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The
hawk said, ‘I am the captive of the king’s hand and a slave to his will. I seek
no will apart from his and in the prison of his generosity I choose to abide.’
The
raven said, ‘You don’t need his generosity. He ensnares you with scraps from
his table, but truly freedom from his tyranny is more delightful than the
morsels he offers.’
The
hawk said, ‘Do you consider yourself free?’
The
raven said, ‘Of course! Nothing is forbidden me. No law binds me. I am truly
free.’
The
hawk declared, ‘Yet every time I see you, you are busily feasting on corpses.
If by freedom you mean freedom to make obeisance to your appetites and to
fatten yourself on filthy carrion, then I will prefer my captivity. We are all
born slaves in this world, but have free will enough to choose between
masters.’”
John
said, “Unless you serve the Creator of the world, what sovereignty will you
have over His creation? You imagine yourself king over great dominions, but
this is a test and an illusion.”
Herod
said, “Why does he deal in such opposites? If his justice seems like tyranny
and if my kingship is in truth slavery,
why doesn’t he make this evident?”
John
said, “He makes it evident. To make your way clearer and to help you discern
truth from error, God sends warners. But that the people respond or fail to
respond to the admonitions of God is their own responsibility. If they are
given guidance and err, it is never because God’s warners were unclear, but
because their listeners were unwilling.
A
young sharif journeyed into the desert
with a caravan of Bedouin traders. Because the sharif had never experienced
life in the desert, his father had charged Nadhir, the leader of the caravan,
to keep the sharif out of danger.
On the first night in the desert, the traders
camped in the shadow of a great dune, behind which rose the crescent moon. And
while the sharif was reclining in the sand and staring at the shimmering constellations overhead, he began
drifting to sleep.
Nadhir
knelt by him and said to him, ‘Friend,
this place is beautiful and apart
from our horses and camels,
seemingly lifeless. But there are other travellers in the desert. There lives
in these very sands the camel spider. It is a flesh- eater and does not care
whether it feasts on horses or camels or on men.’
The
sharif was alarmed by Nadhir’s warning, and said, ‘But I will know if it bites
me while I sleep. If it bites I will kill it.’
Nadhir
said, ‘I warn you because you cannot feel its bite at all. I have known men who
slept too soundly in the sands. They awoke in agony with their faces eaten
away.’
The
sharif ’s drowsiness at once abandoned him. He said, ‘Then I will be on my guard.’
All
that night the sharif barely slept, and kept one eye on the sands before his
face, fearful that he should become a victim of the camel spider’s hunger for
flesh. And though no spider appeared, he was grateful for Nadhir’s warning and
doubly grateful for the sunrise.
After
many days in the desert, the caravan at last arrived in a village in an oasis
in the midst of this wasteland. They stopped to purchase supplies and trade
goods. The local harlots paraded before them,
calling out to them
sweetly. The sharif watched these young women lustfully. Nadhir approached him, saying,
‘My
friend, do not let these harlots seduce you. Abstain from their charms and shun
their kisses. They have been with a thousand men before you. Do not patronize
them. Their wares are disease and death.’
Now
the sharif did not heed these words, but spent the night with a girl of
particular beauty and paid her handsomely for her indulgences with him. But
within several days, the sharif fell ill from the disease which she had
carried. He lay in bed dying from it.
Nadhir
looked after the youth in his final hours. But the sharif became angry with
him, demanding, ‘Why didn’t you warn me of this fate?’
Nadhir
said, ‘Indeed I did, sharif.’
The
sharif replied, ‘Not sufficiently! Why didn’t you restrain me? Why did you
trust that I should follow your advice without greater admonition?’
Nadhir
answered, ‘But sharif, I told you in a few words the dangers of the camel
spider, and you heeded those words directly and without hesitation. It was not
that my second warning was unconvincing,
but that your appetite was more persuasive. And though the danger was the same,
the girl’s good looks were more enticing to you than the camel spider.’”
Herod said, “But why does he send warners? What
does he gain?”
John
said, “For Him, nothing. But the father loved his child and sent a warner to
him. That is the tie between the Creator and His creatures. It is love.
He
does not need you and nothing you do can affect Him. His creation abides
with or without you and only in arrogance do men imagine ownership of the
world. But you do need Him.
What
gardener ever believed his flowers were required by the sun, seeing even that
they turn their faces toward it every day? As the sun beckons the world with
the rays of its light, so too does God call on you, not because He needs you,
but because He loves you and provides what is best for you, though you do not
know it.
Whether
the flower opens itself to the sun or not has no effect on the rising and the
setting of the sun. But if the sun does not rise, what becomes of the flower?
This is the essence of love, though no word expresses it.”
After
John said this, Herod asked, “What has your god to do with love?”
John
said, “How can I speak of love in words you will understand? Words cannot
unravel the mysteries of love; indeed, they obscure. A man who calls on words
to describe that which soars above the plane of description calls on clouds to
describe the sun, turns to the sand to explain the sea.
How
many are the great men who have succumbed to love, having given up all they
possessed and having turned their backs on the world? Yet you wish me to recite
to you the meanings of love. I can answer only that it is beyond my expression
and doubly beyond your comprehension.
Poets
of merit, when speaking of love, are scribblers of the lowest order. Like the
Israelites awaiting Moses beneath the shadow of the mountain, they set up idols
to represent the God they do not comprehend. But when Moses returns, he
condemns them.
Every
day some scribbler expounds on love, and makes his words idols to represent the
thing he cannot bear. And the ink that men have spilled in the path of love
darkens even the blood of martyrs who, truly knowing love, dared not breathe a
word of it.
How
long will you worship your desires and affix on them your words of love,
neglecting even that King of Love who has your life in the palm of His hand?
Love of God is submission to His Will.
He
who does not renounce himself, giving up his life, his loves, his all in the
name of God, is not worthy to be called a lover of God. But he who loves God
and who surrenders himself to God, his heart will be at peace even in the midst
of terrible contention, his soul will be at rest even on the Last Day.
Oceans
of ink can no more account for love than can oceans of blood account
for Him for
Whom it is shed. Even as no worship, no praise befits
Him for Whom all worship and praise are fashioned, so can no word describe that
thing which shuns words, which speaks not but is hearkened to, which directs
not but leaves nothing undirected.
Without
love the sun could not rise, nor the orbs of the heavens remain in their
courses. The Maker of all the worlds loves His creatures. For what other reason
were they made? There is nothing that we can provide Him, we who are wholly in His
grasp. And were He to withdraw His affection, all that is would cease to be.
Not a single breath is drawn without His explicit command.
Love
and this alone is worthy of you. And he can only be called a lover of God who
disregards the world wholly, except that he sees the face of the Friend in it.”
Herod said, “Such love is impossible. He asks
too much
of men.”
John
replied, “He asks nothing of us beyond our capacity.
A
man named Abbud wished to worship God. Carefully and closely he adhered to the
outward obligations of his faith, by
praying the prescribed number of times each day and by fasting during the
prescribed month, by giving alms and by showing forth such mercy and justice
that all considered him a friend and a man destined for paradise.
But
Abbud’s heart was troubled. He did not feel himself worthy of God. Although he
was widely regarded as a true believer, he considered himself truly wayward. He
had read and heard that to worship God he must detach himself from all that is
in Heaven and all that is on Earth. He loved his wife and his children and he
felt guilty for the love and affection he showered on them, for these loves, he
imagined, distracted him from the love of God.
Abbud
went to Konia to speak with a well-known Sufi master there. In audience with
him, Abbud addressed to him his concern.
‘Maulana,
how will I love God and be detached from all that is in Heaven and on Earth? I
love my wife and my children very much. How can I sacrifice my love for them
that I may achieve that love of God alone and for His sake?’
The master
said, ‘Your love for
wife and children is not
incompatible with love of God alone and for His sake.’
Abbud
said, ‘But, Maulana, if I love them and place them in my affection and love God
and place Him in my affection, am I not making them partners with God?’
The master
laughed and replied,
‘I have never
heard one believe that love of family was idolatry. Detachment does
not mean to love no one and care for no one. God wishes you to love Him, before
all, above all that is and without rival. Consider the prophets themselves; did
they not love? Did they not weep at the loss of loved ones? Do you imagine
yourself to be held to a higher standard than they? Their standard is the
highest.
Consider
the stars. When I was young I loved them and squinted at their
light, knowing the constellations
and the
movements of the planets. Now if a star disappeared one night, I would
be filled
with consternation.
And
if on that same night, another star appeared where before there had never been
one, I should be filled with awe, for these are the signs of the Lord. This is
the essence of detachment.’
Now
Maulana saw in Abbud’s eyes that he did not understand him, so the master asked
him, ‘Why do you love your wife?’
And
Abbud praised her merits unceasingly: her generosity, her character and her
beauty.
‘Each
word of praise you have bestowed on your wife is also a sign of God. Your love
for your wife is the love for God in her. And her love for you is the sign of
those attributes of God in you.
And
your love for your children and their love for you, these also are signs of
God’s love for you and your love for Him. Would you bless the sun by rejecting
the rays of its light? Ascetics who hide in dark caves to worship the sun, know
nothing of the sun.
Saints
who withdraw themselves and their hearts from their wives and children have
indeed withdrawn themselves from the presence of God among men. They are truly
wayward. Not you, Abbud, but they.’”
John
said, “He asks nothing that is impossible of us, though we may imagine it
impossible to ourselves. Too often, that thing we call impossible is merely
contrary to our desires. Love Him more than yourself, or you will lose
yourself.
The
lover must obey his beloved in all things, for love lies beyond faith and
reason. Love rules on a throne of madness. In love, obey. The lover who does
not obey, relies on himself and his reason. In the court of His Oneness, this
is an abomination.
A
young man was in love with a girl and had been parted from her for a long time.
He eagerly awaited a promised letter from her. When it arrived, he fell
hungrily on the words. In the letter, she assured the youth that she would meet
him that next day, but wrote:
“Before
you meet me in the marketplace, make certain you have trimmed your beard short.
Also, do not wear your sword when you leave your house to meet me. Thus, when I
seek you out in the marketplace, I will know you.”
Now
the lover, who happily noted the passion of her words of devotion, ignored
these instructions, for they did not please him. He thought it unmanly to go
out with a beard trimmed short and without a sword. Therefore, he did not shave
nor trim his hair, and he wore his sword in the marketplace.
Discerning
the face of his beloved in the
crowd, the lover rushed forward
to greet her, embraced her and kissed her roughly. She pulled away from the
youth and demanded, ‘Who are you? I do not know you!’
Stricken
by these harsh words, he said, ‘I am your heart’s desire. You are my beloved.’
Again
she replied, ‘I do not know you.’
The
youth withdrew from his pocket the letter she had sent him, saying, ‘You are
faithless. Here is my proof. You sent this to me, having filled it with words
of such sweetness and passion that my heart was overcome. Yet now you reject
me!’
The
beloved replied, ‘You are wrong to accuse me, and in this there is terrible
sin. I sent a letter to my lover and filled it with tokens of my affection. But
you were not the rightful recipient.
A
true lover of mine would have respected my requests. He would not have begrudged me these simple favors. Consider who is faithless. Is it me? I came here to
find my lover. Or is it him? I find him nowhere.’”
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