Mystics and Saints of Islam Part 11

A merchant from India a parrot had brought, And pent in a narrow cage, sorrow-distraught With longing for freedom. One day the good man Determined to try with his wares Hindustan; So he said to his parrot, 'What gift shall I bring From the land you were born in--what curious thing?'

The parrot replied, 'There are kinsfolk of mine Flying blithe in those woods, for whose freedom I pine; (Oh, the green woods of India!). Go, tell them my state-- A captive in grip of implacable fate-- And say, "Is it justice that I should despair While you, where you list, can flash swift through the air, Can peck at the pineapples, bathe in the springs, And spread in the sunlight your green-gleaming wings?"

His message the man took, and made his word good When he came where the parrots flew free in the wood; But no sooner the message was given than one Like lead to the earth fell as dead as a stone.

The merchant upbraided himself, 'It is clear This parrot of mine was a relative dear, And the shock has been fatal; myself am to blame.'

When his journey was finished and homeward he came, His parrot inquired, 'Hast brought me a crumb Of comfort in sorrow where, caged, I sit dumb?'

The merchant said, 'No; 'twas a pity you sent, For the message you gave proved of fatal content; As soon as I gave it one shuddered and fell Stone-dead, as if struck by some magical spell.'

No sooner that bird's fate it heard, than his own On the floor of its cage fell as dead as a stone.

'Alas!' cried the merchant, 'my own bird I've killed-- My own pretty parrot, so Allah has willed!'

Sadly out from the cage the dead body he drew, When, to his amazement, straight upwards it flew And perched on a tree. 'Lo! the message,' he said, 'My friend sent--"Die thou, as I make myself dead, And by dying win freedom." Farewell, master dear, I caught the plain hint with intelligence clear.

Thyself reckon dead, and then thou shalt fly Free, free, from the prison of earth to the sky!

Spring may come, but on granite will grow no green thing; It was barren in winter, 'tis barren in spring; And granite man's heart is, till grace intervene, And, crushing it, clothe the long barren with green.

When the fresh breath of Jesus shall touch the heart's core, It will live, it will breathe, it will blossom once more.'

The last couplet is a good ill.u.s.tration of the different ways in which Christ is regarded by the Sufi poets and by Mohammed in the Koran. In the latter, it is true, He is acknowledged as the Word of G.o.d and the Spirit of G.o.d, but His work among men is done, having been entirely superseded by the coming of Mohammed, the last and greatest of the prophets. Jalaluddin on the other hand, as in the above couplet, speaks of Christ as still exercising healing influences. Elsewhere he says, referring to the Gospel narrative of Christ's entry into Jerusalem (not mentioned in the Koran), and taking the a.s.s as the symbol of the body pampered by the sensualist:--

You deserted Jesus, a mere a.s.s to feed, In a crowd of a.s.ses you would take the lead; Those who follow Jesus, win to wisdom's ranks; Those who fatten a.s.ses get a kick for thanks.

Pity keep for Jesus, pity not the a.s.s, Let not fleshly impulse intellect surpa.s.s.

If an a.s.s could somewhat catch of Jesus' mind, Cla.s.sed among the sages he himself would find; Though because of Jesus you may suffer woe, Still from Him comes healing, never let Him go.

In another place, speaking of the importance of controlling the tongue because of the general sensitiveness of human nature, he says:--

In each human spirit is a Christ concealed, To be helped or hindered, to be hurt or healed; If from any human soul you lift the veil You will find a Christ there hidden without fail; Woe, then, to blind tyrants whose vindictive ire, Venting words of fury, sets the world on fire.

But though he speaks with reverence of Christ, he shares the common Mohammedan animus against St. Paul. As a matter of fact St. Paul is rarely mentioned in Mohammedan writings, but Jalaluddin spent most of his life at Iconium, where, probably, owing to the tenacity of Oriental tradition, traces of St. Paul's teaching lingered. In the first book of the Masnavi a curious story is told of an early corrupter of Christianity who wrote letters containing contradictory doctrines to the various leaders of their Church, and brought the religion into confusion. In this case Jalaluddin seems to have neglected the importance of distinguishing between second-hand opinion and first-hand knowledge, on which he elsewhere lays stress:--

Knowledge hath two wings, Opinion hath but one, And opinion soon fails in its orphan flight; The bird with one wing soon droops its head and falls, But give it two wings and it gains its desire.

The bird of Opinion flies, rising and falling, On its wing in vain hope of its rest; But when it escapes from Opinion and Knowledge receives it, It gains its two wings and spreads them wide to heaven; On its two wings it flies like Gabriel Without doubt or conjecture, and without speech or voice.

Though the whole world should shout beneath it, 'Thou art in the road to G.o.d and the perfect faith,'

It would not become warmer at their speech, And its lonely soul would not mate with theirs; And though they should shout to it, 'Thou hast lost thy way; And thinkest thyself a mountain and art but a leaf,'

It would not lose its convictions from their censure, Nor vex its bosom with their loud reproof; And though sea and land should join in concert, Exclaiming, 'O wanderer, thou hast lost thy road!'

Not an atom of doubt would fall into its soul, Nor a shade of sorrow at the scorner's scorn.

(_Professor Cowell's translation._)

Like all quietists, Jalaluddin dwells on the importance of keeping the mind unclouded by anger and resentment, as in the following little parable:--

One day a lion, looking down a well, Saw what appeared to him a miracle, Another lion's face that upward glared As if the first to try his strength he dared.

Furious, the lion took a sudden leap And o'er him closed the placid waters deep.

Thou who dost blame injustice in mankind, 'Tis but the image of thine own dark mind; In them reflected clear thy nature is With all its angles and obliquities.

Around thyself thyself the noose hast thrown, Like that mad beast precipitate and p.r.o.ne; Face answereth to face, and heart to heart, As in the well that lion's counterpart.

'Back to each other we reflections throw,'

So spake Arabia's Prophet long ago; And he, who views men through self's murky gla.s.s, Proclaims himself no lion, but an a.s.s.

As Ghazzali had done before him, Jalaluddin sees in the phenomena of sleep a picture of the state of mind which should be cultivated by the true Sufi, "dead to this world and alive to G.o.d":--

Every night, O G.o.d, from the net of the body Thou releasest our souls and makest them like blank tablets; Every night thou releasest them from their cages And settest them free: none is master or slave.

At night the prisoners forget their prisons, At night the monarchs forget their wealth: No sorrow, no care, no profit, no loss, No thought or fear of this man or that.

Such is the state of the Sufi in this world, Like the seven sleepers[58] he sleeps open-eyed, Dead to worldly affairs, day and night, Like a pen held in the hand of his Lord.

--(_Professor Cowell._)

As we have seen, Jalaluddin's conception of G.o.d is a far higher one than is embodied in the orthodox formula of the Koran, "Say: G.o.d is One. He neither begetteth nor is begotten." With Jalaluddin G.o.d is far more immanent than transcendent. In one place he says, "He who beholdeth G.o.d is G.o.dlike," and in another, "Our attributes are copies of His attributes." In a remarkable pa.s.sage antic.i.p.ating the theory of Evolution he portrays man ascending through the various stages of existence back to his Origin:--

From the inorganic we developed into the vegetable kingdom, Dying from the vegetable we rose to animal, And leaving the animal, we became man.

Then what fear that death will lower us?

The next transition will make us an angel, Then shall we rise from angels and merge in the Nameless, All existence proclaims, "Unto Him shall we return."

Elsewhere he says:--

Soul becomes pregnant by the Soul of souls And brings forth Christ; Not that Christ Who walked on land and sea, But that Christ Who is above s.p.a.ce.

The work of man in this world is to polish his soul from the rust of concupiscence and self-love, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects G.o.d.

To this end he must bear patiently the discipline appointed:--

If thou takest offence at every rub, How wilt thou become a polished mirror?

He must choose a "pir," or spiritual guide who may represent the Unseen G.o.d for him; this guide he must obey and imitate not from slavish compulsion, but from an inward and spontaneous attraction, for though it may be logically inconsistent with Pantheism, Jalaluddin is a thorough believer in free-will. Love is the keynote of all his teaching, and without free-will love is impossible. Alluding to the ancient oriental belief that jewels are formed by the long-continued action of the sun on common stones, he says:--

For as a stone, so Sufi legends run, Wooed by unwearied patience of the sun Piercing its dense opacity, has grown From a mere pebble to a precious stone, Its flintiness impermeable and cra.s.s Turned crystalline to let the sunlight pa.s.s; So hearts long years impa.s.sive and opaque Whom terror could not crush nor sorrow break, Yielding at last to love's refining ray Transforming and trans.m.u.ting, day by day, From dull grown clear, from earthly grown divine, Flash back to G.o.d the light that made them shine.

Jalaluddin did not live to finish the Masnavi, which breaks off abruptly near the end of the sixth book. He died in 1272, seven years after Dante's birth. His last charge to his disciples was as follows:--

I bid you fear G.o.d openly and in secret, guard against excess in eating, drinking and speech; keep aloof from evil companionship; be diligent in fasts and self-renunciation and bear wrongs patiently. The best man is he who helps his fellow-men, and the best speech is a brief one which leads to knowledge. Praise be to G.o.d alone!

He is buried at Iconium, and his tomb, like those of all Mohammedan saints, in a greater or lesser degree, is a centre of pilgrimage. The reverence with which he is regarded is expressed in the saying current among Moslems:--

Paigumbar nest, wali darad Kitab (He is not a prophet, but he has a book)

[55] The mountain which encircles the world.

[56] The Eastern Phoenix.

[57] All Mohammedans pray towards the Kaaba.

[58] Koran, c. 18.

CHAPTER XV

SHARANI, THE EGYPTIAN (AD 1550)

One of the last representatives of the mystical school of Islam is Sharani, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century. In his time Egypt had just been conquered by the Turks, whose military despotism took the place of the feudal anarchy which had prevailed under the Mameluke sultans. The supremacy of Islam was not affected by the change, the Turks being as sincere Moslems as the Arabs. The administration of the country was centralised in the hands of a Pasha, who resided at Cairo as governor-general. As elsewhere in the Muhammadan world, the most powerful cla.s.s was that of the Ulema, or learned men. The generous gifts which the Sultan showered upon them and the privileged position he allowed them quickly reconciled them to the new regime. But there was another numerous body, who, though deprived of the substantial advantages which the Ulema enjoyed, had, however, with the ma.s.ses a prestige almost as great. These were the Sufis. Poor and humble, they were lost in the crowd, whence they drew their origin, and whose miseries they shared. A smouldering animosity existed between these Essenes of Islam and the Ulema, who corresponded to the Pharisees. These last claimed to be the exclusive depositaries of religious knowledge and divine wisdom; they administered justice and monopolised benefices.

The doctrine of the Sufis was in diametrical opposition to this. In their eyes the knowledge derived from books and theological science was far inferior to the inner perception of the supernatural, the mystic intuition to which they claimed to attain in their religious ecstacies.

They regarded the theosophist as far superior in every respect to the theologian. Besides this, they considered the different sects of Islam as equally good, and attached no importance to any of the formalities of the ceremonial law, the strict observation of which was considered by the orthodox as binding on every good Moslem. Thus, the reading of the Koran, with rhythmical intonation, as practised in every mosque, had in their eyes no value. To adore G.o.d with a pure heart, according to them, was infinitely more important than all outward observances.

Such ideas could not be acceptable to the Ulemas, who saw the absolute authority in religious matters slipping from their hands. Only a moderate power of perception was needed to understand what dangers for the official hierarchy lurked in the ideas of these enthusiasts who claimed to derive divine wisdom from a source so different to that of which the Ulemas believed themselves to be the sole dispensers.