(Masnavi Book 1: 69) The self-conceit shown by Adam ؑ towards Iblis

How Adam, on whom be peace, marvelled at the perdition of Iblís and showed vanity.

One day Adam looked with contempt and scorn on Iblís who is damned.

He behaved with self-conceit and became self-approving: he laughed at the plight of accursed Iblís.

3895. The jealousy of God cried out (against him)—“O chosen one, you art ignorant of the hidden mysteries (of His providence).

If He should turn the fur inside out, He would tear up from root and bottom (even) the (firmest) mountain (of faith);

At that instant He would rend the veil of (put to shame) a hundred Adams and bring (to light) a hundred Devils newly converted to Islam.”

Adam said, “I repent of this look; I will not think so disrespectfully again.”

O Help of them that call for help, lead us (aright)! There is no (cause for) pride in knowledge or riches.

3900. Do not let a heart stray that you have guided by your grace, and avert the evil which the Pen has written. Let the evil of your ordainment pass from our souls: do not cut us off from those who are well-pleased (with You). There is naught more bitter than separation from You: without your protection there is naught but perplexity.

Our (worldly) goods waylay (and plunder) our (spiritual) goods: our bodies tear the garment (of spirituality) from our souls.

Inasmuch as (the evil wrought by) our hand devours (the good towards which we move) our foot, how shall any one save his soul without your security?

3905. And (even) if (unaided) he save his soul from these awful dangers, he will (only) have saved a stock of misfortune and fear,

Because the soul, when it is not united with the Beloved, is blind and blue (miserable) with itself for ever.

When you wilt not give him admission (to your presence) —even suppose he has saved his soul, regard as dead the soul that would live without You.

If you art upbraiding your slaves, that is suitable to you, O you whose every wish is fulfilled.

And if you say that the sun and moon are scum, and if you say that the (straight) stature of the cypress is (bent) double,

3910. And if you call the empyrean and the sky contemptible, and if you say that the mine and the sea are poor— That is proper in reference to your perfection: yours is the power of perfecting (all) mortalities,

For you art holy (and free) from danger and from non-existence: you art He that brings the non-existent ones into being and endows (them with existence).

He that made to grow can burn (destroy), because when He has torn, He can sew (mend).

Every autumn He burns (withers) the garden; (then) He makes to grow again the rose that dyes (the garden),

3915. Saying, “O you who wert withered, come forth, be fresh, once more be fair and of fair renown!”

The eye of the narcissus became blind: He restored it; the throat of the reed was cut: He himself fostered it again (and revived it).

Since we are made (by God) and are not makers, we are not (entitled to be anything) but humble and content. We all are of the flesh and busy with fleshliness: if you call us not (to Yourself), we all are Ahrimans (Devils). (If) we have been delivered from Ahriman, (it is only) because you have redeemed our souls from blindness.

3920. you art the Guide of every one that has life: who (of what account) is the blind man without staff and guide? Excepting you (alone), whatsoever is sweet or unsweet is man-destroying and the essence of fire.

Any one to whom fire is a refuge and support becomes both a Magian and a Zoroaster.

Everything except Allah is vain: verily the grace of Allah is a cloud pouring abundantly and continually.

Returning to the story of the Prince of the Faithful, ‘Alí—may God honour his person!— and how generously he behaved to his murderer.

Go back to ‘Alí and his murderer, and the kindness he showed to the murderer, and his superiority (moral and spiritual excellence).

3925. He said, “Day and night I see the murderer with my eyes, (but) I have no anger against him, Because death has become sweet as manna to me: my death has laid fast hold of resurrection.”

The death of deathlessness is lawful to us, the provision of unprovidedness is a bounty to us.

It is death outwardly but life inwardly: apparently It is a cutting-off (decease), in secret (in reality) It is permanence (life without end).

To the embryo in the womb birth is a going (to another state of existence): in the world it (the embryo) blossoms anew.

3930. “Since I have intense love and longing for death, the prohibition do not cast yourselves (into destruction) is (meant)

for me,

Because (only) the sweet berry is prohibited; (for) how should it become necessary to prohibit the sour one?

The berry that has a sour kernel and rind—its very sourness and disagreeableness are (serve as) a prohibition of it. To me the berry of dying has become sweet: (the text) nay, they are living has come (from God) on my account. Slay me, my trusty friends, slay me, vile as I am: verily, in my being slain is my life for evermore.

3935. Verily, in my death is my life, O youth—how long shall I be parted from my home? Until when?

If there were not in my staying (in this world) my separation (from God), He would not have said, ‘Verily, we are returning to

Him.’”

The returning one is he that comes back to his (native) city, and (fleeing) from the revolution of Time approaches the Unity.

How the stirrup-holder of ‘Alí, may God honour his person, came (to him), saying, “For God's sake, kill me and deliver me from this doom.”

“He came back, saying, ‘O‘ Alí, kill me quickly, that I may not see that bitter moment and hour. Shed my blood, I make it lawful to you, so that my eye may not behold that resurrection’.

3940. I said, ‘If every atom should become a murderer and, dagger in hand, go to attack you,

None (of them) could cut from you the tip of a single hair, since the Pen has written against you such a line (of doom). But do not grieve: I am intercessor for you: I am the spirit's master, I am not the body's slave.

This body has no value in my sight: without my body I am the noble (in spirit), the son of the noble. Dagger and sword have become my sweet basil: my death has become my banquet and narcissus-plot.’”

3945. He that hamstrings (mortifies) his body in this fashion, how should he covet the Princedom and the Caliphate? Outwardly he strives after power and authority, (but only) that he may show to princes the (right) way and judgement; That he may give another spirit to the Princedom; that he may give fruit to the palm tree of the Caliphate.