(Masnavi Book 6: 00) Preface (in prose)

BOOK VI

In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.

Reynold A. Nicholson
April 19, 1933

The Sixth Volume of the Books of Rhymed Couplets (Mathnawí) and Spiritual Evidences, which are a Lamp in the darkness of imagination and perplexity and phantasies and doubt and suspicion. And this Lamp cannot be perceived by the animal sense, because the state of animality is the lowest of the low, since they (the animals) have been created to keep in good order the outward form of the lower world; and about their senses and perceptive faculties there has been drawn a circle beyond which they may not pass: that is the measurement (ordainment) of (God) the Mighty, the Wise, i.e. He hath made manifest the limited measure of their action and the (confined) range of their speculation, just as every star has a certain measure (orbit) and sphere of work to which its action reaches in the sky; or as the ruler of a city whose authority is effective within that city, but beyond that city's dependencies he does not rule. May God preserve us from His imprisoning and sealing and from that wherewith He has veiled those who are veiled! Amen, O Lord of created beings.