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Mordecai
sent a message to her, telling her to go to Ahasuerus and plead with him for
the lives of their people.
Esther hesitated, saying, ‘The king is in his inner
court and only those who are commanded by him to enter are allowed in his
presence. Any who are not called but who enter his inner court are swiftly and surely
put to death, unless the king holds out his scepter.’
But
Esther relented and said, ‘I will go, though it is against the law. And if he
is displeased with me, I will certainly die.’
She
dressed in her royal robes and went into the inner court where Ahasuerus
reigned. Ahasuerus saw her and detected in her features fear and sadness. He
pitied her and, because he loved her, he held out his scepter that she might
live.
Ahasuerus
spoke gently to her, ‘Why have you come to me in my inner court? Why would you
come to me here, knowing that I have not called for you?’
Esther
trembled in the presence of her husband, and said to him, ‘I have not come on my own
account, but to ask something of you.’
Ahasuerus
held out his hand and took Esther’s arm, drawing her nearer. He said, ‘Ask me
whatever you will and I will grant it.’
But
Esther said, ‘If it pleases you, I have prepared a dinner for you. Bring Haman
with you and then I will make my request.’
Ahasuerus
agreed to this and invited Haman to eat with him at his wife’s table. While the
king reclined and drank the wine Esther had poured him, he said, ‘Tell me your
request. I will grant you anything you ask, even to the half of my kingdom.’
But
Esther said, ‘If it pleases you, come tomorrow with Haman and dine with me
again, and then I will make my request.’
Ahasuerus
relented, and said, ‘As you wish.’
On the second day, again as Ahasuerus drank his wine, he asked, ‘What would you ask of
me, knowing that whatever you ask I will fulfill it for you?’
‘If
it pleases you, annul your decree against the Jews, for I am Jewish. If you condemn
them, then I must also die.’
When
Haman heard these words he was astounded, and feared for his life. The king
said, ‘I will revoke the decree that I sealed with my ring, but you must tell
me who desired the death of the Jews.’
Esther
pointed to Haman,
saying, ‘He is to blame for this
decree. He deceived you.’
Ahasuerus
became angry and, to regain his composure, left the queen’s table and stepped
out into the garden.
Haman
pleaded with Esther that her intervention might spare his life. Pitifully he
clutched at her robes and cried out,
‘God forbid! I did bring the decree to the king for his judgment, but it
was the king who permitted it. No power do I have whatsoever except at the
pleasure of the king!’
Ahasuerus
returned. He saw Haman clinging to Esther and said, ‘Would you even
assault my wife in my own house? Hang him on his gallows!’ And when the king
said this, his guards dragged Haman away.
Esther
said, ‘Will you rescind the decree with which Haman tricked you?’
The
king answered, ‘I will issue a second decree annulling the first. But do not
say that Haman tricked me, for I am beyond any man’s power to deceive. It was I
who deceived Haman by turning away his bribe with which he has built the
gallows on which he hangs, and by sealing the decree against the Jews, through
which Haman revealed himself to be the enemy of my beloved wife, and therefore
my enemy.
Think
awhile on Ahmad’s words: Did those in whose heart is sickness think that God would not bring to light their
rancor? At no point was I misled, for I
heard Mordecai’s lamentations at my gate and understood the reason for your
fear in my inner court.’
Esther
did not understand, and said, ‘If you knew these things, then why did you
permit the first decree against my people?’
To
answer this, Ahasuerus told Esther a story: ‘A company of jackals came upon a
lion who had killed a gazelle and who sat serenely before his victim. Because
these jackals knew they were no match for a lion, they kept a respectful
distance.
They
waited and watched, expecting the lion to sate his appetite on the flesh of the
gazelle and to leave the carcass behind. But the lion did not devour his kill,
but sat unmoving before it like a golden sentinel.
The jackals complained to
him, “If you will not
eat, then leave!”
The
lion did not respond, but looked unblinkingly at them. Again the jackals cried
out, “Why do you
loiter over that carcass? Move aside
that we may have our share!”
The
lion said, “How can you claim any part of what is mine? Had you expended every
effort to take possession of it, you would have never acquired it. When it
lived, you knew such a thing was unattainable
to you. Now you gaze at its corpse and
lust after its cold blood and consider yourselves part- owners of my
dominion.”
One
jackal decided to test the lion. He snatched a piece of the gazelle’s flesh,
swallowing it whole and returning unharmed to his comrades. The lion did not
move and did not say a word
The
jackal declared to his comrades, “He is no lion! He is a statue! Like stone he
sits and stares and does not move. See how I stole from him?”
The
other jackals said, “It was luck! How can he be a statue? Do statues speak? It
is your good fortune that he did not kill you.”
But
the jackal was undaunted and, rushing forward again, stole another morsel from
the carcass, and met no opposition from the lion. The lion neither moved nor
spoke.
At
this sign, the other jackals were persuaded and fell hungrily on the flesh of
the gazelle, paying no attention to the lion in their midst. But as they ate
their fill, the lion bounded up and fell
upon the jackals before him, slaughtering them all and chastising them, declaring,
“It was not luck that permitted you to steal from me. I allowed it to find the
thieves among you.”’
When
Ahasuerus was done with this story, he said, ‘I need not bring destruction on
the people, even on those who do evil in my kingdom, for they readily bring
destruction on themselves. This is what Muhammad, peace be upon him, meant when
he revealed to the believers:
If
God had willed, He would have avenged Himself upon them, but that He may try
some of you by means of others. I quicken
men in their paths,
whether toward good or
evil. Without my intervention
men would not
know their true selves.’”
When John
had finished speaking, Herod said
to him, “All you have said may be true, but why does
it matter to him that I worship him? You
call him the self-sufficing. How does my
worship profit him?
You
say he is exalted well above my belief or disbelief. How does my denial harm
him? If my disbelief weakens him, he cannot be all-powerful. If it has no
effect on him, what purpose do your admonitions
serve? How can it matter to this god of yours whether I take Herodias as
my wife? Or whether I put you to death?”
John
answered, “He needs nothing from you; there is nothing you presume to possess
that He did not grant you and that He cannot take from you. He is the Giver. If
He takes, He takes only what was given. Though He is self-sufficing, nothing
suffices but Him. And if you set your affection on this world of dust, then you
are lost and everything you love will be taken from you.
A
certain woman was married to a cruel man who beat her and her children
incessantly. His lips shed no word of kindness that wasn’t followed by a
hundred insults. His hand offered no
gentle touch that wasn’t
preceded by a thousand blows.
When
he died his children rejoiced at their deliverance from his daily abuses and
his tyranny, but his wife wept and moaned after him. Her mourning did not end
but grew more pathetic each day. She moved out of her house and went to live in
the mausoleum in which her dead husband was entombed. By his corpse she lay
each night, wrapping his dead arms about her and imagining his putrid stench to
be sweet perfume.
Her
children believed their mother mad and they summonded a doctor in hope that he
might recognize the malady and cure her. When the doctor found her beside her
dead husband, wrapped in his rigid embrace, he was sickened and he turned away.
Her children
asked after their mother;
the doctor replied,
‘The
mausoleum is her fitting home. She is more dead than her husband.’”
John
said, “The flame of desire cannot be put out with the oil of indulgence. The
fire, a moment quenched, burns hotter for it and demands a greater portion. Do
not feed your passions, or they will feed on you.
A
fox and a jackal were friends and
hunting companions. Whatever they
captured, whether by the
jackal’s strength or the fox’s wits, the jackal divided. He
always divided the greater portion to himself, leaving only a few morsels for
the fox.
Over
time the jackal grew fat while the fox remained thin. Yet while the
jackal’s appetite never abated, the fox
accepted the meager allotment
which fell to him, for he considered his contentment the essence of wisdom.
One
day, the fox and the jackal came upon a lion who had eyes for their flesh. The
fox vanished into the bush. The jackal, however, who had grown fat in his
companionship with the fox, fell easy prey to the lion.
Mocking
him, the lion said, ‘Look at yourself, fat one. While you denied sustenance to
the fox, you blessed him, for I forgive the fleeter footed. And while the fox
permitted you to eat his portion with your own, he cursed you, and I will
requite your appetite with my own.’
The
jackal, as the lion tore the flesh from his bones, lamented, ‘My own appetite has consumed me. Hunger
kills even when indulged.’”
Herod
said, “To what end will I deny myself the freedom of fulfilling my desires
and seeking my passions? What value is there in this self-denial? Why not
enjoy the brief freedom of self- indulgence? I would rather rule an hour on my
throne than toil a lifetime in the service of any other.”
John
replied, “There is no freedom; only service. You live and die in utter
servitude and the more you chase after your passions, the more your passions
rule over you and the more enslaved you become.
The
king’s hawk was flying through the
forest and, seeing a raven, recoiled at the vision of his charcoal feathers and
midnight eyes.
The
raven saw the hawk in the livery of the king and he too recoiled, saying, ‘O
wretched hawk, why have you permitted that king to make a prisoner of you?
Leave the service of that unworthy one and join me.’
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