In exposition of the following Hadíth of Mustafá (Mohammed), on whom be peace: “Verily, the most High God created the angels and set reason in them, and He created the beasts and set lust in them, and He created the sons of Adam and set in them reason and lust; and he whose reason
prevails over his lust is higher than the angels, and he whose lust prevails over his reason is lower than the beasts.”
It is related in the Hadíth that the
majestical God created
the
creatures of the world (in) three kinds.
One class (He
made) entirely reason and
knowledge and munificence; that is the
angel: he knoweth naught but prostration in worship.
In his original nature is no concupiscence and sensuality: he is absolute light, (he is) living
through (his) love of God.
1500. Another class is
devoid of knowledge,
like the animal (which
lives) in fatness
from
(eating) fodder.
It sees nothing
but stable and
fodder: it is heedless of (future) misery and glory (felicity).
The third (class) is Adam's descendant and Man:
half of him is of the angel and
half of him is ass. The
ass-half, indeed,
inclines to that which
is low; the other
half inclines to that
which is rational.
Those two classes (the angels
and the beasts) are at
rest from war
and combat, while
this Man is
(engaged) in torment (painful
struggle)
with two adversaries.
1505. And, moreover,
this (race of)
Man, through probation, has been divided: they (all) are of
human shape, but (in truth) they have become three communities
(families).
One party
have become submerged absolutely and, like Jesus, have attained unto the (nature of
the) angel.
The form (of such a one
is that of)
Adam, but the reality is Gabriel: he has been
delivered from anger and sensual passion and (vain) disputation.
He has
been delivered from discipline
and asceticism and self-mortification: you would say he was
not even born of a child of Adam.
The second sort
have attained unto
(the nature of) asses: they
have become pure anger and absolute lust.
1510. The qualities of
Gabriel were in them and departed: that
house was (too) narrow, and those qualities (too) grand.
The person who is deprived of (the vital) spirit
becomes dead: when his spirit is deprived of
those (angelic qualities), he
becomes an ass,
Because the spirit that
has not those (qualities) is
vile: this word is true, and the (perfect) Súfí has said (it).
He (the man of animal
nature) suffers
more anxiety than
the
beasts, (for)
he practises subtle arts
in the
world.
The cunning and imposture which he knows how to spin— that (cunning) is not produced by any other
animal.
1515. To weave gold-embroidered
robes, to win pearls from
the bottom of the sea,
The fine artifices of geometry
or
astronomy, and
the science
of medicine
and philosophy—
Which are connected only with this world and
have no way
(of mounting) up to the
Seventh
Heaven—
All this is the science of building the
(worldly) stable which is the pillar
(basis) of the
existence of
(persons like) the ox and the camel.
For the sake of
preserving the animal
for a few days, these crazy fools
have given to
those (arts and sciences) the
name of “mysteries.”
1520. The knowledge of the Way to God
and the knowledge of His dwelling
place—that only the owner of the heart
knows, or (you may say) his heart (itself).
He (God), then, created
in this composite fashion the goodly animal
and made him
familiar with
knowledge.
That (bestial) class (of men) He
named “like the cattle,” for where
is the resemblance
between waking and sleep?
The animal spirit has naught but sleep (ignorance):
the (bestial) class of men possess inverted
sense-perceptions.
(When) waking comes, the
animal sleep is
no more, and he (the
enlightened man) reads
the
(former) inversion of his senses from the tablet (of
his clairvoyant consciousness)—
1525. Like the sense-perceptions of one whom sleep has seized: when
he awakes, the
inverted quality (of his sense-perceptions
whilst he was dreaming)
becomes apparent.
Necessarily, he (the
bestial man) is the lowest
of the low. Take leave
of him: I love not them that
sink.
In exposition of the following Verse: “and as for those in whose hearts is a disease, it (each new Súra of the Qur’án) added unto their uncleanness (wicked unbelief)”; and of His Word: “thereby He letteth many be led astray, and thereby He letteth many be guided aright.”
(The bestial man is the lowest of the low) because
he possessed the capacity for transforming
himself and striving (to escape)
from lowness, but
(afterwards) lost it.
Again, since the
animal does not possess (that)
capacity, its excusability (for remaining) in
the bestial state is a thing (most) evident.
When the capacity, which is the guide (to salvation), is gone from him, every nutriment that he eats is the
brain of an ass.
1530. If he eats
anacardium, it becomes
(acts upon
him as) opium: his apoplexy and dementia
are increased.
There remains another
sort (of
men: they are engaged)
in
warfare: (they are)
half animal, half
(spiritually) alive and endowed with good
guidance.
Day and night
in strife and mutual
struggle, his (such a one's)
last (state) battles
with his first.
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