Maḥmūd Shabistarī · d. 720/1320 or c. 740/1339–40
The Rose-Garden of Mystery
گلشن راز
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5. Who reaches the secret of unity?
۵ سؤال
Question 5
ki shud bar sirr-i vaḥdat vāqif ākhir
shināsā-yi chi āmad ʿārif ākhir
Who, in the end, became aware of the secret of oneness? Of what, in the end, is the knower the knower?
۵ جواب
Answer 5
kasī bar sirr-i vaḥdat gasht vāqif
ki ū vāqif na-shud andar mavāqif
He became aware of the secret of oneness who did not stop at the halting-places.
valī ʿārif shināsā-yi vujūd-ast
vujūd-i muṭlaq ū rā dar shuhūd-ast
The knower is the knower of being; absolute being is present to his witnessing.
Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads دل for ولی; Hammer-Purgstall (1838) omits را.
ba-juz hastī ḥaqīqī hast na-shnākht
va bā hastī ki hastī pāk dar-bākht
Apart from real being he recognised no being; and, being as he was, he gambled being clean away (?).
Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads هست for هستی; other manuscripts reads دارد for هستی.
vujūd-i tu hama khār-ast u khāshāk
burūn andāz az khvud jumla-rā pāk
Your being is all thorns and brushwood; throw the whole of it out of yourself, clean.
burū tu khāna-yi dil-rā furū-rūb
muhayyā kun maqām u jā-yi maḥbūb
Go, sweep out the house of the heart; make ready the station and place of the Beloved.
chu tu bīrūn shudī ū andar āyad
ba-tu bī tu jamālī khvud numāyad
When you have gone out, He comes in; to you, without you, He shows a beauty of His own.
kasī k-ū az navāfil gasht maḥbūb
ba-lā-yi nafy kard ū khāna chārūb
One who has become beloved through supererogatory works has swept the house clean with the "lā" of negation [the "no" of "no god but God"; cf. the hadith of supererogatory works].
darūn-i jā-yi maḥmūd ū makān yāft
zi bī baṣar u bī samʿ nishān yāft†
Within the Praised Station [Q 17:79] he found a place; from "by Me [he sees] sight, by Me [he hears] hearing" he found a sign [the hadith of supererogatory works].
Doubtful reading. As printed, the second hemistich does not scan in the metre. The Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads ز بی یسمع و بی یبصر (the ḥadīth's own words, bī yasmaʿ … bī yubṣir), which scans.
Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads بی یسمع و بی یبصر for بی بصر و بی سمع.
zi hastī tā buvad bāqī bar-ū shayn
na-yābad ʿilm-i ʿārif ṣūrat-i ʿayn
As long as any blemish of [his own] being remains on him, the knower's knowledge does not take on the form of seeing (ʿayn: knowledge does not become vision).
mavāniʿ tā na-gardānī zi khvud dūr
darūn-i khāna-yi dil n-āyadat nūr
Until you put the obstacles far from yourself, no light comes to you within the house of the heart.
mavāniʿ chūn dar-īn ʿālam chahār-ast
ṭahārat kardan az vay ham chahār-ast
Since the obstacles in this world are four, the purification from them is also fourfold.
nakhustīn pākī az aḥdāth u anjās
duvum az maʿṣiyat u z-sharr-i vasvās
First, purity from ritual defilements and filth; second, from sin and from the evil of the whispering.
siyum pākī az akhlāq-i dhamīma -st
ki bā vay ādamī hamchūn bahīma -st
Third, purity from blameworthy traits, with which a man is like a beast.
chahārum pākī-yi sirr-ast az ghayr
ki īnjā muntahī mī-gardadash sayr
The fourth is the purity of the inmost from the other; for here his journey reaches its end.
har ān-k-ū kard ḥāṣil īn ṭahārāt
shavad bī shakk sazāvār-i munājāt
Whoever has attained these purifications becomes, beyond doubt, worthy of intimate prayer.
tu tā khvud-rā ba-kullī dar na-bāzī
namāzat kay shavad hargiz namāzī
Until you stake your whole self away, when will your prayer ever be a [true] prayer?
chu dhātat pāk gardad az hama shayn
namāzat gardad āngah qurratu l-ʿayn
When your essence is pure of every blemish, then your prayer becomes the coolness of the eye [cf. the hadith "the coolness of my eye is in prayer"].
na-mānad dar miyāna hīch tamyīz
shavad maʿrūf u ʿārif jumla yak chīz
No distinction at all remains in between: the known and the knower become wholly one thing.
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.