Maḥmūd Shabistarī · d. 720/1320 or c. 740/1339–40
The Rose-Garden of Mystery
گلشن راز
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12. Eternal and temporal
سؤال ۱۲
Question 12
qadīm u muḥdath az ham chūn judā shud
ki īn ʿālam shud ān dīgar khudā-shud
How did the eternal and the originated become separate from each other, so that this became the world and that God?
Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads خود for از هم.
جواب ۱۲
Answer 12
qadīm u muḥdath az ham khvud judā-nīst
ki az hastī-st bāqī dāʾimā-nīst
The eternal and the originated are not, in truth, apart from each other, for what is forever nothing subsists through Being.
Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads چون for خود.
hama ān-ast u īn mānand-i ʿanqā-st
juz az ḥaqq jumla ism-i bī musammā-st
All is That, and this is like the ʿAnqāʾ [a name without a thing]; apart from the Real, all is a name without a named.
ʿadam mawjūd gardad īn muḥāl-ast
vujūd az rū-yi hastī lā yazāl-ast
That non-being should become existent is impossible; being, in respect of existence, is everlasting.
Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads وجوه for وجود.
zi-ān īn gardad u na īn shavad ān
hama ishkāl gardad bar tu āsān
Neither does that become this, nor this become that: [see this, and] every difficulty will become easy for you.
Doubtful reading. Printed زآن, a misprint for نه آن, "neither does that become this", which the Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads.
jahān khvud jumla amr-i iʿtibārī-st
chu ān yak nuqṭa k-andar dawr sārī-st
The world itself is wholly a posited thing (iʿtibārī), like that one point that runs round in a circle.
bi-raw yak nuqṭa-yi ātash bi-gardān
ki bīnī dāʾira az surʿat-i ān
Go, whirl a single point of fire, and you will see a circle from its speed.
yakī gar dar shumār āyad ba-nāchār
na-gardad vāḥid az aʿdād-i bisyār
If one comes perforce into the counting, the one does not become [many] through numbers, however many.
Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads گردد for در.
ḥadīth-i mā sivā llāh rahā kun†
ba-ʿaql-i khvīsh ān-rā z-īn judā kun
Leave the talk of "what is other than God"; with your own intellect, separate that from this.
Doubtful reading. Printed شوی, a misprint for سوی: ما سوی الله, "what is other than God". The Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads ما سوی الله را رها کن, which scans.
chu shakk dārī dar ān k-īn chūn khayāl-ast
ki bā vaḥdat duʾī ʿayn-i ḍalāl-ast
How can you doubt that this is like a phantom, since with unity twoness is sheer error?
Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads روی for دوی.
ʿadam mānand-i hastī būd yaktā
hama kathrat zi nisbat gasht paydā
Non-being, like being, was single; all multiplicity appeared from relation.
ẓuhūr-i ikhtilāf u kathrat-i shaʾn
shuda paydā zi būqalmūn-i imkān
The appearance of difference and of the multiplicity of states (shaʾn) has come about from the chameleon (būqalmūn) of contingency.
vujūd-i har yakī chūn būd vāḥid
ba-vaḥdāniyyat-i ḥaqq gasht shāhid
Since the being of each one was one, it became a witness (shāhid) to the oneness of the Real.
Persian: Whinfield's edition (London 1880), public domain, transcribed from the archive.org page images. Whinfield's English: 1880, public domain. Transliteration, English and glosses: AI (Claude), marked; † marks a hemistich whose reading does not scan. How this text was established.