tutor of a prince must therefore work harder at refining the character of the sons of the great (may God make them grow up well!) than he does with the common people.
"Whoever is not taught manners while he's small, Success has left him by the time he's grown; Bend green wood whatever way you like, But dry wood straightens under fire alone."
The king approved of the jurist's sound judgment and the way he had put his answer. He gave him a robe of honor and gifts, and raised him to a higher post.
Story 4
In the Maghreb I saw a schoolmaster who taught the Qur'an to children: sour-faced and sharp-tongued, bad-tempered and a tormentor of people, with a beggar's nature and no self-restraint, the sight of whom spoiled a Muslim's day, and whose reading of the Qur'an darkened people's hearts. A crowd of innocent boys and young girls were caught in his cruel hands, with neither the nerve to laugh nor the courage to speak. Now he would slap the silver cheek of one, now put the crystal shins of another in the stocks. In short, I heard that people found out something of his inner vileness; they beat him and threw him out, and gave his school to a good man, devout and simple-hearted, good and gentle, who never spoke unless he had to and from whose tongue nothing ever came to hurt anyone.
The children lost their awe of the first master. They saw that the second had the nature of an angel, and one by one they turned into demons. Relying on his gentleness, they gave up their lessons. Most of the time they sat together playing, and broke their unfinished slates over one another's heads.
When the master never hurts a soul, The children play leapfrog in the market, out of control.
Two weeks later I passed that mosque again, and saw the first master: they had made it up with him and put him back in his place. Honestly, I was upset. I said "God preserve us!" and asked why they had made the Devil the angels' teacher again. A witty old man who had seen the world said:
A king sent his son to school, and he Put a silver slate on the boy's knee; At the top of the slate was written in gold, above: "A teacher's harshness is better than a father's love."
Story 5
A holy man's son came into boundless wealth from his uncles' estate. He took to vice and debauchery and became a spendthrift. In short, there was no sin he left untried and no drink he left untasted.
Once I gave him some advice: "My son, income is running water, and good living is a turning millwheel." That is, spending freely is only for a man with a steady income.
When you've no income, spend at a slower rate; For this is what the boatmen's song has said: If no rain falls on the mountains, In a year the Tigris will be a dry riverbed.
"Take up good sense and good manners, and leave amusement and play; for when the money is gone, you will suffer hardship and eat your regrets."
Lost in the pleasures of the pipe and the cup, the boy did not let these words into his ear. He objected to what I said: "To spoil the comfort of the moment by worrying about trouble to come goes against the judgment of the wise.
"The lucky, who have everything they want: why Should they live hard, for fear of hard times by and by? Go, have a good time, my friend, my heart's delight; Don't grieve today for tomorrow: it isn't right.
"All the more so for me, who hold the place of honor among the generous, who have sworn the bond of chivalry, and whose bounty is the talk of the town.
"Whoever's renowned for his generosity Shouldn't put his money under lock and key. Once your good name has gone out in the lane, You can't shut the door in its face again."
I saw that he would not take advice, and that my warm breath had no effect on his cold iron. I gave up advising him, turned away from his company, and acted on the words of the sages: Say what is yours to say; if they will not take it, it is no longer on you.
Speak, though you know they will not hear, Whatever good counsel you know, whatever you'd advise; Before long you'll find the headstrong fool Fallen with both feet in irons, before your eyes, Wringing his hands and crying, "Alas, Why didn't I listen to the words of the wise?"
Until, after some time, I saw with my own eyes the ruin I had foreseen: he was stitching rag to rag and saving crumb by crumb. My heart was wrung at his weakness, and I did not think it decent, in such a state, to scratch a poor man's wound with blame and sprinkle salt in it. Then I said to myself:
The worthless drinker, at the bottom of his glass, Never thinks of the days of want that will come to pass. A tree that scatters its fruit in spring In winter is bound to be a leafless thing.
Story 6
A king gave his son to a tutor and said, "This is your own child. Bring him up just as you would one of your own sons."
The tutor bowed and accepted the charge, and worked on the boy for some years with no result, while the tutor's own sons became masters of learning and eloquence.
The king took the scholar to task and reproached him: "You broke your promise and did not keep faith."
He said, "It cannot be hidden from the judgment of the lord of the earth that the training was the same and the natures were different.
"Though silver and gold come out of stone, Not every stone has silver and gold inside; Canopus, the star that cures the leather, shines on all the world: Here it makes a coarse sack, there a fine Yemeni hide."
Story 7
I heard one of the old masters who train disciples saying to a disciple, "My son, if a man's heart were as attached to the Giver of his daily bread as it is to his daily bread, he would rise higher than the angels.
"God did not forget you, back in the days When you were a drop of seed, buried, senseless as a stone; He gave you a soul, a nature, reason and understanding, Beauty and speech, judgment, thought and a mind of your own; He set your ten fingers in order on your hands, And fitted your two arms to your shoulders, bone to bone. And now, you small-souled thing, do you think One day He'll forget your daily bread, and leave you alone?"
Story 8
I saw a Bedouin saying to his son, "My boy, on the Day of Resurrection you will be asked what you earned, and not whose son you are": that is, they will ask you what you did, not who your father was.
The cloth of the Kaaba, which pilgrims kiss, Did not win its fame from the silkworm, whose work it is; It kept company for a while with something precious, And so it came to be held as dear as the Kaaba is.
Story 9
It is written in the books of the sages that scorpions are not born in the usual way, as other animals are, but eat their mother's insides, tear open her belly, and make for the open country; and the skins you find in scorpions' holes are what is left of it. Once I was telling this curious fact to a great man. He said, "My heart bears witness to the truth of it, and it could hardly be otherwise: since they treated their mother and father like that when they were small, no wonder they are so welcome and so loved when they're grown!"
A father gave this charge to his son: "Remember this lesson, my lucky boy, when you are grown: Whoever is false to his own people Will never be loved, or come into his own."
They asked the scorpion, "Why don't you come out in winter?" He said, "What respect do I get in summer, that I should come out in winter too?"
Story 10
A poor dervish's wife was pregnant, and her time had come; and this dervish had never had a child in all his life.
He said, "If God (mighty and glorious is He) gives me a son, I'll give everything I own to the dervishes, except this patched cloak I'm wearing."
As it happened, she had a son, and he spread a feast for the dervishes as he had vowed.
Some years later, when I came back from a journey to Syria, I passed through my friend's neighborhood and asked how he was doing.
They said, "He's in the prison of the chief of police."
I asked why.
Someone said, "His son got drunk, picked a fight, shed a man's blood and ran off; and on his account the father has a chain round his throat and heavy irons on his feet."
I said, "He asked God (mighty and glorious is He) for this affliction in his prayers!"
If pregnant women, you who have sense, Should bring snakes, when their time came, into the world, That would be better, in the eyes of the wise, Than to bring wayward children into the world.
Story 11
When I was a child I asked a great man about coming of age. He said, "It is written in the books that there are three signs: one is turning fifteen, the second is the wet dream, and the third is the growth of hair in front.
"But in truth there is one sign only: that you care more about pleasing God (great and exalted is He) than about pleasing your own self; and whoever lacks this quality, those who know the truth do not count as grown.
"A drop of water took on a human shape Once it had lain forty days in the womb, out of sight; But if a man of forty has no sense and no manners, Strictly speaking, to call him human wouldn't be right. Humanity is generosity and kindness: Don't think it's just this shape of matter, this outward part. It's merit that counts; for figures can be painted On palace walls in vermilion and verdigris, by a painter's art. When a human has no virtue and no goodness, What sets him and a picture on a wall apart? To get your hands on the world is no merit; If you can, get your hands on someone's heart."
Story 12
One year a quarrel broke out among the pilgrims going to Mecca on foot, and your humble servant was on foot too on that journey. Honestly, we went for each other's heads and faces, and gave ourselves up fully to the wickedness and wrangling that the Qur'an forbids on the pilgrimage.
I heard a man riding in a camel litter say to the companion who rode in the pannier opposite him, "How strange! The ivory foot soldier, the pawn, crosses the chessboard and becomes a queen, that is, it ends up better than it was; and these foot soldiers of the pilgrimage have crossed the desert and ended up worse.
"Tell the pilgrim who bites at people, from me, Who tears his fellow men to pieces on the road: You're not the pilgrim; the camel is, for he, Poor beast, eats thorns and carries the load."
Story 13
An Indian was learning to throw naphtha fire. A sage said to him, "With a house of reeds, these aren't the games you need."
Until you know a word is exactly right, don't say it; And what you know will find no good answer, don't say it.
Story 14
A little fellow got a sore eye and went to a horse doctor: "Treat it." The horse doctor put into his eye what he puts into the eyes of four-footed beasts, and the man went blind. They took the case to the judge. He said, "There is no compensation due from him. If this man weren't a donkey, he wouldn't have gone to a horse doctor." The point of this story is for you to know that whoever puts an untried man in charge of a great affair will be regretful, and will be held by the wise to have a light head.
A man of sense and clear judgment will not hand Grave matters to the low-born and the base; The mat-weaver is a weaver, true, But they won't take him to the silk-weaving place.
Story 15
One of the great imams lost a son. They asked him, "What shall we write on his tombstone?" He said, "The verses of the glorious Book are too honored and too noble to be written in places like that, where time wears them away, people walk over them and dogs piss on them. If they must write something, this verse will do:
'Ah, every time the green came up in the garden, How happy it made this heart of mine! Pass by, my friend, when the spring comes round, And you'll see the green come up from this clay of mine.'"
Story 16
A holy man passed by one of the men of wealth, who had a slave bound tightly hand and foot and was punishing him. He said, "Young man, God (mighty and glorious is He) has made a creature like you a prisoner of your command, and given you the advantage over him. Give thanks to God the Most High for His blessing, and do not allow yourself so much cruelty to him, for fear that tomorrow, at the Resurrection, he will turn out better than you, and you will be put to shame.
"Don't vent your anger on a slave too much and too long; Don't hurt his heart, don't do him wrong. You bought him, after all, for ten dirhams' worth; You didn't, by your own power, bring him to birth. How long, this lording it, this pride, this ire? There's a Lord greater than you, and higher. You who give orders to your slaves Arslan and Aghush, take care Not to forget the One whose orders you bear."
It is related that the Master of the World, the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace), said: The greatest regret on the Day of Resurrection will be when a good slave is taken to paradise and his wicked master to hell.
On a slave who serves you of his own free will, Don't rage without limit, or look on him with disdain; For it will be a disgrace on the Day of Reckoning: The slave set free, and the master in a chain.
Story 17
One year I was traveling from Balkh to Bamiyan, and the road was dangerous with robbers. A young man came along with me as escort: a master of the shield and the crossbow, a man-at-arms of great strength, whose bow it took ten strong men to string, and whose back the strongmen of the earth had never brought to the ground. But, as you know, he was pampered and raised in the shade, not a man who had seen the world and traveled. The thunder of the warriors' drums had never reached his ears, and he had never seen the lightning of the horsemen's swords.
No enemy had ever made him a prisoner of war; No rain of arrows had ever poured round him before.
As it happened, the young man and I were running along one behind the other. Every old wall that came in his way he knocked down with the strength of his arm, and every great tree he saw he pulled up with the strength of his hands, and he boasted:
Where's the elephant, to see these shoulders and arms of mine? Where's the lion, to see this fist and this grip of mine?
We were going along like that when two Indians put their heads up from behind a rock and came at us to kill us. One had a club in his hand, and the other a clod-breaking mallet under his arm. I said to the young man, "What are you waiting for?
"Out with all the manhood and strength you've got: The enemy's walked on his own two feet to the burial plot."
I saw the bow and arrows drop from the young man's hand, and a shiver run through his bones.
Not everyone who can split a hair with an arrow that cuts through steel Will stand on the day the warriors charge, and not turn on his heel.
We saw no way out but to leave our baggage, our weapons and our clothes behind, and get away with our lives.
For heavy work, send a man who's done the work before, One who can catch a raging lion in the coil of a lasso's strand; A young man, though he's thick in the neck, with an elephant's frame, In battle, his joints will come undone in terror, and he will not stand. To a man who's been tried in the ranks, the fight is as plain As a point of the law that a jurist has in hand.
Story 18
I saw a rich man's son sitting at his father's grave and arguing with a poor man's boy: "Our tomb is made of stone, and the inscription is in colors, with a marble pavement laid down and turquoise tiles worked into it. What is your father's grave like? A couple of bricks put together, and a couple of handfuls of dust thrown over them."
The poor boy heard this and said, "By the time your father has managed to stir under those heavy stones, mine will already have reached paradise."
A donkey with a lighter load Without a doubt goes easier down the road. The poor man, who has carried the cruel load of need, Will come, it's certain, lightly laden to death's door; And the one who lived in plenty, in comfort and in ease Will find death harder, no doubt, for all he had before. In any case, a prisoner who escapes his chains Is better off than a prince who's caught, and a prince no more.
Story 19
I asked a great man the meaning of the Prophet's saying, Your worst enemy is your own self, which lies between your two sides.
He said, "Because any enemy you treat kindly becomes your friend, except the self: the more you humor it, the more it opposes you.
"A man becomes angelic by eating little; If he eats like the beasts, he falls like a stone. Whoever you give his wish to will do as you say; Not the self: once it gets its wish, it gives orders of its own."
Sa'di's Debate with a Pretender on Wealth and Poverty
I saw a man sitting in a gathering who had the look of the dervishes and none of their nature. He had launched into a tirade, opened his ledger of grievances and started in on the rich. He had got as far as saying that the poor man has the will but his hands are tied, and the rich man has the hands but his will is lame.
Of money, the generous have none; Of generosity, the rich have none.
Since I was raised on the bounty of great men, this talk went hard with me. I said, "My friend, the rich are the income of the destitute and the savings of the recluse, the goal of the pilgrim and the refuge of the traveler; they shoulder heavy loads so that others may rest. They put a hand to their food only when their dependents and those under them have eaten, and what is left of their generosity goes round to widows and the old, to relatives and neighbors.
"The rich have endowments to make, vows to keep and guests to feed, Their zakat, their alms, their freed slaves, their offerings and beasts to slay; How will you ever come up to their fortune, when all you can do Is these two bows of prayer, and even those with your mind a hundred miles away?
"Whether it is the strength to give or the strength to kneel in prayer, the rich can manage it better: their money has paid its alms, their clothes are clean, their honor is safe and their hearts are free. The strength to obey God lies in a good mouthful, and sound worship in clean clothes. It is plain what strength can come from an empty stomach, what kindness from an empty hand, what journey from thirsty feet, what good from a hungry hand.
"The man who cannot see where his morning meal will come from Sleeps a scattered sleep at night; The ant lays up its store in summer So that its winter cares are light.
"Ease does not go with want, and a collected mind does not take shape in hardship. One man has already begun his evening prayer; another is still sitting and waiting for his evening meal. How could these two ever be alike?
"The man of means is free to serve the Lord; The man whose bread is scattered has a heart scattered abroad.
"The worship of the rich, then, is the likelier to be accepted, since they are collected and present, not distracted and scattered in mind. They have made provision for their living and are free for their round of prayers. The Arabs say, 'God keep me from crushing poverty, and from living next door to a man I do not love'; and a saying of the Prophet has it, 'Poverty is a blackened face in both worlds.'" He said, "Haven't you heard that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, 'Poverty is my pride'?" I said, "Hush! Our Master (peace be upon him) was pointing to the poverty of a company who are champions in the field of acceptance and stand ready for the arrow of fate; not these who put on the cloak of the righteous and peddle the bread of the dole.
"You drum that booms so loud and is empty within, With no provisions, what will you do when the march is to begin? Turn the face of greed away from people, if you are a man, And don't twist a thousand-bead rosary round your hand.
"A dervish who has no knowledge of God does not rest until his poverty ends in unbelief; for, as a saying of the Prophet has it, poverty is close to becoming unbelief. Without wealth no one can clothe the naked or work to free a prisoner; and who will bring the likes of us up to the rank of the rich? How can the hand below compare with the hand above? Don't you see that God (glorious and exalted is He), in His firm Revelation, tells of the bliss of the people of paradise in these words, 'For them there is a known provision'? That is to teach you that the man taken up with scraping together his bare sufficiency is shut out from the blessing of a clean life, and that the kingdom of leisure lies under the seal of a known provision.
"The thirsty, when they sleep, can see in their dreams The whole wide world turned into springs and streams.
The moment I had said this, the reins of the dervish's patience slipped from the hand of his endurance. He drew the sword of his tongue, sent the horse of eloquence galloping across the field of insolence, rode straight at me and said, "You have gone on so extravagantly in their praise and said such scattered things that anyone would imagine they were the antidote itself, or the key to the storehouse of daily bread.
"A handful of proud, conceited, self-admiring, standoffish men, busy with their money and their comforts, bewitched by rank and riches, who never speak except to insult and never look except with distaste. They call scholars beggars and sneer at the poor as down-and-outs; for the power of the money they have and the glory of the rank they imagine they have, they sit above everyone and think themselves better than everyone, and it never enters their heads to raise their heads to anyone. They have never heard the saying of the sages: Whoever is behind others in obedience to God and ahead of them in wealth is rich in form and poor in fact.
"If a man with no merit but money looks down on the wise, Count him a donkey's arse, though he's the whale whose ambergris men prize."
I said, "Don't think it right to blame them; they are lords of generosity." He said, "You're wrong: they are slaves of money. What good are they? They are like the clouds of March, and they do not rain; they are the fountain of sunlight, and they shine on no one. They sit mounted on the horse of means, and do not ride. They will not take a step for God, or give a single dirham without reminding you of it and hurting you. They gather their money with toil, keep it with meanness and leave it with regret; as the sages say, the miser's silver comes out of the ground when he goes into the ground.
"One man with toil and trouble gets the wealth he gains; Another comes and takes it without the toil and pains."
I told him, "You have found out about the stinginess of the rich only by begging from them. Otherwise, to a man who has put greed aside, the generous man and the miser look the same. The touchstone knows what gold is, and the beggar knows who is tightfisted."
He said, "I say it from experience. They post their hangers-on at the door and set brutal, hard men over it, so as not to admit people of worth; they put a hand on the chest of men of discernment and say, 'Nobody's in.' And they are telling the truth.
"Of a man who has no sense, no spirit, no judgment, no plan, The doorman put it well: 'There's nobody in, not a man.'"
I said, "They have an excuse: people with expectations have worn them to death, and beggars' petitions have driven them to cry out. Sooner will the sand of the desert turn to pearls than the eye of the beggar be filled.
"All the good things of the world won't fill a greedy eye, As dew will never fill a well that has run dry.
"Wherever you see a man who has suffered hardship and tasted bitterness, he throws himself greedily into dangerous ventures, does not shrink from what comes of them, has no fear of God's punishment and cannot tell the lawful from the forbidden.
"If a clod of dirt comes down on a dog's head, He jumps for joy: he thinks a bone is here; And if two men carry a bier on their shoulders, The mean-souled man thinks a spread of food is near.
"But the man who has the world's goods is watched over by the eye of God's favor, and kept by the lawful from the forbidden. Though I have not set this out in full or brought my proofs, I expect fairness from you. Have you ever seen a beggar with his hands tied behind his shoulders, or a pauper sitting in prison, or an innocent's veil torn, or a hand cut off at the wrist, except because of poverty? Brave men, driven by need, have been caught in the tunnels they dug to break into houses, and had their heels pierced. And it is likely that when a poor man's lower self, the self that commands to evil, craves a woman and he has no means to marry, he will fall into sin; for the belly and the private parts are twins, that is, children of one womb: so long as the one is well provided, the other is up on its feet. I heard that they caught a dervish in a foul act with a youth. Not only was he disgraced; he faced a stoning. He said, 'Muslims, I can't afford to take a wife, and I haven't the strength to be patient. What am I to do? There is no monkhood in Islam.' And among the causes of the calm and the inner composure that the rich enjoy is this, that every night they take in their arms a beauty through whom they grow young again each day; at whose loveliness the bright morning lays its hand on its heart, and the swaying cypress stands stuck in the mud for shame.
"Fingers plunged deep in the blood that dear ones bled, Fingertips dyed the jujube's red.
"It is impossible that, with a face as lovely as that beside him, he should go about forbidden things or think of ruin.
"A heart that a houri of paradise has plundered and taken as her prize Won't turn to Yaghma's beauties, though plunder is their name, with longing eyes. Who has fresh dates before him, all that he likes, at ease, Needs no stones to throw at the clusters in the trees.
"Mostly it is the empty-handed who stain the hem of chastity with sin, and the hungry who snatch bread.
"A ravening dog that has found meat won't stop to ask If it's the Prophet Salih's holy camel or the Antichrist's ass.
"How many of the veiled and respectable have fallen into corruption through poverty, and thrown their precious good name to the wind of disgrace!
"With hunger, the strength to abstain gives out; Poverty pulls the reins from the hand of the devout.
"Hatim of Tayy lived in the desert. Had he lived in a city, the swarming beggars would have been too much for him, and they would have torn the clothes off his back." He said, "No: I feel for their state." I said, "No: you are sore about their estate." We went at it like this, the two of us locked together. Every pawn he moved up, I worked to push back; every check he gave my king, I covered with my queen; until he had gambled away the last coin in the purse of his resolve and shot every arrow in the quiver of his argument.
Mind you don't throw down your shield when a fluent talker attacks: He has nothing but borrowed overstatement; of everything else he's short. Practice your faith and your knowledge of God; for the rhyming speechmaker Keeps his weapons at the gate, and there is nobody in the fort.
At last he had no case left, and I had him in disgrace. He reached out to lay hands on me and started talking nonsense; for it is the way of the ignorant, when they are left with no argument against an opponent, to rattle the chain of hostility, like Azar the idol-carver, Abraham's father, who could not get the better of his son in argument and rose up to fight him: "If you do not stop, I will stone you." He swore at me; I gave him a piece of my mind. He tore my collar; I grabbed him by the chin.
He fell on me, and I on him; The crowd ran after us, laughing at the fray; A whole world was biting its finger in wonder At the things the two of us had to say.
In short, we took the case to the qadi and agreed to abide by a just judgment, so that the magistrate of the Muslims could look for the right course and tell the difference between the rich and the poor. When the qadi had looked us over and heard our arguments, he bowed his head into his collar in thought, and after long reflection raised it and said, "You who have praised the rich and treated the poor so harshly, know that wherever there is a rose there is a thorn; with the wine comes the hangover; on top of the treasure lies the snake; and where the royal pearl is, there is the man-eating shark. Behind the pleasures of life in this world waits the sting of death, and in front of the bliss of paradise stands a wall of hardships.
"What can the seeker of the Friend do, but bear the enemy's blows? Treasure and snake, grief and joy, come together, like the thorn and the rose.
"Don't you see that in the garden there is the musk willow, and there is dry wood? In the same way, among the rich there are the grateful and the ungrateful, and in the circle of the poor there are the patient and the fretful.
"If hail came down in pearls, each drop that fell, The bazaar would be as full of them as of cheap beads to sell.
"Those nearest to God (glorious and exalted is He) are the rich who live like dervishes and the dervishes who have the spirit of the rich. The greatest of the rich is the one who cares about the poor, and the best of the poor is the one who has little to do with the rich. As the Qur'an says, 'Whoever puts his trust in God, God is enough for him.'" Then he turned the face of reproach from me toward the dervish and said, "You who said that the rich are busy and heedless and drunk on their amusements: yes! There is a set of them just as you have described: small-minded, ungrateful for God's gifts, who take and put away and neither eat nor give. If, say, the rain fails or a flood sweeps the world away, they trust in their wealth, never ask after the poor man's suffering, have no fear of God (mighty and glorious is He), and say:
'If another man dies of want, I still have plenty here; Let the flood come: the duck has nothing to fear.' The women riding camels in their litters never cast a glance At the man who is drowning in the dunes' expanse. Once the mean have got their own blankets clear, they cry, 'Why should we grieve if the whole world has to die?'
"There is a set of them of the kind you have heard; and there is another, who have spread the table of bounty and opened the hand of generosity, seekers of a good name and of the knowledge of God, masters of this world and the next: like His Majesty the king of the world, just, aided by God, victorious and triumphant, holder of the reins of mankind, defender of the frontiers of Islam, heir to the kingdom of Solomon, the most just of the kings of the age, Muzaffar al-Dunya wa'l-Din, the Atabeg Abu Bakr son of Sa'd, may God prolong his days and give victory to his banners.
"No father ever showed his son the kindness That your generous hand has shown the race of man; God wished to have mercy on a whole world: He made you king of the world; that was His mercy's plan."
When the qadi had carried his speech this far, and spurred the horse of eloquence past the bounds of anything we could have imagined, we bowed to the judge's decree as one bows to the decree of fate, and let bygones be bygones. After the quarrel we took the road of reconciling; by way of amends we laid our heads at each other's feet, kissed each other's heads and faces, and closed the argument with this:
Don't complain of the turning of the world, dervish, For you die ill-starred if you die holding this view; And you, rich man, while your heart and your hand have their way, Eat, and give: you have won this world, and the next one too.
Chapter 8: On the Manners of Company
1. Money is for the comfort of life, not life for the piling up of money. They asked a wise man, "Who is the lucky man, and what is bad luck?" He said, "The lucky man is the one who ate and sowed; the unlucky man is the one who died and left it all behind."
Say no prayer for a man who did nothing at all of worth, Who spent his life piling up money, and never enjoyed it on earth.
2. Moses (peace be upon him) gave Korah this advice: "Do good, as God has done good to you." He did not hear, and you have heard how he ended.
Whoever stored no good with the dinars and dirhams he could spend Gave up his head for dinars and dirhams in the end. If you want to enjoy the next world and this one too, Be generous to people, as God has been generous to you.
The Arabs say, "Be generous, and don't remind anyone of it, for the profit comes back to you"; that is, give, and don't make people feel beholden, since the good of it returns to you.
Wherever the tree of generosity takes root, Its branches rise past heaven, and so does its crown; If you hope to eat of its fruit, Don't take the saw of reproach to its foot and cut it down. Thank God that you have been granted the power to do good, That of His bounty and grace He did not leave you idle and denied; Don't hold it over the sultan that you serve him; Thank him for keeping you in his service at his side.
3. Two people took pains for nothing and labored to no purpose: one who hoarded and did not enjoy, and one who learned and did not act.
However much you study, if it doesn't turn into deed, You are ignorant still, no matter how much you read. He is no scholar and no sage, whatever his looks: He's a beast of burden carrying a few books. What does the empty head know, or care to learn, Whether it carries books or firewood to burn?
4. Learning is for feeding the faith, not for feeding on the world.
Whoever sold his learning, his piety and his ascetic ways Brought in a harvest and set it all ablaze.
5. A scholar who does not keep himself from sin is a blind man carrying a torch.
Whoever has played his life away for no gain Has bought nothing, and thrown his gold down the drain.
6. A kingdom takes its beauty from the wise, and the faith its perfection from the God-fearing. Kings need the company of the wise more than the wise need to be near kings.
If you will listen to advice, Your Majesty, There's no better advice under the skies: Put no one but the wise in office, Though office is no work for a man who's wise.
7. Three things do not last: wealth without trade, learning without debate, and a kingdom without firm rule.
8. Mercy to the wicked is cruelty to the good; forgiving oppressors is oppressing the poor.
Be good to a scoundrel and give him your care: He'll sin on your fortune, and give you a share.
9. The friendship of kings cannot be trusted, nor the sweet voices of boys; for the one turns into a passing fancy, and the other breaks in a single night's sleep.
Don't give your heart to a darling with a thousand friends; Or if you do, give it knowing how that ends.
10. Don't tell a friend every secret you have: how do you know he won't become an enemy some day? And don't do an enemy every harm you can: it may be that some day he will become a friend.
A secret you want kept hidden, share with no one, even a sincere friend; for that friend has sincere friends of his own, and so on, link after link.
Silence is better than telling the secret in your heart To someone, and then saying, "Don't give it away." Simple soul, close off the water at the spring: Once the stream is full, no dam will make it stay. Don't whisper in private a word That's not fit for a crowd to have heard.
11. A weak enemy who comes over to obedience and shows friendship has no aim but to become a strong enemy. And they say: if the friendship of friends cannot be trusted, how much less the flattery of enemies? Whoever treats a small enemy with contempt is like a man who leaves a small fire untended.
Kill it today, while it can still be killed, For a fire, once it's high, sets the whole world alight; Don't let the enemy string his bow While an arrow can still pin him tight.
12. Speak between two enemies in such a way that if they become friends you will not be ashamed.
Between two men, a quarrel is a fire; The wretched telltale carries wood to feed it higher. Then these two make it up, and their hearts are glad; He's left in the middle, ashamed, his luck gone bad. To light a fire between two is not what the wise would do; It's to stand in the middle and burn up too. When you talk with your friends, keep your voice low, So the bloodthirsty enemy has no ear; Watch what you say in front of a wall: Behind the wall, there may be an ear.
13. Whoever makes peace with his enemies has a mind to hurt his friends.
Wise man, wash your hands of the friend who'll go And sit at ease beside your foe.
14. When you are in two minds about carrying something out, choose the side that will come off with less harm.
With the mild, don't be harsh in what you say; With one who knocks at peace's door, seek no fray.
As long as a thing can be done with gold, you should not put your life at risk. The Arabs say, "The sword is the last of the stratagems."
When every scheme you've tried has fallen through, To put your hand to the sword is lawful too.
15. Don't pity your enemy's helplessness, for if he gets the upper hand he will not spare you.
When you see your enemy weak, don't twirl your moustache and boast: There's marrow in every bone, and a man inside every coat.
16. Whoever kills a wicked man saves people from the plague he is, and saves him from the punishment of God (mighty and glorious is He).
Forgiveness is a fine thing; but even so, Put no salve on the sores of the man who torments men; The man who took pity on a snake did not know He was doing a wrong to the children of Adam then.
17. It is a mistake to take advice from an enemy, but it is right to hear it, so as to do the opposite, which is exactly right.
If you do as your enemy advises, before long You'll be beating your knee in regret for going wrong; If he points you a road as straight as an arrow's flight, Turn back from it and take the left, not the right.
18. Anger beyond measure drives people away, and kindness out of season destroys respect. Don't be so harsh that people have their fill of you, or so soft that they grow bold with you.
Harshness and softness are best combined, Like the bloodletter's lancet, with the salve behind. The wise man won't take harshness up as his way, Nor softness that would give his worth away. He neither sets himself above his place, Nor gives himself up all at once to disgrace. A shepherd said to his father, "Wise old man, Teach me one piece of advice, the way the old ones can." He said, "Be a good man; but not so good That the sharp-toothed wolf gets bolder than he should."
19. Two people are enemies of the kingdom and the faith: a king without forbearance and an ascetic without learning.
May no king give commands from the throne of a land Who does not obey God's own command.
20. A king should not drive his anger against his enemies so far that his friends lose confidence in him. The fire of anger falls first on the angry man himself; only then does its flame reach his opponent, or not.
It's not for the children of Adam, born from the soil, To fill their heads with pride and hot air and let their tempers boil. With all this heat in you, all this defiance and ire, I don't think you are made of earth: you are made of fire. On the soil of Baylaqan I came upon a devotee; I said, "Teach me, and wash the ignorance out of me." He said, "Go and endure, jurist, the way the earth endures, Or bury in the earth all that learning of yours."
21. The ill-tempered man is a prisoner in the hands of an enemy from whose clutches he cannot escape, wherever he goes.
Even if the ill-tempered man runs from trouble to the sky, His own bad temper keeps him in trouble, however high.
22. When you see that the enemy's army has fallen apart, keep yourself together; and if they come together, beware of falling apart.
Go and sit at ease with your friends When you see that your enemies are fighting their own; But if you see that they speak with one voice, String your bow, and haul to the battlements stone after stone.
23. When an enemy has run out of every stratagem, he shakes the chain of friendship; and then, as a friend, he does things no enemy could.
24. Crush the snake's head with your enemy's hand, for one of two good things is bound to come of it: if he wins, you have killed the snake; if the snake wins, you are rid of your enemy.
Don't feel safe from a weak opponent on the battle day: Once he's given up on his life, he'll tear a lion's brains away.
25. News that you know will wound a heart: keep quiet, and let someone else bring it.
Nightingale, bring the good news of the spring, And leave the bad news to the owl to sing.
26. Don't tell a king of anyone's treachery unless you are sure he will believe you completely; otherwise you are working toward your own destruction.
Make ready to speak only at the hour You know your words will have some power.
27. Whoever gives advice to a self-willed man needs advice himself.
28. Don't swallow an enemy's deceit, and don't buy a flatterer's praise: the one has set a trap of fraud, and the other has held out the lap of greed. The fool loves praise, like a carcass that looks plump when someone blows into its heel.
Take care you never listen to the praises of a smooth talker Who makes a little profit from you in his trade; For if one day you don't give him what he wants, He'll list two hundred faults for every compliment he paid.
29. A speaker's words will never come right until someone finds fault with them.
Don't be fooled by the beauty of the words that are your own, By a fool's applause, or by a fancy all your own.
30. Everyone thinks his own mind perfect, and his own child beautiful.
A Jew and a Muslim were having a quarrel, And I couldn't help laughing at the two; The Muslim said in a temper, "If this deed of mine Is not valid, God, let me die a Jew!" The Jew said, "I swear by the Torah, If I'm not telling the truth, I'm a Muslim like you!" If reason vanished from the face of the earth, No one would think, "It's me who hasn't a clue."
31. Ten people can eat at one tablecloth, while two dogs can't get along over one carcass. The greedy man is hungry with a whole world, and the contented man is full with one loaf. The sages have said, "Riches in contentment are better than riches in goods."
A narrow gut is filled by a loaf, though it's dry; The good things of all the earth won't fill a narrow eye. When my father's round of life was nearly past, He gave me this one piece of advice, and breathed his last: "Lust is fire: keep away from the fire, And don't make hell's flames against you burn higher. That fire will burn you more than you can stand; Throw the water of patience on this one today, while it's in hand."
32. Whoever does no good while he has the power will see hardship when he has none.
No one is more ill-starred than the man who harms his kind: On the day of disaster, not one friend will he find.
33. What comes up fast does not last.
I've heard that in the East they spend forty years on the clay To make a single bowl of china ware; In Mardasht they make a hundred a day, And you can see they cost next to nothing there. The chick comes out of the egg and goes looking for its food; The child of man has no knowledge, no sense, no judgment, year after year; The one that was somebody all at once got nowhere, And this one, slowly and by merit, rose above all, and has no peer. Glass you find everywhere, and so it is cheap; The ruby is hard to come by, and that is why it's dear.
34. Things get done with patience; the hasty man falls on his head.
In the desert I saw it with my own eyes: The slow man beat the hasty to the prize. The horse that ran like the wind broke down in its run; The camel driver kept plodding on, as he'd always done.
35. Nothing is better for the ignorant than silence; and if he knew that much, he would not be ignorant.
When you don't have the fullness of learning, it's best To keep your tongue inside your mouth, and hold it there; It's his tongue that disgraces a man, As an empty walnut is shamed by being light as air. A fool was teaching a donkey, And gave himself to it without a break, and never ceased; A sage said to him, "Fool, why go to all this trouble? Fear what people will say of this mad scheme, at least. The beasts won't learn to speak from you; You learn to be silent from the beast." Whoever doesn't weigh his answer first Will mostly find his words come out the worst. Either speak like a man who knows what he's about, Or sit silent like the animals, and leave the talking out.
36. Whoever argues with someone wiser than himself so that people will know he is wise, people will know he is ignorant.
When one who is your better starts to speak, although You know better, don't object: let it go.
37. Whoever sits with the wicked will see no good.
If an angel sits with a demon, he'll learn before long Savagery and treachery, deceit and every wrong. From the bad you will never learn what's good: The wolf has never sewn a fur coat, nor would.
38. Don't expose people's hidden faults: you will disgrace them, and make yourself someone no one trusts.
Whoever studies and does not act is like a man who plows and does not sow.
39. Obedience will not come from a body without a heart, and a husk without a kernel is no stock to trade.
40. Not everyone quick in debate is straight in trade.
There's many a lovely figure under a veil: Lift it, and you find a grandmother, old and frail.
41. If every night were the Night of Power, the holiest night of Ramadan, the Night of Power would have no power.
If every stone were a ruby from Badakhshan, then Rubies and stones would be worth the same to men.
42. Not everyone with a handsome face has a fine character inside. What counts is the inside, not the skin.
In a single day you can tell, from a man's manner and look, How far he has climbed in learning; But don't feel safe about his inner self, don't be fooled, For the vileness of a soul takes years of discerning.
43. Whoever picks a fight with the great spills his own blood.
You think you're a great man; It's true what they say: the squint-eyed see two for one; You'll soon see your own forehead broken, You who butt heads with a ram, just for fun.
44. Wrestling with a lion and punching a sword are not the work of the wise.
With a drunk, don't try your strength, and don't fight; Before a strong fist, fold your hands in your armpits tight.
45. A weak man who plays the hero against a strong one is helping his enemy to destroy him.
How can a man raised in the shade find the strength To march with the champions into the fight? The weak-armed fool, in his ignorance, Locks hands with a man of iron grip, with all his feeble might.
46. The talentless cannot bear the sight of a man of talent, just as the market dogs set up a racket at a hunting dog but dare not come near it. That is, when a low man cannot match someone in skill, he sinks his teeth into him behind his back.
The envious man whose reach is short is sure to slander behind your back, Since face to face his tongue is dumb, and words are what he'll lack.
47. If it weren't for the tyranny of the belly, no bird would ever fall into the hunter's net; in fact the hunter would not set a net at all.
Sages eat now and then, devotees half their fill, ascetics just enough to stay alive, young men until the dish is taken away, old men until they break a sweat; but the qalandars, the wandering dervishes who scorn every rule, eat until there is no room left in the stomach for breath, and no bread left on the cloth for anyone else.
The prisoner of his belly can't sleep two nights in a row: One night his stomach is a stone; the next, his heart is low.
48. Consulting women is ruin, and generosity to the corrupt is a sin.
Be good to a scoundrel and give him your care: He'll sin on your fortune, and give you a share. To pity the sharp-toothed leopard and let him keep His life is to be cruel to the sheep.
49. Whoever has his enemy in front of him and does not kill him is his own enemy.
Stone in hand, and the snake's head on a stone below: To stop and reason now is folly, and to be slow.
50. In killing prisoners it is better to deliberate, since the choice remains open: you can kill, and you can pardon. And if a man is killed without deliberation, it may be that some advantage is lost that can never be made good.
It's an easy thing to take the life from a man; To bring the dead back to life, no one can. Good sense requires the archer to be patient and slow, For the arrow, once it's gone, won't come back to the bow.
51. A sage who gets mixed up with fools should expect no respect; and if a fool gets the better of a sage by sheer loudness of tongue, it is no wonder: it is a stone that breaks a jewel.
No wonder if his breath sinks low: A nightingale, caged with a crow. If a man of talent is wronged by the mob, Let him not hurt his heart, or fall into distress; If a worthless stone has broken a golden bowl, The stone is not worth any more for it, and the gold is not worth less.
52. Don't be surprised if a wise man falls silent in a crowd of louts; for the sound of the lute cannot rise above the din of the drum, and the scent of ambergris is smothered by the stink of garlic.
The loud fool held his head up in pride Because he had brazenly thrown the wise man aside. He doesn't know the melody of a Hejazi air Is drowned out by the war drum's blare.
53. A jewel that falls into the mud is still precious, and dust that rises to the sky is still worthless. Aptitude without education is a pity, and education given to the inapt is wasted. Ash comes of a noble line, since fire is a heavenly element; but since it has no merit of its own, it is no better than dirt. And the value of sugar does not come from the cane: that is a property of its own.
Since Canaan, Noah's son, had no virtue in his nature, Being born to a prophet did not add to his stature. Show your merit if you have it, not your birth or your name; The rose comes from the thorn, and from Azar Abraham came.
54. Musk is what smells, not what the perfumer says.
The wise man is like the perfumer's casket: silent, and showing what it holds. The fool is like the war drum: loud, and hollow inside.
For the scholar among the ignorant, The saints have coined a parable to tell: A beauty among the blind, A Qur'an in a house where heretics dwell.
55. A friend whom it took a lifetime to win should not be hurt in a moment.
Years turn a stone into a ruby, precious and rare: Don't break it with a stone in a single breath; take care.
56. Reason in the hands of appetite is as much a prisoner as a helpless man with a crafty wife. Judgment without strength is trickery and spells; strength without judgment is ignorance and madness.
Judgment, foresight and reason must come first, and then the crown and the rod; For in a fool's hands, kingdom and fortune are weapons of war against God.
57. A generous man who eats and gives is better than a devotee who fasts and hoards. Whoever has given up his appetites to win people's approval has fallen out of a lawful appetite into a forbidden one.
The devotee who sits in his corner, but not for God's sake: What can the poor man see in a mirror that's dark and opaque?
58. Little by little becomes a lot, and drop by drop becomes a flood. That is, those who have no strong hand keep small stones by them, so that when their chance comes they can knock the tyrant's brains out.
When drop joins drop, a river comes to be; When river joins river, they become a sea. Little by little, piled up, makes a heap; Grain by grain, the barn holds what we reap.
59. A scholar should not let a commoner's stupidity pass with forbearance, for it does harm on both sides: the one loses respect, and the other's ignorance is confirmed.
Speak gently and kindly to a lout, And he'll grow prouder, and throw his weight about.
60. Sin is ugly in anyone, and uglier in scholars; for learning is a weapon in the war against Satan, and when an armed man is taken prisoner he has the more to be ashamed of.
Better a common fool whose days are a mess Than a learned man who has no righteousness; For that one was blind, and fell from the way; This one had two eyes, and fell in the well anyway.
61. Life is held by a single breath, and the world is a being between two nothings.
Those who sell their faith for the world are asses: they sell Joseph, and what do they buy?
God says in the Qur'an, "Did I not charge you, children of Adam, not to worship Satan?"
Because the enemy said so, you've broken faith with the Friend; See whom you've cut yourself off from, and whom you've joined in the end.
62. Satan has no hold on the pure in heart, nor the sultan on the poor in purse.
Don't lend to a man who will not pray; Though his mouth hangs open with want, turn him away. Who doesn't pay God what is God's due Won't lose any sleep over his debt to you. Today he'll grab a tubful, as much as two men can bear; Tomorrow he'll tell you, "Go whistle for it: there's nothing there."
63. If no one eats your bread while you live, no one will speak your name when you die.
The widow knows the sweetness of grapes, not the owner of the orchard.
Joseph the Truthful (peace be upon him) never ate his fill in the years of drought in Egypt, so that he would not forget the hungry.
Whoever has lived in luxury and been well fed, What does he know of the man who has no bread? Only he knows what the stranded go through Who has been stranded in his own life too. You who ride a racing horse, take care: The poor donkey loaded with thorns is stuck in the mire. Don't go to your poor neighbor's house for a coal, For what goes up his smoke hole is the smoke of his heart, not of a fire.
64. Don't ask a poor man in a weak state, in the dryness of a lean year, "How are you?", unless you mean to put a salve on his sore and something in front of him.
If you see a donkey fallen in the mud with its load, Pity it in your heart, but don't go near its head; Now that you've gone and asked how it came to fall, Roll up your sleeves like a man and grab its tail instead.
65. Two things are impossible: eating more than your allotted bread, and dying before your appointed time.
Though a thousand moans and sighs come out of a mouth, In blasphemy or complaint, fate will not be turned about; The angel who is the keeper of the treasuries of the wind, What does he care if an old woman's lamp goes out?
66. You who seek your daily bread, sit still: you will eat. You whom death is seeking, don't run: you won't get away with your life.
Whether you strive for your daily bread or not, God (mighty and glorious is He) will bring it to you; And if you walk into the jaws of a lion or a leopard, They won't eat you until the day your time is through.
67. No hand reaches what has not been set aside for it, and what has been set aside will reach you wherever you are.
You've heard how Alexander toiled all the way to the Land of Night, And the Water of Life was drunk by the one who had the right.
68. The fisherman whose lot it isn't won't catch a fish in the Tigris, and the fish whose time hasn't come won't die on dry land.
The wretched greedy man goes running the whole world through: He's chasing after his bread, and death is chasing him too.
69. A rich man who sins is a gilded clod; a righteous poor man is a beauty covered in dust. This one is Moses's cloak, all patches; that one is Pharaoh's beard, all jewels.
70. The hard times of the good have their faces turned toward relief, and the good times of the wicked have their heads turned downhill.
Whoever has rank and fortune and does not use them To tend a wounded heart, but passes by, Tell him that he will find no fortune and no rank In the other house, the house on high.
71. The envious man is stingy with God's bounty, and hates a servant of God who has done nothing wrong.
I saw a sour little dry-brained man Backbiting a man of rank, tearing at his name; I said, "Sir, if you are the unlucky one, What have the lucky done, that they're to blame?" Never wish trouble on the envious man, For that ill-starred wretch is in trouble as it is; What need is there to be his enemy, When he has at his back an enemy like this?
72. A pupil without devotion is a lover without money; a traveler on the path without knowledge, a bird without wings; a scholar without practice, a tree without fruit; and an ascetic without learning, a house without a door.
73. The Qur'an was sent down so that we might acquire a good character, not so that we might intone the written characters.
A devout commoner is a man on foot who has set out; a negligent scholar is a horseman asleep.
A sinner who raises his hands to God is better than a devotee who raises his head.
A gentle officer who's kind and dear Is better than a jurist who fills people with fear.
74. Someone was asked, "What is a scholar who does not practice like?"
He said, "A bee without honey."
Tell the coarse, ungenerous bee this one thing: "Since you make no honey, at least don't sting."
75. A man without manliness is a woman, and a devotee with greed is a highwayman.
You who wear white robes for the sake of a good name, For people to think well of you, with a black record in heaven's court: It's your hand that must keep from the world; Your sleeve may be long, your sleeve may be short.
76. Two people never lose the regret in their hearts, nor get their feet out of the mud of their loss: a merchant whose ship is wrecked, and an heir who has taken up with the qalandars.
Among the dervishes your blood is lawful to spill If your money isn't laid out for all of them to consume; Either don't walk with the friend in the Sufi's blue shirt, Or draw a finger of indigo over your house and goods, the color of gloom; Either don't make friends with the elephant keepers, Or find a house where an elephant has room.
77. The sultan's robe of honor is a precious thing, but your own worn clothes do you more honor; the tables of great men are delicious, but the crumbs in your own bag taste better.
Vinegar and herbs you have toiled for yourself to eat Are better than the village headman's bread and meat.
78. It goes against the right road and against the judgment of men of understanding to take medicine on a guess, and to travel an unknown road without a caravan.
They asked the guiding Imam, Muhammad al-Ghazali, the great theologian (God have mercy on him), "How did you reach such a rank in learning?"
He said, "By never being ashamed to ask about whatever I did not know."
Hope of getting well is in keeping with reason only When you show your pulse to a physician, one to whom the body's nature is known; Ask whatever you don't know, for the shame of asking Will guide you to the honor of knowing, and make it your own.
79. Don't be in a hurry to ask about something you know is bound to become known to you in time, for it detracts from the awe in which authority is held.
When Luqman saw that in David's hand Iron turned to wax by a miracle, at his command, He didn't ask him, "What are you making?", for it was clear That without his asking, the answer would appear.
80. One of the requirements of company is that you either clear out of the house or come to terms with the master of the house.
Tell your story to suit the listener's mood If you want him to warm to you; Any sane man who sits down beside Majnun Must talk of Layla; nothing else will do.
81. Whoever sits with the wicked, even if their nature has no effect on him, will be suspected of their ways; and if he goes into a tavern to pray, he will be accused of drinking wine.
You have marked yourself out as a fool by the friend you chose: You picked a fool's company, and now it shows. I went to a wise man and asked him for a rule; He told me, "Never take up with a fool. For you'll be an ass if you're the wisest man there is, And an even greater fool if you're a fool as it is."
82. The camel's meekness is well known: if a child takes its halter and leads it nearly four hundred miles, it will not twist its neck away from following him. But if a dreadful ravine appears ahead that means death, and the child in his ignorance wants to go that way, it will tear the halter from his hand and obey him no more; for when the time calls for harshness, gentleness is to be blamed. And they say an enemy does not become a friend through gentleness; rather his greed grows.
If someone is kind to you, be the dust beneath his feet; If he picks a fight, fill both his eyes with dust; Don't speak gently and graciously to the harsh: A soft file won't take off the rust.
83. Whoever breaks in on other people's talk so that they will see the wealth of his learning only shows them the depth of his ignorance.
A sensible man will not reply Unless someone asks him to; For even if what he says is sound, They'll take his claim for nonsense, though it's true.
84. I had a sore under my clothes, and every day the sheikh asked me how it was, and never asked where it was. I realized he was avoiding it, since it is not proper to mention every part of the body. And the wise have said: whoever does not weigh his words will be hurt by the answer.
Until you are sure that what you'll say is right, Keep your mouth shut tight; Better to tell the truth and stay in chains Than tell a lie and be set free for your pains.
85. Telling a lie is like a deep wound: even if the wound heals, the scar remains. Like Joseph's brothers: once they were branded with a lie, no one trusted them even when they told the truth. As Jacob says to them in the Qur'an, "No: your own souls have led you into something."
A man whose habit is to tell the truth, They'll overlook it when he trips; But if he's made a name by telling lies, They won't believe the truth when it's on his lips.
86. To outward appearance, the noblest of created things is man, and the lowest of beings is the dog; and by the agreement of the wise, a grateful dog is better than an ungrateful man.
A dog will never forget a single scrap, Though you hit it a hundred times with a stone; But be good to a low man all your life, He'll turn and fight you at the slightest harsh tone.
87. No skill comes from a man who pampers his appetites, and a man without skill is not fit to lead.
Waste no pity on the ox for all it has to bear: It sleeps a great deal, and eats more than its share. If you'd be fat as an ox, you'll have to lend Your body, like an ass, to others' tyranny without end.
88. It says in the Gospel: "Son of Adam, if I give you wealth, you will busy yourself with money and forget Me; and if I make you poor, you will sit and sulk. Where, then, will you find the sweetness of remembering Me, and when will you hurry to worship Me?"
Now in your plenty, proud and heedless, Now in your want, all worn and wounded through; Since this is how you are in good times and in bad, I don't know when you'll turn from yourself to God, if you ever do.
89. God's will, which asks no one's leave, brings one man down from a royal throne and keeps another safe in the belly of a fish.
How good the time is for one whose companion is the memory of You, Even in the belly of the whale, as Jonah knew.
90. If He draws the sword of His wrath, prophets and saints pull in their heads; and if He gives so much as a glance of kindness, He brings the wicked up to the good.
If on the Day of Resurrection He speaks in wrath, What room is left for the prophets to plead? Ask Him to lift the veil from the face of His grace, For the wretched have hope of the pardon they need.
91. Whoever will not be set straight by the chastening of this world will be caught by the chastisement of the next. As God says in the Qur'an, "We will make them taste the lesser punishment before the greater punishment."
The great first give counsel, and after counsel, the chain: Ignore the counsel, and they bind you; you won't be told again.
92. The fortunate take warning from the stories and examples of those who came before, before those who come after make an example of them.
Thieves don't hold back their hands until their hands are cut off.
A bird will not go near the grain When it sees that another bird has been caught in the trap; Learn from the misfortunes of others, Before others take their lesson from your mishap.
93. If a man was created with ears too heavy to hear, how can he hear? And if the lasso of good fortune is dragging a man along, how can he help but go?
For the friends of God, the darkest night Shines like the brightest day; And this good fortune is not won by strength of arm: God the Giver must give it, or there is no way. Whom can I complain to of You? There is no other judge, no one; No hand is higher than Your hand: there is none; The one You guide, no one can lead astray; The one You lead astray finds a guide in no one.
94. A beggar who ends well is better than a king who ends badly.
Better the grief that comes before you're glad Than the gladness after which you're sad.
95. Heaven showers the earth with its gifts, and the earth sends up its dust to heaven. Every vessel leaks what is in it.
If my ways have seemed unworthy in your view, Don't let go of the good ways that belong to you.
96. God (glorious and exalted is He) sees and keeps it covered; the neighbor sees nothing and shouts it about.
If people knew what is hidden, God forbid, No one would have a moment's peace from anyone for what he did.
97. Gold comes out of the mine by digging the mine, and out of the miser's hand by pulling out his soul.
The base don't eat; they save it up and hoard; They say that hope is better than having been fed; One day you'll see, to his enemy's delight, The gold left over and the man in the dust, dead.
98. Whoever has no mercy on his underlings will be caught by the tyranny of his overlords.
Not every arm with strength at its command Should play the man by breaking a helpless hand; Don't do the hearts of the weak any harm, Or you'll fall to the tyranny of a stronger arm.
99. When a quarrel breaks out, the wise man jumps clear, and when he sees peace, he drops anchor; for out there, safety lies at the shore, and here, the sweetness lies in the middle.
The gambler needs three sixes, but what comes up is three ones.
The pasture is a thousand times better than the battlefield, But the horse does not hold its own reins, and has to yield.
100. A dervish was saying in his prayers, "Lord, have mercy on the wicked; for You have already had mercy on the good, by creating them good."
101. The first man to put an embroidered border on his clothes and a ring on his finger was Jamshid, the legendary king of ancient Persia.
They said to him, "Why did you give it all to the left hand, when the merit belongs to the right?"
He said, "For the right, the ornament of being right is enough."
Feraydun told the painters of China To stitch around his royal tent, where it would be shown: "Wise man, be good to the wicked, For the good are great and fortunate on their own."
102. They asked a great man, "With all the merits the right hand has, why do people wear the ring on a finger of the left?"
He said, "Don't you know that people of merit always go without?"
He who made fortune, and gives everyone his part, Gives either merit or luck: they keep apart.
103. Giving advice to kings is right only for a man who has no fear for his head and no hope of gold.
Pour gold at the feet of the man who knows God is One, or instead Put an Indian sword to his head: He hopes for nothing from anyone, and fears no one's threat; That is the whole foundation on which faith in one God is set.
104. The king is there to put down oppressors, the chief of police to put down murderers, and the qadi to find settlements for cheats. Two parties content with what is right never go before the qadi.
When you plainly see that what is due must be paid, Better to pay it kindly than in a fight, with a heavy heart; If a man won't pay his tax with good grace, They take it from him by force, with the officer's fee for his part.
105. Everyone's teeth are set on edge by sour things, except the qadis', which are set on edge by sweets.
Let a qadi eat five cucumbers as a bribe, and he will yield A judgment that you own ten melon fields.
106. What can an old whore do but repent of her wickedness, or a dismissed chief of police but repent of tormenting people?
A young man in seclusion is a lion of God's way; The old man can't get up out of his corner anyway. A young man needs his strength to keep his lust at bay; The feeble old man's tool won't stand up anyway.
107. They asked a sage, "Of all the famous trees that God (mighty and glorious is He) has created and made fruitful, none is called 'free' except the cypress, which bears no fruit. What is the wisdom in this?"
He said, "Every tree has its fruit, which comes at its appointed season: while it has it, the tree is fresh, and when it has none, the tree at times withers. The cypress has none of this: it is flourishing at every season, and that is the nature of the free."
Don't set your heart on what passes: the Tigris will go on Flowing through Baghdad long after the caliphs are gone; If your hand can manage it, be generous like the palm tree; If it can't, then be like the cypress: free.
108. Two people died full of regret: one who had and did not enjoy, and one who knew and did not act.
No one ever sees a learned miser Without trying hard to give him a bad name; And if a generous man has two hundred sins, His generosity hides his faults, and spares him blame.
Conclusion
Here ends the book of the Rose Garden, and it is God whose help we ask, by the grace of the Creator, exalted be His name. In all of it I have not, as authors are in the habit of doing, pieced in borrowed verses from the poets who came before.
Better to trim and mend your own old cloak Than beg a borrowed robe from other folk.
Most of what Sa'di says is merry and mixed with jest, and for this reason the shortsighted start wagging their tongues against him, saying that to waste the marrow of one's brain and burn the midnight oil for nothing is not the work of the wise. But it will not be hidden from the bright judgment of the men of heart, to whom these words are addressed, that he has strung the pearls of healing counsel on the thread of his phrases, and mixed the bitter medicine of advice with the honey of wit, so that their weary tempers should not miss the blessing of taking it in. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds.
We gave our counsel where counsel was due, And spent a whole lifetime seeing it through. If no one is willing to lend it an ear, The messenger's duty is the message: it ends here. You who read this, ask God to have mercy On its author, and forgiveness for its owner too; Ask for yourself whatever good you wish, And after that, forgiveness for the scribe who copied it for you.